Sunday, January 31, 2010

Outing

Well, I had hoped to put the HillBuzz insanity behind me, even though many of the hits I'm getting nowadays all go to this article. Basically, HillBuzz is a gay Republican blog masquerading as a PUMA blog -- a log cabin with a magenta paint job, as it were. They have been generating a whole lot of right-wing propaganda points -- and, it is said, donations -- by claiming to be the victims of a "co-ordinated attack" funded by George Soros.

This claim is bullshit, of course.

They also claim that Cannonfire is run by the fiercely anti-PUMA micro-bloggers. This is also bullshit. In fact, it's insane. Those anti-PUMA guys hate me -- always have, always will. I giveth not fuck one about them. I also giveth not fuck one for the HillBuzz hoaxters. A plague on both of their delusional houses.

I now know the identity of the person responsible for the article (and blog comments) that started this nonsense. Amusingly enough, almost no-one read those pieces until the Hillbuzzers decided to use them in their fundraising efforts.

The author is a guy who used to contribute to the comments here before I turned against Obama. The person in question is small potatoes -- as am I, in the great scheme of things. In his previous internet incarnations, he has always had a tendency to piss people off. Which is not always a bad thing, although sometimes it is.

The Evil Hand of Soros plays no role in any of this. But the HillBuzzers apparently find it pleasant (remunerative?) to pretend otherwise.

The name of the guy who started this brouhaha is John. I won't give John's last name, which I can't recall offhand anyways, but even if I could remember it I wouldn't reveal it. Basically, John looked up the WHOIS info on HillBuzz. It's public information. That allowed him to come up with a real-world name, which he published in one or two obscure places. John is the kind of guy who would enjoy doing something like that.

And that's it.

The HillBuzzers now claim that they underwent job discrimination and physical threats as a result of John's Big Reveal, even though very few people had read that Big Reveal. In fact, John seems to be the only one who ever cared.

I find these HillBuzz claims of persecution to be about as credible as L. Rob Hubbard's yarn about Xenu. Even so, those claims led to publicity by some big-name right-wingers, such as Michelle Malkin and Breitbart. (Is Breitbart a nasty piece of work or what?)

HillBuzz apparently thinks it/they/he (there seems to be one main guy behind that site) can mount a RICO suit against the imaginary Dreaded Soros Conspiracy. He apparently also has tried to harass the wife (!!) of one of the anti-PUMA bloggers.

Maybe HillBuzz is a total loon. Maybe (as this guy says) he is using his readership as a personal ATM.

This very silly incident has led to some fairly serious discussion of the ethics of outing. When, if ever, is it acceptable to reveal the real-world names of bloggers, most of whom operate under dumb pseudonyms? See Corrente here and Atrios here.

(I've actually been popping by Atrios' place recently, for the first time in ages. Even though he's still considered an A-list blogger, no-one ever seems to cite him or refer to him.)

The internet has changed the rules. In the old pre-net days, there was an understanding: Those doing research in various areas usually corresponded with others in those fields, even if the parties involved couldn't stand each other. Antagonists even traded newsclips and xeroxed articles, despite mutual antipathy. That's the way info-junkies had to operate in those primeval days.

As a result of all those mailings, every serious researcher knew the addresses and phone numbers of every other serious researcher, because the stationery letterhead had that info listed, and letters were always passed around sans permission (this was expected), and even if someone blacked out the address with a marker you could still hold it up to the light.

Ah, good times, good times. You wouldn't buh-LIEVE what was in my rolodex, back in the day.

But it was always understood that the personal info of your enemies must never be published, even in a small-circulation xeroxed newsletter with 73 subscribers, and even if the data was available in the phone book.

Then came the internet. As noted earlier, the rules changed. They changed because the internet revealed just how many crazy people are out there. I'm not talking cute crazy; I'm talking really really really crazy.

For example: Some of you may recall that a waitress in Texas made headlines when she refused to serve drinks to Dubya's underaged daughters. The Freepers published the real name, phone number and address of the said waitress, with the express intention of mounting a terror campaign against her. She had, after all, dared to inconvenience the Holy House of Bush. That made her fair game.

That sort of thing used to happen a lot, and the miscreants were almost always reactionary fanatics. As a result, most bloggers and blog commenters decided to adopt pseudonyms.

In my case, the name on the masthead also appears on my driver's license. However, I am fanatical about making sure that no-one receives any further information about me, although I've let slip that I am usually found skulking around southern California.

When this blog began, I would allow other people to have my phone number. Then some rather bizarre and disturbing calls started to come in. I changed the number (and carrier) and have stayed hidden ever since. This policy makes researching certain stories difficult, since interview subjects usually ask for a call-back number -- which a real reporter will be quick to provide.

It's a world of loons out there, and that's why so many other bloggers have adopted a similarly zealous privacy policy.

Back in 2006, Michelle Malkin published the private info of some anti-military protesters at UC Santa Cruz. She got that info from a letterhead, if I recall correctly. According to the old school rules (as noted above), it was understood that you never, ever publish information gleaned from a letterhead, even if you had obtained a piece of mail sent by an enemy. Malkin published anyways, obviously with the intention of fomenting harassment or worse against the protesters.

I retaliated by publishing Malkin's exact street address and phone number. She took her kid out of school and moved. I have never apologized and never will. Those who live by the sword, etc.

Not long before the Malkin episode, Ann Coulter had also published the personal information of actress/blogger Lydia Cornell. As a result of this despicable act, Lydia and her family underwent some very frightening harassment. I decided not to retaliate by publishing Coulter's phone number -- but I did publish this post, which clearly indicated that I had the information.

(That post contains this description of Coulter: "She dresses like someone who desperately longs for bombshell status, as though wrapping that hideous skeletal frame in black leather micro-minis will somehow make those prominent bones as jumpable as they are countable." One of the best damned sentences I ever dun writ. Incidentally, my ladyfriend kept Coulter's number on her cell phone as a gag. We never dialed it and never shared it.)

Ever since Malkin and Coulter received their public spankings, the right got the message. They stopped publishing personal info.

Then...then came the Obots.

Having received the beatific vision, the disciples of the Lightbringer decided that normal rules did not apply to them. That's why they published the real-world address of Joe the Plumber. (Remember Joe?)

In what way did this atrocious Obot behavior differ from Malkin's atrocious behavior? Ya got me.

I asked Lydia Cornell to protest in public the publication of Joe the Plumber's address. She did not.

Moral of the story: We all seem to have differing ideas as to when "outing" is justified. In Malkin's case, I decided to do it as a retaliatory measure. A lot of people disagreed with that decision, on the theory that two wrongs never make a right. But no-one can deny that, as a result, the right-wingers stopped doing that shit real fast.

And now....?

41 comments:

lambert strether said...

Atrios seems to have recovered his inner blogger, c. 2003. It's a relief.

NYSmike said...

Don't ya know Joe, the bots have decided that there are rules don't apply to them. They have lost their souls. What they used to rail against for 8 years under Boosh, they have decided is now ok under The One. It's sickening.

Snowflake said...

Where did they attack you?


I think Hill Buzz was justified in publishing the bloggers name who published their name.

I also think they are justified in looking to see if there are connections between the various thugs who attack people online.

You keep saying they are republicans but I don't recall them saying that-what is the basis of your claim?

I dont like them or even respect them at this point but I'm bone tired of everyone painting an evil face on people they disagree with and equating that with having found them out.

Anonymous said...

I have no problem with them being LOG CABIN members, but pleeeeazeeee tell people so that they don't end up next to Rush Limgaugh's followers and being totally disgusted by the comments there.

Anonymous said...

"Victimhood" is one way of gaining attention. The blogs referred to by HillBuzz are "little nothings" in the blogosphere universe yet their efforts to appear victimized, with little proof beyond their say so, only brought interest to those sites that few, if any, have ever heard of.

Not sure what HillBuzz is up to but it is now a home to all Obama haters and birthers along with some representing the Lunatic Fringe.

Linking Michele Malkin, and apologizing fulsomely to George W. Bush, only reinforces the opinion that HillBuzz is solidly Republican and the Hillary supporters are being sucked in big time.

It would appear as of late that their primary concern is to be considered as an "A listing blog" rather than the little forum it was once.

Suffice to say it behooves a label of "beware" before entering.

Liri said...

Snowflake, could you elaborate on what you mean by the phrase "...the various thugs who attack people online"? Specifically, what do you consider to be an "attack"? Typing mean/cruel things on a blog or in its comments? Or something worse? In other words, where do you draw the line between appropriate online disputes/arguments, and 'thuggery'?

The HillBuzz crew has requested its readers to gather information on the non-blogging spouse of one of its online foes. Does the original 'crime' (as you define it, at least) merit this kind of response?

Until the aforementioned ambiguity is resolved, your comment is kind of creepy, as it stands. Perhaps you require further investigation, for the sake of the safety of the online community. Maybe your spouse shares your potentially troubling views, and I should investigate that person as well. Maybe your troubling attitude is also shared by your teenage children, and for the sake of your community, and for that matter, for the good of the nation, maybe I should get their identities, names of their friends, Facebook accounts, the path they take to school, etc. All for the greater good, of course.

The sacrifice of time and effort on my part in conducting these investigations would be a burden, but one that perhaps I should undertake, for the good of our society. You don't have any problems with this reasonable action plan - do you?

Anonymous said...

If "snowflake" had her way anyone disagreeing with her point of view, or that of the blogs she chooses to inhabit, would be "outed" and held up for inspection as subversive.

There are many blogs I disagree with therefore I do not bother to visit the site any longer so I could care less what they say.

If Hillbuzz had an issue of the import they maintain, than this should have been carried offline and the proper measures taken. Instead they rile up the regulars and assign them tasks on "hunting" down those with whom they disagree based on innuendo and the elimination of solid facts.

Naturally, the "herd mentality" sets in and they are all out in a quest to link tiny blogs to a vast conspiracy since most of the posters over there still cling to the "birther" theory.

Crazies revving up other crazies spells crazy.

beeta said...

I get the feeling that there are a lot of "closet teabaggers" out there. They are not crazy rightwingers but normal dem/repub/ind who for one reason or the other find the Obama adminstration hard to take and therefore find themselves in agreement with the right wingers but are not ready to admit it or be labled as such publicly.If that is the case, groups and blogs like Hill Buzz can provide just the forum that can push them to come out of the closet. And if that happens, we will have a sizeable movement that can destroy Obama and the current Democratic Party. This outcome may please the ones financing and directing the tea party movement, but I doubt it will bring about the kind of change tea partiers hope for. I think the nation is playing with fire here and the result will be much more consequential than embracing Obama as a liberal with no justification before he took office.

Mrs. Polly said...

Mr. Cannon, I am one of the innocent third parties whose name and address are being sought. I've never outed anybody. Though you might not enjoy some of my opinions, if you were to go back through all of Rumproast and all of hitherto-moribund Snarkopolitan, you'd see that I wrote one post protesting the outing of another blogger, and have never otherwise addressed the subject.

I have spent under fifteen minutes in my whole life at the impenetrable tangles that are Dkos OR DU. Don't comment, don't read 'em.

If you research "cyberstalking," you discover that one of the traits of a stalker is false claims of victimhood, which are used to justify attacking the real victim. How to tell which is the victim might require a bit of police work, but think: neither I, nor any of us have "outed" or used the real name of Mr. Shillbuzz. He, OTOH, has called on his followers to conduct a regular, Salem-style, witch hunt.

"Looking into connections" is not acceptable when innocent third parties have their information spread across the internet. Some guy in Chicago who has the same last name as another guy also unconnected with the goings on, or blogging at all, had his phone number published in this misguided "sleuthing." People at my co-op have had THEIR names published, and they've never heard of Harvey Bilk or Shillbuzz. And, I should note, one of Bilk's posts says, "Lot of questions today. Hmmmm."

But no answers, you notice!

I've been called a b***h by name, by a stranger, who sought, and apparently got, my physical RL address. I wouldn't do that, including the misogynistic namecalling, ever.

Assigning collective guilt excused by a convenient rationalization (I'm sure obots would do it, this person's an obot, it's ok to do it to her) has been one of the signally woeful traits of humans. Now it's being employed to provide cover for an activity which I suspect is simply fun to people who enjoy pulling the wings off flies.

Joseph Cannon said...

I guess I should make myself clear. I do not agree with what John did. He seems to have poor impulse control and he seems to nejoy stirring up shit storms. That is why I always kind of kept him at a distance.

That said, it is true that all he did was look up WHOIS info, which is public. I've done that myself. Everyone knows that WHOIS info is akin to listing your phone number in the phone book. If you don't want the info made public, there are easy ways to hide it.

John shouldn't have done what he did because it was self-defeating and stupid. HillBuzz simply was not worth the effort. Now they have the chance to "do the martyrella routine," as my former gf would have put it.

The HillBuzz (over-)reaction is, of course, cunning, opportunistic and vile.

tamerlane said...

It's hardly an outing when the person in question has already been interviewed & photographed in a gay Chicago magazine article about "against all odds" relationships - his a romance between a McCain democrat and a Young Republican.

Anonymous said...

Everything Hillbuzz said on the Andrea Shea King and Breitbart shows was true and everything they write is true. They are not Republicans but a couple tragedies over the summer and the constant persecution by Obots over the last two years many PUMAs are familiar with turned them and many others into conservatives. It was a coordinated activity and I don't see why more PUMAs are not supporting Hillbuzz.

Anonymous said...

Obama supporters ruined many Clinton supporters' lives through outing, slander, libel and harrassment at homes and workplaces. It was so coordinated it probably goes all the way up to Obama. It definitely qualifies under the RICO Act.

Anonymous said...

We can beat the Hillbuzz story to death but a prime question is still unanswered:

How did a blog that went from supporting a liberal Hillary Clinton morph into a blog that is in favor of Right Wing radicals? Michele Bachmann? Michele Malkin? Glenn Beck? Give me a break!

I am no fan of Obama, and as disappointed as I am with the Democratic Leadership, I am not compelled to rush into the arms of the GOP in retribution.

Yet that site has become a warrior call to the disaffected along with the "birthers's" still clinging to that myth.

That degree of dissatisfaction has reached a new level of implausability.

Anonymous said...

It was not John, just to make that clear.

Anonymous said...

Oh please. Those RR idiots outed Dakinikat by name, contacted her children, and threatened to contact her students.

They have spent the past two years Obsessively "live blogging" The Confluence and other sites where people had the nerve not to support Obama. They have posted crude, offensive, personal attacks on Riverdaughter and Dakinikat particularly.

They have trolled TC again and again, posting disgusting, beyond the pale comments. They posted a picture of a troubled woman on their blog and ridiculed her for weeks. I could go on, but why bother. They deserve no one's sympathy for any of this.

As for Hillbuzz, I never cared for that blog and have only been there a couple of times. They are probably idiots too. But KevinK, Miss Polly, and the gang are sick people.

BostonBoomer

Dakinikat said...

Stupidpumas.com outted me and threatened to call my university and my students to tell them I was a racist. They linked to my name, my university, and ratemyprofessor.com. It was no damn fun.

These folks ran amok for two years and no one paid them any attention when they attacked and outted Hillary Clinton Supporters. Now some of their enablers are experiencing the same hell I went through for awhile, but you know, what goes around comes around. I didn't ask for the treatment either. Karma has a way of catching up to you.

Kevin used to let them get away with a lot of crap. We had a conversation about that, and he thankfully has developed a lot heavier censoring hand, but the deal is, he got associated with their antics because they were allowed to go on for ever like that on his blog which has been magically purged of a lot of the old stuff. Guilt by association happens. If you don't want to be associated with those kinds of people, put their comments in the trash and don't let them out for the world to see and you'll make fewer enemies that way.

Sorry, you're learning this the hard way. I wouldn't wish being outted like that on anyone.

Anonymous said...

The article "Against All Odds Friendships" says they were just good friends.

lambert strether said...

Karma's inexorable. That said, I don't think it's good for anyone if outing is normalized. Principle above personality...

Snowflake said...

The thugs I was referring to are the ones who made threats of violence during the primary to pro Hillary bloggers.

I think that those threats, if real, should be gathered together and analyzed to see if they have a common source and see if there was an attempt to influence the election.

People can be as rude as they like-but threats of violence are not acceptable.

Joseph Cannon said...

john, stop fibbing. You can't change your writing style, and you can't pretend to be from the UK when you're in CA.

And if I ever find out that you were the one who gave grief to dk, prepare for hell. Not joking.

Liri said...

Fair enough, Snowflake, and I agree entirely - threats of violence go way across the line of acceptable behavior.

Mrs. Polly said...

It's time to get a couple of things straight. Rumproast is not StupidPumas. Rumproast, and Rumproasters, have never and will never out anybody. Certainly I, an individual, not a collective, have never outed anyone. Bostonboomer may dislike, or hate, Rumproast, and it might take more study than she cares to undertake to make distinctions between blogs she hates, but I really have to correct the misinformation she is spreading.

SP's original owner shut down that blog because of the behavior of John D, who has nothing to do with Rumproast. John D then bogarted the SP name and registered it to himself.Whatever he did, it is on his head. Of course publishing Dakiinikat's information was reprehensible. But it was not Rumproast, it was not I nor any of my co-bloggers who did it, and if Bostonboomer thinks posting four-letter words on the Confluence (something I have never done either) is equal to having a large blog, newly swollen with Rush fans and gun-lovin' Tea Partiers, publish your name and address and call you a b***h, and that cyber-stalking me is something I deserve, than I think her pose as a feminist concerned with women's safety is just that and nothing more.

They posted a picture of a troubled woman on their blog and ridiculed her for weeks. I could go on, but why bother. They deserve no one's sympathy for any of this. Nobody is asking for, nor wants, sympathy. But it is not too much to expect not to be hunted to one's real-life home.

As for the "troubled" woman, she was encouraged and petted for her violent, sexist rants for months, which we found objectionable to say the least, and her face was completely obscured in the posted picture. Nobody could have used that picture to trace her.

Dakinikat made a memorable appearance in that thread, we yelled at each other for a while (sometimes in an Irish brogue), and she went home. No blood was spilt, no children frightened, and most importantly, no information divulged.

There should be a distinction made between yelling at each other online and what happens in three dimensions. Certainly no PUMA was ever put in physical danger by me or anybody at Rumproast, and wouldn't be. Furthermore, I trust that should I visit Mr. Cannon or Mr. Strether or riverdaughter herself, I may be deleted, but I won't be hunted. I trust that they function within the bounds of common decency, bounds which Shillbuzz violated flagrantly.

Alessandro Machi said...

I wrote about the problem with some some anti puma blogs naming PUMA's by name and calling them racist on Daily PUMA on January 13th, 2009. click here

HillBuzz seemed to be taking a similar line as mine in articles they wrote days later. My point was that if one is going to out others, they should be using their real name. I think that is a pretty reasonable position to take.

HillBuzz wrote a very powerful article about concern trolls that is seriously brilliant, important and a must read and I credited them when I did a follow up article to their article. Click here

I had several encounters with RumpRoast, stupid pumas, bigot basher. They are condescending, rude, and bile mouthed and constantly call others who use real names racist behind their own facade names. Please don't defend these twits, you are better than that.

If people want something to focus on, how about not letting the democrats get away with the crap they pulled on Hillary Clinton in 2008.

It's a mistake to think that what happened then is over. If the narcissistic idiots who put themselves above the welfare of the country (such as Reid and Pelosi) are ousted, it will be the beginning of righting what went wrong in 2008.

I find HillBuzz a little bit to one side of being a true Hillary Clinton supporter, and I find you on the other side.

There is big spot between the two of you with Hillary's name on it. Now why not focus on that instead as it could help prevent the same actions from happening the next time around. Our media was bought out during the 2008 election and that cannot be forgotten.

Barack Obama does not have a real plan, he's just putting his faith in the people that created the original problem. I expect more from my president, don't you? Exposing his path to the white house is of utmost importance as we see wall street making off with the countries homes via foreclosure and taxpayer money via bankster bonuses.

Anonymous said...

"Miss Polly" writes:

"Bostonboomer may dislike, or hate, Rumproast, and it might take more study than she cares to undertake to make distinctions between blogs she hates"

My feelings about "Rumproast" don't really rise to that level. No, I wouldn't bother to "study" a blog where twisted individuals spend their time ridiculing and lying about other people whom they don't know.

Hate? No. What little I've read at "Rumproast" isn't worth hating--IMO your blog (if it could even qualify as one) is beneath contempt.

Miss Polly also writes:

"Nobody is asking for, nor wants, sympathy. But it is not too much to expect not to be hunted to one's real-life home."

I haven't "hunted" you. I'm not even interested in knowing who you are or what you think about anything. I simply don't care. I want nothing to do with you or your friends.

I visited your "blog" a couple of times when I clicked on a link someone sent me, but I would never voluntarily do it again. I don't like reading things that make me feel squeamish and in need of a shower.

After reading your latest incoherent comment, I see that you are pretty much clueless, and more to be pitied than scorned.

If you and the rest of your gang want to spend your spare time obsessing about total strangers who want nothing to do with you, go ahead. Your motives are a mystery to me, but to each his own, I guess.

Boston Boomer

okanogen said...

It is never acceptable to out somebody online. Rumproast and Hillbuzz represent the lowest common denominator in the blogosphere. See how easy that is?

Mrs. Polly said...

Boomer, your opinion of Rumproast doesn't matter to me, either. I merely wish to restate that Rumproast doesn't out anybody, never has, never will. A distinction between reading words on a screen, however much one doesn't like the manner in which they are assembled, and pointing cyber-stalkers to living breathing people should be made. Okanogen, if you cannot admit that distinction, so be it, but it still exists. And coherence or lack of it must as always be judged by the reader.

Thank you, Mr. Cannon, for the space in your comments section. I'm not about to get in a flame war here. Any more of one, anyway!

StrangeAppar8us said...

Cry me a river, BostonBoomer.

Rumproast has never outed anyone, or encouraged the practice.

We relentlessly mock and deride logic-challenged individuals across the Web, which to my knowledge is not a felony. We do not intimidate or threaten, nor do our online quirks bleed into the RL world, since as near as we can tell the objects of our derision are already cursed to live inside their own heads, which is Hell enough.

Anyone who feels they are being psychically abused by a comment thread on the other side of the Universe needs to grab a juice-box, a Fruit Roll-Up and 30 minutes on the nappie-mat.

Thanks to Mr. Cannon for calling out the actual bullshit psycho stalker in this case, and for (so far) tolerating the subsequent Airing of the Grievances on his blog-thread.

Alessandro Machi said...

Polly, RumpRoast loves to ridicule PUMA's. They've attacked and ridiculed PUMA meetings and get togethers as being irrelevant because the numbers were small.

As if it would be easy to get hundreds or thousands of people to just get on planes all on their own dollar and attend a meeting in one place.

It's already been stated that Hillary Clinton supporters in general had less money than the Pompous OPomPoms, so any get together of any size would prove momentous, especially considering the entire movement happened almost overnight.

Nijma said...

So is the current bru-ha-ha just about one rogue blogger, a misogynist bully that took refuge at the Rumproast without being condoned or encouraged in any way? Or is Rumproast an astroturf machine that regurgitates predigested talking points while spying on and trying to disrupt progressive blogs and bloggers? When the members brag on their forum about a strategy to “cut away from the herd” in a “neutralize and release” program, they should not be surprised when outsiders take them at face value.

Odd that Strangappar8us thinks Rumproast doesn't publish names of private citizens, when he did so himself on my blog. He also claimed on my blog, using the nom de guerre "Robert Ching" that he had never seen my website before. That was not correct; he had already commented several times as "Strangeappar8us".

I have added more details to the post at my URL.

Mrs. Polly said...

Sigh. Sorry, Mr. Cannon. JohnD has just contacted me to say that Dakinikat's name wasn't published on his watch. I looked, and he's right. He had nothing to do with it. The name was revealed by someone who is not and has never been a Rumproast co-blogger, and the then-owner of SP went on to redact the name.

FWIW, Bigot Basher is not JohnD, nor John anybody else, as far as I can tell. If you wish to insist he is, then by all means, but it's inaccurate, and it's hard enough to tell what's going on.

Once again, thank you for this forum. I am sorry for the false exit; this is the real one.



He

Joseph Cannon said...

You shouldn't have revealed yourself "Polly."

Anonymous said...

I have a question for Mrs. Polly:

Why was the Rumper Room (aka The Blogstalker Online Forum) recently scrubbed from Rumproast?

This place:

http://rumproast.com/index.php/forums/comments/rumper_room/

For the past year it has been the place where rumproasters coordinated their trolling activities and bragged about their blogstalking exploits. Could it be that having a whole year's worth of incriminating evidence was inconsistent with their new claims of victimhood?

Anonymous said...

"Innocent third parties" who are, in fact, horrible people shouldn't complain when they finally meet up with someone who is even more horrible than they are.

These "innocents" are dumbfounded to have found someone with even fewer scruples than they have, but there you go. There is a "lower than the low."

And under no circumstance should they confuse defense of a principle with collegiality, respect, or the tolerance of hate masked as "comedy blog" antics.

The principle matters. They don't.

Nijma said...

Mrs. Polly is correct, it was "JasonM", not a regular, who outed Dakinikat, and the admin at the time, "pumarubbernecker" who fixed it. Maybe Mr. Cannon can say if TheBigoBasher is blogging from England as he claims. "Yet Another Freakin Brit" ("YAFB")is the only Brit I know of who is a regular.

Is there anyone who really believes Rumproast is not authorized by the Obama campaign? If you read any of the comments on MSM news pieces, you know it took a huge number of bloggers and a huge amount of coordination to get all those talking points posted on all those pieces day after day. Whether anyone ever proves Rumproast has an official back door blessing or not, I believe it and Hillbuzz believes it. If not them, who? This is the face that Axelrod shows to the blogging world, and it's ugly. Who would you rather vote for, a party of intentionally vicious, potty-mouthed, and pornographic trolls, or a party that quietly filled the pockets of the wealthy while talking politely about decency and family values.

The other piece to this is that the far left and the far right used to keep the middle honest; now the far left has been paid off to type predigested talking points and there is no far left anymore to make the middle look reasonable.

StrangeAppar8us said...

myiq2xu -- Not every action on the 'Net is motivated by dark sexual guilt, although I understand your need to project. In addition to being the thread where we melvin you with some frequency, the Rumper Room is also a forum for discussing casual topics like where we buy our garroting wire and blast-knuckles, and how we launder our DNC payouts from Axelrod through a peasant grain exchange in Chile -- personal information that could be of use to psycho bloggers who want to sell our organs on eBay, or possibly eat them or string them on a necklace, depending.

None of us is ashamed of what's posted in the Rumper Rump, and you of all people should be grateful that it's temporarily non-public. Right now, we're protecting both our own lives and your credibility in the blogosphere, such as it is.

Anonymous said...

Who outed SusanUnPC and others, harrassed them at their homes and workplaces and tried to destroy her (their?) businesses? Whoever harrassed them at their workplaces and businesses must be prosecuted.

Snowflake said...

Hillbuzz is now basically saying that they don't think Hillary can win in 2012 even if she runs.

I have wondered for a long time if they are what they say or if this is a republican mind fuck. It just seemed to me that no republican group would waste the time or money on them.

But if they turn on Hillary-and they are coming close-then they are republicans. If they support Palin over a Hillary run in 2012 they were never democrats, the logic of most of what they have said in the past crumbles, and that is fascinating given the amount of time and effort they put into their "formerly" democratic site.

Anonymous said...

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon published my home address on her front page, and Christina Cedeno published the floor plan of my house.

the information was publicly available, but that doesn't make it ethical to publish on a forum for haters.

It's like all the right wing nut jobs who pretend to condemn the murder of dr. tiller when they are in fact the reason he is dead.

--- darragh murphy (sorry cant find my google ID)

Anonymous said...

Wrong to expose them - given this type of article?

What you need to understand is that these big donors bring many smaller donors to the parties with them. If Mrs. Smith isn’t coming, neither are her assistants, or their friends, or all the people who want to usurp Mrs. Smith some day as the grand dame of the Chicago fundraising scene.

Convince Mrs. Smith she needs to take a break from politics for a while, and maybe fund the Joffrey or some other nonprofit that won’t draw her unwanted attention, and score a major victory for the American Resistance against the current Liberals in the Senate this year.


http://hillbuzz.org/2010/02/05/tea-partiers-need-to-become-experts-on-democrat-fundraising/

Giving the names of Democratic Party donors to tea-baggers? To "persuade them? In the same way they were "persuading" me, others and the wife of a blog owner of their righteous message? With threats of cricket bats?

I hope I have put that freak on every FBI watch list out there and I also hope that he is banned from anything to do with the Democratic Party ever again.

Anonymous said...

I think the FBI is probably more concerned with those who actually incite violence.

http://camelsnose.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/rumproast-behind-closed-doors-death-to-lieberman/#comments