Face it, you know and I know that if the Wizbang kids had not bumped Balloon Juice from the conservative category (we have two conservatives and one lib now – is there no justice?) the freepi’s ridiculous conniption fit over losing the funniest blog category would have belonged to us. The Malkinites, dead enders, xenophobes and Duncan Hunter fans would have had eleven blogs to vote for, whereas sane Republicans and the lib hordes would have exactly one. Read the ongoing drama at Sadly, No! and try to visualize the 28 percenter wailings if they had to defend an award that they almost deserve.
Oh well. Give Sadly, No! some more love, not that they need it, and then vote for us if you feel like it.
***Update***
Reading my own blog for a change, and that’s a lot of award whorin’. Distract yourself with this:
***Update 2***
Back on the topic of Sadly, No!, this has to be one of the most disgusting displays of spite and ill will that I have ever seen. People who froth at the mouth about Evil! Mean! Lefties! should read it four or five times to let the full depravity of their rightie pals properly sink in.
dslak
I hate Sadly, No! for forcing me to come to terms with my own inadequacies.
Dr. Squid
Y’all also might want to vote for this very blog right here in the Top 250 category.
The maroons at RedState are leading right now.
conumbdrum
Jesus. Jesus. The story that Sadly, No! links to (about how a “humorous” right-wing blogger and his pack of goons relentlessly tormented a terminally ill left-wing blogger and his friends — actually getting his surgery date for pancreatic cancer cancelled through the use of slanderous phone shenanigans, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg) is one of the most disgusting stunts imaginable… the kind of pure evil I don’t even think Michelle Malkin would stoop to.
Everyone needs to read this. I often think of myself as jaded on the topic of GOP thuggery after the last six-plus years, but this li’l yarn made me want to puke.
(I can’t get the link to embed, so visit the Sadly, No! link in Tim’s post for the details… if you can take them.)
jcricket
Ridiculous conniption hardly covers the depths to which the disgusting, depraved, not worthy of human life Freepers in this particular chain of events.
As Sadly No points out, when the Freepers decide somoene is lying, what do they do? Perform one of their patented “citizen investigations” (i.e. making shit up and frothing at the mouth). After this roving band of thugs finishes their circle jerk, they wrongly decide someone is rich and/or not actually dying of the cancer they claim. So what’s the natural thing to do? Interfere with their ability to receive donations from supportive friends, get treatment, live out their final days in peace, and oh yeah, harrass and stalk anyone who supports them.
As one commentor put it about the Freepers:
Cancer would be too good for them. Tortured to death might be too good too.
Sure, DU is a pretty angry place. Lots of rude, negative, snarky or downright hostile comments about right wingers and Republicans in general. But can anyone provide me with a similar instance of a semi-organized grtoup of left-wingers going after injured children, cancer patients, etc. like the right-wingers do when they disagree with them? And no, posting something nasty doesn’t count. You have to actually go after them in real life and attack their family, friends, etc.
The closest I can think of is Malkin claiming she got death threats after she posted the home address of those students in CA who were protesting the military recruiters.
The Other Steve
My default position is that anybody asking for money on the internet is probably committing fraud.
So I don’t give money. I don’t obsess over it. I don’t go hunting them down, and I certainly don’t misrepresent myself trying to fuck up their lives.
These guys need to be in prison.
Michael D.
Shorter Freepie:
“Their organized campaign is beating OUR organized campaign!”
Zifnab
I can see now why wingnuts embrace authoritarianism. If the game isn’t rigged, they tend to lose.
dslak
If they take some blog’s push to get its readers to vote for it as an attack on them, it’s easy to see how they might assume that all Democrats hate America.
Bombadil
In other news — The Wingnut Award winners have been announced!
ImJohnGalt
I think I read just yesterday that Mel Brooks is about to turn Young Frankenstein into a Broadway play.
What a great movie.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: What knockers!
Inga: Oh, sank you doctah!
glasnost
I didn’t at first believe this. I mean, I wouldn’t rule it out, but it doesn’t smell right to me. I don’t understand how the right wing could really get enough people to make fake PayPal donations and then call to have them rescinded amidst charges of fraud. Furthermore, I don’t see how those fraud allegations would be credible after more than a cursory investigation. Lastly, I don’t see how a handful of fraudulent donations could really threaten 50K’s worth of money.
It’s a terribly sad story, don’t get me wrong. And I’m not saying that the guy who wrote it is being dishonest. But before I believe that he’s right about why his donations came under suspicion, I’d like to see some evidence – at least the website allegedly set up by the right-wingers in question.
I could be wrong… but why does the guy have no proof?
On the other hand, someone in SadlyNo linked to a freerepublic thread that is allegedly about this topic.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1414431/posts
So that’s some evidence. If anything – or everything – really happened the way it was described in DU, then it is a major MSM news story and should result in the deserved, permanent shutdown of FreeRepublic and the bankruptcy of the individuals involved through, at minimum, wrongful death lawsuits.
On the other hand, we don’t really know (**not** that this is an excuse or a comment on the morality of the behavior) the extent to which delays in medical procedures genuinely affected this guy’s chance of survival. His chances may have been hopeless anyway.
ImJohnGalt
glasnost, they only had to raise enough flags so that PayPal locked the account, which barred any access to the 50K while they investigated. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with PayPal’s customer service, but they’re glacial. All they had to do was create enough uncertainty that the account-holder couldn’t be sure they could pay the doctor exactly when he wanted the money, so apparently the hospital rescheduled the surgery rather than take that chance.
Notorious P.A.T.
Shorter Freepie:
“Their organized campaign is beating OUR organized campaign!”
Heh heh, so true.
Tim, John, et al, you are conservatives, right? If so, why were you kicked out of the Conservative Blog category?
Tom Hilton
Here’s a Seattle Weekly story about Stephenson (re-posted at Freeperlandia, and aren’t those comments charming?) with some more background.
Scum.
D. Aristophanes
The closest I can think of is Malkin claiming she got death threats after she posted the home address of those students in CA who were protesting the military recruiters.
Those death threats were the work of a single troll who spammed lefty blog comments with her address, as documented here:
http://parrotline.blogspot.com/2006/04/malkin-and-themole.html
Walker
ImJohnGalt pointed out the key issue: one fraud complaint will get PayPal to lock your entire account, no matter how small. This is a well-known problem with PayPal and is the reason a lot of business people do not like using it.
However, I have been thinking about this incident a bit, and I am not sure that his family has any legal means to go after the people that did this. His surgery was pushed back simply because he didn’t have the money. He was hoping to get the money from PayPal, but the money wasn’t his yet. In setting up the PayPal donations he agreed to the terms of service. He unfortunately agreed to allow PayPal to freeze the account on a whim. The fraud accusations where investigated and dismissed, so no money was lost. All that was lost was time. But I don’t think you can build a case around this.
I am not defending the Freepers who did this. They are going to burn in Hell when they die. But I do not think there are any legal recourses available.
Michael D.
Re: Tim’s update. My work has DU blocked (as well as FR) What does the post say?
jcricket
Oh believe me, I know the details, and that was sort of my point. Kos (or one of the other front page posters) recently put up a blog entry detailing how they spent “all night” deleting Malkin’s home address from various diary and comment entries on dKos during that time period.
Contrast this with Michelle “attack my winged monkeys” Malkin’s behavior during both that incident and the more recent one with Graeme Frost.
There’s a reason Dave Neiwart calls these people “proto-fascists”. The organized vigilanti-ism, the coalescing around targets as objects of hate, the increasingly eliminationist rhetoric (words like sedition, treason, etc).
I’m not conspiracy-minded enough to think that we’re about to be taken over via coup or other fascist dictatorship. It’s just that the Republican party is increasing unhinged and it’s not a good trend. It doesn’t take a majority of Americans to support some seriously draconian curtailment of civil liberties and minority rights.
One more terror attack on America and it’s really the Republicans who I am worried about.
Tim F.
Michael,
Read the summary here.
Tom Hilton
Here is a non-DU, non-FR source (The Seattle Weekly). Basically, voting-rights activist Andy Stephenson got pancreatic cancer, faced enormous medical bills, raised money online, and Freepers blocked him from getting it by giving tiny amounts then claiming fraud (so PayPal froze the account).
Now he’s dead.
Michael D.
Just….WOW…
chopper
that whole story is just wack. i mean, part of me thinks that there had to be something else going on, because people just can’t act like that. trying to shut down someone’s cancer surgery?
then i realize exactly how fucked and spiteful people can get over something as bullshit as politics, and i realize its all well within the realm of possibility.
Jake
I also have to send a huge Dude, WTF? to Johns Hopkins and the treating surgeon. Pancreatic cancer is not something you fuck around with and hospitals write off enormous amounts of debt all of the time.
Sinister eyebrow
There are any number of legal actions that can be taken against those who perpetrated these acts, from civil restraining orders, to suits for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, different invasion of privacy torts, defamation (slander and libel)and some potentially criminal acts, depending on the state’s laws. It could be enough to literally bankrupt everyone who took part in such a despicable campaign.
Still, utterly flabergasting the lengths that these people will go to. I would have to go with some sort of mental illness playing a part in such behavior—I can’t think of any rational explanation.
chopper
the freepers’ response to the dude’s death was also interesting.
a third of them were all rest in peace, another third still didn’t believe it like he faked his death or something, and the rest tried to excuse away their own shittiness on the issue by pointing at the nasty reaction some DUers had when reagan died, yet still spit out of the other side of their mouths the assertion that they’re ‘still better than they are’.
now, being skeptical of some dude’s online fundraising isn’t a big deal to me. even if it borders on paranoid. but when you start trying to shut it down or screwing with someone’s surgery all over a difference in political beliefs, to the point where after his death is reported ad nauseum you’re still calling shenanigans, you’re the worst kind of asshole.
The Other Steve
RED FLAG! RED FLAG! RED FLAG!
Now I know who this Andy Stephenson is. He was a friend of Bev Harris. That Bev Harris is showing up all over that freeper thread making accusations against Stephenson.
These two were responsible for the voting stuff a few years ago, think they wrote a book together. I don’t know much about Stephenson, however…
Bev Harris is a well known scam artist. kos banned her at dKos, and I believe she’s been banned at DU as well. She’s very good at pandering, and she can walk into any politicial group get them all riled up such that they give her money.
Both freeper world and DU are swill pits. I can’t help but root for injuries in any contest between them. That being said, when this was going on people should have just backed the fuck off.
PWT
The six-member Board of Directors of Black Box Voting has unanimously voted to terminate the employment of Associate Director Andy Stephenson, for:
* Repeatedly lying to various members of the board of directors
* Misrepresenting results of investigations
* Mishandling telephone communications and withholding information
* Temper tantrums and hanging up on members of the organization
* Outburst at the Florida Supervisor of Elections meeting, offending public officials
* Failing to assist, show up, or even call while Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris repeatedly reached him to request assistance when they were accosted by Volusia County police
I don’t wish anybody ill, no matter what their political affiliation, however, there is more to the Andy Stephenson story than what was written at the Democratic Underground.
Dug Jay
If even a small portion of this story is true (re the efforts that delayed/prevented timely medical attention) then several federal statutes, and most likely state statutes as well, were breached. If the documentation is even remotely as evident and demonstrable as claimed, then federal prosecutors would welcome the opportunity to jump all over such a case.
jenniebee
Come on, is it that hard to believe? These are people who believe that their own suspicions justify their own suspicions – if their fevered imaginings prompt them to believe that their political opponents would use a fundraiser to pay for cancer treatments to scam money from each other (the most bizarre thing about this story, for me, is that the Freepers believed that Teh Left was so nefarious that it was scamming… itself! for who knows what evil purposes!) then those imaginings themselves are enough in their minds to rationally justify suspicion (after all, if it wasn’t legitimately suspicious then they wouldn’t have believed it was – and don’t tell me they don’t think that way).
So it starts with somebody “suspecting” and then it gets picked up and by the end of it they’re just so sure that they’re right that that assurance justifies whatever they think of doing that would stop it. The fact that they called Johns Hopkins – what to think? Did they think that Andy Stephenson was fooling the doctors at Johns Hopkins into performing pancreatic surgery on him even though he was fine as part of a scam, or that Johns Hopkins was actively participating in laundering money or… I mean, do any of their brain cells actually touch?
If you read the Freeper threads when they get reports about his death… the ones who aren’t asking if anybody’s checked the coffin just can’t stop talking about how they’re better than the people at DU and ought to be acting better than the DUers too. By their fruits, ye shall know them, is all I can say.
T. Scheisskopf
I was there, on DU, for the whole thing. It really did happen that way. The FweepeeZ really did cause a more-than-a-month delay in Andy’s surgery. And then he died.
And as for those who consider DU a “swill pit” or some such: Sure, there is swill, anger, sadness, desperation, and a lot of other emotions expressed. Even all in the same post.
Kinda just like life.
I regret my ongoing participation there not one little bit.
Enlightened Layperson
Interesting. Conservatives are fond of boasting (see Malkin on Valor-IT, for instance) that they donate more to charity than liberals, and it is my understanding that this is true. I do not doubt that if one of their own had cancer but no health insurance they would donate generously, or that if Graeme Foster’s family had passed the basket in their neighborhood they would have pitched in.
But once you politically oppose them, you become an Enemy, outside all bounds of human decency. It’s disturbing.
chopper
yeah, that was also funny. if i’m that full of bile towards my political enemies, why would i interrupt them getting scammed by someone?
PWT
“But once you politically oppose them, you become an Enemy, outside all bounds of human decency. It’s disturbing.”
Both sides play this game and its disheartening to watch, even more so when you see elected officials doing the same things that are considered repugnant when done by bloggers or their commentors. Each side is equally guilty.
jenniebee
When Cindy Sheehan starts roaming the halls of Walter Reed unplugging respirators while wearing a t-shirt that says “I support the murder of American Troops” you can let loose with all the “both sides do it” you like. Until that happens however, you are an idiot.
Stephen
Tim F.
Here’s the crux of the matter:
I dug as far as I could through the Freeper thread. But I couldn’t find anyone doing this, recommending this, commenting on it having been done, etc.
Maybe I’m confused. But aside from the DU post that SN linked to (Elizabeth F’s claim), is there any evidence that the Freepers did this?
And, uh, John … in case you ask … No, I don’t have any proof that Elizabeth F. is lying.
jenniebee
So the Freeper talking points are:
1. Bev Harris was a scam artist and bad news (I have no reason to doubt it)
2. Andy Stephenson worked with Bev Harris
3. Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson had a falling out, and Bev Harris made some harsh accusations against Andy Stephenson
4. Aside from Bev Harris, nobody who worked with Andy reported similar behavior.
ergo,
5. Bev Harris is totally credible re: Andy Stephenson’s character, even though she has zero credibility on every other point, and therefore
6. Andy Stephenson’s death, surgery, hospitalization, cancer, the whole shebang are suspect, meaning that
7. Johns Hopkins is totally covering up for Andy Stephenson!
Quick, somebody investigate Johns Hopkins! Be sure to check the kerning on the “bill” (conveniently, HIPAA regs make it difficult to acquire – those lefties are so crafty!) And don’t forget to check out the hospital kitchen – $50,000 buys a lot of granite countertops…
Stephen
Click on Tom Hilton’s link to the Seattle newspaper. It’s about 15 comments up.
Tom Hilton says:
Not a word in that article about the supposed Freeper fraud.
This is an interesting, and if true, explosive story. Why do people like Tom Hilton just make shit up?
PWT
Here are the talking points:
1. Andy Stephenson had pancreatic cancer
2. Median survival from diagnosis is around 3 to 6 months; 5-year survival is much less than 5%[10] With 32,180 new diagnoses in the United States every year, and 31,800 deaths, mortality approaches 99%, giving pancreatic cancer the highest fatality rate of all cancers and the fourth highest cancer killer in the United States among both men and women.
3. Andy Stephenson (sadly) died from postoperative complications relating to his cancer treatment.
Ergo…..
Thats it, there is no more.
Stephen
Tim, John,
Sorry, but I’m going to be a bit of a pest …
Is there any evidence ANYWHERE that Freepers “had its agents make small donations so they could then call Paypal with allegations of fraud that froze Andy’s account.”
You and Sadly No and DU and American Street have claimed this. It’s a pretty shocking accusation. Your commenters have lapped it up.
Any shred of documentation anywhere? Anything??
Dug Jay
This appears to be a largely manufactured story, based on only the smallest of “facts.”
Move on.
NickM
There’s 1000 + posts of commentary about “scamdy’s” medical treatment and, more importantly, how it was paid for here. I don’t have the stomach to read much of it, but some people apparently spent a great deal of time comparing check numbers, routing numbers, medical bills, etc. for a dying man they were seeking to discredit.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1414431/posts?q=1&;page=251
Dug, there’s plenty there – it’s just awfully ugly.
Stephen
NickM.
Your link is intended to go to page 251, etc. Go there, or anywhere else.
Could you paste in this comment thread ANYTHING about “making small donations so they could then call Paypal with allegations of fraud that froze Andy’s account.”
Thanks.
NickM
Stephen:
I can’t. I never claimed that was true; Beth Ferrari did and I assume she has good reasons for doing so, although I agree it is not “proof” by a preponderance of the evidence.
My focus is not quite so narrow. My focus is the hateful assholes who spent 1000+ posts commenting on a dying man’s medical treatment, analyzing his bills, the donation checks and routing numbers, etc. with a degree of care and exactitude one wishes the media to analyzing evidence of WMDs in Iraq. Does this prove illegal behavior? No. Does it prove that the people who were wrapped up in proving that Scamdy’s pancreatic cancer treatment was a “scam” are flaming assholes? I’m not sure reasonable minds could disagree on this point.
The Other Steve
I’m not sure I believe anybody in this thing. I would have suspected the quest for money was a scam as well.
But it’s unlikely that anybody coordinating such a thing would have posted it to a website. They’d have done it offline through email or phone calls.
The Other Steve
That being said.
Sadly No is so much funnier than any other blog on that list.
Tim F.
Stephen,
I never claimed that the freepers blocked his account, I claimed that they behaved like reprehensible, bloodthirsty goons. The briefest scan of that thread that NickM linked shows that I was absolutely right about that. If someone else made claims that he can’t back up then pester him.
demimondian
Coupla’ things, Stephen.
I live in the Seattle area, and the “hijinx” immediately after Stephenson’s death certainly didn’t make the local news. His previous torment, however, certainly did, and so, whether the “whole” story is true, enough of it is true to still be horrid. You can, if you wish, try to change the subject to “did they block a PayPal account” — truth is, I don’t know, and there’s no evidence to support a claim that they did. I don’t even know how to find out, at this point — and I’m pretty good at finding things out. What matters is that FreeRepublic did engage in a massive smear, with the sole intent of making a dying man’s last days worse — and you can look at the Freepers contemporaneous comments to support that claim.
Stephen
Tim F (auditioning for his role as Glenn Reynolds):
“I never claimed that the freepers blocked his account, … I merely approvingly linked to letter claiming that.”
demimondian
Stephen says…
Stephen
Elizabeth’s letter claimed two things about the Freepers: 1) They were talking mean on the internet. 2) They tried to interfere with a cancer patient’s ability to pay for his care.
Now, 5 bloggers and scores of commenters have been freaking out, hollering “bloodthirsty,” calling for people to be killed in retaliation, talking about statutes of limitations, etc. Plenty of your commenters right here seized on the fraudulent PayPal charges.
Now, I ask for a little bit of evidence, and suddenly it’s a “distraction,” that none of you, nosirree, ever really mentioned or focused on. Why, of course, what’s really got you in a flutter is all that mean talk on the internet. How “reprehensible!”
What a bunch of weasels.
Tim F.
Stephen, I had and still have no way of knowing whether every claim made in the article is true. You apparently don’t understand how I could link to it anyway, which strikes me as amazingly strange for an apparently smart guy, but I will do you the favor of explaining in as few syllables as I can manage.
The things that I can verify with my own eyes are already horrendous. Slack-jawed, disturbing even by the standards of today’s right awful.
Again, you’re not stupid so I strongly doubt that you mean to excuse their behavior by knocking the accuser. No doubt your point begins and ends with some character flaw on my part concerning excess credulity.
Yet by missing the point and reaching for your own little Beauchamp you do what you probably didn’t intend, which is excuse and minimize plainly execrable behavior. Forgive me if I don’t miss the forest for a tree.
bago
I think this is a case of Sadly, yes.
Stephen
Tim,
“Every claim?” C’mon Tim. Dozens of your own commenters picked up on the Paypal fraud claim. That was all fine with you. Suddenly I ask if there’s any evidence, and you’re all “big picture, too busy for such details.”
I have some respect for facts. And for evidence. You don’t. Funny thing, I though respect for those things were what we were supposed to learn from Bush’s Iraq Fiasco. I don’t think you’re a smart guy. I think all you learned from the past 5 years is “Get the Bushies. Down with the Freepers.”
You should do better. But I don’t think you can.
Since I voted Dem in ’06, and plan to do so in ’08, spare me your hints that I’m part of some right wing smear machine.
Stephen
You want “execrable behavior?”
How about dredging up false accusations of conspiracy to commit murder … against an opponent … in BLOG CONTEST???
Tell me again about “disturbing and reprehensible.” Some more about “forest and trees.”
demimondian
Um, Stephen? You know, I don’t know if those stories are true or not. You’re trying to change the subject, which is that the behavior — the verifiable, their own hands against their own hearts, verifiable behavior — they showed was despicable. Whether or not they sent fake sheriffs to investigate the people who were running his funeral. Whether or not they tried to break into a house. Whether or not they got a PayPal account frozen.
So, yes, you’re loosing the jackalopes. You know better. We’ve seen FAR better — PaulL is better, and the sometime commenter Darrell was non pareil. Don’t expect me to pretend otherwise.
Tim F.
Stephen, your outrage would make more sense if you knew one of the accusations to be false. I get that, and I promise that if anything is shown to be false I will put it up post-haste. At the moment all that exists regarding those specific allegations is an eyewitness account and your doubts, which adds up in my book to nothing at all. Show me that someone lied and I’ll call bullshit on him/her, promise. In the meantime I haven’t remarked on that specific issue and don’t have any plans on doing so.
Now give me some sign that you feel the slightest tinge about the behavior that already exists plain as day, obvious as the nose on your face. It’s alright if you don’t feel outraged by it as long as you’re willing to say so.
mere mortal
To me, this is all of A Kind. And do not doubt the sincerity of those who hold the position.
The character flaw is certainty without regards to “What if I am wrong?”
Perhaps I am a misguided Liberal to ascribe it to Republicans.
But the phenomenon is such that its adherents believe a proposition to be true, and pursue it, with no regard to the consequences if the proposition be untrue.
If you decide that someone whose agents are begging for money (for medical care) are frauds, you set upon them. If you were a rational person, you would make the following calculation:
1: They are frauds, they will defraud many people of a large sum of money, a pittance from each defrauded.
2: They are sincere, they represent someone desperately ill who will die without assistance (and may die in any event).
Any rational person would shrug his shoulders and hope for the best (2, and the best within 2). In any event, no one is badly harmed by the (even fraudulent) attempt to appeal to charity.
An irrational person would simply follow his beliefs without regard to whether be correct, and pursue option (1). Does this cause harm if option (2) is true? No matter, no regard is due to that option, because we believe it to be false. Because we believe it to be false, anyone who espouses option (2) must be liars, must be discredited, must be investigated, must be prosecuted, must be ruined, must admit their lie.
I say this is of A Kind, because this is very nearly the sort of thought process which brought us to Iraq.
Stephen
My blog post on the matter
So, I’m outraged by mean talk on the internet. (Is there any evidence of anything else?)
As for this:
Let me say this …
“I was outraged, when I recently dropped my anonymity, and identified myself. I got into a flamewar with Tim F. and the next thing I knew, he was calling and making death threats against me and my children.”
There you have it dude, ” an eyewitness account.” And I’ll be spreading that all over the internet, dismissing anyone who calls me on it with “prove it isn’t so.”
Stephen
Demimondian,
The PayPal fraud claim is not a distraction nor a jackalope.
Your commenters above (conumbdrum, jcricket, ImJohnGalt, Walker, Tom Hilton, chopper, Jake, Sinister eyebrow, Dug Jay, jenniebee) ALL found it to the most significant aspect to the story. It IS the unique aspect of the story.
“Despicable behavior?” My nominee remains dusting off false charges of conspiracy to commit murder so one can win a frigging blog contest.
Stephen
Tim,
A sincere question. Why do you adamantly resist ANY application of ‘burden of proof?’ It’s not a complicated concept. If Elizabeth make an accusation, she’s gotta have SOME evidence. We all should be skeptical until she does (WMDs anyone?). Generally people don’t just accept and repeat as fact unsubstantiated allegations. And, the more serious the allegations, the more careful reasonable people should be about them.
All politics and flames aside, I find your rock-solid resistance to this simple concept wholly puzzling.
chopper
you know, maybe i’m just partisan, but i think “trying to make a dying man’s last few months as difficult as possible” is more execrable than “linking approvingly to an accusation against a discussion site full of right-wing choads”. my pop died of cancer earlier this year, and if anyone tried to make the end of his life any more painful than it already was (calling for investigations into his finances etc intending to screw up his care) over some bullshit politics i’d have gone on a killing spree.
you may feel otherwise, but then again, i don’t know who the hell you are.
NickM
Insofar as I can check Ferrari’s claims for myself, I see that they are true. Ferrari claimed that “scamdy’s” political opponents set up a website during his dying days to post information about his treatment and the way it was being paid for. And, looking it up, this is true. It’s also clear that they spent a great deal of time familiarizing themselves with his billing information and donor information all in order to question the tiniest details contained in this data. For me to do this to someone I’d have to hate them more than I’ve ever hated anyone else to date; to do it to an utter stranger and relatively powerless and dying man because I disagree with his political views strikes me as – I can’t find any other word for it – pathological. (Maybe it strikes Stephen as normal, in which case I’m not sure I want to annoy him any more).
Moreover, it’s clear that the DUFU guy reviewed the bills and understood that, if nothing else, “Scamdy” was not lying about being pretty ill. He nonetheless challenged “Scamdy’s” claims of illness to the very end. And all of this was public and the people involved are clearly not ashamed of their behavior. Even now that all the facts are in, they’ve left it online or anyone to google and find for themselves. Mr. DUFU shows no sign of regret and defends himself as if “Scamdy” is the one who should be apologizing. This too strikes me as a bit pathological.
Given these facts, it is not hard for me to believe Ferrari’s allegation that at least one of these pathological loons would go the further step of bringing what they believed were “fraudulent” activities to the attention of PayPal.
It’s like this. I see the neighborhood delinquents playing with matches. Hours later, a witness reports a fire in the woods. I think its reasonable to form the provisional conclusion that the delinquents set the fire. They’ve earned my suspicion. Is this fact pattern enough to convict them of arson? Not even close. But is it enough for me to provisionally credit the witnesses’ story that there is a fire in the woods and the delinquents set it? Yes. Is this fact pattern, along with the fact that they are humorless assholes, enough to make me vote against them in an internet contest for funniest blog? Definitely.
jenniebee
You have less evidence that Elisabeth Ferrari is lying than you do that she is telling the truth, because her claims fit all the known evidence. The CU and Freepers were obsessive about minute details of Andy’s finances and medical condition; no one disputes that Andy’s surgery date was pushed back, and no explanation has been offered for the delay besides Andy’s inability to pay for it as he had anticipated being able to do, this in spite of the success of the fundraising effort.
Are you contending that the paypal account was not frozen to investigate accusations of fraud? Or is your claim that there is insufficient evidence that someone from CU or Free Republic is responsible for having made the accusation? It certainly is possible that someone else, who had made a genuine donation but then became concerned because of the Freepers’ baseless claims that Andy wasn’t really sick and was scamming the DU community made a complaint, but that was not what was reported at the time. Here, some of the people involved might have a motive to lie, to shift blame away from individuals within the DU community, but the number of people involved in that kind of cover up raise this to the level of a conspiracy, and that seems unlikely given that it would have been a conspiracy to protect a person or persons at whom they had good reason to be seriously pissed. That’s a high order of message control for a purpose of dubious value. And these are Democrats: message control isn’t their forte. So it’s more likely that whoever made those contributions and then got the account frozen were outside the DU community, and the only other people who were aware and involved enough are… CU and the Freepers.
It’s not court of law proof, but given that the normal person doesn’t have subpeona power or Detective Sippowitz on staff, the normal average person shouldn’t have to get hold of confidential records before they can make up their minds about something. Ferrari’s claims fit the known, undisputed facts and do not require suspensions of logic to be believed – that is enough.
But beyond that, you’re not really accusing the DUers of lying here, you’re accusing S,N! of bringing this up because they want to win a stupid blog contest, and there you really don’t have a leg to stand on. S,N! has endorsed Jon Swift for funniest blog.
Stephen
Jenniebee, NickM,
Jennie brings up an excellent point. Was any PayPal account of Andy’s ever frozen? I haven’t even seen any evidence of such.
Let’s make it easier for you. Do you have even that much? Forget who might have caused it.
Is there any evidence that Andy’s PayPal account was ever frozen?
(Since SN has just this morning switched to support Jon Swift, I’ll not accuse them again of opening this up to win a blog contest.)
Stephen
Jenniebee, NickM,
There are lots of accusations that the Freepers did so.
Like one from William Pitt
I mean evidence – an email from Paypal, a screenshot of a Paypal account, a conspiratorial Freeper email, a contemporanous webthread where someone wrote “OMG! Andy’s account is frozen! WTF?? How could this have happened?,” someone other than Elizabeth with a first-hand confirmation. Almost anything.
I don’t mean someone else like William Pitt joining in the accusation.
Stephen
Take a look at this Common Ground thread from 2005
May 1 – Here’s how to contribute.
July 9 – Andy has passed away.
Not a word in between of any problems or issues or blockages.
Still looking guys? ANY evidence that Andy’s Paypal account was EVER frozen for any reason?
chopper
this morning?
Stephen
Speaking of jackalopes and distractions … Heeeeeeeere’s Chopper!
You got me dude. Not “this morning,” but last night at 11:53 PM.
BTW, do you have any evidence that Andy’s Paypal account was EVER frozen for any reason?
chopper
bitchy, bitchy. rrowr. so you were wrong, get over it.
did i say his account was frozen? cause you know, i don’t think i ever did.