Metal Sludge Gossip Board

Strassel: Trolling for Dirt on the President's List
First a Romney supporter was named on an Obama campaign website. That was followed by the slimy trolling into a citizen's private life




Here's what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent.

Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, "Keeping GOP Honest," took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled "Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney's donors," the post accused the eight of being "wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records." Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being "litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk's office—which I have obtained—listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.

Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He's found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from "Glenn Simpson." That's the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a D.C. company that performs private investigative work.

The website for that company, Fusion GPS, describes itself as providing "strategic intelligence," with expertise in areas like "politics." That's a polite way of saying "opposition research."

When I called Fusion's main number and asked to speak to Michael Wolf, a man said Mr. Wolf wasn't in the office that day but he'd be in this coming Monday. When I reached Mr. Wolf on his private cell, he confirmed he had until recently worked at the Senate.

When I asked what his interest was in Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records, he hesitated, then said he didn't want to talk about that. When I asked what his relationship was with Fusion, he hesitated again and said he had "no comment." "It's a legal thing," he added.

Fusion dodged my calls, so I couldn't ask who was paying it to troll through Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. Mr. Simpson finally sent an email stating: "Frank VanderSloot is a figure of interest in the debate over civil rights for gay Americans. As his own record on gay issues amply demonstrates, he is a legitimate subject of public records research into his lengthy history of legal disputes."

A look through Federal Election Commission records did not show any payments to Fusion or Mr. Wolf from political players, such as the Democratic National Committee, the Obama campaign, or liberal Super PACs. Then again, when political groups want to hire researchers, it is not uncommon to hire a less controversial third party, which then hires the researchers.

This is not the first attack on Mr. VanderSloot. While the executive has been a force in Idaho politics and has helped Mr. Romney raise money, he's not what most would consider a national political power player. Through 2011, nearly every mention of Mr. VanderSloot appeared in Idaho or Washington state newspapers, often in reference to his business.

That changed in January, with the first Super PAC disclosures. Liberal bloggers and media have since dug into his past, dredging up long-ago Idaho controversies that touched on gay issues. His detractors have spiraled these into accusations that Mr. VanderSloot is a "gay bashing thug." He's become a national political focus of attention, aided by the likes of partisan Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Bloggers have harassed his children, visiting their social media accounts and asking for interviews and information.

Mr. VanderSloot has said his attackers have misconstrued facts and made false allegations. In February he wrote a long reply, publicly stating that he has "many gay friends whom I love and respect" who should "have the same freedoms and rights as any other individual." The Obama campaign's response, in April, was to single out Mr. VanderSloot and repeat the slurs.

Political donations don't come with a right to privacy, and Mr. VanderSloot might have expected a spotlight. Then again, President Obama, in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, gave a national address calling for "civility" in politics. Yet rather than condemn those demeaning his opponent's donors, Mr. Obama—the nation's most powerful man—instead publicly named individuals, egging on the attacks. What has followed is the slimy trolling into a citizen's private life.

Mr. VanderSloot acknowledges that "when I first learned that President Obama's campaign had singled me out on his 'enemies list,' I knew it was like taping a target on my back." But the more he's thought it through, "the public beatings and false accusations that followed are no deterrent. These tactics will not work in America." He's even "contemplating a second donation."

Still. If details about Mr. VanderSloot's life become public, and if this hurts his business or those who work for him, Mr. Obama will bear responsibility. This is what happens when the president makes a list.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 38208.html

How old are you?

You're taking seriously "Potomac Watch"? What's next? Rush Limbaugh?

You obviously do not follow politics closely enough to know which sources are considered highly biased and not very credible.

Okay, so you didn't like one article because it came from the New York Post, and you thought that was a bad source, but now you don't like the Wall Street Journal?

Are they too tin foil hat for you?

How long have you been on the Obama payroll? Someone has got to be paying you act this way. No rational person does this for free.

brotherplanet wrote:Still. If details about Mr. VanderSloot's life become public, and if this hurts his business or those who work for him, Mr. Obama will bear responsibility. This is what happens when the president makes a list.

If? IF? This whole diatriabe is based on an "IF"?

How much do you know about your poster child, bucko? Read this and see if you can still squeeze out a tear for him. I'm shocked someone hasn't popped a cap into his fat ass. Slimy trolling? Jesus. Mouth Breathers UNITE!

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/17/billion ... e_critics/

The guy can be a dirt bag, but it doesn't give this president or any other the right to create a hit list on US citizens.

Are you going to feel the same way if Romney wins and in four years he has a hit list on the people donating to the Dem's candidate?

I don't give a shit which party creates a hit list. It's wrong.

It should also give you pause... The man who signed the NDAA has a hit list... Think about it... Romney said he would have signed the same thing... Imagine him with a hit list on people who donate to your candidate.

Are we really going to defend these politicians?

Hit list? Is this the Sopranos?

Then there was VanderSloot’s behavior in response to an award-winning investigative series by The Post Register, a small, independently-owned newspaper in Mormon-heavy Idaho Falls, which unearthed the story of a pedophile in the local Boy Scouts troop who had molested dozens of scouts (the national Boy Scouts of America had succeeded in having the subsequent civil case sealed from public view). The Post Register sued to obtain those sealed records, and then detailed how a Mormon bishop knew of his pedophile history yet still recommended him as a Scout master, how he was protected by several Boy Scout lawyers who were aware of more abuse but did not tell the boys’ parents, and how top-level local and national leaders of the Mormon Church had also received warnings. The newspaper then began uncovering the presence of several other scout-master pedophiles. As the Post Register‘s courageous Managing Editor, Dean Miller, detailed here, the backlash against the paper, its editors and reporters was severe: the Boy Scouts in that part of Idaho is associated with and heavily supported by LDS, and “some counties that [the] newspaper serves are more than 70 percent Mormon, and for generations scouting has been the official youth program for Mormon boys.”

In response to this six-part exposé — which won the Scripps Howard Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment – VanderSloot went on a virtual jihad against the newspaper and the principal reporter who exposed the scandal, Peter Zuckerman. VanderSloot bought numerous full-page newspaper ads in The Post Register that attacked the story and explicitly identified the reporter, Zuckerman, as “a homosexual” (Zuckerman had previously written for a small Florida paper about being gay when he lived in that state, but had kept his sexual orientation largely a secret since he moved to rural Idaho). Vandersloot’s full-page ad expressly described the “speculation” that Zuckerman’s homosexuality had made him hostile to the Scouts and LDS: “the Boy Scout’s position of not letting gay men be Scout Leaders, and the LDS Church’s position that marriage should be between a man and a woman may have caused Zuckerman to attack the scouts and the LDS Church through his journalism.” While the ad absurdly sought to repudiate the very “speculation” about Zuckerman which it had just amplified (“We think it would be very unfair for anyone to conclude that is what is behind Zuckerman’s motives”), the predictable damage was done. Zuckerman’s editor, Dean Miller, explained: “Our reporter, Peter Zuckerman, was not ‘out’ to anyone but family, a few colleagues at the paper (including me), and his close friends”; but after VanderSloot outed him to his community in that ad, “strangers started ringing Peter’s doorbell at midnight. His partner of five years was fired from his job.”

This is what your poor victim does to people, brotherplanet. So fuck off and die, you pathetic cunt, and spare us your tears in defense of a monster. I don't buy your bullshit "middle of the road" stance and neither does anyone else.

Leave Frank VanderSloot alone!!!!

I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them. I'm not gonna cry for some millionaire who was obviously trying to purchase influence if Romney is elected.

Romney should feel free to do the same for Obama donors. Freedom of press, baby.

Brotherplanet should have picked a better poster child for his latest cause.

brotherplanet gets duped again.

Just like I said, don't trust that columnist in the WSJ (a Murdoch publication). Turns out she "forgot" to to mention that VanderSloot is a national co-chair for Romney's finance committee, not merely a private citizen who made a donation to Romney.

========================================
Fox, WSJ Pass Off Top Romney Campaign Official As A "Private Citizen"

May 14, 2012 1:34 pm ET by David Shere

Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho businessman and a prominent Mitt Romney donor. According to Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, he's also a member of Barack Obama's purported "enemies list."

In a May 10 column, The Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel complained about the scrutiny VanderSloot has come under since the Obama campaign questioned VanderSloot's background. On May 11, Fox jumped on the story, airing five separate segments that denounced attacks on a "private citizen."

But a crucial detail was missing from Strassel's column and the half-hour of airtime that Fox devoted to the story: VanderSloot is a national co-chair for Romney's finance committee. So VanderSloot is not merely a "private citizen," but actually a high-ranking member of Romney's campaign.

Fox's Neil Cavuto even let VanderSloot carry out his responsibilities as national finance co-chair on the air. Toward the end of an interview with Cavuto, VanderSloot said that he plans to "stand up and get more involved in this campaign, and we hope that other people will join us in that. Everybody should get out their checkbooks":
========================================

When VanderSloot appeared on Fox News, they displayed a screen capture of the webpage slamming VanderSloot on the "KeepingGOP Honest" website to prove their point that VanderSloot was targeted. Unfortunately they did not read the web page first because it says right there that he is the national finance co-chairman of the Romney campaign rather than a private citizen.



The screen capture comes from 3:51 of this clip on youtube. He tries to pass himself off as a private citizen who is not anti-gay. Fact is he has a record of supporting anti-gay measures and he is not a private citizen but the national finance co-chair of Romney's campaign.

Frank Vandersloot on Cavuto 5/11/12
http://youtu.be/SxoT3Sgxc-A

During the 7 minute clip he makes no mention of his association with Romney's campaign, complains that he lost business because people think he is anti-gay when he is not, and then at the end asks people to give money to Romney.

At 5:44 of the clip, he even gets choked up as if he is crying. No joke (deserves an Oscar for the acting)

At 6:20, he tells viewers to "get out their check books."

Here is a web page from 2007 that details his anti-gay campaigns going back to 1999.

http://www.pridedepot.com/?p=1415

tin00can wrote:I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them. I'm not gonna cry for some millionaire who was obviously trying to purchase influence if Romney is elected.

Romney should feel free to do the same for Obama donors. Freedom of press, baby.

So we pick and choose who we target based solely on if they give money to a campaign?

Slipper slope.


Somehow I think this board would erupt if it was Bush making a hit list.

brotherplanet wrote:

tin00can wrote:I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them. I'm not gonna cry for some millionaire who was obviously trying to purchase influence if Romney is elected.

Romney should feel free to do the same for Obama donors. Freedom of press, baby.

So we pick and choose who we target based solely on if they give money to a campaign?

Slipper slope.


Somehow I think this board would erupt if it was Bush making a hit list.

Apparently, you missed the part where I said "I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them."

And thank god we still have some people carrying the "sympathy for Bush and the conservatives" torch. I'd thought that much-needed light was extinguished but it's good to see the flame it still flickering.

brotherplanet wrote:

tin00can wrote:I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them. I'm not gonna cry for some millionaire who was obviously trying to purchase influence if Romney is elected.

Romney should feel free to do the same for Obama donors. Freedom of press, baby.

So we pick and choose who we target based solely on if they give money to a campaign?

Slipper slope.


Somehow I think this board would erupt if it was Bush making a hit list.

Hit list? Do you believe, the president intends to assassinate this man and others?

Danzig in the Dark wrote:

brotherplanet wrote:

tin00can wrote:I think anybody who gives $1 million to any presidential (or other) PAC needs to have some light shined on them. I'm not gonna cry for some millionaire who was obviously trying to purchase influence if Romney is elected.

Romney should feel free to do the same for Obama donors. Freedom of press, baby.

So we pick and choose who we target based solely on if they give money to a campaign?

Slipper slope.


Somehow I think this board would erupt if it was Bush making a hit list.

Hit list? Do you believe, the president intends to assassinate this man and others?

Not until he is a full 10 points down, no.

Personally, I love Romney/Rommel. He's what it takes to give Obamacare that kick it needs to get it pushed through.