Yes, Virginia, There Are Liberal Bullies

Over the past few years, a number of people, especially my friend John Henry, have been singled out for harassment by a group of people who call themselves liberal page admins or liberal trolls. Other people like the owner of Americans Against The Tea Party were the targets of extortion attempts which tried to get them to turn over the access to their Facebook page.

These attacks are nothing new, and have existed from the beginning of our page, but they have ramped up their efforts to include attempting to breach the website instead of simply being a nuisance and insulting myself and friends of mine.

As one example, here is a recent screenshot of yet another Facebook page created solely to annoy John Henry, and nothing else.

Why would they do that? Because these individuals are obsessed with harassing us and anyone who stands in their way.

My friend Erin Nanasi has also been bullied by anonymous Facebook pages with names like "Pot Meet Kettle" (now offline) who have mocked her and her family - all in an attempt to force her and her blog off Facebook, even after she stopped writing for my former website, Forward Progressives.

Since that time when I first called out these "liberal" websites and others like them for being as unethical and slimy as the conservatives they blog about, I have had my personal Facebook suspended multiple times after waves of false reports, as has John Henry and other people in our circle of friends.

Why do people who call themselves liberals do such things and why would they perpetuate falsehoods, distort the truth, or be just as ugly as the right-wing Tea Party conservatives they claim to be better than? It's simple, it's all about profit, and not furthering the liberal cause.

In the liberal blogosphere, it is a cutthroat game of tentative alliances between page owners who work together to maximize page traffic to their websites - or take payments from site owners to post their links. These are people who promote themselves as champions of the liberal cause against the right-wing, but care more about the money they can make from web traffic to their articles instead of publishing factual information that would further the left's agenda - the same thing Gawker has done with scandal stories for the past 12 years.

Utilizing these sketchy SEO tactics isn't a unique thing, other liberal bloggers like Lou Colagiovanni, Omar Rivero of Occupy Democrats and Samuel Warde (they all know each other) have all resorted to proxy alliances with a group of individuals that will harass and falsely report people who will not work with them, especially anyone who is critical of their brand of hyperbolic and false "liberal news."

Around the same time we were hit with the cyberattacks on the website I formerly wrote for, we were also the subject of an article by a blogger we believe to be the leader of the group that was originally hired by the folks at Addicting Info to target my Facebook page for harassment. Thomas Clay, Jr of American News X wrote a blog which falsely accused Forward Progressives of being a Tea Party plant, and relied on falsely reported Zoominfo data to make their claim.

In fact, they even boasted about it on one of a number of pages that have been blocked from interacting with mine and Forward Progressives.

Seriously, who sits around all day and makes up Bitstrips mocking people in hopes they can drive that person to the point of quitting political blogging? As I've said before, these aren't conservatives to the best of my knowledge, these are individuals who portray themselves as valiant liberal writers leading the charge against the Tea Party and the GOP. Except they aren't. They're really little more than political grifters hoping to make some easy cash off gullible liberals who will believe anything they see on social media.

In fact, one of the writers for American News X is one Steve Ahearn, the owner of a Facebook page called Stop Telling Lies About Liberals And We'll Stop Telling The Truth About You, and a former admin of my old Whiskey and the Morning After Blog page. He was finally removed from my page after he and others mentioned continually harassed an acquaintance of mine, David Haberman, over starting a GoFundMe account to be able to afford dental surgery. This is all while Steve Ahearn constantly begged for money over a period of years, claiming that his children were hungry, his car was out of gas, or that their power was about to be shut off. This is why he continually makes pages just troll mine, because former drug addicts who believe in conspiracy nonsense are so reputable, right?

Mr. Ahearn, along with his friends who include Kevin Plamondon, Thomas Clay, Jr and Sean Conners of American News X have apparently been working together to harass anyone who will not work with them. They claim I am "jealous" of their "success" but these are people who gauge their accomplishments on the size of their pages, and the size of the ad revenue checks they receive each month.

It's a sad story for liberal politics when people are so driven by profit and notoriety that they resort to the attacks that I and other have dealt with for the last 3+ years. The problem is it isn't going to stop anytime soon, as you can see by the obsessed comments from Sean Conners below, which I am screen-capping in chase he decides to delete them.

Bullies try to use back channels and they try to isolate people so that they can win. I have been the recipient of these attacks ever since I first started calling out Being Liberal and their friends back in 2012.

In case they want to continue their campaign of bullying and extortion attempts, I have many more screenshots of their antics that I will be more than happy to post as updates to this story.

I am never, ever going away. After 3+ years, I'd think you would have learned. UPDATE 10/11/2016: My email account is being spammed for porn and other subscriptions by a Louisville, KY IP address. I have reached out to the IP provider.

@TWC_Help @TWC the owner of IP address 74.141.223.101 is harrassing me and spamming me with porn subscriptions. Please address this. pic.twitter.com/CDymYKSgo6

— (((Manny Schewitz))) (@MannySchewitz) October 11, 2016

12/21/2016: I am now being slammed with trolls and writers from some of the same sites once again. One of them is Tiffany Willis of Liberal America who claims she never heard of Ed Brayton from Patheos who called out her site, yet here she is in the comments of that article.

Update: http://traffic.libsyn.com/podcastfakenews/Episode20420-206_3_172C209.2420AM.m4a

The 2nd Amendment Isn't A Limitless Right

As I have repeatedly stated before, I am a gun owner. I use guns, I like guns, and I support the right for law-abiding citizens to own and carry the weapons of their choice. This includes concealed carry, and even the ability to own military grade assault weapons - so long as the individual is properly licensed and trained.

Many liberals give me grief for liking guns. In case you're new here, I grew up in rural Virginia, in a very conservative environment. I was given a .22 rifle for my 7th birthday, and I own a number of weapons today - including a handgun. Owning and using guns is part of living in rural America, and I make no apologies for that.



The problem is that the NRA wants any novice to be able to buy an assault rifle, with no training or background check. While they claim that every gun owner undergoes screening, that simply is not true.

When the 2nd Amendment was ratified, America was a country where muskets and cannons were the weapons of the time. Conservatives scream about protecting gun rights, but they are the worst spokesmen for gun rights. Rather than promoting the responsible and lawful ownership of firearms, they have made it possible for anyone who wants to get their hands on a gun, and we're seeing the tragic results of that over and over again in the daily news.

Gun ownership shouldn't a liberal or conservative thing, our nation has a long history with firearms - both good and bad. Unfortunately, our country has a serious issue with gun violence, and all the lobbying by the NRA is making it worse.

Once Again, I've Been Plagiarized By Fellow "Liberals"

I've been running this blog now for a little more than 5 years. Since October of 2010 when I ended up in Louisiana due to a series of events that included the economy, my rocky relationship with Sprint, and a bitter divorce - I've managed to crawl my way back to a position I never imagined possible when riding that Greyhound bus from San Francisco to Lafayette, Louisiana.

I ended up here with a quarter left in my pocket, and relied for almost a year on my conservative Republican mother who I love dearly, despite our disagreement on issues like abortion, or the fact that Bobby Jindal sucks. Since the day I stepped off that bus, only to find all of my luggage was stolen, I've worked my way back to a life better than the one I left behind in Florida.

In this time, I developed a following for my personal thoughts here on Whiskey and the Morning After, as well as my regular contributions on Forward Progessives which I have been doing for almost three years now.

When I first started, I was surprised that people beyond my small circle of friends which includes people of all political persuasions, wanted to hear what I had to say. Five years later, we've grown Forward Progressives to over 300,000 followers, my public Facebook page to over 30,000 - and have seen people from all around the world leave comments on my latest musings about science, religion, and whiskey.

It's also both flattering and maddening when other individuals with little or no creative abilities have decided to take my original content and pass it off as their own. As an example, today I found out that far-left/libertarian website Free Thought Project basically plagiarized my story about Muslim clerics rejecting extremists. Then another site that has previously plagiarized my material copied their story, and also passed it off as their own.

As a writer, I fully understand deadlines and presenting stories that your colleagues have missed, but representing someone else's story with little or no credit is plagiarism - especially when you take their story and just change a few words.

I've dealt with this for years, and my long beef with Being Liberal and their website Addicting Info goes back to 2012 when images I had made were being used to promote their page, with no credit to me. Since I've called out Addicting Info, Occupy Democrats and other people in their circle of friends for not properly crediting sources, or just for widely exaggerating stories for additional traffic to their websites - I have periodically been subjected to mass reports against my page and harassing emails.

These aren't angry conservatives who are upset about my ruthless fact-checking of their lies, these are people who call themselves liberals or progressives who want to easily profit off the hard work and creativity of others - without giving the original creator any credit.

These organizations do not care about advancing liberal causes as much as they care about putting money in their pocket monthly from ad revenue checks - and they don't mind ripping off original content creators to do so.

Donald Trump Perfectly Illustrates How Stupid Our Political System Has Become

Both Republicans and Democrats are absolutely horrified at the latest remarks from Donald Trump concerning banning Muslims from the United States. Until this election cycle, anyone who proposed any of the things Trump has would have watched their campaign crash and burn. Party officials and political pundits alike would castigate them, but the reaction from the GOP leadership and conservative media has been cowardly this time around.

Remember 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo? No? That's because he barely registered in the polls, thanks in part to his extreme views on race and immigration. In 2016, Tom Tancredo has told Donald Trump to tone down his rhetoric, which illustrates just how far the GOP has slid to the fringe in the past 8 years. When the GOP's leading candidate is embraced by Neo-Nazis, there's no further doubt that our national political dialogue is in complete shambles.



Donald Trump continues to remain popular, because he is appealing to the most ignorant people in America. If I were to guess, I'd say that the average Trump voter barely understands how politics work, and really thinks if you type "Amen!" under a picture on Facebook, that little girl will be cured of cancer. These people are all around us, we all know at least one person who truly believes and shares stuff from conservative clickbait media sites that claim Michelle Obama is really a man - or that they have the exclusive scoop on President Obama's plan to confiscate guns.

Right-wing politics has always relied on the fear of foreigners, intellectuals, gays, etc. The Know Nothing Party flourished on the hatred towards Irish immigrants and Catholics. The KKK has been reincarnated a number of time to oppose blacks, Jews, communists and immigrants. The John Birch Society is still alive and well today, enjoying the support of Ron Paul devotees and Glenn Beck followers.

However, the internet and social media especially have made spreading hatred and misinformation easier - and more profitable than ever before. It used to be that the unhinged rants of conspiracy nuts were mostly confined to newsletters or low watt radio stations, but now all you have to do is tap your Facebook app and find that your gullible aunt is sharing stuff from David Icke, David Avocado Wolfe or websites claiming you can cure autism with bleach.

In other words, the crazy has gone mainstream. Bloggers have found that they can make a lot of money with headlines along the lines of "Barack Obama DESTROYS Every GOP Talking Point In EPIC Smackdown!" or "The SHOCKING Truth About Guns Liberals Don't Want YOU To Know!" Too many people don't read beyond the headline, and pass an article along as being true, without fact-checking both the story and the source.

As much as liberals want to claim that they are smarter than conservatives, there are many folks on the left who believe that George W. Bush will be tried for war crimes or that the FCC can pull Fox News' broadcasting license - simply because they saw it on a website that calls itself liberal.

The danger of Donald Trump being the Republican nominee or even being elected as our next president should not be laughed off. When you have people claiming to be Bernie Sanders supporters who have stated they will not vote for Hillary Clinton, or Clinton supporters saying they will not vote for Sanders, there is a very real possibility that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could eek out a win in 2016.

Elections are not won based on viral videos or Moveon.org petitions, they are won by educating and motivating voters. Unfortunately, the American public has been dumbed down more than ever before over the last few years, thanks in part to social media. This is how Donald Trump has become as popular as he is, and this may be how the GOP hold on America becomes complete in 2016.

The NRA Is On The Side Of Terrorists, Not Responsible Gun Owners

Once again, there has been another mass shooting here in the United States. According to Vox.com, more Americans have been killed in the last fifty years by gun violence than all the wars in our history. This should press lawmakers to do something to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists and criminals, but the NRA has blocked nearly every gun law across America.

Just today, the Republican-controlled United States Senate voted to block expanding background checks, which comes almost 24 hours after the massacre in San Bernardino which left 14 people dead and even more wounded.



Two police officers were also injured in the shootout with the two suspects who died in a furious battle with police. According to law enforcement, both suspects were armed with assault rifles, handguns, and had thousands of rounds of ammunition.

As bad as this attack was, it could have been even worse. Despite the fact that this is the worst attack on American soil since Sandy Hook, the NRA and their GOP puppets continue to advocate further loosening gun laws across the country.

The NRA does not represent gun owners like myself and the millions of other people who use responsibly use firearms for recreation or personal protection. The NRA does represent the gun lobby and the hucklefuck dumbassery of the most paranoid, delusional conservative base which laps up their constant propaganda about how President Obama and liberals want to take all of their guns.

As long as they continue to block sensible gun legislation which could reduce the number of incidents like San Bernardino, it's safe to say that the NRA is on the side of terrorists, not responsible gun owners.

It's Not Easy Being A Liberal In Louisiana

I wasn't always a liberal. Back in my early days, I was raised as right-wing conservative. I was taught that liberals rejoiced in abortions and that gay people wanted to recruit young people like me into their supposedly hedonistic and sinful lifestyle.

Life threw me a number of curveballs as an adult, and through a number of circumstances, I found myself living in extremely conservative Louisiana. After reversing a series of unfortunate choices and student debt, I became political again, especially in the wake of the Tea Party takeover of Congress in 2010.



It's been five years now since I moved to Louisiana, and I've moved ever further to the left in that time. Here, I am surrounded by people who despite being incredibly bigoted towards Hispanics and other non-whites, have a poor grasp of the English language.

Not only is their incorrect use of prepositions and possessives enough to give any English major fits, their understanding of the political process is staggering. This is the state that elected Bobby Jindal twice, and has finally elected a conservative Democrat to take his place rather than David Vitter who was crippled by his own past, along with his attacks on fellow Republican candidates.

In my time here, my newfound interest in politics has presented me the opportunities to make connections with people who love the state of Louisiana and want to reverse the failed conservative policies of politicians like Bobby Jindal and David Vitter. These outstanding individuals include Bob Mann from LSU, Lamar White Jr from Cenlamar.com, and Sean Illing who now writes for Salon.

Turning Louisiana back to the center will not be an easy job. I have no illusions that there aren't massive corporate and political interests that will want to keep the state solidly conservative, and in the hands of the fossil fuel industry.

For better or worse, this is where I belong now. And I will do whatever I have to do to turn my adopted state around.