Brett Kimberlin News Roundup: Documenting the Streisand Effect (Check Back For Updates!)

First, I want to thank everyone for the almost universally positive reaction to my monster post yesterday.  If you haven’t looked into it yet, here’s a video that gives you a taste of what went on...

And then please consider reading this post, where I tell you about how convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin attempted to frame me for a crime and how you can help me get justice for this criminal act.

And I thought I would create a post keeping track of new stories about this as it got passed around the internet, whether they are direct links to my posts, or otherwise.

This post will be updated regularly without announcing the change, but I promise the only changes will be to add more links and possibly to fix a minor spelling or grammatical error.  So there.

But wow, it has been really impressive the way this has kicked up a hornet’s nest of trouble for Kimberlin.  The Army of Davids is out in full force and it is awesome.

Of course I had warned Kimberlin that this would happen.  Here’s what I wrote a few months ago when he claimed that he just wanted to be left alone:

Then maybe you should stop trying to brutally suppress anyone who attempts to tell the truth about your life.  Because the more you try to suppress the truth, the more people want to know what you are trying to suppress.  We call this the Streisand Effect.

So, if you want all of this to go away, then stop trying to suppress the truth.  Stop trying to silence people who tell the truth.  And stop trying to bully lawyers for nothing more than giving people legal advice.  Ask for the judge to dismiss the injunction against Mr. Allen and go away and leave us alone.  I barely gave two craps about you before you tried to risk the lives of my wife and I, and if you leave me alone, I will quickly go back to not caring about you again.  I can’t tell you what Seth might do, but can’t you see that your conduct has elevated the man?

Of course I wrote that three days before he attempted to frame me for a crime.  So at that time, Kimberlin could have stood down and all of this could have dissipated.  But now there is no going back with me.  I am not going to stop until I get justice.  You are going to learn, Brett Kimberlin, that you committed a crime—indeed several of them—against the wrong person.

And I am getting a feeling that there is a sort-of “I am Spartacus” element to all of this support.  As I have said before, I participated modestly in the Everyone Draw Mohammed movement.  Kimberlin has indeed used my participation in it to falsely claim that I hate all Muslims.  That ignores inconvenient facts such as that self-identified Muslims participated at my Everyone Draw Mohammed site and even more expressed support for what we were doing, even if their faith didn’t allow them to participate (something I could totally respect, too).  Or you might just follow the link at the beginning of this paragraph and see how I praised moderate Muslims for bravely standing up to terrorism in Egypt.

And when talking about the Everyone Draw Mohammed protest, I wrote this:

From early on, a popular metaphor for this protest was this key scene in the movie Spartacus:

As Bagoh20 wrote toward the beginning:

“I am Spart[a]cus” is the perfect analogy to what this is. The South Park guys are the real one[s] being threatened and the only response that will defeat that is if millions stand up and say: ["]You will not confiscate our pens.”

What we were really doing was calling the terrorist’s bluff.  They said that if anyone dares to draw a cartoon of their prophet, even a dinky little stick figure, that they will murder that person.  But it was a bluff.  Because the truth was that if enough people did it, it would be impossible to kill them all.  So around 100,000 people committed the same “offense” on Facebook and 700 did at my site, and you know what?  Nothing happened to them.

And, I suspect, something like that is happening here.  I think a lot of people have decided that if Kimberlin is going to harass every person who tells the truth about him, they are going to give him more targets than he can handle.  I could be wrong, but that is what I suspect is going on, at least in part.

Now watch that movie clip again, and imagine you are Spartacus.  Really, Douglas is engaged in some very fine acting.  You can see him screw up his courage before he stands up to identify himself and then right at the 1:24 mark you can see his right eye well up and a tear falls down his cheek.  You can see he is proud of their willingness to stand with him and profoundly moved by their courage.  And perhaps he felt a little stronger knowing he wasn’t going to be alone in this.

Well, right now I know how that feels.  So to everyone talking about the story, thank you.  I will strive to name everyone I can who has blogged about it, and there are more people on twitter talking about it than I can keep track of.  And it only seems to be getting bigger.  Which is a very good thing.  So consider yourself thanked as a group, tweeps, Facebookers, and the like.

And of course if you do blog about it, let me know at AaronJW72@gmail.com and I will link back to you.  If you want that sort of thing...

Of course the blogger who is absolutely not Kimberlin (even though he seems to be obsessed with defending Kimberlin to the point that he even lies and suggests that Kimberlin has only committed one crime and violates the law by putting selectively edited court audio on the net), suggest that all of this is part of some kind of conspiracy.  No, what it is, is this.  I have proven that Kimberlin has committed a severe crime against me and people all over the internet—on the left and the right—are deeply offended by what you have done.  There is no more a conspiracy to denounce you than there is to denounce the Ku Klux Klan.

And Kimberlin will probably bristle at the comparison to the Ku Klux Klan.  But like the KKK, Kimberlin left a bomb where children might get hurt.  Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527, 528 (6^th Cir. 1993) (“In the worst incident, Kimberlin placed one of his bombs in a gym bag, and left it in a parking lot outside Speedway High School”).  Oh, and for that matter, like the KKK Kimberlin discriminates against black people.

But turning now to the support I have received...

Direct linkbacks:

My old blogging partner Patrick Frey had a nice post on this: Convicted Bomber and Perjurer Brett Kimberlin Harasses Blogger for Telling Truth About Him.  I won’t tell you what I know, but in general you should keep an eye on his blog.  He has a story to tell, too.

Robert McCain has been a great help in all of this since the post went live.  He has posted repeatedly with his own original research.  It might be simply easier to tell you to go to his blog and keep scrolling, especially because who knows when he will drop something next.  But here’s a few of the posts:

●          Is Democrat Operative Neal Rauhauser an ‘Associate’ of Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin? (And Why It Matters).

●          Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Received $70,000 From Tides Foundation, $10,000 From Streisand, $20,000 from John Kerry’s Wife.

●          Who Warned Us About Brett Kimberlin?  Andrew Breitbart, that is who.

●          What It Feels Like to Be Targeted

●          Domestic Terrorist Now Using ‘Lawfare’? Convicted Felon Kimberlin’s 501(c)3 Raised $1.8 Million in Six Years UPDATE: ‘Convicted of Perjury’

The Lonely Conservative introduces their readers to the story with a post entitled: This is Horrible, which was later bumped and updated.  And then rings the bell even harder, with a post entitled Calling All Conservatives—The Army of Davids Needs You.  And they also ask Why the Heck is Fidelity Investments Giving Funds to a Convicted Felon?  I suppose they must have thought he had paid his debt to society and reformed.  But recent events—him attempting to frame me for a crime and (in my opinion) to get me killed—would suggest otherwise.

The American Catholic mentions my post in a larger post discussing Political Thuggery.

Nice Deb meanwhile includes me in a list of victims of “Lawfare” type attacks—the abuse of the court system in order to suppress speech.  She also mentions a guy named Andre Walker, which is just cruel to a dyslexic like me—I thought she was misspelling my name!  (Yes, I am joking.)  And in case you are wondering there is no relation.  As a name, Walker is sort of like the Jones or Smith or Scotland—it’s really frakking common.

Meanwhile Professor Jacobson has given my monster post the “post of the day” designation.  Cool.  Then later he features my post and several of the same links I have here under the heading “Well Said.”  Coming from him, that is high praise.

And Daniel Reihl wrote out a nice post discussing the blog storm I have kicked up.

So did Dan Collins, called Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin and the Left’s Political (and Criminal) Intimidation Network.  He added an update, here.  And he had another post on The Other McCain’s latest efforts.  And dude look at that pictue… he is only like 5’5”...  dang.

And Tracy L. Coenen of The Fraud Files Blog made me blush with her glowing praise.  She describes herself as forensic accountant.  Hmm...

Point of Law, written by Ted Frank, gave me a quick blurb and recommendation.  Of course he and I were on friendly terms in the past, now that it can be told.  He needed someone to help fight a dubious class action settlement where the lawyers got millions, but the class they supposedly represent got squat and I was one of many people who volunteered to help him intervene when he put out the call.  I am not the kind of lawyer who doesn’t pretend that some lawyers abuse the system and it was nice to do my bit to curb that.  And speaking of Overlawyered, they were kind enough to give me a link there, too.

And Scrubone says that This is How You Post on a Legal Situation.  I think in truth you need to do something like that with any blogging situation, especially when original reporting is involved.  Look I am just a guy writing words on the internet.  Any idiot can do that.  Just because you read something doesn’t mean it’s true.  As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The problem with Internet Quotations is that many are not genuine.”  (Yes, that’s a joke.)  The point is anyone can write anything about anybody on the internet.  I could write “Barrack Obama today confessed he was a space alien.”  Or I could just easy easily write, “Barrack Obama today confessed that he was actually an illegal alien.”  The second one would sound more plausible, but it’s no harder to make the second up than the first—just keep pounding those keys and they appear on the screen.  Don’t just trust what I say, because most of you don’t know me, and you don’t even have the benefit of looking me in the eyes as I write it.  Instead make me prove what I claim.  I think I have proven my claim, but be skeptical.  Ask reasonable questions.  I welcome it and I will answer them as best I can.

Because right there I know there is another guy who goes around just making stuff up named Brett Kimberlin.  He gets by because people think people aren’t just going to make stuff up.  We assign a base level of credibility to most people that he doesn’t deserve.  And if you go and read a blog and just trust what a guy says, without proof, then you are going to fall victim to the Brett Kimberlins of the world.  So demand proof.

Moving on (and getting off my soapbox), Blazing Catfur, who has had his own “lawfare” difficulties is kind enough to link to me.  We have been blogging allies since the Everyone Draw Mohammed movement.

And Donald Douglas at American Power talks about it in general in the larger context, too, in a post called Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin and the Left's Political (and Criminal) Intimidation Network.  And then adds this update: Criminal Attacks on Conservative Bloggers: Update on Brett Kimberlin Intimidation Network.

And Kathy Shaidle says Gee, this sounds SO familiar… if only I could put my finger on it…

And Paul H. Lemmen gives us An Ex-Con’s View of the whole thing in a post entitled The War Today.  He contrasts his own genuine sounding quest for redemption with the redemption that didn’t seem to stick so well in Kimberlin’s case.

Moving on, the Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum followed the money.

And just to remind you that this isn’t quite a simple left/right thing, there is Popehat who writes a post called Chilling Tales of Crazy/Evil.  Ken at that site has been a great support from practically the beginning, at one point even securing legal counsel in Maryland when I found myself in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare, even though in his words:

Aaron is to the right of me, and has written for blogs even more firmly to the right of me. We undoubtedly disagree vigorously about many subjects. I don't have the privilege of knowing Beth [Kingsley, the lawyer he helped find for me] well enough to know her political stances, but it would not surprise me in the least if she differs from Aaron as well. But that doesn't matter. You know why.

Indeed, the original version of that quote linked to my profile at Big Government, which has now been merged into the larger Breitbart site.  So I am a Breitbart connected blogger.  And Kingsley herself?  I didn’t quiz her on her politics, but everyone in the office had a bunch of posters suggesting they were at least to the left of me on environmental issues, and her firm did represent ACORN.  If memory serves she didn’t personally represent them, but at the same time, there was one moment when she said to me that she thought Andrew Breitbart was unethical.  Mind you, he was still among the living, so it wasn’t like she was speaking badly of the dead.  But she clearly felt that Breitbart did ACORN wrong.  Myself, I have never seen anyone explain to me adequately why this was different than the undercover investigations you see all the time on news shows.  But despite my link to Breitbart she represented me and I think we are on pretty friendly terms.

And the why is that there are things more important than ordinary political disagreements.  Freedom of speech, democracy, things like that should be beyond debate and are for good people like Ken and Beth, they are beyond debate.  They don’t care what my views are.  They believe in my right to speak.  Actually they were probably just as offended by the way Kimberlin was trying to retaliate against me for giving a little free Seth legal advice.  And likewise, I didn’t even ask what Seth’s political views are but I know by now he is much more liberal than I am—he even blogged at Daily Kos.  Indeed several sockpuppets on the internet WHO ARE NOT BRETT KIMBERLIN insist this morning that Seth is a Communist.  Who knows if it is true, but who cares if it is?  It doesn’t matter when it comes to my desire to protect his first amendment right to speak.  I mean it’s kind of a thing with me, if you haven’t noticed.

Next, Free North Carolina shares a bunch of linky goodness.

And just this morning (5/20/12) Lady Liberty 1885 has a lengthy post about the many connections of Brett Kimberlin, Justice Through Music and Kimberlin’s band, Op-Critical.  Yes, that is right, Brett Kimberlin is in a band and he doesn’t think he is a public figure.  I suppose he would be the first guy in a band in history that didn’t want adoring fans.

Related stories:

Theo Spark has a short post on this entitled Brett Kimberlin’s Criminal Harassment Network, referring back to the American Power post by Donald Douglas, and other posts.

Likewise we get a simple reference from All Patriots Media of Robert McCain’s work.

The Washington Times’ site Times 24/7 has a post linking to Vadum’s excellent work.

Patterico’s Pontifications is apparently running a series featuring quotations from Mark Singer’s book about Kimberlin.  So far we have quotes from Singer having Kimberlin engaging in racial discrimination and sabotage of military vehicles.  Well, as you will see the comments, there is considerable doubt about the later claim but he either tried to get our troops killed or lied about it (or I suppose it is possible Singer is making it up, too, but that seems unlikely).

The Other Club also links to Dan Reihl’s excellent post with a small post entitled Funding the Speedway Bomber.

Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury mentions McCain’s work (no, not that McCain), as does The Camp of the Saints.  The same blogger made a second report later on getting the word out.

McCain’s coverage also made the Quick Six at All Patriots Media.  And I Own the World as well.

And Bill Quick at Daily Pundit asks if there is Something in the Water in Naptown?  He also does another round up of posts, here.

And the Gator Pundit takes a big old bite out of this, asking So, Just Who is This Brett Kimberlin?  And Why Should We Care?

And of course we are getting a double dose of the Streisand Effect (google it if you don’t know) with a post talking about the people who include Kimberlin in The Company We Keep.

Moving on, Hyscience has a link to Lonely Conservative.

Oh and by the way, a small little blog no one ever heard of called Instapundit linked to McCain and Reihl’s work.  They should probably give him a linkback, because I am sure this small unknown blogger could use the traffic.  (Yes, joking.  I do that a lot.)

Old Stories:

This is the post from my friend Mandy Nagy that started it all: Progressives Embrace Convicted Terrorist.  The post covers a lot of connections with the political left between Kimberlin and others and also has other links to other old stories, like:

●          The Wizard of Odd, Time Magazine.

●          Kimberlin Case A Maze of Murder, Deceit, Indianapolis Star, recounting how Brett Kimberlin put out hits on various people, in writing, in prison.  According to the same article, he also asked this inmate to plant bombs identical to the bombs used in the Speedway Bombings, so as to create the impression that they had the wrong guy.  And he had a plan to try to embroil assistant U.S. Attorney (more or less what they call a District Attorney, only for the Federal Government) in a sex scandal in order to ruin his political career.

●          The Speedway Bomber Part 1 and Part 2.

●          Kimberlin Guilty; Could Get 230 Years

●          Kimberlin could get 50 more years.

●          Mystery Still Clouds Kimberlin Case.

And there is this Fox News piece, Leftist Blogger’s Criminal Past Raises Questions About His Real Intent.  This part will leap out at you:

Using two popular leftist blogs, the 56-year-old from Bethesda, Md., has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public and left-leaning foundations by promising to put conservatives he disagrees with in jail,

And indeed he has tried to do so with Karl Rove and Andrew Breitbart, among others.  It also follows the money trail considerably.

Also we get this apparent reproduction of some of the investigation by Senator Carl Levin, of Kimberlin’s detentions that were allegedly to keep him from talking about Dan Quayle.  Who knows how much of that is true.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.