Law, life and the local spectator sport called politics.
The Brett Kimberlin Saga:
Follow this link to my BLOCKBUSTER STORY of how Brett Kimberlin, a convicted terrorist and perjurer, attempted to frame me for a crime, and then got me arrested for blogging when I exposed that misconduct to the world. That sounds like an incredible claim, but I provide primary documents and video evidence proving that he did this. And if you are moved by this story to provide a little help to myself and other victims of Mr. Kimberlin’s intimidation, such as Robert Stacy McCain, you can donate at the PayPal buttons on the right. And I thank everyone who has done so, and will do so.
Then in turn, I pointed out that
there was a serious downside to it.I won’t
quote myself in the name of keeping this blog reasonably family friendly, but
the gist of what I said was as follows: “Right now, if an employer says to a
woman ‘sleep with me or you’re fired,’ it’s illegal and sexual harassment. You
make prostitution legal, you make that demand legal.”
(And if you really want to know
what I originally said, you can follow this
link.)
After Shaw called my comment “stupid,”
all hell broke in my mentions.Well,
respectfully, people are not thinking it through.
So, Lee Stranahan—my friend and
occasional client—has declared today to be a second Everybody Blog About Brett
Kimberlin Day.
The first time seemed to be about
protecting me and others, and protecting free speech in general.The whole idea was this: if Brett Kimberlin
would do anything he could to silence anyone who talked about him—including suing
people, getting bogus gag orders from courts, and even in my case attempting to
frame me for a crime—then maybe one way to defeat it is to have so many people
talking about him that he couldn’t retaliate against all of us.Thus, because it
was in part about protecting me, I said privately and publicly that I didn’t
have the heart to ask anyone to do that.I mean, how do you ask someone else to take a metaphorical bullet for
you?
So, there is a movie coming up
called The Hunt. The basic plot synopsis is liberal elites hunting
people they hate that they see as "deplorables." And in the wake of recent mass shootings, ads
for the movie are being pulled sporadically, and the Hollywood
Reporter is saying that behind the scenes they are talking about rethinking how they are going to
market it and so on. This is probably the
first news that the movie existed for many people, so I am seeing a lot of
conservative anger directed at it. For
instance, Twitchy has an article
typical of this where conservatives are quoted as saying how terrible this
movie is as an idea. You can read for
yourself, but the basic gist is “oh my God, they’re making a movie that revels
in murdering conservatives.”
And I am here to persuade you
that maybe that interpretation is wrong.
So interesting to see “Progressive”
Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments
are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept
anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now
loudly......
....and
viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most
powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go
back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they
came. Then come back and show us how....
....it
is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m
sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel
arrangements!
…and within minutes everyone was
sure 1) who he was talking about and 2) it is racist.
For instance, Chris Cillizza of
CNN wrote an entire piece at CNN making both claims on both points.At the website,
it gives the following headline “Donald Trump’s racist tweets show he doesn’t
understand America,” while the preview on this tweet
says “Donald Trump’s Vision of America isn’t American.”Cillizza states that the tweets were
definitely “directed at freshman Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.)”
and then, says:
Today and yesterday, a number of newspapers are putting
forth editorials purporting to defend freedom of the press, using the hashtag
#FreePress.It all seemed to be kicked
off by the Boston
Globe, which made these kinds of statements.
Journalists are not the enemy
August 15, 2018
A central pillar of President Trump’s
politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not
classified as fellow Americans, but rather “the enemy of the people.” This
relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences. We asked
editorial boards from around the country – liberal and conservative, large and
small – to join us today to address this fundamental threat in their own words.
Let me start with something basic.Of course, I support freedom of the press, as
well as all forms of peaceful expression and not just in words.My readers know that I have literally gone to
jail for this and am fighting in several courts to protect that right, both as
lawyer and citizen.They know I have
defended the right to speak of people who cheered when my freedom of expression
was suppressed.That’s not my problem
with this #FreePress protest.My problem
is the incredible hypocrisy involved and general stupidity about what freedom
of the press and freedom of expression means.
For starters, complaining that Trump is assaulting freedom
of the press is so ignorant it makes my head hurt.Does anyone in the press understand that freedom
of expression includes the right to criticize what others say?In other words, the First Amendment protects
the right of CNN to say X and it also includes the right of someone else to say
“CNN should not have said X.”
So, previously I wrote a piece
explaining how the Foreign
Agents Registration Act is Unconstitutional, as part of a promised series
on the Mueller indictment of thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian
companies. Once again, you can read the
indictment, here,
and you can search through its text, here, and, bluntly,
you might want to read that prior piece on the Foreign Registration Act,
because this piece is going to build off of that analysis. In other words, you really might not get what
I am trying to tell you unless you read that other piece.
So last night I took a break from
work and writing my next post dealing with the Mueller indictment and saw Black Panther. And I want to talk about it. As per usual, I’ll keep things spoiler-free
above the fold and warn you before I get spoilerific. Without spoilers, I remember getting a very
“Wonder Woman” vibe when reading the reviews.
Now, I liked Wonder Woman. I own
a copy of it and have watched and enjoyed it several times. It is a legitimately good movie. But it was much better reviewed than it
deserved to be. And you got the
suspicion that people were worried about being called sexist if they dare to be
insufficiently exuberant in their praise.
It took me a while to think of
what this reminded me of, and then I remembered this video. Watch it to the end. It’s pretty amazing/horrifying:
Now, in this video, I am not sure
there was any genuine enthusiasm for Stalin.
I mean, if they are that scared of him, how much can they really like
him? On the other hand, I absolutely
believe that there is a lot that is genuinely good about Wonder Woman, so I
presume that a large part of the praise it got was entirely genuine. But there was also an element where I
wondered if they were going massively over the top just because they were
afraid of being “the first one to stop clapping.” And I began to get the sense that the same
thing was happening with Black Panther.
And I was right. It was good.
I recommend it. But the praise is
waaaaaay over the top. For instance, I
saw reviews comparing Michael B. Jordan’s turn as Killmonger as being like
Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.
If they mean he is as scary as that iconic character, no, he’s not even
close and he’s not meant to be. If they
mean well-acted, yeah, Jordan did a pretty damn good job, but in a contest I
think I’d still give the win to Ledger.
Although to be fair to Jordan, it’s a bit of comparing apples to
oranges. A good scary performance is
much different than what Jordan was giving us.
Jordan’s Killmonger actually more resembles Michael Shannon’s depiction
of Zod, in Man of Steel, in that he
is shown to be a determined and ruthless follower of comprehensible ideology. I’m not saying you necessarily agree with
their ideology, but it was an ideology that seemed pretty logically consistent
and worked out.
(Well, Zod’s ideology was
consistent at least until Superman screwed up his plans so thoroughly that Zod
completely flipped his sh*t and decided to go on a killing spree, but in that
movie’s context it made sense that events would completely break his mind and
drive him insane.)
That being said, Killmonger,
despite having a silly name (that was surprisingly well-justified in the movie)
was really one of the best villains in the Marvel Universe. And Andy Sirkis is actually pretty awesome as
secondary returning villain Klaw.
Also, toward the end, there is a
character death that was surprisingly moving—really probably the most moving
moment since the funeral at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
And finally, before we get really
spoilerish, let me point out that you don’t need to stay for the final after
credits scene. As we all know, Marvel
really loves to put in those mid- and post-credits scenes, sometimes setting up
sequels, sometimes tying up a loose end, sometimes schmucking around (I’m
looking at you, Guardians of the Galaxy 2,
but with affection). So there is a
mid-credits scene that I won’t reveal, but I will say I think it should have
just been part of the movie. And then
when all the credits are done, they have an after credits scene that you
frankly didn’t need to see (although there are some kids who are pretty funny,
so maybe it is worth seeing it for that).
Why you don’t need to see it is...
Update: For some reason a video didn't embed properly. I am updating to fix. If that doesn't work, I will cut it out for a picture.
So, after another long break, I
am back with another post. In fact, I am
planning a series of posts dealing with different issues related to the
indictment of thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies. You can read the indictment, here, and you can
search through its text, here. But if you have been following me on twitter,
you are seeing me suggest that I see some very serious First Amendment problems
in this indictment.
Strap yourself in, dear reader,
this is a long one. We’re going to go
very deep into some dense statutes.
Well, Halloween is around the
corner again, and the killjoys on the left are busy fretting that someone might
wear the wrong thing and this annoyed me enough to make me want to blog again. Yep, it’s the fear of “cultural appropriation”—the
idea that the only people who can enjoy another culture are people from the
ethnic/racial group that was historically associated with it. So, only Native Americans can wear native
American headdresses, I guess only Italian Americans can eat Pizza, and so on. It’s a unique topic where people claiming they
are opposed to racism regularly prove that they are actually super racist.
See, the first problem is that
for one to “appropriate” a culture—that is, commit theft—you have to believe it
is the exclusive property of... some person or group of people. Which then leads you down all kinds of racist
rabbit holes.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at how Cosmo dealt with
this. I first became aware of their latest
tripe, by seeing this tweet.
Yep, it’s an article worried
about cultural appropriation. As you
probably know by now, Moana is based on Polynesian folklore and it’s a very
good movie. (Seriously, see it, if you
haven’t. You will thank me later.) Anyway, the Cosmo article confirms that it is
concerned primarily with white girls dressed up as the titular Disney Princess*
with this passage:
Chances are, you
have a child that is enamored with all things Disney and wants to be all of the
princesses. All of them! Especially Moana.
The New York Post
recently highlighted an article on raceconscious.org about how that’s probably
not a good choice if your kid is white, and revealed that “moms are freaking
out” over the culturally appropriative costume.
Another Setback to Brett Kimberlin’s Quest
to Outlaw Criticism
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over four years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. Has recently lost suits against
also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Patrick “Patterico”
Frey, Mandy Nagy (who is significantly incapacitated by a stroke), Lee
Stranahan, the National Bloggers Club, and
others alleging that we are all in conspiracy to defame him because we
reported factually about the spate of SWATtings committed against myself, Frey,
Erickson and others. And he sued two
senators for not appointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
Now regular readers
will recognize that name, Judge Vaughey, but I honestly don’t know how many of
my readers have been following this Kimberlin Saga since May of 2012, so let me
take a moment to review.
I guess it is
all fair to say that this segment of the story started when I wrote this
piece, probably one of the longest blog posts (assuming you follow the
links to the rest of it) written in blogdom, and definitely one of the most
popular and influential posts I have written.
If you are new to the story, it is hard to describe how influential it
was. In it, I lay out documentary and
video evidence showing how Brett Kimberlin attempted to frame me for a
crime. Seriously, if you haven’t go read
it. That got read by a lot of people,
but more importantly it convinced a lot of people that this was a bad
situation, that it was serious, and it needed attention. So other people started writing about it, who
frankly had more reach than I did, and it cascaded from there.
So like many
of you, I woke up to the news of a horrible massacre in Orlando, Florida. This is a breaking news story, so you need to
be extra leery about what you read, but currently the media seems to agree that
around fifty people have died and around fifty three people have been
injured. The murder is a man named Omar
Mateen, who is dead and thus sparing us the need for a trial and all of
that. Patterico
has details and knowing how he runs his site, you can expect regular updates,
either at the link or in subsequent posts.
I have social plans that will make it impossible to do the same, so
check them out now and then.
And however
one may wish to keep politics out of it, the left will not do so and we cannot
unilaterally disarm.
In fact,
unilateral disarmament may be a significant part of the problem in this. Pulse nightclub, the scene of this massacre,
was a gun
free zone. In fact, it couldn’t be a
gun freedom zone if it wanted to, because Florida law prohibits clubs like this
from allowing its patrons to carry. I am
also seeing reports that an off-duty cop was there as a security guard and
armed. Even if true, wouldn’t it have
been better to have thirty people who are well-armed? One guy might stop such and even, or he might
just be the first to die. I don’t want
heroic dead cops. I want stupid dead
murderers, killed in a hail of gunfire from law abiding citizens exercising their
most sacred right to bear arms and self-defense.
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Mandy Nagy (who is
significantly incapacitated by a stroke), Lee Stranahan, the National Bloggers
Club, and others alleging that we are
all in conspiracy to defame him because we reported factually about the spate
of SWATtings committed against myself, Frey, Erickson and others. So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
Now in the
last two posts, I discussed Kimberlin v.
Walker, et al., and Kimberlin v.
National Bloggers Club (II), and I have discussed other cases in the past. One case I don’t remember discussing at all,
is Kimberlin v. Hunton and Williams, et
al. That’s largely because I am not
a party in it, and not generally involved in that case, but my friend John Hoge
is and he has been discussing it regularly at his blog, here. He
calls it “RICO II,” sometimes humorously adding “Electric Boogalo” to riff off
the movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogalo” which is more famous for its title
than anything else.
How to explain
this suit? Well, the short version is
this. Longtime readers know that Brett Kimberlin
believes that there was a vast conspiracy against him called in shorthand “Team
Themis” that involves the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the FBI and I think the
CIA. No word on whether the Templars are
involved, too. Anyway, this suit is
about that pile of crazy... and then he
threw in some random unrelated state-law tort claims against John Hoge and Bill
Nickless. The insertion of Mr. Hoge
seems largely to be related to his anger at John for having won a peace order
hearing the week before Brett filed this.
He filed this dumb lawsuit literally the same week that Judge Hazel
dismissed all RICO claims (and most other claims in Kimberlin v. National Bloggers Club (I). You can read that opinion here. And guess who got the new RICO case? Judge Hazel.
It’s like legal whack-a-mole.
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Mandy Nagy (who is
significantly incapacitated by a stroke), Lee Stranahan, the National Bloggers
Club, and others alleging that we are
all in conspiracy to defame him because we reported factually about the spate
of SWATtings committed against myself, Frey, Erickson and others. So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
"He is an impotent little wannabe lawyer, isn't he?" "Yeah, what a loser!" "This is good popcorn."
Now, dear
reader, the last two posts on Brett Kimberlin (here
and here)
have been instances where a lot of catch up was needed. I had to go back months in time to tell you
what is happening. This time, we can
build off of events in, well, those last two posts.
For those just
catching up, I am going to do a recap, sort of a “last time on Lost,” moment.
To briefly
recap,Brett first had a case against
me that we call Kimberlin v. Walker, et
al. Basically it revolved primarily
(but not exclusively) around allegations that Brett is a pedophile and issues
like criminal charges that arose from that.
We went to trial on defamation and false light and won that case for the
most substantive reason possible: truth.
Which means that from now on, Brett is not allowed to claim anyone has
defamed him or placed him in a false light by calling him a pedophile at least
as of August 12, 2014, even one that has practiced it in the past. In my last post I discussed how he attempted
to appeal his loss in that case and lost that appeal.
Or: “Catching Up with Kimberlin v. Walker, et. al.”
With a headline like that, you know you will need popcorn!
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Mandy Nagy (who is
significantly incapacitated by a stroke), Lee Stranahan, the National Bloggers
Club, and others alleging that we are
all in conspiracy to defame him because we reported factually about the spate
of SWATtings committed against myself, Frey, Erickson and others. So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
The headline,
here, is that Brett Kimberlin has lost his latest appeal of his lawsuit
involving charges that he is a pedophile.
This is the same case that David Weigel wrote about in the
Daily Beast. And you can see where I
wrote in the immediate aftermath of that victory in the lower court here
and here. To explain how we get there, however, is
going to take a while. Bluntly, I don’t
write posts trying to chase the lastest breaking news. I try to give you thoughtful analysis you can
read for a while and this post is no exception.
If you read every embedded document, you are looking at around 300 pages
of text by my best estimate. So there’s
nothing wrong with saving it for when you really have a long time to read.
Let’s start
with a quick background about the case.
The short version is that in 2013, Brett Kimberlin’s wife, Tetyana
Kimberlin, separated from her husband and came to myself and John Hoge for
help. She told us that Brett Kimberlin
had seduced her when she was fourteen years old in Ukraine, that he brought her
to America when she was fifteen and carried on a sexual relationship in
violation of Maryland law (because she was below the relevant age of consent), and
various other horribles. This lined up
with other evidence that suggested Brett was a pedophile. She ended up filing charges based on that
crime, but at some point reversed course and stopped cooperating as a witness,
causing those charges to be dropped.
Brett sue me and several of my friends (John Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain,
Ali Akbar and two persons who allegedly wrote as KimberlnUnmasked) for alleged
stalking and harassment (which is not a cause of action in Maryland), malicious
prosecution, malicious use of process, intentional infliction of emotional
distress, defamation and false light.
First, we won a grant of summary judgment in our favor on all but the
defamation and false light claims. Then
we won a judgment (what is called a directed verdict in most states) at trial
on the issue of false light or defamation, because Brett literally had no
evidence that anything we said was false.
In other words, he thought he could get up there, prove we said bad things
about him and then rest his case, or he wanted the court to accept that
argument. He has now lost that argument,
twice.
This picture of Dr. King, in minister's robes and standing before the American flag, is oddly appropriate given
the subject of this post
As regular
readers know, every year I try to write a post celebrating Dr. King’s birthday. As I have said, if Dr. King had not been
born, or if he didn’t do what he did, I probably would not have gone to
college, let alone graduated from Yale Law School,* I would not be a lawyer,
and I very likely would not have been legally allowed to marry my wife. So a debt of gratitude is appropriately owed.
This year I will
talk about a passage that you might not know of from Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham
Jail.
I remember
when I first read the letter—or thought I read it—in middle school in North
Carolina, I was less than impressed. I
remember reading this passage in particular:
Catching up with Kimberlin v. National Bloggers Club (II))
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Mandy Nagy (who is
significantly incapacitated by a stroke), Lee Stranahan, the National Bloggers
Club, and others alleging that we are
all in conspiracy to defame him because we reported factually about the spate
of SWATtings committed against myself, Frey, Erickson and others. So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
In my last
post, I promised to start updating you, dear reader, on what is going on in the
many legal cases involving Brett Kimberlin.
I am not quite ready to do that, completely, but I can give you this
week’s big news: I won Brett Kimberlin’s latest suit against me. As of today, I am no longer being sued by
Brett Kimberlin (although I am still waiting on an outcome from the Court of
Special Appeals—something I will explain to you another time).
So that’s the
lede: I won completely, in that case. And
the purpose of today’s post is to talk about what got me there.
As a little
background, this case was a continuation of a case filed previously against me and
many others in Federal Court, which I refer to as Kimberlin v. National Bloggers Club. Basically I and several other people have
been SWATted. You can read my account of
that event, here. Anyway, having been SWATed, I was sued as a
result.
Yes, you are
reading it right. I was sued for being
SWATted. Basically Brett Kimberlin claimed
that we implied or said he was involved in various SWATtings and he was not,
and therefore sued us on a number of theories.
Of course the answer is that a true and accurate statement of the facts
makes you suspicious as hell about whether Kimberlin was involved, especially
in my SWATting. In other words, reality implies Brett might be
responsible. But we all know that reality is anti-Brett-Kimberlin conspiracy, so...
It’s often
said that there are silly seasons in politics.
Well, right now we seem to be in a stupid season.
Let’s start
with the Democrats and their latest stupid gun control proposal.
Now, stupidity
and gun control go together like peanut butter and chocolate. For instance, the same people who want open
borders very often want strict gun control, as though the same people moving
people and drugs across our borders freely would hesitate to move guns if there
was sufficient profit in it. Indeed,
often we see single-city gun control. Liberals
in Washington, D.C., for instance, apparently think that no one will to
Northern Virginia, buy a gun, and drive back.
If you are talking gun control without talking border control you are
just a fool—or a cynic hoping to manipulate fools.
Or “Why You Shouldn’t Trust Wikipedia Part
14,242”
Update: The Wikipedia page has
deleted the whole line. This might be in
response to a Gawker story (which I won’t link to) where they allegedly called
his mom and asked her if it was true and she denied it. That led to people proclaiming that Erickson
was lying, instead of that it being a disputed account. Because that is the most obvious
explanation, instead of the mother being embarrassed and not wanting to admit
it.
So, on Pearl
Harbor day this year, Erick Erickson tweeted this out:
Growing up, I remember my parents
never letting us have Asian food on December 7th. They were children of
WWII.
This in turn
led to a deep discussion about getting past the racism of some of our parents and
commending him for being honest about his upbringing and...
Just kidding,
everyone attacked him for his candor and, even though he didn’t endorse what
his parents did, they assumed he agreed with them.
And it even
found its way into his Wikipedia page.
See if you see what is wrong with this image:
(I have the whole thing screencapped in case it changes.)
Yep, according
to Wikipedia, “Erickson's parents refused to let his family eat Asian children on December 7th.” Apparently Mr. Erickson had an insatiable
desire to each Asian children, at least when he was growing up, and his parents
could only prevent him from eating said children on one day a year, or
something.
Nor is this
the only thing Wikipedia has ever gotten laughably wrong when it comes to
conservatives. For instance, during the
Bush administration, Wikipedia said Condi Rice was trained to be a “concert
penis” and littered Bush’s entry with the word “jerk.”
I think the
big picture is this. The words on your
screen do not appear by magic. There is
a human hand behind each word, even these you are reading right now. They can be driven by an honest desire to get
at the truth, or they can be driven by unconscious bias or even a conscious agenda. About three and a half years ago when I first
embarked on my quest to hold Brett Kimberlin accountable for the crimes he
committed against me, I recognized that I need to establish my
credibility. So I provided my source
documents and even video evidence to support my story. As I said back
then: “In other words, you won’t have to believe my
word on this. You will only have to believe your eyes.”
Always be
skeptical about what any person is telling you, even from a source as authoritative
as a textbook. Make sure that there are
fact checkers who are not asleep at the switch or so filled with bias
themselves that they can’t recognize an error when it appears. In computer programing they have an acronym:
GIGO. It stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out,
meaning that if your inputted information is bad, your output will suffer. In our democracy we have to base our
decisions on the information we have, and if the information we have is
garbage, our decisions will be garbage.
So you need to screen your sources of information for trustworthiness.
As for Wikipedia,
it’s just not trustworthy--at least not on politically charged topics.
---------------------------------------
Sidebar: as a matter of full
disclosure, Mr. Erickson was a co-defendant in some of the Brett-Kimberlin-related
litigation and even apparently settled. If you think that somehow creates a bias in
me that affects this article, that seems unlikely. At best, it means that when someone talked
about it on Twitter, I was slightly more likely to notice the story because I know
him a little. But once I noticed it for
any reason I doubt I would have drawn different conclusions.
Also, regular
readers might wonder, “hey, Aaron! You’re blogging again! Does this mean you will be filling us in on
what has been happening in Kimberlin Saga?
Yes, I will be working on that, soon.
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Patrick “Patterico”
Frey, Mandy Nagy, Lee Stranahan, Erick Erickson, Breitbart.com, the Blaze,
Mercury Radio Arts, Red State, the National Bloggers Club, and others alleging that we are all in conspiracy
to defame him because we reported factually about the spate of SWATtings
committed against myself, Frey and Erickson.
So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
As promised
last Thursday, dear reader, today I am giving you the mysterious document
mentioned in this docket entry:
Docket
Date: 07/21/2015 Docket
Number: 25
Docket
Description: MOTION, PROTECTIVE ORDER
Docket
Type: Motion Filed By:
Defendant Status: Open
Docket
Text: DEFENDANTS, BRETT AND
TETYANA KIMBERLIN'S SEALED MOTION FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER, PRELIMINARY
INJUNCTION AND PROTECTION ORDER, AND ATTACHMENTS, FILED. (PLEADING REMOVED AND
PLACED UNDER SEAL)
That was filed
in Walker v. Kimberlin, et al., the
case I filed against Brett and
Tetyana Kimberlin designed to 1) enjoin both of them from abusing the civil and
criminal justice system and 2) get damages from Brett for basically the last
three and a half years of hell. You can
read the complaint filed here,
and it might help to read it. So without
further ado, I will present the his dumb motion and then fisk its factual
inaccuracies momentarily:
This is the latest post in what I
half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me for
over three years, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a
crime. I recognize that this might sound
like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that
fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word. You only have to believe your eyes. Indeed, he sued me for saying this and lost
on the issue of truth. And more recently
when his wife came to us claiming that this convicted terrorist had threatened
her harm, we tried to help her leave him, and for that, he sued myself, John
Hoge, Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar for helping his wife and for calling
him a pedophile. He lost on the issue of
truth. He is also suing Hoge, Akbar, Dan
Backer, DB Capital Strategies, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Patrick “Patterico”
Frey, Mandy Nagy, Lee Stranahan, Erick Erickson, Breitbart.com, the Blaze,
Mercury Radio Arts, Red State, the National Bloggers Club, and others alleging that we are all in conspiracy
to defame him because we reported factually about the spate of SWATtings
committed against myself, Frey and Erickson.
So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has
been happening.
As I mentioned
yesterday, Brett Kimberlin was trying to get Ace of Spades’ identity in two
courts at once. We saw a federal court
refuse to provide a protective order on Monday.
I found that out literally as I was putting the finishing touches on the
document in this post, which made me wonder if I should bother submitting. I decided I wanted to because the fight might
not be over in federal court. First, the
deficiencies (Federal) Judge Hazel pointed to were technical, only, and he
seemed to leave open the door to them re-filing and improving on those
technicalities. Second, there are always appellate options. So best to oppose it in the state court and
hope that the federal courts do the right thing.
