‘Other Computer Savvy Activists’

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From the “About” page at Brett Kimberlin’s “Justice Through Music Project” Web site:

Justice Through Music Project (“JTM”) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization that uses famous musicians and bands to organize, educate and activate young people about the importance of civil rights, human rights and voting. . . .
Nationally known entertainment attorney Jeff Cohen and other computer savvy activists founded JTMP in 2003 in order to fill a particular need in today’s world — connecting with and giving a voice to youth by speaking a language they understand, music and freedom of expression.

They forgot to add: “Send money so we can pay a convicted terrorist to go around suing every blogger who says bad things about him, because — hey! — we’re all about democracy. Also, music.”

UPDATE: Popehat discusses “the astoundingly vile and terrifyingly sociopathic Brett Kimberlin, who for reasons that passeth understanding is still a darling to certain political activists despite the contemptible life he has led and continues to lead.” (Hat-tip: Patterico.)

Permit me to note that “sociopathic narcissism” is not a political ideology. Kimberlin seems to be under the impression that, if he just keeps doing the signifying jive — shout-outs on a behalf of progressivism, and attacks on various Republican bogeyman — this will justify all his wretched personal evil: Politics as a redeeming religion, as it were.

That kind of works for various successful and powerful Democrats, like the hideous drunken buffoon Ted Kennedy, whose stentorian voice, partisan ferocity and famous name seemed to have enshrouded him with secular sainthood in the eyes of many liberals.

But is Brett Kimberlin really such a progressive MVP that he can command the same worshipful reverence on the Left? I doubt it.

Maybe somebody should ask some of Kimberlin’s former BFFs — the liberals he may have screwed over and/or ripped off — if they think he’s an honest and worthwhile ally. Ask around, eh?

An award-winning reporter for the New Yorker, Mark Singer, wrote a book called Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin. Singer is a total lefty — out there on the progressive fringe where MSNBC and Daily Kos are taken as gospel — and yet Singer recognized Kimberlin as a selfish scammer:

“After Garry Trudeau in ‘Doonesbury,’ the New Yorker’s Mark Singer was possibly the most prominent journalist to sympathetically report allegations that convict Brett Kimberlin had sold marijuana to Dan Quayle when the Vice-President was a law student. Indeed, Singer signed a contract with Kimberlin to write a book, but Kimberlin turns out to be a top-flight con man — as the author reveals with dismay and near admiration. So this picaresque detective story has a mea culpa at its heart, an effort to explain how certain things — such as former Harvard Law dean Erwin Griswold’s support for Kimberlin’s court appeal and Kimberlin’s muzzling by federal officials — helped build an edifice of sand. Singer conscientiously reconstructs Kimberlin’s history of crime — he was a drug smuggler and, mostly likely, the man behind some vicious bombings in Indianapolis. Some of this narrative gets tedious, yet it’s part of Singer’s effort to contrast facts with Kimberlin’s confident but ‘apparitional’ explanations. Leavening the story are Singer’s tales of Kimberlin’s charmed life behind bars: he wangled unlimited long-distance phone service, became the jailhouse lawyer for numerous Mafiosi and snared an impressive legal support group. Now free, the former dope smuggler helps ship commodities to Ukraine; but when Kimberlin (with Singer in tow) had a chance to meet Quayle at a book signing, he refused to confront him. Quayle, it now seems, deserves apologies.”
— Publisher’s Weekly, 1996

More recent coverage of Kimberlin activities — including a 2007 Time magazine article — makes clear that the scammer keeps on scamming.

 

42 comments

  2. Nonprofit world boilerplate! Guaranteed to produce a high-minded coma in three paragraphs or less!

    Also, a buzz-word bingo contender! 

    You’ll never notice your pocket getting picked. Democracy and Music! That’s all you’ll hear.

  5. Yea, remember one of their greatest hits..Brother Can You Spare a Dime bag?   And Come On Baby Light My Firebomb.

    Loaded with talent there, aren’t they?

  8. Bubble people…the rank and file (not the big chiefs) of the left call these sort of folks to them.

  11. Hey, if John Lithgow hadn’t been against both them things, Footloose woulda sucked…

  14. “Permit me to note that “sociopathic narcissism” is not a political ideology. ”

    No, but that sort of personality blends in very nicely with a fair number of political ideologies, primarily fascism, communism, socialism, and despotism. 

    That’s because those same ideologies prefer deception and deceit over truth, power over freedom, regardless of the cost to others, just because they can.  This pretty much describes a sociopathic narcissist as well, hence the compatibility. 

  17. I hope the conservative bloggers keep spreading this and relinking each other on it – that’s the only way there will ever be any heat on the donors, and that’s the key.

    The confidence scheme’s greatest enemy is outside attention.  It always foils them, they need to keep everything between them and the mark(s).

  21. Precisely. The sterilizing effect of sunshine on a con is well known to criminals and they will go to great lengths to keep out the sunlight …

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