‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues

Posted on | June 12, 2012 | 104 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Liars hate nothing worse than to be exposed as liars — exposure makes it hard for them to get away with their lies — and three weeks of public attention to lying felon Brett Kimberlin and his associates have put them under extraordinary psychological pressure.

We’ve seen evidence of Neal Rauhauser’s spiraling descent into madness, outlined by Dan Collins at The Conservatory:

In the email, Rauhauser concedes that the SWATting of Stack was likely performed by one of his “beandog” followers, but that he believes the culprit will get off because the call was untraceable. In Rauhauser’s demented mind, Patterico, Stacy and others were actually the cause of the SWATting, according to some as-yet-to-be-invoked legal theory. . . .
Sometime Kimberlin operative Ron Brynaert has been trying to play a double game, quarrelling with Rauhauser on the one hand and threatening Kimberlin critics who associate him with Rauhauser and Kimberlin on the other, and is likelier than Rauhauser to flip, IMO, but this revelation changes the playing field quite a bit. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Rauhauser turning state’s evidence against Kimberlin at the sane advice of legal counsel. Whether he still has the functioning neurons to try to pull his ass out of the fire, though, is an open question.

There is now a Memeorandum thread, and more and more people are beginning to see the connections between the various dots in the bizarre pattern surrounding Kimberlin’s tax-exempt 501(c) operations at Velvet Revolution and Justice Through Music Project. Investigative journalist Matthew Vadum assures me that lying is not considered a charitable activity by the IRS, and one wonders what the authorities would discover in a thorough forensic audit of Kimberlin’s lucrative (although “non-profit”) enterprises.

Kimberlin and his associates constantly claim to be victims of harassment, but who’s really harassing whom? Patterico exposes the vicious harassment of Mandy “Liberty Chick” Nagy by one of Kimberlin’s most vocal and persistent online defenders.

Furthermore — and there are so many dots in this pattern that new connections are sometimes surprising — Patterico demonstrates what would appear to be conspiratorial collusion between Rauhauser and Nadia Naffe, who has claimed that she was harassed by James O’Keefe. This is a connection involving Jay Leiderman, a California attorney with ties to both the Occupy movement and the “Anonymous” international hacker conspiracy.

One of Leiderman’s clients was the criminal hacker known as “Commander X,” who jumped bail and joined the Occupy movement. Leiderman had defended the denial-of-service attacks by “Commander X” as a form of civil disobedience. But now ~~Leiderman’s~~ another attorney, Ed Fry, is on the hook for the $35,000 bond he signed for this Rosa Parks of hacking.

Cosmic justice is a funny thing that way.

-– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

THE KIMBERLIN FILES

UPDATE: Dan Collins has updated to correct a misunderstanding:

Correction: Mike Stack emails to state that he pressed charges against Rauhauser for harassment, but that neither is suing the other.

I’ve also corrected an error. I had previously misread the Talking Points Memo article about Christopher “Commander X” Doyon, which makes clear that it wasn’t Jay Leiderman who signed the bond for Doyon:

Ed Fry, a lawyer who has been involved in the the Occupy movement in Santa Cruz, told TPM he met Doyon during the summer of 2010 and put up the bond to help out a friend. He doesn’t think the law will catch up to Doyon, who joined up with the Occupy movement after being released.
“I don’t expect him to be caught. He’s pretty Wile E. Coyote,” said Fry, adding that he last talked to Doyon around Christmas. He said signing the bond was a risk he had to take.

Our first obligation is to get the facts right, and even minor factual errors — honest mistakes — are regrettable.

Category: The Kimberlin Files

Comments

104 Responses to “‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues”

Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 4:47 pm

If self-knowledge is your goal, you clearly are on a very hard path.
Sarah Wells
June 12th, 2012 @ 4:49 pm

So Leiderman is Doyon’s (CommanderX’s) atty., and Frey is the occupy guy who ponied up bail and is now on the hook. Do I have that right?

Here is a (face not shown) of Frey arguing a case in air mattress court. http://auntieimperial.blogspot.com/2011/06/santa-cruz-california-lawyer-ed-frey.html
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:05 pm

It appears that this Ed Frey is a lawyer, too. In Soquel, which is a pretty little town I’ve always wanted to live in just down the coast from Santa Cruz. I have no clue how he ended up involved in all this. I’m sure someone does, but not me. All I will claim to know at this juncture is where Soquel is.
Shawny
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:06 pm

Whoa, what kind of fool SWAT’s a Yacht??……..anyone heard who owns it or who was aboard who may have been a target?
Shawny
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:08 pm

Ummm, sorry, I got excited…….here’s one of the many links to reports:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18417962#
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:15 pm

No yacht was involved, period, so far as I can see. And rescuers are not exactly over-excited LEOs arriving at one’s home in the dead of night thinking someone’s been murdered.
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:16 pm

Going back and deleting all but the first line of my comment.
blaster
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:19 pm

Don’t forget Kevin Zeese. He’s the guy who served a notice to National Bloggers Club of intent to sue. And self-described primary organizer of Occupy DC. He has to be connected in all this.

Zeese was also pushing for disbarment of Bush administration lawyers, something that was at least considered early on in the Obama admin – coincidence?
MrPaulRevere
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:36 pm

‘Breitbart Unmasked’s journey on the high road lasted about 6 hours or so, they have just launched a vicious personal assault on Lee Stranahan. For context, here is what BU said earlier today: “That being said, BU will no longer be posting personal information or private information of anyone anywhere. ” Filthy scummy liars the lot of them.
Rob Crawford
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:44 pm

Shaped like a mushroom.
Rob Crawford
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:46 pm

No, he’s a snitch.
Rob Crawford
June 12th, 2012 @ 5:47 pm

Well, we can hope they cross-check what he tells them. The most important thing they’ll get from him is names. Build up a map of connections — like Sleeman did to the Thuggee.
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 7:57 pm

“Our first obligation is to get the facts right, and even minor factual errors — honest mistakes — are regrettable ”

And this is why I read you and support you, and the “right wing” blogosphere in general. But you in particular.
DaveO
June 12th, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

Wasn’t Zeese and Occupy DC being funded through SEIU? They had some toney digs with the professional Lobbyists.

Thing about being a Progressive in the national scene: you’re at most two degrees of separation from some truly odious folk.
DaveO
June 12th, 2012 @ 8:12 pm

Considering the FBI works for AG Holder, is Rauhauser’s contact with them a function of him being a snitch, or them being couriers from on high?
Adobe_Walls
June 12th, 2012 @ 8:40 pm

Coincidences are things that happen for reasons as yet unknown, not to be confused with random occurrences.
Adobe_Walls
June 12th, 2012 @ 8:43 pm

Highly speculative, good work.
Shawny
June 12th, 2012 @ 8:56 pm

lol…..ok, let me just rephrase that. What kinda fool posts a report on a yacht swat with no yacht and asks who owned it? Geez, if I drank I’d be dangerous.
Sometimes, bad folks have Meltdowns « The Daley Gator
June 12th, 2012 @ 9:04 pm

[…] Kimberlin” updates, and, today, the mental stability of Neal Rauhauser is the subject. Stacy rightly points out that liars hate being exposed Liars hate nothing worse than to be exposed as liars — exposure makes it hard for them to get […]
Bob Belvedere
June 12th, 2012 @ 9:09 pm

Sounds like a lawyer wrote it.
Bob Belvedere
June 12th, 2012 @ 9:12 pm

Whitey Bulger was a snitch for the FBI.
The Brett Kimberlin and Company Plot Thickens | The Lonely Conservative
June 12th, 2012 @ 9:46 pm

[…] of Brett Kimberlin, aka The Speedway Bomber, and his associates, be sure to check out the latest at The Other McCain. There is also a memeorandum thread with additional discussion from: The Conservatory, The […]
PaulLemmen
June 12th, 2012 @ 10:09 pm

And lost in the fog sans compass, moral or otherwise …
juliusstahl
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:06 pm

One thing that you and other Kimberlin victims must do immediately is file complaints with the IRS. They do not like violations of 501c3 rules. Also there are no requirements. One of them is that the organization have an independent audit committee. Justice Through Music may be in violation of this and out of compliance with other regulations.
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:24 pm

I cannot over-emphasize how good an idea this is. Thank you for mentioning it. There’s no way that either JTMP or VR could have an independent audit committee – neither has more than 2 board members listed! Or didn’t in 2010, anyway.
Montjoie
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:25 pm

I’ve always loved “not-for-profit.” Sure, the enterprise takes no profit, but the folks who work at them sure do.
After Dinner Links | Liberty News Network
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:36 pm

[…] The Other McCain: ‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues […]
JeffWeimer
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:46 pm

Gotta eat, right?
Dianna Deeley
June 12th, 2012 @ 11:49 pm

*Sigh*

Why, please, should someone who works at, say, the Salvation Army not make enough to live on? Is there something wrong with the people who work in non-profit world making a living?

I’m the last person on the planet to tell you that all of non-profit world is squeaky clean. It’s not. But more non-profits get scammed than are scams. Most of the people working in non-profit world are amazing – and to speak of them with scorn, as if every single one were Brett Kimberlin, is quite wrong.

By the way, yes, I’m in non-profit world. I’m on the funding side. So I actually do know what I’m talking about.
Montjoie
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:09 am

{You can watch your language, or you can GTFO. Take your pick.}
Adjoran
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:38 am

Yeah, but he was a man of greater character than these guys.
Dianna Deeley
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:45 am

I’ve read that a number of times, and each time, the moral abdication has appalled me afresh.

It is one thing to view the world compassionately; it’s another to either abnegate one’s ability to take a moral stance and call it compassion.

It’s very true that it’s possible to stretch one’s perspective so far that the human condition no longer applies (as Dorothy Dunnett wrote), but it’s surely a dreadful sin. If nothing else, it’s a sin when one remains engaged with the world. Perhaps such a position is tenable if one retreats to a mountaintop and the contemplation of eternity, but short of that sort of withdrawal from moral action, such a position is surely an act of pretension that closes the path.

Let me leave you with a small piece of wisdom: There are many paths to enlightenment, but the quickest is the way of the warrior.

No warrior ever ascended by failing to make moral choices, and to recognize and confront evil where he found it.
CallMeStormy
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:46 am

Another layer of the onion yet to be peeled away and exposed: What is the relationship between Kimberlin’s non-profits and the California-based Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity? Heiress Lori Grace, president of this institute, has contributed money to Kimberlin through the Threshold Foundation. The institute’s website is at:
http://democracyandelectionintegrity.org/

Read this group’s mission statement and propaganda pages and you’ll find many references to the same players and phony disinfo cases often cited by Kimberlin and his proxies. You have to wonder: To what extent have these folks colluded to rig and undermine our elections?
K-Bob
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:56 am

I appreciate the light touch of the moderation here. Patterico needs some mods, though. Here you can learn new facts about the story or clarify confusion, all within the range of a few comments. There, it’s flame war and hassle for pages and pages.

Ace is right to move to some other sort of “new comment thingy”. Never let the inmates take over the asylum.
Adjoran
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:58 am

Actually, no one gets paid to work for the Salvation Army, including its CEO – they are all volunteers, which is why they consistently have one of the best ratios for administrative and fundraising costs of any charity. They are the exception, of course.

But most non-profits do pay. And many spend a lot of money on well-appointed offices and perquisites for their employees. I have a feeling this is how Kimberlin manages on his < $20,000 salary – by having the foundations pay for lots of other stuff. No one would ever know by the paperwork.

Yes, audits can shine a lot of light in dark corners. They make cockroaches very, very nervous.
Dianna Deeley
June 13th, 2012 @ 1:08 am

What do you think?

Further, how influential do you think these organizations are?
Dianna Deeley
June 13th, 2012 @ 1:10 am

Not quite. There’s some professional staff, and the various “ranked” individuals receive a stipend.
CallMeStormy
June 13th, 2012 @ 1:52 am

The Institute appears to be rolling out a vote-counting system called the TEVS system, developed by Mitchell Trachtenberg. So far, it’s only been employed in northern California, but the website mentions plans to expand it to Wisconsin, Arizona and Colorado this year. I’m leery, in as much as the claims for its “transparency” are grounded upon it being administered by another one of Lori Grace’s non-profits, the Sunrise Center. If you look, you’ll see that center has clearly partisan aims “to support, educate and empower the growth of a community, which celebrates the dawning of a greener world.” Also, ironically, many of the in-house staff members are tantric sex instructors, so presumably they know a thing or two about “transparency,” although whether that knowledge encompasses fair and impartial elections is certainly a matter warranting further debate.
Brett Kimberlin Strikes again Another Swatting Attack Against Conservatives - Page 5 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
June 13th, 2012 @ 1:53 am

[…] […]
juliusstahl
June 13th, 2012 @ 5:47 am

Thanks, Dianna. I worked for a children’s health non-profit in SF Bay Area until it crashed in the recession in 2008. The independent audit committee requirement went in a year or two before that and was of great concern. We also got scrutinized for our financial structure complete with a visit from an IRS inspector.

Check out foundation Group’s article on 5 potential sources of trouble for 501c3’s with the IRS. – bit.ly/KB1aJl

1. Complaints filed by 3rd parties
2. Form 990 – “a prime contributor to IRS audits” “most tax preparers are not experienced with the specifics of IRS tax-exemption”
3. Payroll tax returns – These can bite an organization via errors and omissions. “If the IRS sees odd things on payroll tax returns, scrutiny is invited.” Also, issues of paying staff as independent contractors are important.
4. PUBLIC SHENANIGANS – “Acting out publicly in a manner contrary to federal regulations is simply baiting the IRS to come knocking. The current situation involving the organization ACORN is a prime example.”
5. Random audits

This is well worth pursuing particularly since Eugene Volokh and other lawyers have come to the aid of Kimberlin victims.
juliusstahl
June 13th, 2012 @ 5:54 am

More: Excellent article from American Bar Asscn – The IRS’s New Regulation of Nonprofit Governance bit.ly/KmqshM

Particularly important are the requirements for Independent Directors.
Bob Belvedere
June 13th, 2012 @ 7:58 am

You should put together a book of your spot-on aphorisms, AW.

May I suggest: ‘It’s Written On The Adobe Walls’.
Bob Belvedere
June 13th, 2012 @ 7:59 am

The last one in the tome could be: ‘Make more mud bricks’.
Bob Belvedere
June 13th, 2012 @ 8:02 am

That’s the spirit!
Bob Belvedere
June 13th, 2012 @ 8:06 am

Adj, your usually useful [and correct] cynicism, in this case, in misdirected.

As with corporations, they are many more small non-profits than big, and they are true to their missions, just like the vast majority of small businesses aren’t corrupt.
Bob Belvedere
June 13th, 2012 @ 8:18 am

He’s a lawyer and they’re always so f’ing cautious.
Stacy McCain « Sister Toldjah
June 13th, 2012 @ 8:57 am

[…] This: ‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues […]
Wombat_socho
June 13th, 2012 @ 10:59 am

Thank you. I was gratified the other day to see Moe Lane’s post on troll-hunting; while I haven’t managed (yet) to monetize it as he has, it was nice to see one’s philosophy about these things expressed by someone I respect.
krutboo
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:18 pm

Anamika – good lord you are an exhausting person to handle. I feel sorry for your family. We can ignore you but they are stuck dealing with you pseudo-intellectual diarrhea
Dianna Deeley
June 13th, 2012 @ 12:31 pm

Good post. I agree with every word.