The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland

Posted on | May 22, 2012 | 201 Comments

When terrorist Brett Kimberlin was convicted of multiple felonies in 1981,
he could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison.

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin on Monday continued his effort to silence those who write about his criminal past by contacting my wife’s employer, claiming that I was “harassing” him. The resulting security concern required immediate relocation if I was to be able to continue writing about the case of Kimberlin, a violent felon, perjurer and admitted tax cheat who is employed as the director of a 501(c)3 non-profit that has collected $1.8 million in contributions since 2005.

Kimberlin was convicted of multiple federal felonies in 1981 and sentenced to 50 years in prison after he terrorized a small Indiana town in a brutal crime weeklong bombing spree. Law enforcement officials told the Indianapolis Star they believed the bombings were committed in an attempt to distract authorities investigating the 1978 murder of a 65-year-old grandmother, a crime in which Kimberlin was a suspect.

In recent months, Kimberlin has used a strategy of legal intimidation and workplace harassment in an apparent attempt to silence his critics, including blogger Seth Allen, Virginia attorney Aaron Walker and Los Angeles deputy district attorney Patrick Frey.

Walker says he and his wife were fired from their jobs because of Kimberlin’s harassment. Walker did legal work for Allen, who was sued after writing about Kimberlin’s criminal career. On Thursday, Walker published a 28,000-word account of how he says Kimberlin tried to “frame” him on a bogus assault charge.

Kimberlin is a known associate of Neal Rauhauser, a Democrat campaign consultant who has described himself as a computer “hacker.” Kimberlin, director of the tax-exempt Justice Through Music Project, is also involved in another tax-exempt group, Velvet Revolution, which has gained national attention by demanding criminal prosecution of high-profile figures including Republican strategist Karl Rove, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue, and the late Internet news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. Kimberlin’s name also surfaced last year in connection with the so-called “Anonymous” international hacker conspiracy. Kimberlin has pursued numerous strategies to harass journalists and bloggers who have attempted to call attention to his criminal past and his notorious dishonesty — a “top-flight con man,” as Publisher’s Weekly called him in a review of award-winning journalist Mark Singer’s 1996 book, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin.

Convicted of drug smuggling and forging documents as well as numerous violent felonies, Kimberlin claims to have ceased his lifelong criminal career after being released from federal prison in 2000. Yet his habitual dishonesty – Kimberlin was first convicted of perjury at age 18 – appears unchanged. As recently as 2007, Time magazine reported that Kimberlin was gaining notoriety on progressive blog sites by “repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true.” According to Walker, Kimberlin falsely accused him of assault after a courthouse encounter in which Kimberlin attempted to photograph Walker in violation of court policy. Walker says Maryland officials have refused to investigate his complaints of criminal actions by Kimberlin, and has asked his blog readers to contact those officials to demand action:

Attorney for Montgomery County
50 Maryland Avenue, 5th Floor
Rockville, Maryland 20850 [email protected]. 240-777-7300

* * * * * * *

Until I read Walker’s story Thursday morning, I had never heard of Brett Kimberlin. The story was so obviously newsworthy that I spent the next four days writing about it, including these items:

Particularly intriguing to me was the fact that Kimberlin is the director of a 501(c)3 organization which has received as much as $558,543 a year (in 2008) in contributions, including grants from major philanthropic foundations. Several people who have examined IRS filings by Kimberlin’s Justice Through Music Project and the 501(c)4 non-profit Velvet Revolution have told me they have concerns about the “thinly documented” filings (to quote one person experienced in non-profit work who wished to remain anonymous), that appear “very sketchy” (to quote another person who has examined the IRS Form 990’s for the two tax-exempt groups).

These concerns about Kimberlin’s “non-profit” activities raise intriguing questions, Walker observed Monday, considering what Singer wrote in his 1996 book about Kimberlin:

[Kimberlin] had not not yet turned nineteen when he first sought professional tax advice. “When I first started dealing dope, I went to see a lawyer in New York, who told me how to beat the tax people,” he said. “I had to pay this guy $2,500 or $3,000 for a couple of hours of consultation. Plus I had to fly out there. But it was worth it.” Other than driving an expensive car and owning a small airplane, he avoided ostentation and, along the way, the scrutiny of the tax authorities. Each year, he figured out how much he’d spent, extrapolated the income that would be required to support such a life, added ten percent, and filed a short-form tax return, taking the standard deduction. The tax code did not specifically require him to list his occupation, so he left that space blank. The only money he ever put in the bank, he said, was the money he used to pay taxes. He wrote only two checks a year — one to the Internal Revenue Service, and the other to the Indiana Department of Revenue.

Such boastfulness about his successful federal tax evasion make Kimberlin a very dubious person to be entrusted with the directorship of a tax-exempt non-profit organization that would seem to be his only source of legal income. His recent harassment of those who have written about his criminal career appears to have created renewed interest in Kimberlin’s activities. Major news organizations are rumored to be working on stories about the latest bizarre developments in the strange saga of the violent criminal known as the “Speedway Bomber,” who once falsely claimed to have sold drugs to a college-aged Dan Quayle.

My own encounter with Kimberlin’s attempted intimidation appears typical of his modus operandi, which students of psychology recognize as the habitual behavior of a deviant sociopath: Attempting to distract from his own malevolent actions by accusing his targeted enemies of doing to him what he is doing to them – and to many others. Several sources to whom I have spoken in recent days, who for obvious reasons wish to remain anonymous, have expressed suspicion that Kimberlin is doing this not only to hide his criminal past, but also in a misguided attempt to conceal his current malicious (and perhaps felonious) activities.

These are not accusations I make; rather, these are crucial elements of a newsworthy story that I am attempting to report. Kimberlin seems to be determined to prevent me – or anyone else – from reporting this story. In order to continue reporting it, without jeopardizing the safety of my family and other innocent people, I have been compelled to leave Maryland. Many people have responded to my appeal for prayer and financial assistance in this difficult crisis, but it is important to emphasize that this story is not about me.

This story is about Brett Kimberlin, a criminal of infamous reputation whose recent actions indicate that he fears widespread scrutiny. His attempts to suppress the truth have only generated more of the scrutiny Kimberlin had hoped to prevent, so that Monday for the first time his story merited a thread on the political news aggregation site Memeorandum.

— 30 —

The National Bloggers Club, Inc, a non-profit organization that organizes the annual Blog Bash event celebrating free-market bloggers, is making available a press contact for those interested in learning more about this story:

[email protected]

 
Update (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!
 





 


Category: Crime, Terrorism, The Kimberlin Files

Barack Obama’s Political Career Reduced To A Brace Of Guns`n`Roses Videos

Posted on | May 22, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

2008: “It’s so easy, easy, when everybody’s trying to please me. . .”

2012: “Funny how everything was roses when we held onto the guns. . .”

Category: Barack Obama, Music

Investing Yourself

Posted on | May 22, 2012 | 48 Comments

by Smitty

An item in the blogs yesterday talked about snooty eating.

After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic.

Wasn’t A Diabolical, Oldworld, Legendary Fascist also vegetarian? Not that there is any meat on the connecting bone between our Lefty friends and that monster, mind you.

The more interesting point I’ve noted in life is that the more of yourself you invest in, well, anything, the more tedious you can become. I went to a two-week school, years ago, on highland bagpipe. Jimmy McIntosh was instructing on the topic of Pìobaireachd (note how I opted for the most anal-retentive spelling, replete with snooty ‘i’). The musical form is strictly solo. Spitball thrower that I am, I inquired if two world-class pipers such as himself could do a duet. His head ‘sploded. There are less than 200 or so canonical examples of Ceòl Mór. Sure, it’s still written today, but it’s far cooler to decry the loss of the Noble Savage air breathed by the MacCrimmons, know ye not?

Done correctly, it constitutes performance art. You really have to have the instrument and the piper in top shape to rattle off one correctly. Done sloppily (e.g. by me) it’s a dog’s breakfast. Here is Dave Mason working out on The Massacre of Glecoe
You really have to commit to the full tune to understand how, acoustically, it’s like a blurry image that is slowly brought into focus as the variations get gnarlier. By the time it climaxes, the piper is truly getting the most out that instrument.

The thing is that these pieces take years to get any good at playing. Or at least it would me.

But the point of this post is that one of life’s challenges is to pick enjoyable things like the pipe, do them well, but not become insufferable about them. Writing software is another example I could have chosen, but which uses fewer Unicode vowels than Gaelic, proving software’s inferiority. 🙂

Category: Culture, Music

LIVE AT FIVE – 05.22.12

Posted on | May 22, 2012 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Summit Doubleheader Short On Surprises

NATO agrees on Afghanistan roadmap

Obama’s advisers whine about time spent away from campaign trail

Sri Lanka’s Former Army Chief Pardoned
Ex-general Sarath Fonseka released from jail following years of protests

Putin Names Former Ministers As Aides
Move expected to weaken PM Medvedev’s new government, centralize power in Kremlin



POLITICS
WaPo/ABC Poll: Obama, Romney In Dead Heat

Mitt Romney: coming on hard

Poll respondents agree on Surber Rule.

Opening Statements Set In Fort Hood Bomb Plot Trial

Old Bush Administration Feud Resurfaces In Arizona Senate Race

Catholic Dioceses, Colleges File Suit Over Contraception Mandate

Chairman Of NRC Resigns Under Fire

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Music Piracy Case

GOP Senators Slam 9th Circuit Maui Conference Plans

Chicago PD Gets High Marks For Handling NATO Protesters



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Prices Up On Expectations PRC, US Economies Will Improve; NYMEX $92.57, Brent $108.81
Germany, France Want Greece To Stay In Eurozone
Where Are Facebook’s Friends? Stock Drops After IPO
ROK Looking For Exemption From Iranian Oil Sanctions
Accor Sells Motel 6 To Blackstone For $1.9 Billion
Asian Stocks Up For Second Day As Germany, PRC Vow To Spur Growth
Spain: No Need For European Funds To Help Banks
CFTC Uses JP Morgan Chase Losses As Pretext For More Regulation
Iraq Says Kurdish Oil Deals Need Baghdad Approval
Chrome Overtakes IE (Again)
Cable Companies To Expand Free Wi-fi
Microsoft Quietly Launches So.cl Social Network
Jews Say No To Online Porn, Mormons Applaud
Virgin Mobile Adds $40 Unlimited Talk & Text Plan



SPORTS
Thunder Top Lakers 106-90, Head For Finals

Sad Kobe is sad

Kobe’s 42 not enough to overcome Oklahoma City
Multiple people shot after Thunder game, two suspects being held
Pau Gasol Already Designated Scapegoat In Lakers’ Defeat


Rangers Stumble Out Of Gate In Game 4, Can’t Recover

Bass Erupts For Celtics In 101-85 Rout Of Sixers

Peyton Manning Looks Good In First Workout With Broncos

King Felix Outduels Darvish As M’s Beat Rangers 6-1

Paulino, Royals Shut Out Yankees

Magic Make Coach, GM Disappear

Nats Hold On For 2-1 Win After Rodriguez Immolates In 9th



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Katy Perry Splits From Robert Ackroyd, Sings About Divorce

Katy & Bobby at Coachella

Yep, she’s back on the market again; romance with Florence & The Machine guitarist not serious

Pink, Carey Hart Bash Chris Brown’s Billboard Awards Performance

Justin Bieber Takes High School Student To BMA

A&E Cancels “Dog The Bounty Hunter”

Three Networks “Very Interested” In Arsenio Hall’s Talk-Show Comeback



Masseurs’ Original Lawyer In Travolta Groping Case Sues Allred

Lindsay Lohan’s Taylor Biopic: Still No Dick In “Liz & Dick”

“Chernobyl Diaries” Horror Flick Ripped By Victim Support Group

“Smash” Shakes Up Cast, Adding Three Regulars



FOREIGNERS
Yemen: Al Qaeda Behind Blast That Killed 100 Soldiers
UN Nuke Monitor Strikes Deal With Iran?
Lebanon Sunnis Call On Hezbollah-Aligned PM To Resign
Celebrating The Queen’s Jubilee With Tea
Malaysian Opposition’s Anwar Charged Over Protest
Egyptians In Street Say Israel Treaty Will Be Upheld
Newly Elected Serb President Reaffirms EU Integration
US Warns Norks About Another Nuke Test
Exposed South African Presidential Portrait Stirs Controversy (NSFW)



BLOGS & STUFF
WyBlog: Dharun Ravi Gets 30 Days And 300 Hours Of Homosexual Indoctrination
American Power: Big Bain Backfire
NRO Corner: RNC Starts “I Stand With Cory” Petition
NewsBusters: Furious Chris Matthews Explodes – Cory Booker “Betrayed” And “Sabotaged” Obama
Power Line: NYT – Businessmen Are Psycho! No, Wait…
Sister Toldjah: Country Club Liberals Say “Hell No” To Low-Income Housing In Their County
Jammie Wearing Fools: Deranged NC Teacher Suspended With Pay After Telling Students Not To Criticize Dear Leader
Gateway Pundit: NBPP Leader Says “Be Thankful We’re Not Hanging Crackers By Nooses…Yet”
Lonely Conservative: WaPo Finally Notices All The Lobbyists Visiting The White House
Daily Pundit: Throw The Book At Them
JustOneMinute: Extending The Annals Of Dumb

Category: Live at Five

The Kimberlin Files–Fresh Mint Juleps Requested Anonymously

Posted on | May 21, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

A certain person requested I flex my SQL-fu and produce a special FMJRA for him in his anonymous location where he may or may not be enjoying refreshment with Dick Cheney, IYKWIMAITYD. That’s OK. I’m going to get my pound of flesh in the form of some editing on a writing project I have in mind.

Thank you to all the readers and bloggers who recognize the value of this blog. Apologies in advance to those who did link us, but are getting rooked by the pingback/trackback mechanism. I blame Zuckerberg. Read more

Category: Blogging

Never Doubt That God Answers Prayer

Posted on | May 21, 2012 | 156 Comments

‘Speedway Bomber’: Criminal terrorist Brett Kimberlin was convicted in 1981

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Law enforcement officials have been made aware that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin appears to be engaged in an attempt to intimidate me into being silent about his sordid criminal history.

Appropriate precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of my family and others who might be endangered if Kimberlin resorts to violence to accomplish his malicious purposes. At the urging of concerned friends, we have vacated our former residence and I am now blogging from a secret location which Kimberlin will be unable to discover or reach. Nevertheless, we sincerely ask for intercessory prayer, that God will send angels to guard us in this grave crisis.

In fact, this crisis is an answer to prayer: My wife and I had been contemplating whether to leave Maryland, and had asked that God would give us a sign. Guess we got what we prayed for — unexpectedly!

Nevertheless, my sudden relocation — The Mother of All Road Trips, as it were — will involve large expenses.  We will have to rent a new house, pay people to pack up the belongings at our former residence, and move everything to the new location.

Remember that this is still a Shameless Capitalist Blog, and keep in mind The Five Most Important Words in the English Language . . .

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

 

 

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

UPDATE: Working here at the Ray Kroc Memorial Journalism Center — free WiFi and $1 double cheeseburgers while I await my ride — I’ll try to catch up on some thanks to recent tip-jar hitters: Robin in Alexandria. Jeff in Walla Walla, Richard in Hollywood, James in Orlando, Victor in Virginia, Christopher in New Jersey, Mark in Spring Valley, Coley in Kentucky, John in Annapolis, Mr. E. in Alabama, Matthew in Solana Beach, Dianna in San Jose, Adam in Van Nuys and Bradley in Arizona.

UPDATE II (Smitty): Godspeed to Stacy and Instapundit and Darth Chipmunk. Those seeking something lighter might enjoy my Page & Plant Interview in Strolling Drone

UPDATE III (RSM): To people trying to guess my destination, good luck. Kimberlin loves to sue people to shut them up, but first he has to find the appropriate jurisdiction. Last time I checked, a one-way ticket to Vanuatu was $1,497 via Auckland. Just sayin’ . . .

 


Category: Crime, Shoe Leather Fund, Terrorism, The Kimberlin Files

Yet Another Honor for Which I’m Eliminated From Consideration
UPDATE: Nominate Instapundit

Posted on | May 21, 2012 | 78 Comments

There’s never an end to these things, is there? Conferences at Which I’m Persona Non Grata, where they present Awards I’ll Never Get:

The latest honor to keep Andrew’s name and work alive is an awards dinner from The Heritage Foundation and The Franklin Center.
Rob Bluey of The Heritage Foundation told me:

“The Heritage Foundation and The Franklin Center want to recognize Andrew’s contribution to journalism, blogging and activism and we’re excited to be able to launch The Breitbart Awards at the Future of Journalism conference in June.”

The honors will be given in three categories that are well thought out to honor three main areas of Andrew’s legacy: full-time professional journalism; the new media frontier; and bold citizen action by conservatives. Nominations for these awards are currently being accepted at BreitbartAwards.com and must be submitted by May 25th.
As the website explains the awards:

Full-time Reporter: In a media environment that tells reporters to go along to get along, a few still consider it a sacred trust to keep the people informed. A few still recognize the awesome responsibility in belonging to the only profession to be enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We’ll present one Breitbart Award to a full-time news reporter to honor courage and honesty in telling the real stories that matter to people’s lives.
Blogger: When the legacy media fails to do its job, we are fortunate to have an army waiting on the Internet to hold the institutions of power accountable. We’ll honor a blogger for intrepid reporting that goes over the heads of the legacy media to communicate directly to the people.
Citizen: The fight for freedom requires a constant stream of new recruits willing to make time in their lives to serve as watchdogs in their local communities. We’ll honor an information activist committed to digging up the truth.

READ THE WHOLE THING

* * * * * * *

As if the involvement of the Heritage Foundation were not an automatic guarantee that I’d be pre-emptively blackballed — I’ve given them excellent publicity over the past 15 years, so naturally they treat me like an unwelcome embarrassment every time I show up there — the awards are co-sponsored by the Franklin Center, which recently hired Tabitha Hale, who has waged a relentless three-year campaign to destroy my career and livelihood.

Because I’m 1/32nd Cherokee (like Elizabeth Warren), I’m thinking about changing my name to Dances With Scapegoats. Read more

Category: Andrew Breitbart

Among The More Stunning Ironies Of Modern Public Discourse

Posted on | May 21, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Newsalert quotes the NYT:

The wealthiest 1 percent of New York City residents took in nearly one-third of the personal income in the city in 2009 — almost double the comparable proportion nationwide, a new study shows.
In a report scheduled to be released Monday, the city comptroller’s office found that large percentages of New Yorkers earned high incomes and low incomes, leaving a smaller middle class than in the nation as a whole.

More generally, please check my logic:

  1. Blue states good, red states bad.
  2. Common people good, Wall Street bankers bad.
  3. Wall Street is in what city/state? — New York
  4. New York is a red/blue state? — Blue
  5. Head ‘splodes.

via Instapundit

Category: New York
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