Standing in support of conservative writers personally targeted by #BrettKimberlin
When you get into the business of writing about politics and current events, whether you do it for the love of it, the money, or both, you set yourself up for being a target of your political opposition. Β It is the nature of the beast. Most of the time Β if the opposition isn’t trying to counter your points respectfully, Β they’ll just laugh at you and/or call you nasty names over a period of time and move on. Other times they won’t move on, but they won’t carry it any further than just online word wars. But there are also cases where it can escalate way beyond that into territory it never should – where people’s families, homes, and livelihoods are directly targeted, threatened, and negatively impacted by thugs who have absolutely no concept of what “freedom of speech” means, and who believe there are no boundaries/limits whatsoever that they shouldn’t be allowed to cross in trying to “shame” those who they oppose. Β Such is the case with Brett Kimberlin, a despicable human being who has waged a disgusting campaign of legal terror and abuse against conservatives who write truthful articles about him and his domestic terrorism past. Β The man is vile. Absolutely vile:
Over the past year,Β Aaron Walker (who blogged as βAaron Worthingβ),Β Patterico,Β Liberty Chick, and nowΒ Stacy McCainΒ have been targeted by convicted Speedway bomber Brett Kimberlin because they dared to mention his criminal past or assisted others who did. TheΒ late Andrew BreitbartΒ warned about Kimberlin and company.
I have spoken directly with both Patterico and Aaron about their ongoing battles.
The mainstream press, not just the conservative blogosphere, needs to hear and report their stories.
This is a convoluted, ongoing nightmare that combines abuse of the court system, workplace intimidation, serial invasions of privacy, perjury, and harassment of family members. McCain was forced to move with his family out of his house this week, and has just gotten a small taste of what Aaron and Patterico have been enduring over the past year. Aaron and his wife were fired from their jobs after their employer feared the office would be targeted next. Convicted bomber Kimberlin has filed bogus βpeace ordersβ against Aaron, when it is theΒ WalkersΒ who are the victims, not the perpetrators.
And Pattericoβs plight will send chills up your spine when he is ready to tell it.
Institutional inertia, incompetence, and apathy among law enforcement officials on both coasts have exacerbated the victimsβ suffering. It has moved far beyond a partisan or political story to a bottomless, Kafka-esque morass. And, via investigative journalist Matthew Vadum, it certainly doesnβt help thatΒ βprogressive,β left-wing foundations that have funded KimberlinΒ continue to look the other way.
Ted Frank atΒ Point of LawΒ summed it up: βA scary tale of what can go wrong if one makes the wrong enemy of someone willing to persistently abuse the civil and criminal legal system, and how poorly the legal system protects those victims.β
Please read Michelle’s full post for background on what Walker and others targeted by Kimerblin have gone through.
Regarding the “peace orders”, Patterico points out:
It is beyond the scope of this post to detail every way in which Kimberlinβs peace order is misleading and deceptive. Kimberlin complains that Aaron spoke of purchasing a gun, implying that Aaronβs statement was aggressive β when Aaron actually said he had bought a gun to defend himself. Kimberlin claims that Aaron is responsible for βalertsβ coming to his email inbox, suggesting Aaron is emailing him, when in fact the βalertsβ Kimberlin is talking about are Google alerts. If you write about this guy on the Internet, he may run to a judge and say you are causing abusive alerts to come to his email.
You might say: whatβs the harm in getting a peace order? I have watched this play out in other venues and I know just what Kimberlin is up to. As soon as he gets a βpeace order,β he will run back to court the very next time Aaron mentions his name in public. That means that Kimberlin asserts the right to abuse the court process to harass Aaron β and if Aaron tells the world how Kimberlin is abusing the court process, Kimberlin will claim that as a violation of the peace order and try to have Aaron held in contempt of court.
Kimberlin and his crew have relentlessly harassed Aaron, me, and others over the course of the last several months. It is not harassment for us to tell the world what happened to us. It could happen to any of you. His supporters have outed or threatened to out commenters to this very site. They talk about wives, children, and fathers of bloggers and commenters. They ceaselessly abuse everyone they can who speaks the truth about Kimberlinβs past.
Ultimately, this is a free speech issue. Kimberlin and his group of thugs have done their level best to attack everyone in the blogosphere who wrote anything negative about him. Now the blogosphere is starting to wake up, and there are so many critics he canβt possibly intimidate them all.
I can’t wait to hear Patterico’s full story. Β In the meantime, would you hit Stacy McCain’s tip jar? He and his family could sure use the assistance right now. Β And prayers, too.
Friday, by the way, is “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin” day – Lee Stranahan explains:
Hereβs what you do to take partβ¦
- Research Brett Kimberlin on your own. Donβt trust secondary sources; look for the orginal articles articles published about him, too.
- On Friday, May 25th β write an honest,Β factuallyΒ accurate post about what you learned and what your OPINION is. Brett may try and sue you, so be accurate, factual andΒ separateΒ fact from opinion.
- The post doesnβt have to be long β ANYTHING helps.
- After you post, Tweet, share, whatever β get the post out there.
I know many of you don’t blog, but don’t worry – it really doesn’t have to be a post at all: Tweet about him, write about him on Facebook, post in comment threads and on message boards. I’m using the hashtag #BrettKimberlin at Twitter because no one has indicated otherwise about any other hashtag. Β Why do we need to do this? Because not only do we need to support our fellow conservatives, but it is also IMPERATIVE that we show Kimberlin via our words that we will NOT be intimidated by his bull sh*t attempts to squelch free speech.
Are y’all with me?