Friday, May 25, 2012

EVERYTHING IS FOR THE CAUSE

Right-wing bloggers are having a group event today: they're all blogging about a guy named Brett Kimberlin. Years ago, Kimberlin was convicted of involvement in a series of bombings; he spent many years in prison. While he was locked up, he claimed to have once sold pot to Dan Quayle, who was then running for vice president; he charged that prison authorities isolated him illegally after the story became public. That was the last time I ever heard his name, but I guess he's been peripheral to my world since -- I gather he was involved with the news site Raw Story and in investigating voting irregularities as a colleague of Brad Blog's Brad Friedman. (Here's a 2007 Time story about the guy.)

The right-wingers who are blogging about him now are blogging about him because, if I understand their story correctly, he's a nasty piece of work who (among other things) has driven righty blogger Robert Stacy McCain into hiding and who's engaged in several forms of harassment against Patrick Frey, aka Patterico; the tactics, Patterico says, include "swatting": you spoof a phone number, call as the person you're targeting, say you just killed someone at your house, then the SWAT team shows up and maybe arrests the target ... or opens fire. Patterico says it happened to him (and he was taken into custody) last year.

Oh, and (wheels within wheels) Andrew Breitbart is involved, because he talked about this in an interview he gave not long before he died, as Patterico notes.

What's the truth here? I have no idea. But several thoughts come to mind.

If this guy is as nasty as the righties say, then I, as a lefty, have no use for him, even if he's doing work I approve of. Call the cops if you think you've got a case against him. Lock him up -- I don't care.

Oh, but maybe you can't get the authorities to take the case seriously. Well then, gee, it's too bad you righties don't have a huge news organization on your side, one that could bring the story to light and pressure the authorities to act. If you had a huge news organization on the right, things might be different. But you don't have such a news organization, do you?

If the story the righties are telling is true, there's a guy on the loose who should be locked up. But their blogswarm today doesn't seem to be focused on getting him locked up -- it seems to be focused (as is practically everything right-wingers say and do) on damaging liberalism. On the right, that's Priority #1 -- and #2 and #3 and #4 and #5. The posts and tweets I've looked at are full of references to George Soros and the Tides Foundation and Barbra Streisand (because, you see, giving money to organizations that include a guy you don't know is a criminal is a disgusting, shameful, immoral act, which makes you an accessory to crimes you didn't know had taken place, and haven't been conclusively shown to be the grant recipient's doing).

And, gosh, it's an election year, isn't it -- a few tenuous, strained links to Obama will certainly be discussed on righty blogs in the days to come, no?

I'm hoping a real news organization tells me the truth about this. I'm hoping this guy is put away if he's a seriously bad person committing seriously criminal acts. I almost think I'm more interested in seeing the responsible party face justice than some of the righties are. A lot of them (hello, Michelle Malkin) seem much more concerned about winning one for their side.

Oh, and then there's this guy:

Read all of the incredible, sick-making story -- which includes some perfectly typical and disgusting bile spewed by some of the violence-supporting left-wing animals who think things like this are just peachy -- and gird your loins. Because it's going to come down to shooting with these vermin eventually, if we're to retain any rights at all. Patterico wouldn't like me saying that, I’m sure; I don’t much like having to say it myself. But it's a mere acknowledgment of current reality: we are in a cold war with neo-Marxists who are trying to steal our country, have already done enormous and probably permanent damage to it, and will stop at nothing --absolutely nothing -- to see to it that our voices are silenced. That war must inevitably go hot, unless we're willing to surrender to them.

"[I]t's going to come down to shooting ... The war must inevitably go hot...." Are you expressing your fears, dude -- or your hopes?

23 comments:

Carol Ann said...

Reading all those posts is like...I don't know...suffering severe hallucinations or something

They are nuts

Dave S. said...

Agreed with Carol Ann. The whole thing is an incoherent conglomeration of insinuations and guilt-by-association. I guess I'll out myself as a terrorist fist-bumper by speculating that RSM is just fine and hasn't gone anywhere. This will bring down a barrage of "Obama eats dogs" counter-comments so I apologize for that.

Improbable Joe said...

It starts with the hate and desire to hurt us, and all the lying and twisting of reality and shifting blame to us is mere justification for the violence they dream about inflicting on us. It is a party by and for deranged people.

ed waldo (Hart Williams) said...

Thanks for being one of the few to see this for what it really is: a coordinated practice fun for the fall.

An attempt to dominate the news cycles and create a false reality that no one dare question. This is just the beginning ...

Glennis said...

The Interhamwe comes in many guises.

Victor said...

Look, if the story involved RSM having to leave his house because the sewer system backed up, the right would accuse Obama.

They'd say he paid Soros to organize a hit team of former Liberal black SEALS, and organize an invasion of RSM's town's sewer system by teams of genetically-altered frogmen, armed with the latestChinese strategical stealth sewage-backing-upping technology, with a Super-secret Russian new "Stalin Untidy-bowl' guidance system, smuggled by Arab terrorist through the Middle East to KENYA!!!, where it was picked-up by a distant Obama family member, and smuggled by Diplomatic Pouch to Soros's SEAL's team to accomplish its missions of having RSM's sewer back up to the point where he'd leave, and they'd be able to crack his PC for even more nefarious plans he'd discovered to install a Liberal Atheist Socialist Fascist Sharia government, determined to put Conservative American patriots in Detention Camps.
"WOLVERINES!!!"

Oy, the stupid's so dim, I gotta wear a miner's headlamp!

BH said...

It certainly is scary to hear that someone named "Mike" at some blog called "Cold Fury" is "ready for battle". I'm all a-shiver.

As an occasional "thug" here, I herewith issue a threat - no, a promise: I solemnly undertake to ignore you henceforth and forever, Mr. Douglas.

Victor said...

Damn, THE (other) DONALD!

He's on to us!

Run for cover!

Get away before he sicks Zombie Golem Sasquatch, newly returned from Israel, after our sorry Liberal/Commie/Atheist/Sharia-loving asses!

Donnie, I repeat:
"What a dope. What a MAROON!"
Btw - moron, that's STILL a quote from the great Bugs Bunny - who, as a wascawy cawtoon wabbit, will be remembered for centuries, long after your never mourned, never loved, worthless and angry life is long over.
"Moran!"

Have a nice Memorial Day, Donnie!
Slow one, huh?
No on coming over?

So, nothing to do, huh?
So you inflate some hyperbolic comment (OOOOH LOOK - A NASTY COMMENT AT A BLOG! ALERT THE MEDIA!!! NOTIFY THE FBI!!!!!!) from Steve's site, into a death threat?
You aren't some Conservative blogger, you're a f*cking Performance Artist!

PS: Thanks for providing us a link!
Of course, it's to your own worthless cesspool of a site.

Well, after all, I DID ask you to provide links.
But I thought I qualified it by saying "credible" ones, Donnie - which, outside of you and some rabid "morans" who eat paste and play with and sniff their own turds while perusing the reactionary and insipid dribble you post there, would anyone with more than two brain cells not only laugh at the thought of your site being 'credible,' they'd likely consider it nothing more than the electronic ramblings of a syphilitic and sociopathic 4th-rate academic mind lucky to be working at some pathetic local Podunk Community College.

What a sad waste of a doctorate, teaching at a pathetic local Podunk Community College, eh, DOCTOR Donnie?

Donnie, you poor disrespected and unappreciated genius (kind of like a 21st Century political Van Gogh)...
What, the Harvard Dean's again used your latest application to paper the bottoms of the cages at the aviary?
Or are the snakes and lizards at Yale sh*tting on it in their herpetarium?

Go back to worthier causes, Donnie.
Like advocating for another disastrous and costly war in the Middle East.
Only don't pick Iran, pick something the next Conservative President can't possibly f*ck-up, like maybe, oh... I don't know...Kuwait!

Or, maybe pick on some tiny place in Europe.
Maybe even President Romney, with help from "experts" like you, might be able to tackle some small nation there. I hear Monaco's nice, and has little or no military. He might stand a chance there, Donnie.
The operative word there, with help from dim, angry turds like you, Donnie, is "might." M-I-G-H-T...

Again, happy Memorial Day, Doc!
Try not to invade the neighbors.

DGP said...

Donald Douglas - simply beyond parody! The really sad thing is that I think he's mostly a true believer (as opposed to the completely cynical members of the right wing blogosphere), and, god help the academy, a college professor. Though I think its at a community college. Can't imagine why someone like him isn't tenured at a 4 year institution.

BH said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
repsac3 said...

Yeah, don't know much about the guy, but unless there's proof that money donated to the 501c3's he's associated with went to him, rather than the causes they're set up for (anti-war and voter rights, far as I can tell), I fail to see what the doners have to do with it (except in that classic wingnut guilt by association way, of course... I mean, if your girlfriend's aunt's gardner's weed kill supplier once lived three blocks or less away from Kimberlin, and you (or any of those other folks) are liberals, of course, you're obviously guilty of somethin')

Kimberlin may or may not be a bad guy (he definitely was back in the late 70's, but that was over 40 years ago), and if he's actually guilty of half of what they're accusing him of, he is, still.

But, as a blogger who's had a micro-mini version of this kinda right-wing lynch mob shitstorm launched against him over blog comments (yeah, for all his self-righteousness over this Kimberlin guy, Donald claims to've (and probably actually did) contact Google, a lawyer, two different police departments, the FBI, AND his congeressman, all because I once used to post a comment on his blog at every post where he mentioned me. (I suspect they explained to him that there was nothing they could do for him, because all of the bluster and bullshit about the thing suddenly vanished, as though it never happened... ...and obviously, I never hear from anyone he spoke to, on his behalf...)

If I did want to give one piece of advice to these Kimberlin kiddies today, it would be what folks (friends, fellow bloggers, and a lawyer I contacted, just in case) told me about Donald:

"Any guy crazy enough to think he's entitled to have police officers and the FBI [and, it turns out, his congressman, as well] enforce the rules of his blog is likely crazy enough to be dangerous when he discovers that they cannot. In any case, it's probably not a good idea to put yourself in the position of finding out."

So yeah... DD/@ampowerblog: Beyond parody... That about sums it up...

Zandar said...

The "tenuous Obama links" are already there, Steve.

You'll have Ed Henry asking Jay Carney about this before the end of next week.

Watch.

Steve M. said...

You gonna block me now?

Yes. I'm sick of your stalking, Douglas. You're banned.

Victor said...

Steve,
Thanks.
You've been remarkably patient with him over the years.

doc donnie brings nothing to the table, except irrational and focused anger at anyone who doesn't have his myopic view of the world. And that might be more acceptable if the man had any sense of humor.

He needs to see a series of professionals, and stick to the med's they may give him.

I feel sorry for any kid taking this violent reactionary morons classes. And the community college needs to take a serious look at him and his blogging, and him as a professor, and see if any of that crosses over into his classes.
Academic freedom, tenure, and free speech, are critically important in schools, maybe THE most important thing, and should include as many views as possible, to give students varying world, philosophical, and political views.
But that shouldn't include the rantings and ravings of an irrational and potentially violent paranoiac.

I'm not saying muzzle him, or fire him. doc donnie needs to be monitored by the school, is all I'm asking.
And then, if he's not crossing over any academic barriers (and no, I don't have a clue as to what those might be, even though I did teach for 6 years at a College), allowed to continue his stalled career as a 6th place mind, and a 5th rate professor at a 4th rate school.

If I were a parent whose child was going to that school, I'd want to be sure it was safe for my child to be in a classroom with a man who's not an eccentric, but may be delusional.

The man is a nut!
Administrators need to make sure he's not also, a hazard.

And I think you know how much I value free speech, especially opposing viewpoints, crazy as some may be, so it's not easy for me to write this.

I won't miss reading his lunatic ravings, since they were witless and not though provoking.

But I will miss mocking the stupid paranoid little turd, and his fragile ego, since your site was one of the last Liberal ones that I read and comment on, that allowed him to comment.

He's crossed too many barriers at too many sites over the years.

Bye, doc donnie, this site won't miss you. No one will mourn your passing here.
Kind of like the world after you're gone.

Ten Bears said...

My but won't they be surprised when someone they've targeted as a "leftie" shoots back.

repsac3 said...

Not understanding the Bugs Bunny reference--and worse, actually trying to "correct" it--had to be the last straw...

Talk about un-frickin'-American...

Bwahaha.

(He'll abide by it, even though you can't actually "ban" anyone here on blogger... He takes that banning word wicked serious, to the point that he spoke to two different police departments, the FBI and his congressman when I didn't accept his banning... There's no way he'd make you call the Feds on him... Just you watch...)

Victor said...

Yes, now doc donnie can claim to be the victim of Liberals, AND the victor!

Because we intolerant lefties don't respect the right to his "free speech," and Steve banned him!

Never mind that in order to comment on most rightie blogs, those which even allow you to, you need to register (like here now, sadly - though not Steve's fault due to the format change), and no rightie blogger would have put up with someone like me for anywhere near as long as Steve put with little donnie.

Claire said...

I don't see a enormous difference between going after this guys donors and the other side going after Rush's advertisers. The prosecutor Frey hasn't even been able to get law enforcement to act up to this point, so they are taking another tac.

The effort is to get this guys money flow to dry up by making sure the donors understand who they are really supporting. He makes his living, and quite a nice one, off these donations, so yes, they are supporting him. The question always is, tho, did they know about him before the check was written? I bet most did not, but I also bet a few did and didn't care. Like Brad Friedman.

repsac3 said...

"I don't see a enormous difference between going after this guys donors and the other side going after Rush's advertisers."

If you're talking about the bombings 34 years ago, there isn't... ...but there's a whole lot less evidence about the rest of these allegations than there was about Rush saying what he said.

"The prosecutor Frey hasn't even been able to get law enforcement to act up to this point..."

Yeah, that's one of the things that bothers me about these allegations... Whether it's Frey, Worthing, or McCain (at least as far as he's offered, anyway), the law enforcement / legal system has been kinda skeptical about the accusations they're making... (and yet pretty much the whole "blogburst" is treating the accusations as gospel fact.) If the folks most familiar with criminality and the law aren't biting, I'm not so sure we lay people should be, either... (Yeah, the video juxtaposing the two voices sounds like it maybe might be the same guy... ...but then, the audio track of youtube video listened to by ear isn't really the professional standard, y'know...?)

"bet most did not, but I also bet a few did and didn't care. Like Brad Friedman."

Yeah, there are folks in the world who think that once you serve your time, your criminal past shouldn't be held against you... ...at least until you prove otherwise. And then there's folks like RS McCain, who believe that a guy who may well be a real dick, but hasn't committed any violence in 34 years, despite being real pissed off at a whole lotta people in those 34 years, is a credible threat worth moving over, if he knows your address... (I'm all for protecting life and family, and if he's legitimately worried, I'm all for his doing what he did... but, judging by what little he's said thus far, anyway, I'm not so sure the threat of bodily harm was quite so dire... Far more chance of being served if he stayed put, rather than blown up... But more power to him, regardless... Best to err on the side of caution.)

(By the by, you do know this is a left of center blog, yes? We are that other side going after Rush's advertisers [potentially, at least... I think I might've signed a petition, maybe...])

: smintheus :: said...

"Like Brad Friedman."

Yes, it figures that it's people like Friedman who are involved with this guy. Friedman is a mean and weird conspiracy-theorist who just happens to have gravitated to leftish causes as fertile grounds for his brand of crazy.

That said, who on the left cares or even knows about Friedman or Kimberlin? This fauxrage is all about smearing liberals, quelle surprise.

Ten Bears said...

Change “Marxist” to Colonist and “left” to right and there isn’t much there I have to disagree with. That and it has been my experience that “lefties” are not supportive of violence (which is why I am not a “leftie”). But my oh my won’t they be surprised when they find 1) that some of us are not “lefties” and 2) shoot back. Bring it on, bitches. Half-breed savage, life-long bear hunter, logger, biker and VietNam Vet. I’m pretty sure I can handle whatever you throw at me. Though the friends and neighbors I swore an oath to defend do not “support violence”, I do.

And you started the war.

Monty said...

Its comments like those uttered by that cold fury freak which led me to purchase a handgun some time ago. Anyone who imagines these lunatics are not completely serious about shooting liberals and looking forward to starting another civil war is deeply, deeply mistaken.

Anonymous said...

I agree with W James Casper. And as for Aaron Walker who blogs a Aaron Worthington, who is a lawyer like Paterico, failed to show up in court on the 19th - for his peace order court appearance with Brett Kimberlin.

I mean if this guy is everything they are saying he is and all of this is really happening, why would an attorney leveling these charges - not show up?
http://www.breitbartunmasked.com/thugs/aaron-justin-walker-attorney-law-fails-show-court/

There is something that is not adding up with this whole bully-wingnut smear machine. They're not showing up in court and law enforcement is not taking any of it seriously.

It sounds like Bill Ayres all over again, only ramped up to the 100th power, ie let the vetting begin BS from Britefart.