Category Archives: Free Speech

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Brett Kimberlin has sued me for defamation four times, and he lost all four for those LOLsuits. One of his complaints was that I’ve called him a terrorist. The TKPOTD for seven years ago today took a look at how he was referred to as a terrorist long before I had ever written about him.

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One of the the things The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin whines about in his Kimberlin v. Most of the Universe, et al. LOLsuit is how he feels defamed because he’s been called a terrorist. He would have the court believe that being called a terrorist after 15 October, 2010, portrayed him in a false light.

If the Gentle Reader does a Google search on >”brett kimberlin” + terrorist< that is time limited to before 2010, the top results will look something like this—Pre2010

That first result is the Wikipedia “Kimberlin” page which contains a link to the article about Brett Kimberlin. While the “Kimberlin” page was created in 2008, the article about TDPK wasn’t created until 2012. Gasp! Wikipedia refers to Kimberlin as a terrorist! <sarc>It must be part of the conspiracy!</sarc>

The next hit is a Baltimore Sun article from 1996 reviewing Mark Singer’s book Citizen K. It refers to Kimberlin as a terrorist. The third hit is a piece from Daily Kos that refers to Kimberlin as a bomber “who terrorized the city of Speedway, Indiana …” Neither the BS nor Daily Kos qualify as rightwing nut job publications.

And there are plenty more references to Kimberlin’s history as a bomber/terrorist/criminal. His reputation was out there on the Internet well before 2010 and, certainly, well before I began blogging in 2011.

Whiner.

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In the second state case he filed against me, the court found that his reputation was so poor as a perjurer, drug smuggler, and serial bomber was such that it was impossible to defame him.

And now he’s asking the Supreme Court for relief from his Speedway Bombing conviction.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Being one of the targets of Brett Kimberlin’s lawfare was a serious problem, but one that required mockery as part of the response. His first LOLsuit listed seven causes of action, some of which weren’t things that can be the subject of a lawsuit. Part of my response was to suggest that he forgot to include Mopery With Intent to Lurk among his laundry list of claims. Nine years ago today, one of the Gentle Readers joined in the pointage, laughery, and mockification.

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SuedByDrEvilImage Credit: @bet0001970

Stacy McCain has more here.

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If you click on the link to the @bet0001970 Twitter account, you’ll find than as with so many conservatives on Twitter, her account has been cancelled.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Yes, Gentle Reader, I’ve really been writing about Brett Kimberlin and his associates and enablers for over a decade now. As this post from ten years ago today notes, Perhaps I Am A Fool.

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It has been suggested to me that I am being foolish by continuing to follow up on what I am now calling the continuing saga of Dread Pirate Kimberlin. I admit that possibility.

OTOH, I view him and his clown posse as a menace and wish to see him and them brought to justice. To that end, I try to share some of the information that I have with the Gentle Readers of this blog. Here are some things I’d like you to know.

1. I can’t always publish everything I know. I get some information off-the-record. While that information helps me put things in perspective and develop other leads, I can’t use it directly. Gentle Reader, you can also assume that I am cooperating with various people and agencies with an interest in Team Kimberlin. Thus, some information may need to be delayed or kept confidential in order to prevent evasive action by the bad guys.

2. I don’t feed trolls. I have received troll tweets and blog comments. If you’re trolling, save your breath. I’ll block your comments here and ignore you on Twitter.

3. I’m often stubborn to the point of pigheadedness. So, Gentle Reader, you can expect that I’ll stick with it. Get some popcorn, settle back, and stay tuned.

Oh, one more thing … I used to refer to Brett Kimberlin as Lord Voldemort (He Who Must Not Be Named Under Penalty of Peace Order) and his followers as the Death Eater Wannbes. He and they got demoted in July when Judge Rupp denied the Peace Order being sought against Aaron Walker. The only thing Mr. Kimberlin really has in common with the Dark Lord is that they are both losers. I’m now calling him Dread Pirate Kimberlin in reference to his piracy-themed Bloggers Offense Team website. (No, I won’t link to it.) Brett Kimberlin deserves to be made a laughingstock. At the same time, I recognize that, though he is a coward, he can be a dangerous coward. I keep my eyes open.

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OTOH, perhaps Brett Kimberlin was a fool for trying to taking on the blogosphere in general and me in particular.

After ten years, a couple of points in the post need updating.

First, while I don’t feed trolls, but I do laugh at them.

Second, when Kimberlin began defaulting on court order sanction payments, he was downgraded from The Dread Pirate Kimberlin to The Deadbeat Pirate Kimberlin.

I’m not through with him yet.

Disinformation Governance Board Sent Down the Memory Hole

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(H/T, @ArronWorthing) The Washington Times is reporting that DHS Secretary Mayorkas has cancelled the charter of the Disinformation Governance Board based on a recommendation of his Homeland Security Advisory Council.

The report was led by Michael Chertoff, a former Homeland Security secretary in the Bush administration, and Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. Suggesting the department might be straying too far from its mission, Mr. Chertoff said, “They don’t have a red pencil to correct everything in the world that’s not true.” That’s Oldspeak for “idea doubleplusungood rewrite fullwise.”

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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In May, 2012, I started writing about Brett Kimberlin when he managed to get a judge to issue a patently unconstitutional gag order against Aaron Walker. Not long thereafter, I also began writing about Kimberlin’s associates and enablers. Nine years ago today, I posted this explaining Why Bother with #BillSchmalfeldt?

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That’s a good question.

He has 44 followers on Twitter. His Klout score is 10. He has vanishingly small traffic at his websites. And, yet, he has a devoted group of followers who wish to see him removed from the Internet. (For the record, I’m not a member of that group; as far as I’m concerned, he can stay on the web if he behaves himself.)

I deal with the Cabin Boy because he is a sore spot on the backside of the Internet that has afflicted my friends and me. Things have worked out so that I’m the one who has been in the right position to bring some justice his way. It’s sorta/kinda sad to watch Schmalfeldt ruin his own life, but it is satisfying to participate in building a firewall between him and the decent folks he had harassed.

popcorn4bkCabin Boy Bill acts as if he has the sort of bully pulpit that would allow him to set the agenda. I think not. He can foam at the mouth and froth at his keyboard, but he will be dealt with by my colleagues and me when we choose and in the manner we choose.

Losers don’t get to be choosers.

<snark>Oh, one more thing … given that I made reference to Schmalfeldt’s lack of success on the Internet, he will probably suggest that I wish to compare bits of our anatomy. I really don’t care about his bodily parts, and all of mine seem to be working just fine at the moment.</snark>

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The LinkedIn page for a guy  “[g]etting paid for talking on the radio Coffeyville, Kansas,” no longer exists. Meanwhile, my podcasting partners and I completed another episode of The Other Podcast last night.

I’ve Got An Uneasy Feeling About This

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Earlier this year, we learned that the Department of Homeland Security was setting up a group of Fact Chekists to scrutinize “disinformation,” Now, the IRS is being funded to hire 87,000 more employees, more than doubling the agency’s headcount, and IRS’s new funding is coming via an “Inflation Reduction Act” which will exacerbate inflation.

The meanings of words are be tortured.

It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox (GOODTHINKFUL would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to ideological translation—that is, alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. THAT WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THOSE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT …

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word CRIMETHINK.

Things are becoming double plus ungood.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Back in September, 2013, Brett Kimberlin was just getting started establishing himself as what Stacy McCain calls The World’s Worst Pro-Se Litigant™. At that point, Kimberlin had failed in his attempts to get a couple of peace orders, but he hadn’t yet lost any of the defamation LOLsuits that included me as among the defendants.

He’d filed a couple of false Applications for Statement of Charges against Aaron Walker and me, but they had been quickly killed off for lack of evidence. On 3 September, Breitbart Unmasked Bunny Boy Unread published a prediction that a LOLsuit was in the works.Of course, Matt Osborne’s predictions of the direst of dire direness ware (like the real Criswell’s) almost completely wrong.

The one thing that he got right was that we would engage in fund raising to help defray the cost of out defense. Although we had pro bono representation by Patrick Ostronic (Thank you, sir!), we still had several thousand dollars of costs related to copying, court fees, etc. (Thank you to those who helped!)

The worst mistake Kimberlin ever made was including we as a defendant in those cases.

Sauces, Geese, and Ganders

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This appeared on the Twitterz from a group that thinks that’s is OK for a private company to refuse to carry someone else’s disinformation but not theirs—BTW, over-the-air broadcasters who have a license to use the public radio spectrum do have certain requirements to accept political advertising as a condition of their licenses. However, Hulu is an unlicensed entity using the Internet and has no such legal obligation.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Ten years ago today, I’d been on the Kimberlin story for less than two months, but it was already complicated enough that I published this Cliff’s Notes Version of the saga.

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Patterico has an excellent summary of the saga thus far.

Many people have asked for a basic and relatively brief summary of the events surrounding Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, and Ron Brynaert — who have gone after critics with over-the-top harassment. I provided the long version of the story, with much of the supporting evidence, here. This is the shorter version. If you have been struggling to understand this story, and you feel like you don’t have the time to follow it all, this is the post for you.

Even if you’ve been following the story all along, reading Mr. Frey’s summary will probably tie up some loose ends for you.

UPDATE–Stacy McCain has this summary of Brett Kimberlin’s background and how he lies about his past.

Lee Stranahan [dead link] calls our attention to Brad Friedman and explains how he fits into the saga.

Aaron Walker documents some of Mr. Kimberlin’s recent lies.

UPDATE 2—And Aaron Walker posts his concise summary here.

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The story expanded a bit.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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It was ten years ago today, that I first covered a court hearing involving Brett Kimberlin. It was Aaron Walker’s successful appeal finally overturning the peace order that had be granted by Judge Vaughy. This was one of Kimberlin’s first losses in his failed campaign of lawfare, and it certainly wasn’t the last.

Oh, and since I didn’t say this then, I’ll say it now: Qapla’

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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My decade of covering the doings of Team Kimberlin began because of Brett Kimberlin’s attempts to silence bloggers who were writing truthfully about him and to punish lawyers who helped defend those bloggers. Kimberlin’s attention became particularly focused on a blogger who was a lawyer, Aaron Walker. Kimberlin sought to shut him up with a bogus peace order which required Aaron to neither speak nor write about Kimberlin. Ten years ago today, I was able to report that Justice had prevailed when an emergency appeal resulted in a partial stay of the peace order eliminating its unconstitutional gag provisions. (The entire peace order was completely thrown out during a further appeal.)

That should have been the top story of the day, but that evening, the top story became BREAKING: Aaron Walker SWATted.

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Patterico reports that Aaron Walker was SWATted at around 6 pm ET this evening.

UPDATE—Breitbart has more info here.

Walker told Breitbart News that he was home with his wife this evening at approximately 6:00pm when there was a “pretty insistent” knock at his door. Walker answered to find about six police cars in the street and two officers taking positions against the wall with M4 rifles. Since he was aware of the previous swattings of Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Erick Erickson, and Mike Stack, Mr. Walker asked the police if someone had called and claimed he had killed his wife, and police confirmed that that was the case.

UPDATE 2—Still more at The Camp of the Saints. Apparently, someone is also trying to cause trouble for one of Aaron Walker’s lawyers.

UPDATE 3—Stacy McCain says:

Memo to The Washington Post: This is now what they call “local news.” Get on it.

Don’t hold your breath, Mr. McCain.

UPDATE 4—Aaron Walker posts What Happened Tonight.

One of the officers tonight asked me why I keep talking about Brett Kimberlin if it brings on this kind of trouble. It’s because Freedom of Expression is something I don’t just believe in, but I defend. And this threat to Freedom of Expression needs to be defeated. It is that simple.

When my wife was steadier, and our bellies were full, I opened up my computer again there were 720 new contacts of some kind in my twitter. That was the level of love and support out there. I am just stubborn enough not to need anyone’s prayers or support to see this through, but it’s nice to feel the love. So many perfect strangers tell me they are praying for me—although they are becoming less like strangers every day.

Finally, if anyone from the Washington Post or any other newspaper wants to talk to me, I’ll talk. I’ll give you an earful.

So the bottom line is that thanks in significant part to the Prince William County Police, who handled this with the right sweet spot between concern that a crime might be occurring, and caution, recognizing it might be a hoax, my wife and I are safe. A little shaken up, but determined to fight on.

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What an amazing coincidence that Aaron was SWATted on the evening of the day he won that victory in court!

BTW, the judge who granted the unconstitutional restraint of Aaron’s speech was sanctioned by the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disables for his conduct in the case.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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All of the claims that Brett Kimberlin made against me in his various LOLsuits and criminal complaints were false. That caused the two that made it as far as a trial to be thrown out when Kimberlin rested his case, granting my codefendants and me a directed verdict in our favor. It cause the other claims in that case to be dismissed at summary judgment. The TKPOTD for seven years ago explained why that happened.

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Sometimes in a lawsuit there may be point where the “facts” don’t have to go to trial. That may be because the parties agree to what the facts are. Or it could be because one side may take the position that even if the other side’s version is correct, it doesn’t effect the case. Or it could be because one side’s “facts” are clearly untrue. In those instances, the court will rule on the case as a matter of law. That procedure is called summary judgment.

As an example, here’s a claim from The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin’s second amended complaint in the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. nuisance lawsuit.BKvAWetal 58-61We defendants disputed those allegations, but we asked for a summary judgment in our favor as a matter of law because even if everything TDPK alleged were true, it didn’t add up to the tort of malicious prosecution.

The judge agreed with us and dismissed the claim. That was a judgment on the merits in our favor, that is, the court found that we had not engaged in malicious prosecution.

Brett Kimberlin has filed over a hundred lawsuits, and he’s lost almost every one. Incompetent pleading like the mess above is one of the principle reasons why he fails.

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Nome of his other LOLsuits against me survived motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Today is the tenth anniversary of the first post about Brett Kimberlin here at Hogewash!—a post titled No Thugs Zone.

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Fellow blogger and Maryland resident Stacy McCain has had to move his family out of the state because of threats related to blogging about Brett Kimberlin. He is not the only blogger suffering abuse from Kimberlin.

Mr. Kimberlin was unwise in choosing to pick a fight with the blogosphere. He is likely to find that, while we don’t always agree with one another, we have each other’s backs when the freedom of the Internet is threatened. Mr. Kimberlin and those who have supported him (I’m looking at you, Ms. Streisand [dead link, but here’s one to a contemporaneous post by another blogger]) have bitten off more than they can chew. The pushback is just beginning.

UPDATE–The McCain family is having a ton of unforeseen expenses because of their sudden move. I just hit his tip jar. Why don’t you?

UPDATE 2–Expect more, a lot more, about this on Friday.

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I’m not done with him yet.

Truth and Disinformation

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The reporting on the Disinformation Governance Board (ДГБ) here at Hogewash! began last February when it was still in the planning stage. The first post, Experts Recommend, was fairly brief.

The New York Times reports that experts recommend the Biden administration put together a cross-agency task force to tackle disinformation and domestic extremism, which would be led by something like a “reality czar.”

The Gestapo, Stasi, and KGB were run by experts.

So I was not surprised when the existence of the ДГБ (that’s DGB is the Russian alphabet) leaked last month. My 28 April posts noted It’s A Bad Idea, But Is It Also Illegal? and presented the official portrait of The Central Scrutinizer.It turned out that Congress has authorized the Department of Homeland Security to get involved in the analysis of certain kinds of propaganda attacks, but it’s my opinion the the agency vastly exceeded its authority in creating the ДГБ.

On 29 April, I posted a viral video Nina Jankowicz had created and posted online herself. I did not edit the video. It’s as she originally posted it to TikTok. It’s also cringeworthy, a self-inflicted wound to her credibility.

Also on the 29th and the 30th, I posted a pair of Are You Pondering What I’m Ponderings that took aim at the ДГБ and the reason for its creation.

There was a great deal of blowback concerning the anti-free speech and anti-free press overreach embedded in the very idea of the ДГБ, especially from the right side of the blogosphere. I posted the Quote of the Day for 2 May in support of that theme.

I would never want to see our executive branch have that sort of power.

—Nina Jankowicz

As more information turned up about Ms. Jankowicz’s background, it began to appear she had been more of source of disinformation than an opponent of it. On 5 May, I posted a portion of her resume on LinkedIn which suggested that when she claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” her point of view could have been through The Lens of Experience.

On 12 May, my post When THE Science Follows THE Narrative dealt with how the Biden Administration is itself spreading misinformation. The post quotes the head of the FDA as claiming that misinformation is “the leading cause of death in the US.”

On the 13th, I posted this Dictionary Update—

Effective immediately, all agents, employees, and contractors of the Disinformation Governance Board (ДГБ) shall be referred to as checkists.

Indeed, it seems that those who would check our speech have real philosophical and spiritual connection to the original Chekists.

Yesterday’s post, Democracy Dies in Derpness™, was about Taylor Lorenz’s scoop about the “pausing” of the ДГБ and Ms. Jankowicz’s “resignation.” Part of the spin in Lorenz’s WaPo story is the false narrative—the disinformation—that Nina Jankowiicz was unfairly attacked. Now, it may be true that someone somewhere said something unfair about her, but the overwhelming balance of the coverage of her consisted of accurate reporting of her own statements, publications, and music videos, all reported in proper context. As noted above, her wounds were self-inflicted.

For now the ДГБ is “paused,” a victim of the Xiden Administration’s general incompetence. Its functions will have to move to some other part of the Deep State.

The Central Scrutinizer

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Nina Jankowicz, Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board

It is my responsibility to enforce all the laws
That haven’t been passed yet.
It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you
To the potential consequences
Of various ordinary everyday activities …