We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
—Karl Popper
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Category Archives: Free Speech
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Although it has lain fallow for over four years now, on of Team Kimberlin’s principal PR organs was the Breitbart Unmasked website. The site’s occasional editor Bill Schmalfeldt call it his “prime source for news, hearsay, lies and innuendo. Oh, yeah. Smears, too!” Eight years ago today BU published a long defamatory screed attacking Aaron Walker, and it was full of hearsay, lies, innuendo, and smears. And sealed court discovery, too!
That’s only the opening paragraph. The Gentle Reader can find the whole post still active on the BU website.
Here’s Bill Schmalfeldt’s concern troll comment to the post.
It wasn’t Aaron Walker’s blog about free speech and pictures of Muhammed that drew Brett Kimberlin’s interest and ire. It was Aaron’s pro bono legal assistance to a left-wing blogger who Kimberlin had sued for defamation.
It’s was Kimberlin’s attacks on Aaron’s First Amendment rights that backfired and drew the attention of the blogosphere to past and current activities.
A Cease and Desist Letter
I’m just back from the Post Office where I sent a letter by certified mail to Twitter with a copy to Twitter’s Maryland resident agent. The letter demands Twitter cease and desist from marking my tweets linking to Hogewash! astronomy posts with facially false sensitive material warnings. It also demands that Twitter shall preserve all documents, records, messages and/or data (whether hard copy or electronic) relating to the warnings attached to my @wjjhoge account.
I consider the warnings defamatory.
I’d like to be able to work with Twitter to resolve this issue, but given the company’s stonewalling and lack of transparency so far, I’m not optimistic about avoiding further escalation of the matter.
I don’t intend to have any further public comment on the warnings or this letter until I see Twitter’s response (or lack thereof) to my letter and review it with counsel.
Quote of the Day
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
—Laurence J. Peter
They Did It Again
Of course, I have appealed the warning—
This tweet links to an astronomy post about the Cat’s Paw nebula. It contains no sensitive material. I DEMAND TWITTER CEASE AND DESIST FROM MARKING MY TWEETS WITH FACIALLY FALSE WARNINGS.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
My podcasting partner and former fellow codefendant Stacy McCain refers to Brett Kimberlin as The World’s Worst Pro Se Plaintiff™. The TKPOTD for seven years ago today displayed one of The Deadbeat Pro-Se Kimberlin’s dumbest moves in any of the case he filed against me.
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The Gentle Reader may remember that I have filed a motion for sanctions against The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin for failure to properly serve court papers on me in the Kimberlin v. Team Themis, et al. RICO2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit. I received this in the mail on Saturday. It appears to be an opposition to my motion.
Note: This is the first court document published under the new Hogewash! policy of not usually redacting signature blocks on public court documents.
Comments are open, but please don’t educate the midget on his mind-bogglingly stupid error.
UPDATE—A further note about redaction: In general, home addresses and home telephone numbers will still be redacted. Business contact information will not be.
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On 21 July, 2017, Judge Hazel filed his memorandum opinion granting summary judgment in Patrick Frey’s favor and bring the case Kimberlin filed in October, 2013, to an end. Of course, Kimberlin appealed, and of course, he lost in the Fourth Circuit as well.
Now that case has been dead for over five years, I suppose I can point out the worst of Kimberlin’s errors in that filing. It violated one of the requirements of the case management order it cites—
No motion, opposition, or reply may contain any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter, or any ad hominem attack on any party, any Judge or employee of this or any Court, or any other person.
Incompetent is as incompetent does.
An Unmolested Tweet
I found this notification in my Twitter account last night.
When I checked my tweets that had been flagged with sensitivity warnings, I found that all that had warnings as of midnight 31 December still had warnings attached as did yesterday’s tweet. The claim that warnings had been removed was false.
Clicking on the notice took me to a survey form where I provided the following comment—
You have sent me several notices stating that warnings have been removed from tweets when, in fact, all the tweets with warnings still have warnings attached. My tweets linking to astronomy posts on 24-28, 30, and 31 December and 1 January still have warnings attached. See, eg,, You have sent me several notices stating that warnings have been removed from tweets when, in fact, all the tweets with warnings still have warnings attached. My tweets linking to astronomy posts on 24-28, 30, and 31 December and 1 January still have warnings attached. See, eg,, https://twitter.com/wjjhoge/status/1606607705346564097 and https://twitter.com/wjjhoge/status/1609506712553242624. No honest observer could believe that these tweet contain nudity, sexual content, violence, gore, or hateful symbols. Since your online guidance (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/media-policy) says that you apply these warnings manually after sensitive content is reported, I suspect that Twitter is acting as a catspaw for someone who is subjecting me to targeted abuse. Because I have been unable to find a means to contact Twitter Safety about this harassment via an online form, I demand that Twitter contact me by 5 pm ET, 3 January, via email (himself@wjjhoge.com) about this matter.
As of the drafting of this post at around 8 am, all the tweets cited above still had warnings attached. However, today’s tweet does not have a warning.
Hmmm.
Starting the New Year Wrong
They did it again.
And they appear to be ignoring my appeals of these facially erroneous warnings.
Twitter Lunacy?
The saga of Twitter’s flagging of astronomy posts as “sensitive” continues. Twitter’s Sensitive media policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/media-policy, downloaded on 30 December, 2022) (lowercase letters in the orignal) states
If you don’t mark your media as sensitive, we will do so manually if your content is reported for review.
Assuming that statement is truthful, that means someone or something (eg., an algorithm) is reporting the posts. I don’t believe that any reasonable observer can honestly believe these astronomy posts contain media “that is excessively gory” or “violent or adult content” or that that the posts to which my tweets link are in way “hateful.” Once was a mistake. Twice was a coincidence. Two weeks of it is enemy action.
I believe that I am being subjected to targeted abuse.
True But Inconvenient
I’m so old, I remember news that was fake but accurate.
I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Twitter has tagged this morning’s astronomy post as “sensitive” …
… even though they have removed the tags from several earlier astronomy posts.
When I responded to their survey, I pointed out the lack of transparency in their appeal process. The only response I’ve received was the notification shown above. Because they have continued tagging (eg., this morning’s post), the process is either still random or out of control. In no case can it be considered “fair” yet.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
After I wound up as a defendant in several First Amendment lawsuits, I began doing volunteer paralegal work supporting other bloggers defending their free speech rights. A large part of that work has been proofreading court papers. The TKPOTD for eight years ago today included some proofreading I offered to The Dread Deadbeat Pro-Se Kimberlin.
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The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin clearly needed some editorial help with his omnibus opposition to the motions to dismiss his Kimberlin v. The Universe, et al. RICO Madness.
#FixedItForYou
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I’m not done with him yet.
A Summary of Today’s News
Everything proceeded as I had foreseen.
I wish I’d been wrong.
Follow the Money
Deep Throat: Follow the money.
Bob Woodward: What do you mean? Where?
Deep Throat: Oh, I can’t tell you that.
Yelling, “Theatre!” at a Crowded Fire
At a crowded dumpster fire to be more specific, and by “dumpster fire” I mean the leftwing precincts of Twitter.
One of my pet First Amendment peeves is the misuse of a misquotation from line by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., found in the now overturned Schenck v. U.S. Supreme Court decision—
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic …
Emphassis added. Schenck upheld the Democrats use of the Sedition Act of 1918 to suppress speech opposing the Wilson Administration’s use of the draft in WW1. The First Amendment holding in Schenck was overturned in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio. The Supreme Court held in that case
[T]the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
The Brandenburg test is the current Supreme Court jurisprudence on the ability of government to punish speech after it occurs.
Yelling, “Fire!” (whether or not there really is a fire) isn’t illegal per se. Of course, it may be immoral if yelling it causes a panic, and if someone were injured or killed as a result of such a false warning, the yeller could be held civilly and criminally liable for his action.
But back to Twitter.
I find the dramatic whinging over the dumpster fire resulting from the self-inflicted ToS suspensions of leftwing journalists to be really boring theatre.
The Wheel of Karma …
… has turned. Tonight it rolled over several big name leftwing accounts on Twitter.
Aaron Rupar, Ryan Mac, Matt Binder, Donnie O’Sullivan, and Drew Harwell are among the permanently suspended.
I will simply note that none of the people whining about these suspensions protested when I was permanently banned or when Stacy McCain was permanently banned or when Dr. Robert Malone was permanently banned or when …
Drip … Drip … Drip …
I just got finished with my day job for the week when a friend let me know that Matt Taibbi has begun the next dump of Twitter files. I’m gonna go to the kitchen to make a sandwich and get another cup of coffee. When I get back, I’ll see if there’s something unexpected. Maybe I’ll even have a comment.
UPDATE—Well, there weren’t any surprises for me in tonight’s dump. The TL/DR seems to be that everything proceeded as I have foreseen.
Pleading the Hatch Act or the Fifth Amendment?
When asked if the Biden campaign told Twitter that Hunter’s laptop files were “hacked,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to say if anyone close to President Biden made such an assertion in order to justify suppression of the NY Post‘s report.
I can’t speak to decisions made by the campaign from here. It is a political campaign … I am covered by the Hatch Act …
Well, she is, but I’ll bet the Biden team also will be doing what it can to avoid self-incriminating statements.
I’m Watching The Twitter Files Unfold
I’m sitting at my desk with a cup of Irish coffee and watching Matt Taibbi tweet out his report on the Twitter files related to suppression of news related to Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s interesting to see what the people involved were stupid enough to put in writing.
Indeed, I’m surprised that the files were left intact when it became obvious that the Musk deal was about to close.
But maybe I shouldn’t be. The bunch running Twitter for the last six or seven years never impressed me as being particularly smart.
You Say That As If It Were A Bad Thing
A group of snowflakes at Twitter are whining about how Elon Musk plans to operate the company.
Given Twitter’s history over the past seven years, 75 % may be a lowball estimate of the number of employees who need to be fired to enable the company to resume acting as the free speech wing of the free speech party it once aspired to be.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
One of the purposes of Team Kimberlin’s campaign of pro se lawfare clearly was to use discovery in civil suits to try to dig up dirt on their enemies. Brett Kimberlin handed off sealed discovery from the Virginia Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. case to associates who published it at Breitbart Unmasked. He leaked some of the sealed discovery from the RICO Remnant LOLsuit in filings in the Maryland Hoge v. Walker, et al. case, but he was unable to get Judge Hazel to lift the protective order in the federal case. The TKPOTD for five years ago today dealt with Kimberlin’s failure to get the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to relax the RICO Remnant protective order.
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I’m not making this up, you know.
After spending years trying to use the courts to suppress the First Amendment rights of people who have written truthful things about him, Brett Kimberlin included this sentence in his failed motion to unseal his informal opening brief in his appeal of the Kimberlin v. Frey RICO Remnant LOLsuit—
Appellant has a right under the First Amendment to appeal in public.
No. He doesn’t. His right to a public trial and, by extension, a public appeal is not secured under the First Amendment. IANAL, but the last time I checked the Bill of Rights, due process rights are secured by the Fifth Amendment.
Patrick Frey’s due process rights are also protected by the Fifth Amendment. His lawyers were able to convince a federal judge that certain information given to The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin during discovery in the RICO Remnant LOLsuit should have been sealed in order to protect Frey’s rights (and possibly the rights of third parties). TDPK repeatedly asked the District Court to unseal that information, and he was never able to provide a reason why Patterico’s rights should not have been protected.
TDPK’s motion to unseal is timestamped as being received by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals at 10:06 Monday morning. The order denying his motion was docketed at 12:01:59 Tuesday afternoon. It didn’t take the court long to see through his frivolous argument.
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
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Kimberlin’s whole lawfare schtick came about as an attempt to shutdown a left-wing blogger who thought that having Kimberlin and his not-for-profits associated with Progressives was bad for that side’s brand identify.
Taking on the blogosphere was biting off more than he could chew.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
It’s not unusual to catch members of Team Kimberlin in lie. This Bonus Prevarication Du Jour is from eight years ago today.
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This one isn’t from Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt. It’s from Brett Kimberlin himself. I found these words in an email he sent to a third-party. The email was forwarded to me this morning.
Mr. Hoge and his co-defendants seem to believe that they can try this case online. They believe that they win by causing the most harm [redacted]. They have been warned by numerous attorneys that their actions after the filing of the case will come back to haunt them when the case gets before the judge or jury, yet they obsessively post more and more defamatory statements that add proof of the allegations I have made.
For the umpteenth time, I don’t litigate online. I have made no substantive comments about the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. lawsuit other than to acknowledge its existence, to note that I have filed an answer, and to state that I believe the case is without merit. I’ve joked that Kimberlin left “mopery with intent to lurk” off of his laundry list of torts. And I did offer to let him settle the case on the cheap for a payment to me of $1,000,000. That wasn’t a joke.
As far as I know, none of my codefendants have discussed the merits of the case per se online, but none of us have been shy in expressing our contempt for Brett Kimberlin. Team Kimberlin, OTOH, has been publishing all sorts of attack pieces, longer posts on Breitbart Unmasked or the Cabin Boy’s various sites and shorter jabs on Twitter, in support of Kimberlin’s suit.
The Gentle Reader may decide for himself who is attempting to try the case online.
Of course, the various lawyers involved in the case have counseled caution in what we defendants say about the matter outside of court. Duh. That’s why I haven’t made any substantive comments. However, not a single lawyer who has discussed the case with me expects the case to go to trial.
Since he hasn’t actually filed an amended complaint to add the act of defaming him by publishing a certified copy of a public document, oh, never mind …
Fail.
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It turns out that the only part of the initial legal advice I received that was mistaken was the expectation that the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. case wouldn’t go to trial. It did, but the judge stopped it after Kimberlin rested his case and granted a directed verdict in the defendants favor because Kimberlin hadn’t presented a “scintilla” (the judge’s word) of evidence to support his case.
He really would have done better in the long run to accept my settlement offer.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Nine years ago today a post In Re Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. took note of an important event in that case, the first of the LOLsuits naming me as a codefendant.
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Today, my lawyer filed my answer to Brett Kimberlin’s complaint in the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. lawsuit. This takes my offer to settle off the table. I will have no additional comment on the matter until I have further discussions with my counsel.
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My settlement offer consisted a allowing the case to be dropped without filing any counterclaims in exchange for a payment of one million dollars to me from Kimberlin. He’s lost all the case he’s brought against me, and by time I’m done with him a million bucks will seem like a bargain.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
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—
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
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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Image 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.