Oh, and TBogg/Jennifer, you may see some, uh, unwanted attention from all that Kimberlin crap, since Patterico saw fit to cite some old “business” you had with him in your pre-FDL days; an incident we longtime fans will remember well (Cole links it in his post).

Hah, looks like Cole was finalizing a follow-up at the same time I as assembling that long-ass comment.

Doesn’t make things a whole lot clearer for me, though. Kimberlin is (supposedly) filing false legal claims, which is just as bad as making fake calls to police that bring out the SWAT Teams against political foes? Or… something?

Apologies for long comment that follows…

Regarding the wingnuts’ obsession with this Brett Kimberlin guy, yeah, objective information has been mighty hard to come by. Simple internet searches just turned up the usual wingnut circle jerks of mutual quoting and linking. Original and verifiable sources seemed to be quite rare, when I last looked.

My impression is that the dude was (and maybe still is) kind of a shady character. It looks like some wingnuts – possibly hoping that lefties would impulsively/instinctually rally around Mr. Kimberley – decided to make him their whipping boy, and he decided to fight back through the courts. One of the aforementioned wingnuts (the always adorable R.S. McCain, IIRC) didn’t show up for a court date, and was sanctioned accordingly. So now the wingnuts are playing the victim card, and McCain is claiming he had to abandon his current home because of the brouhaha. Less charitable explanations suggest that McCain is short on cash, and sees an opportunity to get some sympathy contributions from the wallets of clueless political allies.

In a post by John Cole asking your same question, some commenters (usually local Hoosiers in the know) seemed to offer up trustworthy background info.

Commenter Kman (#46):

33 years ago, Brett Kimberlin (then 18) set off a bomb at the Indianapolis Speedway [sic: actually, Speedway, IN, an fakey-ish municipality in the middle of Indianapolis; IMO, long and not-too-interesting a story]. Nobody was killed, but years later, one of the injured people took his own life. Kimberlin has been out of prison for some time now, and is now working for a lefty not-for-profit organization (which fights against, ironically, domestic terrorism among other things).

Now with a family and children, Kimberlin claims to be reformed, but a few right wing bloggers won’t let him move on from his past—they have been harassing him for years. He’s only recently started to fight back, primarily using the court system. So now he is being tagged as a suppressor of free speech.

I don’t know if Kimberlin is reformed or not, but this has the earmarks of right-wing lynch mob/feeding frenzy. I’ll leave it to others to decide if Kimberlin has it coming.

Commenter danielx (#121) [also a regular here]:

Kimberlin was indeed an all around jerk back in the day, and was convicted of various drug/bombing/injuring offenses. As I recall he owned a health food restaurant that was his front and kindasorta tried to portray himself as an honest merchant/pillar of the community type but was too smarmy to pull it off (the food there sucked too). Whatever his good deeds may be now, back then he was pretty sociopathic and in my thankfully limited experience people like that don’t change. What amazes me is that they let him out at all; must’ve been before 9/11. Anyway, he was a jerk then and I’d guess he’s a jerk now.

Consider: his record and the fact that he got out early on a fifty year sentence.

Sidebar: These days if he was convicted of several bombings, dealing drugs, etc he’d get life and he’d do life in a highly unpleasant location.

But whatever. What does any sane person do under these circumstances?

a) if you’re Kimberlin, you keep your head down and try to stay out of the public eye at all times.
b) if you’re not Kimberlin you avoid him like the plague; who needs to be associated with that kind of grief?

Instead, supposedly here’s Kimberlin showing his ass, making threats, etc etc. That makes me wonder because while he’s a (supposedly reformed) all round bad guy/thug, he’s not a stupid man. Why would he expose himself that way – another offense would put him back in the joint for life. Plus, what’s with someone hiring him to do anything political? Hey, I’m all for redemption but if I was prominent in either party I wouldn’t get within three counties of this guy. He’s reformed? Good for him. Now let’s be serious and find somebody who doesn’t have that level of baggage.

Even on the eleven dimensional chess scale…I wouldn’t get within three counties of this guy.

He’d better goddam leave Danzig alone! I’m taking online Spanish lessons from that guy!

Aaaand, it is now being reported that AZ Secretary of State Ken Bennett has backed away from the birfer ledge:

“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. “He’ll be on the ballot as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has.”

But I’m pretty sure Sheriff Hatey will continue to proceed along a similar path, undaunted and without shame.

WOLVERINES!

According to a TPM account, the AZ Secretary of State (Ken Bennett) is now claiming that he only acted in response to 1200 angry inquiries regarding the Kenyan Usurper.

Some other folks figured out that, hey, if this AZ state official can be petitioned to do the bidding of others so easily – as opposed to, I dunno, sticking to just following state and federal law – maybe others can play. And say, why isn’t he as diligent in inquiring about the Mittbot’s eligibility?

Thus was an online petition born, demanding that Secretary Bennett investigate whether Rmoney is in fact a unicorn. They’re seeking 25,000 signers, and so far they are over 15,000. That’s over ten times the 1200 petitioners cited above!

It’s well past time to demand some answers on the ‘Unicorn Question’, Mr. Bennett!

Lesley, thanks for providing the links I shoulda dug up for my earlier comment.

I haven’t seen it myself, but apparently Hizzoner went on Rachel Maddow’s show, proclaiming his continued worthiness as a surrogate for the Obama campaign. Commenters over at Cole’s place said RM let him off way too easy.

Meh, it might actually work for POTUS in a weird-ass kind of way: some of the political reporters are saying this serves to keep Bain in the news, which is definitely NOT what the Mittbot wants. There is that…

But Booker sure did look purty in the Rmoney and GOP campaign spots that were quickly whipped up. Harold Ford better watch his back; there’s a new “centrist Democratic” Wall $treet front-man in town.

I see ya pulled the comments by ‘parody George’. Probably for the best, given the content – not the crudeness (how could you parody that guy without crudeness?), but the likely counterproductive contact info. ‘Twas kinda funny stuff, though.

The real George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina reminds me of a character in a long-ago skit – Kevin Nealon on SNL, I think – who started a scene slapping around his woman in the audience of a talk show (on How to Satisfy Your Woman, or some Phil Donohue-ish thing like that). When asked his opinion on the show topic, he said ‘I know what women want, and it’s RIGHT HERE’ while pointing to (or grabbing) his crotch.

Yeah, that’s George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina.

Yeah, that was kinda hard to watch. {/Rust Belt expatriate}

Cory Booker should be forced to watch all of these in succession, after going on Press the Meat and comparing this brutal-but-honest campaigning with the crap about Rev. Jeremiah Wright from the wingnuts. False equivalency, all to curry favor* with the big NYC-area money people for his eventual run for NJ governor (*per a TPM e-mailer, who IMO makes a pretty good case).

Mayor Booker’s admirable bravery in rescuing people from burning homes makes him well suited to be Chief of Emergency Services. But Governor?? Dunno much about NJ politics – maybe running for NJ guv requires kissing Wall Street ass, if one is to have success that close to NYC, but dayum, Booker!

….grumble, grumble….

Aw geez, I’m still laughing at the last post, and now… well, what Bardic @1 said.
That hiatus must have been a wonderful thing, as you have come back shooting flames and lightning bolts of snark. A wonder to behold, Sir. Welcome back!

Coming as this does shortly after both Alex Pareene’s retrospective and Mother’s Day, I’d like to take this opportunity to put in a good word for Jonah’s Mom, Lucianne.

Bringing home whacking off material for her talentless and maladjusted son was truly a rare and special act of motherly love, the kind of act that one might expect to be discovered only via police reports and criminal court transcripts. While it’s true that the material in question resulted in porn of very poor quality (even sickly, one might say), it was (and remains) the thought that counts, and represents a truly generous act of Motherhood.

Yes, I predict that Lucianne Goldberg shall serve as the template for a future generation of patriotic feminists ladyists, taking care of their sons’ needs in ways that would never occur to selfish feminazis reading their angry poetry and whining about their pay disparities relative to male counterparts.

Lucianne has shown the way – BOOKMARK IT, libs and feminazis!

Hah, that’s a relief! I clearly read too much into the middle paragraph of your comment #30 and, combining it with the final paragraph, assumed that you might have had some awful h.s. experiences that were causing some anxiety vis-a-vis the reunion thing.

I’m two years behind you, reunion anniversary-wise. No pesky Reunion Committee announcements are expected, but there are plenty of other reminders that Time marches on, with not a concern for our feelings. Inconsiderate bastid, Time is…

Jane, you’ve mentioned your concern about your h.s. reunion before. Maybe call some of your pals from those days, see what they think/if they’re going/etc.? Afraid my own h.s. experience won’t likely offer any guidance in such a matter.*

Good luck on whatever you decide, and if you go, hang with your pals and try to enjoy.
___________________

*I did well in high school academically, loved most of my teachers, and had no trouble with most of my fellow students, but never got over feeling socially awkward (mostly due to my own personality). Basically the place creeped me out, and while in attendance I often felt like I was in some script written by Rod Serling, with added plot elements from The Graduate and Being There. Too big and coldly institutional to provide the controlled comforts of my smaller elementary school (K-8), and too rigidly scheduled and policed to provide the joys of independent intellectual exploration that college offered later. I was mighty glad to escape after doing my four year stint.

Anyhoo, never been to a reunion, probably never will be. There are a few folks I’d love to catch up with, but I doubt they’ll ever attend either.

Apparently Rmoney’s folks have been desperately seeking someone from the high school years who could offer positive, character-affirming memories. Heh.

I wonder if any of the Kenyan Usurper’s minions have good Website-building and SEO skills, accompanied by a sense of creative mischief? A fictional classmate who is totally gaga over memories of the guy – I’m thinking Mary Rosh-scale adoration – might be enough for the Mittbot’s search subroutine to lunge at the bait, especially if desperation overrides the vetting subroutine. There is precedent for that sort of thing.

Hey thanks MBouffant. Looks like you guys had a great time out there on the left coast. And I saw that Mrs. TBogg got a shout-out by the host.
In hindsight,, I would not have publicly posted my speculation about Mr. & Mrs. TBogg’s destination in advance of the event; never know when a Rage Imp-smitten groupie from Team Gravity might decide to hassle someone like our Sultan of Snark IRL.

According to fair and balanced White House correspondent Snark Knoller, it wasn’t bullying, but noblesse oblige:

CBS, NBC, CNN & FOX lead tonight with Gov Romney giving high school friend free haircut 50 yrs ago.

Well, I was hoping for photos, but it looks like you guys dodged the camera lens.

Hey TBogg, if you’re attending this (also, too), I hope you’ll provide an after-action report. In any event, carry on.

In the meantime, I too hope to hear from Fbogg.

Ah, someone else hopping on board the Fox/WSJ/Heritage gravy train. Truthiness roolz!

This business really touched a nerve with front-pager Freddie deBoer over at John Cole’s place, as shown by several detailed posts that tracked events as they unfolded. That it would happen with a publication oriented toward academic folks does not speak well for how things are going at CHE, no matter what motivated Ms. Riley’s original hiring (seeking “balance”? seeking rightie readership? whatevah…).

BTW/FWIW, regarding the last link, the author’s first name has only one ‘y’, i.e., Lindsay. Been reading her since her days at her old Majikthise blog. Nice to see her getting some link luv.

According to this April post, Karl the chef is not himself apparently diabetic. Rather he is trying to create meals as though he were, in the same way he created meals as though he were on a food stamp budget for one.

It is a wonderful way for him to use his talents, and great that he is sharing his experiences with the online community.

Thanks for the links guns! I’ve quickly run through the first two weeks of his Food Stamp Challenge, including some informative exchanges with commenters. I’ll be revisiting the site later for a closer look.