Unfortunately, no one in the media or on the left seems to care about this smear crusade, and I've been smeared as crazy by a few liberal bloggers for caring too much about being smeared. There will be a new blog post next week, but probably not another one for quite some time. Thanks for all the links and traffic; this blog has gotten over 16,000 hits in less than a month, and despite what you might read on blogs smearing me as a criminal, I am not tracking IPs.
You can follow me on twitter at @ronbryn or at my other blog Hackers and Fake Newz.
Update at bottom: New article submitted to Wikipedia on May 19, 2012
Even though he was convicted for bombings in Speedway, Indiana and became infamous for alleging that he sold former Vice President Dan Quayle some pot, Brett Kimberlin essentially does not exist, according to Wikipedia.
"Do you know why your Wikipedia article got taken down on September 13?" I asked Brett Kimberlin by email on October 21, 2011.
According to a message left at Wikipedia, the article was deleted by "Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry" aka Wikimedia UK Office & Development Manager Richard Symonds, because it was "negative" and "unsourced."
September 13 happened to be election day for NY-9; the day Republican Bob Turner ultimately beat Democrat David Weprin for Anthony Weiner's vacated seat. It was "probably coincidence though," I added in my email.
And "this was the way it used to be," I mentioned to Kimberlin, along with a link to an Ask.com page.
A few hours later I received this response by email:
Wiki deleted it because it was posted a kkk guy who was blocked for posting false infg about many people including me. Wiki said that he had anagenda in his posts. He posted a lot of lies about black leadersI asked him if he remembered the name of the alleged "kkk guy".
I cant find his name, it was in the history section of the wiki post but they have deleted all that crap. I have complained to the ASK site about them continuing to keep that post up when Wiki pulled it for very serious violations — If I can get to a real person, they will pull it too.Kimberlin apparently reached "a real person" at the ASK website, because the reposting of his Wikipedia article was soon scrubbed. In a sense, I had unwittingly helped him hide his past, even though it was a matter of public record.
Just before publishing this article, I asked Mr. Symonds @ImTheCavalry on Twitter, "Was Brett Kimberlin Wikipedia article deleted because a "kkk guy" wrote it? @ImTheCavalry Can a non-"kkk guy" post one?" I'll update if I get a response.
From Wikipedia Requests for Undeletion:
Brett Kimberlin • ( talk | logs | links | watch ) • [revisions] I dont need the article "undeleted" as I have already recreated it. I would like an admin to email me the content from the deleted version or drop it on my talk page so I can use it to expand the article. Thanks. ZHurlihee (talk) 16:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC) -ZHurlihee (talk) 16:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)Here's an article on Kimberlin, hidden in Wikipedia:
Yes check.svg Done email sent. I sent the cleaned version rather than an attack version. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Another Wikipedia article on Brett Kimberlin, uploaded by Roy Ashbrook on August 27. 2011, can be found at this link.User:Metropolitan90/Brett Kimberlin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaBrett Kimberlin is an American political activist and ex-convict.[1]
In 1981, Kimberlin was convicted of a series of bombings that took place in Speedway, Indiana in 1978.[1][2] He had previously been convicted of charges including conspiracy in an international drug smuggling ring and impersonating a federal officer.[2]
Kimberlin was the subject of a 1996 book by journalist Mark Singer which revisited the story of Kimberlin's unsubstantiated claims to have sold Dan Quayle marijuana in the 1970s.[3]
References
[[Category:Living people]] [[Category:American political activists]] [[Category:Drug dealers]] [[Category:20th-century American criminals]]
- ^ a b Calabresi, Massimo (2007-01-05). "The Wizard of Odd". Time. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
- ^ a b "Speedway bomber gets sentence of 50 years". The Madison Courier (Madison, Ind.): pp. B3. 1981-12-31. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
- ^ Megan Harlan (1996-12-20), Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin (1996), Entertainment Weekly
Brett_Kimberlin
Update:
On May 14, Richard Symonds @Imthecavalry tweeted a response, "Yes, anyone can post an article about Brett Kimberlin, so long as it's sourced and *neutral in tone*."
Symonds' tweet included a link to a September 17, 2011 deletion review, which stated, "Consensus is that the subject is notable enough for an article. But considering that the two deleted versions of the article were created, in the judgment of the deleting admin, in bad faith (see also Ticket:2010031110064798) and that their creators are now indefinitely blocked, many contributors note that the deleted version of the article should not be restored as is. It is, however, unprotected to allow recreation by a responsible editor. The deleted version(s) can be sent by e-mail, or restored once a valid stub is in place, to aid with writing the article if needed."
Since Symonds didn't respond to my tweet, "Please explain how the two Brett Kimberlin articles scrubbed from Wikipedia on my blog break those rules," I submitted an article on May 19, which hopefully will be accepted. It's a rudimentary entry that is heavily sourced, and I'm sure it's missing tons of stuff supporters and detractors will complain about, but that's what the edit page is for at Wikipedia.
This is the article I submitted, which is currently waiting for review:
In 1981, after three trials, a health food restaurant owner and marijuana smuggler named Brett Kimberlin was convicted for eight bombings that were committed in the first week of September, 1978 in Speedway, Indiana. Although he received a 50-year-sentence, Kimberlin only served 13 years and was paroled in 1994.*
During his imprisonment, one of the victims from the bombings killed himself, and Kimberlin was held liable for the death and a $1.61 million dollar judgment was awarded to the widow. An appeals court later ruled he wasn't directly responsible for the suicide, and the judgment was reduced to $360,000 but it's unclear if Kimberlin ever paid anything.
Kimberlin maintains that he was wrongly convicted and in a 2004 interview, called himself "a political prisoner who was abused, tortured and released into the world again."
Days before the 1988 presidential election, Kimberlin alleged that he had once sold pot to Vice President Dan Quayle, but was placed in solitary confinement by the director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons - who maintained it was for the prisoner's own safety - and his press conference was canceled. In 1991, after Gary Trudeau based a series of "Doonesbury" comic strips on Quayle's alleged drug use, twenty newspapers pulled the strip. Four years later, the US Supreme Court remanded his claims that he was unjustly put in solitary confinement to an appeals court.
Former Solicitor General Erwin Griswold, who served under Republican President Richard Nixon, believed that Kimberlin was wrongfully convicted, partially because his trial included hypnotized witnesses.*
After prison, Kimberlin started a band called Epoxy in which he serves as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter, and a non-profit called Justice Through Music. He also co-founded the Velvet Revolution and is the business partner of Brad Friedman, who runs a blog devoted to voting rights issues, among other progressive causes.
In a 2007 article published in Time Magazine, Massimo Calabresi wrote that Kimberlin had "found a home in the blogosphere, digging up and disseminating an indiscriminate gush of anti-e-voting material."
Since October of 2010, conservatives have hounded Kimberlin about his bombing conviction, after articles were published at a website owned by Andrew Breitbart and other conservative blogs that questioned donations to his non-profit. Lawsuits and back-and-forth online battles have transpired between progressives backing Kimberlin and bloggers on the right ever since.
== References ==
* http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/100919013/StarFiles-Speedway-Bombings-Part-2
* http://www.southboundbeat.com/MD/Epoxy.html
* http://articles.latimes.com/1992-10-03/news/mn-280_1_dan-quayle
* http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19911121&id=P8RPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pgYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5699,6488288
* http://ndsn.org/SEPT95/SUPCOURT.html
* http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19920627&id=jrAcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_XsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2940,1302639
* http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1574161,00.html
* http://theothermccain.com/2012/05/18/who-warned-us-about-brett-kimberlin/