[Welcome, Instapundit readers! This post has information about the anti-speech thuggery of convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin, and his business partner Brad Friedman, against me.]

Think Progress is making Brad Friedman into a martyr by pretending that the Chamber of Commerce is targeting Friedman and his “family.” But what Think Progress isn’t telling you: the Chamber of Commerce was far more interested in Friedman’s business partner, convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin.

Think Progress published parts of internal Chamber of Commerce e-mails talking about Friedman. But what Think Progress hides from you is that the Chamber was actually primarily interested in Kimberlin. They described Kimberlin as having “a bit of a checkered past and has been associated with some more radical and violent activities.” That’s a pretty mild description of a guy who set off several bombs, one of which blew off a man’s leg. Meanwhile, they were very kind to Friedman, describing him as “much more mainstream” and someone who “can often be seen on many of the political talk shows.”

Their focus was Kimberlin. But Think Progress cut out any mention of Kimberlin. Entirely.

Luckily, you have me here to tell you what Think Progress won’t.

Here’s the background.

You may recall that Larry O’Connor published a post in October titled Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist Behind Anti-Chamber of Commerce Internet Campaign:

Has the White House been influenced by a convicted domestic terrorist for its attack on the Chamber of Commerce? The latest assault on the Chamber has been spear-headed by none other than the President himself and picked up by David Axelrod, MoveOn.org and all the usual Astro-Turfers who receive marching orders from the DNC. . . . But one group was well ahead of the curve on this movement to stop the Chamber of Commerce. In fact, they even own the URL “StopTheChamber.com”. That group is the infamous Velvet Revolution headed by convicted violent criminal and bomber, Brett Kimberlin. In her extensive and detailed article on Kimberlin and his past violent crimes, Liberty Chick noted that left-wing blogs and main stream media organs routinely site Kimberlin and his partner, Brad Friedman as legitimate sources and as normative “watch-dogs” over-seeing right-wing election shenanigans. The problem is, Kimberlin is a convicted domestic terrorist who has been described as a habitual liar by those who have looked into his past.

It is perhaps no surprise that the Chamber of Commerce was interested in knowing who their opponents were, and late last week Think Progress reported that the Chamber was “working with set of ‘private security’ companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress.” Think Progress expressly labeled one of the opponents as Brad Friedman:

Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Freidman included information about his life partner and his home address (sensitive information redacted by ThinkProgress):

Think Progress then published a (redacted) screenshot of an internal e-mail from one of the security companies, which had the previously described information about Friedman.

How did Think Progress get the e-mails, you might wonder? Did the security company accidentally forward their e-mails to Think Progress? Mmm, not quite. In the post that mentions Friedman, Think Progress describes the e-mails simply as “e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress,” but if you follow the link back to their original expose from earlier Thursday, you’ll see that members of a hacking group called “Anonymous” hacked into the e-mail of executives of one of the private security firms and published thousands of company e-mails.

In other words, the astounding invasion of Brad Friedman’s privacy — namely, a private investigator snooping on him — was revealed through the hacking of company e-mail. No privacy breach that.

In any event, Brad saw a cross and rushed to throw himself on it. He has published several posts referencing the discussion of him, and even ran to Democratic Underground to shout: U.S. CHAMBER’S THUGS TARGETED ME & MY FAMILY, NOW BRAD BLOG IS DOWN. Brad darkly insinuated that his site had been hacked, and even DU members were suspicious. One wrote: “Nobody has taken away your freedom of speech, Brad. Your Web host has shut down your site.” And then a guy called Vinnie from Indy had the gall to mention . . . Brett Kimberlin, saying: “Brett Kimberlin, I believe, is the other co-founder of the VR site with Brad.” Vinnie from Indy then linked a Google search for “Brett Kimberlin Speedway bomber.”

It’s weird how people from Indiana tend to remember him.

Regular readers of this site are familiar with Kimberlin. If you need a refresher, read this post. In short, Kimberlin set off numerous bombs, blowing the leg off a man with one of them. He later killed himself. The local paper reported that Kimberlin planned a murderous escape from prison, and was a suspect in arranging the shooting murder of an elderly woman.

Now he is partners with Brad Friedman.

Do you think the Chamber of Commerce was interested in Brett Kimberlin? Or Brad Friedman?

Think Progress mentioned only Brad Friedman in their post. But that e-mail they took a screenshot of? Here’s how that e-mail begins:



(Click to embiggen.)

This is the e-mail that describes Kimberlin as having “a bit of a checkered past and has been associated with some more radical and violent activities,” while describing Friedman as “much more mainstream” and someone who “can often be seen on many of the political talk shows.” You can click the image to read all of this.

If you want to see the entire e-mail, with appropriate redactions of personal information, you can see it here. Anonymous has put the hacked e-mails online, and they can be searched here. (I could give you a direct link to the unredacted e-mail, but I won’t.)

The salient point is this: there is not one word about Kimberlin in Think Progress’s post, even though Kimberlin was clearly the Chamber’s primary focus.

The left has been covering up Kimberlin for years. Friedman himself is deathly afraid that people will learn about Kimberlin’s past — so much so that he censors mention of Kimberlin in his comments. For my efforts in shining the spotlight on this violent and dishonest man, Kimberlin has threatened to sue me, and has written numerous letters to my bosses at my office, accusing me of stalking him and the like. It is guaranteed that this post, which makes a legitimate point about a site’s censoring of important information on a topic of public interest, will lead to another e-mail to my boss.

So be it.

His goal is to shut me up.

That’s not going to happen.

Maybe Think Progress will bury the truth about Brett Kimberlin.

I won’t.

P.S. Thanks to Ron Coleman of Likelihood of Confusion, who has agreed to represent me in any suit that Kimberlin might file. Coleman has an excellent reputation for handling blog-related litigation, and his blog is a new addition to my blogroll. Be sure to check it out.

P.P.S. Thanks to Liberty Chick for performing the redactions. After I found the e-mail that mentioned Kimberlin, I told her about it. She may have more today at Big Journalism.

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the links. Please consider bookmarking the main site, and follow my updates on Twitter here.

You can read the other related Think Progress post here. It is a post that details the anti-speech thuggery that convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin and his business partner Brad Friedman engage in towards critics like me, even as they decry similar behavior in others.

My backgrounder on convicted bomber Kimberlin, who is threatening to sue me for telling the truth about him, is here. He is a serial litigant who has filed over 100 lawsuits, so I am expecting this will happen soon.

Finally: although I have pro bono counsel, I would certainly welcome any help towards litigation costs and the cost of local counsel. If you want to help out, the donation buttons are on the right. Please consider becoming a “subscriber” and making a recurring donation of $9 per month. I expect to give special non-public litigation updates to subscribers if the lawsuit is filed.