Brett Kimberlin and his loony pals must be pretty happy today. If you’ve been following the whole saga about convicted Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin, and his buddies like Neal Rauhauser and the rest, you’re aware that they posted the address and photos of Ali Akbar’s mother’s home. They also exposed Ali’s prior conviction which raised some concerns for Paul Lemmen, who has been quite upfront about his own criminal past. He asked some legitimate questions about Ali’s role in the National Bloggers Club which haven’t been answered, as far as I know. Paul’s blog has now gone dark after he says he was harassed by our side.

I don’t know either Ali or Paul personally, so I really can’t vouch for the character of either man. But I do know Ladd Ehlinger and I consider him a friend, and let’s just say he’s not happy.

Look, I’m not a collectivist. I don’t care about celebrities. I don’t care if someone is “important” or not. Screw Ali’s political connections. You love him? Want to blacklist me? Be my guest. Won’t be the first time that’s happened. Been happening for two years now anyway. It’s the sort of thing I think Ali likes to do to people who get crosswise with him – trash them, prevent them from getting work, and so on. I could regale you with first-hand stories I’ve heard, but this post is already too goddamn long.

It all adds up to a kind of Kimberlin-ey behavior sans bombs, if you ask me. He was trying to rally people to attack Lemmen on Twitter after Lemmen’s withdrawal of NBC support. A few days prior, when he heard that I was privately voicing my concerns about his criminal convictions, he revved up his little Twitter flame-machine against me (“FilmIdiot,” I believe he called me).

Just the sort of maturity and repentance we need in charge of a legal defense fund when dealing with the Speedway Bomber.

Y’know, I don’t believe in “taking one” for a team that’s devolving into little more than Mr. Ackbar’s personal fiefdom, a fiefdom that didn’t seem to do much for Lemmen when Kimberlin and company turned their Eye of Sauron his way. Did Lemmen get a call from the legal defense fund? If not, why not? Because he’s a convicted felon? Isn’t Ali Akbar, the leader and founder of the NBC, also a convicted felon? At least Lemmen wasn’t hiding his convictions.

Makes me wonder – would I get any help from the NBC if I got the Eye? I mean, I’m not a convicted felon and all that.

Read the whole thing. There’s a lot to think about. Dan Collins tried to give Akbar and the NBC the benefit of the doubt, but updated with this: “Nix scenario three. It’s one of ‘ours.’” That’s unfortunate.

Hogewash summed things up pretty well:

Why are we fighting amongst ourselves? Mr. Lemmen’s questions are legitimate. They should be answered forthrightly. He should not be pressured to shut up because someone is vital to “the cause.” None of us is so important that he should be unwilling to step aside, if only temporarily, until everyone has a clear understanding of the facts.

I was blogging before the National Bloggers Club came along, and I’ll continue blogging if it goes away. Ali, Melissa Clouthier and the others have done good things for bloggers, so I hope all of this gets resolved. But we still have Brett Kimberlin out there living off his “non-profit” cash and harassing and terrorizing bloggers. We still have this out of control administration that’s spending us into oblivion while shredding the Constitution. It’s a time we should all be united, not divided and fighting over a few legitimate questions.

For the latest on the whole Kimberlin/Rauhauser mess, see the latest post at The Other McCain. Also, the case against Aaron Walker has been dismissed, but he’s still not allowed to blog about Brett Kimberlin.

Update: Nice Deb linked – thanks.

Update 2: Well, this isn’t good, either. Sigh. It’s hard to know what you’re dealing with when you only “know” someone online.