Dan Collins and the Incestuous World of Right Wing “New Media”

Who is Brett Kimberlin? http://t.co/lsIKqmrC #freestacymccain

— Carl DeLong (@vermontaigne) May 22, 2012

Last week we speculated that defamatory comments by “Vermontaigne” on a Maryland Gazette article about Kelsie Kimberlin had been posted by Aaron Walker under a pseudonym. In fact, Vermontaigne turns out to be Dan Collins, a right wing blogger closely tied to the familiar gang of Kimberlin obsessives along with his brother Matthew. Here are the facts about Dan and Matt Collins:

• Matt Collins manages SunAnt Interactive, which Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney John Patrick Frey thanked profusely for help running his blog:
  

  I would like to thank Matt Collins of SunAnt, who helped me get through the early part of last year by providing free hosting and innumerable hours of site tweaking and the like. Matt, who goes by the Internet name Enoch Root, is Dan Collins’s brother, and was truly a lifesaver at a time when the site was going through some very rough times. I will never be able to pay him back for all he did.

• SunAnt seems to have a preponderance of conservative blogging clients; The Lonely Conservative has a blurb on their testimonials page
• Dan Collins has worked as a sales representative for SunAnt
• Matt Collins is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the conservative lobbying organization which asked Aaron Barr of HBGary Federal to plan attacks on its critics, including Brett Kimberlin
• Judging by his Google+ feed, Dan Collins apparently took part in Aaron Walker’s Everybody Draw Muhammad blog
• Dan also kept a blog called “Piece Of Work In Progress” (POWIP.com) from August 2008 until May of 2012. Robert Stacy McCain linked to him and praised his Islamophobia
• His brother Matt put up and maintained the POWIP website and also blogged there as “Enoch Root”; the site advertises SunAnt
• Many of Matthew’s posts at POWIP defend conservative Catholicism; see this delightful minimization of pedophile priests
• Matt also took part in Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day at POWIP by posting Kimberlin’s redacted address information
• Dan’s @vermontaigne Twitter account bio links to conservativecommune.com, which is registered to his brother
• At the Commune, Dan has touted various Obama-related conspiracy theories such as Benghazi-gate and non-Obama conspiracy theories such as WordPress-gate. The universal theme is that poor innocent conservatives are being oppressed
• Dan posted at Conservative Commune over 1,400 times from June of 2011 to July 2013, writing dozens of posts about Kimberlin
• Linking to Aaron Walker’s abominable blogging, Dan Collins asked “Why Did Trayvon Martin Attack George Zimmerman?“
• Matt also blogs at the Commune site as Enoch Root
• At his LinkedIn page, Dan Collins claims to work for HotMetalMedia.tv, a website he owns. Hot Metal Media seems to be a reblogging site for content from The B Cast, which is a site owned by Scott Baker, Editor-in-Chief of Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze
• Dan has worked for Scott Baker and B Cast as a researcher
• Glenn Beck has the largest audience of any media figure to seriously entertain Kimberlin conspiracy theories
• @vermontaigne is followed by Michelle Malkin, Eric Cantor, Dana Loesch, and Andrew Breitbart

We are glad to meet Dan Collins on Twitter. Looking at his record, we congratulate him for his hard work defaming a progressive activist with the Walkerites’ bizarre persecution narrative. Dan probably deserves credit for having brought Aaron Walker and John Patrick Frey to Glenn Beck’s attention, and his co-blogging brother has direct ties to Brett Kimberlin’s most powerful political enemies. What is not for us to like here?