Foundation Watch

Nonprofit of terrorist bomber received Tides Foundation funding


A few short years after his release from federal prison a convicted terrorist bomber who has been embraced by the activist Left got a grant from the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

“Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin (see mugshot above) is a director and founder of the Justice Through Music Project, a seven year old Bethesda, Maryland-based 501c3 nonprofit entity. (See its latest IRS Form 990 [tax return] here.)

Kimberlin, as blogger Liberty Chick previously reported,

spent nearly 17 years in prison after being convicted of launching a week-long bombing spree that terrorized the residents of Speedway, Indiana in the late 1970’s. One of the blasts horribly maimed a man so badly that it directly led to that man’s suicide a few years later, which was proven when the widow of that bombing victim successfully sued and won a civil judgment against Kimberlin for $1.6 million.

Kimberlin is the business partner of leftist blogger Brad Friedman who frequently plays fast and loose with the facts. They are both involved with a group called Velvet Revolution which also receives funding from the Tides Foundation.

JTMP has received at least $70,000 in grants from the far-left Tides Foundation since 2006.  The 2006 grant in the amount of $60,000 was for general operations which means JTMP could use the funds without restriction. The 2008 grant of $10,000 was also for general operations.

Another noteworthy donor is singer and liberal activist Barbra Streisand who has given JTMP at least $10,000 through her Barbra Streisand Foundation since 2006 ($5,000 in 2006 for general operations and $5,000 in 2008 for general operations).

Yet another is Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts).  Mrs. Kerry is CEO of the Heinz Family Foundation which has given JTMP at least $20,000 since 2006 (the grant was earmarked for general operations).

Why, you may ask, bring this up now?  Because it’s newsworthy. A man named Aaron Walker (blogging name Aaron Worthing) is now claiming that Kimberlin tried to frame him for a crime he did not commit. The verbose but apparently honest Walker explains what happened in a heavily annotated, nearly 28,000 word essay at his website Allergic to Bull.

Do the people at the Tides Foundation, Barbra Streisand Foundation, and Heinz Family Foundation know that they have given money to an organization run by a litigious, violent, radical felon who appears to delight in intimidating people whose views he disagrees with?

Oh wait. There’s no point in answering that question in the Obama era, is there?

(Post updated several times same day.)

Matthew Vadum

The author of Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers (WND Books, 2011), Vadum, former senior vice president at CRC, writes and speaks widely…
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