Politico’s Ben Smith writes today that Media Matters for America (MMfA) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), both “core institutions” of the Democratic Party, are pushing anti-Israel policies and downplaying the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By promoting views once confined to the extreme left and isolationist right, MMfA and CAP are dividing the Democratic Party and isolating themselves on the margins of American political debate.

Smith notes, for example, that MJ Rosenberg, “Senior Foreign Policy Fellow” at MMFA, “regularly heaps vitriol on those who disagree” with his radical left-wing views on Israel, including liberal pro-negotiation voices such as Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. In May 2011, Andrew Breitbart noted that Rosenberg had accused supporters of Israel of disloyalty to the U.S. and called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrorist.”

Though CAP “tends to walk a more careful line,” Smith notes that CAP policy analyst Matt Duss, who directs the Middle East Progress blog, called Israel’s blockade against terrorist-controlled Gaza a “moral outrage” and likened it to “segregation in the American South.” CAP has also accused pro-Israel organizations, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), of agitating for war with Iraq and Iran.

Smith reports that CAP chairman John Podesta has faced complaints over “borderline anti-Semitic stuff” about Israel published on his organization’s website: (more…)

There has been a good deal of discussion of late about whether or not the IRS should launch an investigation into Media Matters’ tax-exempt status. In today’s part two of a three part series from FOX Business’ Elizabeth MacDonald, details of the civilian complaint filed by C. Boyden Gray demonstrate why the former White House counsel to President George W. Bush believes that Media Matters should have its tax-exempt status yanked.

Citing a pattern of “unlawful conduct,” Gray writes in his petition, which FOX Business has obtained, that the nonprofit has “executed a partisan strategy” in violation of U.S. tax law as it exists “no longer to educate the public but, rather, to declare ‘war on FOX,’” Gray says, quoting from an interview its founder, David Brock, gave to the website Politico.

Also unlawful, Gray says, is the nonprofit’s reported goal to “disrupt” the commercial interests of News Corp. (News Corp. is the parent of FOX News and FOX Business.)

Read the whole article, Former White House Counsel to IRS: Pull Media Matters’ Tax-Exempt Status.

Among the activity noted in the complaint: (more…)

In case anyone was wondering, or cares: I am not a Republican nor a Democrat. I don’t like either party. Never have. I am an independent.

I don’t like the Democrats because they are statists. They are for big government and more taxes. They are also for mob rule. They want a democratic society, not a Republic. That is a disastrous recipe. Big government always leads to tyranny, democracy lacks the limited government structure of a Republic, which makes it harder for corruption to prevail. Democrats seem to love corruption. They wallow in it like pigs in their own dung. That’s why they seek to undermine our limited-government constitution at every point. You can go back to Tammany Hall right up to today to see their disregard for the rule of law. Rangel and Waters were merely caught. They are far from outliers.

I dislike the Republicans because they don’t practice what they preach. They’re supposed to be the party of smaller government and lower taxes. But they are just like ’70s Democrats now. Aside from the Bush tax cuts, they’ve expanded government and spending to obscene levels. When the Democrats came into power they just made the Republicans look conservative by contrast.

Less terrible is still terrible. The Republicans share the blame for our debt. But what I really dislike about Republicans is how elitist they are. They cherry pick their primary candidates before the people can choose. They ram their picks through. The public is given a token choice, but the party rigs the results. A great example was the primary race this week. Delaware says it all. (more…)

I’ve had a lot written about me in my area lately: the alterna-weekly ran a piece on me recently called “Patriot Dame,” the local daily ran a piece titled: “St. Louis activist Dana Loesch — Miss Tea Party USA?” Even more, positive and negative, after I went on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews. It was suggested to me that I take a moment to write a first-person account of who I am instead of allowing reporters define me for me. So here goes:

The first time I felt really and truly screwed over by a man was when Bill Clinton was forced to admit that he’d shacked up with Monica Lewinsky not long after he wagged his sausage-finger in the face of America and sternly intoned that he “Did. Not. Have. Sexual. Relations. With. That. Woman.” Everyone who previously entertained the possibility was made to feel ashamed for questioning the Commander-in-Chief, including me, a mere high school freshman at the time.

That was the beginning of the end of my liberally-indoctrinated upbringing, when I first began to see the Democratic party for what they really were: modern day National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and neo-plantation owners. This is validated every time a self-described Democrat-fellating poseur feminist freaks out when I dare to point out that abortion is largely female genocide and true choice lies in which form of birth control to use before intercourse; I also see it when Democrats ignore and suppress the involvement of black conservatives in the tea party movement because it doesn’t jibe with the narrative of a party still populated by Dixiecrats who set filibuster records against the Civil Rights Act. (more…)

Remember when the Left was the champion of the Little Guy?  When they hated the “undemocratic” Electoral College and passed the 17th Amendment to force the direct election of Senators?  When Andrew Jackson effectively invented the modern Democratic Party by throwing open the doors of the White House to the people and defying Supreme Court orders?

Well, that was then and this is now, because here comes Kurt Andersen in New York Magazine to tell us that the problem with democracy is… you guessed it:

So now we have a country absolutely teeming with irregular passions and artful misrepresentations, whipped up to an unprecedented pitch and volume by the fundamentally new means of 24/7 cable and the hyperdemocratic web. And instead of a calm club of like-minded wise men (and women) in Washington compromising and legislating, we have a Republican Establishment almost entirely unwilling to defy or at least gracefully ignore its angriest, most intemperate and frenzied faction—the way Reagan did with his right wing in the eighties and the way Obama is doing with his unhappy left wing now.

Just as the founders feared, American democracy has gotten way too democratic. (more…)

This time last year, two proud and powerful citizens of the world stood at the pinnacle of victory.  Barack Obama was being inaugurated as President of the United States.  Both on the campaign trail and in his inaugural address, Obama proclaimed the start of his “remaking America” revolution.

George Soros had finally managed to back, promote and land a winner.  Their joint venture – Obama’s 2004 bid for the U.S. Senate —  had paid off in the ultimate jackpot:  the presidency.

Soros, the instigator and funder of various “velvet revolutions” in smaller countries, seemed convinced that all he needed to bring the U.S. into submission to a global government, stripped of her sovereignty, was a “citizen of the world” president to replace the all-American president, George W. Bush.  Soros has openly referred to the “bubble of American supremacy” and has berated our lone-superpower position as bringing much more harm than good to the “global family.”

Soros explained his early support of Obama, telling Judy Woodruff in May 2008, “…Obama has the charisma and the vision to radically reorient America in the world.”  When Woodruff queried Soros on whether it might be a concern that Obama lacked experience to lead in this dangerous time we live in, Soros responded, “…this emphasis on experience is way overdone…” (more…)

Yesterday’s big upset in Massachusetts, placing Republican Scott Brown in Ted Kennedy’s old seat, was a clear message from the voters to the Democrats, especially the president, that even lifelong Dems are balking at the crazed zealotry on display in Washington.

Obama’s response?  Full speed ahead.  “In substance, the mission can’t change.”

To prove he’s determined to stick to his plans, including nationalizing student loans, “card check,” cap and trade and immigration reform are also slated to be pushed by this administration. All are unpopular. The voters are disturbed by the backroom deals to special interests, the disregard for the public’s outrage, the marginalization of dissenters like the tea party movement.

All of this has lead to an anti-incumbent voter rebellion which resulted in yesterday’s Bay State thumping, just as it did in New Jersey and Virginia last November. The Democrats tried to rationalize away those defeats last year. The question is, will they do that again? Many long-term Democrat legislators are feeling the ground shifting beneath their feet as even safe Dems are no longer secure. The leadership of the party is putting on a brave face, saying they plan to plow ahead with Obamacare.  But many of the rank and file who voted for the earlier bills may bail on it now, seeing their political futures in peril. (more…)

The day before election day 2008, when all political commentary was flowing toward the candidates running for office, I used my column space to write a heartfelt thank you to President Bush (“An Election Day Note: Thanks, President Bush“).

At the time even Republicans were using every trick in the book to distance themselves from the 43rd president. Even before the Florida recount of 2000 I told Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund that the Democratic Party — then led by the Clintons, John Podesta and a team of Whitewater-to-Lewinsky era smear artists including Sidney Blumenthal — would use President Bush as an example to Republicans as a thorough payback for Impeachment.

Florida was a sign of things to come as the left recognized that Bush’s friendly “uniter-not-a-divider” persona could easily be turned on its head. Ted Kennedy’s rejection of bipartisan spirit after he and Bush crafted the “No Child Left Behind” legislation foretold how all Democrats, save for Sen. Joe Lieberman, would treat the 43rd president: with graceless contempt. (more…)

The mainstream media’s headlong and heady descent into denigrating George W. Bush over the last decade signaled a dark moment in media history that has surely damaged American consciousness. Caught up in “Bush-bashing,” the MSM reached a critical turning point, and likely one of no return.

At times consciously and even triumphally, the media increasingly abused the traditional journalistic standards of independence and neutrality in favor of functioning as a virtual arm of the liberal Democratic Party. They took on, in effect, a new and disturbing identity.

So consumed by politics, power and status did the MSM become during this period that bashing the former president became standard media fare. This death by a thousand cuts proceeded unabashedly, unabatedly, and largely without challenge by Bush and his staff during his presidencies.

Jim A. Kuypers concluded as much in his study, Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age, in which he meticulously documents how the agenda-driven and “anti-democratic” media not long after the 9/11 terror attacks began pervasively distorting the former president’s statements, failing to report critical parts of his speeches, and even “framing” (manipulating stories) to portray the president as an enemy.

Among countless examples: (more…)

I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. It felt like a scene from a movie that conveniently ties plot points together when two critical characters in the storyline share a moment of implausible significance – where the intrepid reporter finally runs his target to ground.

So at first I had trouble getting my words out. “I’m Andrew Breitbart,” I exhaled. Instead of hanging up, Bertha Lewis laughed like someone I would probably like in a different setting – but certainly not in this lifetime now that we are permanently and publicly tied to one another as media-based adversaries.

I knew the awkwardness of the moment would turn into trouble when I started asking her pointed questions and, sure enough, we soon we found ourselves in trouble.

“Did you go to the White House last year?” I asked.

Bertha Laughed heartily.  ”No,” she said.

“Really?” I pushed.

“No. One hundred percent not. Not this year. Not last year. Not ever,” she stated firmly, all the while maintaining an awkward and ironic joviality that was likely born of the weirdness of our impromptu exchange. (more…)