Personally, I found Ben Shapiro’s book brilliant, well-researched, insightful, and even a page turner. What Ben’s written is a serious, scholarly work that makes a damning case against the Hollywood Left with facts, figures, history, and dozens of interviews. Nothing the MSM is doing to dismiss it, however, is at all surprising. We knew they would find a way to ignore the research and cover up for Hollywood. This is what the MSM does. This is how the MSM operates. Frog and the scorpion — especially when it comes to the water-carrying entertainment media.

And so, for the most part, what we’ve seen from the corrupt MSM since the release of “Primetime Propaganda” is Sesame Street, Sesame Street, Sesame Street… Or equally dismissive headlines that snark something along the lines of: “Hollywood Liberals Admit Liberals Run Hollywood.” Pushing a one-sided political agenda over the public airwaves is not a story. Some of the biggest names in television admitting conservatives are belittled and discriminated against … not a story.

Instead…

Two pages about Sesame Street are isolated and mocked — two pages out of a 355 page work that contains literally dozens of explosive interviews with some of television’s biggest names. Here’s the latest example:

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Is it just me, or is Martin Bashir a “Saturday Night Live” character who doesn’t know he’s a “Saturday Night Live” character? Did he really say Fox News?

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Like all too many Americans TIME Magazine proves that it doesn’t know what is worth celebrating, noting, or memorializing in this world. Time doesn’t know what “important” means, it doesn’t know what “influential” means, it doesn’t even know what “top” means. And it has proven this again with its latest “2011 TIME 100 most influential people in the world.”

Let me just ask this: why is TV actress and comedienne Amy Poehler on a list of the “most influential people in the world”? It is idiotic. Actor Colin Firth is also on the list.

Another actress, Blake Lively, a B-list actress at best, is on the list. Unbelievable. TIME has so little to say of this “most influential person” that barely a paragraph was offered about her. How influential can you be if your whole life can be summed up in a mere 65 words?

Mark Wahlberg is there? Yeah, the one-dimensional actor Mark Wahlberg is on this list for some crazy reason. Why? Who the heck knows?

Singer/songwriter Patti Smith is on the list, too. Evidently TIME thinks she’s still big stuff. What has she done since the 1970s again? One would be excused for imagining that she died 20 years ago she’s so disappeared from the greater cultural attention span.

Also on this absurd list is — and this should make anyone laugh out loud — MSNBC’s faux conservative Joe Scarborough.

Let’s take a look at the guffaw worthy addition of low-rated TV talker Scarborough, he of the extremist left-wing cabler MSNBC. Joe’s presence on this list is inexplicable, not just because he is a TV talking head but because he is one of TV’s lowest rated talking heads.

Now, being a TV (or radio) talking head does not disqualify someone for inclusion on such a list, exactly. For good or ill, being a major media figure most certainly can lead to wielding great influence. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly are examples of current commentators that have quite a bit of influence. In his day so did Walter Cronkite. Even someone like Father Coughlin (for worse) during WWII days on radio or Edward R. Murrow (mostly not for worse) were highly influential TV/Radio folks of their day that were worthy for inclusion in such a list.

However, Joe Scarborough is not anywhere near as influential or successful as any of those I mentioned above. It is flat out ridiculous to call Joe Scarborough one of the world’s most influential people. It’s pure fantasy.

Listen, these people I just mentioned are fine people. Successful at their work, known well enough by people, sure. But does “acting” and being a TV talking head make a person one of the world’s most influential people? It is idiotic to say so.

It isn’t just the hollow actors, aging singers, and TV personalities that don’t belong on this list, either. Injured Representative Gabrielle Giffords is also on the list. Why? It’s hard to fathom.

Gabrielle Giffords has a compelling story, of course, but to the greater world she is known for nothing but being the victim of a crime. Before being shot she was a virtually unknown Congresswoman. Since her shooting she has yet to do anything especially noteworthy due to her necessary rehabilitation. Further, we have no real idea how that is progressing so we don’t even have her example as something that can inspire us. Maybe she will inspire us someday. I hope she does. But as of right now she is not a “most influential person.” As much as we feel for her and are pulling for her recovery she simply isn’t a major world figure.

There are all sorts of people on this list that don’t belong on a list as vaunted as the 100 most influential people of the world. Take Amy Chua, for instance. She wrote the controversial memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Yes her book is very interesting and yes she has gained a bit more than her allotted 15 minutes of fame. But as worthy as her book is, a most influential person of the world she is not.

Do these people deserve to be better known? I don’t know. I guess so. Why not? But are they worthy of being included in a list of the most influential people in the whole wide world? Nope. Not at all.

Anyway, you can look this list over and find all sorts of people that do not belong on it. It shows that TIME Magazine hasn’t a clue what “influential” really means. It shows how facile the thinking of this Old Media staple really is.

Alternate headline: “Paul Krugman Will Not Read This Article”

Second alternate headline: “Paul Krugman: Lolcats > Conservatives”

Over the weekend a prominent figure in the art world, a liberal, came up to a group of us from Team Breitbart following a conversation that took place both on air and off, and told us we, particularly Big Journalism EIC Dana Loesch, are very respectable spokespeople for our side.  Needless to say, we were flattered, but while I certainly didn’t attempt to sway him off of his position that we’re super cool, I would contend we are merely representative of the quality people in our movement, as opposed to exceptions to the rule that conservatives are racist, bigoted, intolerant, etc.  Clearly the sweet accolade from the sweet man had a very powerful and illustrative subtext to it: he just doesn’t know many conservatives… if any.

One of the reasons for the existence of this very blog is because many of us contend that a substantial portion of the movers and shakers on the left, like the aforementioned gentleman, tend to live in bubbles.  This is a common theme across several of the Bigs.  Hollywood, the mainstream media, and academia, to name a few high profile arenas, are so overwhelming left-of center that it’s rare to find Republicans inhabiting them at all, much less outspoken Tea Partiers like the ones who make up the Bigs team.  On the other hand, those of us on the right are constantly forced to contend with the best thought the left has to offer, or else we’d be forgoing academics in one of the world’s most educated societies, we’d be abstaining from entertainment in the country that redefined it, and as good as the fantasy of doing away with what we call “the mainstream media” sounds, that’s a process that would take decades to complete, if it’s even possible (or beneficial).

So we’re forced to listen, whether we want to or not.  The schools, entertainers, and media outlets have us as a captive audience while these movers and shakers can comfortably build a career in the world of ideas without as much as consulting with those held by (at least) half of us.

Case in point, Nobel Prize-winning Princeton Economics Professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.  Last week, Krugman was asked which websites he reads frequently, and after providing a list of liberals and leftists like Greg Sargent, Josh Marshall, Digby, and Atrios, he copped to not reading any conservatives online on a regular basis: (more…)

Background: In my hometown of St. Louis a controversy is afoot. Bristol Palin was invited to be the keynote speaker February 7th at Washington University during the school’s Sexual Responsibility Week. As part of a four-person panel, Palin is slated to discuss abstinence.

Bristol Palin has been selected as keynote speaker for this year’s Sexual Responsibility Week at Washington University.

Student Union Treasury on Tuesday approved a $20,000 appeal by the Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) to sponsor a four-person panel featuring Palin. The appeal was initially set at $25,000 and renegotiated.

The $20,000 comes from the Student Activity Fee collected from each undergraduate student at the beginning of the year. The Student Activity Fee is fixed at one percent of tuition.

While Palin has not formally agreed to the appearance yet, she is expected to do so shortly.

I wasn’t even fully aware of what was happening until a number of Wash U student conservatives reached out, upset at their treatment when they would defend the student union’s decision. Protests are organized and two Facebook pages have been created. Above all else the protest against Bristol Palin stems from no other reason than her last name is Palin.

That’s it.

No one knows what sort of speaking fee Palin is collecting yet some left-leaning students immediately assumed it was eleventy frillion dollars and are attempting to use that as justification for their protest – except when you read the comments on Facebook or in the student paper it’s always followed up with some politically-charged remark about her being Palin’s daughter. Also, some in the community don’t believe in redemption or grace, thus think that once you err you are forever doomed thus, no way can Palin be an authority on abstinence, even though she has more experience than most young adults her age at the result of not practicing abstinence.

A young woman is attempting to say something positive, something about which I think we can all agree. From Huffington Post:

While the politically-charged nature of the selection has caused some minor turbulence on campus, one of the organizers behind the event explained to StudLife that her presence would help round out an annual happening that is often criticized for being one-sided.

“We thought a big name like Bristol’s would help to start a dialogue,” Student Health Advisory Committee President Scott Elman told StudLife. “We also wanted to target abstinence because SHAC and Sex Week have been criticized for being too liberal and too one-dimensional, and that the abstinence conversation hasn’t been brought up.”

Sadly because her mother is who she is, some are seeking to silence Bristol Palin’s voice. It’s bullying, plain and simple, all while the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign is all the rage in Hollywood.

Apparently that doesn’t apply to conservative youth. And especially if you mom’s name is Sarah Palin.

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A few days ago the miserable Helen Thomas, famed long-time Washington correspondent, let her hatred for Jews get the best of her once again. At a workshop held in Dearborn, Michigan dedicated to fighting anti-Arab bias in the United States, Thomas came out forcefully against the “Zionists” in Israel and the United States and refused to back away from anti-Jewish comments she’s made in the past.

It seems that Thomas’s latest anti-Jewish comments have caused her to lose support of at least one institution: her own alma mater, Wayne State University. The school from which Thomas graduated in 1942 announced this week that it will no longer be awarding its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award to journalists that “stand out in their field.”

As Wayne State once described the award: “The award was established to recognize her leadership role in promoting diversity in the media and the issues of race in America.”

It seems that “diversity” isn’t something that much interests Thomas, however. As Jeff Dunetz reported on Dec. 4, Thomas launched into yet another anti-Jew attack in Michigan. Wallowing in that old the-Jews-secretly-control-everything trope, Thomas regaled her pro-Arab audience with her anti-Zionist comments.

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Michael R. Blood, AP Political Writer, files this report:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Andrew Breitbart strips off his blazer, windmills it over his head and lets it fly to the stage with a matador’s flourish. He booms into a microphone, sneering, taunting. Breath sprints to keep up with words.

A Breitbart boil is under way, before a cheering throng of tea partiers on a moonlike strip of Nevada desert back in March.

A finger stabs overhead as the conservative online publisher declares Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a racist. An arm lances outward as he decries Republican leaders as apologists. Voice rising, Breitbart pledges $10,000, then $20,000, then $100,000 for the United Negro College Fund if proof is found to corroborate claims of racial name-calling during tea party protests on Capitol Hill.

“They decided to play lowball, hardball tactics,” Breitbart seethes. “Well, we’re going to have to play it right back at them.”

You could argue he has done just that. (more…)

One of the great things about writing for this audience is that I do not need to convince anyone here that our information gathering and dissemination system – the lifeblood of a free republic: the press – has for many years now simply been Absent Without Official Leave.

That seems half the problem. For while the failure of the Main Stream Media to report the news continues at an ever-accelerating pace, the anti-Americanism in Hollywood continues to not only chip away and erode our shared mythology… they are determined to actually invert it.

And they have been incredibly successful. People vote not on what they think so much as how they feel, and in this regard the radical left has had pretty much free reign in Hollywood for almost forty years now.

Politics is downstream of culture. And while the lapdog press remains silent, the forces in the workshops of identity continue to try to reconstruct the American people in their image. And that’s not an image we want to emulate. (more…)

It’s been a pretty remarkable week, news-wise and media-wise, and to say the two are related would be an understatement. We’ve seen the lid finally blow off the long-simmering Al Gore sex scandal, which certainly serves to explain the otherwise mysterious Al Gore divorce. We’ve seen a group of alleged Russian spies, at least one journalist among them, rolled up by the FBI. We’ve seen the public revelation of the so-called “JournoList,” a listserv groupthink email chain compromising roughly 400 lefty journalists and bloggers, for which Andrew Breitbart has offered $100,000 for the complete contents. And we’ve seen yet another example of the revolving-door relationship between Democrat journalists and Democrat politics when a Washington Post blogger turned out to be an Obama Administration operative.

I think you know where we’re going with this.

Journalists — whether through action or inaction — are at the center of every one of these scandals. And the amazing thing is, they not only don’t care that they’ve lost the trust of the public, forfeited their claims of objectivity and destroyed the nature of the reporter-reader relationship — they’re proud of it!

The old Soviet Union used American journalists as willing accomplices: from John Reed to Walter Duranty to I.F. Stone, the Soviets knew that one path to the destruction of the Principal Enemy lay through the press, and they diligently pursued western reporters, dangling  ideological solidarity, blackmail or money. Heck, Warren Beatty even made a movie about Reed: (more…)

For over a year, Big Hollywood contributors have been documenting Hollywood’s intolerance towards all things conservative — both when it comes to our ideas being given a fair shake in the industry’s product and, most importantly, the intolerance towards individuals whose beliefs stray from the liberal plantation. Again and again, people have come to us to share the stories of how their social and political beliefs hurt their show business careers in ways both big and small. And to their great credit, most of these individuals have said so on the record; with their names and faces prominently displayed in the upper left-hand corner of their Big Hollywood testimony.

Without fail, every single time someone tells their story here, the insulting snark hits from every corner of the web, dismissing out of hand our ever growing list of witnesses to this new blacklist. Sure, the Gawkers and the Farkers are entitled to their fun. They peddle in shallow superiority and there are plenty of buyers. Welcome to Al Gore’s creation.

Lately, however, Patrick Goldstein, a film writer at the L.A. Times, has been taking his own partisan shots. Tuesday, after Jonathan Kahn came out in the Wall Street Journal, there was this:

[I]t’s seems like quite a stretch to say that Kahn’s politics have held him back. But that’s what all too many conservatives do. They put the blame for their stalled careers on liberal Hollywood, when lack of marketable talent might be a far more likely source for the problem.

What’s curious about this argument regarding Kahn needing “marketable talent” is how Goldstein willfully ignored this part of the WSJ story:

One person stunned to hear of Mr. Kahn’s double life as a tea-party troubadour is top Hollywood record producer and Grammy Award-winner Walter Afanasieff. The two have worked on projects for years and are now midway through writing and producing an album for a young singer.

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Last month, I attended my first ever CPAC. It was quite the experience, complete with one extended chat with Max Blumenthal. I’ve wanted to meet Max ever since he launched an attack on James O’Keefe.  I figured maybe if I asked nicely he would issue an apology to James. But to my dismay, he didn’t feel like it at the time.

I guess attitude and environment really is everything because Max was clearly not ready to switch from confrontational mode to apologist in front of several cameras and dozens of on-fire conservatives in the middle of CPAC 2010.

My parents raised me with to have a “no fear” mindset and carefully select the environments I subject myself to. It has taken lots of trial and error in my life to perfect these skills, but nevertheless, its something worth understanding.

When I was 15 a lot of exciting things happened to me: I got into surfing, I got a car, I had an exciting job and I started home-schooling. (Quick note on the homeschooling thing: it was totally my choice and I had to beg my parents to allow it. Not hard to believe if you’ve done time in the Miami-Dade Public School system.) (more…)

Short answer: nobody knows.

But given that the West has consistently underestimated — or misrepresented — the Iranian government’s intentions and capabilities, maybe we ought to be paying attention.  Especially since they’ve warned us about a stunning “punch” today.

Farsi scholars disagree about the nuances of the translation. What kind of punch?  Real or “symbolic?” Is there an internal revolution underway? Here’s Farnaz Fassihi in The Wall Street Journal:

BEIRUT—Iranian authorities deployed in force across Tehran Wednesday to conduct last-minute security sweeps and warn residents to refrain from joining antigovernment protests planned for Thursday.

The government typically orchestrates large, carnival-like rallies and demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the Islamic Republic. For this year’s events on Feb. 11, the day marking the culmination of the annual celebrations, opposition leaders have called for protesters to demonstrate against the regime. That has set the stage for clashes between authorities and demonstrators, who have taken to the streets repeatedly to protest the outcome of presidential elections in June.

Or is this it? From the AP: (more…)