When President Obama called for an end to congressional insider trading during his State of the Union Address last night, there may have been some colorful Greek expletives muttered by a multi-millionaire publisher we all know and love.

When Breitbart News began our coverage of Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book Throw Them All Out, AOL/Huffington Post was quick to proclaim the story dead on arrival.  Their full-page headline proudly proclaimed “Hit Job Falls Flat,” which displayed lousy journalism on multiple levels. AOL/HuffPo characterized the diligently investigated report as a “hit job,” they prematurely proclaimed the story a failure and as we revealed at the time, they allowed Arianna Huffington’s cozy relationship with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to falsely inform their readers that there was no validity to the congressional insider trading scandal.

Here we are, only ten weeks after AOL/Huffpo called our story a dud, there have been multiple congressional and senate hearings, three different laws drafted and now, using his ultimate bully pulpit, President Obama said this:

What a humiliating moment for the smart-set over at AOL/HuffPo when their candidate lends this level of importance to a story they tried hard to spike. There was a time when AOL/HuffPo tried to sell themselves to the public as a new brand of aggressive and independent journalism fighting against the old guard media who no longer resonate with the American public. Now, AOL/HuffPo is the old guard, running interference for political cronies and using their $300 million megaphone to try to shout-down others who don’t fall in line.

The old-guard media versus new media conflict has less to do with the method of delivery of the news (newsprint versus kilobytes) as much as it has to do with the stale, predictable establishment philosophy that permeates the newsrooms of these organizations.  Take a liberal political reporter from the old-guard like Howard Fineman out of the Newsweek office and put him in the high-tech environment of AOL/HuffPo and you still have the same old repetitive and destructive mindset you had before.

This phenomenon, and what sets true citizen journalism apart from the cronies in the establishment media, was best revealed on my show last night by the journalist who got all this started in the first place, Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out:

Sunday night, CBS aired an edition of “60 Minutes” that took a rare look at corruption in Washington on both sides of the aisle. It even took a book by a conservative journalist and Big Peace editor, Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out, as the basis for its investigations.

Yet as Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters points out, “60 Minutes” “cherry picked” Republican examples from Schweizer’s book–so much so that four out of the five targets of its investigation were Republican, even though “60 to 70 percent” of the politicians described in Schweizer’s book are Democrats.

Eighty percent Republican was still too much for Politico, whose journalists appear on the majority of daily shows on the far-left, hyper-partisan MSNBC network, according to a Daily Caller report today. The Washington-based political digest panned the CBS story.

Nevertheless, CBS seems to have revealed that a 4-to-1 ratio of Republican to Democrat targets is the minimum threshold that a mainstream media outlet must reach before it exposes massive corruption in Washington. (more…)

Faced with a groundbreaking investigation by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer that reveals corrupt self-dealing on both sides of the aisle in Congress, the mainstream media had two options:

1. Criticize both sides in proportion to their involvement.
2. Defend both sides, in order to protect Democrats in power.

Yesterday, Politico chose #2. Today, Huffington Post has joined it, defending the Republican speaker it routinely derides, in order to protect the former Democrat speaker that many of its contributors hope to reinstate.

Screen grab by NewsBusters.org

As Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters points out:

As far-left outlets like the Huffington Post applaud what’s happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement around the country, you would think they’d welcome the sunlight being brought by Schweizer and 60 Minutes exposing a little known way that lawmakers use their access to further their own nests.

Pelosi is said to be worth $35 million. If she is using her position in Congress to add to her riches, shouldn’t the Huffington Post, as an unapologetic supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, applaud efforts to end such graft as it’s being exposed? (more…)

In response to this evening’s groundbreaking report on 60 Minutes, which targeted both Republicans and Democrats for insider trading in Congress, Politico has circled the wagons around Washington’s political elite.

The CBS story was based on original research by Hoover Institution fellow and Big Peace editor Peter Schweizer for his new book, Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison.

That, apparently, was enough to send Politico–and the clowns at Media Matters for America–into a panic.

While hyper-partisan Media Matters has vomited a torrent of non-sequiturs to defend House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi from charges of inside deals (she paid high wages to her non-union farm workers? really?), Politico has attempted to defend Washington’s political class as a whole.

First, says Politico’s John Bresnahan–before describing the 60 Minutes report in any detail–Schweizer is a conservative. Hence, by implication, he has an agenda (unlike Politico, of course).

Second, Bresnahan claims, Schweizer’s allegations are old charges–nothing to see here:

The allegations regarding Bachus, Hastert and Gregg [all Republicans!] covered by 60 Minutes are several years old and have received extensive media coverage already.

Curiously, Bresnahan does not link to previous reports by Politico on these individuals. (Perhaps they were at the bottom of the page somewhere, near the Solyndra scandal.)

Third, Bresnahan adds, Pelosi and House Speaker John Boehner (also criticized in Schweizer’s book and the 60 Minutes report) are innocent of wrongdoing, because… because… they say so:

“I have not made any decisions on day-to-day trading activities of my account and haven’t for years. I do not do it, haven’t done it and wouldn’t do it,” Boehner said during a Nov. 3 press conference when asked about the transactions by Steve Kroft.

Boehner’s office dismissed the 60 Minutes report as absurd…

“First of all, what you’re contending is not true,” Pelosi said. “Second of all, we are very proud of our record of what happened.”

Instead of following up original research by Schweizer–and by CBS, which did its own, independent investigations–Politico has stepped in to act as mouthpiece for the leaders of the Washington elite.

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Forget “Sixty Minutes”–it took the geniuses over at Media Matters for America (MMfA) all of about 60 seconds to pounce foolishly on the Breitbart TV video of CBS’ Steve Kroft asking a question of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. MMfA immediately pronounced it a “Right-Wing” smear job.

Right-Wing’s Pelosi Smear Ignores Historic Credit Card Reform Passed Under Her Watch

And MMfA didn’t stop there. It was like watching a one-legged man off to the races, down the track of a newly discovered dastardly Right-Wing smear campaign in action:

Breitbart.tv: “60 Minutes Challenged Nancy Pelosi On Her Conflict Of Interest While Speaker And Facilitating Financial Reform While Being Involved With Credit Card Companies.” The exchange was posted on Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart.tv website, promoting the notion that Pelosi faced a “conflict of interest” while overseeing credit card reform as Speaker:

Fox Nation: “Pelosi Visibly Shaken When ‘60 Minutes’ Confronts Her About Shady Investments.” Fox Nation suggested that the exchange demonstrated that Pelosi had “shady investments”:

From there, MMfA quickly circled the wagons around the former Speaker, desperate to show her as an innocent champion of the people against those evil credit card companies–one of which she seems to have invested with on favorable terms, despite relevant legislation making its way through the Congress she then led.

Wall Street Journal: “Congress And The White House Are Taking Aim At Controversial Credit-Card Practices.” In April 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported:

McClatchy: “Consumers … Would Get Strong New Protection” Under Credit Cardholders’ Bill Of Rights. McClatchy reported in May 2009:

(more…)

In a curious nod to James O’Keefe-style guerrilla filmmaking, Steve Kroft of CBS’s 60 Minutes turned up at Capitol Hill press conferences yesterday with surprise questions for both House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Kroft quizzed both about their stock transactions in their respective roles as Speaker.

Pelosi’s shocked response set the rumor mill going:

Boehner was more collected, calling for House members to follow existing rules on insider trading:

(more…)

On the evening of Aug. 8th, Jews across the world begin their observance of the fast of Tisha B’Av, mourning the loss of the two Jerusalem Temples (and many more calamities to the Jewish people). The Talmud tells us the cause of the Second Temple’s destruction was senseless hatred and political insults.

We are taught that during the first century CE,  a man threw a party and intended to invite his good friend Kamtza. His servant screwed up and mistakenly invited the host’s enemy, Bar Kamtza. This led to the insulting of Bar Kamtza, his slandering of the Jewish people to Caesar, and Bar Kamtza’s purposeful wounding of an animal Caesar sent to the Holy Temple to be sacrificed as a peace offering making it unfit to be used.

The offering was rejected by the Great Sanhedrin (think of the Sanhedrin as a Rabbinical Supreme Court whose 71  Judges were some of the wisest  scholars who ever lived.) The Sanhedrin met at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem until it was destroyed, after which they moved to Tiberius where today sits the Holy Land’s greatest Kosher Chinese restaurant, Pagoda (personally I do not believe that is a coincidence, from this we learned that the wise Rabbis of the Great Sanhedrin enjoyed take out now and then).

Anyway, Caesar took  the fact that his animals were rejected as a political insult and rebellious move  so he invaded, resulting in the destruction of the Holy Temple.

The public insulting of one man by one other man steamrolled out of control with the ultimate consequence of the destruction of the Holy Temple, and the exile of the Jewish people from Israel (and the ultimate Kosher Chinese place)  for almost 1900 years.

The story of the Kamtzas is apropos for the solemn day of Tisha B’Av,  but is also be a warning for America following two months of a debt ceiling debate riddled with personal insult and hateful rhetoric.

Despite the insults within and between both political parties, the compromise deal gives a political victory for some and though impotent in a cost cutting way,  it does provide an opening for our leadership to take use this “starting point” as a platform for the additional change necessary so the United States may avoid the Greece scenario and return to fiscal heath.

Although many in the movement would vehemently deny it, the big winner in the debate is the tea party movement. As recently as June 22nd the progressive Democratic Party were talking about a new stimulus package as part of a debt ceiling bill … but thanks to the tea party movement that scenario is long dead. The tea party movement switched the debate from “spending vs. cutting” to how “much should be cut and/or from where,” a huge accomplishment.

Major tea party demands going into the talks were achieved; no new taxes and cuts to the deficit larger than any increase in the debt ceiling. The biggest demand not achieved through the negotiation was the passage of the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). The bill passed by the House required that the Senate pass the Amendment, while the final compromise merely requires a vote. The difference is a huge one.  Since almost all of the states have a balanced budget requirement of some sort, and polls report that somewhere between 70-75% of voters want a BBA, once passed by two-thirds of each house of Congress this amendment is likely to “speed” its way thorough the state approval process (75% of the States must approve for it to be added to the constitution). A BBA would most certainly pass the house, house but will be rejected by the progressive-controlled Senate whose members are reluctant to give up their unlimited credit card.

Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell were also winners. They held to the “no new taxes” pledge despite rumors they had folded. Boehner gets more credit as he was the face of the opposition, took most of the heat, and showed himself willing to compromise not only with Democrats but with his own coalition to make a deal happen.

(more…)

In the wake of the passage of Boehner 3.0, ABC’s Jake Tapper has shifted into some hardcore revisionism that would make the guys at the Ministry of Truth proud.  He reports that the addition of the balanced budget amendment language that secured the bill’s skin-of-its-teeth passage ruined the chances for the failed version 2.0’s passage through the Senate:

Democrats close to the negotiating process say that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has made his deficit reduction legislation a non-starter in the Senate by adding the Balanced Budget Amendment.

A case could be made that the previous incarnation of the Boehner bill might have become law. Let’s say come Monday no compromise legislation was close to being successfully negotiated, and the previous Boehner bill had passed and the Stock Market was tanking. Despite 53 Democratic Senators signing the letter saying they would oppose the bill, despite the president’s advisers having formally recommended that he veto it, there still seemed a chance it could become law. A last chance, but a chance.

Yeah, a case could be made for that notion – a really crappy case.   The outlines of the newly coagulating conventional wisdom – that Boehner 2.0 would have passed the Democratic Senate and gotten President Obama’s signature, but that 3.0 never will and thus the Republicans are to blame – are becoming clear.  However, to buy this nonsense requires dropping the last few days’ worth of Democratic leaders’ unequivocal statements rejecting 2.0 down the memory hole.  For example, as Tapper’s own ABC News reported by quoting the Senate majority leader: (more…)

via FLPundit

Way to lean forward, Martin Bashir!

(more…)

“The tan man is a heck of a lot more comfortable on a bar stool …”

(more…)

“It’s a wonder that lightning just doesn’t strike people dead on the spot when they say stuff like that.”

From Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid:

Following the lead of David Gregory of NBC News, who wants Republican House Speaker John Boehner to publicly defend the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, the Los Angeles Times has now editorialized that Boehner ought to make it his business to rebut charges that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.

With the Los Angeles Times joining the chorus, it appears that the left-wing media are trying to get the House Republican leadership to pull Obama out of the quicksand he finds himself in, as doubts and questions keep mounting about his personal history. The media strategy seems to be to paint GOP House leaders as crazies if they don’t condemn the “birthers” questioning Obama’s legitimacy as President.

It is almost as if the media are trying to prevent the House Republican majority from conducting a serious investigation into the circumstances of Obama’s birth.

The Times said in an editorial, “In an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ Boehner was willing to concede that he believes Obama is both a native-born citizen and a Christian. But, the speaker said, that was because ‘I’ll take him at his word,’ as if Obama’s assurances were the only corroboration of his citizenship and his religion.”

(more…)

A gentle correction. From Mediate:

Speaker John Boehner broke one of the rules tenuously keeping the web from descending into anarchy and goatse .gifs by adding his own editorial stance to a re-tweet concerning health care law.

[...]

The “MT” at the front of his Tweet stands for “modified Tweet,” which his certainly was. But this is usually reserved for a Tweet that has to be shortened so as not to go over 140 characters, not one that is altered so as not have its meaning drastically changed.

People. This is like arguing on Myspace: unfruitful.

There is no Rule Book of The Webernetz which says that “Lo, Thou Shalt Only Use ‘MTs’ when thou shalt choose to Retweet the Tweet of another and they remarks exceedeth 140 characters.”

Seeing as John Boehner advertised that he was modifying a Tweet, and quite hysterically IMO, it seems a bit over-the-top to call his update “dishonest” and perhaps as “dishonest” as the action of which Boehner is accused.

(more…)

Quite an unbelievable exchange took place today in Boehner’s press conference. Can you imagine if we saw this press with Nancy Pelosi?

The press is pounding the drum that the repeal will fail in the Senate, almost as a way to give confidence to those remaining vulnerable Democrats like Sen. Claire McCasikill.

Only in Washington does spending a trillion dollars save money. It’s like screwing for chastity.

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Remember, spin, people, spin.

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Oh, the spirit 0f giving is in the air—

With that thought we take a sneek peek under the tree of those who lead this great nation through perilous times—–gifts deserved, gifts needed.

JANET NAPALITANO- Binoculars. High powered. Aimed at the Arizona border. If you see something, say something.

JOHN BOEHNER- A pack of Marlboros and 2 hours in a tanning bed of your choice (you’ll have to pay the new health care taxes.)

THE TEA PARTY- You have everything you need, just keep it up.

ACTIVIST OLD MEDIA- You have everything you need, just keep it up. You will be irrelevant soon and you will be the last to know.

(more…)

The Girls ask why the Jets are trippin’, discuss John Boehner’s “emotional” issues, and the snowman hit-and-run.

Produced and edited by Bob

In a recent NY Times Op-Ed titled “The Crying Game”, Gail Collins claims a double standard regarding Speaker of the House-elect John Boehner’s propensity to open up the waterworks and what would happen if outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi did the same:

We will stop here briefly to contemplate what would happen if she, or any female lawmaker, broke into loud, nose-running sobs while discussing Iraq troop funding or giving a TV interview.

If the rest of the piece is any indication, I guess some people would do the exact same thing Collins does to Boehner, as examined below. However, in all honesty, most people would do nothing because most people simply don’t care.

Collins’s victory dance here is understandable considering that she is the author of When Everything Changed, a book about how women have come a long way in the last half century …  after all, a scant 50 years ago most women in America would never have dreamed of being so openly condescending toward an elected official. You’ve come a long way, baby!

Collins then compares Hillary Clinton’s moment of emotion on the campaign trail in 2008 with Boehner’s crying after the midterm election:

Hillary Clinton cries in New Hampshire — is an excellent example of the difference between what men and women can get away with, tear-wise…

With her back to the wall and the presidency on the line, Clinton approached the edge of a sniffle and we are still talking about it. Boehner is driven to great, noisy sobs when he contemplates the fact that as a youth, he mopped the floor at his father’s tavern.

I expected that take to end with “… and nobody is talking about it” … except she is; we are.  I also suspect we will be talking about it in the future if this is the kind of inanity accepted as the status quo in public discourse these days. Collins covers the impending focus on Boehner also: since no righties loved Pelosi, it’s now in vogue to hate the Speaker of the House.  Therefore, get ready, Republicans, because we’re going mock this crybaby and drag him through broken glass.

The rest of the piece deals with how Boehner is in bed with lobbyists, wants to overturn Obama Care, voted against funds to help ill Ground Zero workers … as if the decisions our elected officials must make in the strategic clusterfark that is Washington denies John Boehner the politician the right to be John Boehner the man, for whom any emotional expression is, apparently, illegitimate. (more…)