Dangerous work, trying to cover the political beat where it concerns Democrats.

Police have identified a man seen on video assaulting a photographer after state Sen. Robert Brown’s Macon City Hall news conference on Thursday.

Macon police spokeswoman Jami Gaudet said he is Malik Brown.

She said police are still investigating whether the senator and the suspect are connected. She said both men are cooperating with the investigation, and police expect to interview both men Friday.

Brown is the same senator who, earlier, remarked that Georgia Republicans were like the KKK.

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Democratic congressional members and candidates have an adversarial relationship with citizen journalists. The latest installment comes courtesy Congressman Ron Klein who accosted blogger of the Lacrosse Watchdog Blog:

Martha Coakley’s muscle knocked a Weekly Standard reporter to the ground:

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Ed Schultz is no stranger to making inane comments about the right and being blindly apologetic for the left. But as we get closer to election day, and the left’s heads are exploding, Ed Schultz (along with the rest of the left) seem to be going off the deep end even more than usual. On Wednesday Ed Schultz made the claim that there isn’t “any violence, anywhere, from anybody on the left” and declared “stop giving me this crap that it’s on both sides!”

Audio here.

There “isn’t any violence” on the left because the left ignores the violence that happens to the right.

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Chris Matthews reported today that Joe Miller’s campaign arrested a liberal blogger “because [he] dared to ask a question of a candidate in a democracy.” He called them thugs and said he expected to see Bounty Hunter Dog at Millers side.

Chris Matthews has never seen anything like this. Really?

Except in Martha Coakley’s case it was a reporter for the Weekly Standard.

If Matthews is against such thuggish behavior, one wonders where Matthews’s outrage was when the thugs with SEIU violently attacked Kenneth Gladney. Where was Matthew’s outrage of thuggery when Black Panthers intimidated voters at a polling station? Dylan Ratigan also chimed in on the story today when he had an analyst say unchallenged on his show that the guards were a “para-military force” by Miller’s side.

Tea Party Patriots, rejoice! With enemies like Michael Kinsley, who needs friends?

Read between the sneering lines of Kinsley’s May 18th column in The Atlantic and you may just find an unintended love-letter to the very Tea Party Patriots he so desperately would like to torpedo. In fact, Kinsley’s blindness to the movement’s power is a proxy for the entire Democratic party’s colossal blindness to the tsunami about to drown it out of office this November.

Kinsley’s sneer begins with the headline: “My Country, Tis of Me.” (Because no party ever acts in its own self-interest.)

The overarching purpose of Kinsley’s Tea Party obituary is the left’s standard 3M approach: moralize, marginalize, minimize. It’s done through a series of disinformation volleys. Here are Kinsley’s primary distortions.

The Tea Party Is Right-Wing.

Kinsley launches his first Scud: “The right-wing populist Tea Party movement has politicians of both parties spooked.” The most important word in this sentence is “right-wing.” The Winston Group’s three surveys conducted from December to February showed that while 57% of the Tea Party are Republicans, four in ten are Democrats and independents. The majority of the Tea Party is right-wing, but it is far from monolithic and hence representational of more than a fringe right segment of the country. (more…)

It’s not exactly surprising to see a writer for the Apparatchik Press — er, the Associated Press — compose an in-the-tank item sympathetic with the Obama administration.

But Ben Feller’s unlabeled analysis Monday morning (“Obama’s challenge: Anger is replacing hope”; saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) is so over the top and totally backwards that it may merit its own place in the journalistic Hall of Shame.

Feller’s fantasizes that the problem Obama faces is not that his policies and proposals are unpopular. No-no-no. Instead, the president merely has to overcome a “complex communications challenge” to deal with the growing anger out here in the real world and get people over his side.

Here are key execrable excerpts: (more…)

What a week!

Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.  ”Health Care” on the ropes in Congress.   Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission puts paid to most of McCain-Feingold and breathes new life into the First Amendment.  Air America crashes and burns, and nobody hears a thing.   John Edwards turns out to be just as appalling a human being as we all knew he was.

Was this, as Jim DeMint promised,  Barack Obama’s… you know what?

Headlines like the ones below tell the story:

“Democrats point fingers after stunning loss”

“GOP Win in Mass. Puts Dems on Offensive – Scott Brown’s Surprise Senate Victory Has Democrats Scrambling to Regain Footing”

“GOP Senate Victory Stuns Democrats”

“In Stunning Upset, GOP’s Brown Wins Mass. Seat“

Etc.

In one sense, yes, Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley was stunning: In the bluest of blue states in the bluest region of the nation, voters rejected the Democrats’ — and Obama’s — agenda, sending a Republican to the Senate whom they hope will help stem the waves of left-wing socialism upon which our president, accompanied by a majority in Congress, has been bodysurfing since he came to office, despite campaigning as a moderate who would govern from the center. (more…)

You know you’re out of the loop when your only source of news is the New York Times, which is why you’re probably in a deep funk at this moment, suffering from near-terminal cognitive dissonance.   Because, as Matt Welch of Reason notes, if you picked up your paper this morning, you were probably feeling pretty good about your chances tonight in Massachusetts:

On the lower two-thirds of page A22 today, The New York Times runs side-by-side Liz Robbins-authored articles of the same length, space, design, and sidebar-box analysis (the latter by Katharine Q. Seelye). On the left, the story is about Martha Coakley. On the right, Scott Brown. The exercise practically screams out for a bias-detection exercise, and oh my word does The Times deliver the goods.

First, a headline comparison:

After Career as Their Advocate, Coakley May Face Voters’ Wrath

vs.

Riding Wave of Disaffection, Brown Pushes for an Upset

Coakley: Advocate! Brown: Wave-rider! Voters: Wrathful!

Whoops!  Be sure to read the whole thing here as you kick back with your favorite beverage and watch Chris Matthews crying in his beer, Rachel Maddow trying desperately to keep a stiff upper lip, and Keith Olbermann, as indefatigably nasty as ever, still snarling at Scott Brown and calling him playground names — which, when you come to think of it, are the only kind of names the Former Sportscaster probably knows. (more…)

Today is election day in Massachusetts, for what could be the most important and ironic political race of the last 100 years: A country swerving out of control; helmed by a supermajority Democratic machine that might just be slammed back on the rails by a one-party Democratic state, that in any other time but this one, is of the bluest kind.

I am a friend, political addict, and a newcomer citizen journalist for Andrew Breitbart.  I looked at this race weeks ago, and I knew if Scott Brown won, it would make history and literally upend the political landscape of the US and the world.

I had stumbled into the citizen journalist role via an unintended run-in with ACORN in Los Angeles, and followed up with a piece on the interesting nepotistic habits of Senator Max Baucus.  But this was bigger, and I knew it. (more…)

Sixth in a series.  Find parts one, two, three, four and five here.  .

Not since the Salem witchcraft trials has there been a worse disgrace in the annals of Massachusetts jurisprudence:  the railroading of an innocent Malden family during the legally sanctioned insanity known as the Fells Acres child-abuse case.  Probably the apogee of the mass hysteria that gripped the U.S. beginning about 1995, the Amirault case continues to resonate – in part thanks to Martha Coakley’s inexplicable disinterest in seeing that justice was done.

You can read up on the case here and here.   Be sure to steel yourself.  And then ask yourself: how could any rational human being have possibly believed the charges were true?

And this: Why did Martha Coakley not lift a finger to free an obviously innocent man?  As Ann Coulter noted just after the primary last month, she’s “too immoral for Teddy Kennedy’s seat,” which is really saying something: (more…)

The special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday for the open Senate seat once held by Teddy Kennedy is the hottest political story of the day. The race is so close that no one is sure who will win but signs are starting to point to a Republican Scott Brown’s victory. And it doesn’t help when Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Lion, doesn’t even know Coakley’s first name.

Cue the Associated Press with a Saturday puff piece on Democrat Martha Coakley that tries to sell her as an “historic candidate” perhaps in order to help push her over the top just before the polls open on Tuesday.

Written by Steve LeBlanc, the AP headlined its piece, “Coakley Hopes for Historic Win in Kennedy Seat Bid.”  The subtitle explains why her candidacy is “historic.” It reads: “Coakley aims to hold off GOP surge for Kennedy seat, become 1st woman elected senator in Mass.”

What puffery. The days when it was noteworthy that a woman was elected to high office are long past. For decades we’ve had women elected in just about every position in politics from the city and state level all the way to the highest offices. In fact, the only two jobs that have yet to see a female elected to them are president and vice president, though we have had credible candidates for both. For all else, women have long since shattered the glass ceiling. So, how “historic” could it be that we might have yet another elected female Senator? Aren’t there several female senators now serving? Of course there are – 16 of them, in fact. (more…)

Fifth in a series.  Find parts one, two, three and four here.  And don’t miss this important update.

There’s an old saying in New England, something one utters when another person grabs your chair or bar stool and plops himself into it before you were ready to leave:  “You wouldn’t jump into my grave so fast.”

Well, hold the phone.  As everyone in the State of Massachusetts and the country knows, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008, and as the months went on into 2009, the prognosis was: terminal.

With the imminent vacancy of Kennedy’s seat a foregone conclusion, Martha Coakley began ramping up her campaign for his seat… as early as January 2009.

The Boston Herald first reported on this story on September 25, 2009:

Attorney General Martha Coakley has run a shadow Senate campaign for months, shelling out $126,000 from her state campaign account for expenses likely tied to her Capitol Hill bid, including $15,000 for Web site upgrades just days before Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died, records show.

The spending spree began in January but ramped up the last two weeks of August as Coakley funneled $31,000 to consultants, fund-raisers and a Web design company in preparation for her foray into the high-stakes Senate race.

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Fourth of a series.  Find parts one, two and three here.  And don’t miss this report, either.

Martha Coakley declares that terrorists are “gone from Afghanistan” and has no idea the Taliban are either terrorists or our sworn enemies.

No one ever accused Martha Coakley of having any foreign-policy experience.  After all, as a career lawyer, prosecutor, state attorney general and lifelong Democrat party hack, the “Massachusette” can’t rationally be expected to be as up on the nuances of the “war on terror” as, say, Joe Biden.

Still, her remarks during her one debate with Scott Brown on January 11 should trouble anyone who hopes that a potential successor to the warm body currently occupying the deceased Lion of the Senate’s seat would have, shall we say, a greater grasp of the geo-political situation.

First, in her own words, her foreign-policy credentials:

I have a sister who lives overseas and she’s been in England and now lives in the Middle East.  I’ve spent a lot of time on my own traveling, ‘cause I’m interested in it.  Less so as attorney general, and my responsibilities don’t take me overseas.

Unbelievable?  See for yourself:

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Yesterday, I reported on the horrific rape of a two-year old by Keith Winfield in 2005 in Massachusetts. Then-Middlesex County DA Martha Coakley failed to take action to bring charges against Mr. Winfield. Today, the story takes another turn. In part II of the Curling-Iron Rapist Case, let’s look at two of the key players in the case: The lawyer for the family of the raped toddler, Larry Frisoli, and his brother and legal partner, Frank Frisoli.

Larry Frisoli was a highly-respected and high profile lawyer who had handled the wrongful-death suit in the famous and horrifying Jeffrey Curley case, where an 8-year Jeffrey was savagely kidnapped off the street and brutally raped and murdered.  Larry represented Jeffrey’s family, and won a symbolic $328 million wrongful death suite against the perpetrators in 2000. The perpetrators went to prison for life and were broke. That same year, Larry Frisoli was named “Lawyer of the Year” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Attorney Larry Frisoli

Fast forward to 2005, when Larry Frisoli was called by the family of the raped toddler to represent them.  After the mother of the raped toddler took the child to the hospital, the hospital notified DSS that the child had been molested and or abused.   The DSS came to the parent’s home, and tried to take the child away; thinking the parents had perpetrated the crime. The parents called family friend and attorney Larry Frisoli to sort out the madness.

As we now know, and what seemed clear to Larry and his clients very early in the case, was that the child had been left in the care of Policeman Keith Winfield, the uncle of the child, the prior day.   Officer Winfield, during his hour alone with his 23-month old niece, raped her with a hot curling iron. (Read the full story at BigGovernment.com)

Third of a series.  Find parts one here and two here.

Martha Coakley is caught making false statements on financial disclosure form, does not report  $262,000 in assets.

Now this is a story that only Charles Rangel could love.  One of Coakley’s selling points among the plutocratic liberals of the greater Boston area is that she’s honest, since unlike a lot of other politicians, she doesn’t seem to have enriched herself unduly while “serving” at the public trough.  As proof, she’s offered her financial-disclosure statements.

Oops!  From the Boston Globe last November:

Coakley admits to federal filing error

Attorney General Martha Coakley, the state’s top lawyer, acknowledged yesterday that she improperly filled out a federal financial disclosure she submitted to the US Senate as part of her candidacy in the special election.

The Globe reported yesterday that Coakley was the only candidate, in disclosures due to the Senate by this week, to report that neither she nor her spouse had any reportable financial asset worth more than $1,000.

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Surging Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has served more than thirty years in the Army National Guard, but to commentators like the Boston Globe’s Joan Vennochi, this is merely “pretty packaging” and part of how “Brown’s glossy veneer conceals [a] misleading campaign.”

It’s sad, but not surprising that the liberal media – and it is hard to find any newspaper more liberal than the Martha Coakley-endorsing Boston Globe – would want to minimize and denigrate Brown’s three decades of service to our country.  After all, when a liberal politician has actually served it’s so unusual that it becomes the centerpiece of his campaign.

But, of course, Coakley has served, too – not in the Army, but in a comfortable office with many minions to get her coffee and knock over pesky reporters who dare to ask hard questions.  She has “served” as the Bay State’s attorney general and, as Vennochi helpfully points out, she has prosecuted scam artists, child molesters and murderers (although even that claim is dubious).  Presumably, this distinguishes her from all those other attorney generals out there who strongly support the work of scam artists, child molesters and murderers. (more…)

Second of a series.  Find parts one here and three here.

The “Pedophile Priest” Case, 1995-2002: Coakley cut secret deal in 1995 that allowed Father Geoghan to molest again.

Martha Coakley is running for the U.S. Senate in part on her track record of keeping children safe from predators.  The actual facts, however, are somewhat at odds with her campaign biography.

One of the most notorious cases of homosexual child abuse in the “pedophile priests” scandal that rocked the American Catholic Church in general and the Archdiocese of Boston in particular over the past twenty years involved Father John Geoghan, who came to symbolize the cancer in the church.

Here’s a brief introduction to the late, defrocked Father Geoghan by Denise Noe in Crime Magazine.  Be sure to read the whole story, then come back. (more…)

Part one of a series.  Find parts two here and three here.

In researching the ever-intensifying Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and her Republican challenger Scott Brown, it only takes a few keystrokes to unearth her ongoing history of questionable judgment and puzzling prosecutorial decisions.  Even though the election has been effectively nationalized, with some polls showing the underdog Brown within two points or so of the colorless Coakley, she remains largely unknown outside New England.

So as a public service to the voters of the Bay State, during the run-up to the special election on Jan. 19, Big Journalism will be offering some of the Martha’s Greatest Hits, so that they can fully make up their minds whether she would make a suitable successor to the late Edward Moore Kennedy – who, as you recall, began his illustrious career by being expelled from Harvard for cheating, went on to drown Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, and then turned to a life of drinking and debauchery, including the infamous “waitress sandwich” with soon-to-be-retired Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, before attempting to inflict “universal health care” on the country shortly before his death last year.

You can read all about Ted here in this classic profile of the last and worst of the Kennedy brothers by the late Michael Kelly.  Be sure to read the whole thing, just to get a flavor of the kind of candidate Massachusetts voters seem to like.

Homework done?  Good.  Because Martha Coakley, the current Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and thus its top law enforcement officer, is shaping up as a worthy heir to the Lion of the Senate. (more…)

The latest: Michael Meehan, the Coakley staffer involved in last night’s scuffle, no make that a stumble, let’s try it one more time, the shoving incident with a Weekly Standard reporter, has now apologized:

Last evening I was a little too aggressive in the confusion of trying to help the Attorney General get to her car and catch a flight.

I clearly did not intend to cause John McCormack to trip and fall over that low fence.  As the video shows and he confirms in his blog, I stopped to help him up and make sure he was OK.

I talked with Mr. McCormack this afternoon and apologized for my part.

Maybe the AP won’t be quite so ready to go into Democrat-protective mode next time.

Original post:

Last night, while trying to ask a question of the slumping “Massachusette” herself, Martha Coakley, The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack found himself on the ground after an apparent altercation.

With her campaign moving into full panic mode as the polls tighten, this is the last thing the woman who aspires to “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” needs.  Of course, the campaign says that McCormack fell.  You be the judge: (more…)