There’s been quite the kerfuffle of late over AOL/Huffington Post’s decision to permanently yank Andrew Breitbart from the cushy high exposure of its front page.  Liberals voiced immediate discontent in HuffPo’s decision to include Breitbart as a contributor in the first place.  Even after Color of Change, the online (un)civil rights organization founded by Van Jones and James Rucker, launched an online letter writing campaign in protest, HuffPo stood by its decision, citing its desire to broaden the site’s political viewpoints and encourage civil debate, something it says was accomplished in Breitbart’s first two pieces.

Strangely, it wasn’t anything Breitbart wrote in either of those first two posts that got him the heave-ho – it was comments he’d made in a phone interview to another site, The Daily Caller, for which HuffPo saw fit to admonish as an ad-hominem attack that violated its editorial policy.

I think we all fully recognize that HuffPo is its own entity, it can do as it pleases.  As a libertarian minded individual, I embrace self-regulation.  But there are instances where certain actions defy all logic, and in my view, this is one of them.  The concept of an ex post facto “no ad hominem attacks” rule is not only ludicrous, it leaves the door wide open to show just how arbitrary and desperate this decision really was.  We’ll all be pouring through HuffPo’s list of bloggers and pointing out instances where they’ve committed the atrocity of ad-hominem attacks on other websites, radio or television.  In fact, my colleague Alex Marlow has thoroughly busted Van Jones for this violation already.

All this left me wondering what else is driving such arbitrary decision making over at HuffPo.  Hearkening back to the anti-Glenn Beck campaign  that Color of Change and its partner CREDO have been running, my attention was diverted to Color of Change’s other co-founder, James Rucker.

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If Obama does not get it after this election, he never will. If the media does not get it after this election, it never will.

Now, you could easily argue that Obama absolutely gets it and he is doing exactly what he wants done in this country. He is a Cold Hearted Social Engineer and he thrives only by forcing others to obey him by fiat. I would be in that camp, have been for a long time. How could the most brilliant leader in the history of the world not know exactly what he is doing?

Change? He has never explained what he means by the word change. The media has never asked him, the media has never pinned him down on this, so, I will take it that they do not want to pin him down on this. They worship his Vagueness.

Watch this video of a conversation Dear Leader had with Moveon.lies the day after getting smacked silly in the mid-terms.

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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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The left loves full video and always pooh-poohs excerpts, which is why so many thought it odd that they ignored Lauren Valle’s actions leading up to the now-infamous scuffle.

Full video has emerged validating all the eyewitness accounts that Valle was lunging at Rand Paul, trying to shove a sign in his face and start trouble. It debunks the narrative that Valle was a simple protestor who just happened to be existing amongst all these angry conservatives.

… what it does demonstrate is that the idea that Valle was the victim of an angry mob who simply “didn’t like her message” is demonstrably false. The idea that Rand Paul’s supporters are a rabid single-minded, conspiratorial crew is also demonstrably false.

The fact that conservatives condemned Tim Proffit sticking his foot on Valle’s shoulder shows, again, that the right polices their side. The left does not. They create standards that they expect everyone else to follow; I’ve still yet to see a single one of them condemn the attack of Kelly Owens, on camera by SEIU, Kenneth Gladney, Alle Bautsch, Bill Rice, John McCormack, the assault on NC tea partiers, I could go on. The left has yet to rise to the challenge and match the right in condemning violence such as the examples I’ve given here. (more…)

WASHINGTON D.C. – Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Ranking Member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement today thanking George Soros for his generous $1.8 million endowment to National Public Radio (NPR) and demonstrating why NPR no longer needs to receive or be eligible to apply for taxpayer dollars:

With NPR benefiting from the generosity of people like MoveOn.org financier George Soros, it’s obvious that NPR is now a self-sustaining entity that no longer needs to rely on federal funds.  As an independent entity, they will be free to serve Mr. Soros’ far left agenda.  Once NPR is free from the umbrella of accepting, receiving and being eligible for taxpayer dollars, maybe Soros can fully finance NPR’s fall schedule with spin-offs of some of America’s favorite shows such as, ‘Dancing with the Czars’ or ‘Socialist Survivor’ and ‘Lost:  The Obama Presidency.’

Looks like Democrats got the memo.

Last week I worked for Liberty.com and covered a protest at Sharron Angle’s office in Las Vegas where a dozen MoveOn.org protesters showed up to go after the Chamber of Commerce for taking foreign money and buying TV ads during this election campaign. Of course, there is no proof of the foreign money, but the accusation is there and that’s the main thing that matters.

So far, the activist old media, to its credit, is not buying the Democrats claim. Certainly, they could be a little more forceful in refuting it, and mocking it. I’m suggesting Saturday Night Live do a skit where the Democrats go after Girl Scout Cookies because of a possible infiltration of foreign money. They sell 200 million boxes of cookies a year, there has to be some foreign money in there somewhere. Possibly, maybe, could be, might be.

Democrats have reached a new low in going after Republicans because it really is all they’ve got. They don’t want to talk about the economy, jobs, a failed “stimulus,” and a very unpopular “healthcare” bill. The media says they love to see candidates “stick to the issues” and ignore the foolishness, well, this is a great opportunity for the next three weeks for the media to “put up.” Make the Democrats stick to the issues of this election and focus on what the voters want. (more…)

The QC Examiner notices some pro-Phil Hare shenanigans going down at the Illinois, quad cities’ completely objective, non-partisan, and totally neutral Phil Hare Argus, a.k.a. the Quad Cities Online.

Hare, if you remember, is the Illinois Democrat congressional candidate who:

a) thinks the deficit is a myth

b) doesn’t care about the Constitution

QC Examiner writes:

the Hare-Dispatch jumps into the fray with multiple pro-Hare, anti-Schilling “reporting”.

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In response to a video showing day laborers being hired to hold campaign signs for Barbara Boxer, the Pasadena Star-News published a story about the video that has been a “viral phenomenon” according to the story written by staff writers Brian Charles and Frank C. Girardot.  The video shows day laborers holding signs for the Boxer campaign during a rally outside of the location where Carly Fiorina showed up to debate Boxer, who was joining via satellite from Washington, D.C., where she was to vote on the very important bill to limit the volume on our TV commercials.   The video was taken using a hidden camera and captures the day laborers holding signs for the campaign and when questioned about the sign they responded with “I don’t speak English.”  When questioned further about who made the sign, one man referred to the lady “that pays” along with some other broken English that was not audible.

The Pasadena Star-News seemed compelled to come out defending Boxer and her supporters, by trying to refute the story by questioning the video’s authenticity — and why not, since the video was released on the Breitbart.tv and Big Government websites.  After all, the left wing media never pays attention to details of the facts surrounding one of their fellow leftists.  They do however, pay very close attention to detail of those that they choose to apply Alinsky tactics to by following those sacred rules for radicals that the left is so fond of deploying.  The Star-News article attempts to apply these rules although it’s clear that writer Brian Charles might be a newbie at this game as well as the sources from MoveOn.org and the Boxer campaign.  In seeking to determine whether the video was authentic, Charles spoke to a spokeswoman for MoveOn.org who said:

“The tape has numerous problems. The caption doesn’t match what the man is saying,” said Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn.org communications director. “He said more than what appears in the caption. The amount of syllables coming from his mouth doesn’t match what was in the caption.”

This spokeswoman mentioned “numerous problems” with the video but, for some reason could only mention one issue – a rather weak argument at that, considering the only thing that matters is the fact he pointed to a “lady that pays.”  The story gets more interesting as Rose Kapolczynski, Boxer’s campaign manager seems to insinuate that the day laborers were really Boxer supporters.  I can’t expect them to answer any other way but, really… (more…)

It was April 15, 2009 when Speaker Pelosi pronounced the Tea Party protests as fake, using the term AstroTurf (as in phony grass roots).

The entire MSM covered that story and many worked overtime to brand the Tea Partiers as “AstroTurf” in an effort to discredit a genuine, homegrown movement the likes of which has not been seen in this country in decades.

Despite the fact that tens of thousands of people were part of hundreds of protest events held around the country on Tax Day 2009, NBC’s Chuck Todd appeared on the Today Show telling Matt Lauer the Tea Party movement was one that “hasn’t really caught on”:

On August 4, of last year, while on MSNBC’s Hardball, Senator Barbara Boxer joined in the discredit chorus, telling Chris Matthews that the protesters were “too well dressed” and too well organized to be legitimate: (more…)

Let me preface this by saying I’m not fan of the Paulies and some of their rude, pushy tendencies. With that, the recent email blast from MoveOn’s Steven Biel must be addressed as the deliberate race-baiting trash it is.

In recent weeks, Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul has repeatedly criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that private businesses should not be banned from discriminating on the basis of race.

While his campaign spokesman said Paul believes the government should be able to ban racial discrimination, many observers are finding it impossible to draw that conclusion from statements made by Paul himself.

Now is a good time to either question Biel’s grasp of American history or his willingness to carry on the Democrat Party’s shameful tradition of pitting one race against the other for political gain.

I say MoveOn’s Biel may be ignorant of civil rights history because his Democrat Party is the last group of people who should be lecturing anyone on support of the 1964 Act: (more…)

If you haven’t read by now all the headlines on this story, you’ll want to start at the beginning and read the first post, SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec. Because as each day passes, new facts are popping up. The story seemed so outrageous at first. After all, the thought of over 500 screaming and chanting protesters surrounding a Bank of America lawyer’s private residence while the man’s teenage son, home alone, hid frightened inside a bathroom – it’s just so extreme, even by SEIU’s standards.

I knew something was up when the following day, Fortune magazine editor Nina Easton, a neighbor of the targeted residence, published an account of the incident and was almost immediately attacked by what seemed like practically a coordinated dogpile of writers from several specific sources.

In almost mirror fashion to the Town Hall events last August, when both the Huffington Post and Media Matters seemingly tried to cover up and dismiss the violent acts that SEIU committed against Kenneth Gladney, the same players were again out in full force. As our Larry O’Connor wrote, both outlets behaved less like journalists and more like arms of the SEIU press office, dismissing SEIU’s bad behavior and attacking an innocent party with fabricated conflicts of interest as a method of distraction and intimidation.

Bob Borosage, Erica Payne, and John Podesta

And now we learn this: Erica Payne, the guest who was invited to appear Friday on Megyn Kelley’s Fox News show and proceeded to blame the Tea Parties for the behavior of SEIU? She was co-founder of Democracy Alliance, the very organization that spawned and is a donor to Media Matters. SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also the Vice-Chair of its Board.

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Alinsky Rule #12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Nina Easton just became the left’s latest target. Why? So that SEIU can hide from the truth about its financial liabilities to Bank of America (more on that after the jump).

Easton, a Washington Editor for Fortune Magazine, wrote a column early morning Wednesday, addressing the outrageous protest organized by SEIU and National People’s Action, where 700 protesters stormed the front lawn of the private residence of Greg Baer, deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America.

As I wrote in my post yesterday, “SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec,” Easton is actually a neighbor of Baer. When she was startled by the loud, screaming, bullhorn-rattling protesters, she called Baer’s teenage son to check on him. Home alone, the frightened teenager had locked himself in the bathroom. After witnessing the entire incident as it unfolded on her neighbor’s private property, Easton criticized the SEIU and left wing groups in her article for crossing the line this time.

Alinsky’s Rule # 12 states,

“Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”

In almost coordinated lock-step fashion, the 12th Rule was promptly and firmly applied. As Larry O’Connor posted on Big Journalism yesterday, a series of several posts soon followed the publication of Nina Easton’s article: (more…)

“Where were you when George Bush was President?” You know that question well. It’s been asked of each of us more times than any of us would care to count. Do you know how I usually answer it?

I was home, enjoying my life. I went to work every day and focused on doing the best job that I could do. When I wasn’t working, I hung out with family and friends. I went to baseball games, and barbecues, and obscure little hole-in-the-wall joints to hear some of my favorite live music over a couple of Guinnesses. Yum.

Why? Because while George Bush was president, we had a media establishment that was challenging our government, not our citizens.

I wasn’t necessarily happy with the direction of the country in those days. But I could sleep at night, knowing that we had media that pressed George Bush and our Congress on every single issue. I could know at any given moment what the “death count” was in Iraq because just about every channel splashed a persistent counter in the bottom corner of the television screen. When bills like the Patriot Act were first introduced in Congress, I never lacked for any detail on the dangers of the legislation. There was barely a single detail that went uncovered in the daily political grind. When there was a scandal to research and report, I certainly never had to do that myself. There were reporters who did all that.

Yep, I’m actually missing the Bush days now. I had so much more free time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always done my homework and researched issues on my own anyway. I recognize that all media is biased to some degree (and has been for quite some time). But I could always count on the media to challenge the government in the days of George Bush. I wrote my fair share of letters, I called and complained about the spending, even attended a few protests, but I can’t say that I ever felt there just wasn’t anyone challenging the president in the mainstream media. Quite the contrary, there was never any lack of DC pushback from the collective press in those days.

But we live in extraordinary times today. There now exists this giant, open cavity where that healthy pushback against government used to be. And when the mainstream media stepped away from that opening in 2008, two things happened:

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Boycotts could be considered an All American protest.  The act of refusing to purchase the goods or services of a targeted product pre-dates the republic, with angry colonists refusing to buy tea following the British Parliament’s enactment of the 1773 Tea Act.  What made this boycott so extraordinary is that tea was not simply an item on the shelf of colonial cupboards; it was a staple, a part of the culture that English settlers brought with them to the New World.

Fast forward 237 years to the most recent boycott making news in the colonies – the boycott of the Glenn Beck Show.  As many as several hundred companies that buy advertising have decided to spend their ad dollars elsewhere, Apple said to be among the most recent high-profile corporations to assume such a position.

It’s not as if a multitude of organizations has risen to demand a boycott of Beck’s product.  Much of the noise is emanating from the organization Color of Change, a relatively new left-of-center non-profit whose name appears to seek linkage with President Obama’s political agenda.

The most recent boycott demand is from a fellow named the Rev. Jim Wallis, who leads a group called the Sojourners.  Rev. Wallis decreed that Christians should not watch Beck’s show any more because the Fox host stated that the progressive catch phrase “social justice” is nothing more than code for communism and Nazism. (more…)

Media Matters is taking the Tea Party Convention to task regarding its limited credentialing for press access.

Tea Party convention hosts Palin and bans the press. Except Palin employer Fox News

Media message from the right wing: If you don’t give the Tea Party “fair coverage,” then you will be banned from covering its convention.

And who says the conservative movement doesn’t hold journalism in contempt?

So….when a quasi political convention held by a private group selectively excludes dissenting media, that’s contempt. But when the White House selectively excludes dissenting media, singling them out for vilification, that’s just fine with Media Matters.

For the record, I would like to see lamestream media outlets there. More often than not, when they cover the Tea Parties, they embarrass themselves in a way that simultaneously exposes their bias, while energizing and growing the base.

(Read the full article at BigGovernment.com)