P/oed Patriot first broke the story of a reported sexual assault case which took place at the Occupy St. Louis encampment in downtown Keiner Plaza on November 8th:

According to the St. Louis Police website crime map, at 3:55 PM at the corner of North 7th Street and Market (the exact location of Kiener Plaza where Occupy St. Louis was camped out) a Sexual Offense occurred.

Why did this take ten days to make it to the mainstream media? Media tried to smear the tea party when they couldn’t find controversy, but this goes unreported for ten days?

Sharp Elbows interviewed St. Louis Police Sgt. Gary Wiegert who said he personally felt that the city’s mayor could have prevented this from happening:

CBS affiliate KMOV Channel 4 reported on the story this evening:

ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) — A woman participating in the OccupySTL protest reported to police that a man sexually assaulted her while she was in her tent last Tuesday, three days before tents were removed by the city.  A St. Louis City police officer says the mayor could have prevented it.

Brian E. King, 38, was charged with first degree sexual misconduct after police said he crawled into the victim’s tent and touched her breast.  The assault happened on November 8 at the encampment that used to be set up in Kiener Plaza.

[...]

The mayor’s chief of staff says that Wiegert’s accusations are all about politics, and the staff points out that St. Louis did not have problems like other cities.

Occupy member John Mills says that crimes happened before the occupation, and the perpetrator in this case was not a regular participant. He does not think it should reflect on their movement.

The assault occurred at the protest and it would not have occurred had the protest not occurred. Mills can’t say for certain that the perpetrator isn’t a “regular participant.” So he’s kind of a participant? Mills stated that King isn’t a “regular participant” which suggests King had participated before. The words of Occupy St. Louis’s own organizer refutes the defense offered by its group on Twitter that King was “only tied by location.” The group insists that the press, which hadn’t reported on the assault for ten days, is also somehow “smearing” them over the actions of an “unregular” participant.

There’s already been fighting at this event; the fact that their numbers are smaller compared to the attendance in other cities has prevented the vandalism and violence, aside from the hacking of Mayor Slay’s website and the reported threat to Principia College. The city can’t exactly take credit for that; Slay’s office did little to discourage the encampment and even offered the group a “free permit,” something not offered to the tea party group which demonstrated there a year earlier under threat of a canceled event by the city should they not procure a permit or insurance.

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I returned a bit ago from getting photos and video of the Obama fundraiser protest in St. Louis. It was hosted by Tom Carnahan, owner of the Wind Capital Group, an alternative energy group which received around $100 million in stimulus funds. That Carnahan’s brother is Democratic Representative Russ Carnahan surely helped change Wind Capital Group’s fortunes.

He sure does deliver. The Carnahan family. Far left is Tom Carnahan, who received around $100 million in stimulus funds. In the middle is Democratic Representative Russ Carnahan. Far right is Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who was cited in DOJ testimony in the new Black Panther Party voter intimidation case for her failure in cleaning up Missouri voter rolls.

The St. Louis Tea Party was among various conservative groups and activists who showed up to protest at Forest Park, barricaded across the street from Tom Carnahan’s stately home. The event was organized by Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, and began peaceful–so peaceful, in fact, that many families took advantage of the warm evening and showed up with their children as well. I brought my own with me to collect media, because I think it’s important for everyone, kids included, to participate in civics if they want and see their Constitutional rights in action. Various groups of collegiate conservatives arrived with their signs, Martin Baker, congressional candidate for Missouri’s first district attended, as did Missouri’s Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. Virginia Kruta from Kruta’s Bakery brought cookies for the kids who ran through the trees.

I’ve been to a lot of protests–both conservative and progressive–and only one other time have I witnessed such a level of hostility and outright inappropriate behavior. It’s a shame some individuals allow themselves to get so partisan and emotional that they make civic participation–or even standing around while taking photos and video–a hostile event. It shouldn’t be that way.

College Republicans showed up en masse. College Republican Chase Lindley, center.

Mizzou CR Craig Arnzen spoke from a bullhorn for the first time.

Towards the end of this video I just let my camera roll. The sun had set set; my HD handheld isn’t equipped with a light so I did the best I could. I took video (ended up being audio because it was so dark outside) which is peppered with flashbulbs so you get only glimpses of the crowd. Some inebriated Obama supporters from a nearby concert at the History Museum made their way over and my media gathering (and that of others) became more about rounding up my family and leaving because some individuals were simply too hostile and emotional to continue to film. I let the camera run for safety as we moved away from those shouting.

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Move-On-Up.org, the conference for the much persecuted black conservative, did not receive much press in its local media market of St. Louis. In fact, the organizers were attacked by the alterna-weekly right before the conference by writers who I’m told did not bother to contact the conference’s organizers for response or show up to the event to interview the people about whom they were writing.

Star Parker speaks at Move-On-Up.org's scholarship dinner. Photo: Dana Loesch

One media outlet did give the conference coverage, and that came from KTVI Channel 2.

African Americans who share conservative views on society and politics gathered in St. Louis this weekend to talk about building a grassroots organization.  It was the first national convention for Move-On-Up.Org, a group that began as an electronic social network connecting blacks who felt big government was heading in the wrong direction.

The meeting drew people from six or seven states as well as Missouri politicians including Republican Lt. GovernorPeter Kinder.

Nationally known conservatives Andrew Breitbart, known for his blog Big Government and Star Parker, a syndicated columnist, author and network TV commentator were among the speakers.  Parker runs a think tank which promotes market based pubic policy to fight poverty.

The first African American chairman of the St. Charles CountyRepublican Party, Eugene Dokes credited Move-On-Up with encouraging his interest in politics and challenging him to improve his education.  A Navy veteran, Dokes now runs his own real estate agency and is working on his PHD in business.  He said the convention showed participants “you’re not a bad African American for being a conservative.”

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Phil Christofanelli’s odyssey in Introduction to Labor Studies at the University of Missouri bobbed back to the surface Thursday when Big Government reported on internal emails among administrators. Those emails demonstrate that Christofanelli was targeted because of his conservative political views and imply collusion with the Soros funded Media Matters:

[UMSL Senior Associate Vice President Ron] Gossen added: “Media Matters did our work for us in showing how [the video’s] edited.” Indeed, the emails suggest that UMSL may have relied on left-wing blogs rather than conducting its own research.

A couple months ago, with turmoil swirling around the University of Missouri’s Labor, Politics, and Society course, the Ivory Tower’s official fishwrap, Inside Higher Ed, came to the defense of the course’s lecturers: Judy Ancel and Don Giljum:

Videos posted by the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart appear to have ended the teaching career of an adjunct at the University of Missouri — even as university officials issued a statement backing the contention of the two instructors of the labor studies course that their comments in the class had been edited to present an “inaccurate and distorted” picture of what was said.

It is specious to complain that video is edited since nearly all video is edited before being released. However, if editing is a concern, then why doesn’t the University make all of the video from the course available? Their claim that existing videos are “inaccurate and distorted” could be dismissed with just such a release. The fact that neither the University nor the media companies that were given the full videos have produced a video exonerating Ancel and Giljum suggests that exculpatory evidence does not exist. Again, release the video.

Gail Hackett, the provost of UMKC, hid behind the protection of “academic freedom” (from Inside Higher Ed):

Hackett’s statement went on to “underscore our commitment to the importance of academic freedom, freedom of speech and the free-flowing discussion of challenging topics in our courses,” as well as “the serious responsibilities this places on us to ensure a balanced perspective is offered to our students within our curriculum.”

Hackett’s suggestion that she is committed to “a balanced perspective” is unsupported by the evidence in the classroom. It’s laughable in light of the way that her fellow administrators targeted Christofanelli because of his conservative political views. But her pontification about ”academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the free-flowing discussion of challenging topics” give away the game. Hackett is defending her own academic fiefdom without serious regard to either free speech or free-flowing discussion.

She asserts that the inclusion of students in the video “without their permission is a violation of [the student's] privacy rights.” Is Hackett really arguing that students on her campus have a right to call for the violent overthrow of the US government? Big Government reported on this comment from one student:

…Ancel introduced the idea that “violence is a tactic.” . . .

The very next statement was by a student following up Ancel’s point: “I don’t necessarily want to be a part of capitalist society. I want to take over the state with a revolutionary movement, which doesn’t exist.” Ancel did not comment on his call to overthrow the government.

The comments of students are relevant for another reason: they are a testament to the efficacy of Ancel and Giljum’s teaching. The student’s words above and willingness to voice them openly show that the professors view violence as an effective union tactic and that the professors fostered an academic atmosphere that is hostile to political dissent. That contradicts Hackett’s stated goals of balance and free-flowing discussion and demonstrates the extent of the Gramscian damage at Mizzou.

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This morning Joel Pollak wrote how emails between UMSL administration show how the university was preparing to go after student whistleblower Phil Christofanelli. Background of UMSL story is here.

Now we know that the publicly-funded university and its labor studies program relied heavily on the taxpayer-exempt Media Matters for legwork:

On May 9, Christofanelli published a detailed first-hand description of the course. UMSL officials were determined to ignore his evidence: “Provost Cope, regardless of the accuracy of the student’s blog, is fully behind the appropriateness of the course,” wrote UMSL Senior Associate Vice President Ron Gossen in an email to staff on May 10.

Gossen added: “Media Matters did our work for us in showing how it’s [the video’s] edited.” Indeed, the emails suggest that UMSL may have relied on left-wing blogs rather than conducting its own research. In a subsequent email, Cope appeared to admit tacitly that she had not actually watched all of the videos, as she and George had claimed. [my emphasis]

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Hours ago a a St. Louis county jury found Elston McCowan and Perry Molens not guilty in the videotaped beating of Kenneth Gladney.

Elston McCowan, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, of De Soto, had been charged with attacking a third man who was selling buttons outside the politically charged meeting, called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at the height of debate over health care reform. Carnahan had wanted aging to be the subject, but many in the crowd wanted to argue over the president’s health care plan.

Kenneth Gladney said he was selling “Don’t Tread on Me” buttons and flags outside the forum when McCowan and Molens attacked him without provocation.

The two were charged with assaulting a person and interfering with police, both ordinance violations. The interfering with police charges were dropped and the trial was for assault charge, for which they could have each faced up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

In the above excerpt, the Post-Dispatch did not bother seeking quotes from Gladney or other witnesses, only Perry, Molens, and the defense attorney, a pricey private attorney I’m told is the best in the city.

Media Matters, who is partially funded by SEIU and who defended SEIU throughout the two years it took for Gladney to get a trial date, began spinning hard for SEIU once the verdict was reached.

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I got this photo in a text message from a friend. It’s a photo of his friend’s house, and the family was due to close on it this week.

St. Louis isn’t a stranger to storms; by the time you reach adulthood you’ve memorized tornado drills and are used to seeking shelter in your cellar or basement. Several years ago my boys and I huddled in our basement and watched as a tornado roared defiantly in the distance and threw a full-grown tree into our yard.

The city in which I was born and raised barely missed the worst of it; instead the tornado skimmed north-east and tore apart Lambert International Airport (the Mayor says he hopes to see flights at 100% capacity by midweek, but if you’re flying in or out of St. Louis soon, call their airline, not the airport) and communities just north of downtown St. Louis, namely Bridgeton, pictured above.

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(St. Louis) Let’s imagine that Washington University’s student government decided to put on a conference on Race. Let’s say they invited Al Sharpton as a guest speaker, and in initial negotiation, agreed to pay him his usual $30-50,000 speaking fee. Finally, let’s say at the last minute, a number of bigoted students protested Sharpton, and then the student government decided to pull the plug on Sharpton out of fear of the protesting, bigoted students.

What do you think Sharpton’s response would be?

You damn well know what it would be.

Sharpton would OWN the media cycle. He’d have the heads of the entire Washington University administration. He’d demand to speak. He’d demand a higher honorarium. He’d demand greater minority employment, and a Wash U contribution to Sharpton’s National Action Network. Plus, he’d want public apologies from dozens of people, sensitivity training for the student government, and a host of other minor concessions. He’d publicly embarrass the students and the school for their patent racism.

So my question for Bristol Palin is: “What concessions are you seeking?”

The lovely, lady Bristol.

Bristol Palin was contacted recently by Washington University in St. Louis’ Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC)– an adjunct committee of their student government, the student union (SU) – to be the keynote speaker in a 4 person panel on “[sexual] abstinence in a college setting” during the university’s annual “Sex Week.” Previous “Sex Weeks” saw abstinence proponents poorly represented, if at all. SHAC had apparently selected Palin because they thought it would draw positive publicity and discussion to the event.

Not so, however, as the announcement of Bristol’s selection drew an outcry from vocal opponents, who cited peer pressure and general contempt as factors motivating their disapproval of Bristol:

“I have been getting emails, text messages [and] phone calls from people at universities across the country, laughing at me. Everyone is so riled up about this that there’s not even a point of bringing her here, nobody is going to be able to listen,” junior Ryan McCombe said.

And after a day or two of protest attacks against SHAC, the SU capitulated and announced they had axed Bristol from the panel, because, “the controversy surrounding her appearance would overshadow the event’s intended message of sexual responsibility.”

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The left-wing website Talking Points Memo (known as TPM) is worried that the tea party-backed True The Vote effort in Harris County, Texas — home of the City of Houston — is going to successfully enlist Texans to join an effort to “true the vote” by battling vote fraud. Because of this fear, TPM has been trying to undermine the event with several left-slanted blog posts.

TPMs latest posting is artful for its vague accusations and spin, but it is short on any actual proof of the nefarious goals that the left-wing site is trying to ascribe to the True The Vote National Summit, coming up on March 25 and 26. Read closely TPM’s post also has the odd effect of coming to the support of vote fraud by seeming to discount the True The Vote event. Sadly, this dismissive attitude is of a piece with the left’s desire to shy people from paying attention to the massive vote fraud that they, themselves have been involved in for decades.

Typical of left-wing alarmism, TPM’s rhetoric casts suspicion on everything that True The Vote is trying to do, but never makes any actual accusations. For instance, of the addition of John Fund, Andrew Breitbart, and Hans von Spakovsky to the event program, TPM calls them “three of the biggest voter fraud alarmists in the country.” I guess from this we can assume that TPM doesn’t care about voter fraud because it is merely alarmism?

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The St. Louis Tea Party’s Ben Evans fights back against the ridiculous defamation from the NAACP:

Adolophus Pruitt, the man who stood silently and idly by at the press conference where the NAACP mocked Kenneth Gladney and called him an “uncle Tom” and then later lied about it on camera, as reported by Adam Sharp earlier today.

Kudos to KMOV Channel 4 for offering this forum for both sides, one of the first news outlets to do so.

In light of the St. Louis NAACP’s own racism issues, I was surprised to find out that they planned to hold a press conference to attack the TEA Party as racist…again.

The same chapter of the NAACP that uses racial slurs in their press conferences …

… preaching to the city whose TEA Party leads the way in policing itself. Irony.

I attended this press conference in order to confront the hypocrites in the St. Louis NAACP. I was met with evasion, half truths and flat out lies…then they kicked me out of the press conference for covering it. (more…)

By now everyone knows that in the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 17th, someone threw an incendiary device into the campaign finance office of Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO). I remarked at the time, both online and on air, that the story didn’t make sense, so I and others began digging because we all knew our local media wouldn’t investigate any further beyond whatever any press release or liberal blog mentioned of the incident.

The Mainstream Media got caught with their hands in the cookie jar again.  They were jubilant to jump on the “it’s the Tea Party’s fault” bandwagon within hours of an August 17  firebombing of Democrat Congressman Russ Carnahan’s St. Louis office. No one was hurt.  The finger pointing was immediate, because this was a double header for the MSM.  Not only did this give them an opportunity to try to pin something, anything, on a Tea Partier, but it also gave them a chance to take pot shots at conservative favorite, Ed Martin, who is currently gaining in his race to oust the unpopular, liberal Carnahan in Missouri.

Speculation began immediately for the liblogs, and in some local papers.  St. Louis Tea Party Founder Bill Hennessy quickly put out a statement that the bombing of a Congressman’s office should be immediately investigated by the FBI.  Bill and I  spoke at that time along with others in Tea Party leadership.  We knew,  without asking around or knowing the details, that this was not a Tea Party tactic, and that the investigation would lead to  the truth and further embarrassment of the left, by the left.

The Riverfront Times and other blogs reported that since the description of the suspect was “50, white, angry — he certainly fits the demographics of a Tea Party member.” (more…)

People on the left are constantly asking Andrew Breitbart who funds his “operation.” It’s grown to become rather amusing, actually. For those of us who are bloggers on The Bigs, we know the truth, we see how things operate. We know there’s no giant conservative-leaning lump of cash greasing this machine. If that were the case, I for one think Andrew would probably be home with his family even more, rather than traveling around, worrying about advertising or other ways of self-funding this little “hobby” of his, as the left often like to refer to it.

But let’s just look for one moment at where some of that line of thinking comes from on the other side. I’ve written previously about the birth of Media Matters as a spawn of Rob Stein’s Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix road show, from which the Democracy Alliance was born. It’s through this organization from which much of the organization’s funding had come; in recent years, more has been spread out across other progressive organizations, but the funders often remain the same names in most cases. For instance, The Tides Foundation gave Media Matters and their Action Network over $175,000 just last year. In earlier years, groups like Montclair, New Jersey-based (hometown of Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert) Schumann Center for Media & Democracy gave the organization $500,000.

The donors’ list is vast and diverse, and we plan to cover that in detail in the future. So I’ll focus in on one set of donors to Media Matters, which is the Labor Unions. More specifically, in light of some recent posts regarding the Kenneth Gladney incident, I thought it appropriate to revisit donations made to Media Matters specifically by the Service Employees International Union.

When you look at the timeline of events and the media calendar in general leading up to the Gladney incident last August, it’s difficult not to conclude that there was collaboration amongst White House staff, components of Big Labor, and certain liberal media outlets. However, we know that all will continue to deny it. (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…)

You can dump only so much manure on a plant before it has to thrive on its own, and the same principle applies in journalism. An initiative that lacks grass roots can wither in the sun despite liberal doses of mainstream media Miracle-Gro—which explains why Air America found a more receptive audience in the press than in the public, and why Martha Burk’s protest against the men-only membership policy at Augusta National Golf Club drew fewer demonstrators (a couple dozen) than the total number of New York Times stories hyping her who-cares crusade (more than 100).

Having enjoyed seedling-of-the-month treatment in the MSM greenhouse since late February, Coffee Party USA—the supposedly less strident alternative to the Tea Party—designated Saturday its National Coffee Party Kick-off Day. With gatherings in “more than 350 coffee shops in 44 states,” according to its Web site, the fledgling political organization was hoping to make a statement. Instead, it merely raised questions, exposed truths and, worst of all, inspired ridicule.

So, Coffee Kiddies, you want to be like the big boys and girls in the Tea Party treehouse? Sit down and have a cup of reality. Here are 10 reasons why your Coffee Party Kick-off didn’t amount to a hill of beans: (more…)

I don’t know about you – but I’ve watched in awe as the Tea Party movement has taken America by a storm. People have questioned the authenticity of the Tea Party movement. People have called us all kinds of names. Nancy Pelosi called the Tea Party movement “Astroturf.” People have slandered us, tackled us, and yet the Tea Party movement has stood its ground, and is stronger than ever. I for one, feel the Tea Party is here to stay.

But not only is it important that people show up at the Tea Parties today, it’s important that they continue to show up down the road, because the problems we’re fighting aren’t going away just yet. But how can we guarantee that people will continue to show up? Is the Tea Party movement going to diminish over time? Here’s what I’m doing to ensure that people keep showing up at the Tea Parties, get informed and continue to hold politicians responsible…

Is the Tea Party only for adults? NO. An effort has been launched to get not only the adults who are falling into debt involved, but the people who are going to have to pay for this insurmountably massive debt in the future: the kids. Yep, the kids. We are the ones picking up the tab for the spending happening today. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this. (more…)

With a whiff of nostalgia, I can imagine the old time journalist with the smell of coffee and cigarettes wafting through the click and clang of the typewriter.   Fifty years ago, a “journalist” had the ring of a dispassionate, creative, honest, fair, and trusted detective/storyteller.  Fifty years ago, if you graduated from an accredited journalism school, you were presumed “unbiased.”  Much as the physician takes an oath that she will “first, do no harm,” the “journalist” title meant that you were first, unbiased and balanced. Neutrality in the story was as necessary as it was assumed.

Sometime between half a century ago and today, something went very, very wrong.

We can speculate on what the “something” was, but we may never know for sure.  Much like the wind blows, there is no discernible source, but still we know it blows. Journalism became slanted to the left to the degree that the right had almost no voice by the mid-1980s.   Almost no voice, until Rush Limbaugh came on the scene.  Almost 30 years later, the tables have turned.  The problem for these journalists is that they have functioned robotically and cavalierly for so long, that they are not aware of the reality around them.  Things have changed. Drastically. (more…)

The Democrats and their activist old media are running in circles and working themselves into pretzels trying to define the “Tea Party” movement. It can be quite entertaining to watch.  They really have no idea what is happening right in front of their eyes. The media would have an easier time reading Mandarin Chinese than they would deciphering the signs at a Tea Party rally.

You could argue that they don’t want to understand what they are seeing because that means they would have to admit that Democrats have lost the beloved grass roots that they claim to have had forever, and I would not disagree. But, for the moment, let’s just say that they are really trying hard to figure this out and it’s just not sinking in to their brilliant Ivy League minds.

Let’s give them a little hint:

Sunday on Meet the Press, Dee Dee Myers, the former Clinton press secretary, took a stab at defining the Tea Party movement. “I’m not sure exactly where this is going….is it a third party, is it part of the Republican Party?” (more…)