“Uh.”

—–

Allen: “These are members of your staff.”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Who say –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
[pause]
Allen: “You won’t listen to –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Uh.”
Perry: “If you don’t have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don’t take that as a corroborating source

If Mike Allen’s source(s) are protected, he should say so. But he doesn’t.

(more…)

So tell me if I have this right: decades ago, on a hunting ranch Texas Governor Rick Perry’s family was leasing a very small portion of, Perry’s father pro-actively painted over a rock with an offensive word on it and according to the news media that’s not only news but worthy of the furious narrative that’s currently raging everywhere. But…! It’s not news within the intellectually honest way in which I’m framing the story. It’s news within the craven, dishonest way the cravenly, dishonest MSM is framing it.

For instance:

“At Rick Perry’s Texas Hunting Spot, Camp’s Old Racially Charged Name Lingered.“

That was the wildly dishonest headline on the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post and you can bet your sweet life it’s taken on a life of its own from there (which, of course, was the game plan). According to Google, there are now over 1100 related articles already online. Worse still, some media outlets have already entered phase two of this coordinated attempt to permanently take Perry out with a follow-up narrative best represented by Politico’s Ben Smith:

The story isn’t disqualifying, or all that damning. It’s distracting. And it is the latest in a series of distractions that make the key players at this stage in a primary campaign — governors, big donors — more open to Romney’s arguments that the party should unite around him, pivot to confront Obama, and avoid an endless primary, because who knows what’s going to fall out of Perry’s bag next.

Well, golly gee, thanks so much for policing your profession, Ben. You’re a real profile in courage spinning an obvious front page in-kind contribution to the Obama 2012 campaign into the damning narrative of “poor, beleaguered Perry — how will he ever get elected.”

Elsewhere at Politico, the headline went a little something like this…

“Perry’s Hunting Camp Problem.”

…without any context that frames the story in an honest way.

(more…)

- Tingles are out David Brooks has admitted to having sap running down his leg over Obama. It’s taken Brooks over two years to  catch up to what most out here have been telling him. How good a columnist does that actually make him? Another Obama propagandist bites the dust.

- CNN does its best to make Texas look like an economic disaster. Also galling a caption under a video: Texans grab their guns as economy stalls. Sure why not go for violent and extremist too. And when did this become a bad thing in America?

Experts chalk up the minimal services and take-up rates to Texas’ anti-welfare attitude. In the Lone Star State, you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

(more…)

Sunday morning is a fun time to rest, relax and get ready for kickoff.

I’ll sometimes watch CBS Sunday Morning to get my fill of artsy fartsy stuff, something funny from Bill Geist, and occasionally an interesting commentary from Ben Stein.

Then I see Nancy Giles do her commentary about Republicans at their recent debates, not so much about the candidates, but about the people in the audience “applauding at the idea of death,” as she says.

Nancy, let me say this as simply as I can, they were not applauding death; they were applauding justice. But, in your narrow, leftist world, that’s all you can see, the potential death of the murderer, not the victims needlessly massacred by a madman. In fact, victims were never mentioned in your little two minute bit. You used your time to mention how bad the crowd was for cheering, how the Republican candidates didn’t repudiate the crowd, and how this guy on death row should be seen as a victim of a crazed mob.

(more…)

- Did CPI coordinate with Greenpeace for a Koch hit?

They made this polar bear facepalm.

- Joe Scarborough: “Dick Cheney wins foreign policy.”

- Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch answers whether Paul and Bachmann are ready for the presidency and the Paul/FEMA remarks

- RedState schools Ezra Klein on the definition of a ponzi scheme:

Ezra Klein thought he was embarrassing Rick Perry by ridiculing Perry’s comparison, but as usual he embarrassed himself.

(more…)

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?

(more…)

Stephen Broden is a candidate running for Eddie Bernice Johnson’s (D – TX) 30^th District seat.  He’s conservative, a man of ideas, and he happens to be black.  The left, however, sees him as one thing and one thing only: an apostate.  I don’t want to bore you with my childish scribble, so I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.

Exhibit A) The Hit Job.

Jeez, here it looks like the crazy old bag is calling for an aggressive revolution! Lock him up and put him in the Alice Cooper straitjacket.  Which brings me to…

Exhibit B) The Full interview IN its proper CONTEXT.

Fast forward to 7:15 for his explanation of “revolution” and its appropriate context.

It doesn’t have to be violent at all.  It could happen at the ballot box when we change out our leadership.

Wait.  Here he seems completely reasonable.  He’s a shifty little bugger.  He even went out of his way to explain the “violence” issue here (when asked): (more…)

It’s just been announced that not a single person watched a network evening news show in the 17th largest U.S. city, Fort Worth, Texas, in 2009-2010.  Not one. Plus, about ten thousand visitors who happened to be in hotels there didn’t watch the ABC, CBS or NBC evening news.  They all tuned out.

That’s roughly equivalent to the 739,000 people who have stopped watching Brian, Katie and Diane in the last year according to TVNEWSER, as compared to earlier statistics.

The ratings are in the for just-completed 2009-2010 network evening news season. And when compared to 2008-2009 season “NBC Nightly News” ABC’s “World News” and the “CBS Evening News” have lost a combined 739,000 Total Viewers and a combined 338,000 A25-54 viewers.

CBS’s “Perky” Katie Couric alone lost 343,000 viewers. (more…)

Has the fog of war descended on the U.S. southern border, obscuring the reporting of news and concealing the truth about what is going on along the Rio Grande and in Arizona and California?  Many violent incidents are not widely covered, if at all, by the media; some coverage, when it does occur, comes weeks to months afterward.

According to recent information on the FBI’s website, “brutal abductions and murders“ are not isolated incidents on the U.S. side. (Emphasis is from the original).

Emerging from the port of entry’s administrative offices into a sunny San Diego morning, Special Agent Dean Giboney spoke in fluent Spanish with the man whose temporary U.S. visa he had just helped renew.

The kidnappings, beatings, and murders that mark the extreme drug-related violence of Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Juarez have increasingly spilled over the border. Agent Giboney is hoping the man—we’ll call him José —can provide information that will help in the Bureau’s efforts to dismantle the cartels and the criminal enterprises they fuel.

The following are some of the better-publicized stories being reported from the southern border.  How many of them are already familiar to readers? (more…)

This is a cautionary tale about reporters eagerly attacking other reporters working a developing story.  Because it’s not possible to provide evidence as quickly as some might demand it doesn’t mean the story is false.

On July 24, Kimberly Dvorak, of the Examiner, and Don Amato, of the blog Digger’s Realm, broke the story about two Texas ranches outside of Laredo, Texas, being seized by members of Los Zetas drug cartel. Today, Ms. Dvorak posted a copy of the police blotter which provides a good deal of the information necessary to confirm her initial story’s claims:

After 16 days of denials by Laredo law enforcement and local officials regarding a Mexican drug cartel takeover of a Laredo area ranch, a Texas police blotter proves the alleged incident did in fact happen and that multiple agencies responded to the scene of a seized U.S. ranch…

“On Friday 7-23-10 Laredo Webb informed that their county SWAT Team is conducting an operation in the Mines Rd. area. According to LT. Garcia with LSO (Laredo Sheriff Office) received a call from a ranch owner stating that the Zetas had taken over his ranch. As per the 17 (reporting person) he informed them that they stated La Compania (area business) was taking the ranch and no one was permitted on the ranch without permission. SO (Sheriff Office) will have an unmarked green Ford Taurus with two officers stationed at Los Compadres and a white Chevy Tahoe with two officers stationed at Mineral Rd. The LSO (Laredo Sheriff Office) will maintain surveillance in the area and advise if action is taken. Susp (suspect) Veh (vehicle) are described as a gray or silver Audi, a BLK (black) Escalade or Navigator and a van truck with a logo of a car wash spot free on the side. Border Patrol also has their response team on scene. Also known info of BMW’s and Corvettes entering and leaving the area. Auth LT Lichtenberger if assistance is requested LPD (Laredo Police Department) will secure the outer perimeter. (07/24/10 07:42:10 NR1873)”

Dvorak’s latest post confirmed several details that I had been able to ascertain through other sources.  One important detail was different: only one ranch was investigated and under surveillance, not the two originally reported.

The original story quoted multiple anonymous sources in law enforcement and was quickly picked up by Michelle Malkin,  Jawa Report, Big Peace and DBKP among others.  Almost as quickly, the story was branded an Internet  rumor,” “conspiracy theory,” a “hoax” or  outright lies by the usual suspects from the Progressive Left/amnesty crowd. (more…)

Hard to believe, but true: the network actually presented both sides of the story, instead of the usual sob-sister boo-hoo about the “plight” of illegal “immigrants” who know that — thanks to a willful misrepresentation of the meaning of the 14th Amendment by the left–  if they can just stagger across the finish line, a new life in el Norte awaits.

Of course, this was in 2008, before the Era of Obama. This is what is happening today.

Just for fun, here’s the actual text of the 14th Amendment. Section One is the operative statement:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

(more…)

Texas Ranches Seized by Los Zetas Drug Cartel. Over the weekend this story caught fire in the blogosphere.  One big reason the story went viral was that it fit the highly-believable narrative of violence spilling across a porous southern U.S. border.

As it stands, the story has neither been disproved or confirmed–although there’s disagreement on that point.  Here’s a few reasons readers might want  to keep an open mind.

Starting as a post on a blog dealing primarily with illegal immigration, Digger’s Realm, the story,  BREAKING: Multiple Ranches In Laredo, TX Taken Over By Los Zetas [Update 3],  began with a late Friday night tip.

Founder of the San Diego Minutemen Jeff Schwilk tipped me off to this story and passes along the following information on the location. The ranches are said to be “near Mines Rd. and Minerales Annex Rd about 10 miles NW of I-35″.

Statement from Mr. Schwilk:
I can personally vouch that this info came in late last night from a reliable police source inside the Laredo PD. There is currently a standoff between the unknown size Zeta forces and U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement on two ranches on our side of the Rio Grande. The source tells us he considers this an “act of war” and that the military is needed on the border now!

Digger added a “story is not 100% confirmed” to his article and posted it, but continued to work the story throughout the night. (more…)

Just yesterday I wrote:

For a Chicago pol, whose path to prominence came not via intellectual brilliance or personal charisma but through behind-the-scenes machinations to get opponents thrown off the ballot or have their sealed divorce records made public, “by any means necessary” is not only a tactic, it’s a categorical imperative.

Well, looky here: “We Will Not Be Silenced, 2008.”

Maybe the New Black Panther intimidation case is not an isolated event. This could be the tip of a very large iceberg… stay tuned. But — (more…)

On Tuesday, seven bullets believed to have been fired from one or more AK-47s from across the border hit the El Paso City Hall. It was big news in the Texas border town right across the river from Juarez, Mexico, but it earned a collective yawn from the national MSM. What do the East Coast news gods care about us here in Texas anyway?

Folks in El Paso, though, were somewhat offended.  The El Paso Times reported:

EL PASO — Several gunshots apparently fired from Juárez hit El Paso City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.  No one was hurt, but nerves were rattled at City Hall in what is thought to be the first cross-border gunfire during a drug war that has engulfed Juárez since 2008.  El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said investigators do not think City Hall was intentionally targeted but rather was struck by stray shots. “It does appear the rounds may have come from an incident in Juárez,” Petry said.

El Paso NBC NewsChannel9 aired a video showing just how close the City Hall is to the site of the shoot out in Mexico.  ABC7 interviewed El Paso residents who live near City Hall. And, KFOX14 got a shot – a camera shot that is – of the circling Blackhawk mentioned below in the El Paso Times.

Authorities said a Mexican federal police officer was killed during an attack by gunmen near a Smart supermarket on Norzagaray boulevard.  Chihuahua state police identified the dead man as Domingo Hernández Espinoza and said that two other people were wounded. Investigators found 40 bullet casings from an AK-47 and other firearms. (more…)

Charles Blow infiltrated a Tea Party event in Grand Prarie, Tex., on behalf of the New York Times.  But, apparently he wasn’t there to listen to the substance of the speakers’ speeches or to judge the content of the audience’s character, no, he was there because he is a black man and he was intent on doing a racial head count of the crowd:

I had specifically come to this rally because it was supposed to be especially diverse. And, on the stage at least, it was. The speakers included a black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God. It felt like a bizarre spoof of a 1980s Benetton ad.

The juxtaposition was striking: an abundance of diversity on the stage and a dearth of it in the crowd, with the exception of a few minorities like the young black man who carried a sign that read “Quit calling me a racist.”

According to Mr. Blow, the “visual Op-Ed columnist of the New York Times,” the sentiments expressed on stage by the scheduled speakers were insincere, born from a quasi-neurotic state of mind.  To hear him tell it, their mere inclusion in the program was a cynically veiled head fake from the organizers for past racial transgressions: (more…)

No one fully understood how corrupted the American military had become by the corrosive influence of “political correctness” — which more properly should be call “fascism of the mind,” since it seeks to control thought by controlling speech — until the “Soldier of Allah,” Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, pulled a gun and killed thirteen American soldiers at Ft. Hood in Texas last fall.

And how did the Army react?  With the same supine, spineless cowardice that characterizes most contemporary government institutions, including those tasked with protecting Americans.  In the immediate aftermath of the murders, a disgraceful general named George Casey publicly fretted:

And frankly, I am worried — not worried, not worried, but I’m concerned — that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers and I’ve asked our army leaders to be on the look out for that. it would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.

Well, yes — think of how much more effective a fighting force we would have had in World War II if, when Germany declared war on the U.S. four days after Pearl Harbor, had we reached out to the National Socialist German Workers Party community here at home and affirmatively made them officers in the Third Army.  Think of the crack, Bund-approved German translators we would have had!

Well, General Casey: how do you like your precious “diversity” now?  From Fox News: (more…)

The flashy British tabloid the Daily Mirror and America’s so-called newspaper of record, the New York Times, would seem to represent opposite ends of the MSM.  Yet in the third week of January 2009, as two of their respective columnists rendered verdict on the outgoing president George W. Bush, the two papers seemed barely a bitch slap apart.

On one side of the Atlantic, writing for the fish-and-chips crowd, Tony Parsons declared Bush “the global village idiot,” “a 10th-rate President for a nation in decline,” “a natural simpleton, a rich man’s son who got to the Oval Office on his daddy’s shirttails.”  Meanwhile, in the learned pages of the Gray Lady, Maureen Dowd dropped the guillotine, deriding Bush as “the parody of a monosyllabic Western gunslinger who disdains nuance,” “Oedipally oddball,” “an asphyxiated and pampered son.”

Now that is all clever stuff, sure to win a round on the house at the MSM bar, where everybody knows that the Nobel Laureate out of Chicago will be remembered as a better president than the one-time drunk driver from Texas.

But the view from the future will likely be a different one.  The notions of Parsons and Dowd, like so much of the MSM storyboard, shall be of scant interest to presidential historians.  Instead the media’s decade of rage at George W. Bush will be written about by doctoral candidates in social psychology under the title “5 million minutes of hate.” (more…)