Dana Loesch Punks CNN

Since her disgraceful comments cheering marines who urinated on corpses, CNN has wisely kept Dana Loesch out of most of their political coverage including:

• The South Carolina CNN debate.
• South Carolina primary night.
• Post debate analysis of the NBC debate in Florida.
• The Florida CNN debate.
• Florida primary coverage.

So it seems pretty clear that they've been trying to keep her away from their most important coverage, in contrast to previous primaries. However, they did have her on one time since the scandal and, unsurprisingly, she used the opportunity to further damage CNN's credibility. From the transcript:

CNN contributor, Dana Loesch joining me now. So, Dana, Billy Tucker, the leader of Florida's largest Tea Party group has chosen not to endorse a candidate. Why and could an endorsement by Tucker impact all of those undecideds?

DANA LOESCH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It could, absolutely, Kyra. It could very much impact those undecided voters. This is sort of the bittersweet thing, the double-edged sword about the Tea Party movement.

Because it's such a large, all encompassing movement, there's a ton of different movements that are sovereign. Each group can decide what it wants to do. I know there have been a couple of Tea Party groups in Florida that have endorsed Newt Gingrich.

There were a couple of Tea Party groups in South Carolina that endorsed him, as well, and different parts of the country. But really from my perspective and the group I'm with in St. Louis, the Gateway Grass Roots Initiative.

One of the really founding things of the movement is that you don't endorse candidates, at least I've always thought that, especially in a primary, you don't get involved and endorse candidates because it seems a little bit too close to being used by candidates.

There are a couple of things going on here. First, despite breaking up with the St. Louis Tea Party, Loesch is appealing to the group she created, the "Gateway Grassroots Initiative," to establish her "expertise" on conservative activism. Second, she's shamelessly using CNN to promote her "group".

So what's the problem? The problem is that there's no evidence whatsoever that suggests the "Gateway Grassroots Initiative" is a real group at all, as opposed to a disorganized webpage with lazy brainstorming ideas. Unlike the St. Louis Tea Party, GGI hasn't organized large rallies, hasn't worked on elections, hasn't hosted any public events, and in fact hasn't really done anything at all! They have an "Individual Initiative" project that basically consists of people saying "wouldn't it be nice if we did X" with essentially zero follow-up. After existing for more than a month, they only have 340 followers on Twitter and 280 "likes" on facebook.


In comparison, after one month, Occupy St. Louis had over 6,000 "likes" on facebook and over 1,000 followers on Twitter.

In fact, there is no other evidence to suggest that they are having any impact in St. Louis or anywhere else, despite being initially promoted on Glenn Beck's and Stephen K. Bannon's radio shows and Breitbart's web sites.

Here's what one conservative Missouri activist had to say about the group:

It's been such a #fail. I'm not sure how she holds her head up on her 20th "project" that fails. It's embarrassing. You're exactly right, they have done nothing. Literally nothing.

(as always, though this quote is anonymous, I'm happy to provide more info to any journalists who inquire, though of course I'd have to clear it first with my source)

So basically Loesch is punking CNN in two ways. First, she's pretending to be an "expert" based on a group created after she left the tea party that has done absolutely nothing and appears to exist only online. Second, she's using CNN to promote her own personal endeavors, before those endeavors have done anything to show that they're viable. This is what happens when the mainstream media panders Breitbart editors, who represent a fundamentally dishonest approach to information far more than the represent any kind of true conservatism.