St. Louis Activist Hub

LGBT Community and Capitalism discussion

2012-02-01T11:58:00.003-06:00

Hello everyone.

There is an event happening tonight at 7 pm at the LGBT Community Center on Manchester to discuss the relationship between the LGBT community and a Capitalist / consumerist economy. The community center is a really nice space just to check out if you've never been there before. Hope to see you there.

http://www.facebook.com/events/357901590889044/

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In much of the United States the LGBT community appears to be firmly set along one political path. Members of the Democratic party, while being more inclined to not view those who identify as LGBT as against God and Nature, have other interests that far outweigh and oftentimes conflict with LGBT rights. I’ll just acknowledge the existence of the Republican presidential candidates and leave it at that.

Why is marriage so important to anyone, let alone the LGBT community? How and why has the LGBT community been used and abused by our economic system? What other avenues are there to empower the community without reliance on a party that usually only helps out when it’s convenient to do so?

If you are interested in exploring the intersections between sexuality, gender, and the economic system we live under then hot dog. By examining these intersections other connections can be drawn between struggles such as environmental and labor rights issues. The implications this has on possible organizing is also worth exploring. Got to work together to smash the things that are keeping us down and possibly leading us and everything else towards extinction.

So we’re going to have a little chat to get this conversation / planning rolling

Wednesday, February 1st @ 7 PM
at the LGBT Center, 4337 Manchester Road

Okay bye!

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Here is some reading material you all might find interesting. It goes into the formation of a gay identity and how that plays into some of the contradictions of Capitalism.

http://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/readings/demilio_captialismgayid.pdf

What's Worse Than a Democrat Paid By Sinquefield Keeping Quiet About Rex's Crazy Ideas?

2012-02-01T10:28:00.008-06:00

As I documented yesterday, there are a lot of St. Louis "Democrats" being paid by Rex Sinquefield who are mysteriously keeping quiet about his crazy ideas, even those ideas that cut funding for Missouri schools. But you know what's even worse? Democrats being directly paid to advocate for his crazy ideas!

John Temporiti, the former chief of staff for Charlie Dooley who is still listed as Dooley's campaign Treasurer and getting reimbursed by his campaign on the latest finance reports, received $7,500 for "campaign expenses" from the Sinquefield funded-group designed to get rid of the income tax and increase sales taxes (which would have the effect of both gutting state government and shifting the tax burden overwhelmingly to the poor and middle class and away from the rich).

You might remember Temporiti from the fact that his son Mike Temporiti was awarded a $70,000 patronage job during a hiring freeze in St. Louis County:

In January, with St. Louis County in the third year of a hiring and pay freeze, Mike Temporiti landed a $70,000 county job.
Temporiti, 27, is now the county's abatement compliance officer. It's a brand new job, created just for him in the Revenue Department. His salary is the ninth highest of the 237 employees in the department.

The job was never posted, and Temporiti did not have to interview for it.

He is a lawyer and the son of John Temporiti, who is County Executive Charlie A. Dooley's longtime campaign treasurer and manager and former chief of staff.

Also in the same Post-Dispatch article:

Several county employees, including some in the Revenue Department, have complained to the Post-Dispatch about the hiring of Mike Temporiti. They asked to remain anonymous because they fear retribution from their supervisors.

They dispute Earls' contention that the job is essential or that it needs to be full time.

"It's a task that could easily have been relegated to a current employee without adding too much strain to their current job," one employee said. "It would have only entailed several extra hours a week."

Oh, and there's also this:

Katy Temporiti, who is married to John Temporiti's eldest son, John Jr., is also a patronage employee, as a part-time administrative assistant in the Parks and Recreation Department. Since hiring her six years ago this month, the county has paid her a total of about $178,000....

At the time she was hired, John Temporiti was serving as Dooley's chief of staff..
Katy Temporiti's supervisor, Chief Parks Ranger John Nesbit, said Temporiti primarily worked from home.

Just read the whole article (which has a lot more detail and nuance) and reach your own conclusions.

St. Louis County Executive Dooley, of course, is also a frequent recipient of Sinquefield's donations.

Follow Michael Bersin at Show Me Progress for more details about various campaign finance reports.

Finance Report for Fake Local Control: How A Right-Wing Idealogue Pays Off Local "Democrats"

2012-01-31T18:09:00.014-06:00

Now that the Mayor's office and right-wing multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield have thrown local control activists under the bus and are pushing for a new ballot initiative that would actually decrease accountability and transparency, it might be worth taking a closer look at some of the campaign finance reports for Rex's front group, A Safer Missouri. Rex, if you recall, wants to gut state government and shift the tax burden to the poor, and local "Democrats" who get paid by him conveniently stay quiet on these disastrous ideas, just like they did when Rex pushed a statewide ballot initiative to get rid of the earnings tax. How many local "Democrats" need to be on the payroll of a right-wing ideologue with crazy ideas before St. Louis residents start to worry about our City's future?

First things first for documenting the atrocities: the astroturf local control group is called A Safer Missouri. Only one person has ever donated to the group: Rex Sinquefield.

And who benefits from the amazing generosity of Rex, who graciously took time out of his busy schedule of trying to privatize everything in Missouri to magically start caring about this issue last year? Why, St. Louis "Democrats" of course! One of the biggest beneficiaries was Martin Casas, former President of the St. Louis Young Dems and a current candidate for the Missouri House of Representatives. Casas, if you recall, previously said that he had no position on the disastrous Everything Tax, which should be enough to disqualify anyone from calling themselves a Democrat, asked people to sign a petition from the right-wing front group United for Missouri while working for Rex, and also claimed that he had "no idea" if signing up for A Safer Missouri would help build Rex's email list:

In light of how much Casas was paid by Rex, it's pretty hard to believe this claim was true. And how much was that? Casas got close to a cool $20,000 from Rex Sinquefield in 2011 according to the most recent campaign report:

And this is all in addition to the fact that Casas's wife is also on Rex's payroll, through a different organization.

Another local principled "Democrat" who benefited from Sinquefield's kindheartedness was Gregg Christian, Democratic Committeeman in the 15th Ward. Here's A Safer Missouri's payment to Christian's company Gladius Communications for "graphic design:"

Was Gladius responsible for this beautiful logo? Cause I'd say that's worth about $4,000 just by itself:

Another local Democrat paid off in this campaign is Nancy Rice, but she's paid by Rex for a lot of things (she works for Pelopidas) so I won't bother to document the cash for this situation.

Every politician who has ever taken money from ideologues has claimed that the money has *nothing* to do with their future votes. Yet we know our democracy is broken because the uber-wealthy have far too much influence on our laws via their donations. If St. Louisans are really worried about Democracy being for sale, we're going to have to start paying better attention to what's happening locally. Having "Democrats" in office isn't any better than Republicans, if they're all getting paid by the same people.

Steelman: Brunner is Trying to Buy the Election

2012-01-31T08:43:00.004-06:00

Whoa! I actually agreed with Sarah Steelman on something! Here's what she had to say at the GOP Senate primary debate that John Brunner was afraid to attend:

Oh well I say it’s due to his tv ads and the fact that he’s basically trying to buy this election. The 30 second ads or he’d be here tonight participating in a debate where he could actually get questions from the audience and share his views of the country’s problems are. I also note that he’s got a lot of money to spend. He made the decision he wants to invest a lot of his money in buying this race. The way I look at it, that’s what’s wrong with politics today.

h/t Caitlin Legacki

John Brunner Listened To The Debate He Was Too Scared To Attend

2012-01-30T23:29:00.006-06:00

Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman debated today in the contest for the GOP nomination for the Senate race. I really don't know what crazy things they said, because the real action was over at the Twitter hashtag #wheresbrunner, which was making fun of the fact that St. Louis businessman John Brunner was skipping yet another debate. The guy is pretty clearly not yet ready for primetime, and he prefers to spend boatloads of money on advertisements versus having to talk to germy people.

There were a lot of funny tweets, but this one was my favorite:

To make matters worse, it turns out that Brunner was actually listening to the debate while it was going on! Here's a message from Monte Schisler, the News Director at KRZK/KOMC in Branson:

In other words, it's not like he had something better to do; he really was just afraid to be subjected to the questions! How in the world does this guy expect to be a Senator?

Update: Confirmation that Brunner listened online to the debate:

He said he couldn’t attend the Conversation with the Candidates due to his schedule, but HometownDailyNews.com has confirmed that St. Louis businessman John Brunner listened to the event online.

Roorda Says Only "Cop Haters" Could Be Opposed to Rex's Phony Local Control Ballot Initiative

2012-01-30T19:41:00.005-06:00

To review, last year, activists working for local control of the St. Louis police department teamed up with the Mayor's office and other opportunistic local Democrats to try to get a bill passed through the Missouri legislature. Mayor Slay and the other opportunists, of course, used this as yet another opportunity to get paid by multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield who, just like every other entity that donates huge amounts of money to politicians, obviously doesn't want anything in return. I agreed with the St. Louis American on this: though I was suspicious of the group working with Rex, I ultimately thought local control was a good thing because the activists endorsed the idea and it could get St. Louis closer to a system with increased transparency and accountability.

However, the bill failed last year thanks to the incompetent GOP legislature, and when it returned as a ballot initiative, it was in a mutated form that discarded the original reasons for supporting it. The whole point of local control was to bring accountability and transparency, not to just shift from one opaque, unaccountable board to another. But the new ballot initiative pushed by Rex, Mayor Slay, and the other "Democrats", but not the actual activists, actually takes a step backwards on accountability and transparency, because what it actually does is prevent the creation of a civilian review board, and puts all of the power in the hands of a board appointed by the Mayor. Don't take my word for it: read the op-ed by Brenda Jones, executive director of the of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

But to give you a sense of how nasty the "Democrats" are who are doing Rex'$ bidding, check out this quote from Jeff Roorda saying that only "cop haters" could oppose the Rex Sinquefield phony local control ballot initiative:

Let’s not get distracted by cop haters that are trying to drive a wedge, when we’re coming to the table trying to find a way to make this department work better,” Roorda said. “Civilian review boards do not work. They’ve never worked anywhere they’ve been tried. They’ve got one function, and one function alone, and that’s to drive a wedge between the police department and the community.”

Yep. Only "cop haters" could possibly agree with the ACLU about having accountability and transparency be a part of the law. Or maybe it's just, you know, people who want accountability and transparency.

Momentum!

2012-01-28T19:11:00.004-06:00

Question: if you are an organization created by a multimillionaire for the sole purpose of doing that multimillionaire's bidding, does it really count as "momentum" when that guy gives you more money? Apparently it does according the the Let Voters Decide "coalition", who received a donation from Rex Sinquefield, the only guy in the state who actually believes it'd be a good idea to gut state government and shift the tax burden to the poor and middle class by eliminating income tax and shifting exclusively to a sales tax. Check out this hilarious headline from the "coalition" referring to Rex's new donations of $1.2 million dollars:

In light of this genius idea, I've decided to start off every day with some extra "momentum" by giving myself $20. Look out world! I've got momentum!

CNN's Dana Loesch Says She Hates The Media And Is Trying To Change It From Within

2012-01-28T17:30:00.007-06:00

Ever wonder what a frequently frothing-at-the-mouth serial liar (aka "a Briebart editor") thinks about getting airtime from the mainstream media? Well, you're about to find out, because Dana Loesch explained on air that she "hates" the media and is trying to "change it from within" via "liberty evangelism."

Loesch, possibly bitter from being excluded from CNN's South Carolina debate, but nevertheless given the incredible honor of appearing on Blog Talk Radio with her fellow Breitbart editors to analyze the debate, was responding to a question about whether John King should have started the debate by asking Gingrich about allegations from his ex-wife. Here's what she had to say:

Loesch went on to say that Gingrich shared some of the blame for having an affair.

So basically, Loesch gets free publicity from CNN, gets paid by them, and in return tells right-wingers how much she hates them.

Meet The New Chairman of The AP Board of Directors

2012-01-28T15:57:00.006-06:00

The Gateway Journalism Review reports that Mary Junck was named the new AP Board Chairman. Apparently, she's been on the board for 10 years and has been the vice chair for 3 years.

Junck is also the CEO of Lee Enterprises, which owns the Post-Dispatch. I happen to think there are a lot of things to like about the Post-Dispatch, but the upper management of Lee Enterprises is certainly not one of them. Bill McClellan, in an especially courageous column, wrote about Lee laying off employees while Junck took in a salary of $833,000. McClellan suggested that Junck must be "too big to fail," and he said he wished he could say the same about some of his colleagues.

But what really convinced me of just how cold-heated Lee is, beyond the typical "management makes a lot of money while firing employees right and left" story, was the way Lee Enterprises explicitly promised health care to employees who agreed to an early retirement deal, and then went back on their promise. This heartless decision led to gut-wrenching stories like this from Show Me Progress:

I admit I don't much about the AP Board. Maybe they were already ruthless. Or maybe they don't have much influence on how cynically newspaper owners act. But I have to say I'm not very encouraged by this news.

h/t ForwardSTL.

Future of St. Louis Decided Behind Closed Doors And Mostly Without Citizen Input

2012-01-27T14:41:00.004-06:00

A few days ago, new plans for the Arch grounds were presented. I followed the discussion on Twitter, and the vast majority of people were hugely disappointed in the presentation and the process. Major parts of the plan that won the design competition were left out, now that "they had looked at the details." And it sounded like they were not open to suggestions from the community. And what makes this especially depressing is that St. Louis has a fantastic community of hyper-informed urbanists who have impressive and thought-out ideas for making the city better.

I highly recommend reading a larger summary of the presentation at NextSTL. One of the biggest disappointments is that the urbanists were hoping for a design that greatly improved the connections between the downtown and the riverfront. The original design was already somewhat limited on that front, but was even further scaled back into a "hobbit hole" as was explained nicely at the Count on Downtown blog. The Mississippi River should be a major attraction of the city; instead it is for the most part buried behind ugly concrete and kept separate from the downtown.

Just another example, in my opinion, of how the people in power in St. Louis make decisions that effect everyone largely in secret and in a manner completely closed off to community input. Good ideas are not allowed to trickle up and become successes, because they are not even given attention. It's not a meritocracy; it's a powertocracy, and everyone suffers as a result.

GIGLI Still Attacking Ed Martin Even After He Switched Contests

2012-01-27T14:30:00.005-06:00

As we know, the St. Louis Tea Party split up because some of the members supported Ed Martin and others supported ultimate GOP insider Ann Wagner. But even after yesterday's hilarious news that Martin decided, yet again, to switch campaigns, looks like the Ann Wagner splinter group known as GIGLI is still ragging on poor Ed. Here's what they tweeted yesterday:

And here's what the post says:

But Missouri should be asking a couple of questions of Mr. Martin:

First, why has he never attempted to mount a campaign in his home district? Missouri District 1 has been struggling, strangling under Democrat control since 1949. The people in his own neighborhood are drowning under the weight of increased unemployment, and he chooses to step out on them to represent others.

Second, can we expect him to stay in the Attorney General's race if another, shinier candidate steps into the ring?

Local Control Activists Thrown Under the Bus

2012-01-27T11:55:00.003-06:00

This was an amazing story in the Political Eye that I had not seen before (but see the update):

As for the activists, they had been on the side of local control all along. Not because they love and trust this mayor, which they do even less than the coppers love and trust him, but because they see city control of the city police as a stepping stone towards citizen overview of a police force that has done much to test public trust in its authority to impound, confiscate, arrest and use lethal force. Whether this is reasonable thinking or not, activists have believed that mayoral control of the city police would be a meaningful step towards a Civilian Review Board. Activists believe civilian review is needed because the police department has a proven, poor track record of cracking down on its own. Even federal investigators, who were expected to bring down a host of white shirts along with the petty operator Greg Shepard in the towing scam, have let down the public where there seemed to be obvious, widespread corruption in the department.
This incredible, tentative coalition is officially quitsville. The POA and Mayor Slay have sided with Sinquefield on his local control ballot initiative, and the activists have turned against them. On the face of it, it would be difficult to imagine local control activists siding with any group that includes Slay, the coppers and Sinquefield, but they have specific reasons for their opposition that were outlined in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

Please read the whole thing if you haven't already. It offers some important insights into St. Louis City politics.

One thing not mentioned in this article is that several St. Louis City Democrats were paid substantial sums of money by Rex Sinquefield to work on this issue. These same Democrats are supportive of Rex's plans to inch ever closer towards privatizing education, and turn a blind eye to his insane policy suggestions (backed by millions of dollars) like the everything tax.

Update: There was a nice op-ed in the Post-Dispatch about this by Brenda Jones of the ACLU.

Mayor Slay Sends Education Advisor to Koch-Funded Public Education Bashing Session Moderated By Gateway Pundit

2012-01-26T15:53:00.006-06:00

(Image from JD Wilson)

How's this for absolutely un-freakin-believable? Robbyn Wahby, Mayor Slay's education adviser and wife of City Democrats Chair Brian Wahby, was on a "School Choice" panel put on last night by the Koch Brothers-funded Americans For Prosperity. The event was moderated by Gateway "race-baiting extraordinaire" Pundit. Her fellow panelists included Dana "drop trou and urinate on dead Afghanis" Loesch and Dick Morris. Yes, that Dick Morris.

The event was a teachers union-bashing propaganda festival, with words of wisdom like this:

And this:

Dana Loesch says that part of that reform must involve reforming the teachers unions and the way they work. She related a personal story about a young energetic teacher who was very popular in her high school. This teacher used lots of applied learning (hands on) and was a great teacher. The union came in and told her to "tone it down" because she was angering the older, less energetic teachers who had already established the "proper" way to teach. Putting the kibosh in new ways to teach and maligning fresh young teachers has long been practiced in teachers unions across the country. For those teachers, all the talk of "the children" is just that, talk. They care nothing about the children, they care only for their cushy jobs and sweet pension

And afterward, Robbyn Wahby told the extremists to be more vocal about supporting the Mayor's policies:

At the end of the panel discussion, they wrapped up with a few final thoughts. Robbyn Wahby reminds us that any good idea is twice as likely to succeed with good support systems. If we have ideas we want implemented or we feel the mayors office is promoting good choices in education, we can support that effort by making it known we support it and doing things that promote the choice.

Reasonable people can disagree about issues like school choice. But there is absolutely no excuse for the Mayor's office to be coordinating with unapologetic right-wing ideologues who categorically do not have the best interests of the vast majority of city residents in mind. Mayor Slay is already known for having taken over $100,000 in donations from Rex Sinquefield, the man who wants to privatize education in Missouri. And he's been caught playing footsie with the tea party before. If he plans on running for reelection again in 2013, maybe he should start thinking about how to appeal to the 99% rather than the 1%ers like Rex and the funders of Americans for Prosperity.

Twitter Reactions To Ed Martin Bailing From Another Election

2012-01-26T10:15:00.007-06:00

Ed Martin, for the 2nd time this year, decided to switch elections after it became obvious that he was going to be destroyed by his opponent(s). He's now, hilariously, running for Attorney General. Here are a few of the reactions from Twitter to Email Ed's announcement:

My take: of course this shows pretty clearly that Ed Martin is a thoroughly unserious opportunist and, as the Beacon suggested, was not very good at raising money for his Congressional race. This, along with his history of well-documented unethical behavior, should be enough for moderates and independents to laugh off his election for Attorney General.

Though Martin will probably lose all credibility among sane people across Missouri during this election, and also quite a few Republicans, I actually can see why it's a smart move for him. The issue is that a certain group of Republicans refuse to believe plain facts when they come from anyone other than their trusted authority figures. So when Russ Carnahan says "No, I actually never agreed to that debate Ed Martin said I chickened out of," they call him a liar. But, when a Republican like Ann Wagner, and the GOP establishment figures who support her say, "No, I actually never agree to that debate Ed Martin said I chickened out of," all of a sudden they start taking the claim seriously. And likewise when Ed Martin's ethical problems are pointed out by conservatives, there's a group of people who believe it who wouldn't have if it had come from some other source.

And let's keep in mind what Martin really wants. He's a guy who loves to blather on endlessly about basically everything. He's going to be doing that anyway. So how nice would it be for him if he could be paid to blather on endlessly about politics? Being a politician or a perpetual political candidate is one way of doing this. Switching to a race where he's no longer being slammed and exposed by Republicans allows him to retain a base of supporters who will pay him to blather, even if he loses badly. So, despite the fact that he's amazingly managed to lose even more dignity with this decision, he's also wisely preserving a base of people willing to make sure he doesn't have to work at a real job.

One final note: of course, Martin's BFF Jake Wagman thinks that Martin will be "far more competitive" in his new race. One thing we can be relatively sure of is that Martin will be guaranteed endlessly positive coverage from Wagman, just like he received when he ran against Representative Carnahan. Such is the state of the world when our media shifts further away from informing readers and towards trying to entertain them with the wacky Jersey Shore antics.

Update: this tweet from Michelle reminded me of the funny pic from Sean at Fired Up Missouri:

Update #2: As an example of how Ed's clown show has alienated many of the non-die hard fans, consider this post by Jerry Berger where Berger refers to Martin as "unsteady Eddy." In Martin's contest against Russ Carnahan, Berger was in the bag for Martin. Now he's mocking him.

Turner Report Catches KOMU Pushing Right-Wing Propaganda as Fact

2012-01-25T12:20:00.004-06:00

Kudos to the Turner Report for calling out Columbia KOMU after KOMU pushed a story saying that Missouri ranked 47th on the American Legislative Exchange Council's ranking of the national schools. KOMU failed to do any basic research on what ALEC actually is, and instead just accepted the ranking as fact. However, ALEC is not some independent ranking agency, but rather an extremely partisan, agenda-driven organization that literally allows corporations to buy in and have legislation written and then passed off to state lawmakers. Here's the Nation's description of the group:

ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals…making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more.

You can read more about ALEC's pernicious influence in Missouri at Progress Missouri.

This story reminds me of a recent incident where St. Louis Public Radio used a report from a restaurant front group to criticize the state's minimum wage. I don't know how long this trend has been going on, but it seems to me like the Right is getting better at pushing bad information to news outlets who uncritically report it as "fact" without bothering to research the groups.

Tentatively Agreeing With PETA in Their Argument With Wash U

2012-01-25T11:47:00.004-06:00

The RFT reported on an argument between PETA and Washington University over the fact that Wash U is one of the few schools that still uses live cats and ferrets for their training with incubation tubes. The argument seems to be over whether the use of live animals is important for this training, with both sides offering different opinions, but I have some reasons for thinking PETA is probably right on this. Namely, I'm very skeptical that the American Heart Association would specifically state that they don't "endorse" the procedure and many other schools would choose not to use it if they really thought that it was a crucial component of training. The dominant mindset in much of society is that it's OK to use most non-human animals merely as a means to our ends, so it seems to me very unlikely that these other institutions would be willing to put their reputation at risk by doing something that impaired their training and potentially harmed babies.

Doing animal experimentation that benefits human health and well-being is a tricky ethical question,in my opinion, but using animals for training in a way that doesn't even improve human life is definitely a mistake.

Activist Calendar Back Up And Running

2012-01-25T11:11:00.005-06:00

For those who don't remember, the reason this blog has the title "St. Louis Activist Hub," is because it was originally used only to post a weekly calendar of St. Louis activism events. I later was sucked into actual blogging when Andrew Breitbart and local right-wingers tried to destroy the lives of two innocent men. But after launching the site ForwardSTL which highlights a wide variety of progressive opinions in St. Louis, it seemed more appropriate to house the calendar there. However, a variety of technical issues made us change over ForwardSTL to a Tumblir site, and the calendar originally didn't go with it.

Anyway, the good news is that the St. Louis Activist Calendar is back up and running and some changes to Google and Facebook calendars are making it easier post more events. As always, I'm amazed at how much really cool stuff is happening in St. Louis.

Rifle Crosshair Stickers Placed On Democrats' Office Doors

2012-01-24T16:50:00.011-06:00

According to Jason Hancock, reporter for the Kansas City Star in Jefferson City, someone placed stickers with the image of a rifle crosshair on the door of several Missouri Democratic Senators:
Hancock added that the Capitol Police and the State Highway patrol had been notified about the incident.

Follow his Twitter account for the latest developments.

Update: Here's what State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal had to say about it:

Update X2: The Columbia Tribune has a full story about it. An excerpt:

Orange stickers with an image of rifle crosshairs were found Tuesday on the office doors of several Democratic state Senators, prompting an investigation by the Capitol Police Department, Senate Administrator Jim Howerton said.

“We are taking all the precautions we can,” Howerton said.

The stickers were on the doors of all four Democratic women in the Senate — Jolie Justus and Kiki Curls, both of Kansas City, and Maria Chapelle-Nadal and Robin Wright-Jones, both of St. Louis, Justus said.

“If anyone thinks this was a prank, it is not a prank,” Justus said after discussing the discovery of the stickers on the Senate floor. “You don’t joke about someone’s personal safety.”

A sticker also was found on the door of Sen. Victor Callahan, D-Kansas City and the Democrats’ floor leader.

Update X3: Here's a photo of one of the stickers on a Senator's nameplate, courtesy of reporter Sherman Fabes:

Press Release: The Need for EV Charging Infrastructure in St. Louis

2012-01-24T10:07:00.002-06:00

Press release:

With 3 New EV Charging Station Installations, Microgrid Energy Prepares St. Louis for Influx of Electric Vehicles
Unveiling of several new electric vehicles at Detroit Auto Show highlights need for EV charging infrastructure here in St. Louis
Saint Louis – Already responsible for installing the first networked electric vehicle (EV) charging station in the St. Louis area, Microgrid Energy is working to prepare the Gateway City for the influx of electric vehicles set to hit the market.

“As we’ve seen from the recent Detroit Auto Show, nearly every major automaker is preparing to bring at least one electric vehicle to the market in the near future,” said Rick Hunter, Microgrid CEO. “Cities across the nation are installing infrastructure to support the new wave of vehicles and St. Louis will be no exception. Microgrid Energy is proud to be at the front lines, bringing EV charging stations to St. Louis and helping promote the use of cleaner, more fuel efficient vehicles.”

The company’s most recent work includes installing three new EV charging stations in St. Louis; partnering with the St. Louis Science Center on an electric vehicle educational exhibit; and exhibiting EV charging technology at upcoming the St. Louis Auto Show.

In 2011, Microgrid installed the St. Louis region’s first networked EV charging station at the St. Charles headquarters of Novus International, Inc. Microgrid also installed an EV charging station at the iconic Moonrise Hotel in the Delmar Loop and at the headquarters of electric utility Ameren.

In the last few months, Microgrid has installed EV charging stations at the Anheuser Busch Employee Credit Union in Soulard, the Laurel Apartments on Washington Avenue, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Each of these charging stations is available for public use.

Additionally, Microgrid was asked by the St. Louis Science Center to help outfit their traveling educational exhibit that educates school children on electric vehicles and EV charging. The exhibit is transported via an electric-powered truck – called EVie – on which Microgrid also installed solar panels. The truck already results in reduced carbon emissions, and those emissions are further reduced through the use of solar power.

Electric vehicle charging will also be showcased at the upcoming St. Louis Auto Show as part of the very popular EcoCity. Microgrid will provide EV charging stations that will charge the electric vehicles that visitors can actually test drive inside the show, taking place January 26-29 at America’s Center.

Background on Microgrid’s EV Charging Station Installations
· Laurel Apartments: two Coulomb ChargePoint CT2003, which are wall-mounted charging stations capable of each charging one vehicle at a time, both at 240V fast charge.
· Anheuser Busch Employee Credit Union: a Coulomb ChargePoint CT-2021, which is a bollard-mounted charging station capable of charging two vehicles at a time, both at 240V fast charge.
· St. Louis Science Center: Electric-powered truck – called EVie – on which Microgrid also installed solar panels.
· St. Louis Auto Show 2012: EV charging stations in the Eco City area of the show, where alternative fuel vehicles and the entire new wave of green automobiles will be highlighted.

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Correcting Roll Call: No, Carnahan was Not "Tipping His Hand"

2012-01-20T12:21:00.004-06:00

Roll Call reported today, based on a KMOX story, that Russ Carnahan might have tipped his hand about running in the 1st Congressional District against Lacy Clay. Roll Call says that a Carnahan aide said that he'd be running "in the district he lives in," which would currently mean running against Clay. However, they actually left out a key part of the quote (which was included in the KMOX story); the full quote was: “Umm, I’m not trying to be flippant but he will run in the district he lives in.”

The "I'm not trying to be flippant" is a clue that the aide knew that the question wasn't actually being answered. According to Missouri law, Carnahan could move to a new district and run there, so "running where he lives" doesn't really mean much. And this has been confirmed in quotes from Carnahan's office who said that the quote was misinterpreted. Roll call also cites an anonymous "Missouri Democratic source" as saying that Carnahan has been "sniffing around the 1st District for a long time." I wouldn't be surprised if he's exploring his options, but please keep in mind that both Antonio French and the St. Louis American have pointed out that there are St. Louis political operatives who have a vested interest in pushing for a primary fight.

I suppose it's possible that saying he'd run "where he lives" is a way of testing out some messaging he would use if he decided to run against Clay, but reading too much into a quote from an aide who was clearly instructed not to reveal his decision would be a mistake.

CNN's Dana Loesch Pushes Old, Debunked National Enquirer Rumors of Obama Affair

2012-01-18T19:42:00.006-06:00

After news broke that ABC would be airing an interview with Newt Gingrich's ex-wife, disgraced CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch decided this would be the perfect time to start pushing completely empty "Obama affair" rumors that originated in the National Enquirer. Here's what Loesch was tweeting:

The link from Loesch's "lets talk this" tweet goes to a conspiracy mongering nonsensical post that claims that "Hilary Clinton knew about" an "Obama affair" during the 2008 campaign but decided not to say anything because she needed a favor from him. The evidence for this claim? Absolutely none: just the author stating, "According to online reports..." with no link.

And the premise that there's an affair is based entirely on a National Enquirer article that didn't even claim there was an affair. Yes, I know, the Enquirer actually got one right with the John Edwards story, but in this case, the Enquirer uses a second-hand account that, even if all the details are true, doesn't show anything. The only claim is that Obama was at a hotel at roughly the same time as Vera Baker, a major funraiser and confidant. The rumors, which actually trace back to 2004, were pretty thoroughly debunked by Media Matters as nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor after the Enquirer story broke:

So, to sum up: the story is rehashed rumors about events that supposedly took place in 2004 but which no one has substantiated with anything remotely resembling credible evidence. They have been flatly denied by the woman supposedly involved. And the only thing new here are the rumors about a video that no one is claiming (even anonymously) to have seen.

Yet here Loesch is pushing the story on Twitter, and on Big Journalism, where she wrote:

Does this mean we’ll also start hearing about Vera Baker from broadcast media?

CNN, the "Cable News Network," continues to be an embarrasment to the word "news."

OccupySTL to Protest Lowes

2012-01-18T18:38:00.003-06:00

From an email:

[Join OccupySTL] this Sunday, January 22nd in Solidarity with the boycott of Lowes by the Council for American-Islamic Relations(CAIR: http://www.cair.com/) and Occupy Saint Louis (OSL: http://www.occupystl.org/) to protest Lowes bowing to pressure from southern hate-groups to divest millions of ad-dollars from the TLC program All-American Muslim, which was the first major offering on network television of a positive portrayal of the everyday lives of average American Muslims in Detroit....

Occupy Saint Louis Outreach is requesting that all recipients stand in Solidarity with our picket outside the Kirkwood Lowes, to join our mobilization and forward this message to further allies in the struggle against bigotry, xenophobia, and discrimination and ignorance so we all can show that the political forces of the 1% and the politics of division and hate will not be allowed to single out any-one population in our community. We implore you to spread the word and invite you to join us on the picket lines this Sunday, January 22nd.

You can read their full statement on Lowes here.

Breitbart Blogger Dr. Gina Loudon Diagnoses Loesch With "Combatative Personality Disorder"

2012-01-18T18:01:00.004-06:00

Back when Dana Loesch and the St. Louis Tea Party broke up, I wrote about how a local conservative activist asked Loesch where her career would be without the tea party. The question was phrased in an innocent way, but Loesch called the person ignorant, blocked her, and basically suggested that her career had nothing to do with being a tea partier.

When this person mentioned the incident on Facebook, Breitbart blogger and frequent Fox News guest Gina Loudon, who was previously pushed out of the tea party by Loesch, had some interesting things to say about Loesch.

First, here was the initial comment from facebook:

Ok, for those of you who know what this is about...I am sorry and you probably know more than I do but I have gotten a couple of emails about something I supposedly wrote and I am at a loss as to what they are talking about. So I will tell my story. The St. Louis Tea Party organizers had a meeting and there was an argument. Dana Loesch decided to leave the STLTP. That is her choice BUT she posted something on Facebook about leaving as if the Tea Party no longer existed because she has left it. I would quote her exact words but she seems to have unfriended me. Hmmm....I read her remarks and thought they were a tad petulant. I posted that she had a lot to thank the St. Louis Tea Party for since she probably wouldn't be on the radio or TV if it wasn't for them. She then wrote a nasty remark back to me accusing me of being ignorant. And as is usual with her, she was sarcastic and wrote, "Thank you." Once again, I would post the whole answer and my statement but she unfriended me so I can't. I just wrote back "You are welcome." That was the end of it as far as I was concerned.

I did write to another insider of the Tea Party that it sounded like people just took their toys and went home. I posted that publicly to him but I don't feel the need to mention him.

Bill Hennessy wrote a much classier email thanking Dana Loesch for her service. Hmmm...so publicly he took the high road while she whined and was nasty on Facebook plus she went on Glover to plead her case...

In my life, I have found that no organization or company ever falls apart just because one person leaves it. I find it ashame that one person left and showed her dirty laundry to everyone else.

It is my belief, that the Tea Party was started to fight liberals and to keep our country free. None of us, will ever agree about who is the best person for the job but we should never lose sight of the original objective. And furthermore, no one person should be bigger than the movement. When someone thinks that they are so important that the movement can't exist without it, then they are no longer of service to the movement.

And here's how Gina Loudon responded:

Please note, I did *not* get this screenshot from the person who wrote the initial comment, so there's no need for idiotic Loesch fans to harrass that person like they did last time.

This Blog Has Been Confiscated By Rupert Murdoch

2012-01-18T17:15:00.000-06:00

In case I haven't mentioned it, SOPA really blows.

Update: KSDK reports on the protest.

Missouri Veteran Says Loesch "Doesn't Understand the Ethos of the American Soldier"

2012-01-18T16:56:00.005-06:00

Bungalow Bill, a Missouri conservative blogger from the Springfield area, was not impressed with Dana Loesch's comments that she was giving the marines who urinated on dead Afghans "1 million cool points" and would "drop trou and do it herself." Here's what he had to say:

Ms. Loesch, as a former member of the United States military, I remember a painting on the walls of my training facility. The painting had a caption under it that said the American servicemen doesn't love war, but when called upon, they are ready to fight and they do fight respecting humanity. Throughout history, our military has always treated its own first who were injured on the battle field and then our allies. The humane nature of our soldiers than search battlefields for our enemy and we offer them lifesaving humane medical treatments. It is not in our nature to go pissing on the dead. Nor would we tolerate it Ms. Loesch if our enemies pissed on our dead.

Ms. Loesch obviously doesn't understand the ethos of the American solider, and what these men did was disrespect a long heritage of outstanding service in decades of tradition. These Marines don't deserve a million cool points Dana.

They are an embarrassment to their uniform considering the ethos of the uniform and the tradition of the uniform. I am afraid that too many liberals are discounting the value of life with their abortion desires, and I am afraid that too many neocons like Loesch are discounting the value of life with their promotion of wars. What happens to society when life is no longer of value, well, we can look at history for that. Many dictators recorded in history have performed many despicable acts because they discounted the value of a life based on ethnicity, religion, or other criteria.

He even goes on to compare her to Keith Olbermann.

h/t P.J.

Obama Stands Up To Oil Companies With Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline Decision

2012-01-18T10:57:00.008-06:00

President Obama's administration stood up to oil companies today by rejecting the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. If you're not familiar with the problems of the pipeline and the pile of lies used to prop up the idea, click here for details.

I know a large group of students in the St. Louis area have been incredibly active on this issue (two of whom are pictured above), even traveling to D.C. to take part in national protests, so congratulations to them and the environmental movement for a major victory.

Washington University Warned International Students Not To Participate in Occupy

2012-01-17T23:00:00.003-06:00

A friend sent me this link of a message sent to international students at Washington Unviersity about the Occupy movement:

The Occupy Protests and Illegal Activities: Implications for International Students

The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in September have since spread throughout the United States and around the world. St. Louis even has a small Occupy movement centered around Kiener Plaza, with support coming from students from local campuses, including Washington University. The Occupy protests, both here in St. Louis and elsewhere, have mostly complied with local laws and ordinances. However, the number of arrests for Occupy-related crimes has increased in recent weeks as local governments and police agencies seek to enforce laws and, in many cases, quell the protests.

The Occupy protests may appeal to students for several reasons. It may be that the goals of the movement resonate with students. On the other hand, students may view the movement with curiosity. Students may even see the protests as a way to experience the American political process firsthand. In our view, however, the decision to participate in the Occupy Protests must not be taken lightly.

In order to participate, one must accept the possibility of arrest. Even in St. Louis, Occupy Protest-related arrests have been made. Arrests can have severe consequences for American students. However, international students face an even greater level of risk. International students who are arrested may face long term immigration consequences, including the loss of immigration status and even deportation, depending on the circumstances.

And, with news coverage of the Occupy Protests being broadcast around the world in a 24-7 newscycle and on the internet, an international student may face problems back home. Governments, and even perspective employers, may access information from online sources regarding activites that would viewed negatively in the home country. For example, background checks increasingly rely on information from online sources.

For more information on visa regulations and the consequences of an arrest, please consult an advisor in the OISS.

Now, the letter makes some valid points and I don't think this message was intended to be threatening for the sake of shutting down political opinions, but it does seem to me to strongly discourage international students from participating and to do so in a way that doesn't really make clear what things would and would not be problematic. Obviously, getting arrested is a problem for people here on a visa. However, there could be ways of participating that don't, as the letter claims, carry, "the possibility of arrest."

I've noticed first-hand that a lot of international students were pretty disturbed by this letter, and have been especially afraid of getting involved in any sort of political activity (specifically citing the letter as a reason). This seems like a real shame for academia, a place that is supposed to encourage free thinking.

What Does the State Supreme Court Decision Mean For Carnahan?

2012-01-17T22:16:00.007-06:00

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled today that the Missouri House would have to start from scratch on their state senate redistricting and that a lower court would have to revisit a previous decision to leave the new U.S. House districts intact. It's pretty chaotic since the election cycle is starting up and filing deadlines are approaching, but in general it seems like this might be good, though not perfect, news for Representative Russ Carnahan.

Most people had previously assumed that Rep. Carnahan would be stuck with bad pair of options under the current map, passed by a veto proof majority when three Missouri House Democrats sold their souls to Republicans. Carnahan could either run in Congressman Lacy Clay's safe Democratic district, thus setting up a potentially bitter primary fight, or he could run in the new 2nd District which leans Republican. This dilemma has been the subject of previous discussion on this blog.

However, this court decision potentially changes the dynamics of Carnahan's choice. Though many politicos suggested that the judge might rule that a strange "teardrop" in the Kansas City area would need to be changed but not mess with Carnahan's district, the decision in fact cites the new 3rd District (which contains some previous Carnahan territory) as being problematic in addition to the 5th District in the Kansas City area. Here's the language from the summary of the ruling:

The applicable standard of review for a court in reviewing an article III, section 45 claim is the language of the constitution itself: whether the General Assembly divided Missouri into districts of “contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be. As long as the districts comply with these constitutional requirements, the circuit court shall respect the political determinations of the General Assembly and allow for minimal and practical deviations required to preserve the integrity of the existing lines of our various political subdivisions. Yet the duty to draw district lines of a contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be is one that is mandatory and objective, not subjective.

Here, Plaintiffs have alleged that various districts, and the Map as a whole, violate the compactness requirement of article III, section 45. Districts 3 and 5 are alleged to be particularly suspect, as can be confirmed by any rational and objective consideration of their boundaries. However, it is a question of fact, yet to be tried, whether those districts are “as compact and nearly equal in population as may be.” Mo. Const. art. III, sec. 45 (emphasis added).

I'm not a lawyer, but this language doesn't seem particularly strong to me. So it seems that while this makes it likely that the boundaries of the 3rd district will change (which will change the dynamics of Carnahan's decision, for better or worse), it doesn't make it a foregone conclusion.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court did rule against the claims that the new maps should be changed because they unfairly stacked the deck against Democrats. Now, they probably did stack the deck against Democrats, but unfortunately (and undemocratically if you ask me) this in itself isn't something the courts can legally take action on. From the Beacon's analysis:

But the Supreme Court said that Green was correct in dismissing some arguments -- such as the assertion that the new 3rd was crafted to curb the congressional influence of the St. Louis area and that it unfairly targeted Democrats. The critics contended that the new map leaves the statewide congressional delegation skewed improperly toward Republicans by protecting the six GOP incumbents.
The court stated in its opinion that the U.S. Supreme Court's "inability to state a clear standard" regarding gerrymandering has made it difficult for the state Supreme Court to make a ruling on that argument.

So there's nothing forcing the lower courts to make the districts more friendly to Carnahan. On the other hand, the Supreme Court seemed to think that the 3rd and the 5th districts would need to be redrawn. Given that the last boundary drawings were done by a hyper-partisan crowd doing whatever they could to maximizing Republican chances, any possible changes will most likely result in a somewhat better map for Carnahan. I already think he should run in the 2nd against Ann Wagner or Ed Martin, but if that district shifts a little more Democrat then the decision hopefully becomes a lot easier.

Activist Hub Highlights From 2011

2012-01-17T14:15:00.010-06:00

I'm only about three weeks late doing this, but hey, why not? Here's a summary of some of my favorite posts from 2011.

The two stories I am most proud of are my debunking of right-wing smears that were used to try to damage important St. Louis institutions. The first smear campaign was the tea party claim that “union thugs” from SEIU ruthlessly assaulted a conservative black man outside of Russ Carnahan’s townhall. I carefully documented the flaws in their story as well as outright conspiracy theories (such as the claim that Obama “sent thugs to silence dissent”), and was vindicated when a jury took only 40 minutes to reach a “not guilty” verdict for the former SEIU employees. I was fortunate to also be able to contribute an op-ed to the Post-Dispatch on this topic (and on the next one).

The other smear was a campaign by Dana Loesch and Andrew Breitbart to claim that UMSL and UMKC professors were “advocating violence” in their labor studies class. I worked with bloggers at Crooks and Liars and Media Matters to conclusively prove that Loesch and Breitbart were lying. Furthermore, a student from the class sent me exclusive video showing tea party members trying to provoke students to “take a swing” at him and, together with my friend Kevin, I was able to interview three students from the class who further debunked the claims from Breitbart and Loesch..

I also wrote a Post-Dispatch op-ed questioning the rush from some city officials to badmouth the earnings tax immediately after its overwhelming victory in the city elections. And I used a Sunshine Law request to demonstrate that city officials (who previously refused to answer questions on this topic) met with the Downtown Partnership to discuss the removal of Occupy St. Louis.

Furthermore, I broke the news of the breakup of Dana Loesch with the St. Louis tea party after I was forwarded leaked emails of their bitter email exchanges. I had previously thoroughly documented the infighting that resulted from Missouri’s Second District election, all the way from the first Big Government article attacking Ed Martin.

Finally, there were a couple stories that didn't get much attention, but that I think are good examples of how blogging can improve on mainstream reporting. I noted St. Louis Public Radio using a restaurant front group story to attack the minimum wage by doing a little background research on the group, caught the New York Times misleadingly presenting professors opinions as if they approved of James O’Keefe’s tactics by getting comments from the professors, and offered a critique of the Breitbart/Loesch style of “journalism” when asked by the Washington University Student Newspaper.

I was also asked to be a guest three times on KDHX's Collateral Damage, which was a really fun experience.

I'd like to thank Brian, Cathy, Luella, Kevin, Bunnie, Peggy, Mark and all of the other great contributors for adding their thoughts, and give a major shoutout to Gloria and Stacy for doing an amazing job at ForwardSTL, and Sean at ProgressMO for help with a lot of things. What I've always really been interested in is building a stronger online progressive community, and I think that is happening, albeit slowly.

2012 is off to an interesting start, with my story on Loesch's disgraceful comments about corpse desecration being picked up by Politico, Huffington Post, Media Matters, Think Progress, Mother Jones, the Riverfront Times, and the Washington Post, among others. Hopefully this blog can continue to push back against egregious conduct and extremism, and more importantly will help bring people together with shared values. Thanks very much to all my readers for their support.

Thanks to the Riverfront Times!

2012-01-17T13:40:00.003-06:00

I found out earlier today that this blog was named a finalist for Best Political Blog in St. Louis. I'm proud to be in the company of Occasional Planet, PoliticMo, the Beacon Backroom, and even the St. Louis Tea Party blog. Thanks to whoever nominated this blog, to the other writers, and to the RFT for putting it on. Some of my favorite local blogs are also listed under "Best Neighborhood Blog" and "Best Architecture Blog," so I hope you check them all out.

Breitbart Repeats A Despicable and Debunked Smear About Me From CNN's Dana Loesch

2012-01-16T23:08:00.011-06:00

Andrew Breitbart tried to smear me earlier today via Twitter while pestering reporter Mediaite Tommy Christopher:

The claim that I'm a "stalker" is stupid enough, since I criticize Loesch for her dishonest tactics and extreme antics, which are all part of her public persona. When you make a living as a "political analyst," your politics and the way you go about promoting them are fair game. But the claim that I'm "stalking" the "Loesch family" is just a despicable smear. And it's one that I already conclusive debunked the last time they tried it. From my post back when Breitbart came to town:

Finally, and probably most despicably of all. Loesch accuses me of "stalking her children:"

When I ask her what evidence she has for this obnoxious claims, she responds, "you've clicked on the site where my children are at." Based on conversations with other tea partiers, I know that this obnoxious claim from Loesch comes from the fact that one time, after Loesch tweeted a link to her Mommy blog from her political twitter account, I linked to that post in one of my blog posts. You can read my post here.

Now, I have to admit, the post is somewhat petty by my usual standards (though it would be typical fare from Breitbart bloggers or the tea party). I took her post demanding that people pay her if they want her to mention their products and used it as an opportunity to remind people of the legitimate political story that Loesch shut out and attacked Ed Martin's GOP primary opponent after Martin gave thousands of dollars to Chris Loesch's business.

Though it is a serious ethical problem that Loesch refused to disclose this conflict of interest while cheering Martin's campaign, I admit the connection between that and her post claiming she requires money for product endorsements is a little bit of a stretch. However, that post I linked too was not at all about her children and was entirely about her patriotic desire to make money via endorsements, so to use this to claim that I'm "stalking her children" is absolutely despicable. The claim that someone involved other people's children is a serious allegation and not something to be tossed out as a cheap attempt to silence critics or demonize opponents.

It's pretty amazing that CNN allows their name to be dragged into the mud and slime by paying Loesch as a "political analyst."

By the way, I debunked multiple disgraceful smears from the CNN "political analyst" in that post, including her calling me "racist."

Update: Looks like Breitbart also smeared me on the "Victory Sessions" radio program. He says that I "tried to take away business" from Loesch's husband. First, as noted above, I was reporting on a legitimate political story where Dana Loesch had viciously attacked a conservative Republican primary candidate after that candidate's less conservative opponent paid $5,000 to Loesch's husband's business to make an advertisement, and she did so without ever acknowledging this potential conflict of interest. You don't need to take my word that the story is newsworthy; here's RFT reporter (and now Editor) Chad Garrison responding after Chris Loesch had attacked him for covering it:

According to Chris, I should never have never followed Shriver's story, because he got the ownership of Shock City wrong. To me, though, the story is newsworthy despite the error in Shriver's piece.

Dana Loesch is a quasi-public figure who last week got in a rather public pissing match with G.O.P. candidate John Wayne Tucker over allegations that she has intentionally kept him off her radio show while at the same time inviting Martin onto the program.

The fact that Martin's campaign had paid her husband's studio $2,500 shortly before he appeared on Dana's talk show seemed interesting to me.

So the story was newsworthy even if it was Loesch's husband, rather than Loesch who owned the studio because it still created a potential conflict of interest. Now, you might ask why I got the ownership of Shock City Music wrong. Well, that's because Loesch referred to the studio as her "family business" and repeatedly used it to claim that she was a "small business owner."

Listen to Breitbart's attempts to "silence free speech" as he would say, here:

Especially hilarious (and typical Breitbart) is the fact that he says he won't use the word "stalker," but then uses it on Twitter shortly afterward. What a class act!

Irony Alert! Loesch Subtracts "Cool Points" From Conservative Think Tank That Disinvited Her

2012-01-16T22:33:00.004-06:00

Dana Loesch said she wanted to give "a million cool points" to the marines who urinated on dead bodies in Afghanistan and said she would "drop trou" and do it herself. Because of these offensive comments, the conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute disinvited her from a luncheon she had promoted for weeks.

And so, in response, Loesch decided to "subtract cool points" from the Institute for "siding" with the "fascistic ways" of George Soros." Listen

Some serious people we're dealing with here.

To hear more of Loesch's thoughts on the Illinois Policy Institute, you can listen here:

h/t again to @nicolegennette

Big Journalism Trying to Muddy the Waters With Anonymous Attacks

2012-01-15T19:07:00.005-06:00

Big Journalism, the website "edited" by Dana Loesch, is in full-blown crisis mode after Loesch has been criticized by people across the political spectrum for her disgraceful comments about desecrating corpses. But what's especially interesting about their panic mode is that they've been using the anonymous name "P.J. Salvatore" for their attacks. Apparently, they're afraid of anyone knowing who actually wrote the pieces. Here's the description of the anonymous "P.J." moniker on the site:

Big Journalism had no less than four anonymous articles on their site today about the urinating incident, trying to excuse Dana Loesch for her comment that she would "drop trou" and pee on corpses too. Here are a few of the headlines:

The most recent article by "P.J." was pretty clearly written by Mary Chastain. How do I know this? Because she writes in a teenager style, with bizarre expressions of "Seriously!" in the middle of the post. She's also obsessed with "Fast and Furious," and just happens to use that as her example when she incorrectly claimed that 4 articles = 90 articles (she claimed that Media Matters had written the "same amount" about the recent scandal as Fast and Furious).

In the past, there have been pretty obvious examples of articles written by "P.J." that were Loesch referring to herself in the third person. All of which raises the question, if the writers at Dana Loesch's site are so sure of their writings, why are they afraid to put their names on it? Why, it's almost as if they want to make sure they have plausible deniability.

Suprise! Another Member of Tea Party Splinter Group Actually Working for the Establishment...Against the Tea Party

2012-01-15T15:19:00.005-06:00

As was previously noted, the St. Louis Tea Party split because of infighting between supporters of tea party candidate Ed Martin and those of establishment candidate Ann Wagner in the GOP primary for Missouri's Second District. Unsurprisingly, Adam Sharp of Sharp Elbows is in the "completely without actual principles" camp and sided with the new splinter group GIGLI. But what I didn't realize is that Sharp was already working on behalf of the establishment even before this whole kerfuffle started.

I've previously noted that there's a strong tea party challenger to GOP establishment Senator Dick Lugar. Lugar has repeatedly insulted the tea party during his campaign. Ann Wagner, unsurprisingly, is supporting Lugar and even hosted a fundraiser for him. And, coincidence of coincidences, it just so happens that Adam Sharp was sent to do a hit piece on Lugar's tea party challenger Richard Mourdock.

The video is the usual whining and declarations of being the world's biggest victim from Sharp, but what's hilarious is that he's using these tactics to attack fellow tea partiers. He goes to the event in a different state specifically for the purpose of harassing the candidate, interrupts their program, and then acts offended when people don't want to talk to him. It's great comedy.

Here's the video:

Sharp, by the way, is close friends with Chip Gerdes, whom the St. Louis Tea Party accused of writing a hit piece on Ed Martin for Breitbart's site.

Related: A RINO's Guide to Wooing Cranky Breitbart Editors

RT News Slams CNN Over Loesch Fiasco

2012-01-15T13:38:00.005-06:00

"If you think that paying people like Dana Loesch and giving her airtime to spread her vile commentary give you some shred of credibility, I don't know what else to do but laugh. Or maybe cry. I don't know. Over all, I kinda just feel sorry for you. The only thing that would give the mainstream media any credibility in this day and age would be returning to covering actual news. For example: the war in Afghanistan."

Enjoy:

(BTW, it's a small thing, but I do have to criticize RT News for the fact that their original coverage of this story did not credit me with first reporting on it. Huffington Post also covered the story as if they had discovered the footage themselves)

CNN Political Analyst Questions Loesch's Integrity Because of Remarks

2012-01-15T12:18:00.008-06:00

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite grabed some footage of CNN political analyst Goldie Taylor on Don Lemon's program describing why urinating on corpses is wrong and calling out Dana Loesch for praising the people who did it. Taylor is a former marine and said the following about the incident:

Taylor told Lemon that the tape wasn’t representative of the Marine Corps that she belonged to, and that “When I look at that, and look at what four marines did to defame my Marine Corps, I’m disgusted.”
She went on to say that the four Marines should be court-martialed.

Then she said what she thought of Loesch's comments:

Lemon asked Taylor about people who defended these Marines’ actions. I’ve heard it,” Taylor said. “And I’ve heard it on this air, frankly. That is disgusting in and of itself, not as satire not as a joke but to say you would ‘drop trou’ and do the same thing, I question someone’s integrity who would say something like that. I want to know if they understand what our young men and women are up against every day. I don’t want to demonize the men and women who serve our country. I honor them, and served alongside them, and am proud of them. But when something like this happens, we have to stand up and call it for the behavior that it is.”

Taylor, by the way, is not alone. Multiple CNN employees criticized Loesch's comments and questioned why she was at the network. For example:

"I can't imagine someone really thinking that, it is so outrageous," said one CNN reporter who requested anonymity. "I think she is trying to garner attention to herself, and that is sad. If that is what she truly believes, she has issues. If you look at that video, I don't care who you are, your stomach should turn."

And:

Another regular CNN journalist added: "I am of the school of thought, 'Why aren't we putting people who are knowledgeable on the air?' I'll just say 'Ewww.' I think it's in poor taste."

And:

"What's interesting is how the kid gloves are applied to outlandish comments made by the likes of Erick Erickson or Dana Loesch and how it has a negative impact on the CNN brand," said the contributor, who also requested anonymity. "There really is no pushback or no real conversation that says, 'Look, you make these kinds of comments or you write these kinds of wild, crazy stuff, that's just not what we're about.' It simply doesn't happen. I think there is fear of saying anything to them because they are Tea Party folks, and there has been a clear effort on the part of our political team to court that whole Tea Party thought process, if you will."

"The danger is always the negative impact on your whole political coverage," the contributor added. "Because clearly you want there to be a point of view, but there is a difference between a point of view and being so far off the rails it defies logic."

Yup, Loesch is embarrassing the employees at CNN who actually have respect for the truth and honest debate.

One criticism of Tommy Christopher's piece for Mediaite; he repeated the suggestion pushed by right-wing media that Bill Maher's comments on Friday were substantively the same as Loesch's. Actually, Maher opened his comments by saying that he was sure that no one condoned the actions. He later said that if the people urinated on were the Taliban, and if they had done horrible things like honor rapes, then he's "not that upset" about it. In sharp contrast, Loesch not only condoned the behavior without any caveats, she openly cheered for it, and said she would "drop trou and do it herself." (not to mention the fact that Maher is a comedian and Loesch is a "political analyst," and there are a lot of things that comedians can get away with that political analysts couldn't, though in this case what Loesch said is clearly *far more* extreme).

So you might disagree with Maher's comments, but they weren't even close to what Loesch said, and it's time to put that particular right-wing meme to rest.

Update: Tommy Christopher says he was drawing a different comparison than the one I focused on. Fair enough, although I still think his post is written in a way that feeds into the right-wing meme that "Maher said the exact same thing." And an earlier Mediaite post by Josh Feldman, linked to by Christopher, seems to explicitly make that claim:

Maher appears to be echoing similar sentiments to Dana Loesch, who earlier today said she didn’t understand why the video was so controversial, adding “I’d drop trou and do it too.”

Dana Loesch Disinvited From Conservative Event For Disgraceful Comments

2012-01-15T11:11:00.007-06:00

For this past week, Dana Loesch had been hyping an event in O'Fallon, Illinois titled "Women, Liberty, and America's Future," hosted by the Illinois Policy Institute, Smart Girl Politics, and the Independent Women's Forum. Loesch was supposed to be the main speaker at the event. Here's the description from their event invitation:

Join the Illinois Policy Institute, the Independent Women's Forum and Smart Girl Politics for a breakfast featuring Dana Loesch, Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism. She will be leading a discussion on women, liberty, and America's future. Dana will address how liberty principles offer attractive policy solutions to the big challenges facing women today. Both men and women are welcome!

However, on Friday night, Loesch abruptly announced that she wouldn't be attending:

Andrew Breitbart, being interviewed on FTR radio, said that Loesch was disinvited to the event because of the disgraceful comments she made where she applauded marines urinating on dead bodies and said she would "drop trou" and "do it too." Here's the audio from Breitbart, who starts by whining that "almost nobody in the conservative movement" came to his defense when he was booted from ABC election night coverage and then explains the situation with Loesch:

The Illinois Policy Institute is a conservative think tank that describes it's philosophy, in part, as follows:

The Illinois Policy Institute is dedicated to promoting the principles of liberty in all levels of government. While the word liberty can be interpreted in many ways and applied to many different arenas we focus specifically on economic liberty and free market principles.

If even they think Loesch's comments crossed the line, then what in the world is up with CNN?

Reminder: CNN's Dana Loesch "Loves the Smell of a Fire When It's Burning Tyranny"

2012-01-14T10:21:00.005-06:00

Now that a lot more people recognize CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch's charming voice, I thought it might be helpful to remind people of some other amazing comments she made. At at the tea party rally outside of Russ Carnahan's office, the day before health care reform was finally passed, the tea partiers "booted and torched" a photo of Congressman Russ Carnahan. As the photo was burning, Loesch said "this is what happens when you don't respect the will of your constituents." And later, "Mmmm, I love the way a fire smells when it's burning tyranny! Get me some marshmallows!"

Watch:

The full video, which shows the tea partiers throwing boots at the photo, was originally posted at Sharp Elbows' tea party blog. This was the day before the St. Louis tea party (without Loesch) carried a coffin to Carnahan's home.

Update: Loesch says she was there to "take a photo for her station." Uhhhhh, so? How does that change the fact that she's on video cheering an effigy burning of a U.S. Congressman?

Hilarious! Breitbart Editor Whiffs on Politico Conspiracy Theory

2012-01-13T18:59:00.004-06:00

Too funny. Breitbart editor Jim Nolte wrote up a conspiracy theory about Politico on Big Journalism. It said the following:

The playbook is simple. Leftist outlets like Politico look for (or in this case, receive a tip from a leftist blogger notoriously obsessed with silencing Dana) any little thing a conservative says that can be amplified into the news-cycle as unacceptable or outrageous. Then, this ginned up tempest in a teapot, is used as a wedge between the conservative and the outlet that dares allow that conservative’s voice to be heard.

Oooh, so scandalous. The "tip from a leftist blogger" link goes to this tweet:

Except for this slight problem: my tweet was sent *after* Politico had already posted the story. In fact, I was responding because the reporter had encouraged Loesch to contact her if she wanted to respond and I know she has a history of making things up. Nothing about Dylan Byer's post was changed after I tweeted him (other than his update from a CNN spokesperson).

What an amazing surprise that the defense from a Breitbart editor would turn into a hysterical, easily-debunked conspiracy theory.

John Freakin Loudon Was "Not Far Right Enough" for Brunner

2012-01-13T00:40:00.003-06:00

John Loudon, the original tea partying, right-to-work-for-less pushing, friend of the National Organization for Marriage who said that gay people should just quit complaining and move to a state that allows gay marriage, had a post last week saying that he was "not far right" enough for Missouri GOP Senate candidate John Brunner. Well, technically, Loudon said he wasn't far right enough to accept Brunner's father's offer to go as a delegate for Pat Buchanan to the RNC in San Diego, but since the younger Brunner was Buchanan's state chairman in Missouri, ipso facto the same reasoning should apply. If you're too far right for John Loudon, well then you're just too darn far right.

Here's what Loudon had to say:

For those conservatives wondering about John Brunner, I can tell you this. His father picked me to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1996. I turned down the trip to San Diego and the chance of a lifetime because I was not as far right as Jack Brunner who was requesting that I serve as a delegate for Pat Buchanon. .

Tea Partier Suggests Possible Foul Play In Wagner Campaign, But I'm Skeptical

2012-01-12T20:00:00.006-06:00

Darin at Reboot Congress had some interesting observations earlier about Ann Wagner and Enterprise, where Wagner's husband is the Vice President of Government and Public Affairs:

Late last September, Missouri State Representative Sue Allen held a trivia night fundraiser. Sue's a solid conservative who's district has significantly changed in Missouri's recent redistricting. She needs to raise funds to increase her name recognition because of those new boundries--find out more about Sue Allen and donate to her campaign. To encourage donors to purchase tables at her September trivia night, any donor who bought a table would be allowed to read the trivia questions for one round.

On September 14th, Enterprise Holdings Inc. PAC donated $1,000 to Missouri State Rep Sue Allen. That's documented on page ten of Sue Allen's October Missouri Ethics Commission disclosure report embedded below. No one with the name "Wagner" is mentioned in that disclosure report.

As you can see in the picture below, Ann Wagner's reading questions at Sue Allen's trivia night. Reports from attendees at that fundraiser indicate that she read questions for four rounds. Is this the strategic vision of Ray Wagner: to buy a speaking platform in front of a room full of donors for his wife, a candidate for Congress, and finance that platform with Enterprise PAC money? I don't know if that rises to the level of using Enterprise stationary for Ann Wagner campaign solicitations, but it is an advantage other candidates around the country do not enjoy.

This set of facts potentially implies a serious problem. If Allen told people that they could read questions if they donated enough money to buy a table, and Ann Wagner read questions based on a $1,000 donation from the Enterprise PAC without reporting it as an in-kind donation from Enterprise, then it would seem that she might have run afoul of elections laws. However, that's based on the second hand information that this was how the event was set up, and I found some online evidence that seems to tell a different story.

The Young Republicans of St. Louis have a link to a google doc flier for the event. If you look at the flier, it lists Wagner as a "special guest" along with other Republicans like Tilley, Jones, Nieves, etc. Furthermore, it only mentions the cost of buying a table;there's no mention of being able to spend money to read questions. So without evidence that Wagner was allowed to read questions because of the donated money rather than because she was a special guest, it would be hard to produce any evidence of law-breaking. However, it certainly does reinforce the tea party bloggers suggestion that Wagner is a little too cozy with Enterprise to be viewed as an independent candidate.

I Agree With Antonio French (and mostly with the American) on Russ Carnahan's Options

2012-01-12T19:16:00.009-06:00

Antonio French is back blogging at Pub Def for what seems like the first time in eons and offers a pretty strong argument that Russ Carnahan should not run in Missouri's First District against Democrat Representative Lacy Clay. French offers several important reasons for Carnahan to avoid a Democratic showdown including tarnishing the family name and the threat of constant primary challenges even if he pulled off a victory. But what I think is the most interesting point is this one:

Some people are encouraging Carnahan to run against Clay for very selfish reasons, such as to increase turnout in their own elections. A well-financed, racially charged Congressional primary fight is sure to bring out voters for lower profile races down ballot. Like the treasurer’s race, for instance. Carnahan shouldn’t allow himself to be a tool of self-serving people who care less about the Democratic Party and the principles it stands for (such as inclusion) than they do their own ambitions. And even if Carnahan squeaked out an Election Night win, he will have so divided the district and the city that there would be little to celebrate.

If you recall, in late December I reached a fairly similar conclusion with different arguments.

French also links to the latest Political EYE in the St. Louis American which also argues, as I did, that Carnahan should run in the slightly Republican leaning 2nd District rather than against Clay. While I agree with much of what is said in the American, some of it is a bit perplexing. First of all, the title is "The growing isolation of Russ Carnahan," which strikes me as needlessly antagonistic. Carnahan might be somewhat isolated if he decided to run against Clay, but he hasn't decided that yet, so there's no reason to use that terminology. The EYE then goes on, I guess in support of their "isolation" thesis, to say the following:

Carnahan’s increasing isolation in this legal battle was made most painfully evident when the three judges on the Supreme Court appointed by Democratic governors – Chief Judge Rick Teitelman (appointed by Gov. Bob Holden), Judge Mary Russell (Holden) and Judge George Draper (recently appointed by Nixon) – recused themselves from the case.

If the EYE were to look suspiciously for evidence of behind-the-scene power-playing by party giants, such as Nixon or U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, this is the place to look. With these recusals, the EYE would conclude, the Missouri Democratic Party abandoned Russ Carnahan and all but doomed this legal effort to failure.

This claim doesn't make much sense to me. McCaskill and Nixon, as the EYE points out elsewhere, don't want a contested primary. So why would they tinker with the courts in a way to make a contested primary more likely?

But there's one part of the EYE that I think would be an especially good lesson for Democratic activists in the St. Louis area:

Democrats, both in Missouri and nationally, who do not want to see the black base antagonized by a primary challenge to Clay have pledged Carnahan all but limitless financial support to run against Akin, the EYE is told.

We need to remember that both sticks and carrots are important. Many people are spending their time telling Russ Carnahan about all of the bad things that will happen if he runs against Clay. But it's just as important for people to be committed to making good things happen if he decides to run in the 2nd. If Carnahan makes the right decision and engages the Herculean task of trying to win in the 2nd (while leaving Lacy Clay a cakewalk, and perhaps one he really doesn't deserve given the way the redistricting fight played out), then Carnahan should be rewarded with serious energy and money from St. Louis Democratic activists. He got screwed in this mess, but if he decides to do the right thing in spite of his raw deal, people should make sure that he gets the praise and support he deserves.

Loesch Cheers Soldiers Who Urinated On Corpses, Says She Would "Drop Trou" And Do It Herself

2012-01-12T17:20:00.006-06:00

The public image of the United States has been damaged after video surfaced showing U.S. soldiers urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan. Military officials have all condemned the actions.

From CNN:

"I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement. "I condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said in a statement the behavior is "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history."

Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of ISAF, called the actions on the video "disgusting."

"Any acts which treat the dead, enemy or friendly, with disrespect are utterly unacceptable and do not represent the standards we expect of coalition forces," Bradshaw said in a video statement. He said he was speaking on behalf of Allen, who is out of the country.

"It is difficult to say what long-term impacts this might have, and I would hesitate to get into speculation, but obviously any sort of footage, any sort of activity of this kind that is grossly against all the moral values that the coalition forces are standing for are very much working against our cause and against everything that we are standing for and that we are here for," said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a NATO ISAF spokesman.

CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch, on the other hand, apparently doesn't care if these actions were directly working against the mission of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; instead, she cheered for it in order to fuel the unhinged Muslim hatred that has become a staple of modern day right-wing media. On her show, she gave the marines in question "one million cool points" and said that she would "drop trou" and "do it too." She ended by saying: "Do I have a problem with that as a citizen of the United States? No, I don't."

h/t @nicolegennette for noticing.

Breitbart Continues to Undermine His Case Against Shirley Sherrod

2012-01-12T12:04:00.005-06:00

A Twitter user named Deirdre Flannigan posted the following comment on Twitter:

Breitbart responded with a barrage of tweets with a common theme:
"One of your own kind" is a reference to comments Shirley Sherrod made in the edited clips Breitbart sent out that portrayed Sherrod as a racist. In fact, it is a key to Breitbart's sad defense in Sherrod's lawsuit against him.

Breitbart claimed that he didn't smear Sherrod because he included the redemptive portion of her story on his first post. The Breitbart story hinges on the sentence of his original post where he says, "Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help." This, he alleges, is what shows that he included the "redemptive arc" of her story.

However, the full quote from Breitbart was actually as follows:

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement.

In other words, Breitbart's statement that Sherrod sent the farmer to get help was not intended to defend Sherrod against the charge of racism, but rather to bolster his claims based on the edited videos that Sherrod was racist because she sent him to get help from "one of his own kind." It was not "part of a redemptive arc," but rather an extension of his original smear. And the fact that Breitbart claims he'd like to "send people back to their own kind" in Twitter arguments just further supports the obvious fact that this part of his essay was meant as an attack, not as a defense.

And, in fact, the actual redemptive portion of Sherrod's tale, which Breitbart did not include in his original attack, was not when she sent the farmer to a white lawyer, but rather when she personally went to extraordinary lengths to help the farmer:

SHERROD: So, everything was going along fine -- I'm thinking he's being taken care of by the white lawyer, then they lift the injunction against USDA in May of '87 for two weeks and he was one of 13 farmers in Georgia who received a foreclosure notice. He called me. I said, well, go on and make an appointment at the lawyer. Let me know when it is and I'll meet you there.

So we met at the lawyer's office on the day they had given him. And this lawyer sat there -- he had been paying this lawyer, y'all. That's what got me. He had been paying the lawyer since November, and this was May. And the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said, "Well, y'all are getting old. Why don't you just let the farm go?" I could not believe he said that, so I said to the lawyer -- I told him, I can't believe you said that. I said: It's obvious to me that he cannot file a Chapter 12 bankruptcy to stop this foreclose, you have to file an 11. And the lawyer said to me, I'll do whatever you say -- whatever you think -- that's the way he put it. But he's paying him. He wasn't paying me any money. You know, so he said -- the lawyer said he would work on it.

And then, about seven days before that man would have been sold at the courthouse steps, the farmer called me and said the lawyer wasn't doing anything. And that's when I spent time there in my office calling everybody I could think so to try to see -- help me find the lawyer who would handle this.

It's pretty funny to watch Breitbart work himself into a frenzy trying to defend his indefensible smears on Sherrod.

A RINO's Guide to Wooing Cranky Breitbart Editors (With Photos!)

2012-01-12T10:00:00.017-06:00

What's that? You're a Republican politician who doesn't actually care about conservative values but likes using the government to further your business interests and personal wealth? Worried that conservative bloggers will tear you apart for pretending to be a conservative when you're actually not?

Fear not! Because here in the great state of Missouri we have the perfect example of how a GOP establishment candidate can easily win over the entire Breitbart operation just by showing them a little "affection" (if you know what I mean)!

Ann Wagner is the embodiment of the GOP establishment. She was appointed as the Ambassador to Luxembourg by President Bush. She was the chair of ultimate GOP insider Roy Blunt's successful Missouri Senate campaign where he defeated a more conservative challenger before trouncing Robin Carnahan. She was one of the finalists to run the Republican National Committee. And her husband is a registered lobbyist and Vice President of Government and Public Affairs at Enterprise, so her election would be the perfect example of the GOP establishment's favorite hobby: crony capitalism!

Not only that, but Wagner's opponent in the GOP primary is Ed Martin, a guy who was at the original St. Louis tea party rally and was on the tea party board before deciding to run against Russ Carnahan in the 2010 election. As a former Chief of Staff for Matt Blunt, Martin definitely is not a pure "outsider," but he also is not the embodiment of the national Republican Party as is Ann Wagner.

So you might think that Wagner would have a hard time wooing the "rebellious" "edgy" "unapologetic" "conservatives" who run Andrew Breitbart's sites. How wrong you'd be!

In fact, Wagner has not only charmed the Breitbart gang into avoiding attacks on her, she's actually gotten them to publish attacks on her tea party opponent! She's demonstrated that what they really care about isn't actually conservatism, but rather making sure that they get their piece of the pie.

But Adam, you're saying, it must be so incredibly hard to woo such iconoclast firebrands! No, it's really not! At least not if you are a wealthy, well-connected GOP fundraiser! Here are a few simple steps demonstrated by Ann Wagner that you can follow to ensure that the ever-so-principled "conservative bloggers" at Breitbart's sites will pretend that you represent the heart and soul of the Republican Party.

First, they really like to be taken to sporting events. See if you can arrange some VIP passes for them to make them feel special:

Andrew Breitbart and Big Government Editor Mike Flynn at a Cardinals game with Ann Wagner, Ray Wagner, and GOP operative Chip Gerdes.

Of course, a little alcohol never hurts an effort to help "grease the wheels" for some future positive coverage!

The especially red-faced & glassy-eyed Andrew Breitbart, Ann Wagner, and Mike Flynn in downtown St. Louis.

Formal events are a great place to schmooze!

Wagner with Breitbart editor Dana Loesch and "Gateway Pundit" Jim Hoft. Hoft wrote a post attacking Ed Martin on the Loesch-"edited" site Big Journalism. This was after Breitbart blogger Dan Riehl had sent a "warning shot" by attacking Martin on behalf of Wagner on Big Government.

Don't forget to introduce Breitbart editors to GOP celebrities so they can feel important!

Ann Wagner introducing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch.

And of course if you can get the manager of the radio station one of them works at to endorse you, you're as good as gold:

Ann Wagner is introduced by John Beck, the Senior VP at Loesch's home radio station KFTK, at a fundraiser hosted at Beck's home.

Are there any other secrets to wooing the Breitbart gang? Who knows? Wagner is a record-breaking fundraiser after all (and Breitbart did just raise $10 million for...something). And since Breitbart steadfastly refuses to release any information on who funds his site, Wagner can help him however much she wants without anyone being the wiser.

So, to summarize: it doesn't matter to Breitbart bloggers that Wagner is a "country club conservative" who perfectly represents the GOP establishment that the tea party fought against. It doesn't matter to Breitbart bloggers that Wagner's opponent in the primary is a guy who stood with the St. Louis Tea Party at their first rally and has been closely connected with them ever since. All that matters to the Breitbart bloggers is that Wagner promises to give them a little piece of the pie. And if you're a wealthy, well-connected GOP moderate, that's all that will matter to them about you too!

KPLR 11 Calls Victims of Sex Trafficking "Lewd Lusty Ladies" - Updated

2012-01-11T22:56:00.008-06:00

Distasteful is probably too generous of a description.

KPLR 11 in St. Louis posted a story on Facebook and Twitter with a caption that read, "Libations for lewd lusty ladies." Here are the screen shots from KPLRs Twitter and Facebook page:

The story was about the non-profit "No Borders" starting a program where they took hot chocolate to prostitutes to establish a relationship with the Oklahoma City trafficking industry so that the organization could, ideally, help people escape. Obviously, the idea of calling people forced into a life of sexual slavery "lewd lusty ladies" is disgusting. I don't know if this is intended as a sick joke or what, but KPLR needs to get their act together.

Thanks to Mary H. for pointing out this unbelievably insensitive caption.

Update: KPLR's contact info can be found here.

Update #2: Looks like KPLR deleted the offensive comments, but with no explanation.

Jake Wagman Responds

2012-01-10T01:32:00.004-06:00

Jake Wagman emailed this response to my post suggesting that he used tea party research without attribution:

Thanks for your link to my story last week on Ann Wagner's contributions from Enterprise.
I did my own thorough research on this story -- which included going through every single one of the individuals on Wagner's report, and determining if they had any ties to Enterprise.
I'm aware that one or more partisan blogs also published their own research on the same subject.
I think that's fine.
After the October campaign finance report came out, it was pretty clear Wagner got a big boost from Enterprise.
As a reporter in 2012, a key part of my job is determining which stories should be turned around right away (online, daily story) or which one's deserve more research.
I decided that -- even if some blogs had covered the topic -- it was worth it to my readers to invest more in the topic. That included time spent talking to the Wagner campaign, Enterprise, and an outside expert, among others.
It also took a good chunk of time to determine, on my own, which of Wagner's donors had ties to Enterprise.
I think reasonable people can disagree about the news interplay between blogs and newspapers. That's a healthy debate. I like how it turned out in this situation: The blogs did their analysis, and we did ours, which took some more time, but I think turned out well.
Feel free to quote in whole or in part from this email, or contact me with any additional questions.
Cheers, JAKE

His response is OK as far as it goes, and I have no doubt that he did his own research in checking the facts and coming up with his own number for the Wagner donations. I'm glad he spent time adding detail and writing a longer story. However, I still think that if tea party blogs have been discussing this issue for weeks, focusing on many of the same details, and even getting a story published in the Daily Caller, he should reference that in his story, especially since he says he was aware of the blogs. It's pretty clear where this story originated and was developed, and it wouldn't have taken anything away from his own work to acknowledge the fact that the story had previously been discussed.

St. Louis Tea Party Catches On To Dana Loesch's Lame Debate Tactics

2012-01-09T11:35:00.005-06:00

Ann Wagner with Dana Loesch and Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft.

A recent post from Darin Morley of the St. Louis Tea Party stated the following about Dana Loesch:

Dana Loesch, the Editor and Chief of BigJournalism, has a habit sending “inside baseball” tweets. It’s a pattern that allows her to take a swipe at someone, while giving her deniability when pressed as to who she was talking about. Here's an example:

Tired of hearing that Candidate B “is at war with Missouri Establishment.” give me a break. They ARE MISSOURI ESTABLISHMENT

Dana is talking about Ed Martin. She’s asserting that Ed is part of the establishment, and thus can’t be the Tea Party candidate. That tweet was sent shortly after Bill Hennessy wrote a piece praising Ed Martin. That was the first of many tweets and comments she’s made since Ann Wagner entered the race in a clear pattern of attacking Ed where he is strongest – at the grassroots.

Morley's post goes on to document how ridiculous it is to suggest that Ann Wagner is not more of a part of the Republican establishment than Ed Martin (I personally would say that Martin is connected to the establishment, but that Wagner is the absolute embodiment of the establishment and is clearly the establishment candidate in this race).

Two points to note: first, as I've said before, Loesch clearly has taken sides in this race and is attacking Ed Martin on behalf of the GOP establishment while pretending to be neutral. Second, this is another example of her cowardly debate tactics where she wants to attack people but is too chicken to actually be accountable for what she says by naming names.

Jake Wagman Used Tea Party Research Without Attribution

2012-01-09T11:00:00.003-06:00

Jake Wagman wrote an article last week documenting how Ann Wagner's congressional campaign is heavily dependent upon donations from Enterprise (where her husband was a lobbyist) and Enterprise-affiliated companies. The story is newsworthy and does include some original reporting such as a reference to an email sent out by Enterprise Holdings President Pamela Nicholson, but a big chunk of the article was directly based on information researched by tea party activists and already reported at tea party blogs.

For example, though the numbers differ slightly, Wagman reported in his January 2nd article that $255,000 of the money Wagner had collected came from donors associated with Enterprise. On December 30, a tea party blog reported that Wagner had raised $249, 750 from Enterprise. Other details, such as Ray Wagner's role as a lobbyist as well as donations from managers around the country and founder Jack Taylor have also been reported by tea party blogs prior to Wagman's story. Likewise for donations from the Podesta Group, Fleishman-Hillard, and Ogilvy. Both 24th State and Reboot Congress have made it very clear that the footwork on this research was done by St. Louis Tea Party members.

I can see two possible scenarios for what happened. The worst would be if Wagman directly used the research from these blogs without bothering to reference them. The other possibility is that someone from Martin's campaign passed on the research from the blogs and Wagman vetted it and then ran the story as if it was his own. Even in this case, I would think a good journalist would do a basic Google search to see if others had written about it before.

John Brunner's Favorite Candidate Pat Buchanan Ousted From MSNBC Over Racist Book

2012-01-09T10:05:00.005-06:00

MSNBC, after years of pleading, has finally gotten rid of Pat Buchanan because of racially-charged language in Buchanan's latest book. Buchanan, as pointed out by Think Progress, has a long history of bigotry, and included chapters in his book titled, "The Death of White America," and "The Death of Christian America."

But the local angle is that despite Buchanan's long history, Republican Missouri Senate candidate John Brunner has been a huge supporter of Buchanan. Brunner was Buchanan's state campaign chair when Buchanana ran for president, and donated thousands of dollars to his campaign, even when Buchanan jumped from the Republican Party to the Reform Party. Check out Progress Missouri for all the gory details.

Jim Hoft Continues To Promote Racism At His Site

2012-01-04T10:40:00.015-06:00

Is Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft a racist? I have no idea. But at this point there can be no doubt that Hoft allows, encourages, and even promotes racist material on his blog in order to drive up traffic and stir up white resentment for political reasons.

In just the past two weeks, Talking Points Memo described a completely fabricated Hoft attack on the President as a "fact free racist conspiracy" and a Los Angeles Times columnist called out a different story by Hoft as "baldly racist." Hoft's comments on those stories have been cesspools of openly racist comments.

But before going into more detail about the recent examples, let's review some of the history:

Hoft had earlier been criticized by a conservative blogger for linking to the white supremacist blog for the Council of Conservative Citizens, which he has done multiple times. Here's my previous description:

In 2009, Hoft linked to a video that claimed, without any evidence, that a white child had been beaten up by black kids on a school bus. Though it was true that the boy had been beaten, the race of the attackers was never mentioned in any of the news reports (this is not to be confused with a different incident in which there was video of a bus assault). Hoft had gotten his account from the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization based in St. Louis, and he originally linked directly to them in his post. This was not the first time Hoft had linked to white supremacist organization Council of Conservative Citizens.

After being criticized in the comments by fellow conservatives, Hoft moved the link to the Council of Conservative Citizens blog to a new location but still kept it on the blog (see update #2; note that this is from the blog of a conservative blogger). He finally removed even that link but kept up his link to the misleading video from the youtube page of KillTheCensors.

Though Hoft removed that particular link, to this day he still has links on his site to the Council of Conservative Citizens blog, despite being alerted to their presence:

You can see the link at the bottom of Hoft's web page. The St. Louis Council of Conservative Citizens moved their blog to a new place, so the link doesn't work from his page, but you can still find it on the wayback machine. As you can see, "Official Webblog of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area Council of Conservative Citizens" is clearly spelled out on the front page:

The Council of Conservative Citizens is a remnant of the White Citizens Councils and has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (read much more here). What kinds of things did the St. Louis area C of CC blog write about? Here's an example of their work, with the group attacking George Bush as "useless' because Bush came out against public noose displays in a post titled "Blacks Say Jump. Bush Says How High?" (click to photo for a larger version):

In 2007, Bill Hennessy (who later became the founder of the St. Louis Tea Party) apologized for linking to the Council of Conservative Citizens after recognizing their racism. When I caught a different tea party linking to a post on the new St. Louis C of CC blog, they removed the link with a short explanation. Yet Jim Hoft has never apologized for linking to an openly racist group, and still keeps a link up to their website to this day.

Furthermore, the Council of Conservative Citizens is not the only racist source Hoft uses. Hoft was called out by myself and by our local Village Voice owned alternative weekly, the Riverfront Times, for using a video from the openly racist website "Diversity is Crap." Here's an example of the type of comment that post from Hoft attracted:

I teach my children to stay as far clear of non-Whites as is practically possible. Our girls are being groomed by the Media to be their whores, or if unwilling, their rape victims, and our boys are being taught that to speak without a ghetto patois is to be eternally, fatally uncool. Both are factors in the destruction of our society.

Despite being criticized for openly racist comments on his site (click here for more examples), Hoft has left them up on his blog to this day. He will, however, remove comments that criticize himself.

So fast forward to the present. A couple weeks ago Talking Points Memo called out the Right's latest race-based conspiracy theory. The post was centered around Trump tweeting a link to Jim Hoft's story. Here's what TPM wrote:

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted his endorsement of the latest bit of holiday cheer from the extremist ant-Obama right. As the story goes on more than one conservative blog this week, Obama declined to offer an official statement marking Christmas, but made sure to get one out celebrating Kwanzaa.

This tale is as blatantly racial as it is demonstrably false, and it comes in the grand tradition of accusing Obama of supporting Ramadan over Easter and the old Trump favorite that Obama got into the Ivy League because he’s not white, not because he’s smart.

The trouble with the story about Christmas and Kwanzaa is that it’s 100% untrue. Here’s Obama using his taxpayer-funded weekly video address to wish Americans “a Merry Christmas” this past weekend
...

Hoft still hasn't updated his post with the truth.

And earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times took issue with a racist image Hoft used in one of his posts:

A baldly racist depiction of First Lady Michelle Obama that appeared Tuesday on a right-wing website is based on a 1775 portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty (1740-1786). The full-length painting hangs outside Paris in the Palace of Versailles.

The Internet image grafts Obama's face onto Gautier-Dagoty's lavish depiction of the French queen, dressed in full regalia. It also replaces the draped left arm of the young monarch, then barely 20, with a muscular black arm and shifts the position of the right hand to place it in front of a world globe.

The caricature of Obama as a profligate queen relies on the racist stereotype of an "uppity Negro," which emerged among slave masters in an earlier American era. Obama, born into a working-class Chicago family whose roots are traced to the pre-Civil War South, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, prior to holding several high-level positions in the academic and private sectors.

The racist image appeared Tuesday on the right-wing blog Gateway Pundit; the slur was later called out by Media Matters for America. A post by Gateway blogger Jim Hoft paired the picture with a clip of the first lady's guest appearance on a forthcoming episode of "iCarly," a Nickelodeon sit-com. In the script, Obama commends the cast for their support of military families. Responding to a cast member who mistakenly addresses her as "your excellency," the script has Obama jokingly reply, "I kinda like it."

Hoft hasn't changed the posts in response to the criticisms, and in fact continues to allow racist comments to fester. Despite being called out by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters, Hoft left up a comment on his post attacking Michelle Obama that called her "the queen of the crackheads."

And a more recent post includes a commenter who refers to her as the "First Negress:"

Whether done out of intentional malice or pure sloppiness, this disgusting promotion of racism should be intolerable for any modern, decent human beings. Yet not only do Republican politicians like Peter Kinder and Ann Wagner fail to call out people like Hoft, they openly pander to him and beg for his support.

St. Louis should be better than this.

Newt in Iowa (Video)

2012-01-01T13:34:00.006-06:00

I managed to see Newt Gingrich at a campaign event in Iowa. As you can see, Newt and Callista walked up, shook my hand, and wished me a happy new year. I didn't have any gotcha questions (looks like Newt is on his way down in the polls anyways), but just wanted to film it to give people an idea of what Iowa is like prior to the caucuses. Basically, candidates are coming through town at stops like this constantly for months.

You can see David Gregory briefly in the video; I also saw Brett Baier from Fox and Chuck Todd from MSNBC in the crowd. It's very possible that there were more people from the media present than Gingrich supporters. It also seemed to me like there were a lot of Republicans there who weren't from Iowa: I overheard a few people say they were from Texas, and others from Louisiana. Reporters seemed to be having a hard time finding undecided Iowa voters.

One funny thing I overheard: a guy went up to two CSPAN employees handing out promotional material and said, "Oh, you're with that liberal network." It reminded by of Colbert's quote: "Reality has a well known liberal bias."

Here's the video of Gingrich walking through the crowd (hopefully no one disowns me for passing up this golden gotcha question opportunity):

National Journal Criticizes Kinder's Tweets: Where was the Post-Dispatch?

2011-12-29T09:44:00.004-06:00

The National Journal blog Hotline On Call came out with a list yesterday of the 5 biggest "Twitter Losers" among politicians in 2011. Out of all of the politicians in the country, Kinder came in #2 on the list, right behind Anthony Weiner. Here's what they had to say about Kinder:

Kinder never seemed to learn from his social media missteps, tweeting on multiple occasions about questionable things. In November, he re-tweeted a message about free wings at Hooters on Veterans Day while he was still considering a run to challenge Missouri Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. It was far from the first time Kinder's tweets were scrutinized. He had previously urged his followers to "vote for [a] hot wife in the Top 25 Political Mom blogs" a day after Missouri was hit by the deadliest tornado in nearly 60 years and tweeted about "hostage situation" in a government building in 2009 only to later discover the incident never occurred.

Fired Up Missouri has a lot more about Kinder's unprofessional tweets over the years. But what I find strange is that national outlets like National Journal and Politico were so willing to call out Kinder's ridiculous tweets, but the Post-Dispatch remained largely silent on them for the past several years. In fact, in 2010, the Post-Dispatch actually edited out any references to Kinder's tweets in a column by Tony Messenger.

Unprofessional behavior online or elsewhere from politicians of any political party should be fair game for the media.

Ann Wagner's BFF Blames Tea Party for GOP Senate Loss

2011-12-28T11:15:00.005-06:00

I wrote earlier in the year about Ann Wagner hosting a fundraiser for Dick Lugar, an establishment conservative facing a Republican primary challenge from tea party candidate Richard Mourdock. Now Lugar has taken it a step further, claiming that the tea party is the reason why Republicans didn't win control of the senate in 2008. Here's Mediaite quoting Lugar:

"Republicans lost the seats before in Nevada and New Jersey and Colorado where there were people who were claiming they wanted somebody who was more of their Tea Party aspect but they killed off the Republican majority.” He then added “this is one of the reasons why we have a minority in the Senate right now.”

I can we can see why the tea party would be in turmoil after a group of them chose to sell out and support Wagner.

My special Christmas phone call

2011-12-24T01:29:00.001-06:00

Several months ago I was watching college football at home when I heard a knock on my door. The other side of the door held a pleasant surprise. My friend, Dale, stood waiting for me. My immediate impression was that he was looking good. He had a healthy glow to him; he is an Irishman with a ruddy complexion but his glow looked different this time, he looked healthy. He had dropped weight, in order to preserve a terribly damaged knee. He always wears a smile and he stood in my doorway with his typical (goofball) grin. We have the kind of relationship that would appear antagonistic to observers. We bicker back and forth in all of our conversations- even when we are in complete agreement.

"Dammit Dale, you just disappeared and didn't call me or tell anybody you were leaving... Get in the house. For some reason we worry about you, I wish you would have told somebody you were leaving. What happened? Everybody at camp is worried about you"

"Never mind. You won't believe me."

"I'll believe you this time, I never expected to see you sober. How did you do it?"

"How did you know I've been sober?"

"Well look at you. You're wearing nice new work boots. You're so clean I can see my reflection in your giant belly and you don't look bloated- you don't look like you're on deaths door."

"Well I needed new work boots. I'm doing concrete work with my brother-in-law as much as I can. My knee lets me work at least every other day. I think I'll be able to work 5 days a week when I lose another 20 or 30 pounds."

I'm an eternal optimist. I believe everybody has potential. Dale had made me question my eternal optimism at times; despite our friendship.

His history seemed to have an unbreakable grip on him. While in Vietnam he faced court martial and incarceration for attacking a high ranking officer. After spending a week in the jungle killing people he failed to recognize any authority figure, so punching some officer that had never even killed anybody didn't seem like a big deal. After serving his time and returning to the jungle he had just enough time to severely damage his knee (his knee has been repaired as much as possible but he suffers from a lot of pain- he will always suffer to some extent). While on one leg and getting ready for his honorable discharge he had another violent outburst. I'm sure you've figured out what's next by now; more time behind bars and a dishonorable discharge.

Dale saw coming home from the war as a fresh start. A new chapter. After a few months of unsuccessful job hunting he devised a flawless business plan. He would just find crack houses. Bust in the door with a few friends and let everybody know that if he didn't leave with all of the drugs, all of the money and anything else he wanted then everybody would die in a painful and gruesome manner. He's a very physically intimidating man. I imagine that if he had a gun in a persons face demanding everything of value most people would comply- I would.

That worked well for a few years. People feared him. Nobody was going to testify against him. Nobody was going confront him- that would be insanity! The problem was that he was good at targeting drug houses. Too good. He was as good at locating them as the local police. I don't think he ever imagined the possibility that he was targeting the same people as the police. He was shocked the day he busted into a crack house and the police followed up with a raid at the same time he was conducting his raid.

Well, a seven year prison sentence seems like an eternity to me but Dale explained it to me simply; "If I got busted for everything I did wrong then I would have been gone a lot longer!" He vowed to himself that when his sentence was served that he would settle into a nice boring life. No armed robberies. No selling drugs. Just a job and weekends spent camping, fishing- really anything relaxing was good enough for him.

After his release he reached his goals. He got a good job as an equipment operator at an industrial salvage yard. It payed a good wage. The benefits were good. He was able to stay off of his bad knee. Most importantly he could finally feel productive. He was finally able to take care of his family with honest work. Things were going so well that he even earned a promotion.

When he learned that he was going to be earning more money he was ready to celebrate. He did what most of us would do to celebrate, he invited some co-workers to let him buy them a beer on a Friday afternoon at a neighborhood bar. The party was a hit. Dale is an outgoing guy with a great sense of humor. I assume everybody was having a great time while Dale kept everybody laughing. I'm sure it was a great night.

A great night until it was time to leave. Dale was putting on his coat when he noticed a familiar face. It was the face of a drug dealer that he had robbed at gunpoint many years before. The man pulled out a knife and attacked. The two men fought. Dale was able to take the knife. "I just flipped out" was the explanation he gave me. By the end of the fight the other man had been stabbed in the heart, numerous times. Sadly he was dead by the time the police arrived.

The next prison sentence was worse than the previous one. Dale might have been a violent man but he didn't want to kill anybody. His description of his depression is a horrible image. He became suicidal but lacked the conviction to follow through with his fateful decision.

He found a pretty effective means of suicide after his release. Drink and then drink some more. Score some crack and you're halfway there. He spent several years slowly killing himself with vodka and crack. By the time I met him it was obvious that his life span was considerably shorter than it should have been.

After I got to know him and we became close friends I remember one conversation that will stay with me until the day I die. We were standing on the shipping pallet front porch in front of his tent at the homeless camp. He put his hand on my shoulder and with tears streaming down his face he said;

"You know what? You seem smart- but you're not. You're standing in the middle of hell by choice and you're friends with me. I'm a convict, I'm homeless, I'm a drunk- I'll just end up getting you in trouble or ripping you off."

"I'll take my chances, Dale. I don't know why anybody would but for some reason I like your goofy ass and I know that you like me. It doesn't matter if we like it or not, we're stuck- we're friends."

After his surprise visit to my house we have talked on the phone but only for a quick hello.

He called me a few days ago, mainly to wish me a Merry Christmas. He is still sober. He is seeing a doctor and a therapist. He is losing weight. His knee isn't perfect but losing weight has made it possible to increase his work schedule. He is living down the street from his son, he evaluates (and probably scares) every boy that wants to date his grand-daughter.

My irrational optimism seem justified. I can't predict the future. I never would have predicted that he would be doing so well now. If I was a gambling man I would bet the farm that he will never be locked up again. He will be healthy and sober next Christmas. And every Christmas after that. I'm don't consider my attitude to be optimistic this time; I think I'm just being realistic.

*names have been changed out of respect for my friends privacy

Jeff Smith Is Using The Wrong Sense of 'Should' And Carnahan Should Run In Missouri's 2nd District

2011-12-23T10:23:00.006-06:00

Hotline has posted a thorough analysis from Jeff Smith arguing that, with the newly redrawn Congressional district lines, Russ Carnahan should run for Congress against fellow Democrat Lacy Clay in Missouri's 1st District. Writes Smith:

So Carnahan shouldn't put too many eggs in his legal basket. Instead, he should be raising money and canvassing the new 1st CD.

As you would expect from a Political Science professor and former State Senator, the analysis is detailed and insightful. However, the fatal flaw in Smith's argument is that he's relying on a self-interested notion of 'should' where saying that a person should do action A is equivalent to saying that A is in that person's best interest. This certainly is a common usage of the term and one used to make many decisions. However, this isn't the correct notion of 'should' for a public servant like Congressman Carnahan.

As a Congressman, Carnahan ought to be making his decisions based on a moral 'should,' where saying that someone should do action A means that A is in the best interests of the country, in the best interests of the constituents, or in the best interests of the Democratic party, or better yet, that A is the right thing to do. And on any of these senses of the word 'should,' I think it's pretty clear that Carnahan should run for office in the Republican-leaning 2nd District. Yes it would be an act of altruism, since Carnahan's chances of winning might be slightly lower in the 2nd, but it nevertheless would be the right thing to do.

In fact, one doesn't even have to stray very far from Smith's own analysis to see this is true. First, as Smith has noted, the Democratic Congressional leadership is urging Carnahan to run in the 2nd. Now, Lord knows, the Democratic Party is not always the best judge of what's in its own interest, but the fact that they think Carnahan should run in the 2nd is at least solid initial evidence that someone has crunched some numbers and decided that the best thing for the Democratic Party is to put up a good fight in the 2nd District.

Second, as Smith acknowledges, there's no clear reason to think that Carnahan winning Clay's seat would make Congress any more progressive. Here's what Smith writes:

Although I've seen both congressmen in action, I don't have a strong opinion on who would be a more progressive or effective representative.

So while Carnahan might gain something by beating Clay, it's not at all clear what anyone else would gain (other than the pundits and insiders who would love to cover the race).

But finally, and most importantly, a heated primary between Clay and Carnahan could be tinged with racial acrimony and possibly jeopardize turnout in the general election. Again, here's what Smith writes:

It would be nice to have a high-minded debate about the direction of national policy in a time of gripping economic anxiety, but anyone who knows St. Louis politics or the two principals doubts the likelihood of that. It won't be a race between a modern-day Bobby Kennedy and Barack Obama. Instead, given both candidates' limited crossover appeal, observers should prepare for a racially polarizing campaign in the long, sad tradition of St. Louis politics.

Even without any intentional shenanigans, a bitter primary might turn off voters from a general election if they felt like dirty tactics were used in the primary. And in the reddish-purple state of Missouri, with important Senate and Gubernatorial races and a legislature that's on the brink of a fully veto-proof majority, we just can't afford to have people sitting at home during the general elections. And it's actually worse than that, because the reality is that there will be shenanigans, as sadly both people in the Democratic Party and Republicans have cynical reasons to stoke racial divisions among Democrats. A primary battle would very likely be a bloody fight, and that might be good news for pundits but would only create new scars in an already damaged St. Louis political landscape.

So while Smith is right that Carnahan's own short-term self-interest might be better served by running against Lacy Clay, it would be better for the citizens of St. Louis, for the Democratic Party, and, yes, for the country if Carnahan ran in the 2nd District against Ed Martin or Ann Wagner. He might be slightly more likely to lose in the Second, but at least he would be fighting for the right reasons.

There's No Longer Any Reason to Cite PolitiFact

2011-12-22T11:00:00.007-06:00

If you haven't heard by now, the internet "fact checker" PolitiFact chose the statement "Republicans voted to end Medicare" as their "Lie of the Year." The statement as far as I can tell is 100% true and, at absolute worst, is simply a statement that's true but only with the minor qualification "using a definition of the word 'ends' that most people would find perfectly reasonable."

The Republican plan would completely privatize Medicare for anyone under the age of 55. PolitiFact's argument that the claim was a "lie" was based on (1) the fact that people over 55 would remain in the same system they are today on the Republican plan and (2) Republicans would still use the term "Medicare" to refer to their new privatized system. Note first of all that their two explanations are in tension with each other; if they think it's important to note that the system is the "same" for people over 55, then they must think sameness is important. But if sameness is important, then Republicans completely changing the system (which makes it no longer the same) should undermine their claim that nothing was ended. So PolitiFact's explanations aren't even consistent with each other.

If two statements are inconsistent, that means at least one of them is wrong, but it doesn't guarantee that one of them is correct, and in this case PolitiFact is wrong on both counts. In regards to (1), the fact that Medicare continues to exist for people over 55 does not mean that Republicans haven't for all practical purposes ended it, at least on the assumption that we won't discover the Fountain of Youth in the next century. And changing the system to a private one where we are at the mercy of insurance companies alters it into a completely different concept than Medicare. Here's where some subjectivity comes in; if you think that all 'Medicare' means is "the government provides some money once you get old" then you might think the new idea still counts as Medicare; but people with a more sophisticated understanding of the system understand that the privatized version is simply not the same thing.

But more important than the fact that Politifact is wrong is that they inserted themselves into the 2012 elections and they were clearly agenda driven. There were other finalists for Lie of the Year that were clear, outright lies: John Kyl's claim that abortion services is 90% of what Planned Parenthood does, or the right-wing claim that the stimulus created no new jobs, for example. But PolitiFact apparently chose the above claim because they wanted to present the idiotic, childlike notion of "balance" that currently impairs modern journalism. Instead of searching for objective facts, many modern journalist simply search for opposing statements from two "sides." Likewise, instead of choosing an actual lie, PolitiFact chose a statement made by Democrats in order to "balance" the fact that outright lies from Republicans had been chosen in previous years.

So this brings me back to the title of this post. We used to have good reason to cite PoltiFact in political debates. In fact, I greatly enjoyed Fired Up Missouri repeatedly mocking Ed Martin over his proclivity for using the death panels "Lie of the Year." But of course, from an ideal information-gathering perspective, there was never anything especially important about PolitiFact. If both a partisan blog and PolitiFact debunked a certain claim, say by linking to the actual language of a bill, both have provided the same information. Yet the point of linking to PolitiFact was that you could trust that their analysis was not driven by an agenda. In other words, in situations where you didn't have time to do a full analysis yourself, you might think you could put trust in a group that objectively looked at the information.

However, this assumption no longer holds any water. PolitiFact has shown clearly that they are willing to distort their analysis based on a twisted political agenda; namely, the agenda of achieving false balance by appeasing the Right side of the political spectrum. There's no longer any justification for thinking that you can trust their analysis without doing just as much research as you would when getting info from any other source with a partisan bias. In fact, there's a good argument to be made for linking to an otherwise identical analysis that comes from a source that doesn't falsely pretend to be agenda-free. PolitiFact could have been a useful contribution to political discourse in this country; unfortunately, by undermining their credibility, they have now lost that opportunity.

For some excellent analyses of the PolitiFact debacle, please see the work of Paul Krugman, Dave Weigel, Tommy Christopher, and Jamison Foser.

Gateway Astroturf Initiative Badmouthing Tea Party To Other Conservative Groups, Claiming They Have "Alchohol Problems"

2011-12-21T11:24:00.005-06:00

Jen Ennenbach, one of the co-founders of the new Gateway Astroturf Initiative (aka GIGLI), previously wrote the following about the St. Louis Tea Party:

For a movement that screams ”transparency, transparency, transparency!!!!” I certainly see none here. I see: Executive Director who was recently seated to the Board which stroked her ego; an unemployed lawyer, Benjamin Smith Williams (aka Ben Evans), who holds his Bar in New York, not Missouri, but still likes to act as legal counsel here; a loose cannon, John Burns who has been out of the Tea Party movement for over a year; another huge-headed blogger who likes to distort truth and is too chickenshit to put his name to half of what he publishes (Darin Morely); Co-founder Bill Hennessy, standing by silently, but driving this all behind the scenes.

But it looks like what she's saying about them behind their backs is even worse. Here's a message from Ennenbach to C. Steven Tucker, a leader of the Chicago Tea Party:

So very classy of Loesch's group to publicly pretend to be staying above the fray while privately smearing their former friends.

Transphobic RFT Reporter Strikes Again

2011-12-20T19:34:00.000-06:00

At the beginning of this year, I posted about the criminal insensitivity of Riverfront Times reporter Chad Garrison. Now he is at it again with this transphobic blog post.*

"Shemale" is an offensive term often used to describe transgender people. The term is most frequently used in porn that fetishizes trans bodies. Please comment on Mr. Garrison's post to let the RFT know that you do not appreciate transphobia in their publication.

UPDATE 12/21: Thanks to your comments, Chad Garrison has changed the headline of his post. I hope that he will continue to educate himself on issues relevant to the trans community, so that his writing for the RFT will be more sensitive in the future.

* Thanks to Anita Fitzwater for alerting me to this post.

Return of the RINO? Loesch Praises Romney, Huntsman, and Gingrich, Attacks Ron Paul

2011-12-19T17:53:00.003-06:00

Gee, who could have predicted that the pundit who previously voted for Mitt Romney in a GOP primary, who praised Romney's individual mandate, and who is supporting ultimate GOP insider Ann Wagner would turn out not to be an authentic "conservative firebrand" after all? Loesch was on CNN this morning and has done a complete 180 degree turn on her branding plan as a "goth tea party rebel." It looks like someone is realizing that she'll still need to get paid after the GOP throws the tea party completely under the bus in 2012.

Notable comments from Loesch include her saying that Huntsman can be a contender in New Hampshire because "conservatives" like his "foreign policy experience," (3:00) and that the "only person who makes voters concerned" is Ron Paul. She later (5:00) said that the "grassroots" is lining up behind Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in Iowa.

You can watch it here:

More Missouri Conservatives Blocked and Insulted By Loesch For Asking Questions

2011-12-19T14:19:00.006-06:00

As we all know, Dana Loesch is completely incapable of coherently responding to thoughtful criticism, whether that criticism comes from liberals or conservatives. In fact, she's often at her most obnoxious when blasting conservatives who make comments that aren't praising her. We saw one example of that with Nina's question a couple weeks ago. And now I've been provided with another example of her shutting down a conservative for simply asking why a tea partier would support Ann Wagner.

Here's the post from the man, Greg Z, who announced that Loesch had deleted his comments and blocked him from her facebook page:

And here are the harmless comments that got him blocked:

It's funny that Loesch is so afraid of honest debate. Interestingly, as I've mentioned before, other actual Missouri conservative activists seem to know that Loesch is a blowhard who's not to be taken seriously as a self-proclaimed "grassroots activist."

Other Missouri conservatives who were trashed by Loesch for having the audacity to disagree with her about something:

This is one of many reasons that Loesch's "Gateway Astroturf Initiative" is unlikely to be successful.

Suprise! Gateway Astroturf Initiative's Scott Boston Is Big Ann Wagner Supporter!

2011-12-16T00:08:00.005-06:00

As was mentioned previously, the mission statement for Dana Loesch's new group, the Gateway Astroturf Initiative (codename GIGLI) was copy and pasted by a former employee of the national astroturf organization, the Tea Party Patriots. And, wouldn't you know it, that employee Scott Boston just happens to be a big Ann Wagner fan!

You can see on his Twitter feed that he regularly RTs Ann Wagner's campaign announcements:

You get the idea. He also promoted Gateway Pundit's defense of Ann Wagner and attack on Ed Martin:

So the former employee of a national astroturf organization supports the GOP establishment candidate? Who woulda thunk it!

Gateway Astroturf Initiative Was Registered on Dec. 1, BEFORE Tea Party Publicly Criticized Jim Hoft

2011-12-15T14:39:00.008-06:00

As pointed out by @VickyStL on Twitter, it turns out that Loesch's new astroturf venture was registered on December 1:

Why is this important? Because many on the Team Wagner side of the split acted offended by the 24th State post criticizing Jim Hoft's attack on Ed Martin. However, that post wasn't until December 3rd. In other words, it looks like Loesch and/or Scott Boston was planning this new group before anyone from the St. Louis Tea Party had ever publicly criticized Hoft.

Dana Loesch Defends Rick Perry's Gay Bashing Advertisement

2011-12-15T09:56:00.003-06:00

Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in a GOP primary and endorsed his individual mandate before she realized it was more profitable to be a goth tea party rebel.

She supported the St. Louis Tea Party before deciding that they were a drag on her career.

And guess what? She used to actually be friendly with the LGBT community, before she figured out that she had to pander to the most far right fringers in the country.

On Monday, Loesch defended the Rick Perry advertisement where Perry said that there was "something wrong with our country" because "gays can serve openly in the military."

You can watch Perry's advertisement here:

And here's Loesch's pathetic defense of the ad:

While we're on the topic, I thought this statement from Perry was the most sense I've ever heard him make:

Bad Lip Reading: Rick Perry's "Strong" ad - watch more funny videos

Whoops! Loesch's New "Grassroots" Group Lies About Cutting and Pasting Astroturf Mission Statement

2011-12-14T23:01:00.014-06:00

So if you were going to announce that you'd just launched a new "grassroots" organization, wouldn't you at least bother to write your own mission statement? Not if you're Dana Loesch, who lost track of all meaning of "grassroots" and "astroturf" long ago.

Loesch's new group, which calls itself the Gateway Grassroots Initiative, has a "mission statement" entirely composed of nationally-coordinated snippets from Tea Party Patriots language used by outlets around the country.

You can see a copy of their mission statement here:

It reads, in part:

Mission Statement

Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize fellow Gateway area citizens to secure a culture consistent with our three core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.

Core Values

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets
Fiscal Responsibility: A fiscally responsible government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of his or her own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. The runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington...

...and so on. A quick google search reveals that this exact same language (except for the "gateway" part) is used by numerous tea party groups across the country. If you pick pretty much any phrase in the group's mission statement, you'll see that it was used by many groups across the country. Interestingly, they don't all use the exact same language: they pick and choose what they want to cut and paste.

It's pretty clear that there's national coordination on the messaging of these mission statements. Because so many groups use it, it's not easy to see who's in charge, but several of the groups specifically refer to the Tea Party Patriots, a national astoturf group that has a mission statement basically identical to that of Loesch's new group:

Tea Party Patriots has been explicitly linked to former GOP congressman Dick Army's astroturf group FreedomWorks and was caught distributing a memo telling tea partiers how to disrupt town halls. So this mission statement appears to be straight from national astroturf organizations.

Maybe it wouldn't be a big deal if the group just admitted that they didn't write their own mission statement. However, ridiculously, they are claiming that they wrote it themselves. My interaction with Jen Ennenbach, one of the founders of the new group:

It's pretty embarrassing for them to claim that they just spontaneously came up with the exact same language as hundreds of other tea party groups around the country including a national astroturf organization. But I expect there will be many more embarrassing moments to come for this group.

Update: The group is even more astroturf than I realized.

The GGI group argued on Twitter that the statement wasn't astroturf because the guy who wrote the mission statements for the national group is actually the same guy who copied and pasted GGI's statement. In fact, Scott Boston on Twitter claims he wrote the original Tea Party Patriots statement, and I believe him. But this makes it even more astroturf, not less, because it turns out that Boston used to be an employee of the astroturf organization Tea Party Patriots! From his Linked In profile:

National Education Coordinator
Tea Party Patriots

• Identified and evaluated training materials for local organizers and coordinated distribution of materials from such organizations as Leadership Institute, American Majority, Heritage Foundation, National Center for Constitutional Studies and Encounter Books.
• Lead Coordinator 9/12 St. Louis, one of three large regional rallies that drew 15,000 - 20,000 people to the Gateway Arch, July-September 2010. Identified and secured speakers and entertainers. Wrote press releases, did radio and TV interviews, created content for the event website.
• Volunteer Liaison to Glenn Beck’s Staff, Restoring Honor Rally, July-August 2010.
• Traveled to Tennessee and Arizona to meet with regional coordinators, May 2010.

So yeah, so one of the "grassroots" group's founders was an employee of a Dick Army affiliated national astroturf group. Another, of course, is a CNN pundit and radio host. I look forward to their future lectures about the true meaning of grassroots.

Conservatives of America 2.0, Or Failed Conservative Online Project Number 3,452,297

2011-12-14T16:58:00.007-06:00

In December of 2009, Dana Loesch announced a new project:

Jamie and I unveiled our new project, along with Bill Murphy, this morning. Introducing the conservative version of MoveOn.org: Conservatives of America.com.

I’ve spoken with so many people who have expressed a desire for better, tighter organization, an umbrella under which all our conservative groups could network and fellowship. Until now, no one had stepped up to take on this massive task.

Times are a’changin.

Conservatives of America asked gullible conservatives to pay $25 of their hard earned cash in order to become "members" of the site. The only thing that's known about where the money went is that it decidedly did not go anywhere that would help the conservative movement. Not only did the site not become the "conservative MoveOn," it didn't even become the conservative Chess Club of Greater Niagra Valley. It was a complete, unmitigated failure.

Now Loesch is back with a totally hip site that's the newfangled thing in happening conservationism. Will it be able to organize a rally with more than 50 people? Will it be like the St. Louis Blogger's Guild and the Tea Party: initially used as a platform to promote Loesch then sabotaged as soon as it no longer serves that purpose? And of course the biggest question: how long before they start asking gullible conservatives to throw away their money?

K Street Can Thank Dana Loesch For Roy Blunt's Appointment To Key GOP Leadership Position

2011-12-13T13:07:00.007-06:00

No, this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 GOP primary and said that she liked his individual mandate before realizing that branding herself as a "goth tea party rebel" was more profitable. Why would you think that?

This has to do with Loesch's tea party refusing to support a conservative challenger to GOP establishment poster-boy Roy Blunt. If you recall, Loesch originally told Roy Blunt that if he didn't support the conservative challenger to Dede Scozzafava, Doug Hoffman, in the NY-23 election "...we will vote you out! We will come at you with so much heat, you won't even know how to handle it!"

Roy Blunt ignored Loesch while his conservative primary challenger Chuck Purgason did endorse Hoffman, but not only did Loesch not "come at Blunt with so much heat," her tea party (before she threw it under the bus) actually refused to sign on to a letter from 28 other Missouri tea parties stating that Roy Blunt was not a tea party candidate (they did, however, endorse Ed Martin in the MO-03 primary). At that time, the St. Louis tea party was the most influential in the state, and their support could have made a huge difference for Purgason. And given Roy Blunt's huge margin of victory over Robin Carnahan, it's likely that Purgason would have won the general election had he made it through the GOP primary. Instead, the tea party got Roy Blunt and acted surprised when he still liked earmarks.

And now Roy Blunt, much to the chagrin of tea party bloggers, has been elected over conservative challenger Ron Johnson for a key Senate position. Erick Erickson at Red State says it's a victory for K Street over the tea party. No doubt it was, and K Street has Dana Loesch, among others, to thank, despite her half-hearted tweets to the contrary. Of course, now that Loesch is supporting Roy Blunt's campaign chairperson in Missouri's 2nd district and has thrown the local tea party to the wolves, her sycophantic relationship with the same old GOP establishment can no longer be considered surprising.

By the way, if Loesch is so darn "principled," why hasn't she ever defending her boss Andrew Breitbart against Glenn Beck?

Update: Looks like Loesch gave Breitbart two sentences to mention the Beck thing today on her show.

Update on St. Louis Tea Party Civil War

2011-12-11T11:41:00.007-06:00

Bill Hennessy's wife Angela has written a new blog post defending Bill Hennessy from the Loeschbot attacks. As I suspected, Bill did most of the legwork on starting up the local tea party (though certainly with help from others), and probably would have been justified in just calling himself the founder rather than the co-founder, but graciously extended the title to Dana Loesch to help attract a different audience. Here's what Angela Hennessy had to say:

I know that I am shocked at the shameful display of infighting and hypocrisy. I am confused as to how people that I have called my friends can, at a moment’s notice, decide to pretend as if I don’t exist. I’ve let you into my home, my life, and have called you friend and without warning I am a nonentity. The end result is the establishment, political machine has fired up its work in discrediting the Tea Party, and those involved. I was, and am broadsided by this. This alone, speaks volumes about character.
I know that my husband has worked tirelessly for this organization, which he began. So we are clear, the creation of the St. Louis Tea Party in Feb. 2009 was wholly due to him; it began with a blog post. I know that he enlisted the help of many people and has called them friends and co-founders, and they are. They agreed, after being contacted by him, to stand hand in hand on the banks of the Mississippi River on that fateful day. The St. Louis Tea Party, the community, and my husband are forever in their debt. That being said, I find it disingenuous that Mrs. Loesch believes her meteoric rise has not been helped by the St. Louis Tea Party and all of us who have supported and stood behind her—but I digress.

You can read the whole thing here.

In other breakup news, the Official Dana Loesch Fan Club (aka Jimi971 on Twitter) released a statment saying that Loesch is so principled and so famous that she could walk across the Mississippi River if she wanted to, which she doesn't. Oh, and he thinks that this quote in the original tea party press release was a horrible, mean-spirited insult:

The St. Louis Tea Party certainly benefited from Dana’s rising stardom and talent. And we can’t help but think our energetic and effective grass roots have propelled Dana’s career.

The nerve of some people!

Jen Ennenbach really elevated the discussion with this post:

For a movement that screams ”transparency, transparency, transparency!!!!” I certainly see none here. I see: Executive Director who was recently seated to the Board which stroked her ego; an unemployed lawyer, Benjamin Smith Williams (aka Ben Evans), who holds his Bar in New York, not Missouri, but still likes to act as legal counsel here; a loose cannon, John Burns who has been out of the Tea Party movement for over a year; another huge-headed blogger who likes to distort truth and is too chickenshit to put his name to half of what he publishes (Darin Morely); Co-founder Bill Hennessy, standing by silently, but driving this all behind the scenes.

Finally, for those who are really into this stuff, Loesch was interviewed by 97.1's Glover on Tuesday about the breakup. She basically said that she felt like she had emotionally left the tea party a long time ago. It seems clear from her discussion of this and her behavior afterward that she really doesn't care that much about leaving the group. Just like the times she decided to throw the St. Louis Bloggers Guild, Craig Mayhem, and Gina Loudon under the bus, she has no qualms about leaving the tea party once she decided it was no longer useful for her career.

G.O.P. job creation mythology

2011-12-11T11:34:00.002-06:00

Ok folks, I'm irritated. I've got no time for pleasant chit-chat today. I'm ready to start ranting. Last night while chatting with a conservative blogger he stated that "Government can't create jobs". It's a mantra that I hear frequently. Everybody seems to accept this premise as fact and never takes the time to question or dispute such a ridiculous claim.

The only problem is that this statement is completely false.

Laurence O'Donnell made an inept attempt to dispel this myth with a 15 second rant on MSNBC.

While I certainly appreciate his effort it seems that citing 538 jobs in the House of Representatives and 100 in the Senate is unlikely to resonate with struggling citizens. I personally would applaud creating 638 jobs and then demand more. The basic premise of his argument is much better suited to a Republican candidate telling voters that government is the problem.

The Works Progress Administration has been credited with creating over 3 million government jobs in 1938 alone- while avoiding competition with private firms. 3 million jobs- let that sink into your brain for a second...

Hopefully the size of that number got your attention. I'm not done. It gets better.

The Civilian Conservation Corps is credited with creating over half a million government jobs. While it's amazing that the C.C.C. was able to employ so many job hunters, let's not allow the employment numbers distract us from the great accomplishments of the program. The C.C.C. was crucial in combating the Dust Bowl with re-forestation being successfully used as a tool to prevent further soil erosion of precious farmland. With all of the talk of shovel ready jobs today it's worth noting that it took 37 days after Roosevelt's inauguration to hire the first employee. Yeah, 37 days. That qualifies as shovel ready in my book.

Lets not lose sight of some of the other notable accomplishments of the Americans that chose to invest in their America. Residents of California, Nevada and Arizona should have an enormous sense of gratitude to the United States Bureau of Reclamation- everybody seems to enjoy the drinking water and electricity. The Public Works Administration was responsible for constructing almost 7,500 schools, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Triborough Bridge, The Lincoln Tunnel- I could go on with listing accomplishments all day but if you don't get the idea by now, you won't ever understand.

I'm afraid that if I just think about or mention the multiplier effect I'll go into an epic rant and end up sedated in a padded room.

So what changed? When did investing in America and Americans become taboo? How did building roads and infrastructure become a nefarious socialist plot? Could it be that the wealthiest 20% of Americans that control 85% of the wealth convinced the rest of the nation that taxes are applied unfairly to them (taxes that they see as targeting them personally, not their warehouses of idle money- or is that spelled idol money?) and that is fundamentally un-American? The 20% of Americans that have accumulated the majority of American money warn that taxing their money is un-American and worse; dangerous. After all, they are the job creators- are we really willing to bite the hand that feeds us by taxing their money?

Sometimes I wonder if I am horribly confused. I think that Government can and has created jobs. I think that investing in America is patriotic. I think that investing in Americans is patriotic. I think it's good business sense to strengthen American infrastructure. I might be alone in this but I intend to contradict anybody that claims paying taxes to invest in America is despotic and un-American. I hope that people will at least consider the possibility that Government is indeed, the spender of last resort.

Seniors, Community Advocates, Jobless Workers Hold Prayer Action at Rep. Todd Akin's Office, Urge Vote to Extend Unemployment Insurance

2011-12-08T16:22:00.005-06:00

With nearly 35,000 Missouri families likely to lose unemployment benefits in early 2012, community advocates and faith leaders joined jobless workers to pray for an extension to unemployment benefits at Rep. Todd Akin's Ballwin office in St. Louis County. They called upon their elected officials to take immediate action so that families won't lose their unemployment lifeline and communities won't suffer the devastating financial impact. Extended unemployment benefits are set to expire December 31 unless Congress acts.

At Akin's office, constituents including faith leaders, jobless workers, OccupySTL members and other advocates held a prayer and a speaking program highlighting the stories of jobless Missouri workers and urging a vote to reauthorize unemployment insurance. "Unemployment benefits were the only thing that kept my family from losing everything," said autoworker Patsy Waller. "We're here to tell Rep. Akin that we're counting on him to put aside partisan politics and stop thousands of Missouri workers from losing their only lifeline."

Judith Parker mentioned a recent interview where Rep. Akin suggested that unemployment insurance discourages workers from looking for a job. "My son has been looking for work every day for two years," said Parker. "My granddaughter has leukemia, and my son desperately wants a job to pay for her care. Until there are enough jobs, we need to extend unemployment benefits to those that need them."

Chaplain Marshall Watkins, Jr. talked about the urgency of the cuts, saying "this is a moral issue, and our elected officials need to do what's right for those looking for work this winter." Workers gave Akin's staffer white flowers to symbolize those that will be left out in the cold this winter to share with their stories and prayers, since Akin wasn't able to be reached.

Retiree Dave Meinell attended the action and urged Akin's staff to consider the congressman's voting history on Social Security, Medicare and other critical programs and how cuts to those programs worsen the unemployment crisis. "Older people like me are being forced to work longer and there aren't as many jobs for young people. Workers age 20-24 have an jobless rate of 16.7 percent, far higher than other workers."

The St. Louis prayer action was one of actions around the country this week in congressional district offices and in Washington, D.C. For more information and to hear stories from jobless Missouri workers, visit UIStories/MO.

101 reasons to become a St. Louis conservative

2011-12-07T13:41:00.001-06:00

I was listening to conservative radio a few days ago when I realized that I don't love America enough. It's obvious that in order to be a real American there are certain things that everybody must fear, although hate will suffice in most cases. I've taken a little time to list a few of the things that St. Louis progressives need to re-consider, as a public service. Check yourself and learn a little about patriotism.

Please note- If you don't fear or hate at least 85 items on the following list you may actually be French.

101. Social Security
100. Local control
99. ACORN
98. The Riverfront Times
97. Toyota Prius
96. Lady Gaga
95. France
94. Gay adoption
93. Voter fraud
92. Elston McCowan
91. O.F.A.
90. Chicago style politics
89. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
88. Activist judges
87. Don Giljum
86. Dream Act
85. The re-distribution of wealth
84. Jesse Jackson
83. Department of Education
82. Health care rationing
81. Repealing D.A.D.T.
80. Organizing for America
79. Barney Frank
78. W.I.C.
77. Fired Up Missouri
76. Socialism
75. S.E.I.U.
74. Kenyans
73. Bill Ayers
72. Hollywood liberals
71. Illegal immigrants
70. Gun control
69. Any sex position other than missionary
68. Eric Boehlert
67. Medicare
66. Gotcha' journalism
65. The Fairness Doctrine
64. George Soros
63. The war on Christmas
62. M.I.A.C. reports
61. Congressman Carnahan preventing you from worshiping God
60. Media Matters for America
59. Michael Moore
58. Bill Maher
57. Gay marriage
56. The liberal media
55. The E.P.A.
54. Islam
55. Andy Stern
54. The Department of Energy
53. President Obama
52. O.P.E.C.
51. Big Government
50. The Nanny State
49. Taxes
48. Occupy Wall Street
47. Keith Olberman
46. Perry Molens
45. The C.W.A.
44. Cash for Clunkers
43. Freddie Mac
42. The Dream Act
41. Repealing D.O.M.A.
40. Transgender people
39. The NAACP
38. Green energy
37. Wind Capitol Group
36. Rachel Maddow
35. The gay agenda
34. Death panels
33. Adam Shriver
32. Show Me Progress
31. Charles Jaco
30. Medicaid
29. Raising the debt ceiling
28. The global warming conspiracy
27. The C.W.A.
26. Gun control
25. Communism
24. Elizabeth Warren
23. Green energy
22. E.N.D.A.
21. Black Panthers
20. Abortion
19. Muslim Brotherhood
18. Fannie Mae
17. Stop-light cameras
16. Nancy Pelosi
15. Palestinian statehood
14. Medical marijuana
13. The Fast and Furious conspiracy
12. ForwardStl
11. MSNBC
10. Junk science
9. Food stamps
8. Political correctness
7. China
6. Anything L.G.B.T.
5. Obama's Judicial nominations
4. East coast elitists
3. Sharia law
2. Fascism
1. Limp-wristed and cowardly Democrats

H/T to Russ Weiss for counting his numerous fears

Loesch Suggests Her Pundit Career Has Nothing To Do With The Tea Party

2011-12-06T22:17:00.013-06:00

After some serious infighting, the St. Louis Tea Party put out a press release about their breakup with Dana Loesch that was fairly gracious, all things considered:

Board President Bill Hennessy said, “The St. Louis Tea Party certainly benefited from Dana’s rising stardom and talent. And we can’t help but think our energetic and effective grass roots have propelled Dana’s career. But, as a local Tea Party organization, we need to focus on the grass roots going into 2012.”

Who can really argue against that? Loesch was introduced by CNN, ABC, and pretty much everyone who gave her airtime as a leader of the tea party.

But guess what? Loesch amazingly is suggesting that her punditry career has nothing to do with the tea party. A commenter asked her where her career would be without the tea party?

And here's how Loesch responded:

Dana Loesch: all class.

For the record, Nina's comment was deleted.

Update: I deleted Nina's last name. I thought it wasn't a big deal including it because she really didn't even say anything objectionable and basically just asked a question, but apparently the Loeschbots are so nuts they pestered her even for that innocuous comment.

Loesch Just Too Darn Principled To Work With Tea Party, Except When She's Not

2011-12-06T10:29:00.003-06:00

The St. Louis Tea Party put out a press release today confirming what I reported yesterday: they broke up with Dana Loesch. Loesch, naturally, is convinced this proves how heroically principled she is:

Wow, she's like the William Wallace of CNN punditry! So Loesch claims she's "not keen on grassroots organizing for candidates?" I suppose that's technically true, since she seems to prefer astroturf organizing, but she certainly has been supportive of using the tea party to push for a candidate. Like when her family business took $5,000 from Ed Martin and she proceeded to ruthlessly attack his more conservative GOP primary opponent John Wayne Tucker without allowing Tucker an opportunity to respond. While she was attacking Tucker, she never once mentioned that Martin had paid her husband to make a commercial for his campaign.

And, of course, there's the fact that the St. Louis tea party appeared to have violated their 501(c)4 by using their money to support Ed Martin's candidacy with advertisements. Oh, and by systematically putting their logos on "Taypayers for Ed Martin" signs. Did Loesch complain then about organizing for a candidate? Sure didn't.

It's funny. Loesch threw the St. Louis Bloggers Guild under the bus when she no longer needed them. She threw her former website designer under the bus when she no longer needed him. She pushed Gina Loudon out of the tea party. And now she's throwing the tea party under the bus cause they're a drag on her minor celebrity status. Amazingly, it's always someone else's fault.

The Loeschs Break Up With the Tea Party

2011-12-05T22:52:00.006-06:00

They took their ball and went home.

I previously reported on Jen Ennenbach's leaked email stating that Chris Loesch, Dana's husband and a member of the St. Louis Tea Party leadership, demanded that the tea party stop using the logos he designed. Her statement:

Oh, also, Chris Loesch has requested an immediate cease of use on his logos. . .which include the St Louis Tea Party logo and the SOB (pirate looking) logo. So, if you have these up on any of your sites, please replace them with something else. He has never been compensated for the use of these.

This was a result of a fight between two different factions in the St. Louis Tea Party. One group (the Loeschs, Gateway Pundit, and Jen Ennenbach) supported GOP establishment candidate Ann Wagner (a candidate for the head of the RNC and the campaign chairman for Roy Blunt) and another group (John Burns, Ben Evans, Michelle Moore, Bill Hennessy, and Darin Morley) supporting nutty Ed Martin.

I just checked and it looks like the Tea Party really did change their logos. This is what the old logo looked like:

Here's what the new Twitter logo looks like:

And here's what the "new" facebook page looks like (though it sounds weird calling the Gadsen flag "new"):

For the record:

Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican primary.
She explicitly said that she liked RomneyCare.
She supported Roy Blunt over the more conservative Chuck Purgason for the U.S. Senate.
She supported Ed Martin over John Wayne Tucker, and in fact attacked Tucker on her show after Ed Martin paid her husband to make a commercial for him.
Now's she's supporting the ultimate GOP establishment candidate Ann Wagner over the comparably more conservative Ed Martin.
Oh, and she's "edgy" for some reason.

Tea Party Civil War? Email Accounts Disabled! Logos To Be Discontinued?

2011-12-05T16:07:00.004-06:00

From the batch of emails forwarded to me.

Doug Edelman:

For the record, the TEA PARTY isn’t slamming Jim Hoft. 4 individuals are.

Jen Ennenbach (the former St. Louis tea party spokesperson):

That is absolutely the case. These four (plus a Mr Mom stay at home blogger) have gone rogue, cut off all communication within the STLTPC core, disabled email accounts, stolen intellectual property, and LIED. . .all in the name of a candidate. Sad. Oh, also, Chris Loesch has requested an immediate cease of use on his logos. . .which include the St Louis Tea Party logo and the SOB (pirate looking) logo. So, if you have these up on any of your sites, please replace them with something else. He has never been compensated for the use of these.

Also, someone might want to clue John Burns into the fact that my email has changed since he disabled my old address, so I'm not receiving his rants, except through forwards from others.. . .but hey, he's not rational right now, how could we expect him to think straight?

Sounds pretty bad.

Loesch and Hoft Demand To Be Taken Off Conservative Email List After Seeing Activist Hub Article!

2011-12-05T14:37:00.005-06:00

At the end of a post documenting that members of the St. Louis Tea Party had criticized Gateway Pundit, I asked the following questions:

So, there are a lot of questions there, but my biggest one is this: will Hoft even acknowledge the criticisms? We all know he ignores arguments from almost anyone who disagrees with him, but will he be equally afraid of debate with his fellow members of the tea party? They also suggest that Loesch should give them a platform on her radio show or on Big Journalism to respond, and I think they have a strong point.

Well, I guess we now know the answer to these! A member of a conservative email list (that includes activists, politicians like Tim Jones and Susan Cunningham, and radio hosts like Loesch and Allman) sent out the version of that post that appeared on Little Green Footballs. Not only did Hoft refuse to answer any questions, he immediately demanded to be taken off the email list! Here's the text (forwarded to me anonymously):

That's a horrible dishonest piece. The fact that you sent that out in a mass email is deplorable and mean spirited.
Please take me off this list immediately.

Jim Hoft

I'm not sure what exactly was mean-spirited about it. The fact that conservatives disagreed with Hoft's claims?

Unsurprisingly, Dana Loesch was no less childish than Hoft. Here's her email:

I also ask to be removed from this list. Spreading Media Matters smears is hardly grassroots.

Dana

Haha, Media Matters? What does that have to do with any of this?

Why couldn't Loesch and Hoft simply respond to the points raised in the original article critical of Ann Wagner? Oh, that's right, because that would mean that they engaged in genuine debate, which is the thing they're most afraid of.

Tea Party Founder on When It's OK to Disregard Reagan's 11th Commandment

2011-12-05T13:04:00.003-06:00

Republicans generally take Ronald Regan's 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican," pretty seriously. But in the context of the current tea party chaos over Ed Martin and ultimate GOP insider Ann Wagner, St. Louis Tea Party founder Bill Hennessy had this to say:

Since Ronald Reagan handed down the 11th Commandment—thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans—every Republican seems to hide behind it.
“You can’t talk about the people I poisoned! It violates the 11th Commandment.”
...
Never let blind allegiance to a misunderstood principle prevent the people from knowing their choices.

Read the whole thing here.

Did Ann Wagner Violate the Missouri Federation of Republican Women Bylaws?

2011-12-05T12:34:00.003-06:00

According to a conservative blogger, Ann Wagner broke the bylaws of the Missouri Federation of Republican Women:

Ann Wagner was invited to be the keynote speaker at this year’s luncheon. She was asked to speak before she declared her candidacy for Congress. According to MoFRW bylaws, and as a club, at either the state level or local level, endorsing any candidates in the primary is not permitted. Once Ann declared she was running for Congress, I was told the woman in charge of the luncheon, she had called Ann to explain that her speech at the luncheon could not be a campaign speech. Following, Ann agreed to the terms and was kept as the MoFRW keynote speaker this year.
According to my friend, on the morning of the luncheon when Ann arrived in Columbia, she was again told that she could not use her address as a campaign speech. Again, Ann had agreed to the terms. But, as soon as Ann began speaking, my friend said it was painfully evident that she was going against MoFRW bylaws. Ann used her time speaking to further her own campaign for Congress.

My friend was dispirited that Ann blatantly disregarded the instructions given to her by the MoFRW board. As the MoFRW bylaws state, if one primary candidate speaks at a club meeting all the candidates must be invited to the event with each given equal time to speak. Obviously, Ann was the only candidate invited, it was impossible to give Ed Martin equal time and she knew that.

Furthermore, the blogger claimed that Wagner left the event immediately after speaking, not bothering to stick around for other women receiving awards from the group:

Disheartened, my friend told me that Ann left as soon as she was done speaking. Ann didn’t have the courtesy to stay long enough for the women to be honored and receive their awards. In addition, this was the first time a keynote speaker did not stay at the luncheon for the entire program.

Dana Loesch to The St. Louis Tea Party:

2011-12-05T11:21:00.003-06:00

Throw me the idol! I'll throw you the whip!

They shouldn't have thrown her the idol.

Jen Ennenbach: St. Louis Tea Party Should Be Called "The St. Louis Ed Martin Coalition"

2011-12-05T10:48:00.003-06:00

Former St. Louis Tea Party spokesperson Jen Ennenbach on her blog Cry Liberty:

It seems the Board of the St Louis Tea Party Coalition have hijacked the organization, and divided the movement, all in the name of a candidate. They should legally change their name to “The St Louis Ed Martin Coalition”...
(I guarantee you Darin [Morley] or Bill [Hennessy] doesn’t have the stones to pull this one over to the site!)

Is the Emmis Communications VP a "Money Man" For Ann Wagner?

2011-12-05T10:26:00.006-06:00

97.1 FM host Dana Loesch is clearly supporting Ann Wagner against tea party favorite Ed Martin in Missouri's Second District GOP primary. And morning host Jamie Allman is privately defending Wagner from charges of crony capitalism. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the Vice President of Emmis Communications (which owns 97.1) John Beck has donated money to Ann Wagner and is hosting events for her?

My guess is that there are other reasons for Loesch throwing Martin under the bus, but nevertheless it's worthwhile putting this theory out there for future reference.

By the way, people who knew Loesch before she was paid to portray an "edgy goth tea partier" all said that she would throw the group under the bus as soon as it was convenient. It's starting to look like they were exactly right.

Missouri Record Asks Why St. Louis Tea Party Isn't Supporting Ed Martin

2011-12-05T10:04:00.005-06:00

Over at the Missouri Record blog, in a post titled Weak Tea In St. Louis?, Patrick Tuohey asked why the St. Louis Tea Party isn't supporting Ed Martin:

Yet in St. Louis the movement has remained on the fence in the Congressional race between Ann Wagner and Ed Martin....

So why haven't they taken up his cause? If the Tea Party movement doesn't rally around candidates like Martin, what has been the point of the last three years? If the St. Louis activists staked a claim in party politics in New York's 23rd, why not in Missouri's 2nd?

Actually, many in the St. Louis Tea Party leadership (John Burns, Ben Evans, Michelle Moore,and I believe Bill Hennessy and Darin Morley) have put their support behind Martin. However, others, including Dana Loesch and Jim Hoft, see more opportunity for personal gain in supporting Roy Blunt campaign chair and GOP insider Ann Wagner. But Tuohey's basic point is a good one: why did certain people go wild fighting "the GOP establishment" in New York yet roll over for the GOP establishment in their home town?

Bill McClellan Unaware That Policy Is Sometimes Set in St. Louis?

2011-12-04T12:22:00.005-06:00

Today's Post-Dispatch includes a column from Bill McClellan about Occupy St. Louis, or at least about some clown who spray-painted the word "Occupy" on a sign in Frontenac. Though I agree with McClellan that it was dumb to vandalize the sign, it probably was slightly over-the-top (as noted by @nextstl on Twitter) for McClellan to compare this to the Taliban blowing up 1,500+ year old statues. And then there was this amazing gem from McClellan:

Actually, I never quite understood the Occupy St. Louis part of the movement. Occupy Wall Street, I got that. I would have been fine with Occupy Washington. Maybe even Occupy Palm Beach.

But Occupy St. Louis? Who around here sets policy?

I'll have to consult with some local experts and historians on this, but I'm pretty sure there are, in fact, policies that are set in St. Louis. Some people refer to these as "local" or "St. Louis" policies. And on occasion, these policies might be thought to favor the interests of big businesses and the wealthy over the interests of the general public, which is exactly what the Occupy movement opposes.

St. Louis 99% Head to DC to Take Back the Capitol

2011-12-04T10:06:00.002-06:00

Press release:

Workers, students, jobless Missourians and members of Occupy STL will head to Washington, D.C., on Dec. 5 to join with thousands of protesters from around the country to Take Back the Capitol and send a message that Congress needs to represent the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent.

Over the past few months the country has begun to focus on the growing disparity between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, and its impact on our cities and neighborhoods. Thousands of Americans will converge on Washington, D.C., starting on Dec. 5 to participate in four days of protest to make the voices of the 99 percent heard and counter the influence of the 1 percent.

“I'm part of the 99 percent that politicians in Washington have been ignoring, and it is time that Congress listens to us, not just corporate lobbyists from K Street and their campaign contributions." said Jonathan McFarland. "We're going down there to the corridors of power to make our presence felt. We need good jobs and an end to foreclosures now.”

The situation for the 99 percent is dire. Nearly 14 million workers in the United States are without jobs; median incomes for most workers have fallen 6.7 percent in the two years since the recession of 2009; and income inequality is at its worst since the 1920s. And while the middle class and working people are suffering, taxes for the 1 percent are at an all-time low.

Former Tea Party Spokesperson Says Tea Party Was Co-Opted By Ed Martin!

2011-12-03T20:42:00.006-06:00

Jen Ennenbach, who for a long period of time was described as the "tea party's spokesperson," said on Twitter that the St. Louis Tea Party has been "hijacked" and "co-opted" by Ed Martin operatives with over-inflated egos:

As much as my natural inclinations tempt me to believe this is true, it doesn't entirely make sense. The tea party members criticizing Ann Wagner and others have not been speaking on behalf of the group, but have been making clear they're only speaking for themselves. Is Ennenbach criticizing them just for expressing their own opinions?

Dan Riehl Responds to St. Louis Tea Party Allegations

2011-12-03T20:11:00.005-06:00

As I noted previously, members of the St. Louis Tea Party alleged that political consultant Chip Gerdes ghost wrote a blog post for blogger Dan Riehl on Big Government attacking congressional candidate Ed Martin. Here's what they wrote:

As mentioned at the top, Hoft was quoted in the first hit piece against Ed Martin that came out last August on Big Government. That piece, supposedly written by Dan Riehl, sparked a firestorm among Tea Party conservatives in Missouri. Upon questioning, Chip Gerdes, another paid political consultant, stated that he wrote the piece as a “warning shot” to Ed Martin because of comments that Martin made on a Christian AM radio station. If Gerdes is writing hit pieces for Ann Wagner and publishing them under Dan Riehl’s name, what else has he written?

I asked Riehl on Twitter how many of his posts had been written by political consultants and this is how he responded:

I then pointed out that I was merely quoting the tea party:

His response:

So Riehl is on record denying the claims by Burns, Moore, and Evans that political consultant Chip Gerdes wrote a blog post for him. It seems like the burden is now on them to provide evidence to back up their claims; otherwise there's no particular reason to take their word over anyone else's.

"Teaparty Cop" uses assault for political gain

2011-12-03T19:04:00.001-06:00

It seemed difficult for the St. Louis Teaparty to reach a new low but they never disappoint. I have to give them credit for maintaining their wingnuttery after the humiliation of a failed attempt to destroy a Baptist minister, the outrage of making veiled threats against a U.S. Congressman or the shame anybody else would feel after teaching young children how to burn an effigy when motivated by hate and fear. The bar was set so low that it seemed impossible to slither under it again but, as everybody expected, they found a way.

Thanks to St. Louis City Police Sgt. Gary Wiegert, we now know that the city police department feels no obligation to protect sexual assault victims. Recently Sgt. Wiegert explained to the victim, voters and concerned citizens alike that a recent assault was the result of Mayor Slay's leadership. Sgt.Wiegert's attempt to link the mayors decision to "back off" from arresting protesters to a daylight assault in a public park, shines a light on the contempt that he feels towards the protesters- protesters that apparently are not worthy of police protection. It is obvious that Sgt. Wiegert is attempting to serve as an unofficial spokesman for the city police despite any disclaimers; it is undeniable with blog posts titled "Tea party Cop Arrests Occupy Protesters".

In addition to being a police officer Sgt. Wiegert is also a member of the St. Louis Teaparty. Actually calling him a member doesn't really explain his ties to the Teaparty. Teaparty lobbyist , Teaparty blogger or race-baiting Teaparty fanatic are actually better descriptions.

Apparently all city issues are tied to local control in the eyes of the Teaparty. The connection between local control and every issue imaginable must be exposed- no matter how weak the link between the issues may be. The Teaparty is willing to use their voice to re-victimize an assault victim by claiming the existence of the occupy movement caused a terrible attack, even when the police failed to provide protection from outsiders. When the victim of the attack is a member of the movement blamed it is clear that this is another attack on the victim.

We can only hope that the suspect gets a fair trial. We have to hope that police interference does not get in the way of administering justice. We must demand that the police don't embarrass the taxpayers anymore that they have already done.

We are left dreaming that the Teaparty and police department show a little class in the future by considering the innocent victims before politically motivated finger pointing.

St. Louis Tea Party Leaders Slam Gateway Pundit!

2011-12-03T12:29:00.009-06:00

Obviously, I have no love for Ed Martin. And I'm on record as being critical of the St. Louis Tea Party for claiming to be principled while supporting Roy Blunt over Chuck Purgason and Ed Martin over John Wayne Tucker. But I have to say I actually do have some sympathy for the core group that, unlike Dana Loesch and Jim Hoft, is at least attempting to move forward by holding true to their ideals and opposing the GOP establishment. Though I think they're wrong in believing that Ed Martin is a principled conservative, it is at least clear that they felt like voting for Blunt was merely an imperfect step towards their ultimate goal, and that they would have to try to more actively oppose the crony capitalism of the modern Republican party in the future if they really wanted to live up to their ideals.

On the other hand, Dana Loesch, who voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 primary and explicitly said that she liked RomneyCare before realizing that it was more profitable to be a "tea party spokesperson" on national television, is unsurprisingly abandoning Ed Martin in favor of Roy Blunt's 2010 campaign manager, GOP insider Ann Wagner. And Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft, writing on Loesch's website Big Journalism, also recently launched an attack on Ed Martin. However, members of the St. Louis tea party leadership Michelle Moore, John Burns, and Ben Evans wrote a recent post dismantling Hoft's attacks on Martin. You can read the full post here, but I'll share a few highlights:

First, they point out that Martin didn't turn the race ugly; he was actually the target of an attack from Dan Riehl earlier in the year on Breitbart's Big sites (where Loesch is an editor).
They reiterate Darin Morley's point that it was ridiculous for Hoft to try to imply that Ed Martin is more connected to Roy Blunt than is Ann Wagner.
They criticized Hoft's attempts to pretend that Wagner's husband is no longer involved in advocating on behalf of Enterprise Rent-a-Car:
As everyone in the Tea Party knows Ray delisted himself in preparation for Ann’s campaign; however, he is still Enterprise's Government & Public Affairs Vice-President. In that capacity, he oversees Enterprise's lobbying and he helps determine where their campaign funds go. Again, Jim knows this, but deliberately ignores it in the post.
They point out that Chip Gerdes, a familiar creepy scuzzbucket for readers of this blog, said that he wrote Dan Riehl's original attack on Ed Martin as a "warning shot:"
As mentioned at the top, Hoft was quoted in the first hit piece against Ed Martin that came out last August on Big Government. That piece, supposedly written by Dan Riehl, sparked a firestorm among Tea Party conservatives in Missouri. Upon questioning, Chip Gerdes, another paid political consultant, stated that he wrote the piece as a “warning shot” to Ed Martin because of comments that Martin made on a Christian AM radio station.
They also question where Hoft got his data and whether he even did his own writing:
If Gerdes is writing hit pieces for Ann Wagner and publishing them under Dan Riehl’s name, what else has he written?...We ask: Where did those figures come from? Dan Riehl and Dana Loesch have written on Twitter and in Tea Party emails that hundreds of thousands of dollars were given to Ed Martin by Ann Wagner’s Enterprise connections. This has been proven false. Who gave Jim the data and where is it? Let’s see some research.

The biggest criticism of the tea party, though, is that Hoft attributed their research to Ed Martin, even though he should have known better. St. Louis Tea Party founder Bill Hennessy, who wasn't one of the authors of the post, suggests that Hoft "intentionally deceived his readers" in the comments:

I, too, am disappointed by Jim Hoft's inconsistency and deception.

Inconsistency: Jim approved of Dan Riehl's Big Government hit piece on Ed Martin some months ago--the one that rehashed old Carnahan distortions that 24th State shot down in 2010.

Deception: Jim knows that St. Louis Tea Party researchers, not the Ed Martin campaign, performed the research and supplied it to Daily Caller. I was present when Jim was told. By pretending otherwise, Jim seems to intentionally deceive Gateway Pundit readers.

Cordially,
Bill Hennessy

So, there are a lot of questions there, but my biggest one is this: will Hoft even acknowledge the criticisms? We all know he ignores arguments from almost anyone who disagrees with him, but will he be equally afraid of debate with his fellow members of the tea party? They also suggest that Loesch should give them a platform on her radio show or on Big Journalism to respond, and I think they have a strong point.