Behold: A Burnsian Masterpiece!

  Charles C Johnson Gawker Defamation Lawsuit by Milo Yiannopoulos

See also here and here.

I really hope James O'Keefe, like Johnson, will rely exclusively on his buddy Burns for legal advice.

What are they up to now? John Burns Edition

Remember John Burns, the guy who teamed up with James O'Keefe to falsely accuse Washington University of oppressing free speech, then tried to sabotage a marriage equality rally, then heroically lost a public transportation ballot initiative in humiliating fashion by claiming the Republican Mayor of Chesterfield personally ordered police to shut down a tea party protest, oh, and who helped O'Keefe come up with a plan to sexually humiliate a CNN reporter?

What's he been up to?

He's been lawyerin for Chuck C. Johnson, that's what!

James O'Keefe Caught in the Act

Good segment on Chris Hayes exposing James O'Keefe's dishonest editing:



This isn't a surprise for those of us who paid attention, but it is a particularly nice example.

And why is this relevant for St. Louis?  The local tea party fever that came and went (but which still has a pernicious influence on politics) was based in large part on emulation of the dishonest tactics employed by Breitbart and O'Keefe.  Any immoral action was justified as long as it was in service of their "WAR".

Three St. Louis Area Tea Party Blogs Defend Akin Against GOP Establishment

Three bloggers from that one group that used to be tea party but now has some other acronym recently published blog posts defending Todd Akin and attacking the GOP establishment that tried to push him out.

Virginia Kruta:

If Akin stays in this race, it is possible that he has been damaged enough that we could lose this seat. And that is a scary thought, especially for Missourians, who would be saddled with another six years of Claire McCaskill. But how does that compare to grassroots losing *all* seats that boast candidates who have angered the GOP? Think of Todd Akin as the canary in the coal mine - if he falls to this strategy, who is next? Every election from here on out, we will not only have to fight the left and the media, but also the pseudo-right. 

If we continue to support Todd Akin, we have the ability to hit the national establishment where it hurts. Sadly, many who claim to be fighters have already fallen prey to the narrative. There may not be enough of us left to cripple the establishment this time around, and every time we fail they get stronger.

So wait for Todd Akin's response. And if he intends to fight, I say we fight with him.

Blogodidact:

Yet political players far and wide now wish to overturn the legitimate winner of a primary election; party players and powers that be, wish to disenfranchise all republican voters of Missouri, in order for these power players to put who they would like to see him replaced with. These are the same people who didn't want Akin to run for the Senate, the same people who didn't support him during the election, the same people who did their best to undermine him in order to get a less conservative candidate to run... And yet, after the people of Missouri, who knowingly voted for the more conservative candidate - are very likely going to have their votes overturned, by party players who didn't approve of their votes to begin with.

On the pretext of a politically sensitive gaffe, the candidate nominated in a statewide election, is potentially going to be removed from the race, and replaced by someone the GOP would have preferred to have been (s)elected in the first place.

Ennenbach:

While supporters in both John Brunner’s and Sarah Steelman’s camp gnared their teeth at the opportunity to snag the seat, should Akin vacate, those dreams were quickly dashed by the time they finally finished reading through Missouri’s Sore Loser Law....

It is clear that the people voted, and Akin’s primary win should be upheld. It is also clear that the Missouri Establishment GOP was quick to stand next to the progressive extremists in throwing Akin under the bus, over and over again. 

Guess that's the last time the GOP establishment will ever try "gnaring" their teeth. 

O'Keefe Sex Boat Plan References "Crazy" Ideas From John Burns

A recently leaked document at Breitbart Unmasked apparently shows the full 13 page "plan" to isolate CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau on a sex boat with James O'Keefe as part of a "joke." I previously reported that St. Louis's John Burns, a guy who worked with James O'Keefe to try to smear Washington University in a "campus gulag" hoax and sabotage an LGBT rally, and who also led the St. Louis tea party's disastrous campaign against public transportation, was mentioned by CNN as being in on the planning of the efforts to "seduce" Boudreau.  The document, authored by Ben Wetmore, says that he had to spend thirty minutes rejecting "crazy" ideas from Burns.  Here's the text:

I already spent 30 minutes defending the idea and trying to battle crazy permutations from Burns.  The more people you tell about an operation, the more it 1) opens it up to unknown future problems, 2) good ideas have to defend against bad ones, 3) people running their mouths to Hartsock, CNN and other people who will cause additional unknown complications.  

Considering that the plan was basically to demand that Boudreau go alone on a boat full of sex toys and video recording devices along with O'Keefe where O'Keefe would try to "seduce" her, it's hard to imagine what ideas from Burns were considered "too crazy" for this group.  As you can infer from the above, the document is also not very complimentary of Christian Hartsock, an employee of Breitbart.com:

Considering the complex dynamic with Hartsock, that he will see this CNN connection as his "big break," and that he's notorious for having loose lips, he certainly can't be trusted to keep this in confidence, and will speak to either people his age or perhaps even to CNN directly to curry favor.  He should be given the vaguest details, and if he's very upset about the potential complication to his future, reminded that future operations will be newsworthy as well.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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:

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

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.

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

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?

Update on St. Louis Tea Party Civil War

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.

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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.

Dana Loesch to The St. Louis Tea Party:

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"

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!)