Olbermann Destroy's Breitbart's Smears On The Occupy Movement (VIDEO)

So, as I'm sure you've seen by now, there was a video posted over the weekend of Breitbart completely losing it at the CPAC convention after consuming some amount of red wine greater than or equal to one glass:


In response to people commenting on how unhinged Breitbart was, his employees started trying to defend him by saying his "Stop Raping People!" screams were justified by a serious problem at Occupy Camps. His sites published a list of 17 incidents of "rape or various sexual assaults" they claimed occurred at Occupy.

But Keith Olbermann decided to actually read the news stories associated with Breitbart's claims, and he found that in almost every single case the Breitbart crew was twisting reality. Here's the devastating segment from his show:


I should say that there have been some crimes, including sexual assaults, at Occupy encampments around the country. This is not surprising, since we live in a culture with a serious problem of violence against women, and it's not going to be any less of a problem in communities that provide food and lodging for those who need it and are extremely open and accepting almost anyone who wants to participate. From what I've seen, the Occupy groups have been very proactive in working to make their areas safe and welcoming for women. This is not to excuse any of the assaults, but rather to point out that they are not reflective of the occupy movement or most of the people involved. And I take the point that sexual assaults should not be used as a weapon for "the Right" or for "the Left."

But what I think is so valuable about Olbermann's research is that it shows, quite dramatically, just how morally bankrupt the Breitbartian version of "journalism" really is. In basically every case, Breitbart bloggers twisted reality to fit their narrative. A real journalist would wait for conclusive evidence before declaring that some person or movement was responsible for rapes or sexual assaults; at Breitbart's sites, they throw out the charges almost daily based on their own interpretations of limited and ambiguous information. It's very much like the Kenneth Gladney case; the video was anything but conclusive; all it showed was Perry Molens pulling Gladney away from McCowan at the end of a fight. Yet Breitbart's gang of hacks declared that the video provided conclusive proof that McCowan and Molens had severely beaten Gladney, and they steadfastly refused to engage in an honest assessment of the evidence.

The "point-by-point response" at Breitbart's sites to Olbermann's segment only helps to reinforce this point. In almost no case do they provide conclusive evidence that an Occupier was responsible for the crimes they are alleging. Rather, they rely on thoughts like, "well, why would someone be at the park at that time," to suggest that one possible interpretation of the limited information is that a person might have been involved. The fact that they're willing to take such limited information and use it to make hyper-dramatic proclamations about entire groups of people shows just how depraved the Breitbart model of "journalism" really is. A real journalist wouldn't make an accusation about a single person without conclusive evidence; Olbermann showed that the Breitbart gang made these unsupported accusations in at least 15 different cases. That's just embarrassingly bad, and should be fifteen times more information needed for credible news groups to realize that they shouldn't give Breitbart's gang the time of day.

More Unprofessional Behavior: CNN's Dana Loesch Bullies Reporter at CPAC

So I already wrote about how Loesch went out with a Guy Fawkes mask to yell at the Occupy crowds outside of CPAC, despite the fact that many other CPAC attendees were engaging in calm discussions with the crowd and were easily able to travel freely in and out of the hotel.

It turns out Loesch also chased down and yelled at other Occupiers the next day:


And, even worse, Loesch decided to bully a reporter for having the audacity of asking Andrew Breitbart questions about his pledge to boycott CPAC (which he quickly abandoned when offered a speaking slot). Loesch told the reporter that she wasn't "acting like a lady" because she asked Breitbart questions:

Just to point out the obvious, there's a big difference between getting into an argument with a reporter when speaking privately to them, versus loudly lecturing them while surrounded by hundreds of supporters.

Politico wrote an interesting article pointing out that CNN has not been booking Loesch since her nasty comments about urinating on corpses. However, she is still listed as a contributor. Is this really how CNN wants their brand defined? According to the guests on Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Activist Calendar Back Up And Running

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.

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

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!

Dana Loesch Disinvited From Conservative Event For Disgraceful Comments

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?

Breitbart Continues to Undermine His Case Against Shirley Sherrod

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!)

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!

Breitbart Bloggers Who Lied About UMSL Are Also Lying About Their Own Identities

After my recent post knocking down the silly arguments of Insurgent Visuals, the group of anonymous cowards who originally distorted the comments of University of Missouri system professors, they've posted a couple of responses on their blog too dumb to dignify with a real response. For any decent person, there's no defense for intentionally editing someone's comments to hide the fact that they were quoting someone else rather than personally endorsing a statement, nor for chopping out the middle of a sentence to completely change its meaning. Like typical right-wing hacks, instead of just admitting that their original edits were fabrications, they instead think the way to respond is to distract from the original point by producing a new litany of highly-edited, out-of-context quotes. And instead of producing a single decent argument, they simply produce an endless string of idiotic claims until everyone else gets too bored to continue. Oh, and they seem to think that they should be praised for "releasing a partial transcript" after they got busted lying, though before they were busted they denied even the possibility that the quotes were taken out-of-context. Finally, they falsely claim that I said that James O'Keefe was involved in the project, though I clearly didn't:

But the real point is, whether or not O'Keefe had anything to do with the execution of this particular smear campaign, his connections with the people involved are relevant.

Anyway, like I said, their posts are not worthy of a real response, but I did get a great tip in the comments of my previous post. Insurgent Videos has an "About" page on their website, which includes pictures and terribly written biographies for their "team."

The website is shoddy enough that you immediately begin to suspect that the profiles are all fake. And that is exactly correct. Since Insurgent Videos first soiled the world with their sad attempt at a smear campaign, Google released a search engine that allows you to search for identical images on the web. And guess what? The pictures Insurgent Videos uses for their "profiles" are fakes.

For example, the photo of "Frank C" is actually of a Norweigan professor:

The photo for "Dallas J." is from another Norwegian:

And "Misty" is a photo from a mail order bride site:


It's so funny that this group, even after being completely busted lying, still publicly pretends to care about the truth. The fact that they use fake photos to hide their identities demonstrates clearly that they know they are not a respectable group and that the garbage they put out is an embarrassment to all thinking people. If they had any brains at all, they would fold up this phony group and just start some new obviously fake front group for the next time they try to push a terrible editing job to the media.

Adam Sharp's Dishonest Techniques Exposed At Occupy St. Louis (Updated)

I've previously documented Adam Sharp's technique of asking the same question repeatedly until he gets an answer he can edit out-of-context. And a friend also gave me video of one of Sharp's accomplices trying to bait a person into swinging at him.

Looks like he tried his same boring old techniques at Occupy St. Louis, with his first video picking on a guy with an "End the Fed" sign (by the way, does it make sense for the tea party to be picking on libertarians?).

But the Occupy St. Louis group also got some great video where one of their members asked Sharp why he wouldn't share his video. Of course, the reason is that Sharp always dishonestly edits his videos, and cuts out his own obnoxious behavior in an effort to try to claim that other people were harassing him. But he can't say that, so instead he settles for pouting and yelling "nooooo" like a four-year-old. Here's the video from the Occupy St. Louis page:


Video from Kaare Melby.

If you want to know why Breitbart, O'Keefe, and the St. Louis Tea Party have completely failed to attract young people to their cause, all you need to know is that they try to present people like Sharp as "cool" conservative intellectuals. Conservatives might be "cool" if they starting making intellectually honest arguments again, but Breitbart and his followers are about as far away from that ideal as you can get. So far, in fact, that they are even happy to attack libertarians who at least try to square their conservative beliefs with basic human compassion.

Update: here's some more video of Sharp clearly acting obnoxiously:

Citing Kindergarten Marxist Indoctrination, Breitbart Launches "Big Education"

Andrew Breitbart claims that Kindergarten children are subjected to "Marxist Indoctrination," so he has to start a new site to save 'merica:


Fortunately for everyone, Breitbart already revealed exactly what his site will be like when he shamefully distorted the quotes of two Missouri professors teaching a Labor Studies Course:

Breitbart's Big Government Botches Peter Kinder Defense

As noted by many on Twitter yesterday, you know things are bad for Republican Lt. Governor Peter Kinder when his main media strategy seems to be leaking stories to his buddy Andrew Breitbart's blogs. Unsurprisingly, the stories on Brietbart's sites are full of speculation, unsupported assertions, and outright falsehoods.

One story on Big Government by Michelle Moore said the following:

Frankly, I find no evidence what-so-ever that he was a repeat visitor to said strip club OR that he had any interest in her at all. Pathetic.

That's some incisive reasoning, except for the tiny problem that Peter Kinder admitted to multiple media outlets that he visited the strip club "around 10 times:"

We were having a beer and the girls come by and chat. And you meet various of them, and that's where I met Tammy," Kinder said. "That much is true. Subsequently, I returned on a handful of occasions."

A "handful" was about 10 times, Kinder said. He compared his fondness to Chapman to a line in a Dean Martin song, "Let's Be Friendly."

A different post on Big Government suggests that either Chapman or her friend, John Ross, emailed the pictures to the Riverfront Times:

Over three years later, Kinder innocently enters a restaurant where Chapman was working, she asked him for a photo with her – hardly a thing a woman does with a man she accuses of being overly sexually aggressive with her in the first place – then she either sent the photo to Ross, or the Riverfront Times directly for publication, purely as a rationale for raising a 16 year-old smear with nothing to it.

This is false. The RFT noted that the original photo was not from Chapman, and said the following about Ross

We can also say that Ross is not the person who supplied us with the photo.

Finally, Big Goverment claims repeatedly that Ross worked for the Riverfront Times without offering any evidence for the claim:

The story breaks at the River Front Times, where John Ross occasionally writes and also posts several comments on the actual stories.

In fact, the RFT denies that he ever worked for them or wrote for them:

Here at Riverfront Times, we're baffled as to how Kinder came up with this theory. For starters, Ross has never worked or written for our publication. We can also say that Ross is not the person who supplied us with the photo.

Reached by phone today, Ross can't explain Kinder's conspiracy, either. Not only has he never written for the RFT, he says our publication tried to write a "hit piece" about him in 1998. He also says that he never saw the photo of Kinder and Chapman before its publication on the Riverfront Times'' website -- and advised Chapman against talking to the media after the picture went public.

In addition to outright falsehoods, the Big Goverment posts are chalk full of claims that are supported by no evidence. For example, they claim (as does Kinder) that "Democratic operatives" tried to push a similar story in 2008:

...one year later, in 2008, during Kinder’s Lieutenant Governor campaign, Democrats start carrying posters w/ pics of Chapman saying “Who is this woman?” at events including speaking events in Missouri.

However, they offer no evidence to support that claim, other than a link to a picture on Ross's website that they say was used in the campaign. Shouldn't they at least provide some shred of evidence to support a claim like this?

They further imply that Ross is a Democratic operative trying to sabotage Kinder to help Jay Nixon. However, Ross is a huge gun advocate who wrote a book based on the idea that the government would take away people's arms and the people who have to rise up in response. In fact, he told the RFT the following:

"One of the biggest efforts of my life was an eleven year effort to get conceal/carry passed in Missouri," says Ross. "I hired the original lobbyist for the bill out of my own pocket. For ten years, Peter Kinder supported us in our efforts. And for ten years, [then-Attorney General] Jay Nixon tried to block us. He was an opponent. I tell everyone who comes to my shooting school that. I tell them, if it comes down to voting for Kinder or voting for Nixon, I tell them to remember who's in favor of their right to self-defense."

It seems pretty likely to me that the reason Kinder is sending this stuff to Breitbart's sites is because no self-respecting operation would be willing to publish the junk.

Confronting Breitbart In St. Louis (VIDEO) - Short Version

Enjoy:

Confronting Breitbart In St. Louis (VIDEO)

Several weeks ago, when I heard Andrew Breitbart was going to be in town for a conservative conference, I challenged him to finally have an honest discussion about his smear campaigns against two St. Louis institutions: UMSL and our local SEIU. I have to admit, this is a little personal for me, since Breitbart shamelessly tried to destroy people I know and institutions that do a lot of good for the city, but I also think there are pretty strong objective reasons why Breitbart should have this discussion with me if he wants to maintain his constructed image of someone who's willing to "take on all-comers" (see below).

Despite the fact that I personally tweeted Breitbart at least 20 times over several days, that dozens of other people also asked him to accept the challange over Twitter (see examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), including people Breitbart obsessively follows on Twitter like Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, Karoli of Crooks and Liars, and Joan Walsh of Salon, and that many other people sent Breitbart Facebook messages asking him to accept the debate challenge, Breitbart not only did not accept the invitation, but was too cowardly to even respond. So when I saw he was going to be in St. Louis again I thought I would take the conversation to the guy who's been running away from real debate on the two topics for a lot longer than just the three weeks I've been asking him to debate.

Breitbart was speaking at a black conservative conference in St. Louis, and my friend Brian Matthews and I had no interest in interfering with any of the conference, so we patiently waited in the lobby for Breitbart to come out. Several conference attendees recognized us, and we had nice conversations with them, including one of the conference organizers Chris Arps (former staffer of Jim Talent). Though the conversations were friendly, several people went back into the room to report that we were outside. Other people left the room and scoped out the layout of the building, and soon Breitbart along with Dana and Chris Loesch were power-walking towards an obscure side-entrance in order to avoid Brian and myself. Fortunately, I was able to catch up with them before the getaway was complete, and so was finally able to confront him with my camera rolling about his dishonest smear campaigns against St. Louis institutions.

Since fully understanding the conversation requires some background knowledge, I'm going to follow the same format as I did with my run-in with Dana Loesch at the Tea Party Rally, posting links and info to help explain some of the points and in particular why Breitbart is full of it. I'll try to put most of the info after the videos, but there are a few points I'd like to make in advance since the conversation is initially a little hard to follow thanks to Breitbart's incoherent ranting:

Breitbart starts of by saying he's here to represent the rights of kitties and to talk about electrocuted cats. I originally had no idea what he was talking about but eventually figured it out. He was referring to some of the video he posted of a labor studies course where a professor describes a tactic unions used in Peru where it was illegal for utility workers to strike. The professor describes the workers releasing cats in powerhouses where the cats would be electrocuted and short out the system. The workers' behavior is pretty morally abhorrent in my opinion, but the professor was not making a moral argument that you should engage in this behavior; rather, she was describing tactics which had previously been used. So this claim by Breitbart has absolutely no relevance to the criticism that his website published deliberately distorted quotes from the professors.

Yes, that is CNN contributor Dana Loesch desperately trying to get attention while I'm speaking with Breitbart. More on her absurd claims below.

The one comment I regret making was joking about Loesch preventing Breitbart's ability to "defend his manhood" after one of the times Breitbart humorously had to tell Loesch to stop interrupting the conversation. Anyone who knows me would know that I don't take the concepts of "manhood" or "machoness" seriously at all, and mostly just think it's funny that anyone cares about them (this is not to say that I have anything against people who find these qualities sexy or admirable or whatever; just that I personally think they're funny). But I realize that something that might be funny among friends can be off-putting when said to strangers, so I regret using that term to make a joke.

At one point in the video, I say that I know more about these cases than Eric Boehlert. By this I certainly didn't intend any disrespect. My only point was that because I'm covering this from St. Louis I personally know many of the people and institutions involved and thus had access to information and context that Boehlert did not. Boehlert did an excellent job covering these events, and I have great respect for him as a writer and a thinker.

There's so much more nonsense and falsehoods from Breitbart (and Loesch) to discuss, but for now I'll post the video and save the further observations and links to the facts below: (apologies for the fact that my phone camera is turned sideways in the middle of the discussion)

OK, so with that, here are some observations about the "discussion:"

Breitbart claims that Kenneth Gladney was called the n-word by Elston McCowan. At best this claim is disputed and I would argue the evidence against it is stronger than the evidence for it. At the trial, which I attended unlike anyone from the tea party, the three defense witnesses all were consistent in saying that what Elston McCowan, a black Baptist Minister, said was the word "negro" rather than The N-word. On the other hand, out of the three witnesses from the prosecution, one said that McCowan used the bizarre expression "son of an n-word," one said he used the expression "n-word" but didn't hear anything about a "son of a..", and Kenneth Gladney, after two years of saying that only Elston McCowan used the n-word, all-of-a-sudden changed his story to now claim that both McCowan and co-defendent Perry Molens called him the n-word. The inconsistencies between the prosecution's witnesses and the fact that Gladney changed his story no doubt counted strongly against the prosecution's case, as the jury took only 40 minutes to reach a "non-guilty" verdict for the SEIU defendants.

Breitbart repeated his absurd conspiracy theory that the White House sent a signal for "union thugs" to beat up innocent tea partiers at the town halls. He implicated the deputy White House Chief of Staff, the head of the AFL-CIO John Sweeney, and the SEIU in his grand conspiracy. Though the claim is clearly absurd that there was some massive government conspiracy coming from the White House to beat up a random guy selling buttons at a townhall, Breitbart actually showed remarkable constraint, at least considering that his sites and the tea party have collectively implicated all of the following groups and entities in their conspiracy theories about that night:

the president of SEIU, the president of the AFL-CIO, the President of the United States, Congressman Russ Carnahan, Carnahan’s spokesperson Sara Howard, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, former OFA Missouri Coordinator Buffy Wicks, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, Field Director of Health Care for America Now Margarida Jorge, Prosecutor Bob McCullough, St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Reddington, County Executive Charlie Dooley, the NAACP, the ACLU, the head of the St. Louis County Dept. of Health, and even the local animal control department.

If you believe that all of these entities were involved in a massive conspiracy to beat up a random guy in St. Louis, I don't even know what to tell you.

Some people might object to me saying that I thought some of the claims about Sarah Palin's targets causing violence were ridiculous. I don't mind there being a calm discussion about whether the use of such imagery is irresponsible, but I think claiming that it "caused" some particular act of violence is, in general, pretty silly. Considering that Breitbart clearly claims that comments from the White House caused the alleged attack on Gladney, his claims are also absurd.

Breitbart asks, "how many times have I met you?" I respond, "zero." he says, "No. One! You can't even get that right!" Pretty hilarious! I expected better from him.

It's also pretty hilarious that Breitbart continuously demands that I allow him to repeat his same old tired talking points that I've read 100 times. Notice how much of an opportunity I had to speak during the entire conversation? Yet he has the audacity to claim that I won't allow the truth to come out.

Breitbart claims that only Carnahan supporters were allowed in the townhall. This is not true. In fact, Dana Loesch and many tea partiers were in the townhall, as she admits. The claim is based on the fact that in addition to the main entrance there was a side door where some but not all people were being allowed in. My guess is that the door was being used to allow people in who had volunteered to help, but I honestly don't know the exact circumstances. Regardless, it doesn't have much relevance for the question of who started the altercation between McCowan and Gladney.

Regarding Breitbart's claim that he wasn't going out a side door to avoid Brian and myself. There's a pretty obvious main entrance to the building, and he did go out the side door. He first claims that he was going out the side door because that's where they were parked. Hilariously, he then starts to go back into the building and when I ask him why he says it's because he doesn't want Brian and I to see the car. And then he gets picked up in the car! Pretty funny. As noted above, he has clearly been avoiding this conversation for weeks.

He says that he offered to debate "anyone" on the Gladney case for $10,000 donated to charity. I've certainly never seen that offer to "anyone," though I've seen Breitbart routinely offer to debate Eric Boehlert since he knows that Boehlert has good reasons to not want to be put in a situation where the media could sloppily categorize him as "the liberal counterpart of Breitbart." What Boehlert does is far more respectable than what Breitbart does, and a debate would have the potential to cloud that fact. Anyway, I personally am happy to debate Breitbart on the subject, as I've made clear many times. If he's going to continue slandering innocent people, he should take me up on the offer.

Comedy gold: Breitbart said he wouldn't debate me because my tactics are "unfair." When I asked him what's unfair, he replies "you only care about your side." Classic!

As I've described previously, the witnesses for the prosecution that Breitbart cites are not credible. Two witnesses, Harris and Sandra Himes, originally suggested in the police report that they saw how the fight started. Later, Harris Himes said in an interview that his wife did not see how the fight started and that he had been walking away. Harris Himes also has a history of extreme right-wing politics. The other witness, John Mirelli, is seen on video earlier in the evening having to be held back from getting in an altercation with an SEIU member.

To try to get out of the discussion, Breitbart and Loesch demand that I debate a black conservative about Gladney. I told the guy demanding that I debate him, Martin Baker, that I would be happy to debate him later but I was here to talk to Breitbart since Breitbart led the smear campaign. As soon as Breitbart left I found Baker and told him I'd be happy to talk about it. I have video of the discussion that I'll be posting later.

Breitbart ridiculously suggests that you need to watch 31 hours of footage from a labor studies course to see if his web site deliberately distorted the quotes of two professors. Needless to say, you don't need to review every word ever spoken to know that omitting the fact that Judy Ancel was quoting someone else and cutting out the middle of Don Giljim's comments is a deliberate misrepresentation of what they said. I am glad, however, that Breitbart and Loesch admitted that they saw the full footage before it was posted on the site and Breitbart said he "stands by the video." Now they have no excuse for their dishonesty.

Breitbart's argument that UMSL should post the full 31 hours of video is a red herring. UMSL is prohibited by law from releasing the personal information of students, and for good reason. Academic freedom is, in part, based on the idea that students should be allowed to explore academic ideas in a classroom without fear of retribution or persecution. Breitbart's decision to post video of the students' comments on a public website is despicable. As for his suggestion that UMSL publish a transcript of the entire class with student names blocked out, I suspect that the reason they're not doing that is the same reason that he won't do it: it would be an absurdly time-intensive project.

Loesch's ridiculous comments deserve their own section:

At the beginning of the video Loesch asks "Does Washington University know that it's employee is here using its resources to smear private citizens?" It's true that I'm a graduate student at Washington University, but why Loesch thinks that I'm "using university resources" by engaging in a non-academic discussion on a Saturday afternoon in the summer is beyond me. Seems a little anti-free speech, doesn't it?

Loesch claims, and has been claiming for a year, that I'm an "SEIU blogger." I've never been paid anything by SEIU and have no idea why anyone would call me that. Loesch claims that someone referred to me as an "SEIU blogger" on a video, and suggests that someone from SEIU made that claim at an NAACP press conference. I'm skeptical that anyone from SEIU said that since I don't think anyone from the group was even at the press conference she mentioned, but whomever said it would be wrong.

Loesch also claims that I "laughed" at the same NAACP press conference when someone called Gladney an "Uncle Tom." It's true that I was at the event, but I'm sure I didn't laugh. I remember feeling uncomfortable with the comments. Another manufactured smear.

Finally, Loesch disgustingly claimed that I was "stalking her children," another tea party conspiracy theory I've heard before. I previously had no idea what the claim was referring to, but Loesch explained that it was in reference to the fact that, "you clicked the website where my children are on." In other words, despite the fact that I have never, ever, said anything about her children in any context nor do I know anything about them or want to, she's claiming that I "stalk her children" because one time I linked to a post on her Mom Blog that she had referenced from her political Twitter account. That's pretty despicable behavior from a CNN analyst, or from anyone for that matter.

So there you have it: more than you ever wanted to know about the dishonesty of Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch. It's no wonder that Breitbart is so afraid to have a real debate on these topics where both sides can be presented in full.

Breitbart Says It's OK to Call CODEPINK Women "Slutty" Because They're "Sub-Human"

As noted earlier, Andrew Breitbart is proud of the fact that he calls the women of CODEPINK "slutty" just because they have political views that differ from his:

When he was called out on his sexism by Helen Caddes on Twitter, he responded by suggesting that it was OK because CODEPINK women are "sub-human:"

Could someone explain how this isn't the textbook definition of misogyny?

Dana Loesch's Boss Degrades Women

Dana Loesch's boss Andrew Breitbart is proud of the fact that he called the women of CODEPINK "slutty" because they have different political beliefs:

When Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a slut, Dana Loesch and others justifiably criticized him (though I should note that a number of the claims she made were false, as usual). Here's what Loesch had to say about Schultz:

When I heard Ed Schultz’s remarks, I heard an angry, older man lashing out at a woman because she thinks differently about politics than he....I heard a different level in his voice yesterday though, a new level of rage that removed the humanity from his target so as to make her seem more vulnerable to him. If he stops thinking of her as a mother with children who is also conservative and more like a sexual object that can be degraded, then she’s less of a threat.

If Loesch correctly thinks it is "despicable" for a liberal man to call a woman a "slut" because "she thinks differently about politics than he," then surely she should also criticize Breitbart for calling a group of woman "sluts" for "thinking differently about politics than he." Why does she give Breitbart a pass in his reckless, degrading, and sexualizing behavior? Many, many liberals were willing to criticize Schultz when he stepped across the line. Why won't conservatives criticize Breitbart for literally the exact same behavior?

Breitbart Chickens Out of Debate, But Manages to Blame ACLU, SEIU, and AFL-CIO For His Gladney Conspiracy Theories

As expected, it turns out that all of Andrew Breitbart's blustery chest-thumpings and challenges to debate are nothing more than part of his circus act. When he was provided with ample opportunity to debate his smear campaigns against SEIU and UMSL, he ran away scared. Not only was Breitbart afraid to accept my debate challenge while he was in St. Louis, he was afraid to even respond, despite the fact that he received many Twitter and Facebook messages challenging him to debate. Honest debate is like holy water for Breitbart's vampires, so the fact that he ran away from having to actually discuss the evidence is not at all surprising.

However, while he was here, he did have time to go to a Cardinals game, visit the Lemp Mansion, and most interesting from my perspective, to claim that the ACLU, the White House, SEIU, and the AFL-CIO were all involved in a massive conspiracy against Kenneth Gladney that somehow slipped past the twelve jurors who found the SEIU members not-guilty of misdemeanor assault after only 40 minutes of deliberation. Oh, and he called St. Louis a "Godforsaken town" while Dana Loesch cheers and claps:



And with that it becomes pretty obvious why Breitbart won't debate the topic. His claims are so ridiculous they wouldn't hold up for 2 minutes in a real discussion. He doesn't have even the most basic understanding of what happened, yet he continues to spread lies about it. What do you even say about someone so diametrically opposed to all of the best characteristics of humanity (reason, honesty, courage, etc.)?

Breitbart and Loesch Attempt to Reanimate Zombie Lies About UMSL/UMKC

Now that their smear campaign against SEIU has embarrassingly fallen apart, Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch are attempting to revitalize another failed attempt to smear a St. Louis institution. If you recall, Loesch and Breitbart shamelessly pushed the idea that professors at UMSL and UMKC were "advocating violence" in their labor studies class. After Media Matters and Crooks and Liars exposed the fact that these videos were heavily edited, the student who leaked the videos, Phil, wrote a post at Big Government attempting to change the subject from the dishonest edits to his objections to the course content. Needless to say, downgrading from claiming that professors were "advocating violence" back to the standard right-wing attacks on academic freedom was not very impressive, and the whole thing was a huge blow to the credibility of Loesch, Breitbart, and the student.

Now Phil is back with new allegations, attempting to spin emails obtained in a freedom of information request into a grand conspiracy. The whole thing might just be an attempt to distract from the embarrassing Gladney verdict, but it can be fairly easily responded to, and I do so here.

First, Phil claimed that university officials were "conspiring to punish" him. He admitted leaking all 30 hours of video of the course to a number of his "friends" (whom he doesn't name, naturally). The video, including out-of-context clips of other students making comments in class, was later posted on youtube without the permission of any of the other students. This at least appeared to be a violation of the other students' privacy rights, since they had the expectation of being allowed to speak freely in class without their comments being broadcast to the world, as well as the course Acceptable Use Policy and copyright law. People pay tuition money to attend class; you obviously cannot just hand out 30 hours of video of the entire course for free. In other words, Phil sure appeared to violate the rules of UMSL and potentially the law, and the administrators were discussing the appropriate response to him violating the rules. Along those lines, they said such controversial things as:

Clearly the AUP was violated as was the copyright.

- UMKC Vice Provost Mary Lou Hines Fritts

If he has violated the policies,he should be barred from the use of our campus technology in the future.

- UMSL Provost Glen Cope

Also, do you know the name of the student who assisted ripping the videos? If he/she is a student registered at UMSL, then we would like to proceed with student conduct actions relative to the rules that have been broken (appropriate usage, etc).

- UMSL Provost Glen Cope

The administrators were discussing whether they should punish a student who appeared to have violated university rules. This is what Phil calls "conspiring to punish" him.

Phil also claims that the school "no longer wanted to talk" to him after he showed up with an attorney because "they discovered they couldn't bully a powerless student." In the absence of any evidence, Phil apparently decides to pretend that he can divine the motives and inner thoughts of university officials, and so completely invents a narrative via his imagination. I can't claim to know why they dropped the investigation either, but this was included in his documents:

As you are no longer a student at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, please disregard my latter dated May 5, 2011.

-UMSL Assistant to the Vice Provost D'Andre Braddix - June 9

Now it's my understanding that Phil's apparent violations of the rules would not affect his grade in the class, but rather his future privileges. But since he was no longer a student at UMSL (having graduated from Wash U with credits from the UMSL class), the other disciplinary actions against him would have been meaningless. So that's a perfectly good explanation for why they dropped the investigation that doesn't need to rely on any unfounded assumptions about secret, diabolical motivations of university officials.

Another allegation of Phil was that the university was "relying" on liberal blogs for their information. He also suggested that UMSL Provost Glen Cope didn't watch all of the videos. His evidence for that claim? The following:

I would not be sure of the veracity of what he says, given the video experience and my viewing of videos from the class. I've reviewed videos from the class, and so have people from UMKC. There is nothing in the content of the class, though quite controversial, that if[sic] inappropriate for a political science/labor studies class. People may object to many things that are taught and discussed in many classes if they had the opportunity to do so, since universities cover controversial subjects. this is truly an academic freedom issue.

- UMSL Provost Glen Cope

Breitbart flunky (and failed politician) Joel Pollak managed to squeeze this ridiculous interpretation out of the statement:

If she had seen all of the videos, Cope would have said so, and would have been certain whether Phil was telling the truth or not.

Actually, Phil said things in his blog post that were questions of interpretation and also referred to things said out of class, so the claim that "she would be certain" about Phil's testimony is false and lazy analysis.

Pollak further cites this quote as evidence that the university was getting their information from "liberal blogs:"

Media Matters did our work for us in showing how it's edited.

- UMSL Senior Vice Chancellor Ron Gossen

But this quote was not referring to reviewing the evidence, but rather the presentation of the evidence. Media Matters had done the work of producing a video that showed how the original quotes were taken out of context. The University did not need to rely on Media Matters to see whether the videos were misleadingly edited since anyone with a functioning brain could see that. However, even after knowing that, the videos had to be presented to show the evidence.

The other "evidence" that the university was "relying" on "liberal blogs" was simply that they had sent out links to posts at Crooks and Liars and Media Matters. But the university had also sent out links to articles at Big Journalism and Big Government, and there was no evidence that any of these blogs influenced how they approached the situation.

One last note: Phil took issue with one of the emails saying that he has a history of this kind of thing. He claims he doesn't. I don't know if he does or not, but I will say that he participated in the gulag display where James O'Keefe attempted to smear Washington University officials with secretly recorded and edited video.

But I'll agree that it would be a mistake to assume that Phil took the class for the sole purpose of sabotaging it. However, the real question is whether he broke the rules of the course or the law, and that is precisely what the officials were looking into.

And, furthermore, all of this is a distraction from the real issue that Breitbart and Loesch deceptively edited video and audio to put inflammatory words in the mouths of the course instructors, and that Phil allowed this dishonest information to fester until it was exposed as a hoax.

Reminder of How The Tea Party Used Kenneth Gladney As Political Football

Thought it might be helpful to remind people of all of the unhinged conspiracy theories pushed by right-wing bloggers while they were using Kenneth Gladney as a pawn in their attempts to destroy unions and attack the Democratic Party:

On August 7, one day after the fight, St. Louis tea party leader Bill Hennessy wrote that "[Congressman] Russ Carnahan’s SEIU thugs severely beat a conservative.”

Also on the 7th, Michelle Malkin suggested that Health and Human Services Chair Kathleen Sebelius's quote, "Keep doing what you're doing" was meant to encourage violence.

On Aug. 8, the tea party holds a rally outside of SEIU offices. Hennessy claims President Obama had “sent a signal” to supporters to be violent. The tea party put out chairs for the NAACP and ACLU and implied that they wouldn't support Gladney because he was a conservative.

August 9: Bill Hennessy says Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern “might as well have kicked Gladney himself.”

Aug 18: Friends of the tea party, along with Gladney and Brown, had a protest outside of the NAACP office, claiming that they only care about “liberal black people.” Only problem: they hadn’t even filed a complaint with the NAACP. They also shamelessly were protesting while the NAACP offices were closed to honor one of their recently deceased leaders.

Nov. 10: 97.1 Talk host and St. Louis tea party leader Dana Loesch suggests that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina was involved

Nov. 30: A post on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government (a national blog that patronizes the St. Louis Tea Party) claimed that HCAN national field director Margarida Jorge issued instructions that “inevitably led to violence.”

Dec 1: Also on Big Government, St. Louis Republican political operative John Loudon alleges that there is a conspiracy in the County prosecutors office that is holding up the filing of charges. Loudon writes, “In Pat Reddington’s St. Louis County it appears that “victim” is a status reserved for liberals, and “perpetrator” is a status reserved for conservatives.”

Also on Dec 1: Dana Loesch falsely accused County Counselor Patricia Reddington of “downgrading” the charge without looking at the medical records. Tea Party blogger Jim Durbin did the same. Neither apologized after it was revealed that Reddington had received a copy of the records from the hospital well before the charges were filed.

Dec. 2nd: Big Government adds several more people to their grand conspiracy theory: one of their favorites, Buffy Wicks, who was previously the OFA director in Missouri. Then comes the shocking revelation: “Sara Howard worked with Buffy Wicks on the Obama for America Campaign in Missouri and Sarah Howard worked at SEIU in St Louis. The day before the St. Louis town hall she was hired by Rep. Russ Carnahan.” The author of the post Larry O'Conner then goes after St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch: “I think even the most casual observer can look at this and reach the conclusion that Mr. McCulloch brings with him a certain level of partisan bias when executing his duties as Prosecuting Attorney.”

Dec 23: Kenneth's brother Keith Gladney lost his job. Big Government alleges a massive conspiracy involving the local animal control department and SEIU: “Is it a coincidence that the same Prosecuting Attorney that Keith called out in his statement is also one of the highest ranking officials in the government structure that Keith worked for?”

Jan 12th: On Big Government, St. Charles Tea Partier Bob McCartny claims: “Keith Gladney’s firing appears to be an example of how Democrats, in the words President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff Jim Messina used on the day of the Kenneth Gladney beating, “punch back twice as hard” against those who oppose their socialist ways.”

Also on the 12th, Jim Durbin of 24th State suggested that Dolores Gunn, head of the St. Louis County Department of Health, was involved in this conspiracy and claimed that “ultimate responsibility lies with [St. Louis County Executive] Charlie Dooley." Amazingly, Durbin actually admitted he was wrong later, before moving on to another conspiracy theory.

April 16, Andrew Breitbart of Big Government accused former AFL-CIO President John Sweeny of issuing orders for violence.

So, just to recap, according to the St. Louis Tea Party/Big Government story, this massive government conspiracy created simply to get a few punches in on a random guy selling merchandise at a town hall in St. Louis, Missouri involves:
the president of SEIU, the president of the AFL-CIO, the President of the United States, Congressman Russ Carnahan, Carnahan’s spokesperson Sara Howard, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, former OFA Missouri Coordinator Buffy Wicks, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, Field Director of Health Care for America Now Margarida Jorge, Prosecutor Bob McCullough, St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Reddington, County Executive Charlie Dooley, the NAACP, the ACLU, the head of the St. Louis County Dept. of Health, and even the local animal control department. Now that's quite a conspiracy theory!

NOT GUILTY!!!

Remember when I wrote all of the reasons why the tea party conspiracy theories about "two union thugs assaulting a black man in parking lot" at Carnahan's town hall were probably false? Well, after two years, a jury of twelve peers finally has reached a conclusion confirming what I've been saying. Elston McCowan and Perry Molens have been found NOT GUILTY of misdemeanor assault.

The conspiracy pushed relentlessly for the past two years by Dana Loesch, Jim Hoft, Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the tea party has been shown at long last to be a complete fraud. Two innocent men have been harassed and threatened for two years as a result of a tea party smear campaign with only one objective: to make unions look evil.

Of course, even though they didn't actually watch the trial, they're already declaring that there was some grand conspiracy involved:

What pathetic people.

Update: Thanks for the links from Eric Boehlert at Media Matters, TBogg at Fire Dog Lake, and David Neiwert from Crooks and Liars. By the way, TBogg's tweet:

Beat Me In St. Louis http://t.co/ntJtvLC from @firedoglake Slightly used wheelchair and neck brace for sale. #tcot #burnbabyburn

If I'm missing something, let me know. And don't worry local media (with the notable exception of the RFT), I won't be holding my breath for you to acknowledge that I've been covering this story responsibly and got pretty much everything right from the beginning, while you were busy covering tea party protests at the NAACP and SEIU offices. That would be waaay too much to ask.

Is StarChild111 Actually "Jennifer George"? -Updated X 2

Jennifer Preston at the New York Times wrote a fascinating story on Friday documenting that two high school girls who seemed to be at the heart of one of #weinergate's major sub-plots did not actually exist. The IDs they provided were not real, as Preston confirmed by contacting the state and the school they claimed to attend. At this point it's not at all clear what was going on: they might have been trying to set up Weiner, they might have been trying to set up Breitbart and Dana Loesch (because, as Tommy Christopher knew but did not report, one of them claimed that Loesch and Breitbart were trying to get them to tell a story about their interactions with Weiner), or they might be real but simply disguising their actual identities.

Anyway, yesterday, someone tweeted an interesting
link that showed that one of the girls, @starchild111, who throughout #weinergate was thought to be named "Nikki", originally had the name "Jenay."


This prompted me to reexamine some of the search results for @starchild, and it appears that the account @starchild111 is actually associated with the name "Jennifer George" (click the photo for a larger view):

It's not entirely clear what to make of this information...but it certainly seems like something worth investigating.

Update: I've removed a little bit of information that singles out particular individuals (though I should note that I never provided any information that would allow anyone to be directly contacted) because there are reports of people getting angry calls. Obviously this kind of behavior, like the constant pestering from right-wing bloggers of people associated with the story, is not called for.None of the people who regularly read this blog would engage in such idiotic behavior, but I sure hope whoever is doing it stops. Keep in mind that the name might be fake, and that even if it's real there are lots of people named Jennifer George in the world, so approaching any particular individual in an accusatory manner is obnoxious and unacceptable behavior.

Update #2: Lee Stranahan says he was called by a woman claiming to be Jennifer George, who told him that she owned the account in 2009 but then deleted it, and that someone later started a new account with the same name. So far, it is not entirely clear whether that explanation is even possible. Sounds like Twitter does make accounts available after 30 days of deactivation, so this story is possibly true. But that wouldn't explain why the cache from 1/1/11 used the name "Jenay" rather than "Nikki."