Loesch Troll Chip Gerdes Moves From "Homophobic Jerk" to "Obsessively Creepy"

A couple months ago, I wrote about how the Loeschs' friend and collaborator Chip Gerdes, a Republican operative from Quincy, Illinois, was leading a charge of vulgar homophobic slurs being thrown in my direction. If someone says something vulgar like "Adam loves d**k" one time, I would consider them to be a jerk.  If they say it a couple times, I'd start to think they're kinda strange.  But when Gerdes keeps saying the same homophobic comments over-and-over for the past several months, I think it starts to move into the category of "seriously disturbed," especially when Gerdes has previously threatened to slash my tires.

Here's just a small sample of the bizarre sexual comments from Gerdes.  Keep in mind this isn't some random guy on the internet: this is a Republican operative who works with the Loeschs, with Gateway Pundit, and worked as recently as a few months ago as an assistant to Jack Roeser, the president of the Family Taxpayer's Association. For point of reference, my name is Adam and they refer to me as "ponytail."

Reminder that blocks of tweets read from bottom to top:

Keep in mind the "ponytail" meme comes from Loesch::

Not only is Gerdes homophobic and obsessive, he's also a misogynist. When my friend Sarah called him out on his comments, he responded by idiotically attacking her looks.

As for the Loeschs, they continue to direct people to creeps like Gerdes and Brooks Bayne and will absolutely never, ever criticize anything from the Right unless it interferes with their career plans.  

Even conservatives have contacted me to let me know how disgusting Gerdes behavior is, which I am grateful for. I know memory is often idealized, but I continue to believe that there was a time when people who behaved so disgustingly would be shunned from political discourse or at least asked to modify their behavior.  Yet the amoral thugs driving the right-wing blogosphere celebrate indecency, immorality, and hatred.  If they ever have any influence on the operation of the government, anyone who disagrees with them should be very afraid, since they have literally no moral standards when it comes the people they disagree with politically. 

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.

Guy Who Tried To Smear Missouri Professors Now Leading Joe The Plumber's Congressional Campaign

For those of you who don't remember, here's a brief review of Breitbart and Loesch's attempts to smear professors at UMSL and UMKC:

• A college senior who had worked with James O'Keefe before, Phil Christofanelli, anonymously downloaded and shared every hour of footage from a class on Labor Studies he was taking through the University of Missouri system, possibly illegally. The footage was presented in a way to claim that UMSL and UMKC professors were "advocating violence."
  
• Christofanelli refuses, to this day, to say who he shared the video with.
• He later claimed that whomever he shared it with then passed it on to another group that edited the video and then posted it on Andrew Breitbart's sites and Dana Loesch's radio program, leading to conservatives calling for the professors to be fired.
• Despite claims from the professors that the videos were taken so badly out-of-context as to present false information, Christofanelli (at that time still anonymous) refused to step forward and say anything about the dishonest information.
• More than a week after the original smear, longer video clips came out that proved, without a doubt, that the original clips were dishonestly edited.
• And then, finally, Christofanelli admitted that he was the person behind leaking the videos that led to Breitbart's dishonest posts, yet claimed that somehow they weren't false because he felt in his gut that the teachers really were secretly advocating for violence.

And now, as revealed by Big Government, it turns out that Christofanelli is working as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Joe the Plumber, running for office in Ohio's 9th District. I guess we can count on that being an amazingly honest contest, huh?

Unprofessional: CNN's Dana Loesch Leaves CPAC To Yell At Occupy Protesters

Earlier this week, CNN suspended Roland Martin, telling Politico's Dylan Byers in a statement:

"CNN executives want to raise the bar on the level of professionalism off air by contributors in general, and that too is under discussion," the executive wrote.

So here's a question. How "professional" is it for a CNN "political analyst" to chase down a crowd of Occupy D.C. protesters, yell at them about rape, and accuse them of shooting at the White House? Because that's what Dana Loesch and her husband, Chris (also a former member of the St. Louis Tea Party), did earlier today. Here's a screen shot of the two of them:

And here's the video from Timcast, where you can hear Dana Loesch yell, among other things, "What about the people who shot at the White House from your camp? What about the people who threw smoke bombs from your camp?"


Update: Some of the people paid by Breitbart to be devoted fans are claiming that Loesch was "held hostage" by Occupiers. This is clearly false. There are hours of video footage showing CPACers engaging in civil conversations with the Occupiers and moving freely in and out of the hotel. Only people like Loesch and Breitbart, who were obviously looking for confrontations, engaged in useless shouting matches. Furthermore, the police had asked CPACers to back away from Occupiers earlier in the evening.

Who Could Have Predicted? Loesch Pushes Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theories on ABC's This Week

Dana Loesch was on ABC's "This Week" today as part of a roundtable, and Media Matters caught her pushing a silly tinfoil hat conspiracy theory/prank debunked a long time ago:


In fairness to ABC News, how could they have known that Loesch would be pushing completely dishonest nonsense about Planned Parenthood? It's not like she did it earlier in the week. Oh wait, she did do it earlier in the week?


In that case, I guess ABC really embarrassed themselves.

Dana Loesch Punks CNN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

(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.

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

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."

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

RT News Slams CNN Over Loesch Fiasco

"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)

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?

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

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?

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

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.

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!

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.