Tea Party's Star Gladney Witness Found Guilty of Fraud, Blames Gay And Pro-Abortion Activists

Remember when tea partiers were completely humiliated during their fabricated story about evil "union thugs" brutally beating a guy selling tea party merchandise?  One of the tea party's alleged "witnesses" of the "brutal beating" was Harris Himes, a Montana pastor oddly attending a St. Louis political event who told conflicting stories about what he saw.  After a jury took less than an hour to reach a not guilty verdict for the "union thugs," Himes sent a letter to Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, one of the primary pushers of the fabricated story, declaring that the trial was a "miscarriage of justice."

So yeah, about that guy:

A Ravalli County jury found Hamilton pastor Harris Himes guilty on three felony counts of securities fraud Friday...

The charges followed a yearlong investigation by the state Office of the Commissioner of Securities and Insurance on accusations that Himes and another pastor, James “Jeb” Bryant, promised a Hamilton man a large return on $150,000 of his inheritance for his investment in the Mexican-based building materials company Duratherm Building Systems.

The man told the jury this week that he was surprised when he traveled to Mexico to find the factory was nothing more than an empty agricultural shed.

Oh, and guess who he previously blamed the charges on:

Himes went on to claim that gay and pro-abortion activists may be behind the charges against him and co-defendant James "Jeb" Bryant, another self-proclaimed pastor.

Himes seems like quite a guy.  He's the perfect spokesperson for Jim Hoft's right-wing victimization fantasies.

Loesch Not Aware that Opinions Are Expressed on Editorial Pages

You just can't get anything past that Dana Loesch. The "media critic" who purportedly runs the site Big Journalism yesterday brilliantly unveiled a New York Times employee expressing his personal opinion!! Here's the tweet in question:



Loesch described this as "Bias in the media" and titled her piece "The Totally Objective New York Times Weighs In On GOP Response." The only problem with her astute observation is that Andrew Rosenthal is not a reporter, but the Editorial Page Editor at the New York Times. You know, the place in the newspaper where opinions are expressed.

I hope nobody tells Loesch that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also has an editorial page or we'll be in for months worth of brilliant media criticism.

h/t to Eric Boehlert and Simon Maloy.

Kudos And Reflections on the Gladney Case

Eric Boehlert had very kind words today in an excellent summary of the Gladney debacle:

An additional media note about the sad Gladney chapter: The two-year tale ended up pitting St. Louis blogger Loesch against an upstart local, a liberal blogger named Adam Shriver who runs a site called St. Louis Activist Hub. By the time the not guilty verdict was read yesterday it had become clear to everyone who followed the story that Shriver had absolutely demolished Loesch and her weak Gladney conspiracies.

Right from the outset, Shriver was among the very first bloggers to dissect the Gladney video and raise all kinds of factualdoubts about the tall tale the Tea Party was telling about the “union thugs.” And it was Shriver who stayed on the case since 2009 and who, I think, was largely responsible for helping to reveal, yet again, the kind of serial fabricator that Dana Loesch is. Andrew Breitbart, too.

So in that sense, the Gladney story helped highlight the stark, well-established contrast between the liberal and conservative blogospheres, and how Loesch and Breitbart effortlessly trafficked in lies, while Shriver stuck to the facts and undertook meticulous reporting.

And in the end, his story prevailed.

I'll add as well that while there was a lot of questioning of the Gladney story on the left, and especially mockery of the fact that Gladney appeared in a wheelchair, Boehlert by far provided the most responsible coverage among national bloggers, digging into the details of the case and asking the right questions, even from the very beginning. He's stayed on this case for two years, and took a lot of abuse for it, so it's definitely as much of a vindication of his careful approach to the story as it is of my local coverage.

The Riverfront Times should also be commended for, as far as I know, being the only established media outlet in St. Louis to investigate this story and ask serious questions about the validity of Gladney's story. It was the Riverfront Times, in fact, that revealed that David Brown, the man who was originally selling the offensive buttons, who just happened to immediately decide to be Gladney's lawyer and spokesperson that night, had allegedly told another employee that Gladney was his "gravy train.' There were some other media outlets that seemed to buy the tea party story so much that they actually contributed to the pressure campaign against St. Louis County to press charges when, in reality, there was no solid evidence. But the tea party was young then, and still had an ounce of credibility for people who didn't bother to dig in to their statements.

The Gladney story was actually my first real blogging. Activist Hub at that time was used primarily for posting weekly event listings, but when I saw the crazy narrative being pushed by the Right about this story I had to write a post questioning that narrative. I was immediately challanged by tea party blogger Jim Durbin, someone who admitted lying on this story but was nevertheless probably the only tea party person who was actually familier with the full body of evidence (Lord knows Dana Loesch didn't have a clue what she was talking about). I then proved, using Durbin's challange, that Gladney's attorney was lying, kicking off a new stream of right-wing vitriol against me. That probably is the real origin of my acrimonious relationship with the St. Louis Tea Party, though I can't imagine us liking each other even if this hadn't happened. Durbin was the source of all kinds of lies about me, including idiotic claims like "I attack people's children" that still continue on in the fantasyland of the right wing to this day. They continue on, I should say, without a shred of supporting evidence or even an explanation of what they're talking about. That's how sad and pathetic this group is: when they're desperate enough, they'll make accusations and personal attacks without even telling you what they're accusing you of.

And ultimately, that's why I agree with Boehlert that this incident was a great illustration of the, "stark, well-established contrast between the liberal and conservative blogospheres." Even to this day, I never once claimed that I knew that McCowan and Molens were innocent, or that Gladney was guilty of starting the fight. Rather, I dug into the evidence, asked questions about how conclusive it was, and challanged people who claimed that they were certain about what happened. In contrast, the tea party from the very beginning of this mess claimed that they knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that Gladney was "assaulted by union thugs," and they were immune to any facts that didn't fit their narrative and immediately personally attacked anyone who even questioned if there really was conclusive evidence. Though I'm happy to rub the right-wingers face in this one, I think the real lesson is that one should keep an open mind to the facts and analytically evaluate the available evidence. That's what jurors are asked to do, and twelve jurors, including two with tea party affiliations, came to the only rational conclusion: there was not any substantial evidence showing how the fight was initiated.

Update A couple other important kudos: Brian Matthews was someone originally accused of "resisting arrest" at this same incident, and has been repeatedly smeared by the tea party ever since. Ironically, a tea party video intended to attack Brian actually proved that the police account was innacurate, and the charges against him were dropped. Since that time (and probably even before), Brian has been tirelessly advocating on behalf of McCowan and Molens.

Furthermore, the defense attorney Paul D'Agrosa was really good. There were a lot of things I would have included in the defense (like video of one of the tea party witnesses having to be held back from an altercation earlier) but D'Agrosa apparently had a strategy of keeping it simple and focusing on the lack of evidence, and it worked.

Dana Loesch Reminds Us That Right-Wing Bloggers Lie Every Day

Check out this tweet from Dana Loesch:


This claim is absolutely, categorically false. Media Matters, to their credit, would not touch this story with a ten-foot pole. Eric Boehlert mentioned it in a post, but the post did not claim that the story was "fake;" rather, it criticized CNN for allowing Breitbart on the network after he has been discredited multiple times. And, for the record, Breitbart did not fail to hit Boehlert's low expectations for him: Breitbart explicitly cited a source that he later admitted was not credible to make the claim that Congressman Weiner "had relationships" with "quite young girls." Relying on unvetted information from completely untrustworthy sources is not the kind of garbage a respectable news organization should entertain.

So yeah, Loesch lied again, or at least did not bother to check her facts. Keep that in mind as she spends the next week lecturing people about how principled Breitbart bloggers are.

This Week In Gateway Pundit

In case anyone was wondering what our local right-wing conspiracy theorist was up to:

• Hoft advanced a proposal to defund the American Lung Association based on a lie that the EPA was "paying them to attack Republicans."
• As Eric Boehlert of Media Matters humorously pointed out, Hoft's Obama Derangement Syndrome is so powerful that he can't even get President Obama's NCAA brackets right. Hoft claimed that "the Obama Curse" was in effect because Duke lost after Obama "picked them to go all the way", but Obama actually picked Kansas to win the tournament.
• More disturbingly, though, is that Hoft continued his implicit support for two completely absurd right-wing conspiracy theories. First he blogged about some nut advancing the "Obama is a secret Muslim" theory that is pretty obviously rooted in bigotry. Then he blogged approvingly about Donald Trump's support of birtherism, saying that Trump was a "leader" and "wasn't backing down."
• Oh, and Hoft also got really upset that the federal government was going to run a disaster training where they simulated dealing with armed white supremacists on a shooting rampage. By the way, the event was cancelled because someone threatened to actually carry out the shooting.

Back when the GOP had some dignity, Hoft would have been laughed or shamed out of the party.

Looks Like Dana Loesch And Jim Hoft Owe Eric Boehlert An Apology

Dana Loesch and Jim Gateway Pundit Hoft both got the vapors in recent days claiming that Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert was "laughing at a Fox News reporter getting assaulted." First of all, they both took Boehlert's quotes out of context, since he actually made clear both in the interview they cite and online that it's not OK to hit reporters:

no one should be hitting any reporters or anything like that.

What Boehlert was laughing at was the fact that Fox was acting surprised that pro-union protesters might not like Fox after weeks (or arguably years) of dishonest anti-union reporting.

But second, and far more hilariously, is that a new video appears to show that the Fox News reporter Mike Tobin was lying when he claimed he was punched in the arm by protesters. He actually got the "shoulder tap of death" after he pushed a protester's hand away:


So I guess we can expect Loesch and Hoft to admit they were wrong and apologize to Boehlert any time now, just as any rational person would....

Loesch Contradicts Herself in Six Minutes

Of course, this is nothing compared to the average 4.7 contradictions per minute of her radio show, but it's still a pretty funny example. Loesch, as always, is angry at Media Matters for America Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert, presumably because he retweeted this post about Loesch's failure to do basic research. So first she accuses him of "using a mother for politics:"

It's not at all clear why Loesch claims Boehlert is using Kelley Williams-Bolar for politics: I don't think he's even written about the subject and certainly hasn't made any statements like, "it's Glenn Beck's politics that are responsible for her situation." But the really funny part is Loesch's very next tweet:

Yup, it's Eric Boehlert's political views (or rather, what Dana Loesch imagines are Boehlert's political views) that are entirely responsible for Kelley Williams-Bolar being convicted for allegedly lying to get her children into a better school district (I write "allegedly" because the case is complicated, and I agree with most others that her punishment was way too harsh for the suspected crime). Given that Boehlert's particular political views have absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of this case, and considering that solutions to education problems in general and the Williams-Bolar case in particular are complicated, there could not be a more textbook example of "using someone for politics" than Loesch's statement.

John Burns: Not Giving Bristol Palin $20,000 is Exactly Like Segregation

The tea party narrative of victimization is reaching new, unprecedented heights. If you recall, John Burns of American Majority and the St. Louis Tea Party tried to disrupt the free speech of LGBT activists, was involved in James O'Keefe's plot to sexually humiliate a CNN reporter on secret camera, and led a campaign against public transportation based on incessant lies that ended with a ridiculous publicity stunt where they claimed that the Mayor of Chesterfield was "harassing" them.

Burns also has a bizarre obsession with Washington University. He, along with James O'Keefe and Joseph Basel, secretly videotaped Washington University employees and then selectively edited the tapes to try (and fail) to convince people that the campus has an agenda against conservatives. He then accused the university of "malicious, retaliatory action" when the university asked his group to pay for the cleanup of hammer and sickle graffiti they sprayed around the campus as part of their gulag display. In paranoid rantings, he claimed that college administrators have "Stockholm syndrome" and that conservatives on campus have to be prepared for the university to come after them with "guns and night sticks and handcuffs..authorized to do violence against you." Considering his obsession with the belief that conservative free speech is somehow being oppressed it's also quite ironic that he has stated that one of the goals of the tea party is to purge all liberals from academia.

Anyway, since Dana Loesch has been made editor of Big Journalism, she uses the site as an opportunity to dole out Andrew Breitbart's money to her friends, no matter how disreputable those friends are. Enter John Burns. Burns, in an absurd rant, claimed that the decision by students at Washington University to not pay Bristol Palin $19,000 is exactly like the violent repression against African Americans that took place during the civil rights movement. Interspersing his Big Journalism post with photos from the civil rights movement, here's what Burns had to say:

So the message is, “Don’t bother coming, Bristol, or we’ll shout you down and riot because WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE!” This seems eerily similar to Southern intimidation and oppression of blacks during attempts to desegregate. It’s reminiscent of a scene from Forrest Gump, where a young black girl is harassed by a young white student and knocks her books out of her hands.

He continues:

Let’s not kid ourselves, here. what has transpired at Wash U is nothing short of bigotry and hate. These students weren’t protesting Bristol because she’s some evil mass murderer. No, they’re protesting her because they hate her. Yes. Hate. They hate everything Bristol represents, and they hate the fact that proponents of abstinence and others that share Bristol’s family-oriented culture suddenly have a beautiful, popular advocate – who can dance! They hate the fact that she makes being a goody goody look attractive and desirable.

It's pretty amazing how idiotic Burns' assessment is, though it is entirely in keeping with his paranoid hatred of academia. The issue with Bristol was, from the beginning, the belief on the part of the students that (1) there was nothing to indicate that she was qualified to speak on the subject of abstinence to a college audience and (2) she certainly wasn't worth the $15,000+ that she was going to be paid. I can say unequivocally that students, and particularly liberal students, disliked Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales far more than they disliked Bristol Palin. In fact, I doubt most students actually dislike her. But there's a reason that Bristol was disinvited and Rove and Gonzales weren't: and that is that it's obvious to any clear-thinking person that she's not qualified to speak to a college audience about this issue. In fact, I've heard from multiple students that the College Republicans were opposed to paying Bristol Palin that much money to speak.

Burns also, as I predicted yesterday on Twitter, broke out the absurd conservative talking point: ZOMG, it was originally reported that Bristol would get $20,000 but it's actually less money!!!!! Actually, it sounds like it was $19,000, since the cost of the other panelists is less than $1,000. From the student newspaper:

On Tuesday evening, Treasury voted to approve SHAC’s $20,000 appeal to bring in Palin and the three other members of the panel.

According to SU VP of Finance Eliot Walker, SHAC will now have to return the $20,000 and resubmit an appeal to fund the new panel. If the group’s new appeal is less than $1000, as Walker said is expected, SHAC can take its request straight to Walker for approval, as opposed to going through another round of a Treasury vote.

So yeah. Only $19,000 from Bristol as opposed to $20,000, while the other three speakers cost a maximum of $1,000 combined. Great argument there.

Burns also falsely reported that Van Jones was paid $20,000. First of all, Van Jones is actually an expert in his field and is an amazing speaker. But second, Burns is completely wrong as usual. Jones's usual speaking fee is $20,000, but the Student Union Treasury only allocated $5,000 for his talk at Wash U, and refused to allocate an additional $2,500:

“The speech was only $5,000 because we were able to call in a personal favor.”

The tea party might be finding ways to propel their absurdist rhetoric to new heights, but it's comforting to see that their lack of commitment to facts remains the same.

h/t Eric Boehlert

It's Working! Right Wing Playing Defense On Loesch's Anderson Cooper Appearances

Yesterday, I wrote a post suggesting that if Anderson Cooper 360 was going to have Dana Loesch on the show to complain about how unfair it is that anyone would suggest there's something wrong with the tea party's extremist rhetoric, she should also be asked to explain the time that she said "I love the way a fire smells when it's burning tyranny" while her fellow tea partiers torched a photograph of Congressman Russ Carnahan (this was the day before they carried a coffin to his home). In that post, I suggested that people contact the AC360 show to share their concerns. That post was retweeted by at least 22 people on Twitter, and shared by 28 people people on facebook.

Apparently, this is getting the right wing agitated. Today, Meredith Dake, the executive producer of the Stage Right Show (and hence, intimately connected to the Andrew Breitbart Empire of Dirt), called on conservatives to contact AC360 and tell them how much the love Dana Loesch:

As an explanation, Dake said they needed to push back against "Eric Boehlert and the bigoted Left."

Boehlert is a frequent critic of Loesch and other Breitbart sock-puppets, and he had retweeted a call from @newsjunkie365 for people to contact the show with concerns:


Obviously, it's a free country and Cooper's show can have anyone they want on as guests. However, if they are going to boycottshun and shame Breitbart for his disgusting behavior, why would they reward Breitbart's second-in-command toady who engages in all of the same types of unethical activities? If they are going to have Loesch on to talk about extremist rhetoric, why wouldn't they ask her about her own? If they're going to interview her about Shirley Sherrod, shouldn't they at least do the basic research to know that she was one of the primary people attacking Sherrod and carrying Breitbart's water? If they are going to let her pretend to be an expert in journalism, shouldn't they know about the fact that she spread lies about the shooting based only on an anonymous comment on fringe blog Red State?

If you think so, then contact the AC360 show and ask them to start doing a little more research about their guests' backgrounds, and particularly Loesch's background. And no, getting a "career highlights" sheet from their publicist doesn't count.