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.

Today In Unsurprising News: Big Government Editor Mike Flynn Is Dishonest

I've already written about how CNN contributor and Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch led the despicable smear campaign against two University of Missouri system instructors, using doctored video to rile up her rabid fans while claiming that she's seen the full tapes. But Loesch is not the only Breibart editor caught being blatantly dishonest in this. When the first edited clips came out, I demanded that they release the full videos and in particular questioned the clip that claimed that Judy Ancel had said "Violence is a tactic, and it's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic."

This is what Big Government editor Mike Flynn said in response:

So Flynn was arguing that, for the life of him, he just couldn't think of any possible scenarios where the quote would have been taken out of context. Of course, the actual quote did have a completely different meaning from the garbage originally presented on Big Government and on Loesch's radio show, since Ancel was actually quoting a character in a movie:

...he represented the kind of thinking that went into the Student Underground Coordinating Committee and then later, probably-- Well, coinciding with the Black Panthers, I'd say. You know, he said "Violence is a tactic, and it's to be used when it's appropriate -- the appropriate tactic."

Whether they-- They never come back to him to ask him what he thought of the window smashing in that march. Or whether or not that was done by them, or others, or provocateurs. We don't know that.

So maybe Flynn really didn't have a clue what the actual quote was?
Except, for the tiny problem of this other tweet from him:

So Flynn had the full 30 hours of video, yet was pretending that there was no possible way that Ancel's quote could have been edited out of context. Pretty clear-cut case of dishonesty.

Dana Loesch Led Despicable Smear Campaign Against University of Missouri System

The past two weeks, Dana Loesch has led a smear campaign against two course instructors at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) based on shamelessly chopped-up video designed to create a false narrative. Two days ago, UMSL called the videos "distorted" and "definitely taken out of context" in a written statement and even right-leaning local CBS station KMOX finally reported on the misleading editing job. The fact that Loesch is being dishonest should not be news to any readers of this blog, but this case is substantially different from the norm for a couple of reasons. First, it's different because the instructors targeted by the smear campaign have already received numerous threats based on the right-wing's deceptive attacks. And second, in this case, Loesch has unquestionably been the leader in pushing out the manufactured lies recently debunked by Media Matters and Crooks and Liars. Her role in this story is similar to the role Andrew Breitbart played in the Shirley Sherrod story.

On Monday of last week, the day the story broke, Loesch repeatedly advertised having "exclusive audio" on the smear campaign on her radio show:
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Here's Loesch on her Monday radio show playing her"exclusive" audio that suggests that a UMKC professor said, "Violence is a tactic. It's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic," and implies that an instructor at UMSL endorses the use of industrial sabotage:


This, as shown in unedited versions of the tape, is completely false. Ancel was actually quoting a character from a movie shown in class, At the River I Stand, which emphasizes the success of nonviolent tactics:


And in the full video (which Loesch' friends chopped in the middle and at the end) Giljim explicitly stated that violent tactics do more harm than good:


At no point in the show did Loesch explain the full context of the professors' remarks.. Loesch repeated the claim later in the show, again calling it "exclusive" content, and characterizing the professors' attitudes as, "oh well, violence is all right. Ho hum. It's what we have to do."


Here's Loesch misleadingly quoting Ancel and saying that this is in the context of "spreading communism via unionization:"


In this video, she suggests the class is advocating for "violent means...for an end that we want."


There's a lot more, but you get the idea. Loesch was shamefully pushing completely dishonest interpretations of the videos and using them to rile up her listeners. While calling for the teachers to be fired, she compared the class to the shooting at Virginia Tech and called it "institutionalized violence:"


Then Loesch told her listeners to harass Ancel via email over the dishonest quotes:

As I mentioned earlier, both Judy Ancel and Don Giljim have been the subject of numerous threats since Loesch and Breitbart started pushing the distorted videos.

Just think about that. Loesch and Breitbart create completely distorted smear videos, then direct their followers to contact them, resulting in the instructors getting threats. I mean, it's bad enough for them to send their hordes after people when they're using their standard misinformation, but in this case they actually manufactured the story themselves, riled people up, and then directed those people to send angry messages to the instructors based on false information. What could possibly justify such despicable behavior?

One thing that wouldn't really justify the behavior, but might at least lessen it's level of despicableness, would be if Loesch really had no clue that the videos were distorted. However, she repeatedly has claimed that she knows about the content of the full videos.

Here's Loesch claiming that she "can't wait" to release the full videos:


She also has stated that she's seen the full 30 hours of footage multiple times:




And she repeatedly bragged about having "exclusive" content:


So let's put in context what Loesch is saying. She is admitting she had access to the full videos. Yet she is amazingly pretending that they were not edited out of context. In order for her to be telling the truth, she would have to literally believe that the quote, "Violence is a tactic. And it's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic." is identical to this quote:

...he represented the kind of thinking that went into the Student Underground Coordinating Committee and then later, probably-- Well, coinciding with the Black Panthers, I'd say. You know, he said "Violence is a tactic, and it's to be used when it's appropriate -- the appropriate tactic."

Whether they-- They never come back to him to ask him what he thought of the window smashing in that march. Or whether or not that was done by them, or others, or provocateurs. We don't know that.

No one, not even Dana Loesch, could believe those quotes are equivalent. Thus, she deliberately distorted information, pushed it out, and used lies to get her followers to send angry (and possibly threatening) messages to the university instructors she smeared. And yet CNN seems to think it can still have a shred of credibility with her as a contributor. Truly mind-boggling.

Activist Hub Radio 5/8/11

This week Adam and I discuss the bin Laden death and the Afghanistan War and critique the media's coverage of the Don Giljum Judy Ancel Labor studies course controversy. We then talk about the media generally and Adam's excellent post. There are two segments.

Segment on the media


Afghanistan War & Bin Laden


Also we are on itunes so please subscribe to Activist Hub Radio on Itunes.

Loesch and Breitbart Use Student As Human Shield

Yesterday, after UMSL declared that the highly edited videos Dana Loesch and Andrew Breitbart were pushing were "distorted" and "definitely taken out of context" and the St. Louis media finally started covering the blatant dishonesty, the Breitbartians new spin was to link to a long post on Big Government from the student who had originally leaked the video arguing that the class was biased. I'm sure the student posted of his own accord, and probably though he had good reasons for doing so, but it seems pretty obvious to me that he is being used by people who are trying to deflect blame and cover their own dishonesty.

Basically, the student is severely damaging his own credibility for the sake of minimal gain for anyone other than Loesch and Breitbart. First, video was leaked of his fellow students without their permission, and so openly declaring that he leaked the video with the flimsy excuse that he distributed them "in their entirety to a number of my friends in order to obtain other opinions on the propriety of what occurred in the class" does not present him in a very good light. The student also remained silent for two weeks while clearly dishonestly edited videos were being publicized and pushed around the internet by people he shared the video with, so his coming out with a statement now is not very credible. And his statements don't really add much new information; we already heard the inflammatory selectively edited quotes, and we already saw that they're willing to pick and choose information to push their agenda, so why would the media now want to believe a written account after just being burned by bogus videos? So the student's testimony is extremely unlikely to influence anyone in the media or the broader public other than the fringers at the Breitbart's sites, and the "Right" does not gain anything from his account. In fact, the only people who gain anything are Loesch, Breitbart, and the cronies who (badly) edited the videos: a group that is now fighting for nothing other than "plausible deniability."

On the other hand, the student loses quite a bit by "outing himself" and implicitly condoning the videos. Even though he didn't do the malicious editing himself, and though he clearly wants to look like he's presenting a more balanced view, he is now, for the rest of his life, inextricably linked to the dishonest editing tactics of a few of Breitbart's hacks. They get to use the cover that they were just presenting the information that the student was suggesting, while he is linked to videos that were dishonestly edited by someone else. It really was a pretty unfortunate decision by the student, unless he is planning on working only for people in the future who care nothing about credibility.

The student claims that the class was "biased." Though certain neoMcCarthyists will inevitably agree based solely on the fact that a communist organizer was allowed to present in the class, most people will find the claim to be pretty subjective and will not have the desire to sit through 18 hours of video footage (even if it was available) to see if the class really was "unfair." From what I've seen and heard (including interviewing two students from the class), I don't think the class content was inappropriate. But even if it was, this would in no way justify doctoring videos to falsely claim that professors were "advocating violence" or "teaching industrial sabotage." I can't plant heroin on Andrew Breitbart, call the police, then wait until I get caught to say, "oh well, he doesn't really sell heroin, but I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that he has bad personal hygiene." Lying is lying, distorted video is distorted video, and the student has made a bad mistake of allowing himself to be a fall guy for Loesch and Breitbart, who should really bear the responsibility of pushing fundamentally dishonest information.

Update: KMOX Gets It Right This Time Around

With the new UMSL statement, KMOX set the record straight:

The University has released a statement concluding that the original videos showcased by the website BigGovernment.com “were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing.”

In one instance, the edited video omitted a comment by instructor Don Giljum saying that intimidation tactics would not work in this day and age. In another clip, the BigGovernment video cut out a portion of a statement by a Kansas City instructor in which she attributed a statement condoning labor violence to a historical labor figure — making it sound as if she was condoning violence.

Though I have a strong feeling that the political inclinations of many of the people who work at KMOX are quite far away from mine, I think the fact they were finally able to set the record straight speaks highly of their commitment to being a hard news organization.

New Statement from UMSL on Breitbart/Loesch Smears

Sounds like UMSL made the right decision:

Dear Colleagues,

We have finally completed viewing the videos originating at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) from the UMSL course Introduction to Labor Studies. The excerpts that were made public showing the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) instructor Don Giljum and students as well as the UMKC instructor and students were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.

As stated previously, our campus supports academic freedom, civility, diversity, open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. We support the academic freedom of faculty, staff and students at UMSL. Contrary to some reports, Don Giljum has not been fired from the campus faculty, and in fact, is completing the course; he remains eligible to teach at UMSL. We sincerely regret the distress to him and others that has been caused by the unauthorized copying, editing and distribution of the course videos.

During the past two weeks, we have received communications over a wide spectrum of viewpoints, and we appreciate people letting us know what they think. We have learned more about video and Internet technologies that can be beneficial or detrimental to positive, civil discourse, and security issues related to the use of such media. We shall explore ways to improve security in the use of electronic media for instruction, research and other activities.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Sincerely,
Tom George
Chancellor
Professor of Chemistry and Physics

Glen Cope
Provost
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Administration

Reminder: you can see just how dishonest the Loesch/Breitbart videos are here and here.

KMOX Allows False Information to Fester On Website for Over a Week

I had a nice conversation with KMOX reporter Kevin Killeen earlier this week. Unfortunately, it followed the same pattern I've experienced many other times with the CBS affiliate that hosts Rush Limbaugh in St. Louis: they're very nice and polite, they say I raise good points, and yet they fail to fix the problem.

KMOX was one of the first St. Louis media outlets to pick up the Breitbart smear story, and they reported it without noting Breitbart's extensive history of dishonesty. In the article, Killeen wrote that "Giljum appears to tell students that being a labor activist is not always calm discussion," (with an accompanying quote that's been edited to change the meaning) and that "Ancel appears to be telling students that violence is a legitimate tool of organized labor." Both of these claims and their corresponding video clips have been shown to be unambiguously false.

Keep in mind the serious consequences of this kind of dishonest attack: both Ancel and Giljim have received numerous threats based on the distorted videos. So by unquestioningly passing on videos from a source that has been shown to be dishonest on numerous occasions, KMOX is facilitating threats and intimidation against two innocent people.

On Friday of last week, I emailed links to Killeen with video that showed, conclusively, that the Breitbart sites had taken the video out-of-context. He responded by thanking me for the links, and telling me that he'd follow up on Monday of the next week with UM officials because he "already had a full assignment sheet." I didn't understand why he would need a quote from the University of Missouri just to point out that the original video was distorted and his reporting about it was wrong, and I also didn't understand why a news organization would decide to wait three days to correct a falsehood, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

The next week rolled around and Killeen still did not write any correction. So I sent the following message to Killeen:

Last week, you published a story based on videos from professional con man Andrew Breitbart. The links I sent you included clear video evidence that Breitbart's videos were edited completely out-of-context to put words into the instructors mouths. For example, you wrote that it "appeared" that Ancel was saying violence is an appropriate tactic, when in fact she was quoting a character from a movie to promote class discussion. I'mhttphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif curious how long you want misinformation to sit on the KMOX web site without being corrected.

I received no response from Killeen and in fact he wrote a new story that doubled down on the original dishonesty. His new story focused on the fact that UMSL claims Giljim resigned voluntarily, and Giljim said he was pressured, but it made no mention of the fact that the full videos show that the quotes were distorted. In fact, it doubled down on the original dishonesty by linking to a sound clip from Dana Loesch (BTW, a competitor to KMOX's Mark Reardon) that repeated the exact same falsehoods.

At this point, I called Killeen and asked him why he was not fixing this false information. He responded that he thought that the editor had added the links I sent him (Media Matters and Crooks and Liars), and that he would try to get them to change the story. I just checked back today and, unfortunately, the only "change" they made was to add the Media Matters and Crooks and Liars links to the "related content" section at the end.

Needless to say, these changes are virtually meaningless. As a radio station, the main audience is the people who hear the original report on the radio, who have been provided with no reason to question the original, false story. Out of the significantly smaller audience who read the stories online, very few are likely to come back to the site several days later to check to see if there are any updates. And of that small group, how many are going to notice a change in the "related content" that doesn't appear in the main story?

KMOX put out factually incorrect information. They were notified of this fact over a week ago, and still have not updated their original story nor issued a correction. They wrote a story based on Breitbart's smear video, yet have refused to write a story based on video that proves it to be false. And, in fact, they have not even adjusted the content of their claims in the new stories they've written since the longer videos came out.

I personally am not sure how KMOX expects people to regard them as a purveyor of trustworthy information when they so flippantly disregard information that shows their reporting to have been mistaken. It's one thing for a news service to make a mistake; it's quite another for them to hide this mistake even after it's been revealed. The later amounts to intentionally misleading their audience. Hopefully, they will move quickly to fix this mistake.

Update: They set the record straight with a new story.

Post-Dispatch Transcribes Breitbart Smear While Videos Prove Exact Opposite

Sadly, Tim Barker at the Post-Dispatch dutifully transcribed a smear job from professional con man Andrew Breitbart today by linking to Big Government and failing to point out that the videos were edited to create completely false narratives:

He has been under fire along with a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City for their teaching of a shared class dealing with labor unions, politics and society. The issue popped up after the biggovernment.com website published a pair of videos edited from some 30 hours or classroom lectures.

Unbelievably, despite the fact that I sent Barker links to videos that prove that Big Government was lying as early as Monday, Barker does not say a word about the blatantly dishonest edits from Big Government. For example, Big Government (and Dana Loesch) repeatedly claimed that Judy Ancel told the class "Violence is a tactic. It's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic," while the full videos clearly showed that she was quoting a person from the movie At the River I Stand to promote class discussion. Her full quote:

ANCEL: The one guy in the film, one of the guys who had been one of the young, um, SNCC types, said

[crosstalk]

-- he represented the kind of thinking that went into this student on the coordinating committee and then later probably -- well, coinciding with the Black Panthers. You know, he said violence is a tactic and it's to be used when it's appropriate, when it's an appropriate tactic. Whether -- they never come back to him to ask him what he thought of the window-smashing in that march or whether or not that was done by them or others or provocateurs. We don't know that.

Why do so many modern day reporters find it so difficult to simply point out the truth?

Exclusive Interview: Breitbart's Provocateurs Trespass at UMSL To Harass and Intimidate Students(AUDIO)

Early last week, Dana Loesch and Andrew Breitbart's websites started pushing a story claiming that professors at UMKC and UMSL were encouraging their students to use violence and industrial sabotage to further political ends. The videos immediately looked sketchy, with strangely edited clips cobbled together. Though the bureaucracies of the universities and the unions slowed down a response to the attacks from well-known con artist Andrew Breitbart, UMKC professor Judy Ancel released a statement documenting that the videos were maliciously edited to put words into the mouths of the professors. On Friday, Crooks and Liars and Media Matters both released video that clearly demonstrated that the story being pushed by Loesch and Breitbart was completely fabricated via creative chop-shop editing.

In order to distract people from the fact that they were busted lying, St. Louis tea party provocateur Adam Sharp, who's blogged on Breitbart's sites before, apparently trespassed on the UMSL campus on Saturday to harass students and instructor Don Giljim. Sharp attempted to film students in their classroom, pestered them as they walked out of class with questions like "do you condone violence," and was arrested and charged with trespassing. Don Gilgim was also taken to the police station because there was an altercation, and as students waited outside of the police station, another tea partier approached them and began taunting them and daring them to "take a swing" at him. This is after a week where the tea party violated students' privacy by putting videos on YouTube showing comments made for the purpose of classroom discussion.

Needless to say, the students felt victimized by this assault on their ability to learn in a safe environment without being harassed by extremists. We were able to get two exclusive interviews with students from the UMSL class who witnessed Adam Sharp's attempts to barge into their classroom. I think both of them do an excellent job laying out just how disturbing it is that the tea party is now trying to harass students and professors on college campuses and interfere with people's ability to learn and speak freely. Though the students chose to remain anonymous for this interview, one (Kevin) will be available for media requests, as well as other students from that class. The first student we interviewed is studying for finals and trying to recover from the major disruption in her life caused by the tea party invasion of her classroom, and she prefers to remain off-the-radar for the next several days.

Please check out these interviews which (1) further debunk the lie that the course taught students to use violence as a tactic or engage in industrial sabotage, (2) detail Sharp's incredibly creepy behavior of trespassing and trying to barge into a college classroom, and (3) document the tea party blatantly trying to provoke attacks from college students who were just trying to learn:

First Interview


Second Interview (Kevin)


I should note that I heard that instructor Don Giljim was charged with damaging Sharp's camera. I certainly do not condone violence, even against people who are doing everything in their power to provoke it. Sharp invaded the sanctity of their classroom in order to create a story that distracts from the fact that Breitbart and Loesch were caught lying, and he just might be successful.

This Is How Their Game Works

In response to revelations that they shamelessly edited both Judy Ancel and Don Giljim's posts to make it appear that they were saying things they did not say, Breitbart hacks are demanding that people respond to their latest nonsense. Their claim is that because Ancel misquoted a guy in the film, that somehow justifies them taking a claim that she was attributing to others for the sake of class discussion and pretending she was endorsing it herself. The argument is stupid beyond words. But that's not the point. The point is that they doing what they always do, using completely nonsensically idiotic distortions of language and logic to try to take up the time of anyone who argues with them. No matter how idiotically stupid their claims are, they will demand, "why don't you respond to this! This proves we're right!" Not because they actually believe it, but because they think it makes them look better.

So, sadly succumbing to their latest mind-numbingly stupid claims, here are a few obvious points:

If they really believed the full quote was an endorsement of violence, then they could have included it in the original video. However, they waited four days and waited until they were called out before manufacturing their ridiculous excuse.

Attributing a quote to another person is not the same thing as endorsing that quote. If I say, Dana Loesch says "Breitbart walks on water," I am obviously not saying that I believe Breitbart walks on water. And let's say Dana Loesch actually said, "Breitbart walks on orange juice," but I accidentally misquoted her. It's still quite obvious that I'm not claiming I believe Breitbart walks on water. This is clear to any person who learned the meaning of the term "says" back in Kindergarten

They still have provided no explanation whatsoever for why they took words out of the middle of Don Giljim's quote in order to distort the meaning to the exact opposite of what he said. Or why they ignored Giljim saying elsewhere that he rejects the tactics.

But honestly, my saying this won't change anything, because all they'll do is try to find some other absurd abuse of the English language to claim that maliciously editing video isn't really the same thing as being dishonest.

Big Gov. "Inadvertantly" Forgets They Cut Out The Middle of Giljim's Quote

Big Government has issued the first correction of their smear campaign against Judy Ancel and Don Giljim. As I just pointed out, they falsely pretended to only have edited the beginning and end of Giljim's quote, when in fact they had cut out a section of the middle that changed the entire meaning of his quote. Now they've issued a correction saying that they "inadvertently" forgot that they had cut out the middle of Giljim's quote.


Nice try. Lots more exposure of their "inadvertent" BS to come.

Big Government Lies About Edits

Trying to dispute criticism of their likely slanderous editing of quotes from Judy Ancel and Don Giljim, hacks at Breitbart's Big Government have put up a post claiming they didn't misleadingly edit a couple of the videos (note: there's actually quite a few more misleading edits than the ones they're responding to).

They attributed, on multiple ocassions, the quote "Violence is a tactic. It should be used when it's the appropriate tactic," to Judy Ancel. In fact, she was quoting someone else for the sake of a discussion in the class. Their defense is that she got the quote wrong from the original movie. That means absolutley nothing. They were attributing a claim to her that she did not make by chopping up the sentence. It was a false representation of her views.

Then, in defending their shameful editing of Don Giljum's quote to say the exact opposite of what it really said, here was their excuse:

They can't even get their pathetic excuse right. They claim in the post that they only leftout the first and last parts of the quote. In fact, they chopped the sentence into parts and left out exculpatory portion in the middle of the Giljim's discussion! This is what they left out in the middle of Giljim's quote (with excluded parts in bold):

...we’ve had a very violent history, with violent protest and reaction to suppression, OK? But as time has changed, the tactics have changed, or the need for those have changed, OK? Now, you know...

They literally chopped his sentence into pieces to distort the message.

And they're idiotically still trying to defend themselves.