Thanks to the Riverfront Times!

I found out earlier today that this blog was named a finalist for Best Political Blog in St. Louis. I'm proud to be in the company of Occasional Planet, PoliticMo, the Beacon Backroom, and even the St. Louis Tea Party blog. Thanks to whoever nominated this blog, to the other writers, and to the RFT for putting it on. Some of my favorite local blogs are also listed under "Best Neighborhood Blog" and "Best Architecture Blog," so I hope you check them all out.

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.

Suprise! Another Member of Tea Party Splinter Group Actually Working for the Establishment...Against the Tea Party

As was previously noted, the St. Louis Tea Party split because of infighting between supporters of tea party candidate Ed Martin and those of establishment candidate Ann Wagner in the GOP primary for Missouri's Second District. Unsurprisingly, Adam Sharp of Sharp Elbows is in the "completely without actual principles" camp and sided with the new splinter group GIGLI. But what I didn't realize is that Sharp was already working on behalf of the establishment even before this whole kerfuffle started.

I've previously noted that there's a strong tea party challenger to GOP establishment Senator Dick Lugar. Lugar has repeatedly insulted the tea party during his campaign. Ann Wagner, unsurprisingly, is supporting Lugar and even hosted a fundraiser for him. And, coincidence of coincidences, it just so happens that Adam Sharp was sent to do a hit piece on Lugar's tea party challenger Richard Mourdock.

The video is the usual whining and declarations of being the world's biggest victim from Sharp, but what's hilarious is that he's using these tactics to attack fellow tea partiers. He goes to the event in a different state specifically for the purpose of harassing the candidate, interrupts their program, and then acts offended when people don't want to talk to him. It's great comedy.

Here's the video:


Sharp, by the way, is close friends with Chip Gerdes, whom the St. Louis Tea Party accused of writing a hit piece on Ed Martin for Breitbart's site.

Related: A RINO's Guide to Wooing Cranky Breitbart Editors

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)

CNN Political Analyst Questions Loesch's Integrity Because of Remarks

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite grabed some footage of CNN political analyst Goldie Taylor on Don Lemon's program describing why urinating on corpses is wrong and calling out Dana Loesch for praising the people who did it. Taylor is a former marine and said the following about the incident:

Taylor told Lemon that the tape wasn’t representative of the Marine Corps that she belonged to, and that “When I look at that, and look at what four marines did to defame my Marine Corps, I’m disgusted.”

She went on to say that the four Marines should be court-martialed.

Then she said what she thought of Loesch's comments:

Lemon asked Taylor about people who defended these Marines’ actions. I’ve heard it,” Taylor said. “And I’ve heard it on this air, frankly. That is disgusting in and of itself, not as satire not as a joke but to say you would ‘drop trou’ and do the same thing, I question someone’s integrity who would say something like that. I want to know if they understand what our young men and women are up against every day. I don’t want to demonize the men and women who serve our country. I honor them, and served alongside them, and am proud of them. But when something like this happens, we have to stand up and call it for the behavior that it is.”

Taylor, by the way, is not alone. Multiple CNN employees criticized Loesch's comments and questioned why she was at the network. For example:

"I can't imagine someone really thinking that, it is so outrageous," said one CNN reporter who requested anonymity. "I think she is trying to garner attention to herself, and that is sad. If that is what she truly believes, she has issues. If you look at that video, I don't care who you are, your stomach should turn."

And:

Another regular CNN journalist added: "I am of the school of thought, 'Why aren't we putting people who are knowledgeable on the air?' I'll just say 'Ewww.' I think it's in poor taste."

And:

"What's interesting is how the kid gloves are applied to outlandish comments made by the likes of Erick Erickson or Dana Loesch and how it has a negative impact on the CNN brand," said the contributor, who also requested anonymity. "There really is no pushback or no real conversation that says, 'Look, you make these kinds of comments or you write these kinds of wild, crazy stuff, that's just not what we're about.' It simply doesn't happen. I think there is fear of saying anything to them because they are Tea Party folks, and there has been a clear effort on the part of our political team to court that whole Tea Party thought process, if you will."

"The danger is always the negative impact on your whole political coverage," the contributor added. "Because clearly you want there to be a point of view, but there is a difference between a point of view and being so far off the rails it defies logic."

Yup, Loesch is embarrassing the employees at CNN who actually have respect for the truth and honest debate.

One criticism of Tommy Christopher's piece for Mediaite; he repeated the suggestion pushed by right-wing media that Bill Maher's comments on Friday were substantively the same as Loesch's. Actually, Maher opened his comments by saying that he was sure that no one condoned the actions. He later said that if the people urinated on were the Taliban, and if they had done horrible things like honor rapes, then he's "not that upset" about it. In sharp contrast, Loesch not only condoned the behavior without any caveats, she openly cheered for it, and said she would "drop trou and do it herself." (not to mention the fact that Maher is a comedian and Loesch is a "political analyst," and there are a lot of things that comedians can get away with that political analysts couldn't, though in this case what Loesch said is clearly *far more* extreme).

So you might disagree with Maher's comments, but they weren't even close to what Loesch said, and it's time to put that particular right-wing meme to rest.

Update: Tommy Christopher says he was drawing a different comparison than the one I focused on. Fair enough, although I still think his post is written in a way that feeds into the right-wing meme that "Maher said the exact same thing." And an earlier Mediaite post by Josh Feldman, linked to by Christopher, seems to explicitly make that claim:

Maher appears to be echoing similar sentiments to Dana Loesch, who earlier today said she didn’t understand why the video was so controversial, adding “I’d drop trou and do it too.”