Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

15 Photos and Text Messages From the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman Court Case

A REMINDER: Based upon the photos and messages retrieved from Trayvon Martin's phone as reported by CNN, the young man appears to have been involved with guns, weed and street-fighting.

Items taken from Trayvon Martin's cell phone -- including a text-message discussion of drug use and pictures of a gun and marijuana plants -- are among new details released Thursday by attorneys for the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of killing him...

In other messages, text message exchanges appear to be discussing guns.
"U wanna share a .380 w/ (blacked out)," one text message sent from Martin's phone reads.
The text messaging logs are also peppered with references to marijuana use.
"I got weed nd I get money Friday," a message sent from his phone reads.
"I hid m weed," another text sent from Martin's phone reads. "its wrapped."
The text messages include a conversation from November 2011 in which he appears to say his mother has kicked him out of the house after:
"da police caught me outta skool."
"So you just turning into a lil hoodlum," the person with whom he is texting says.
"Naw, I'm a gangsta," the text message read.
And here are the original police photos of Zimmerman taking immediately after the incident.


I ask you to consider whether immediate publication of these photos might have defused much of the controversy surrounding this case.


Via: CNN and The Hollywood Gossip.


Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Facebook shuts down conservative page with over 600,000 likes

Facebook has directly targeted a set of pages devoted to, of all things, the Bill of Rights:

Over the past month or so, Facebook, at the direction of their owner and administration, have been systematically targeting, attacking, discriminating against, and flat out shutting down conservative pages on Facebook, as well as individual accounts... Mark Zuckerberg is an open Obama supporter and Liberal. He and Facebook are engaged in the same type of behavior as the IRS when it comes to harassing and targeting conservative, Christian, Tea Party, and Patriot groups. It is the same behavior that we have seen from the Department of Justice targeting and harassing the free press and reporters in this country...


In a separate, but ominously related bit of news, watch as Obama supporters sign away the Bill of Rights.

You don't have to be Kreskin to predict that nothing good will come of these developments.


Hat tip: Stacy.

Today's Top 10 News Nuggets: Enraging Legacy Media While Enlightening High-Information Voters

10. Osama Bin Ladin Wanted Joe Biden Alive, because he knew that Biden was more dangerous to Americans if he remained in power.

Bin Laden ordered his militants to look out for opportunities to assassinate President Obama or David Petraeus during any of their visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr Petraeus, now CIA director, formerly commanded international forces in Afghanistan... But Bin Laden warned them not to bother targeting Vice-President Joe Biden because "Biden is totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis."

9. Senator Ted Cruz likes this license plate, and who can blame him?


8. Politico, Media Matters, and HuffPo (but I repeat myself) were caught lying again, this time claiming that Rush Limbaugh instructed his vast audience not to watch Fox News.

A caller named Tony from Tampa dialed Limbaugh and vented about a comment Fox News Channel contributor Julie Roginsky had made regarding coal on a show hosted by Neil Cavuto. Tony lumped Roginsky, a former aide to the late Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, in with several other liberal contributors who appear regularly on various Fox News shows... That prompted this response from Limbaugh, "You need to stop watching these people, because they’re not gonna change, Tony,” Limbaugh said. “Your blood pressure’s going to suffer if you keep watching these people. I mean, they’re designed to get you ticked off." At no point did Limbaugh advise his vast audience not to watch Fox News in general[, just the liberal kooks who sometimes get a forum there].

7. Even the GOP Cocktail Circuit wants the Rubio-Schumer Amnesty Bill Dead; which, it would seem, means that Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry are now officially at war with Marco Rubio and Karl Rove.

The bill’s first fatal deficiency is that it doesn’t solve the illegal-immigration problem. The enforcement provisions are riddled with exceptions, loopholes, and waivers. Every indication is that they are for show and will be disregarded, just as prior notional requirements to build a fence or an entry/exit visa system have been – and just as President Obama has recently announced he’s ignoring aspects of Obamacare that are inconvenient to enforce on schedule...

6. The Guys Who Want to Enforce Obamacare Just Exposed 100,000 Social Security Numbers on the Internet. Of course, I refer to the IRS, whose mistakes somehow seem to always benefit the Democrat-slash-Federal Government Party.

We’re in the very best of hands, aren’t we? Just wait until the people who slipped up and posted up to 100,000 Social Security numbers onto a website are in charge of your health care information... Our good friends at the Tax Exempt Organizations unit are once again under fire, as a watchdog group called Public.Resource.org investigates a data management snafu and discovers the IRS has been inadvertently dropping files that contain Social Security numbers onto a public website.

5. Egyptian Protesters Prove Better Informed Than America's Low-Information Crowd.


4. An Oklahoma City Hospital is doing its part to drive down health care costs: it's posting prices of common surgeries online and creating "a bidding war".

An Oklahoma City surgery center is offering a new kind of price transparency, posting guaranteed all-inclusive surgery prices online. The move is revolutionizing medical billing in Oklahoma and around the world. Dr. Keith Smith and Dr. Steven Lantier launched Surgery Center of Oklahoma 15 years ago, founded on the simple principle of price honesty... The prices are all-inclusive quotes and they are guaranteed.

3. Cleveland Kidnap Victims Post a Moving Video Thank You

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight are the three women held for ten years by a monster in Cleveland (will not dignify him with a name) where they were abused, raped and faced untold horrors. Last night they released a video where we got to see the three brave women for the first time... The video of these three brave survivors will move you to tears.

2. The White House has known for months that Obamacare simply could not be implemented as it was "designed".

As far back as March, a top IT official at the Department of Health and Human Services said the department's current ambition for the law's new online insurance marketplaces was that they not be "a Third-World experience." To get a sense of what the Obama administration is up against, take a look at this chart [designed to help] states build exchanges. (Bear in mind, this chart is supposed to simplify and explain.)


1. On the Heels of Obamacare's Latest Meltdown, the White House Convened a Secret Meeting

For those interested in the president’s meeting tonight with health care innovators, as described by Jay Carney at the top of the briefing, your POOL could not ascertain from aides the time of the session, location or expected attendees at the CLOSED PRESS meeting.

Repeat after me: Most. Transparent. Administration. Evah!


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

DRUDGESTORM!

To my knowledge, there's only one conservative website on the planet that can drive traffic at a sustained 14,000 page-views an hour.


The links in red ("PHOTOS...") direct readers to an earlier Biff Spackle post entitled "15 Photos From the Tahrir Square Protests You'll Never See In Legacy Media. #Egypt #Morsi #Obama."

And this is what the real-time Google Analytics mobile app revealed during the height of the Drudgestorm:


Is there any more influential newsman than Matt Drudge?

For you drones and other miscreants out there: that's a rhetorical question. Put it this way: the entire editorial board of The New York Times wishes they had a tenth of the influence of Matt Drudge.


Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Top 150 Conservative Websites, June 2013

Here are the latest standings of conservative news and opinion sites, which are ordered using their Alexa traffic rankings. Yes, some of these are center-right, libertarian, or more middle-of-the-road sites, but they are included because they do publish center-right opinion pieces on a regular basis.
RankWebsiteTraffic Rank
1foxnews.com169
2wsj.com330
3telegraph.co.uk337
4theblaze.com1022
5nypost.com1193
6breitbart.com1541
7zerohedge.com2164
8washingtontimes.com2810
9dailycaller.com2951
10weeklystandard.com3755
11realclearpolitics.com4161
12townhall.com4451
13nationalreview.com4921
14newsbusters.org5813
15hotair.com5865
16mediaite.com6255
17freerepublic.com6556
18pjmedia.com6606
19washingtonexaminer.com6731
20investors.com7508
21cnsnews.com7947
22twitchy.com9341
23rushlimbaugh.com9705
24reason.com10406
25americanthinker.com11606
26thegatewaypundit.com12393
27lifenews.com16168
28westernjournalism.com16372
29freebeacon.com16502
30redstate.com18794
31ace.mu.nu,mypetjawa.mu.nu,rhymeswithright.mu.nu20861
32humanevents.com21089
33powerlineblog.com21358
34therightscoop.com23547
35wattsupwiththat.com23996
36spectator.org24847
37michellemalkin.com27598
38mises.org28148
39canadafreepress.com28433
40weaselzippers.us29050
41thenewamerican.com36198
42spectator.co.uk37423
43whitehousedossier.com38014
44market-ticker.org39931
45freedomworks.org40086
46legalinsurrection.com46626
47althouse.blogspot.com46894
48atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com47460
49jihadwatch.org48527
50numbersusa.com50768
51marklevinshow.com52310
52globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com60250
53rasmussenreports.com62961
54rightwingnews.com63507
55badblue.com63660
56firstthings.com63877
57memeorandum.com66077
58anncoulter.com69448
59hannity.com70630
60commentarymagazine.com72238
61realclearmarkets.com72752
62volokh.com75395
63mrc.org80174
64ricochet.com81792
65the-american-interest.com82956
66borderlandbeat.com85265
67atr.org92475
68iowntheworld.com97712
69linkiest.com98860
70judicialwatch.org100451
71theothermccain.com107738
72outsidethebeltway.com118287
73israelhayom.com120263
74danielpipes.org120852
75riehlworldview.com121610
76freeenterprise.com122526
77maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com128373
78american.com128476
79moonbattery.com131896
80wizbangblog.com134382
81steynonline.com138353
82city-journal.org138993
83patterico.com143245
84aim.org146345
85aei.org146920
86jammiewf.com149237
87lonelyconservative.com151334
88climateaudit.org156432
89directorblue.blogspot.com157023
90angrywhitedude.com157862
91boortz.com170747
92datechguyblog.com178986
93conservatives4palin.com180799
94gatestoneinstitute.org181324
95punditpress.com183100
96sayanythingblog.com187241
97creepingsharia.wordpress.com211628
98fireandreamitchell.com221864
99americandigest.org225263
100ihatethemedia.com231712
101floppingaces.net243398
102dennisprager.com245314
103justoneminute.typepad.com255728
104hillbuzz.org260879
105gaypatriot.net265998
106americanpowerblog.blogspot.com285657
107theblogmocracy.com289981
108conservativedailynews.com291743
109winteryknight.wordpress.com299974
110blackfive.net304161
111smalldeadanimals.com314264
112israelmatzav.blogspot.com315754
113proteinwisdom.com315928
114sultanknish.blogspot.com332572
115yidwithlid.blogspot.com337165
116shark-tank.net344248
117imao.us346736
118theobjectivestandard.com353334
119cafehayek.com355622
120memri.org359987
121babalublog.com360238
122allamericanblogger.com391159
123thepiratescove.us397531
124independentsentinel.com404350
125menrec.com407301
126maggiesnotebook.com407765
127dailypundit.com413946
128noisyroom.net424938
129michellesmirror.com442694
130sweetness-light.com444016
131nicedeb.wordpress.com446343
132trevorloudon.com446717
133carolineglick.com452551
134dougpowers.com464783
135curmudgeonlyskeptical.blogspot.com478992
136investigativeproject.org490812
137soopermexican.com502046
138scaredmonkeys.com502734
139hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com534353
140rightpundits.com535327
141capitalismmagazine.com538468
142moelane.com550926
143zombietime.com576259
144bobmccarty.com590173
145the-american-journal.com608586
146hyscience.com616842
147themellowjihadi.com623796
148bookwormroom.com628004
149newsrealblog.com635293
150thecampofthesaints.org644685
151americanglob.com669058
152economicnoise.com677330
153sundriesshack.com706734
154pointsandfigures.com725696
155chris-floyd.com741580
156coldfury.com758088
157publiusforum.com784536
158iowahawk.typepad.com784661
159conservativehideout.com798211
160nakeddc.com825198
161tammybruce.com846631
162reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com848000
163claremont.org849262
164punditandpundette.com858959
165cfif.org880400
166worldthreats.com905162
167wyblog.us913234
168politicsandfinance.blogspot.com972952
169sondrakistan.com983221
170sweasel.com998337
171jenkuznicki.com999276
172ashbrook.org1019634
173radicalislam.org1037697
174strata-sphere.com1090003
175conservativecommune.com1104132
176chicagoboyz.net1124632
177badeagle.com1158812
178qando.net1172976
179polipundit.com1182654
180therightplanet.com1183153
181gatesofvienna.blogspot.com1184791
182varight.com1282320
183nlpc.org1357739
184nicedoggie.net1359176
185formerspook.blogspot.com1449850
186marathonpundit.blogspot.com1496203
187libertypundits.net1599624
188troglopundit.wordpress.com1657628
189rlc.org1661386
190astuteblogger.blogspot.com1677200
191joshuapundit.blogspot.com1697172
192faustasblog.com1805657
193larryelder.com1813515
194primordialslack.com1897938
195simplyjews.blogspot.com1909247
196parkwayreststop.com1912891
197stoptheaclu.com1977637
198bizzyblog.com2010323
199blog.heritage.org2144773
200laborunionreport.com2150918
Why does the "Top 150" list have 200 entries? The same reason the Big Ten has, like, 48 teams. Update: Inevitably, some sites are inadvertently omitted from the list (and this is always Biff Spackle's fault). The superb The People's Cube should be #97 on the list and The Looking Spoon should be #103.

Related:

The Top 150 Conservative Websites, Feburary 2013.

The Top 150 Conservative Websites, October 2012.

The Top 150 Conservative Websites, July 2012.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Cracka Crack and World's Dumbest Blogger Impugns Bobby Jindal's Intelligence While Casting Racist Aspersions

I refer, of course, to the twisted and stunningly dimwitted Slate blogger named Matthew Yglesias -- if that is his real name -- who excreted this missive earlier today:


What would you expect from a progressive Democrat? I mean, they were the party of slavery and the KKK; and that ancestry appears to be showing more and more each day.

Furthermore Yglesias is the same man who won the World's Dumbest Blogger Award in 2010 and 2011 with unintentionally hilarious nitwitticisms covered here:

• 2010-12-01: World's Dumbest Blogger's Latest Brainstorm -- Let's Print More Money and Hand It Out to the Poor So We Can Save the Economy

• 2010-11-11: World's dumbest blogger not sure why deficit reduction is needed

• 2010-03-10: World's dumbest blogger slams new waterboarding memos, but somehow forgets to mention Pelosi and other Dems helpfully approved process

There are more, but you get the picture. Yglesias is to journalism what Pee Wee Herman is to basketball.


Hat tip: BadBlue Report.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

President Obama sets extremely bad example for America's youth, uses high-cap magazine in Father's Day activity

Is Mayor Bloomberg aware of this tweet?


As Robby Soave reminds us, these activities come at a time when liberals are hysterically convulsing over toy guns and even references to them.

A 14-year old faces suspension and up to a year in jail for failing to remove an NRA T-shirt he wore to school.

An elementary school student was suspended for biting a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.

And a 5-year old was booted from school for referring to her "bubble gun", pictured at right.

So I'm sure the outrage from progressive media for the president's activity will build to a crescendo any moment.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

ATTENTION, REP. GOODLATTE: Ask Eric Holder Whether He Knows Who Hacked CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson's PC

CBS News has confirmed that the personal computer of its outstanding investigative reporter was compromised on multiple occasions while she was working on exposing the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi assassinations.

CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said that a cybersecurity firm hired by CBS News "has determined through forensic analysis" that "Attkisson's computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012."

"Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion. CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access."

And who does the news organization suspect may have been behind the hacking?

Friday's announcement comes on the heels of last month's revelation that the Justice Department had seized the emails and phone records of Fox News correspondent James Rosen.

To be clear, the federal government has not been accused in the intrusion of Attkisson's computer; CBS News is continuing to work to identify the responsible party.

But the federal government certainly had the means, motive and opportunity to commit this crime.

We have an administration that has relentlessly attacked the media, publicly and privately, for doing their job. The White House's public condemnation of Fox News, its massive net thrown over the Associated Press during the North Korea leak "investigation", and its unprecedented attacks on Fox reporter James Rosen are all examples of a government that will tolerate no dissent from the press.

Our media operate as they would under a third-world dictator -- think Hugo Chavez' Venezuela, for instance -- because we have heard only muted outrage from the press over these unprecedented, repeated attacks on the First Amendment.

As Attorney General, Eric Holder has been at the center of a series of scandals. His most recent disregard for the law, involved apparent perjurious testimony to Congress over the Rosen matter. Congress was sufficiently incensed by his statements, which were subsequently revealed as untruthful, that they had threatened him with yet another subpoena.

Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to meet with House Republicans as part of their probe into whether he misled Congress or acted inappropriately in the Justice Department’s investigation of two separate leaks to media outlets.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) made the announcement late Friday after exchanging several weeks worth of testy letters with the nation’s top cop.

In agreeing to meet with the lawmakers, Holder staved off the threat of a subpoena from Goodlatte for a second time in as many weeks.

Some relatively sober observers believe the White House is the likely culprit behind the Attkisson hacking and that it smells like the makings of a true Watergate-level scandal.

This is obviously a politically-motivated crime, not a personally- or economically-motivated one. That doesn't mean the government had anything to do with it, but it certainly seems that someone favorably inclined towards the government did.

Perhaps one of those legions encouraged to "get in their faces," like the staff of the IRS.

Hacking is a federal crime, is it not? Can we expect Robert Mueller to get his Top Men (whoever they are, he doesn't know) on this like he did with the IRS scandal?

So, Rep. Goodlatte -- or any other members of the House with a patriotic bone in their bodies (seemingly in very short supply these days) -- perhaps you could ask Eric Holder the following question:

"Are you aware of any attempt -- by any party -- to hack, compromise or otherwise target any computing device of any member of the press?"


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

TRANSCRIPT: Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes' Complete Speech After Accepting the Bradley Prize

Earlier today Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes won the $250,000 Bradley Foundation Prize for creating Fox News Channel, deemed by the group to be a thoroughly American institution. Ailes donated the prize to a senior citizens charity. The following is the transcript of his acceptance speech:


America needs all of us to leave here tonight, renewed in our spirit and determination to turn this country forward to the future. I won’t say turn it around because yesterday is gone, so we must all focus on defining the themes for the future and lead the people to it.

My remarks tonight are my own, and don’t necessarily reflect those of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch or Fox. I will say, however, that I didn’t give up my citizenship to create and run a news organization. I speak here with the highest authority and title anyone could ever aspire to -- citizen of the United States.

We must stop waving our extended arms in an effort to balance ourselves as we tiptoe along the edges of the Constitution, in an effort not to upset weak-kneed appeasers, with our unflinching belief in the ideas and principles that made our country different and yes, great!

Are we losing America to the inevitable onrushing tides of history? No. But we are in a storm, the mast is broken, the compass is barely functioning, and there is a big damned hole in the boat!

We have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by others, many of whom want to impose their culture and laws under the manufactured utopian idea that all cultures are equal and most are better than America’s. Of course all people should be proud of their heritage. They should teach their children to be proud of their history and traditions.

Immigrants will always be welcome here. But America is a culture, too.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

BIFF SPACKLE EMAILS: Real-Time News Just Got Better

Biff Spackle emails to say that BadBlue, the 24-7 real-time news service, has added dozens of news sources to its database. If you haven't seen BadBlue before, check it out. It's an automated, Drudge-style news-gathering system that avoids the big media censors.


So give it a try. Spackle says you'll love it -- or your money back.


Sunday, June 09, 2013

How Did It Start? [Brad]

Guest post by Brad

When I was in elementary school I was having trouble coming up with an idea for my science project and my friend had come up with two ideas. I convinced him the one I didn’t want to do was better so he did that one. I did his other one, and got an A. He got a B+.

I joined The Boy Scouts when I was 11 and it was a blast. I got to go camping and always had a great buddy that was very skilled in all areas of the outdoors. They always seemed happy to do the stuff I was unsure of. I remember that I had to get my Eagle before I was 16 or I couldn’t get my driver’s license, and my 16th birthday was getting close. I never understood why it was so important to have all of those merit badges and when they told me I was missing a couple I was very disappointed. I was pretty sure I must have done enough stuff that it would equal those badges so I bought a couple of blank merit badge cards and filled them out. I turned in the part I would have kept to my new leader and told him I had done them at one of the camps and they must have lost the paperwork at the scout office. They got me some “Replacement” badges and took care of the lost papers so I was able to get my License. That was a close one.

When I was in High School I needed to write a paper, but putting the subject into words was hard so I found one on the internet that I liked. I didn’t want to be accused of cheating so I changed some of the wording, and found some other references that matched up so that it was more original. Then I found some pictures that would enhance the data in the report on the internet so I cut and pasted them into my report. A few had some names and source data on them that didn’t look good so I cropped that stuff out and submitted it. I got a B on that one, but I was happy with that and it was pretty easy. This same process was very helpful on other projects and papers too, and if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, right? After all it saved me so much time.

Thursday, June 06, 2013

When you've lost the Stuffington Roast...

...you may be on the way to the dustbin of history.


Not to worry: clicking either the link or the picture will not transport you to the Puffington Toast. Clicking will take you to an American site.


Saturday, June 01, 2013

The Crimes of the Koch Brothers

I was over at BadBlue scanning the headlines when I noticed this ad:


Don't tell anyone, but I clicked on the link. I wondered who exactly would target these private citizens I've heard of -- described in hysterical tones by Leftist bloggers -- but otherwise have no familiarity with. A click-through brought me to a site operated by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

The billionaire Koch brothers and their secret donor allies are on a mission – to recruit, train and fund ultra-conservative Tea Party Republicans at the local, state and national level. It’s a blatant attempt to drown out the voices of ordinary Americans by using unlimited, secret contributions to pursue their special-interest agenda.


Enough is enough. Add your name using the form below to demand that these Koch-backed special interest front groups publicly disclose their donors!

Apparently, it is now a crime to "recruit, train and fund" men and women who believe in a different political philosophy than Democrats. In this case, those who support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. You know, the same documents that politicians take an oath to uphold?

As an aside, this site appears to be operated by some company called Salsa Labs (and you boys should be ashamed of yourselves).

Bruce at Gay Patriot wonders, as did I, who originated the anti-Koch Brothers hysteria? A little research revealed the following timeline behind the fomenting of KBDS ("Koch Brothers Derangement Syndrome"):


11-Feb-2009: CBS News' Scott Pelley interviews Bill Koch on 60 Minutes ("Rich In Cash, Poor In Family Love"), who airs his grievances against the family. Bill had sold his shares in Koch Industries in 1983 and was presumably bitter that he had lost out on the vast gains his brothers had rung up since he'd sold.


20-Feb-2009: The union website Mid-Atlantic Labor pinpoints a major opponent to the ill-fated Obama Stimulus program, Americans For Prosperity:

The compromise version of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed the House and Senate Friday and is expected to be signed by President Obama tomorrow in Denver. Despite Democratic leaders’ efforts to reach out for Republican support by dropping various controversial provisions and beefing up tax cuts, the measure passed with no Republican votes in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate.

Public opposition to the plan was led by a group called Americans for Prosperity, which delivered 400,000 signatures on a petition to the Senate opposing the measure... [and who is AFP?]... the group was founded in 2003 with money from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is run by the billionaires behind Kansas-based Koch Industries — the national’s largest privately held oil and gas company...


27-Feb-2009: Mark Ames and Yasha Levine at PlayBoy.com claim the nascent Tea Party movement is the brainchild of the Koch Brothers, not a grass-roots movement.

Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli’s “rant” last-week calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest President Obama’s plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere and shot right up into White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ craw, whose smackdown during a press conference was later characterized by Santelli as “a threat” from the White House. A nationwide “tea party” grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama’s economic policies...

...What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire [sic] owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks...


For years now, the Koch Brothers have been targeted by the left because they are politically active for conservative causes. In 2010, Americans For Prosperity -- a group with 2 million members -- was attacked directly by President Obama:

Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it's a big oil company, or a big bank.

Obama's attack on AFP was, in so many words, an assault on the free speech rights of two guys named Koch -- and all of us. Read the ad at the top again: "Demand That Koch-Based Front Groups Disclose Their Donors!"

The left wants your name. They want millions of names. They want to politically target -- through the IRS, Obamacare, the EPA, and every other lever of a massive, centralized authoritarian government -- you. You have no free speech rights under this administration. No freedom to assemble. No freedom of religion.

In short, within 16 f***ing days in 2009, a politically active family was targeted by every instrumentality the Democrat Party could bring to bear: antique media in the form of CBS, labor unions, new media and the President of the United States himself. That the Leftist tools and sycophants have since endlessly pantomimed their hatred for free speech is troubling, but not unexpected.

After all, we know what the hard left Democrat Party's end game is. But don't bother clicking here if you can't handle the truth.


HMMMMMMMMM... CLAIM: James Rosen Targeted by Eric Holder For Three Reasons: Obama Critic, Fox News and Jewish

Only a handful of top Justice Department officials likely know the real reasons James Rosen of Fox News was targeted by Eric Holder, and at least one may* ( and I repeat, may) have been brave enough to leak it. An email, received from an anonymous, purported insider, states the following (some details redacated upon request):

Brass at RFK [Attorney General's office at Main Justice] set on making an example of Fox aggressive reports going after POTUS. Rosen targeted as "aggressive Jew" behind Fox critics of POTUS. DPRK [North Korea] report was not much to pin Rosen but enough. Fact he was Fox and Jewish put him in Holder (Obama?) crosshairs. Look up rreporting Rosen did. re: Petrobs [Petrobas - link] loan and no-bid Checchi [Checchi and Company Consulting, an Obama campaign contributor - link] deal for reasons.

I added the descriptions and links inside the brackets, but left the typos.

* Full caveat and disclosure: I can't verify the authenticity of this email. It was sent through an anonymous remailer and additional details were removed at the request of the sender.

That said, if the IRS targeting Jewish groups (as well as a litany of conservative and Tea Party organizations) is any indication, the report is believable on its face.


Related: Obama DOJ to federal judge: Let’s keep this James Rosen warrant between us, OK?.


IRONY-METER SHATTERS: Press Banned From Revealing Details of Eric Holder's Press Briefing on His Abuse of Press Freedom

You can't make this s*** up.

Sean Higgins thinks this Washington Post "report" on Eric Holder's widely-boycotted confab with journalists is "beyond parody."  Yeah, pretty much:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. pledged Thursday to take concrete steps to address concerns that the Justice Department has overreached in its leak investigations and said officials would seek procedural and possibly legislative changes to protect journalists’ First Amendment rights. Holder’s commitment came at a private meeting with news executives after criticism that the Justice Department had infringed on the news media in several high-profile leak investigations. Participants said he told them officials would revise guidelines for issuing subpoenas to obtain reporters’ phone records. The 90-minute meeting was attended by a small group of journalists after several news organizations objected to the Justice Department’s insistence that it be held off the record. The participants, however, reached an agreement with the Justice Department under which they could describe what occurred during the meeting in general terms...


Eric Holder pledged to take "concrete steps" to address the actions of Eric Holder -- up to and (possibly) including backing legislative action that would curtail Eric Holder's ability to abuse Eric Holder's power...  


Direct quotes would be priceless here, but those weren't allowed, of course...

Holder and aides “completely endorsed the president’s statement that reporters should not be at legal risk for doing their job,” said Martin Baron, The Washington Post’s executive editor, who was among the participants. “They acknowledged the need for changes in their own guidelines and the need to have a more rigorous internal review.”

Reassuringly, Eric Holder has "completely endorsed" a principle that Eric Holder has already explicitly violated.  How many times has Eric Holder done so?  Eric Holder can't quite say.  Click through to witness the pitiful spectacle of journalists quoting each other and vaguely discussing a meeting they've been barred from describing in any detail.

And if a member of the press actually reveals some of the secret details of Holder's press briefing -- in which the A.G. promised he wouldn't target the press -- will that person now be targeted by Holder?

The hypocrisy of this administration -- and the stupidity of the five-years-late-to-the-party vintage media -- are breathtaking.


Hat tips: BadBlue News and Daryl Cagle, PoliticalCartoons.com.


Friday, May 31, 2013

SHOCK, CONSTERNATION AS KRUGMAN PROVEN WRONG AGAIN: California health insurance premiums to spike 64 to 146 percent

And the former Enron adviser had such a stellar track record of predictions until now, what with advocating a housing bubble and praising the Euro in the last decade alone.

Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146%



Last week, the state of California claimed that its version of Obamacare’s health insurance exchange would actually reduce premiums... But the data [it just] released tells a different story: Obamacare, in fact, will increase individual-market premiums in California by as much as 146 percent.

...Last week, Covered California—the name for the state’s Obamacare-compatible insurance exchange—released the rates that Californians will have to pay to enroll in the exchange...

...That Obamacare more than doubles insurance premiums for many Californians is especially ironic, given the political posturing of the President and his administration in 2010. In February of that year, Anthem Blue Cross announced that some groups (but not the majority) would face premium increases of as much as 39 percent. The White House and its allies in the blogosphere, cynically, claimed that these increases were due to greedy profiteering by the insurers, instead of changes in the underlying costs of the insured population...

...So, to summarize: Supporters of Obamacare justified passage of the law because one insurer in California raised rates on some people by as much as 39 percent. But Obamacare itself more than doubles the cost of insurance on the individual market. I can understand why Democrats in California would want to mislead the public on this point...

I'm actually looking forward to the full implementation of Obamacare in January. Everything we warned the drones about -- and more -- will unfold in very short order. As Max Baucus described it: a train wreck.

And Nancy Pelosi will need a couple more facelifts from the stress, I suspect. But maybe those are covered under her plan.


Thursday, May 30, 2013

OH, MY: Former New York Times General Counsel and Vice Chairman Eviscerates Obama Administration and Holder DOJ

This is mostly a blatant ripoff of a post at Ace o' Spades (and I used italics to class up the joint, plus I feel bad about the blatant ripoff). In a nutshell, the The New York Times' legendary legal expert and "the father of reporters' privilege" -- James Goodale -- just crushed the ongoing Obama-Holder free speech debacle.

RT: You’ve been called the father of reporters’ privileges. What do you see as the current threats to press freedom in the United States?
JG: It, frankly, is President Obama and Rosengate because this is the first time the – I hate to use the term ‘Espionage Act,’ we’ll say national security act for your viewers – has been used to get reporters.

I mean, that really is frightening because it’s usually used to get leakers. Rosen is a leakee, to use legal phraseology. If the Obama administration, or at least his Justice Department, thinks they can use criminal laws to get journalists because they’re co-conspirators, honestly that is one of the worst things I’ve come across in all the years I’ve been doing this.

Read the following sentence with your best John McClane imitation.

Welcome to the party, pal.


Sunday, May 26, 2013

THE NEW MATH: "That which makes no sense is nonsense"

The indefatigable Tyler Durden relays a must-watch presentation by Grant Williams, best known for his Things That Make You Go Hmmm newsletter. Some of the highlights?

Williams' Problem 1: If the global economy is stalling, Europe is in recession, China is slowing and growth is seemingly impossible to generate, what are equity markets doing at all-time highs?


Williams' Problem 2: If Chinese manufacturing has stalled, demand for raw materials is slumping, imports and exports are declining, and Chinese power consumption is falling, how is China's GDP growing at 7.7%


Williams Problem 3: France!?


Williams' Problem 4: If honesty is the best policy, then is dishonest the second best policy?

Williams' Problem 5: If there were no sponges living in the oceans, would the oceans be deeper?

Williams' Problem 6: Paul Krugman? Really?

Williams' Problem 7: The Gold Price and The Price of Gold are mutually exclusive


As Alan Roth observes regarding the equity markets, "investors rediscovering borrowing on margin and hitting an all-time high is clearly a red flag warning that there may be a rip-tide".


Saturday, May 25, 2013

ANIMATED GIF: Eric Holder, Perjurer General

Holder lied, the free press died.

Feel free to copy, tweet, Facebook, post, and otherwise distribute this animated GIF (our current blogging platform doesn't appear to allow embedding animated GIFs, thus the link to an external site).

The following screen-caps represent the un-animated version.






This malevolent, lawless man makes John Mitchell (Nixon's A.G.) look like Lindsey Lohan by comparison.