Is it possible these days to be a new, active conservative running for Congress for the first time and not know who Andrew Breitbart is? Me, I’d reckon that an in-the-know, new candidate who claims to be conservative and a spokesman for Tea Partiers could not possibly be so isolated that he is unaware of conservative media-crusader Andrew Breitbart. But there is a candidate in Ohio who displayed right on his own campaign website just such a display of ignorance on Breitbartania, Breitbartism, or Breitbartness… whatever you want to call it, it just appears that this guy is stone-cold out of touch with the current conservative movement not to know thing one about Andrew Breitbart.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am sure there are plenty of 90-year-old, Brahmin conservatives who get flummoxed at “the Facebookings.” I am sure there still exist out-of-touch, elder statesmen of the movement that just haven’t caught up with those newfangled Internet tubes that our friend Al Gore created. I am sure that there are more than a handful of aged establishment types shaking their fist at the Fox News and those darn websheets positive that they’ll never catch on, just as they were sure rock-n-roll was a passing fad. But can you be an up and comer in the conservative movement and be wholly unaware of one of the newest icons of conservatives everywhere?

I am here at CPAC this week and just ran into Joe “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher who was telling me about his run for Congress in the 9th Congressional District. Joe made me aware of a hilarious little example of the abject cluelessness of his opponent. So let me introduce to you one Mr. Steve Kruas. Professional auctioneer actually licensed with the Ohio State Ag Department with well over 300 “successful” auctions under his belt. I guess you don’t need the Internets, talk radio and TV news shows to sell used farm equipment.

Anyhoo, the “strong fiscal conservative” is running in the 9th Congressional District GOP Primary against Wurzelbacher both of whom are vying to face Marcy Kaptur (D, OH) in the general election this year. Steve is a bit miffed that Joe isn’t giving him much notice at this point in the campaign.

Certainly, Kraus is happy to link himself with the Tea Party and even helped put on an event in Sandusky, Ohio where he set himself up as a spokesman for those venerable homegrown activists.

But it’s Kraus’ website where all the action is. There Kraus attacks Joe as a scurrilous sort of scoundrel. Why? Well, because Joe claims to be a limited government guy but he and all his friends work for BIG Government, darn it!

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Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading will enter a critical phase this week as the Senate is set to vote on a bill banning members of Congress from using material, nonpublic information to make private investments.

From USA Today:

Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days.

A procedural vote Monday would allow the Senate later this week to pass a bill prohibiting members of Congress from using nonpublic information for their own personal benefit or “tipping” others to inside information that they could trade on.

The Senate is considering passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would ban members of Congress and their staffs from engaging in insider trading and would include a 30 day reporting requirement on all investments.  The Senate version of the bill is cosponsored by Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).  Prior to Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out and the 60 Minutes report based on his book, the STOCK Act had only four cosponsors in Congress.   Now, the bill has 230 cosponsors.

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President Obama’s plea to ban Congressional insider trading may poll well and have bipartisan support, but it’s already facing stiff resistance from lawmakers the morning after his State of the Union address.

On Tuesday night, the president spoke in no uncertain terms: “Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stock in industries they impact.” The remarks were cause for celebration for Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, who authored a 2011 book exposing Congressional insider trading, and 60 Minutes, which ran a widely-viewed segment based on his book (CBS quicklyuploaded the portion of the speech last night). But early reactions from Congress (Republicans and Democrats) shouldn’t encourage much optimism.

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Today, Roll Call reported that Rep. Nancy Pelosi has appeared with her and her husband’s investment partner and her son’s former boss, investment banker Bill Hambrecht, three times at Capitol Hill economic policy forums as an “economic expert” over the last four years without disclosing their financial relationship. None of this is illegal, and none of it would be prevented by the so-called STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act currently gathering steam in Congress.

But as Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer reports in his bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, the Pelosi-Hambrecht alliance runs far deeper and spans as far back as the early 1970s.

Paul and Nancy Pelosi have invested millions with Mr. Hambrecht, and Mr. Hambrecht has invested millions in Democratic Party campaigns and causes–over $2 million, to be exact, at least $38,000 of which went directly to Rep. Pelosi. Indeed, according to Mr. Hambrecht, Nancy Pelosi was the catalyst that ignited his passion for donating money to Democrats. According to a 2006 article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mr. Hambrecht “said he never contributed to politics until he was inspired by Pelosi after meeting her in the early 1970s.”

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In response to Peter Schweizer’s shocking revelations in Throw Them all Out, I organized a call for the resignation of our local Congressman, Spencer Bachus. I was in good company, flanked by conservative giants Andrew Breitbart and Stephen K. Bannon, as well as Business Insider and other Tea Party folks who recognize the urgent need to clean our proverbial house before attempting to sell it in 2012. Despite Bachus’s alleged improprieties, I knew my protest would engender some pushback; I was surprised, however, to see the direction from which it came.

Some Republicans whispered foul, suggesting that I should instead “pick on a liberal like Nancy Pelosi, or even Obama.” When asked, they elaborated that even if the Congressman leveraged his position to gamble against the American economy or bought based upon sensitive, inside information, “at least he’s a reliable conservative vote.”

A reliable conservative vote is necessary. But it is far from sufficient.

Voting in accordance to the wishes of one’s district is a rote activity that any halfwit could perform. Of course, politicians have to vote representative of their districts or risk being voted out; the American electorate understands that fact. However, there is a stark contrast between Congressman Bachus and Senator Jim DeMint, Governor Walker, and Congressman Paul Ryan, three exemplars of voting based on principled leadership, rather than political expediency. The difference can be more insidious than it might seem at first glance. This holds true on both the federal and local levels.

It is easy to “vote right” for your district. Nancy Pelosi wins her district, as do most representatives, not because they are right on the issues, but because they vote in accordance with their districts enough that any “rogue” votes are understated or in small proportion to the ones that please their constituents. Politicians don’t always vote their district out of conviction, but often only because political expedience. Of course, there are ways to “vote right” and kill things behind the scenes. Worse, there are ways for a politician to look perfect on paper, yet behind the scenes sabotage the very votes they publicly support. Our most corrupt elected officials commit the most egregious and invisible act: publicly claiming to fight for something, while secretly cutting deals with other voting members behind the scenes to kill it, or worse, giving it mere lip service but expending zero political capital to pass the bill.

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Big Government’s very own Andrew Breitbart stopped by our studio recently to discuss his latest book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World.   Check out the episode below to learn more about his days as a liberal parrot and how his father-in-law’s suggestion to actually listen to Rush Limbaugh helped him see the light of day.

It was after a few months of listening that Breitbart discovered that (shocker!) Rush was not a racist, sexist homophobe, but in fact a journalist who, using AM radio of all things, spent every day painting a vivid picture of the Democrat Media Complex.  Rush was analyzing the source material of the world (NY Times, NBC, etc) and exposing it as the front line of the political battle.  Main stream media used “objectivity” as their greatest weapon.

Breitbart goes on to describe the new media revolution (starting with Matt Drudge in 1995) and explain his hope for the future.  He wants the center-right nation to fight for its soul.  To commit to the battle in the media with the same force and excellence as NPR and Jon Stewart.

Andrew talks about co-creating the Huffington Post so that the left would have a home online (and grant source material to conservatives).  And when asked who’s winning, he admits that while the Left still controls the money, the Right is winning tactically.  His goal with every story is to aim it straight at MSM, to dare them to cover his news.  And it seems to be working.

Check out the full interview, here.

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Judicial Watch’s mission is, in part, to advocate high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life. The Anthony Weiner scandal is but the latest example of how these standards of ethics and morality are so lacking.

Our friend Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government broke the story of the New York Democrat congressman’s sending of unsolicited lewd photographs of himself to women on the Internet, and now it appears he was sending those pictures to underage girls. Weiner, who is married, spent a week lying (rather obviously) about his activities to the public, to his colleagues in Congress, and to virtually every major news outlet. This past Monday, he finally admitted his lies but said he would not resign from Congress. The Democrat leadership is horrified and trying to push him to resign. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi even requested an “ethics” investigation by the House Ethics Committee! Republicans, who have had more than their fair share of scandals, are happy to sit back and watch.

Most of you, Dear Readers, are not from Washington, so I won’t insult you by spending time explaining to you why Weiner should resign. Unfortunately, there is a certain amoral, cynical crowd that thinks no sexual misconduct (or related criminality) warrants resignation from public office. It used to be called the Clinton administration. It is no coincidence that Weiner is close to Clinton and that Weiner seems to consider Clinton his confessor. The Clinton example shows the way for Weiner. It also highlights the rank hypocrisy of liberals in Congress who are screaming for Weiner’s resignation when those same people applauded Bill Clinton on the day of his impeachment.

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For ten days, America watched a sitting Congressman lie about Tweeting a lewd photograph to a co-ed in Seattle and compound that lie day after day after day. We also watched as he sat back and did nothing as those who blew the whistle on his misdeed and accurately reported on the story were attacked, both personally and professionally, by the organized Left. Motives were questioned, personal attacks were launched, and innocents were accused of various crimes–all in the name of Representative Anthony Weiner’s “innocence.”

One human being to another, it’s impossible not to feel bad for anyone forced to watch their dark side exploded across every newspaper, web site and cable news channel throughout the country. Most of all, you have to feel for his wife and family. However, there’s just no getting around the fact that Weiner chose to confess his lies only after he was left with no other choice. Monday morning he woke to find that at least two women were speaking out to the media, and that a series of increasingly explicit and embarrassing photographs had posted right here at Big Government.

What was Rep. Weiner supposed to do? The gig was up whether he liked it or not. His lies had been completely exposed, and therefore the only possible move he had left was to make a full confession, apologize to anyone and everyone, refuse to resign his office, and hope that this public act of contrition would finally put this all behind him. But because of his timing — because his lies had finally caught up to him and his back was up against a wall — I don’t necessarily buy it. In fact, based on his appalling behavior over the last 10 days, there’s no doubt in my mind that if the likes of Salon’s Joan Walsh, Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas, Media Matters, and certain members of the MSM had succeeded in their smear campaigns against Andrew Breitbart and others, Weiner would have allowed these people to be destroyed based on his own lies and likely savored every moment.

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The Daily News has a statement from Gennette Nicole regarding the controversy swirling around an explicit image Tweeted via Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account.  Mediaite has a fair assessment of where the story stands for now:

It may be too soon to say for sure, but this Memorial Day weekend may go down in the annals of Twitter history as one of the strangest ones imaginable. Rep. Anthony Weiner claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked after an inappropriate photo surfaced that was alleged to have been sent to a college student via the social media platform. There are a slew of legitimate questions, however, that remain. Once answered, they could do irreparable damage to some high profile personalities, particularly if there is more to the story, as there most certainly is.

As for Gennette Nicole’s statement, Big Government and associated Breitbart sites made the decision to redact or withhold Gennette’s name and personal information as it was determined unnecessary for an accurate reporting of the still developing story.

The notion that a verified Twitter account, in this instance, belonging to a member of Congress, can allegedly be hacked and continue to remain verified raises serious questions for Twitter. That an official account of a member of Congress can be hacked has even broader ramifications. Many taxpayers may not think it the laughing matter Rep. Anthony Weiner appeared to think it was, given his own reaction.

Also from Gennette’s statement:

The last 36 hours have been the most confusing, anxiety-ridden hours of my life. I’ve watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I’ve ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.

When contacted, sources on Capitol Hill raised serious concerns given that such a hacked account could potentially provide access to confidential, if not classified, information, by facilitating access to government servers via an existing Virtual Private Network. The extent of any hack would have to be investigated before any determination in that regard could be made. (more…)

With the exception of Jonathan Allen and Ben Smith of Politico, who both deserve credit for covering the Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) story we broke here at the Bigs on Friday night, the mainstream media’s silence on this objectively important story has been deafening. And now that 24 hours have passed since the story originally broke, there’s simply no way to blame the MSM’s lack of interest on the holiday weekend.

After all, this isn’t just any story. Regardless of how it all eventually breaks, what we have here is either the story of a high profile, recently married New York Congressman who’s seriously considering a Mayoral run in Manhattan, tweeting his “junk” to a young woman two decades his junior — and lying to the media about it. Or we have a story involving a high-profile Congressman’s Facebook and Twitter account being hacked with pornographic pictures.

So ask yourself: how does the MSM justify all but ignoring something so juicy? And then if you’re still not convinced of the story’s newsworthiness, remind yourself that these events are not unfolding in one of those odd, square-shaped states our journalist-class fly over every once in a while. This is a New York story that involves the trifecta of politics, sex, and a rising political star. Furthermore, the icing on the cake is Bill and Hillary Clinton. Last July, in a ceremony officiated by former President Clinton himself, Rep. Weiner married Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin.

Now, please don’t bother to answer any of the above questions. They were rhetorical and answered by the “D” after Rep. Weiner’s name. Naturally, the hacking of a Facebook account connected to one of the best known and most outspoken Democrats in Congress is a bonafide story … unless you’re afraid of where that story might lead. And if you’re interested in what a WeinerGate story looks like when a news outlet is terrified afraid of where it might lead, read this.

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From Lee Stranahan writing at the Huffington Post:

While I was conducting a video interview with a Georgia farmer named Eddie Slaughter a couple of weeks ago, he made a surprising and stunning allegation: that he had told his congressman about fraud in the multibillion dollar Pigford v. Glickman settlement and that the congressman responded by telling him that an investigation into Pigford would “shut it down.” Mr. Slaughter’s congressman — a man you may not have heard much about despite his nearly two decades as a Blue Dog Democrat and Congressional Black Caucus member — is Sanford Bishop.

I followed up with Mr. Slaughter and I asked him if others were in the meeting with Congressman Bishop. I’ve since interviewed two of those farmers — one on the phone and one, farmer Willie Head, on video. Both confirmed Mr. Slaughter’s story.

Here’s a a segment of my interview with Mr. Slaughter where he says:

We went to him [Sanford Bishop] several times about this fraud. [We asked] ‘why don’t you have them tell you how many of these people that are getting this money have an actual farm ID number and are actual farmers?’ [Bishop responded] ‘no, no, no — man, they’ll shut this thing down.’

And here is Willie Head:

I posted these videos to my YouTube account and then wrote pieces for Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com site. The controversial Mr. Breitbart is funding the documentary I’m working on but has given me complete journalistic freedom and has had no direct involvement in shooting any of the more than 12 hours of video interviews I’ve done so far. As a liberal, I disagree with Breitbart on most issues, but I also found him to be a very different person than he’s been portrayed as in the media, and working with him has been a great experience, just like my previous work for MoveOn.org and Brave New Films. I also don’t believe he’s a racist. If he were, I wouldn’t be working with him. (more…)

After flying Andrew Breitbart all the way out to Phoenix, Arizona yesterday to participate in an online Townhall election event, after taking him out of his home state, away from his business, and nearly making it impossible for him to vote in today’s crucial midterm election (though he’s on an airplane now in order to cast his ballot), at about as close to the last minute as you can get, Andrew Morse, chief of the ABC News digital division, sent the following email late this afternoon abruptly canceling Breitbart’s appearance:

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABC News.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News. We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

This is yet another obvious attempt to build a narrative that puts the blame on Breitbart when the truth is that this is nothing more than ABC News caving in to and attempting to appease the organized left’s outrage machine that went into full astroturf mode after Breitbart’s ABC News appearance was made public.

As a reminder as to who’s exaggerating, here is exactly how Breitbart’s election night townhall event was described by an ABC News producer to him in an email:

This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network, abcnews.com, ABC News Now, and ABC News Radio. …

The show will be live on the web and ABC News Now as well as on the network from 4:00pm till 11:00pm MST.

With this in mind and in writing, here is how Big Journalism announced Breitbart’s ABC News appearance: (more…)

Congratulations to the editors at the Washington Post. Seventeen months after the Eric Holder Justice Department dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, the Post gets around to printing a thorough vetting of the dismissal. The story is slated for Saturday’s print edition. While other media like Breitbart/The Bigs, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Investors Business Daily, Pajamas Media, and Drudge have had dozens of stories on the corrupt New Black Panther dismissal, the Washington Post at last is in the game.

The story is a shocker too. The shock comes from the middle of the road and factual nature of the story.

There are small problems with the story. For one, the Washington Post is the only outlet that calls King Samir Shabazz by his old “slave name” (Shabazz’s own words) of Maruse Heath. Even Heath doesn’t call himself Heath. Of course this takes some of the sting off Shabazz’s rants against Jews and calls to kill “cracker babies in their crib.”

The Post’s decision to change a man’s name for him is controversial. It has no place.

But overall, the story is very bad news for Eric Holder. It debunks many of the myths spun by the administration. Inside DOJ sources describe deep hostility to protecting whites at Justice. DOJ sources say panther prosecutor Christian Adams never allowed his conservative views to influence his work, contradicting administration spin. And perhaps most damning of all to Holder, sources defending the administration defend the idea that whites aren’t protected by the Civil Rights laws. The latter is the blockbuster news in the Post piece. (more…)

Chris Matthews strayed from the liberal talking points today. But don’t worry, it only happened for a little while. Two hours, in fact, before he was back to his old self, lashing out irrationally at conservatives. We’re not sure where Matthews’ original bout of intellectual honesty came from, but we’re pretty sure that some sort of JournoListy Intervention occurred to get him back on message.

For those of you who don’t know (and according to the latest ratings, that’s most of you), Matthews does a 5pm “Hardball” on MSNBC that repeats at 7pm. Today, during the 5pm hour, Matthews had as his guests hardcore leftists Joan Walsh of Salon.com and former Governor Howard Dean. The issue at hand was Shirley Sherrod’s promise to sue Andrew Breitbart. Well, that wasn’t the real issue at hand. The idea was to beat holy hell out of Breitbart, but things didn’t exactly go according to the JournoListy Playbook.

Believe it or not, Matthews defended Breitbart.

In the early part of the 5pm segment with Walsh and Dean, there appears to be some confusion over whether or not Matthews was aware of the fact that Breitbart posted two excerpts of Sherrod’s speech as opposed to the whole 35-plus minutes. But later in the segment — and this is important — after this discrepancy is cleared up and the full excerpt in question has been aired for Matthews and the “Hardball” audience (this, according to Newsbusters), a fully informed Matthews still defends Breitbart making the crucial and oft-ignored point that… (more…)

James O’Keefe turns his hidden camera from ACORN to the Census. Tune in at 7:30 EDT.

“Hot For The Up Do”

This week we wether the storm as conditions on the east coast play havoc with Mark Steyn’s power and Peter Robinson’s Skype. But we persevere as guest Andrew Breitbart creates his own storm with Media Matters and liberals in general. We talk about the health care summit, play “Who’s Your Favorite Lefty,” and Andrew and Rob reveal their secret admiration for the filmmaker John Waters. (more…)

From today’s Financial Times:

When Andrew Breitbart first saw video footage of workers from Acorn, a community activist group, telling two undercover reporters how to set up a brothel and avoid paying taxes he knew he had a big scoop on his hands.

The conservative commentator also knew the series of undercover videos, which caused an outcry when he released them last month on his BigGovernment website, would be dismissed by what he calls the “mainstream media”.

“The mainstream media are not story driven, they are ideology driven,” he says in an interview with the Financial Times. “They are universally left of centre and they protect their own . . . their raison d’être is to put pressure on anyone that would dare challenge their aggressive ideology.”

The media outlets criticised by Mr Breitbart, which include CNN and the New York Times, reject accusations of bias. However, Mr Breitbart argues that liberal bias is inherent and admits to pursuing his own ideological aims through his websites. His policy has been rewarded with plenty of online traffic: September brought almost 11m unique users to his sites and 35m page views.

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To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:                             

Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf

In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.

Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!

It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.

Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.

Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.

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