Eric Holder has been on a racialist bender the last few weeks.  Last week, he said his skin color is responsible for the fury of criticism over his Justice Department allowing thousands of guns to flood Mexico.  Friday, he blocked South Carolina from implementing a voter ID law under the Voting Rights Act saying it was racially discriminatory.

Sixteen states, including South Carolina, must submit all election law changes to the United States Justice Department for approval.  States also have the option of bypassing DOJ and going straight to court for approval, an option they should readily choose.  This law, unlike so many federal laws, actually has a legitimate Constitutional basis – the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars racial discrimination in voting.  Passed in 1965, it was designed to prevent states from drifting toward renewed discrimination.  It is now being challenged as unconstitutionally outdated by Arizona and Shelby County (AL) in federal court.

Eric Holder’s Voting Section, where I used to work, interposed an objection late in the day today.  These Christmas Eve gifts are becoming tiresome.  In 2009 it was Obamacare.  Today, it was blocking Voter ID.

In the objection letter, DOJ said that South Carolina did not meet its burden to prove that photo identification laws did not have any discriminatory effect.  Notice the word “any,” more on that later.  The data show, according to DOJ, that 1.6 percentage points more voting blacks don’t have a driver’s license than whites.  Roughly 10 percent of blacks registered to vote don’t have a photo ID, and 8.6 percent of whites don’t.  That represents a “discriminatory effect” under the statute.

There are several problems with the objection.  But some law first:

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SAFE. End of story.

Please read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 [Editor: Please link to each]

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.  Here is a review of all the studies done on Brazilian Blowout.

Oregon OSHA:  Pass

Federal OSHA:  Pass

Health Sciences Associates:  Pass

Dr. James Haw – USC: Pass

FDA:  Conducted no studies

ChemRisk: Too much product used = faulty study

Brazilian Blowout passed every single properly performed study for both state and federal short-term and long-term exposure limits, known as the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).

So why the witch hunt on Brazilian Blowout?  The answers are simple:

1) Government Bias

As described in Part 1 [Editor: Please link], Oregon OSHA is guilty of :

• Equating methylene glycol with formaldehyde in contradiction of all accepted scientific nomenclature methods.  Doing so allowed them to…
• Claim extremely high levels of formaldehyde in the product.
• Ideological bias, as at least one scientist who authored the study aligns himself with a hardcore Liberal Senator known as an environmental activist.
• Editorializing what should be a neutral scientific report, thus demonstrating its own bias.
• Deliberately taking samples longer than 15 minutes and applying those results to 15 minute periods.
• Issuing a false and misleading press release that did not report the product actually passed the PEL and STEL tests.

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Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s and Washington, D.C.’s gun control laws. Politicians predicted disaster. “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence,” Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision. Chicago’s Mayor Daley predicted that we would “go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets.” The New York Times even editorialized last month about the Supreme Court’s “unwise” decision that there is a right for people “to keep guns in the home.”

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in D.C., murder and gun crime rates didn’t rise after the bans were eliminated; they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate, but the national media has been completely silent. One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen.

In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year– back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago’s murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982. Meanwhile, the other four most populous cities saw a total drop at the same time of only 6 percent.

Similarly, in the year after the 2008 Heller decision, the murder rate fell 2.5 times faster in D.C. than in the rest of the country. It also fell more than three times as fast as in other cities that are close to D.C.’s size. (more…)

It was announced today that Columnist Connie Schultz has resigned from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper.

Recall that we posted a story a couple of weeks ago, with video of her filming Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel at a tea party event, apparently conducting opposition research. Mandel is the likely opponent for US Senator Sherrod Brown, who is also Schultz’s husband.  Brown is up for re-election next year.  Mandel, a former US Marine who has served two tours in Iraq, will be a formidable opponent.  Schultz was at the event to write a story about the tea party for the Plain Dealer, when she put her employer into an awkward situation by creating a clear conflict of interest when she filmed Mandel.

More often than not, we disagree strongly with her, but let’s give credit to Connie Schultz for doing the right thing here. She clearly recognized the situation she was creating for the Plain Dealer.  In her letter to readers, she explains why she is leaving the paper.

In recent weeks, it has become painfully clear that my independence, professionally and personally, is possible only if I’m no longer writing for the newspaper that covers my husband’s senate race on a daily basis. It’s time for me to move on.

Or did she only apologize, and then later resign, because she was caught?  You be the judge.  Click here to view the video that started it all.

We also have obtained a copy of a letter from the Ohio Republican Party to the Plain Dealer. Last week, they wrote and asked the PD not to let Connie Schultz write any more stories of a political nature, due to the obvious conflict of interest. They agreed to meet about the matter this week, but with today’s resignation, it appears that the matter is settled. Here is the letter:

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Connie Schultz is one of the most well known columnists working for Ohio’s largest newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  She’s a Pulitzer winner, nationally syndicated and very liberal.  She also happens to be married to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is also very liberal, being tied with a few others as America’s most far left Senator.

Connie Schultz records Josh Mandel at Tea Party event

She has written frequent columns blasting the Tea Party movement.  However, she had never attended one, only criticized from afar.  So last weekend, she decided to attend a Tea Party Express event that was being held near her home in Avon, Ohio, to experience the Tea Party up close and personal.  It might have been a better idea for her not to attend.  In the conservative Ohio blog Third Base Politics, which I write for, we wrote an exclusive post about what happened at the event.

In her column today, she talks about her experience at a Tea Party event in Avon, here in Lorain County. Reports are that she spent most of her time interviewing attendees for her column. That’s what they pay her to do, right? In her column, she pays a lot of attention to who didn’t show up. However, she fails to mention one of the speakers who WAS there. That speaker would be Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.

I wonder why she didn’t mention this. Why didn’t she mention that when Josh’s name was announced, that she rushed to the seats to sit in a row up front, and pulled out her video camera? Well, maybe SHE didn’t mention it, but SOMEBODY noticed it. See the photo and video.

Our reports also say that Connie didn’t record the other speakers at the event. But she certainly made sure she recorded Mandel. Why was Connie Schultz so interested in Josh Mandel? Oh, please forgive me. I forget to mention something else. Connie’s husband is up for re-election next year, and Josh Mandel is almost certain to be the Republican nominee.

So, it appears that while being paid by the Plain Dealer to write a column about the Tea Party event, she was also stalking her husbands opponent and doing work for his re-election campaign.

Be sure to follow the link and watch the video.  3BP had some tough questions for Schultz and the Plain Dealer:

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A very curious, but not surprising, piece from Reuters this morning chronicled a speech by Michele Bachmann given to senior citizens this weekend in Poinciana, Florida.

This seemingly straightforward piece illustrates how bias toward evangelical Christians can work to marginalize their conservative views and potential candidacies.

Here are Congresswoman Bachmann’s words:

“Washington, D.C., you’d think by now they’d get the message. An earthquake, a hurricane. Are you listening? The American people have done everything they can, and now it’s time for an act of God and we’re getting it.”

We presume that Representative Bachmann’s comments were mostly, if not completely, tongue-in-cheek. Video of the speech shows that she was clearly joking. Reportedly, several audience members chuckled as if they understood it as humor; her spokeswoman has recently acknowledged that it was indeed a joke.

Reuters’ headline, however, painted a different picture:

For Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, Hurricane Irene and last week’s earthquake in the eastern United States were a message from God that Washington needs to change its policies.

The article added that Bachmann asserted that that “the hurricane was an ‘act of God’ that Washington should heed.”

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Look leftists, you’ve taken every good word that use to mean something and run it into the ground. Because of your overuse brought on by your hysteria and uncontrollable tantrums, the once strong words that specifically defined someone has been rendered impotent – much like your brains.

Here are a few examples of watered-down words in modern American lexicon.

Fascist. That was a good one. But no, you went and watered it down. It was once a serious word that described a real threat and a growing ideology. Now it’s used to describe those who believe that “In God We Trust” on our currency is OK. Or simply just happen to disagree with you over the right to prayer at a high school graduation.

Nazi. A little more nuanced than fascism but doubly meaningful when directed at someone. Nazism was the closest thing to the Devil’s army that man has ever produced. Writers have been trying for over 60 years to understand its origins and existence. It’s so deep and dark and evil that it was really a rare phenomenon in human history. So inhuman were their actions, we still can’t grasp it all. Now ironically, if you are pro-life, you are a Nazi.

Racist. Ah, now there’s a word you never get tired of hearing. Racism is a clinical condition. I personally think you have to be somewhat insane to fully subscribe to it. That’s not to say there aren’t real differences between cultures and values. And certainly some are indeed better than others. See, I’m a racist. I just held and expressed a less than flattering idea. Ergo, racist! That’s not its only use, though. If you are pounding a liberal opponent in debate, you can expect to be called racist. For instance, if you hold the view that lower taxes are better than higher taxes, you run the danger of being a racist. It is like the nuclear bomb in the liberal arsenal.

Which now leads us here.

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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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The much anticipated Sarah Palin documentary by filmmaker Steve Bannon comes out in theaters next Friday, July 15th. People can now see the trailer for the first time. I’ve now seen the film three times and one thing that stands out is how Sarah Palin has always been on the offensive and refuses to apologize for who she is. Subsequently, there are tens of millions of Americans who not only relate to her, but her ballsyness contrasts more with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. If Sarah Palin doesn’t run for the Presidency, someone in the Republican Party should take note on what real leadership looks like.

Democrats who watch this will see somebody they wish they had on their side—and they did once, in Alaska. Governor Palin stood up to the deservedly vilified ExxonMobil whose criminal misconduct with the Exxon Valdez was exacerbated with years and years of legal wrangling and deep-seated corruption that Governor Palin took on directly. Bannon’s movie is not a woe-is-her exercise in victimology; it’s a jarring look at how entrenched politicians and entrenched media can distort reality to maintain the status quo.

I have built a brand and a mission based upon pointing out media distortion and lies. I have never seen a greater disparity between the media Sarah Palin and the real one. Mainstream media types who have seen this movie are admitting as much but claim that it’s Sarah Palin who drastically changed into a completely different person. No, this was a manufactured Palin, manufactured to destroy her in the pursuit of protecting Barack Obama.
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We have an update on the story of CBS’s refusal to release the full recording of His Presidency Barack Obama calling American workers “Slugs.”

Blogger John Romano of Yes But However has been doing the work of a real reporter, holding CBS to account for their decision to withhold this very newsworthy audio:

Is CBS protecting the President in some way?  Did the White House bring pressure to bear on CBS over the tape?  Is this all much ado about nothing?  CBS News’ “decline to comment” doesn’t help matters much.

Boy, you have to love it when a “news” organization, a company in the business of seeking comment from the subjects of their stories, refuses to comment on one of their own stories.

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Last weekend, His Presidency Barack Obama was captured making potentially offensive comments to a group of big money donors who had paid large sums of money for special access to His Presidency.

We observed that CBS only released “selectively edited” moments from the raw tape. We know how much the mainstream media values complete and full disclosure of recordings of this nature, so we found it curious, to say the least, that there was not one drop of intellectual curiosity from these guardians of media purity regarding the content of the full recording.

Maybe CBS’s motive has nothing to do with protecting His Presidency from potential embarrassment. Perhaps, like Nixon before them, CBS accidentally erased the portions of the recording that they have not released. Anything is possible, right?

Alas, no. John Romano, Publisher of the blog “Yes, But, However!” has confirmed with CBS’s Mark Knoller (via Twitter) that CBS has decided that they are not going to release the complete recording.

@markknoller Why haven’t you released all of the audio of President Obama’s “donor meeting”? If you have please link?

@markknoller This is my third request. Why will you not release the full audio of Obama’s donor conversation?

@yesbuthowever My editors decided against it.

People can speculate as to what their motive is, but we suspect that they do not want to jeopardize their White House access leading into campaign season by being the ones to release the audio of His Presidency referring to Americans as “slugs.”

Does anyone out there know where we can find a copy of the full recording of His Presidency’s comments to donors in Chicago, made accidentally over an open mic?

We have only been able to find select “heavily edited” moments from the recording.

CBS broke the story by releasing the following short clip containing just Obama’s comments about the Republicans thinking he is stupid, and His Presidency’s comments on Paul Ryan:

Click image to see video

But where is the audio of the section where the President of the United States of America referred to some Americans as “slugs?”

He did opine that some employees “are slugs and not trying to do their job. But that’s true of any large institution.”

If His Presidency of the United States referred to a group of Americans as “slugs” and it was recorded, that is news and we deserve to hear it. At least so that we might judge for ourselves just how much insight his comments provide on his assessment of the American people. For all we know, it sounds better than it reads, but it reads pretty bad.

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Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski – R, has hired former CBS 11 lead political reporter and anchor, Matthew Felling, as her Communications Director.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska has announced Alaskan broadcast journalist Matthew Felling as her new Communications Director.

Felling comes to Sen. Murkowski’s office after being lead political reporter and anchor for CBS 11 News Anchorage. He joined CBS 11 News after a decade of news reporting, commentary and analysis in Washington, D.C — becoming the only TV reporter on the Washington Post’s “Best State-Based Political Reporter” list.

What the article doesn’t say is that CBS 11 is actually KTVA. As reported by both Big Journalism and Big Government back on October 30, 2010, several members of KTVA staff were caught conspiring against Murkowski opponent Joe Miller in a saved voice mail message to Miller campaign spokesperson, Randy DeSoto.

Given that Felling seems to have followed Murkowski from DC to Alaska and now back, again, he almost looks as much like a traveling companion, as he does a journalist and now new employee. Furthermore, the move would not have been possible had Murkowski not won the election. Given Felling’s role at KTVA and that two KTVA employees were fired as a result of the October incident, the ethics issues here are glaring. It’s fair to ask if Felling isn’t nowbeing rewarded for helping to steer CBS 11’s coverage Murkowski’s way during the November election.

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Photo taken 2004; Credit WKOW.com

26 year-old Katherine R. Windels has been charged for sending emails containing bomb threats and death threats to Wisconsin state senators during the budget battles last month.

According to the Milwauakee Journal Sentinel:

Windels was charged with two felony counts “bomb scare” and two misdemeanor counts of “computer message-threatening injury/bodily harm.” If convicted, each felony count carries a maximum penalty of three years and six months in prison and a $10,000 fine, and each misdemeanor count carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Windels was never arrested, but released on her own recognizance. This is surprising, since it now comes to light that she was investigated last year for similar activity. It is not known what she wrote exactly, as police redacted all content of the emails, but an acquaintance, Lisa Patterson, who received the e-mails, felt compelled to take them to the police. The police  merely told Windels to cease contact with Patterson.

In this latest caper meanwhile, Windels used the alias “Lisa Patterson.” Vindictiveness perhaps?

Liberty Chick reported at BigGovernment Friday that the Mackinaw Center recently received similar threats from a female caller. Could this be the same person again?

Windels’ e-mails got a lot of play when they first appeared. They were particularly vicious. Here is the complete text of one:

From: XXXX
Sent: Wed 3/9/2011 9:18 PM
To: Sen.Kapanke; Sen.Darling; Sen.Cowles; Sen.Ellis; Sen.Fitzgerald; Sen.Galloway; Sen.Grothman; Sen.Harsdorf; Sen.Hopper; Sen.Kedzie; Sen.Lasee; Sen.Lazich; Sen.Leibham; Sen.Moulton; Sen.Olsen
Subject: Atten: Death threat!!!! Bomb!!!!

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

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In two short years, Barack Obama has wrested the crown for most self-indulgent president from Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend, Bill Clinton.

Graphic by Freeper paulycy.

Clinton’s most self-indulgent moment came when when he urged Lewinsky to perform oral sex on him while he took a phone call from a Congressman. However, the November 17, 1995 incident occured in private, the Congressman did not suspect anything was amiss and it was not revealed until years later as part of the Starr investigation.

Obama’s most self-indulgent moment was broadcast on national television this week when, in the midst of numerous crises crying out for American leadership, he took time to film his picks for the NCAA basketball tournament brackets for broadcast by the ESPN sports network.

This follows a two-year string of self-indulgences by Obama since he became president that has demonstrated to the world that nothing comes before Obama’s me-time.

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From Politico:

The Republican’s top voice on tech and telecom issues says National Public Radio will suffer a “consequence” on Capitol Hill if “there’s this attitude inside the organization that would appear to be as partisan as what’s come out.”

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, said Thursday that public broadcasting’s standing in Congress has been badly undermined by a videotape in which NPR’s top fundraiser disparages the Tea Party movement and says the organization would be better off “in the long run” without federal money.

“I think there’s a role for public broadcasting,” Walden said. “The question is how much should taxpayers support it. And if there’s this attitude inside the organization that would appear to be as partisan as what’s come out, there’s going to be a consequence. That’s a reality. It’s political. You’re getting taxpayer money and taxpayers are asking, ‘Are we really funding that?’ It’s hard to defend.”

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National Public Radio President Vivian Schiller held a luncheon at the National Press Club yesterday to speak of NPR’s new endeavors as well as stating the case why they should not be stripped of federal funding.

Questions at the event had to be written down beforehand, and were later read to Ms. Schiller by a moderator.

When asked “Do you believe there is an imbalance at NPR in terms of liberals and conservatives in the newsroom? If the answer is ‘yes’ what do you propose to do about it?”

Schiller responded by saying they get a “tremendous amount of criticism for being too conservative as well” and wishes those people could be in their editorial meetings so they could see what goes on. She then states NPR’s journalism reflects “no particular bias.”

After, she says there’s no question it’s a “perception issue” that some believe NPR is liberal in nature.

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Newsweek is running a distinctly condescending take on the recent Arizona Massacre. The clippings below are from their latest print addition.

The gist of their argument is that there are parallels to be drawn between the racist assassination of MLK, and the massacre committed in Arizona.

An Echo of the King Killing

Then, as now, the country was fighting an intractable and apparently interminable war against a hard-to-find enemy on the other side of the planet — a conflict that had drained the nation’s coffers and left the populace fatigued and paranoid. Then as now, the airwaves seethed with reactionary speech. Then, as now, gun sales were going up, up , up.

What a sweeping and condescending generalization, “fatigued and paranoid”.

When Newsweek cites reactionary speech, are they referring to Frances Fox Piven’s call for violent rioting,  or are they referencing the rioting Democrat-party-organized “arrestables” who have been purposefully unleashed on American cities over the past several years, with the explicit goal of political intimidation and disruption? (RICO, anyone???)

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Palin-haters are attempting to turn Gov. Sarah Palin’s reasonable and empathic response today to the Tucson atrocity into an antisemitic outburst.

Palin, like Glenn Reynolds (and, independently, Andrew Breitbart) used the term “blood libel” to describe the way in which opportunistic politicians and journalists seized on the shooting spree to demonize the Tea Party and conservatives in general.

The original “blood libel” is the false accusation (originating in medieval Europe, still repeated in the Arab world) that Jews murder non-Jewish children for ritual purposes, a claim used throughout history to incite hatred and sometimes violence against Jewish communities.

Some conservatives–including Reynolds, Gov. Palin, Breitbart, and others–are suggesting that today’s media climate, in which millions of people are being falsely accused of complicity in the Tucson murders simply because of their belief in limited government, has analogous features. (Charles Krauthammer used the term “libel” today in the Washington Post, without the additional word “blood,” and it is possible that he intended to imply similar metaphor, albeit less directly.)

Of course, the Jews of medieval Europe who were the victims of the blood libel did not have the political freedom that Americans enjoy today, and which we conservatives are using to defend ourselves. That is such an obvious difference that no one felt it necessary to make the point when using the analogy–which, like any analogy, is inexact and open to debate.

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There is no proof yet that Christianne Amanpour is a child molester. Let that sink in for a second. Outrageous, right? Especially when simply said out of the blue like that. Yet that is how the media is treating the insanity of the left-wing progressive charge that conservatives, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are somehow responsible for the actions of a man who had been obsessed with his target since 2007, more than two years before the Tea Party was in existence.

Amanpour, on her low-rated “This Week” program on ABC, said the following in her report of the tragic act of insanity in Arizona when a disturbed gunman open fire, killed six and wounded more than a dozen, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. “…But in fact the suspect in custody, 22 year old Jared Loughner, has no known ties to the tea party or any conservative group.”

It was an unprovoked, out of context slam at a group of people who had nothing to do with anything involving this act of barbarism. But it was exactly what most progressive leftists want the story to be – “forget the tragedy, forget the victims, we have to try to use this to our political advantage and blame conservatives.” After all, never let a crisis go to waste, right?

Most old media left-wing attack dog types are only implying it, but some are flat-out saying it. For example, Paul Krugman, about whom there is also no evidence of child molestation yet, blogged that while there wasn’t “yet” any proof, “…it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.” Implicitly this means that the Democrat party is free to not take a stand against anyone using any inflammatory rhetoric because they don’t do that. Makes you wonder if Mr. Krugman has ever heard of Alan Grayson, MSNBC or many of President Obama’s own remarks.

Media Matters for America Senior Fellow (in what can only be described as watching television and complaining about it) Eric Boehlert, about whom there is ten times the evidence of being a child molester than conservatives are responsible for the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords (in case Eric can’t do math, when you multiply by zero you get zero) could not resist the urge to run to Twitter to blame the right, even though his employer managed to. (As of 3:00 am Media Matters website had no mention of the tragedy.) He took the opportunity to attack Andrew Breitbart and Sarah Palin, falling in line with all the other progressive bomb-throwers who seemingly received “Tweeting points” from a central command.  In his rage, which is pretty much a typical day for Mr. Boehlert, he forgot to do one things…condemn the act or offer any condolences or prayers for the victims whatsoever. In fact, he only wrote one tweet with the name Giffords in it, the others that mention her were retweets.

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