For everyone out there supporting the #Occupy Movement, who calls themselves part of “the 99%”, identifies with their alleged struggle, and supports their strategies and tactics, you may want to think twice.   History has taught that when the Left uncorks the radical movement, change comes swiftly…to the Right.

If one hops into the Way-Back Machine and plops down in late 18^th century France, one is apt to re-discover that fixture of high school European history known as The French Revolution.  Few would argue that French monarchy was a system worth endorsing.  But how quickly we forget what replaced it – a radical left-wing action that resulted in a secular Democratic republic that was a wee bit authoritarian.  Actually, if memory serves, there was this thing called The Committee of Public Safety – a virtual dictatorship run by crazy Robespierre that resulted in the Reign of Terror.

There’s a great quote from Robespierre to justify the use of violent repression, “Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible”.   Hmmmm.  Terror = Justice.  Now just slip the word “Social” in there before “Justice” and you can see where I’m headed.  But just so I can complete this parallel, Robespierre arranged to have even his allies executed so he could run the show himself, with his power assisted throughout the countryside by the Jacobin Club aka Popular Societies aka ACORN.

While the MSM spins about the “non-violent, non-Anti-Semitic non-racist #Occupy Movement”, your intrepid journalists here at The Bigs have uncovered tons of evidence that demonstrate just the opposite. Indeed, plans are in the works to….what’s the word?….terrorize the opponents of the People’s Revolution aka Obama’s #Occupy Movement. The result of all this violence was The Thermidorian Reaction – a swing back to the Right following the revolution.   I repeat, to the Right.

(more…)

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina primary. And just hours before ABC aired its interview with Newt’s ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show. Gov. Palin predicted that the tabloid-style interview would only cause Speaker Gingrich’s ratings to soar.

Mocking the mainstream media, Gov. Palin said, “I call them dumbarses.”

Gov. Palin continued:

They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all this does, Sean, is incentivize conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by the media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more. Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it. Good call, media.

Good call, Sarah Palin. Debate after debate, it has been Newt Gingrich who has hammered the MSM on its preferential treatment of Barack Obama and his liberal agenda. And many conservatives across America are eating it up.

Starved for passionate expression of how the political and social dictates of the Obama “regime,” and its closely allied Media, have attempted to oppress and ridicule American voters with conservative leanings, Newt has let everyone know that the battle is on. He has articulated conservative ideas like no other candidate, though the other candidates may embrace those ideas themselves.

(more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons (Conservative Political Cartoons)

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.

(more…)

Please read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

Today I’ll present contrasting studies on the product, to show the difference between a properly performed study and a botched one — and how the media reports on each.   A reminder on what we’re looking at: The controversy regarding Brazilian Blowout centers around the amount of formaldehyde allegedly released during a treatment.  A harmless alcohol known as methylene glycol is in every bottle of Brazilian Blowout solution.  During a treatment, methylene glycol can be converted to formaldehyde in tiny amounts when it reacts with water.

OSHA has two important safety limits: The Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).  Both are measured in parts per million (ppm).

First, we look at the correctly performed study, and the media’s coverage of it.

Do It Right

Dr. James Haw is the director of Environmental Studies Program and the Ray R. Irani, Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California. His work has been published 170 times in peer-reviewed journals.  he’s been lecturing all over the world for 30 years.  He’s been the recipient of 45 grants over the same time period, including one from the E.P.A.  His credentials are impeccable.

He recently visited two Los Angeles salons and conducted fully documented, rigorous scientific testing using the same methodology as OSHA.  The results of the study yielded formaldehyde exposure levels to be almost non-existent.

“The least advantageous way to use my data to estimate the stylist’s 15 min STEL is to imagine that the entire dose of formaldehyde measured over 35 min. was actually delivered in a single15-minute exposure.  This worst-case interpretation results in a value of 0.054 ppm, well below the OSHA limit of 2 ppm.  …The worst possible 8 hour time-weighted average exposure from these data…leads to an 8-hr. time-weighted exposure value of 0.026 ppm , well below the OSHA PEL of 0.75 ppm”.

For the second salon, the STEL was measured at 0.160ppm, well below OSHA’s limit of 2 ppm.  The PEL was measured at 0.052 ppm, well below the OSHA limit of 0.75ppm.  The entire study has been posted on the company’s website.

Here’s the media coverage of Dr. Haw’s study:

(more…)

Please read Part 1 and Part 2.

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

Oregon OSHA and Federal OSHA had already attacked Brazilian Blowout’s product, steering the media to focus on faulty aspects of their respective studies, and burying the truth  –  that the product does not release formaldehyde in amounts that exceed state or federal short-term or long-term exposure limits.

Enter Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D – 3 – OR).  Ontheissues.org labels him a “hard-core Liberal”, and you know what that means when it comes to anything involving chemicals or the environment.   Rep. Blumenauer sponsored nonsensical bills like HR 3311 that taxes drivers based on miles driven; a ludicrous bill to jump-start the funding of streetcars; a bill to establish under-the-radar death panels; a bill providing environmental education grants for outdoor experiences (huh?); and even one quashing free speech by attempting to ban a website promoting the perfectly safe Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

So Rep. Blumenauer reads about OSHA’s nonsense in the media and, because he’s a politician, doesn’t do his research, either.  Nor does he bother contacting the company to get their side of the story.   Instead, he grandstands by penning a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking that they recall the product — a product already proven to meet OSHA standards!

I asked Rep. Blumenauer’s press secretary, Derek Schlickeisen, about this approach to policy.  His assertion was that politicians “can’t have a chemist on staff”, and thus rely on OSHA’s scientists to bring incidents like this to light.  When I mentioned that the company-funded study by Health Science Associates showed formaldehyde levels below OSHA standards, he inferred that the study held little weight because it was company funded.

Yet why is it that OSHA’s results are given any more credibility, especially when OSHA caused a panic based entirely on a faulty sample?  Are we to believe that OSHA scientists are somehow free of ideological bias?  Kermit McCarthy, one of the authors of the Oregon OSHA study, “likes” hard-core Liberal Sen. Ron Wyden according to his Facebook page.  Why isn’t his bias questioned?  If anything, a government worker is likely more biased than a private company to insert bias, because his very job depends on his work generating a result that permits the government to do something.  Otherwise, the agency’s existence, and the employee’s, have no purpose.

(more…)

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

You’d never know it, though, because the mainstream media has been perpetuating one myth after another about Brazilian Blowout while ignoring the facts.   Last time, I wrote about a hatchet job made to appear as a legitimate study by Oregon OSHA [Note to Editor: Please link to Part 1] that was covered ad-nauseum by the media.

Yet, when a respected scientific association issued a balanced statement regarding Brazilian Blowout, the media spun it to make it appear that the company was fighting regulatory sampling of the product.  To wit: The American Chemistry Council, which actually manufactures formaldehyde, released a statement ten days before Oregon OSHA unveiled its biased “report”.

“We encourage the company that makes the Brazilian Blowout to cooperate fully with government officials to ensure that the product meets federal and state standards for formaldehyde use”.

Brazilian Blowout fully cooperated and, as thanks, was subjected to a biased and editorialized government report from Liberal environmentalists at Oregon OSHA.  Yet Time Magazine would have you believe that “The chemical industry is actually sort of coming down on the side of regulators and activist groups on the issue”, while quoting hack anti-capitalist enviro-wackos like Siobhan O’Connor.  The company’s side of the story, however, was omitted.

So, with the house already stacking the odds against Brazilian Blowout, Federal OSHA entered the fray.

(more…)

Contrary to ongoing media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

The company is caught in a perfect storm of faulty private and government studies, absurd regulatory definitions, environmentalist hoopla, Liberal politics, and verifiable governmental incompetence.  Add in the tsunami of a mainstream media eager to fearmonger and water-carry for anti-capitalist environmentalists, and Franz Kafka would’ve been proud.

Brazilian Blowout Passes All Air Sampling Tests

The controversy surrounds the allegedly dangerous levels of formaldehyde that are released during a Brazilian Blowout treatment — allegations for which there remain no scientific basis.  In fact, every single correctly performed test has fully acquitted the company and its product.

The first study was conducted jointly by the Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET), Oregon Health & Science University, and Oregon OSHA.  In what appears to this reporter as a blatant attempt to manufacture results unfavorable to Brazilian Blowout, air monitoring sample tests were carried out in time periods that vastly exceeded federal OSHA short-term exposure testing protocols of 15 minutes.  Instead, Oregon OSHA took samples of 26, 20, and 19 minutes.

Despite the apparent rigging of the experiment, the results still acquitted Brazilian Blowout regarding formaldehyde released during treatments.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Tim Geithner’s response to the Occupy Wall Street protestors, emails that show coordination with the media and if this is all part of the end to America’s centuries long prosperity.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Treasury Secretary Geithner on the Occupy Wall Street Movement (4:40 mark)
Wall St. protests continue after arrests
Journolist 2.0: OccupyDC Emails Show MSM, Dylan Ratigan, Working With Protesters To Craft Message
Army of unemployed is now entrenched in U.S.
America Wrongly Thinks Its Prosperity Can’t End

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

To quote someone we all know and love, let me be perfectly clear:  The mainstream media is the bought and paid for lapdog of the liberal Democrat elite.  It will not only never give conservatives a fair hearing but will actively distort, lie and slander in an effort to destroy any conservative it sees as a threat to its masters.  So why the hell do conservatives treat its members with anything other than contempt and allow it to set the agenda and exploit fault lines in the movement?

Easy – conservatives tend to be polite, reasonable people with a genuine interest in honest debate and a quaint belief in the efficacy of things like “facts” and “evidence” as a way to demonstrate the truth.  No wonder they get rolled.  The other side believes in none of those things – its only belief is that leftism must prevail and any other value is disposable if it turns into a liability.  The answer is conservative judo – understanding how the Left works and using its own weight and momentum against it.  We need to start being less like butt-kissing conservanerd David Brooks and more like butt-kicking conservastud Chuck Norris.

Conservative judo means going on the offense and keeping on the offense.  It’s not about reasoning with unreasonable people; it’s about using their own strengths against them to defeat them.  It has application to the GOP candidates for sure, but it also applies to those of us in the real world facing liberals every day.

The bizarre Rick Perry rock pseudo-scandal is a wonderful teachable moment for conservatives, mostly because the GOP candidates’ reactions allowed this contemptible lie to gain steam.  The Washington Post ran a story that some idiot wrote a racial slur on a rock at some ranch where Rick Perry hunted.  Now, one might observe that the facts and evidence show that about 30 years ago the Perry family got a hunting lease and promptly painted over the word.  One might also note that Perry was a Democrat at the time.  Moreover, the sources who disagree can’t agree on a different timeline and won’t give their names – inconsistent, anonymous hearsay is apparently acceptable when it comes to conservatives.

But none of this matters.  It’s not about “facts” or “evidence” or even “truth.”  It’s a calculated smear designed by a liberal rag to slander a leading GOP candidate.  Moreover, it is another example of a partisan political publication hiding behind the lie that it is an objective news source.  It is not.  The Washington Post, like the New York Times and the vast majority of mainstream media outlets, is an active collaborator with the liberal elite.  If it weren’t, Andrew Breitbart would not be the one breaking the story of Barak Obama’s game of patty cake with the expressly black supremacist New Black Panthers.

The question is, then, why the other GOP candidates tolerated this attack instead of coming to his defense – after all, this was an attack not just on Rick Perry but upon every conservative.  This was pure innuendo designed not just to trash one candidate but to feed a narrative that all conservatives are just one sheet away from an old fashioned cross burning of the kind dead Democratic icon Robert Byrd would have enjoyed in his pre-Senate capacity as a KKK Kleagle.

Herman Cain fell right into the trap.  A good man, it seems he did so here not in a short-sighted attempt to capitalize on the blow to Rick Perry but because he was genuinely disgusted with the idea that some nitwit would paint that sort of thing on a rock.  When asked about it (at the 3:42 mark) by Chris Wallace of Fox News, he responded that it was “insensitive.”  Well, “insensitive” is one word for it – Cain was being kind.  My saltier characterization would have included an adjective beginning with an “F.”  Cain later clarified that he was referring to the person who wrote it, and that he did not believe the Rock of Outrages represented Perry’s belief.  Too late.  The damage was done.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Tim Groseclose to discuss the his new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, and how newsrooms are filled with self-selecting liberals who make it difficult for conservatives to break into journalism.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind
TimGroseclose.com

Follow Pej on Twitter
Follow Kevin on Twitter

If we are going to win this thing, this battle to retake our culture and our country, you are going to have to learn to love to fight.

This battle can’t be left to a few champions who do battle on the airwaves or on cable or on the Internet, or who just do their part tweeting and Facebooking.  While we Constitutional conservatives, Tea Partiers, or whatever we call ourselves have been punching above our weight – the merely crappy debt ceiling deal would have been an unholy abomination of a deal if not for the intransigence of our Congressional allies supported by our voices from outside the Beltway – the fact is that we need more warriors.  That’s you.

And to be a warrior you need to want to fight.  You need to need to fight.  I’m not talking about punching and kicking – though if someone wants to go there, hey, let’s rock.  This is spoken or written combat, whether the battlefield is a cocktail party or a Facebook page.  And it’s vital.  These are serious issues that are worth fighting over.   Our Founders didn’t think they were making a country for a bunch of simpering, goody-goody wimps who go all wobbly at a harsh word or a raised voice.  Democracy requires guts.  Nut up.

People whine about fighting, cry over “bickering,” stammer out clichés about “bipartisanship,” “compromise” and being “reasonable.”  Well, I reject bipartisanship, compromise and reasonability, and so must you.  I want to fight and to win; death or glory.  Compromise is for losers – half a turd is still 100% turd.  But enough about the debt ceiling bill.

(more…)

INTRODUCTION

I. Whoever Controls “The Narrative,” Controls the National Political Conversation

When it comes to most of today’s mainstream media we are no longer talking about an entity that reports truth or facts. Everything about the MSM is now about The Narrative. Even though they’re supposedly made up of separate and competing newsrooms, there’s a very good reason why the MSM as a whole is usually covering, emphasizing and amplifying the exact same stories. This is what The Narrative is and its usefulness to the MSM is how it pushes particular stories to the forefront of public awareness in order to further a political agenda — an agenda that 90% of the time is meant to aid the Left and damage the Right.

Another part of The Narrative is what the MSM chooses NOT to cover; what they willfully ignore.

You can see The Narrative at work as I write this. The same MSM that assured us that when it came to Barack Obama, the church he attended for two decades didn’t matter, is now obsessing over a church Rep. Michele Bachman’s hasn’t attended in over a year. Here you have two separate (and wildly hypocritical) narratives at work: one meant to protect a Democratic presidential candidate, the other meant to damage a GOP presidential candidate.

On the other hand, you can also see The Narrative working by what’s NOT being covered today. The same MSM that obsessed over the Valerie Plame non-story is currently all but ignoring Obama’s brewing “Fast and Furious” gunrunning scandal –mainly because it’s exactly the kind of scandal that can swamp a presidency into paralyzing, under-40 approval ratings.

II. How Alternative Media Created the MSM’s Need for a Media Matters for America

Prior to the rise of the Internet, the Left almost completely owned the narrative. The simple truth is that before Al Gore’s invention was fully realized, other than a few esteemed columnists, the media had no serious ideological competition from the Right. The rise of the Internet, however, changed all of that as citizen journalists — many of whom are motivated by the MSM’s liberal biases — found this new tool invaluable when it came to both debunking the MSM’s latest lie (the most famous being RatherGate) or reporting on stories the MSM chose to ignore for ideological reasons.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

***UPDATE: The DNC just released a video that makes my case perfectly. CNN asks a series of dumb questions that have little to do with the important issues of the day and the DNC exploits this with a viral-video mocking  our candidates for ignoring the most important issues of the day.

If you think this is by accident, you haven’t been paying attention:

—–

ABC’s Jake Tapper sees through this but unfortunately there’s only one Jake Tapper.  END UPDATE

Laugh at Democrats all you want but their decision during the last election to stay away from Fox News’ debates was brilliant. No one at Fox would’ve been unfair, but they most certainly would’ve asked tougher questions than anyone in the MSM. That’s not a cowardly decision on the Democrats part, it’s a tactically brilliant decision. Why would anyone interested in winning an election willingly put themselves in a less than ideal situation? Unfortunately, the only people who can answer that question are those currently running for the GOP nomination.

Nothing is more important than getting our failed president out of office in 2012 and therefore nothing is more important than nominating someone who can win. This is why the number one quality we should be looking for among our otherwise superb field is someone who understands that when it comes to removing Barack Obama from office, the MSM is the existential threat of 2012 — not the President. In a just world, Obama would have almost no chance of winning re-election, but we don’t live in a just world. We live in a world where Obama’s MSM Palace Guards have set their phasers to kill and intend to take out any threat to Their Precious One without prejudice.

And so last night when I saw our esteemed candidates voluntarily lined up like so many ducks in a MSM shooting gallery, I died a little bit inside.  It’s a trap, GOP!, and you can laugh at moderator John King’s questions all you want but I’m guessing that’s exactly what the MSM wants us to do. That way we don’t see the Matrix of what they were really up to. Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air:

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Andrew Breitbart’s recent epic battle with the forces of liberal tolerance is not the most important lesson he offers – not by a longshot.  There has got to be someone surprised by the way the Huffington Post fell to its figurative knees to kiss the figurative asses of Van Jones and his commie pals the second they started whining about how Breitbart was speaking his mind, but that someone likely believes in climate change and unicorn rodeos.  Liberals treat concepts like “freedom of speech” and “diversity” like lonely teenage boys treat Kleenex; their floor is littered with wadded-up, discarded principles like free expression that have out-lived their usefulness.  If you are shocked that the liberal media is anything more than a Ministry of Truth promoting the lamest collectivist clichés du jour, you either haven’t been paying attention, or you are really, really dumb.

No, Andrew Breitbart’s most important lesson – one he’ll happily tell you about and which his bestselling book will describes in depth – is that ten years ago, he was just some regular guy.  He wasn’t a Harvard grad or a congressman or a TV anchor.  He was just a normal American citizen who had had enough.  The only difference between him and everyone else is that he chose to get into the fight by leveraging his growing political maturity with the exploding phenomena that is the internet.  And that’s a decision you can make too.

At a superficial level, what my boring communications professors droned on about while my buddies and I took Bacardi hits off a flask in the last rows of the UCSD lecture halls, is true – the medium itself is the message.  Supported by talk radio, conservative think tanks and Fox News, the internet and the social media it has made possible – the Facebooks, the Twitters, the podcasting and the blogs – represent the destruction of the old order of political discourse.  And that creative destruction is what we represent – the new paradigm that has turned the once mighty New York Times into a pathetic brochure that today sets the agenda for no one but the Manhattan-bound, neo-Pauline Kael set whose members can’t believe those Tea Party barbarians prevailed last November because they don’t know any.

The issue is not whether you can be part of the fight.  You can.  You can organize, to the extent the Tea Party movement lends itself to organization (Chaos is its best defense against co-opting!).  You can start a blog, you can tweet, or you can Facebook (Is that a verb yet?).  The number of internet radio shows and podcasts like Jimmy Bise, Jr.’s “The Delivery” are exploding.  New radio hosts are coming out of the movement, like Larry “Stage Right” O’Connor, Dana Loesch and Tony Katz – and they are crossing into terrestrial radio.  Your opportunity is unlimited.

(more…)

In their ongoing crusade to target and silence decent, everyday Americans as racists, some in the MSM love to use the term “dog-whistle” in order to ascribe racial motives to words like, say, “basketball.” Well, lately I’ve been hearing a dog-whistle of my own — a dog-whistle of the journ-o-list variety that tells me that in their relentless campaign to destroy Sarah Palin and undercut her as a serious political force, the MSM is preparing to up the ante when it comes to using the Governor’s own family and children as a political weapon against her.

First, a little background…

Why the Media Whips Up the Palin-Fury

Watching the MSM react to Governor Palin over the last few years has been an illuminating crash course in Alinsky 101. Like elite, elbow-patched community organizers, the media collectively targets, polarizes, demonizes and intentionally creates a perpetual storm of personal drama around the Governor in the hopes of exhausting even those of us who support her. I call it whipping up the Palin-Fury.

This is a common tactic from the Left, but one we usually see played out in the streets with the idea being to so toxify the atmosphere that decent people give up the fight and go home just to get away from the awfulness of it all. The last few months of ugly and relentless pro-union protests in Wisconsin — though a failure for the left — were a textbook example of this. However, when it comes to Governor Palin, what we’re seeing is this tactic practiced by almost every so-called “objective” news outlet in America.

(more…)

UPDATE: Oh look, the MSM’s already making thing’s up. See here.

If Sarah Palin’s not running for president, what a terrible waste that would be of the single best stump speech I’ve heard since, well, Palin’s ’08 convention speech, which just happened to be the single most electrifying political moment of my adult life. A thrill didn’t just run up my leg that night, it ran up everything in me that’s American, and today in Madison, WI, it happened again. Surrounded by an obnoxiously hostile, astro-turfed, pro-union crowd that tried and failed to drown out her message with obnoxiously hostile astro-turfed noise, the former Alaskan Governor took the fight directly to the growing pile of Obama’s failures in the most effective way we’ve heard yet from a potential GOP challenger.

If you want to know why Obama’s Palace Guards in the MSM are determined to destroy this woman and all of popular culture has risen up to help, press PLAY. If you want to know why the GOP Establishment had better start looking over their collective shoulders, press PLAY.

—–

You see what else she did there? Exactly what she did as a reform-minded governor in Alaska. She called the GOP Establishment out for everything they’re doing wrong, appealed to reasonable rank-and-file union members disgusted by their leadership, and reaffirmed her own proud union credentials. Better yet, she also launched the kind of tight, sharp, and articulate attack on President Obama’s failed presidency that likely has the White House — and their media allies — loosening their ties, clearing their throats, and looking for any word she might have mispronounced as an excuse to drown out her appealing message with the furtherance of a cruel “stupid” narrative they’ve been failing at for two-plus years.

I’ll ask again: How can someone so “dumb” be so right about everything?

(more…)

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???)

(more…)