MSNBC BeClowns 

Itself Again:

Still Living In The Past

It wasn't THAT long ago MSNBC & NBC News got caught red-handed editing the audio of the Zimmerman 911 call.  You may remember several people getting fired from their jobs over that one - 3 publicly.  


Think MSNBC & NBC News learned their lesson from that debacle? 


NOT A CHANCE. 


Here's what aired yesterday on MSNBC, with Andrea Mitchell reporting: 

Heh. Yeah. That super-rich out of touch guy, Mitt Romney, what did you expect?  What an IDIOT this guy is, eh?  Why, as Andrea helpfully points out, this helps show that Mitt is as out of touch as George H.W. Bush was when he was 'amazed' by a simple grocery store scanner!  


Except of course, as anybody who's looked into that knows, the 'totally AMAZED!!!! by a simple grocery store scanner' story itself was totally bogus:  


http://www.snopes.com/history/american/bushscan.asp


Guess what happened? Somebody had actually watched Mitt's entire speech that day. AND IMMEDIATELY KNEW WHAT MSNBC had done.  So they put the raw video up on YouTube.  


Where.............SURPRISE!!!!.............a Conservative blogger saw it and compared it to the video MSNBC ran.  


http://www.soopermexican.com/2012/06/18/more-ridiculous-lies-from-liberal-media-about-romneys-wawas-hoagie-speech/


Here's what Mitt actually said.  Compare the video below to how MSNBC presented it in the highly edited clip above: 

Within just several HOURS MSNBC's attempt at a 'Romney is way out of touch' narrative based on their deceptively edited video had been blown up all over the internet. 


Except at the Huffington Post, for some reason:


 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/mitt-romney-wawa-pennsylvania_n_1606652.html


Now, caught redhanded doing this, what was MSNBC's response when even Politico and others had to admit they'd gotten caught? 


http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/msnbc-misportrays-romneys-wawa-remarks-126545.html


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/06/msnbcs-trouble-selectively-editing-romneys-wawa-moment/53682/


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/msnbcs-faux-news--wawa-edition/2012/06/19/gJQAHFcRoV_blog.html


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/msnbc-misquotes-romney-invents-wawa-gaffe.html


Here's what Andrea Mitchell & MSNBC had to say today about this: 


http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/19/video-msnbc-as-apologetic-as-youd-imagine-for-deceptive-editing-on-romney-wawa-visit/

Hey, Obama's Palace Guards in the Media, little NEWSFLASH for you here: YOU ARE LIVING IN THE PAST.  You really really need to stop doing that. 


You've had it proven to you time and again you CAN'T get away with this BS any longer.  I realize since you're not very intelligent coming up with new tricks to deceive the public might be a real stretch for you, but you're simply going to have to apply yourself & come up with something.  


The internet is too vast, the information that can be obtained almost instantly now is too broad to continue trying this stupid "We'll just deceptively edit this video & spin it & our stupid viewers will never catch on" schtick.  


You'd think they'd have learned this lesson after they deceptively edited a Tea Party rally video to hide the race of the black guy that brought a legally carried rifle to the rally so they could talk about...................WHITE RACISTS.  

That particular attempt at deception didn't even last 1 full day thanks to Newsbusters & Noel Sheppard.  


The New Media is up and running now. It's found it footing, and it's figured out many of the Old Media's clever tricks.  It can now blow up the Old Media's narratives often on the SAME DAY they try to roll them out.  


This IS progress, but more remains to be done.  The next step is, instead of reacting to the Old Media and spending much of our time just exposing their latest lies, is to leave them behind in the dustbin of history.  


We're working on it.  


UPDATE:  Hat tip to Elizabeth Scalia, who blogs as The Anchoress [@TheAnchoress] for tweeting this epic rant by a long-time defender of the Mainstream Media who, as she puts it,  just had his last nerve fried by this latest duplicity.  


http://wizbangblog.com/2012/06/19/you-have-done-a-superlative-job-of-diminishing-what-was-once-a-great-profession/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2012/06/memo-to-nbc-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/

Seriously.

First, there was the Trayvon Martin boondoggle a few months ago.

Then yesterday, evidence of some creative editing regarding Mitt Romney’s visit to a Wawain Pennsylvania.

Today, we have Andrea Mitchell’s spectacularly lame followup to “criticism of the Romney clip edit” — which amounted to Ms. Mitchell saying, with a sigh and a frown, “Oh, bother.  Fine.  Here’s what we left out.”   She failed to acknowledge what the “criticism” entailed; she neglected to point out how the editing misrepresented the event being covered; and she offered nothing resembling an apology or an admission of responsibility for something that was, as a matter of fact, irresponsible.

I’m tired.  Truly.  I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable.  For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no.  Calm down.  They meant well.  It was just a misunderstanding.  A mistake.  These things happen.”  I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made.   I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

But now?

Forget it. I’m done.  You deserve what they’re saying about you.  It’s earned.  You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you.   You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more.  You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

Good job.

I just have one question:

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

More at Elizabeth's blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2012/06/19/award-winning-cbs-news-writer-goes-off-on-nbc/

Sam Donaldson: Obama's 

Critics On The Right

Are Obsessed With 

The Fact He's Black

The only thing I remember about Sam Donaldson - besides the fact

he wore the most obvious toupee ever - is how often he 

interrupted a speaking President, from Nixon to the Bush's. 

Yes folks, he actually said this: 


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/06/16/Sam-Donaldson-Many-on-the-political-right-Oppose-Obama-Because-He-s-An-African-American

And there is one more factor, let’s face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American!

Liberals actually think Conservatives lie awake at night obsessing over the fact the current President is BLACK. 


They really do think this way.  


It really has nothing to do with the fact he's incompetent, arrogant, out of touch, over-reaching, engaging in frequent illegal and unethical behavior.  


No, no, that's not the REAL reason Obama is opposed so vigorously.  


Remember this post on Liberal Pathology?  


http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2012/03/understanding-liberal-pathology-i-i.html

This is what many Conservatives don't understand. There they are calmly and reasonably discussing a certain subject - let's say pension funds for unions, which are going to bankrupt many states before 2020 gets here if something isn't done - and all of a sudden the Liberal they are talking to will lean over the table and hiss "Why do you HATE working families?"

This is what it always comes down to . They are convinced evil motives drive Conservative policy. Therefore only evil people can adopt Conservatism. Based on this bedrock assumption, they will totally ignore any rational points you are making that count against the Liberal position and at all times keep trying to discuss your MOTIVES for daring to question the Collective Wisdom.

When they can't defeat your argument on the MERITS, they will switch to attacking your argument because it's based on WRONG MOTIVES.  


"Sure things could have gone better for the President the past 3 years, but the only reason you are opposing him is his SKIN COLOR.  Your opposition is motivated by RACISM and it is therefore invalid and reprehensible."


Your criticism/opposition to Obama & his policies is invalid because......RACIST!

Actor & Conservative blogger Adam Baldwin already wrote one of the definitive treatments on how the Left uses the PC word 'racism!' as a thought-terminating, discussion-ending cliche': 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2010/02/26/Racist-----He-cried-----A-Thought-Terminating-Clich---in-Decline

The Man They Call Jayne says: "Get that ruttin'

thought-terminatin' cliche' outta my sight.......NOW!"

So not surprisingly, almost immediately some on the Left began spinning that the 'REAL REASON' Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro interrupted Obama is.........racism!

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV?id={811472B6-D333-4412-B4F8-C3237B452BE9}&title=CNN-Anchor-Reporter-Interrupted-President-Because-Hes-Black

An instantly formed talking point on the Left was that NOBODY had EVER interrupted a President giving a speech before.  For longtime political junkies like me, this was a howler.  Really? Never? & the only reason it would happen is racism? 

OK then: meet the nation's First Black President: RONALD REAGAN

http://spectator.org/blog/2012/06/18/reagan-heckled-by-press-corps

Have these people never seen Helen Thomas in action? She was only in the WH press corp for something like 45 years.  

It's June and they're already rolling out the Race Card. Again.  My. God. What a fun 5 months this is going to be.  

The Arrogance Of This 

President Has Reached

Mind-Blowing Proportions

This is what a coward looks like:

"Are you going to take any questions?" "Not while I'm speaking."

[finishes speaking, then turns and quickly leaves, taking no questions from reporters]

Supposedly the big takeaway from the President's speech in the Rose Garden yesterday was that a very rude reporter interrupted Barack Obama while he was giving a speech.  

"Excuse me sir, it's not time for questions." 

And when the speech was over, apparently it 

STILL wasn't the time for questions.....

If that's all you heard about, some rude guy not waiting until Obama was finished to ask a question, you missed the real story.  


Yesterday, the President of the United States announced he was single-handedly re-writing the nation's immigration law without having to deal with niggling little details like the United States Congress or Supreme Court. 


This is just the latest example of Obama doing an end-run around the other branches of the US Government and shredding the Constitution when it suits him for his own political gain.   

NEWS FLASH TO THE WHITE HOUSE:  The Executive Branch of the Federal Gov't does NOT have the power to single-handedly rewrite the nation's laws when it suits it.  Writing and passing the nation's laws is the job of the Congress, with the Supreme Court checking to make sure those laws pass Constitutional muster.  In fact, the job of the Executive Branch, contained right there in the oath of office, is to protect & defend the Constitution of the United States and see that the laws are enforced.  The court challenges to this latest Obama over-reach won't be long in coming, but the fact we even have to go through this charade is frustrating.  

"Yeah well I don't LIKE that law, I don't AGREE with that law, so 

I'm CHANGING that law and you can't stop me!"

Obama seems to think if he doesn't agree with the law written & passed by the people's elected representatives in the Congress, he has the right to either totally ignore it or as in this case, actively rewrite it to suit himself.  


By re-writing the nation's immigration law to 


1. end deportation of illegal immigrants aged between 16 & 30 years of age,
2. allow these same illegal immigrants to apply for work permits


all on his own, Obama has just radically altered the nation's policy & there will be definite impact to this in a number of areas.  


Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro, who became instantly famous for interrupting Obama yesterday, immediately seized on the most important impact of allowing what could be up to 800,000 young illegal immigrants to legally look for work in the US.

In a US job market where the fake 'official' unemployment rate has been over 8% for over 2 1/2 years [actual unemployment rate well over 12%], and the labor pool is actually shrinking as more people drop out of it, this is of course the PERFECT TIME to suddenly have 800,000 people who broke the law to get in here competing with US citizens for what few job openings can be found.  


And if they are legally allowed to work here in the US now, if they can't find any work, does this mean they can now also legally file for unemployment & welfare benefits?  That IS a valid question.


Naturally, Obama didn't want to have to answer ANY questions about the radical power grab he was making, OR messy questions about what this new policy would mean for the US job market.  


Obama has done this several times before, used a Rose Garden speech to announce some big new policy or plan and then leave without taking any questions.  That is CERTAINLY  what he planned to do yesterday.  


And Neil Munro was not having any of it.  This reporter instantly seized not only on what a huge unconstitutional power grab this was by Obama, he also immediately realized what a negative impact this new influx of legal job seekers would have on the employment situation.  


He knew Obama would never willingly take a question from a reporter that day about it.  And quite frankly, it pissed him off.  It's very true as you watch the video of the exchange, you can see Munro is agitated.  I can think of a lot of smart people who could quickly grasp what Obama was doing getting pretty agitated about it.  

"Yeah, I'll just walk out there & announce this new policy & then

leave without taking any questions about it."

So Neil Munro didn't follow the script.  Obama was supposed to go out there, give this prepared speech, announce he's usurping Congresses' role in making the nation's laws, totally abdicating his own role of enforcing those laws, shredding the Constitution, plus creating a job situation in this country more confused & murky than ever, and then quickly turn and leave without taking any questions from the dozens of reporters there to cover the speech.  


Liberals want you to be VERY VERY upset at Neil Munro because he did not follow the script.  


You know what my take on it is?  Thank God there are Americans still out there who won't take this BS lying down.  Obama wanted to pull a fast one on the American people and not be called out on it by anybody.  SOMEBODY IN THE MEDIA DECIDED TO ACTUALLY CONFRONT HIM ABOUT IT.  


Isn't that the media's job? Haven't they spent decades claiming they are the watchdogs looking out for the rest of us & speaking the truth to power, etc. etc.?   Wasn't that what Munro was doing?  

The real point here is that Progressives want a LAPDOG MEDIA that will take quietly whatever Obama dishes out.  Don't rock the boat. Go along to get along. Play along no matter how outrageous his behavior gets.  

Did this arrogant prick actually expect to go out there and singlehandedly rewrite the nation's immigration law, bypassing both the Congress & the Constitution for his own political advantage and NOBODY WOULD CALL HIM OUT ON IT?

Hey lap dog media: take a lesson from Neil Munro. THIS IS WHAT A WATCH DOG LOOKS LIKE. 

Daily Caller Reporter Neil Munro: Just 1 of the over 

2 dozen reporters assembled

for Obama's speech who's questions 

Obama had no intention whatsoever of taking.

Maybe Neil Munro has been doing exactly that up until yesterday?  Maybe Obama finally crossed that line in the sand where Munro can't look away any more and pretend he's not seeing what he knows he's seeing? 


Yeah, so the big takeaway we're supposed to have from the speech in the Rose Garden yesterday isn't that Obama thinks he's some kind of King who can do whatever the hell he wants, Constitution be damned, no it's that some reporter didn't wait for Obama to finish his speech so Obama could leave without taking any questions.  


You sure? 

HE'S DONE.

Today Obama rushed out to give a hastily set up speech in Cleveland, Ohio to try to counter a Mitt Romney speech being delivered in Cincinnati.  


In an apparent attempt to recover from what amounts to almost 2 straight weeks of gaffes, mistakes and being outmaneuvered by the Romney campaign, Team Obama decided on short notice to set up a major economic speech to try to steal Romney's thunder today.  


It didn't go so well.  


Having set up a major speech, and invited all the networks to cover it, Obama then went out there and............said absolutely nothing new.  


Allahpundit's take at Hot Air hits home because it's snarky but TRUE: 

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/14/gamechanger-obama-rocks-america-with-speech-everyones-heard-50-times-before-update-panned-by-msnbc/

Gamechanger: Obama rocks America with speech everyone’s heard 50 times before

As somebody who's been watching politics since the 1984 contest between Ronald Reagan & Walter Mondale, I can tell you that any campaign should know you don't call THIS kind of attention to yourself this early in the campaign unless you have something new or bold to interject into the race.  Some new plan or idea.  

Since Team Obama had announced this would be a 'major economic speech' lots of media tuned in so they can see what the new idea or plan was that Obama would reveal in Ohio today.  

After all, it's more apparent than ever that the economy & jobs are the #1 issue in this election, and Obama - especially after his 'private sector doing fine' gaffe - is losing ground on that to Romney.  

So what new plan or idea would Obama talk about to try to recapture the magic?  

And now we know.  

There WAS no new plan.  There were no new ideas.  Obama went out there today and gave the same speech he's been giving all over the country, the basic stump speech where he blames Bush for everything. 

Ace at Ace of Spades gives you the gist of what Obama said in Cleveland: 

http://minx.cc/?post=330128

Kind of Obvious: He agrees with Romney that the economy is the most pressing issue, but then hits his "framing" point: "But this election is still a choice." A choice, not a referendum.
A make or break moment for the middle class, he says.
What's holding us back is a stalemate in Washington over two fundamentally different views of which direction we should take the country. This election is your chance to break that stalemate.
This election is a choice between two paths. Nothing is more important than an "honest debate" over which path.
Okay, now he says we have to figure out how we got here. We're back to Bush.
He claims that under Bush it was growing harder to find a job to put food on the table. Compared to now, dude?
So how did this theory work out? (Crowd laughs, a little.) "For the wealthiest Americans it worked out pretty good."
Streaming: At MSNBC.com. Foxnews has bailed on the same-old same old, but MSNBC cable, of course, is staying with Derp Leader's words.
Now discussing the Republicans' plan, which he says consists of stripping government down to national security and a couple of other core functions. (If only.)
Claims the only tax subsidies Republicans could cut as part of tax reform are those that aid retirement, education, and health care.
Claims "this is not my opinion, this is facts."
"I'm giving you an honest presentation of what he's proposing... I'm looking forward to the press following up, so you can know I'm not exaggerating."
Claims Romney's plan is to make America into a third-world country so it can compete with such countries. Rejects this, as such countries do not have a strong middle class or "standard of living."
Returns to "asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute their fair share."
Claims "independent" analysts predict his policies will create one million jobs. "This is the vision I intend to pursue in my second term as President."
I thought he was wrapping up, but now Derp Leader has babbled on for six more minutes. He claims that Abraham Lincoln was the author of socialism (government must do what we can't do ourselves), and that these Wingnuts have embraced a scary laissez-faire "Market is Everything" approach wherein "government is the enemy."
Once again he gins up teachers: He wants to get rid of "teaching to the test" (the thing teachers hate, as it provides a hard-math benchmark of performance). That gets applause, and as the applause drowns him out, he adds "and get rid of teachers who aren't performing."
Then he says he wants to "recruit an army of new teachers."
I wasn't aware that the current economic problems in this country were caused by a Teacher Deficit. I sort of thought we had about the right number.
"Let's double down" on his clean energy proposals. Talking about electric cars and energy-efficient buildings, ending "oil subsidies" (aka standard tax treatment where you deduct your costs from your income to find profit).

"It's all Bush's fault, the rich still aren't paying their fair share, we need billions to pay for new teachers, let's double down on green jobs & green energy, blah blah blah."

Allah wasn't exaggerating, this IS what we've been hearing from him since last year.  There are no new ideas and there was no plan to get the economy moving.  

Even the Hive-Mind at MSNBC, where the Progressive Left goes to cocoon itself in a nice, safe bubble from reality, struggled to put a positive spin on this big mis-step.  Watch MSNBC host Tamron Hall desperately argue with her own 2 guests about how AWESOME the speech was:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-panels-verdict-on-obama-campaign-speech-it-stinks/

Obama rushed out there to go head-to-head against Romney this early and his own personal cheering section at MSNBC has to pan the speech, it was so awful.  Obama has had plenty of time to make a case to the American people for a 2nd term as President, and he just passed on another chance to do that.  

The only thing that means is no big changes, no big plan, just more of the same of what you've gotten the past 3 1/2 years.  

And that won't be good enough.  


UPDATE:  So yeah, announce a major new speech that will supposedly 're-frame' your campaign, get all the media there and then go out and.........say the same stuff you've been saying for 3 1/2 years.  


Good job, RNC.

Obama & Progressives Really

ARE More Concerned About

Public Sector Job Losses

The Old Media can try it's damndest, but there really IS no way for Obama to walk back what he said: 

He wasn't 'misunderstood'.  There is nothing to 'clarify' about what he said there.  Let me set the stage for Obama's monumental gaffe.  

Last year as the recovery stalled for it's 2nd straight year Harry Reid decided to come right out and say the private sector was doing fine, & and he thought what Congress should focus on was spending more stimulus money shoring up public sector jobs: 

Then Paul Krugman made the same point in his column in the New York Times: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/opinion/krugman-the-amnesia-candidate.html?_r=1

For the Bush era didn’t just end in catastrophe; it started off badly, too. Yes,Mr. Obama’s jobs record has been disappointing — but it has been unambiguously better than Mr. Bush’s over the comparable period of his administration. 

This is especially true if you focus on private-sector jobs. Overall employment in the Obama years has been held back by mass layoffs of schoolteachers and other state and local government employees. But private-sector employment has recovered almost all the ground lost in the administration’s early months. That compares favorably with the Bush era: as of March 2004, private employment was still 2.4 million below its level when Mr. Bush took office.

Brief comment on Krugman's duplicity there: note he says the private sector employment had 'recovered almost all the ground lost in the administrations early months'.  That's a fancy way of saying after almost an entire year in office, under Obama private sector employment dropped by a significant margin in the first few months, and then crawled slowly right back to where it had been when Obama assumed office.  

Over 7 million private sector jobs were lost between 2007 and 2009.  But Krugman wants to focus on where the jobs mark was when Obama took office, noting that the private sector employment continued to dip as Obama took office, but then after several months it climbed back up to exactly where it had been when Obama entered the White House. 

Yes folks, THIS is what Obama, Reid & Krugman call 'doing fine'.

Progressives want people to forget that Federal, State & Local Government - what we refer to as 'public sector jobs' - are all paid for with tax money extracted from the private sector - businesses that are run by capitalists for profit.  

When you have a HUGE DROP in the number of people in the private sector that are paying taxes, this means the amount of tax money you have available to pay your public sector workers DROPS as well.  

While private sector businesses have struggled to meet payrolls and keep from shedding even MORE employees since 2007, Obama & Co. embarked on a program of what they called 'shoring up public sector jobs' by passing 'Stimulus Bills'. 

Let me rephrase that to really draw out what happened: As private business struggled to make enough profits from providing goods & services to willing customers in order to stay afloat and avoid being forced to shrink any further, the bureaucrats up there in Washington took billions of dollars in tax money taken from those same private businesses & used them to protect public sector jobs so as to minimize any job losses.  

Anybody who understood what Washington was doing with our tax money in 2009 & 2010 knows it's not exactly a NEWSFLASH that the bureaucrats up there place much, MUCH more value on public sector jobs than they do on private sector jobs.  They've already spent BILLIONS of our tax dollars proving that.  

Here's the problem: they managed to shield the public sector from the brunt of the recession in 2009 and 2010 by spending billions of tax dollars to protect jobs that otherwise would have had to be cut.  While private business owners would have LOVED to get billions of dollars given to them to keep from having to fire employees, state & local governments got billions to spend to ward off the effects of the recession.  Gov't got to keep most of it's employees; the private sector had to keep shrinking.  

When they call this a 'historic' recession they aren't kidding you.

And then the stimulus money ran out.  And Washington realized the political climate has shifted, and the public will no longer go along with yearly stimulus bills shoveling billions to state & local governments so they could continue shielding their valuable public employees from fiscal reality.  

The result?  After staving it off for two years by spending all that 'free' federal tax money, state & local governments were finally forced to either cut their spending & balance their budgets, or engage in large layoffs of public employees.  

Now you know why we got all that excitement up in Wisconsin.  

It's a fact our economy would have to be adding around 150,000 jobs a month just for us to keep up with population growth.  In other words, to simply be running in place, the monthly job report would have to show the country adding 150,000 jobs or more.  

Didn't Obama just get a jobs report that showed only 69,000 jobs were added in May? 

We've either been running in place or sliding backwards since 2007.  That brief spike 2009 was from the census hiring & brief hiring surge from the launch of all that more than 1.5 trillion in stimulus spending.  That brief spike has now been more than negated by the failure to keep up with the population growth in the subsequent months.  

It is nothing short of blind ideology that with the private sector struggling like it is, the folks up there in Washington want everybody to know just how darn concerned they are that government employees are suddenly starting to lose jobs.  

They shielded these public employees with 100's of billions of our tax dollars from 2009-2010, and when the stimulus money ran out, the layoffs began [or states had to get serious about their finances] and all of a sudden we get Progressive politicians telling us the private sector is doing ok, what they'd REALLY like to do now is pony up another couple hundred billion of our tax dollars to spend another year or two walling the public sector off again from fiscal reality.  

It's time to put our foot down and not just say 'No', but 'HELL NO!'

An Open Letter To 

My Congressman,

Blake Farenthold, 

27th Dist. of Texas

Dear Congressman Farenthold,


I do not know if you are aware of the threat to free speech posed by Brett Kimberlin & his associates.  Several members of Congress such as Saxby Chambliss have mentioned it the past few days. 


I would like to make sure you are aware of the issue of SWAT'ing & organized lawfare being used against Conservative bloggers to silence their speech.  

Brett Kimberlin was convicted of setting off 8 bombs in Speedway, Indiana in the 1970's.  One of those bombs blew off a Vietnam vet's leg. The man subsequently committed suicide due to the pain & suffering. His name was Carl DeLong. 


Brett Kimberlin was found to have bomb making materials in the trunk of his car, as well as being discovered by an Army investigator as he attempted to purchase more of the rare military explosive used in the bombs.  Kimberlin was also found to have in his possession a fake Dept. of Defense uniform he used in his drug smuggling. 

Tried in court for the Speedway bombings, he was convicted & sentenced to 50 years in prison.  After a number of years he was paroled, but since DeLong's widow had won a civil judgement against him for 1.6 million & Kimberlin refused to pay a dime of it, he was returned to prison for several more years.  He was finally paroled in 2001.  

http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/100919012/StarFiles-Speedway-Bombings-Part-1


http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/100919013/StarFiles-Speedway-Bombings-Part-2


While in prison, Kimberlin became the ultimate jailhouse lawyer, and has filed over 100 lawsuits by his own claim.  

After parole, he set about re-inventing himself as a political activist, setting up two organizations called 'Velvet Revolution' and "Justice Through Music" through which he solicits funds & donations to supposedly help keep Republicans from cheating to win elections and other political activity.  

He garnered enough fame by making outrageous claims about Republican cheating with electronic ballots to be covered in Time Magazine: 


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1574161,00.html

Kimberlin apparently convinced many on the Far Left that he could use his lawfare skills to make life extremely uncomfortable for those causing problems by exposing/shooting down Leftist Narratives on the internet.  


As a result his organizations receive thousands of dollars in donations to achieve this. 


In the past several years Kimberlin used the funds to attempt through lawfare to effect the arrests of, among others, Karl Rove, Andrew Breitbart, Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, Massey Energy Chairman Don Blankenship and other high-profile public figures.


If people on the Left wanted to throw their donated money away on such enterprises, that's fine. 


But in the past year the story took a turn for the bizarre - and outrageous.  


You see, Conservative bloggers on the internet decided to do their own digging into these two groups - Velvet Revolution & Justice Through Music - who's names kept turning up in these lawsuits against Republican & Conservative public figures. 


And they found out exactly what Brett Kimberlin didn't want anybody to know: That he is the prime mover behind both groups, and he has a criminal background.  And these bloggers began talking about it.  


Brett Kimberlin has an obsessiveness about no one knowing or speaking publicly about the fact he is a convicted terrorist with a criminal record not only for bombing, but also drug-running & perjury.  


Using the hundreds of thousands of dollars at his disposal from donations to his two organizations, he has gone after ANYBODY who dares publicly speak about his past convictions.  


http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/29/terror-by-any-other-name

Within four years of his release from prison, Kimberlin started a tax-exempt non-profit called the Justice Through Music Project (JTMP) which has raised approximately $1.8 million in the past six years, including grants from the Tides Foundation, the Heinz Family Foundation and the Barbra Streisand Foundation. Kimberlin also partnered with liberal blogger Brad Friedman to create another non-profit group called Velvet Revolution.

Kimberlin endeared himself to left-wing bloggers by claiming that Republicans had stolen the 2004 presidential election through vote fraud, offering a $100,000 reward for evidence -- a reward that was never paid, for a claim that was never proven. Failure to prove his allegations of GOP perfidy, however, seemed neither to deter donors to Kimberlin's projects nor to undermine his credibility among progressives. A 2007 Time magazine article reported that Kimberlin had "found a home in the blogosphere" by "repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true." 

In 2008, Kimberlin's JTMP non-profit collected more than $558,543 in contributions, according to the group's IRS filing, while Velvet Revolution collected $83,560.

The dirty tricks he has used go far beyond just the usual lawfare of dragging the bloggers into court.  One has actually been arrested and several have been 'SWAT'ed, which is where a call is made to 911 reporting a shooting & making it sound as if an armed homeowner is waiting for the SWAT team to try to approach. 

At the Ace of Spades blog, Ace made the point that if this kind of behavior is allowed to succeed, where bloggers with no real resources can be dragged into court & sued repeatedly for stating matters of PUBLIC RECORD by some guy with deep, deep pockets, free speech doesn't really exist in this country.  


I would encourage  you to read the entire 'open letter to Congress' regarding Brett Kimberlin & his friends attempts to silence the speech of others. 


http://minx.cc/?post=329977


This campaign of lawfare & dirty tricks to silence those who are speaking matters of public record must END.  Please speak out about this and get Congress to enact a anti-SLAPP law that will make serial abusers of the court system pay for trying to game the system to abuse the rights of others.  


Bloggers & others who speak out have to know they cannot become the victim of some guy with a personal agenda who has money to burn & can uses the court system to drag them in through subpoena repeatedly until they simply give up and shut up, which is the intended outcome. 


Thank you for your time, and God bless.