Gateway Pundit Misleads on SOTU

Gateway Pundit kept up his usual absurdity today, creatively interpreting his handed-down right wing talking points to attack Obama. First, he claims that the blog Think Progress, "caught the president's dishonest attack on Bush," referring to Obama noting that he inherited a financial disaster from the Bush administration. But actually Think Progress defended Obama, writing, "stating facts is not blaming Bush," and linking to this explanation of the deficit claim.

Furthermore, Gateway Pundit suggested that this was, "the worst state of the union address sin history." But in fact a CBS poll showed that 83% of speech watchers approved of the proposals Obama made in his speech, and 70% thought that Obama shares the same priorities for the country as they do.

And in the update to this post, GP and his friend Darin Morely from Reboot Congress apparently approve of calling Obama a ratf***** and "hating" him.

Fringe of the fringe.

Great Moments of St. Louis Tea Party FAIL - The Counterprotest

Bill Hennessy put out a call for a counter-protest to yesterday's MoveOn rally:

Only two people showed up, conservative bloggers Adam Sharp and Doug Edelman, and they were successfully kept in line by a high school principle, who as Sarah Jo pointed out, knows how to deal with children.

But there was some good news for the tea party. They coined a new motto that perfectly sums up their ideology: "even lies are free speech."

Adam Sharp Fails Miserably

This is hilarious. Adam Sharp goes to a MoveOn rally holding a sign "I want free abortions" clearly trying to misrepresent the message of the protesters. The protesters call him out on it, and exercise their right to free speech by holding their signs in front of his. Sharp, as usual, starts crying about how oppressed he is:

"Are you videoing these classy people"

"What are you so afraid of, trying to block dissent."

Actually, they weren't trying to block dissent, because Sharp didn't have the decency to dissent. Instead, he was obviously trying to hold a sign up to deceive the passing traffic and the media. The protesters completely kicked Sharp's ass, and rightfully called him a liar.

Watch the hilarity of unintentional right-wing self-parody:

MoveOn.Org Astroturf Rally 1-26-10 from Doug Edelman on Vimeo.

Best line from Sharp: "Even lies are free speech."

When you have to point out that lies are free speech, you've pretty much lost. Nice work by the MoveOn crew!

Great Moments of St. Louis Tea Party FAIL

Bill Hennessy put out a call begging "courageous CEOs" to comment on his post and tell the world how evil Obama is. Hennessy noted that he especially loves Fortune 500 companies. But unFortune-ately (heh) no CEOs answered his call, and his CEO hall of fame remains stuck at three people. It's not for lack of trying, though, as the astroturf St. Louis Tea Party repeatedly defends corporation who make a profit by screwing over the middle class, including the big banks who crashed our economy,

Dana Loesch's "race card" hypocracy

Dana Loesch today got into an argument on Twitter and fell back on one of her usual empty attacks: she accused @queenofspain of playing the "race card" for pointing out that the GOP and tea party attacks on ACORN were politically motivated by the fact that ACORN played a central role in registering minorities to vote. Queen of Spain pointed out that this was not a claim that the GOP was racist, but simply that they were willing to use these (unethical) tactics to win elections. Thus, it really wasn't "the race card", but that didn't stop Loesch from tweeting the following:

And

And

After this last one, Loesch says:

Well apparently Loesch is an expert on lazy and inherently bigoted debate, as we can see from her own history of actually playing the race card, unlike Queen of Spain.
First, in an argument with the St. Louis Young Dems, she repeatedly suggests that anyone who doesn't think that Kenneth Gladney was "brutally beaten" by "union thugs" must be biased because Gladney is a black man:


But, of course, serious questions have been raised about the right-wing story about Gladney, so much so that Gladney was named the Riverfront Times' Ass Clown of the Week. There are a lot of reasons to question the story, so Loesch is both "lazy" and "inherently bigoted" to suggest that the only reason people would question it is because Gladney is a black man.
And if that's not enough, check out this tweet from Loesch:

Huh? She's claiming that someone is racist for "ignoring the contributions of brilliant black conservatives." What does that even mean? Since "ignoring" in this context apparently means, "not mentioning," why is Dana Loesch "ignoring" the contributions of brilliant black liberals?
When Loesch routinely violates here own stated principles, it's pretty hard to know what she stands for other than an unfaltering commitment to self-promotion.

Ultimate Irony! Ed Martin Ducks Out of Debate with Primary Challanger!

Ed Martin, as part of a publicity stunt, challenged Congressman Russ Carnahan to attend a "townhall meeting." Carnahan, like any smart politician, ignored Martin because if he didn't everyone would think that he could be easily bullied. Of course, Martin and the right wingers freaked out about the fact that Carnahan wasn't at their fake town hall.

But get this: earlier in January, Ed Martin had already agreed to debate Republican Primary challenger John Wayne Trucker, and then chickened out! So Mr. "I heart free speech" Martin was afraid to have a honest-to-God democratic debate, and then turned around and tried to attack Carnahan for not attending his astroturf event.

Maybe someone should have told Mr. Trucker than Martin only attends debates in Todd Akin's district.

Adam Sharp Blames Obama for all of his problems

Add another guy from the Party of Personal Responsibility (bankers excluded) who claims that President Obama is responsible for all of his financial problems. Adam Sharp of Sharp Elbows, Dull Wits wrote a blog post saying that for the first time in 11 years he didn't get a raise, and of course it's all Obama's fault. As all astute observers know, the financial collapse that occurred during the Bush Presidency had no effect whatsoever on the economy.

But wait, I'm confused. I thought if you were a hard worker, it doesn't matter at all what your life circumstances are? That's why we don't need to provide aid to low-income communities: if they want to move up the ladder independent of educational opportunities, social support, and mentorship, all they need to do is work harder. Yet in Sharp's case, it has nothing to do with how hard he worked; it's obviously the fault of the President? And couldn't Sharp have worked more hours or gotten a second job instead of spending hours every week running around with a camera trying to annoy people?

I guess personal responsibility only matters for people they don't like.

Dana Loesch's Phony Outrage

Ready the fainting couch: Dana Loesch has got the vapors. She's just so offended that Jeff Roorda used the term "teabaggers" when he was speaking on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives.

However, as pointed out here: Loesch makes "teabagger" jokes frequently, and doesn't seem to be offended by herself:

Oh yeah, and the term was originally used by right-wing activists.

Nobody does completely disingenuous outrage like the Right.

Gateway Pundit: Bush was "World's Greatest Liberator Since WW II"

Yes, he really said that. This is what the tea partiers long for: a return to George Bush. I'm speechless.

Gateway Pundit Pisses on Ted Kennedy's Grave

In case you ever wondered what motivates someone like Gateway Pundit, here's your answer: pure hatred.

Jim Hoft put up a blog post today titled "This One's For You, Mary Jo," referencing Mary Jo Kopechne, the woman who died in Kennedy's 1969 car accident (the source of numerous right-wing conspiracy theories). Hoft also featured a picture of the car being pulled out of the river. Pretty hard to see any motivation for Hoft posting that other than pure spite.

Of course, we learned quite a bit about Jim Hoft's character when he posted a race-baiting video from a white supremacist website and refused to take it down.

Gateway Pundit Promotes Tea Party Scam

Gateway Pundit, while busy trying to hype up the fabricated story that President Obama ordered "union thugs" to beat people up at an August 6 townhall, promoted the national bus tour called the Tea Party Express last fall.

The only problem? Two thirds of the spending from the "Tea Party Express" went to the political consulting firm that created it. That's over $850,000 going to the operatives who run the GOP consulting firm based in California.

But since Gateway Pundit is so interested in the truth, I'm sure he will issue an apology on his blog anytime now.

Conservatives of American Continues to FAIL

The site Conservatives of America, led by local right-wing radio hosts Dana Loesch and Jamie Alman, continues to be a giant flop. Just checked in today, and they still can't even manage having a "Today's Top Post":

This, of course, is similar to a few weeks ago.

The group, which calls itself the "conservative version of MoveOn" as do a million other groups, currently has 800 people after about 40 days, which means it will take them 684 years before they reach the 5 million members that MoveOn currently has. As I said before (but now have to change because they suck even worse) Watch Out 27th Century Liberals!

Update: Yes, COA is not very impressive, but I'm removing some of my taunts as I think they detract from the rest of the site. See other posts for more info.

Gateway Pundit 's Commenters on his Post Attacking Michael Steele

In light of recent right-wing bloggers (including Gateway Pundit) declaring that Harry Reid is a flaming racist, I thought it might be interesting to examine how the commenters on Gateway Pundit's site reacted to his recent post attacking RNC chair Michael Steele. Gateway Pundit, remember, has linked to videos from white supremacist web sites on multiple occasions while trying to promote his agenda, and has refused to remove such links even after being told that they are offensive (in fact, he deletes comments that mention this). Since he deletes comments on his site that criticize himself, it follows that he could easily delete any of the following comments. But he doesn't.

You will not be surprised to know that most of the people on his blog despise Steele:


That's fine: everyone is entitled to their own political opinions. Less fine is the fact that many commenters use Steel'e flaws as an excuse to pretend that affirmative action is the root of all societal evils:





And worst of all, and really the subject of this post, is the fact that many of the commenters seem to believe that Steele is involved in a secret conspiracy to destroy the Republican Party from the inside:





Hmmm, so Steele is a mysterious "Other" who pretends to be like the rest of us but is really something Different who is trying to secretly destroy the entity he leads from the inside. Sound familiar? Like, uh, exactly the same thing these fringers believe about Obama?

One person even spells it out:


It's a shame Gateway Pundit encourages these kinds of comments on his site.

Ed Martin Approves of Lying to Congressional Staffers

Local winger Adam Sharp of the blog Sharp Elbows, apparently realizing that trying to post analysis of the health care bill doesn't work very well when you don't have a clue what's in the legislation, has gone back to his tired old schtick of capturing himself being obnoxious to "libruls" on video. In the latest episode, Sharp lies to one of Congressman Russ Carnahan's staffers by claiming that Carnahan "promised to have another town hall meeting before the health care vote" as an excuse to act rude.

Sharp tells Carnahan's staffer, "he [Carnahan] did promise that he would have another town hall before the vote" (0:35 in the video) and repeats the lie throughout the video. That statement by Sharp was based on a purported comment by Carnahan where he said that he should host a town hall "on manners" in response to tea partiers like Sharp who yelled, interrupted, and insulted Democratic Congresspeople throughout last August. As is obvious to anyone with familiarity with the English language, statements made sarcastically or jokingly are not "promises" and no rational human would have taken Carnahan's statement as a "promise to hold a town hall." Nevertheless, Sharp straight up lies to the staffer in an attempt to bully her in front of the camera. What's even more hilarious is in a classic Sharp move (he's by far the biggest crybaby of all of the local tea partiers), he somehow manages to feel persecuted when the staffer says she doesn't remember Carnahan promising that. Here's Adam Sharp's reaction:


Adam Sharp acting rudely is no surprise to anyone. But what is amazing is that a candidate for a congressional office would actually endorse Sharp's behavior of lying to congressional staffers as an excuse to act obnoxiously. Nevertheless, that's exactly what ethically challenged Tea Party/Republican candidate Ed Martin did. Check out his reaction:

On the other hand, considering that Martin was happy to cynically abuse St. Louis residents' love of Anheuser-Busch and willing to waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money to persecute a former employee for following the law, maybe it's not that surprising.

Ed Martin Loves 3rd Congressional District So Much That He Decides to Hold Townhall Somewhere Else

Ed Martin, the ethically challenged former chief of staff for Matt Blunt and current tea party candidate against Russ Carnahan in Missouri's 3rd Congressional District, apparently cares so much about the opinions of residents of his district that he decided to hold his political stunt townhall meeting somewhere else. I guess when he's working so hard to create a fake controversy, he couldn't be bothered trying to find a place, you know, in the actual district he's running in.

h/t to FiredUp.

John Loudon Says We Should Stop Funding Public Transit and Expand Public Transit

A week or so ago, I wrote about how ridiculous it was that KTRS is having Gina Loudon on as a "political analyst" on the McGraw Millhaven show. I posted a picture showing how "Dr." Loudon thinks that intelligent political discourse consists of holding signs with pictures of your political opponents as disfigured psychopathic killers.

Part of the reason I think that her role of "political analyst" is so ridiculous is that her husband, former state legislator John Loudon, is one of the most partisan ideological hacks in the entire state of Missouri, which is truly saying something. To get a sense of how ridiculous John Loudon is, consider that his most recent ploy to get into the media spotlight is to simultaneously claim that we shouldn't pass the transit tax on the April 6 ballot initiative, which is needed to fund the current public transit routes in St. Louis, and that we need to expand public transit to cover a larger part of St. Louis County. So he's against funding what we have, and for expanding it. Sounds like someone who's desperate to get media attention, and willing to say anything to get into the news.

Dana Loesch Takes on More Republicans Who Live Hundreds of Miles Away

As I've said before, even though Dana Loesch is scared to take on the Missouri GOP (most recently, she unironically chastised Robin Carnahan for not debating Roy Blunt despite the fact that D.C. insider Blunt is in a Republican primary and afraid to debate actual conservative Chuck Purgason), she loves to act tough by talking trash to Republicans who live over 500 miles away. She talks some pretty good smack to GOP chairman Michael Steele in this fake interview after Steele stood her up.

Unlike St. Louis Tea Party, Poplar Bluffs Doesn't Pander to Roy Blunt

As I've mentioned several times, the St. Louis Tea Party leadership is afraid to take on Republican Senate candidate Roy Blunt despite the fact that he ignored their threats and has a career that is at odds with their ideological commitments. So they instead spend their time talking about congressional races on the East Coast. Fortunately for "real conservatives," not all tea parties are as frightened of the local GOP establishment as the leaders of the St. Louis Tea Party. Roy Blunt's name was recently dropped from the list of speakers at a Poplar Bluffs "Patriots Rally" this weekend.

FiredUp has the story.

Ed Martin Misuses SaveAB Email List

There was some great journalism over a FiredUp several weeks ago following up on the AP story about how local wingnut hero Ed Martin misused and email list, and went against his word.

Martin, ever the opportunist, had created a website to "Save Anheuser-Busch" back when the reports first came out that InBev was looking to buy AB out. His group didn't do anything to stop the sale, but he sure did collect a lot of names. I'm sure a lot of the people who signed up did so because the website specifically stated that email addresses would be used, "only for this purpose and not for any other purpose."

But Martin went against the promise of the website he created and sent out a message to over 40,000 people on the list directing them to his congressional campaign website. Given Martin's past record, this kind of behavior is hardly surprising, but it is funny to see just how serious tea party members are about their "ethics."

Shorter Gateway Pundit:

Give Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown all your money because he' only going to lose by 9 percent.

I suppose I should be thanking him...

Oh Noes! STL Tea Party Uses "Horrible Sexual Slur"

The vast majority of what this site covers is pointing out lies, contradictions, and absurdities in the St. Louis Tea Party rhetoric. Since they are incapable of responding with actual arguments, they instead attempt to make personal attacks or discredit the site in any way possible. Generally, these take the form of, "St. Louis Pushes Back does X, so we should ignore everything written there." The "everything" is important, of course, because what they're really trying to do is to prevent their audience from realizing just how dishonest most of the Tea Party commentary really is, and the only way to do that is to keep them from reading sites that systematically examine what they say.

One of the funniest attempts at this strategy is to write that this site should be ignored because it used a "horrible sexual slur": namely, the word "teabagger." Aficionados will be aware, of course, that the term teabagger (along with its connotation) was originally used by right wing activists, and only later picked up by the people laughing at them. Anyway, you'll notice that this site does not actually use the term that much: incessant name-calling is more of a characteristic of right-wing extremists and isn't really Pushback's shtick.

But if "teabag" is really such a horrible sexual slur, then why did Dana Loesch, Americans for Prosperity, and Gateway Pundit all use the term today? Gateway Pundit had the following headline:

(screenshot from Hoft's blog)

Loesch and Carl Bearden took it a step further, tweeting the following:

I guess it's only horribly offensive when critics of the tea party use it. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Loesch and Hennessy Cower Before the Missouri GOP

A while back I wrote about how St. Louis Tea Party leaders Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy specifically addressed MO Senate candidate Roy Blunt as they threatened that they were "coming for" him and "going to vote" him out of office if he didn't endorse independent candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 House race. Roy Blunt completely ignored them despite their warnings and vague threats. At the time, I wrote that it was time for Loesch and Hennessy to, in their own words, "put up or shut up."

I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. I even wrote a post when Loesch had Chuck Purgason, the challenger to Blunt in the Republican Primary, on her show. However, at this point it's beyond obvious that Loesch and Hennessy completely lack the courage to follow through on their empty threats. They've shown the world what I've said all along: the St. Louis Tea Party is nothing more than a tool of the Missouri GOP.

Consider the following: Both Loesch and Hennessy are spending their time trying to get local conservatives to donate to the Massachusetts Senate Race. Yet they've spent no time whatsoever writing criticism of Roy Blunt, despite the fact that they specifically threatened Blunt if he didn't endorse Hoffman. In other words, they are completely unwilling to challenge the power structure of the only Republican Party they could actually change, the Missouri Republican Party. So they distract their followers by talking tough about congressional campaigns nearly one thousand miles away in New York and Massachusetts.

This fact is further supported by taking a look at their rallies. When they had the support of THE most astroturf of all astroturf organizations, Americans for Prosperity, they were able to fill up town hall meetings and even Kiener Plaza. However, when they had their little rally challenging Blunt and Akin, about ten people showed up. Nothing could be stronger evidence that movement is nothing without the support of the Republican powers that be. And they know it too. That's why they're too scared to do anything to actually challange the Missouri GOP, even after making unambiguous direct threats. I'm pretty sure there's a word for people who make big-talking threats and then are too scared to act on them.

Meet KTRS's Latest "Political Analyst"

Here is KTRS's latest "political analyist" Gina Loudon engaging in her standard constructive political dialogue:

(screenshot via the St. Louis Tea Party blog)

Everyone knows that the most compelling political analysis always begins with holding signs that depict your political opponents as grotesque caricatures of psychopathic killers (for those who can't tell, Loudon is holding a picture of Senator Claire McCaskill with a "joker face"). Obviously KTRS is committed to producing intelligent discussion points, and not simply hosting a guest on who will spit out self-serving Republican talking points disguised as analysis. Thank you, KTRS. for making such a strong effort to educate your listeners.

Also extremely funny: Bill Hennessy promotes Loudon's "Political A-List" on his website. A few days later: he is listed as a "Political A-Lister" on her blog to which he replies, "I am totally undeserving of this recognition." Awwww, what a humble guy! Stand up and take some credit for your quid pro quo!

More later.

Conservatives of America Decides to Fail Even Harder

Earlier, I wrote that Conservatives of America was a huge failure. Well, now the site isn't even bothering to update it's posts:

Update: yes the site does appear to be failing pretty hard, but I've removed some of my other criticisms because I think it detracts from the site. See other posts for more info.