MOPNS now reduced to sad little pranks

MOPNS, which calls itself a "news service" has been reduced to publicizing childish pranks and potty humor. Someone hacked into MO Senate Candidate Don Calloway's old campaign website and put "free porn clips for all," on the header of the site. MOPNS, showing itself to be a completely non-credible source of information, posted several stories ridiculously implying that Calloway himself was responsible for the message. MOPNS claims that they heard about this through their "tip line." Funny how no other news outlets published a story this dumb from their tiplines.

What's next for MOPNS? Video footage of someone putting a whoopee cushion underneath Jay Nixon's chair?

Is Ed Martin Trying to Commit Political Suicide?

Ed Martin is positioning himself at the front of the line for local extremists trying to destroy public transportation in the St. Louis region. Martin was one of the first people to follow the anti-transit group on Twitter, and yesterday he retweeted the following from Jim Durbin:

Durbin's post, unsurprisingly, is completely misinformed. Durbin claims that the public transportation ad is a "lie" because it says, "Some of us use it, all of us need it." He suggests that the money raised if Proposition A passes will only be used for expansion, and that Citizens for Better Transit is "lying" by suggesting that it's needed for Metro.

First of all, perhaps Durbin didn't notice, but the commercial run by CBT does not even mention the Proposition A campaign. So his suggestion that they're "lying" about the campaign is incoherent. But more importantly, Durbin does not even have the most basic understanding of what the stakes are for Proposition A. Metro had to cut funding last year after Proposition M did not pass. They were bailed out by the state and able to restore some (but not all) services, but they can't keep these services running unless their revenue is increased. The reality is that if Proposition A does not pass, Metro will have to make significant cuts in services, including light rail schedules, bus service, and call-a-ride. So I could perhaps say that Durbin is lying, but that would assume that he actually had some idea what he was talking about.

Back to Ed Martin. Why in the world would a candidate for office in the St. Louis region get behind a campaign that would cripple any future hope for quality public transportation in the city? I'm hopeful that Proposition A will pass, but who knows, maybe Martin, Durbin and other extremists will successfully misinform voters enough to beat the campaign. If so, any hope Martin had of running a competitive campaign will be completely ruined.

Why do I say this? Because just like last time, if funding is cut for public transportation, thousands of people will be left without ways to get to work. The elderly and disabled who rely on call-a-ride will be seriously inconvenienced. It will be a disaster, just like it was last year. And everyone will know that Ed Martin, as a local political personality with a big microphone, is one of the reasons the campaign failed. Does he seriously think anyone in St. Louis would vote for him after he tries to take out a crucial part of St. Louis infrastructure?

Gateway Pundit Extremely Concerned About Sex Lives of Local Undergraduates

Champion of Virginal Purity and All Things Good in the World Jim Hoft, aka Gateway Pundit, was forced to write a post today going into detail about a Washington University undergraduate's sex column in the independent student newspaper Student Life. Hoft, with only pure and good intentions, was so intent on warning his readers about this den of sin that he even decided to post three full paragraphs from the column on "how to give a textbook blowjob." Hoft's fellow middle aged male commenters then took turns alternately wagging their wrinkled old fingers at the downfall of society and calling Wash U undergraduates "sluts."

I'm sure undergraduates around the world will sleep much better knowing that Jim Hoft is keeping a watchful eye on their sex lives.

Gateway Pundit Thinks Yoo Deserves Medal for Saying President Can Massacre Civilians

Jim Hoft, aka Gateway Pundit, today claims that John Yoo, designer of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the Bush era, deserves "the Presidential Medal of Freedom, not Presidential Disdain." Yoo's legal philosophy, of course, is based on the absurd idea that the President can basically do whatever he wants, and a recently released legal document showed just how debased this philosophy is. When asked if the President can legally order the massacre of a civilians "massacred," Yoo replied "sure."

Apparently, Hoft is trying to compete with Glenn Beck for the Presidential Medal of Ridiculousness.

Adam Sharp Doesn't Understand Multiplication

Adam Sharp today said the following:

Maher is pretty good at spreading Barry's propaganda. But if you take a closer look at that "taxcut for 95% of Americans," it's not a tax cut at all. Those 95% of people who's taxes went down saw an average of $20 extra dollars per week in their paycheck.

Now, finally, I'm starting to realize why Sharp spends so much time arguing with 8-year olds: they have acquired a skill set that allows them to think in ways that Sharp can't imagine. For example, using the mathmatical operation known as mul-ti-pli-ca-tion, 8-year olds would be able to determine that $20 a week multiplied by 52 weeks works out to over $1000 dollars.
A thousand dollars is actually quite a good sum of money for anyone who's actually struggling to make ends meet. Sharp apparently wouldn't understand this since he is able to spend his abundant amount of leisure time traveling around St. Louis harassing everyone he doesn't like (i.e. everyone who doesn't think Obama is a socialist). Come to think of it: maybe Sharp's upset because Bill Maher so perfectly nailed the fact that people like Sharp are willing to blame Obama for all of their problems.

Is Conservatives of America Website a Birther Haven?

Dana Loesch and Jamie Allman's site Conservatives of America isn't growing very fast, but it does seem to be attracting some interesting people. Marketing Guy, who is regularly the featured post on the site, posted a video questioning whether Obama was born in Hawaii:

The video also suggested that Barack Obama might not be his real name:
The entire video is crazy: if you've got the stomach, you can watch the whole think here.
The post was also featured on the Conservatives of America facebook page, meaning that it definitely had official approval:
So why did Dana Loesch and Jamie Allman go out of their way to start up a birther website? And could this be the reason that the site is doing so poorly? And what in the world are they doing with all the money they're raising?

KTRS "Analyst" Proudly Displays 2nd Revolution Flag

Earlier, I mentioned that KTRS's political "analyst" Gina Loudon thought Joseph Basel was a hero for tampering with phone lines in a New Orleans office. In that same post, Loudon also posted a picture of the "2nd Revolution Flag":

(picture from teh analyst's blog)
Think Progress had previously reported on 2nd Revolution flags being at a Scott Brown Rally. Of course, in that case, the right could just say that Brown is not responsible for the flags at his rally. But Loudon proudly posted a picture on her blog.
So what's the flag about? Think Progress quotes the creator of the flag, Jeff McQueen, as saying that it could either of two meanings: the 2nd American Revolution or the 2nd Amendment. McQueen further calls for spitting the country in half (via Think Progress):

We are now as divided as America was in the 1860s. When two people find they can no longer communicate, while living under the same roof, they often split apart and go there seperate ways. So what if . . . we took the United States and just split it in half . . . 24 states become The United States of the Democrats and 24 states become The United States of the Republicans (including Ron Paul supporters and Libertarians etc . . .). California and New York can be split in half and go the the side they choose.

Apparently, the first step in Gina Loudon's march towards a new revolution is to attempt to destroy public transportation in St. Louis.

PS For wingers keeping track at home, this post is covered under the fair use doctrine.

As first misreported...

Jim Durbin, the right wing blogger who thought that the Animal Control Department was involved in a Massive Government Conspiracy and seems to think that editing LinkedIn profiles is a clear indication of membership in the Illuminati, has now taken to starting his blog posts with "As first reported on 24th State..." Durbin apparently fancies himself as the Last True Journalist and regularly taunts the Post-Dispatch for not reporting his conspiracy theories, and he wants to make sure that he's given his due credit.

Unfortunately, the new tag has not changed anything about Durbin's reporting style: he still takes a tiny sliver of truth and then stretches it to fit an absurd right-wing narrative that turns out to be completely false. Last week Durbin scored a media scoop by reporting that Obama was going to be in St. Louis. Unfortunately, however, he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by claiming that Obama was only coming for McCaskill and that this was a clear sign that Robin Carnahan was trying to distance herself from the President. But, as Jake Wagman reported today, Obama is actually coming to raise money for both McCaskill and Carnahan.

Maybe this is just my own bias speaking, but it seems to me that if you're going to hype up the fact that you "first reported" something, you might want to actually get your story right.

Member of Original St. Louis Tea Party says Group has been "Co-opted by Neocons"

Interesting quote from Steven S. Hoffman on a StudLife article titled "Why tea and politics shouldn't mix":

As one who was present at the very beginning of the modern Tea Party movement, which was hatched in 2006-2007 by libertarians (who were trying to elect Ron Paul) as a protest against the BUSH ADMINISTRATION, and who has watched the movement be polluted and co-opted by Neocons, I feel fairly ambivalent about Tea Partiers (or if you prefer the vulgar Tea Baggers).

Anti-Transit Group Pwns Itself (with help from St. Louis Urban Workshop)

The astroturf, anti-St. Louis City group CBT (Crazypeople for Bulldozing Transit) continues to embarrass itself. Yesterday, they posted on their blog that pro-transit group Citizens for Modern Transit was "lying" because it claimed that the Metrolink delivered 20% of fans to the Cardinals games. The web site stated, "fortunately they allow reader comments," implying that the reader comments proved their assertion.

However, if you look at the comments, you'll see that St. Louis Urban Workshop actually completely dismantled the talking points of the astroturfers. Here's the relevant quote:

Nick – perhaps you should include your math when making an assertion that someone is lying. I did – and I welcome anyone to correct what I’ve figured:
2009 average attendance = 41,000
20% of 41,000 = 8,200
MetroLink 2-car train capacity = 356 x 2 (for one train in each direction) = 712 (and there are likely quite a few more than that, but this is official stated capacity)
8,200 passengers / 712 passengers per train = 11.5 trains needed
2 trains every 15min = 86.25 minutes to transport 8,200 passengers.
Again, I’m sure that there are more people on those trains than the stated capacity. Even so, I calculate 1hr 26min. And this would be 57.5 minutes with the old 10min schedule. With fans leaving the stadium across a time period of 30 minutes or more, depending on the score/weather/etc. it’s seems easy enough to transport that many passengers. Plus, quite a few go downtown early to eat, or stay downtown afterward, further spreading out demand.

So CBT throws out the ridiculous assertion that Citizens for Modern Transit is lying, and then links to a site that disproves their own argument. Nice!

Dana Loesch Attacked a Women Who Recently Died of Breast Cancer Last Week

Several days ago, right-wing radio host Dana Loesch tweeted the following:

The link takes you to a post by Gateway Pundit titled "Obama: St. Louis Campaign Supporter Died of Breast Cancer - Says She Couldn't Afford Exam - But Breast Exams are Free to Poor in St. Louis." As detailed on the St. Louis Activist Hub Blog, the post is a typical right-wing blame-the-victim screed directed at a women they know nothing about without bothering do any basic research.
You can hear more of Melanie Shouse's story here:

So the next time you hear Dana Loesch whine about how she is being "personally attacked" when people point out how she is factually wrong or hypocritical, keep in mind that she is willing to viciously attack a women who just died of breast cancer without knowing the smallest detail about her life, and she does so simply because the woman asked to be buried in an Obama shirt.

Ed Martin Links to Fanboy Blog to Claim he "Got Some Press"

Ed Martin claimed today on facebook and twitter that he got some press on his recent campaign video:


The Globe-Democrat is a right-wing online "newspaper," so the statement sounds believable. But what Martin linked to wasn't press at all, but rather a user-generated blog on the website from someone called "the Unablogger." In other words, anyone can log on the newspaper and write anything they want. Kinda like this post: Ed Martin Abuses St. Louisans Trust.

The Loudons' Role in the Anti-Transit Campaign

The Post-Dispatch ran a story today about the new I Love Transit advertisement featuring a wide range of leaders from the St. Louis region speaking out in favor of public transit. The story included criticism of Proposition A from John Loudon, but said that Loudon, "isn't involved in the formal campaign to defeat it." I'd like to examine this claim in more detail, especially given that yesterday, I suggested that it was pretty clear that well-known right-wing politicians John and Gina Loudon are behind the campaign to gut funding for public transit in the St. Louis region.

First of all, as I posted yesterday, there were only three people following the anti-public transit (and anti-St. Louis) Twitter page (misleadingly named "better transit" despite the fact that they don't actually propose any "better transit"): John Loudon, Gina Loudon, and Save Our Secret Ballots, which is an account created by John Loudon:

Hmmm, kinda funny that John and Gina Loudon had heard of the campaign before everyone else, if they weren't involved in it. But there's a lot more evidence than that, much of which was kindly provided by the tea party.
First, in Gina Loudon's post on her blog, she featured a picture of the anti-transit campaign "spokesperson" John Burns at the recent tea party convention:

She listed John Burns as one of her "heros" in the post. Furthermore, she described an incident where "her group" confronted some "liberal protesters" at the convention. From one of Bill Hennessy's posts, we can see who was in the group with her:

The guys in suits: John Burns, Bill Hennessy, and Joseph Basel, one of the teabuggers charged with tampering with phonelines in New Orleans.
This is what Gina Loudon wrote about the incident:

Then there were the “protesters.” They make for great sport, too! Our group was having lunch when we got word that the “Protestors” were in the convention hall. We dropped our forks and moved straight out to give them some fun. The only problem was, they met their match in protestors.

In other words, Burns was clearly in Hennessy and Loudon's "group." Loudon also goes on to describe how every night at the convention her core group would "retire to watering holes" and discuss strategy. Gee, I wonder what the Loudons and Hennessy would be discussing with Burns every night? Perhaps the anti-transit campaign which started the Thursday of the next week which was promoted only by Bill Hennessy? John Loudon was already on record criticizing public transit in the Post-Dispatch as recently as January 12.
Not only that, but Gina also described strategizing the weekend before last in Dallas, TX, and included this picture of her St. Louis group, again with John Burns in the picture (in the back, to the right of Bill Hennessy)

Wouldn't it be a pretty remarkable coincidence if John Burns just happened to be strategizing with John Loudon at conservative conferences two weekends in a row, and then miraculously decides to start a new group on Loudon's pet issue the week after? Yes, it sure would. Which means its pretty obvious that John Loudon and tea party leader Bill Hennessy are behind this campaign. The only question is, why are they trying to hide Loudon's invovlement?

"Political Analyst" Gina Loudon Thinks Basel is Hero for Teabugging

KTRS's resident "political analyst" (i.e. promoter of right-wing propaganda) Gina Loudon wrote recently that Joseph Basel was a "hero":

The weekend was filled with heroes, and none of them were politicians or party bosses. They were people like Joe Basel, who was arrested with James O’Keefe for his phone prank on Senator Mary Landrieu when she refused to speak with constituents who PAY for those phones, and the office she uses every day!

Huh? Basel's a hero for trying to tamper with a congressperson's phone line? I could understand why some right-wing conspiracy theorist would think that James O'Keefe was a hero, since he successfully damaged ACORN's reputation with his highly-edited videos, but Basel doesn't have any similar claim to fame. Loudon thinks Basel's a hero simply for apparently committing a crime.

Or maybe Loudon was referring to Basel's previous history, detailed in the beautifully-titled piece Portrait of a Con Artist as a Young Douche. Apparently Basel, while he was at the University of Minnesota, posted fliers that said "End Racism Now: Kill All the White Males" and managed to offend people enough to get the entire black student union to walk out from a presentation he was forced to give.

Quite a "hero," no? And that makes Loudon quite the "political analyst."

Tea Party's Anti-St. Louis Rally was a huge failure

The St. Louis Tea Party, who have apparently decided that they hate jobs, the Cardinals, and the St. Louis region in general, held a rally today to protest a ballot initiative that would prevent the Metro from cutting services and pave the way for future public-transit expansion.

The good news is that the rally was a huge failure. Only a handful of people showed up, and no legitimate media outlets covered the event (although the right-wing propaganda outlet Globe-Democrat cut-and-pasted the press release without bothering to check any of the facts). You can see how sad the "rally" was from the Globe-Democrat picture.

Other interesting facts: the spokesperson for the group, John Burns, is the same person who organized multiple St. Louis actions with two of the four teabuggers who were charged with tampering with Senator Landrieu's phone lines. Burns' behavior at those events would be quite damaging to any campaign, and I will be all-too-happy to go into in more detail in future posts.

Also, there appears to be good evidence that familiar right-wing extremists Gina and John Loudon are behind the group:

Why do the Tea Partiers hate the St. Louis Cardinals?

Question: what do the people in the following commercial have in common?

If you answered, "They're all radical communists trying to destroy the American way of life," sorry, wrong, please resume posting borderline racist comments on the Post-Dispatch website and leave this blog alone.

What all of these leaders actually have in common is that they all have a vested interest in the success of the St. Louis region. The President of the St. Louis Convention and Visitor's Commission and the President of Ameren UE are not doing commercials for public transit because they are flaming Marxists who love "big government." They know that if St. Louis is going to succeed as a city, it needs to have a viable public transit service that can help people get to work and take cars off the road.

Which is why, though I'm one of the least sympathetic people to the local tea party, even I was surprised to see that the local tea party has actually founded a new astroturf group to oppose Proposition A, the ballot initiative in St. Louis County to raise the sales tax 00.5 % in order to fund transit. The tea party site is full of misleading talking points and distractions, and is completely indifferent to the fact that failing to pass Proposition A would not only prevent the expansion of public transit, it would actually lead to massive cuts in service similar to what we saw last year before the state of Missouri helped St. Louis out (which would not happen again). In other words, hundreds of people would lose their jobs if Prop A doesn't pass, thousands would not be able to get to work, and Call-A-Ride services for people with disabilities would be massively scaled back. And yes, as the title of this post alludes to, failing to fund public transit will make it more difficult for people to get to Cardinals games in the future. Yet this new astroturf group proposes gutting the funding of Metro in the name of "better transit" without even explaining where any additional funding would come from. It's complete nonesense.

And, by the way, the head of this new organization is listed as John Burns. Is it this John Burns? Because, if so, that would be hilarious.

How to argue like Dana Loesch

For any aspiring Fox News and Pajamas Media TV contributors out there, I've assembled a handy five-step guide for how to respond to criticism exactly like Dana Loesch in every possible situation:

1. See if the criticism is merely pointing out things you were completely factually wrong about. If so, ignore, because who really cares about that? If not, proceed to step 2.

2. Check Big Government to see if if Andrew Breitbart wrote something on the subject. If so, link to his article and pretend like that's sufficient proof. If not, proceed to step 3.

3. See if there's any possible story you can invent to claim that the person is racist or sexist. If so, state that this proves that really it has been liberals who are responsible for all of the racism and sexism in the country. If not, proceed to step 4.

4. Check for any typos or punctuation mistakes, like a missing apostrophe. If so, pretend that this invalidates the entire argument. Now would be a good time to use a phrase that shows how hip and relevant you are. If not, proceed to step 5.

5. Proceed to incoherent name-calling. Phrases like "stalker" or "troll" are empty enough that you can use them on anyone who criticizes you. Or, if you'd like to get really creative, you can invent new expressions like "rattling the specter" that will be sure to confuse your readers.

And there you go! Just follow these simple steps and you'll be well on your way to a lucrative career spreading propaganda for the noble corporations that as we all know are not responsible for any of the world's problems.

Dana Loesch Insanely Jealous of Meghan McCain

Dana Loesch has a habit of trying to pick fights with people who have more Twitter followers than her to try to build up an audience. One of her favorite targets for this is Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain, who has 82,000+ followers on Twitter compared to Loesch's 7,000+. Far right-wingers hate Meghan McCain because she has the audacity to suggest that maybe the Republican Party shouldn't be homophobic, she believes that climate change is real, and she has suggested that the tea party is too extreme. So naturally Loesch freaked out in jealous rage after McCain recieved recent media attention:

Notice how Loesch immediately suggests that McCain, who has reasonable ideas that certainly are worthy of actual debate, is somehow ditsy or shallow. But of course if anyone said something like that about someone Loesch likes, Sarah Palin for example, Loesch would immediately brand them as sexist.
But who knows? Maybe if Loesch continues to spend every waking second on self-promotion as she has been, she will someday be as popular as Meghan McCain is now.

Bill Hennessy Excited By New Future of Middle-Aged White People

Bill Hennessy went to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend marked by birtherism, homophobia, and racial paranoia and was very excited by the 600 mostly white, middle-aged people who he thinks represent the future of America.

Check out Hennessy's fired up tweets:




Hennessy then goes on to say in a blog post about the convention:

Standing near the door that opened to a parking lot, you could almost feel the wind blow out the flame on the candle of liberalism. The torch wasn’t passed. It was extinguished.

Wow, who knew that 600 mostly middle-aged white people willing to shell out $500 to hear Sarah Palin speak could so perfectly represent the entire USA?

St. Louis Tea Party Blog Now Features Articles on Bathroom Sex

Adam Sharp, who's favorite insult of people who are schooling him is a sarcastic intonation of "classy," has decided to class up the St. Louis Tea Party site:



Sadly, this is probably the highest quality journalism to ever grace the pages of the blog.

Yesterday's Funniest Headline

Gateway Pundit as of about 10 PM last night:
Tea party favorite Adam Andrezejewski finished 5th out of five candidates.
We all knew Gateway Pundit was completely disconnected from reality on national politics, but it's still impressive to see how wildly delusional he is about his own state.