Scott Lee Cohen: Case in Point How Chicago Media Covers for Criminal Democrats

-By Warner Todd Huston


Well, the Chicago controlled Illinois media has done it again. It’s allowed another unsavory Democrat candidate with criminal propensities to slide by unnoticed and to be placed before the voters un-exposed as the low-end sort of fellow he is. And, just like clockwork, this drug addled nut has been elevated to nominee by the Democrat sheeple of the Land of Lincoln — proving that Democrats will vote for a ham sandwich if one is put before them. This media malfeasance only works in favor of Illinois Democrats, though. To prove it all one need do is remember the 2004 case of Republican Jack Ryan. We have but to recall how the Illinois media destroyed this man over what they claimed in wide-eyed shock was his outrageous behavior and remember how the Chicago controlled media torpedoed this man’s career over what they felt was his unsuitability for higher office.

It’s all a pretty ho-hum tale of media malfeasance and a case of the Democrat Party’s typical sort of low-brow candidates in Chillinois… or is it Illcago? It happens all the time in here, in any case. The Democrats put up a criminal as a candidate, the media yawns and reports on some Hollywood story instead, the voters that claim a Democrat ballot vote him to the head of the class, and then the media suddenly wakes up with cries of faux outrage. It’s a typical pattern, really.

This current case is that of Scott Lee Cohen, pawn shop king, wife abuser, steroid addict, and now your Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor. The guy really has no respectable qualifications for office. As a teen he flunked out of High School — but did get his GED, at least. He was once addicted to steroids so badly that he beat up his wife repeatedly because of the fits of rage the drug brought upon him. He was once arrested for holding a knife to the throat of live-in girl friend who also happened to be a prostitute. It’s a pretty messy life Mr. Cohen’s lived.
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Scott Lee Cohen: Case in Point How Chicago Media Covers for Criminal Democrats”


Obama: ‘I am not an ideologue’

-By John Armor

Last week, I wrote about 11 factually false statements in President Obama’s State of the Union address. Normally, one should not repeat the same subject next week. But, did you see the appearance of Obama before the Republicans meeting in Baltimore? I know that a few hundred of you are political junkies like me, and you saw that live.

I’m going to ask you a question. Don’t think. Don’t pause. Answer with the first thing that comes to mind. What occurred to you, when you heard Obama say, “I am not an ideologue.”?

I thought of Richard Nixon, toe to toe with Dan Rather (back when Rather was actually a reporter), Nixon answering, “I am not a crook.” Did you think the same thing? If so, here’s why.

When people have their backs to the wall, they will tell an obvious lie, perhaps just to fool themselves. Is Obama an ideologue? Here’s some of the evidence.

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Obama: ‘I am not an ideologue’”


Anti-Gun Government Tyranny in Canada

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unlike the U.S., Canada does not have the right of self-protection enshrined in its laws. Where we Americans have the coverage of the Second Amendment to protect our God-given right to self-protection, the Canadians have to rely on the occasional good nature of their overlords in government to determine how their right to own a firearm is treated. Sadly, their ownership of firearms is usually mistreated rather than upheld.

A writer for the Toronto Star wrote an article recently that showed the capriciousness of government thugs where it concerns privately owned firearms in Canada. Joe Fiorito had a retinue of Toronto’s finest stormtroopers come beating on his door one day this month to confiscate his old rifle because the columnist had the temerity of forgetting to re-up his registration of a disassembled, 30-year-old, small caliber bird gun.

Involved were multiple police cars, half a dozen officers, judge’s warrants. All sorts of iron, jack-booted automatons of the state came down on Mr. Fioritto. It was as if he were public enemy no. 1. All of this over a beat up old rifle that was disassembled, locked in a basement, and stored in a house in which no ammunition existed.
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Anti-Gun Government Tyranny in Canada”


Dem Senate Hurries To Push Liars and Symps into Power Before Brown Comes to Town

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s Katie bar the door as the Democrats in the Senate try to push as many liars and Big Labor crooks into positions of power in the Obama Administration as they can before they lose their super majority once Scott Brown of Massachusetts is seated on the 4th of February.

On Monday, the Democrats pushed through the confirmation for Obama’s Solicitor of Labor despite that it has been effectively shown that she lied in her Senate testimony.

Senator Mike Enzi (R, Wyo.) revealed a report that Obama’s appointee as Solicitor of Labor, Patricia Smith, lied several times during her appearance before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in May of 2009.

Then on Tuesday, the Democrats with their temporary super majority tried to push through Obama’s nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Becker is a union-flack and would become the first lawyer employed by unions to take a position that is supposed to investigate and rule for or against unions with an unbiased hand.
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Dem Senate Hurries To Push Liars and Symps into Power Before Brown Comes to Town”


A Tea Party Patriot Responds to a Ruling Party Pundit

-By Norvell S. Rose

It wasn’t until the election of Barack Obama that I ever really considered myself a party person. Okay, I was a registered Republican, and I tended to vote for (R) candidates. Not because I truly believed in any set of guiding GOP principles, and especially not in recent years. But more because of a general feeling that Democrat contenders were, like termites, almost always more likely to eat away the foundations of the America I love.

Now, though, it’s different. The termites are swarming. They are more voracious than ever. And because we must engage in serious pest control, I passionately proclaim, “Party on!” Now that Obama defiantly pursues his relentless assault on liberty in order to fundamentally transform the United States of America, I am a party animal. A Tea Party Patriot and proud of it!

Thus, when her highness of highbrow punditry, Eleanor Clift, pens another of her catty columns for Newsweek, I accept her invitation to party. Entitled “Weak Tea (Party)” (www.newsweek.com/id/232794), Ms Clift’s commentary provides an ideal opportunity to clarify just what the Tea Party movement is all about. Here, thanks to the blinding hubris of the ruling class, Eleanor unwittingly offers an incredible party favor – the chance to blunt and even bury a number of key points the liberal media elite use to try to define who the Tea Party is.
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A Tea Party Patriot Responds to a Ruling Party Pundit”


Obama’s Aide David Axelrod, Portrait of a Demagogue

-By Warner Todd Huston

This weekend Obama adviser David Axelrod gave us a perfect example of the art of empty demagoguery. Comments made by Axelrod concerning Obama’s state of the union speech shows an over statement meant to mask the truth in order to evoke sympathy for his boss, the President. Sadly, the truth is the victim here.

The Associated Press reported that Axelrod was saying that Obama has had to come to expect “unusual outbursts” from Republicans during his speeches. Axelrod tried to make it seem as if Obama is the only President that’s ever dealt with such “outbursts” from the opposing party during his speeches. Axelrod’s goal is to paint Republicans as somehow outside the bounds of normal behavior.
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Obama’s Aide David Axelrod, Portrait of a Demagogue”


A Warning on Electronic Voting

(Publius Editor’s note: This is a fairly old report on the troubles with electronic voting so some of the links are no longer valid, but the work was pretty comprehensive so I thought some of it might be of interest to those worried about electronic voting. I had this sent to me by a reader and I told him I’d post it but I have been waiting to post this until we were close to the primary. Since it is only a few days away now, so here it is…)

Pandora’s Black Box, Did it Really Count Your Vote?
Relevance – November 1996 – Vol. III- No. V

Editor: Philip M. O’Halloran

[Editor’s Note: When we began researching the integrity of the election process, we wanted to believe that the talk of “votescam” was just overblown hype. However, we have since discovered that the computer voting system in this country is a veritable can of worms, so open to tampering that if there is no organized election fraud going on, the criminals are falling down on the job.]

ELECTRONIC VOTING ON TRIAL

On November 5, 1996, millions of Americans voted by secret ballot for thousands of elected officials from the Presidency to the local dog catcher. What few realized is that a key aspect of the vote-counting was also done in secret. What’s more, they have been legally denied the right to find out precisely how their vote is counted.

How can this be? After all, everybody knows that each aspect of the vote-count is officially conducted by “the government under the microscopic scrutiny of thousands of party officials, anxious candidates, poll workers, curious voters and the media, right?
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A Warning on Electronic Voting”


Homeschooling German Family Awarded Political Asylum in U.S., Where is U.S. Media?

-By Warner Todd Huston

A federal immigration judge in Tennessee has awarded political asylum to a German couple who were threatened by the German government with having their children forcibly removed from their home because the couple chose homeschooling instead of sending them to state approved schools.

Uwe Romeike may now stay as a legal resident in Morrisstown, Tennessee, where the family moved in 2008 after being threatened by German authorities.

The Associated Press was one of the few Old Media outlets covering this story. Of the Romeike’s plight, the AP reported:

The Romeikes took their three oldest children out of school in Bietigheim-Bissingen in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 2006. Romeike said the couple was fined the equivalent of about $10,000 over a two-year period.

Mr. Romeike told reporters that, “I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to chose the way their children can be taught.” (yes, the AP spelled it “chose”)
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Homeschooling German Family Awarded Political Asylum in U.S., Where is U.S. Media?”


Public Employees Unions Are Sinking California, Part 2

-By Warner Todd Huston

(Editor’s note: Some of this I posted earlier this month, but this is an expanded version that was just posted by BigJournalism.com, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it here, too.)

Steven Greenhut has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal about how the evils of public employees unions are destroying California’s budget and economy.

Greenhut begins by noting that with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, California is losing its “productive citizens” to other states but is still saddled with an economy killing surfeit of public employees unions that, “drive costs up and fight to block spending cuts.”

Greenhut goes on to report that the unfunded pensions that California is stuck with has increased by 2,000% in the last decade because of the overweening power of the unions.

Approximately 85% of the state’s 235,000 employees (not including higher education employees) are unionized. As the governor noted during his $83 billion budget roll-out, over the past decade pension costs for public employees increased 2,000%. State revenues increased only 24% over the same period. A Schwarzenegger adviser wrote in the San Jose Mercury News in the past few days that, “This year alone, $3 billion was diverted to pension costs from other programs.” There are now more than 15,000 government retirees statewide who receive pensions that exceed $100,000 a year, according to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

That is an absurd reality!
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Public Employees Unions Are Sinking California, Part 2″


Chgo Trib: Who Will Smack Down the Unions?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Dennis Byrne, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune, has a great piece asking the seminal question: what politician will take on the public employees unions?

This is, of course, the question we’ve been asking here for years! Who will stop these union thugs that have bought for themselves a bevy of compliant politicians at the state and federal level who will do their bidding against the best interests of the voters? What politician will step up and cut these thug’s illicit power down for the good of the people?

Seeing as how he is an Illinois columnist, Byrne centers his discussion on the $80 billion shortfall that Illinois’ public pensions are saddled with, but he can just as easily be talking about California, Oregon, Wisconsin, New York or any other state in the Union.

To quantify the $80 billion, Byrne tries to put it in context:
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Chgo Trib: Who Will Smack Down the Unions?”


Failure to communicate? By the Supreme Communicator??

-By Norvell S. Rose

Okay, so this isn’t the first time that someone writing about Barack Obama and his mystique of magniloquence has referenced the famous line in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke. But, as you’ll see, I’m shooting for a somewhat different take.

“What we’ve got here is”failure to communicate.”

That’s the line delivered by the imperious prison official called The Captain – played by Strother Martin, to Luke, the inmate – portrayed by Paul Newman. The context of the line is this: the rebellious, non-conformist young prisoner, Luke, refuses to submit to the system and sacrifice his dignity under the dictatorial direction of the brutal boss of the chain gang.

So, now, our imperious President and his Obamatons want us to accept that the growing rejection of his plans and policies by a rebellious electorate represents a “failure to communicate.” They would have us believe that we don’t buy into his radical-left system of government only because the merits of this system have not been sufficiently explained to us. Not that the system itself is corrupt and cruel; only that the efforts to sell the system have, somehow, been inadequate or ineffective. In their opinion, they simply haven’t found the right pitch to peddle the programs.
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Failure to communicate? By the Supreme Communicator??”


Republican Gubernatorial Candidates Debate on WLS-AM & WTTW-TV

A note from ChicagolandRadioAndMedia.com, the great Chicago radio message board and entertainment news site.

Tomorrow afternoon will be a special airing of the Roe & Cisco Show on WLS-AM 890. The show will not be coming from within WLS’ studio walls, but instead will be broadcast live from the Chase Bank Auditorium. This is because WLS will be hosting an Illinois Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Debate, moderated by Roe Conn & Cisco Cotto. The debate will begin at 4:00pm and will feature five of the six Republican candidates for Governor: Adam Andrzejewski, Bill Brady, Kirk Dillard, Dan Proft and Jim Ryan. (Andy McKenna has chosen to not do any debates this week.) This debate is open to the public for all who wish to be there — no tickets or reservations needed. The Chase Bank Auditorium is located in Downtown Chicago at 10 S. Dearborn.

Before tomorrow afternoon’s debate, the same five out of six Republican candidates will take part in a one-hour forum on WTTW Channel 11’s “Chicago Tonight” program this evening. The live show will not have a studio audience and will be more subdued in comparison. The forum begins tonight at 7:00pm. (“Chicago Tonight” had the Democratic Candidates for IL Governor on last night.)


Luntz Misleads With New Gun Poll

-By Warner Todd Huston

Pollster Frank Luntz is trying to hawk his new poll on gun laws commissioned by the left-wing group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He’s trying to sell the concept that NRA members are just as interested in “common-sense gun policies” as anti-gun nuts and that legislators should take this into account when crafting future anti-gun legislation. The problem is that this poll is misleading in some important ways. The problem here is that the devil being in the details is glossed over by the poll. (Download .pdf of poll here)

In an op ed penned by Luntz and Tom Barrett, gun owners are compared favorably with non-gun owners over their feelings on gun banning laws. “The culture war over the right to bear arms isn’t much of a war after all,” the pair tells us. “As it turns out, there is a lot everyone agrees on.”

And this main point serves as the biggest problem with Luntz’ poll. Of course everyone will claim they are for “common-sense” laws. But the first thing that anyone will find out when discussing concrete policies that might come to make up these so-called common-sense ideas is that disagreement quickly reigns when people start getting specific. An assumption that everyone agrees on just what common sense means disappears pretty quickly when the details are laid out.
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Luntz Misleads With New Gun Poll”


Is This The President’s Fake Letter to the Editor

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper happened upon a curious letter to the editor in support of President Obama that seems to have suddenly popped up in nearly 40 newspapers across the country all at once. Every letter claims to be written by an “Ellie Light” and all claim to be from a resident local to the newspaper’s audience — different hometowns used in each case. All are identical whether they’ve been printed in the Washington Times or the Los Banos Enterprise, a small newspaper in California.

The letter jumps to the support of President Obama saying in part that President Obama never promised that “our problems would wash off in the morning.”

But today, the president is being attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never made such a promise. It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything.

The odd thing is that this letter has appeared all on the same day, all across the country, and all claiming to be from a local letter writer interested in drumming up sympathy for President Obama. The whole thing stinks of an astroturf effort — an effort to carpet the news with a fake grass-roots styled letter.

Who had the power to get this letter placed in so many papers all on the same day? Who had the reach to do this? It certainly smacks of a coordinated effort either by the President’s staff or the national party.
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Is This The President’s Fake Letter to the Editor”


Ill. Policy Institute: It’s Brown 41!

Let the Spinning Begin
One would think that Tuesday’s historic upset in Massachusetts (largely fueled by voters unhappy with partisan health care “reform”, according to exit polls) would give the current D.C. establishment pause. Apparently, not yet. Watch as David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs spin their way into denial in the video above.
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Ill. Policy Institute: It’s Brown 41!”


Environmentalism Not About the Earth But About Control, Part 1

-By Frederick Meekins

For decades, American motorists have been subjected to propaganda insisting that they either need to drive less or give up safe, comfortable automobiles in favor of what amount to motorized coffins in order to preserve natural resources and environmental quality. Now that this policy goal is pretty much on the road to being implemented, the elites running our lives are not content to sit back in the glow of their accomplishment but are rather laying the groundwork for the next phase in their grand dream of limiting the free movement of the American people.

One would think the increasing popularity of electric and hybrid automobiles would please transportation planners and social engineers. However, as most realize somewhere along life’s journey, getting what you want is not always what you expected.

For while hybrid cars might cut back on emissions and fuel consumption, they also take a bite out of gas tax revenues. But instead of tightening their belts and learning to make due with less as they counsel you when you complain about rising fuel costs, government planners are now conniving to pass the hardship on to you by altering the way transportation taxes are assessed.
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Environmentalism Not About the Earth But About Control, Part 1″


NBC’s Viera Scolding Scott Brown on Today Show

-By Warner Todd Huston

Meridith Viera seemed a bit annoyed that she was interviewing the newly elected Republican Scott Brown instead of Democrat Martha Coakley now that Massachusetts voters made their choice in the Tuesday special election for the open Senate seat there.

Viera did her level best to phrase the results of the election in an agenda driven way but Scott Brown wasn’t taking the bait. In fact, he proved exactly why he was elected over the bumbling Coakley. He refused to accept Viera’s lefty narrative and restated the day’s events with his own, positive message.

Viera started out trying to get Brown to admit that the only reason he won is because Martha Coakley made so many mistakes in her campaign. This was an effort to make less of Brown’s win by saying that the voters didn’t really vote for him at all. Viera asked, “… do you think that your victory was a result of missteps by your opponent or did you tap into something that the Democrats didn’t get about the voters?”
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NBC’s Viera Scolding Scott Brown on Today Show”


Krugman Says Obama Doesn’t Blame Bush Enough?

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the worst writers in political punditry, a man with a little deserved reputation as a thinker and analyst, is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Sometimes the things he says are so absurd that it is hard to believe that even he believes what he is writing.

Aside from his discreditable insistence that Keynesian economics is a viable economic system despite the mountain of evidence against it, Krugman is also consistently wrong about politics.

Krugman’s January 17 piece is a perfect example of the nonsense that he tries to pass off as political analysis. In the piece headlined “What Didn’t Happen,” Krugman is seriously trying to claim that one of Barack Obama’s biggest failings is that he doesn’t blame Bush enough for his own failings.

Yes, you read me right, incredulously Krugman is saying that Obama doesn’t blame Bush enough.
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Krugman Says Obama Doesn’t Blame Bush Enough?”


$42 Million Union Embezzlement Case, Little Media Coverage

-By Warner Todd Huston

Union operative Melissa King of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) has been arrested for stealing $42 million in union funds to support the lavish lifestyle to which she and her daughter have become accustomed. It is being called the biggest union theft in history. So why haven’t we heard of this union theft? Why hasn’t it been all over the news?

That would be a good question and Brian Johnson, for one, asked the question himself. Johnson makes an interesting point when he notes that the Old Media have lost its collective mind over the Bernie Madoff scandal, yet they’ve made barely a peep about this monumental theft by a union member.

Famously nicknamed the “sandhogs,” the LIUNA is a union that represents the workers that dig the tunnels that are networked throughout New York City. It is they that are responsible for sewer tunnels, the subway, and other such excavation work.
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$42 Million Union Embezzlement Case, Little Media Coverage”


AP Sells Coakley as ‘Historic’ Candidate

-By Warner Todd Huston

The special election in Massachusetts for the open Senate seat once held by Teddy Kennedy is the hottest political story of the day. The race is so close that no one is sure who will win but signs are starting to point to Republican Scott Brown’s win. Cue the Associated Press with a puff piece on Democrat Martha Coakley that tries to sell her as an “historic candidate” perhaps in order to help push her over the top just before the polls open on Tuesday.

Penned by Steve LeBlanc, the AP headlined its piece, “Coakley Hopes for Historic Win in Kennedy Seat Bid.” The subtitle explains why her candidacy is “historic.” It reads, “Coakley aims to hold off GOP surge for Kennedy seat, become 1st woman elected senator in Mass.”

What puffery. The days when it was noteworthy that a woman was elected to high office are long past. For decades we’ve had women elected in just about every position in politics from the lowest city and state level all the way to the highest offices. In fact, the only two offices that have yet to see a female elected to them are president and vice president, though we have had credible candidates for them. For all other offices women have long since shattered the glass ceiling. So, how “historic” could it be that we might have yet another elected female Senator? Aren’t there several female Senators now serving? Of course there are.
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AP Sells Coakley as ‘Historic’ Candidate”


Chgo Trib Wants ‘Reform,’ Yet Endorses Machine Candidates

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Dec. 27th, the Chicago Tribune sternly scolded our Illinois political class saying that we need “reform” in Illinois. The Trib announced that with all the past corruption they’d had “enough.” And they promised to launch a “pre-primary push to elect better” politicians.

Well, who could disagree with that? Illinois has one of the most corrupt, most indebted, least transparent, most inbred political scene in the country. It is rife with corruption on both sides of the political divide and we are ripe for change. So, yes, we all can agree with the Chicago Tribune that we need to clean up this political cesspool. The “Chicago Way” that has now invaded Washington D.C. should be eliminated back here at home.

So, hear, hear, Chicago Tribune. We agree. You are a fast friend to the weak and downtrodden. A champion of the common man. A paragon of reform, etc., etc.

Yep, all that horn tootin’ was great, Trib. So, let’s see how you did with picking candidates to endorse
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Chgo Trib Wants ‘Reform,’ Yet Endorses Machine Candidates”


AP Misses That Michelle’s White House Veggies Weren’t Used on TV

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press had an extensive story reporting on First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden on Jan 13. The story included the tidbit that her veggies were the main ingredients during a recent Iron Chef TV show episode. The AP happily reported that the crops “inspired a culinary showdown” on the TV show and reported that the challenge to the chefs was to “whip up five dishes using anything from the garden.” But the AP did not report the truth that none of the produce used on the show actually came from the White House garden at all.

The AP reported about the taping of the show and said that the chefs used the White House veggies.

The garden also inspired a culinary showdown on an episode of “Iron Chef America,” a television series patterned on the Japanese “Iron Chef.” Filmed partly at the White House, the contest paired White House chef Cristeta Comerford and Bobby Flay against another duo of top American chefs, Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse.

Their challenge? Whip up five dishes using anything from the garden. The chefs harvested everything from fennel and collard greens to purple cauliflower and Japanese eggplant. Flay and Comerford, a Philippine-born naturalized American, won the cook-off.

Unfortunately for the AP, the truth is that even though the TV show filmed the White House garden and showed some of the crops that were picked from it, they did not actually use any of the produce during the cook-off because the taping of the cooking part of the show was held a week after the produce was picked at the White House.
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AP Misses That Michelle’s White House Veggies Weren’t Used on TV”


Coakley Bodyguard’s Beer Hall Push Prime Example of Democratic Thuggery

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Upon leaving a Democratic fundraiser at a bar in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday evening, January 12th, Massachusetts Attorney General and Senatorial candidate Martha Coakley received what may be a fatal body blow to her campaign when her bodyguard pushed hard to the sidewalk an accredited Weekly Standard reporter, John McCormack, for daring to ask tough and probing questions when he had the chance.

The bodyguard in question wasn’t just your average Democratic rent-a-thug either. He is none other than Michael Meehan, a highly placed operative within the Democratic National Party and the communications expert for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). He was an advisor to Senators Kerry and Boxer, was Chief of Staff to Senator Cantwell and was a political director for former Senator Daschle when he was Senate Majority Leader. Now Meehan, besides currently acting the goon for Coakley, is an Obama-appointed nominee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) whose stated mission is to provide, “an example of a free and professional press” to the world at large and which oversees the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
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Coakley Bodyguard’s Beer Hall Push Prime Example of Democratic Thuggery”


Book Review: What Are These Tea Parties About, Anyway?

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new book about the Tea Party movement — and a movement it really is — will soon be hitting the shelves. “A New American Tea Party” penned by John M. O’Hara, one of the many folks that helped bring us some of those protests in early 2009, is a book that hopes that the reader will come away understanding and appreciating the Tea Party movement as a truly grassroots happening, a spontaneous outpouring of interest backed by true red, white and blue American ideals.

Author O’Hara, himself an early Tea Party organizer in Washington D.C. and the Chicago area, answers several questions with the book: what sparked the Tea Parties; is the name “Tea Party” itself a proper sobriquet; what do they mean; what does the future hold; and how do you make more?

The first thing one might notice is that O’Hara writes in a crisp, conversational style with short subchapters. This makes it ideal for reading bits at a time. This is not a dense treatment and I think his style makes the book very accessible to people of all ages — without talking down to the young or dumbing it down for the more advanced reader.
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Book Review: What Are These Tea Parties About, Anyway?”


Rudy Flub Brings Out Vultures

-By Warner Todd Huston

For several days now the Old Media has been indulging in a steady attack on former Mayor Rudy Giuliani that tends to misdirect readers away from his criticism of President Obama. First by making what Giuliani said of Obama seem more adulatory than it was and second by focusing on a rather unexceptional remark that is spun as a presumed mistake in the Mayor’s statements about the recent history of terror attacks in the U.S. This misdirected focus tends to detract from Giuliani’s fair criticism of Obama turning it instead into a slam on Giuliani.

The latest slew of Rudy hits has been over his presumed misstatement that no terror attacks occurred during Bush’s years in office. The critics are guffawing over what they claim is Rudy’s “neglect” to mention the attacks on 9/11. In an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Giuliani said, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.” This, the Old Media claims, is an example of Rudy “somehow” forgetting that 9/11 occurred.

Of this the Associated Press published a wire story that breathlessly proclaimed “Giuliani: No domestic terror attacks under Bush.” The story went on to scold Giuliani because he “somehow neglected to mention” 9/11.
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Rudy Flub Brings Out Vultures”


My First Piece at BigJournalism.com is Up!

-By Warner Todd Huston

I didn’t want to make any announcements ahead of time… you know, just in case they ultimately decided I wasn’t going to really become part of the team… but about a month ago I was contacted by Andrew Breitbart’s newest web venture BigJournalism.com to become one of their contributors.

Well, late last night they published my first offering: Time Magazine: Conflating Big Spending With ‘Moderate’

BigJournalism.com is starting of pretty strong and I expect it to become just as popular as his other main site BigGovernment.com, to which I have also contributed a half dozen or so pieces.

Mr. Breitbart has quite an empire on the web. I hope his work lasts or a long, long time.

I also included the new piece here on Publius to add to my own archive. See it below.


Time: Conflating Big Spending With ‘Moderate’

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the tricks that the Old Media consistently uses to paint conservatives as walking on the dark side is to call Republicans who lean left “moderates,” while those who lean to the right are “right wing” or “hardcore” Republicans. This media-speak reserves the harsher words for conservatives and makes anyone on the right seem like an extremist, yet paints the center-left as being on the side of the angels.

It’s a subtle flavoring of rhetoric that leads the reader to a prearranged conclusion as opposed to a reporting of the facts. A recent Time Magazine article by Tim Padgett on the Republican primary Senate campaign between Florida’s Charlie Crist and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio is a perfect example of this.

To Time the primary fight between Rubio and Crist is apparently one of light versus dark, the evil extremist “right wing” siding with Rubio against the nice, “inclusive” moderates supporting Crist. But with this characterization, Time is misrepresenting the political battle between Rubio and Crist. Unfortunately for Time’s agenda, the argument in Florida between Rubio and Crist has little to do with moderates, inclusion, or big tent politics but has everything to do with economics. Rubio is a fiscal conservative while Crist, the incumbent governor, has been a profligate spender.
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Time: Conflating Big Spending With ‘Moderate’”


Crain’s Chicago: Earring Wearing ‘Journo’ Attacks ‘Tea-Baggers’ and Conservatives

-By Warner Todd Huston

Crain’s Chicago Business has just gotten into the business of indulging in foul, sexually charged name calling, apparently. Yes, you can mark Crain’s Chicago Business as only the latest news outlet to decide it’s funny to call conservatives “tea-baggers.” It’s a name that lefties have been tagging the movement with all winter, one derived from the sexually perverse homosexual practice.

This time it’s the self-assumed humorist and political columnist Greg Hinz who thought it was hilarious to call an Illinois gubernatorial candidate a “Tea-bagger.” In a blog post about candidate for Governor Adam Andrzejewski, Hinz broke out the funny bone and titled his offering, “Tea-bagger Andrzejewski goes for GOP gov’s gold.”

Now, without a doubt Greggie Hinz thinks he’s a laugh riot over at Crain’s Chicago Business. He must. After all, it is a laugh riot when a 60-something-year-old white, bald man wears an earring, isn’t it? (as can be seen in his blog photo) It must serve as his statement of “irony.” It’s his sign to those he meets that says, “Hey, dude, I’m a fun, funny guy.” Of course, it’s not really taken that way, sadly for Greggie. No, instead of being tragically hip, it’s just tragic. Speaking of hips, I hope this elder Crain’s jokester walks carefully on all this Chicago winter ice. We don’t want gramps to fall down and break his. And I hope Greggie walks carefully in those jester’s shoes with the curled up toes with the bells on them. It could be hazardous, ya know?
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Crain’s Chicago: Earring Wearing ‘Journo’ Attacks ‘Tea-Baggers’ and Conservatives”


The Janus Face of the Progressive Democrats

-By Frank Salvato

“Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.” – William Shakespeare

America, when exactly did we come to tolerate politicians lying to us – bald-faced –about things that actually matter? When did we start to put up with being lied to by our elected officials and accepting it as the status quo? When did we come to accept that disingenuous political spin was just part of the process; that deceiving the electorate was tolerable…at any level? I ask because as I try to reconcile the “hope and change” propaganda with the actions of the Obama Administration, well, let’s just say the campaign rhetoric appears to have been crafted by P.T. Barnum.

Examples of intellectual malfeasance exist on both sides of the aisle but it is dramatically more prevalent on the political Left and since the Progressives have hijacked the Democrat Party it has gotten worse. There doesn’t seem to be a day that goes by where news comes out of Washington DC that is literally unbelievable.
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The Janus Face of the Progressive Democrats”