Archive for the ‘Featured Story’ Category
Polanski’s Polymorphous Perversity
Posted by Adam Baldwin in Featured Story, Politics on October 7th, 2009
After more than thirty years Oscar® winning director Roman Polanski, the infamous child rapist and decades-long fugitive from justice, has been captured. He should be extradited back to California as soon as possible for sentencing.
Some of Polanski’s early apologists and defenders are likely now entertaining discomforting second-thoughts about their hasty signing of the petition demanding his immediate release from captivity, as indeed some are also now furiously backpedaling in regret over their indiscretion of speaking out publicly on his behalf.
It seems an appropriate time to review some origins and history underlying the modern psychological rationales currently attempting to dilute and evade Polanski’s morally deviant nihilism, and the cognitive dissonance (i.e., “it wasn’t ‘rape’ rape”) introjected by countercultural pseudo-intellectual sycophants.
Its members’ values inculcation was, with purposeful destructiveness, initiated early last century by an all-too-often overlooked intellectual vanguard. So, in deconstructing the value of his sexual crimes, Polanski’s sophistic defenders were/are perhaps unwittingly acting out a reflexive cultural pre-conditioning, rather than logic and reason. This is hardly surprising, considering the players, yet the whys and wherefores are important, if only for historical perspective.
Consider last century’s counter-revolutionary works by postmodern cultural Marxism’s Intellectual Moron gurus:
Such as Alfred C. Kinsey, whose “‘pansexual worldview’ says that all forms of sexual expression are equal and acceptable.”
Or, Herbert Marcuse’s Eros & Civilization that, pace William Lind, ‘condemned all restrictions on sexual behavior. Calling instead for “polymorphous perversity” that, by the way, helped open the door for aspects of the political correctness movement. Its self-congratulatory, narcissistic foundation for Marcuse’s good human society whose liberating tolerance for “non-procreative Eros” was intended, per Roger Kimball, to help society ‘find great enlightenment and great happiness which was supposed to be the key to utopia’.
UC Berkeley professor Martin Jay (2:20 mark…) summarizes that polymorphous perversity “argues that at certain early developmental levels of the human psyche, there was a potential for sexual expression/sexual pleasure which had not yet been organized into the restricted notions of heterosexual sexuality. And that these had some sort of capacity to be reinvigorated.”
Correlation: Leading Polanski petitioner Woody Allen has produced intimate knowledge of this Freudian psychoanalytic term (promoted by Marcuse): In his Oscar® winning “Annie Hall,” Allen’s character tells his girlfriend he loves her because she is “polymorphic perverse.” Likewise, in Allen’s “Celebrity” a nubile female model claims to be a “polymorphic perverse,” whom the protagonist finds invigorating. In another of Allen’s films, “Manhattan,” he portrays a divorced man dating a high-schooler (Mariel Hemingway).
Elsewhere more recently, in American Splendor, Joyce Brabner informs Harvey Pekar that his friend Robert Crumb is “polymorphously perverse.”
Coincidence? Not a chance…
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PJTV’s Bill Whittle neatly condenses this history in “The Truth About The Tyranny of Political Correctness.”
Polanski’s current intolerant defenders’ politically correct instincts to apply empathy and/or glorify the iconic-old-fugitive-child-rapist might afford some comfort while insulated within the closed-circles of elite and fashionable salons and retreats.
However, the practical consequences of such a rash decision — and any subsequent indignant retreats in faux-‘victimhood’ or mountings to self-anointed moral ‘high ground’ should, for those with any common sense of decency remaining, become imminently difficult, if not impossible to ignore from colleagues, audiences and customers whom reside in the real world down here on Olympus’ lower slopes.
The temptation of mercy and patient edification for the clueless (a.k.a., ‘useful idiots’) is strong and perhaps even good. After all, it’s really little more than their ignorant do-gooder idealism that causes them to swoon for perverted totalitarian ideologies.
Intolerant, stubbornly divisive, self-satisfied Polanski-apologist glitterati, continue to receive well-earned rejection and scorn from regular Americans.
As for child-rapist Polanski: it is long past time for the Crimes & Consequences of this perverted ‘progressive’ icon to be administered once and for all… Guilty as charged.
Alert the Media: Ayers’ Claim He Wrote Obama’s ‘Dreams from My Father’ Is A Blockbuster Story
Posted by Rusty Humphries in Featured Story, Obama on October 7th, 2009
UPDATED 10/8 9:37 PDT.
Revealing audio after the jump.
Anne Leary is a conservative blogger found at http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/. She claims to have recently met Bill Ayers at the Reagan National Airport. She approached him and out of the blue, he claimed to have written Barack Obama’s bestseller Dreams from My Father. Was he joking? Serious?
I wanted to have Anne Leary on my radio show right away to see if she was reliable and to see what Ayers may have been trying to tell her. I have been actively tracking Jack Cashill’s investigation into the possibility Bill Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter for Dreams. I was very skeptical of the story at first but Jack’s research and Christopher Andersen’s favorable book on the First Couple both supported that Ayers did, in fact, play a significant role in Obama’s book (which President Obama claims he wrote with no help).
You can read Jack Cashill’s comprehensive investigations:
The Improvised Odyssey of Barack Obama
When I saw Anne’s blog, it was important to verify her story and make an assessment of her report. My exclusive interview with her convinced me the conversation with Ayers was real, she reported it accurately and we have a blockbuster story on our hands.
Ayers didn’t just help with the book, it appears he took entire sections of his own past and transformed them into Obama life stories. Why is this important? If Barack Obama lied about writing Dreams, and if in fact an unrepentant terrorist and self-described communist did indeed write the book, then all claims by Barack Obama from the beginning must now be reexamined. Also, the left is already attacking the ghostwriter for Sarah Palin’s new book as a “racist.” Really? You want to compare ghostwriters? This is like Timothy McVeigh ghostwriting John McCain’s book.
Cashill’s research, Andersen’s book and Ayers statement have created an awkward moment for the media. Do they do their job or continue to deny their readers/viewers/listeners the truth? The President’s credibility is on the line. It demands our attention.
Here is my EXCLUSIVE interview with Anne Leary on The Rusty Humphries Show, 10-06-2009:
Alert the Media: Ayers’ Claim He Wrote Obama’s ‘Dreams of My Father’ Is A Blockbuster Story
Posted by Rusty Humphries in Featured Story, Obama on October 7th, 2009
Audio after the jump.
Anne Leary is a conservative blogger found at http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/. She claims to have recently met Bill Ayers at the Reagan National Airport. She approached him and out of the blue, he claimed to have written Barack Obama’s bestseller Dreams of My Father. Was he joking? Serious?
I wanted to have Anne Leary on my radio show right away to see if she was reliable and to see what Ayers may have been trying to tell her. I have been actively tracking Jack Cashill’s investigation into the possibility Bill Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter for Dreams. I was very skeptical of the story at first however Jack’s research is overwhelming and Christopher Andersen’s favorable book on the First Couple confirmed that Ayers did, in fact, play a significant role in Obama’s book– that President Obama claims he wrote with no help.
You can read Jack Cashill’s comprehensive investigations:
The Improvised Odyssey of Barack Obama
When I saw Anne’s blog, it was important to verify her story and make an assessment of her report. My exclusive interview with her convinced me the conversation with Ayers was real, she reported it accurately and we have a blockbuster story on our hands.
Ayers didn’t just help with the book, it appears he took entire sections of his own past and transformed them into Obama life stories. Why is this important? If Barack Obama lied about writing Dreams, and if in fact an unrepentant terrorist and self-described communist did indeed write the book, then all claims by Barack Obama from the beginning must now be reexamined. Also, the left is already attacking the ghostwriter for Sarah Palin’s new book as a “racist.” Really? You want to compare ghostwriters? This is like Timothy McVey ghostwriting John McCain’s book.
Cashill’s research, Andersen’s book and Ayers statement have created an awkward moment for the media. Do they do their job or continue to deny their readers/viewers/listeners the truth? The President’s credibility is on the line. It demands our attention.
Here is my EXCLUSIVE interview with Anne Leary on The Rusty Humphries Show, 10-06-2009:
Stand Up Notes From Flyover Country: Janeane Is Off Her Meds and Other Stories
Posted by Jeffrey Jena in Featured Story, News on October 7th, 2009
I happened to see some clips of alleged Janeane Garofalo on the Bill Maher show the other night. I have a warning for anyone who sees her in person or is near her: Janeane is off her meds again and the voices in her head have taken control.
She is already on record as believing that anyone who does not worship at the Church of Radial Leftism is a “straight up racist.” Beside not understanding the English translation of her argot “straight up,” I am sure that anyone who is even a little bit clear headed can imagine a world where people who thought Condi was dandy and helped Michael Steele get to the helm of the GOP might not take race as the deciding factor with Obama. Be that as it may, Ms. Garofalo assured us that not only were right-wingers racists, but the GOP has been the bastion of White Supremacy since the 1950’s.
Keeping in mind one of the favorite saying of my friend Larry Elder, “Facts are like kryptonite to toe-tag liberals.” (Mr. Elder defines liberals as “toe-tag” if they believe in government intrusion in our lives from birth until they put the tag on your toe in the morgue.) I will present a few facts to try to bring Janeane back into the real world.
***
President Eisenhower backed and signed the first two pieces of significant civil rights legislation in America in 1956 and 1960. He also appointed Republican judges in the south who moved Brown vs. The Board of Education to the Supreme Court. President Eisenhower was… say it with me… A Republican.
The landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was back by 82% of Republicans in Congress while only 62 % of Democrats supported the measure. Opposition to the bill was led by Robert Byrd… Democrat! These other well know Senators also voted against the bill: Albert Gore Sr., William Fulbright, Richard Russell, and James Eastland–all Democrats! Two other well know historical figures were prominent in the segregation movement: George Wallace and Orval Faubus, both tried to block black students from attending “white” schools, both were Democrats. It is also interesting to note that both Faubus and Fulbright were counted as mentors by… anyone? William J. Clinton, who I believe was also a Democrat.
***
David Letterman is a total scumbag, who would have thought it! Seems Dave has been having sex with the help over at CBS. I wonder if CBS will make him sit through some sensitivity training on sexual harassment. Here is another surprise, Dave is just another progressive who talks one game and plays another. I am glad to see he has some morality, when a guy who knew what he was up to tried to blackmail him he drew a line in the sand. At least we know what he really cares about–his money.
Whoopi Goldberg also gave us a lesson in Hollywood morality last week when she defended pedophile and child pornographer Roman Polanski: “It wasn’t rape-rape,” she said on The View commenting about the capture of the Polish film director. Seems thinks its okay to: A) Drug a 13-year-old and then have sex with her, and B) After you’re convicted, skip bail and flaunt your lifestyle in Europe.
What’s more, he wants to return to the US for the same reason David Letterman fessed up: America is where the money is and Polanski wants more that he can make in socialist Europe. He has been trying to get his conviction overturned and recently had one of his lawyers claim that even the LA court didn’t care that he had skipped. Wrong!
Bigwig producer Harvey Weinstein put out a petition to support Mr. Polanski which was signed by moral pillar Woody Allen. Maybe he is trying to get O.J., Robert Blake and Phil Spector to sign too!
***
Finally, a last word about Congressman Joe Wilson. In case you have been in a coma for the last month, Wilson yelled “you lie!” at the President during a speech to a joint session of Congress. Congressman Wilson apologized, as he should have, more than a few times for being rude and breaking the decorum of the House. A lot of folks got on him for being uncivil, but I don’t think anyone said he was wrong. In fact, last week Democrats blocked language which would have codified the pledge by Obama that his health care plan would not be open to illegals. Things that make you go Hummmmm…
ACORN Throws Out Republican Voter Registrations
Posted by Pamela Geller in ACORN, Featured Story on October 7th, 2009
ACORN wants people to register to vote – as long as they’re Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash.
Here is a first-hand account of how it happens. In February 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying people three dollars for each voter they could register. ACORN paid her three dollars for each voter she registered, but Fatiyyah Muhammad says that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them registrations of Republican voters.
Fathiyyah Muhammad voted for Obama. “I’m a Republican,” she says, “and this was the first time that I voted for a Democrat since JFK…. I’m one of those rare birds, a black conservative Republican, and actually this is the black conservative capital of the country, Jacksonville, Florida.” She is an entrepreneur and a great American: she makes custom caps for her businesses Bilal’s Custom Caps and Only in America. She and her James have made custom caps for politicians, sports heroes, musicians, and others. “America,” she says, “is the place you can live your dreams if you work at it.” She’s a can-do woman with a great American spirit, and when she saw what was breaking in the news about ACORN, she came forward; I interviewed her Monday morning.
“This is my first experience” with ACORN, Muhammad said. “This was before Obama got the nomination, long before then….I heard about this group that was paying $3.00 per person, to go out and to get people to sign up to vote. So I went over, I thought that well this is a good way to make some money because I know everybody, you know. I went over there and this guy signed me up and everything, and gave me my little pad, all this stuff.”
Muhammad went to the ACORN office in Jacksonville. There she encountered a young man speaking to a room of about twenty people. “He was telling us, you know, about his experience, he was from Brooklyn, he wasn’t from this area. He was just here recruiting people to register people to vote. They had a big office here, and I would say maybe about ten or twelve people at there.”
She went to work: “Well, I went out and got a lot of people, homeless people, but of course I signed everybody up as a Republican, and I would have put people had they been Democrats.” She was not forcing people to sign up as Republicans: “You could put down anything you wanted.” But when she got back to ACORN, a group leader was not pleased: “So I showed what I had, and he said, “No, no, you a fraud, there can’t be any black Republicans,’ and oh, he just kind of hung me out to dry…. But of course their main aim was to register only Democrats. They’re not interested in registering Republicans.”
She saw ACORN officials in Jacksonville throw out the Republican registrations she made. “They just discarded those, they weren’t valid. All of the registrations… they just threw those out.” Yet she says that she is sure that the people she registered were actually going to vote: “Yes, they all were going to vote, I just didn’t want to get anybody just to get the three dollars, I wasn’t desperate for three dollars.”
ACORN did not honor its agreement to pay three dollars for each registered voter. “He took my papers,” says Muhammad, “didn’t pay me anything and I just left, I just figured that this is just another scam…. Everyone else got paid, all the other people got paid, but I didn’t. And I didn’t make a big deal about it, I just figured that it was another one of life’s experiences.”
Fatiyyah Muhammad didn’t know anything about ACORN at that time. She didn’t know that ACORN has been doing this for a long time. As far back as November 2006 the organization was indicted for some 40,000 illegal voter registrations, and that was before any of the recent revelations.
Now Fatiyyah Muhammad says: “I can’t believe that they got away with it for so long.” And she wants her story to be told: “How are you going to shine a light on the laundry if you don’t want to come out and say what happened?”
Fatiyyah Muhammad is unafraid to shine that light. And her testimony is another nail in the coffin of the community organizers of ACORN and their stealth agenda.
ACORN Throws Out Republican Voter Registrations
Posted by Pamela Geller in ACORN, Featured Story on October 7th, 2009
ACORN wants people to register to vote – as long as they’re Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash.
Here is a first-hand account of how it happens. In February 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying people three dollars for each voter they could register. ACORN paid her three dollars for each voter she registered, but Fatiyyah Muhammad says that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them registrations of Republican voters.
Fathiyyah Muhammad voted for Obama. “I’m a Republican,” she says, “and this was the first time that I voted for a Democrat since JFK…. I’m one of those rare birds, a black conservative Republican, and actually this is the black conservative capital of the country, Jacksonville, Florida.” She is an entrepreneur and a great American: she makes custom caps for her businesses Bilal’s Custom Caps and Only in America. She and her James have made custom caps for politicians, sports heroes, musicians, and others. “America,” she says, “is the place you can live your dreams if you work at it.” She’s a can-do woman with a great American spirit, and when she saw what was breaking in the news about ACORN, she came forward; I interviewed her Monday morning.
“This is my first experience” with ACORN, Muhammad said. “This was before Obama got the nomination, long before then….I heard about this group that was paying $3.00 per person, to go out and to get people to sign up to vote. So I went over, I thought that well this is a good way to make some money because I know everybody, you know. I went over there and this guy signed me up and everything, and gave me my little pad, all this stuff.”
Muhammad went to the ACORN office in Jacksonville. There she encountered a young man speaking to a room of about twenty people. “He was telling us, you know, about his experience, he was from Brooklyn, he wasn’t from this area. He was just here recruiting people to register people to vote. They had a big office here, and I would say maybe about ten or twelve people at there.”
She went to work: “Well, I went out and got a lot of people, homeless people, but of course I signed everybody up as a Republican, and I would have put people had they been Democrats.” She was not forcing people to sign up as Republicans: “You could put down anything you wanted.” But when she got back to ACORN, a group leader was not pleased: “So I showed what I had, and he said, “No, no, you a fraud, there can’t be any black Republicans,’ and oh, he just kind of hung me out to dry…. But of course their main aim was to register only Democrats. They’re not interested in registering Republicans.”
She saw ACORN officials in Jacksonville throw out the Republican registrations she made. “They just discarded those, they weren’t valid. All of the registrations… they just threw those out.” Yet she says that she is sure that the people she registered were actually going to vote: “Yes, they all were going to vote, I just didn’t want to get anybody just to get the three dollars, I wasn’t desperate for three dollars.”
ACORN did not honor its agreement to pay three dollars for each registered voter. “He took my papers,” says Muhammad, “didn’t pay me anything and I just left, I just figured that this is just another scam…. Everyone else got paid, all the other people got paid, but I didn’t. And I didn’t make a big deal about it, I just figured that it was another one of life’s experiences.”
Fatiyyah Muhammad didn’t know anything about ACORN at that time. She didn’t know that ACORN has been doing this for a long time. As far back as November 2006 the organization was indicted for some 40,000 illegal voter registrations, and that was before any of the recent revelations.
Now Fatiyyah Muhammad says: “I can’t believe that they got away with it for so long.” And she wants her story to be told: “How are you going to shine a light on the laundry if you don’t want to come out and say what happened?”
Fatiyyah Muhammad is unafraid to shine that light. And her testimony is another nail in the coffin of the community organizers of ACORN and their stealth agenda.
Enabling Celebrity Dysfunction (I Blame Oprah)
Posted by Kurt Schlichter in Featured Story on October 7th, 2009
Just when it looks like Roman Polanski has re-set the bar for personal behavior so low that it’s practically subterranean, the late John Phillips comes along and somehow finds a way to slink underneath it. Maybe. Maybe, because his accuser is his own daughter Mackenzie Phillips, a drug addict since the mid-70s who is currently peddling her sordid tale of incest, heroin and general dysfunction to anyone with a lens and a microphone.
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Perhaps this junkie, who by her own admission had a decade-long affair with her own father starting at age 19, is not the most reliable witness. On the other hand, considering the Hollywood community’s frantic defense of noted pedophile Polanski, it’s not too difficult to imagine how Mackenzie and her rock star father might have figured, “Well, we’re here, we’re high, we’re horny. What’s some shared DNA between stars?”
I blame Oprah.
Oh, I blame Mackenzie Phillips too. The law has a wonderful concept called “joint and several liability,” which recognizes that several wrongdoers can all be jointly blameworthy even if they do different awful things. Mackenzie Phillips is a narcotics-gobbling pervert; the manifest evil of her father does nothing to lessen her own guilt for the smoldering wasteland she has made of her charmed life. That is, assuming even a portion of her accusations against John, some of which her sister backs up (which itself is mind-boggling), are true.
But Oprah’s blameworthiness is based not on committing the underlying evil but on exploiting it, celebrating it and normalizing it. That YouTube clip was not selected at random. It’s an ad, and it’s selling degeneracy. Watch as it strings along the viewer with tantalizing tidbits like “My father shot me up for the first time” and an anecdote about a lecherous Mick Jagger while leading up to the big score, the hook, the catharsis, the promise of a heartrending confession of incest, some tears, Oprah’s soothing words (aided by the currently sleek Valerie Bertinelli) and a final absolution right there on daytime television.
You screwed your dad for a decade while in a drug-fueled haze, but you came on my show and confessed, and your sins are washed away. Go in peace, my child. You are absolved.
No. It’s long past time to end the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex’s power to grant indulgences.
There’s this powerful tool out there that for too long has been stashed away in our society’s attic. It’s called “shame,” and it serves a wonderful purpose: it helps prevent people from doing horrible things by ensuring they understand that when they do horrible things, society will treat them like people who have done horrible things.
Mackenzie Phillips ought to be ashamed of herself. She should be hanging her head in shame, not hanging out in studios getting sucked up to by TV nimrods:
Ladies and gentlemen, Mackenzie Phillips, who as an adult, shot smack and banged her dad – thanks for sharing your amazing journey!
But shame is so old-fashioned. It makes people feel bad. And who wants to make people feel bad? Probably those mean old conservatives who have nothing better to do. No, it’s easier to simply normalize dysfunction, to rationalize wrong, to mainstream evil.
You get to be the good guy, the nice guy. You get to be Oprah.
That’s how the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex works. The Complex encompasses talk shows, tabloids, web sites – anything that embraces the dysfunctional, caresses them, pats them on the head, assuring them they are blameless while displaying their dysfunction for our amusement. And by doing so, the Complex whittles away at the differences between the dysfunctional and the functional until they can’t be told apart.
This requires a rejection of judgment. Oprah would never be judgmental. That’s too emblematic of a narrow-minded worldview where all you see are black and white instead of moral relativism’s gauzy, comforting gray.
As we know, judgmental is the worst thing you can be. Mao can kill tens of millions, but who are we to judge? We light up the Empire State Building to celebrate his creation.
Now, on the other hand, take Sarah Palin – well, feel free to judge the hell out of her.
The smack-addled bimbo who nailed her pa for a decade – no, she’s the real hero.
Right and wrong are troublesome concepts because they impose limits on what one can and can’t do. This is against everything that the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex stands for, because if people start judging those they see wasting their lives and their talents on drugs, alcohol, perversions and all manner of other debauchery, then the circus is over. When Lindsey Lohan sobers up, the party ends. When the mutants from the Springer-type talk shows stop living like the crew from Deliverance, the gravy train derails. And the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex depends on a never-ending supply of new human train wrecks.
The task of bringing down the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex falls to us. You have a remote that goes with that big screen. Up near the top is a red button. When some degenerate comes on your screen, supported and approved of by media demigods, spouting off about how being a stripper is empowering, push that button.
When a checkout-stand tabloid tempts you with the tale of some Hollywood hunk’s extracurricular three-way action, reach past it, grab some Tic-Tacs, and pay your bill. Home-wrecking isn’t funny or fun and don’t let your good money go to support it.
When you walk through Barnes & Noble, walk right past Mackenzie Phillips’s paean to perversion and grab something else, anything else. Just leave her book right there between the unsold stacks of Spellbinder: The Essential Speeches of Al Gore and The Carter Sutra: Jimmy and Rosalind’s Illustrated Guide to a Sexually Satisfying Marriage.
We’ll know we’re winning when Oprah asks Mackenzie Phillips just what the hell she was thinking. When the ladies of The View come to a rare consensus that she ought to be ashamed of herself, then we will know the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex is collapsing.
Maybe Mackenzie Phillips and Roman Polanski have done us a favor. They’ve given us a glance at the dark, sick places where the Celebrity Dysfunction Complex would take us. Now, the question is whether we will choose to follow its lead down into the murky depths, or turn and climb back up into the light.
Two Fish, One Barrel: Deconstructing Andrew Sullivan’s ‘The Breitbart Standard,’ Demolishing Conor Friedersdorf’s ‘The Right’s Lesser Media’
Posted by Andrew Breitbart in ACORN, Featured Story, Politics on October 6th, 2009
To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:
Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf
In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.
Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!
It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.
Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.
Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.
Two Fish, One Barrel: Deconstructing Andrew Sullivan’s ‘The Breitbart Standard,’ Demolishing Conor Friedersdorf’s ‘The Right’s Lesser Media’
Posted by Andrew Breitbart in ACORN, Featured Story, Politics on October 6th, 2009
To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:
Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf
In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.
Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!
It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.
Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.
Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.
When lefties have asked to challenge something written at either site I have granted them the ability to do so.
Read my entire response here.
Read Conor Friedersdorf’s piece here.
Read Andrew Sullivan’s affirmation of Friedersdorf’s piece here.
Is SEIU’s Purple Brand Fading to Pink?
Posted by Don Loos in ACORN, Featured Story, Politics, Wade Rathke on October 6th, 2009
Stern’s New Big Labor Same as the Old Big Labor
For the past four years, the highest profile Big Labor Boss was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern. Stern has deliberately parlayed his controlling style as that of a New Labor Boss, and he has painstakingly worked on the SEIU “purple brand.” And yet, Stern and the SEIU union have failed to live up to the New Labor Boss identity that he claimed in his New York Times Magazine and CNN/Fortune Magazine articles.
Stern tried to separate himself from the herd of “old-styled” labor bosses in several ways, most noticeably with his dress. He conscientiously wore his beloved SEIU purple with its slight pinkish hue. Apparently, Stern is trying to replicate for his union what brown does for UPS.
Stern’s limitless purple attire led some to refer to him as the Lavender Labor Leader. And recently, SEIU’s Anna Burger looked very chic in her purple suit as Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) grilled her about SEIU’s relationship with ACORN.
Whatever color of scarves, suits, or hats Andy Stern decides to wear, you cannot deny his influence with the White House, U.S. Congressional King Pins, the Democrat National Committee, and ACORN among others. But, has Stern’s smash-mouth organizing and relationship to ACORN begun to turn SEIU’s purple into black and blue? You bet it has!
Clearly, ACORN’s partnerships with SEIU and other Big Labor outfits has begun to drag down SEIU’s image. SEIU has decided, now that ACORN is damaged goods, to cut ties for now. But, that will be very difficult because ACORN and ACORN’s training programs are totally interwoven into the purple fabric that makes up SEIU.
From 2005 through 2008, SEIU spent $9 million on ACORN training programs and contracting out ACORN organizing services. SEIU even hired ACORN founder Wade Rathke to command SEIU national organizing programs. The ACORN listings below illustrate that the SEIU-ACORN relationship is much deeper than SEIU may want publicly known:
ACORN is not the only Brand Destroyer for SEIU
But, SEIU cannot blame its deteriorating image solely on it incestuous relationship with ACORN. The “New Labor Boss” Stern has failed to live up to the image he created.
New Boss Stern is the same as Old Big Labor Bosses that Robert F. Kennedy described in his book, “The Enemy Within.” Those Old Bosses would consolidate power and control over local unions by placing and threatening to place locals into trusteeships (Taking over operations of a local union and ousting of the elected union officials). In addition, these bosses would cut deals with employers that allowed union members to be paid below contract rates.
Local SEIU officers have claimed that Stern aggressively eliminates local autonomy via trusteeships and approved payoffs (e.g.An indictment alleged that in exchange for payments, SEIU local president Danny Iverson’s resigned so that Stern associate Debra Timko would became president.); and, at least one SEIU contract allows an SEIU contracted employer to pay below contract rates (of course, workers are still forced to pay SEIU union dues and fees for its representation):
“In any instance where the Company signatory hereto desires to submit a bid to perform unit work at a building being serviced by a contractor not a party to a collective bargaining agreement with the union which would cover the work in question, it is agreed that the wage and fringe benefit provisions of this Agreement may be waived …”
Stern’s internal self-serving tactics have resulted in minimal public image damage because most of these actions primarily involve SEIU internal politics. However, internal struggles combined with SEIU’s ruthless corporate campaigns and associations with groups like ACORN are causing even mainstream columnists like Kathleen Parker to question why anyone would want to be associated with SEIU. She wrote:
While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions.
Since the 1990s, SEIU used ACORN-type tactics in so-called “corporate campaigns.” As previously mentioned, ACORN trained SEIU organizers, and ACORN founder Wade Rathke spearheaded SEIU national organizing campaigns.
During these corporate campaigns, SEIU coordinates personal attacks against employees, customers of targeted employers, and the employers. SEIU organizers systematically increase their attacks with assistance from outside pressure groups in accordance with SEIU’s corporate campaign stratagem.
Here is the real kicker in SEIU’s corporate campaign; SEIU’s harassment is not designed to force the employer into allowing employees a secret ballot union representational election, but SEIU pressures employers to sign away employees’ opportunity to have a secret ballot election. That’s right; SEIU developed the corporate campaign to prevent employees from having a secret ballot election.
SEIU, along with its partners ACORN, Justice for Janitors, Interfaith Worker Justice, and others stage disruptive demonstrations, place derogatory ads, hand out offensive flyers, send defamatory letters, and pressure politicians. SEIU organizers have even used children to hand out nasty flyers as they trick-or-treat. All of these actions are designed to irritate everyone in the community and hopefully focus the unrest on the employer, not SEIU. And, in the end, it’s all about money – union dues extracted from workers for the privilege of having a job.
All of SEIU’s in-your-face activities in numerous communities across the country has dramatically begun to weaken SEIU’s own brand.
Here’s three quick true life SEIU corporate campaign sagas that span across America over two decades:
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In the 1990’s, Sacramento’s Randy Schaber endured an SEIU four-year battering of his company and his employees. SEIU’s attacks on Schaber included coordination with a Clinton Administration Big Labor appointee inside the U.S. Department of Labor that resulted in a Congressional investigation, headed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, documenting SEIU’s corporate campaign and the removal of the SEIU insider.
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In Indianapolis, David A. Bego, author of The Devil at My Doorstep, had an SEIU organizer tell him, “we enjoy conversation, but we embrace confrontation,” shortly before SEIU goons began to ratchet up the pressure. Bego’s book provides a concise description of his three-year SEIU ordeal, and details of hard-to-believe ACORN-modeled intimidation. SEIU even had trick-or-treating children handout out offensive flyers in Bego’s and a customer’s neighborhood.
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Houston’s Brent Southwell story, as posted on BigGovernment.com by Bret Jacobson, repeats Schaber’s and Bego’s stories but with his own twist. Southwell filed suit against SEIU claiming, among other things, that a top SEIU organizer “has stated directly to Professional Janitorial Services (PJS, Southwell’s company) that SEIU wants ‘to kill’ PJS.” Certainly, this SEIU organizer was not concerned about the welfare of PJS employees. The lawsuit against SEIU is currently ongoing.
Conclusion
To borrow a phrase from ACORN’s Wade Rathke, no matter how you shake and bake it, a nationwide campaign that embraces confrontation and irresponsible personal attacks will eventually stick to the SEIU brand. Constantly filing unsubstantiated accusations with enforcement agencies and then using these SEIU-generated unsubstantiated claims to force politicians to act eventually hurts the credibility of the accuser.
Remember the childhood story of the boy who cried wolf?
In the end, SEIU’s smash-mouth, no-holds-barred organizing, internal power struggles, and associations with the likes of ACORN have irrefutably begun to bring down Stern’s SEIU purple brand.
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