Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

John Hinderaker of Power Line Blog has done an excellent job tracking down and debunking the serial lies of Think Progress regarding the Koch brothers.  I've chimed in too from time to time, but John really has led the charge.

In a post today, John demonstrates yet another Think Progress lie supposedly connecting the departure of David Koch from a Board position at the National Institutes for Health with the reclassification of a chemical used by Koch subsidiary Georgia Pacific as a carcinogen.  There is no truth to it.

John sums Think Progress up as follows (emphasis mine):

Everyone makes mistakes, but ThinkProgress is unique. It doesn't just get things wrong; it consistently fabricates lies out of whole cloth. Anyone who relies on ThinkProgress for information is asking to be deceived.

I think that is a fair assessment, except I'd go one step further.  Many of the people who rely on Think Progress for information, which they then republish, do so with full knowledge of the lack of truthfulness and thereby are complicit.

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I previously posted about the lawsuit by Widener Law School Professor Lawrence Connell.  Widener is seeking to terminate Connell after Connell used a hypothetical example in his criminal law class of the Widener Dean being attacked, and a small number of students alleged that Connell made racist and/or sexist statements in class.  A Widener faculty committee has recommended that the charges be dropped, but Widener is pursuing termination proceedings.

Conell has filed suit, but there also is an administrative hearing at Widener on June 6.  Connell will not be attending the hearing because of a death in the immediate family, but has submitted affidavits by a variety of people, including two students.  Numerous students also previously sent e-mails of support.

In the affidavits of Danielle Oppenheim and Samuel Elbardissi, the students take issue and put in context the supposedly racist and/or sexist statements made by Connell.  You can read the affidavits, but the short version is that the complaining students have taken comments out of context, failing to distinguish Connell's explanation of case background (in which racism was a factor) from Connell's personal opinion. 

So when Connell discussed in class how Bernie Goetz's subjective perception of blacks being responsible for crime contributed to Goetz's defense, the students took this as an affirmative statement by Connell that blacks were responsible for crime.  (Oppenheim Aff't at pars. 23-25, Elbardissi Aff't at par. 10)

Equally troubling is that two complaining students repeatedly created confrontations with Connell in class over such misperceptions of racism.  As explained by Elbardissi:

33. Two incidents occurred in the class that required the other students to take notice.

34. The first student, who sat middle of the class in the second row, raised her hand as we had just finished a case. The issue was, as I recall, referencing another note in the casebook that dealt with racial profiling and the latitude that officers have in making their determinations whether to stop or not.

35. Professor Connell had gone over the note and discussed the statistics that pointed to blacks being heavily targeted by police. The student raised her hand. When called upon, the student started her response, in an aggressive tone, with the words "I don't know what you agenda is ... " Her comments lasted about 45 second to a minute, to which Professor Connell replied, "If you can tell me what I have said that makes you think I have an agenda, I will gladly respond to your question." The student continued with her tone and Professor Connell said that we were going to move on.

36. I have been with this student in other classes and her approach, at times, is to take personal the topics at hand. When such a situation arises, her tone and aggressiveness to attack the situation that is very personal to her is similar to what occurred on that day.

37. On a separate day, Professor Connell had opened the floor for a question he had posed. A student, sitting two to three rows behind me, was called on to answer the question. The student asked a question and Professor Connell asked her to answer his.  Her response to this request was "You never answer mine. Why should I answer yours?"' The situation was awkward for the class who had seen tension from these two students build over the semester. Professor Connell did not continue the tirade, but simply stated "That when you answer my question first, I will answer yours." and then moved on to another student on the opposite side of the room.

38 . I am currently in class with this student. Unfortunately, her comments in response to the professor's question or the general topic at hand, tends to start with "1 believe" or " I think." and never addresses the question posed or the topic at hand . I have no issue with this person, but the consistency that a [sic] the train of subtantive learning gets derailed when she participates is too consistent to not notice.

The charges against Connell have a similar feel to a Media Matters or Think Progress story, in which sentences or clauses from sentences are presented without any context or out of context and spun into a tale of supposed racism by people with an agenda.

Widener Law School should not be proud that it has brought the worst aspects of the blogosphere into its classrooms.

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

Think Progress, via its Wonk Room blog, thought it had the story of the year. 

Not just the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALS.

No, it was so much better, the killing of bin Laden by a Navy SEAL team which included "Rubén Mejía," the American-born child of illegal Mexican immigrants.

The original report was from a newspaper in Mexico, and was dutifully reported by Think Progress, which used the story to argue in support of the DREAM Act, Navy SEALs Squadron That Killed Bin Laden Included Rubén Mejía, The Son Of Mexican Immigrants (emphasis mine):

For a long time, Latinos were underrepresented in the armed forces. Yet, this started to change dramatically as the Army launched “a vast recruiting campaign targeting Latino youth, placing ads in Spanish-language media, including magazines, radio, and television.” In fact, several military experts have come out in support of the DREAM Act which would legalize undocumented youth who go to college or serve in the military precisely because it would significantly increase the pool of qualified recruits in the Latino population — which comprises the majority of undocumented immigrants and is more likely to enlist and serve in the military than any other group....

Meanwhile, many also claim that Latinos are being left out of the military’s highest ranks. “In the last 75 years, there have been only three (Latino) officers on active duty with three stars and just one with four. What’s the problem? We’re as capable, competent and educated as any other segment of society,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez stated last year. If the hundreds of Latinos who have died serving our country abroad aren’t enough to change that, hopefully Rubén Mejía’s brave and historic actions are.

Think Progress was responsible for sending the story viral with this tweet:


Hundreds of tweets linking to Think Progress, including by Markos Moulistas of DailyKos and Perez Hilton, sent the story soaring.

Paul Reyes of USA Today, writing in HuffPo, beamed with pride:

As an American, I'm relieved that the hunt for Bin Laden is over. As a New Yorker, I finally feel some sense of closure, nearly ten years after September 11. And as a Latino, I am proud that Ruben Mejia has set a heroic example of the innumerable contribution of immigrants to the United States.

It was the perfect story with which to beat supporters of immigration enforcement over the head. The most heroic of actions by a so-called "anchor baby."

But the story turned out to be false, which Think Progress noted after several updates. 

There was much embarrassment around the internet from people who ran with the story because Think Progress ran with it.

But what if the story were true?  Would it have proven what Think Progress wants, which is passage of the DREAM Act? 

Considering that the DREAM Act is directed at persons not born in the U.S., it's apples and oranges.  The fictitious Navy SEAL Ruben Mejia would not be affected.

And even as to children who were brought here illegally, service in the military as a pathway to citizenship is non-controversial; the controversy over the DREAM Act was that it was so broad in its application that it amounted to a wide-ranging amnesty.

So in many ways, the story even if true was a non-story.  But it provided Think Progress with an irresistible play of the race card.  Too irresistible to fact check before running with it.

I think I'm going to start charging for popcorn.

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Think Progress, the Democratic messaging website run by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, has been a frequent focus here for its outlandish race-card playing and other antics.

This week Think Progress hit a new low, when it ran a blog post mocking the politics of southern states which were hit by tornadoes, using the devastation as an excuse both to push a global warming agenda and to take a swipe at the conservative politics of the region. 

It was in many ways Think Progress' Wonkette moment.

Here is a screen shot of the original post (this somehow has disappeared from Google cache, but I had the screenshot saved):

When an internet firestorm erupted, the post title was toned down a bit eliminating the rolling body count:

To make sure no one missed it, the post was run again in the evening under the "Healthy Communities" section of Think Progress:


Putting aside the offensive and crass political swipe, the attempt to draw a connection between the tornadoes and climate change simply was false:

US meteorologists warned Thursday it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes in the wake of deadly storms that have ripped through the US south.

"If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it's agreed upon by the tornado community that it's not a real increase," said Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University.
"It's having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we're seeing them more often," Dixon said.

But he said it would be "a terrible mistake" to relate the up-tick to climate change.

Here is a chart of tornado history in the U.S. (via Watts Up With That), showing that even with better detection and tracking, the number of strong tornadoes is not really increasing:


Lacking a scientific basis for the crude political swipe, Think Progress did what Wonkette originally did, double-down. 

The author of the original post ran a third post the next day trying to justify his original posts, and Think Progress' lead blogger, Matthew Yglesias (one of the first bloggers to make a connection between the Sarah Palin electoral map and the Gabriell Giffords shooting), came to his defense in response to a critical post by Tabitha Hale.

The outrage at the Think Progress post will not last, unlike the outrage directed at Wonkette.  In part, it's because there is no one to whom to complain.  Think Progress, flush with cash from big Democratic donors, has no advertisers.

But in part it's because we expect so much less from Think Progress than from Wonkette.

(As an aside, notice how the author uses the term "climate pollution."  Is that the new verbiage?)

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The conspiracy theories run deep at Think Progress when it comes to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Koch Industries.

The latest post by Lee Fang, the designated Koch investigator at Think Progress, attempts to bring David Prosser into the conspiracy as well, by claiming that recent environmental regulations and court rulings are payback to Koch for supporting Walker's fight with the unions and Prosser's campaign. 

The problem is, as with so much of what Fang writes, the conclusions are not supported by the evidence Fang cites or other publicly available information.

Fang's post is titled Walker And Prosser Crushed Regulations On Koch Industry’s Phosphorus Pollution In Wisconsin (italics mine):

Shortly after helping to elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Koch Industries opened a new lobbying office in Madison near the state capitol. However, little has been disclosed about the Koch lobbying agenda in Madison. The New York Times reported that Koch political operatives privately pressured Walker to crush public employee unions. But Walker’s major payback to Koch relates to environmental deregulation.

ThinkProgress has learned that the Walker administration, along with state Supreme Court judge David Prosser, has quietly worked to allow Koch’s many Georgia Pacific paper plants to pollute Wisconsin by pouring thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the water.

Fang goes on to cite three examples, which I will address one at a time.

First, Fang writes (bold in original, italics mine):

Rewriting Environmental Regulations For Koch: Last year, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board called for strict numeric limits on phosphorus pollution. The regulations, which were supposed to be implemented in January, were delayed by Walker’s administration. Hidden inside his infamous budget bill passed in March, Walker then inserted a provision to revise and reduce the phosphorus limits proposed by the Natural Resources Board. Walker’s budget bill was rushed through the legislative process without public hearings.

The link in Fang's paragraph goes to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article which notes that the regulations were proposed last summer, and that Walker campaigned on the issue last fall, "[d]uring the gubernatorial campaign, he cited phosphorus regulations as a prime example of overreach by the DNR."  Whatever one thinks about the regulations (and if you read the Journal Sentinel article you will see that Walker merely wanted to keep regulations consistent with surrounding states), there was nothing "quiet" about Walker's position and the voters knew of that position at the time of the election.  Moreover, there certainly was no connection to recent events, as Walker laid out his position prior to the election.

Next, Fang tries to tie Prosser to the conspiracy by claiming that Prosser was influenced in a recent Supreme Court ruling which went against environmental groups (bold in original, italics mine):

Ruling In Favor Of Koch And Other Polluters: In March, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with Justice David Prosser voting with the majority, overturned the lower court decision allowing a public challenge to the permit giving Koch’s Georgia Pacific plants more leeway in dumping phosphorus into waterways.

Fang does not properly describe the case.  The link in Fang's paragraph makes clear that the ruling was not as to substantive pollution standards, but what type of procedures had to be followed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  The only defendant in the case was the DNR; Georgia-Pacific merely filed an amicus brief in support of DNR.  Moreover, the case is available at the Supreme Court website, and in fact the court was not split on liberal/conservative lines.  Five of the seven justices voted the way Prosser voted, and guess who was the lawyer arguing for the state against the environmental groups; none other than JoAnne Kloppenburg.  Hey, maybe she's in on the conspiracy too.

Last, Fang asserts that Walker is delaying new regulations to help Georgia-Pacific (bold in original, italics mine):

Delaying Environmental Regulations For Koch: Earlier this month, the Walker administration announced a two year delay of all phosphorus regulations passed last year. Not only has Walker’s administration called for reduced phosphorus dumping rules, they now have made it clear that no rules will be implemented until 2013.

Once again, Fang has misrepresented what is happening.  As the link in the paragraph makes clear, the delay in implementation took place only because Walker "has abandoned plans to scale back Wisconsin's new phosphorus pollution limits, opting instead to delay putting them in effect for two years." So Walker recently agreed to implement the rules against which he campaigned, addressed in the first paragraph above and which Fang supports, but merely delayed the new regulations. This change by Walker actually works against Georgia-Pacific because while Walker campaigned against the new regulations completely, he now is willling to implement them.  Thus, the conclusion that Walker was influenced by Koch's support is contrary to what actually happened.

As John Hinderaker has found when examining the details of Fang's conspiracy theories, the theories do not hold up to scrutiny, but they do make good headlines; misleading accusations contradicted by the evidence relied upon in the body of the article, which then become anti-Koch talking points at other left-wing blogs.

Here, Fang disingenuously has created another unsubstantiated talking point purporting to show Koch influence over Walker, and now Prosser too.  Not only were the allegations wrong, the notion of some sort of "quiet" conspiracy is debunked by the fact that everything took place in public, and was reported on by the press and in published cases.

The false allegations are so easy to make, but debunking them takes time. That's the way it works.

[Note to Eric Boehlert - if you are proofreading this post, please go easy on my speling, it's been a long day.]

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Related Posts:
Koch Derangement Syndrome Jumped The Shark Rather Quickly
Koch Derangement Syndrome Hits Case Western Reserve Law School
Gov. Walker's Association with the Koch Brothers

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TaxProf has the details on a campaign to prevent a conservative scholar from becoming Dean of Case Western Reserve Law School:

 And now a public controversy has erupted over one of its dean search finalists:  Bradley A. Smith, Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law at Capital, a well known conservative campaign finance scholar and former chair of the Federal Election Commission under President George W. Bush.  When Professor Smith visited Case on March 24 for his day of interviews and meetings, opponents of his appointment launched CaseAgainstSmith.com

The anti-Smith website focuses repeatedly on the fact that Smith was associated, at various points in his career, with institutions which received funding from the Koch Foundation. 

Much like the Koch Derangement Syndrome which was prevalent in Madison, WI, during the takeover of the Capitol, so too the supposed "students, alumni, and concerned members of the Case Western community" (see bottom of website) who are running the campaign against Smith use the Koch connection to denigrate Smith's qualifications.  From the website (emphasis mine):

Radical groups funded by the Koch brothers have recently begun unprecedented assaults against working families across the country. Bradley Smith’s associated activities are tied to the Koch Brothers.

Bradley Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute. (Goldwater Institute; Center for Competitive Politics)

■The Koch Brothers Fund The Goldwater Institute. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation contributed at least $75,000 to the organization. (Media Matters, March, 2011)

Bradley Smith is on the Board of Scholars at The Mackinac Institute. (Mackinac Institute)

■The Koch Brothers Fund The Mackinac Center For Public Policy. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Koch controlled Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation contributed at least $65,000 to the organization. (Media Matters, March, 2011)

Bradley Smith is on The Board Of Trustees of The Buckeye Institute. (Center for Competitive Politics)

■The Koch Brothers Fund The Buckeye Institute. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Koch controlled Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation contributed at least $55,946 to the organization. (Media Matters, March, 2011)

That's right folks, this group simply is toeing the Media Matters anti-Koch line.  The group does not identify who is behind it or who its members are.

Now you see the pernicious nature of what Media Matters and Think Progress are doing.  They are establishing associational purity tests which effectively exclude a wide range of conservative scholars.  There is no such associational test, by contrast, excluding all those who ever were associated with an entity to which George Soros donated money.

The actions by the group at Case Western demonstrate the dangers to conservatives from Koch Derangement Syndrome.  The target is not the Koch brothers, it is the entire conservative movement.

Update:  The group goes to great lengths to conceal who is behind it, including registering the domain via a proxy service:


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The Culture of Jumping To Conclusions At Widener Law School
What If Christine O'Donnell Were Right About The First Amendment?
Will Law Professors Boycott The Inauguration?

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

Aaron Worthing of Patterico's Pontifications and Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress had a bit of a spitting match this week over this Yglesias' post titled Stuff White People Like: Republicans (emphasis mine):

"A good series of charts by Lee Drutman shows that one of the best predictors of declining Democratic partisan ID between 2008 and 2010 is the number of white people .... I used to hold to the view that the growing non-white share of the electorate would, over time, tip elections to Democrats. I now think the system will remain near equilibrium and what we’ll instead see is white voters growing more Republican as Democrats are more and more seen as the party of non-whites. Mississippi and Arizona, after all, have very large minority votes but they’re hardly hotbeds of liberalism. Instead they’re hotbeds of very conservative white people. This does mean, however, that politics will become even more abstracted away from “the issues” and questions of identity will become even more central."

Worthing wrote that Yglesias was race-baiting:

"And just in time [for this post], Yglesias and Think Progress publish this tripe. Here’s a hint, you cheap race-baiter. Just because the majority of people wanting something might be white, doesn’t make it automatically racist. Indeed, the belief that a view is necessarily racist unless there is a rainbow of colors supporting it is itself racist."

To which Yglesias responded:

"I defy you to read my post and find any instance of me calling anyone a racist. The hyperactive response here does, however, remind me of one of the signal qualities of modern American politics, namely conservatives’ absolute conviction that overzealous anti-racism is a major social ill. Personally, I don’t see it and I’m genuinely staring across a void of incomprehension when I see this sentiment from the right. But it’s clearly the major driver of conservative movement thinking on race in America."

Worthing's further response is here.

The important thing for tonight's Card Game is not to get in the middle of someone else's blog war (I've had my own issues before), but to wonder how Yglesias stares "across a void of incomprehension" when he sees conservatives react to what he calls "overzealous anti-racism."

Yglesias' formulation begs the question. Why is it "overzealous anti-racism" or even "anti-racism" to reduce everything to race?

Focusing on race as the explanation for politics is something Yglesias does with great frequency, as reflected in these posts:

• Stuff White People Really Like
• Stuff White People Like - Disapproving of Barack Obama
• Progressive Urbanism - Stuff White People Like
• The (White) Kids Are All Right
• White Men Are Not Very Progressive

Yglesias is not alone, nor is he the worst.  The liberal media obsesses about how Tea Party events are "overwhelmingly white" and with the number of non-white faces at Sarah Palin book signings.  Here are some prior posts on the subject:

• Obama Bitterly Clings to Bitter Clinger Stereotypes
• An Allergic Reaction To The Race Card
• White Privilege Syndrome By Proxy
• I'm Not Racist, I Know People Who Voted For Obama
• Diversity for Thee But Not For We

Is this focus on the whiteness of conservatives, Tea Parties, and opposition to Obama in general merely reporting facts or even part of a greater anti-racism effort?

Yglesias is being too cute at least by half.  By focusing on the whiteness of crowds or groups, Ygelsias and other liberal media make an implicit charge of racism without actually using the word "racist," thereby leaving themselves an out when challenged.  And that is how Yglesias reacted to Worthing, insisting he never called anyone a "racist."

The focus on race is a means of putting conservatives and Tea Parties on the defensive, by suggesting that the skin colors in a crowd reflect racial preferences of the participants.

The best proof that there is no neutral motive to the focus on race is that it is a one way street.  Race is an obsession of the left only to the extent the crowd is "overwhelmingly white," not when the crowd is "overwhelmingly not white."

Yglesias just can't seem to understand that we do not view the world through a racial prism, and we resent it when others impute such a view onto us.  We care about what is in the mind and heart, not skin color.  I realize that is incomprehensible to those who are schooled in the ways of racial politics, but that is their problem, not ours.

Here is a video I have posted before, which sums it up better than  I ever could.  The reporter also stares across a void of incomprehension:



Update 3-20-2011 - More from John Rosenberg, Anti-Racism, Anti-Anti Racism, And Liberal White Guilt.


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The comments directed at the Koch brothers at left-wing blogs have been among the most vile I have seen anywhere on any topic.

But this one by frequent Salon.com commenter Marc22309, who has published over 1800 "letters" (what Salon.com calls comments) certainly is among the most vile:


It's interesting how not a single other commenter at Salon.com criticised the use of lynching language, and Salon.com has left the comment standing. So much for Salon.com's enlightened liberal readership.

For the record, no, I don't "blame" Think Progress and Lee Fang.

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Related Posts:
Koch Derangement Syndrome Jumped The Shark Rather Quickly
Who Could Have Imagined Koch Prank Call Was Identity Theft?
Think Progress's War Against The Koch Brothers

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A campaign by Think Progress to demonize and marginalize the Koch brothers has jumped the shark.

No, I'm not referring to the cretin who posted a comment here calling me a "Koch whore."

No, I'm not referring to the theft of David Koch's identity by a liberal blogger.

No, I'm not even referring to the pathetic and sick attempt by Lee Fang of Think Progress to attack John Hinderaker of Power Line Blog because among John's law firm's hundreds of clients are Koch companies.  (Fang obviously was reacting to John's masterful takedown -- here and here -- of the false accusations made by Fang against the Koch brothers.)

I'm referring to the BREAKING NEWS that a former Koch executive who now has his own business supplies styrofoam cups to the House of Representatives, as dramatically reported by HuffPo (emphasis mine):

Former Koch Industries executive George Wurtz owns WinCup, which supplies the styrofoam cups now littering the building following the House GOP's decision to phase out biodegradable cups from a Capitol lunchroom.

House Republicans announced in January that they would end a program to place compostable cups, containers and utensils in the House-side mini-cafeteria, a direct shot at former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "Green the Capitol" initiative, which did away with styrofoam cups in 2007. Suspending the program resulted in business for Wurtz, a former executive of Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific LLC.

GOP leaders did not handpick Wurtz's company, however -- that decision rested with Restaurant Associates, which manages the cafeteria.

"Decisions over what suppliers to use were done solely at the discretion of Restaurant Associates," Salley Wood, spokeswoman for the House Administration Committee.

In other words, there is no story here.  Someone who used to work for a Koch subsidiary landed a contract with the non-political people who run the cafeteria.  So what?  So what if a current Koch subsidiary landed the contract?

This massive piece of non-news was important enough for a headline at Slate, as well.

Although Think Progress's war on the Koch brothers is years old, the anti-Koch mania really only has moved into the mainstream with the Wisconsin protests.

It didn't take long for the deranged to learn how to jump that shark.  But then again, Happy Days was set in Milwaukee.

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Related Posts:
Phony David Koch Call Wasn't Just A Prank, It May Have Been Identity Theft
Gov. Walker's Association with the Koch Brothers
Another Day, Another Misleading Think Progress Headline

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Think Progress sent a videographer to the Tea Party Patriots Policy Summit, and tracked down Tim Pawlenty. 

Think Progress surely thought it would get one of those ambush type interviews where the candidate says something he regrets, but in fact in this case Think Progress may have crowned Pawlenty the rising star of the Republican field.

When asked about a government shut down, Pawlenty was clear that that was not his goal, but that as a last resort if there were no other way to get the budget back on track, that would have to be considered. 

I think most Republicans, and likely most Americans overall, would agree that if the choice were between national financial suicide via trillions of dollars of annual deficits as far as the eye could see, or a dramatic break in the legislative log-jam, some form of government shut down of non-essential services for a limited time would be the better alternative.

Think Progress is running the story hoping to damage Pawlenty, but the national financial situation is so bad that Think Progress may have made Pawlenty's day. 

Here is the transcript from Think Progress, with the video below (emphasis mine):

KEYES: Governor, you said one of your biggest regrets as governor was not allowing the shutdown in Minnesota to last longer. Would you have that same advice for Republicans in Congress as they face a potential shutdown?

PAWLENTY: I know these shutdowns always seem like they loom large, but in Minnesota, six months after, a year after, people looked back on it and could say, “it really didn’t have that big of a traumatic or dramatic negative impact on the state.”

KEYES: And that’s how you think it would be at a federal level?

PAWLENTY: These are hard to predict so we don’t know for sure, but a week-long or month-long or whatever it would turn out to be disruption isn’t the main point. The main point is we have a country that’s in deep trouble. We’ve got to get back to certain principles and responsibilities and starting with getting the budget balanced and if it takes a dramatic moment or a dramatic week or a dramatic month, those kinds of line-in-the-sand moments are what we need to get politicians back up against the wall and have them make the tough decisions. They all talk about making the tough decisions and never do.

KEYES: So you would support a shutdown if it comes down to it?

PAWLENTY: If it came down to it and it was between that and not getting the budget headed in the right direction, that’s an option I think Republicans have to consider.

I never thought I would say this.  Thank you, Think Progress.

You have identified for us a candidate who is willing to put our country's financial integrity ahead of political correctness, and who is willing to take that position on the record knowing that the Obama-Democratic spin machine would try to use it against him.

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Pawlenty Makes His Move?
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George Soros made his fortune by breaking the British pound and other manipulative currency trading, and became known as "The man who broke the Bank of England." 

Yet this currency speculator who destroys for the sake of money is a hero of the left-wing because he doles out bits and pieces of his fortune to support groups like the Center for American Progress, Media Matters and J-Street.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Think Progress (run by the Center for American Progress) has launched attacks on the Koch brothers, whose companies have created thousands of jobs in the United States, who actually manufacture and produce things here, and who have given generously to numerous charities.  There is nothing Soros-funded groups hate more than real American success stories, because it goes against the Soros narrative that the United States is the source of most of the world's problems.

The war on the Koch brothers has burst onto the scene with the Wisconsin union protests, as documented by Dave Weigel yesterday.  But Weigel missed the point.  The attempt to demonize the Koch brothers, as crazy as it sounds, is not recent.

Think Progress and the Center for American Progress have had a multi-year plan to marginalize the Koch brothers because the Koch brothers have a libertarian agenda which supports freedom for the individual and individual autonomy, which is the exact opposite of the statist nanny-state agenda of the modern Democratic Party and liberal interest groups.

And nothing was more near and dear to the Democratic Party agenda than Obamacare, so it is not surprising that after Obama's election and as Obamacare picked up steam the Koch brothers were singled out as a possible threat to passage of Obamacare, and were targeted by Think Progress.

On December 6, 2009, Fang wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe, In glitzy shadows, a health reform foe lurks:

While David Koch is celebrated as a patron of New York opera, his Americans for Prosperity donations have gone largely unsung. With his millions, he will not only have saved this year’s performance of the “Nutcracker,’’ but also contributed greatly to the obstruction of universal health care, the denial of climate change, and the derailment of much of President Obama’s domestic agenda.

In that op-ed, Fang hit on what now is a standard Think Progress tactic, attacking the Koch brothers because their father was active in the John Birch Society.  This attempt to foist the father's politics upon the sons was addressed by someone who wrote a Letter to the Editor of The Globe in response to Fang's op-ed:

To make the atavistic allusion that David Koch’s father was a member of the John Birch Society is as puerile as my saying that the patriarch of the Kennedy clan was a Nazi sympathizer before Franklin Roosevelt had to remove him from the Court of St. James. When will this eyeball gouging end? ...

Why Fang would resurrect the John Birch Society is unfathomable. Doesn’t he know that if you have to Google it, then it has lost its trenchancy? He does precisely that which he professes to most abhor - ad hominem demonization.

Koch is not going to obstruct universal health care, delay climate change advocacy, or derail President Obama’s domestic agenda any better than the president and his supporters are already doing.

Since then, there has been a non-stop war on the Koch brothers by Think Progress.  A simple Google search reveals an incessant attempt to demonize the Koch brothers as part of Think Progress's overall attacks on the Tea Party movement and those who oppose Obamacare.

The Koch brothers are capable of defending themselves, and they are.

But let's not let allow the false meme to spread that the attacks on the Koch brothers are spontaneous or related to Wisconsin.  The war against the Koch brothers simply is part of the astro-turfed Obama agenda to demonize all opponents.

[Note:  Some changes to the wording were made after initial posting to clarify the timing of the linked op-ed.]

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The attempts of the union protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, to compare themselves to Egyptian protesters is reaching comical proportions.

Sure, we saw all the silly, and sometimes threatening, signs.

But now Think Progress has a headline (also image right) accusing Gov. Scott Walker of deliberately cutting off internet access for protesters, just like in Arab countries, Is Scott Walker Cutting Off Internet Access To Thwart Protesters? (emphasis mine):

According to pro-labor protesters in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) may be taking a page from former Egyptian Dictator Hosni Mubarak and cutting off internet access to key protest organizers within the state Capitol building.

If you are in the Capitol attempting to access the internet from a free wifi connection labeled “guest,” you cannot access the site defendwisconsin.org. The site has been used to provide updates on what is happening, where you can volunteer, and where supplies and goods are needed to support protesters. Administrators of the website were notified on Monday that the page is being blocked. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate says that the site was put on a blacklist typically used to filter out pornography sites so that protestors inside the Capitol could not access this key site.

Yes, the right to free Wi-Fi is being denied to protesters inside the Capitol building, just like the internet was cut off in the entire country of Egypt.  How much longer before Gov. Walker sends nomads on camels to rampage through the rotunda?

But wait, Think Progress has an Update, linking to a CNN report, which indicates there may be a more nefarious cause:

State Department of Administration spokeswoman Carla Vigue responded, saying, "DOA's security software automatically blocked the site, as it does all new websites."

"No one here at DOA decided to block it or took action to do so," he said. "The website is handled like any other website."

This goes deep. 

The software designers -- probably under the control of the Koch brothers -- obviously implanted a bug in the Wi-Fi system at the Wisconsin Capitol knowing that the union protesters who someday would occupy the rotunda would not have Verizon or AT&T 3G service on their laptops and PDAs, and thereby would be cut off from access to the world.

Oh, the evil of this regime.

Update:  Think Progress must have taken its "Update" quote from an earlier version of the CNN report, because the current report (3:34 p.m.) makes clear that the outage was only for 30 minutes and was corrected when discovered:

The governor's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, responded Tuesday, calling the accusation "a lie."

"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them," Werwie said. "Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible."

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As I reported last September, TeaPartyTracker.org was formed by the NAACP, Think Progress, Media Matters and NewLeft Media to "monitor racism and other forms of extremism within the Tea Party movement."

In fact, TeaPartyTracker.org never really served a monitoring function; it merely served as another outlet for Think Progress and Media Matters to continue their campaigns to paint the Tea Party movement as extremist. 

NAACP jumped on board the agenda with both feet in July 2010, and TeaPartyTracker.org served as the vehicle through which these groups would go after the Tea Party movement.

But an interesting thing happened.  TeaPartyTracker.org has gone dormant, with no new entries since October 20, 2010: 


Even the Twitter feed has gone dormant, with the last tweet on August 30, 2010:



As I noted when TeaPartyTrack.org was formed, the purpose never really was to monitor the Tea Party movement.  The public relations blitz regarding the formation of the website was what mattered in the run-up to the November elections.  Merely forming such a website was the point, so as to create the appearance that Tea Parties needed monitoring, and to draw attention away from the Glenn Beck rally in Washington.

Once the Democrats took a shellacking in November, TeaPartyTracker.org served no useful purpose. 

Considering all the violent and extremist rhetoric used by union protesters in Wisconsin, I doubt we'll be hearing much more from TeaPartyTracker.org.

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Related Posts:
Saturday Night Card Game (NAACP Doubles Down With "TeaPartyTracker.org")
NAACP Passes "Tea Party Is Racism" Resolution
Shocked - Think Progress Misleading Anti-Tea Party Video

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Jennifer Rubin, formerly of Commentary and now blogging at The Washington Post, has discovered that Think Progress played the race card against the Koch brothers, who back libertarian and conservative causes, by claiming that the Koch brothers "are simply fulfilling their father's legacy" in opposing integration.

Rubin took a look at Think Progress' source -- a WaPo news article -- and was upset to discover that Think Progress had twisted the story to demonize the Koch brothers as racist whereas the facts in the WaPo story showed otherwise:

This is rotten stuff indeed. Listen, the Koch brothers are rich guys and don't need to be adored, nor do you have to agree with their politics to find the guilt-by-parenthood gambit quite noxious. What is more, the swamplands seem to have picked the wrong smear to hurl at these guys. A little checking (Google - what a great invention!) shows that Koch Industries gives money to "programs to recruit and mentor multicultural students." That's not all. The supposedly nefarious Koch brothers (if you take the time to read through the 32-page brochure on their philanthropy) give to "National Black Arts Festival, a non-profit cultural institution based in Atlanta that celebrates the contributions of people of African descent and their impact on world cultures.) Oh, there is more. If you hop over to the Georgia-Pacific (a Koch company) website, you find the president of its philanthropic foundation is African American. And you then also find that the company is giving to Youth Entrepreneurs of Atlanta....

In other words, Think Progress misrepresented The Post's story and mislabeled two individuals as racists. All in a day's work in the left blogosphere, I suppose.

Welcome to our world, Jennifer. 

Twisting facts into absurd strings so that the end result paints Tea Parties and conservatives and libertarians as violent and racist extremists is the reason to be of Think Progress. 

Here's the link to all my prior posts about Think Progress and you will see how they play the game. 

Think Progress doesn't "lie" as such (although their video about the Tea Party probably could be called a lie).  Rather, Think Progress takes disconnected facts, none of which in and of itself is untrue, and reaches a conclusion which is untrue, frequently using an inflammatory headline which is contradicted by the body of the post, (added) such as this prior post about one of the Koch brothers.

So don't be upset, Jennifer.  Be angry, and keep posting about Think Progress, and not only when it misrepresents a WaPo article.

Update:  Now it makes sense.  I've noticed that Think Progress has been out for the Koch brothers of late.  It turns out that Think Progress is just the leading edge of an emerging war on the Kochs, Progressives to ‘uncloak’ the secret financers behind the Tea party (emphasis mine):

Progressive and liberal activists are planning at the end of the month to confront the secretive billionaire family that finances the so-called Tea party movement and a host of other right-wing causes and institutions.

"Our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. So are you ready to take it back?" an invitation for the "Uncloaking the Kochs" event asked.

The Sunday, Jan. 30 event thrown by Common Cause, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, aims to educate attendees in California on the Koch brothers who will be strategizing nearby with their mega-wealthy allies to win the 2012 elections. Afterwards, activists will rally in Rancho Mirage.

"We can't sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society," Jodie Evans of CodePink told Alternet. "It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves."

Panel discussions will feature Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary; Van Jones, founder of Green for All; Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine Law Dean; Lee Fang, Center for American Progress blogger and Koch Brothers expert; and DeAnn McEwen, co-president of the California Nurses Association.

Lee Fang blogs at Think Progress which is owned by the Center for American Progress (run by John Podesta), and was the author of the race accusations which so upset Rubin.  Fang apparently is the person Think Progress has designated to get the Koch brothers.  We'll see how that works out.

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The people who falsely and maliciously accused Sarah Palin of inciting Jared Loughner to murder now are criticizing Palin for using the term "blood libel."

The term "blood libel" has it's origins in the accusation in Europe (and more modern times, in the Middle East) that Jews use the blood of Christian (and Muslim) children to make matzoh.

Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress, who was responsible along with Markos Molitsas of DailyKos for spreading the connection between the Palin electoral target map and the shooting, smugly asserts that Palin just can't take criticism:

"Indeed, Jews throughout America can join me in remembering when our ancestors fled Eastern Europe in order to live in a land where nobody would ever criticize us on television."

In fact, as Jim Geraghty of National Review Online documents, the use of the term "blood libel" in political discourse is common both on the left and the right to describe incendiary false accusations which tend to blame a person for inciting violence and making the person a target of violence.

Much like the use of the term "holocaust" (e.g., nuclear holocaust) is not used in the strict sense of The Holocaust, the use of the term "blood libel" does not offend the traditional meaning of the term.

The looser, more modern usage of the term certainly seems to fit here. 

Palin was not just "criticized on television," she was accused of inciting murder even though there was and is no actual evidence that the electoral target map played any role in the Tucson shooting.  The connection of Palin to the shooting was a smear by people who did not care about the truth.

Similarly, the smear has made Palin a target for hatred and violence, including widespread death wishes and threats:  [Update:  YouTube pulled the video.  All of the screen shots were saved by a reader and are available here and at Patterico.  The video now is embedded here.]



Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has a reasonable statement which criticizes the use of the term without hyperventilation and while recognizing that the common usage does not necessarily comport with historical usage (emphasis mine):

It was inappropriate at the outset to blame Sarah Palin and others for causing this tragedy or for being an accessory to murder. Palin has every right to defend herself against these kinds of attacks, and we agree with her that the best tradition in America is one of finding common ground despite our differences.

Still, we wish that Palin had not invoked the phrase “blood-libel” in reference to the actions of journalists and pundits in placing blame for the shooting in Tucson on others. While the term “blood-libel” has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history.

I don't have a problem with Palin's use of the term; it seems to comport with the modern usage.  Those feigning indignation simply seek to feign indignation.

Were the false accusations against Palin a blood libel?  Or merely malicious, vindictive false accusations of complicity in murder made for the purpose of inciting hatred of Palin?

Some choice.

Update:  Johnathan Chait at The New Republic, Lord Help Me, I'm Defending Palin (emphasis mine):

Okay, it's a little over the top for Sarah Palin to accuse her critics of "blood libel." But she does have a basic point. She had nothing to do with Jared Loughner. He was not an extremist who embraced some radical version of her ideas. And her use of targets to identify districts Republicans were, um, targetting is not exceptional or prone to incite anybody.

What's happening is that Palin has come to represent unhinged grassroots conservatism, and people in the media immediately (and incorrectly) associated Loughner with the far right. Moreover, the Republican establishment understands her potential candidacy as a liability and is looking to snuff it out. So you have this weird moment where Palin is on trial for something she has no connection with at all.

Alan Dershowitz (via Instapundit)(emphasis mine):

The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People, its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.

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Best headline of the day, via The Daily Mail in Britain:

How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin

The substance of the article makes points you have heard before regarding the murderous rampage by Jared Loughner:

Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s former chief of staff and a ­figure compared to Labour’s Alastair Campbell, once said: ‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.’

And those on his side of the political divide have clearly seen the Tucson tragedy as an opportunity to score points and settle scores.

None more so than with Sarah Palin, a politician who is almost as divisive as the President. The former Republican vice-presidential contender has become a spiritual figurehead for many Tea Party supporters, but is loathed by many on the Left.

While the column itself says nothing new, the headline articulates a feeling many of us have.


Update 1-13-2011:  The Palin map was referenced in another persons tweet at 1:31 p.m. that day, but as far as I can tell Yglesias was the first one to spread the map. (h/t)

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