The Anti-Breitbart Blacklist

From Matthew Vadum, at FrontPage Magazine, "The angry Left looks to punish conservative media for Trump’s victory":

Someone behind an anonymous Twitter account is trying to destroy the influential conservative Breitbart News website by smearing it as “racist” – and he’s already scared at least 47 advertisers away from Breitbart.

In the current atmosphere of left-wing hysteria over the surprise election of Donald Trump as president, this blacklisting project has already earned an impressive return on investment. Breitbart is a target of the wrath of social justice warriors because it reports the truth about the Left and it used to be run by Stephen Bannon, now slated to become chief strategist in the Trump White House. Hurting Breitbart hurts Trump and Republicans in general, the thinking goes.

The campaign takes screenshots of advertisements on Breitbart and then harasses the advertisers, demanding that they stop advertising there. It also encourages people who hate Breitbart or Trump to take screenshots of a target company’s ads placed beside content deemed objectionable and tweet the images at advertisers along with a threat to stop patronizing that company.

The cowardly crusader hiding behind this effort to frighten advertisers away from Breitbart by lying about and mischaracterizing the provocative news website’s content goes by the user name Sleeping Giants.

The user’s identity seems safe for the moment but if Breitbart files a defamation lawsuit, Twitter could be forced to disclose the user’s identity.

So far the identity of the individual or individuals behind Sleeping Giants is not known, except to Shareen Pathak, managing editor at the DigiDay blog.

Pathak reports, “The creator of the account said he would prefer to remain anonymous to avoid being harassed by Trump supporters on the internet. He said he started the account because fake news and disinformation, are, in his opinion, two of the reasons why the election turned out in favor of Trump.”

The creator of Sleeping Giants reportedly told DigiDay, “The biggest way that this disinformation will continue is ad revenue, just like any news source. Beyond really wanting to stop this nonsense, this effort was really born out of the need to inform advertisers about the kind of material that they’re sponsoring. This isn’t supposed to be a boycotting effort as much as an information effort.”

The Sleeping Giants (Twitter handle: @slpng_giants) account was created last month. At time of writing the account had 3,144 tweets and 11,200 followers. Sleeping Giants says “We are trying to stop racist websites by stopping their ad dollars. Many companies don't even know it's happening. It's time to tell them.”

Of course Breitbart isn’t even remotely racist but left-wingers don’t let facts get in the way of an activist push. They know that smear jobs work, especially in the timid corporate world where companies routinely surrender to left-wing extortionists like Al Sharpton without much of a fight.

Food manufacturer Kellogg’s has withdrawn its ads from Breitbart, claiming the site is not “aligned with our values as a company.” The company offered no examples of how Breitbart’s values actually differ from its own.

The decision by Kellogg’s will have “virtually no revenue impact on Breitbart.com,” the news organization wrote. “It does, however, represent an escalation in the war by leftist companies like Target and Allstate against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House.”

The decision “appears to be one more example of an out-of-touch corporation embracing false left-wing narratives used to cynically smear the hard working Americans that populate this nation’s heartland.”

Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow is calling for a boycott of Kellogg’s and urging conservatives to sign the #DumpKelloggs petition. Marlow says the breakfast cereal maker’s “war” against the site demonstrates its “cowardice” and “bigotry.”

Breitbart News is the largest platform for pro-family content anywhere on the Internet. We are fearless advocates for traditional American values, perhaps most important among them is freedom of speech, or our motto ‘more voices, not less.’ For Kellogg’s, an American brand, to blacklist Breitbart News in order to placate left-wing totalitarians is a disgraceful act of cowardice. They insult our incredibly diverse staff and spit in the face of our 45,000,000 highly engaged, highly perceptive, highly loyal readers, many of whom are Kellogg’s customers. Boycotting Breitbart News for presenting mainstream American ideas is an act of discrimination and intense prejudice. If you serve Kellogg’s products to your family, you are serving up bigotry at your breakfast table.

Welch’s, a maker of juices and jams, is dropping Breitbart.

Facebook user Mary Dibbern wrote to the company: “Welch’s is advertising on the Breitbart site. I will boycott all Welch’s products, plus post a photo of the ads onto my FB and Twitter accounts if Welch’s does not stop giving Breitbart their advertising business.”

Welch’s promptly caved: “Mary, we assure you that we are taking the necessary steps to remove all Welch’s content from this site, and others like it. Thank you for reaching out.”

Other companies withdrawing advertising from Breitbart include pharmaceutical manufacturer Novo Nordisk, insurance provider Allstate, eyeglass maker Warby Parker, San Diego Zoo, 3M, AARP, Earthlink, L’Occitane, Paperless Post, Saddleback Bags, and U.S. Bank.

AppNexus Inc., a digital ad firm, has banned Breitbart from using its ad service, Bloomberg reports. The firm “decided the publication had breached a policy against content that incites violence.” AppNexus is reportedly second only to Google in the ad serving market for publishers.

AppNexus mouthpiece Joshua Zeitz said, “We did a human audit of Breitbart and determined there were enough articles and headlines that cross that line, either using coded or overt language.”

Zeitz claimed preposterously that Breitbart isn’t being targeted for its conservative inclinations. “This blacklist was solely about hate speech violation,” he said.

The Sleeping Giants effort is the same kind of malicious campaign waged by George Soros-funded groups against conservative organizations.

Led by ColorOfChange, a far-left race-baiting group whose views are largely indistinguishable from those held by Van Jones (a co-founder) and Al Sharpton, activists attacked the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for its policy stands. Soros-funded ColorOfChange smeared corporations that donated to ALEC as racist because the group supported voter ID laws. The campaign against ALEC also led to the group disbanding the task force that had been responsible for drafting model voter ID laws to be used by state lawmakers, along with “Stand Your Ground” laws.

Soros-funded Media Matters for America (MMfA) claims to have cost “The Rush Limbaugh Show” “[h]undreds of millions of dollars in losses attributable to advertisers refusing to subsidize” the show after Limbaugh’s controversial comments about leftist birth control poster girl Sandra Fluke.

MMfA has also waged war against Breitbart News, Fox News Channel, Ann Coulter, and talk show hosts like Glenn Beck, though generally with little success.

This new attack on Breitbart is happening because left-wingers are still in deep denial over President-elect Donald Trump’s come-from-behind victory over Democrat war horse Hillary Clinton and they’re desperately searching for scapegoats.

They’re blaming purveyors of so-called fake news – which includes Breitbart since it doesn’t toe the leftist line.

For example, useful idiot Craig Timberg recently churned out an outrageous left-wing propaganda piece in the Washington Post, a newspaper that lied over and over again about Trump during the campaign.

Timberg claims a vast Russian conspiracy planted fake news before American eyeballs and that’s the real reason Trump won.

“Russian-backed phony news” was behind “[s]ome of the first and most alarming tweets after Clinton fell ill at a Sept. 11 memorial event in New York,” he wrote, adding there had been “a spate of other misleading stories in August about Clinton’s supposedly troubled health.”

She did in fact fall ill at the 9/11 event, a fact that would never have been reported by the mainstream media if an onlooker hadn’t captured Clinton collapsing as she was entering a vehicle and being held up by two security men. She suffered at least temporary brain damage in recent years when she sustained a nasty concussion. She also experienced coughing fits on the podium.

Russia’s “propaganda machinery also helped push the phony story that an anti-Trump protester was paid thousands of dollars to participate in demonstrations, an allegation initially made by a self-described satirist and later repeated publicly by the Trump campaign.”

Well, the evidence is fairly convincing that the Clinton campaign did in fact pay anti-Trump protesters to participate in demonstrations and foment violence at Trump campaign rallies. Democrat uber-thug Robert Creamer has admitted that Hillary personally knew about the false flag operation which was euphemistically referred to as “conflict engagement.”

Timberg adds, “The final weeks of the campaign featured a heavy dose of stories about supposed election irregularities, allegations of vote-rigging and the potential for Election Day violence should Clinton win, researchers said.”

This is all very interesting except that in the modern era all presidential elections are filled with allegations of electoral irregularities. It’s normal and it happens with or without fanciful conspiracy theories or Kremlin involvement.

But the Left soldiers on, inventing villains and vilifying good people.

These people can’t win on the facts or by offering rational arguments.

All they can do it attack, attack, attack.

And Breitbart won’t be their last target.

Andrew Breitbart Interview at Wired

From Noah Shachtman's interview at Wired, "How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media":

Andrew Breitbart has been waiting 45 minutes for a filet mignon. He drums his fingers on the table in this plush Italian restaurant off Times Square, a place where the media types he regularly trashes used to flaunt their expense accounts — back when they still had them. Breitbart looks around for a waiter and launches into a stem-winder about collusion between Hollywood and the press — the “subtle and not-so-subtle use of propaganda to make a center-right nation move to the left.

“It’s not just the nightly news,” he says. “You’re also getting television shows that reflect the same worldview, where Republicans are always the bad guys. Al Qaeda’s never the bad guy. The Republican is always the bad guy.”

From anyone else, this would be just talk — or talking points. (No terrorist bad guys on TV? Really?) But Breitbart is one of the people who rams those points into the popular consciousness. Until last September, the beefy 41-year-old with graying blond hair was a largely covert power in the right-wing media, the hidden hand behind the popular Drudge Report who also, weirdly, cofounded the liberal Huffington Post. But then he struck out on his own. Today his collection of Web sites draws more than 10 million readers a month. He has a book deal worth more than half a million dollars, and he’s a regular presence on Fox News — where he’s headed later tonight, in fact. The covert thing is out the window.

The filet finally shows and Breitbart digs in, ignoring the risk to his mustard-colored sports coat. “The idea is that I have to screw with media, and I have to screw with the Left, in order to give legitimate stories the ability to reach their natural watermark,” he says.

After just a few bites of steak, Breitbart splits. He has a meeting on the East Side with his lawyer to prep for a hearing tomorrow. The Brooklyn DA is investigating the housing advocacy group Acorn and wants to talk to Breitbart about the infamous videos he spread all over television and the Internet last year that show Acorn staffers offering to help a man and a “teenage hooker” set up a brothel full of underage Salvadoran prostitutes. (The DA would eventually find “no criminality” in the actions of the Acorn staffers.)

Later that evening, Breitbart arrives at the offices of Fox News on Sixth Avenue. Host Sean Hannity greets him with a fist-bump and calls him “bruthah.” Doug Schoen, Bill Clinton’s former pollster, waves hello. Then the three of them walk into a cavernous television studio covered in stars and stripes. “Breitbart, you didn’t bring video tonight. What’s up with that?” Hannity asks as the cameras start rolling.

Breitbart smiles a little. “Oh, in the next year there will be more. More than we all can handle,” he answers.

Hannity extracts a promise for an exclusive. “This is changing the face of journalism,” he says.

Schoen pipes in: “It’s changing the face of politics, too.”

The taping ends with small talk and handshakes. Afterward, Breitbart heads downstairs to visit Greg Gutfeld, who hosts the Fox overnight show Red Eye. Then they meet up with Felix Dennis, the high-flying founder of Maxim magazine, and spend the rest of the evening at a midtown club drinking Cristal.

For someone who claims to hate the “Democrat-media complex,” Breitbart sure knows how to work it. Few people are better at packaging information for maximum distribution and impact. He is, depending on whom you ask, either the “leading figure in this right-wing creation of a parallel universe of lies and idiotic conspiracy theories” (that was liberal critic Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America) or “the most dangerous man on the right today” (from Michael Goldfarb, Republican consultant and former campaign aide to John McCain). Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. “The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,” Breitbart says. “And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.”

Awesome stuff -- and more at the link.

Added: Some interesting spins on Shachtman at Memeorandum.

Remembering Andrew Breitbart

Recall that the first time I met Andrew was at the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party in 2009.

Breitbart is shown with his father-in-law Orson Bean. I posted the photo to his Facebook page and he remembered it later when I spoke to him at CPAC in 2011.

And below is the picture from the last time I saw Andrew, when he spoke in Newport Beach just days after Anthony Weiner announced his resignation and Breitbart stole the show at the pre-announcement press conference. Left Coast Rebel was there as well, and boy was he excited to meet Andrew. Thinking about it now, I'm so glad that we went. He was irreplaceable and the memories cherished.

I have lots more Breitbart blogging at the search link. I don't have too much more to say at this point. I do think it's interesting the Breitbart rose to his greatest fame in tandem with the rise of the tea party. He mentioned the Orange County tea party as a formative experience in his book, Righteous Indignation. And  as I became a tea party activist at the same time, Breitbart was indeed instrumental to my own political development over these last few years. What people have said so many times is that Andrew fought fearlessly against progressives and especially the progressive-left media complex. And the left loathed him for it. Progressives clearly wanted him dead because he was beating them and he was a showing a whole generation of young activists how it's done. He spoke for us. He articulate the rage against the politically correct and radically corrupt leftist institutional machine. And it often meant even more because Breitbart could do what many simply could not do because of how we're situated in our work and family lives. William Jacobson spoke eloquently about that, about the "restraints" that have prevented him from being more outspoken in his blogging and activism. I face those same restraints and I've paid substantial personal costs in pushing past the barriers on occasion. Breitbart was an entrepreneur and his own boss. He could fight the fight without facing those restraints, and he thus had the kind of intangible resources that are and will be vital to defeating the left in the years ahead.

There will be much more commentary and reflection on Breitbart going forward. New videos are scheduled for release next week, in fact, of Barack Obama's radical college days. And then there will be movies and books and all kind of continuing activism among those from Breitbart's circle of allies. And of course the new class of conservative warriors will be carrying Breitbart's banner for generations to come. What a man and what a legacy.

Michael Walsh had an outstanding remembrance the other day, so I'll close with that. See, "Goodbye, Andrew: We have lost our bravest warrior, but we must continue his good fight":

In the war against the institutional Left, Andrew Breitbart was the Right’s Achilles; the bravest of all the warriors, now fallen on the plain. There was no combat in which he would not engage, no battle — however small — he would not join with glee, and no outcome acceptable except total victory. His unexpected death last night at the young age of 43 is not the end of his crusade, but its beginning.

No figure on our side was more despised in the whited sepulchers of the media/academic/political Left, and Breitbart wore their loathing as a daily badge of honor. His refusal to grant even a glimmer of moral absolution constantly enraged them, and his very existence was an affront to their carefully constructed — to use one of Andrew’s favorite words — “narrative” of moral superiority. Naturally, they are already dancing on his grave, with the manic joy of being suddenly and miraculously delivered from one of their most potent enemies.

Breitbart’s death is a tragedy, not only for those who delighted in following him into battle but for those who cheered him on as well. Andrew was larger than life, a charismatic natural leader, a big man in every way — physically, spiritually, and intellectually. He would meet a total stranger and immediately try to enlist him or her into his army, railing against the Left’s mendacity and misdeeds. He would practically pick you up by the lapels and shake you in order to make you understand the furious, urgent necessity of his fight.

Continue reading.

And also, at Michelle Malkin, for good measure, "DEVASTATING: Andrew Breitbart, R.I.P."

Progressives Rejoice at Death of Andrew Breitbart

Tuesdays and Thursdays are day-long slogs for me on campus. They're not big blogging days either, and I was busy at home Thursday evening, so I was unable to post on Andrew Breitbart. I got to my office yesterday morning at 7:00am. I logged onto my computer and loaded American Power into the browser as I do every day. As I scrolled down the blog to check my scheduled overnight posts, I noticed the headline at the Memeorandum widget far down the page: "In Memoriam: Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)." I thought that was a mistake. How could this be? Was he killed? Murdered by a leftist attacker? Or he was depressed about something and had taken his own life? What? And then I read the brief obituary at Big Journalism, which indicated he'd died of natural causes.

I gave examinations yesterday so I was able to continue reading. I was in a funk. I knew Andrew Breitbart. While we weren't friends, I'd spoken with him on numerous occasions and I'd blogged at least a half dozen major events where Breitbart was a speaker or major participant. I was starting to feel devastated. I kept reading around the 'sphere. I visited Robert Stacy McCain's, where, in a relatively brief post, he said that "our own sense of loss of our friend and ally — a powerful and innovative force [in] conservative New Media — is inconsequential compared to the fathomless pain experienced by Andrew’s wife and four children, who should be in our prayers." And I thought, yes, that's right. Breitbart was just 43 years-old. I still couldn't believe it. And then checking Memeorandum further, I clicked on some progressive blogs. I admit being surprised by some respectable commentary, for example, by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, who wrote, "I am not glad he's dead. I would have preferred instead that he'd lived long enough to change his mind." But that's probably the nicest thing progressives wrote about him all day. In fact, Scott Lemieux posted a two-sentence entry at Lawyers, Guns and Money, claiming he was "sad" that the reports of Breitbart's death were "accurate." And right on cue, Carl Salonen was striking up the band, boasting about how the "world is a happier place this morning."

Well, Salonen needs no introduction. And his disgusting comments are 100 percent the real deal. Indeed, I read the entire LGM comment thread and it only gets worse. Progressives wanted Breitbart dead. They got their wish.

And that was pretty much how it went. See Charlie Spiering at the Washington Examiner, "Liberals celebrate death of Andrew Breitbart."

Also, Glenn Reynolds was updating on Breitbart throughout the day, and he included this:

And reader Jonathan Rubinstein writes: “The outpouring of ghoulish and sophmoric hatred at the death of Andrew Breitbart is a warning to us all that the remaking of America is not a conversation over coffee in the late afternoon. The real struggles that are ahead have hardly begun. Politics is ruthless and the failed political class will not go quietly. The disgusting comments are not a tribute to the decline not of civility — there has never been much in America — but the complete disintegration of self-respect. We will engage, we will remake America, we will miss Breitbart but there will be many more joining the struggle.”

I'll be writing a memorial later. It was a sad day. I am praying for Breitbart's family.

EXTRA: Again, more later, but it's worth adding some responses to the despicable loser David Frum. See AoSHQ, "That About Wraps It Up For David Frum," and Yid With Lid, "David Frum is a Low-Life Scumbag."

ADDED: From Zilla of the Resistance, "A Great American Hero Has Died."

MORE: From Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom: "As the “educated” crew at LGM are so interested in what I have to say."

Andrew Breitbart Swarmed by Progressive Mob at Netroots Nation

I don't know. Personally, I don't feel safe around progressives. I kept a low profile at the Noam Chomsky event at UCLA last month, because Students for Justice in Palestine, the event's sponsor, is a Hamas-styled organization. And it's not much different at Netroots Nation. Everybody does video-blogging nowadays, but this Kerry Picket viddy captures the mob's violent rage as Breitbart tried to make an exit:

Also at Gateway Pundit, "Andrew Breitbart GANG-RUSHED By Raging Leftist Mob at Nutroots 2011." And Journo-Lister Dave Weigel, "Netroots Nation: Your Convention Ticket Comes With A Free Andrew Breitbart Ambush."

And at Politico, "Breitbart crashes Netroots Nation":

As Breitbart struck up a conversation with Slate blogger Dave Weigel, Ryan Clayton, who works for US Uncut and blogs on 100ProofPolitics, accosted Breitbart and began screaming questions at him: “Have you kicked your cocaine habit?”

“I have no cocaine habit,” Breitbart told him.

“Have you ever slept with a prostitute?” Clayton asked, almost physically trembling as he worked himself up.

“You prove my point,” Breitbart told him, evidently satisfied that he was again the center of attention in hostile territory.

Another person asked Breitbart if he was credentialed to be there. He admitted that he was not. He tried to walk into the exhibition hall and was turned away by conference organizers.

As he walked back toward the escalator to leave, a middle-aged African-American woman walked toward him and began yelling: “You are racist! … It’s gonna come to light who you really are!”

Breitbart has a crew with him, but most other hot-button conservatives I've met --- David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, for example --- travel with bodyguards.

Chomsky didn't need one at UCLA, of course. The place was filled with communists, hippies, and jihadis.

Added: Blazing Cat Fur links, and there's a thread now at Memeorandum and Wall Street Journal, "Breitbart Sparks a War of Words at Netroots Nation."

Keith Olbermann: Another Update on Moral Relativism

Scott at Power Line has an update on Keith Olbermann's nihilist hatred, "Keith Olbermann, Liar":

Observers of the insane clown posse on MSNBC - observers such as Ed Morrissey, for example - noticed the classless comments made by Chris Matthews to Keith Olbermann on Olbermann's "Countdown" show in connection with the death of Tim Russert. "It may be tricky to say this, and I'll say it," Matthews said, introducing his weirdly derogatory remembrance of Russert.

Matthews said that Russert had believed the administration's assertion that Saddam was trying to get nuclear weapons and that Russert was "an everyman" for believing it. Matthews was giving Russert what was at best a backhanded compliment, essentially portraying the just-deceased Russert as a dupe. Watch the video for yourself here.

On Monday Olbermann promoted my friend Andrew Breitbart as the Worst Person in the World throughout "Countdown." Breitbart's photograph was displayed and Andrew was given reason to get excited. In the event, however, Olbermann conferred the honor collectively on FOX News because of an observation Andrew had made in a segment on "FOX and Friends" that morning. The "FOX and Friends" segment with Breitbart talking about Russert can be seen here.

In conferring the honor on FOX News, Olbermann baldly lied about the ground for it. Olbermann's Worst Person in the World segment can be seen here. With his crazed pomposity, Olbermann intoned: "For God's sake, do you have to do it the first morning of the first week day after the man has died? Could you not shut the spigot off just for a little while? Could you not wait until after we have the funeral? Of course, you couldn't. You're FOX News and you are the worst persons in the world." He vaguely derided FOX News for the comments that Matthews had in fact made to Olbermann.

In other words, in the clip above, Olbermann falsely imputed Matthews's offense committed on Countdown and on MSNBC on the evening of Russert's death this past Friday to Breitbart and FOX News. In the only critical comment Breitbart made on FOX, Breitbart had accurately described Matthews's offense in his segment discussing Russert on FOX News. The offense for which Olbermann seems to have called out FOX News as the Worst Person in the World was actually committed with Olbermann on MSNBC, and Breitbart had criticized Matthews for it.

Because Breitbart's observation about Matthews was correct and damning, Olbermann chose not to quote or show it. Olbermann was thus free to misrepresent the gist of Breitbart's comments for the purposes of conferring his Worst Person in the World honors. In short, MSNBC accused its nemesis at FOX News -- not Breitbart, a somewhat less appealing target to Olbermann -- for what Breitbart said, and imputed Matthews's offense committed on MSNBC to Breitbart and FOX.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Or worse.

See also, "Keith Olbermann: Off the Deep End of Moral Relativism."

Andrew Breitbart Vindicated

Great video.

Breitbart challenges the media to prove he's a liar. And he says, "I'm here for some vindication."

Also, at Politico, "Andrew Breitbart's day of vindication":

In Andrew Breitbart’s up-and-down career as a conservative agitator, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Ten days ago, he broke the Rep. Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal on his website, Big Government, then on Monday pushed it to its conclusion with the release of more photos of Weiner, forcing the beleaguered New York congressman to hold a self-flagellating press conference hours later.

At the same time, Breitbart managed to steer clear of the accusations of selective editing and bias that have stuck to him as a result of several high-profile “scoops” that turned into fiascos, while painting himself as a victim of a left-leaning press quick to blame him for somehow engineering a scandal that, in the end, was entirely of Weiner’s own making.

Breitbart’s glee was apparent even before Weiner’s confession when he jumped up on the podium before the New York congressman’s press conference Monday afternoon to take questions from reporters and demand an apology. So, too, was his sense of exoneration after the way the left-leaning and mainstream media had painted him as a questionable source in the past.

“I would like an apology for allowing his political protectors – and this was his strategy – to blame me, to blame me for hacking,” Breitbart said. “’Don’t worry, Breitbart is a regular whipping boy. We can accuse him of anything and the press will not hold those journalists to account no matter what they say.’

“So I’m here for some vindication,” he said, declaring that “the big problem here is the coverup and the problem of trying to deflect blame on a journalist for doing his job.”

I checked Google trends a little while ago and Breitbart was trending "spicy" and above "Rep Weiner" searches.

Read all of Politico at the link. And more at Memeorandum.

Added: At Yid With Lid, "The Revenge of the Nerds: Breitbart Vindicated Again."

Breitbart Looks to Expand Globally

Breitbart is reviled by leftists, obviously for getting the job done. Professor Melissa Zimdars, of Merrimack College in Massachusetts, even included Breitbart on her "scholarly" list of "fake" news sites. Actually, most "fake" news I read is on the left. For progs like Professor Zimdars, "fake" news is real conservative leaning news they don't like.

In any case, the folks at the Breitbart shop are looking for growth opportunities.

At LAT, "Breitbart News, fiery conservative outlet buoyed by Trump victory, aims to go global":

It all began a little more than 10 years ago in a basement in Westwood: a small army of young employees in T-shirts and shorts huddled over their laptops, determined to launch a news site that would shake up the world of conservative media.

At first, the site started by Andrew Breitbart was a simple news aggregation service. But in a few short years it evolved into an idiosyncratic voice combining original reporting, incendiary commentary and outright trolling, in keeping with the rambunctious spirit of its founder, who died in 2012.

As its popularity grew, many condemned its rhetoric as extremist, xenophobic, sexist and a platform for hate speech — accusations its leaders have denied. Others laughed it off as a journalistic lightweight catering to a far-right fringe known as the alt-right.

No one’s laughing anymore. As Donald Trump prepares to take office as president, the Breitbart News Network stands poised to become one of the most influential conservative media companies in the country. Stephen K. Bannon, the site’s controversial executive chairman, was a key figure in Trump’s campaign and has been named chief White House strategist.

For Breitbart, this could mean a direct line to the West Wing, a level of media access unprecedented in modern times, according to experts. While some believe this will turn the outlet into an extension of the Trump administration, leaders at Breitbart see it as an opportunity that will allow them to compete not only with conservative rivals like Fox News, but the entire media firmament, which it sees as dishonest about its left-leaning bias...

More.

Andrew Breitbart in the O.C.!

I watched Nickleodeon with my son while working on this report, so I didn't catch local news coverage of Andrew Breibart's visit tonight to the Newport Beach Golf Course. I'll look for a video later, but Breitbart spoke with a local media crew for 10 or 15 minutes before coming inside the clubhouse:

With my friend Megan Barth, one of the best conservative activists in the country:

I don't have a big write up. Breitbart was on Cloud 9 after this week's sensational developments in the Anthony Weiner scandal. Breitbart's already a hilarious public speaker, but this was literally once in a lifetime material, and he made the most of it. The jokes practically told themselves, and the crowd was enamored --- and completely honored to be in his presence. He basically gave a recap of his entire week, starting with the anecdote of his talk to a policy group on Monday before the Weiner press conference. It was a room full of wonks apparently, and he mentioned that he lives right across from the West Los Angeles Veterans Cemetery, and while some neighbors had designed their backyard fencing, etc., to block the view, Breitbart had his home remodeled so that one could see nothing but the cemetery from his windows. He said he's trying to fight the battle at home with as much commitment as our troops in the field. He sees parents not much older than himself visiting the grave sites and he's thankful for the freedoms for which these families have sacrificed. Afterwards, he was approached by an individual in attendance, who thanked Breitbart for all that he does, and said that Breitbart "should never feel unappreciated." Breitbart quipped about how this made his day, and he had yet to hold a press conference in place of Congressman Weiner!

The crowd was roaring. Anyway, it was Breitbart at his best.

Check Left Coast Rebel as well: "This Photo Was Worth It!"

Pasadena "May Day! May Day!" Anti-Socialism Rally

Roughly 100 demonstrators turned out this afternoon in Pasadena for a "May Day! May Day" anti-socialism protest against the Barack Obama administration. Gathering at the City Hall in Pasadena's majestic civic center, the event was a follow-up to the Pasadena Patriots' Tea Party held on April 11. Former Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson gave the keynote speech. She was preceded by Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart.

Here's Victoria Jackson a few minutes before the first speakers took the podium:

One of the most enjoyable moments of the day was listening to "Patrick Henry" give his speech, a patriotic reenactment of Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" rallying cry from Richmond, Virginia, in 1775. This gentleman was quite talented, and his costume seemed quite authentic.

The pot of revolutionary tea boiled over bit when Andrew Breitbart took the stage. About 5 minutes into his talk, a local Barack Obama supporter, who had heard the loudspeakers from his apartment across the street, joined the crowd and began yelling at Breitbart: "Hey, he's our president," and "I came over here because I heard all this hatred." According to the Pasadena Star-News:

One man, Matt Clark, a 69-year-old Pasadena resident heard the protest from his nearby apartment. He yelled back at protestors to stop criticizing President Obama, and was briefly allowed to take the stage.

He was quickly booed off.

"I kept hearing derogatory things about the president from up in my apartment," said Clark after his short-lived appearance on stage. "I don't really know what they are protesting about, but what I heard was not right."

Breitbart had made no derogatory remarks, so I think Mr. Clark was offended that demonstrators referred to President Obama as "socialist." As seen in the photograph below, both Breitbart and Clark became animated. After this scene, Mr. Clark threw up his hands of left the protest.

The disruption distracted a bit from what Breitbart had to say: "The Repubican Party is dysfuncational and embarrassing," he exclaimed. Then, extolling the grassroots anti-tax protests, Breitbart announced, "There isn't another movement that has the best interests of this country in mind." The reference to "another movement" was to today's International ANSWER demonstration in downtown Los Angeles, where protesters marched for a blanket amnesty for the untold millions of illegal aliens in the country. Noting the relatively sparse crowd in Pasadena, Breitbart warned, "We better learn how to protest" if conservatives are going to match the activism of the radical left:

This woman shown below was hanging out with the event organizers. She's holding an outstanding poster, "Socialism is Not the Answer":

Here's the crowd after Victoria Jackson finished speaking. I counted over 100 people in attendence before Andrew Breitbart began speaking, and probably a dozen or so people trailed away by the time Ms. Jackson was finished:

I asked this woman below if I could get her picture just before I left. She was very gracious, and happy I'd taken interest in her poster:

I'll be writing more about the Tea Party protests as things on the conservative side move forward.

Nothwithstanding Mr. Clark's one-man counter-demonstration, today's event felt dramatically subued compared to the April 15th Tax Day Rallies that swept the nation last month. Politically, for me, the Pasadena rally showed that movement organizers need to realize that angry protesters denouncing the Democrats in Washington as "socialist" isn't enough. Frankly, today's event was something of a rehash of the "Orange County Tax Day Tea Party." I certainly don't want to demean the Pasadena rally. I love the Tea Parties. I love to see conservatives gettting out to champion the cause of freedom and to protest the unbelievable incompetence and hubris that is the Barack Obama administration.

However, Californians will vote on a slew of state tax measures in less than three weeks. Today's theme should not have been Obama's socialism (which is an old story, and likely to get more painful for Joe Sixpacks in neighborhoods around the country, and not to mention the unborn); organizers should have instead focused on the conservative movement's proactive agenda to take back the country. You've got to hammer a positive message if folks are going to listen. The talk has got to be about action and not plain grievance. Why didn't event planners hoist an effigy of "Benedict" Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Polls show the Propostion 1A ballot package trailing badly in public opinion. That's a message that the media should be picking up on, not just some cranky Obama-backer rousted from his barcalounger by the loudspeakers. A defeat for 1A will deliver a powerful anti-tax message to the nation, not unlike the popular tax revolt that followed California's Proposition 13 in 1978.

There's still time, and today was something of tough day for counteracting left-wing media bias in any case (with the local media covering the socialist May Day events around the clock). But event planners need to keep their eyes on the ball, and they'll need even better planning and coordination. Victoria Jackson's passionate, but she didn't even mention the national political promise in repudiatng Arnold Schwarzengger's tax hikes at the polls on May 19th. The Tea Party planners must realize and exploit the possibilities of federalism in the U.S. system, which in the case of a new Golden State tax revolt, will be perfectly tuned to the national message of restoring liberty in the age of Obamessianism.

I'll have more reporting and analysis on these developments in the weeks ahead.

Terry Moran on 'Nightline' — 'A Kind of Victory for Breitbart'

Too good!

Eric Boehlert is not pleased. See, ABC News, "Breitbart on Breitbart: Polarizing Blogger Speaks: In Exclusive Interview, Andrew Breitbart Describes Where He's From and What He's After":

In this year of American voter anger and discontent, Andrew Breitbart has found his moment.

"I get to be me right now," he said. "That's the best part of this entire thing. This, to me, is the beginning of the beginning."

And what is beginning is, he hopes, the age of Breitbart.

He's everywhere. On Fox News -- a lot. Hobnobbing with Republican leaders in New Orleans. Rallying the Tea Party faithful in appearances across the country. Launching the websites Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Hollywood.

He's also lobbing grenades of controversy -- like his most recent revelation this week of an old speech by Obama Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, in which she confessed that she once, decades ago, was deeply reluctant to help a white farmer who needed her aid.

"I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land," Sherrod said in the video.

Sherrod resigned under pressure -- and then it turned out Breitbart had released only a clip of her speech that distorted her real meaning: that she had been wrong and learned from her error.

The controversy continues -- to Breitbart's delight. He says he considers it a victory to have panicked the Obama administration and precipitated a public apology from the White House.

If this is Andrew Breitbart's moment, there are good reasons for it.

RTWT.

More coming up in a bit ...

ADDED: AoSHQ links!

ACORN, NEA, and Andrew Breitbart's PWNING of MSM

The rollout of Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog, and its attendent exposé bombshell reports, has nearly had the effect of a category 5 hurricane on American politics this last couple of weeks. I mean, seriously, the tea parties and town halls have been an incredible experience for people all year, but now with Big Government's role in breaking the Hannah Giles/James O'Keefe undercover ACORN sting, folks are exclaiming that Breitbart's "making it fun to be a conservative again."

I met Andrew Breitbart briefly on April 15th at Santa Ana's Tax Day Tea Party Event. He's seen here with his father-in-law, Hollywood actor Orson Bean.

Breitbart was the headline speaker at the Santa Ana event, and I saw him again at the Pasadena "May Day! May Day!" Anti-Socialism Rally a few weeks later. The guy's an all-American entrepreneurial hustler. An electrifying speaker, he's also a political pugilist of the first order. He knows that big media is how conservatives will get their message out, and if the big MSM's not in our camp, conservative just have to construct their own. Hard to pin in one place for very long, I had a sense of a man with a mission the first couple of times I interacted with him.

My hunch was pretty accurate. Breitbart gave the political world a big heads-up on September 7 with his Washington Times essay, "Couric Should Look In Mirror": Offering a damning indictment of the media's non-treatment of the Van Jones scandal, Breitbart argued that exposing revolutionaries in the White House was just the beginning:

Two more stories demonstrate how the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, is more concerned with trying to figure out how to destroy Glenn Beck - "he's nuts!" - than to follow his methodical, accurate reporting. This dynamic - used against all potent critics and off-the-reservation journalists - shows that not only is the media ignoring all the negative things coming out about the Obama administration, it is acting like President Richard Nixon's henchmen, making life difficult for its whistleblowers.

One of the stories is that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a massive radical organization, is poised to receive billions from the Obama "stimulus" ....

Another story not making the evening news is that of artist Patrick Courrielche, who has shown that the National Endowment of the Arts is seeking to use government funds to promote Obama administration initiatives. On Sunday's "This Week," George Will pierced the mainstream media veil.

"Recently there was a conference call arranged by the National Endowment for the Arts, with a representative of the White House, for potential grantees or actual grantees of the federal government, getting subsidies - the theme of it was how the arts community could advance the president's agenda. Now I don't know how many laws that breaks, but I am sure there are some."

What are you waiting for, Katie Couric?

Needless to say, Ms. Couric didn't run with the story. But Breitbart and the conservative alt-media did. The Hannah Giles/James O'Keefe ACORN prostitution sting broke a few weeks back. The story's been a phenomenal follow-up to the Van Jones resignation, and the MSM is still catching up. The Breitbart enterprise continues to break stories and its latest exposé is the rightly-promised investigation into the NEA's corrupt art-propaganda ring that's shilling for the Obama administration. Patrick Courrielche reported at Big Hollywood on the NEA on August 25: "The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?" The Courrielche piece was an early indication of the timed-release of damning investigative reports. And this week promises to be no let-up.

Andrew has a new piece up at Big Government, "Planting the Seeds: The Politicized Art Behind the ACORN Plan." As he argues:

When filmmaker and provocateur James O’Keefe came to my office to show me the video of him and his friend, Hannah Giles, going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN – the nation’s foremost “community organizers” – dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for – and getting – help for various illegal activities, he sought my advice. In the past, Mr. O’Keefe created brilliant social satire that rocked his college campus and even made its way on to the talk-radio and cable-news shows, but the magnitude of his latest adventure had the potential to rock the political establishment.

I was awed by Mr. O’Keefe’s guts and amazed by the footage, but explained that the mainstream media would try to kill this important and illuminating expose about a corrupt and criminal political racket, and that the well-funded political left would go into “war room” mode, with 25-year-old Mr. O’Keefe and 20-year-old cohort Miss Giles in the cross hairs. I felt I had a moral obligation to protect these young muckrakers from the left and from the media, and to devise a strategy that would force the media’s hand.

Once the American public saw with its own eyes the grotesque, common practices of ACORN’s housing offices, Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles could no longer be a legitimate focus of media scrutiny. Kill the messenger doesn’t work with the American people when they realize that the message is so devastating and honest. I think the video exposed the misuse of public funds and systemic manipulation of the tax code in the name of “helping the poor.”

If Mr. O’Keefe dumped the videos on YouTube, the political powers would have killed the expose before it got traction. I half-joked that he should secretly tape pitching the major television networks exclusive use of his videos for their nightly news broadcasts. But a simpler, less controversial method proved as fruitful.

I told him that in addition to launching his compelling and stylized Web videos, we needed to offer the full transcripts and audio to the public in the name of transparency, and to offer Fox News the full footage of each video before each was released.We had to devise a plan that would force the media to see the evidence before they had enough time to destroy these two idealistic 20-something truth seekers. Mr. O’Keefe agreed to post the full audio and full transcript of his video experiences at BigGovernment.com.

Thus was born a multimedia, multiplatform strategy designed to force the reluctant hands of ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post.

Well, Breitbart's extending the multiplatform strategy this week. Here's this at Big Hollywood this morning, "Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call." Read the whole thing. Breitbart's enterprise has exposed the corrupt propaganda machine inside the National Endowment of the Arts. As noted:

Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.

As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.

Dana Loesch's essay is here, "Taxpayer Funded Serve.gov Filtering Activists to ACORN." All of this is devastating. What Breitbart and friends are doing is pulling together the strings of communuism and corruption that tie together the entire left-wing progressive infrastructure of the ACORN-Obama-Chicago-communist regime. And it's working fabulously. No wonder some folks are now more excited than ever about being a part of the conservative movement.

More at Gateway Pundit, and Memeorandum.

Andrew Breitbart Visits Newport Beach, Receives Standing Ovation

At The Daily Pilot, "Breitbart: 'Vindication running through my veins'":

NEWPORT BEACH — Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing blogger who broke the Rep. Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, strolled into the Newport Beach Golf Course's Tea Room restaurant Wednesday evening to a standing ovation.

There to promote his book, "Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!", and Mike Munzing, who is running for a House seat next year, Breitbart played to the crowd and media waiting for him.

"[Weiner's] polls are probably going to go up because of his degeneracy," Breitbart said. "I don't like any of this kind of behavior" ...

More at the top link.

I'm looking but don't see a full video clip of Breitbart's talk. I wrote about it Thursday night, but here's J.T. Geehr, on Facebook:

It was so fun to just listen to him. He is hysterically funny and thoroughly delights in telling stories. Whenever he's being interviewed on tv, interviewers cut him off, so you don't really get to hear what he's like. He had just flown back from NY and had to be exhausted, but he was still charming and gut-bustingly funny. He is fearless!

Well said, but I'm gonna keep looking for a clip.

Meanwhile, there's some local network coverage, at CBS, "Andrew Breitbart Receives Hero’s Welcome In Newport Beach." And KTLA, "Blogger Who Exposed Congressman Weiner Speaks in SoCal."

Also, at O.C. Register, "'Weinergate' blogger: It's mischievous fun."

Andrew Breitbart at CPAC!

This was my first chance to listen to him. He's definitely hot property at the convention. Here's Andrew during his speech this morning at the Marriott balloom.

Andrew was on a roll, as usual. Jillian Rayfield of Talking Points Memo was not amused: "Breitbart: Code Pink Protestors Used To Be 'Kind Of Slutty,' Now They're 'Long In The Tooth'":

In his rambling CPAC speech today, Andrew Breitbart described how he has enjoyed going to progressive rallies and peppering the protesters with questions. But, he said, the women of the anti-war group Code Pink are "tedious at this point" because they used to be "kinda slutty lefties," but "they're getting long in the tooth."

"I don't know why I decided to make my career trying to destroy the institutional left. I thought that would be a fun thing to do," he said at the opening of his remarks. He described how he's found that the people in protests "are not individuals. They've been community organized."

"They're not Americans," Breitbart said later. "They're animals."

Breitbart went on to describe how a "collusion" has developed between the SEIU, OFA, Acorn, and the Obama Administration. "The President is using these thugs," he said.

"It's vulgar to think that the President" has "his fingerprints all over" protest groups, Breitbart said, also noting that "at the end of the day a lot of them are just overacting extras."

He came up to the bloggers' lounge a bit later, and conservatives swarmed around to listen. Andrew quipped, "That wasn't the speech I planned to give." He then proceeded to recount the epic significance of the Pigford scandal:

And he's with Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit and John Hawkins of Right Wing News:

I spoke with him for a couple of minutes. We've met before, but he's a superstar now. He mentioned he might be interested in expanding the coverage at Big Government et al. to colleges and universities. I said, "Hey, I'm your man there":

VIDEO HAT TIP: Marooned in Marin,"Breitbart at CPAC: The Left Is Being Organized By The President Against The Mass ."

Andrew Breitbart at O.C. Tax Day Tea Party, April 15, 2009

Breitbart often reminisced about attending his first tea party in Orange County.

My good friend Megan Barth was the event's main organizer. She can be seen in the blue shirt behind Andrew at the clip. Megan has also posted an essay to Facebook, "Andrew Breitbart — A Tribute":

Some of u are probably sitting in this internet/Facebook audience saying, Who in the "H" is Megan Barth, and how does she "know" Andrew Breitbart?

Well, I can't say that I do know Andrew. I have not been to his house; I have not broken bread with the man; I have had a cocktail with him....ok maybe two or three, but, true, I do not "know" him. But, I know him for one of my greatest memories that he selflessly gave to me. The first time I called him and asked him for a favor, he didn't hesitate to say yes.

In March of 2009, I asked him to speak at a Tea party Rally in Santa Ana on April 15, 2009. I had left him a message on his cell phone--the number which I had received from a mutual aquaintance. An hour later, I get a call back and he says, "Megan Barth? Andrew Breitbart. What is this tea party thing about and oh yeah, Count me in." And, two weeks later, he was speaking at his first tea party on a chilly and windy day, in front of a crowd of over 2000, at the "Circle of Flags." He brought with him his fiery friend, Gary Graham, and his father in law Orson Bean. They each spoke to the crowd with such conviction, fun, kindness and passion. It is a day that I will never forget.

After that day, I would run into him at various events and he would jokingly refer to me as "his first." I always made sure I shook his hand or gave him a big hug, not only because I so appreciated him for coming to speak on that day in April, 50 miles from Brentwood, but appreciating him and thanking him for being all that inspires me.

Andrew encapsulated/emulated everything that I found good and decent and honorable. His love of family and country, his tenacity, his strength, his humor, his fire that he so tirelessly gave--he didn't seem to want for anything else but for the truth, and, of course, to piss off liberals. The truth, you see, and honesty, isn't a commodity. You don't find it often and you don't find it easily. Andrew's fight in order to bring truth and light to the masses was like David fighting Goliath. Andrew had this slingshot and the MSM, the Giant, had the narrative. Yet, Andrew beat them with that slingshot, head on. He wasn't afraid. He stood his ground. He took the battle to them and outsmarted their best generals. He exposed their false narrative--which is the Giant's ironic weakness. Andrew showed all of us that the impossible can be the possible...particularly with the truth on your side. It ain't gonna come easy and it ain't gonna come cheap. Andrew, today, gave his life for it. His family, that stood behind him and with him, made it possible.

When I heard the news this morning, I started screaming, "Why Why Why God!! Why him? " Why take a man from his wife and four children? What did he do? He had so much more to do! Why now, God? Why?! "

And then, after talking to my 3 parents (yes, I have 3. 4 actually, but I talked to 3 of them), and scouring the blog roll and Twitter/Facebook feed, I was reminded that the only answer to these and many more questions, is the one that we all will eventually find, and with the truth and the spirit of Breitbart on our side, we will all come to know, "Why." The truth will be Andrew's legacy as it has been our, my, inspiration.

Andrew leaves behind a pair of shoes which cannot be filled. He was a one in a million, a happy warrior, a truth seeker, a torch bearer. There are millions of those who he has inspired that are ready and willing to carry that torch--and that is what must be and will be done. He wouldn't have it any other way. He designed the battle plan. He deserves no less.

In his own words from the upcoming "Hating Breitbart"

"WAR"

Rest in peace and thank you, my friend, for absolutely everything.

More updates throughout the weekend.

Breitbart's Rules for Radicals

Kathryn Jean Lopez is a little late to this party, but her essay gives me an excuse to run this Hannah Giles interview with Sean Hannity at the same time. Here's this from K-Lo, "Rules for Counter-Radicals: Andrew Breitbart, Internet Juggernaut":

Something happened as folks on the right sat around waiting for Sarah Palin’s next Facebook post, wondering who the next Ronald Reagan would be. Something happened while folks debated death panels, what Rush Limbaugh said at noon that MSNBC or Rahm Emanuel is up in arms about. Something happened while the president of the United States planned his strategy for getting a Washington his party runs to sign up for his health-care revolution.

The stuff of which media revolutions are made happened.

The Left rules, you could still argue. But that’s in spite of being Left. Barack Obama ran for president downplaying his left-wing ideology and record, instead talking vaguely about “hope” and “change” and even invoking Ronald Reagan.

You’ve seen the tea parties. You saw the march. Now you’ve seen inside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Andrew Breitbart, born and raised online, has been a longtime collaborator with web wonder Matt Drudge. Always a behind-the-scenes mover, he’s come out of the shadows a bit with his own websites, Breitbart, Big Hollywood, and Big Government— taking the Rules for Radicals and Radical Change and running with them.For as long as I can remember, the Right — most notably the Capital Research Center — has been writing about ACORN. And, for as long as I can remember, ACORN has gotten government funding anyway.

For as long as I can remember, churches naively gave them money anyway. As recently as this summer, we exposed the ties of the Democratic party and its nominee to this community-organizing organization, its radical anti-capitalism and its voter fraud.

But what it really took was a cartoonish pimp-and-prostitute sting operation. A guy and a gal with a hidden camera and a website willing to publish. By now you know the story. When asked how to skirt the law and establish a brothel, representatives of ACORN offered them advice — a gift to the Right that for so long has wanted to take them down. Want to know how to get on welfare? James O’Keefe III, portraying a pimp who sought to traffic in foreign children, got advice, with Hannah Giles, portraying a prostitute, by his side. Want to cheat the tax system? ACORN provided this advice, too. Public housing? ACORN helped! And always make sure to have a tin for hiding the profit, they added.

More at the link (via Memeorandum).

See my earlier reports as well, "American Power: ACORN, NEA, and Andrew Breitbart's PWNING of MSM," and "Two Cheers for Andrew Breitbart."

Related: "ACORN Circles the Wagons: Our Staffers 'Are Victims'."

Andrew Breitbart Rocks CPAC!

I love the entry at Weasel Zippers, "Andrew Breitbart's Kick Ass Speech At CPAC ... He Calls Out SEIU, ACORN, MSM, John Podesta, NYT, Lib Universities/College Profs ... 'Bring It On!' ... 'The Gig Is Up ... You're Not On The American Team'."

Also, Yid With Lid, "CPAC Saturday Morning, Breitbart Wows, Allahpundit Gets Friendly." And Sharon Soon, "Andrew Breitbart Thinks the MSM … Well, Sucks":

It's not an easy job to fight the vile, vindictive, unreined media, and it explains why so few are willing to take the risk of being attacked. Conservatives shoul be thankful for guys who are.

For years of my life, I've been on the defense. I greatest fear was being attacked. What if someone called me a racist? What if I wasn't around to defend myself? Then one day I realized that it was okay. And I now love the thing I feared most. I'm not on the defense anymore - I'm on the offense. Bring it on!

The full background, with transcription, is at Newsbusters, "Breitbart to NY Times Reporter for Alleging Racial Tones at CPAC: 'You’re a Despicable Human Being'."

Plus, Andrew puts the pedal to the metal, at Big Journalism, "Breitbart Confronts Blumenthal at CPAC" (via Memeorandum). Watch the video here.

Left Coast Rebel Meets Andrew Breitbart!

That's Tim Daniel, who joined me last Thursday in Newport for the Breitbart event, "More on Andrew Breitbart in Newport Beach, California":

He's a super-talented speaker, lots of comedy, great storyteller, and above all I witnessed Breitbart's fierce advocacy for the voiceless masses of middle America, those that feel that the Leftist-Media-Industrial-Complex is just a deceitful, evil, all-powerful, information-controlling extension of our coercive, destructive Leviathan government. Speaking to us is what Breitbart does and does better than anyone else.

Word.

I'm still looking for the full video. The talk was one of Breitbart's best ever, and he's never disappointing.

Sarah Palin Rallies GOP at 'Victory 2010' in Anaheim

The Republican Party is fired up and determined to take back America. That was the message repeated by every speaker who took the podium Saturday at the Victory 2010 Rally in Anaheim. Sarah Palin headlined an event that doubled as a major fundraiser for the Republican National Committee. RNC Chairman Michael Steele focused the message on California, indicating that November's election would not only turn the country back toward liberty, but would begin to restore the American dream for the people of California.

The O.C. Register has a report: "Palin Rallies Faithful in Anaheim":

Sarah Palin brought her bold brand of folksiness and ferocity to Orange County on Saturday, telling a throng of admirers that Republican success on Election Day is their only hope of "saving our republic as we know it."

Ear-splitting applause erupted from the 2,000-person audience as Palin, sporting a gray pantsuit, took the stage inside an Anaheim Marriott ballroom.

"Tell 'em Sarah!" one man shouted shortly after the start of her 25-minute stem-winder.

Though billed as a benefit for state and local candidates, Palin's appearance at the "Victory Rally" consisted largely of a broadside against Democratic policies and a paean to "American exceptionalism."

"There is nothing wrong with America that a good old fashioned election won't fix," she said.

There's a report up at CNN as well, "Palin Rallies California Republicans." And at ABC News, "Palin Tells Supporters 'Soon We'll All Be Dancing'."

Neither article mentions Andrew Breitbart, shown below talking with Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle:

And there's no mystery there: Breitbart brought the crowd to cheering roars when he went straight at the press corps on top of the media stand beyond the crowd. Check it out on video at The Right Scoop: "Andrew Breitbart at GOP Rally in Anaheim, CA." Watching the clip I'm laughing again because Breitbart slammed the congressional leadership as "Harry Pelosi," and as the crowd screamed in approval, he spread his arms and said with a laugh, "Hey, Harry Pelosi!" Breitbart warned members of the press that after the election "you will not divide us again." He also warned that "we can play this game too --- we can be the media," yelling to the crowd: "Show them your cameras!" It was Breitbart in his prime. He's been around media politics for a long time, but after seeing him speak numerous times since April 15th, 2009, he's just better than ever.

With the exception of John Campbell (my Congressman), the rest of the county's GOP delegation was on hand. And there's a good chance that Assemblyman Van Tran will be joining them in Washington in January. A September poll found Tran running within two points of Representative Loretta Sanchez, and Bill Clinton campaigned for Sanchez in Santa Ana yesterday (a sure sign of desperation). That's Van Tran below. He gave great speech, rallying the crowd with predictions that Republicans would take back the House. Tran, who is Vietnamese, moved the crowd, saying "I know what freedom feels like."

Michaele Steele is not my favorite, for reasons folks are well familiar with by now, but he's our guy and he's going to be able to claim some credit with the huge GOP pickups next month. Steele's full speech is at The Right Scoop: "Michael Steele at GOP Rally in Anaheim, CA." I liked his pledge that the RNC was putting California in the win column. (Although we'll see how well that goes in 2012). Anyway, Steele introduced Sarah Palin to wild cheers. The Right Scoop has it: "Sarah Palin’s powerful speech at GOP Anaheim Rally":

She looked great --- happy and enthusiastic.

And folks on hand weren't holding back either:

Neither Carly Fiorina nor Meg Whitman showed up for the event, and the New York Times wants everyone to know about it, "2 Top Candidates Skip G.O.P. Rally" (via Memeorandum). Hey, it's a big blue state, and it's going to be black and blue for the Dems on November 3rd.

More on that later.

Two Cheers for Andrew Breitbart

At Big Government, "Two Cheers for Andrew Breitbart":

Among the many glorious things about American journalism is that no credentialing organization or regulatory body stands between an individual who wants to break a story and his public reporting of it.

In the old days, one significant barrier did deter aspiring reporters: If they couldn’t find a publisher for their piece or afford to self-publish, they were SOL. But now, thanks to the free-for-all environment created by the Web, those publication and distribution worries have evaporated. Anybody can be a journalist in the new regime, we’re told, and on some days, it seems as if everybody is.

Last week, thanks to the sponsorship of Andrew Breitbart’s new site BigGovernment.com, self-described activist filmmaker James O’Keefe, 25, and his colleague Hannah Giles, 20, brought national scrutiny to the progressive Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, with a series of guerilla videos that are one part 60 Minutes, two parts Punk’d, three parts Ali G, and four parts Michael Moore, all bubbling under a whipped topping of yellow journalism.

If you’re late to the story, Andrew Breitbart is a conservative author, columnist, Web entrepreneur, and Matt Drudge protégé. Lately, he has distributed a series of videos made by O’Keefe and Giles in which the duo visits various ACORN offices with a hidden camera, pretending to be a pimp and prostitute seeking advice on setting up a brothel. ACORN workers in Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; San Diego; San Bernardino, Calif; and Brooklyn, N.Y., took the bait, and now ACORN is on the run, firing underlings, making excuses, and responding to charges of mismanagement and fraud. On Capitol Hill, Congress is getting ready to defund the organization, which has taken in at least $53 million in federal money since 1994.

The full story is at Slate.

See my earlier essay, "ACORN, NEA, and Andrew Breitbart's PWNING of MSM."

Related: Sister Toldjah, "ACORN files suit against Breitbart.com (via Memeorandum). Also, Politico, "ACORN Files Suit Against Filmmakers."

Photo Credit: American Power, "Pasadena "May Day! May Day!" Anti-Socialism Rally."