Lee Stranahan
The Huffington Post
3/15/2011
Three questions for you.
- Do you think of Republicans and the Tea Party as dangerous, violent extremists?
- Do you think the Wisconsin protests over GOP Governor Scott Walker’s move to strip public sector employees of collective bargaining were peaceful?
- Do you scoff at the right wing notion that mainstream media like the New York Times, the TV networks and NPR have a liberal media bias against the conservatives?
If you answered ‘yes’ to all three of those questions, then let me ask you one more…
Why isn’t the mainstream media talking about the death threats against Republican politicians in Wisconsin?
Try to set aside whatever biases or preconceptions you might have for a moment and ask yourself why death threats against politicians aren’t considered national news, especially in the wake of the all too fresh shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other bystanders. And there hasn’t just been one death threat, but a number of them…
…Ignoring the story of these threats is deeply, fundamentally wrong. It’s bad, biased journalism that will lead to no possible good outcome and progressives should be leading the charge against it.
Just before writing this article, I did a Google search and it’s stunning to find out that the right wing media really isn’t exaggerating — proven death threats against politicians are being ignored by the supposedly honest media. If you’ve never agreed with a single thing that Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly et al have said about anything, you can’t in any good conscience say that they don’t have a point here. Death threats are wrong and if a story like Wisconsin is national news for days, then so are death threats…
…Since working with Breitbart, my position on political issues hasn’t changed but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m deeply disappointed by the virulent, lockstep attitude I see on the left. My experience in the last few months tells me what I would not have believed possible; on any number of issues (including Pigford, by the way) I’ve seen liberals act much nastier and with less factual honesty than the conservatives… and this includes on issues where I disagree with conservatives.
Burying the death threat story is a clear example of intellectual dishonesty and journalistic bias…
Read the entire article at The Huffington Post. Mr. Stranahan has been working with Andrew Breitbart on the Pigford ‘black farmers’ settlement story.
H/T American Power where Professor Douglas has written a series of scathing posts on this topic. Follow the link to his current post which includes a video, “The Best of Left-Wing Hate from 2010”
If you have been reading any number of blogs during the past three weeks–including this one–you know that law professor, Ann Althouse, and her husband Meade have done a better job of covering the Madison protests than just about anyone in the media. They have received the odd threat which sounded like something 5th grade bullies say to classmates. But this week they received this:
A Communication from Operation:Countertroll to Ann Althouse and “Meade”
Because of their extensive, lifelong, union freeloading (Althouse, the breadwinner of their pathetic, sexual-frustration driven “family” is an AAUP freeloader, a public sector secondary education freeloader, a University of Michigan freeloader, a University of Colorado freeloader and, most disgustingly to us, a University of Wisconsin Freeloader),their movement freeloading (they have greatly enhanced their reputation and social currency both within her nauseating Tory brotherhood they represent and across the internet by wandering around Madison lying about all they see) their repeated lies and general commitment to irresponsible citizen-journalism (how dare they sneak around an ongoing citizen protest movement taking pictures of trash minutes before our volunteers clean it), their false claims to have infiltrated the movement despite the fact that as a decentralized, participatory and democratic movement #wiunion cannot be “infiltrated” and indeed welcomes the attention of hostile outside observers, their attempts to incite Tea Party Falangists to act on their sadistic and violent impulses against fourth grade teachers and their students, and their desecration of the statue of Hans Christian Heg Ann Althouse and Meade are hereby put on notice.NOTICE – YOUR CITY OF MADISON PRIVILEGES HAVE BEEN REVOKED.
MADISON IS A #WIUNION CITY AND WE ARE MADISON.Did you really think this could go on forever? That you could sit on the steps of our house, walk the streets of our city, lie about us to strangers, tell gun-toting rednecks from out of state and the Northwoods how depraved and deserving of punishment we are all while maintaining plausible deniability for any of the consequences that your actions might cause? Did you think you could fuck with HANS and get away with it?…
…We will harrass the ever loving shit out of you all the time. Campus is OCCUPIED. State street is OCCUPIED. The Square is OCCUPIED. Vilas, Schenk’s Corners, Atwood, Willy Street – Occupied, Occupied, Occupied, Occupied. Did you really think it was all about the Capitol? Fuck the Capitol, we are the CITY.
We are hard-drinking, weed-smoking, rude, obnoxious, auto-didactic, uppity fucking TOWNIES. We know you hate us. We know you hate us because we ruin your imaginary, Men’s Magazine, UW Admission’s Pamphlet, Madison Magazine, Isthmus Arts vision of our City. You think that our town should be on perpetual vigil just in case you need a little peace and quiet. You think we should go down quiet while Walker economically rapes us because you want to lead a fucking tour group? Sorry babe, not gonna happen. And because you couldn’t even show a modicum of fairness, integrity, or neutrality and because you had the iron fucking stones to try to pull this here, on OUR campus, in OUR city, in OUR state in OUR country (and that is about the only reason we have any grudging respect for you), now YOU are a target…
…because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are young and horny and screw each other incessantly, because we’re all on facebook, and because we aren’t anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL FUCK YOU UP…
This goes on for nearly four pages. If you have the stomach for it, you can read it all here. Again we ask parents, why bankrupt your own retirements paying tens of thousands of dollars each year on college educations when this is the result?
Dan Riehl, Professor Glenn Reynolds, Jim Hoft, and R. S. McCain have been all over this. McCain includes dozens of related links in his excellent article and reminds us it’s not ‘hate’ when liberals do this stuff, evidently.
The author of the anti-Althouse diatribe appears to be one Jim Shankman and possibly his girlfriend, Anna Louise Ogden-Nussbaum. On Big Government, Riehl has posted a photo of Shankman and Ogden-Nussbaum. In it, clever little Jim is holding a tea pot and a poster, “This is what a Tea Party looks like.” Oh, we’ve been to Tea Parties, Jim, and you couldn’t be more wrong…
Riehl has been able to link Shankman to a dean at Benedictine College in Kansas:
…Shankman also elaborated on his preferred economic theory. The reference to Catholicism is particularly interesting in light of circulating speculation that his Mother may be Dr. Kimberly Shankman, Dean of the College at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Last night, I was able to confirm a legal address for Jim Shankman that directly corresponds to the location of the college.
With regards to distributivism, it is very mainstream catholic theology. You could ask James O’Keefe, who says he is personally inspired by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton is the main political philosopher of distributivism. The last couple pages of What’s Wrong With the World are instructive here. Someone equated distributivism with liberation theology, which is not the case. Distributivism is the stance that the church endorses AGAINST liberation theology, and you can see this in the theology of pope benedict during his disputes with the liberation theologians…
Jim Shankman wrote to Dan Riehl, “With regards to distributivism, it is very mainstream catholic theology.” At CAJ, some of us were reared in Catholicism. Others of us brought up in other religions considered equally “liberal” in their political leanings. Our families include union members. So this is not an anti-Catholic screed. We beg our readers of all religions: do not allow your faith to be hijacked by the social justice-new world order-international workers-marxist-communist-anarchist movements. (It’s clearly too late for unions.) Stand up…ask questions…seek truth and then make informed choices. Should any religion subvert our U.S. Constitution? Is there any reason why we cannot preserve our Constitutional government and, at the same time, practice our faith? Otherwise, why shouldn’t Muslims be able to practice Shariah in America?…
Update: At Patterico’s Pontifications, Lefty Lee Stranahan Explains “How Political Lies Spread on the Left.”
