Different Day, Same Shit.

Being outspoken is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, not so much:

Politico has suspended White House correspondent Joe Williams over comments suggesting that Mitt Romney is more "comfortable" around white people.

Williams, who is African-American, made the comments during a Thursday appearance on Martin Bashir's MSNBC program. During the appearance, Williams discussed how he believes Romney appears more "comfortable" appearing on Fox News Channel, as opposed to other outlets, and implied that race is a factor.

So, what exactly did this man say to have POLITICO swooning in the general direction of the nearest fainting chair?

"Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings, why he can't relate to people other than that," Williams said during the appearance. "But when he comes on 'Fox and Friends,' they're like him. They're white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company."

Oh.

I wouldn't say Sir Willard Milton Romney's visible discomfort stems from his reluctance towards darker hues. He's a wealthy man who feels most at home with men and women of his economic and social class. No wonder the man has to feign sincerity everywhere he goes - connecting with the common man is a foreign concept to him.

It seems like this straw was the last one the POLITICO camel could carry before its back snapped. Not only is Williams on the hook for the above quoted, as spoken on Martin Bashir's show on MSNBC, he's also on the hook for a string of Twitter comments, including this one:



Seriously, there have been worse things said about Mitt and Ann. In the cold, cruel world of the Internet, this would be a non-issue. Except the folks at Breitbart decided to make it one and commenced flagging this and other tweets penned by "jdub":



This is tame. Spectacularly tame. Other organizations would see Breitbart's attempts to make something of nothing for what it is and subsequently ignore it. Instead, POLITICO rushed to throw Williams under the bus. Essentially, this guy got suspended (without pay) for doing what Glenn Beck does on a regular basis. If a Fox News White House Correspondent made a similar remark about President Obama, they'd get a pat on the back and plenty of thumbs-up.

I can't see POLITICO throwing one of their correspondents under the bus unless it was 1)an inside beef between Williams and the editors or 2)the POLITICO was so fearful of the response from Breitbart and other conservative outlets that it collectively shat itself and consequently shat on Williams. From my understanding, POLITICO is supposed to be neutral, yet it has a soft touch for Mitt Romney, as evinced by its executive editor and chief White House correspondent's accusations of the New York Times and Washington Post being biased against Mitt Romney:

On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady....

...and the horse-riding story came a few weeks after a second story that made Republicans see red – another front-pager, this time in the Washington Post, that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay, in high school nearly a half-century ago. The clear implication to readers: Romney was a mean, insensitive jerk.

These "implications" aren't implications at all: they're pretty much fact, verified by countless media outlets. The Romneys are wealthy as all get out and Mittens was, in fact, an asshole back in his high school and college days.

The official explanation from POLITICO for Williams' suspension is as follows:

"Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility," POLITICO's founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in a memo to the staff. "His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way."

"Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words," the continued. "This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them. This is true for all POLITICO journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams."

"Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter," they wrote.

Williams declined to comment on the matter.

In the memo, Harris and VandeHei reminded staff that "POLITICO journalists have a clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias."

From Williams himself:

I regret that this happened. I understand and respect John Harris' point of view - that I've compromised Politico's objectivity, and my own. At this point my suspension without pay is still indefinite, and I don't know what management has in mind as an appropriate sanction, so I can't object or appeal. Politico still employs me, but the review process hasn't started in earnest so my future remains unclear.

Having covered the Shirley Sherrod firing and seen the fallout from James O'Keefe's brand of journalism, I'm not surprised a small group with internet access and an ambitious agenda can affect reporting and distort analysis of political news. It's quite unfortunate and incredibly frustrating, however, that I landed in the crosshairs this time, calling Politico's integrity into question and jeopardizing a job and a career that I love.

I have a feeling Williams might have to call someplace else home after the dust settles.

Dr. Boyce Watkins believes that since Joesph Williams wouldn't emulate the more tepid and timid style of Juan Williams and refrain from going off-script, he was deemed a "rogue" and had to be put back in his place:

But you see, there’s a pattern and unfortunately Joe has been affected by it. For the most part, being born a Black man who speaks conscientiously or accurately about issues of race effectively defines you to be a rogue. There isn’t much of a disconnect between the Black man who is stopped and frisked on the street, and the Black male professor/journalist/doctor/lawyer who has his capabilities questioned, even when he does nothing wrong.

Cornel West was a rogue at Harvard for seeking to reengage the black community. I was a trouble maker in elementary school when I answered questions without raising my hand. Barack Obama was defined as a radical leftist by the Republican Party for saying that the wealthy should pay slightly higher taxes. It’s easy for black men to be marginalized very quickly in most mainstream environments, primarily because people are waiting for you to say something that they can define to be volatile or dangerous.

That's what made Breitbart's methods of attack so pernicious. Breitbart's team of plucky "journalists" have been successful in derailing and demolishing the careers of outspoken individuals who don't quite adhere to the desired arch-conservative narrative, under the pretense of maintaining "journalistic integrity." They know how to pick their targets, from the folks at ACORN to Shirley Sherrod - targets who could be assumed guilty before proven innocent of their "crimes" and easily disposed of with little to no consequences. No heads have rolled over the loss of ACORN or Shirley Sherrod, and I suspect no heads will roll over the premature disposal of Joesph Williams.

I suppose if Williams decided to comment on how President Obama seemed "comfortable only around his own people," he'd still have his job. Speaking of which, a commentator over at Huffington Post hits it out of the park (albeit on the Washington Post/NYT post):

The problem as I see it, is that certain parts of the so called press figure that if you are not attacking Obama 24/7 then you are a liberally biased news organization and not worthy of respect.

Whereas if you report anything negative about Mittens, then you are also a liberally biased news outfit.

They consider it fair and balanced only if you attack Obama incessantly and give Mittens nothing but the softball treatment with out looking deep into his background.

Reading both outfits it's easy to see Politico leaning hard to the right. They figure the cons will win all three houses and are doing nothing but preparing hopefully for a friendly relationship for who is in power...hopefully.

Politicos so called truth seeking is at best poorly done and at worst ignorant.

To cap things off, a declaration from the members of the Church of Andrew Breitbart and his Latter Day "Saints":

This is our MSM.
This is Politico.
This is why God created Andrew Breitbart.

Pardon me while I go throw up.

Swatting is a practice that involves calling 911 from either a spoofed number or a blocked number and relaying information that would get the police to a home in force.

Calling a SWAT team on someone is a pretty vicious prank, especially considering the countless instances where contact with a SWAT team has meant death for many innocent individuals. Imagine this practice being used to silence bloggers, journalists and other influential people.

Now imagine this practice being used in a carefully-planned scheme to generate sympathy and big headlines in favor of conservative bloggers while allowing that same media apparatus and popular opinion to rip the "perpetrators" a new one. It's similar to the shenanigans performed by James O'Keefe against ACORN and the recently departed Andrew Breitbart and crew against Shirley Sherrod. Michelle Malkin, Chris and Dana Loesch both hoped the "Twitter Gulag" scandal would help gin up some sympathy points for them and other right-wing tweeters, to no avail. In other words, it's hard to approach this without wondering if this isn't just another scheme cooked up along those lines.

Conservative bloggers Patrick Frey and Erick Erickson were both "Swatted," supposedly as part of a feud between the two and political activist Brett Kimberlin. It's also worth noting that Kimberlin served time due to his role in the infamous "Speedway bombings." The undercurrent is that a guy who is despicable enough to wantonly injure and possibly kill innocents is surely capable of "Swatting" two guys who pissed him off. The expected response is to rally behind Frey and Erickson regardless of their political affiliations. However, it also helps how Kimberlin aligns himself to liberal causes, so conservatives also get to castigate both Kimberlin and liberals in general.

Make no mistake, "Swatting" is a legitimate problem that could get people hurt and possibly killed. And it's something you wouldn't expect conservatives to play games with. But as Matt Osborne puts it:

So we know how these types of games get played: right wing activists make the news they want to see with a sinister stunt, the right-wing blogosphere goes ballistic, spends weeks roaring about their victimization, and their yarns get days and days of mainstream coverage. Only later, when said media finally examines the facts, do we find out that we’ve been had once again.

And it seems we may have been had. Again.

In the midst of finding out more about "SWAT-Gate," I ran across this interesting tidbit of information from, of all things, a pastebin. And because of its source, the smart thing to do is to take the following with a rather large grain of salt until it's been properly verified*:

Mike Grimm is the Congressman from NY-13 and a former FBI undercover agent.

Grimm attempted to extort a Jewish congregation on the mafia stronghold of Staten Island, threatening to use his law enforcement contacts to “make it difficult for them”.

The congregation's rabbi approached former Congressman Anthony Weiner for assistance. This led to an extortion investigation for Grimm.

Grimm made contact with Brandon Darby and employed he and a small group of smear artists including Lee Stranahan and John Patrick Frey aka Patterico.

Anthony Weiner was pursued by a variety of real and synthetic female personas through 2010 and the spring of 2011. He was successfully smeared and forced to resign one year ago today.

Mike Stack was left holding the bag for the smear. He refused to drop out of sight, so he was swatted by Brandon Darby in order to silence him.

Ron Brynaert was investigating. They needed a bag holder for the swatting and Ron was the lucky winner, being set up via a phone call with Frey, purportedly for an interview, but in actuality it was purely to put him on the phone and engaged at a specific time.


Don't let the Weinergate rabbit hole distract from these simple facts. Follow the money and keep in mind a dangerous, complex hit job like this would only be entrusted to a few committed, hardcore operatives like Darby, Frey, and Stranahan.

Brandon Darby is a former FBI informant who currently spends his time as a conservative activist. Lee Stranahan is a conservative blogger who also hosts his own podcast. The following is audio from Stranahan's show when he took the call of the purported "swatter" who set the whole thing up (taken from Osborne's post):



And here is a video comparison of Darby's voice along with the voice used in the "Swatting" calls, including his appearance via phone on Stranahan's show:



The voices are remarkably similar and rather thinly disguised. There have been calls for a proper voice analysis to be made by law enforcement officials, something that Darby would be pretty reluctant to have happen if he was indeed behind all of this. In addition, there hasn't been any concrete proof that intended target Brett Kimberling was actually behind any "Swatting."

Meanwhile, fingers are being pointed at former Raw Story editor Ron Brynaert for being the one behind the "Swatting" calls, as the following video attempts to prove:


Brynaert's voice doesn't quite match up to the "swatter," although it would be very easy to simply assume it did on first listen, without Darby's voice to compare with it.

As for Mike Grimm, he's found himself under the wheels of the Romneymobile™ in addition to dealing with the fallout from his attempted shakedown.

So, is "SWAT-Gate" the end result of an elaborate and ultimately successful attempt to "ratfuck" Anthony Wiener out of a job for dropping a federal investigation right into the lap of a fellow representative who attempted to extort and intimidate the Shuva Israel congregation, who then turned to Wiener for help? And in addition to cleaning up loose ends, does "SWAT-Gate" also provide a sensational story for a bunch of aspiring Breitbarters to plaster up on mainstream media for weeks on end until the results of the inevitable round of fact checking come through?

It seems far-fetched and it's very easy to take "SWAT-Gate" at face value without reading into the motivation behind it. At any rate, it's gotten the desired reaction from across the blogosphere, one of shock, dismay and an expressed desire to see the designated target go down in flames without making sure it's the right one in the first place.

* http://sibob.org/wordpress/?p=10634, http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/fbi_confirms_agency_tipped_off.html

Well, you know what they say: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats every day. Give a man a welfare check, a free cell phone with free monthly minutes, food stamps, section 8 housing, some Air Jordans, a 40-ounce malt liquor, a crack pipe and a pack of rubbers and he votes Democrat for a lifetime.”

You gotta love racists, especially some of the more benign ones that litter the Internet. The above quote hits on every single stereotype plaguing the black American Democrat voter, as well as general black "dependency," whether it be on government largess or the benevolent graces of the white, well-to-do plantation owner.

The late Andrew Breitbart's website seems to be littered with comments like the above. Turns out the new editor-in-chief Joel Pollak is committed to continuing Breitbart's legacy of confused and intellectually deficient "journalism" that even Fox News would take great pains to avoid.


Seems Pollak is fixated on racism these days, as long as it's purely on the left. He seems like the kind of guy who'd expound on the deficiencies of those "fucking [coons]" around a few beers with George Zimmerman.

The type of comments a website or blog attracts depends on the type of tone set by the owner/moderators and content. Little wonder.

Meanwhile:

"If a white kills a black we revolt, if a black kills a white it's jail time, we kill each other it's Miller time. It's as if somebody has the right to kill us."

Well of course, Jesse. To them, we're just somebody's property.

So not long before Andrew Breitbart kicked the bucket, he hinted at CPAC that he had a little something on President Barack Obama. Something so shocking, so earth shattering that it would change the way we would perceive the president and have us question the whole "hope" and "change" thing. In other words, it was supposed to make us all bitter cynics who'd become so disillusioned that we'd immediately turn our backs on Obama and let the 100,000 or so die-hard Teabaggers usher yet another wave of Republican perfidity into office for the next four to twelve years.

But then, he died. So Stephen Bannon, Joel Pollak and Larry O’Connor started making the media rounds, announcing that they had their hands on what was supposed to be proof of Obama's own perfidity at its worst, as his past life as a radical Marxist Socialist heathen would once and for all be revealed to a shocked and dismayed public. I swear, these people are really GOP operatives in vaguely liberal clothing.

This was supposed to be Watergate all over again, at least for them. It wasn't.


Damn. Either Breitbart was truly and genuinely pathetic or this man managed to punk the living shit out of his fellow conservative minions:


Sorry, conservatives. Seems like Breitbart's left you guys a huge jar of Deez Nuts™, roasted and salted.

"Bu...bu...but that's not the right tape! It was selectively edited! We have the real tape...somewhere!" So said the folks at Breitbart.com. PBS Frontline called "Bullshit!" on that.

FRONTLINE producers obtained the footage from the same source as BuzzFeed did this week: the archives of WGBH, Boston’s PBS station. The footage was shot in 1990 by a team of local news producers for the WGBH Ten O’Clock News. FRONTLINE is produced at WGBH and our producers were alerted to the footage in the station archives in 2008.

In light of today’s controversy, and Breitbart.com editors’ claims that the footage had been edited, we pulled the full archived tape. It includes not just Obama’s speech, but other footage from the rally and portions of Derrick Bell’s speech. You can watch it in full below.

I wonder how it feels for a hack team to get bitch-slapped by an actual news organization.* That's gotta sting something fierce.

So either Breitbart planned this stunt as a sort of going away present for his "friends" or his entire legacy's come to this: bullshit served on a silver platter to people desperate enough to believe it something else and eat it, only to realize what it was during the last few bites. Those were Breitbart's followers - too lightweight to roll with the Fox News Teabagger crowd, but not willing to just stay on the porch, either.

People are having fun with this on Twitter. Check out this Chirpstory and the #BreitbartHasTape Twitter tag.

*Yeah, yeah, PBS isn't exactly CNN, but they're by far better than most media outlets, bar none.