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Max Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal

Posted: February 23, 2010 07:21 PM

Feeling the Hate at CPAC 2010 With Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Giles and the Crazy Mob

What's Your Reaction:

While I was filming at CPAC for a forthcoming project, I was confronted by Hannah Giles, Andrew Breitbart and a mob of crazed teabaggers. They were enraged by an article I wrote for Salon.com about James O'Keefe's attendance of and assistance with a white nationalist event featuring open racialists Jared Taylor and John Derbyshire as well as Kevin Martin of the right-wing front group Project 21. Project 21, by the way, is a black front group created and operated by white conservative operatives to provide cover to figures like Taylor.

Did O'Keefe plan the event with his friend, the white nationalist Marcus Epstein, the Tancredo aide who pled guilty to randomly attacking a black woman and calling her the n-word? O'Keefe's role in helping out with and freely attending the event, along with his palling around with characters like Epstein and Taylor highlighted a career filled with racist pranks, from his ACORN pimp costume minstrel show (see Bradblog on the deceptive means Breitbart used to push the pimp costume myth) to his "affirmative action bake sale," in which he and his friends charged white students extra for baked goods while minorities ate for little or nothing. Then there are his diaries about the hell of living in a multicultural university environment. James O'Keefe, the apparent hero of the conservative movement's youth wing, is what racism looks like today.

The only time Breitbart and his goon squad get upset about racism is when they think it is somehow being directed against white people like themselves. That's why a particularly manic mob member (who wouldn't stop using the pretentious word "rubric") seemed to argue to me against the existence of the Congressional Black Caucus because it would not allow a hostile conservative congressman to join. And it's why when CPAC chose as its keynote speaker the race-baiter Glenn Beck, who claimed Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people."

It is also worth noting that CPAC played host to Thomas Woods, a former leader of the white supremacist League of the South and contributor to the neo-secessionist Southern Partisan magazine. And that CPAC held a seminar called "Abraham Lincoln: Friend or Foe of Liberty?" led by Thomas DiLorenzo, another League of the South figure who insists Lincoln was the very embodiment of evil. The presence at CPAC of Islamophobes Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (Geller once argued Obama was "involved with a crack whore in his youth"), promoters of the European neo-fascist Geert Wilders, can not be overlooked either. And stay tuned for my interview with Birther leader Philip Berg, who insisted Obama was actually an Indonesian Muslim who should be tried for treason and possibly executed. These people must have left their sheets at the dry cleaners.

Breitbart's tirade against me was filled with irony. The most glaring projection was that I was using "Alinsky tactics," referring to left-wing community organizer Saul Alinsky. For the record, I skimmed Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" about 14 years ago and can hardly remember what was in it. However, Breitbart's boy, James O'Keefe, boasted to the LA Times that Alinsky's book was the blueprint for his work.

Breitbart went on to say that calling someone a racist was the worst thing anyone could do. Actually, there is something worse than that: promoting and paying a racist. And that's what Breitbart is doing with O'Keefe. Meanwhile, Breitbart has some interesting views of his own on racial issues. Besides calling the Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn a "multiculturalist, just like the black studies and the lesbian studies majors on college campuses," Breitbart has howled about "black studies intimidation." As usual, he only sees racism when it is supposedly directed against white people like himself.

According to a recent study by the Pew Center on the States, one out of every 100 adults in the United States is in prison. One of every nine black males between the ages of 20 and 34 has been behind bars, a scandalous statistic owing itself in part to the failed and racially biased drug war, which mandates the warehousing of non-violent drug offenders for long periods of time.

I look forward to working with James O'Keefe on prison reform.

 

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
FilipeCastro
11:14 PM on 03/21/2010
Dear Max Blumenthal: You are one of the most intelligent and courageous journalists alive. I love your courage and independence. Keep up your great work!

Filipe Castro
Texas
10:41 PM on 03/01/2010
Ron Paul's speech at CPAC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWEBXKOkaI

Watch, listen to him, then make your opinion. This is the man who is sweeping up a broad base, including both conservatives and liberals. The "Conservative" power chiefs are afraid of him. Listen to his full speech and decide how much you disagree with him. Don't listen with a preconceived idea of what a conservative is. He stands far apart.
02:41 PM on 02/27/2010
caseyblab
"The re-editing of a story that is pushed to the national media should be a big deal. To add footage to a so-called news event with costuming totally changes the narrative. It is basically photoshopping your "facts". I am glad Max is on it with these frauds."

Yeah funny how that works both ways

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5TOJt6YmQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIeByOeERpY
03:21 AM on 02/26/2010
................"It is also worth noting that CPAC played host to Thomas Woods, a former leader of the white supremacist League of the South and contributor to the neo-secessionist Southern Partisan magazine. And that CPAC held a seminar called "Abraham Lincoln: Friend or Foe of Liberty?" led by Thomas DiLorenzo, another League of the South figure who insists Lincoln was the very embodiment of evil. "

Well, this explains the Paulite/libbercon factor. Both those creeps are old Lew Rockwell/blabbertarian stalwarts.
02:04 AM on 02/26/2010
Fantastic article, as always.Love all your work As far as I am concerned, you are in that special class with Kieth Olberman.
Keep it up, and thank you so much.
10:25 AM on 02/25/2010
The Tea Party is similar to the movements that arose in response to the Tariff Act of 1828 and the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861, which resulted in Abraham Lincoln’s violent overthrow of the “free, sovereign and independent States” guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the treaty with Britain in 1783, which the U.S. Constitution states is the supreme law of the land.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html See last paragraph.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/paris/text.html Article I.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/constitution/text.html Article VI, Section 2.

Lincoln’s Tax War reduced the States to the status of colonies of the federal government.

Lincoln declared, one month before he started the war by invading the territorial waters of South Carolina with 11 armed warships to occupy Fort Sumter, a tax collection fort:

“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.” and
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” http://www.nationalcenter.org/LincolnFirstInaugural.html Paragraphs 4, 21 and 32.
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Floridafish
It all over but the crying
12:09 PM on 02/25/2010
Good try, but not even close.
06:10 AM on 02/25/2010
Mr. Blumenthal, the only thing i will remember about your article is that you called 3 "truth-tellers" a derogatory term most often used to try to silence people, an all too common tactic used here & elsewhere.

BUT, people are starting to catch on.
11:29 PM on 02/24/2010
Geert Wilders is not a neo-fascist; , the Freedom Party supports civil rights, gay rights, women's rights--and the only isue that differentiates it from the "leftist" parties is its standon Dutch immigration laws.

Furthermore, to drop the ad-hominem slaps at Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller as "islamophobes" is to adopt a term that is used by pro-jihadist forces to turmn any criticism of islam into "racisim." A phobia is an irrational fear. is it irretional to be concerned that since 9/11/01 there have been more than 18,000 jihadi attacks around the world (mainly upon fellow Muslims, but also against Chrtisians, Jews, Hindus, animists and Bhuddists?. If you have an argument with Robert Spenceer's anayisis, please attack him on the points, backing your arguments with facts to show him wrong. By this cavalier attack on Spencer and Geller you lose your crdibility on what you say about others.
Geller, by the way, on her website gave a blistering attack on the CPACers --in which she noted the Paulian hoards and gay-bashers and Bircher in attendance.
06:02 AM on 02/25/2010
Well said. Fanned!
06:12 PM on 02/25/2010
You are correct in saying that "the Freedom Party supports civil rights, gay rights, women's rights"

But if you knew anything about the Netherlands, you would understand that no politician there would have any chance of being elected if he did not support civil rights, gay rights, women's rights.

You are also correct in saying that "the only isue that differentiates it from the "leftist" parties is its stand on Dutch immigration laws"

That is because most immigrants have no voting rights -- so he need not care what they think of him
And also because, in a depressed economic climate, people traditionally turn against minorities -- these are the votes he seeks.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
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08:20 PM on 02/24/2010
Why did you upset Breitbart like that? Now he is singlehandedly going to bring down the institutional left on this date:

http://www.7is7.com/otto/countdown.html?year=2010&month=03&date=16&hrs=0&ts=24&min=0&sec=0&tz=local&lang=en&show=dhms&mode=t&cdir=down&bgcolor=%23CCFFFF&fgcolor=%23000000&title=Countdown%20To%20Breitbartocalypse

I can't stop shaking in fear.


btw Good job at CPAC.
06:26 PM on 02/24/2010
Even far-right Republican radio host Mark Levin withdrew from CPAC because the racist John Birch Society was one of their sponsors.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-levin/marks-new-note-feb-21-2010/322101900945

These accusations of racism at CPAC are not just coming from the left.

Great job by Max Blumenthal, as usual.
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12:54 AM on 02/25/2010
I would love, just once, to hear Mark Levin say "AFLAC".
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
LiberalDem
01:02 PM on 02/24/2010
I hadn't seen a reference to Breitbart's comments about the shooter at the Holocaust Memorial Museum before...but then these people really don't want their own ugly prejudices to be exposed for thwat they are.
12:35 PM on 02/24/2010
wow!! That was awsome!! you almost gave that last guy a stroke! LOL!
I want buy your book now, I thought your performance was priceless!!
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blinkthink
Tax Wall Street Trades Now
10:48 AM on 02/24/2010
I was checking out another story about Steve King and what he said at CPAC. I watched his speech on U-Tube and was nauseated for about four hours. If this guy's hideous hate rhetoric mixes with the mentally unbalanced, tragedy will result.
Not only could the President be in danger, but any liberal or progressive could be a target. His "I want them all dead" could be take just as it is. A pregnant pause later, he added, "I want to kill all the bills". It was the most toxic thing I ever heard.
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HUFFPOST PUNDIT
Gidster
Not so much Liberal as I am anti evil.
11:12 AM on 02/24/2010
Welcome to Gingritch's Contract on America....The new American Conservative Utopia....Where anyone with differing political viewpoints or religion are purged, leaving a shining white only Christian only America.....

He created this juggernaut, he should be held accountable for it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
seenitall
California Dem.
11:39 AM on 02/24/2010
Add that to Michele Bachmann's call for people to be "armed and dangerous."
10:30 AM on 02/24/2010
GOOD MORNING!!! MY FELLOW HOMO SAPIENS WHICH MEANS THE SPECIES WHO IS WISE.
I imagine America's comedy writers had great fun mining that rich vein of comedy material at that CPAC Convention.
If anyone wants to know what it would be like to spend time in Wonderland they should have watched C-SPAN'S coverage of the CPAC Convention where reality, facts and truth were totally abandoned and replaced by the Mad Hatter's Tea Partier's absurd rantings, ravings and just plain silliness.
One good explanation for this Wonderland event was that most of the people attending had been lobotomized because they had spent so much time listening to FOX NEWS and loonytoons like Limbaugh.
Of course when one realizes that these poor, deluded CPAC people have been deceived and are being used by America's corrupt corporations it becomes more like a tragedy then a comedy.
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Gidster
Not so much Liberal as I am anti evil.
11:13 AM on 02/24/2010
Faved!!!

Good post!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
CelticDragon
06:01 PM on 02/24/2010
Fanned :)
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
caseyblab
09:58 AM on 02/24/2010
I think this is a really interesting post.

The re-editing of a story that is pushed to the national media should be a big deal. To add footage to a so-called news event with costuming totally changes the narrative. It is basically photoshopping your "facts". I am glad Max is on it with these frauds.
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HUFFPOST PUNDIT
Gidster
Not so much Liberal as I am anti evil.
11:14 AM on 02/24/2010
O'Keefe refuse to hand over the unedited footage to investigators.......