ANTEBELLUM BLOG: 26.02.12

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and journalist, died suddenly on Thursday morning, according to his website Big Journalism. He was 43.

Breitbart's father-in-law told the Associated Press that Breitbart was walking near his house when he collapsed. Someone saw him fall and called 911. Breitbart was taken to UCLA Medical Center, but could not be revived.

Breitbart came to be well-known for his work with the Drudge Report (he also played an early role with The Huffington Post), and would go on to found the Big Journalism, Big Hollywood and Breitbart.com websites. He was also an author, columnist and ubiquitous commentator in the media.

Breitbart was the adopted son of Gerald and Arlene Breitbart, a restaurant owner and banker respectively, and grew up in a family with secular liberal views, in upscale Brentwood, Los Angeles. He was raised Jewish (his adoptive mother had converted to Judaism when marrying his adoptive father).

He has explained that his birth certificate indicates his biological father was a folk singer. He is ethnically Irish by birth, and his adopted sister is Hispanic. He changed his political views after experiencing an "epiphany" during the Clarence Thomas hearings, and later described himself as "a Reagan conservative" with libertarian sympathies.

Breitbart earned a B.A. in American studies from Tulane University in 1991, graduating with "no sense of [his] future whatsoever". His early jobs included a stint at cable channel E! Entertainment Television, working for the company's online magazine, and some time in film production.

On May 28, 2011, Breitbart posted a sexually explicit photo on his BigJournalism website of New York Representative Anthony Weiner obtained through Weiner's Twitter account.

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Initially Weiner denied that he had sent a link to the photograph to a 21-year-old female college student, but after questions developed, he admitted to inappropriate online relationships. On June 6, 2011 Breitbart reported other photos Weiner had sent, including one that was sexually graphic. On June 8, 2011, the sexually graphic photo was leaked after Breitbart participated in a radio interview with hosts Opie and Anthony, though Breitbart stated that the photo was published without his permission.

Weiner subsequently resigned from his congressional seat on June 21, 2011.

On July 19, 2010, Breitbart posted two short videos showing excerpts of a speech by Shirley Sherrod at an NAACP fundraising dinner in March 2010. The videos ensuing controversy resulted in Sherrod being fired from the United States Department of Agriculture on July 19. After Breitbart was criticized for taking Sherrod's words out of context, he posted the complete 40-minute video of the speech.

The NAACP stated that the video excerpts aired by Breitbart were deliberately deceptive and said that he had "snookered" the group. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack later apologized to Sherrod and offered her a new job. In 2011, Sherrod brought suit against Breitbart for defamation.

Breitbart has also been embroiled in a controversy within the conservative movement related to the participation of gay group GOProud in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual conference held in Washington, D.C. by the American Conservative Union. In 2011 he was the primary host of a party that served to "welcome" the "homocons" to the convention (though it was the second year they had been participants). This flew in the face of a boycott staged by a few social conservative groups that were offended by the inclusion of GOProud within the conservative fold. Writer, producer, and publisher Roger L. Simon referred to the group as a "game-changer" for the Republican party, and asserted that it represented a turning point in the appeal that the conservative movement might hold for young people. Breitbart was on the Advisory Board of GOProud until he stepped down in the wake of the group's inadvertent outing of a senior Rick Perry aide.

2/27/12

JAMES FORMAN

"if we can't sit at the table, let's knock the fucking legs off."~
Civil Rights leaderr James Forman talks about George Wallace and US society.

JAMES FORMAN (October 4, 1928 — January 10, 2005)

was an American Civil Rights leader active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the International Black Workers Congress. He was also the author of several notable books.

In 1961, Forman joined and became the executive secretary of the then newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. From 1961 to 1965 Forman, a decade older and more experienced than most of the other members of SNCC, became responsible for providing organizational support to the young, loosely affiliated activists by paying bills, radically expanding the institutional staff and planning the logistics for programs. Under the leadership of Forman and others, SNCC became an important political player at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.