Randi Rhodes Forums

I've been wanting to put together a topic on the National Bloggers Club since it caught my attention as we were just learning who Foster Friess was. Fries, as we have learned, is the money behind much of the right wing media including The Daily Caller. At CPAC he announced a masive fund to set up the National Bloggers Club which is intended to legitimize righty bloggers with press passes as well as endowing them to develop stories a la James O'Keefe.

So when I have scanned my usual souces I sometimes play with the Google and enter a few search terms that sometimes yield results, and National Bloggers Club has stayed on my list even though little has come up on it to this point. I have learned that Blog Bash organizer Ali Akbar is the man at the top of this new organization and it has distributed awards, the most high-profile one going to Breitbart himself for his reporting on the Andrew Weiner story. Now we learn who more of the people behind this group are and in what form they will begin funding righties who bang their fists on their keyboards and try to make newsmakers out of them.

Blog Bash & National Bloggers Club Keeps Breitbart Spirit Alive
March 15, 2012
By Lawrence Sinclair
Updated Friday March 16, 2012 @ 12:26 PM ET
Announcing the Scholarship
Washington, DC — The National Bloggers Club, a new non-profit providing a loose association for free market bloggers, has officially announced a grant program for young citizen journalists in honor of Andrew Breitbart’s legacy, the Breitbart Scholarship Fund. The fund has been set up in conjunction with a website, RememberBreitbart.com, dedicated to showcasing Andrew’s fans and showcase his work. Visitors of the website will be able to donate to the fund, apply for grants and submit their own videos to a library of fans memorializing Breitbart.

Prior to his death, Breitbart attended a National Bloggers Club event, Blog Bash at CPAC. There he was given the “Changing the Narrative” award for his work exposing the Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal. Shortly after, Breitbart had indicated he would join the Board of Directors for the National Bloggers Club.
This wasn’t Breitbart’s first Blog Bash event. He had been a supporter for over 2 years.

“Our team has been hard at work doing our best to make sure the scholarship gets off the ground properly. We have received an overwhelming response. Our first batch of shirts have been shipped, and we look forward to receiving the pictures and videos of those who will be taking part in the Vigil. Andrew played an unparalleled role in this movement. It is an honor and privilege to have a part in seeing his legacy live on,” said Devon Wills, Director of Blog Bash.

In the weeks following his passing bloggers and activists have held memorial events across the country including Washington, DC, New York, Michigan and Texas “to honor his legacy and renew the commitment to fight the good fight” according to Tea Party Express Chairman and National Bloggers Club Advisory Board Member Amy Kremer.(More at link)
http://www.lsnewsgroup.com/2012/03/15/b ... rit-alive/

Here's the link for where I found Ali Akbar first referred to as leader of the Nat'l Bloggers Club (I'd like to abbreviate but feel I'd be falling into their trap by calling them NBC).

https://rally.org/thewillielawsonshow

This blog isn't well organized but find the post listed 28 days ago (plus however long after this post you go looking) where Lawson brags about his own award from the group.

Ali Akbar with Doug Hoffman

Tea Party Message to Morgan Freeman: 'My Name Is Ali Akbar'
By ROBERT STACY MCCAIN on 9.28.11 @ 11:59AM
Whenever I introduce Ali Akbar to friends, I usually feel compelled to add the explanation that he's a Southern Baptist from Texas, which leaves him to relate the backstory: His African-American mother was a college student in Texas when she met and married an Arab exchange student, who subsequently abandoned his wife and son to return to his native country. Given the events of recent years, it is perhaps somewhat ironic that Ali grew up to become a Republican campaign strategist.

Ali's specialty is New Media, which explains how I met him in October 2009 during Doug Hoffman's historic third-party congressional campaign in New York's 23rd District. It was my second trip to the district, and I arrived in the wee hours of Oct. 30 at a rental house in Lake Placid, N.Y., where I had been granted sofa-crashing privileges. The crew in the house were Eric Odom, Steve Foley and Ali -- who were working on the Tea Party news site 73Wire -- and Yates Walker, who had been brought in by Dan Tripp to run the Hoffman campaign's Plattsburgh office.

There was pizza and beer and we talked until nearly dawn, then got up a few hours later for a trip to Plattsburgh, where Hoffman met at a diner with the mayor who endorsed him. As I said, it was "like reporting a hurricane from the eye of the storm." RINO Dede Scozzafava quit the race on Halloween morning, and the next day Ali rode with me for the high-speed 120-mile drive westward along Highway 3 to Watertown, N.Y. By the time we arrived, Dede had endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens. On Election Day, Ali and I repeated our high-speed drive in the opposite direction to arrive at the Hotel Saranac for what we expected to be a victory celebration. It was a tearful moment when Hoffman conceded a narrow defeat, but as he said, it was " worth the fight."(Continued)
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/09/28/te ... nomobile=1

Breitbart had been supporting the club for "over two years!"

And honoring him for the Wiener tweets story. A member of congress sending interested girls pictures of his wiener and pecs. Woodward and Bernstein must be livid with envy.

Creepy stuff. They're certainly going to make the most of Breitbart's corpse. And sadly it looks a little like this bid for legitimacy for righty bloggers has legs. The National Press Club began working on rule changes to include bloggers in '09:
http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/pres ... -bloggers/

Well, frankly, that's probably a few years over due. LA's Press club took them in 5-6 years ago, as did SPJ, PEN and most of the major press clubs.

Why do conservative white guys have this tendency to put their dominant front paw on a minority guy's shoulder whenever a group photo is taken?

I'll bet that the white guy in the photo is right handed.

Dads of all types often to put their hand on their own children's shoulders, but that is mostly done while waiting at supermarket checkout lane, or anywhere else when a long wait is encountered, when it's just too boring to stand still.

Yups, and even then, though acceptable, when dads do that, it's an authority thing. When they do it to a fellow adult, it's a subtle variation on alpha male wolves having pseudo-sexual intercourse with B's and lesser A's.

I kind of thought it might have something to do with doggish pack behavior.

Breitbart's legacy ...

Well, I would say a sufficient mourning period has elapsed ... so ....

I guess that would be deceptive video editing, manipulative entrapment, ridiculous gonzo schemes (like having your minions dressing up like a pimp, or trying to seduce a reporter), destruction of nonprofits that exist to help poor people (ACORN, Planned Parenthood), going after the afflicted rather than the afflicters, tabloid sliming of politicians, and otherwise amplifying the oeuvre started by Matt Sludge, and all of that posing as "journalism"...

See, I concur that some bloggers could be considered journalists ... they have ethics ... just not ones like Deadbart.

Speaking of that douche-bag, he really got me, I was sure he wasnt dead and was baiting the left to attack him, etc.

I bet Akbar had him killed in a secret Mooslim terrorist plot to use his reputation to take over righty media After all, Hoffman would have won NY-23 if it weren't for him! Look at the way he's biting his lip in the photo. He can barely stop himself from yelling "JIHAD!!"

Michelle Malkin Joins Board of National Bloggers Club

Story from the 5th. The headline pretty much says everything to be said. Though at the end of the article the writer includes mention and a picture of her own Nat'l Bloggers Club credentials.