Wishing you all, regardless of political ideology, a happy New Year celebration. Stay safe out there.

This year saw the birth of the tea party movement, the rise of administrative radicalism, and a suppression of information unlike ever before seen. Were it not for the new penny presses, blogs and the investigative citizens who author them, much of this information would be six feet under. When the media goes state and becomes nothing more than an echo chamber for the government, the task of sharing truth falls to the original keepers of liberty: the American people.

These are the most Underreported Stories of 2009:

1. CLIMATEGATE
Al Gore needs something to sustain him and his big pimpin’ life down at his ginormous, energy-sucking mansion in Tennessee. Thus the green market was born, a made-up market chock full of products like carbon credits and other Willy Wonka (but not as cool) ish items for people to buy as a way to feel good about themselves and their contribution to the planet without having to actually do anything. They don’t need a God! They need a Prius!

Celebrities Botoxed within an inch of their lives began popping up in PSA’s about global warming, about how we need to drive inefficient clown cars that run on electricity (which is still produced in coal-powered plants but hey, whatever) to save the planet. Musicians like Sheryl Crow crowed about using just a square of toilet paper to remove waste that has a greater street value than her latest album. All the hubris manifested in regulations handed down from congress upon the automobile industry, the coal industry, et al., until finally! Cap’n Trade appeared in the House.

Cap’n Trade will rape and pillage your energy bills and even boss you around when it comes to remodeling or rehabbing a home. It’s almost like … congress has nothing better to do.

Then … there was Climategate. Russian hackers revealed emails from a British university (whose edicts on global warming are included in the U.N.’s decision-making process on climate) which showed that the scientists basically had no idea what they hell they were talking about but they did know that their original assessment of increased global temperatures was unsupported by data, thus, “hide the decline.”

2. THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT
I feel bad for the staffer that had to check Nancy Pelosi’s pants after over a million tea party protesters marched past her window on September 12, 2009.

The tea party movement sprung from plain old disenchantment, disappointment, and outright anger at being fleeced by a government who mistook their primary job as being “spend cash mon-nay” rather than execute the Constitution. What began as a few groups of several hundred people gathering in the cold back in February morphed into a movement so big that now talk of PACs and third parties (total crap idea, that latter) are commonplace and a Republican candidate has no hope of winning an election without the tea party support.

The most misreported and misunderstood thing about the tea party is its political leanings. The tea party has no political leaning. It stands straight for limited government, low taxes, and liberty for all. Disagreement with those tenets is an accidental admission of socialism on the part of the antagonist. The beauty of the tea party movement is that it is independent and thus a true check and balance of the Republican and Democrat parties. It’s not a pawn of the GOP, thus untouchable in criticism of the Democrats – I view it as an unattached conscience of the Republican party.

The tea parties have been smeared, and while some haven’t helped against the charges of astroturf due to their worship of both God and money, the movement is pure.

A new version of the Minuteman has sprung from this movement: the patriot activist with the Gadsen flag on her shoulder and a video recorder or camera in her hand.

Photo courtesy Rob Brenner.

3. FORT HOOD AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM IN THE U.S.
A guy with a history of terrorist activity (the FBI had been watching him for months) and bent on mass murder screams “ALLAHU AKBAR!” before shooting a pregnant soldier point-blank at a military base and the media would rather cover its genitals like a dog and cower in the corner rather than define the terrorist as a terrorist.

Rather, the media interviewed people who said that shooter Malik Nadal Hasan had “trouble fitting in” and isn’t it so sad how he was treated differently because of his religion? Lightbulb moment: hey! Perhaps he was treated differently because he felt prejudiced against his fellow soldiers whom he viewed as infidels who should die?

Hasan had “soldier of Allah” printed on his business cards, for crying out loud.

Nevermind that he was a participant in Obama’s transition Homeland Security  team. Oops!

4. ACORN and SEIU
Only in America can you offer to help smuggle in underage sex workers as part of your description as a taxpayer-funded “neighborhood organizer” and still get federal dollars after the scandal breaks. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles exposed ACORN for what it truly is: a malignancy that consumes the life out of depressed areas that it never, ever improves, ever, all in the name of making residents dependent upon the teat of government welfare so as to exploit them for votes later”neighborhood organizing.”

Michael Walsh explains the repurcussions of the dynamic duo’s work:

The Senate voted 83-7 in favor of de-funding the controversial group. The House voted 345-75 to cut ACORN’s funding, and more than 20 states have demanded either a full investigation of ACORN or that they lose their funding. The IRS also ended up cutting their connections to the group.

O’Keefe and Giles made a mockery of the media who retaliated by refusing to cover the story, further hammering the last nail into their own coffin.

Despite all of this, Big Government wrote how after this egregious corruption, Democrats like Roland Burris still found a way to push for continued ACORN funding by slipping a provision requiring such in Harry Reid’s senate fauxcare bill.

SEIU is shares #4 with SCORN (typo and it stays) after several of its purple people beaters attacked Kenneth Gladney (a black street vendor who I’d previously seen selling pro-Obama buttons at Obama’s Arnold, MO townhall) at Russ Carnahan’s townhall in Mehlville, Missouri after profiling him and assuming him to be a black conservative. One of thecountry’s most shocking and underreported race-provoked attacks grew worse when his brother, Keith Gladney, spoke outin his brother’s defense and is said to have been canned from his job two days before Christmas as a result.

At the time of this writing neither Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or President Obama have offered to arrange a beer summit between Kenneth Gladney and Andy Stern.

5. HCR COVER-UP
The majority of the country opposes Harry Reid’s Senate bill but nevertheless, Reid bribed it through. Government media served as a mouthpiece for the administration and its policy on fauxcare, giving the President multiple hours of free network prime-time hours to peddle his snake oil on the airwaves.

The Senate vote marks the turning point in our government where those elected to represent the constituency failed to do the jobs for which they were placed in office. It was a vote of tyranny, not of representation.

6. NEA
The White House is attempting to mimic Leni Riefenstahl by rounding up those in the arts and entertainment industry and using them as the vehicles through which President Obama can peddle his agenda, I wrote back in September. Big Government combed over this scandal which went completely ignored by the media. Union baby Buffy Wicks, head of the Office of Public Engagement and Serve.gov, the NEA, and others joined a variety of artists and promoters on a conference call, the goal of which was to figure out how to create propaganda to support Obama’s policies.

Big Government Editor Mike Flynn expounded further on the scandal and reminded readers how Wicks used the Serve.gov portal as a way to funnel volunteers to ACORN and other pro-Obama organizations, at taxpayer expense.

Jinkies! Looks like artists are going to have to work harder and nab more photos that other people have taken so that they can do cheesy, tri-color alterations to them that pass as pretentious, overrated and quasi-Photoshop Level 1 “art” to the people whose discernment went off the rails.

7. DHS, NAPOLITANO TARGET DISSENT
While the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano were busy marking down the names of veterans, grandmas, and college kids who waved the military-authorized Gadsen Flag or questioned Obama’s policies in public as “possible domestic terrorists,” real terrorists were already in our country, shooting up our military bases and attempting to detonate planes. Michael Savage, himself the target of the British government based upon his dissent, filed suit against Napolitano in April over DHS’s “right wing extremist” report. The charges stated:

“It is a civil rights action brought under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, challenging the policy, practice, and custom of the United States Government that targets for disfavored treatment those individuals and groups that are considered to be ‘rightwing extremists.”

Under the Obama administration, the government has brazenly trained its eye on those who respectfully question the government. Liberals who complained over the Patriot Act demonstrated their devotion to party over liberty by going silent as their American brethren were targeting for doing no more (less, actually) than they the liberals did under Bush.

7. KEVIN JENNINGS – FISTGATE
It wouldn’t be right if our current administration broke tradition with nominating completely inept radicals to high positions of power (gotta pay off those political favors!) and lucky for you betting types, that streak wasn’t broken with Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.

Ah yes, the Three Rs and One F of education: Readin, Ritin’ and ‘Rithmetic. Oh, and Fisting. The required credentials for such a post:

Jennings was appointed to the position largely because of his longtime record of working to end bullying and discrimination in schools. In 1990, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which now has over 40 chapters at schools nationwide. He has also published six books on gay rights and education, including one that describes his own experiences as a closeted gay student.

Behold, the comedy gold:

“Jennings was obviously chosen for this job because of the safe schools aspect… defining ’safe schools’ narrowly in terms of ’safe for homosexuality’,” Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told FOXNews.com.

“But at least half of the job involves creating drug-free schools, and we’ve not been offered any evidence about what qualifications Jennings has for promoting drug-free schools.”

Jennings’ detractors note that he made four references to his personal drug abuse in his 2007 autobiography, “Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son: A Memoir.” On page 103, discussing his high school years in Hawaii in the early 1980s, Jennings wrote:

“I got stoned more often and went out to the beach at Bellows, overlooking Honolulu Harbor and the lights of the city, to drink with my buddies on Friday and Saturday nights, spending hours watching the planes take off and land at the airport, which is actually quite fascinating when you are drunk and stoned.”

Er … oops? Nobody’s perfect, but it just seems practical to maybe not glorify drug use in your book while trying to get a job which requires you to keep schools and kids drug free. Too obvious?

Oh, but then came the revelations as to what GLSEN’s recommended reading actually included and Katy-bar-the-door. It was discovered that at a GLSEN conference (in conjunction with the MA Department of Education no less) elementary school kids were taught how to engage in sex acts.

Gateway Pundit reported mercilessly – as I’d hoped that anyone who cared about the well-being of our schoolchildren would do – about the “recommended reading” list Jennings chose for GLSEN and young schoolchildren which included graphic descriptions of rest-room sex and more.

State media was silent and liberal sites, such as Media Matters, defended Jennings.

8. VAN JONES
Van Jones signed his political death certificate when he signed a 9/11 truther petition stating that he believed that our own government took down the Twin Towers and not terrorists, the petition brought to light by Gateway Pundit. Of course, under an administration that refuses to even use the language because it may hurt the feelings of suicide bombers and be judged as “divisive,” one can see how Jones might not understand that the terrorists are actually our enemies.

The radical environmental czar (a one-time STORM participant, a Marxist organization) and admitted communist in the Obama administration was forced to resign, further tainting the judgement of the administration, who later admitted to not having vetted Jones well enough.

The disparity between the eerie silence from state media and the raucous exclamations from the blogosphere was expected but sad nonetheless.

9. OBAMA’S LACK OF SUCCESS
Don’t expect to see much media criticism – even if it’s objective and deserved – of our infant Messiah president. The media has a lot invested into him and they unofficially hung the last shred of their validity on his success. It’s not to say that conservatives don’t want a successful president; we define success differently than liberals. Conservatives want the United States to be successful in foreign relations, we want a thriving economy, success in maintaining individual liberty, all the good stuff of which America is made. Conservatives don’t want to see plans to nationalize and thereby socialize the private sector because the very irony of such economic strategy is that it hasn’t been successful in multitude of countries in which it’s been implemented.

Conservatives aren’t the only ones questioning Obama’s trajectory; he’s been sliding in the polls since spring; the majority of Americans disapprove of his march on health care reform; yet the media downplays all of this because they’ve gambled it all on the success of this political neophyte who quit his job as a senator so he could hightail it to Washington. (What was that the left said about quitters?)

The media’s complicity in shoring up a failing president has given an excuse for the current congressional body to repeatedly ignore the will of the people. Blogs are the new penny press; corporate media is dead.

TWO LOCAL STORIES that I’d be remiss not to mention:

1. REP. RUSS CARNAHAN’S BROTHER GIVEN $90 MILLION IN STIMULUS FUNDS
Aside from being Nancy Pelosi’s rubber stamp, it would seem that Carnahan had another motive in voting for an unpopular bill such as cap-and-trade that would be disastrous for a coal state like Missouri, which gets 80% of its energy from the more-efficient-and-less-expensive-than-solar-or-wind coal plants. Tom Carnahan got $90 million dollars of your cash mon-nay to construct his Lego wind farm up in northern Illinois, which he couldn’t have done without massive federal funding. The benefits to Russ Carnahan’s district: 0.

2. Jay Nixon Ozark E. Coligate
Jay Nixon and his administration neglect to inform citizens that E. Coli results in the lake were 19 times higher than state standard. Takeaway: The tests were “apparently communicated to the communication shop, not to the policy shop,” Nixon said.