Andrew Breitbart has taken alleged "SEIU thug victim" Kenneth Gladney under his wing, because it's very difficult to be a victim without someone to pimp said victimhood for political points, after all. Kenneth Gladney, as you might recall, is the man who was handing out flags at a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting on August 6, 2009 in Missouri when he claims to have been 'attacked' by a large man wearing a SEIU t-shirt. The video above was shot at the scene (actually, just after the 'assault'), and Dave has a great post pulling apart the fake narrative here.

This case is about to come to trial (at Mr. Gladney's insistence), which gives Breitbart all the more reason to pimp Gladney and his little "rescue fund" at Bank of America. Before you reach for your checkbook, some things to consider:

• Gladney's story stinks to high heaven. Here is the original police report, posted by Breitbart himself. Gladney alleges that Elson McCowan leaned over his flag table, provoked a confrontation, and then punched him in the face! Just like that. Punched him in the face. So I looked at the police report to see if he received medical treatment, because being punched in the face can be really, really bad. Black eye, broken nose, all that. And you can see from the video that Elston McCowan is a big guy. Linebacker big.

  Here's an image from the detective's report, written right after the incident occurred:

  

  Wow. So this is news. A punch to the face causes elbow pain. Huh. Who knew?

• Since August 6th, Gladney's pain has moved from his face to his back. In his most recent appeal for money, his brother writes on his behalf (because it wouldn't do for a crime victim about to testify in court to do his own shaking down):
  

  Kenneth Gladney is not doing well at all. He has found out that he has three bulging disc in his back and neck and may need surgery. He has back pain all the time and has to have medication to help the pain subside. Since the incident on August 6th of last year when he was beat up by SEIU thugs while selling flags and buttons at a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting, Kenneth has had nothing but problem after problem with his health and his financial situation. The family is trying to help him as much as we possibly can, but we just can’t afford the cost of his meds and doctors visits. This is why we need your help.

  Wow. Punch a guy in the face, he has no visible bruises or evidence that he was punched by a great big guy, but long after the fact, he has 3 bulging discs and the need for surgery. This is terrible. No wonder he needs money.

• Less-than-credible witnesses? Witnesses #1 and #2 in the police report corroborate each others' stories and Gladney's. Let's meet them, up close and personal. They are Harris and Sandra Himes. Harris Himes is pastor of the Big Sky Christian Center in Montana. Sandra is his wife. The Himeses are well-known agitators and activists associated with the Montana Family Coalition, formerly known as the Montana Christian Coalition. Yup, no bias there. Besides...what were Montana activists doing at a Missouri town hall meeting? It isn't possible they were disrupting democracy, is it?
• First lawyer David Brown was also Gladney's employer, fellow flag and pin hawker. He sort of forgot to disclose his relationship when he appeared with wheelchair-bound Kenneth Gladney on Fox and Friends the following day. Oh, and Brown is also one of the witnesses interviewed in the police report. All the time Fox and Friends (and Breitbart) are pimping this guy and whining about SEIU thugs, hate crimes, and all manner of terrible things, that relationship is never disclosed. Not once.

  

  In fact, Brown and Gladney traveled out here to LA to sell flags at Michael Jackson's funeral the month before this incident. Quite the pair, they are. They made a little bit of money in December when the Tea Party Express folks wrote a check for $460 or so to buy up some flags and pins for their next tour. I'm surprised they didn't invite Gladney along for the ride on TPE III.

• Elston McCowan is the true victim. The only person with a real injury from their encounter was Rev. Elston McCowan, who dislocated his shoulder. Here's the hospital report confirming it.

This is quite similar to my own experience back in September, where nearly 200 of us were attending a peaceful vigil for health care reform when violence broke out after one of the tea party gang (Bill Rice), punched a guy out twice, knocked him in the street, and then got all bent out of shape when his fist "happened to land in the other guy's mouth" and his finger was bitten off.

In the meantime, Andrew Breitbart continues to pimp this guy on BigGovernment.com as if Gladney and his brother are are some kind of victim or something. They're running a conservative con, and if anyone knows about cons, it's Breitbart, after all.

You can read the SEIU's version of Gladney's "victimhood" here.

Update: The document images I used in this post were uploaded by the St. Louis Activist Hub. I also just finished reading through an excellent post on , and have new appreciation for the work and detail they've put into researching this case. I certainly hope their evidence is used to discredit this story. It's obvious they've taken much time to really work out all of the details. Their take on how things played out is slightly different from mine, but leads to the same conclusion. I also recommend reading their entire case against Gladney.

The only mainstream media coverage I saw of the "Showdown on Wall Street" Thursday was on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show. Possibly everyone else was off covering a gathering of a dozen teabaggers, and could not spare the time to listen to working Americans:

More than 5,000 union members and others delivered a crisp message with their march from City Hall to the Bowling Green Bull. In contrast to recent protests on the right, the event was noticeably lacking in loaded and ahistorical symbols like Gadsen flags, and refrained from vilifying individuals in favor of calling out institutions. Of hundreds of signs hoisted, only one was branded with the Obama logo.

The signs were non-partisan and dealt with real problems -- namely, this country's rogue, unregulated finance sector. There was only one puppet, a fanged vampire squid meant to symbolize Goldman Sachs. The banners declared "Wall Street: Never Again" and "Less Audis, More Audits." Almost to a one, they echoed the clear policy demands of the day: regulatory reform, new taxes on banks and speculators, and a jobs bill.

The afternoon began with direct action protests in the lobbies of Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase. Next came a series of speakers -- teachers, students, workers -- that put New York City faces on the nationwide hard times. Representing hundreds of labor, religious and community groups, they demanded Wall Street do its part to fix the mess it created. They railed against budget cuts in city housing, health and education, overseen by the city's billionaire mayor who opposes a financial transaction tax.

"The result of these cuts will be more homelessness, more joblessness and more hunger," said Sean Banks, a high school teacher in Brooklyn. The planned cuts will also result in bigger class sizes. Currently the New York state House and Senate are considering bills that would see New York lay off between 4,000 and 8,500 teachers.

Before leading the march to the Bowling Green Bull, the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka issued a direct three-part challenge to the banks: stop fighting reform and call off the lobbyists; stop speculating and start lending; and "take responsibility for the mess you made."

The demands resonated with a crowd thick with the unemployed and city workers facing layoffs in their departments and agencies. "These bankers have no shame," said Marie Mitchell, a city clerical worker. "I saw the Goldman Sachs guys on TV the other day, still refusing to apologize for anything. They should be sent to jail, like Madoff."

Thanks to John Cole for the comedy gold of yesterday. The folks at Red State noticed that convention-going Democrats didn't walk around waving their cheap flags on sticks all the time like good nationalist zealots Republicans do. So they set out to find all those tens of thousands of flags that had been evident in pictures of the hall but not upon the persons of Democratic attendees having lunch, shopping at the mall or going to the restroom.

Did they ask the convention organizers where the flags had gone - maybe for re-use at Invesco Field last night where there were also tens of thousands of the little beauties in evidence? No. Did they look under seats where they might have been stashed for safekeeping? No. Did they... you know, this one seemed a no-brainer for any intrepid investigator to me ... did they ask the delegates and attendees themselves? No.

They followed their own inner voices, like Bush looking for WMD in the wilderness, and headed straight for the trash.

There they found - ZOMG! - a dozen or less of those abused tens of thousands of flags, all broken and stuff from wildly being waved, in an entire dumpster of trashbags. Which must surely prove that Obama hate America. Or something.

And Obama would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the uppitty zealot patriot fence, the GOP knows how to wave a flag with style.

This is the concept for their convention hall:

Yes, that's a massive video screen. I can't figure out whether they want to show Obama how to stage a real Reichstag Nuremberg Rally (ok, but you got the gist) or intentionally wanted a look reminiscent of the Norsefire Party out of V for Vendetta.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

With any luck, the attention that Dan Abrams has committed to bring to the Don Siegelman case will manifest itself into pressure on the Alabama State Attorney General to move towards examining this miscarriage of justice. On last night's show, Abrams spoke with former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, who was interviewed for the 60 Minutes piece and is one of the 52 current and former Attorneys General who have signed a letter raising concerns of politicization in this case. Woods again pointed out some of the red flags that have that bipartisan group calling for a special investigation:

I think our main point is there’s a million red flags on this case. And that doesn’t necessarily mean it will all come to something, but it means there’s just too much out there for it not to be investigated. For context, you should remember that the governor, when he ran for re-election, went to bed having been declared by everybody the winner, he was awakened a few hours later and said, “oh, um, you know, there was some…a foul up in a rural county and uh some votes were switched, so now you lost.”

Now we flash forward a few years, he’s going to run to try to get back into office and they bring charges against him and they go to trial. Pretty big deal, charge a former governor who is getting ready to run again. And the prosecutor gives his opening argument and the judge dismisses the case after the opening argument. That just doesn’t happen. That’s how bad that case was, and they still don’t give up. So they go after him again, and have now a different prosecutor, as you mentioned, the wife of one of the people who have been working for years politically against him and then I think Mr. Kilborn has said that they were all assured that nothing was going to come of it, that the charges were no good. All of the sudden there’s a top to bottom review and charges are brought.

If you would like to send Siegelman your support, his address is here. If you'd like to call for an investigation, you can contact the Alabama State Attorney General's office here. Larissa Alexandrovna has much, much more...

In honor of all those who have been killed, whose lives have been destroyed in this terrible war of choice, we have been working hard on a short film that will not let that horrific day go unnoticed.

Tony Snow thinks Mark Foley's behavior is bad, but hey---they were just some naughty emails right?. Shame on Foley and send him to the corner for a time out. He gets pretty testy with Soledad and blames her for trying to start a fight. Watch out Tony, she's pretty tough/

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

O’BRIEN: I would assume everybody would want to know, including the president. I mean, we’re not talking about any old person. We’re talking about the leadership of the Republicans in Congress. Why would he not hear something that’s disturbing, or his office — over-friendly — when I see that word as a parent — and I think any parent would say, Whoa, over-friendly? Any communication between a 16-year-old and a congressman, why doesn’t that raise red flags — major, massive red flags?

SNOW: Yes, look, I hate to tell you, but it’s not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. And there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mails. You know, look, again, I reiterate my point. I think it’s important to protect these kids and make sure that they have a good experience. And look, like you (inaudible) want to find out what happened. But before we prosecute, let’s figure out what all the facts are. That’s probably the most important thing to do is to be fair to all parties.

This is a joke right? Our government is having a debate about flag burning when nobody burns flags.

Dana Milbank:

"The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

The number has increased to four, from three. The naive among us may have trouble appreciating how four flag-burning episodes would constitute a constitutional crisis. But the men and women of the Senate, ever alert to emerging threats, are on the case...read on "

Flags
Since there has been a lot of talk about George Allen's fondness for the confederate flag. I acquired this video that Ryan Lizza writes about.
"It's hard to make out, because the video is fuzzy. The copy I obtained was originally recorded off a television using VHS in 1993 and then transferred to a second tape, further degrading the quality. But, once you know what it is, it makes sense. It sits folded on a bookcase of trophies and bric-a-brac behind George Allen, who is seated at a desk in his home office.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

"It's right there next to the fax machine. You can see the red field. You can make out the diagonal blue bar. And you can see what looks like a white star. It is the Confederate flag, and it appears in the very first ad that Allen broadcast in 1993, when he ran for governor..."

Can you guys make it out?

Update: Allen's ad-maker confirmed toTNR that the confederate flag is there, but denies it was done on purpose.

Just how many flags has anyone actually, you know- burned?

Breaking: Hollywood High School lockdown

This is an email from a teacher in Hollywood High:

"We have been sitting in class for the last hour and a half in full lockdown. I was able to go to the restroom and heard the thousands of marching teens from LA High converging on Hollywood and Highland. The din was unbelievable! The walkouts are spreading throughout all of Los Angeles, including the valley. We are fine here, but this is expected to go on for several more days. It is all unorganized, impromptu and is getting a life of it's own. Absolutely amazing!

CNN is reporting that:

"Tens of thousands of students walked out of school in California and other states Monday, waving flags and chanting slogans in a second week of protests against legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants...read on