Breitbart Rule 8: Don't pretend to know more than you do

After giving us a few tips on owning the narrative, Andrew Breitbart also gave us a few tips on how to keep the narrative. Here is Rule 8 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

8.) Don't pretend to know more than you do: This one trips up conservatives all the time. We want to argue policy because when we know policy, there's no way they can beat us, because all they have is their lexicon of name-calling and societal expulsion. We have reason on our side.

But just because we have reason on our side doesn't mean that everyone is quipped to be Charles Krauthammer or Michael Barone, policy wonks who can pull facts from the Office of Management and Budget out of every orifice. Most of us aren't experts on the latest budget package or stem-cell line regulation, but that doesn't mean we're powerless - it means we get to play Socrates, asking pointed questions rather than citing facts we may not be sure of.

One of the low points of my media life was getting a call after the nomination of John Roberts for the United States Supreme Court. A producer from CNN's now-cancelled Aaron Brown Show asked me to go on TV and discuss the wisdom of President Bush's choice. I remember taking a Civil Liberties course at Tulane in summer school. As I recall there was a case called Mapp v. Ohio. That was the extent of my then-qualifications to pontificate on such legal matters. I am not sure what demoralized me more: that I was asked to do so by a leading cable news network, or that I readily accepted. Had Wikipedia not been invented, I would have had nothing to say. But I did, and I survived. My takeaway from the revealing moment about the low standards for TV punditry was that if I valued my career, I would only accept media invites where I could dictate the terms of engagement (i.e., bring my own stories, my own perspectives, etc.) or where I could change the subject to war footing.

By avoiding talking about that which I do not know, perhaps I limit my ability to appear on more shows. But I definitely limit my ability to screw up.

Put another way: don't be the guy with a knife at a gunfight. It rarely ends well.

Now this is VERY important in the arena of social media as we look at Facebook, Twitter, and the various message boards and sites that we visit. There are many people out there who claim that they know it all and that their way is the best, but is it really? Now I will get more into that in next week’s editorial but one thing I will say about it is that we might not know everything, but we need to not pretend or give others the false impression that we do.

This is where research comes in. Many out there do not take the time to go into the research and actually back up what they talk about with facts or they do but get it all jumbled up. We need to do our research every time we find an idea or a narrative that people are putting out as false and then disprove it with what we had researched. Then and only then can we beat the progressives and the Alinskyites at their own game.

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Rundown for April 27, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they go through the news of the week. This week they will be talking about the Boston Bomber getting Mirandized, the vindication of Andrew Breitbart, as well as Rule 8 in Andrew’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries, and the return of Crossfire (this time with Stephanie Cutter on the left and Newt Gingrich on the right) on CNN. All that and much more including your calls and Schmuck of the Week.

Join us for Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which is located at http://www.ownthenarrrative.com/live) 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep as well as a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but unable to be in the chatroom, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. This is one show which is stacked full of information that you do not want to miss.

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Breitbart Rule 7: Engage in the social arena

One of the best things I like about Andrew Breitbart in the short time I had followed him on Twitter prior to his untimely death is how engaged he was on Twitter. And with that in mind, he made Twitter (and indeed Social Media as a whole) one of the key points and rules in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

7.) Engage in the social arena: My first instinct about Facebook was my first instinct about Twitter was my first instinct about MySpace. I was right about MySpace - it sucks. I was definitely wrong about Facebook and Twitter.

Using my "ubiquity" rule, the citizen journalist isn't always reporting in the ledes, headlines, and paragraphs form. Sometimes a tweet or a re-tweet can grant an idea more legs. Sometimes a status update can lead to the mother lode. Yes, there are slick advisers falsely promising a social networking Gold Rush, but well-socially-networked person can soon carry more weight than a household-name columnist at your local news daily.

Building a movement used to take time, but now it can be done in a few hours with with the right connections and the right posts on a few websites. Take, for example, flash mobs. These are gatherings spawned over the Internet on hours' notice, and they gather thousands of people, whether it's for snowball fights or for rioting in the streets of Philadelphia.

The Tea Parties have used the power of social media to get their message out there in a new and incredible way. There are no leaders to the Tea Party, which is a great thing, and there's no formal program to the Tea Party - it's truly a party of the people, and originally, it was based on conservative people partying. If any liberal attended a Tea Party event, they'd be shocked to see that it isn't a KKK rally; it's a social gathering of thousands of like-minded people of all races and ages, people looking for others who believe in the same values.

It's also particularly true in Hollywood, where socializing is the basis of business. That's why I've tried to put people in Hollywood together, and it's already spawning actual creative projects. Seek out other people and build an army.

If you think on it, this rule is a culmination of the three prior rules. After all, Andrew’s fourth rule was about not letting the Complex use their PC lexicon to characterize you and shape the narrative, which is what the Left has been known to do on Social Media. His fifth rule was about us controlling our own story and not letting the Complex do it, which is all about owning the narrative. And to wrap up the trifecta, his sixth rule was all about ubiquity being the key to keeping the narrative. Now, what is one way to do all of this? The best way I can think of is by using the power of Social Media to defeat the Left and own and keep the narrative.

On today’s show, I will be having a panel on this very topic. On it will be the following:

• John LaRosa – Partner of Four Tier Strategies, LLC ( http://www.fourtierstrategies.com/)
• Stephen Maloney - Admin of a few Marco Rubio groups, former Romney supporter, Social Media advocate
• Miryam Shabak - Admin of the Facebook Group Help GOP Master New Media 4 Victory
• Diane Sori - Purveyor of The Patriot Factor (http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/)

If you want to engage the conversation, there are three ways you can do so:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Contact OTNNetwork on Skype
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and  #OTNN 

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Rundown for April 20, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Daniel Richardson (filling in as producer for Justin Kendall) as they present a very special show. Today they will delve into how Social Media and how conservatives can use it to bolster victory in 2014 and then in 2016. This will be a show panel, and the panelists include John LaRosa of FourTier Strategies, LLC, Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor who has had problems with Facebook, Stephen Maloney who is a Social Media advocate as well as the Administrator of a few Marco Rubio groups on Facebook, and Miryam Shabak who is the Admin of Help GOP Master New Media 4 Victory group on Facebook.

Join us for Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which is located at http://www.ownthenarrrative.com/live) 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep as well as a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but unable to be in the chatroom, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell an Independent The battle for 2014 and 2016 is crucial, and it starts with who controls Social Media

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Breitbart Rule 6: Ubiquity is key

It is one thing to own the narrative. It is another to KEEP the narrative going. And for that you might need a little help. Hence, Rule 6 in Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

6.) Ubiquity is key: As a capitalist and as a web publisher, pageviews are a desired commodity. But when playing for political or cultural keeps, impact matters most. And, when ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBC and the dailies are working against you and ignoring you, ubiquity is a key weapon That means developing relationships with like-minded allies or even enemies and news junkies and allowing them to share in the good fortune of a good scoop.

While the crux of a story can be weaponized and launched on one of my websites, there are often peripheral angles that can be developed elsewhere with a separate but related media life of their own. For instance, the acorn story was unbelievably complex. A key component of exposing the scandal was a detailed analysis of ACORN's structure and its past scandals. I knew legal minds were needed to weigh in on these aspects. Patrick Frey, who runs the indispensable Patterico website, created a parallel line of attack, not just against ACORN, but against its myriad defenders, who lied and misdirected to try to kill the story. The ACORN story couldn't have been the success it was without others - talk radio and alternative news outlets that were invested in the story and could deliver scoops of their own. So I planted scoops with what business school types would call my "competitors," and I watched the story explode, my pageviews would go through the roof, and my brand flourish. Sometimes the best ideas are counterintuitive.

I love living in Los Angeles and not DC, because in DC there are too many fighting over too little ground for their own fifteen minutes. The scarcity mentality is strangling the growth of the conservative movement. From outside DC, I can see that ubiquity is about growing the pie for everyone, spreading the stories, the channels of distribution, the resources around so that the entire movement can benefit, because our chunk of the public square gets bigger and bigger each time we break something huge.

While we all have different viewpoints or perspectives as to what conservatism is, one thing to remember is that we are all in the same fight. That is what the Left does, and they succeed by coming together for a common purpose. The problem is that conservatives are so divided that it gives the Left a chance to gain the edge on the narrative. Note what Andrew had said: “developing relationships with like-minded allies or even enemies and news junkies and allowing them to share in the good fortune of a good scoop.” That means spread it around. If you find something newsworthy, it does not help to keep it to yourself. Rather, post it on your social media tools and get the word out there. In next week’s editorial I will go more into how to engage in social media as Andrew has it as his Rule 7, but developing relationships with like-minded people who are also news junkies can allow them to share in the fortune of a good scoop is key.

One of my good friends who likes to share in the fortune of a good story is Patricia Baber, who used to be my co-host on this very show. She is one who hunts down stories on relatively unknown sites and put them out on Twitter, then it gets picked up by her followers and spreads to others. I even do the same thing when I do my news aggregates on my rant blog. But on that I do not take all the credit for it but rather give credit to Robert Stacy McCain of The Other McCain who has a blog entry entitled "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog.” In fact, Stacy has Rule 2 which he calls the “Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around" where he says:

Reciprocal linkage is the essential lubricant that makes the blogosphere purr with contentment. If somebody's throwing you traffic, you should either (a) give them a link-back update, or at a minimum (b) keep them in mind for future linkage. Because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a kharmic unbalance in the 'sphere, where you're always taking and never giving.

The Other McCain has a whole plethora of articles and the like to link to on your own blogs and also on Social Media outlets. I know I usually do it, but the past couple weeks I had slacked off because of certain things away from the computer. However, I am making a concerted effort to go back to doing it. The key is, will you be ubiquitous or will you be a loner in this war?

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Rundown for April 13, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Daniel Richardson (filling in as producer for Justin Kendall) as they review the week in news. Today they will Melissa Harris-Perry’s comment about the kids belonging to the community, as well as Obama releasing his budget which many say is a 2014 election ploy. Also, Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican Minority Leader from Kentucky) had his office wiretapped and a Democrat had implicated a progressive activist group behind it. All that and much more including your calls and Schmuck of the Week.

Join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom at http://www.ownthenarrative.com 30 minutes early going over some last-minute show prep and also answering any questions on the show. If you want to engage the conversation, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but unable to access the chatroom, you can use the hashtag #RedRightBlue and #OTNN and I will read your tweets on the air.

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. With all that happened this week, you know I am going to go off on a major rant that you do not want to miss.

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Rule 5: Control your own story – don’t let the Complex do it

Just as Andrew Breitbart did not let the Complex use its PC Lexicon to control him and shape the narrative, he then went one step further and did not let the Complex control whatever story he had. I present to you, Rule 5 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

5.) Control your own story - don't let the Complex do it: A one-and-done story isn't worth anything. One fact can be posted on the Internet and flushed down the memory hole faster than anyone can imagine. How many incredible pieces of journalistic revelation have been lost because they weren't properly presented to the public?

Serialization is good. Van Jones was taken down by Glenn Beck because Beck had the goods - and because he revealed them piece by piece. He got Jones and his defenders to come out of the closet and attack him. Then he calmly laid his cards on the table, one by one.

It's the same strategy I saw Arianna pursue during the Larry Lawrence scandal. People came out of the woodwork to attack her as a scurrilous human being slandering a dead war hero. And she smiled and let them come at her. Then she put her evidence into the public eye bit by bit, keeping the story alive. Feeding the media is like training a dog - you can't throw an entire steak to a dog to train it to sit. You have to give it little bits of steak over and over and over again until it learns its lesson. That's what Arianna did.

It's the same thing Drudge did with Lewinsky. He broke the story in pieces rather than in a long essay laying out all the facts, and he didn't let the media's cries for him to reveal all his information control his decision-making process. Instead, he controlled the media.

The important thing to remember here is that the media are like a leech hanging on the back of the news makers, and the news makers have every right and ability to feed that leech little by little instead of letting it suck them dry all at once. Keep your story alive by planning its release down to the minutest level.

The main thing to remember is this: we need to OWN THE NARRATIVE at every single opportunity. I am of the belief that owning the narrative is not just a fancy saying or something that can be focused on for an hour or so a day or even a week. Rather, owning the narrative is a way of life, one that lives with us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Owning the narrative has been a part of my life ever since Andrew died, and it will remain in me until I take that eternal celestial dirt nap.

During the 2012 election I had dealt with the third party supporters, as I had mentioned last week, and every time they said something which mentioned Romney and Obama being the same I just calmly said they are not and showed them links a little at a time. In fact, one person even called me Rick “The Narrative” Bulow because when he would ask me what I am doing, I told him that I am calmly owning the narrative.

When Marco Rubio was mentioned on Romney’s VP short list and the birthers came out of the woodwork saying he is not eligible, I had calmly said that he is, and debunked their articles a little at a time with certain links of my own. And in fact just recently I had seen a thread on a site which mentioned a paper from the Congressional Research Service on natural born citizenship and presidential eligibility. Now what is funny about it is that I had brought up that paper in another thread on the same site and got bashed for it. So I had waded in and mentioned a couple of things about eligibility, and wound up getting banned from the entire site. Am I upset about it? Yes I am; however, one thing I did not do when I commented was let them own and control the narrative. The only way the Complex can own and control the narrative after being confronted with facts is to shut you up. And online, apparently that means banning someone from sites.

If we want to win in 2014 and then in 2016, we have to own the narrative, whatever it may be, at all costs. Remember that owning the narrative is not just a fancy saying but a way of life.

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Rundown for April 6, 2013

Join Rick Bulow as he goes through the week in news. Today he will be discussing the failure of the border with Mexico. Even Ed Henry got into it with White House Spokesman Jay Carney during a press conference. There is also the ongoing battle between America and Common Core/CSCOPE. This time, it is with homeschooling. Also, with WrestleMania 29 just under 36 hours away, he will give his picks on the matches, specifically focusing on the Heavyweight Championship between champion Alberto Del Rio and challenger Jack Swagger since Swagger is proclaiming that if he wins there will be a “new” America. All this and more including your calls and the ever popular “Schmuck of the Week” coming up today.

Join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom at http://www.ownthenarrative.com 30 minutes early going over some last-minute show prep and also answering any questions on the show. If you want to engage the conversation, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but unable to access the chatroom, you can use the hashtag #RedRightBlue and #OTNN and I will read your tweets on the air.

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. Every second on Red, Right, and Blue is intriguing because you just never know what I will say or do next.

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Breitbart Rule 4: Don't let the Complex use its PC lexicon to characterize you and shape the narrative

Andrew Breitbart was a lightning rod to the left, and he reveled in it so much that he made it Rule 4 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries:

4.) Don't let the Complex use its PC lexicon to characterize you and shape the narrative: If you've got a big story, the Complex will do what it always dies: attack you personally using the PC lexicon. You immediately become a racist, sexist, homophobic, jingoistic nativist. Don't let them do it. The fact is this: if you refuse to buy into their lexicon, if you refuse to back down in the face of those intimidation tactics, they can't harm you. You're Neo in the hallway with Agent Smith after he figures out that the Complex is a sham - the spoon isn't bending, he's bending. Once it hits him that he's not bound by the rules of the game, he can literally stop bullets. You can stop their bullets because their bullets aren't real.
Leftist assassins like Max Blumenthal, a one-trick hit man, have tried to label me and many of my allies as racists. I don't let them get away with it. I don't just call them out. I make sure that my righteous indignation registers on the Richter scale. I don't pull out my record on civil rights or my black friends. I simply point out that what they're doing is pure Alinsky and that it has no basis in fact or reality, and that they're showing themselves to be racists in their own right by citing race every time they meet someone with whom they disagree.
While I was at the 2010 CPAC, I was confronted by Daryle Jenkins of the One People's Project based on my defense of James O'Keefe - he had been slandered online as a racist by Blumenthal because he had attended a conference at the Georgetown Law Center that included racist Jared Taylor, John Derbyshire of NATIONAL REVIEW (who ripped into Taylor for his racism during the forum), and African-American conservative Kevin Martin. At the event, O'Keefe sided with Derbyshire and Martin against Taylor.
Anyway, here's how the incident went down:

Andrew Breitbart v. Daryle Jenkins at CPAC 2010

Breitbart: Max Blumenthal is a political hit man. What he does is he rapes the reputation of people mercilessly. He makes scurrilous, unsupportable accusations against people and he smears them using the political correctness he learned so well in the post-modern academy and the politics of personal destruction he learned firsthand from his father, Sid "Vicious" Blumenthal. He destroys people. He isolates threats to the reign of the far left and the reign of his father's cabal of Clinton/Podesta and the organized left. He's a vicious guy. He falsely slandered James O'Keefe as a racist, we disproved it -
Jenkins: How did you disprove it, sir?
Breitbart: I'm being interviewed right here.
Jenkins: I'm the one who put that story out there first.
Breitbart: Well, then, you suck.
Jenkins: You're lying. You're lying ... He was at that white supremacist forum.
Breitbart: It wasn't a white supremacist forum.
Jenkins: Yes it was!
Breitbart: Then why was Kevin Martin there?

At this point, Jenkins started pointing his finger inches from my face and moving his face close to mine. It then devolved into a series of accusations regarding details of the event. Finally, Jenkins got to his point:

Breitbart: Are you accusing me of being a white supremacist?
Jenkins: I'm accusing you of being a racist, yes I am.
Breitbart: Okay, have a nice day, buddy. Will somebody please take this guy out of here? You punk.

That was it. Jenkins walked away.
The key to the conversation was that I didn't start defending myself against his baseless charge of racism. I dismissed it out of hand as ridiculous because it was ridiculous. He was a punk for leveling that kind of charge without any basis whatsoever. I don't let my enemies characterize me without any evidence, and you shouldn't let them characterize you. Name-calling is their best strategy, and if you don't lend it credence, and instead force them to back up their charges with specifics, you win. Revel in the name calling - it means you've got them reduced to their lowest, basest tactic, and the one that carries the least weight if you refuse to abide by their definition of you.

There had been many times I was called racist or un-American for posting articles against Obama. The reason (according to those who called me racist) is because I do not like Obama because he is black. As Martin Luther King Jr. said during his famous “I have a Dream” speech, there should be a day when people are judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character. And judging on Obama’s past, it is clear that the content of his character is bad for America. However, many people only see skin color and as such they do not see the content of the character.
Currently I am battling many who say Marco Rubio (and now even Ted Cruz) are not eligible for president because they are not a natural-born citizen, and have even been accused of being an O-bot or an Obama supporter. Those people are even accusing me of using Saul Alinsky tactics. I tell them to back up their claim and some of them do, but on the majority many are held silent because they realized they had been forced to using low, base tactics to back up their claims.
When I am called names because I do not support Obama or any liberal for that matter, I calmly (at first) let them know that they have no specific claim to back up their charge. Then I move on to saying that they really have no claim if they resort to name-calling. Then and only then do we win and put the Complex on their heels, thereby owning the narrative which they tried to shape on us.

Rundown for March 30, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Producer Justin Kendall (the one who keeps everything in perfect order at Own The Narrative) as they go through the week in news. Today they will welcome Sam Wurzelbacher (aka Joe The Plumber) to the show. Joe has started a PAC called Joe 4 America to combat Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC. Joe is also giving away an AR-15 and he will be talking about why he is doing that as well as what he has coming up in the future. All that and more including your calls and Schmuck of the Week.

Come join us today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will enter the chatroom at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live 30 minutes early for a little last minute show prep and also a meet and greet with the listeners who enter the chatroom. If you want to engage the conversation, there are three ways to do so:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype into OTNNetwork
• If you are do not want to enter the chatroom and you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN. I will read them on the air.

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. This is going to be one episode that is going to be huge with Joe The Plumber as guest.

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Breitbart Rule 3: Be open about your secrets

One of the things that Andrew had mentioned in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries is to put everything out in the open. In fact, that is his third rule

3.) Be open about your secrets: If you're going to go out in public, be absolutely open about what you've done in the past. Take a page from Barack Obama, who revealed in his probably Ayers-ghostwritten autobiography that he had done a lot of blow, and hung out with commies and assorted lowlifes. Once it was out there, there wasn't much that the right could do with it - he'd already admitted it.

By way of contrast, take a look at Mark Foley. If he'd admitted he was gay right off the bat, the left wouldn't have had much to pillory him with. The left never gets cited for hypocrisy (see Clinton, Bill), but the right is cited with it all the time because we actually have standards. That means we have to out ourselves before the left does it for us. In this book, I've already admitted to libertine sensibilities that were taken to absurd heights during my collegiate stint in New Orleans. I am not a puritan. Frankly, John Waters's movies and Johnny Knoxville's Jackass series are more up my alley than Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The days of the left forcing us into a small, monolithic, and monochromatic box are over, and we have to fight their caricature of us.

Actually, George W. Bush did the same thing during the 2000 election. "When I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid," he said. Once he had come clean, the Left was stuck - they couldn't do anything.

Hypocrisy is such a powerful argument for the left because it appeals directly to the emotional heart of politics: one standard for you, another for me. It's no wonder Alinsky relied heavily on his rule 4: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. We have more rules than they do with regard for morality, which means we have to live up to them more often. But mistakes in the past don't need to be skeletons waiting to come out of the closet. If you've made mistakes, reveal them at the first available opportunity. Embrace those mistakes. Don't talk about how you regret them - talk about how you lived through them and how they made you who you are today. Embracing your mistakes makes you invulnerable to their slings.

Just don't screw up badly now.

One thing to remember is that we are all human and we all make mistakes. What we do not do is embrace and move on from them. The liberals have concealed their mistakes and moved on from them, though if it were a conservative or a Republican that committed those same mistakes, they would be strung up by their shorthairs over it. THAT is the main difference between them and us. What they do is lie about it and cover it up then when they do come up a year or a decade later they always deny it OR they pull a Hillary and say “What difference does it make NOW?” What we should do is embrace the mistakes and put them out there in the open and say “yes I did this. However, I learned from it and grew into a better person because of it.” Liberals are kind of like the bully who picks on others in school because they are insecure in themselves OR they feel that if they cannot be happy then none else can be happy. Conservatives are kind of like that child who got straight A’s but if there is one blemish on their record they admit it and then move on from it. The slings and the barbs from the bully liberals will be rendered useless once we embrace our blemishes and move on to better ourselves.

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Rundown for March 23, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Justin Kendall as they bring the week in news. This week Obama took his first ever trip to Israel and gave a couple of speeches. How well received was he? Also, the latest polls to replace him in 2016 are out. Granted, the 2014 midterms had not happened but it is not too early to get ready for 2016. Who is leading overall? Who will jockey to receive the Republican nomination? All that and more will be answered.They will also have your phone calls and the ever popular Schmuck of the Week.

Come join us for Red, Right, and Blue back at it’s regular 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central, timeslot. I will be in the chatroom at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live 30 minutes early for last-minute show prep and also a meet and greet with the listeners. If you want to join in the conversation, there are three ways:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in at OTNNetwork
• If you are unable to be in the chat but want to participate, you can use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN on Twitter.

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. Every second of Red, Right, and Blue is interesting and there is never a dull moment. Plus you never know what the other callers or I will say.

Breitbart Rule 2: Expose the left for who they are - in their own words

Continuing with Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries, here is his explanation for Rule #2:

2.) Expose the left for who they are - in their own words: It's easy to label the left, to analyze them, to take them apart using your rationality - their program fails every time it's tried, and their lexicon, once you know it, is as predictable as the sun rising in the east. What's much harder than understanding the left is exposing it.

That's where citizen journalists come in. Drudge was a citizen journalist, and he took on a president. Today, we all have the power to be citizen journalists via the internet - there's no Complex gatekeeper to stop us from posting the truth about enemies of freedom and liberty in this country. In the past few years alone, citizen journalists have deposed Dan Rather for his scurrilous and baseless attacks on George W. Bush; exposed John Kerry's true war record during the 2004 election cycle; debunked Reuters' photography fraud in the Middle East; raised the question whether Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father, was ghostwritten by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers; gotten rid of communist Van Jones; and the list goes on. The Internet has become the shining beacon of journalistic freedom, tearing apart congressional bills piece by piece for the benefit of the public, even when our own legislators won't read them.

The key to the success of the New Media, though, is making news by breaking news. And that means that conservatives need to use their new best technological friends: the MP3 recorder, the phone camera, and the blogosphere. It's one thing to say that the left likes socialism, but it's a real story to get Barack Obama to admit it on camera, as he did to Joe the Plumber during the 2008 election cycle. Video journalism is the most potent kind of journalism. We live in an age of sound and light, not text, and we have to adapt to that age.

You are the soldiers in this war against the Institutional Left. You have been issued your weapons. Go out and use them. Make it impossible for the Complex to ignore you.

I find it a little bit ironic but mayhap led by Andrew himself that this rule is being written during CPAC 2013 for the simple reason that the speakers and panelists are empowering us with the skills and tactics to go up against the Left. The war is the Mainstream Media (who employ Alinsky tactics) v. the Citizen Journalist (who employ Breitbart tactics) first and foremost. And judging by the speakers Thursday, yesterday and today I personally have never felt more empowered to take on the Mainstream Media and hold them accountable for putting the politicians’ feet to the fire.

Even though I was not able to attend CPAC in person, I had followed the proceedings on Twitter (with the hashtag #CPAC2013) and also in a chatroom from Right Scoop’s Live Feed of CPAC 2013, and I dare say that all of the speeches were wonderful. The speakers I had heard definitely fired me up and inspired me to continue this fight through my blogs and this radio show as well as my New Media venture.

I will go more into the speakers later in the show, but all I have to say is after listening to the speakers over the past three days, the liberals had better be very afraid. We will never EVER forget what happened on November 6. In fact, that only served to embolden many of us to do all we can to call out the liberals and any on our own side who support Obama’s policies. I know I am emboldened to do my part. Who will stand with me in that bunker defending those who spoke and in a sense are on that wall defending our freedom?

Rundown for March 16, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and special co-host Liz Harrison (host of the Right War  at 11 PM Eastern on Wednesdays on From The Right Radio and also the purveyor of the Goldwater Gal website) as they give the week in news. Over the past three days #CPAC2013 was in Washington DC and there were a lot of good speakers and panels in the main ballroom which was streamed online. Who spoke? What was said? They will be discussing that on Red, Right, and Blue at a SPECIAL time tonight.

With CPAC going on until 6 PM Eastern tonight, there are going to be a lot of good speakers and panels. As such I will not be able to have the show at the usual 1:30 PM Eastern, so with that in mind Red, Right, and Blue will be at 8 PM Eastern, 7 PM Central. I will still be in the chatroom at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live 30 minutes or so before the show starts to do a little last-minute show prep and also to greet many who come in early and get settled. If you want to join in the conversation on the air, there are three ways to do so.

• Call 832-699-0449
• Dial OTNNetwork on Skype
• If you are unable to access the chatroom but are on Twitter, use the hashtag #RedRightBlue and/or #OTNN 

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. With CPAC in the rearview mirror after 6 PM Eastern today, you do not want to miss a single minute of tonight’s show as three days of CPAC will be condensed into two hours.

Breitbart Rule 1: Bring the fight to your enemy

The first rule Andrew had written in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries is to not be afraid to go into enemy territory, saying the following:

1.) Don't be afraid to go into enemy territory: This is the most important rule you'll read in this book, and the one most likely to be ignored by the Republican Party and the Old Guard in the conservative movement. They would say I shouldn't have appeared on Maher, because it was an audience stacked against me. But that's the same mentality that led toe right to abandon Hollywood, academia, and the media - and the effects have been disastrous. The right figures that talk radio, Fox News, and some independent Internet sites will allow us to distribute our ideas to the masses. There's one problem: those outlets are exponentially outnumbered and outgunned by the Complex. They're Alinsky-ed by the activist left, which is insists Fox News is Faux News and talk radio is hate radio. Obama is leading the charge, targeting specific hosts and specific outlets. Remember Rush Limbaugh? Or their insistence that Fox News isn't a real news outlet like CNN or MSNBC?

The problem is that it works with the vast majority of apolitical voters in America. In my neighborhood, our strategy of disengagement isn't working too well. People who don't watch Fox News or listen to Rush have strong, defiant, negative opinions about those outlets, just like I did when I was a liberal. I'd never listened to Rush in my life, but I knew - I knew! - that Rush was the epitome of evil. I knew, just as the Complex wanted me to know, that Rush was a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot that only KKKers listened to while driving their broken down pickups and drinking moonshine.

The army of the emboldened and gleefully ill-informed is growing. Groupthink happens, and we have to take it head-on. We can't win the political war until we win the cultural war. The Frankfurt School knew that - that's why they won the cultural war and then, on it's back, the political war. We can do the same, but we have to be willing to enter the arena. By neglecting The View or, worse, by ignoring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Maher, and David Letterman - we allow them to distort and demean us as they romanticize and elevate themselves. It's harder to attack people to their faces than behind their backs. and we have to confront them face-to-face. Young people suckle at the teat of pop culture - but by refusing to fight for their attention, we lose by default.

Our most articulate voices, likable faces, and best idea-makers need to go into hostile territory and plant the seeds of doubt in our ideological enemy and the apolitical masses who simply go with the media flow. Our babysitter has an Obama bumper sticker on her car, but admits she knows nothing about politics. How did that happen? It's what the complex tells her to do to be cool. We have to use their media control against them by walking into the lion's den, heads held high, proud of who we are and what we stand for.

There's no time to continue backing away. If we're standing still we're moving backward. Get in the game. Get in the fight.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, I had seen posts on Facebook and Twitter bemoaning the fact that New Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and other Republicans and conservatives had given interviews on CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News, and other liberal stations and talk show hosts. Rather than bemoaning them, we should have celebrated them for doing so. As I had mentioned last week, the liberals won the cultural war and then the political war. We need to take back the cultural war, and we cannot do that if we remain in our small sphere and not engage the liberals on their battlefield.

Back in 1994 or so I had read a book by InterVarsity Press (a part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) entitled Out of the Saltshaker & into the World by Rebecca Manley Pippert. The book deals with evangelism. However, after reading Andrew’s Pragmatic Primer Rule 1, I also thought of this because just as Get out of the Saltshaker dealt with getting out of the church and into the world, what Andrew is saying is our best and brightest conservative minds need to get off of Fox News and conservative talk shows and go on shows like Piers Morgan, Hardball, Meet the Press with David Gregory, The Daily Show with John Stewart, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, and others to get our word out there. While most of us are not of the caliber to go on those shows, there is one way we can do it. We need to actually go and engage the culture in the malls, the parks, anywhere we can.

When I was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship back in 1993 and 1994, one person would always point to the door before he left the meeting and say “The mission field is right out that door there.” His basis for that was from the Bible where in Isaiah 6:8 God asked “Whom will I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah said “Here am I. Send me.” I am here to say that the battlefield for the hearts and minds of Americans, nay, the WORLD, is the Internet as well as right in our own backyards. The question is will you stand on the sidelines and retreat to the safety of Fox News and conservative talk shows, or will you get out there and join in the fight?

Rundown for March 9, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and a special co-host (filling in for Billie Cotter as she is without a computer at present) as they bring the week in news. Today they will talk about the Rand Paul #filliblizzard from Wednesday and the ramifications from it. They will also talk about the SW Florida high school student who was suspended from school for disarming a gunman. Also, Dennis Rodman had gone to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un. What happened and what is the backlash from that? All that and more including Schmuck of the Week and your calls.

Come join us today for Red, Right, and Blue at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. The chatroom for the show (and indeed for all shows on Own The Narrative) is at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live and I will be there 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep and also a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation on the show there are many ways:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. With everything that had happened this past week, you do not want to miss one second of my take. It is better than The Soup on the E! Entertainment Network.

Remembering Andrew Breitbart

On March 7, 2012, I had written this blog entry paying tribute to Andrew Breitbart.

I know we are only 65 days into the year, and we lost a great Conservative Patriot 6 days ago, but this has to be said. If there is anything we will take away from this year, it is the tag of #IAmBreitbart, just like 2011 was the year of #IAmJohnGalt in memory of the movie “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1” which opened on April 15, 2011.

I might not have met Andrew Breitbart, but had seen him on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld and also in a few YouTube videos where he confronted the Occupy Wall street people as well as some who opposed the Tea Party. Through those incidents I feel as if I had known Andrew Breitbart, and will uphold his legacy of citizen journalism and blow the whistle on those who seek to cause harm to the country.

Andrew Breitbart at CPAC 2012

Andrew Breitbart doing what he does best in exposing Occupy Wall Street for the troublemakers they are.

And this wonderful pic (h/t Sarah Rumpf of Sunshine State Sarah) of Dana Loesch and Company. (pic taken by Chris Loesch) with the tweet posted here.

#war instagr.am/p/H2w-c8r5KM/

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) March 7, 2012

It has been a year ago today that he had died, and those words ring true today as they did back then. Andrew Breitbart was a happy warrior, one who knew that in order to win the political war you first have to conquer and win the cultural war.

Last month, I had written the blog entry Alinsky vs. Breitbart and based on what I had seen over the past year from those on the Left and even from those on the Right, it just goes to show that I was right. This battle is not conservative v. liberal or even Republican v. Democrat. Rather, it is Saul Alinsky v. Andrew Breitbart. Barack Obama has been so successful in using Alinsky tactics to further divide and tear this country apart that at times it seems like nobody will be able to stand up to him. Well Andrew Breitbart had provided the tools to stand up to Obama and push back against the false narratives in his book Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World for us to use. We just have to actually go out there and DO it and not be afraid of whatever the consequences might be. The question is: Will you be willing to stand with me in using those tactics to fight the Alinsky tactics, or are you against me? Like Andrew said at CPAC last year, “If you’re not in that bunker because you’re not satisfied with a certain candidate, more than shame on you! You’re on the other side!” While there is no nominee to stand behind now, the fight still wages on. Andrew said this is a #WAR; I say #ThisMeansWAR. The internet is our battleground; our keyboards, cell phones, webcams, digital cameras, and iPods are the weapons we use. Andrew paved the way for us, now let’s go out there and make him proud of his work.

Rundown for March 2, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter (host of Ballistic every Wednesday at 11 PM Eastern on Own The Narrative) as they give the week in news. This week will be a very special show as they will be paying tribute to Andrew Breitbart, who had died a year ago yesterday. His death left a hole in the conservative movement, but there are many who have stepped up and took up his cause. Own The Narrative is one of them because Andrew was all about the media dictating the terms of the narrative and how tired he was of it. Own The Narrative is about empowering the individual to speak up with their thoughts and their own citizen journalism work to take on the narrative put forth by the mainstream media, and Andrew Breitbart is that inspiration. They will be discussing and playing a couple of videos, including the video from Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld where the entire show was a wake and a tribute to Andrew Breitbart. Your calls are welcome as Red, Right, and Blue pays a tribute to a great American Patriot who was taken away from us at a bad time.

Join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern. I will be in the chatroom, which can be accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live, 30 minutes early for last minute show prep and also a meet and greet. There are many ways you can engage the conversation during the show:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. You do not want to miss a single second of the show today as we pay tribute to a true patriot.

Intro to Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries

On the webpage ANDREW BREITBART'S PRAGMATIC PRIMER FOR REALISTIC REVOLUTIONARIES, I had made the following mention by way of introduction:

Andrew Breitbart will forever be remembered for many things in his life, from going out to get the real dirt on the Occupy movement to speaking at Tea Party events. However, one main thing he will forever be known for is engaging the Liberals on their turf (see his appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2009) and doing it with class and dignity. While many people deride Conservatives and Republicans for going on Liberal talk shows, Breitbart shows that we can walk into the Lions' Den and come out unscathed. He had written down rules (with an explanation as to why they should be used) that ALL Conservative activists need to use to use when fighting the left.

While I had not had the privilege and the honor of meeting Andrew Breitbart prior to his death in March, 2012, I felt a kindred spirit with him after hearing his legendary CPAC speech last year. If you had not heard it before, I encourage you to do so as he put himself on the wall and said that he would fight side by each with whoever would support our candidate, with the warning that anyone who is not supporting our candidate is on the other side. He had left us with good instructions to fight the progressive left in his book “Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save The World” which he had published in April, 2011. The instructions he had left us are found in Chapter 7 which is entitled “Pragmatic Primer For Realistic Revolutionaries.” and is worth reading and applying to our daily lives.

Over the next 3 to 4 months I will spend one entry a week to speaking on one of the rules Andrew had written out and going over just how we can use it to our advantage in speaking to others. This will be a preparation for the fight for Congress in 2014 when we will challenge for the Senate and defend the House. Also, this will be good for the fight for the White House in 2016 when we will support whoever we can during the primaries and then ultimately come together and put up a united front, supporting the Republican nominee against whoever the Democrats roll out to try to succeed Obama.

Rundown for February 23, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter (host of Ballistic every Wednesday at 11 PM Eastern on Own The Narrative) as they give the week in news. This week it was predominately overrun (at least online) by the conservative websites and talk show hosts railing against the WWE for their portrayal of a Tea Party character and a longtime WWE fan, Rick will explain why he does not see the commotion surrounding such. Also, there was other news in the world including the Americans For Prosperity putting out their initial Congressional Report Card. Who ranked as the highest according to them? All that and more including the ever popular Schmuck of the Week and your calls.

Join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern. I will enter the chatroom, which can be accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live, 30 minutes prior to the show for some last-minute show prep and also to interact with those who enter. If you want to engage the conversation, there are three ways you can do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a liberal. I am on a rampage, and you do not want to miss a single second of what I have to say.