The "random blog posts" are by Adam Falkowski, a particle physicist who has been following the controversy over BICEP2 from the start. They document how opinion

The "random blog posts" are by Adam Falkowski, a particle physicist who has been following the controversy over BICEP2 from the start. They document how opinion has been swinging over time. Steinhardt is not "the guy who the first source is referencing". The two references in the first source are 1) http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.5857 http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.5857 , by Mortonson and Seljak, both at LBNL and UC 2) http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.7351 http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.7351 , by Faluger, Hill and Spergel, from IAS, NYU and Princeton, respectively. As you may have noticed, none of them is Steinhardt.