Occupy DC: Corporate-funded, corporate-controlled, corporate-aimed.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  November 8th at 12:00 PM  | 

This ABC News article is correct enough, as it goes: On the surface, the “Occupy the Koches: Guerilla Drive-In” event looked like any other “Occupy” movement protest against the proverbial 1 percent of the population who hold the nation’s wealth. But a confederation of long-established progressive political advocacy groups — the Campaign for America’s Future, Campaign for Community Change, Common Cause, Health Care for America | Read More »

Astroturf on literal parade: Occupy DC agitator admits to paying protesters.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  October 7th at 09:45 AM  | 

The Daily Caller has some entertaining video up of a ‘Occupy DC organizer’ admitting that some of the spontaneous voluntary protesters that he has in tow – ones, not even incidentally, that are more, ah, diverse than the baseline of ‘pasty-faced white twenty-something hipster who’s seriously underwater in his/her liberal arts degree student debt’ – are actually being paid to show up and wave signs | Read More »

Florida Democrats astroturf GOP town halls!

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 27th at 11:06 AM  | 

…and don’t do a very good job of it, really. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Daniel Webster got heckled by “members of progressive groups such as Moveon.org and Organize Now,” while Allen West got screamed at by a woman later identified as being a former radio host for Air America (remember them*?).  A few things to note about this: When the newspapers are taking | Read More »

DNC *still* advertising for astroturfers.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 30th at 09:36 AM  | 

No, really: check out the job description. Email campaigners are responsible for planning, writing, and executing grassroots campaigns to advance the President’s agenda for change. Back in December when Ben Smith reported on this the first time, the DNC’s response was “Your in-box isn’t going to fill itself.” Which is a very unintentionally revealing statement, given that it essentially concedes that the DNC assumes that | Read More »

Ben Smith startled to find out he got hit by astroturf job.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  January 22nd at 01:52 PM  | 

To be fair, they apparently hit him first before they went to stage two (local papers). As the latter reports: In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area. Ace is unsurprised: As has | Read More »

HCAN organizer in impromptu astroturf seminar.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 1st at 09:30 AM  | 

(Via Gateway Pundit) This got filmed yesterday, and shows an organizer for HCAN giving quick instructions on how to keep Rep. Jan Schakowsky‘s constituents from being heard when they raise concerns on the health care rationing bill: As Glenn Reynolds notes, there’s a certain amount of projection going on, here. Moe Lane

90% of POTUS’ town hall ‘conversation’ made by POTUS.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 18th at 09:14 PM  | 

If you’re wondering how seriously the administration is taking its tame – some might say, ‘gelded’ – town halls, well: A look at President Obama’s health care “town hall” Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., shows the president out-spoke his audience by a ratio of nearly 9-to-1. Here’s the scorecard. Obama: 8,619 words. Audience: 1,186 words. You tell me. Moe Lane PS: Anybody else getting the feeling | Read More »

Anti-health care rationing legislators getting packed town halls, too.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 7th at 10:30 AM  | 

Now this should be what worries proponents of health care rationing: citizens showing up in much larger-than-anticipated numbers to complain about an issue – to legislators who agree with them. U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., learned constituents were more engaged than he may have thought. Hundreds turned out in Waycross for a town hall meeting Wednesday on House Resolution 3200, the House bill on reform | Read More »

If you’re losing Ben Cardin (D-MD)…

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 6th at 09:45 PM  | 

…a Senator who is barely known for defeating Michael Steele in the 2006 election (honestly, Maryland does not have particularly interesting Senators; sorry about that) – anyway, if you can’t get Ben Cardin to sign off on your ‘astroturf’ rhetoric, well, you have a branding problem. Watch as he manfully attempts to avoid sweating on national television over the mess that his higher-ups have landed | Read More »

Jeanne Shaheen *not* at Grafton ‘town hall’ meeting, DNC claims to the contrary.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 6th at 12:00 PM  | 

The Senator was never going to be there, in fact – as this post from August 3rd shows. It happens; after all, the Senate’s not out of session quite yet, so if you have to use staffers, you have to use staffers. Announce ahead of time, and the only people adversely affected would be abject idiots, or the people who trust the abject idiots to | Read More »

Schumer video bragging about cutting pandemic fund surfaces.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 27th at 06:47 PM  | 

Hey, who here thinks that the Nation, ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, Firedoglake, and the rest of the Journolist stenographers are going to reference this? (For those who can’t see it: it shows Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer bragging about cutting out the very funding that a good number of ostensibly-unrelated Left-bloggers and writers are trying to pin on the GOP, in the person of Senator Susan Collins.  | Read More »