Showing posts with label astroturf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astroturf. Show all posts

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Is There A Doctor In The House? Fake doctors' notes given out to union workers at Wisconsin rally


Maclver Institute: [Madison, WI] As tens of thousands of public employees skipped work this week to attend protest rallies outside the Wisconsin State Capitol, many wondered if they would face any disciplinary action for unexcused absences.
On Saturday, a group of men and women in lab coats purporting to be doctors were handing out medical excuse notes, without examining the ‘patients.’
“I asked this doctor what he was doing and he told me they were handing out excuses to people who were feeling sick due to emotional, mental or financial distress,” said Christian Hartsock. “They never performed an exam–he asked me how I was feeling today and I said I’m from California and I’m not used to the cold, so he handed me a note.” [MORE]
I cannot help but wonder if this gal got herself a doctors' note?  I have a strong feeling she was one of the first in line.


So much of these lefty protests are just straight up Astroturf.  Even the excuses for their absence are fake.  The left is already discrediting this story because they figured out that the guy who shot the video has done other sting videos.  I think the left would have a stronger case if they could prove the doctors were fake rather than trying to discredit the messenger. After all the doctor's name and license number are right there on the slip.

Video h/t: Hot Air

Saturday, July 10, 2010

One Nation: The left tries to mimic the Tea Party again



First there was the Coffee Party which was suppose to be this great grassroots movement based on coffee, civility and the end to gridlock, that was suppose to act as a counterweight to the Tea Party movement. You haven’t heard a peep from that bunch of astrotrufers after the glowing and fawning media reports ended.

Now the left is trying again to counter the Tea Party movement by bringing all their radical cabals together under the title of One Nation. 
Washington Post: In an effort to replicate the tea party's success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement's political energy and influence. They promise to "counter the tea party narrative" and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.
The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House.[…]
The groups involved represent the core of the first-time voters who backed President Obama -- including the National Council of La Raza, NAACP, AFL-CIO, SEIU and the United States Student Association. (The effort is separate from the Democratic Party'splan to spend $50 million trying to reach those same voters.) 
I don’t know about you, but I smell another epic fail in the making. The problem for the left is that there is no over arching theme to tie all their victim groups together. The Tea Party has an over arching theme of opposing Washington Gone Wild, but what does the left have?

To complicate matter for the left, they had the power for two years to execute the kind of Hope and Change they wanted.  In their attempt to do so, the opposition to their plans is what helps fuels the Tea Party to this day. So the harder they try with One Nation, the more passionate the Tea Party will become.

I suspect that One Nation will follow in the footsteps of the Coffee Party. The media will dole out tremendous fanfare and praise only to see One National fail to live up to the hype (much like the current White House occupant).

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Fake Nevada Tea Party candidate facing felony charges


Scott Ashjian, a fake Tea Party candidate, running for Harry Reid’s seat is facing felony charges for bouncing checks. 
From Associated Press: A Nevada asphalt contractor who faces a legal challenge to his Tea Party of Nevada candidacy for U.S. Senate was hit Friday with felony theft and bad check charges in Las Vegas that allege he bounced a $5,000 business check last year.
Scott Ashjian is one of a record 22 candidates, including 12 Republicans, running for the seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is seeking a fifth term.
Bernie Zadrowski, head of the Clark County district attorney’s office bad check unit, said he would seek an arrest warrant Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. Ashjian could face up to 14 years in state prison if convicted.
The Associated Press failed to mention that Ashjian is a fake Tea Partier. Instead in their article they say the Tea Parties are distancing themselves from Ashjian: 
The tea party movement is a disparate coalition of conservative groups angered by federal spending, rising taxes and the growth and reach of government. Other tea party activists have been distancing themselves from Ashjian, and an ad targeting him has been sponsored by the Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the national tea party movement. 
Actually the Tea Parties were calling him out as a fake because they never heard of him:


Bob Owens at Pajamas Media sniffed out Scott Ashjian as a fake three weeks ago: 
[..] Suddenly, the same Democratic politicians and pundits who dismissively referred to those involved in the populist revolt with a sexual pejorativefound that it was a force to be reckoned with — and, if possible, to be undermined and marginalized.
There is perhaps no clearer example of an attempt to co-opt and undermine the tea party movement than the false flag operation that appears to be taking place in Nevada for the benefit of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Unpopular nationally for being thin-skinned and surly, Reid is foundering in his home state of Nevada, where he faces reelection in November. Reid has consistently trailed Republican challengers in his reelection bid; he trails all four in recent polls. Without a major shift, Reid’s political career would seem to be on the cusp of drawing to an ignoble end.
And then in walked Scott Ashjian.
Scott who?
You can be forgiven if you don’t know who Scott Ashjian is, or where he came from, or if he’s even a serious candidate. Even local journalists haven’t had much luck figuring that out. All we know for certain is that Ashjian seems poised to jump into the 2010 Nevada Senate race as a third-party candidate representing the newly formed Tea Party of Nevada. [...]
I looked at Scott’s Ashjian's campaign site and aside from looking a little on the cheap side, it reads like someone trying a little too hard to sound like a Tea Partier. Further, a look at Scott’s Facebook page and you have to wonder if the guy has any real roots in Nevada. He only have 30 friends that consist of family members, kids too young to vote and people from outside Nevada and it looks like the page is only a month or two old.

With Harry Reid below 50%, a third party candidate in the race is the only way for him to win reelection. So having a plant like Scott Ashjian would be the perfect answer to Harry’s prayers. If I were Harry, I would start searching for Plan B.

As November approaches, desperate Democrats will no doubt try to play all kinds of tricks with the Tea Party.  My advice to all of you is to do as much research as possible on any candidate you are considering voting for. Dig back as far as you can into their voting records, histories, etc. The last thing we need is to replace one joker in Washington with another one.

Via: Facebook 

Saturday, March 20, 2010

White House spams federal employees with ObamaCare emails


Not content with ramming ObamaCare down the public’s throat, the White House wants to make sure federal employees help with the shoving.

From CBS News: The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks[...] 
The Department of State employees, who receive hundreds of official government emails every day, have complained about the annoying and partisan emails but are nervous to go public for fear of retribution. The emails are addressed to the federal employees by name and use the official .gov address.
The unsolicited emails also request that the federal employees take action in order to ensure that Obama’s health reform package is passed and the federal budget isn’t at risk for bankruptcy. One federal employee was so concerned about DeParle’s language in one email that he questioned whether his department’s budget would be cut or eliminated without passage of Obama’s bill. DeParle uses scare tactics that some assume are meant as threats:
“No ifs, ands or buts about it — if we do nothing to reform our broken health care system, costs will continue to skyrocket and break the budgets of American families, small businesses and the Federal Government,” read the March 12th email from DeParle…
DeParle’s solicitation requests federal employees act on behalf of the President’s agenda by making this directive: “You can help raise awareness by sharing this email with your friends, family and online networks,” read the March 11th email from DeParle.
The Chicago Way in action. I don’t know how they think these emails might be effective. Personally, I can detect and delete spam emails at Mach 5, Ms. DeParle would be lucky if I ever read the entire first sentence.

I bet for some of these federal workers November 2012 cannot come soon enough.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

UPDATED: The New York Times picks up on the Coffee Party


How is it that the New York Times can find the Coffee Party in its infancy and devote as much space to it as it did to the 750 Tea Parties that took place on April 15? There were much more people present at those Tea Parties than there are Coffee Party members. Heck, in NYC alone there were 13,000 protestors.

As I said in my last post on the Coffee Party, it is all Astroturf. All this synergy between the New York Times and the Washington Post reminds me of Yosi Sargent and his scheme to use the NEA.

Click here if you want to read the glowing review The New York Times gives to the Coffee Party.


UPDATE I: More proof of Astroturf


William Jacobson from Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion finds some very interesting Tweets from Coffee Party founder Annabel Park.  The Tweets indicate that Ms. Park is interested in undermining the Tea Party movement not fighting along side it.  Jacobson also discovers that Park has a New York Times connection. Click over to Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion and check out his discovery.


UPDATE II: Connections to the Obama Administration


Left Coast Rebel and Conservative Generation have stumbled upon Annabel Park's connection to the Obama administration via an individual named Kalpen Modi (stagename Kal Penn)
From Left Coast Rebel:

When last we saw Kalpen, he was sailing off into the rising Obama sun and leaving his acting job as Kutner on Fox’s TV show House to take a position in theObama administration. Kalpen Modi is now the associate director for the Office of Public Engagement. The purpose of Kalpen’s job is to coordinate with organizations associated with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. An itinerary for a conference call sent by Kalpen to Asian Pacific Americans for Progress gives you an idea of how Obama is coordinating with these organizations. Kalpen's job in the Obama administration put him directly in contact with the same groups, organizations, and personal contacts as Annabel.
We broke the story last week that Annabel Park and Eric Byler had interviewed Kal Penn Modi for Obama propaganda during the 2008 campaign. However, Annabel’s friend Eric Byler may have known Kalpen previously (Perhaps while they were both speaking at an APA Five conference together). 
This Annabel-Kalpen connection creates a series of conundrums for the salivating MSMs, like the Washington Post and NY Times, who want to spin this AstroTurf group, the Coffee Party, as grassroots. How could the MSMs have known? Annabel said herself that the Coffee Party was grassroots, why do any investigative journalism? 
Read the full post at Left Coast Rebel.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Coffee Party: A Steaming Cup of Astroturf


The Washington Post has a big write up about a new and growing “grassroots” [more on this word in a minute] movement, The Coffee Party. Supposedly the Coffee Party is for all those disenfranchised citizens who are unhappy with government but do not subscribe to Tea Party tenets of small and limited government.

From the Coffee Party’s Facebook page, they state who they are: 
We are diverse--ethnically, geographically, politically, in age and in experience. 

We are 100% grassroots. No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a political culture that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented. 

We demand a government that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices; NOT corporate interests as expressed by misleading advertisements and campaign contributions.

We want a society in which democracy is treated as sacrosanct and ordinary citizens participate out of a sense of civic duty, civic pride, and a desire to contribute to society. The Coffee Party is a call to action. Our Founding Fathers and Mothers gave us an enduring gift --Democracy-- and we must use it to meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

The only real thing you have to know about the Coffee Party is that it isn’t 100% grassroots. As Left Coast Rebel easily found out, it is just another left wing Astroturf effort.  The Founder of the Coffee Party movement is Annabel Park and as Left Coast Rebel discovers
According to the article, the founder is Annabel Park. Of course it took only five minutes of google searching to expose the Astroturfhere. According to a youtube account, Park is also associated with Asian Americans for Obama. Below is a video of Parks interviewing Kal Penn, an actor who left the TV show House to work for Obama. 

Dig a little further and you find that Left Coast Rebel is correct. I went to The Coffee Party’s website and sure enough it is a snappy looking social network site, but the thing that immediately caught my eye was a poll they have there. The poll asks “in your opinion what is the most urgent issue”.  What do you think the majority of them picked?  Health care, of course!

The poll isn’t the only place where you find them pushing hard for health care reform.  A look at the comments on their Facebook page and you find heath care all over the place. Even this polished video by their LA chapter has all these folks talking about health care


How is it that all the major polls show the vast majority of Americans are concerned about jobs, the economy and the deficit, yet this so-called grassroots movement has health care as its number one concern? It is also very convenient that health care is also Obama’s number one concern.

If I had to guess, The Coffee Party is nothing more than another Astroturf effort designed to cultivate a new breed of Hope Dopes for 2012.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Ellie Light, the new name in Astroturf



A very interesting mystery has developed in the blogosphere. There appears to be an entity by the name of Ellie Light who has written a rather sympathetic letter about Obama.  This entity has gotten variations of letter published in over 50+ newspapers across the nation. I use the term entity because; this Ellie Light provides a local address in each of the newspapers. Patterico’s Pontifications and Left Coast Rebel are hard at work unraveling the mystery of Ellie Light.


A woman has written the same letter defending Obama to dozens of publications across the country, getting them published in at least 42 newspapers in 18 states, as well as Politico.com, the Washington Times, and USA Today. And the woman, Ellie Light, has claimed residence in many of these states.
Think there might be some phony Astroturfing there?
At the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sabrina Eaton makes a nice catch:
Ellie Light sure gets around.
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.
“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.
A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.
Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’sRuidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes otherpapers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.
She has more houses than John McCain!
Left Coast Rebel has some very interesting thoughts behind the meaning of the name Ellie Light and who Ellie might actually be.


Like a detective on a trail, I'm all over this Ellie Light thing (still), the next tidbit I will point you to is the actual meaning of the name and the potential allusion to the Obama campaign symbol and a few other theories like the Cass Sunstein/Samantha Power possibility. As everyone knows by now, the 'transparency' of the Obama administration is an illusion, I think that this story is another (potential) determining factor of just that as well. I also read a report that Ellie Light has been featured in over 60 newspapers as of now. Readers have opined that 'Ellie Light' probably votes in each city/district that the papers are located in as well. 
As anyone that can do a quick Google will find, the name 'Ellie' comes from Greek name Helen lending it the meaning of "light". So obviously we can then see that the name is most likely a pseudonym for something of meaning, something particular - light.Bungalow Bill has this insight: 

El, a term used often in Chicago since they call their system of trains running to Chicago's loop and throughout the city on multiple lines also means horizon--like horizon in Obama's campaign symbol. We have two connections here to common themes with Obama.
Throughout the 2008 campaign we all came across Obama astroturfers.  The were everywhere. Their easiest identifiable form was the “I am a Republican who is mad at Bush so I am voting for Obama” troll. We know that this was their M.O. because even Obama’s own  head of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein suggested such a tactic:
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). 
Many of the Ellie letters have appeared in just the last two weeks. If I had to guess why all the sudden astroturfing, I would have to say it is being done to soften the backlash from the left once they finally realize that healthcare reform is dead, dead, dead.

Trip over to Memeorandum and follow the discussion thread. Then search your local newspapers and see if any letters to the editor was published from Ellie Light. Supposedly, the letters are showing up in many of the states Obama won.

Via: Hot Air

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Another “Doctored” Obama Event, White Coats Included



Yesterday’s staged event at the White House Rose Garden was another of Obama smoke and mirror attempts to bamboozle the American people into accepting the Democrats crappy health care reform:

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress. 
The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession. 
Ah, but Gateway Pundit has the real scoop on this sham event.

What the media won't tell you is that the doctors were former members of the "Doctors for Obama" organization.
150 doctors including supporters from Doctors for America, the former Doctors for Obama organization, assembled on the White House lawn today for a Astroturfed show with the president.
FOX News reported:
The doctor made a White House call Monday -- 150 of them, in fact, all costumed in white hospital coats -- to try to help President Obama administer a booster shot to his ailing health care reform drive. 
White House spokesman Reid Cherlin described the assembled physicians, from all 50 states, as the best voices for reform because they witness the current health care system on a day-to-day basis.
"These folks know better than anybody about what works and what doesn't," Cherlin told FOXNews.com, adding that the physicians come from "a variety of groups that we work with."
But the doctors in the Rose Garden were all supporters of health care reform -- and the invitation-only guest list drew heavily fromDoctors for America, a grassroots organization that backs a government-run insurance option.
Roughly 98 percent of the group's 15,000 members support a public insurance option, Doctors for America spokeswoman Megan Smith told FOXNews.com. She said roughly 40 of the 150 doctors who attended the meeting were from the organization.
Cherlin insisted that the doctors "were not invited based on their support for a public option."
So the White House said the doctors were not invited based on their support? Yeah right. 
I wonder who got stuck paying the tab for all of those white coats? Wasting taxpayer’s money on stagecraft like this when we are waltzing with bankruptcy is the height of irresponsibility.

Via: Gateway Pundit

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Obama Hitler posters at town halls is more astroturfing

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that now famous line about there being swastikas at the town halls, you just knew the media was going to find some creative way to make that statement true.

Here are two videos showing exactly who are bringing those Obama Hitler posters to the town hall meetings. They are liberals who support leftwing nut Lyndon LaRouche!


Please visit The Weekly Standard and TheBlogProf for full stories behind these two videos.

Via: The Weekly Standard

Via: The Blog Prof

Via: The Washington Post

Via: Memeorandum

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