Astroturfed

Democrats trying to buy votes is a real thing.  In this case, buying influence (influence peddling):

Nikki Haley astroturfers

We knew it would happen.  Nikki Haley is rapidly becoming tangibly, visibly persona non grata among conservatives and Republicans. Not so for Democrats - they love her, for now at least.

This protest brought to you by Comcast

We all knew it: The anti-Trump protests are astroturf, bought and paid for by George Soros, who owns, among many other companies, Comcast.   The challenging thing is that those who favor the protests, don't care.

Via the Washington Post.

Little evidence exists to back the claim that significant numbers of protesters are paid, or, for that matter, that any significant number of workers seeking a union are “salts.” However, the allegations that even one participant is paid immediately calls into question the legitimacy of a cause. Behind these accusation is the idea that social movements should be entirely spontaneous, volunteer-driven, and untarnished by the exchange of money. Anything else would betray a lack of moral purity and reveal ulterior motives. And although successful protest movements rarely if ever succeed without an investment of resources, we create simplified mythologies that perpetuate these ideas of monetarily immaculate conception.

Citing Politifact as a source for 'little evidence' (as the link in the above paragraph does)  is itself laughable. 'Goebbels says Hitler is a good guy'. Great, I guess I was wrong about Hitler then. That issue aside, the mere admission that it does exist, validates that those various publications claiming that it does, are not insane, but have valid concerns.  As the left always, always claims when a whiff of conservative misdeeds exists, the mere existence of the claim merits serious consideration (like with the unicorn-y Trump-Russia connection).  There will be no double standard here. So WaPo, you are now guilty by your defense of the astroturfers by your discounting of factual evidence because it is politically inconvenient.  At least you had the decency to like to Breitbart and National Review in your distasteful defense of duplicitous political behavior that liberals clearly condone and deny exists.

ACORN rebranded is running Occupy Bank of America

This video, just like the last one I posted, shows the subterfuge behind the Occupy movement.  The re-branded ACORN (ACCE) is quarterbacking the takeover of a San Francisco Bank of America branch.

Watch the Yellow-shirts lead the astroturfers into the bank.

Occupy Toronto - empty tents

Ezra Levant uses a heat-sensing infra-red camera on the Occupy Toronto tents. Lots of empty tents - at night at least.  It's all window dressing and no substance.  It's pure astro turf.

Ellie Light - From Obama Turfer To Messing With The Right

Over the course of the last few days, someone named Ellie Light has been brought to, um, light, as an astroturfer from some inside political Obama machine, out to pump up the President's sagging approval ratings. If it's an inside job, it's intriguing and potentially politically damaging.

Everyone from Hot Air, to Little Miss Attila are busy commenting on it. No doubt it makes for scintillating reading and doesn't hurt page hits. Everyone wants to track down who this mysterious Ellie Light might be. IP addresses apparently are coming in as far away as Thailand.

Here's my problem with this issue: whatever or whomever was behind Ellie Light, is long ago not the sole Ellie Light on the Internet. There are doubtless 1500 imposters by this time looking to grab a piece of the 15 minutes to feel good or to promote their new XBox hack site. Following the rabbit hole is pointless. There are bound to be an entire rabbit warren of false leads. Every time something interesting happens, people have to go and Watership Down. Nobody is going to pull a rabbit out of their hat and find this Ellie Light. She or he doesn't exist. Finding the real Ellie Light will be impossible. If I were a lefty operative right now, I would post replies everywhere under the name Ellie Light to drive my opponents crazy and keep them tangled up in a story of little real relevance.

And that makes it worse. It's a diversion from the real issues with the Obama administration. I'd love to find out who Ellie Light is as much as the next guy or girl. But this real-life unsolvable puzzle, like TV's Lost, is at best an entertaining diversion. At worst, it's a diversion of serious analysis away from the President and his own continually mysterious calculus on what is good for the American economy and the American people. To me the real mystery is why his decisions are nearly uniformly wrong.

UPDATED: Alinsky Rule 5 in full effect!!

If ever you needed proof that Alinsky's Rules for Radicals are in full effect on the American left, look at the reactions to the town hall outrage over health care. Rule #5 is related to ridiculing your opponents. It's on full display here.

Alinsky's rule might be on high alert use over the next month - Democrats can't debate ideas yet (if ever) because they haven't read the bill yet. There's no alternative to ridicule.

One small irony is that the liberal meme machine can't seem to find which type of ridicule will stick and are throwing as much at the wall to see what sticks. They're not as on a single message as usual.

Below are some examples of the insults they are using. Given that they can't debate [are you listening GOP?], this is the perfect opportunity to invite them to town hall debates on the issues. No thugs versus 'mobs', just one on one debates. It's something John McCain tried to get Barack Obama to agree on during the election campaign. Obama weaseled out of it. They'll do the same now. But it shows the weakness of their position. Facts versus insults, on an issue this big, should see facts win out. That is, provided [are you listening GOP?] all the legwork isn't done by concerned citizens, but also by Republican leadership. Don't be afraid of the mobs - the people portesting peacefully, are on your side.

Astro turfers - if you can't beat them, defame them.



Brooks Brothers empty suits organized by right wing groups - the old class warfare ploy



Mobs - with a dash of 'ruined the country' thrown in.



Nazis - the classic fallback insult for the flustered liberal.



Racists - the ultimate fallback for the liberal who has nothing else to go on.



More mobs; ending with some humor.



UPDATE: They forgot to mention the KKK - until now. [HT Hot Air]