Move over, Alton Brown! This is obviously the greatest recipe video ever. I promised donors a chili recipe, and by the Almighty, I have delivered. (All other promises shall be likewise fulfilled, given time.)
The above video may, in fact, be the most awe-inspiring Western film of all time, graced as it is by the presence of the Gods of the West, who are herein brought to visible appearance. (Honest. Watch and see.) It owes its success not to my own status as a high priest Vatican assassin warlock rock star from Mars chili-maker -- rather, it triumphs due to the unimprovable nobility of its subject matter.
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Believe it or not, the Koch brothers say that they don't fund the Tea Parties. The video clip above offers proof.
The clip comes from a new documentary called Astroturf Wars, which documents the ersatz nature of the teabagger movement. The website has a lot of good information.
The film also details the astroturf campaign designed to convince the public that climate change is a "socialist" plot. What socialists could possibly gain from spreading fake science is beyond me. What capitalists gain from spreading faked science is obvious.
I would also strongly recommend a book called Merchants of Doubt, which demonstrates that some of the well-paid "experts" who cast doubt on global warming are the very same "experts" who took money from Big Tobacco to push the myth that there was no proven link between smoking and cancer.
Astroturfing may be the most important story of our time. Astroturfing insured the election of Obama. Even if our current president had a change of heart and decided to take real action on the economy, he couldn't do it -- because the sowers of doubt and mistrust would create a public firestorm of reaction.
Astroturfing is the great failure of democracy -- one which the authors of the Federalist papers could not foresee.
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It's isn't astroturfing, it's our penchant for sound bytes that is our undoing. We are too lazy to think.
Hillary Clinton had some unkind words for the broadcast and cable news media while speaking in front of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. She was wrong in her criticism. We don't want news, we want opinions that reinforce our beliefs.
Thats why astroturf groups are so successful.
posted by Mr. Mike : 6:28 AM
The Work-aholic, Clinton, could not have foreseen that the Freshman Senator she initially supported would so invalidate her advice to work hard and learn the structure. Why work when a corrupt, sexist collective of Senators would set him up so grandly - rewarding his lazy, self-absorbed butt? They dismissed the informed, credentialed, responsive Senator from New York to take the pressure off themselves. The conduct of the US Senate begs the LA Times style investigation that has exposed Bell, CA and revealing an explosion of sweet deals these guys cut when they cut out the women. Trust us: We "get the news" whether the 4th Estate means to deliver it or not. Intuit this! That's why Trial By Jury makes the system work:)
Merchants of Doubt is an important book. Oreskes and Conway have both writing and science chops so the narrative has heft. The George Marshall Institute is the main antagonist -- this is the home to a cadre of scientists and flacks who have contested attempts to regulate second-hand smoke, carbon emissions and the arms bazaar. Some of the most prominent deniers, like Fred Singer and Robert Jastrow (who predicted that the Soviets were poised for world dominate -- in 1987!) are not only corporate elite shills but made their bones in military research/intelligence.
Okay, I'm being lazy -- posting this instead of doing some actual writing. But Maher makes a good point during his main rant here.
I've had some moments of guilt about having been a hold-out Edwards supporter until the bitter -- very bitter -- end. But why? There's a fairly good chance that Newt will get the Republican nod -- and even if he doesn't, he still gets to show his face in public. Edwards can't. Yet in terms of public policy endorsements (and those are the terms that count), Edwards is by far the better man.
On a related note: I haven't given much thought to the Republican horserace, but there is one name that perhaps deserves greater consideration: Steve Forbes.
Okay, what I'm about to say will sound mega-weird. Bear with me. The standards around here are looser on weekends. I'll allow myself to talk about really goofy stuff that would be verboten on a weekday.
Until recently, Forbes had never really been on my radar. In the past, he has focused on his flat tax proposal, which is one of those things that sounds good to the yokels until someone finally explains what it really means. Besides, the guy is nobody's idea of a compelling speaker.
So I simply put Forbes out of my mind.
But then, about a month ago, I had a horrifying and unusually vivid dream in which I was watching live news footage of Forbes after he had won a primary which may have clinched the nomination. Then there was a very violent attack. Let's skip past the gory details -- suffice it to say that I woke up gasping and sweating, exactly they way people wake up from nightmares in the movies.
Well, that was just a bad dream. But it prompted some morning-after research. And you know what...?
Looks to me like Forbes is positioning himself for a possible run. He has reached out to the teabaggers; he has positioned himself as a social conservative; he has moderated the "flat tax" talk.
You think it could happen? By "it" I mean a Forbes presidential run, not the nightmare I had. God, let's hope nothing like that ever occurs.
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I can't get excited to help defeat Forbes to elect Obama. I know that Newt or Forbes or another right wing GOP would be worse than Obama, but all I can say is meh.
posted by Anonymous : 3:03 PM
Forbes' various media outlets have actually been doing some balanced reporting-- I'm wondering if he's positioning himself as the AntiKoch.
p.s. I was also with Edwards to the very bitter end-- and I still maintain his position on "Two Americas" was right on the money.
Jon Stewart makes some excellent points here. Another point that deserves emphasis: The Wall Streeters received perverse compensation for benefiting from offering failed financial products. They were allowed to bet on the failure of loans, which is why they encouraged making loans to Subprime borrowers. They encouraged the sales of rotten, sure-to-fail financial instruments based on those loans. They found ways to make hundreds of millions of dollars from schemes designed to ruin their own companies, and the economy as a whole.
The average person simply cannot get his head around these facts, because Wall Street operates according to non-intuitive rules. The teabaggers can thus get away with framing banker compensation in terms of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work, when in fact there was nothing honest about anything they did. The system encouraged corruption.
I'm going to take the liberty of reprinting a good chunk of Bryan Gould's piece in the latest Lobster. (The entire publication is avaiable for free download, but only for a short time.)
Contrary to the expectations of many of us that the global financial crisis would be seen as a conclusive judgement on the failures of neo-liberal doctrine, it is the Right that seems to have emerged, for the time being at least, unscathed and emboldened by the failure of their policies. It is worth reminding ourselves of the precise lessons that the global financial crisis should, and briefly appeared to, have taught us...
Markets are not self-correcting.
This simple and obvious proposition, so strongly confirmed by the failure of many of the world’s financial institutions, had been conveniently overlooked and even flatly denied by neoliberal theorists. They chose to believe that operators in a market are perfectly informed and enjoy a parity of bargaining power and that market outcomes are therefore the best available and should not be second-guessed. We now know that this is self-serving nonsense, and that the natural tendency of the unregulated market is to lead to excess, irresponsibility, inefficiency and eventually collapse.
The ‘trickle down’ theory was often used to support the proposition that, if the rich got proportionately richer, the rest of us would benefit in absolute even if not comparative terms from the lift in economic activity that the increased wealth of the rich would produce through increased investment and employment. This theory has been discredited in the absence of any credible evidence to support it, and in the face of evidence to the contrary that shows that in countries where inequality has widened the most, the living standards of the poor have actually declined.
Contrary to the constantly repeated mantra that the best thing that government can do is to ‘get off our backs’, the global crisis shows that in the end it is only governments that have the resources, will and legitimacy to underpin a failed banking system and therefore the currency and the economy more generally.
Wasn't the S&L debacle the result of Ronald Reagan deregulation? Didn't anybody learn from that?
How is it that we forgot the reason for strict anti-trust, and financial institution legislation 40 years after FDR?
Or did we forget?
Could it be that a group of 'on the take' congress members and their Wall Street masters knew exactly what they were going to do and that they would make a boat load of money doing it?
I'm beginning to think that Jimmy Hoffa was wacked because the republicans didn't want any competition. And by republican I mean Barry Obama too.
posted by Mr. Mike : 9:06 PM
Inside job did quite a decent job of getting across some of the absurdities of what went on. But they missed several key points. The two critical points are the interplay between total banking system leverage, banker compensation and economic growth.
So back when I was young and the banks were beginning their successful power grab, most securities firms were partnerships, and also heavily regulated. There was limited access to derivatives which by their nature embed massive leverage. This naturally limited the extent to which securities firms could make money. So they lobbied to do two things. One was to accept outside capital - share capital - so that they could expand. They used the argument that if foreign banks/securities firms moved first they would not be able to compete.
However once you start taking outside capital a) you become more powerful. b) you can bet with other peoples money. All sorts of games become attractive cos if you win, you make money personally and if you lose, your banks shareholders take the pain. Or ultimately the government cos the bank is now "too big to fail".
The other key development was "deregulation". Deregulation is a silly term because it is framed from a bankers perspective. Better to call it, leverage expansion. That was the goal. Regulation always limited leverage but increasing leverage always increases bank income. So by lobbying for increased leverage then banks can make more money.
Its simple really; equityxleverage=balance sheet. The bigger the balance sheet the more money they make. However by using more leverage the more risk they take as well.
But if your loses are socialised but your profits are yours, then you arent really taking any risk. The tax payer takes the risk and you take the profit.
I think people get this now, but they banks can argue that if you make us reverse this process now, we will not be able to lend and the securities markets will fall. This will put the economy in a tailspin.
Its true. The banks/securities firms have taken the economy hostage.
So fiscal policies designed to stimulate the real economy - like infrastructure spending wouldnt go directly to the banks. But low interest rates are a direct subsidy to the banks.
It all stinks. You need root and branch reform. I am sure that the bankster cheerleaders like Geitner will eventually insist on bigger equity issues by the banks but that wont really solve the problem.
All these people should nt be allowed to take public capital. They should all become partnerships again. Sorry about the length of this comment; Edit it or just delete it. I just felt compelled to get this point across cos I thought the movie missed it.
I post this clip from "Inside Job" not to intrude on copyright but to entice you to rent or buy this extremely important film. This may be the finest documentary ever produced, with the possible exception of Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke.
This clip -- which gains much more power when seen in context -- explains why we must do everything in our power to stop Obama from becoming the Democratic party's nominee in 2012. It also functions as a riposte to the teabaggers and FOX-watchers: The trouble with Obama is not that he's a socialist -- the problem is that he is a Republican.
This speech by James Galbraith makes the same point. Galbraith offers something that most anti-Obama liberals have so far been unable to create: A plan of action.
By the way -- not that most of you would notice, but the wide-screen photography of Inside Job is gorgeous. These new digital cameras offer an oh-my-god level of detail and vibrancy that reminds me of the glory days of 70mm.
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But why watch the movie when we already know we have the best government money can buy?
posted by Mr. Mike : 7:52 PM
When the filmmakers accepted their Oscar for this, they made a statement to the effect that not one of the banksters is in jail. And of course, none of the MSM picked up on that quote.
I think we should have home party viewings of this film.
posted by Zee : 8:39 PM
And yet Obama's failure to prosecute the bankers is a mere shadow of his failure to investigate and prosecute Bush-Cheney war crimes and treason. With that little sin of omission, Obama may have become the worst President ever. It only took him two years to wrest the title from Bush II.
While I agree that Barack Obama will protect wall street from prosecution if possible, Bernie Madoff in my opinion qualifies as a wall street bankster.
Not prosecuting war crimes, financial crimes gives the Obama Administration time to commit their own crimes against our own people. Cut entitlements while letting the illegal and immoral wars continue unabated. Never a mention of cutting them out, just take the money from the old, the poor, the disabled, and the newly broke. And no one will run against this corruption. It is an inside job, too.
I sent the following out to a handful of bloggers this morning -- and received but one reply. Seems that my campaign to be known as the most unlikeable entity in human history has born fruit. Still, a good idea is a good idea, even if Satan himself proposes it. And this, methinks, is a good idea...
...and I thought: Instead of stewing in our juices about the wrongs done to each of us, why not achieve some justice?
Brad's piece is about the Chamber of Commerce plot to harass bloggers by spying on them, planting malware on their systems, and using "personas" to create the illusion of consensus on various internet forums. The "persona management software" suggested for this scheme apparently has existed for some years and has been used by DOD and the intelligence community.
Leading Democrats have asked Darrell Issa and other Republicans to investigate the issue. The text of the letter is on Brad's site.
I don't think that Issa will do this. He is an intensely partisan creature, and an investigation is not advantageous from a partisan standpoint.
But what if we sweetened the deal for him by asking him to look into Axelrod's exactly similar tactics on behalf of the Obama campaign in 2008?
Realistically speaking, we all know what Axelrod did. He runs an "astroturf" company called ASK. ASK used persona management software to create the pro-Obama, anti-Clinton firestorm throughout the progressive blogosphere.
In my case, malware was planted on my system by way of a fake email which I thought had been sent to me by Evelyn Pringle, the anti-Obama investigative reporter.
I know what you are thinking: "Yeah, that's what happened. At least, that is what we think. But we can't prove it."
That's the point.
The only way you are going to get courtroom-quality proof for a thing like this is to ask someone to mount an official investigation.
I propose that we ask Darrell Issa to do just that.
It's a controversial move. Let's face it: Issa is -- well, he is what he is. One does not want to ask such a person for favors.
On the other hand, a congressional inquiry is the only way of establishing the facts behind a scurrilous campaign of political intimidation. If we are committed to replacing Obama as the Democratic standard bearer, and (more importantly) if we want to assure that such ghastly behavior does not mar future elections, then we must expose what his campaign did to us in 2008.
We have an excellent opportunity here to awaken the public to the dangers of mass opinion manipulation. Campaign "attack dogs" of both parties will not be able to get away with using persona software in future elections.
We're all in favor of clean campaign fights, aren't we?
I'd like your feedback. If most of you think this is a good idea, I'll research what to do next.
And Brad (if you're reading this) -- by sweetening the pot for Issa, by giving him a partisan reason to launch an investigation, you would also increase the chances of Aaron Barr being forced to undergo congressional grilling.
Well, you are not going to get a Demcrat to start that investigation. Why not Issa? BO is the worst thing to happen to the Dems and this country, IMHO. Just as Bush was the worst thing for the GOP and this country. If Issa is a patriot, and partisan hack, he should see the advantages in that investgation.
I'm not sure you could get a Republican to start an investigation either... I suspect Obama IS the R choice for prez...
But I'd say Issa would be as good a choice as any...
posted by OldCoastie : 7:46 PM
Excellent idea, Joseph. Possibly brilliant. No harm done if he says no, but an investigation could be interesting. And yes, if it is wrong if done for/by the Chamber of Commerce, it is wrong for/by Mr. Axelrod.
djmm
posted by djmm : 8:27 PM
um, I did not hit publish, but my last comment disappeared ... it was from Zee if the comment itself made it thru... it was a thumbs up for action, just in case...
posted by Zee : 11:57 PM
Retrieved the comment if it didn't come thru....if so, no need to repeat, thanks:
If anything, keep going until you at least get Brad to respond. The utter scum of the earth, Will PITT and Mark Karlin, both of whom turned DU and Buzzflash into sewers for Zerobama, finally took me off of their "truth"out (and LIES-in) mailing list (which Karlin turned into a money-grubbing org) but altho PITT finally turned on his messiah, he of course did not blame himself, even after he scrubbed DU of anyone who early on said the same things about Obama Pitt finally, belatedly, retardedly admits. Point is, IMO, anything that rubs Brad's nose in his own willful ignorance is worth it, and if it actually results in an investigation, so much the better. Take every measure. I will spread the word or help in any way possible.
posted by Zee : 12:01 AM
We need to get the names of the Obama people who called their fellow Democrats racists and throw them out of the party.
Good connecting of the dots, Joe, as to what Kos and others allowed to happen. Perhaps if some A-list bloggers didn't have their collective nose so far up Obama's butt they would have smelled the rat.
I think Issa will do something, not today but closer to election time. The politically smart thing to do would start an investigation in the summer of 2012 and let it drag on to the fall.
It will sink Obama's numbers and discourage Democrats from going to the polls come November. If he starts this year the Democrats can run another candidate if Obama decides to step down.
If that happens there is a good possibility blacks and youths will sit out the election, all republicans have to do is play the race card. Karma. But will it be enough to assure we get a President Jeb! or Palin, or Trump?
Sure, he could take out Axlerod now because you know Obama will throw him under the bus in a heart beat but will that be enough to cripple his campaign?
posted by Mr. Mike : 7:06 AM
I wish this could happen, but it won't. These underhanded tactics are probably used by ALL the power players (since most serve the same money/power interests), and no one will be willing to expose the game, D or R.
posted by Anonymous : 7:15 AM
I'd be afraid I'd catch some with Issa. I'm happier knowing he doesn't know I exist.
I remembered something tonite at work. There were allegations of sockpuppeteering flying around at Kos during the time of the primaries. I can't remember who was accusing who.
This is a post about personas. This is a post about our ongoing internet conversation and how it can be covertly manipulated.
In the past, we've talked about the great Chamber of Commerce scandal. The Chamber's law firm worked with a cyber-firm called HBGary to come up with elaborate schemes to spy on, harass and discredit all perceived online foes of the Chamber. We're talking about
the plans to plant false documents, create "fake personas" to infiltrate the progressive organizations opposing the Chamber, and to target leaders of the groups and their families in hopes of discrediting them by exploiting "pressure points" in hopes of intimidating them.
Aaron Barr, the CEO of HBGary -- and the man whose name appears on the damning emails -- has resigned from the firm. Brad Friedman's group is now trying to get Barr disbarred, because the D.C. Bar forbids lawyers from helping clients engage in illegal or fraudulent activity. In this case, such activity included the planting of backdoor malware on targeted computers and the creation of false documents.
I'm not sure if the creation of "personas" counts as a crime, but it is definitely foul behavior.
What are personas and why would the bad guys want to conjure them up? In short: "Persona" software allows a firm like HBGary to create an army of virtual people. One operator could control the internet behavior of all of those pseudo-individuals, who could be "relocated" anywhere. In other words, the operator could be in Virgnia, but the IP address of his personas would indicate New York, Los Angeles, Tehran or wherever.
Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people
Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."
As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."
Manufacturing consent
Though many questions remain about how the military would apply such technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual "people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering them to create the illusion of consensus.
You could call it a virtual flash mob, or a digital "Brooks Brothers Riot," so to speak: compelling, but not nearly as spontaneous as it appears.
When lambert of Corrente read these words, his mind flashed on the pro-Obama mob mentality that overtook the progressive blogs during 2008. That year saw not just a fevered political campaign but the creation of a genuine cult of personality. Big blogs like Daily Kos and TPM were inundated with comments from individuals never seen before or since, and they all spread horrific lies and rumors about Hillary and Bill Clinton while lauding Obama in reverential, almost messianic terms.
Were these personas? Were the Obots actually...bots?
My own blog, humble as it was, got battered by a "vitriol monsoon." The hate-spew came every few minutes, day and night. Software was obviously involved. A large amount of that hate commentary -- including several death threats -- came from the same ISP in Chicago, Illinois. The home of the Obama campaign.
If that happened here, it surely happened on a much grander scale on Kos and HuffPo.
Obama's campaign attack dog, David Axelrod, runs a little-known company called ASK, which -- surprise, surprise -- manipulates public opinion through the creation of astroturf (fake grassroots support for a policy, company or candidate). "Persona software" was created for the purpose of astroturfing. You know damned well that a cutting-edge firm like ASK has a copy of that software.
We have discussed ASK in a previous post. One of Axelrod's campaigns involved spreading a completely false revisionist history of the California energy crisis; he did this in order to help a public utility drum up support for a rate hike.
Not only that. In previous posts, I've spoken about the fake communication I received from someone claiming to be Evelyn Pringle, the investigative reporter who did such excellent work on Obama's pattern of corruption in Illinois. I had pushed her work in these cyber-pages, and I had also corresponded with her briefly. The pseudo-Pringle message existed for the purpose of planting malware on my system, forcing me to do a thorough reformat of my C drive.
Only someone in Axelrod's shop would have cared about Pringle enough to use her name in a scheme of this sort.
Here's something I haven't revealed heretofore: I received a similarly suspicious fake email from "Nibbles Mcgee," who used to contribute to these pages from time to time. (Her real name isn't Nibbles; that was the name of her cat. The private email message came to me under her real name.) As with the Pringle message, it contained a link to a malware-dropping website. Fortunately, my beefed-up antivirus software prevented the page from loading.
The bottom line: A lot of the stuff that Brad (rightfully) mentions in his HBGary complaint was previously done to me -- and to a lot of other people -- in 2008. The situations were parallel. In fact, "parallel" is the wrong word: It was the same thing.
And yet...
And yet all of blogland snarls and screams about HBGary and the Chamber of Commerce. Nobody in blogland snarls and screams about David Axelrod, who still sitteth at the right hand of the Messiah from Chicago.
I haven't noticed Brad Friedman talking about what Ax did in 2008, even though I've devoted a number of posts to the ghastliness committed by Aaron Barr. (Brad: Now do you see why I got so pissed off by your cowardly silence during the atrocities of 2008? The trickery didn't seem so bad -- until the same tricks were played on you.)
Here's the kicker: HBGary's plot amounted to a proposal. A mere proposal.
Axelrod's manipulation of blogistan left was put into actual practice. He created a president. He gave us the mess we are in right now, with the Democratic brand tarnished by Obama's continuing sellout to Wall Street.
You won't find many lefties eager to discuss the resemblance between Barr and Axelrod. (Fun experiment: Try Googling "Aaron Barr" in quotes and "Axelrod.") Why? Because progs are too damned haughty to confess that they, too, can be snookered.
Progressives pretend that they are brighter than the hoi polloi. They don't want to admit that they, like the teabaggers, can get sucked into a ginned-up political fad. Progs consider themselves independent and ornery (as do conservatives), yet you rarely see a prog defending a position unpopular within that community.
All across the political spectrum, Americans have lost the habit of thinking for themselves. That makes them perfect targets for guys like Ax and Aaron.
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The difference is that there's proof of what HBGary wanted to do. All the Axelrod stuff is unsubstantiated. Could it be true? Sure. But without evidence, this looks like circumstantial conspiracy mongering.
posted by Anonymous : 5:48 PM
Not from where I sit. I know what I experienced, and insults can't shunt aside the truth.
Look, the giveaway was the use of Pringle's name to plant malware on my system. Who OTHER than someone in Axelrod's shop would think to do that? A random spyware-planter, motivated only by money, would not have fixated on that name -- but it sure would have commanded the attention of someone trying to hide Obama's foul past.
"Look, the giveaway was the use of Pringle's name to plant malware on my system. Who OTHER than someone in Axelrod's shop would think to do that?"
Anybody who wanted to cause you pain and had read your posts. They thought you'd jump at the chance to correspond with her, as you did.
Axelrod? No offense, but you didn't mean jack-squat in the 2008 election, and aside from the occasional interesting post, you still don't.
But previously you DID manage to piss off a bunch of truthers, who may have carried a torch for you. Or maybe some Israeli art students weren't fond of your posts; or maybe it was somebody connected to the Florida drug scams you'd post on. In short, it could have been anyone.
You say it was a Chicago ISP, as though that means something. My ISP is in Canada. Does that mean I'm posting this on behalf of Stephen Harper? Do you think that Axelrod would leave behind a Chicago "clue" for you, when the very software you seem to claim he used can create personae that appear to live anywhere?
Despite your incorrect inference, the first comment here from Anonymous nails it. Read and re-read it until you no longer infer any "insults" designed to "shunt aside the truth." Otherwise, you're in tinfoil territory.
Bull fucking shit, asshole. I've heard from blog owners who had much smaller audiences than mine who underwent the same harassment.
There HAD to be software involved. That's the only way to understand how a blog that gets small traffic would suddenly be inundated by dozens of pro-Obama robo-comments every hour throughout the night and day.
Your point about the ISP location only buttresses what I'm saying. Re-read the wording of the AF contract for persona management software. Read carefully. You'll understand that, while the basic software is some years old, the location spoofing capability is new. The wording makes it pretty obvious that older versions of this kind of software could not do that.
As for the Pringle message: Any non-political malefactor who wanted me to click on a malware-dropping email would be more likely to use the name of a fellow blogger.
At the time the pseudo-Pringle message showed up, I had not mentioned her on my blog for ages. Someone out to plant a trojan for simple pecuniary reasons (such as discovering a bank account number) would have used a name that figures in a recent post, not in the archived stuff.
But the use of Pringle's name becomes likelier if you posit that someone did a google blogs search on her name in order to track who who had republished her work.
Only someone connected with the Obama campaign would have done that.
You are resorting to the sort of casuistry employed by the tobacco company "experts" who were paid to create doubt about the link between tobacco and cancer.
We all know damned well what happened in 2008. And I think there should be a proper congressional investigation into the scurrilous tactics used by David Axelrod.
Looks like you hit a nerve, Joseph. Interesting nym that troll chose, too. Reminds me of one of the O-trolls infesting another small blog, since the primary days.
posted by Zee : 7:22 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if something like this is being used in Wisconsin right now. It appears to me that the comments I see for news articles regarding the Walker bill do not concord with polling data (and there have been lots of professional polls, all pretty concordant with each other). Moreover, the professional polling that looks at the "passion index" (i.e. percentage of people that feel especially strongly pro and con) shows a far higher percentage of people passionately opposed to the Walker bill than in favor of it. Yet for many newspapers here in Wisconsin, the preponderance of comments appear to be written by Tea Party supporters of the bill. I've also noticed an online voting "poll" (i.e. one of those where you click a button) that within the space of a few hours registered an impossible number of votes supporting the bill (flipping the numbers from majority opposed to 80% in favor). It's leading me to wonder what is going on.
posted by affinis : 7:59 PM
What we need is Bot hunting software.
posted by James Logan : 4:04 AM
Joe, thanks for that info. on "persona Software". I knew something like this existed but never attached a name to it and I had missed your post about it. I remember all too well how we would track with disgust the vile commenter s and see that they all had more than their love for Obama and hatred for Clintons in common. Many also had the same IP address.
