Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party
Still not feeling great, especially after the little trip to the ER yesterday. Wonderful news -- it's a bronchial infection. Lots of liquids, antibiotics, and rest (yeah right).
This will likely be the only post put up today, so pay close attention because this story has exploded over the 'Sphere.
Yesterday I spotted a post by Ace about a coming story that was coming out that was going to blow the lid off of the Obama camp's efforts to destroy Sarah Palin. The blogger leading the charge? Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report, and his investigation has uncovered a PR firm that has been uploading videos to YouTube that are beyond slanderous. Their sole goal was to take Sarah Palin out using any means necessary.
Go to the Jawa Report and read the entire report he's assembled. This is big, really big. David Axelrod's little schoolyard tactics are now wide open, and we see him for the POS that he really is.
What's the proof that Rusty's spot-on in his report? Because Ace noted that the videos were pulled from the Internet as Rusty was putting his report up on the 'Net. (If you've never read the Jawa Report, you really should. Rusty has been involved in a number of investigative reports, and not all of them are political. He's tracked down cyber-jihadis, and alerted authorities to their presence.)
Basically, in this report, this is what he's found:
-- Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
--The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
--Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
--Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
--The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
--This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”
--David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
--The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.
Was a law broken? Aside from the fact that the ads produced by this PR firm -- Winner and Associates -- are slanderous, it appears that they violated federal election laws when it comes to ads, in general. Any ad produced, whether it is done with the knowledge of the campaign it purports to help, must carry a disclaimer. Rusty explains:
Federal election law requires that a disclaimer from those paying for campaign ads, "must appear on any "electioneering communication" and on any public communication by any person that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate or solicits funds in connection with a federal election." Even when the ad is not paid for nor coordinated with the candidates election committee, "the disclaimer notice must identify who paid for the message, state that it was not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee and list the permanent street address, telephone number or World Wide Web address of the person who paid for the communication."
No such disclaimer appears on the ad in question. However, "General public political advertising does not include Internet ads, except for communications placed for a fee on another person’s web site." It is not clear to us whether a video is considered an "internet ad" or if the wording only meant to include banner ads or other more common forms of internet advertising.
All of the web only video ads that we could find produced by the Obama campaign carried the disclosure or some other clearly identifiable notice that they were responsible for its content.
It would appear that the ad, while professionally produced, was put on YouTube and then spread in such a way as to make it seem like amateurs had made it and spread it. We can't help but wonder if the missing disclaimer on the video was an intentional exploitation of a loophole meant to distance the people behind the ad from its outright lies?
So what's the big deal, you ask. This is politics as usual, you say.
Actually it's not. This is a old form of politics taken national. This is the "Chicago Machine" politics that Barack Obama is used to. He's played these games before. David "Astroturf" Axelrod has been in his back pocket since the beginning, and he has served his master well. See Obama doesn't know how to run an honest campaign. He dives for dirty tricks when he can. He attacks his opponents relentlessly. And in the end, when he's taking a beating, he pulls out and plays the race card. In short, he's playing the victim when he's not even close to one.
Politics is a blood-sport. There are no victims, per se, because if you're running for office, you've agreed to take the knocks. If you don't want the verbal beating, then you shouldn't be running for office. Obama thought -- he thought, mind you -- that he could guilt people into being on his side because he happens to be a minority. Unfortunately for him, some of us don't do the race game. We scrutinize those wanting to be elected based on their merits, and he clearly doesn't have any that can benefit this nation. Toss in his radical ties for the past 20 years -- William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Bernadine Dohrn, Michael Pfleger, ACORN, etc. -- and what you have is a rookie politician with a lot of baggage, and not many accomplishments.
The weasels behind this little scorched earth campaign are running for cover. They're trying to get rid of any evidence connecting them to this game, and unfortunately for them, Rusty's got the evidence cached. In his post he states that there will be more updates about this, and if it's one thing we know about Rusty he is a man of his word. There's a lot more to come out about this. Oh, and I'd also like to add that many connected with DailyKos and DU were complicit in helping Winner and Associates get these viral ads out. In fact, on diarist at DailyKos even admitted (Rusty has it in his initial piece linked above) that they were going to engage in a scorched earth policy in going after both John McCain and Sarah Palin.
This is what the other side is willing to do -- lie, cheat, and steal to win this election. I've heard people yawn about the line that "this is the most important election" in the last couple of decades, and while we're not apt to jump on board any meme out there, this is an extremely important election. We are still at war. We have a weakened economy. In the next eight years we could see as many as six Supreme Court jurists retire. Barack Obama isn't the guy we want handling these issues. He has no clue how to handle them. And when he gets hammered on those points this is how he responds. He turns a PR firm loose as an attack dog that smears the other half of the opposition ticket.
Why go after Sarah Palin? She's a threat. John McCain's brilliant choice of choosing a proven reformer has shaken up the race in ways Obama never anticipated. Her addition to the ticket has not only solidified the GOP base, but is also drawing more moderates and Independents away from Obama. He's in trouble, and his only response was to fall back on "Chicago Machine" political tactics. It's despicable the lengths he's willing to go to, but it's not surprising.
Kudos to Dr. Shackleford for his yeoman's work in exposing this strategy by the Obama campaign.
Publius II
ADDENDUM: Did I say "exploded" earlier? Yes I did. Check out the tracking on Memeorandum to see the bigwigs that are on this story. Be sure to follow the links provided. AJ Strata weighs in with a quick breakdown of how quickly the watchers reacted:
Ace of Spades played team Obama to the hilt. Aces spider web was simple - warn the Obama camp a major story was coming (I believe this came out in the middle of the night) and then watch the action. As Ace notes the middle of the night story caused Winner & Associates people to start cleaning their tracks - all done before 2:00 AM. Clearly the word went out from team Obama, who does watch the blogs on the right, to Winner & Ass. (maybe the new name should be Losers & Ass.) to clean their tracks. Let’s make this clear, 90 minutes to clean up the traces. That is 30 minutes to review the Jawa Report details, confirm them and wake people up, and 60 minutes to delete videos and close accounts. That is just about right - I think these guys nailed Obama, Axelrod and W&A!
Listen up you liberal morons. We aren't stupid. We know you watch the starboard side of the 'Sphere. The two of us here may not be as well known or as infamous as others, but we have our share of critics (most of it arriving in e-mail rather than comments). We know that we are watched, and the Left is only fooling itself when they deny they do read conservative blogs.
You guys got suckered. Ace warned about a major story breaking from Rusty, and even tipped people off to the approximate time it would be published. All they did was sit and wait for the expose. AJ's right. They read it, realized they got caught, and immediately set about the task of covering their tracks. The problem is that people like Ace, Dan Riehl, and Michelle Malkin are night owls when it comes to major news. If this had been pure conjecture with no back up evidence, they would have shut their computers off and gone to bed. But the evidence Rusty provided was enough to prompt them to keep an eye on the YouTube accounts. At 12:42 AM Ace noted that "eswinner" logged into his YouTube account. By 4:38 AM, all of the "winner" accounts were gone. Ace even noted that he didn't mention Winner and Associates in his initial report of the scoop coming out. Obama campaign people were obviously watching to see which one of their stealth cronies was about to get exposed. Ace also notes that the KosKiddie who urged the scorched earth viral video astroturfing has been busy scrubbing the DailyKos diaries of his/her suggested strategy. Searching for it on the Kos site is futile because it's gone. Um, note to the KosKiddie "geekesque" -- you can delete the diary, but you can't delete the cached page.
You poor fools got caught red-handed. This is what we call "checkmate."
Publius II
This will likely be the only post put up today, so pay close attention because this story has exploded over the 'Sphere.
Yesterday I spotted a post by Ace about a coming story that was coming out that was going to blow the lid off of the Obama camp's efforts to destroy Sarah Palin. The blogger leading the charge? Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report, and his investigation has uncovered a PR firm that has been uploading videos to YouTube that are beyond slanderous. Their sole goal was to take Sarah Palin out using any means necessary.
Go to the Jawa Report and read the entire report he's assembled. This is big, really big. David Axelrod's little schoolyard tactics are now wide open, and we see him for the POS that he really is.
What's the proof that Rusty's spot-on in his report? Because Ace noted that the videos were pulled from the Internet as Rusty was putting his report up on the 'Net. (If you've never read the Jawa Report, you really should. Rusty has been involved in a number of investigative reports, and not all of them are political. He's tracked down cyber-jihadis, and alerted authorities to their presence.)
Basically, in this report, this is what he's found:
-- Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
--The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
--Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
--Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
--The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
--This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”
--David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
--The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.
Was a law broken? Aside from the fact that the ads produced by this PR firm -- Winner and Associates -- are slanderous, it appears that they violated federal election laws when it comes to ads, in general. Any ad produced, whether it is done with the knowledge of the campaign it purports to help, must carry a disclaimer. Rusty explains:
Federal election law requires that a disclaimer from those paying for campaign ads, "must appear on any "electioneering communication" and on any public communication by any person that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate or solicits funds in connection with a federal election." Even when the ad is not paid for nor coordinated with the candidates election committee, "the disclaimer notice must identify who paid for the message, state that it was not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee and list the permanent street address, telephone number or World Wide Web address of the person who paid for the communication."
No such disclaimer appears on the ad in question. However, "General public political advertising does not include Internet ads, except for communications placed for a fee on another person’s web site." It is not clear to us whether a video is considered an "internet ad" or if the wording only meant to include banner ads or other more common forms of internet advertising.
All of the web only video ads that we could find produced by the Obama campaign carried the disclosure or some other clearly identifiable notice that they were responsible for its content.
It would appear that the ad, while professionally produced, was put on YouTube and then spread in such a way as to make it seem like amateurs had made it and spread it. We can't help but wonder if the missing disclaimer on the video was an intentional exploitation of a loophole meant to distance the people behind the ad from its outright lies?
So what's the big deal, you ask. This is politics as usual, you say.
Actually it's not. This is a old form of politics taken national. This is the "Chicago Machine" politics that Barack Obama is used to. He's played these games before. David "Astroturf" Axelrod has been in his back pocket since the beginning, and he has served his master well. See Obama doesn't know how to run an honest campaign. He dives for dirty tricks when he can. He attacks his opponents relentlessly. And in the end, when he's taking a beating, he pulls out and plays the race card. In short, he's playing the victim when he's not even close to one.
Politics is a blood-sport. There are no victims, per se, because if you're running for office, you've agreed to take the knocks. If you don't want the verbal beating, then you shouldn't be running for office. Obama thought -- he thought, mind you -- that he could guilt people into being on his side because he happens to be a minority. Unfortunately for him, some of us don't do the race game. We scrutinize those wanting to be elected based on their merits, and he clearly doesn't have any that can benefit this nation. Toss in his radical ties for the past 20 years -- William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Bernadine Dohrn, Michael Pfleger, ACORN, etc. -- and what you have is a rookie politician with a lot of baggage, and not many accomplishments.
The weasels behind this little scorched earth campaign are running for cover. They're trying to get rid of any evidence connecting them to this game, and unfortunately for them, Rusty's got the evidence cached. In his post he states that there will be more updates about this, and if it's one thing we know about Rusty he is a man of his word. There's a lot more to come out about this. Oh, and I'd also like to add that many connected with DailyKos and DU were complicit in helping Winner and Associates get these viral ads out. In fact, on diarist at DailyKos even admitted (Rusty has it in his initial piece linked above) that they were going to engage in a scorched earth policy in going after both John McCain and Sarah Palin.
This is what the other side is willing to do -- lie, cheat, and steal to win this election. I've heard people yawn about the line that "this is the most important election" in the last couple of decades, and while we're not apt to jump on board any meme out there, this is an extremely important election. We are still at war. We have a weakened economy. In the next eight years we could see as many as six Supreme Court jurists retire. Barack Obama isn't the guy we want handling these issues. He has no clue how to handle them. And when he gets hammered on those points this is how he responds. He turns a PR firm loose as an attack dog that smears the other half of the opposition ticket.
Why go after Sarah Palin? She's a threat. John McCain's brilliant choice of choosing a proven reformer has shaken up the race in ways Obama never anticipated. Her addition to the ticket has not only solidified the GOP base, but is also drawing more moderates and Independents away from Obama. He's in trouble, and his only response was to fall back on "Chicago Machine" political tactics. It's despicable the lengths he's willing to go to, but it's not surprising.
Kudos to Dr. Shackleford for his yeoman's work in exposing this strategy by the Obama campaign.
Publius II
ADDENDUM: Did I say "exploded" earlier? Yes I did. Check out the tracking on Memeorandum to see the bigwigs that are on this story. Be sure to follow the links provided. AJ Strata weighs in with a quick breakdown of how quickly the watchers reacted:
Ace of Spades played team Obama to the hilt. Aces spider web was simple - warn the Obama camp a major story was coming (I believe this came out in the middle of the night) and then watch the action. As Ace notes the middle of the night story caused Winner & Associates people to start cleaning their tracks - all done before 2:00 AM. Clearly the word went out from team Obama, who does watch the blogs on the right, to Winner & Ass. (maybe the new name should be Losers & Ass.) to clean their tracks. Let’s make this clear, 90 minutes to clean up the traces. That is 30 minutes to review the Jawa Report details, confirm them and wake people up, and 60 minutes to delete videos and close accounts. That is just about right - I think these guys nailed Obama, Axelrod and W&A!
Listen up you liberal morons. We aren't stupid. We know you watch the starboard side of the 'Sphere. The two of us here may not be as well known or as infamous as others, but we have our share of critics (most of it arriving in e-mail rather than comments). We know that we are watched, and the Left is only fooling itself when they deny they do read conservative blogs.
You guys got suckered. Ace warned about a major story breaking from Rusty, and even tipped people off to the approximate time it would be published. All they did was sit and wait for the expose. AJ's right. They read it, realized they got caught, and immediately set about the task of covering their tracks. The problem is that people like Ace, Dan Riehl, and Michelle Malkin are night owls when it comes to major news. If this had been pure conjecture with no back up evidence, they would have shut their computers off and gone to bed. But the evidence Rusty provided was enough to prompt them to keep an eye on the YouTube accounts. At 12:42 AM Ace noted that "eswinner" logged into his YouTube account. By 4:38 AM, all of the "winner" accounts were gone. Ace even noted that he didn't mention Winner and Associates in his initial report of the scoop coming out. Obama campaign people were obviously watching to see which one of their stealth cronies was about to get exposed. Ace also notes that the KosKiddie who urged the scorched earth viral video astroturfing has been busy scrubbing the DailyKos diaries of his/her suggested strategy. Searching for it on the Kos site is futile because it's gone. Um, note to the KosKiddie "geekesque" -- you can delete the diary, but you can't delete the cached page.
You poor fools got caught red-handed. This is what we call "checkmate."
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 10:04 AM
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