Mark R. Taylor Take no prisoners! http://americantruckersatwar.com AmericanTruckersAtWar Discussion Group http://youtube.com/ironponyexpress http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194057.php Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated "Grassroots" Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them [Updated] ***Sticky***Scroll past on main page for newer posts***Updates sprinkled throughout post and summarized at end*** Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views. Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure. It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely: 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. This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow. WHO PRODUCED THE VIDEO? [UPDATE: Within 1 hour of posting, "eswinner" has removed all videos from YouTube and began removing any traces of his activities. But we have the video and all relevant websites backed up. If "eswinner" isn't Ethan Winner of the Publicis Groupe, then why did "eswinner" yank the video so quickly? Or if this was just an innocent homemade ad, then what does he have to hide? You'd think he'd want more attention for it. I uploaded it to my YouTube acount from the original unwatermarked Google version (see below for explanation) and that is the version you now see embedded below. Here's an image that show's he had the videos in question just moments ago. Click for bigger. I'll be able to provide a backup of the original YouTube page in the morning. For now, this will have to do.] Who is behind this video against Sarah Palin? It alleges: Sarah Palin was a member of an Anti-American separatist organization.It claims that Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party and cites The New York Times for that source. Then it quotes the founder of that Party with some pretty outrageous statements. But here's what FactCheck.org says about that: [Sarah Palin] was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982. And The New York Times was forced to retract their earlier claim that Palin was a member of the party, blaming the error on the party's chair. That retraction was published Sept. 3rd, 8 days before the video was first made publicly available. Sarah Palin wasn't even physically at the party's convention. The clip you see is part of Palin's videotaped welcome for the convention's opening in which she gives some general remarks about the need for party competition and then tries to draw some common ground on the need to reel in government spending. Hardly evidence of extremism or anti-American sentiment. In our opinion the Palin smear video appears professionally produced. Especially revealing is the voice over, which has a ring of familiarity to it and which also sounds professional. If we are correct, that means that someone paid for the ad and for the talent behind it. Yet no one identifies themselves as being behind the video. Using techniques that we've used in the past to find the identity of online terrorist supporters, the Jawa team went to work trying to figure out who was behind what appeared, in our opinion, to be a professionally orchestrated smear campaign aimed at Sarah Palin with the ultimate goal of electing Barack Obama. VIOLATION OF FEC RULES? 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 exploitatio --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of the "News Sarasota" Google group... To read more, go to: http://www.newssarasota.com http://newssarasotaezine.talkspot.com To hear more, go to: http://thecaptainsamerica.podomatic.com Enjoy the priviledge you now share with others who want to know what others don't... Thanks, Matt Bruce Managing Editor News Sarasota.com Retired 25 Year Fire-Rescue Captain Host Of: "The Captain's AMERICA" Show Heard From 12 noon to 1 PM ET Monday Thru Friday LIVE On Net Talk World.com Across America & Around The Globe At The Speed Of The Internet... Weekend's Overnight on The Accent Radio Network... 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