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Dorsey Shaw asks this question--America Rising: Is This Viral Video Sensation Really Grassroots Or The GOP In Disguise? and offers some thoughts on why this was professionally done and has the GOP's fingerprints all over it.

#1 The Video Only Focuses on Democrats, Leftist and Liberals

Why This Is a GOP Fingerprint: Tea Party people hate all the bums in Washington, especially the Republicans who they feel have betrayed their conservative values.

#2 The Author Is Unknown

Another Republican Fingerprint?: Every single Tea Party person has a blog and a gun. They are not afraid of the Government. If any of them were to make a video that was bound to go viral, they would also have a T-shirt to sell you just in case you really liked the video and needed something other than a Sean Hannity / Glenn Beck concert hoodie to wear to the next rally on the steps of Congress.

#3 It's Way Too Good

This Video Reeks of GOP DNA: The GOP still doesn't "get" the Internet, and if there's one thing the Internet prides itself on, it's sniffing out a phony. This video, though not broadcast quality, is a damn good piece of work that has perfect edits and music that sounds like it's a leftover from one of McCain's unused A/V hit pieces from '08. If the GOP operatives who created this video were really internet savvy, they would have used more familiar copyrighted material like a true guerilla YouTube auteur.

Take a look and judge for yourself but don't be surprised when it turns out a guy named Dick who's last name rhymes with Army is one of the persons responsible for this "grassroots" effort.

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This video titled America Rising: An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians originally appeared on You Tube and the video was pulled by the person who posted it and the account was shut down a week or so later. You can still see the cached page here.

Looks like they're already putting the fear mongering into high gear to get ready for the elections this year. My question is why didn't the person who produced this want their name attached to it? Badabing asked the same question in their diary at Daily KOS--Alan Grayson Eviscerates Republicans into Confetti - LOL.

From The Rachel Maddow Show Dec. 30, 2009. Rachel vows to keep covering the right wing extremists that her show has done such a wonderful job of going after all year in 2009. So all you astroturf groups, tea baggers, religious zealots, gay bashers and C-Street Family members, you're not going to get a break in 2010. Good for Rachel.

Anyone else think they ought to have her on earlier instead of giving Tweety two hours -- one a reair most of the time -- to pollute the airways for the most part before her show comes on? She's got the best news show on cable television, hands down IMHO.

MADDOW: So, happy new year. When this show launched in September of last year, there was absolutely no ambiguity about what we would be spending most of our time covering. We started the show during the very last lap of the presidential election.

And we here at MSNBC and at this show, specifically, covered that election wall to wall for what sometimes felt like 25 hours a day. There was election night coverage itself. And then after Obama won but Bush and Cheney were still in office, there was the "Lame Duck Watch" to attend to. Remember the "Lame Duck Watch" intro?

(MUSIC)

I live and hope for there to be another duck-related presidential news item that would justify us using "Hail to the Chief" with the quack at the end of it. We do have it on file in case that ever happens.

After the lame duck period was over and the inauguration happened, this new young show of ours, along with everybody else in the media, settled into a year of covering this new presidency and the news and politics of our country this year.

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Oh lookie here. Chris Matthews decided to have himself a little astroturf tea party with FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe and Americans for Prosperity's Tim Phillips. Never during the interview did Matthews talk about or ask either of these guys who funds their groups. I'm sure Dick Armey is grateful Chris. Maybe he was just trying to make up to Tim for the pummeling he received on Rachel Maddow's show.

I will give Matthews credit for this at least pointing this out about Ronald Reagan to Matt Kibbe:

MATTHEWS: Has there ever been a strong conservative president, for example, in your lifetime or anybody -- your grandfather`s lifetime? Who do you look to as a good role model for the tea party people?

KIBBE: Well, obviously, Ronald Reagan is the closest thing we have.

MATTHEWS: What did he do in terms of fiscal policy?

KIBBE: Oh, he -- he said that we shouldn`t spend money we don`t have, and he said that the government shouldn`t get involved in things that it`s not very good at doing.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Yes. Have you ever checked the numbers with Reagan?

KIBBE: Well, I understand. I understand...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The national debt went from under $1 trillion to $3 trillion. He did more to increase exponentially the size of the debt of any president in history. And he`s your role model.

Here's the treatment Tim Phillips got on Rachel's show--Maddow Blasts AFP's Tim Phillips as "Parasite", "Bad for the Country" Quite a difference from the warm and fuzzy interview Matthews did with him today.

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Full transcript below the fold via.

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Rachel Maddow highlights some excellent reporting on several Astroturf groups opposed to health care reform, and no surprise here but who is helping to promote them? Fox "News" of course.

From Think Progress--Exclusive: Attacks On Health Reform Orchestrated By Yet Another Shadowy Corporate Front Group — ‘CMPI’

The AP--THE INFLUENCE GAME: Front group fights health bill

And from Mother Jones--The Tea Party's Favorite Doctors

MADDOW: At this very moment, tonight, there is a high-stakes battle under way in the nation`s capital. It is an arm-twisting, vote-wrangling, down-to-the-wire, choose your cliche efforts to get health care reform past. Senate Democrats are trying to hold off Republicans while keeping their own conservatives in line. That`s the battle on health reform that`s happening on the surface.

Just below the surface is a battle for public opinion that is being shaped by a lot of different interest groups, but by some groups in particular that are trying to shape the debate while disguising their own role in doing so. As health reform proceeds and these folks get more desperate and more sloppy, some great investigative journalism done recently by "The Associated Press," by the Center for American Progress and by "Mother Jones" magazine has uncovered some of the inadvertent hilarity in who`s behind the opposition to health reform.

If you happen to be an avid viewer of the FOX News Channel, you`re probably not watching me. But let`s say you are. You have probably seen a lot of analysis on health reform on FOX News by a FOX News medical contributor named Dr. Marc Siegel.

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Rachel breaks through some of the spin on the election results from last night. Unlike most of the pundits in the “mainstream” media who have been doing their best to paint what happened in New Jersey and Virginia as some sort of shift by the electorate back to the Republican Party, Rachel does a very nice job keeping the results in perspective. As Rachel also notes, the Tea Baggers are gearing up for more conservative challengers in 2010 and for some more Astroturf protests on Capitol Hill, undeterred by the loss in NY-23.

MADDOW: But we begin tonight with the end of election 2009 and the very exciting beginning of election 2010 -- which, of course, starts with the breathless spinning of last night's results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR ®, MISSISSIPPI: There's no question that these elections propel Republicans into 2010.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We won one in California, we won the big one in New York 23, where the Obama agenda was at play were in the two congressional races, both of which were won by Democrats.

REP. ERIC CANTOR ®, VIRGINIA: Taking away from this, you know, we look to '010. People have clearly made a choice in our state. They have said no to the one-way street of the economic policies of the Obama administration and the Pelosi Congress.

MICHAEL STEELE, RNC CHAIRMAN: Assume the Heisman position. Yes, baby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I told you!

STEELE: There you go. That's my moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Yes, baby.

Spin aside, the political map in this country did change last night. Before last night, here was the partisan breakdown of governor seats across the country: 22 Republican governors and 28 Democrats.

After last night, this is what it looks like. Yes, I know, stunning, right? Republicans picked up Virginia and New Jersey. So, we're now at 24 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

In terms of congressional races, last night California's 10th district stayed blue, but it got a little blue-ier as moderate Democrat Ellen Tauscher was replaced by progressive Democrat John Garamendi.

The congressional race that got all of the attention last night was, of course, in the northeast. It was New York's 23rd congressional district.

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From The Daily Show:

Sean Hannity blames the drought affecting California farmers on the government and a tiny fish.

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From Washington Journal Sunday Sept. 20, 2009.

Kevin Baker, Harper’s Magazine & Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal, discussed the Obama Presidency so far, and news of the week.

After hearing from a caller that accuses Harper's Kevin Baker of being insulting to the protesters by calling them "tea baggers" and astroturf and calling him "wimpy" to boot, Baker explains that he isn't the one that came up with that term. Baker says he'd be happy to go head to head with those protesting and attend some of the protests himself- as long as none of them bring their automatic weapons.

Moore then goes on to defend the protesters by blaming President Obama for polarizing the country. Baker says nothing justifies showing up with automatic weapons and with signs saying that the Tree of Liberty needs to be watered with blood and notes how polarizing that is.

Then Moore adds this.

Moore: I was out there. I didn't see anybody with... (crosstalk) I didn't see any... with all due respect; in all the events I've been to I've never seen anybody with a swastika. I've never seen anybody with a gun and these people are not anti-American.

Moderator: We've got to wrap it up there...

Baker: I've seen them repeatedly.

Hey Stephen, just because you didn't see it personally- which I don't believe for one minute about the swastikas- doesn't mean it's didn't happen. I don't know who Moore thinks he's kidding but I wish the time hadn't run out on the segment so Baker could have had a shot at rebutting him after making that ridiculous statement. There is not a chance in hell he doesn't know full well that people brought both.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Princeton's Melissa Harris-Lacewell about the latest astroturf "9-12" protests being used by the likes of Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks to exploit the memory of what happened on 9-11.

MADDOW: No right-wing fury over anything President Obama does is complete until we‘ve heard from former half-term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin.

Her take-away from last night‘s speech on health care reform, according to her Facebook page, was this—quote, “President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the war on terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day, and those who have died since in the war on terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag.”

OK. Never mind that the president‘s remark was a cost comparison between health reform and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and never mind that the Iraq war and 9/11 still have nothing to do with one another despite how inconvenient that is, Sarah Palin is staying in the news now by using 9/11 to try to score political points against President Obama on the eve of the anniversary of the attacks.

But that cynical patriotism, it turns out, is merely an appetizer before the main course of exploiting a national tragedy that this year has been prepared for September 12th by the sous chef of politics as performance art, Mr. Glenn Lee Beck.

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Rachel reports on more astroturf groups, this time from the petroleum industry, and their efforts to affect health care and energy policy.

From The Houston Chronicle-- Energy workers rally against climate plan:

Local energy workers jammed a downtown Houston theater today to protest climate change legislation that the U.S. Senate will take up in the coming weeks.

The Energy Citizens rally, promoted by some major energy companies and business organizations as well as the Greater Houston Partnership, is the first of several such events planned in 19 states in the coming weeks.

About 3,500 people, or 1,500 more than expected, filed into the facility, many donning yellow T-shirts that were being handed out that read "I'm an energy citizen." Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. was the keynote speaker.

And TPM has more: "Sensitive" Oil Industry Memo Lays Out Plan For Astroturf Rallies Against Climate Change Bill:

A leaked memo sent by an oil industry group reveals a plan to create astroturf rallies at which industry employees posing as "citizens" will urge Congress to oppose climate change legislation.

The memo -- sent by the American Petroleum Institute and obtained by Greenpeace, which sent it to reporters -- urges oil companies to recruit their employees for events that will "put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy," and will urge senators to "avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill."

API tells TPMmuckraker that the campaign is being funded by a coalition of corporate and conservative groups that includes the anti-health-care-reform group 60 Plus, FreedomWorks, and Grover Norquist's Americans For Tax Reform.

The memo, signed by API president Jack Gerard, asks recipients to give API "the name of one central coordinator for your company's involvement in the rallies."

And it warns: "Please treat this information as sensitive ... we don't want critics to know our game plan."

Aside from the astroturf nature of the planned events, which appear aimed at passing off industry employees as independent citizens, the memo also raises questions about the positions of several major oil companies on the issue of climate change. BP and Shell both are members of API, and also of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of groups that supports Waxman-Markey, the very climate change legislation the memo criticizes.

API has spent over $3 million lobbying against that bill this year.

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Rachel Maddow talks to the AARP's John Rother about the fear mongering astroturf ad campaigns targeted specifically to scare the hell out of seniors on health care reform.

BARACK OBAMA: The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't-it's too expensive to let her live anymore. I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera.

The irony is that actually one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican then-House member, now-senator named Johnny Isakson from Georgia who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people's options. And somehow, it's gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favor of that. So just-I want to-I want to-I want to clear the air here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Also, the president would like to make clear that he is not in favor of rubbing chewing gum into everyone's hair, nor is he in favor of forced sex changes, nor is he in favor of making everyone wear nude-colored panty hose on their hands like mittens all year around just for the pure inconvenience of it all. He'd like to make that clear.

What's being called a debate about health care policy right now is so far from an actual debate about health care policy that the charge from his critics that the president of the United States has to rebut in public is whether or not he wants health care reform because he secretly wants to kill all of the old people. And apparently he doesn't.

As we've discussed before, the health care reform is a secret plot to kill old people rumor was started by a woman named Betsy McCaughey. She is the person who in "The New York Post" and on right-wing talk radio first promulgated this idea that Medicare covering consultations about living wills is secretly the murder of the elderly.

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