EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.

Skygazer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:07:09 -0800

Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. Shackleford claims the narrator of the smear video has worked previously on ads put out by the Obama campaign. And that “This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with [Obama campaign manager] David Axelrod's PR firm, which has a history of engaging in "phony grassroots efforts.” Shackleford also posits that the haste with which the individual who posted the video on You Tube, “eswinner,” or Ethan S. Winner, an executive for the public relations firm Winner & Assoc., removed the video proves an Obama campaign cover up in the works and that Winner & Assoc. were most likely paid by Axelrod to execute an Astroturf smear campaign against Sarah Palin. Axelrod's PR firm had a brief relationship with Winner & Assoc. from a Detroit Mayor's initiative they worked in separate capacities in 1996. Winner and Assoc, work predominately for big oil and utility companies, but also handle political campaigns and initiatives throught a subsidiary: Winner & Mandabach. Shackleford, although he presents the piece as having a high probability of being correct, admits, as his legal team advises him to, that much of it is "conjecture" and "speculation," Yet in his eagerness to expose Obama as a lowdown Chicago style political operator, he fails to discover, until he reads it here, that there is, indeed, an individual with a suspicious and compelling tie to the Winner & Assoc. public relations firm. That person is Sen. John McCain. In 2002 John McCain worked for Winner & Mandabach, a subsidiary of Winner & Assoc., to convince the people of Arizona to vote “YES” on proposition 202. One of three competing Indian gaming initiatives supported by the 17 Tribes coalition of Arizona. The 17 tribes hired Winner & Mandabach to see to it that there proposition was the one that would become law. McCain was brought in by Winner & Mandabach as a third-party player to lend his name and support to ads and mailings. The proposition was opposed by Arizona Christian groups and denied the state of Arizona $300 million dollars in annual taxes annually or imposing greater oversight and regulation. What compensation was made available to McCain for his services? “While candidates, PACs and party committees are held accountable for political funds, Indian tribes file nothing. … Disclosure only comes from those who file reports indicating they received donations from a tribe. … [T]here is no way to double check the accuracy of the reports.” McCain was twice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, in 1995–1997 and 2005–2007. (On a side note for those who know of him, Prop 202 was also supported by human rights violator and denier of constitutional rights Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Previously on Metafilter.)

And so you're back, from outer space ...

WCityMike — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:04:09 -0800

Not literate analysis. Not a fresh insight into a perennial problem ransacking the world. Not an obituary. But ... well ... Chewbacca dancing with a Jawa to "Footloose", Leia singing to Padme that "mommy dear, girls just want to have fun" (with a Gamorrean Guard with a red-haired fright wig), and were I to tell you the third ... ... that'd spoil it, but suffice it to say the heavy breathing's well-suited to that number. Then, next up, we have the prior year, where a pair of star-crossed siblings who oddly give off a Donny & Marie-type vibe, and a couple of exes meet up and sound off. And if you've chafed at your childhood memories being ransacked in such an amateur fashion, then have them professionally assassinated by LucasFilm in CGI. If you need an antacid after all that, this really isn't half-bad (it really needs to be seen larger for the scale of it, but that link's a download). (And here's a few more antacids.)

MetaFilter posts tagged with jawa

EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.

And so you're back, from outer space ...