Rep. Markey Reveals Five More Forged Astroturf Letters
Rep. Markey Reveals Five More Forged Astroturf Letters
Last month, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) announced a congressional investigation of the DC lobbying firm Bonner & Associates. The firm, which has a long history of astroturfing, was caught forging anti-clean energy reform letters — purportedly from groups representing women and people of color — to Congress. Coal front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy was eventually revealed to be Bonner’s client in the anti-clean energy campaign. Now, more forged letters have been uncovered.
Today, Markey revealed five new letters, and dozens more may be out there. According to a statement from Markey’s office, the faked letters came from “elderly services and senior centers” and were sent to Democratic Reps. Tom Periello (VA), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), and Christopher Carney (PA):
The five letters revealed today brings the total number of fraudulent letters to 13, now representing 9 different community groups. Letters released today were staged to look like they were sent by groups representing senior citizen services like the non-profit Erie Center on Health & Aging. Previous letters already made public were from the Charlottesville-based NAACP, Creciendo Juntos, a hispanic advocacy organization, the Jefferson Area Board on Aging, and the American Association of University Women. […]
“We’ve seen fear-mongering with our nation’s senior citizens with health care, and now we’re seeing fraud-mongering with senior citizens on clean energy,” said Chairman Markey. “Lately, democratic debate has been deceptively debased by fake facts and harsh rhetoric. We must return to an honest discussion of the issues, and ensure that this sort of campaign does not further poison the well of trustworthy debate.”
Between the five new forged letters and last week’s leaked memo revealing that the American Petroleum Institute will be manufacturing “Energy Citizen” rallies to oppose clean energy reform, it is clear that the energy industry is willing to go to any lengths in their efforts to halt clean energy reform.
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Why of course it’s not “REAL” anger…
… Unless it’s manufactured anger.
.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pmAnd the sad thing about these astroturf letters (other than the obvious fraud aspect) is that this will make ALL letters from the public suspect, and therefore meaningless. Why should a Congressperson pay any attention to his/her mail if it’s not known which letters are genuine and which aren’t?
August 18th, 2009 at 2:41 pmAstroturfing is a foul parody of grass roots organizing and those that Astroturf are foul parodies of Americans.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:42 pmTime to enforce the law. Bonner & Associates needs to have it’s CEO, executive board and every employee involved charged with fraud, tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Without the law applying to every American equally, there is no rule of law.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:43 pm“Cash is my jesus;
August 18th, 2009 at 2:44 pmI bow my head before thee;
Grass stains on my knees”
Wasn’t it the Nixon White House that started all this astroturf crap?
August 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pmYou know, the “hardhats” supporting the war, etc.
Right wingers have to cheat. There is no other way for them to “win”.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:49 pmConservatives have never succeded at anything without lying, cheating, or both.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:49 pmI’m begging anyone in Washington to get angry about this stuff. Misrepresenting the public ought to be a sincere crime that finally shuts down Bonner’s business practices for good.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pmMissHMolly is correct.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pmThis undermines our democracy.
If there isn’t a law against this, there should be.
These criminals should be charged, tried and convicted.
Their sentence should include restoring natural habitat, 12 hours a day, seven days a week until they expire.
This is how republicans do business in everyday life too.
That’s why they don’t understand when people are upset.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:54 pmThis comment has been voted down. Click to read.
One clear solution: Nationalize the phuquers out of existence.
It makes no sense that a vital national security industry such as energy production and distribution should be run by for-profit companies which have no ‘national’ loyalties, only loyalty to profit…
August 18th, 2009 at 2:59 pmNope, nice strawman though:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/May/12/list-democratic-national-convention-sponsors/
August 18th, 2009 at 3:00 pmmail fraud anyone? RICO, i love me some RICO? Triple damages, increased jail time. at some point enough is enough. we’ve witnessed the GOP minority hijack nearly everything using obfuscation, half-truths and outright lies. it’s time to kill their machines.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:02 pmIf the liberals had done anything along these lines, the conservatives would be all over the airwaves talking about this. It would of course, be topic one on Fix news, but it would also be on ALL the freaking news shows.
What does the left do…they essentially say “c’mon guys, you shouldn’t do this”! Olberman and Rachael will talk about it but that’s it!
No wonder we’re in danger of losing health care! We don’t have the eggs or resources to even fight back damn it!
I’m so angry, I could spit!
August 18th, 2009 at 3:07 pmfreeman, didn’t you accuse me of not accepting your facts earlier?
Yet in a repeat performance you post lies and nothing to back it up.
Now I expect you to ignore it and post some other plausible fallacy with nothing to back it up.
When do you drop back to stage 3 where you claim to be the victim?
August 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pmAll the lying is coming from the teabaggers. They don’t have the numbers and will revert to chimpy’s tactics to boost their lies.
Too bad the repugs don’t understand that these tactics are why their life-support club is on life support. Let’s pull the plug on their asses.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:18 pmHow many laws have they broken here, or possibly broken? Seriously.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:19 pmWhere’s the “law and order” conservatives on this? You know the ones — they show up here on occasion to defend any conservative, but when its conservatives charged they seem to be conspicuously absent.
My, my… don’t those double-standards run deep?…
August 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pmOf course, I know no one has been ‘charged’ with anything in this yet. Though if they aren’t then I may just have to surrender to the corporate overlords because that would prove that they control it all, anyway.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pmfreeman says:
Nice one there, Fred. Wrong and duly corrected.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:24 pmSorry , my bad . This is what I had been thinking of …
August 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pmhttp://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/22/coal-cnn/
The coal industry sponsored nearly every presidential primary debate according to Treehugger .
August 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pmfreeman, right on schedule with another straw man. That was a debate. Both sides attended so it kind makes you look dumber than you already did.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:39 pmI admit my mistake Fred , now how about the link from Kaiser about the 11 million plus that the podesta group has earned lobbying the administration on behalf of the insurance industry ?
August 18th, 2009 at 3:40 pmYou disagree with their numbers ?
If just one Energy Corporation would just stop, take a deep breath and dive into energy conservation, clean energy, alternate energy creation and so on, that company would reap staggering profits fairly quickly (years, of course). But they seem unable to think “long term”. They can’t see next Quarter’s profits. Pity.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:44 pmOf course they are doing this because polls show that more people are against health insurance reform than for it.
/snark
August 18th, 2009 at 3:45 pmhttp://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/July/21/Money.aspx or
August 18th, 2009 at 3:47 pmhttp://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25194.html
freeman, whats the matter, you don’t want to talk about criminal behavior of the right?
Want to change the subject? I bet you do.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:47 pm“[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785
August 18th, 2009 at 3:50 pmIt isn’t me who thinks criminality shouldn’t be prosecuted or investigated or that we should move on ….. it’s Obama and I couldn’t disagree more .
August 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pmOh and it was a primary debate so both sides were not attending .
August 18th, 2009 at 4:03 pmMy point is that both parties are corrupt and that the only ones really being heard in Washington are the large corporations such as those being represented by the Podesta Group , which John and his brother founded .
Business is good .
You mean that you want to make it appear that dems are just as bad as reps, right? Fail.
Your hero rayguy gave us the lobby system as it is today.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:07 pmThese republican crooks amount to enemies of the state.
We already know they are enemies of democracy – they want to replace it with a theocracy – now we find they are enemies of law and order. They defy democracy even when that means defying the law. They have gone too far. They are only still here because they have not yet been prosecuted. Why? Because they have infiltrated every part of government authority.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:09 pmfreeman says:
It isn’t me who thinks criminality shouldn’t be prosecuted or investigated or that we should move on ….. it’s Obama and I couldn’t disagree more
Sure, Obama could help a lot, but the onus is on the DOJ to do their daily work, which as i recall includes prosecuting dishonest officials in high positions of trust in government. FFS.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pmWe have a Department of Justice? I don’t believe it. There is no justice if Bush and Cheney are still free men.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pmGee freeman can i ask you a question?
thanks i knew i could
are you OR HAVE YOU BEEN A 98g?
just asking
August 18th, 2009 at 4:36 pmJust one more story of right-wing lies and propaganda that you won’t see on that, “liberal media”.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:43 pmEric Holder is going to be a very busy man all the way through this term.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:11 pmIf he ever gets off his lazy a$$ and does his job.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:50 pmAll these ’so-called’ congressional investigations are a waste of money. Make the FBI do what the hell they are paid for and lets get on with it. If/when they are found guilty it is JAIL TIME, none of this slap on the wrist and a fine.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:35 amAmerica WE ARE BETTER THEN THIS – let’s step this up and act like it.