Dear Orly, you should learn your internet memes. Thx, TW

[caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”240” caption=”Image via Wikipedia”]The phrase is a line of subtitled dialogue fro...[/caption]
I’m not posting the link to the following quote because there’s no way I’m sending Orly Taitz, Queen of the Birthers, even one click of traffic if I can help it, and also because her site is frequently blocked by malware-detecting programs, and I don’t want to put anyone’s computer at risk. I cannot resist, however, sharing this gem with you, with just a bit of background first. Orly doesn’t like it when people disagree with her and frequently tries to get members at her site to help her track down the holder of email addresses associated with comments or messages sent to her. Apparently, someone using the name “midnightcat1982” recently posted something she didn’t care for:
Comment from Orly: this is pretty funny. Only thing I can add, that the person hiding behind the e-mail address “midnight cat1982″ is reportedly in Beirut, Lebanon, also hiding behind the proxy server. he is not holding a banjo, but rather a hokkah and a glass of arak. Hence, peculiar use of English ”all your base are belong to us”. Even someone, like me, for whom English is not the first language, can tell it is written by a foreigner. Unfortunately, our Department of Homeland security is allowing such foreigners with nefarious goals to come into this country. Recent discovery of the lone bomber in TX is a testament to that.
:roll: Yes, Orly, the DHS really need to get out there and save us from Internet nerds quoting badly translated video games.
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@2 years ago

How False Information Gets Spread: An Object Lesson

One thing that amazes me at times is just how much bad information is out there. Well, I’ve found a perfect example of exactly how that happens.

The conservative website “The Post & Email” published an article titled “Time to Bust Public Sector Unions!” Under the heading “It’s NOT About Fair Pay!” author JB Williams asserts that teachers are much better paid than the average American, with an average salary of $85,000 per year.

Yeah, doesn’t sound right to me, either, but here’s a screenshot showing Williams’ claim:

Screencap from Post & Email showing incorrect teacher salaries

[Click on the screencap to see a larger version that includes the URL in the address bar]

A quick review of the document Williams links to, however, clears the mystery right up.  Instead of posting the average salary of teachers in the given states, Williams posted the number of teachers working in those states. As shown in the screencap from the linked site below, the average teacher’s salary isn’t anywhere near what Williams is claiming.

Correct teacher's average salaries

[Click on the screencap to see a larger version that includes the URL in the address bar]

Before you decide if you think is just an innocent mistake, pay close attention to what was actually copied. There are two separate lists on the screencap from AllEducationSchools.com. The first is the number of teachers in states with the most teachers, and the second is the highest average teacher salaries by state. In the P&E post, the first 5 states listed have the name followed by a dash and then a number that has no dollar value next to it. The remaining states have the name, dash and a number WITH a dollar value, indicating that these lists aren’t counting the same thing (otherwise, why only put a dollar sign on half of the entries?)

Even more telling, though, is that only one state is listed on both of the lists on the AES page - New York. Yet on the P&E post, New York is only listed *once* and Williams chose to use the “number of teachers” figure rather than the “average salary” figure. Obviously, Williams was aware that there were different numbers for at least one state, but this apparently didn’t prompt a closer look at what the numbers were actually representing.

It should be noted that the editor of the “P&E” moderates all comments posted on the board. In fact, they have a very interesting comment policy:

Comment Policy

The Post & Email allows comments on its news articles. But because this news site is principally concerned with getting out the news rather than being a forum for conversation or debate, almost none of the comments posted for motives found on other blogs will be published.

Exceptions to this rule are as follows:

Comments regarding errors in our articles will be considered:  if The Post & Email considers it necessary, corrections will be made; but the comment will not be published, unless it merits serious consideration.

Comments disagreeing with editorials or articles will generally not be published unless the commenter is objecting to the fairness and objectivity of the article and has sound reasons to do so.

Comments requesting The Post & Email to divulge its confidential sources will be deleted, as this is contrary to the ethics of journalism.

Comments seeking publicity for other news items or organizations will not be published.

Off-topic comments are almost never published.  Rude comments are never published.  If your rude comment was not published but had some reasonable intent to correct the error of another, try posting it again, but this time with civility.  Because we expect children to be reading our newspaper under the supervision of their parents, we ask that comments be kept clean and free of obscenities and adult innuendo or content.  We feel that there is enough sordidness in the world such that children are always at risk, and we do not wish to contribute to their exposure to it here.

This disclosure is made for the sake of every reader so you know that your comment is treated equitably according to our editorial policy stated here.

For those submitting Letters to the Editor, Blogs-of-the-Day, Editorials and other materials, The Post & Email reserves the right to accept or reject any submission and to make any revisions to the submission before publication.  Each submission will be proofread for content, grammar, spelling, punctuation and appropriateness for our newspaper.  Please make sure to cite all sources in your submissions and always describe events in your own words.  It is neither acceptable nor legal to copy another’s work and submit it as one’s own. As a corporation, The Post & Email can be held liable for any plagiarism published on its pages, whether intended or unintended.

The Post & Email will have the final word on changes before publication.  Anyone in disagreement with this policy should not submit items for consideration.

With very rare exceptions, we do not accept articles which have been published on other blogs or news sites.  We seek original material from citizen writers.  We do not publish internet chain mails or copyrighted material from other websites.

Please note: If you are submitting an article of any kind, please do not quote from, cite, or link back to anything published on the jbjd website, as we wish to avoid any legal entanglements with this author despite her excellent research.

Additional Editor’s Note: Because there is a mountain of evidence indicating that Barack H. Obama is not a natural born Citizen as required by Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution to serve as President, The Post & Email does not refer to him as the “President.”  Therefore, if your submission refers to “President Obama” or “Mr. President,” the wording will be changed unless and until Obama proves that he meets the eligibility criteria.  Anyone not in agreement with this policy should withhold his or her submission.

So, it’s pretty clear that anything that actually gets posted in the comment section has been seen and approved by the “”P&E.” As of this writing, however, at least two comments regarding the inaccuracy of this post have been allowed through moderation, yet no changes have been made to the article itself, which, I suppose, could be viewed as a violation of their own policy, if you want to look at it that way.  The policy says “Comments regarding errors in our articles will be considered:  if The Post & Email considers it necessary, corrections will be made; but the comment will not be published, unless it merits serious consideration.” I’m not exactly clear on what would make a comment regarding a correction merit serious consideration as opposed to one that would remain unpublished but result in a correction to the post, but in this case, the comment was published (which is, admittedly, better than nothing) but no correction has been made or noted.

Were that to happen here (as did the other day, in fact) I would leave the erroneous paragraph in place, highlight it with a strikethrough and add a note with the correct information.  As it stands now, however, if someone visits the “P&E” and opts not to read the comments, or runs across the post quoted on another site or as part of an aggregation site - neither of which would include the comments - the reader would have no way to know the information presented is demonstrably false.

And that’s exactly how bad information spreads. People will read that post, think teachers are just wallowing in their riches and tell others of the outrage. The only way to combat it is to ensure the correct information gets out.

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@2 years ago

The Unreasonableness of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

[caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”150” caption=”Image by Getty Images via @daylife”]LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 28: Dr Andrew Wakef...[/caption]


One of my favourite online hangouts is “The Fogbow,” a forum that focuses primarily on combating the beliefs of and disinformation spread by birthers and their multifarious claims regarding Obama’s eligibility to serve as President. Recently, I finished reading Seth Mnookin’s new book “The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear” about the controversy linking vaccines to autism. I found the mindset and belief-patterns of the anti-vaccine movement to be amazingly similar to those of the birthers and commented on it. I also comments on how there are some controversies where I can better understand why people might have questions - even if I don’t believe that their overall theory is correct - while others I can’t understand where the questions are coming from at all. One of my fellow Fogbowers replied, saying:


Actually, “vaccines cause autism” came from a study published in a legitimate medical journal.  Unfortunately, the study itself was a complete fraud.  The disgrace responsible, Andrew Wakefield, even sought to profit from his fraud.  Even prior to the recent exposure of the study as a complete fraud, it had never been corroborated and all but discredited, but one can forgive naïve people for falling for a hoax when it is published in The Lancet.


Below is a slightly edited copy of my response. The only edits done were to correct spelling errors, add a section I’d forgotten in the initial post and had to post in a separate message later - here I’ve combined them so it flows better, and include links to other sites with further information. No content or context has been changed:


Perhaps initially, but even then, there were a number of indications that the study was problematical, and while parents might not have been able to make a well-informed, critical analysis of the information, from what I’ve read (especially in “The Panic Virus,” though from other sources as well) their doctors DID have access to information that they should have been able to use to help calm concerned and/or naïve parents and give them solid guidance in a matter as serious as the need for immunization - not just for the individual, but also to help maintain “herd immunity.”


This is from the book regarding that paper and how it was presented to the public (emphasis added):


The paper’s title didn’t make it an obvious candidate for articles in the next day’s broadsheets; even the most creative headline writers would have trouble coming up with a pithy leader for a piece about “Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children.” But the Royal Free [Hospital]’s PR team gave hints that this was no ordinary paper: They’d put together a twenty-minute promotional video for the occasions and assembled a panel of five of the hospital’s researchers to address the report’s implications. Andrew Wakefield, the paper’s lead author and it’s “senior scientific investigator,” was the star of both.


It didn’t take long to figure out what all the fuss was about. Contrary to the paper’s title, the main thrust of the press conference was not the possible connection between intestinal and developmental disorders - it was Wakefield’s supposition that MMR vaccine, which had been used in the United States since the early 1970s and in Great Britain for the previous decade, could very well be responsible for the dramatic rise in rates of autism. In order to support this theory, Wakefield piggybacked on his claim that he’d found the measles virus in the intestinal tracts of IBD patients - a claim that had already been discredited by other studies. Some children, he speculated, had immune systems that, for some unknown reason, were unable to handle the combination of the three vaccines at once. As a result, the measles component of the vaccine took root in the lining of the small intestine, causing a “leaky gut.” The next step in Wakefield’s hypothesis was dependent on a widely discredited “opioid excess” theory of autism, which drew parallels between autistic children and doped-up lab rats: After the opioid peptides that are naturally produced during digestion escaped through the gut’s newly porous walls, Wakefield argued, they breached the blood-brain barrier and overwhelmed the developing children’s brains. The result was autism.


Knowing that the paper’s finding would be controversial from the start, the five experts who addressed the media had agreed beforehand that regardless of their individual interpretations, they’d deliver one overarching message: Further research needed to be done before any conclusions could be drawn, and in the meantime, children should continue to receive the MMR vaccine. Once the tape recorders began to roll, however, Wakefield went dramatically off-script: “With the debate over MMR that has started, ” he said, neatly eliding over the fact that he was, at that very moment, the person responsible for igniting the debate, “I cannot support the continued use of the three vaccines given together. We need to know what the role of the gut inflammation is in autism… My concerns are that one or more case of this is too many and that we put children at no greater risk if we dissociated those vaccines into three, but we may be averting the possibility of this problem.” Almost immediately, the press conference descended into near chaos. Even if Wakefield’s study had been more comprehensive and his data more robust, it was virtually unprecedented for a research scientist to advocate wholesale changes to health policy. After stressing that the MMR vaccine had been given to millions of children around the world and had saved untold numbers of lives, Arie Zuckerman, the dean of the Royal Free Hospital’s medical school. became so agitated he began banging on the lectern. “If this were to precipitate a scare that reduced the rate of immunization,” he said, “children will start dying from measles.”


Zuckerman’s frustration was understandable. As scientists around the world already knew, there were ample reasons to view Wakefield’s latest effort skeptically. After an initial peer review raised questions about the quality of Wakefield’s research and the soundness of his reasoning, Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, demanded the paper be rewritten in such a way that made clear the speculative nature of the work and slapped an “Early Report” label above the title and over the header of each page. Horton also to the even more unusual step of asking Robert Chen and Frank DeStefano, two American vaccine specialists at the CDC, to prepare an evaluation of Wakefield’s paper that would appear in print. ”Usually, when they publish a commentary, it’s to extol the study or show how it’s advanced the field,” DeStafano says. That was obviously not the case here. When he first read the paper, DeStefano says, his reaction was, “There really didn’t seem to be that much there. It was kind of like, Why were they publishing the article?”


Of course, the media focused more on what came out of the press conference rather than what was actually printed in the journal, but The Lancet, while going ahead and publishing the paper, (full text of study at link, free registration required to access) tried to make it clear (at least to other scientists reading the journal) that this was very preliminary information only.  The press conference was NOT put together by the publishers of The Lancet, but rather by the Royal Free Hospital, where he worked at the time. So the journal tried to put the paper in a more responsible context of something that was very preliminary, and the Hospital - by having all of the presenting scientists agree ahead of time to focus on the message that the study wasn’t strong enough to make any changes to how parents vaccinated their children or to the public policy of vaccination - tried to ensure that the study would not be misinterpreted, Andrew Wakefield went rogue and made sure the panic button got pushed and the media followed his lead without trying to verify his information. Knowing now that he had tried to get a patent on a single-dose measles vaccine formula (the kind of thing parents concerned about giving their children the combined MMR vaccine jab just might want to be able to choose as an alternative) it seems fairly clear to me that his overall goal was to create a panic and get rich off of it.


Mnookin has an interesting story in his book about Wakefield’s attitude towards his research. Apparently, he’d been having some trouble getting financial backing for his work and, according to Brian Deer - an investigative journalist who did a significant amount of the investigative journalism that eventually led to the disclosures about Wakefield’s dubious motives and questionable research - in the early 90’s, Wakefield…


…began contacting high-level officials at the British Department of Health, requesting face-to-face meetings to discuss financial backing for his work. His entreaties seemed to go beyond a sober recitation of the value of his research: In an October 1992 letter to David Salisbury, who at the time was the head of the British vaccine program, Wakefield wrote, “My concern is that although measles, and in particular the vaccine, may have no association with Chron’s disease whatsoever, what will be picked up by the press is the apparent association between the increasing incidence of disease and the vaccine.” It was an odd point for a researcher to make. Instead of arguing the merits of his work, Wakefield seemed to be warning about the possible public fallout of his conclusions.


Also of interest, in looking at the charts associated with the paper, it lists when the subject received the MMR vaccine, how long after the vaccine was given did the parents first note behavioural problems, and the age of onset for both the behavioural and bowel problems. Now, Wakefield’s theory was that the MMR caused bowel problems, and the bowel problems caused the autism, which caused the behaviour problems. Yet in the study - which only involved 12 subjects - 4 of them exhibited the behavioural problems at least 3 months prior to exhibiting any bowel problems, 5 more list “not known” for the onset of the bowel problems and one has nothing listed for the onset of bowel problems. One exhibited onset of both behavioural and bowel problems simultaneously, and only ONE subject actually had bowel problems before they had behavioural problems. Now, I’m not a scientist, but it would appear to me that if the theory is that physical damage to the bowel causes not only the bowel symptoms but also is the mechanism by which the toxic substances that lead to behavioural issues are able to reach the brain, then shouldn’t those bowel problem be observable BEFORE the behavioural ones?


In any event, as it became clearer that no other studies could demonstrate a link between the MMR vaccine, leaky guts and toxins crossing the blood-brain barrier, a shift much like how the birthers went from “not born in Hawaii” to “not eligible because his dad wasn’t a US citizen” took place, and focus moved from the idea that the vaccine caused gut-damage resulting in developmental disabilities to focusing on the use of Thimerosal as a preservative in the MMR vaccines. Part of the problem, however, was that concerns about the use of mercury in Thimerosal l was generally predicated on known problems related to exposure to methylmercury, when Thimerosal used ethylmercury. (Mnookin offered a nice analogy about the differences between ethyl- and methyl- mercury: Alcohol can come in ethanol - or ethyl-alcohol - which is what most of us drink, or methanol - which is methyl-alcohol - that can cause serious toxic effects if ingested including blindness or death.) By conflating the properties of the more toxic methylmercury with the safer ethylmercury, it unnecessarily heightened fears surrounding the vaccines.


Even with that conflation, however, it wasn’t long before the US and UK governments began removing Thimerosal from vaccines, and by 2004 (IIRC) there were no more vaccines being given that contained any Thimerosal at all. Yet rather than dropping, the rates of autism diagnoses are still increasing. If Thimerosal was the culprit - or even “a” culprit - that fact alone should have caused even true believers to question their beliefs. In addition, a study was done in Denmark where - because of the way there vaccination laws are structured - scientists were able to compare three groups of children: Those who had been vaccinated with Thimerosal vaccines, those who were given Thimerasol-free vaccines and those who were unvaccinated. The study showed no statistically significant difference between the three groups in terms of the rate of autism diagnoses.


My point in all of this is that while it might have been reasonable to have questions when the study was first published in 1998, that time has long passed. Even the original study that started the whole mess wasn’t nearly as disconcerting if looked at closely, and was thoroughly debunked several years ago, and as with any good conspiracy theory, when the first hypothesis evaporated, there were new ones to fill it’s place. Sadly, the misinformation attributable to the belief that vaccines can cause autism has already killed some children - both ones whose parents opted not to vaccinate them out of fear of the vaccine itself - and who then contracted one of the diseases they would have been protected against - and ones who weren’t yet old enough to be given any vaccines and got sick because other children in their neighbourhoods weren’t vaccinated and communities are beginning to lose their herd immunity.


Not only is believing that vaccines cause autism unreasonable based on years of scientific evidence (and confirmed in the Omnibus Vaccine Court proceeding regarding autism claims) but it’s also deadly.




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@2 years ago

The idiocy of the “Birther Bills”

[caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”300” caption=”Image via Wikipedia”]Scanned image of Barack Obama's Birth Certific...[/caption]
Currently, the legislatures in several states have introduced “birther bills” aimed at ensuring only Constitutionally qualified Presidential and (in some - but not all - state) Vice Presidential candidates are included on their ballots. There is nothing wrong with this idea per se. In fact, I think it would be a good idea to require candidates to provide evidence that they meet the requirements established by the Constitution. The problem with these bills are that in general, they either misstate what those qualifications are, require documentation that not all states - sometimes including the state contemplating the bill itself provides - and in at least one case, the law would only apply to primary elections, which the state (Maine) doesn’t have - they use caucuses! There’s an excellent series of threads on the various bills at the Fogbow, that looks at what’s being proposed, what the various problems are with them, and suggestions on making them better. One member, Welsh Dragon, has also put together a summary of the various bills, which I am embedding below. These bills have many problems, starting with the requirement that the candidate present his or her original long-form birth certificate to the Secretary of State. This certificate would have to include the names and signature of the doctor as well as the name of the hospital, the parents and any witnesses. Of course, there exists only one original certificate for each person. For this reason, no state allows anyone to have the original, as they would then no longer have ANY record of that person’s birth. Additionally, since there is only one original certificate, if more than one state were to demand it, how would the candidate decide which state gets it? Would the different states each take a look at it and pass it on to the next? Another issue is that many states no longer make copies of long-form certificates available. Most have switched to a short-form certificate that generally lists the child’s name, the city and state where the child was born, the time of birth and the names of the child’s parents (though apparently some states don’t even include that.) Very few include information on the hospital or doctor who was in attendance. These are called short-form birth certificates, certifications of live birth or certificates of live birth (both abbreviated COLB.) On top of that, what happens to children who weren’t born in a hospital? Even if the long-form certificate were available, if the child was NOT born in a hospital with a doctor in attendance, then that information would not be available, and the “birther bill” law would not allow the state to include the candidate on the ballot. Can you imagine how many children are born in the US each day who aren’t born in hospitals? Under some of these laws, none of them could grow up to be President. To add to the idiocy, many of the states pondering such laws are among those who only offer the short-form or COLB documents, meaning that no one from that state could qualify to be on that’s states ballot! The pièce de résistance is that any of these laws that would involve rejecting the official document provided as proof of birth from another state would violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the Constitution. That’s right. These laws, as many of them are written, are flat-out unconstitutional. Some of these bills also include clauses requiring that the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates provide proof that their parents were both American citizens at the time of the child’s birth and an affidavit from the candidate stating he has never held or was eligible for dual citizenship. Of course, neither of these are actually requirements to be President. The only requirements are that the person is over 35 years old, has resided in the US for 14 years (and, unlike some of these bills seems to indicate, it’s not 14 consecutive years, just 14 years total) and is a natural-born Citizen. Some birthers will argue that in order to be a natural-born citizen, one must be born to two citizen parents and have never held (or been eligible for) dual citizenship, neither of which is true. The Constitution only has two kinds of citizenship - natural-born and naturalized. Naturalized citizens have to go through a process to obtain their citizenship, whereas natural-born citizens are citizens automatically. Several court cases have established that anyone born within the US is automatically an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship status of their parents. It’s one of the reasons why anti-immigration politicians are trying to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. As for the issue of dual citizenship, it has no effect on whether someone is a natural-born citizen or not. All the US cares about is someone’s citizenship status under American law. Our laws do not care who else might claim you as a citizen, and with very good reason. Imagine that Moammar Gadhafi (to pick a random leader who might do something crazy) were to decide he didn’t want to see Sarah Palin become the President of the United States, so he declares her a Libyan citizen, making her a dual US/Libyan citizen. Would that stop her from running for President? According to some of these bills, it just might, as she would be unable to swear that she had never held dual citizenship, but in reality, it wouldn’t have any effect at all on her eligibility, because the US is only concerned with who our laws deem to be a citizen. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if the UK, Kenya or Mars considered Obama to be a dual citizen. As far as the US is concerned, he is a US citizen, and that’s all that matters. There are other issues in these bills as well, but the point is that these bills are examples of what happens when politicians decide to pander to extreme elements in their base and don’t thoroughly think through what effects these laws would have or if the even make sense. Politicians who propose laws that are so badly flawed have no business being in politics. Hopefully, others in the state legislatures will realize just how bad these proposed laws are and they will fail to pass. As I noted above, though, I have no problem if a state wants to adopt a reasonable law ensuring that candidates are qualified for the offices they are attempting to win. Asking for a certified copy of the candidates birth certificate to be sent to them from the issuing state would be a perfectly reasonable - and Constitutional - move. Asking for a history of residences to verify that a candidate has lived in the United States for at least 14 years total is equally reasonable. What’s not reasonable is expecting candidates to produce documents no one aside from a state’s vital records office has access to, containing information that not every state includes, violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, and barring anyone from Presidential candidacy who didn’t have the good fortune to actually be born in a hospital with doctors present. Birther Bills
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@2 years ago

Fight the scary people in red t-shirts! Disturbing plans by Tea Partiers to disrupt Wisconsin protests

MADISON, WI - FEBRUARY 21: A sign hangs on th...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Whichever side of the Wisconsin Labour dispute you support, I hope that you would agree that tactics such as the ones described below are completely unacceptable for EITHER side.

The following is taken from a website named “The Patriot Action Network” on a page titled: “Get ready: SEIU’s Purple Army nationwide protest schedule; teachers’ unions pressure members to show “solidarity”” This section of the site references and links to Mark Williams “MarkTalk.com” blog, but at the moment, I am unable to verify if this post is, in fact, from that site as I am getting 404 errors for both the link that’s supposed to go to the specific entry as well as the blog itself. I am leaving the links intact, however, so they’re available if the site returns.

I’ll talk a bit more below about what this Patriot Action Network is and who it’s connected to.

The post from Patriot Action Network citing Mark Williams as the source:

Mark Williams News & Commentary

Contact me if you can help with the Sacramento event  mark@marktalk.com

That’s really the way it works folks, time to use this weapon against the enemy.

Our goal is to make the gathering look as greedy and goonish as we know that it is, ding their credibility with the media and exploit the lazy reporters who just want dramatic shots and outrageous quotes for headlines.  Even if it becomes known that we are plants the quotes and pictures will linger as defacto truth.

Reporting from Occupied America and fighting for Liberty on February 20, 2011 by Mark Williams in Mark Williams News & Commentary, Comments (0)

FIGHT THE SEIU WITH TACTIC THEY USE AGAINST US – THIS WEEK!

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/solidarityaction

That link will take you to an SEIU page where you can sign up as an “organizer” for one of their upcoming major rallies to support the union goons in Wisconsin.

Here is what I am doing in Sacramento, where they are holding a 5:30 PM event this coming Tuesday:  (1) I signed up as an organizer (2) with any luck they will contact me and I will have an “in”  (3) in or not I will be there and am asking as many other people as can get there to come with, all of us in SEIU shirts (those who don’t have them we can possibly buy some from vendors likely to be there)  (4) we are going to target the many TV cameras and reporters looking for comments from the members there  (5) we will approach the cameras to make good pictures… signs under our shirts that say things like “screw the taxpayer!”  and “you OWE me!” to be pulled out for the camera (timing is important because the signs will be taken away from us) (6) we will echo those slogans in angry sounding tones to the cameras and the reporters.  (7) if I do get the ‘in’ I am going to do my darnedest to get podium access and take the mic to do that rant from there…with any luck and if I can manage the moments to build up to it, I can probably get a cheer out of the crowd for something extreme.

WARNING: When around these union events do NOT instigate ANY physical confrontation, walk away from anyone who tries to start one with you. These people WILL have a mob mentality and ARE dangerous

Since I have radio shows to host in Fresno tomorrow (KMJ FM and KMJ AM) I am going to try to gin up some support from down there and salt the crowd here with more people.

Several Tea Party chapters around the country are planning to join with me, if you are a member of one in your area please contact them for details.  If they are not participating get them to!

Chances are that because I am publishing this they’ll catch wind, but it is worth the chance if you take it upon yourself to act…there’s only one of me but there are millions of you and I know that you CAN do this!

So, the goal here is to get people out to behave badly while pretending to be on their opponent’s side, acknowledging that even if people find out there are “plants” in the crowds, their actions will still be seen and accepted as truth by many of those who see it. He also warns that those out protesting are “dangerous” and have a “mob mentality” - all the better to convince his followers that they “need” to be stopped.

Crooks & Liars has a post featuring a partial screenshot from the page of Mark Williams’ blog that contained the above post, which includes a note that “Several have also reminded me that we have  a distinct advantage in that the SEIU primarily represents non-English speaking illegal aliens so we will be the ones whose comments will make air!!!!” (with an added emphasis on the “illegal aliens” part)

Partial screencap from Williams' blog

Interestingly, while the Patriot Action Network and Mark Williams make a big deal about telling people these are the tactics SEIU are using and that they’re just turning their tactics against them, the only description of tactics being used by anyone protesting the Wisconsin government is this, from the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

Join Wisconsin employees’ solidarity vigil on Facebook.

ACTION NEEDED – The right to bargain is under attack

Dear PSEA Member,

On Tuesday, February 22, make a small but important gesture to help your colleagues across the nation. PLEASE WEAR SOMETHING RED TO WORK. As I write this e-mail, education employees and other public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio are being threatened with losing their right to collectively bargain. Many years of hard fought gains may be wiped out with a single vote in their legislatures.

Wisconsin: Governor Scott Walker is proposing to wipe away decades of collective bargaining for teachers, support staff, and other public workers in Wisconsin. The right to organize, the right to bargain health insurance or prep time, the right to have a voice in the profession – all of those things and more are under attack in Walker’s budget bill.

Ohio: Sen. Shannon Jones revealed the language of Senate Bill 5, a bill that will have a significant impact on public employees. SB5 eliminates collective bargaining for state employees, police officers, fire fighters and employees of higher education institutions, and significantly undermines collective bargaining for K-12 employees.

What would happen if you didn’t have a union to bargain your salary and benefits?

* What would your salary be?
* How much would you be paying for health insurance?
* Would you have a pension?

PSEA members are beginning to ask how they can show their support for their colleagues in Wisconsin and Ohio and to demonstrate their support for unions having the right to collectively bargain.

Here are two things you can do to show your support for the right to collectively bargain:

1. Show your support by wearing red on Tuesday Feb. 22. Take pictures at your work site and send them to PSEA Communications or share them on PSEA’s Facebook page. Call your colleagues to make sure they know about wearing red on Tuesday. Our theme is, “We Are One.”

2. Sign the online petition [Editor’s note: Apparently concerned that some Patriot Action Members might be confused about which side they’re on, the poster helpfully provides the following note: “PAN MEMBERS DONT SIGN!!”]

In Solidarity,
Jim Testerman
PSEA President

Wow. Wearing red clothes and signing petitions. Terrifying!

Of course, the kind of deception being urged by Tea Partiers isn’t anything all that new. We’ve been seeing fake protesters for years, perhaps most famously the “Brooks Brother Riot” that took place in the Dade County elections office, where Republicans flew staffers from DC to Miami where they loudly protested the recount in an increasingly aggressive manner, until the elections committee decided to stop the count - something that help pave the way for Bush to take the Presidency whether he actually had won it or not.  It was the wrong way to fight then and it’s still the wrong way to fight. This has nothing to do about winning on the merits of a position or even on the strength of popular support. It’s a cheap shot tactic that serves only to distort, manipulate and demonize your enemy without leaving any kind of trail for even the curious to find the truth (which is, at least, an option when it comes to the normal political lies we’re faced with every day.)

There may not much that can be done to prevent people from doing these things, but we *can* tell our family and friends about these plans so that they’re aware that what they think they’re seeing may bear no resemblance to the truth.

As I said initially, I condemn these tactics regardless of who’s side is using them. Since this effort seems to be backed by Tea Partiers (individually and, if Williams is telling the truth, by officials in some Tea Party groups as well, here’s more information on those who are behind these particular plans.

Mark Williams

For those familiar with Mark Williams, it’s completely unsurprising that he’d be involved with something like this. He was once the chairman of the Tea Party Express, but was forced to leave after he made a number of racially-charged statements and posting a satirical letter from NAACP president Ben Jealous to Abraham Lincoln complaining that Lincoln had ruined life for the blacks by freeing them, since they need a “massa” to tell them what to do.

The Tea Party Express

The Tea Party Express was founding by a conservative PR group, Russo, Marsh and Rogers, through their “Our Country Deserves Better” PAC and Republican Party member Howard Kaloogian.  Kaloogian is probably best known for having posted a photograph showing quiet, empty streets claiming this proved Iraq was much safer than the media was saying only to have it revealed that the picture was actually taken in Turkey, not Iraq, thus proving nothing at all about safety in Iraq (but showing that Kaloogian isn’t above pure deception as a political tactic.)

Other controversies about the Tea Party Express have included how much of its funding actually goes to TPE work and how much goes to its parent company, and having received 4 donations totally $7,500 from a woman who had died in 2007, before the donations were made.

The Patriot Action Network

Here is how the PAN describes themselves on their about page:

Why “Patriot”?

Because that’s who we are! We believe in the greatness of our nation, in our Constitution, in God-given liberty and limited government.

Why “Action”?

Because that’s what we do! We have a place in the political debate because we are among the best informed and most engaged citizens in our nation. We research. We read. We rally. We write. We petition. We call. We fax. We vote. We stand.

Why “Network”?

Because that’s where we meet, at the intersection of the great town square and the latest “Web 2.0” internet technologies. And we’re just beginning! Patriot Action Network is the official social action network of Grassfire Nation. For the FAQ (Facts and Questions) Click Here.

The Patriots Action Network used to be known as Resist.Net. In fact, the link in the text above for the FAQ still uses the Resist.net address.

The Grassfire Nation mentioned under “Why ‘Network’” is, in turn, describes itself, thusly:

Grassfire Nation is a conservative action network comprised of more than one million grassroots citizens from across the nation. Grassfire Nation — a division of Grassroots Action, is a privately-held Internet activism services organization that provides news, information and grassroots activism services and strategies to individuals and organizations. We seek to provide a wide array of services to the Grassfire Nation so YOU can quickly take action. These services include petitions, resources and practical ways for you to take a stand on key issues of our day. Our goal is to get you involved in the key debates shaping our nation and our culture. Through the Grassfire Nation, our singular focus in on YOU — the grassroots conservative.

Going up the next step, Grassroots Action says that they are:

Grassroots Action is the leader in building custom conservative action networks for organizations seeking to expand their impact through the Internet. If your organization is looking to build a custom online action network, contact the GrassrootsAction team.

(E-mail link removed - I don’t feel the need to give them any business, eh?)

This note is also on their landing page (along with a video) but there are no links to anything else on the site: ©Grassroots Action, Inc., P.O. Box 277, Maxwell, IA 50161. Grassroots Action is a for-profit company. Organizations mentioned on this site represent current or former clients of Grassroots Action.

So, instead of being an actual grassroots movement, the Patriot Action Network and Grassfire nation are part of a for-profit company whose business is to go around setting up supposed grassroots sites. I suppose it’s not all that surprising, then, that - like most businesses and business interests - they don’t support workers OR their rights.

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