GHWBush didn't tap Rev Moon and Rupert Murdoch to expand their media empires into the US in the 80s so the public could be well-informed, did he?

I never knew the term or it's history. Though, it's not surprising that the GOP were the party that gave birth to it. Not surprising at all that citizens united and people like the Kochs would support it and apply it.

The Kochs are using it now in a campaign to overturn Obamacare. Yup, take away such an important law that is helping so many people.

I just have to believe that people are aware, that they are listening to the facts. For one, there is a large voting block of women that are standing up and listening. I believe, they have been a victim of "ratfucking" by the Repukes.

The only thing to do is GOTV 2014!

Excellent OP, freshwest. I thank you.

thanks for spelling it out, freshwest.

All I know about its current implementation is that Glenn Greenwald's picture is in the urban dictionary next to it.

By continuing to throw crap out there for progressives to pounce on. If liberal, good hearted people can be steered away from thinking of the new EPA rules on coal fired electric plants and instead focused on how Obama is "just like Bush" and a "pawn of the MIC" then they can keep voters home. Which always benefits GOP.

I've always associated it with dirty tricks. Thanks for this history of the term.

Anyone making that connection and using it to, say, get a post by someone they dislike hidden, is prosecuting what is called a BIG LIE.

You know how those work, when someone makes an outrageous -- and patently false -- assertion with a straight face, in the hopes that uninformed people (like jurors) will believe it.

Of course, pull too much of that kind of crap, and folks end up on the admins' radar. They know who we are, even when we alert or serve on juries. We're not anonymous to them....!

I think it's insulting to call something like this homophobia when it isn't. Crying wolf when there is no wolf inures people to the call. Save that charge for actual examples, I'd say.

Were the visiting Republicans alerting on her and claiming it was "homophobia"?

(I think it was a female poster)

They have had a number of alerts that did not work, but they make up for it in quantity. They know the shotgun effect is used against the Democrats.

by the RW against Democrats. Thank you for the history. I didn't know he coined the term himself. The nerve of him, calling Democrats rats, when he was committing crimes.

I have to sat that it scares the hell out of me.

The Rogues of "K" Street -- Confessions of a Tea Party Consultant

...
"You’re going to see something spectacular," an old friend who has a knack for black-bag operations said as he proudly downed his vodka. "About a month from now you’ll see ACORN explode from within." Right on schedule a video was released that showed undercover conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles getting advice from employees at the Baltimore office of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now on how to smuggle underage El Salvadoran girls into a fictitious brothel.

That’s when I realized this isn’t an average fringe movement. This one is credible, legit and—for the first time in a decade—scaring the crap out of the left. In my years as a campaign hack and then as a consultant, I’ve created more than my share of fake grassroots organizations. Some were downright evil but effective beyond expectations. Did you get an automated call from the sister of a 9/11 victim asking you to reelect President Bush in 2004? That was me. Did you get a piece of mail with the phrase supports abortion on demand as a means of birth control? That may have been me too.

Conservatives had been trying to take down ACORN for three decades. Where they failed, BigGovernment.com and my friends succeeded. In one magnificent explosion, a loose group of troublemakers, libertarians and Republicans took its first scalp. Sonja Merchant-Jones, former co-chair of ACORN’s Maryland chapter, told The New York Times in March, "That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work."

The ACORN blood tasted good.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/06/don-segretti-40-teabagger-nation.html

Thanks, freshwest.

the kind of evil that doesn't care who, what, when, where, or how.
the kind of evil that has NO HEART and laughs in the face of those who do.
an abomination of humanity. that kind of evil.

thank you, freshwest. i have been avoiding the news and staying off du - except for bog - because the hate of hour president is sickening. and this is precisely what it is mean to do. keep those of us heart and mind feelers and thinkers away and silent.

They were traced to internet addresses used by Fox News.

And then there's this newest tidbit:

"Meet The PR Firm That Helped Vladimir Putin Troll The Entire Country"

...Using filings from the Justice Department, the non-profit ProPublica detailed last November how Ketchum helped place op-eds by "seemingly independent professionals" that praised Russia in outlets like CNBC and the Huffington Post, among others, without proper disclosure.

It is not unusual for a PR firm to work with a government. But Ketchum has been the subject of controversy not only in its work with Russia, but also with the U.S. government.

Ketchum was involved in high-profile controversies in 2004 and 2005. In both cases, the Government Accountability Office determined that Ketchum engaged in "covert propaganda" for the U.S. government.

In 2004, Ketchum produced prepackaged news stories featuring actors posing as journalists that touted Medicare changes under Bush’s prescription drug benefit program, without disclosing government as the source. And in 2005, Ketchum again produced prepackaged news stories around the No Child Left Behind Act.

There's more:

http://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-nyt-op-ed-ketchum-pr-2013-9#ixzz2ejAKeAlK

Courtesy of Cha:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110215880#post5

That was her reply to Tarheel Dem here:

I heard a fascinating report on NPR about the Russian PR firm that placed the op-ed. Quite interesting. I think they're based in DC. Essentially, they're Freedom Works, except they work for the Russians. Astroturfing anyone?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110215880#post2

All out of Cha's thread here in the BOG, which should be K&R'd. It has a lot of links:

Republicans Unite Behind Putin the Dictator In Order to Diss Obama

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1102&pid=15880

Thanks! I'm sick and tired of people not just at DU - but IRL worshipping Putin as some kind of Freedom God. He's not.

for a devastating chronic condition.
now, a plan for the remedy. there are endless alternatives to reverse the condition.

It's making perfect sense now. It even has a name - ratfucking.

Under the guise of "open discussion" Repugnicans are making a really good effort at destroying (and dividing) the Democrats. Very very interesting.

You know, I already despised EVERYTHING about the Republicans. Can I possibly find them more repulsive and evil than I already did? I honestly don't know.

Last edited Sun Mar 22, 2015, 02:30 AM - Edit history (1)

because he didn't try to push for single payer." Like that?

I think it is common knowledge now at DU, but it still goes on.

It appears there is a lot of this going on right now & it's disgusting.

there's others auditioning their heads off for the #2 spot.

Thanks fresh!

I don't believe for a minute it was hidden because people actually thought it was homophobic.

Someone here actually wants the term hidden because they think it's homophobic!? I hope to gods that Skinner et al have been alerted to this travesty of misunderstanding of a history that must never, ever be forgotten or forgiven.

We reeeaaallly need to GOTV in 2014!

They will lie, cheat and steal for the cause, and they suck in gullible people. They used to be far out on the fringe, babbling bullshit that few listened to until the right wing radio stations started inundating the airwaves. That got them a foot in the door, then along comes fox and the rest is history. Now, those fringe lunatics are dead smack in the middle of every teevee show. America is getting kind of scary.

Washington — The most famous sentence Howard Baker ever uttered was his immortal line about Watergate: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

It was late June 1973. Senator Baker, who passed away on Thursday at his home in Tennessee, was the ranking Republican on the special Senate committee convened to investigate the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building.

President Richard Nixon had conspired to cover up White House involvement in that break-in early after its discovery. But the country did not know that at the time. Baker didn’t either.

Nixon thought Baker would be his ally on a panel that might be dangerous. At the start, the Tennessee lawmaker had acted as if that might be the case. On Feb. 22, 1973, he met secretly with Nixon in the Oval Office. He told the president the committee planned to build political pressure slowly, taking testimony from smaller figures first and then moving to try to get appearances from higher-ranking officials such as Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. Nixon suggested a deal whereby the highest-ranking witnesses would give private testimony. Baker demurred. He could not have approved such an arrangement on his own in any case.

“At least Baker is smart enough to get through the meeting without being drawn into obstruction of justice himself,” wrote political scientist Jonathan Bernstein in a 2013 summary of the incident.

Then John Dean decided to come clean. Mr. Dean was White House counsel and a cover-up coordinator. (For instance, he had supervised payments of hush money to the Watergate burglars.) In early April, he began talking to the Senate committee and revealing what he knew. Nixon fired him on April 30.


------



What’s forgotten today is that Baker thought he was protecting Nixon with that line. (emphasis mine) He was attempting to wall off the president from the actions of aides who might have done something wrong.

“He evidently meant to exculpate Nixon from prior knowledge of the break-in,” wrote historian Fred Emery in his book “Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon.”

But Dean turned this question around. Among other things, he charged that Nixon had been involved in discussions about clemency for those who had carried out and organized the break-ins, as well as talks about payoffs. Dean said the president had continued these activities even after he, as White House counsel, had warned his boss of a “cancer” on the presidency.

--------

Then in early July, another Nixon aide revealed to the panel the existence of the White House tapes. A record existed that could prove whether Nixon or Dean was right.

At that point Baker continued to press, not for Nixon’s advantage, but for the truth. His careful and detailed questioning won him widespread national attention and praise.


Link--
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Buzz/2014/0626/Howard-Baker-the-real-story-of-his-famous-Watergate-question