Straight Up Fascism: Obama SuperPAC and Media Matters Collude to Suppress Conservative Speech

Sooper Mexican puts together the puzzle pieces for us, depicting behavior that smacks of nothing less than fascism by all the president's men.

This latest involves a complex web that suggests the Obama re-election campaign is coordinating with liberal activists to deceive the public that attempts to shut down conservative speech are grown from the “grassroots”, instead of being falsely manufactured by tech-savvy secretive operatives...

One such attempt was the targeting of Rush Limbaugh during the Sandra Fluke debacle. It is now known that those organizing the #StopRush campaign were using hundreds of fake identities in order to make it appear that public outrage was greater than it was...

The Daily Caller reported on the close relationship between Media Matters and the Obama administration, and the compliance they receive from ostensibly objective cable news channels... '"We were pretty much writing their prime time," a former Media Matters employee said of the cable channel MSNBC. 'But then virtually all the mainstream media was using our stuff.'"

...Media Matters’ founder David Brock, noted for his erratic and paranoid behavior, also heads SuperPAC American Bridge, which received a million dollar contribution from George Soros, and both organizations orchestrate attacks on religion while decrying conservatives in popular media.

So why are there howls in the media about the influence of contributors on the right, such as the Koch brothers, but not those on the left, when there appears to be collusion to manipulate news media, lie to the public, and subvert honest political debate?

...All the while, Obama’s communications head David Axelrod whines about SuperPACs destroying America... If we had any kind of responsible mainstream press with a twinge of integrity, they would demand answers from the Obama re-election campaign. But there isn’t... So it’s up to you and me.

This is part of a pattern. Let's rewind to 2008, during the height of the presidential campaign.

John Fund:

Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist.

An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a "slimy character assassin" whose "divisive, destructive ranting" should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is "unprecedented." He also notes that it is curious -- because "we wanted the Obama campaign's take" on Mr. Kurtz's findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air.

The university released more than 1,000 files relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). A cursory review of the files reveals that Obama and Ayers "attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference together," which contradicts Obama's statement on April 16, 2008 during a Democratic debate.

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

Actually, Obama and Ayers were very close. This is evidenced by not only their leadership of the CAC, but also their collaboration as directors of the Woods Fund and its numerous troubling relationships.

Working together as the heads of the Annenberg Challenge, Ayers and Obama facilitated a handout of more than $160 million in and around the Chicago school system. These funds went to groups that purportedly were going to improve student achievement.

The effort failed miserably by every measure.

Kurtz began his review of the CAC's papers and was invited on Milt Rosenberg's long-running Chicago radio show to discuss his initial findings. Though Obama's campaign declined an invitation to appear on the show, it did broadcast an "Obama Action Wire" requesting that supporters phone the show and interrupt Kurtz' appearance.

The station, WGN, has made a stream of the broadcast available online, here, and it has to be heard to be believed. Obama’s robotic legions dutifully jammed the station’s phone lines and inundated the program with emails, attacking Kurtz personally. Pressed by Rosenberg to specify what inaccuracies Kurtz was guilty of, caller after caller demurred, mulishly railing that “we just want it to stop,” and that criticism of Obama was “just not what we want to hear as Americans.”

Steve Diamond, writing at the left-leaning Global Labor blog, decried the tactics:

Caller after caller to WGN read off talking points provided them by the Obama campaign alleging that Dr. Kurtz, and by implication and sometimes directly, Milt Rosenberg, was "smearing" Barack Obama and finding Obama "guilty by association." They also accused Kurtz of lying.

Yet, when pressed for specifics, these callers had none.

This gang of callers and emailers reminded me of the "turbas" - the street thugs organized by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas who would be deployed on a moment's notice to harass independent trade unionists, human rights activists and government critics during the Sandinistas' rule over Nicaragua in the 1980's. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela - a favorite haunt of Bill Ayers and other "Progressives for Obama" - uses similar bodies in Caracas neighborhoods.

Ostensibly, Obama's campaign embraces post-partisan "change." Yet its use of brown-shirts to disrupt a radio program -- rather than offer a reasoned debate -- smacks of neanderthal tactics.

It is an ominous glimpse into the future...

Part of a pattern, indeed.