White House's Call for 'Informants' Draws Conservatives' Ire

[Jeremiah]

Conservative bloggers and opinion leaders Tuesday expressed outrage over the White House's call for informants to notify it of "disinformation" regarding the health care debate.

From the White House Web site:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end-of-life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an e-mail or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said,

"Well, I would hate to see what they're going to get now at flag@whitehouse.gov. I wonder what kind of e-mails they're going to get now. They're looking for tattletales; they're looking for snitches; they're looking for informants; they want their groupies to tattle on you if you happen to be telling the truth about what's in the health care plan.The White House has, as yet, offered no explanation of what it is they plan to do with the tips on policy opposition they hope to receive from citizen informers. Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter this morning, the title of that post on the White House is a quote from John Adams' 1770 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials.'"

Over at RedState, Jeff Emanuel wrote,

"The term 'disinformation' is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the president's push for single-payer, government-run health care -- meaning the White House wants to be informed of any forwarded e-mails or blog posts or any "casual conversations" that could be taken as opposition to their health care overhaul plan."

And TheNextRight's Jon Henke asks: "What, exactly, does the White House plan to do with this information?"

The complaints came on the same day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that demonstrations against health care reform during congressional town hall meetings are organized by the insurance industry and conservative groups.

White House officials are anxious to aggressively rebut what they see as disinformation. At the same time, they should be cognizant that the use of governmental resources to do so risks making them look heavy-handed or even Nixon-esque (will this lead to an enemies list?)

One wonders how many of my posts have already been e-mailed to the good folks at whitehouse.gov. Perhaps we can add an app for that at the bottom of my posts? "Click here to inform on Matt Lewis . . ."


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/08/04/white-houses-call-for-informants-draws-conservatives-ire/

[Panchito12]

I can't wait to hear that people signed that address up for ****o.

[Invisigoth]

Informants? I lol'd.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

If the Bush Whitehouse had done this same thing regarding the war in Iraq, the left would have gone absolutely crazy. But we all know that the Obama administration is only interested in doing good, helping people, and giving people things for free.

[Henry's Fork]

If the Bush Whitehouse had done this same thing regarding the war in Iraq, the left would have gone absolutely crazy. But we all know that the Obama administration is only interested in doing good, helping people, and giving people things for free.


Proof of that much hyped Change. Its all good if our boy does it!

[brainplay]

Sooo...(invoking Godwin's law here)...when do they start issuing the brown shirts?


The complaints came on the same day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that demonstrations against health care reform during congressional town hall meetings are organized by the insurance industry and conservative groups.

They pull the same thing with GW. Blame big corporations for any opposition. Stifle anyone attempting to speak out by labeling them with a corporate brand.

[Panchito12]

B.O's gang of fools are starting to see the twilight of the career of "The Chosen One" and the end of "Hope".

[Flagg]

If the Bush Whitehouse had done this same thing regarding the war in Iraq, the left would have gone absolutely crazy. But we all know that the Obama administration is only interested in doing good, helping people, and giving people things for free.

I'm reporting all of you to blackpanthernuttingsquad@whitehouse.gov

[Chulo]

Sooo...(invoking Godwin's law here)...when do they start issuing the brown shirts?



They pull the same thing with GW. Blame big corporations for any opposition. Stifle anyone attempting to speak out by labeling them with a corporate brand.
You mean that executive force that Obama talked about forming, that would only answer to the president and is separate from the normal military chain of command?

[Gleipnir]

Let me know when they 'purge' Jobu

(j/k sweetheart. I'd hate to see you go)

[Polygon]

Pick up that can, citizen!

[Jobu]

Let me know when they 'purge' Jobu

(j/k sweetheart. I'd hate to see you go)

I'm forwarding all your *****-themed threads to the White House.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Pick up that can, citizen!


http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos/albums/2shedsjackson/alz.sized.jpg

[Mastermind]

Oh, yeah! Bambi and his gang just keep right on digging themselves in deeper.

When they first started, won the elections and such, I thought, they must be quite clever to have pulled this off with that fouled up candidate...then I watched Bambi speak without his teleprompter and I thought, You know, this guy is stupid as a dirt clod.

Now, I'm feeling pretty good about their lack of brains...they just can't seem to help themselves. They really are short in the critical faculty.

[Panchito12]

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2389/obamadab.th.jpg (http://img193.imageshack.us/i/obamadab.jpg/)

[Mastermind]

makes a chill run up my leg...mmmmmmmm.

[Mu-Meson]

Astroturf movement? I don't think you could find a more textbook case of projection on the part of the White House. Axelrod has probably forgotten more about Astroturfing, than any Republicans have ever learnt.
I suppose that the 39% of Americans must now inform on the 52%.

[Panchito12]

Astroturf movement? I don't think you could find a more textbook case of projection on the part of the White House. Axelrod has probably forgotten more about Astroturfing, than any Republicans have ever learnt.
I suppose that the 39% of Americans must now inform on the 52%.

Axelrod was one of those fat boys that growing up ate paste instead of playing in the street.

[LineDoggie]

I'm forwarding all your *****-themed threads to the White House.
Thats his entire posting history....

[California Joe]

This is going to make a lot of extra paperwork for me. I hate paperwork.

[Gleipnir]

I'm forwarding all your *****-themed threads to the White House.

Go ahead- knowing this administration, they would probably give me some kind of cushy cultural grant to continue my research.


Thats his entire posting history....

Lies.

[Atlantic Friend]

If the Bush Whitehouse had done this same thing regarding the war in Iraq, the left would have gone absolutely crazy.

Karl Rove would have collapsed under the millions of e-mails from concerned Americans saying they had heard "fishy" things about Saddam possessing WMDs and SRBMs ready to strike London in 45 minutes.

[Bia]

If the Bush Whitehouse had done this same thing regarding the war in Iraq, the left would have gone absolutely crazy. But we all know that the Obama administration is only interested in doing good, helping people, and giving people things for free.Considering how the Bush admin raped and molested our constitution... well.... LMAO @ you.

[Mastermind]

Considering how the Bush admin raped and molested our constitution... well.... LMAO @ you.
Please, enlighten us...show how Bush did that....Please,feel free to be specific!

[LineDoggie]

Apparently, Nancy Pelosi says those who Oppose Obamas attempt to ram his healthcare fiasco down the country's throat are Neo-Nazi's

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/SaC-uMzvKKM

She saw the signs people, But never was briefed about Enhanced Techniques..................:roll:

[RxOnco]

Please, enlighten us...show how Bush did that....Please,feel free to be specific!

I too would be interested in seeing how W did that. I'm not holding my breath though. rofl

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Originally Posted by Mastermind http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?p=4319442#post4319442)
Please, enlighten us...show how Bush did that....Please,feel free to be specific!
I too would be interested in seeing how W did that. I'm not holding my breath though. rofl

I'm gonna go ahead and add my voice to that request.

I'd also add that even if Bush did bend the constitution over frontwards and give it a stout rogering, how does it make it OK for Obama?

In fact, Obama, who used to teach constitutional law should have known better than to try to pull BS like this.

Nixon pulled crap like this - using military people out of uniform, the FBI etc. to report on "fishy" activities on college campuses regarding Vietnam. I think that went all the way to the SC and he got his hand slapped IIRC. If our government wants to know what we think, they can ask us, not ask our neighbors to inform on us. Leave that stuff to Cuba.

I'd like to know what the Federal Government intends to do with the names and email addresses collected.

[Gleipnir]

I'm with 2Sheds on this one.
I'm no conspiracy theorist and I don't think that this will lead to imprisonment in FEMA camps or a Night of the Long knives style purge, but I find this information control and invitation to snitch distasteful.

I also wonder what they will do with the information gathered?
Profiling? Smear campaigns? Public rebuttals? Analysis of what is being 'misunderstood' or what draws the most criticism?

[Jobu]

I'm with 2Sheds on this one.
I'm no conspiracy theorist and I don't think that this will lead to imprisonment in FEMA camps or a Night of the Long knives style purge, but I find this information control and invitation to snitch distasteful.

I also wonder what they will do with the information gathered?
Profiling? Smear campaigns? Public rebuttals? Analysis of what is being 'misunderstood' or what draws the most criticism?

You've read Rules for Radicals correct?
Then you know how the information will be used.

[Gleipnir]

Cute, Jobu.
You don't need these tactics if you are already in power.

[Jobu]

Cute, Jobu.
You don't need these tactics if you are already in power.

You haven't read it then.

It goes into what to do once you're in power. Enacting radical change from the inside is all about making the people feel so helpless and so defeated that they will not stand up to say no to any change you want to push on them.

[California Joe]

Amigo, you basically desribed the entire Patriot act....

[Jobu]

Amigo, you basically desribed the entire Patriot act....

What's radical about the Patriot Act?

From what I can tell it basically extended the same law enforcement powers that already applied to organized crime, to terrorism.

[Gleipnir]

You haven't read it then.

It goes into what to do once you're in power. Enacting radical change from the inside is all about making the people feel so helpless and so defeated that they will not stand up to say no to any change you want to push on them.

When Obama starts making people disappear and executing opponents I'll be concerned. To me, that's real radicalism.
Until then your strutting and clucking does little to sway me.

[chauncy republicans]

Real swift, your like the safety people I have to work with, they sit on their asses doing nothing, ignoring any concern for safety until somebody gets injured.

[LineDoggie]

When Obama starts making people disappear and executing opponents I'll be concerned. To me, that's real radicalism.
Until then your strutting and clucking does little to sway me.

Until your Burglarized why have a Lock on your doors and windows.....

[Gleipnir]

Whatever man. You guys are just like those overzealous lefties that predicted similar outcomes when Bush was building his 'New World Order'.

[chauncy republicans]

Keep walking with the herd, you'll be safe.

[Gleipnir]

I don't walk with any herd, unlike your overly biased and narrow-minded political rabidity. I won't let fear run my life- especially when it is overblown and absurd.
Believe whatever you want, you are just as bad as all those idiotic lefties who were spelling doom when Bush was President. They told me pretty much the same thing.
Try looking through your political filters from time to time, might do you some good.
And that's not a judgement, just friendly advice.

[Laconian]

It is actually illegal for LE (or any arm of the state) to maintain or conduct surveillance on folks without any reasonable belief of criminal activity. Even information from sources has to be independently corroborated before any action can be taken. If LE tells somebody else to do it, that person is acting as an agent of the government and the same rules apply, this would appear no different. By doing this the administration is gathering some sort of "list" of private citizens involved in political discourse, but no criminal activity. Didn't folks go bat **** crazy about government lists once before, like when McCarthy and Hoover did it?

[chauncy republicans]

Believe whatever you want, you are just as bad as all those idiotic lefties who were spelling doom when Bush was President. They told me pretty much the same thing.

You mean the people who predicted him granting the Executive office more Clinton inspired dictatorial powers - which would be undoubtedly passed on to the next guy in office, or how he started a war of aggression against Iraq? If so, I'm not just as bad, I'm one of them. Don't for a minute think I get caught up in the same spectacle everybody else is preoccupied with, I don't have political filters.

[Gleipnir]

Oh, I'm sorry- was I wrong to think you could be reduced down to some oversimplified black and white thing in the style that you reduced me?
Real classy, Chauncy.

We'll talk when Obama's term is over. If you have been eliminated or rounded up in some FEMA camp then you can say I told you so, okay.

[Jobu]

Oh, I'm sorry- was I wrong to think you could be reduced down to some oversimplified black and white thing in the style that you reduced me?
Real classy, Chauncy.

We'll talk when Obama's term is over. If you have been eliminated or rounded up in some FEMA camp then you can say I told you so, okay.



I see your standards now.

Obama can screw up worse than Jimmy Carter but as long as we're not rounded up and put into concentrations camps, you can't be bothered. So whatever he wants to do for 4 years is just fine, we'll talk after.

[Gleipnir]

Wrong.

Those were specific comments directed at someone else regarding comments he made.

What is wrong with you- I already said I found all this distasteful.
But that isn't enough for you? No, you want me to then agree with you that Obama is going to use Alinsky's tactics to do some horrible, vague, alluded to but never expressed something to the individuals whose email addresses are going to be collected.
Then you put words in my mouth.

Your tactics are similar to Alinsky's Power Tactics as well if you want me to be as paranoid and simplistic as you are:


Alinsky’s Power Tactics:
5. Ridicule is mans most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise of tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

Wow- these remind me of you, should I then go on to use some leaps of ill-logic to then assume that you are in fact an Alynskyist radical?

So what is Obama going to do with the list? Please make it clear for me instead of making allusions and then masking those by ridiculing me.

I never said I liked what Obama was doing, but that is no cause for me to abandon rationality. Your cheap bullying and insistent, close-minded fervour isn't going to convince anyone save those who already agree and your knee-jerk reliance on ridicule certainly isn't going to convince me so why don't you just give it a rest already.

[Chulo]

Wrong.

Those were specific comments directed at someone else regarding comments he made.

What is wrong with you- I already said I found all this distasteful.
But that isn't enough for you? No, you want me to then agree with you that Obama is going to use Alinsky's tactics to do some horrible, vague, alluded to but never expressed something to the individuals whose email addresses are going to be collected.
Then you put words in my mouth.

Your tactics are similar to Alinsky's Power Tactics as well if you want me to be as paranoid and simplistic as you are:


Alinsky’s Power Tactics:
5. Ridicule is mans most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise of tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

Wow- these remind me of you, should I then go on to use some leaps of ill-logic to then assume that you are in fact an Alynskyist radical?

So what is Obama going to do with the list? Please make it clear for me instead of making allusions and then masking those by ridiculing me.

I never said I liked what Obama was doing, but that is no cause for me to abandon rationality. Your cheap bullying and insistent, close-minded fervour isn't going to convince anyone save those who already agree and your knee-jerk reliance on ridicule certainly isn't going to convince me so why don't you just give it a rest already.
doesnt that sound like what Obama is doing? ridicules everything from Palin to Tea parties, distracts people with small things, and mold them to fit his agenda. Alot of what has happend in the past 4 months can be summed up quite will with Alinsky's Power Tactics

[budgie]

What's wrong with finding out where the opposing debate is coiming from and then challenging that? The use of the word 'informants' is pretty loaded, when really all they're asking for is information. What can the whitehouse actually do about the alleged 'disinformation' anyway? Rush is still on air.

[Derbedeu]

doesnt that sound like what Obama is doing? ridicules everything from Palin to Tea parties, distracts people with small things, and mold them to fit his agenda. Alot of what has happend in the past 4 months can be summed up quite will with Alinsky's Power Tactics

That's because Palin and the tea parties are/were ridiculous. ;-)

[sct1886]

When Obama starts making people disappear and executing opponents I'll be concerned. To me, that's real radicalism.
Until then your strutting and clucking does little to sway me.

Does it not concern you this is the first step in rounding up the "oppositions" names? This is the first step in a totalitarian regimes control of "dissidents". There are too many indications this President has an agenda and is busy arranging the chess pieces to implement it. Crack a history book and take your head from the sand.

[Chulo]

That's because Palin and the tea parties are/were ridiculous. ;-)
and what was so ridiculous about tea parties?

[Mastermind]

What's wrong with finding out where the opposing debate is coiming from and then challenging that? The use of the word 'informants' is pretty loaded, when really all they're asking for is information. What can the whitehouse actually do about the alleged 'disinformation' anyway? Rush is still on air.
Man...you really don't understand the significance of this, do you?

This is not a call for information on the ideas of the opposition...this is to "report" the source of the opposition...the people who oppose them...they are asking for e-mail addresses, not a quote of what the folks are saying...they already know what folks are saying, anyone with a TV or a web access know what the ideas are. It's the people with the opposing ideas they want.

Remember the howl over Nixon's "Enemies List"? (I suggest you look it up) Do you think Presidents compose lists of enemies for their scrap book?

This has Rham Emanual's finger prints all over it...that's how that guy operates. He is a back street thug and always has been.

So, now the next thing we see is the Teamsters and the ACORN group offering (promising) to send in the muscle men (as they have yesterday) to the Town Hall Meetings..."The Senators and Congressmen won't have nuthin' to worry about once our guys get there...>"" yeah....I'll bet! Like the thugs standing outside the polls last Prez election roughing up voters of the whity persuation..."Uh, Justice deprtment...justice department...?" Oh, Yeah...Justice checked it out. They checked out the videos and didn't find any wrong doing or voter intimidation...I guess they didn't see the same videos we did, huh?

Then, I guess we can expect the usual name calling, and no addressing of the questions or the issues...

Then, all we have to ask is when does Kristallnacht happen?

After that...then what? Good men stay silent...again!

[Gleipnir]

Does it not concern you this is the first step in rounding up the "oppositions" names? This is the first step in a totalitarian regimes control of "dissidents". There are too many indications this President has an agenda and is busy arranging the chess pieces to implement it. Crack a history book and take your head from the sand.

Hahaha. You again- the guy who thinks that we are heading for an impending race war. Enjoy your paranoid fantasies.

Of course it concerns me that names are being taken- I find it incredibly distasteful but on the other hand, as I have already said I doubt that this will lead to Night of the Long knives style purges followed by internment of 'dissidents'. So many vague terms being thrown around here. Lets see how this plays out a little more before getting hysterical.

My head isn't in any sand. I've read plenty of history books. However, I don't just yet want to abandon my rationality.
If it all goes the way you claim you can tell me 'I told you' so and I'll give you that- unless of course you are wasting away in a FEMA camp or buried in some mass grave along with your fellow 'dissenters'.
Who knows, I may even be one of your guards by thenp-)

[LineDoggie]

Your are in my report, Ve villzee how much you allz laught then funny mensch....

Snitchcentral@whitehouse.gov