It's no secret that the City Pages' Blotter lifts a lot of material from Bluestem Prairie, and we were grateful when now-departed staff writer Andy Mannix picked Bluestem as Best Blog 2013. Having Mannix's respect meant a great deal.
Thus, it's with great sadness that we read this lede in a Blotter post "Overpasses for Obama's Impeachment" is a thing in Minnesota:
One day after its kick-off meeting, the Minnesota chapter of "Overpasses for Obama's Impeachment" already has more than 500 Facebook members.
Well, no.
As Bluestem reported in Cindy Pugh likes people standing on overpasses calling for President Obama's impeachment, a local Overpass organizer spoke at the Kick-Off meeting of the SW Metro Tea Party, which has been around long enough to launch Representative Cindy Pugh's political career.
The Minnesota Facebook group had been around for at least a month before the Blotter blogger misread about it on Bluestem. With a little googling, as well as reading comprehension, the unfortunate blogger could have avoided publishing a fake scoop.
An August 4 Before It's News post about the national Overpass For Impeachment organizing includes the Minnesota Facebook group.
The Blotter also notes:
Buzzfeed characterizes "Overpasses for Obama's Impeachment" as "the new fad taking the country by storm."
Actually, as we noted last night, Buzzfeed characterized the fad as a "Fail."
Update: The lede has been rewritten to read; "The Minnesota chapter of "Overpasses for Obama's Impeachment" has more than 500 Facebook members," and a video of a protest last month has been added. Good thing we got a screenshot of the original lede, since no correction is noted.
Update II: The Overpass tactic is dubbed Patriot Wave II, following the first Patriot Wave on August 6, according to an August 13 post on the Free Republic online forum. The Patriot Action Network appears to be the public organizer spearheading the August 6 wave, according to the Partnering With Eagles blog.
According to the Patriot Action Network's website's about page:
THE NETWORK
Patriot Action Network is the nation’s largest conservative social action network, serving hundreds of thousands of citizens every month. We are united by our passion for re-establishing Constitution-based liberty and limited government through dialogue, debate, legislation and elections.
1.8 MILLION MEMBERS NATIONWIDENot only is the Patriot Action Network the LARGEST active social hub of the Patriot Movement… we’re also the official social action network of Grassfire Nation and the 1.8 MILLION PATRIOT members of Grassfire.com.
The Datacide site noted in From Conspiracy Theories to Attempted Assassinations: The American Radical Right and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement that that the PAN is the old ResistNet:
ResistNet, now renamed the Patriot Action Network, is the second largest national group with 83,888 members, followed by TPN, FW, 1776 Tea Party and finally the TPE.
ResistNet is a website, http://www.resistnet.com/, that says it is "the online community for patriotic citizens who are opposing the Obama-led socialist agenda with a patriotic, idea-based, conservative resistance." ResistNet.com calls itself "the official social network of Grassfire Nation." In 2011, the web site resistnet.com redirected to http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/, which was promoting a "Defeat Barack Obama Radiothon" and a petition against raising the national debt ceiling.[1]A "Start Here New Member Guide" web page on Patriot Action Network says the site is in the throes of changing its name from ResistNet to Patriot Action Network.[2]
The sites ResistNet and PatriotActionNetwork.org were created by a group called Grassfire.org,[3], a conservative issues advocacy group that was assisted, at least until 2004, by Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. Shirley & Bannister served as a "contract publicist" for Grassfire.org, according to a 2004 report by Public Citizen, who received the information in an email from Max Pulsinelli, a Shirley and Bannister Public Affairs account executive, dated May 18, 2004. [4] The president of Shirley & Bannister Public Affairs is Craig Shirley, a long-time Republican PR operative.[5]
Other than that, perhaps the Overpass group was just born yesterday and stayed up all night.
Image: The graphics for the SW Metro Tea Party September Kick-off Event on September 9. A representative from the Overpass "Movement" spoke to the Tea Party group. Bannering overpasses is a long-standing protest tactic on the Left, and whoever began to organize this protest nationally began setting up Facebook Groups for every state this summer. The event Bluestem posted about and City Pages misreported as a Facebook Group kick-off, was, in fact, this event (top); screenshot of the opening lede (bottom).
If you enjoy reading posts like this on Bluestem Prairie, consider throwing some coin in the tip jar. Unlike City Pages staff, Bluestem isn't drawing a salary.
Geez Lew-frickin'-wheeze. Will the last person left at Village Voice's Minnesota relay station please turn out the lights? Who do they have running the joint anyway, unpaid interns?
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Sep 12, 2013 at 03:28 PM