astroturf organizations

With a smattering of creepy nut-jobs to round out the mix:

James O’Keefe, the president of Project Veritas, a non-profit organization dedicated to training video muckrakers nationwide. From student newspaper editors to bloggers to video producers to journalists, enterprising muckrakers across the country look to James for inspiration, advice, and encouragement.

Jeez, I hope not. We already have more than enough sexual harassers exposing women to inappropriate and compromising situations in this country as it is:

This borders on the surreal:

Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

When I read the blurb for this story, I thought it was a spoof or some other form of journalistic fiction. But it's for real. My first assumption was that Dick used the gun-toting assistant in an effort to try to impress Tea Party loyalists. But (as usual) money talks and bullshit walks:

Even Pope himself doesn't lay it on this thick:

It's painfully hard to understand why detractors demonize a man for providing affordable goods in low-income areas and why they want to jeopardize the jobs of the 7,000 people he employs with a boycott.

Okay, Burgetta, let me explain it to you, since you apparently don't have the capacity to grasp how political influence impacts the lives of citizens: