An attempt to destroy Rush Limbaugh through the intimidation of his advertisers has been exposed as the work of a small handful of activists at least one of whom works for the George Soros-funded, astroturf outfit Media Matters for America.
The effort to destroy Limbaugh dubbed “Stop Rush” was started in 2012 by Angelo Carusone, the vice president of the Soros-funded Media Matters website. Carusone intended the effort to be an adjunct to President Obama’s re-election campaign.
The Stop Rush campaign is presented to Limbaugh’s advertisers as an army of regular Americans incensed by Limbaugh’s purportedly “racist” on-air comments. This grassroots army is then purportedly enlisted to frighten advertisers on Limbaugh’s radio show into dumping their sponsorship.
But far from being an army of regular Americans joined together for a cause, an investigation into the group has shown that it is really just the efforts of 10 people. Joining paid media astroturfer Carusone is a Kent State University Professor and several women who seem intertwined with each other.
Further proof that the Twitter efforts of the small group of paid, ultra left-wing activists is more artifice than grassroots is the fact that engine of their campaign is built on a high-volume Twitter application that makes their efforts seem larger than they are. It is also an application that violates Twitter’s user agreement.
On top of all this, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has latched onto the effort as a fundraising tool by floating an astroturf “petition” to get Limbaugh thrown off the air with an email campaign titled, “PETITION: Rush Limbaugh off the air.”
The Limbaugh camp has spent several years searching out who is involved in this Twitter campaign and identified several of the participants. Not long afterward, Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson helped the Limbaugh camp expose the conspiracy.
Aside from Media Matters’ Carusone, Limbaugh’s investigation identified Linda Kotensburg Swanholm and Lauren Reynolds both of whom work together on an anti-Rush Limbaugh Facebook page. Another member of the group is Kent State administrator Nancy Padak–who has used her university email address to harass Limbaugh advertisers.
The emails and Tweets that this small group of people send to Limbaugh advertisers are sent to markets in which the 10 activists do not live. This means that none of these activists would ever be in a position to patronize any of the local businesses they are attacking for advertising on the Limbaugh show.
“A small number of politically motivated out of-state activists are distributing target lists indiscriminately, and annoying small businesses until they give up the advertising deals that help them grow, or risk being unable to conduct business at all. It’s not even activism… it’s blackmail,” said Limbaugh Show spokesman Brian Glicklich.
Limbaugh’s investigation also discovered that the engine of the anti-Limbaugh Twitter campaign is powered by a computer program that automatically generates 88 percent of the Tweets that are supposed to be from “regular people.” And the computer program is sponsored by Democrat consultant group UniteBlue.
This software, though, is a violation of the Twitter user agreements because it automates Tweets which destroys the “social” part of social media making it mechanized system instead of an organic experience like Twitter wants.
Hoping to further the anti-Limbaugh campaign, comedian John Fugelsang jumped to his own Twitter account to start issuing false Limbaugh quotes to characterize the talk show host as a racist.
On September 26, Fuselsang went to Twitter to claim that after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation, Limbaugh said Holder is another “black guy doesn’t want to work.”
Limbaugh, of course, never said this, but the comedian, who these days has relegated himself almost strictly to the left-wing MSNBC cable outlet, claims he thought he was being funny. After his “joke” fell apart, he began to Tweet out of context quotes from Limbaugh in an attempt to make him out to be a racist.
Media Matters, of course, has been peddling these false Limbaugh comments for years and has been behind email campaigns and fundraising efforts using false quotes for a long time.
This isn’t the first time that leftists have launched a campaign to destroy Limbaugh. When his children’s books reached the top of the New York Times best sellers lists and led to his selection in March as children’s author of the year, liberals went on a campaign to force the group giving the award to retract the honor. It didn’t work then, either.
