Obama’s War at Home
21st December 2015
Well, here’s some good news: We now have proof that the Obama administration acts as though it were on a wartime footing. Bad news? It’s acting that way here at home.
The New York Times reports that the administration broke the law when it used social media to gin up support for a clean-water rule. Through a campaign on Twitter, Facebook, and similar media, it tried to get people to share messages supporting the rule, a practice known as astroturfing (which generates fake, as opposed to real, grass-roots support). The Government Accountability Office, which investigated the campaign, concluded that the EPA engaged in “covert propaganda.”
This isn’t the first time the administration has tried to use psy-ops against the American people. In its early days, the White House Office of Public Engagement teamed up with the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage artists to produce art supporting the president’s initiatives. HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned insurance companies there would be “zero tolerance” for criticism of White House health-care policies.