A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Digg.com is the powerhouse of social media websites. It is ranked 50th among US websites by Alexa (117th in the world), by far the most influential social media site. It reached one million users in 2007 and likely has more than tripled that by this point. Digg generates around 25 million page views per month, over one third of the page views of the NY Times. Front page stories regularly overwhelm and temporarily shut down websites in a process called the “Digg Effect.”

The concept behind the site is simple. Submitted webpages (news, videos, or images) can be voted up (digging) or down (burying) by each user, sort of a democracy in the internet model. If an article gets enough diggs, it leaves the upcoming section and reaches the front page where most users spend their time, and can generate thousands of page views.

This model also made it very susceptible to external gaming whereby users from certain groups attempt to push their viewpoint or articles to the front page to give them traction. This was evident with the daily spamming of the upcoming Political section with white supremacist material from the British National Party (articles which rarely reached the front page). The inverse of this effect is more devastating however. Bury brigades could effectively remove stories from the upcoming sections by collectively burying them.

One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg “Patriots”.

DIGG PATRIOTS

A group of nearly one hundred conservatives have banded together on a Yahoo Group called Digg Patriots (DP), and a companion site at coRanks to issue bury orders and discuss strategies to censor Digg and other social media websites. DP was founded on 21 May 2009. Since then, over 40,000 posts have been logged at a steady rate of around 3000-4000 per month. The “Patriots” Network on coRank is a tool to submit Diggs to a group list as opposed to sending an e-mail every time. It also has some tools that make submitting to the list as easy as clicking on a bookmark. The DP membership includes the following Digg users (among others):

4verageJo3
alanocu
allisonrose870
asami21
atomheartmother
BalancingAct
Benthedog (ties with diggforwhatever, formerly LeConcierge)
bettverboten (formerly banned as Lizbett, sleeper accounts loquaciouslola, MsBoop)
bossm4n (BP site admin)
CaptCarrot (goes by therjcarter on other websites)
cajungal
ChronicColonic (Wrote ‘Tools to Be Excellent at Burying’ guide)
clickfire
ClydePRM2
conservativepie
DCconservative
dgpj
emersonbiggins (formerly EdHurl, rjwusa, MightRighty, BurtToast, GangusGreen, esornivek)
EMFK (Social Blade Digger of the Year 2010, 65% popular ratio, DP site admin)
frofisrael (jenalp on Twitter)
Gandalff
gbudavid
heythere1857
howdoyouknow
jackalgunner (DP site admin, not active on Digg)
Janinco (DP site admin)
JasonQPublic (formerly scarlett0hara)
JeremiahLaments (formerly RightWingAttila, a DP site admin)
jjvors
johnny2k
KCLorelei39
Kraviwannabe
LandThatILove
le0pardess (1badk1tty)
libertyalways (formerly KurtHofmann, 45superman)
lilamae (Fillifan)
LoneStarLizard
LouisCipher777
maggiesnotebook
MattRoss1968
mikeinto
minarchian (duplicate accounts as Phreedom, CongressCritter, formerly Brewskie)
novaculus
PatriotRoom (billdupray)
pharoah247
phoenixtx (formerly vrayz, DP site founder and owner)
pookydirt
pray4sneaux (formerly energizersnobabe, a profile active elsewhere)
punx
quirkopatra
raggsat98 (MassRon, DP site admin)
Ramfire98
Raycheetah (formerly Browncoat)
robertsdig
SadLisa (formerly mollydog12, GrantPeace, FoolsGoldParty, UrdhvaMukha)
schwartzloenard (formerly NewsGuy2005, NewsGuy2009, ClydePRM)
SethStuck (ConservativeBrawler elsewhere, runs DiggsAndBuries site)
spiegelscott
spindig
starcmc
Striker101
sultanknish
tasine
Temlakos
texasknight
ThePartyStar (formerly LibertyCheeks, MyCarteBlanche)
thoughtsonthis
Welshman007
whatbubbaknows
zacharytelschow

The ring leader of the group is Bettverboten, who issues multiple digg and bury orders everyday. She is a Digg power user who has dugg 70,000 articles and has 1500 submits of her own (18% have gone popular) in one short year on the site. She was previously known as Lizbett before her lifetime ban for offensive and inappropriate comments, and has two sleeper accounts waiting if she gets banned again at loquaciouslola and MsBoop. She is also on Twitter, although her primary focus is Digg, where she has acquired a huge following of power users who are likely unaware that she is gaming the system, and even calling to bury some of her mutuals.

The other primary members responsible for cheating are CaptCarrot, ChronicColonic, emmersonbiggins (rjwusa), SadLisa (mollydog), Janinco, allisonrose870, asami21, Benthedog, JeremiahLaments (RightWingAttila), libertyalways, phoenixtx, pray4sneaux, quirkopatra, raggsat98, Ramfire98, and ThePartystar. Digg and bury orders are issued multiple times everyday, with most of the members blindly following without question.

The list above is truncated from the larger membership, some of which are inactive. Not every member listed has admitted to violating the Digg Terms of Service in public either, although most are guilty of some abuse or another. This group is the heart of a complicated web on various networks, including Twitter, Propeller, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Facebook, all dedicated to ramming an extreme right wing viewpoint down the throats of those communities and censoring opposing viewpoints. This includes such means as cyber stalking, bullying, and terror, as exposed on YouTube yesterday (something not one of the DP group condemned).  Not surprisingly, there is also a heavy contingent active on the ultraconservative FreeRepublic.

There are a few differences of opinion within DP, although for the most part, they are extremely similar in perspective. They hate Obama. They hate progressives. They hate the UN, diplomacy, and peace/disarmament efforts. They hate reforms of health care, Wall St., and immigration. They hate science, in fact many are creationists, and some even blog about it. They hate the secular nature of our nation. They hate environmental protection, requiring polluters to be responsible for their own cleanup, and especially hate climate efforts. They hate unions and any attempt to level the playing field to give all Americans economic opportunities. They hate the government, except the military-industrial complex. They hate abortion rights. They hate public schools and really hate higher education. They hate anyone in the media except far right personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They hate anyone who doesn’t think Obama is a secret islamist and/or marxist who was born in Kenya. They just love to hate.

Although this is a fringe group of Teabagging wingnuts, many well established figures in the Digg community are also present, such as BalancingAct, EMFK, Janinco, mikeinto, and spindig. 10 members have been part of Digg since 2005-2006, with 43 having their current account there for over 2 years. 19 are in the top 500 all time users as ranked by Social Blade, including 3 in the top 100. They have submitted over 30,000 articles, and dugg over 1,000,000 submits collectively. They regularly front page material, yet have some paranoid delusion that the Digg admins are part of some conspiracy to censor them, not once recognizing the blatant hypocrisy of their organized censorship doing that very thing.

CENSORSHIP
The primary function of the Digg Patriots is to censor politically progressive content from the upcoming Political, Political Opinion, World News, and Business sections, so that conservative stories have a better chance to get more traction. To do this, they constantly monitor these sections, progressive submitters, and news websites.

Whether I agree with Bjornski, Anamaly100, PhilPerspective, Novenator, JanineWallace, UncaJoe, & a couple others I can’t think of right now, I bury `em anyway. *ACTUALLY* each of them has been “dead-on, balls-accurate” (an industry term) at least once in the past week or so, and it sort-of pains me to be dishonest by burying them anyway, but then I remember . . . I’m not up for re-election!
-BentheDog

Although many hundreds of users are victims of this political censorship, the targets of choice of the Digg “Patriots” were typically the following: novenator, Anomaly100, Amprather, FreedomJoe, noupsell, PhilPerspective, bjornski, BePeace, Michael9636, MercyPolitics, GonzoMuckraker, LiamFox, BIGOTHER1, capj71, tcbishop12, SolidUncertain, SarahLee, GeorgeClymer, uncajoe, Mizzy, MiddleAmericaMS, rearlgrant, VegetableLamb, MrBabyMan, jrod4040, whiteblackninja, EasyPeasy08, dagnabbit, danholt7, Matt43, penolan, Jaime2000, and mklopez. They even went as far as to bury the submissions of these user’s friends on Digg. Digg power user Bossm4n gave a list to the group of the top 13 power users that are left-leaning that they should target, stating that he has been deliberately trying to ban the last one (nahsrocket) for years:

1. MrBabyman
2. Noupsell
3. Badwithcomputer
4. MSaleem
5. VTbarerra
6. Jaybol
7. irfanmp
8. Bukowsky
9. 1KrazyKorean
10. d2002
11. kplo
12. bixby1
13. nahsrocketeer75

If any of the usual suspects subbed a story claiming “sky blue/water wet,” I’d BURY IT without question. I’ve been on digg for almost 4 years…
-JeremiahLaments (account says Joined Digg on 21Aug2009)

I personally vote for a complete blackout on lib subs: Bury every comment (including the conservatives “helping” to pop the story). No up-votes (no matter how much you agree).
-asami21

This censorship is not restricted to political articles either. Articles about education, homophobia, racism, science, the environment, economics, wealth disparity, world events, the media, green energy, and anything even slightly critical of the GOP/Tea Party/FoxNews/corporations are targets. In fact, any articles submitted by the users they hate the most are on their kill lists, including such benign things as SETI Opens All Data To The Public, Celtics Take Lead in N.B.A. Finals, Man Donates Phone He Used to Record Rape of 3-Year-Old Girl, 40,000 BP Australian Rock Art May Depict Giant Extinct Bird, Sarah Ferguson: I Was Drinking At The Time Of Video Sting, Top 10 Real Life Mutants, What is being Taught in a Bible Belt Science Classroom, and Totally Cute Puppy Pictures (buried in less than 30 minutes).

The following a transcript of a DP conversation:
Bettverboten (Lizbett): Check back here you late nighters to see when and who subs this [article just published on targeted website]. I am sure it is coming our way.
Phoenixtx: Good recon Liz! Thanks! Let’s keep our eyes open.
LibertyAlways: It’s up—bury! [link]
JeremiahLaments: Think we can bury it in record time? I think we CAN!
[10 minutes later] We did it! Buried it with only 5 diggs–might be a record!

The DP group searches Digg for any articles from websites they want to drown out, sites such as Salon, News Junkie Post, Talking Points Memo, FreakOutNation, Five Thirty Eight, ThePublicRecord, Rawstory, The Nation, Media Matters for America, PoliticusUSA, Alternet, Fire Dog Lake, Political Carnival, TruthOut, DailyKos, The Joshua Blog, The Brad Blog, Huffington Post, Science Blogs, Smirking Chimp, Down With Tyranny, Crooks and Liars, MarioPiperni, Buzzflash, Bob Cesca’s REALLY AWESOME Blog, and The New York Times.

[use the] search site feature, I bury all the subs less than 2 days [old] in matter of seconds. I think we’d be even more effective if we all did this to some degree with consistency or at least with certain sources/sites. From there it’s like shooting ducks…
-allisonrose870

Further, this is not merely a case of not knowing they are breaking the rules, this is deliberate.
I am concerned that if Skype is directly connected to digg like twitter is …than bury rules probably apply like they do with twitter. If there are monitors in the chat rooms and someone reports we are linking buries and asking for buries on digg with links, it may be reported to digg.
-bettverboten

DUPLICATE AND FORMERLY BANNED ACCOUNTS
Beyond censorship, the Digg “Patriots” group regularly discusses strategy on how to either come back after being banned for life from Digg for violating the rules, set up sleeper profiles, and how to utilize multiple accounts at once without getting caught. Digg only functions as a democratic environment when each person is limited to one account. Discussing the time in late 2009 when zacharytelschow was temporarily banned for homophobic hate speech:

Ron AKA Chronic: You can create another account. Worse comes to worse, you can just lay low for a bit and then come back.

JasonQPublic: Zach, if they won’t reinstate your account, you really don’t have to leave digg unless you just want to. Just follow the steps below.
1. Go to whatismyip.com/ and write down the IP address that is displayed at the top of the page.
2. Turn off your cable or DSL modem for approx. 5 minutes then turn it back on.
3. When you are connected to the internet again, make sure that the IP address displayed at the top of the page is different from the one that you wrote down in step 1. If it is not different, go back to step 2 and leave modem off for longer period of time.
4. Create a new email address at your favorite email site.
5. Go to Digg and create a new account using the new email address.

During the undercover investigation, dozens of duplicate or previously banned Digg profiles were uncovered, some with many of each. This is likely the tip of the iceberg as many were reluctant to discuss their past, perhaps recognizing that a leak could be devastating to their censorship ring. Due to the rampant nature of this conduct, it is likely that dozens more previously banned profiles have not been discovered, and many more still exist as sleeper accounts.

I can give a crap if digg bans me again. I’m sick of little Kevin Rose and his bunch of Frisco malcontents
-emersonbiggins (formerly EdHurl, rjwusa, MightRighty, BurtToast, GangusGreen, esornivek, and many more)

I’ve been permanently banned 4 or 5 times. You gotta make sure you got a month or so between [accounts]. …The libs make a big deal out of start dates on profiles after one of us returns from getting permanently banned. Maybe we should have 10 or 15 identities created so the next time one of us gets a permanent ban we could come back with an identity that was created weeks or months before. Kind of like Jeff came back as Benthedog and they had no clue.
-Phoenixtx

When I created a new account, Phreeedom, I changed my IP but they still banned me for having two account. It got me thinking…how’d they know? If you look when a page is loading it also goes to facebook.com I think they are in with FP to compare Ips. So, next time I get banned I’ll also log off FP and twitter first, with the original IP and then create new accounts there with a new IP, then create a new account at digg. Of course you’ll also have to delete all cookies and web bugs from the three sites too.
-Minarchian

Google up: How to change your MAC address on -insert your operating system-. This will give you a new IP as many times and as often as you like. Make sure you turn off your modem while doing so. Also, Most sites keep track of you by flash cookies. They don’t delete like regular ones…again Google for your browser.
-Asami21

Another example of abusing the rules against multiple accounts by the DP group was discussed in the confusion behind who exactly was the digg user in their ranks named Benthedog:

Jim used to be Benthedog until he committed Digg suicide and got banned for life. He then became diggforwhatever because his Benthedog profile was banned. A few months later I noticed that Benthedog was back in my friends list again (I think someone at Digg accientally unbanned it.). I emailed Jim and asked him if they let him back. He said that he didn’t know Benthedog was back on Digg but since he was already diggforwhatever he gave me his password in case someone else needed down the line. When Jeff was banned and didn’t plan on creating another profile until he moved to Ohio I gave him the name and password so he could use it until then. Does that help?
-Vern (PhoenixTX)

I propose that I create a blogger account. [Purpose being to] take a news story and to spin it in such a fashion that we editorialize the submission title and the byline (Description)… to get around the digg Terms of Usage agreement. Editorializing a submission is considered the ‘hijacking’ of a submission by digg. Doing so can (and has gotten me) get you banned.
-emersonbiggins.

Note Dp created this blog called the Rattington Post.

So, next time I get banned I’ll also log off [FaceBook] and twitter first, with the original IP and then create new accounts there with a new IP, then create a new account at digg. Of course you’ll also have to delete all cookies and web bugs from the three sites too.
-Minarchian

ATTEMPTS AT BANNING OTHERS

Bury and report this comment
-Bossm4n

Another regular tactic of the DP group is to attempt ban opponents. One method is to deliberately anger other Digg users in an attempt to get them to say something that violates the TOS. There are thousands of examples of this on the Digg discussion pages (there is a comment area for each article).

Can we get [digg user] for a digg TOU violation?: The use of Teabaggers and NAMBLA should come under one or more of these definitions listed below from the digg Terms of Use: libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, offensive, profane. We need to make it a goal to get the dolt banned. We need to mine his stuff. I think if we look hard enough, we can get him banned. We should form a team to mine his submission and another to mine his comments for incriminating material.

One of the many DP members that write for the Examiner, blogger Kurt Hoffman who is currently Libertyalways discussed this during his first account as 45superman: “[I] Just noticed that nicegeek got banned, too. I’ll take a 3 hour ban, in exchange for a ban (however short) of itofts and nicegeek.” Another example was when Bossm4n provoked and got an unnamed atheist banned for stating that the country is ready for battle when the christian nationalists try to take over.

In another incident, rjwusa directed other DP members to report and try to ban someone: I reported DDRSkata. I also told a fib and I stated I was African-American. Report to Digg: “As a conservative African-American, I get deeply offended when someone refers to one of my conservative sisters and other conservative African-Americans as, ‘Beulahs and Uncle Toms’. Had I been white, and had used the terms, ‘Fag or Nigger’, I could expect to be banned from digg in a very swift fashion. I trust you will do right by the people of color who use digg.”

THE NEW DIGG

Digg Patriots is the first large scale and protected site that the conservatives use to rig Digg, but it is far from the first place where they have done this. SethStruck runs DiggsAndBuries, an open website devoted to gaming Digg. The Diggcons group was active for a while on Twitter and Facebook, and reported on at a Digg submission. Punx and Sharon (formerly WeAreSparta) run a website called the liberalheretic, where they openly admitted how they cheat on digg (article has since been scrubbed clean to remove any evidence), with one admitting “I’ve probably been through 400-500 Digg ID’s,” as reported by another buried story on Digg. They also ran an unlocked shout-replacement system with very open calls for diggs and buries which is still available for now. Even the FreeRepublic has been attempting to rally it’s brigades to take over Digg for a while now. Out of all of these, DP has been the most insidious and pervasive in manipulating the king of all social media websites.

Digg v4.0 should be released soon, and preliminary analysis suggests that the ability of groups like the Digg “Patriots” will be greatly diminished. The Bury button has been removed, and there is only a Report button, which will at least stop the content censorship caused by the Digg “Patriots”.

Wow–just noticed: 988 Facebook “shares,” and only 29 diggs. When digg changes to the new format, which will supposedly be heavily integrated with Facebook, Anomaly might become much more formidable. Not a happy thought.
-Libertyalways

In an entertaining twist, this shift to version 4.0 is already being interpreted by many of the DP members as “another” conspiracy to silence them. They latched onto the latest paranoid rumor floating around that all stories that reach the front page are manually selected, and that since they are being “oppressed”, that somehow justifies their cheating.

I chalk it up to the AMA. The AMA stands for Algorithm My Ass – it can work in your favor, but mostly it works against conservative stories. Lately the AMA has been good to us.
-ChronicColonic

There’s no ‘algorithm’ at digg. The ‘algorithm’ most likely consists of a bunch of liberal, bi-sexual, emo-types, who drink mimosas all day, and engage in a circle-jerk by night. When they’re not doing that, they pull a few levers to get a banana payoff from a machine, which they call the digg ‘algorithm’.
-rjwusa (currently emersonbiggins)

On another thread, many in the DP group were whining that the Digg admins had just “removed” a conservative story until someone finally realized the link they provided was misspelled and the submitted story was still there. What they fail to understand is that there was never a conspiracy to censor their content, it was the greater Digg community that did that because their articles are usually unprofessional, fact-challenged fantasies that nobody wants to read. World Net Daily, Fox “News”, Michelle Malkin, newsmax, townhall, newsbusters, redstate, and the various conservative Examiner authors on DP have very little to offer in a rational discussion, and read like what they are: propaganda.

The Digg Patriots have censored hundreds of users, dozens of websites, and thousands of stories from the largest social media website in the world, but as of publishing time, no action has been taken by the Digg.com administrators. Regardless of what action is taken, there is a clear and systematic pattern of censorship, duplicate accounts, dodging lifetime bans, and trying to ban other users by the Digg Patriots Group.

To all of our new group members: We are really happy you have joined us at DiggPatriots! Please remember this is a group that we are trying to keep below the radar. Please do not disclose this group’s existence to anyone outside the group on Digg or elsewhere. The longer we can keep this group on the down low, the better. I know you probably aready knew that, but I wanted to make sure we are all on the same page as far as the keeping this group from being exposed to the public.
-Ron AKA ChronicColonic

Truthiness is a ‘truth’ that a person claims to know intuitively “from the gut” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. From birthers to deathers, from pseudoscience to Teabags, the conservative side of the political spectrum seems endemically reality-challenged. Here is the proof that both sides are NOT the same.

Glenn Becks 912 DC Tea Party

This is the perfect example of ‘creative’ information control to push an agenda. Fox News’ Glenn Beck had what was supposed to be the mother of all rallies in Washington DC on September 12^th, 2009. Nobody really knew what to expect about the turnout, but due to the 6 months of planning and repeated advertising on Fox, many of us suspected it might fall in the 300,000 range, the same size as the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protests.

The first figures began to circulate that very day, propagated from conservative media outlets: 2 million. This would have been a huge success for this rally, the only problem was, the figure wasn’t even close to being true. The fire and park service did not officially release an estimate, which is something they have not done under direction of congress since they were sued after the Million Man March. In this case, someone working for them unofficially released a 60-70k estimate.

There was zero credible evidence in the 2 million figure. In fact, from the start, right wing sources have been using every trick in the book to circulate this grossly inflated estimate. For instance, trying to pretend this very old photo was from 912. Some people tried to claim that there were ‘hundreds of thousands’ of additional subway riders that day, when in reality, ridership only increased 87,000. As mounting evidence began to refute this grossly inflated figure, various conservative groups began to downscale their estimates.

FreedomWorks (the main organizers or the event) retracted their gross inflation to a ‘conservative’ estimate of 600-800k. Fox News only claimed 400k, and they were the main advertisers of the event. The National Taxpayers Union (another main sponsor of the event) put its estimates between 75-300k. However, the best estimates still tend to fall in the 60-70k range, with low estimates of only 30k.

Feel free to use your own judgment here, find a good aerial photo and contrast it with how many you think would be there by comparing it to the National Park Service crowd estimate photo. Note that the crowd must be packed tight, like during the Obama inauguration and also remember there was a black history event on the mall that day.

A few good resources eventually documented how the numbers got so grossly over-exaggerated . Becks 912 DC rally demonstrates a clear push by the conservative media towards ridiculously high attendance (from 15-100 times what was really there). You would think they would have learned their lesson about this, but just a few short weeks later, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) organized an anti- health care reform rally at the Capitol. When Sean Hannity reported on the event, he and Fox ‘News’ were quickly caught recycling Beck’s 912 footage to try and once again artificially inflate the attendance.

Health Care Reform

Another striking example of conservative truthiness can be found in the debate over reform our nations health care system. The fear mongering and lies present here are just a taste of what is likely to come. Despite rampant debunking from a variety of reputable sources, distortions and lies persist.

For instance, many conservatives fear health care reform is socialism. This is absurdly inaccurate, because a country with socialized medicine has the government completely take over every hospital, every clinic, every health care provider from your dentist to your optometrist. Even a single-payer plan (medicare for all) could not be considered true socialism, so the idea that public health insurance option is somehow a ‘government takeover of 1/6^th of American economy’ is so utterly ignorant, that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Never the less, the idea is widely accepted by conservatives. Even now that there isn’t even a weak public option run by the insurance companies, they continue to spread the lie about socialism.

Other examples of the susceptibility of conservatives to disinformation includes the overall cost, which many believe will increase the deficit by $10 trillion despite the bipartisan CBO clearly stating that not only will the plan be completely paid for, but it will actually generate a deficit reduction in the first 10 years of its existence.

Senator Al Franken (DFL-MN) recently had to correct Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on the Senate floor when he was incorrectly trying to say that taxation would begin immediately while nothing in the program would start for many years. This is a rumor that is sure to be repeated over and over on conservative talk radio, even though it is blatantly not true.

Most distressing of all is the rampant myths that the right wing is spreading about things in the bill that have caught on despite them being thoroughly debunked many times by independent sources. These scare tactics have been so effective, that nearly half of all Americans now believe such things as:

45% death panels
55% covers undocumented migrants
54% government takeover
50% will pay for abortions

The sheer number of topics where the eagerness of conservatives to believe things that are not real could go for 10,000 more words, but I think the point has been established. Whether it is man-made climate change or birthers, the right wing seems somehow unwilling or unable to discern between fiction and reality in many cases. For instance 91% of all conservative Republicans think Obama is a socialist, marxist, communist, or fascist.

Pro vs. Con. Are Both to Blame?

These blatant examples of conservative truthiness and propaganda will of course be dismissed by my critics on the right as nothing more than a biased partisan analysis in and of itself. They will try to claim that both sides do it, that it is only politics. Unfortunately, much of the public will again believe this, despite what the truth is. So let’s examine that premise. Does equal fault lie in the pro vs con debate?

When comparing the progressive and conservative sides of the political spectrum, we find that there is not a parallel. This is not just politics. Although there are certainly too many instances of distortions coming from the left, it appears to be the exception to the rule instead of the rule itself. According to an analysis of the date provided by Politifact, the non-partisan fact checking organization devoted to evaluate the truth behind the claims of politicians and important spokesman for the parties and political ideologies, there is a clear differentiation here.

Politifact Truthometer pro vs con

As you can see, 40% of the claims made by conservative spokesman are lies, nearly double the rate of progressives. Only 30% of their claims are mostly true, compared to 50% progressives. Of course, these numbers may be tilted slightly by the disproportional numbers of compulsive liars in the conservative movement like Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and John Boehner, but a clear pattern is still present.

Predictably, whenever any person or organization speaks out against right wing truthiness, they are usually subject to a character assassination campaign or at least verbally attacked. Despite their non-partisan nature, Politifact has not been immune from this assault. Besides Politifact, there have been attacks on Factcheck.org (even though they are owned by the conservative Annenberg Foundation), fivethirtyeight, NPR, Snopes, and even the CBO (nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office). Conservatives even started their own Wikipedia competitor to counter this imaginary liberal bias called Conservapedia, which contains such gems as:

“An apparent Muslim, Obama could use the Koran when he is sworn into office.”

“Liberals support the legalisation of marijuana and other drugs, which are major causes of psychiatric illnesses”

“studies have long indicated that homosexuals have a substantially greater risk of suffering from psychiatric problems”

“…pairs of each dinosaur kind were taken onto Noah’s Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning”

“All the prevailing, atheistic theories of the origin of the Moon were completely disproved by the lunar landings and studies of the lunar rocks afterwards.”

This seems to be a pattern among conservative websites in general, as well as with media outlets such as talk radio and Fox News, the latter having organization such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and Media Matters (MMFA) focused exclusively on debunking the truthiness.

The reasons for the contrast between progressives and conservatives are still unclear. There have been a couple interesting psychological reports released in the last couple years, one which demonstrates that conservatives are more prone to bow to strong authority figures. Another indicates that:

“a specific region of the brain’s cortex is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in self-declared conservatives. The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.”

Of course, as the case with non-partisan or bipartisan organizations who speak out negatively about them, conservatives are sure to dismiss or attack the results of these findings. This might explain why only 6% of all the scientists in the US are Republican (usually the party of conservatives in America). From the crowd estimates at Becks 912 rally to health care reform, from science to the birther movement, conservatives tend to believe that a ‘truth’ is known intuitively. It is something “from the gut” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

1.Once you have their money … never give it back.
3.Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.
6.Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
6.A man is only worth the sum of his possessions.
7.Keep your ears open.
8.Small print leads to large risk.
9.Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.
10.Greed is eternal.
13.Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
16.A deal is a deal … until a better one comes along.
17.A contract is a contract is a contract (but only between conservatives).
18.A conservative without profit is no conservative at all.
19.Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
21.Never place friendship above profit.
22.A wise man can hear profit in the wind.
23.Nothing is more important than your health–except for your money.
27.There’s nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman.
31.Never make fun of a conservatives mother … insult something he cares about instead.
33.It never hurts to suck up to the boss.
34.Peace is good for business.
35.War is good for business.
40.She can touch your penis but never your gold.
41.Profit is its own reward.
44.Never confuse wisdom with luck.
45.Expand, or die.
47.Don’t trust a man wearing a better suit than your own.
48.The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.
52.Never ask when you can take.
57.Good customers are as rare as gold — treasure them.
58.There is no substitute for success.
59.Free advice is seldom cheap.
60.Keep your lies consistent.
62.The riskier the road, the greater the profit.
65.Win or lose, there’s always whiskey.
75.Home is where the heart is … but the stars are made of gold.
76.Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
79.Beware of the rationalists greed for knowledge.
82.The flimsier the product, the higher the price.
85.Never let the competition know what you’re thinking.
89.Ask not what your profits can do for you, but what you can do for your profits.
94.Females and finances don’t mix.
97.Enough … is never enough.
99.Trust is the biggest liability of all.
102.Nature decays, but gold lasts forever.
103.Sleep can interfere with profit.
104.Faith moves mountains … of inventory.
106.There is no honor in poverty.
109.Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
111.Treat people in your debt like family … exploit them.
112.Never have sex with the boss’s sister.
113.Always have sex with the boss.
117.You can’t free a fish from water.
121.Everything is for sale, even friendship.
123.Even a blind man can recognize the glow of gold.
139.Wives serve, brothers inherit.
141.Only fools pay retail.
144.There’s nothing wrong with charity … as long as it winds up in your pocket.
162.Even in the worst of times someone turns a profit.
177.Know your enemies … but do business with them always.
181.Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit.
189.Let others keep their reputation. You keep their money.
192.Never cheat a warrior … unless you’re sure you can get away with it.
194.It’s always good business to know about new customers before they walk in the door.
202.The justification for profit is profit.
211.Employees are rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them.
214.Never begin a negotiation on an empty stomach.
218.Always know what you’re buying.
223.Beware the man who doesn’t make time for sexual favors.
229.Gold lasts longer than lust.
236.You can’t buy fate.
239.Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
242.More is good … all is better.
255.A wife is a luxury … a smart accountant is a necessity.
261.A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.
263.Never allow doubt to tarnish your love of gold.
266.When in doubt, lie.
284.Deep down everyone’s a greedy conservative.
285.No good deed ever goes unpunished.

About the author: Ole Ole Olson is the Senior News Editor and Chief New Media Strategist for News Junkie Post.  This entertainment piece was cross posted on ProseBeforeHos.

While the media focused it’s attention on the victory of the Tea Party favorite Rand Paul (son of Ron Paul) in Kentucky, the strong performance of progressive candidates in the recent Democratic primaries went largely ignored. The mandate for change and reform in the 2008 election had been largely sidetracked by staunch conservative resistance and obstruction in Congress, and there is a public backlash growing against Democratic incumbents who have watered down legislation.

In the Pennsylvania US Senate Democratic primary, the center-right incumbent was Arlen Specter, a longtime Republican who recently abandoned the sinking Republican Party, and became a Democrat. Despite having the backing of the Obama administration, he was soundly defeated by the progressive candidate Joe Sestak 54% to 46%. This victory came in spite of pressure by the Democratic Leadership Council attempting to remove Sestak from the race by offering him a cabinet post in the executive branch.

In Arkansas, the conservative Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln failed to win the first primary ballot, and her progressive opponent Bill Halter nearly managed to gain a majority of votes. The end result was 44% for Lincoln, 42.5% for Halter, forcing a runoff vote on June 8^th. Arkansas businessman D.C. Morrison, came in a distant third place, getting 13.5%. Recently, Halter has pulled ahead of Lincoln in a Research 2000 poll.

Leigh Ann Caldwell of News Junkie Post reports that despite being heavily outmatched in terms of campaign finance, the challengers have faired extremely well:

In Pennsylvania‘s Senate race, party-backed Arlen Specter out raised competitor Joe Sestak 5 to 1.
Arlen Specter: $15.4 million
Joe Sestak: $3.4 million

In Arkansas’ Senate primary, two term Senator Blanche Lincoln is forced into a run off against union and progressive backed Bill Halter.
Blanche Lincoln: $8.7 million
Bill Halter: raised $2.6 million.

Much of the money in the incumbents war chests have unfortunately come from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and organization devoted to electing as many Democrats into the US Congress as possible, despite their political ideology or devotion to strong reform. Progressive organizations such as the Bold Progressives (also known as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee or PCCC), the Center for American Progress (CAP), and Moveon.org worked hard to raise funds for reform minded challengers, although they were not able to raise nearly the sum that the party establishment and corporate backers were for the incumbents.

The candidate with the most money nearly always prevails in elections. Overcoming these stark fundraising contrasts, the progressive challengers have either won or forced runoffs in many races.

Most analysts in the main stream media repeat the corporate backed Tea Party talking points that this is a result of strong anti-government and anti-incumbent trends in voters today. This over simplification falls into the narrative trap designed by conservative think tanks to foster an atmosphere of resentment towards the very personalities and policies that are attempting to reform the failed conservative policies of the last 30 years. This shifty slight of hand worked well for the Republicans in 1994, and derailed some fairly ambitious social reforms by stocking Congress with conservative Republicans who for the most part became career politicians and stayed in office until the paradigm shift that led to strong Democratic and progressive changes in 2006 and 2008. The conservative counter revolution in 2010 is using nearly the identical playbook as in 1994, including a new Contract on America.

Although there have been a large number of incumbents in both parties who have chosen not to seek reelection (26 Republicans retiring vs 20 Democrats), this is not merely a result of a general anti-Washington sentiment, but two distinct and very divergent political trends. The first are Tea Party ultra-conservatives who are bitter about losing the 2008 election and the second, largely ignored group are pro-reform progressives seeking to enact and strengthen the change promised in the 2008 election. These are separate currents, and grouping them is an irresponsible and inaccurate oversimplification by the main stream media.

For instance, in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District to replace the late John Murtha (a center-right war hawk Democrat), conservative Republican Tim Burns failed in what was considered to be a sure win, despite raising 33% more than the Democratic winner Mark Critz (45% to 53%). The most interesting aspect of this race was that this was the only district in the country to switch from blue to red in the presidential election in 2008.

Campaign Money Raised:
Tim Burns: $1 million
Mark Critz: $750,000

A head to head matchup of these two groups could certainly be interesting. In December 2009, the Tea Party outsider managed to lose a district in northern New York (23rd district) that had not been represented by a Democrat since the Civil War. There is speculation that Tea Party candidates could potentially cost the Republican Party nine competitive seats in the Senate this year, and a recent poll discovered that the American public would prefer that Congress remain in Democratic hands.

Regardless of hypothetical Tea Party vs. progressive matchups this fall, the reason there is a progressive backlash against some Democratic incumbents is because the pace and gravity of reforms that have taken place over the last 16 months has not been nearly satisfactory. The US House has faired far better in passing strong changes, including a climate bill, financial reform, and a health care bill with a public health insurance option. However, in order to become law, these reforms have always been bogged down, severely weakened, or defeated in the US Senate, where 10% of the US population from the least populated 20 states can literally kill any reform they want to thanks to the abuse of the filibuster.

Until the election of the Republican Scott Brown in senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, the Democrats held 58 seats and had 2 independents who caucused with them, effectively giving the party a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes. Every piece of strong reform forwarded to the US Senate from the US House fell victim to the whims of a few conservative Democrats and Joe Lieberman.

There is no better example of this than the fight to reform the failed health care system in America. A reasonably strong reform bill passed by the House that included a weak, narrow public option (a far cry from the ideal reform that would have included a single-payer system or at least a strong, robust public option that people could sign up for) was sent to the Senate. Here, the reform effort was bottled up mainly in two committees whose members received $100 million in corporate campaign donations from vested industries opposing the profiteering inherent to the current system. In particular, members of five committees working on health care reform legislation received $187.1 million in campaign contributions over their career from health and insurance interests, and elected officials who voted against health reform legislation received 65% more in contributions from insurance corporations than officials who voted for reform.

In most democracies in the world, this would be called corruption. Now thanks the unconstitutional ‘Citizens United’ ruling by a Supreme Court stocked with ultra-conservative activist judges, corporations can spend unlimited sums on political campaigns, further eroding the strength of our American democracy.

Conservative Democrats like Blanche Lincoln who were raking in these campaign donations sided with the obstructionist Republicans to block or remove the strongest measures of reform. Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who was instrumental in the progressive political revival, made the prediction that the failure to include a strong, robust public option in health care reform would lead to a huge public backlash in 2010. Michael Moore also promised that any Democrats who sided with corporations over reform would face challenges this spring, and both prophecies have come true.

While the main stream corporate media continues to focus on the Tea Party narrative that incumbents are somehow in trouble because of reform efforts, the reality remains that an equal number of anti-reform conservatives are in deep trouble in the 2010 midterms in both parties. The change America was promised in 2008 has not even begun to happen, and those anti-reformers seeking to double down on the failed policies of the past are starting to feel the heat.

Note – This is cross posted on News Junkie Post.