Syndicated

The American Conservative Union sent a message to Beau Correll, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Martinsville, VA, and former National Coalitions Director for Rep. Tom Tancredo’s presidential campaign, who created a facebook group right after CPAC 2008 to gin up excitement for CPAC 2009. The letter informed Beau that ACU would take legal action to get the facebook group removed. Beau sent the letter out to the whole group. All of the letters are below.

ACU is wrong and doesn’t get it.

First of all, these are supporters who have publicly declared their intention to go to CPAC, mostly a year early. Why on earth would you antognize them? These are mostly people who have attended in the past. Beau and the other organizers tried to bottle the excitement from the last CPAC and drive it forward for the next. I do not recall a CPAC in recent years that I did not get an invite to join a similar group immediately after CPAC. This is standard practice, and if ACU didn’t do it, they were clearly behind the curve.

Second, this shows how so much of the old conservative movement doesn’t understand how organizing has changed. The barrier to entry for supporters to organize is so low, especially on social networks. You no longer controll your brand, just as candidates can no longer control their message. They can shape it, but there is such a cacophony of organizers and activists who share your goals that all you can do is share information with them. Again, I know Beau, and I cannot imagine that he would not have helped.

It seems like we run into this routine every couple of months. Candidates try to take over groups, turning organizers into adversaries because they insist on total control and won’t play nice. Why won’t candidates or organizations learn?

See all the correspondence after the jump. And join the group.

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Hey guys,

You won’t believe this facebook message I got from a "Lisa De Pasquele"! You can read it and my response below.

Thanks for being a part of the group.

-Beau

———–
Hi Beau,

The chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation has decided to pursue legal action with Facebook to get your CPAC 2009 group removed. Just wanted to let you know because I don’t know if they automatically disable groups during when legal complaints are brought.

Lisa
———-

Subj: Threat to sue over our Facebook group name

An Open Letter to "Lisa De Pasquale"

Dear Lisa,

I just received your message on Facebook. Needless to say, I am a tad shocked you or (so you say) the chairman of the ACU, David Keene, are threatening legal action over the fact that I started an unofficial Facebook named, "CPAC 2009."

The group was created by a dedicated small government conservative (myself) and frequent attendee of past CPACs. My only intention was in providing an unofficial source for information and news for the ’09 gathering.

It is with a genuine sense of concern that I ask whether you threatened the same against unofficial CPAC 2008, 2007, and 2006 groups? Perhaps the reason you are threatening me is because this group has had more members than yours for several months now.

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that I find it doubtful that ACU members and donors would be pleased that you and Mr. Keene are so quick to spend their well-meaning contributions on what would be an expensive DC lawyer for such a sue-happy endeavor.

Speaking of frivolity, your demands do illustrate a much larger point.

What are you doing when you are not threatening legal actions against fellow conservatives?

Certainly not spending that time in trying to get a real conservative as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Perhaps if you had done more of that then there would be less of a chance we would be stuck with a nominee who led the Amnesty for Illegal Aliens effort on the floor of the United States Senate.

Lastly, you told me months ago (yes, you didn’t have anything more important to do back then either) that the ACU (American Conservative Union) does not even own the name "CPAC 2009." Nor had they in previous years. So, I don’t think you are legally entitled to be the only user of the name either.

But alas, I do not have the time to continue to endure the yapping about the name of the group from an incessant whiner such as yourself. So, I will close it down.

You are Welcome,
Beau Correll

CC: 619 members

 

Yesterday, the New York Times’ Michael J. de la Merced and the Politico’s Lisa Lerer covered SEIU and MoveOn going after private equity firm KKR. We have written about this before. This time the reporters try to add in John McCain to the mix by arguing that Henry Kravis (the 2nd K in KKR) is raising money for McCain. So far a total of $29k.

But somehow the reporters swallowed the story and didn’t notice what kind of money is flowing to Obama, Democratic candidates, and Democratic Party from KKR. The Presidential numbers are in the table to my right. This is reminiscent of Newsweek’s recent intellectual blunder when they failed to report that the CEO of a bank was bundling for Obama. Just lazy I guess.

If only it stopped there. Read on.

Even Rolling Stone, that bastion of quality reporting, gets the joke that the Politico and the esteemed Grey Lady miss. It is extortion:

What Reid also failed to mention is that the real difference between hedge-fund billionaires and others “so situated” is that they are the ones underwriting efforts by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee run by Schumer. According to campaign-finance records, seven of the country’s 10 richest hedge-fund managers contributed an average of $24,400 to the DSCC last year. “Schumer didn’t want to turn the spigot off,” says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice. All told, the hedge-fund and private-equity sectors have showered the Democrats with more than $14 million this year — double what they have given Republicans.

This is more political extortion at the hands of the SEIU and MoveOn. Yet again, reporters are hitting print on the press releases that they are getting sent from campaigns and the DNC.

Freedom’s Watch is targetting 30 congressional districts held by Democrats with robocalls attacking Democrats record on military issues. Listen to the robocall here.

The districts are:

AZ-05, AZ-08, CA-51, CA-11, CT-2, FL-16, GA-08, IL-08, KS-02, LA-06, MD-05, MD-08, MS-01, NH-01, NV-01, NY-20, OH-18, PA-07, PA-10, PA-08, PA-12, TX-22, TX-23, CT-05, KY-03, NH-02, PA-04, WI-08, NY-19, IL-14

With the exception of MD-08 (Rep. Van Hollen, the DCCC Chair), these are districts that many analysts think that the GOP can apply pressure and/or seats that the Dems took in 2006.

The calls, featuring Beverly Perlson, the founder of Band of Mothers, discuss the Congressional Democrats leaving for vacation while the troop funding bill has not been passed. Mrs. Perlson has written about this at NRO.

The script is after the jump.

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Hello, I’m Beverly Perlson calling for Freedom’s Watch.

My son, John, just returned from his 4th tour in Iraq and Afghanistan- and I’m tremendously proud of him.

But I’m not proud of Congress…

Last week, Congress left for vacation without providing our troops the funding they need.

As a result, Admiral Mike Mullen, our nation’s highest-ranking military officer, warned our troops’ paycheck were in jeopardy.

This is one military mom who takes it personally.

I’m not just embarrassed by our ungrateful and irresponsible Congress – I’m angry.

And no matter your view on the war, you should be, too.

Call Congressman Chris Van Hollen at 301-424-3501

Tell him to wrap up his vacation, get back to work, and vote to pay our troops.

Paid for by Freedom’s Watch. 202-379-3742

Election Journal is building up to be one of the great success stories of the online right. It documents how elections actually take place on the ground, the reality of which many liberals deny. Yesterday, they went to Atlantic City. They documented a Democratic Ward leader who was physically assaulted by a Democratic operative, had absentee ballots stolen from his hands by another Democratic operative, and impersonated. Having grown up in Chicago adn seen Philadelphia elections up close, I can assure you that there is the standard modus operandi in many cities. Watch the story here:

Only by documenting these things will we ever stop Democratic election crime (violence, bribery, etc.) This is exactly the sort of things that we need to be doing more of.