In the past week or so, the news got out that “ProtectMN” – the astroturf group almost entirely funded by Joyce Foundation – is getting some big-name help.<\/p>\n
Richard Carlbom, the PR whiz behind the “Vote No” movement <\/a>re the Marriage Amendment, has started his own consulting operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n And as all consulting operations do in every industry, Carlbom and his consultancy are going where the money is.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Bloomberg is going to spend a metric ton of money on attacking the Second Amendment.\u00a0 And the Joyce Foundation is picking up the pace in its campaign to fund And Carlbom is bellying up to the fiscal bar; he’ll be working with “ProtectMN”, Rep. Heather Martens’ astroturf gun-grabber group – a relationship made possible by the Joyce Foundation’s grant, reportedly, of $100,000 to “ProtectMN” (via an intermediary cut-out group).\u00a0<\/p>\n This is on top of Joyce’s purchase of $50,000 worth of the MinnPost’s <\/em>“Journalism”<\/a> on the subject (to say nothing of their sponsorship of Minnesota Public Radio coverage of the issue<\/a>), and sponsorship of a network of other liberal “community organizer” groups like “Take Action MN”, who share resources with the gun-grabbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nobody knows if Carlbom has any actual passion for the gun issue.\u00a0 He could well be just an ideological Hessian.\u00a0 But if so, he’s a Hessian that “ProtectMN” desperately needs; Heather Martens may be the most inept community organizer in Minnesota political history.\u00a0 It’s bad enough (for the orcs) that every single substantive\u00a0thing Martens have ever said is a lie; it’s worse (for them) that pretty much everyone with a right\u00a0to an opinion knows it.\u00a0 So Carlbom getting into the issue may or\u00a0may not be a game-changer – but it’s a line-up change that the orcs have needed to make for over a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here’s The Important Part<\/strong>:\u00a0 Liberals with deep pockets will always fund gun-grabber groups.\u00a0 They’ll try to put different shades of lipstick on the pig that is suppressing our human right to self defense<\/em>; they’ll change their spokespeople and their tactics, trying to create something – popular support for gun-grabbing – from nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are very few conservatives with deep pockets supporting our human right to self-defense.\u00a0 And much as the Good Guys would welcome their involvement (and money), it’s not what the issue will turn on.<\/p>\n But with the addition of Carlbom, the gun-grabbers now have several people working full-time to try to sway not just legislators, but your neighbors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Against that, the good guys have a bunch of plucky volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\ngrassroots<\/del> astroturf anti-gun groups, buy friendly media and media coverage, and gin up junk-academia to attack gun violence<\/del> gun ownership.<\/p>\n