Originally posted on 2010-11-08 19:54:40 -0400 but got stuck in our spam filter...ugh! - GH

Researchers at Indiana University have discovered evidence that political campaigns and special-interest groups are using fake Twitter accounts to create the impression of broad grass-roots political expression.

Who would sink so low?

Menczer says the research group uncovered a number of accounts sending out duplicate messages and also retweeting messages from the same few accounts in a closely connected network. For instance, two since-closed accounts, called @PeaceKaren_25 and @HopeMarie_25, sent out 20,000 similar tweets, most of them linking to, or promoting, the House minority leader John Boehner's website, gopleader.gov.

Just a couple of "Bad Apples" no doubt.

Yet again, the Republican "leadership" in Congress shows its true colors - not the red-white-and-blue of the national flag, but the rancid darkness that runs through the veins of the thin-skinned political hacks that are doing their utmost to keep the nation and her people foundering in a mess created by a decade of Republican-spawned (and protected) malfeasance.

I'll let the words of blonde moment from Daily Kos tell the tale:

Fri Mar 04, 2011 at 08:52 AM PST

Your help needed! Boehner denies national honor to "the last doughboy"

by blonde moment

Frank Buckles, the very last American soldier to serve in the Great War - the War to End All Wars - that is, World War I, passed away Sunday, Feb. 27, at the venerable age of 110.

Now John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, has denied requests by Republicans and Democrats alike that Mr. Buckles, representing an entire past generation, be given the signal honor of lying in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Without explanation.

I know there's no explanation, because I called Mr. Boehner's office to ask why the request was turned down. The #$%#*& who took my call said he didn't know why.

Not sayin' all of them need it but...

Clearly some of them do:

Ya think? Some of them may need some work on The Pledge of Allegiance, as well:

Harry Truman in a "bipartisan" moment with Lauren Bacall, a staunch liberal Democrat. This is about as "bipartisan as Harry got."

Last week was exhilarating for Democrats and, judging by the international media, for people all over the planet who have suffered for nearly a decade from the misguided and often criminal policies of George Bush and his terribly inept administration.

The swearing in of Barack Obama and the departure of the Connecticut Cowboy from our public affairs was something long anticipated, and, after our long dark winter, as welcome as the return of springtime and birdsong, at least in these quarters.

The Republican smear machine however, wasted no time in cranking up to its full powers of bloviation. Their program of attacking nearly every move Obama made and every statement he uttered, began seconds after his swearing in and I'm sure will continue unabated in the immediate future. Here's hoping that they are afforded every opportunity to quibble and obstruct, to grouse and whine, as a minority party for decades to come.

The moaning and squawking over the slightly bobbled recitation of the oath of office, a gaffe that was meaningless and easily ignored by people who have something other than chowder between their ears, was, in Republican circles, fanned into a twenty four hour cause celebre by the fulminating heads of Fox Noise and soon picked up on the other "open all night," "all the news that fits," networks.

The storm so roiled the calm in our national teapot that Obama's advisers encouraged him to retake the oath, which he did in a private and sparsely attended ceremony in the White House a day later.