Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Plunderbund now fabricating their own Kasich quotes, reporting them as fact

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a piece about how the left-wing Ohio blog "Plunderbund" has such a burning hatred for Governor John Kasich, that they will use any and every piece of news about him to launch an attack. Even when he makes a decision that is an act of compassion, they write some scathing critique, portraying him as evil incarnate. When he reduced Kelley Williams-Bolar's crimes to misdemeanors, even the most reliably liberal Ohio personalities agreed he did the right thing. We summed it up as follows:
And yet they attack anyway. Personally, I could go either way on whether Williams-Bolar deserves leniancy or not. But I bring it up to show that when you're this rabidly hateful of someone, I guess you will use every single possible thing he does as a reason to attack him. Even an act of compassion. Even if it means contradicting yourself.
Yesterday, however, they hit a new low. Even for them. Check out this headline, "Kasich on public employees: “we are at war with these people”.

Wow. That's a pretty fiery statement by Kasich. Except, they have no proof he ever said it! Zero.


Do they have the governor saying this on video? No.
Do they have audio of Kasich saying this? No.
Are they quoting a piece from a reputable news source who was at the event where this supposedly happened? No.
Want to know where they got this supposed quote from? You aren't going to believe this.

One of those viral emails that gets forwarded around by hundreds of different people. You know, the ones where, when you get it, your first reaction is to check Snopes to see if it is a hoax or not. One of those emails. Some school superintendent named Mike Shreffler wrote an email saying "Kasich said this!" and all the We Are Ohio lefty clones forwarded it to each other as if it were rock solid fact.

Let's look closer into Plunderbund's own post to see even more.

1. There are multiple versions of the letter. Yes, apparently people took to changing it as it was forwarded around. From the post:
I spoke with Mike this afternoon to verify that he did, in fact, write the letter. Supposedly, there may be multiple, slightly different versions of the letter floating around, but the one I’ve included below is the original.
Hey, it must be true! I got an email saying so!

2. For as many people were at this event, they can't find ONE other person to corroborate Shreffler's story. Not one. Again, from PB's own post.
Right now we don’t have video to back up Dr. Shreffler’s story and we don’t have another invitee to corroborate it. But knowing Kasich, and having heard many similar stories over the past few months, I’m going to take the word of this local school superintendent ...
Really!? They actually justify not having any hard evidence by saying "yeah...but...knowing Kaisch, it MUST BE TRUE."

He actually continues with this unbelievable line of logic.
Right now we don’t have absolute proof that Kasich said “we are at war with these people (i.e. public employees)” or that he promised to bring back parts of SB5 after it’s defeated, or that he promised to use the legislature to “ram it through”, but these statements are consistent with things Kasich has said in the past and it seems highly likely that Kasich would say something like this again, especially in a room full of people he thought were friendly to his agenda.
Well, thats it! I'm sold. Call the local news. That's proof enough.

3. PB refers to an article by the Dayton Daily News. Yet, nowhere in the DDN article does the author repeat the supposed quote. Why? Because the DDN is a real news outlet, and has some standard of ethics. They wouldn't dare quote Kasich as saying something so volatile on the word of one person, let alone make it their headline.

Let's look beyond the PB post, and at some other reporting on the incident. At the Daily Record, Marc Kovac and Amanda Rolik interviewed 2 people that were at the same event. And they say Kasich said no such thing.
Sharon Ray, community service director at Wadsworth Municipal Court and a former Medina County commissioner, said Kasich did not use the kind of language or say the kinds of things Shreffler claims.

"I don't have a clue what this guy's talking about," Ray said. "He talked very little about Issue 2 at all. ... There was not a lot of time spent on it."

Tom Decker, a retired police officer from Parma also attended, agreed.

"I think this guy's a pundit for the teachers' union ...," he said. "What he's saying here is really attacking Kasich without cause, because Kasich didn't say some of those things. ... I really think this individual who wrote this letter, his attendance at the meeting gave him the opportunity to get his agenda out."
Then they talked to Shreffler himself. Here's what he said.
He added, "This is my personal opinion of what I heard. ... This letter was in no way, shape or form intended for either side of the aisle to use for their advantage or disadvantage. It was not intended for someone against Senate Bill 5 to use me or use my words."
Yet, that's exactly what Plunderbund is doing.

They post lies. They know they are lies, but they don't care. Because their readers retweet them, and quote them, as if they are a real news organization reporting facts. And the damage is done. They are using classic Alinsky tactics. They get their followers to repeat their lies often enough, that they become the truth.

This isn't the first time they've done this, and then refused to correct their story when facts come out that refute their lies. GOHP Blog caught them at it last week.

Seriously, go read the Plunderpund post. There is no evidence at all to support their inflammatory headline. None. The guys over in Plunderland should absolutely be ashamed of themselves. Their hate has driven them to abandon even a shred of credibility they might have once had.

17 comments:

  1. I'll take your word for it. I don't want to give that blog site any more hits or recognition.

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  2. Yes, I spotted that letter yesterday and wrote about it here.

    This incident is further proof that liberals in America firmly believe that their ends, the goals that they envision, justify virtually any means.

    Looking at prominent liberal Democrats in America today the one common factor is a lack of any sense of shame. Such shamelessness allows them to lie, cheat and steal, all because their cause it is holy, their cause it is just.

    There is little difference between the plunderers lying to Ohioans and Secretary Chu wasting our money on Solyndra. Lying, cheating and stealing seem to be perfectly acceptable behaviors for the left these days.

    While I'm at in, has anyone else seen the rap video extolling the virtues of an EBT card? It is infuriating and should go viral on America's right. In that video, of which I could only watch a small portion, we see almost everything that is wrong with today's welfare state.

    Here's the link to the video on You tube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o64Fz-KW1Dk

    This is what Modern wants for us. Our money is confiscated from us via the coercive force of the government. It is then wasted in any number of ways. In the case of the video we see our money going to support a useless drone of a working age male who does NOTHING to obtain his food. I doubt he does anything to obtain clothing and shelter either.

    The net result of the liberal vision all in one short music video. If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

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  3. I'm sure it won't be long until Modern comes around on his daily rounds of every blog and newspaper website in the state. (His life) I hope he likes the new Plunderlogo we fixed up for him.

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  4. You calling someone else hacks, Pot meet kettle...

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  5. Yeah, thats a terrible letter, this is why blogs can't be counted on as news. Be it posting a really bad letter written by a "Dr." or this blog posting a link to someone elses youtube link and calling it an exclusive...Blogs are not news, they are opinion and nothing more

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  6. Oooooo BURNED by anonymous! You got me.

    Show me where we quoted and slandered a Democrat or anybody with saying something outrageous, based purely on the word of one guy in an email who then walked his own words back.

    MJL you seem to be confused and in the wrong thread. Try to stay on topic. Its really not that difficult.

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  7. It's funny that the Plunderbund Pals are so full of it, but the fact that people read their socialist pap and then follow Modern around the web repeating him is downright sad.

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  8. Bytor, Im on topic, its just not a topic you care for. Im saying that both blogs are opinion, and by no means should be taken as anything other than that.

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  9. Hey MJL, in a perfect world you'd be right. But unfortunately, far too many take folks like Plunderbund way too seriously. Many took that post as fact. Just like many did the letter.

    Plunderbund and the liberals, and I'm sure plenty of conservatives too, twist the story and the facts to fit their narrative. After all, to people like Modern Esquire, the end justifies all means.

    People buy into that, whether you like it or not. I wish they could think for themselves, but they don't. Plunderbund has mastered how to take advantage of that ignorance.

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  10. Im on the liberal side, and I hate everything about that blog, just awful, awful stuff

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  11. MJL. Blogs are a mix of opinions and what is supposed to be factual news. Our story on connie was factual with video evidence to back it up.

    PB is presenting that quote from kasich as fact. Putting us in the same boat and comparing the two stories isn't fair. We didn't lie about Schultz filming Mandel. We offered proof to back it up. PB didn't but hundreds of people are spreading their "news" about kasich like it is fact.

    You may not like our opinions or politics. Which is fine. But saying that we do the same stuff that PB with the truth does is inaccurate.

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  12. We interviewed the author of the letter to confirm the authenticity of the letter and he confirmed that was his letter and recollection of what he heard Kasich, something you yourself pointed out that he again confirmed to the Dayton Daily News.

    He has not backed off from his assertions. A few people who were at the meeting dispute his recollection. However, that does not mean we "fabricated" anything.

    You've yet again lied. Like how you claimed that labor unions crashed a 9/11 memorial when all they did was hold a protest on the walkways at the Statehouse... on 9/10.

    Like how you took Hoffa's quote completely out of context, in what even local Fox News affiliates have called a shameful distortion.

    GOHP blog did not catch us on anything. We reported the Senate salary stories as was later reported by every media outlet in the State. After our story broke, the Senate GOP said that they had approved raises for Democratic staffers, too. We didn't report that initially because the payroll records the Senate made publicly available did not reflect any such Democratic staffer raises, just the ones given to the Republican ones. We accurately reported that which was available to anyone who reviewed the payroll records of the Senate at the time. Nobody has produced any evidence suggesting otherwise.

    We cannot control that the GOP approved Democratic staffers for raises after the payroll period they made records available to us and as the story broke. We fabricated nothing. To say otherwise is libelous. When we confirmed the Democratic staffers also got raises, we acknowledge that fact in future posts.

    For a cyber stalker who apparently has nothing better to do than follow everything we do, you'd think you'd get your facts right at least ONE TIME.

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  13. Shorter Modern: we took the word of some guy we never heard of and made it our headline with zero proof he isn't lying, because we want it to be true.

    Our story about the union protest was factual. We said they disrespected the memorial by protesting right in front of the 3000 flags, immediately following the governors service. Thats what happened. You may disagree that it was disrespectful, but those are the facts of what happened.

    Cyberstalker. Thats funny. You have over a thousand of comments at 3BP over years. Think about that. Over a thousand. You cant stay away. And you act surprised when we call you out?

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  14. Yes, Modern, I am consumed with envy. If only I could spend hours each day trolling my political opponents' blogs and still somehow manage the total lack of self-awareness necessary to call someone else a "cyber stalker."

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  15. Are you simply jealous that WP picked them as the best Ohio based blog?

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  16. Excellent point, Motivated!

    You totally destroyed the point we make in our post that PB has zero proof of their headline.

    Wow!

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