Mark Zuckerberg's Conservative Sock Puppet Site: Lindsey Graham Has "Our Back"
05/02/2013
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As part of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's complex, multi-faceted plan to get Congress to pound down computer programmers' salaries further, the Big Zuck recently launched the FWD.US immigration deform advocacy umbrella group (a.k.a., the National Association for the Advancement of Billionaire People). Now, FWD.US has launched twin Republican and Democratic subsidiaries: Americans for a Conservative Direction and Council for American Job Growth, which are running ads supporting politicians backing the Gang of Eight's plan. 

Yes, I know this sounds like I've been dipping into Umberto Eco again, but it's true.

The two subsidiary websites have identical little symbols come up on tabs in your browser, just red for the Republican "Americans for a Conservative Direction" and blue for the Democratic "Council for American Job Growth." The Republican site has headlines in red and subheads in blue, while the Democratic site has headlines in blue and subheads in red.

Try it and see for yourself!

Zuck's Republican sock puppet website has videos up of ads it made for Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. The site's text reads:

Fixing a Broken Immigration System 
Our country has a broken immigration system and a broken border, both of which present huge obstacles to the businesses, job creators, and legal immigrants who have played by the rules and will help continue to grow our economy. It’s well past time for Congress to get to work on real solutions to secure our border, hold those who have broken our laws accountable, and improve our legal immigration system to meet our country’s needs and boost America’s competitiveness in a global economy.

Here's Zuck's Rubio ad:

And here's Zuck's Republican front men:

Our Board 
Haley Barbour 
Former Governor Haley Barbour served as the 62nd governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012 and served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the mid '90s. 
Sally Bradshaw 
Sally Bradshaw worked as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Chief of Staff from 1999-2001, and served as a Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee’s Growth and Opportunity Project. 
Joel Kaplan 
Joel Kaplan is currently Vice President of US Public Policy at Facebook.  Joel also served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush. 
Dan Senor 
Dan Senor is former chief advisor to Representative Paul Ryan on the Romney-Ryan 2012 campaign 
Rob Jesmer 
Rob Jesmer worked as the former Executive Director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2008 – 2012. 

Meanwhile, Zuck is also funding for the Democrats the Council for American Job Growth, whose boilerplate reads:

Commonsense Principles to Create Jobs 
The U.S. has been built on the ingenuity and drive of immigrants – but right now, our broken immigration system and broken border are stalling job creation, hurting families, and hindering America’s competitiveness in the global economy. Congress must act to reform the legal immigration system to help small businesses continue to create and fill good jobs, and strengthen communities and American families. 

Here's Zuck's ad for Sen. Mark Begich (Democrat-Alaska).

Both the Graham and Begich ads are triple-bankshots intended to burnish their respective recipients' conservative, economic populist, patriotic credentials in the eyes of their Red State voters to give them cover to ram through amnesty and guest workers. For example, Zuck's blue ad credits Begich with wanting to open Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling, a stance popular with blue collar Alaskans voters. Meanwhile, Zuck's red ad has Lindsay! pointing out that Obama is against the Keystone XL pipeline. Neither ad mentions immigration.

But the Sierra Club is mad at Zuckerberg for his attempt at finesse. From ABC News:

Less than three weeks after Mark Zuckerberg officially launched his pro-immigration reform group, the billionaire technology mogul seems to be experiencing the Facebook equivalent of a liberal de-friending. ...
Those television commercials led the Sierra Club to post a message to the environmental group's Facebook page on Monday urging Zuckerberg to "re-think his priorities." 
"Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is bankrolling political ads that push dangerous, dirty projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in America's pristine Arctic Refuge," says the message accompanying a thumbs-down graphic dripping with oil. 
"Just last week, the Sierra Club announced our support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants — so we know how important immigration reform is to the future of our country," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement to ABC News. "The way to achieve reform, however, isn't by pushing dirty fuel schemes that threaten our future and our families. Mark Zuckerberg has made comments in the past recognizing that we need to pursue a clean energy future, and there is no reason he needs to trade those principles for a few political points."
 "Maintaining two separate entities, Americans for a Conservative Direction and the Council for American Job Growth, to support elected officials across the political spectrum — separately — means that we can more effectively communicate with targeted audiences of their constituents," FWD.us spokeswoman Kate Hansen said in a statement.

In contrast, when the Sierra Club's stance on immigration gets bought, it stays bought.

In other news, Bill Gates (net worth $66 billion) and Steve Ballmer ($15.9 billion) have just joined Zuck's FWD.US umbrella group to reduce programmers' wages, because you can never be too rich or too low-paying,

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