Bloomberg Exposed

I am taking off an admittedly biased news source today, as the reporting appears to be accurate.  My piece comes from an NRA/ILA blog post entitled Disaffected Gun Control Activist Exposes Bloomberg Top Down Bureaucracy. The post in turn cites another post by Kate Ranta at the Huffington Post. I cite the NRA/ILA post because I suspect many of my readers don't quite believe that Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action are in fact astroturf groups.  I don't cite Kate Ranta's piece at HuffPo, because I don't want to give them any more traffic, but if you want to read it, you can find the link in the NRA/ILA post.

True "grass roots" organizations rely on dues from members for their financial support, and unless these groups are very large, depend on volunteers to show leadership and to do any sort of lobbying of the legislature.  Because these groups can show a large, well organized membership, they do get the attention of legislatures and the public.  Such groups include the Virginia Citizens' Defense League and Grass Roots North Carolina. In addition, such groups typically have a narrow focus because once the scope widens, disagreements with the goals of the group may split the group apart. Grass Roots North Carolina is a typical example. The focus is on gun rights. That doesn't mean that gun rights advocates don't care about other rights as well, just that they have chosen to get involved with gun rights through a focused group.

An astroturf organization is so named because unlike a grass roots organization, there are no roots.  Astroturf is all show and no substance, like the carpet for which it is named,  manufactured by the AstroTurf corporation. Astroturf operations tend to be waged by a lone person or a corporation, in this case by Michael Bloomberg, who funds most of the activity. Astroturf relies on paid lobbyist, paid spokesmen, and their messaging is carefully orchestrated from the top.  This is why Bloomberg routinely outspends grass roots gun advocacy groups but loses anyway.

Michael Bloomberg appears to be a narcissistic, ego maniac, who wants to control everyone and everything, from how big a soft drink they can buy, to how much salt restaurants put in food, to whether or not you and I can defend ourselves.  I don't understand such people, and I really don't want to.  I just want to be left alone.