Lets git ‘er done this month, folks!
Posted on 11/27/2017 12:00:30 PM PST by jazusamo
Full title: Judicial Watch Obtains Records from EPA Showing Obama Agency’s Illegal Use of Social Media Platform for Propaganda
(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch obtained 900-pages of documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which reveal the agency’s use of the mass-sharing Thunderclap social media platform to covertly promote its policies in violation of federal law.
The documents show that EPA staffers, via the Thunderclap platform, recruited outside groups to lobby in support of the Clean Water Rule or “Waters of the United States.” Thunderclap shares member messages across multiple Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts simultaneously.
Federal law prohibits agencies from engaging in propaganda, which is defined as covert activity intended to influence the American public. Federal law also prohibits agencies from using federal resources to conduct grassroots lobbying to prod the American public to call on Congress to act on pending legislation.
The EPA’s Director of Web Communications Jessica Orquina, in a September 10, 2014, email, wrote to Karen Wirth, an EPA team leader in the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, urging the covert use of the Thunderclap technology. “I don’t want it to look like EPA used our own social media accounts to reach our support goal,” Orquina wrote to Wirth.
The Clean Water Rule, now in the process of being repealed by the Trump administration, was a significant and legally controversial increase in federal authority over streams and other small bodies of water.
A December 2015 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the EPA’s use of Thunderclap to promote the Clean Water Rule “constitutes covert propaganda” and violated federal law .
The records were obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on June 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the EPA failed to respond to a May 3 FOIA request ( Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (No. 1:17-cv-01218)). Judicial Watch seeks:
All internal emails or other records concerning project administration, management, or assignment of tasks related to the EPA’s use of the Thunderclap social media platform.
On September 9, 2014, Travis Loop, the EPA’s director of communications for water, initiated the lobbying effort in an email to Gary Belan , senior director for the organization American Rivers, under the subject line “RE: IMPORTANT: Join a Thunderclap for Clean Water” that read:
EPA is planning to use a new social media application called Thunderclap to provide a way for people to show their support for clean water and the agency’s proposal to protect it. Here’s how it works: you agree to let Thunderclap post a one-time message on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr) on Monday, September 29 at 2:00 pm EDT. If 500 or more people sign up to participate, the message will be posted on everyone’s walls and feeds at the same time. But if fewer than 500 sign up, nothing happens. So, it is important to both sign up and encourage others to do so.
In a September 10, 2014, email from Loop to Orquina, Loop asks “What’s the best way to get the other agencies to sign up for the Thunderclap and promote on social media? Interior, USGS, NOAA, etc. I was going to tweet at them to join the Thunderclap, but thought maybe you had thoughts on that and maybe a more direct line.” Orquina responds: “Why don’t I send a message to the interagency social media listserv?”
In a September 15, 2014, email , Loop seeks assistance on the Thunderclap effort from the American Public Health Association (APHA). Loop writes to colleagues Brian Bond and Micah Ragland: “Can you reach out to your contact at the American Public Health Association and see if they can use their Twitter to support our Thunderclap for clean water? Basically we would love if they could sign up for their Twitter account to participate and then tweet to their followers an encouragement to participate? If how to do this is unclear I can talk to someone there. They have more than 440,000 followers so this would be a nice bump.”
In a September 25, 2014, email to Jay Jensen of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Loop noted of the Thunderclap Clean Water effort: “Right now we have 840 people who have signed up and so the message will be seen by 1.7 million people. I’m trying to make this as big as possible, so anyone that can sign up and encourage others to sign up is appreciated. I know you have lots of connections all across the board that could make this even bigger.”
“The Obama EPA knowingly did an end run around federal law to push another Obama environmental power grab,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “These documents show how these Obama-era bureaucrats seem to be more like social activists than public employees. Let’s hope President Trump does some major housecleaning at the EPA.”
It is becoming as though no political party can breathe without being accused of criminal wrongdoing.
“It is becoming as though no political party can breathe without being accused of criminal wrongdoing.”
It would help if they didn’t actually break the law so often.
L
The 0bama regime weaponized the entire federal government against conservatives and Republicans.
Justice demands and accounting.
5.56mm
The entire Kenyanesian Usurpation was illegal.
EVERYONE in the District of Corruption (Trump excepted) should be locked up.
Propagandy dandy...its the Alinsky way
Obama , obama make de patriots pay
He divdied America by telling lies.
So liberal fascism can take de rise!
****************************
But ooops! People have not yet figured out that Obama ran America based on liberal fascist Alinsky principles, from the Book “ Rules for Radicals.” The magic negro grifted America with that way for 8 years, and he and his running dogs are STILL trying to delegitimize the election of President Donald Trump..( resist Trump, impeach etc.)
But we have a problem. Jeff Sessions is a wimp and has recused himself from everything, rather that purge the DOJ of Obama-Alinsky liberal fascist lawyers. So if your waiting for a prosecution of these EPA propagandizing , lying crooks, don’t hold your breath!
You want to learn about these liberal fascists:
Good read here:
The Quintessential Liberal Fascist:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html
Exactly...It's come to the point that bureaucrats and political appointees thumb their noses at federal laws, it was especially pervasive in the 0bama administration.
Sure. Let's all feel bad for the Federal Ministry of Truth. So hard for it to take little breaths.
Thanks.
I’m convinced that nothing was or is illegal for Obama or Hillary.
Lets git ‘er done this month, folks!
THANK YOU FOR THE POST.
ptsal
Ur very Welcome Ms Long.
Most welcome, FRiend.
ABOLISH THE EPA. They are a leftist TOOL hellbent on SLOWING America’s growth.
Thunderclap’s website claims 42 million hits for Obamacare renewals, 33 million for the Paris Climate crap, 77 million on gun grabbing, 60 million for Obamacare’s 5th Anniversary.
Smells like deep state funding by US taxpayers. Good thing the GOP controls all three branches of government so they can stop this wasteful spending ...
Spit.
That's what I want to know.
Judicial Watch: Turning over the rocks Congress and the msm would rather leave alone.
Agreed...It started out as an agency that did some good but over the years has become an out of control monster.
Jeff Sessions is an insult to Southern men. He lacks any semblance of daring and courage.
Bump!
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