"Citizens" who speak at town meetings are hired, scripted actors

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You might think from this article that nobody in the “small town” of Camarillo,CA (population 66,000) realized that Prince (and his dozen coworkers also in attendance) were outsiders.

Other articles suggest the deception was not so effective:

About a dozen people, including Tyson, attended the meeting wearing buttons that read “Camarillo for Seismic Safety.”

Mayor Mike Morgan on Friday said he could tell the crowd was from out
of town. Some in the audience booed and were told by Morgan and the
police to stop.

“I explained we don’t intimidate anyone,” Morgan said.

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It’s no worse than me hiring somebody to sit in for me when I was on the city council. A real time saver, that was.

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Reminds me of something, but I can’t place it. Idiocracy? Network?

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Jeb! Bush’s rallies have been conspicuously filled out by people apparently paid to sit there.

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I hear that crisis acting for the Illuminati pays better, but the NDA penalty clauses are a killer.

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There are reports that his campaigns is going broke. Maybe he paid too many of them.

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To be fair, on reading that article I think it far more likely that this was a set-up by another campaign — with or without the knowledge of the head honchos.

There was no reason for the flier to give the location of the speech on the flier itself, and no seat-filler who actually expected to get paid would stand and demand payment at the start of the speech.

I could see Trump finding this whole thing very funny, although he’d actually have the most to gain by a Bush second-place finish, throwing the establishment candidates into chaos again.

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filing under 'should be illegal"

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But, they never applaud their benefactor? Hilarious irony!

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Tax fraud?

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Not only that, but the actor had misgivings and outed himself to the council. That’s pretty ballsy, especially for an actor trying to make a paying gig.

The democratic process is always tainted when money is involved. In this case paying people to espouse positions they may not actually believe is in the same vein as paying people to vote for a candidate they don’t like.

We don’t admire dishonesty in a politician, why should it be OK for a voter?

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Next you’ll be telling me it’s wrong to forward my absentee-ballots to my Fiverr-assistant in Mumbai.

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Applause costs extra.

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So they are real life sock-puppets?

Or do we call them IRL or off-line sock-puppets?
Can’t we find a way to herd them on to twitter?

Go figure…

And bought too many turtles.

Edit typo.

How long before America is literally just a reality show?

I love the image of every person in a town meeting being an actor trying to outdo each other.

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[quote=“OtherMichael, post:12, topic:73963”]
Not only that, but the actor had misgivings and outed himself to the council.
[/quote]http://25.media.tumblr.com/96dbe82e0efff9ddac1a4b0d6bb63710/tumblr_mx1hobFK1C1rvnnvyo1_250.gif

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