Back when I posted on Liberty Post, from time to time, some posters (whose politics happened to agree with mine) would tell me, "Look, don't be too frustrated by your failure to convince (various Bush-loving posters) of the fraud/dishonesty/etc. of the Bush administration--some of these posters are just paid by the RNC, or similar republican agencies, to go on these forums." I would reply that I had my doubts about that. It took me a long, long, time to finally come around and realize that the republicans/neocons do indeed have some people whom they pay (or otherwise compensate) to go on political forums and express their official views: that the Bush administation is the most glorious period of American history, that "everyone" is prospering under the Bush administration, etc., blah blah blah.
I have, since then, seen some news articles that actually reported on the phenomenon of paid posters at news/politics forums. Such articles, when they appear, are usually found by someone and posted on Liberty Post (where the forum boss, who posts under the name of "Goldi-Lox", immediately banishes the articles to Liberty Post's "Biker Bar", which is their version of a humor section.) They've probably got quite an archive of such articles by now, if it could be accessed.
One poster had had enough of "Badeye", a relentless Bush shill who posts at Liberty Post. This poster took the time to analyze the times that Badeye would make his posts. What he found was that the times during which Badeye posts correspond fairly closely with a typical 40-hour work week. His posts, while pretty constant during the week, were almost never seen on weekends--or at night. Now, "Badeye" claims to be a "successful business owner" who was "honored" by the Bush administration. (Note: the republican machine, from time to time, will "honor" individuals who donate a certain amount. For example, they send out letters to doctors, essentially telling them that they will receive an award if they donate a certain amount. They do the same for "business owners" who donate a certain amount.) Do I know for sure if "Badeye" is a PAID shill? No. But I suspect it. He/she certainly seems to spend more time posting pro-Bush hype there, than "running a successful business".
You know how Cheney/Chalabi/etc. had certain phony stories that they continually pushed, both in public and in private, in order to get the Iraq war ginned up? Stories such as "Mohammed Atta met with the Iraqi ambassador in Prague before 9/11", and "mobile Iraqi biological weapons labs", etc.? Well, there is a poster on Liberty Post called "BeAChooser" who would argue these very points, during the years 2003, 2004--and he is probably still pushing those points today--even after every one of them has proved to be a LIE. When one would argue with "BeAChooser", he would respond with huge reams of cut-and-paste "information" which he claimed supported his posts. Where did he get these vast stores of misinformation? I think he got it from the "WHIG" group--I think they disseminated it to shills all over America. Just my opinion.
Regarding Free Republic, do you know that back in the 90's, their owner, Jim Robinson, was strongly ANTI-George W. Bush? He was known to make some anti-Bush online statements that would rival those found here. Yet there came a time when all of a sudden, it was verboten on Free Republic to be anti-George W. Bush. It has been thought by some that Robinson was simply bought off. I don't know if he was, but it was amazing how the man did a complete and total about-face. (This is not to say that this Robinson guy was ever a liberal--although I was told that before he had his internet forum, he supposedly was a Democrat at one time.) Robinson's about-face occurred before I ever posted on Free Republic; I have no inside information as to what actually happened, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he was bought off.
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