There's an imperial ton of astroturfing going on, and it's quite visible in how those groups popped up literally overnight (hint-hint). The thing is that they targeted groups who were... how does one say... more receptive to the message who wouldn't be inclined to look any deeper into what they were joining.
As an example, [right now, this is happening in Los Angeles.]()
Now, [here's a screenshot of the description of the "Operation Gridlock Los Angeles" group](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-s.../e0f5dcf081a3/sub-buzz-2654-1587161925-14.png) when it was first spotted by Buzzfeed News.
Concurrently, [here's a screenshot of the description of the "Operation Gridlock Tennessee" group.](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-s.../4f5f6bc4c162/sub-buzz-1434-1587161900-16.png)
But, hey... it's Buzzfeed News right? [Cool-cool-cool-cool-cool...](Cool Cool Cool GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Find & Share on GIPHY)
[Here's a link to the group "Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine"](Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine) - sitting 55,281 members deep at the time of this post.
Okay...
Now [here's a link to the group "Minnesotans Against Excessive Quarantine"](Minnesotans Against Excessive Quarantine) - presently with 18,938 members.
Why do these groups have the exact same description?
Let's not stop there. Following their own links: one is from the "Pennsylvania Firearms Association", and the other is from the group "Minnesota Gun Rights" - both with the exact same layout.
Both of these domains are registered with the same registrar and were registered on the exact same day at the same time.
[ ~]$ whois reopenmn.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]
[Querying whois.godaddy.com]
[whois.godaddy.com]
Domain Name: reopenmn.com
Registry Domain ID: 2512322197_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: Make Your Own Way | GoDaddy UK
Updated Date: 2020-04-08T14:39:18Z
Creation Date: 2020-04-08T14:39:17Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-08T14:39:17Z
[ ~]$ whois reopenpa.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]
[Querying whois.godaddy.com]
[whois.godaddy.com]
Domain Name: reopenpa.com
Registry Domain ID: 2512322050_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: Make Your Own Way | GoDaddy UK
Updated Date: 2020-04-08T14:37:30Z
Creation Date: 2020-04-08T14:37:29Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-08T14:37:29Z
The rest of the whois information is obscured by a proxy organization that provides privacy for whois records (I even use them myself as do many others for privacy reasons), so I cannot tell *who* owns these domains.
Following the pattern of their sites, I checked for "reopenmd.com", but it never resolved to anything. That said, the DNS lookup itself didn't result in a `NXDOMAIN` error which tells me the domain does exist.
[ ~]$ whois reopenmd.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]
[Querying whois.godaddy.com]
[whois.godaddy.com]
Domain Name: reopenmd.com
Registry Domain ID: 2515645280_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: Make Your Own Way | GoDaddy UK
Updated Date: 2020-04-17T04:19:17Z
Creation Date: 2020-04-17T04:19:16Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-17T04:19:16Z
Registrant Organization:
Registrant State/Province: Florida
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at WHOIS search results
Admin Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at WHOIS search results
Tech Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at WHOIS search results
Registered a little more than week later with the same registrar. The thing is, they didn't actually complete their whois information this time, and whoever set it up cheaped out or forgot to pay for the Domains by Proxy service. Although whois information is literally a public record, I'm not inclined to place my account at risk by opening myself up to accusations of doxxing. That said, anyone who feels inclined to can go to https://whois.godaddy.com and search for `reopenmd.com`. I myself would be personally curious as to why someone in Florida is registering domains claiming to be gun rights organizations in other states.
Seriously, even without that information - who or whomever is responsible for this astroturfing couldn't make this more obvious if they tried. It honestly took me longer to type all of this up to present here than it did for me to find this all. Yet people have taken the bait hook-line-and-sinker.
Meanwhile, the President then starts tweeting ["LIBERATE MINNESOTA"](), ["LIBERATE VIRGINIA..."](), and ["LIBERATE MICHIGAN"]( and one of the major forces behind the group in Michigan was a political group that [has direct ties to](Greg McNeilly - Wikipedia) and has historically been heavily funded by the family of the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (though [said family denies direct involvement in last weeks protest](Residents gridlock Michigan streets in protest of Governor Whitmer's coronavirus lockdown measures
In that regard, I'm not alleging some major conspiracy here, but l-o-fukking-l.
----
Edit: for the record, `reopenva.com` also exists and has the exact same registry info as `reopenmd.com`.
[ ~]$ whois reopenva.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]
[Querying whois.godaddy.com]
[whois.godaddy.com]
Domain Name: reopenva.com
Registry Domain ID: 2515650132_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: Make Your Own Way | GoDaddy UK
Updated Date: 2020-04-17T04:43:47Z
Creation Date: 2020-04-17T04:43:46Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-17T04:43:46Z
Registrant Organization:
Registrant State/Province: Florida
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at WHOIS search results
Admin Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenva.com
Tech Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenva.com
