Pelosi Takes Shots at GOP, Lobbyists for Targeting Occupy Protesters in 'Message War'

Standing with Occupy

​House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is rallying Democrats to defend the sundry Occupy movements that have sprung up across the country, appealing in a fundraising e-mail for money to help combat a "message war" against protesters orchestrated by GOP-connected lobbyists.

Pelosi's e-mail was provoked by reports of a memo to the American Bankers Association from the lobbying shop Clark Lytle Geduldig Cranford. "If vilifying the leading companies of this sector is allowed to become an unchallenged centerpiece of a coordinated Democratic campaign, it has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye," the memo stated.

Pelosi is now responding by appealing to Dems for money to fight back. Her e-mail reads, in part:

If you need further proof that Congressional Republicans are putting big Wall Street banks before middle class families, look no further than an explosive memo prepared by former John Boehner staffers-turned-banking lobbyists.

This just-leaked memo details an $850,000 "message war" plan to attack and discredit grassroots citizen movements working to hold special interests accountable...

Why are Republican lobbyists panicking? One of the overriding concerns of the memo's authors is how it will look for their executives to collect multi-million dollar year-end bonuses at a time middle class families are struggling to make ends meet. This is just another example of the misguided priorities of the Republican Party.

After looking like it was running out of steam, Occupy has recently been galvanized by aggressive police crackdowns that have attracted sympathy and media attention, including the now-infamous pepper-spraying of peaceful students at UC Davis.

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