Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is the new astroturf “grassroots” gun control movement out there. Yes, one tends to be a tad cynic about these things because of what we have seen in the past.
So where does MDAGSA (MDA for short) comes from. According to their own website, their initial name was “One Million Moms for Gun Control” and “formed within 24 hours of the Connecticut elementary school shooting” by Shannon Watts. So who is this person? According to the Huffington Post:
Shannon Watts is a 42-year-old mother of five children (two step-daughters, 23 and 19; two daughters, 17 and 16; and a 12-year-old son). For the past five years, Ms. Watts has been a stay-at-home mom in Zionsville, a suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to that, she had a 15-year career as a communications executive for both public relations agencies and Fortune 500 corporations.
Well hell, she is Suzy Homemaker re-incarnated! You noticed that I highlighted (embolden) a section of the Huff Po profile where it mentions that she is a Stay Home mom because it contradicts what her Linkedin profile says:
President
VoxPop Public Relations
VoxPop Public Relations is a strategic public relations agency that helps individuals, companies and organizations accelerate their growth, profitability, reputation and market presence through media relations, product launches, new media, events and promotions, messaging and media training, and issues management.
So the claim that she was basically doing nothing but staying put at home, baking cookies, attending PTA meetings and chasing the neighbor’s dog out of her flower patch suddenly takes a hit by her own words. But things start to get funky. Doing a bit of Google-Fu, the name Shannon Watts does not come associated with VoxPop but the name Shannon Troughton does. In fact, for the rest of the list of institutions where Ms. Watts says she worked, all come back associated with the name Shannon Troughton. Now, she may have had good reasons to change her name, but I am one of those that go by the motto “In God We Trust, everybody else keep your hands where I can see them” so let’s take a look at the other companies she worked for because it shows an interesting pattern: She is not just Suzy Homemaker or some low-grade employee at a small company but a heavy Public relations hitter, savvy on the ways of media manipulation and making her clients look good. Basically she “grows” astroturf for a living.
Vice President, Corporate Communications
WellPoint December 2005 – December 2008 (3 years 1 month)
Led communications team for the country’s largest health benefits company and provided communications support for the country’s highest ranking female chief executive officer. Responsible for enterprise-wide media relations, including investor relations.
Another fast Google-Fu search gives us an article of sudden insurance claim denied by BlueCross to a 13-year-old boy with heavy brain damage. The spoke-person for the parent company of BlueCross (Wellpoint) is Shannon Troughton. There are over 6,000 Google results for the words Shannon Troughton WellPoint.
Shannon Troughton/ Shannon Watts was also the Director, Global Communications
GE Healthcare from 2004 – 2006. GE Healtcare is the $14 billion healthcare (medical diagnostics and devices) business within General Electric, again not your local bake sale to raise funds for the school band.
This one is gonna give the hives to many a Hippie out there. For three years Shannon Troughton/ Shannon Watts was the Director of Global Public and Corporate Affairs for none other than Monsanto. She did her bit defending Genetically engineered crops, fought labeling of genetically engineered products and defended the company’s lawsuits against farmers.
The first entry of her Linkedin is revealing: Five years as Public Affairs Officer Missouri State Government where she worked for Governor Mel Carnahan, the Missouri House of Representatives, and the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Some older heads will remember that Gov. Carnahan died in a plane crash in 2000 during re-election campaign and that his memorial service became a freak show of political speeches and campaign stumping by Clinton and Gore against then Governor Bush and Senator John Ashcroft who was running against Carnahan and were present at the memorial.
OpenSecrets.org shows that Shannon Watts donated to the Democratic Congressional Committee, Barack Obama (7 times) and Rob Zerban who went against Paul Ryan in the 2012 the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin. Yes, had to look the guy up.
So, the initial and very amateurish research tells us that Shannon Troughton/ Shannon Watts is far from the image of a traditional mom who was baking cookies the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre and she was so horrified by the actions of Adam Lanza that she ripped off her apron and launched herself on to the streets demanding tougher gun control laws. If anything we have here a very experienced Public Relations operative with 20 years worth of experience in manipulating the message.
If all of this has a ring of familiarity to the Old Gunnies, you are right. You might remember Donna Dees-Thomases, founder of the Million Mom March who was also touted as a Suzy Homemaker who after watching on TV the coverage of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting, felt she needed to do something for Gun Control and founded MMM. What was never mentioned by the Media at the time (with the exception of the Wall Street Journal) was that Donna Dees-Thomases was Dan Rather’s publicist, CSB employee and sister-in-law of Hillary Clinton’s lawyer and political confidant during the Whitewater scandals.
Basically it seems that they are back to their old tricks.
I am gonna keep digging and see what else I find.
[…] Shannon Watts, who heads MDA, is a longtime professional at creating media campaigns: […]
[…] I had previously checked on the real background of Ms. Watts and as I said before, if she would have been forthright and said she was a working mom who did Public Relations for a living, nobody would have been able to say squat. But what probably happened is that she being one of the “enlightened ones” thought Mr & Mrs Redneck Peckerwood, being the ignorant cave-dwellers she thought they are, would have felt more comfortable thinking she was doing God’s work from the kitchen cozy and the Media would (as they did) eat it up and give her free ink. Mommy Bake Sales are always good image. […]
[…] Go read this article… […]
Thank You ever word with regard to Ms. Watt Troughton is absolutely correct. I have a blog page on face and have reflected the same TRUTH you have set forth Thank You. Michael Feehan
https://www.facebook.com/pages/True-Intent/793074660757080
[…] or your not) and claimed that she was a stay at home mom. Last year, a posting on the web site Gun Free Zone broke down her history while Watts continues to tell the world that she was a sudden activist after […]
I already knew all this, it was posted on VNN awhile back. I would be that she is Jewish as well.
Probably because this is not a new post and has been copied a lot.
And what does religion has to do with Gun Control? Assholes come in all different sets of beliefs
[…] for her and after digging in to her past a little deeper, it was blatantly obvious that Watts was a calculated selection of a PR “mom” to be a mouthpiece in the anti-gun movement. Not one who’s voice […]
Its not right o refer to those who know according to scientific evidence–that GMO’s are extremely dangerous–as hippies. As if this is a left vs right issue–it is not–its a health issue. Otherwise the article is basically good.
It is most certainly a left-right issue and a totalitarian versus liberty issue. Characterizing it as a health issue is a leftist subterfuge designed to lead the low-information types down the garden path. If you insist it is a health issue, then okay: The intended victim of a violent assault has a better chance of remaining healthy if he/she is armed and prepared to engage his/her right to self-defense.