As a fan of James Bond movies, I decided to visit the official Ian Fleming website where I learned that Mr. Fleming had a passion for collecting first edition books and original technical manuscripts, and that he had donated his literary collection to the Lilly Library at Indiana University. I proceeded to the Indiana University website to investigate further when I came across a news item on its homepage announcing that IU researchers had created a data mining website in pursuit of political astroturfers and were enjoying some success. So, I checked it out.

The article's first half deals with the mechanics of their approach "to root out Twitter-based political astroturfing campaigns," and was interesting enough. The second half presents their findings. I was a little unnerved when the first example detailed possible GOP use of the techniques and implied John Boehner's involvement with their only evidence being that his name was mentioned in the tweets. I was incensed by the end of the article as only Republicans were targeted for investigation and it was implied that no Democrats or Democrat organizations ever stooped to these tactics.

A search of the Truthy website confirmed my suspicions by only focusing on Republican examples. The site claims to be a non-partisan research group on its Frequently Asked Questions webpage, but they don't even attempt to go after any Democrats or liberal organizations. I know universities are notorious liberal bastions dedicated to promoting the Progressive cause, but you would think they wouldn't be so obvious by including some egregious examples from their side. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

The obvious question that comes to mind is "Who is funding this propaganda not-so-cleverly disguised as legitimate research?" Indiana University is a public university accepting taxpayer funds and is barred by law from engaging in political activity. Perusal of the site's About webpage reveals mentions in several liberal outlets including the nefarious NPR so prominently in the news recently. The Truthy Home page even begins with the overt warning of "Swiftboaters beware!" Hey, no political bias here.

Mitch Daniels has done an admirable job of keeping Indiana's taxes low by rooting out waste and fraud. I'm willing to bet he's not aware of this possible illegal use of taxpayer resources for political purposes by IU's staff. If he were, he could use this as an excuse to root out even more waste in the effort to keep Indiana as the most economically competitive state in the Midwest.

By the way, the Ian Fleming Collection housed in the Lilly Library is fascinating and worth checking out also.

Tom Roberson is an independent conservative holding finance and engineering degrees doing his small part to save his country. He'd love to hear from you.