The past few weeks have seen a large number of new domain registrations beginning with the word “reopen” and ending with U.S. city or state names. The largest number of them were created just hours after President Trump sent a series of all-caps tweets urging citizens to “liberate” themselves from new gun control measures and state leaders who’ve enacted strict social distancing restrictions in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a closer look at who and what appear to be behind these domains.
A series of inciteful tweets sent by President Trump on April 17, the same day dozens of state-themed “reopen” domains were registered — mostly by conservative groups and gun rights advocates.
KrebsOnSecurity began this research after reading a fascinating Reddit thread over the weekend on several “reopen” sites that seemed to be engaged in astroturfing, which involves masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants.
The Reddit discussion focused on a handful of new domains — including reopenmn.com, reopenpa.com, and reopenva.com — that appeared to be tied to various gun rights groups in those states. Their registrations have roughly coincided with contemporaneous demonstrations in Minnesota, California and Tennessee where people showed up to protest quarantine restrictions over the past few days.
A “reopen California” protest over the weekend in Huntington Beach, Calif. Image: Reddit.
Suspecting that these were but a subset of a larger corpus of similar domains registered for every state in the union, KrebsOnSecurity ran a domain search report at DomainTools [an advertiser on this site], requesting any and all domains registered in the past month that begin with “reopen” and end in “.com.”
That lookup returned approximately 150 domains; in addition to those named after the individual 50 states, some of the domains refer to large American cities or counties, and others to more general concepts, such as “reopeningchurch.com” or “reopenamericanbusiness.com.”
Many of the domains are still dormant, leading to parked pages and registration records obscured behind privacy protection services. But a review of other details about these domains suggests a majority of them are tied to various gun rights groups, state Republican Party organizations, and conservative think tanks, religious and advocacy groups.
For example, reopenmn.com forwards to minnesotagunrights.org, but the site’s WHOIS registration records (obscured since the Reddit thread went viral) point to an individual living in Florida. That same Florida resident registered reopenpa.com, a site that forwards to the Pennsylvania Firearms Association, and urges the state’s residents to contact their governor about easing the COVID-19 restrictions.
Reopenpa.com is tied to a Facebook page called Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine, which sought to organize an “Operation Gridlock” protest at noon today in Pennsylvania among its 68,000 members.
Both the Minnesota and Pennsylvania gun advocacy sites include the same Google Analytics tracker in their source code: UA-60996284. A cursory Internet search on that code shows it also is present on reopentexasnow.com, reopenwi.com and reopeniowa.com.
More importantly, the same code shows up on a number of other anti-gun control sites registered by the Dorr Brothers, real-life brothers who have created nonprofits (in name only) across dozens of states that are so extreme in their stance they make the National Rifle Association look like a liberal group by comparison.
This 2019 article at cleveland.com quotes several 2nd Amendment advocates saying the Dorr brothers simply seek “to stir the pot and make as much animosity as they can, and then raise money off that animosity.” The site dorrbrotherscams.com also is instructive here.
A number of other sites — such as reopennc.com — seem to exist merely to sell t-shirts, decals and yard signs with such slogans as “Know Your Rights,” “Live Free or Die,” and “Facts not Fear.” WHOIS records show the same Florida resident who registered this North Carolina site also registered one for New York — reopenny.com — just a few minutes later.
Merchandise available from reopennc.com.
Some of the concept reopen domains — including reopenoureconomy.com (registered Apr. 15) and reopensociety.com (Apr. 16) — trace back to FreedomWorks, a conservative group that the Associated Press says has been holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, “igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort.”
Reopenoc.com — which advocates for lifting social restrictions in Orange County, Calif. — links to a Facebook page for Orange County Republicans, and has been chronicling the street protests there. The messaging on Reopensc.com — urging visitors to digitally sign a reopen petition to the state governor — is identical to the message on the Facebook page of the Horry County, SC Conservative Republicans.
Reopenmississippi.com was registered on April 16 to In Pursuit of LLC, an Arlington, Va.-based conservative group with a number of former employees who currently work at the White House or in cabinet agencies. A 2016 story from USA Today says In Pursuit Of LLC is a for-profit communications agency launched by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch.
Many of the reopen sites that have redacted names and other information about their registrants nevertheless hold other clues, mainly based on precisely when they were registered. Each domain registration record includes a date and timestamp down to the second that the domain was registered. By grouping the timestamps for domains that have obfuscated registration details and comparing them to domains that do include ownership data, we can infer more information.
For example, more than 50 reopen domains were registered within an hour of each other on April 17 — between 3:25 p.m. ET and 4:43 ET. Most of these lack registration details, but a handful of them did (until the Reddit post went viral) include the registrant name Michael Murphy, the same name tied to the aforementioned Minnesota and Pennsylvania gun rights domains (reopenmn.com and reopenpa.com) that were registered within seconds of each other on April 8.
A large number of “reopen” domains were registered within the same one-hour period on April 17, and tie back to the same name used in the various reopen domains connected to gun rights groups. A link to the spreadsheet where this screen shot is drawn from is included below.
A Google spreadsheet documenting much of the domain information sourced in this story is available here.
No one responded to the email addresses and phone numbers tied to Mr. Murphy, who may or may not have been involved in this domain registration scheme. Those contact details suggest he runs a store in Florida that makes art out of reclaimed or discarded items.
Update, April 21, 6:40 a.m. ET: Mother Jones has published a compelling interview with Mr. Murphy, who says he registered thousands of dollars worth of “reopen” and “liberate” domains to keep them out of the hands of people trying to organize protests. KrebsOnSecurity has not be able to validate this report, but it’s a fascinating twist to this tale: How an ‘Old Hippie’ Got Accused of Astroturfing the Right-Wing Campaign to Reopen the Economy
Update, April 22, 1:52 p.m. ET: Mr. Murphy told Jacksonville.com he did not register reopenmn.com or reopenpa.com, contrary to data in the spreadsheet linked above. I looked up each of the records in that spreadsheet manually, but did have some help from another source in compiling and sorting the information. It is possible the registration data for those domains got transposed with reopenmd.com and reopenva.com, which included Mr. Murphy’s information prior to being redacted by the domain registrar.
Original story:
As much as President Trump likes to refer to stories critical of him and his administration as “fake news,” this type of astroturfing is not only dangerous to public health, but it’s reminiscent of the playbook used by Russia to sow discord, create phony protest events, and spread disinformation across America in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
This entire astroturfing campaign also brings to mind a “local news” network called Local Government Information Services (LGIS), an organization founded in 2018 which operates a huge network of hundreds of sites that purport to be local news sites in various states. However, most of the content is generated by automated computer algorithms that consume data from reports released by U.S. executive branch federal agencies.
The relatively scarce actual bylined content on these LGIS sites is authored by freelancers who are in most cases nowhere near the localities they cover. Other content not drawn from government reports often repurpose press releases from conservative Web sites, including gunrightswatch.com, taxfoundation.org, and The Heritage Foundation. For more on LGIS, check out the 2018 coverage from The Chicago Tribune and the Columbia Journalism Review.
Hilarious that the individual holding the “Covid-19 is a Lie” sign is wearing a mask to prevent catching the disease. I guess he doesn’t believe his own lies. I wonder how many people in the picture will end up catching the virus and what percentage of them will die? I wonder if while they are dying they will have a little regret about attending this “protest”. Of course, the real people behind this rally are hiding out safe at home themselves.
Am I a horrible person if I don’t expect to care much when these flag-waving, science-denying, gun-loving yahoos come down with Covid-19?
Well if you are wishing COVID-19 on another human being then I would say that is a horrible thing. I am a flag waving (read patriotic), non believer in human climate change alarmism and do carry a weapon for the protection of my person, my family and those around me and I would never wish harm comes to you.
I’m a patriot, too, Jimbo, and I for one AM alarmed by human-caused climate change, though I understand that the concept is too complicated for some people to grasp. Another thing some people have trouble with is reading comprehension — for example, the ability to distinguish between “not caring much” if someone gets Covid and “wishing” they do.
Have fun at the lockdown protests, and don’t forget your mask.
As a scientist, I find the argument for man-made climate change to be specious. I also find the notion that taking huge amounts of money from businesses and private citizens in the form of taxes and regulation is going to solve the problem (if it did actually exist) in and of itself problematic. There is precious little evidence that government gets things right and plenty of evidence they don’t.
Climate change has become a religious cry of the left, e.g. “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t do whatever costly legislation I’m currently suggesting!!!”. Literally NO scientists are saying that. Or, “The oceans are rising!!!” True, and they’ve been doing that for the past 20,000 years.
I also find your own argument for man-made climate change equally lacking. Basically, you’re saying it’s true because you’re smarter than your opponent. No science whatsoever is based on bravado and an inflated ego.
Your opinion as a “scientist” contains ad hominens, other slurs, and zero data.
Yes, let’s compare to private industry and how well they’ve kept your supermarket shelves stocked, produced all those billions of masks that everyone has (not), not to mention that ‘everyone who wants a test can get a test” (not). They’ve done such a good job that anytime the press asks them a question about what they are doing to protect their employees, they always point to big bad government and say “we are following their rules”. I know scientists and you are no scientist. By the way the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world find the evidence of man-made climate change to be compelling to say the least. When we are walking around in 50 years wearing oxygen masks, where will you be? Probably still trolling the internet
Haha, oh man, you actually thought that would work didn’t you? “As a scientist…” how do you not hear the fake stiltedness of it as you’re typing? As an omniscient being I can tell you Ryan works in Sales.
They did not say he wishes it on them. They just wouldn’t care – and I concur. Whoever exercises their freedoms is solely responsible for the repercussions. Isn’t that what those vulgar liberals so staunchly believe in?
gtodon was not wishing CV on anyone. Much like, I may assume, the same can be said about the freedom protesters who might increase the risk to themselves and others within the scope of their influence to infection by CV and do not wish it on them. gtodon may expend care to the same degree to the risk takers that they do to him.
LOL. You are no patriot.
Next time just say “moron”, it’s less words.
>non believer in human climate change alarmism
What else do you “not believe” in:
– gravity
– round earth
– evolution
because they are roughly as well established.
A patriot would carry a weapon for more than just a loved one.
Why not join the military or police?
I advocate for the 2nd amendment to require service such as a local/state militia, police, or military.
Then people will see how many 2nd amendment folks are actually cowards, and use their firearms to have a feeling of power.
Why do you have to bring an enumerated, God-given right into this? Science denial to most people is disagreeing with them. The sad part is, your attitude is far too prevalent, focusing on a tiny fringe of society.
Derision isn’t pretty. And wishing illness on another human being is pretty sad.
Yes
Problem is not that they will get infected and possibly die, but that they may infect many other people who will then need serious health care services (e.g., ICU beds and ventilators) – and of course those other people may die to. And if the states were doing all they could, they would also be doing contact tracing (which Mass is starting to do), but if someone is at one of those “rallies” and then is found to be infected with the virus, then trying to contact trace everyone they came in contact with would be next to impossible.
Although individuals have many rights in the USA, we don’t have the right to inflict harm on others – this is what most of these protesters (and POTUS) don’t get. If you are infected (and you don’t know because testing is not yet provided at scale), then when you expose yourself to the disease and contract it, YOU may not be impacted but those you bring it back to (e.g., your family, friends and others), may actually DIE.
Stay Safe. Stay Well. Stay Home.
I attended my local protest and I can tell you that most of us get that. Its possible to support voluntary protective measures and not support mass unemployment, bread lines, and house arrest.
Stay scared. Stay submissive. Don’t rock the boat!
“My house has never burned down. I don’t understand why I should have to pay taxes to pay for the fire department………………”
let’s make paying taxes voluntary, and see what kind of budget we have for a military after that…
Oh don’t play that game, we know they’ll cut every other line item from the budget before the military, politicians get too many kickbacks from military contractors to give that up. Second to last would be corporate welfare, of course, for much the same reason. You, me, these easily led fools, we’re worth nothing to them. Not even a vote, seeing as courts have laid the groundwork for them to kick everyone who won’t vote for them off the rolls.
Umm… no. Military spending is so huge, dwarfing all others…. It’ll be among the first to see cuts.
Some politicians want to keep military spending high… but decades of that have made it such a huge inflated mess, with lots of fat (contractors) to cut, without actually taking away from those in uniform.
Over 200 countries are in a similar state trying to stem the spread of this virus. It must be freeing only knowing what goes on between your house and walmart.
Voluntary protective measures? Really?
The protest itself shows how well that would go down. There have been protests in Israel against Netanyahu, and they managed to keep 6 feet apart.
But these ReOpen protest didn’t show much of any voluntary protective measures.
So no, that apparently is NOT what the protesters want.
They want THEIR JOBS. And they don’t care who they have to hurt to get it. Just like the immigration debate. Even the slightest threat that an immigrant may work the same job for a bit less… and they will build a wall, throw the kids in cages, and treat them all like criminals… just because nobody dares even look at their jobs.
That is what it is all about. Worried they won’t have a job. Not worried they might spread a pandemic and someone they don’t know might die. For them, statistics aren’t real to them. Their job is.
I’d say take the job out of the equation. You can’t fire them for protesting, but you can require a medical leave of absence for protesting in a large unprotected group. Hell, they deny medical coverage for people who they even “think” are too promiscuous. This is about the same thing.
Do you mean like Infected illegals who are let into this country who are bring tuberculosis, HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis and syphilis. You know those deadly diseases that are preventable by keeping them out
Yes, that’s racist.
The same thing was said about the Irish, Italians and other “dirty” European immigrants 100 years ago.
Guess what, it was racist then, it’s racist now.
Even then, only about 3% were denied entry for medical reasons. Now, its much harder for a Mexican to enter through the border legally, than it was for an Irishman to come through Ellis Island.
The Darwinian Effect will take care of these people.
People often wear masks at these events to hide who they are.
Are you suggesting that stupid people should die because they are less intelligent than you think you are. They are still human right?
More likely it’s to conceal his identity.
It appears that conservative groups are much more adept than liberals at using the web for their political/other purposes in furthering their agenda.
Regards,
Apparently the Dems don’t have anyone (at least on their campaign committees) as crooked as these guys or as enthusiastic about using every dirty trick in the books and then some. Where are all the Dem crooks? Can’t Antifa (if it exists) log on and join in?
Antifa terrorist from Germany here, I’m sorry to disappoint but we’re not crooks. We mostly do investigative work on Nazis (they’re the fa in Antifa), document violent crimes committed by Nazis and publish this information to make the public aware.
Antifa isn’t a group. It’s merely a shared antifascist ideology. Some antifa (antifascists) do good things, some antifa do bad things, but it’s not “a group”.
Signed: an antifascist anarchist who is also a pacifist and who does super scary things like working to help disillusioned kids get out of the neo-nazi scene.
I heard an interview with a guy who started one of the early ‘fake news’ efforts, before it became a commonplace term. He had no real political affiliation but enjoyed seeing what sorts of disinformation he could get people to believe.
He tried to publish the same sort of conspiratorial falsehoods to appeal to liberals, but after many different attempts he found he couldn’t get many takers, and so he focused on stories that appealed to conservatives, which went viral much more easily.
What interview? Do you remember anything else about it that might help one find it for themselves?
This rang a bell for me, I’m pretty sure I read the same article when it first came out. This is the one https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs
Pull Quote:
During the run-up to the presidential election, fake news really took off. “It was just anybody with a blog can get on there and find a big, huge Facebook group of kind of rabid Trump supporters just waiting to eat up this red meat that they’re about to get served,” Coler says. “It caused an explosion in the number of sites. I mean, my gosh, the number of just fake accounts on Facebook exploded during the Trump election.”
Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.
Coler’s company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites — he won’t say how many. But he says his is one of the biggest fake-news businesses out there, which makes him a sort of godfather of the industry.
What interview? Do you remember anything else about it that might help one find it?
The interview with the 2013 founder of disnfomedia Justin Coler, is here. And yes, he says trying to create fake rumors for liberals was not as easy as throwing chum to conservatives.
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs
Guess we need to ban them even harder off the interwebs.
The GOP playbook was written by Putin’s party over the last several elections, with financial backing from all the GOP Puppetmasters.
Hopefully the Democrats get their act together and learn how to fight this crooked GOP / trump!
WoW John! I hope you can back these statements up with facts and not just BS.
@Richard Goeken
Here ya go, now you can skim the Politico report https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/senate-intel-report-confirms-russia-aimed-to-help-trump-in-2016-198171
Or, read the “Official Congressional Report” which was written by the Republican led Senate Committee.
Part 1 – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf
Part 2 –
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf
Want to rethink your position, now, with these FACTS?
The truth isn’t as interesting or sexy as conspiracy theories and lies. When you believe in a conspiracy theory, you are part of some hidden knowledge, you’re on the inside. You are no longer just a minimum-wage earner trying to get by and wondering why your ITT degree didn’t get you anywhere.
What’s sick is that the same people who got you to believe impossible nonsense are the same ones that condemned you to perpetual poverty with your inescapable student loans. But they tell you it’s the Democrats, or the Jews, or undocumented Mexican migrants that pick all your fruits and vegetables that are to blame, not you. Not white, native-born, evangelical (relapsed), gun-loving you. Nope.
No, no one made you take out loans for an unaccredited (non-elitist) degree. And nobody made you smoke dope all through your public high school education. And nobody made you get your girl friend pregnant. No, you did those things to yourself and now you are exactly where they wanted you to be.
Not really weighing in as my world seems to be filled with good old bipartisan fake news and bullsh*t.
Dropping by because of the phrase “unaccredited degree.”
The only difference between an Accreditation for a school and a non-accredited school is the ability to accept federal funding and government loans. It has zero meaning to either school’s curriculum. Also costs a school six figures for said status.
Another way we’ve been duped.
More accurately, they aren’t moved to action simply because they were invited to a Facebook group.
Think of these astroturing organizations as helpers–they’re helping people who don’t think for themselves act as though they’re thinking for themselves.
For the people holding signs, or wearing shirts, that say “Live Free or Die” – guess which one the virus will pick for you?
Great reporting, Brian. Watch out for the gun nuts.
What no “repoenTheSunshineState (dot) com “
Hi Brian,
My Fiance is a native Russian speaker and was a little offended at the translation of the Skype user you found attached to all this, he is most likely a She for starters and it transliterates to a pretty normal name specifically “Valentina Synakh”. Valentina is a pretty standard Russian name however the surname while not unusual is rare.
Interesting article nonetheless 🙂
Thanks, but not sure why your fiance was “offended” by it.
There’s nothing wrong in his translation. Russians get butt hurt about it because they are being brainwashed from every state run channel they have. And it’s literally 99% of all mass media they receive in Russia. And guess what, comrade Putin isn’t stupid, he also broadcasts the same hogwash to Russian expats abroad. And that’s how your fiancé gets her share.
Thanks, Brian for digging all this stuff out for us. Very interesting and totally makes sense.
Hey Krebs, 904 is the default County calling code in Russia, e.g. +7904 / +7905.
Skype is known to omit prefixes for a country (+1 gets dropped for USA too), try searching with +1/+7.
This person has an actual legit non-translatable name that isn’t translatable at all.
This one is a wrong match, no matter how we’d like to see it affiliated with Russia through this link.
Yeah the Russian phone number is clearly a red herring and should be removed from the article.
Check out Mark Ames, Brian – he’s done some of the best mapping of conservative think tank networks I’ve seen.
JohnB – I’d be interesting in the site of Mark Ames.
I do see nsfwcorp.com which is where he is last writing,
and angelsoftheright.net which is fascinating,
and conservapedia.com/List_of_conservative,_neoconservative_and_libertarian_think_tanks
it’s going to be fascinating to come back to this 4 weeks from now.
“A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. – Ab Lincoln – Republican.
What would he say now about Democracy?
Looks like there are ~12 sites now using that Tracking UA:
sixbrothersdisasterrelief.com
iowapla.org
lyindandawson.com
raginamy.com
reopeniowa.com
reopenwi.com
secondamendmentpolitics.com
americanfirearmscoalition.org
idahosaa.org
wisconsinfirearmscoalition.org
reopentexasnow.com
ohiogunowners.org
Is reopenimpeachment.com still available?
It’s unbelievable how far people will go when they want to “win”. Thanks for the great read, and the links to the information. I think there is more to write about here.
Russian phone numbers and US phone numbers can be the same length and 904 is a valid dialing code, so I doubt it’s anything more than a coincidence here.
@AndrewMohawk: Most if not all of these sites also seem to be run by the Dorr brothers mentioned in the article. The gun orgs are the same ones listed as affiliates (e.g. https://www.iowagunowners.org/links/). All of them that I could find that are registered as nonprofits either have a Dorr listed as a key member in their returns, or one of their affiliates.
Interestingly, the IA Gun Owners’ tax return (https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/264110647_201812_990O_2019122616977839.pdf) notes that Midwest Freedom Enterprises provides all management services, which is run by… Aaron Dorr (https://labyrinthinc.com/testimonial/midwest-freedom-enterprises). They’re keeping up their racket.
Fact check this and maybe remove the dude’s name?
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-urls/
There IS a lady named Валентина Сынах (64) in Russia https://ok.ru/profile/585263766075 . Maybe “Michael Murphy” chose her phone number randomly?
Thanks for your new nvestigation Brian!
Couple observations.
Some crazy’s are coming out of woodwork reading some comments lol.
It’s articles like this I look forward to after my workday A+ thanks Brian.
And of course the people with Live Free Or Die slogans. Freaking jack asses taking a motto from my neighbor state to the north which tends to lean liberal. Just makes my day.
Excellent investigative reporting Brian. It is a shame that so many gullible, extremists, gun shooting wannabes, crazies and the typical incapable of thinking American Sheephuman so quickly fall prey to the stirring of a violent revolt a manipulative segment of our society so desperately want to seek.
Thanks for illuminating this, Brian. Any research into who might be organizing/paying these “protestors”?
The ground between political sides is so fertile for breeding blame, distrust and the assumption and acceptance of the enemy being “them” – our neighbors, our countrymen and women our friends and family…
Thank You for digging deeper!.
OneclickPolitics seems to be behind most of these.
Yeah it might look like that, but I believe they just operate the widget that allows people to set up campaigns to email their lawmakers. It’s basically like a piece of code anyone can put on their site.
Seems we are in an era of vanishing attention to facts, particularly with tRump and his cult.
Careful which cult you choose, especially if you believe Brian’s ‘facts’…we are about to see how Brian handles this situation (mostly of his own making), and it will be interesting to say the least.
“I don’t know”
– Jeff Spicoli
Apparently Michael Murphy was just a guy trying to block people registering these sites. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-urls/
Mr. Krebs,
I think you got the phone number part wrong, like someone else mentioned earlier.
I got this result instead: https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/904-527-1042
And you will notice that it does indeed belong to one Mr. Murphy.
My take on this whole thing: It’s astroturfing, but it is American astroturfing done by U.S. political interest groups, not outside elements (although you never know to what extent they could be attempting to exploit the situation I suppose).
And I doubt they would have gotten these results if there wasn’t some level of discontent among a certain group of Americans in regards to the lockdowns, which is understandable to an extent because many of them are looking at the very real possibility of losing their livelihoods. And I say this as someone who is generally not in support of hasty “reopening” that could make the situation worse (we probably need some more data and testing first, imo).
Nice job, Brian. You continue to impress me with your research.
Hey. In regards to this astroturfing article, I read another previously about this Michael Murphy, that says he’s just some old hippie who thought he was doing something good by registering those sites to keep the other folks from getting them. His phone and email have been blowing up, so he has them turned off. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-urls/
Interesting. Well done Brian.
It’s as if someone turned on a faucet. In other words planned a ” attack” for a disinformation campaign. Amazing. But, no, would a capitalistic society ever trust ” disinformation” ? Or the leader who would promote it? That’s sheeple.
Minnesota Public Radio reaches similar conclusions
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/20/behind-calls-to-reopen-economy-a-mn-activist-and-his-family