PPJG Original article    Posted 10:35 pm EST

By Marti Oakley  © 2009

dontbotherme_sCzar Tom Vilsack has been conducting what Obama likes to call [Rural Tours].  The obvious intent of this tour is to make it appear that farmers and ranchers are appearing by the hundreds to support the [Rural broad band] and other funding efforts to prevent the rural industries from dropping dead.  NAIS, a program that was so thoroughly rejected by farmers and ranchers during the listening sessions was not supposed to be on the agenda.

One such recent meeting occurred in Zanesville, Ohio on August 31, 2009 at the Muskingum County Welcome Center, and, although Mansfield News Journal.com reported an attendance of hundreds, they failed to mention that all but about forty of those in attendance were USDA employees.  Those employees had been selected to attend through a raffle of sorts when their respective departments were sent a memo instructing them to send one out of every three employees to the meeting; and to fill the place up.  This was to make it appear to a casual observer that the farm and ranching community was present and being heard, and also that the crowd was controlled and mannerly.  The Czar apparently believed he had his audience plants in place and would have full control of the dialogue.

A quick trip through the parking lot found that nearly every vehicle there bore government free license identification. More