Origin of Anti-Obama Text Messages - Domains Owned by Jason Flanary (Former Vice President of Government Affairs for the Fairfax VA Chamber of Commerce)
by Simon Landau | wusa9.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A slew of anti-President Obama spam text messages have been received through the D.C. Metro area in the past day.
I have confirmed the texts came from domains purchased by Jason Flanary, according to GoDaddy.com. Flanary is a Fairfax County Republican who has previously run for Virginia State Senate, was the Vice President of Government Affairs for the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, and is still an acting member on the board of directors for the organization.
I was slightly confused Tuesday night when I received a text message that read “VP Biden mocks a fallen Navy Seal during memorial. Our military deserves better”. I was even more confused when I looked at who sent the message to me, and realized it wasn’t from a phone number, but instead it was from sms@votersett.com.
While I found the SMS to be pretty weird, it got even more bizarre Wednesday morning, when I came into work and discovered that about ten of my co-workers had received similar anti-President Obama SMS messages from different addresses.
Here’s a sampling:
- From sms@aicett.com: “Obama was against gay marriage, now he supports it. Tell Obama to stop pandering.”
- From sms@informedett.com: “With Obama in charge, your tax dollars will be used to fund Planned Parenthood and abortions.”
Our WUSA9 reporters weren’t the only ones receiving these texts. After some investigation online, we found several other journalists in our area commenting on the subject.
Jonathan Weisman, a Congressional Report for the New York Timestweeted, “Txt to my 13-yr-old daughter: “Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong” from sms@gopmessage.com.”
Mike Madden of Washington City Paper tweeted, “Just got this random anti-Obama text message from sms@informedett.com” and attached a photo of the message that read “Re-electing Obama outs Medicare at risk.”
Furthermore, our Andrea McCarren who is working the story has received a number of tweets and messages from other D.C. Metro residents who have received similar messages.
If you received these text messages, please send photos of them to us at wusa-webproduction@wusa9.com.
