(Lori Wortz, partner at Sterling)

Mike Connell, a reporter at the small daily Port Huron Times-Herald in Michigan uncovered some serious opposition astroturfing yesterday by one Lori Wortz, a heavy in Michigan GOP politics, and partner at the Sterling Corporation PR agency.

Accoring to the piece, Wortz created and incorporated faux-grassroots "Gambling Watch" just weeks ago, and sent out mailers to alert citizens of two new casino projects in the state. Sterling represents competitor MGM Mirage.

A quick search of the Internets reveals Wortz's deep, faith-based connections with the MI GOP, dating back to Pat Robertson's Presidential campaign. She's currently--or at least till today--on Mitt Romney's "faith & values" committee in Michigan, one state he managed to carry in the primaries. She was also quoted in an Financial Times piece about the win, though was not identified as a GOP operative.

Our email exchange with Connell showed his good work did not go unsung:.

I am listening to the congressional hearing Webcast and taking notes so it looks as if I'll be tied up for awhile. The Sterling story has come up a couple of times during the hearing. John Dingell mentioned the story and deplored the tactics, as did Candice Miller, who again equated it to Jack Abramoff tactics. Shelley Berkley of Nevada took exception to equating anyone with Abramoff.

Though the scoop was not credited directly, the mailers did get mentioned in the AP story about the hearing.

PS: Click through to the Sterling site. The flash navigation looks and sounds like a deck of shuffling playing cards. Hit me! Blackjack!

The Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch.org broke a Nebraska agency's embargo regarding an American Idol crop circle.

The agency in question, Swanson Russell doesn't represent mischievous aliens, rather Claas LEXICON combines.

This elicits either a big fat sigh from us if the agency used the deadly combination of a mass form letter combined with the E-word, or a snicker if it was intentional flame-baiting. We wish it was the latter.

PRWatch's Judith Siers-Poisson went through considerable trouble to reprint Jennifer Windrum's pitch and even link to the combine maker. Rather than thank Ms. Siers-Poisson, Windrum commented on PRWatch about how the inclusion in media databases somehow constitutes an agreement to honor embargoes.

We really don't follow this trend of angry PR people commenting on blogs about their own mistakes. Your better off pretending it was part of your "strategic master plan," and you forgot to run it by the client first.

Note to corporate lawyers: check with Communications before sending a cease-and-desist to a blogger.

Laughing Squid (via Consumerist) has posted a few times about Improv Everywhere's faux sales clerk flashmobbing of Best Buy back in 2006. When Improv Everywhere made t-shirts with a parody logo (pictured above) to celebrate the stunt, the store sent a letter to the group, and also to Laughing Squid for "promoting" the infringement.

Laughing Squid has been incredibly patient with Best Buy, and has posted a carefully written timeline of how this played out, and the resulting apology.

I get it with the logo but have a sense of humor. The Improv people seem pretty nice. Be glad it wasn't the Yes Men. You won't spot them till its too late.

PS: For another example, see Rob Walker's blog post about Crocs shutting down CrocFans.com. Walker believes his NY Times Consumed column may have precipitated the cease & desist.