As a person who regularly contributes to comments sections on various news sites and political discussion forums, I have heard this claim being espoused by left-leaning commenters about the overwhelming amount of very similar conservative leaning comments on many news sites and political forums.

I have long suspected it myself actually, they seem to come in waves, they all have very short, very similar posts. Much of it seems to be chest beating or name calling. Many of their arguments seem to be recycled and usually there are no references or outside links to support anything they claim. They almost never respond but when they do it is a very short strawman type defense.

In searching I found very little to support these claims, among them a Facebook page and the other a discussion forum for a radio show.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2011/02/info-pay-post-trolls

http://www.facebook.com/RepublicanDirtyTricks

Unfortunately there is little of substance here to help verify this claim, just a lot of people who notice similar patterns and have also reached the same hypothesis as I have.

I am not necessarily asking for a smoking gun but is there any solid evidence that organizations are funding Pay-Per-Post campaigns to give discussion boards a political slant?

What about solid evidence of such activities being performed by left-wing think tanks and organizations?