We had no immediate use for the silicon fabrication plant where memories were made and had to shut it down - Andy Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive
|
|
|
Republican Party blanket-emailed newspaper editors
IT SEEMS WE'VE OPENED something of a can of worms with our story yesterday, which suggested the US Republican
Party blanket emailed different newspaper editors with the same letter praising George Bush.
Dozens of editors of US newspapers published the letter, apparently in good faith. And on the face of it, the letters were signed by different individuals.
See Google hunts down 'President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership'
We now have proof that the letters were auto-organised from a Republican Party website.
The emails are orchestrated from its "Team Leader" site, which you can find here.
An INQUIRER reader applied to join the Team Leader initiative and captured this picture of the letter, which requires subscribers to join up as a "Team Leader". Once you are registered as a "Team Leader", you can then send out suggested letters to a wide range of media outlets in the US.
The whole letter reads as follows:
"When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic growth package he recently proposed takes us in the right direction by accelerating the successful tax cuts of 2001, providing marriage penalty relief, and providing incentives for individuals and small businesses to save and invest.
"Contrary to the class warfare rhetoric attacking the President's plan, the proposal helps everyone who pays taxes, and especially the middle class. This year alone, 92 million taxpayers will receive an immediate tax cut averaging $1,083 - and 46 million married couples will get back an average of $1,714.
"That's not pocket change for a family struggling through uncertain economic times. Combined with the President's new initiatives to help the unemployed, this plan gets people back to work and helps every sector of our economy."
Now we learn the practice has already some history, although the US news media - perhaps out of embarrassment - does not yet seem to have picked it up.
At this web site, there is a fight against "killer astroturf" which relates to the 2002 Republican campaign.
That site says the letters are part of an orchestrated campaign and are word for word identical.
Worse - a whole heap of newspapers took the letter as genuine and published it.
Newspapers alleged to have fallen for the spamsters include the Boston Globe, USA Today, the Dallas Morning News, the Albany Pilot, the Green Bay Press Gazette and several dozen others.
Yesterday it was suggested that our own august Financial Times had published the latest example of the "astroturf". µ
See Also
US political parties: an apology And letters
Share this:
Share
I am writing in full opposition of the current bailout bill. Over the past week, I have dedicated close to 40 hours emailing, calling, faxing and sending letters to all members of congress, the president, vice president and the secretary of state. The lack of capitalization of those titles is deliberate and is meant to show great disrespect for that these people have done/are doing to my country!



The bailout bill will not work for it fails to address the most obvious cause of the economic issues, the housing. The bill will flood money to the banks and stack our nation with the ‘toxic’ debt created by those banks. Must be nice to act so irresponsibly and reap such rewards! Meanwhile, the banks will start lending again, driving debt saddled people and businesses into even greater depths of debt. This will fail!



The rate resets on the ARMS will continue from 2009 to approximately sometime in 2012, if factoring a five year ARM. No one has addressed this! Have you looked at how many mortgages could be purchased with $700,000,000,000 dollars? If you factor a mean mortgage amount of around $300,000 per home, the government could purchase 2,333,333 million homes! That would come very close to purchasing almost every home that will experience a rate reset. When purchased, the government could lock the interest rate at the current rate, allowing the home owner to keep the home and avoiding further foreclosures. Effectively, the damage could stop with just that one measure.



It gets better though! As the funds flow through the system, the “bad paper” becomes “not so bad paper”. Investors will see some return in the retirement accounts, and the funds used to purchase the mortgages will flow up through the system to the banks. This is the greatest failing of the bill currently sitting on the House floor. The issues need to be addressed from the bottom up, not the top down! The bill that was recently passed by the Senate will only prop up the banks for a couple of months, perhaps through the end of the year. In 2009, the rate resets will continue; the foreclosure numbers will rise; jobs will be lost as the recession deepens; bank liquidity will dry up again; and the Fed will be unable to give the banks any more of our money!



This bill is a bad idea the way it is written! On behalf of this nation, for the sake of 250 million taxpayers, and to help preserve the future for our children, vote against this bill!



Just one poor broke soul’s opinion,

Martin
Many like to come down hard on President Bush. But at least he is more qualified for the job than any Democratic candidate running today! Think about it! Obama hasn't even managed a lemonaide stand! He hasn't even been in boy scouts so how can he be a Commander in Chief? He knows absolutely nothing about economic issues or military issues or foreign affairs and dealing with the complex problems of one of the largest and biggest nations on earth! Think about it! Would you hire a CEO if you owned GM that had no experience, no knowledge of the manufacturing of automobiles, was not interested in keeping "workable" things going but wanting to change everything even though you don't know what it is all about, and pay him a million dollars a year and hope he can do the job? I would think you would say "not on your life" and the stockholders would jump ship quickly and you would end up out of business! But, voters and the Democratic party have put up a man who is going to do more damage than that and one who is really worse than the above potential candidate for GM! I just can't believe folks are so ignorant and so blinded that they don't think about things like this! Presidents are not made or qualified on the basis of good speeches and good looks or smiles! Not on your life! If you allow this man to be in the White House you may as well forget your life, job and retirement it will not be here in a few years! God helps us!