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Republican Robocall Pretexting Campaign
WCityMike writes, "In 53 Congressional campaigns across the country, including the Pennsylvania 6th, the Connecticut 4th, the North Carolina 11th, the New Hampshire 2nd, and the Illinois 6th and 8th (and possibly all races), the National Republican Congressional Committee is conducting a $2.1 million campaign to make it appear as if Democrats are spamming callers with telemarketing calls. The NRCC hired Conquest Communications Group to conduct a massive nationwide robocalling campaign with calls specifically scripted to appear as if they're coming from the Democratic candidate — in violation of FCC regulations on such 'robocalls,' which requires the identity of the caller to be stated at the beginning of the message [47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1)]. The call begins with 'Hello. I'm calling with information about,' and then says the name of the Democratic candidate. There is then a pause; if the recipient hangs up here, they will receive repeated calls back with the same message, potentially up to 18 times or more (according to one callee). If the callee doesn't hang up, they hear a smear message from the machine about the Democratic candidate. The NRCC thinks the legality of the calls is, conveniently, a 'complicated legal question that's not going to get adjudicated this weekend.'" Update 20:47 GMT by SM: Thankfully we all learned how to deal with these folks last week.
I've actually noticed the exact opposite here. People can talk trash all they like about another candidate, but if you don't sell a platform, you aren't giving the people anything to vote for. Smear tactics like that are going to be the downfall of any candidate who chooses to use them.
negative advertising (including "smear messages") is the most useful information to have.
You would not believe how difficult it is to effectively judge a candidate unless you hear them speak live. I spent quite a bit of time perusing newspapers, candidate websites, and Google trying to find information to base my determinations for voting this election.
I am getting so much negative campaigning but not enough real facts from the candidates themselves. I really wish that someone would stop the fucking smear campaigns and instead clearly list what they intend to do. If they ran before, I want someone (obviously the campaigns website won't) to list exactly what they said they were going to do and exactly what they did do so I can compare.
If this information is easily accessible in the State of Minnesota, please let me know where it is. My current vote is based on what I have gleamed from the newspapers and the campaign websites. Bleh.
I suppose my methodology is better than my co-workers who are "voting Union line" or someone who is "voting Party line."
"If you vote Republican, are you guilty of their crimes?"
It's the Republicans. Is anyone actually surprised?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
This is not a useful comment in the light of the real issue being reported in the original post. You have picked a one-up, unique situation where a rogue individual serves as a bad example of how to conduct oneself during an election. The RNCC actions, on the other hand, are a disgraceful, and illegal action attempting to disenfranchise voters, or get them to think ill of the Democrat candidate at a grand scale (much more effect than a few slashed tires). This is so much more duplicitous and underhanded than one guy's son getting caught slashing tires of potential voters, not that the dumbass who did the tire-slashing deserves any less jail time than those that are behind the the robocalls.
I believe that Republicans vote Republican and Democrats vote Democrat....the campaign managers know this and they have a pretty good idea of how many of each demographic they have to work with. So, their job isn't to try and convince you who to vote for, you've already decided that. Their job is to get you into the polls so you can actually cast that vote.
Somewhere along the line, they decided that the best motivator was to get you pissed off enough at the other guy that you would make the time to get into the polls.
Unfortunately, this has caused campaigns to go from "vote for me because" to "don't vote for the other guy because".
It just seems to get worse with time.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
That was one person. This is the RNC itself.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I really don't want to be part of a flame war (I like my karma where it is right now), but it really seems to me that republicans pull this crap off a lot more than democrats. Thinks like the "democrats vote on wednesdays" campaigns, or "[legal] immigrants will be arrested if they come to the polls", or men dressed as leather lingerie-clad homosexuals with signs saying "Vote Democrat so I can adopt" seem to be everywhere. Does anyone have any examples of this happening against republicans? I'll gladly retract my statement if I can see a couple Democrat-sanctioned examples somewhere. I'm aware that I'm a democrat and therefore have selective exposure, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.
It's so morally corrupt that I find it hard to believe that half the country is in the same party as these people. I know that half the country isn't morally corrupt, yet they allow (and often support) this sort of thing.
The RNCC must have lost it's freaking mind.
Between this, electronic voting, the whole WMD/invade Iraq decision and the Mexican border issue, half of you still vote Republican?
Not that the Dems are much better, but when are people going to start pushing back on the government?
America used to be admired. Now, I just pity you.
Afterall, you are talking about a political party that is down with torture, coerced confessions, extended imprisonment without charges and without access to counsel, and warrantless searches. After all that, we are supposed to get outraged about a violation of FCC regs?
I mean seriously, have Republicans no shame?
They have Morality, which is different. Shame prevents you from being evil. Morality allows you to be as evil as you like, as long as you feel really bad about it.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Nice troll! One drunk left-winger, who has no connection with the DNC, does something stupid, and that's supposed to be morally equivalent to an organized RNC campaign across 53 districts where millions of illegal phonecalls are placed with the explicit goal of deceiving voters. Hmm, somehow the situations seem different.
As far as widespread impact... Eh. If you have a blog, post on it. If you have some friends you think might be influenced by this, send them relevant snippets of the article(s) you find, *with a personal summary at the top* so they know it's not just BS you're forwarding.
And don't forget to vote, and encourage your friends to vote, against the motherfuckers who're doing this.
(Posted w/o karma bonus because even I think this is kinda trollish, but seriously, people... If *any* party pulls shit like this and gets rewarded with (re)election, that just encourages the thinking that this is an appropriate / acceptable / beneficial thing to be doing.)
Here's a column published in Philly by someone thinking Democrats were harassing her with robocalls. Even though they sensibly asked why Democrats would do such a thing when it would turn voters off, they thought it was the Democratic candidate. Pretty typical reaction.
Their untypical reaction was to call the Democrat's office demanding an explanation. Which turned out to be "it's a Republican dirty trick". But how many people will find out before voting? And how many people will believe it's not Democrats lying to blame Republicans, when they already believe Democrats have been harassing them with robocalls?
Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Republicans have followed up their 2002 phonejamming of Democrats' lines (preventing Democrats from getting voters to polls) with enough illegal robocalls to cost $100 MILLION in fines. Of course, those 2002 robocalls got John Sununu Jr (R-NH) into the Senate, where he controls the FCC, and he hasn't given up the job he DDoS'ed his way into. So I don't expect Republicans to cough up the $100M they'd owe for this year's attack on the election process.
Unless maybe enough Republicans get fired in the election tomorrow that they can't do these crimes unpunished anymore. Go to the polls and do your part.
--
make install -not war
There's a balance between the two. An all-smear campaign alienates voters; I personally believe that John Kerry lost 2004 because he was perceived as having a campaign that primarily said "we're not Bush." Most voters I talked to said they wouldn't vote for Kery because they had no idea what he really stood for. He campaigns against his opponents rather than for himself; recent events support that.
:)
That said, never going after your opponent won't do a lot for you either. In northeast Texas there's a state race that's caught my interest. Chuck Hopson, the Dem incumbent, has from the start been in a heavy smear campaign against his Republican rival. His rival (Durrett, I think) has responded largely by addressing the issues, with only a handful of attacks on Hopson (all of which that I've seen were based on Hopson's own voting record conflicting--or seeming to--with his campaign messages).
Given the recent stunts pulled by both sides in the races, Durrett's style has earned my respect.
On the subject of the article, I keep getting messages from Bill Clinton telling me how great the Dem candidate for governor is. I'm pretty sure he's not a Republican scheme, and I've deleted the same message four times so far. The Dems don't need any help on annoying voters
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
The actions of a few Democratic campaign workers who affected a few Republican voters in no way compares to a coordinated, tens or hundreds of thousand dollar strategy by a national Republican organization, affecting over 300,000 Democratic voters.
I'm saddened that politicos still find a way to shock me, even after all these years. Why is it that its always The People that wind up being abused to further one person's agenda? I suppose someone will make a comment that it's just indicative of just how desperate the Republicans are, but they've stooped to such low tactics before.
I have a strange request, coming from a lifelong Democrat. I have no idea if you're ideologically committed to the right, but if you are, consider runing for office sometime in the future - as a Republican. I really believe our system works best when there are two parties with honest differences of opinion, that practice their differences more or less honestly (yes, politics is a dirty business, but things have really gotten out of hand). So if you can play your part in deliver our nation back to good old open debate about what the government should or shouldn't do here or abroad, we'll all be better off for it.
Your taxes are not lower. The Bush administration has failed to cut spending to pay their tax cuts and in fact has dramatically increased spending. Thus the present value of taxes you will pay over your lifetime has risen under the Bush administration since the 100s of billions of dollars of debt the Bush administration has run up will have to be paid from future taxes. You are not paying these taxes this year but you will have to pay them in the future. Ask any economist and they will tell that lowering taxes without cutting spending is an increase and not a reduction in your lifetime tax payments.
Bush has essentially given you a loan which will have to be paid back (with interest) by higher taxes in the future.
Oh, bullshit.
You heard some astroturfer call in to Rush Limbaugh today with this and now you are claiming it is happening to you.
It's very easy to see what Republicans are up to.... just look for what they are accusing Democrats of doing, and then you'll know.
As Haggard, Foley, and others continue to prove... the GOP is the party of extreme hypocrisy. If you want to know what they're up to, just listen for what they're yelling about from the other side.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
I really wish that someone would clearly list what they intend to do.
It's not in their interest to do that, because they'll lose the votes of everyone who hates that. They want to be as ambiguous as possible so that nobody can find a reason to vote against them.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The modern GOP (by that I mean since Eisenhower, and Ike wasn't even truly a Republican. He was apolitical -- as the entire military was up until Reagan -- and then ended with his Presidential tenure with the infamous warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. I'd like to see any Republican give such a speech today.) has a long history of dirty tricks, from the Watergate break in, all the way to today. In the 2002 election the GOP jammed the Democratic phone banks in New Hampshire. People went to jail because of that. Race baiting ads as part of their "southern strategy". Challenging legal voters based on bogus "felon lists." Challenging voters to present photo id when it's not a requirement. Informing voters in predominately black neighborhoods that the election was either postponed, or directing them to the wrong precincts. Frankly it's not surprising. The same ones that were running the party back then are the same ones running the party now. Total contempt for democracy. Macavelli would be proud.
No. Democrats don't do these sort of things.. Arguably, because liberals are "too pussy" to cheat, and "too naive" and believe in fair elections.
There was a time when the "Vote Facist for Law and Order" bumper stickers were funny. Now the seem just a bit too truthful.
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"When the president does it that means that it is not illegal."
-- Richard Nixon, May 19, 1977 interview with Robert Frost
No, you don't understand.
Anyone, doing anything, is the fault of the Democratic party. Someone make comments about how they don't think bin Laden's that bad? That's what Democrats think. Someone make a video mocking Bush and post it on YouTube? That's what Democrats think. Someone publish personal information about a congressman mother and urge poeple to harrass her? That's what Democrats think. A random blogger make a comment about how thinks only idiots would join the military at this moment? That's what Democrats think.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, people like Limbaugh and Malkin can say and do whatever they want, because they're not representive of the Republican party at all and the Republican party has nothing to do with them. Hell, actual Republican elected officials, if they get caught doing something evil, can just blame it on alcohol or cry some and it obviously doesn't reflect on the Real Republicans.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It would help if you read the entire grandparent post instead of just the first sentence. :)
DNC is not on your "do not call list" except in your head. They are exempt, as are the Republicans. As are "Otters for Clean Streams" for that matter. The DNC and the RNC have spent millions calling people. But that has no bearing on this issue. The issue here is the fact that they are repeatedly calling after you hang up, which is illegal. They are also making it look like a member of the opposite party is doing it. Which may be illegal.
This has no bearing on whether or not you like getting phone calls during election season.
I'm against only counting American lives lost. It's so easy to slap the label of "Iraqi" on somebody and not worry about it (as much) because they were "supposed" to die. In my book, lives lost are fellow human beings who are now dead, and the decision to invade Iraq has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties.
And, unless you believe in democracy wand-wielding fairies with glittery sprinkles of honesty, it really doesn't matter how you vote, because the Diebold corporation is the only constituency a person has to convince these days.
It's about proportions. Would you like the U.S. gov to cut your taxes to 0% now and then 100% in 5 years? Didn't think so. If the tax cuts were met with a proportional reduction in spending, then paying higher taxes later would be favorable because you could earn interest on the money you're saving now. But since spending has actually INCREASED while taxes are CUT, then the higher taxes you're going to be paying are going to far outweigh whatever interest you can make from the money you're saving now.
The problem with your logic is that Bush is spending much more than you're saving. Even if he hadn't pushed through the tax cuts, we would be running a deficit right now. The tax cuts just add insult to injury.
Furthermore, this isn't just a issue for us, it's an issue for our children and grandchildren. THEY will be paying for the excesses of this decade, and they'll have to pay our debts at the same time they're funding Social Security for the baby boomers.
Seriously, this is bad.
911 is statistically unique, that is why it is not added.
You cannot assume that because there was 3000 + killed on 9/11 that this is part of traditional terrorist activities.
IN fact, we will not even be sure if we have been successful in limiting terror until mid 2007, which is about the date, traditionally, that we could expect the next attack if you add in the terrorist bombing in Okalahoma as the most recent,successful, mass death terrorist attack on American soil.
If you want to use foreign acts of terror on US soil, that successfully set off a bomb on our soil targeted at a major monument, then the frequency between attacks (using only the two most recent data points) is actually 8 years, because the last attack (also against WTC) was done in 1993.
So, if the president/you/Republicans don't want to count your buddy Tim McViegh as a terrorist, then we would have to wait until 2009 before we know if the President has been successful in stopping terrorism on American soil.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
If you vote Democrat you are NOT going to like it unless of course you want us to cut and run in Iraq.
It's called learning from the past. Vietnam ring any bells? You can't force people to take on a form of government they don't want. In a recent poll 60% of Iraqi's supported attacks on American troops. Not just wanted American troops to leave, actually supported them being attacked. Sorry, we haven't won any hearts or minds. We are just making more enemies. Staying gains us nothing, they aren't 'coming around to our way of thinking'.
(and let another Saddam come to power..or worse)
Only a dictatorship of some sort can force those three peoples who hate each other (Kurd's, Sunni, Shia) to keep one government rather than split up, as they are eventually going to, into 3 separate countries. We are babysitting a civil war and it's going to stay that way until we leave and they break up. Either way, all we are doing is creating a new generation who hate us even more, producing more future terrorists. This ain't winning the war on terror. It's shooting yourself (ourselves) in the foot.
ignore the NK threat
You mean get so entrapped in unnecessary foreign wars that you have no excess military muscle to show, and have NK know it? Sorry, the Neo-cons have made sure our threats mean nothing to NK.
pay higher taxes (1st thing Dems will do is repeal the Bush tax cuts, especially the child tax credit)
HAHHAHA, god Neo-cons are idiots. I'm an old-time fiscal conservative, which means I absolutely hate the Republican party since the neo-cons took it over. Here's a clue. If you like low taxes, don't deficit spend out the wazoo. Republicans have created a vastly bigger 'big government' than the Democrats ever did. Think the tooth fairy is going to pay for that? No, sorry neo-cons, Jesus isn't whipping out his wallet either. You and I have to pay for this huge monstrosity of a government the Repubs have built. That takes tax money.
Hopefully the Democrats won't be as stupid as the Republicans and leave the debt for the future. Paying off your credit cards each month is the only sane way to build a future. Having such a huge national debt building up is forfeiting our future.
see Wall Street go DOWN
Hahahaha, god you neo-cons are funny. Yeah, that Clinton era did just terrible things for Wall Street. What a moron.
increase the chance for another 9/11
Funny, all the liberals I know supported going into Afghanistan. You know, that place the terrorists were actually based out of. Democrats were all for defending ourselves and getting retribution. They, however, limit it to the folks who actually attacked us. Not someone with make-believe WMDs.
see all progress on illegal immigration stop
Once again you prove to be a total idiot. Democrats aren't the ones hiring illegals to work for them cheaply, displacing jobs for legal Americans. Republican businessmen are.
If you're measuring the quality of a system of government by the length of time a government lasts, totalitarian dictatorship wins. There's a balance to find between being so stable that you don't respond to the will of the people and being so unstable that you can never get anything done. At the moment the US is on the too stable side.
Give me one goddamn fucking good reason why Nacy Pelosi would make a frightful president. I'm so goddamn sick of hearing this bullshit.
So what you're saying is, the Republican party is evil, and the Democrats are too incompetetent to pick up on these same strategies?
Well, that's not quite how I'd put it. Again, I'd say that the people calling the shots in the GOP are, if not actually evil, extremely nasty, unethical, and willing to stoop to almost any level to get/keep power. I'm not sure that I would call the Democrats incompetent, but I think that there are a lot of progressive types in the Democratic party (go figure) who are willing to put principles over power. Maybe that makes them foolish, but I think that there is a certain reason to it. I think it's similar to saying that if the US tortures it's POWs then we aren't any different than the insurgents who kidnap, torture and kill people to make Jihadi videos. If we are willing to take our own citizens off the streets and lock them away forever without access to the courts, or even without their families knowing what happened to them, then we are no better than the Iraqi regime that we helped to topple. By the same token, I think that the Democrats largely believe that if they stoop to the level of the Ken Mehlmens and Karl Roves of the world, then they would be no better and no more worthy of governing than the Republicans are.
It undoubtedly sucks to get repeatedly beaten by dirty tricks, but the tricksters don't always win. And how much better must it feel if you can win cleanly?
It does not matter if the bottle next to it is poison, is labeled, and the bottle with the changing label is not poison. You can drink the poison. I will drink from the bottle that does not threaten my constitution. In other words, if you want to kill our country by voting Republican, that's your prerogative. I will vote for the Democratic candidate. That may be a mistake at some unforeseen future time and it may have been a mistake in the past, but it is not a mistake now. Unless the anti-freedom laws that have been passed and the imbalance of powers going on between the governmental branches do not stop and soon, this country is genuinely going to go to hell in a hand-basket. And that does not even cover the fiscally insane behavior that has been going on with the Republicans in power. Let me put it to you straight: I want my savings to be worth something in thirty years. And sure is not going to be if we continue down this path. Tomorrow is about change. And it cannot come too soon.
What, the 2,800+ Americans killed in Iraq by IEDs, snipers, etc, don't count? By my accounting, that's nearly another September 11th's worth of dead Americans.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.