It Must Be ESP
"One of the smartest things President Bush did to reduce recovery costs in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was to suspend Davis-Bacon Act rules in the hardest hit states. But Congress is frantically trying to overrule the president, which would add billions of dollars to the already staggering recovery costs." -- the Yuba City Appeal-Democrat, the Jacksonville, North Carolina Daily News, the Kinston, North Carolina Free Press, the Colorado Springs, Colorado Gazette, the Lima, Ohio Lima News, the Fort Wayne, Indiana News-Sentinel and the Harlingen, Texas Valley Morning Star, in a display that would make Kreskin green with envy.
A large number of these anonymous editorials - written by GOP operative Sean Paige and presented as the spontaneous points of view of their respective paper's editors - have all come to light at once, as a bill overturning Bush's repeal of Davis-Bacon has been pushed to a vote in the House. 37 House Republicans signed a letter in support of the measure.
The vast majority of the papers in which this astroturf editorial appears are owned by Freedom Communications, Inc., although they usually list some other 'Freedom'-aligned company on their respective websites. Freedom has been criticized in the past for running 'joint content' - articles that appear local but aren't:
In a widely criticized move earlier this year, The Gazette's owner, Freedom Communications, based in Orange County, Calif., launched an exercise in what it calls "joint content." Essentially, the suits upstairs decided that film reviewing, travel and food were pretty much the same wherever you go.
Evidently, political opinion is the same wherever you go, too. That's the way Freedom, Inc. likes it.
** A quick update: You can keep abreast of GOP astroturfing campaigns here.
A large number of these anonymous editorials - written by GOP operative Sean Paige and presented as the spontaneous points of view of their respective paper's editors - have all come to light at once, as a bill overturning Bush's repeal of Davis-Bacon has been pushed to a vote in the House. 37 House Republicans signed a letter in support of the measure.
The vast majority of the papers in which this astroturf editorial appears are owned by Freedom Communications, Inc., although they usually list some other 'Freedom'-aligned company on their respective websites. Freedom has been criticized in the past for running 'joint content' - articles that appear local but aren't:
In a widely criticized move earlier this year, The Gazette's owner, Freedom Communications, based in Orange County, Calif., launched an exercise in what it calls "joint content." Essentially, the suits upstairs decided that film reviewing, travel and food were pretty much the same wherever you go.
Evidently, political opinion is the same wherever you go, too. That's the way Freedom, Inc. likes it.
** A quick update: You can keep abreast of GOP astroturfing campaigns here.
posted by Management at 6:27 PM
3 Comments:
As an aside, about Sean Paige: Besides working as an aide to John Sununu in 1988 and 1989, and then as a press secretary for Alan Keyes, he presented the delightfully surreal argument that excessive government regulation causes shark attacks, on HANNITY and colmes in 2001, when he was working for the 'Competitive Enterprise Institute'. Thus demonstrating that all you need to do to succeed in the modern Republican party is be an absolute shmuck for the worst possible people, and have no sense of shame or absurdity at all..
Are Government Regulations Causing More Shark Attacks?
Speeches and Media Appearances
by Sean Paige
August 14, 2001
SHOW: FOX's HANNITY & COLMES (9:40 pm ET) August 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001 Fox's Hannity, and Colmes
HEADLINE:
Are Government Regulations Causing More Shark Attacks?
BODY:
HANNITY: Also coming up tonight on HANNITY & COLMES, would you give up having children if it would save the Earth? You'll meet somebody that wants you to do that.
But, first, "Behind the Headlines" for this Tuesday, are government regulations causing more shark attacks?
The number of shark attacks has been on the rise, including the recent horrible story of the 8-year-old nearly killed in Pensacola, Florida. Is it possible that government protection of sharks leads more of them in the water and, therefore, more likely to attack?
We're joined from Washington by Sean Paige of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
You know, I've read your piece in -- in full, I've got to tell you, on "National Review Online." I've got -- I think you made a compelling case that that's a fact. Why don't you explain that for those that didn't have a chance to read it?
SEAN PAIGE, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, I don't know about fact. I hope I made a compelling case. That's my job.
I was studying fisheries regulations, and I started looking at the shark fishery just in the course of my work, and I noticed that after 1993 -- that's when the federal government became involved in regulating the -- not only the federal shark fishery but also in a program to actually increase the number of sharks -- that these numbers started jumping up higher and higher consistently.
In 1993, for instance, in Florida, which has the highest proportion of shark attacks in the country, there were eight -- there were shark attacks in 1993. Last year, that number had jumped up to 34, a fourfold increase.
HANNITY: Yeah.
PAIGE: Nationally -- nationally, the numbers have gone up, too, and - - and so I started looking at the...
HANNITY: All right. I -- I don't mean to interrupt you. I want to...
PAIGE: No.
HANNITY: I want to make sure we focus in on this, Sean, because what -- what you're saying is government regulations since 1993 result in less sharks being fished in the waters, especially in Florida, you talk about, where there's even more regulations, and we see a dramatic increase since the regulations went into place in the shark attacks because there are more sharks in the water, is what -- which would then...
PAIGE: That -- that's a fact, that's -- that's on purpose. The government since 1993 has been involved in an active program to increase the number of sharks based on the -- the somewhat questionable premise that they're in a very steep decline and headed towards extinction. In fact...
HANNITY: You...
PAIGE: Yeah. Go ahead.
HANNITY: Yeah. Well, you know something? You also raised -- very early in your piece, you raised, for example, if you talk about bear attacks, mountain lions chasing joggers, reintroduced wolf packs raiding ranches, alligators menacing golfers, coyotes snatching house pets. You know what?
I've read one of these stories here, and they are -- and a lot of it has to do with the regulations that were put in place by the government, but we don't think of it in that way, do we?
PAIGE: Well, most of your viewers don't know that the government regulates the shark fishery and that it's an active program to increase the numbers, no.
This may be one federal program that's actually working, and it's gotten measurable results because every year the government has reduced the amount of sharks that can be caught. That leaves more sharks in the water.
State -- state law in Florida has also created shark sanctuaries within state waters by basically banning all commercial fishing and severely restricting recreational fishing, so...
SKINNER: Sean...
PAIGE: Yes.
SKINNER: ... let me ask you this. Let me talk about the absolute numbers that you used in your piece. You're -- I think you said that we went from eight to 34, and whatever you -- it's a fourfold increase.
More people slip on banana peels, hit their head and die every year in the United States than that, than 34 people. You know, I mean, the chance of getting hit by electrocution -- or lightning -- I mean, there's so many -- the odds are so...
PAIGE: Well...
SKINNER: ... against being eaten by a shark, and -- and the shark population has declined in the Atlantic and in the Pacific by 85 percent.
PAIGE: That -- that is...
SKINNER: Shark soup -- shark fin soup has become pop -- very popular. Shark cartilage. Are you saying that the government doesn't have a responsibility to try to protect endangered species?
PAIGE: Of course it does. The question is: Is this particular species endangered?
The most recent federal assessment of the shark stock sizes was done at a workshop in 1999. That assessment has been thrown out by a federal judge. If you read his judgment on that, it's scathing. It basically says there's no real data, there's no historical data to go by, the modeling could be flawed, and -- and the science underpinnings...
SKINNER: Who did that? Is it the National Marine Fisheries...
PAIGE: Yes.
SKINNER: ... because they're the ones who are reporting an 85-percent decline.
PAIGE: Yeah, exactly.
But -- look, scientists aren't objective. A lot of the experts and the scientists within National Marine Fisheries Service are advocates, and -- and the National Marine Fisheries Service, as my piece points out, is a political organization.
The people on top make the decision, "We're going to regulate sharks because we're getting pressure from advocacy groups that contend that they're in decline." The scientists who get aboard on that program are the ones that are kept in advance.
The one side -- well, the scientists...
SKINNER: OK. We'll never -- we'll never debate this -- you could use numbers to justify any position.
Let me -- let me go the next step then. Let's assume you're right that there are more shark attacks. How do you connect the fact that there are more -- that there are more sharks with more shark attacks.
I'm a diver, and I -- I know what it is. I know what sharks are about. They don't eat people. They don't like people. They're afraid of people. You are instructed to do just your own thing, and they swim away.
Why are you thinking that the absolute number of sharks -- as that goes up, the number of attacks go up?
PAIGE: Well, I mean, the -- one thing we have to look at is the regulations in Florida State waters.
For instance, one reason sharks may be coming -- first of all, in Florida, you have a shark sanctuary in state waters. That extends three miles out in the Atlantic and nine miles into the Gulf.
The other thing is Florida in 1995 passed a gill-net ban in Floridian waters. That stopped any fishermen from catching mullet. Mullet are a favorite food of all sharks. You may have actually too many fish -- too many bait fish in close to shore. That's drawing the sharks in closer.
HANNITY: Hey, Sean, great piece in "National Review Online." Thank you for joining us.
PAIGE: Well, thank you.
HANNITY: We'll let people read it for themselves. They can decide.
Speaking of astroturf, check out this article, and this one..
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