Text messages outing Obama on abortion and infanticide cause uproar
What happened, via The Atlantic:
On Twitter Tuesday night, political operatives and journalists [in D.C. and surrounding area] reported receiving spam texts attacking President Obama. The texts come not from phone numbers but from email addresses, most with mysterious domains: sms@gopmessage.com, sms@votegopett.com, sms@voteett.com. According to Whois.com… those domains were all registered in February, but the registrant’s name is blocked.
Was it legal? Yes, although perhaps not free to the recipient, according to Huffington Post:
The FCC bans unsolicited text messages, but political operatives use a loophole of sending emails to people’s phones. But phone companies interpret them as text messages, and send them along. They also charge the recipient for the unwanted messages if the receiver does not have a text messaging plan.
The messages were all written from a conservative perspective. Here were those on the pro-life issue:
- “Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong.”
- “ObamaCare funds pro-choice entities like Planned Parenthood. Choose to stop Obama!”
- “Obama is using your tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood and abortion. Is that right?”
- “Obama believes killing children is a right until the umbilical cord is cut.”
That last text is actually inaccurate. Obama believes mothers have the right to terminate the lives of their children afterthe umbilical cord is cut.
Other messages touched on Obama’s support of homosexual marriage and on raiding Medicare.
I’m not condoning the scheme, but I do think liberal responses were a bit overreactionary….
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
lol sweet.
How are these “sleazy”? they’re just the facts…. if Obama supporters have a problem with these facts, why are they supporting him?
That’s what I was thinking, Jay…
“Sleazy” ? Hardly. ACCURATE is more like it!
“Hate messages”? Obama is the one doing the “hating”.
He hates women, children, and CONSERVATIVES.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out Obama HIMSELF is sending these tweets (or someone running his campaign).
My phone has a “delete” function. I don’t care that someone is sending these out. You should see what I’m sending out about Gov. Romney.
One of the annoyances of living in a swing state is receiving an endless stream of political calls–they are annoying yes, but at least the caller is clearly identified, meaning that the organization is honest. I received a mailer from the NRLC and a phone call this morning from the American Right to Life Committee and that was perfectly fine. Those I don’t mind. But I would mind something like this.
Okay rant coming up here–you’ve been warned (deep breath) :
One of my big pet peeves is receiving any kind of spam and unwanted texts. I won’t deny it–I’ve been known to hunt down and locate the people and call them directly. It doesn’t matter what it is or whether I agree or disagree with the message. If it’s unsolicited–if I didn’t specifically ask to receive it, it’s spam and I don’t like it. I also don’t like the fact that these people (spammers) try to hide their identities or spoof their numbers and email addys so that you can’t bug them back. To me, that’s dishonest. Why would any legitimate person hide behind something like Domains by Proxy? Seriously.
Hal,
was wondering about Obama’s positive actions during hurricane Sandy. Will it spur democrats to get-out-the-vote? …. a ‘win’ for Obama?
“One of the annoyances of living in a swing state is receiving an endless stream of political calls”
Oh this, so much. I hate living in a swing state. Apparently time not spent spamming my phone and annoying me to death is time wasted in the opinion of both parties.
Why the anonymity? Why is the person or group responsible for these unwilling to put their name on it?
joan says:
October 31, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Why the anonymity? Why is the person or group responsible for these unwilling to put their name on it?
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The sender has two good reasons to be afraid:
1) Eric Holder and Obama Administration have done some pretty nasty things to truth-speakers. And they don’t have to pay the fines when they lose; taxpayers do.
2) Pro-aborts can be violent and dangerous when they target someone who is effective at getting out the pro-life message.
The anonymity is probably due to the fact that they are, technically at least, bending or breaking FCC regulations regarding unsolicited text messages. They probably think they’re okay because they probably sent these out as emails and not texts, but since they arrive as text messages to a person’s cell phone, IMHO they are breaking the law.
I’ve got a shout out for help. One of my friends posted this link: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html
I used to have a ton of links to refutations of that study she mentioned that changed her viewpoint on abortion legalization. From links to how much abortion jumped in the 5 years post-Wade to direct methodic flaws in the study itself (like counting miscarriages as abortions in illegal countries). I used to have links to studies showing contraceptive increase led to abortion increase, from France, Latin America, the U.S., U.K., etc. Unfortunately my computer crashed a few years ago and I’ve been living on a cell-phone internet connection since then. I don’t have the links anymore. My friend wants to see the actual links in refutation of the article above. Can anyone post some of them here? Anyone have them. My friend is very on the fence with abortion and I this may very well put her firmly on the abortion side of things if I can’t find the info she wants, but it’s nearly impossible on a cell phone. Please help!
Jespren: The writer has another article at the site: Fear and the Fundamentalist Child.
I know this type well. A best friend for many years by degrees abandoned his faith. Another old friend did the same, years before that. A present friend is in a similar quandary.
The “by degrees” thing is key. Also key is that many such conversions away from the faith are reactions to a strict upbringing. “Reaction” is a key word as well. In fact, both key words working together are really interesting. One’s past seems to catalyze, in the cases I’ve seen, rational leaps not inherently warranted by the material one is finding persuasive.
The most egregious — and sad — example of this is probably Franky Schaeffer.
One theory I have, though, as I read their continued writings (inevitably they remain activist) is that they seem to continue operating in the same epistemic mode as before — but now they deny propositions they once affirmed. They haven’t transformed — they’ve inverted. This has led me to wonder whether potential candidates for such dramatic turns might not be readily identified ahead of time. In a sense, their faith is conditional on rationale stases — which seems perilous to me.
or you could…I dunno…tell her that she can still be pro-contraception, pro-comprehensive sex-ed, AND remain Pro-Life? Just a thought.
Xalisae, I don’t know the author of the link, a friend of mine posted it after reading it. It’s the ‘criminalization/lack of legal access doesn’t effect abortion numbers’ that’s the big problem I’m trying to find refutation for. *I* know I’ve read them, I know, for instance, states with less legal abortion access have lower abortion numbers and countries that decriminalize abortion see their numbers jumps. I know the study is a bogus hodgepodge of planned parenthood propaganda. I just need the links to show her because, understandable, she doesn’t want to hear just my memory on the subject.
Jespren, the study compares abortion rates in third-world countries (where abortion is usually illegal) with abortion rates in Western Europe (where abortion is usually legal). That’s about all it does. Such a comparison is clearly fallacious. Many factors would increase the demand for abortions in third-world countries, but not in developed nations. Furthermore, while this is an ad hominem argument, the study was conducted by Planned Parenthood’s de facto research arm (a fact that’s rarely mentioned in media coverage).
This article here does a good job of refuting the argument:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/269023/debunking-elite-opinion-abortion-policy-michael-j-new
Finally, there’s the problem of justice. A significant reduction in the number of abortions, while very important, isn’t the only thing we are after. With abortion legal, the law of the land is that humans of a certain age can be killed for any reason (or none at all). This is an unjust law that we’re morally obligated to change, irrespective of how many or how few abortions are actually performed.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/why-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-choice-movement