Heartland Institute Spams Telcom Reporters in Search of Opinions Friendly to ATT
March 13th, 2009 by Gordon Cook
I had thought that Heartland Institute was an astroturf outfit run by the incumbents to further their interests. This afternoon I get this in my email.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Questions on AT & T Supreme Court case
Date: March 13, 2009 3:40:43 PM EDT
To: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected]
Hello there~
This is Thomas Cheplick. I am a reporter at the Heartland Institute. I am working on a story regarding the Supreme Court unanimously rejecting a lawsuit against AT&T charging that the telcom company engaged in “price squeezing” against smaller Internet providers.
As you know, a group of carriers led by Linkline Communications complained that the DSL giant charges high rates for wholesale access and low rates to consumers, effectively pushing competitors out of the market. The Supreme Court ruled that AT&T had “no duty to deal” with these carriers, at least as far as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is concerned.
I am curious as to if you are excited and agree with Justice Roberts and the majority’s opinion? And also will this decision in your mind benefit the functioning of “the market”? Are or are not customers best served by this decision? How might markets have been harmed if the decision went the other way? Is the freedom to set prices without government or legal interference important?
Many thanks!
Best wishes, Thomas
415-302-4404
Cook’s Edge: I am someone who might well have an opinion on the question Cheplink asks. But Cheplink seems to me to be lazy. He certainly should not expect me to be sympathetic….so what is he doing…. gets himself a list of internet journalists and spams them with opinion he wishes to hear?
I go to their website and find that they are way beyond telco astoturf. As bastion of quite kooky unrepentant free market ideologues.
They trumpet the wisdom of their science expert who it seems was an adviser to the THATCHER government 25 years ago.
Hold on to your seats all ye faithful!
Great Is Truth, and Mighty Above All Things
Keynote address to the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change
Environment > Climate: Realists
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Written By: Lord Christopher Monckton
Publication date: 03/12/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
Lord Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, delivered the closing keynote address at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, praising those in attendance for holding fast to their scientific ethics and speaking truth to power.
Where are they all today, those bed-wetting moaning Minnies of the Apocalyptic Traffic-Light Tendency–those Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds?
The main message of this conference to the bed-wetters is this. Stop telling lies. You are fooling fewer and fewer of us. However many lies are uttered, the scientific truth remains unalterable.
The Forces of Darkness, with their “global warming” chimera, came perilously close to ending the Age of Enlightenment and Reason. They almost ushered in a new Dark Age. Yet they have failed. Why? They have failed because you, here, have had the courage to face them down, to confront their falsehoods, and to nail their lies.
The Age of Light and Reason shall not die. Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle to that last goodnight: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” You have not raged in vain. The world is not cooking: It is cooling. Every opinion poll–even those conducted by the bed-wetters themselves–shows that global public opinion is cooling as fast as the global climate.