E-Mail Blast Seeks Data on Bush Plans For Public Lands (Washington Post)

[stevedeshazer]

Group Asks Interior Workers To Identify Possible Threats

An advocacy group that opposes President Bush's environmental policies e-mailed nearly 60,000 Interior Department employees Thursday to seek help in identifying White House initiatives that could threaten national parks and wilderness areas.

Peter Altman, director of the Campaign to Protect America's Lands, said the goal of the e-mail blast was to help detect federal rule changes sought by industry that the administration might more vigorously pursue if Bush faces a tough reelection contest.

Mark Pfeifle, a spokesman at Interior, defended the administration's record of land management and environmental stewardship. He said the group was engaging in spam e-mail tactics to score political points with its supporters.

"This is the personification of the term 'junk mail,' " Pfeifle said. "They are spamming talking points from a partisan special interest group. And in their existence, they have never restored a single square foot of public land."

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17529-2004Feb29.html
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Trolling for whistleblowers, a worthy endeavor?

[never cry wolf]

1. I LIKE it, this admin BEGS for whistleblowers....n/t

[alittlelark]

2. My optomistic soul believes this could work

I just hope I am right.

[fearnobush]

3. Fighting back for a change

The advocacy group, however, has compiled what it calls a "dirty laundry list" of 58 policy and personnel moves by the administration that it says have "soiled and spoiled" national parks and lands. The list includes administration attempts to permit more snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, to allow coal-fired power plants to upgrade their facilities without installing anti-pollution equipment and to allow more logging on federal lands.

Altman said the group had received a few e-mails from employees by Thursday afternoon. He said Interior's intransigence in dealing with Freedom of Information Act requests had made the mass e-mail necessary.

"If this Department of Interior was willing to be responsive . . . and provide information to groups through the normal process, we wouldn't have to resort to trying to go straight to their employees to get it," he said.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. All's fair when your dealing with a dictatorship.

[dusty64]

7. Agreed.

They declared war on the environment, its time to fight back.

[stevedeshazer]

5. Out of 60,000 employees

Someone must have something to say!

Mr. Pfeifle, what are you worried about if everything at Interior is all shits and giggles? You all have a great environmental record to defend, right?

[FizzFuzz]

6. defended the admin's record

of land man'gmt and environmental stewardship?????

God how do these people sleep at night?

(smashing my head against a concrete block I have been forced to keep available, since the Axis of Evil took over)

[snippy]

8. This group also should inquire about Turd Blossom Rove's involvement

in Department of Interior decision making. From a July 30, 2003 article in the Wall Street Journal:

In a darkened conference room, White House political strategist Karl Rove was making an unusual address to 50 top managers at the U.S. Interior Department. Flashing color slides, he spoke of poll results, critical constituencies -- and water levels in the Klamath River basin.

. . .

Though Mr. Rove's clout within the administration often is celebrated, this episode offers a rare window into how he works behind the scenes to get things done. One of them is with periodic visits to cabinet departments. Over the past two years Mr. Rove or his top aide, Kenneth Mehlman -- now manager of Mr. Bush's re-election campaign -- have visited nearly every agency to outline White House campaign priorities, review polling data and, on occasion, call attention to tight House, Senate and gubernatorial races that could be affected by regulatory action.

Every administration has used cabinet resources to promote its election interests. But some presidential scholars and former federal and White House officials say the systematic presentation of polling data and campaign strategy goes beyond what Mr. Rove's predecessors have done.

"We met together and talked a lot about issues of the day, but never in relation to polling results, specific campaigns or the president's popularity," says Lisa Guide, a political appointee at Interior during the Clinton administration. Frank Donatelli, political director in the Reagan White House, says "we were circumspect about discussing specific administration rulings that had yet to be made."

. . .

http://www.pcffa.org/RoveWSJ07-30-03.htm

Using polling results and campaign strategy to dictate decision making at government agencies could be illegal. How very republican.