This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Every day, I check my work email and find scores of missives from people and organizations pitching column ideas, wanting to sell something, giving me a piece of their minds or just wanting a little attention for their causes.
Among those are political action committees, along with nonpartisan civic, education and advocacy groups. The enduring similarities? Most have a real grudge against the federal government, the president, Congress and, of course, the United Nations — and pretty much all of them use bold-face capital letters to amplify their grievances.
So I thought I'd share a little bit, minus the capital letters, of what I usually glance at and delete. All told, they provide a window into the fervid positions of hyperconservative organizations that apparently hate the press and anyone who dares to disagree.
This from the Declaration Alliance: "What did Obama know and when did he know it?"
This involves the Internal Revenue Service's alleged targeting of tea party and other conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those words also are a riff off the hearings on the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974.
"Tell Congress to Investigate, Indict, Impeach!" the Declaration Alliance continues. "Stop Obama's IRS Assault on Political Speech & Our Liberty."
Strong words, certainly, if a bit suspect in the truth part.
And here's the Faith & Freedom Foundation: "Congress, Media Denies Infanticide, But We Shall Not!" And "Tell Congress — No More Money For Murder, Defund HHS Mandate, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood"
Utah Sen. Mike Lee is, according to the group's website, right in the middle of it, purportedly backing a Senate resolution "aimed at investigating and correcting the policies which enabled the illegal infanticide and gruesome abortion practices of Philadelphia child-killer Kermit Gosnell."
And, of course, the "media" are to blame, too. "These complicit cowards refuse to so much as report the truth for those who had no voice besides cries and screams, and who never stood a chance against this Lucifer incarnate," Faith and Freedom asserts.
Well, I certainly read many reports on Gosnell's trial and conviction, and I do take umbrage at the accusation that those of us in "the media" are hard-hearted "cowards."
Then there's the Patriot PAC, which seeks support for a bill called the D-Day Landing Prayer Act, now sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that would direct the Secretary of the Interior to install a plaque or inscription at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring the words that President Franklin D. Roosevelt prayed with the nation on June 6, 1944.
According to the PAC, the Obama administration snubbed the idea. "DO NOT let this monument be scrubbed of Christianity, distorted and transformed by the Obama administration and its leftist, secularist collaborators in Congress."
I can't help but wonder what the vitriol in the highly conservative messages is supposed to achieve. Make true believers more true? Change hearts and minds to their points of view? Is there any evidence that works? I doubt it.
Now I'm going back to my established habit: scan the emails, read a few and delete the ones that are boring or offensive. It's just a matter of psychic survival.
Peg McEntee is a news columnist. Reach her at pegmcentee@sltrib.com, facebook.com/pegmcentee and Twitter, @Peg McEntee.