Need a comback for my freeper sister's e-mail!

[bluethruandthru]

My sister is a typical freeper (I'm sorry to say!). She is a devotee of Rush and other hate-mongers. Here's the e-mail I received from her this morning and I'd love a snappy retort. Is this crap true?

> How Enron Worked the President .. (This is an
> interesting bit of information that you don't hear much about.)
>
>
> A. Enron's chairman did meet with the President and the Vice President
> in the Oval Office.
B. Enron gave $420,000 to the president's party
> over three years.
> C. It donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration
> festivities.
> D. The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times.
> E. The corporation had access to the administration at its
> highest level and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to
> grease deals for it.
> F. The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron
> for more than $600 million in just one transaction.
> G. BUT...the president under whom all this happened WASN'T
> George W. Bush.
> It was Bill Clinton!
>

[meegbear]

1. Oh good God, this has been debunked so many times ...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/enron.asp

[bluethruandthru]

4. Thank you! n/t

[ComerPerro]

6. As useful as Snopes is, it still usually manages to piss me off

seems like they always try to get a shot in at Dems, just for good measure.


"Both parties should be embarassed".


WTF?

[DoctorMyEyes]

17. That's cause Barb is a conservative

Barbara Mikkelson, I think, tries to be more "reality based" than most of her republican counterparts, but her own ideology slips through the cracks. She'll tell the truth, as best she can, sometimes obviously begrudgingly.

Her initial posts on the "Michael Moore/Saudis evacuated after 9/11" story laid her bias out for all to see. To her credit though - she did apologize and correct the information. Eventually.

[ComerPerro]

25. yeah, but there's always that bit of right wing bias coming through

its like she is apologetic for debunking RW lies, so she has to get a jab in at the left.

Sort of like, "Yeah, sure, this is a shameless lie, but you can't really blame them. Besides, the Dems are shit"

[zbdent]

34. but she also has removed the "apology"

to Michael Moore ... must have gotten into some funding flak ...

[Warpy]

32. There's certainly room for embarrassment over

the Clinton years.

Wealth disparity increased during those years far faster than it had under Reagan or Poppy. Access to abortion services declined rapidly. Pay was stagnant until the last two years. Industry continued to be exported offshore. Corporations (Enron only one them) were allowed to do whatever they wanted, as long as they did it through dummy subsidiaries offshore.

NAFTA and GATT were passed.

Face it, Clinton was an Eisenhower Repug. He was an antilabor corporatist.

He just knew how to balance the books.

[DoctorMyEyes]

2. Don't you have access to Snopes?

Fer chrissakes - http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/enron.asp

[bluethruandthru]

9. Thank you! n/t

[n2doc]

3. It wasn't Clinton or Gore who got to use Enron's corporate Jet

It was W, during the 2000 campaign. Anyway, not that she will listen, but as usual Snopes is on top of it:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/enron.asp
<snip>
The attempt made in the piece of netlore quoted above to deflect blame from the Bush administration and dump it onto the Clinton White House includes some major inaccuracies, such as the claim that "the Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times" during President Bill Clinton's tenure in office. But as Brendan Nyhan revealed in a 2002 article, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was never an overnight visitor at the White House during the Clinton adminstration — although, according to Nyhan, "Lay did, however, stay at the White House when George H.W. Bush was president."

[ClassWarrior]

5. Simply email "Prove it" - and send to reply all.

NGU.

[ComerPerro]

7. and, in the reply all, include the snopes link

[ClassWarrior]

11. No, DON'T include the Snopes link. Make her scramble to find proof...

...or look like an fool when she doesn't.

NGU.

[ComerPerro]

14. well, that's a good idea too. But adding snopes link

might show some people that this is BS, who might otherwise just delete the "prove it" email as "something from an angry liberal who can't handle the truth"

[ClassWarrior]

16. Okay, so follow it up a week later with another "Prove it."

Repeat as often as you'd like, then eventually include the link.

NGU.

[noahmijo]

28. No the way it works is WE have to prove everything to a pinprick

which we always do. When the repukes spew bullshit they don't have to prove a damn thing. They have Jesus and Gawd on their side. They are the righteous and what you heretics have to understand is that asking them for proof means you hate America-cause they don't have to show you any proof. You're trying to ban the bible! and that's just the way it is. God Bless George W Christ. God Bless Murica. God Bless Halliburton for doing such a damn fine job at taking care of troops (This I actually heard a Republican screech in Phoenix during the debate festivities)


Shitty thing is even when you offer full inarguable proof they will never ever accept it as anything less than librul media slander-even if your source is directly out of the mouth of the very people they claim are heroes

[JuniperLea]

29. Good tactic

I used this with a rabid RWNut cousin recently and he exploded... called me a monster! I asked why am I a monster? Because I wouldn't believe something that couldn't be proved? I call that being wise. He boo hoo'd and rattled off more nonsense, but it was clear he was wrong. And his email was an unprovable lie.

[treestar]

18. I wouldn't be surprised if the freepers simply claim that Snopes

is "run by liberals."

[ClassWarrior]

20. That'd be good. Then she has even more burden to "Prove it."

NGU.

[ComerPerro]

27. oh, the hardcore ones do. That's when a nice dose of "prove it"

can come in handy.

[momster]

13. Only to a true freeper

the fact that Limbaugh or O'Reilly or one of those 'reliable sources' said it *is* proof. After all, you can't really trust the liberal media or anyone who isn't 100% on your side all the time in the every way. So everything any one who isn't 'reliable' says is false.

[ClassWarrior]

19. But the Freep isn't your audience. The folks on the reply all are.

NGU.

[momster]

26. But the 'prove it' is a direct challenge

to the sender. Chances are the rest of the list is either trashing the stuff unread -- like I do to my bil's forwards -- or is believing it themselves and , again, are unlikely to research *anything*. If freepers did research, they wouldn't be freepers.

[sallyseven]

8. My first thought is that no self respecting woman

would back the repuks. They disregard anything a woman does. Condi is just window dressing put there to take the blame when things go screwy. Enron did not disregard the rules and law openly until after bushie got in office.

[bluethruandthru]

22. I agree with you...

But my sister isn't "self-respecting". She married a small businessman who has since become very wealthy. She and her husband are all about supporting bush. They feel like the repubs have made it possible for them to be rich.
And, to them, I guess that's all that matters.

[ComerPerro]

10. This is still going around? Damn. The funny thing about Republicans

especially those who listen to Rush Limbaugh, is they always talk about how uninformed the general public is, and how the mainstream media covers things up for Clinton.

This email reminds me of that.

"You never hear this kind of thing in the media"


Yeah, that's right, you don't. Not because of any kind of bias. Simply because its completely untrue.

[peaches2003]

12. Ignore her

Don't even bother. People like her are so brainwashed that anything you say will only dignify her comments and do nothing but drive you crazy. These Freepers are beyond help and truth, so the best thing to do is to turn your back on them. That will say more to her than any retort you might come up with.

[bluethruandthru]

21. I sent her the Snopes link

asking her to check her facts before spreading this crap.

She's woefully uninformed. When we were debating stem cell research I told her that these "embryos" she and her hero King George are so worried about saving are coming from fertility clinics and they will otherwise end up in the trash. She was absolutely shocked and said someone should tell George this and he would certainly change his mind!!!!

[CrispyQ]

15. When I send a Snopes link to refute something like this,

I reply to all. ;)

My right wing mother sends crap like this all the time. For as many times as I've sent back Snopes links you'd think she'd check her stuff out before forwarding, but she never does.

Guess you can't teach a right winger new tricks. lol

[momster]

24. Next time you visit

put the link on her bookmarks. Then all she has to do is click -- yeah, right.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

30. I got something similar from a repug family member about the ACLU

trying to get rid of Christmas. The email encouraged everyone to send an empty Christmas card envelope to the ACLU to "completely" shut down their operation from the deluge of mail (as if!). Sent a "reply to all" the snopes link debunking the BS along with a little note that this doesn't sound very Christian to me and then followed up with a link to Sojourners. Thought they could use some info from another religious point of view that stresses the Bible's teachings (like love, help the poor, be kind, don't hate, etc.) instead of the usual fare of fear, mistrust, etc. Lordy, did I get a reaction to that. I'm still getting hate email and my aunt may never speak to me again because I embarrassed her!

Guess they don't like having their hate campaign debunked and derailed. If these people didn't have Michael Moore, the ACLU, the Clintons, Gore, and the Democratic Party to obsess about they would have to make them up because they love the idea of hating somebody or something to make themselves feel better. It has reached a point where they don't care if it is true or not - just sounds "right" and reaffirms their ideas of being "attacked" (because Limpballs or O'Lielly said so) and they must strike first or lose Christmas or whatever fear that has been struck into their hearts this week. I refuse to let this stuff pass without setting them straight. I'll either educate a bunch of people or I will stop receiving the BS - win, win for me.

[City Lights]

23. I frequently get emails like this from my aunts.

I always include the link to debunk the stuff and always comment on how I never forward anything that I can't confirm myself by including a link, yet they never seem to get the message. The steaming piles just keep stinkin' up my in-box!

My aunt once admitted after I debunked her shit that she doesn't always read the stuff she forwards. :eyes:

[treestar]

31. Another thing you can do it find those same items for the BFEE

they say all that about Clinton and it's false and you can reference snopes that it is false. But those same figures must be higher for Bushco. The freeper SIL doesn't even seem to consider that her email raises that question all by itself, even if the Clinton stuff were true.

[DeeDeeNY]

33. I never tire of using the snopes site

to reply to every right-wing email I get. But I usually copy and paste the text of the entire item from snopes in my email and then the link underneath, to force them to actually read it.
If you had the time, you could also put together separate sets of facts in the same format as the one you received, about Jack Abramoff, Jeff Gannon, etc., with the bottom line always being "It was George W. Bush!" There is such a wealth of material on all the different ways W has screwed up, you could never cover it all!