American Federation for Children

Now I realize that State Senator Jeff Plale isn’t responsible for the mailings from the American Federation for Children. It clearly states that their mailings are “Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.” on the back of each and every one of the EIGHT flyers that I received from them today. And the 4 I got yesterday and 6 the day before. Even if I was supporting Senator Plale in the September 14th primary, I would start to wonder if I was making the correct choice based on his third party support, the amount of money they are willing to spend, and the very negative messages they are sending. This isn’t what I think our campaigns should be about.

By the way, they also called the house today and a live person for a change (who could barely read the script) spent 2 minutes denigrating County Supervisor Chris Larson instead of telling me why I should vote for Senator Plale…and then spending another 2 minutes reading the the disclosure about who they were and not part of any candidates campaign.

Somebody should recognize that such massive overkill with these negative messages may result in some serious backlash at the polls.

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16 thoughts on “American Federation for Children

  1. Just an aside to my rant. Four of today’s mailings have a photo of Senator Plale and his sons in a park setting. And the others have photos of Chris Larson. So where do these third party groups get these photos? I can’t imagine that the warm and fuzzy familial Plale photo is in the public domain. Do they license these photos? Do they just flat out steal them and violate copyright? I am curious if any of you know the mechanism at work here…thanks in advance.

  2. The mailings have gotten annoying, I started getting htem in August,one came in one day, then the next day, and the day after that another one came in and so forth. By next week, I was getting sick of them, I’ve kept track and like many, I have gotten 2 a day sometimes 3 a day. Yesterday my mailbox had 4 of these Plale/Larson things.
    Now I’m getting calls, since 9 this morning I have gotten 10 calls today from the Larson campaign. It’s non-stop and they’re annoying.

    P.S. I counted all those ads I got since the middle of August……68 including today’s flyer.

  3. Likely, Plale has some of these photos on his state drive, which is open records requestable.

    It’s likely on the up and up.

    Just as a point of information.

    1. Whether they were on his state drive or website shouldn’t make any difference. They may be available via open records but I still don’t think that makes them fair game for partisan reuse….

      1. They may be available via open records but I still don’t think that makes them fair game for partisan reuse….

        So open records & public domain data may only be used if…what if you like how they’re used? Or who’s the arbiter about what usage is “good” and what is “bad”?

        1. Who is the arbiter in how they are used? I would expect that the original owner of the document or image. If I requested something under the open records request, I imagine I can refer to it or excerpt it as most media outlets do under fair use provisions. I don’t think I could republish it in whole or part for a profit or use it in partisan activities like campaign literature. I think the original owners could have an issue with that.

            1. Still doesn’t mean I can copy someone’s picture from a website, govt or not, and reuse it for whatever reason I want to. Unless you are a copyright, trademark attorney I am not convinced you are correct.

              A prime example (but not necessarily parallel) is the artist who posterized an AP from the web for the Hope poster used in the Obama campaign. He got his posterior used for misuse of copyrighted material by the AP.

              1. should have read ‘…who posterized an AP photo…’ and ‘…posterior sued…’ Mid afternoon sugar crash.

              2. That would be an AP photo – the AP is not a government agency.

                We’re all speculating heavily on the source of the photo…but if as suggested, the photos were obtained via either open records or his state drive, it should be clear. Anything created by our government, is done using taxpayer funding and as such, we have a right to use.

                Still doesn’t mean I can copy someone’s picture from a website, govt or not,

                Certainly true. But not necessarily for the reasons you think. Just because an image is used on a government website, doesn’t mean the government actually owns the copyright to it. However, if a government employee created the graphic, it, and by extension we own it & can use it.

  4. “Somebody should recognize that such massive overkill with these negative messages may result in some serious backlash at the polls.”

    Whatever backlash there is will be balanced out from the dozen-plus flyers sent out trashing Plale with cartoonish photoshop edits. The only robocalls I’ve received have been negative attacks on Plale…eight in the last three days. If you weren’t in the bag for Larson, I suppose you would have mentioned that.

    I won’t be voting on the Dem ticket, so I’m merely an observer. I don’t think my home has ever been bombed with so many leaflets before.

    1. Perhaps Ed didn’t get the same phone calls you got, Roland. I know I haven’t gotten any phone calls from either side, and I haven’t received nearly as many mailings as you or Ed.

    2. Roland,

      You are assuming facts not in evidence. I only mentioned the call I received on Saturday up to the time of posting that was from AFC. I have certainly received both robocalls and live calls from both candidate’s phone banks and from third parties. Last night I got a pro-Plale robocall from a third party group I hadn’t heard of before and can’t remember now…

      And I’d like to thank FORMER Governor Tommy Thompson for his recorded call in support of Repbublican Lt. Governor candidate Brett Davis. It made for a kinder gentler evening at hacienda Eduardo knowing that FG Thomson knew I was on his side!

  5. Maybe we could trade apartments until after the election then…I’m getting bombed from both sides!! It’s ridiculous. I don’t think this much negativity helps anyone. Latest Plale leaflet put all the details, including personal information, out regarding Larson’s 2004 arrest for Disorderly Conduct.

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