Talk:Ralph Hall

Why the removal of detail about the party switch?
I have reintroduced the detail about Hall's party switch. I don't understand why this section was labelled "inappropriate." If there's anything inaccurate, then say what it is and why it's wrong. If there's POV language, I welcome suggestions to clean it up. This event was documented at the time, and I see no reason to leave out the details. Acsenray 19:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Probably more censorship
The people doing reverts don't care if the facts you present are accurate. They don't care how neutrally or boring those facts are worded. If any fact would cause a reasonable person to think negatively of the person or company the page describes, than that person/company or financially/politically tied persons/companies, will censor that fact. Time and time again, Wikipedia articles have been caught being abused this way. The most famous example is Pepsi, Co. removing all references to the bad health effects of its drinks (diabetes, obesity, etc.).

There is no disputing that drinking sugar water in excess can cause such problems. It's a fact. The problem is that the fact doesn't paint a pretty picture of the product, and there is no way to polish that turd. So the fact must be expunged all-together. Of course, an article is worse than worthless if such facts are omitted. It's better to have no information than misinformation, and selected filtered information is misinformation. In the Pepsi case, drinkers should be aware of the health implications of the product. It would be a good thing for the reader to change his drinking habits to avoid diseases that can cause death such as heart disease brought on by obesity. By omitting such facts, the article deliberately misleads the reader into either not believing a truth or believing a falsehood.

I added a tiny sentence to this article on Ralph Hall to inform the reader that this particular politician killed an education bill by altering it so that the bill would mean federal employees could watch porn and masturbate on the job. Now, I don't have anything against porn and masturbation, but how is that relevant to a math and science education bill? So I stated this fact in a single sentence in the article and worded it neutrally as possible that such a stupid, manipulative, and disingenuous political move could be. Oh, and I gave a reference to back up the fact.

After a dozen attempts to out right prevent the fact from being displayed, one of the censors, Uncle Dick, actually tried to reword the fact to make it appear that Ralph Hall was opposing letting federal workers spend their workdays viewing porn. That's right, Uncle Dick who claims he "never even heard of Ralph Hall" and just wanted the article to be neutral actually wrote something that deliberately lead the reader to believe the exact opposite of the what Ralph Hall did.

The actual text Uncle Bill put in was "In May 2010, Hall introduced a motion to recommit H.R. 5116, the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, due to Republican opposition. The motion passed by a vote of 292 to 126. Hall's motion included language to bar Federal employees disciplined for viewing pornography from receiving their salaries." In actuality, Hall's motion included language to PREVENT Federal employees from losing their jobs/salaries for spending the entire workday watching porn. And yes, there was one federal employee that did spend the entire 8-hour workday downloading porn.

So, to answer your question, anything that Ralph Hall and his supporters don't want the public to know will be removed from this article. To be fair, all other politicians are probably doing the same scummy thing, but that's not excuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.46.113.209 (talk) 23:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

There is extensive sourcing on this
The most published accounts across Texas about this election are Hall's Abramoff ties and his smearing an underage sex-slave worker in the Congressional Record being raised as an issue.

Excerpts: In November of 1997, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) publicly questioned the credibility of a teenage girl's claims that she'd been the victim of the sex trade in the Northern Mariana Islands. The statement, which Rep. Hall entered into the Congressional Record, was prepared by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist for the islands.

Hall's challenger in Texas' 4th District, history professor Glenn Melancon, has made the episode a campaign issue. "When investigators discovered child prostitution and forced abortions on the Mariana Islands, Congressman Ralph Hall was paid for covering it up and publicly attacking one of the raped children," read postcards his campaign distributed to voters.

Hall has called the charge an "outright lie." His office did not respond to our request for comment on this story. But records show that Abramoff's staff contacted Hall's office fifteen times in the two months leading up to his statement in the Congressional Record.

Hall has claimed he never met Abramoff, and "wouldn't recognize him if he saw him." But members of Abramoff's lobbying team contacted Hall's office fifteen times over the course of September and October in 1997, working closely with his office to counter efforts by House Resources Ranking Member Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to strengthen federal oversight of the islands' labor practices.

An Oct. 17, 1997 entry in the records shows that Lloyd Meeds, a member of Abramoff's lobbying team, discussed inserting the language about Katrina with Grace Warren, a staffer in Hall's office. "Telephone conference with G. Warren (Hall) regarding Katrina insert," reads the entry. Hall inserted the statement about Katrina into the Congressional Record a few weeks later. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001591.php

I am willing to let someone else make the entries into the article.

-- I see now someone already has placed some of this above the 2006 campaign in the time line.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/hall-remarks/

Elemming 22:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm a big fan of talkingpointsmemo.com, but it's generally unacceptable to quote a blog. (TPMMuckracker.com, which is research, is different.)  In this case, I happen to think that Josh has  spun this a bit too hard. In any case, the wikipedia article links to the exact documents involved (Congressional Record) - you can decide for yourself.  And I don't agree that this is a campaign issue - it's something that should remain in the article after the November election; what Melacon has done with this (gross exaggeration, in my opinion) isn't particularly relevant to the average reader.   John Broughton | Talk 00:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)




 * The 2006 campaign is over, so the section about that campaign was moved and re-titled.


 * As stated above the material about the CNMI controversy is well documented. I am sure that there was good intention when the meaterial was removed. Since the CNMI material is well documented, its removal brings neutrality into question.

F3meyer 07:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

clean up
I have cleaned up the section of the Northern Mariana Islands. The intro to  the section had this:

"The Northern Mariana Islands are a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific with a large garment industry."

This was misleading. The Mariana Islands consist of Guam and the Northern Marianas. Also the article had the name of the islands as the Northern Marianas Islands. This is very incorrect, as a simple Google search can show.

Just because bloggers and the media get it wrong doesn't mean we should too. - Thanks, Hoshie 03:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Censorship of the Ralph Hall page
In May of 2010, Ralph Hall added a provision that would bar the federal government from paying the salaries of employees who've been disciplined for viewing pornography at work to a bill that had nothing to do with pornography. The bill was written to fund math and science education for children. The obvious intent and effect of this provision was to cause 121 representatives who openly stated that they would vote for the bill to vote against it. In effect, Ralph Hall forced representatives to either vote against childhood education or vote for letting all federal employees view pornography at work shortly after the press reviewed that a federal employee charged with regulating the recently collapsed financial industry was viewing porn for eight hours a day at work.

By any standard, Ralph Hall's actions were underhanded. The provision had nothing to do with the bill being voted on. The sole intent was to kill the education bill, as the only alternative would be that Ralph Hall actually believes federal employees should be allowed to spend their entire work days watching porn (something that no one, including Ralph Hall claims). Furthermore, Ralph Hall even voted against the bill containing his provision.

Normally, such unethical actions are not much news. Politicians regardless of party are typically corrupt and self-serving. However, when I reported this tiny, indisputable fact on Wikipedia, I came across a far more disturbing story. Ralph Hall and his staff have suppressed this knowledge from being shown to Wikipedia readers. They have, for all purposes, taken control of this Wiki page and compromised any standard of neutrality. By selectively controlling which facts appear on his page, Ralph Hall has turned an encyclopedia into a campaign ad.

Our story starts when I added one line to the Wiki page. The line read, "Hall undermined an effort to educate American students about math and science by mixing pornography legislation into an education bill." The word "undermined" was a link to http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/gop-kills-science-jobs-bill-by-forcing-dems-to-vote-for-porn.php.

I added a single, simple sentence to the Wiki page. The sentence was backed up by a reference. The sentence stated an indisputable fact, granted a fact that makes Ralph Hall look bad, but a fact is a fact. Some facts, like the killing of Jews by Nazis or the killing of political opponents by Stalin, cannot be stated without making some person or group look bad. That does not mean the facts should be erased from history. If a politician, company, or organization gets caught doing something bad, it is the neutral point of view to censor that fact. In fact doing so is clear indication of not only bias, but active misrepresentation of history. Had Wikipedia been around in 1935, all references to concentration camps would be removed as NPOV.

Individuals, companies, and government agencies from around the world typically employ people for the purpose of maintaining control of Wikipedia pages. The underhanded tactic works like this. First, an agency creates dozens of accounts. It uses these accounts to fight actual vandalism, including vandalism the agency has put in Wiki pages solely to remove it with one of their accounts. This builds up the reputation of the accounts. Then the agency uses those accounts, which are not known to be connected to each other outside the agency, to take control of Wiki pages and monitors them 24/7. It is a very effect technique of controlling Wikipedia and converting the encyclopedia into a propaganda machine.

The Ralph Hall page is one of the pages that have been taken over in this matter. Immediately after I added that one sentence to the page, it was reverted. I re-added the sentence a few minutes later with the explication that "Stating a fact regarding a politician changing a legal bill is NOT vandalism. Removing this fact to hide it from the public IS vandalism and censorship."

In accordance with the strategy, the sentence was removed again in a matter of seconds. The agency was now alerted to the danger of this fact being revealed. Of course, they use a different account so to make it appear that multiple people are opposing an edit. This a means of enforcing censorship through a false perception that the majority do not accept a fact.

To further cover up the censorship, they claimed that the fact was not backed up by a reference even though it was. When I disputed that, they claimed "this information needs to be better sourced" with no further explanation of what that would be. Typically, Wiki pages have fewer than one reference for every couple of sentences. This would mean that having a reference for a single sentence would be considerably above average. Nevertheless, I added ten more sources to back up the sentence and sarcastically replied, "Oh I see, you are saying I didn't have ENOUGH reference. OK, here's 10 more. I can add another 100 if you'd like. There: 11 references for one sentence."

The sources came from the top 10 Google search hits on the subject: http:// veracitystew.com/2010/05/16/mulligan-stew-ralph-hall-r-tx-kills-science-jobs-bill http:// dcskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/rep-ralph-hall-r-tx-hates-science/ http:// forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1949261 http:// www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2514348/posts http:// www.indecisionforever.com/2010/05/14/greatest-american-hero-of-the-day-rep-ralph-hall-kills-big-science-with-nothing-more-than-a-little-porn/ http:// www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/How-Porn-Killed-the-Democratic-Jobs-Bill-3606/ http:// scienceblogs.com/tfk/2010/05/gop_to_nation_watch_us_f-ck_up.php http:// www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000003664064 http:// thinkprogress.org/2010/05/14/sex-amendment-jobs/ Think Progress] http:// www.newsday.com/business/house-dems-accuse-gop-of-anti-porn-amendment-ploy-1.1910969

Well, with 11 references to back up a single sentence, they couldn't hide behind "not enough citations." So they switched tactics to "improper placement". One would think that if a sentence were placed in the wrong part of an article, the proper edit would be to move the sentence, not remove it. Of course, that would assume that "improper placement" wasn't a euphemism for "we can't dispute this fact, but we're still not letting it in."

So I re-added the sentence is a different place. You'd think they would be out of objections by now, but a censor never is because it's not about the presentation of the fact, it's about letting the fact get out at all.

Their next attempt was to delete the fact via "bait-n-switch" or as they called it "neutral language". Remember, the original sentence was, "Hall undermined an effort to educate American students about math and science by mixing pornography legislation into an education bill." Sounds like a newspaper headline, right?

This is their "neutral" rewording, "The motion passed by a vote of 292 to 126. Hall's motion included language to bar Federal employees disciplined for viewing pornography from receiving their salaries." It even included a link to a GOP webpage with Ralph Hall's picture! A completely neutral citation if I ever saw one!

Of course, gone were all of the citations I made. Evidently the top ten Google News hits on the subject aren't as neutral as a web page with Ralph Hall's mugshot on the banner.

But let's get back to the wording. "The motion passed by a vote of 292 to 126. Hall's motion included language to bar Federal employees disciplined for viewing pornography from receiving their salaries." Geeze, this sounds like Ralph Hall was trying to bar Federal employees for viewing pornography from receiving their salaries. But wait, it says "including language to". What does that mean?

No one would have voted against the bill if it actually meant firing federal employees who spent their day surfing porn sites instead of doing work. The whole point of Ralph Hall's amendment was that those employees could NOT be fired nor have their wages severed for doing this. So not only did Ralph Hall's staff removed any reference to science and mathematic education funding, but they also made it sound like Ralph Hall's provision did the exact opposite of what it actually did. In true Orwellian fashion, this double-speak is not technically a lie. The language did involve barring such activities, just in the opposite matter of how they lead the reader to believe. Such a skillful and deliberate misrepresentation of a fact could only we woven by the mouth of a politician.

Of course, I pointed this out when I re-added the fact using a different wording. In fact, I kept their "neutral" wording in without any changes, a courtesy no censor gives to another. Instead of reverting their edits, I merely added, "Many experts and news agencies believe that, by introducing an irrelevant amendment regarding federal employees viewing pornography on the job to a bill concerning the funding of math and science education for children, Hall was attempting to block funding for education by forcing Democrats to vote for pornography if they voted for educating children."

It was still just one sentence, although a longer and more complex one. I added back seven of the references I had originally included since I didn't want to be reverted due to "lack of citations" again. Notice that my new sentence clarified what they had misrepresented.

Shiver me timbers! Not even that was allowed in! This edit reverted with no explanation -- I guess they couldn't claim vandalism anymore given the page's history and all the reasons I gave to support my edits. Even worse, another crony then locks out my IP to prevent further edits. Shortly later, yet another crony locks the page itself so that no one can edit it. I guess if the censors run out of lies to tell about why they are removing content, they just shut everything down and hope for the best.

In my IP's talk page I wrote: By the way, I'm not a democrat or republican, conservative or liberal. But such a blatant ploy of mixing porn support into legislation to keep kids from learning math and science is something the public must be aware of. Our national interest lies in improving the education of our children, particularly in math, science, and engineering. Those are the jobs and technology necessary for our economic and national security interests in the 21st century. Already, the US is dead last among industrial countries in these subjects. To hide any attempts to undermine US education in these fields is despicable, regardless of your politics.

I firmly believe this. I also believe that no politician should be allowed to have tyrannical control of Wikipedia articles about them. Politicians are public officials. What they do in public office as part of their public responsibilities, passing or blocking legislation that affects the lives and well-being of the public, is a matter of public interest and public record.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia is entirely controlled by special interests. I am sure that Ralph Hall is not the only unethical politician who is covertly controlling a Wiki page, but his page is a perfect example of how this coercion works, how persistent such agencies are, and how futile it is for any individual with a conscious to fight back for truth in history.

During this time, not a single Wikipedia guardian step up to say, "wait, this is a valid fact; we can argue about how it should be presented, but not whether is can be presented". No, such guardians, if they exist, are outnumbered greatly by paid censors and truth twisters working around the clock. The censors are well funded and organized. As time progresses, they become more experience and knowledgeable about what works and what doesn’t. Unless these purveyors of lies are exposed and removed, no article in Wikipedia can be trusted.

It is far worse to receive misinformation than to have no information at all. Selectively filtered facts and misleading double-speak is the worse kind of misinformation possible. As I post this message on a Wikipedia discussion page, I know that it will be removed (repeatedly), but copies of it may appear elsewhere on the Internet to warn us of the dangers of web sites that rewrite history to suit special interests. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.46.113.209 (talk) 13:35, 20 May 2010
 * The main problem with your theory is the lack of evidence to link Ralph Hall or any of his associates to edits on Wikipedia. Most politicians are so out of touch that they lack the basic knowledge and skills to edit Wikipedia. For my part, I had never even heard of Ralph Hall until you started violating WP:NPOV on this article. Uncle Dick (talk) 21:21, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

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