Inside look at behind the scenes

Following is a slightly redacted e-mail sent from a TFP reporter to candidates in a certain congressional district race.
I'm leaving out the reporter's name and anything else that serve to identify individuals.

Gang,

As you can see from this e-mail list, there’s quite a few of you running for the (redacted) Congressional District of Tennessee. My name is Red Acted and I’m going to be doing my best to cover each of you fairly in the run up to the election. (Yes I know it’s a bit late to send this, but I’m new here. Doing the best I can.) A couple of housekeeping notes.

1. Please give me a good number to reach you the night of the election. By this number, please include your name, age and party affiliation. I know that’s redundant, but with so many of you in the race it will make it easier for me to keep track of things.
2. A number of you have come in for editorial board meetings over the past few weeks and more than one has said they would release their IRS forms (I’m thinking specifically of Mr. X and Mrs. Y, but I wanted to expand this opportunity.) Any candidte that wishes to provide their most recent tax returns may e-mail them to me here or fax them to 423-668-5039.
   

Good luck to all of you and I look forward to working with you.

Of the candidates who told me about this, some wondered if the person was really a reporter, considering the poor writing style and spelling. I assured them that, yes, that is par for the course at the TFP.
Some also questioned the reporter's wanting to see their Infernal Revenue returns; so do I.
There is not, to my knowledge, any legal requirement for such a declaration. If there is, there shouldn't be; and if there is, it would be unwise, I think, to send it to a stranger.

Good point foolishly attributed

After some e-mail communication about the horrors of "The Rant," those frequently incredibly stupid and often just nasty anonymous short pieces, apparently the editors of the Sunday TFP are exercising a little more care.
But not much.
For example: "Thomas Jefferson said, 'Seventy percent of the people want free enterprise, 30 percent don't. So why is the 30 percent in charge?' Sound like today?"
It is a very good point ... but it is NOT something Thomas Jefferson ever said.
Any knowledgeable newspaper editor -- of which apparently there isn't one in the Tri-State area -- should know the term "free enterprise" was not in use then.
And that mythical editor should know that, at the time of Mr. Jefferson, mostly it was the free-enterprisers who were in charge.
OK, by no means one of the worst errors in this error-filled section of this error-filled publication, but another example of carelessness that calls into question every word in it.

Phooey on the people, raise them taxes!

Perhaps it would be like Adolf Hitler's declaring the Sabbath to be a holy day for the Chattanooga Times editorial page to support a rational economic policy (after all, it considers Paul Krugman to be an economist), but its editorial of Sunday, 27 June, is certainly one of its most fascistic and cynical.
In a time of high unemployment, high foreclosure rates, and general consumer worries, its editorial, "Fiscal reality begs tax hike," surely hits a new low even for these economic illiterates.
Chattanooga's mayor, Ron Littlefield, called for an outrageous tax hike, so outrageous that a recall was promptly initiated.
Even the members of the silly council objected ... but only to the outrageous amount, not to the horrible premise.
Still, the big government addicts who write the "down with the people" and "down with freedom" and "up with more government" editorials couldn't or wouldn't see the evil.
The Times will support big government under probably any circumstance.
And what is worse, calling the insanity "fiscal reality" really adds insult to the injury.