Posted on 04/18/2014 8:28:11 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Every year since 1983, Hustler founder Larry Flynt has sent 535 copies of his monthly magazine to Capitol Hill – one edition for each member of Congress.
Only members of the executive branch are exempt from Flynt’s routine mailing list.
The magazine and its array of naked women, vulgar comics and articles ranging on topics from politics to sex, arrives in the mail in a plain manila envelope.
It didn’t take long for Congress members to complain about receiving the adult magazine: they first complained about the mailings in 1984, prompting the U.S. Postal Service to ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the mailings.
Two years after the complaint, however, the court ruled that they could not order that the mailing be stopped.
In its decision, the court wrote, “Receiving Hustler once each month would not unduly burden a Member of Congress. Members are not forced to read the magazine or other of the mail they receive in volume.”
“We cannot imagine that Congressional offices all lack wastebaskets,” the court continued.
Flynt saw the printing and sending of the magazine as within his First Amendment rights; the court agreed.
“Moses freed the Jews, Lincoln freed the slaves, and I just wanted to free all the neurotics,” Flynt told The Hill in 2011.
The magazine’s monthly arrival in Congressional offices has been received with just about all imaginable reactions. Some, such as Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, have been outraged.
“It’s insulting behavior on the part of the publisher, but not surprising,” Matheson said in 2006.
Others have reacted more lightheartedly. One staffer remembers telling interns to save every copy of Hustler the office received.
“We eventually gave a coworker the whole year’s supply for Secret Santa and then she would mail them to her boyfriend in Iraq. Certainly one of the least-heralded ways the office supported our troops,” the anonymous staffer explained.
“I ‘forget’ to mention it to interns and wait to watch the look of horror on their face when they open it in a congressional office,” said another worker, who also remained anonymous.
Most of the time, however, the magazine simply ends up in the trash, a fact that comes as no surprise to the people behind Hustler.
As Arthur Sando, a Hustler spokesman, said, “We assume, at this point, that staff members are either reading it or tossing it.”
But enough about Congress.
(ba doom shish!)
Return To Sender - POSTAGE DUE
At least we know where they get their inspiration from.
In the private sector, this is sexual harassment.
I thought she was monogamous with Huma?
The Hill has heard you send a copy of Hustler to every lawmaker’s office each month. Why?
It really started out as a joke about 30 years ago. I decided I was going to send all members of Congress and the Supreme Court and the executive branch a complimentary subscription to Hustler, just so they could keep up on current events. That’s sort of a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. What came out of it was something phenomenal that we had never really dreamed of. You could cancel your subscriptions. Here they get over 400 and some subscriptions, and only about 20 percent of the [recipients] canceled their subscriptions. And so we thought that was hilarious. We got a big majority of both houses.
What made you first start sending the magazine to Capitol Hill?
Moses freed the Jews, Lincoln freed the slaves, and I just wanted to free all the neurotics. I’ve always said that my attitude from the beginning is if we made a little bit more of an effort to understand the medium we communicate with more than anything else, which is sex, then everybody would get along a lot better. We’ve always pushed that attitude, but you’ve got a lot of uptight rednecks in Congress, and they push back.
You’ve been affiliated with both parties at certain points in your life. Do you have any thoughts on this new Republican-led Congress?
You know, it’s depressing, I don’t even like to think about it … What the average American doesn’t realize is Congress doesn’t make the laws anymore. Who makes them is the Supreme Court. Congress has shrugged their legislative responsibility and left it up to the courts to do the legislating. And that’s dividing our country; the rich keep getting richer and the poor just get poorer; there’s nothing more true than that is today. And I don’t want to sound cold and bitter when I say that Republicans are mean, but they just are. They are downright mean, and it’s all about them. And I think we’re obligated to help take care of the less fortunate among us.
http://thehill.com/capital-living/20-questions/150331-20-questions-with-larry-flynt#ixzz2zFjCbYRt
Hustler has it wrong though....send some gay porno of young teenage boys and that would be more in tune with Washington...
I remember years ago when Larry Flint supposedly went Christian. He tried to get on Christian talk shows, but everyone was suspicious, and did not want him as a guest, as he still published his magazine.
Sue enough, it was all faked. When he was shot, he then reverted back to his real vile self.
“We eventually gave a coworker the whole year’s supply for Secret Santa and then she would mail them to her boyfriend in Iraq. Certainly one of the least-heralded ways the office supported our troops,” the anonymous staffer explained.
As I recall going through customs this material is “Illegal” in Iraq and other moslem countries even if you are with the United States Armed Forces.
The rule of thumb was if it was sold at the deployed AAFES BX/PX we could bring it.
ahaha KUDOS!!!
It seems like every 5 years or so, they bring back this story.
Norm’s Larry Flynt story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKvNigYCd1c
:: You know, it’s depressing, I don’t even like to think about it … What the average American doesn’t realize is Congress doesn’t make the laws anymore. Who makes them is the Supreme Court. Congress has shrugged their legislative responsibility and left it up to the courts to do the legislating. ::
Larry Flynt’s “broken clock” moment?
What no Cuban Cigars?
Every staffer in congress who is shown a copy of the magazine has a legitimate sex harrassment suit.
“We have to read it, to know what’s in it”
The more time they spend in their office washrooms with the door locked, the less time they have to legislate.
She got her copies. She was a senator wasn’t she?
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