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Posted on 07/28/2009 8:15:06 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
Democrat censorship of House Republicans’ constituent mailings has reached Orwellian levels. Republican members of the House Monday night took to the House floor during Special Orders speeches and gave examples of some of the censorship horror stories.
Democrats on the Franking Commission have even gone as far as to object to and censor from one member’s communication to constituents a direct quote, in context, from President Obama.
Franking is the process by which Congress, the President and some cabinet members correspond with the public using their signature on the envelope instead of a stamp. The mailings to constituents are limited by budget allotment, and the cost is borne by taxpayer dollars. The commission approves the content of materials to prevent abuse of the privilege. But now it is the commission abusing the process.
The Special Orders hour was led by Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), secretary of the House Republican Conference and a former District Judge. He told the story of the demands of the commission that he remove the words “government run healthcare” and “Democratic majority” from a constituent invitation to a telephone town hall meeting.
“I communicate with my constituents every day,” Carter said from the floor. “One of the tools I use is a telephone town hall meeting. You record a message that leads into the town hall. Part of the message tells the people what you’re going to be talking to them about for the next hour.”
“We made up a telephone town hall recording submission to the Franking Commission in which I proposed to say ‘the Democratic Party is offering their government run healthcare program in the next two weeks and this is what we’re going to talk about tonight,’” Carter continued.
“The Franking Commission came back and told me I could not say ‘government run healthcare’ and I could not say the ‘Democratic Party.’ I had to say ‘the majority party is submitting its public option healthcare program.’ In other words what they’re telling me is that I have to use the same language that the President of the United States uses in his speech or that [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi uses when she talks about this. ‘Public option.’”
“They have never before in the history of the Republic taken the position that you do not have the right to express your opinion on the policies that are being proposed, or that you must reword the language to suit the policies of someone else,” Carter said.
But there are more examples of the Democrats abuse of the franking approval system. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) is having his chart (pdf) Republican staff created in the Joint Economic Committee illustrating the structure of Democrat, government run healthcare censored out of some 20 member mailings. But it does not stop there.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) sends a regular newsletter to his constituents. When he attempted to mail a newsletter to his district covering the issue of healthcare, he was forced to remove the following offensive language before Democrats on the commission would approve payment of postage for the mailing:
“The below quote is from President Obama at a recent town hall on health care, responding to a question on possible medical treatment for an elderly woman who had heart problems and received a pacemaker:I can honestly say I found the President’s quote offensive, as well. But Democrats censored this direct quote in context of the President of the United States of America from an official communication between a member of Congress and his constituents.
‘Look, the first thing for all of us to understand that is we actually have some -- some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care… we as a culture and as a society [can start] to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves...at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.’
“The bill imposes a new payroll tax on employers who do not provide their employees with insurance.”Democrats demanded they change it to read:
“In my opinion, the bill imposes a new payroll tax on employers who do not provide their employees with insurance.”The problem with that instruction is that the bill’s imposition of a new payroll tax is not an opinion. It’s a fact. The “Florida Colleague’s” office pointed out the fact, as stated in black and white on page 150 of their own bill. The commission relented -- but only after delaying the valid communication between this member and constituents for several days.
“If they take away free speech from members of Congress, when will they take it away from the press?” Carter asked from the House floor. “When will they take it away from the people?”
Dear Congress,
Welcome to the “Free Speech is not Free” club.
Next- your government phones and email will be monitored to limit those annoying distracting dissenting comunications that impede passage of the Presidents “priorities”
signed,
We the People
Every last Dem that voted for this little Hitler needs to be sent to the Unemployment line in November 2010. They condone her behavior by continuing to keep her as speaker and vote for the first Obama agenda that was rammed through without reading.
Now some Blue Dogs are fighting for their political lives and she allows them to vote NO on issues that she knows can pass. There are only a few Blue Dogs standing up against Waxman — where are the rest?
Ralph Hall, R-TX, a former Democrat, has stated you cannot trust the Blue Dogs and when you look at their economic votes, the vast majority vote with the liberals.
Can there be any doubt the statists will do what it takes to shut down talk radio and pesky criticism on the internet?
Translation: Maybe it's better that you give up and die, save a whole lot of taxpayer money that I can spread around for my own self interests.
You know I'm right because his underlings support euthanasia and eugenics.
BTTT
The Democrat party is a criminal totalitarian organization. It is no different from the Communist party and the only difference between it and the Nazi party is that its ideology is based on something other than “aryan supremacy” (which is somehow the only bad thing in the world, and if it is avoided nothing is wrong).
A Civil War is coming.....
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” George Orwell – Animal Farm 1945.
Seems that history is repeating itself. Pelosi’s Stalinist tactics makes me want to puke.
“The Franking Commission came back and told me I could not say ‘government run healthcare’. Aint freedom grand.
Democrats on the Franking Commission have even gone as far as to object to and censor from one member's communication to constituents a direct quote, in context, from President Obama.
And all the Republicans do about it is a bit of crying and thumb-sucking.
Has even one of them spent some of their own money to send out important information to their constituents?
I saw this last night on C-Span, approx. 8pm Eastern time.
Disturbing to say the least.
Carter and King(Iowa)spoke very well about the censorship.
The least any Freeper can do is distribute Kevin Brady’s flowchart far and wide.
The franking rules clearly state that you can't include lies or misleading statements in franked mail. ;-)
...”abusing the process.” EEEEEyea, let’s start with this and debate how the constitution and the nation and it’s law abiding citizens is being abused. Soon will come the time that we’re not so abiding to the rules...
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