Chilling new actions by House liberals.

[elecpencil]

Chilling? I find torturing in my name chilling. I find training death squads for Third World dictators at Fort Benning Georgia chilling. I find hiding scientific evidence on environmental issues because it would be bad for corporations chilling. Corporations stealing pensions and health care from employees is chilling. Lying to get us into a war is chilling. Having the Supreme Court stop the counting of votes in an election is chilling. The same court then stating that the ruling in that case can not be used in any other case is chilling.

Having right-wing radio talk show hosts saying they hope the president fails is chilling. Hearing people say they hope the president is assassinated is chilling. I find people who want a president like Regan who helped kill over 100,000 people (including nuns, priests and union organizers) in Latin America chilling.

I guess we all have different degrees of chilling.

[irishbobcat]

I post information, you post right wing drivel.....

[sfc_oliver]

Yes Dennis hundreds of thousands of Americas best are out there today giving up their basic rights and freedoms so that you are free to post your drivel on these boards.

[irishbobcat]

The military censors??   Say it ain;t so, G.I. Joe.......

[sfc_oliver]

When on active Duty it is true , you could not speak against the government. You gave up many of the rights of a private citizen, The Military life is rather unique in the USA, you forgo your freedoms for all others to have theirs. But I am retired now, I have my freedom back.

While we agree that most of what Congress sends out is pure junk, I believe I read somewhere that the USPS did receive a gratuity from the Federal Government.

But it is still Newspeak.

[Towntalk]

Sarge, let me ask you a question. When you were in uniform, what would have happened if you spoke out against your commanding officer, the Secretary of Defense or the President?

Was that not censorship?

As for Franking privelages if I could work my will, 99.9% of the stuff that our Congressmen and Senators send out is nothing more nor less than junk mail.

In the age of the Internet most of the material can be posted on the Congressmen or Senators FREE OF FRANKING RULES and would save the taxpayers thousands of dollars annually.

Given the sorry financial state of the Post Office, they are forced to handle thousands of pieces of Franking mail POSTAGE FREE. That's DEAD WRONG by any standard or measure.

[sfc_oliver]

To prohibit the word Democrat and the phrase Government run healthcare, is nothing more than a bad attempt to hide from the people what many of us believe to be the case. That the Democrats in Congress want the Government to take over healthcare for everyone. No doubt that is what our own Dennis wants.

Sorry but it is censorship. Franking has nothing to do with speech, at least not the way I see it. But I'm just an old dumb Sergeant. What do I know?

[Towntalk]

Not being a Congressman I don't expect you to know THE RULES OF THE HOUSE that every Congressman MUST live by.

I suggest that you take the time to review that Manual on Franking.

Regulations on the Use of the Congressional Frank
By Members of the House of Representatives

http://cha.house.gov/PDFs/franking/franking2.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions

http://cha.house.gov/franking_faq.aspx

[irishbobcat]

Danny Boy......

You mean to tell me you would not allow one of your congressional aides to disagree with you in public?  You would censor them? or fire them?

That is Free Speech in your book?

Man, you are a right wing whacko.........your 15 seconds of fame are almost up...

As a board member, I had a school employee disagree at a public meeting with the way we were going to build a new playground. We let the person speak.
We did not censor them.. We did not fire them.

Maybe you need to return your high school diploma.....you must have failed government and civics class....ha ha ha.

[Dan Moadus]

You people got to be kidding me! "Towntalk" sees nothing wrong with a Congressman being prohibited from referring to the House majority as 'Democrats".  Just where did you read that anyone can tell a Congressman what he can or can not say?

And Dennis. Your point was completely irrelevant. The "government scientists" you refer to are employees of the Government, and any Administration has the right to decide which scientist is permitted to speak publicly and on which issues. If you think there is any similarity between a Government Scientist and a democratically elected representative of the people, you should hop on down to the School Board and turn in your teaching certificate. 

[irishbobcat]

Seems President Bush was good at CENSORSHIP TOO................

Did White House Censor Science?
Democrats and Republicans Spar Over Allegations on Global Warming
By CLAYTON SANDELL
Dec. 10, 2007 
128 comments Font Size   PrintRSSE-mailShare this story with friendsFacebookRedditTwitterStumbleUponMore
House Democrats and Republicans traded rhetoric Monday over a new report claiming White House officials sought to suppress scientific views of global warming that clashed with Bush administration policies.

The report -- originally undertaken as a bipartisan effort -- leads to what the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee calls an "inescapable" conclusion that "the Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

The report is the result of a 16-month investigation by the committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Republicans on the committee quickly dismissed the report as a "political attack" and issued their own findings that question the Democrats' conclusions and investigative methods. The White House called the allegations untrue.

One of the issues addressed in the report released by the Democratic majority is whether the White House Council on Environmental Quality, or CEQ, required approval of all media requests to interview government climate scientists.


The report states that "by controlling which government scientists could respond to media inquiries, the White House and agency political appointees suppressed dissemination of scientific views that could conflict with administration policies."

The report repeatedly cites the testimony of Kent Laborde, a career public affairs officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Laborde told the committee that the White House CEQ insisted on approving all news media requests to interview NOAA climate scientists -- a practice Laborde said has only recently ended.

"According to Mr. Laborde," the report said, "climate change was considered a high-profile issue, and anything that was very high profile, anything that related to policy, anything that particularly related to a current policy debate or policy deliberation' had to be routed through CEQ for approval."

What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.....read and weep conservatives....the shoe is now on the other foot......ha ha ha

[Towntalk]

Censorship?

How then do you account for the fact that I had absolutely no problem finding the chart in question?

Again, remember that the chart was not the issue, but a word "Democrats". The committee said to use "majority", and as I said, everyone knows that MAJORITY = DEMOCRATS so where's the issue?

There was no attempt to prevent the Congressman from posting the newsletter on his web site using the terms that the committee objected to.

The second issue was the titling of the chart ... The controversy extends beyond the colorful chart. Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for House Administration Committee Republicans, said the Franking Commission told GOP lawmakers they could not refer to "government-run health care" in their mailings, and had to dub it "the public option" instead.

[sfc_oliver]

This is nothing more than total censorship inside our congress. I believe this to be a complete violation of the 1st Amendment. They are pushing more "Newspeak" at us as fast as they can.

[Towntalk]

Lets put this in perspective:

1.   For days Republican members in Special Orders used the chart in question with no interference from the Democrats.

2.   The chart in question is readily available on this board because I personally linked to it.

3.   The Democrats told the Congressman: "You must use, 'The House majority unveiled a public option health care plan, ... "... and everyone with a lick of sense knows that the Democrats are the majority so it is a matter of semantics and not censorship. Had the Congressman made the change, the whole thing would have been a non-issue.

Here again is the chart in question for those who haven't seen it:

http://www.rollcall.com/pdfs/healthchart072309.pdf

As you can see from the link it came from Roll Call a daily Washington publication reporting on Congress.

[Dan Moadus]

A Conservative House member has had his speech censored by the House Liberals for using the term "Government run health care" instead of the term "public option" He was also censored when he tried to use the term "House Democrats" instead of the approved term, "House Majority".

This seemingly small act is very chilling. Read about it here: http://themoderatevoice.com/40549/the-franking-commission-digs-own-grave/