posted January 02, 2007 01:32 PM            

Now comes the democrats to attempt to limit ordinary citizens and citizen groups from giving suggestions to their elected representatives. To accomplish that task, they intend to make it burdensome, cumbersome and involve the Internal Revenue Service as part of their assault on the 1st Amendment rights of citizens.

Imagine that, all this time you thought democrats were the champions of free speech; isn't that what they shout from the rooftops?

Well, I've told you often enough that the stock in trade of leftist democrats is the "big lie".

They don't want to hear from "you" but intend to limit those who can speak to those who are big campaign contributors...like Corporations, Trade Unions, even foreigners and foreign governments.

Pelosi Set to Attack Conservatives
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007

Leading Capitol Hill watchdogs are sounding alarms by plans of the soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her majority of House Democrats to ram through a new law that would seriously undermine free speech – and put restrictions on conservative groups and others who encourage ordinary citizens to directly deal with Congress.

Pelosi has already stated she is planning to push through major legislation during the first 100 session hours after the Democrats take control of Congress this week.

At the top of the list is seemingly good legislation intended to curb the power of lobbyists. But the Pelosi law goes far beyond bridling Washington influence peddlers. Under her proposed legislation, Pelosi will seek to control and limit any organization in America from encouraging citizens to communicate and influence Congress.

Unlike the other Pelosi New Year's resolutions (committing to no new deficit spending, fully enacting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, raising the minimum wage, letting the feds bargain on prices for Medicare drugs, ramping-up stem cell research, cutting interest rates on college loans, cutting subsidies to oil companies, or protecting the status quo with Social Security), this one has the hackles up and bristling early on.

Richard A. Viguerie, the famous conservative direct-mail guru and author of the recent "Conservatives Betrayed: How the Republican Party Hijacked the Conservative Cause," has sounded a clarion call about the Pelosi lobbying initiative.

"The . . . plan is perhaps the most comprehensive regulation of political speech ever proposed, and would make small grassroots causes report quarterly to Congress -- the same as K Street lobbyists representing wealthy interests before Congress,' Viguerie says.

"Communications to as few as 500 citizens would trigger reporting under lobbying laws," he warns.

"The reporting requirements and more severe penalties being written in response to recent congressional corruption scandals would apply to those who have no Washington lobbyists, who make no political contributions, and who do not provide gifts, travel or anything of value to politicians," Viguerie continues.

Viguerie, who has cranked up GrassrootsFreedom.com to counter the bill, argues that in his opinion the thinly disguised intent of the enactment is to cripple the conservative movement, for which the grassroots are often the best and sometimes the only means of affecting public policy.

Just as Pelosi plans four days of celebration around her Jan. 4 swearing-in as the first female speaker of the House, concerned conservatives like Viguerie look to ramp up their own visibility on what they perceive as nothing less than a frontal assault on the First Amendment right to free speech.

When the celebrating Pelosi is attending a tea in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium for some 400 female politicians, supporters and activists, or listening to Tony Bennett's serenade of "I left My Heart in San Francisco," opponents of the Pelosi plan hope to be flooding Congress with petitions, emails and phone calls; inspiring OpEds, and calling into talk radio shows about what they see as dangerous flaws in the bill.

Already down the blitz pike is a letter to Public Citizen opposing the legislation. It is signed by 47 conservative and other leaders – including Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation and coiner of "moral majority;" Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Don Wildmon of American Family Association.

Public Citizen, a liberal government watchdog, has touted that it has helped Pelosi draft the legislation and wants lawmakers to adopt the Internal Revenue Service's definition of "lobbying," which includes communication that encourages the general public to contact a member of Congress on pending legislation or public policy.

Some controversial features of the bill:

It makes changes to the legal definition of "grassroots lobbying" and requires any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.

Such report (above) would require, among other things, the detailing of the organization's expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are targeted. A separate report must address each policy issue the group is advocating.

Causing additional heartburn among the critics is a broad exemption they say is wholly unfair and unbalanced. Significantly, the reporting requirement spelled out above would not apply to messages targeted at an organization's members, employees, officers or shareholders. In effect, this would let most corporations, trade associations and unions off the reporting hook.

William J. Olson, the co-counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, summarized his impression of how the unfairness would operate:

"The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures," Olson opined.

"On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech," Olson concluded.

Not all the Pelosi changes are as nettlesome as the new reporting requirements. In most quarters other initiatives to bridle lobbying are more welcomed -- including:

A ban on House members and their staff from using corporate jets for travel taken as part of their official duties.

A ban on House members and their aides from taking anything of value from lobbyists -- including meals, tickets and entertainment. The prohibition would extend to gifts from nongovernmental groups that hire lobbyists.

Extending the current prohibition against lobbying on former members of Congress and senior staff executive staff from one year to two.

Ending the practice of adding narrow spending provision to bills after House-Senate negotiators have completed their work.

Broadening a rule change mandating lawmakers to disclose the sponsors of "earmarked" spending and tax measures before the bills become law.

Meanwhile, at noon on Jan. 4, 2007, the House will formally elect Pelosi speaker. Afterwards, the rounds of celebrations continue. In the evening, the invited partygoers will congratulate Pelosi – this time as she enjoys the crooning of Jimmy Buffett.

posted January 02, 2007 01:53 PM            

quote:

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It makes changes to the legal definition of "grassroots lobbying" and requires any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.

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posted January 02, 2007 02:12 PM            

Are you against the 1st Amendment right to peacefully assemble and petition government for redress of grievances?

1st Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Do you believe only the politically powerful, the rich, the famous and those who contribute large sums to Congressional campaigns should be heard?

How do you think that squares with liberalism?

It does align perfectly with far left radical thought, it's agenda and operationally in every communist nation. Assemble, protest and complain and they prosecute you and/or kill you.

posted January 03, 2007 12:01 AM            

It says nothing about a private citizen contacting his or her representative under any normal circumstance outside of a political group. I think this article has blown things out of proportion.

posted January 03, 2007 12:34 AM            

The restriction lies in the paperwork, registration, bookkeeping and other harassing tactics against those who are not lobbyists, not a PAC and not a group organized and paid for by a PAC, Union or professionally paid lobbyists.

The measure is aimed directly at true citizen groups.

Who it doesn't restrict is striking and what's striking about who isn't restricted is that they're typical democrat high rollers and campaign contributors. Trade Unions among them.

Now, I thought the braying of congressional democrats was that they intended to clean up the money end of lobbying of the Congress.

As usual, if their lips are moving, they're lying...and about the only thing democrats do IS flap their lips.

So, one of the first things on the democrat agenda is to strike directly against the civil rights of Americans...the very thing they've been accusing Republicans of doing for the last 5 years...when no such thing was or did happen.

democrats...Champion of Civil Rights? In a pigs eye.

posted January 03, 2007 12:41 AM              

I call you a Nazi because you support one.

And that's a fact.

posted January 03, 2007 12:52 AM            

quote:

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BTW, the right to peacefully assemble to petition MEANS..a group. One person does not assemble and is in no way an assembly of citizens.

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posted January 03, 2007 06:21 PM            

quote:

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LOL , Jwhop ive been meaning to ask you what does TP stand for?....BornUnderDioscuri

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Well, in one of her previous incarnations here, she called herself "Tranquil Poet"...a misnomer if ever there was one and on both words. She's been banned so many times I've given up on keeping track of all the screen names she's used.

Sometimes we shorten screen names to save typing...as in this case.

TP has several possible connotations...one of which can be found on grocery shopping lists when a shopper is lazy or rushed and doesn't want to write out Toilet Paper.

posted January 11, 2007 11:37 AM            

Perhaps it wouldn't be so utterly egregious, irrational and hypocritical if these were not the very same leftist morons who constantly bleat about....civil rights. Civil rights, not only for them but for their friends, our terrorist enemies.

How about that? These Marxist radical leftists in Congress want to give foreign terrorists civil rights but take Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights away from American citizens.

Nice going democrats. You're in the process of proving to America that if we don't want to go along with your radical Marxist agenda, you don't want to hear from us and you're willing and eager to trample our 1st Amendment rights while leaving your radical Marxist friends at move on, daily kos, democrat underground, puffington post and other brain dead moronic groups free of the same restrictions.

ON CAPITOL HILL
Family groups say Dems are cutting free speech
Christians call foul on proposal to prevent leaders from discussing issues
Posted: January 11, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily.com

James Dobson, founder of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family organization, has been joined by other prominent pro-family leaders in calling on Christians to tell Democrat leaders in Congress they don't like proposed new limits on their freedom of speech.

"Clearly, the objective here is to hide what goes on from the public and punish and silence those of us who would talk about what our representatives are doing," Dobson told his audience of several million listeners in his special program about Senate Bill 1.

That proposal, sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is listed as a proposal "To provide greater transparency in the legislative process," however Dobson was joined by American Family Association Chairman Donald Wildmon, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and American Values President Gary Bauer in urging listeners to flood Capitol Hill with phone calls demanding those speech limits be removed.

Bauer said the telephone number to call is: 202-224-3121.

The provisions of the plan would require the pro-family groups to provide documentation of their actions to the government any time they try to spark any "grass-roots" action.

Phone calls, personal visits, e-mails, magazines, broadcasts, phone banks, appearances, travel, fundraising and other items all would be subject to government tabulation, verification and audits, Dobson said during the program. "On and on it goes."

"This legislation is on a fast track," Dobson said, with a vote expected within a week. "We need about a million people to oppose it while we can still make a statement like this, because it may not be possible in the future."

Dobson said the bill, made the highest priority in the Senate by Democrats who now control the handling of bills, does contain some good provisions aimed at cleaning up recent lobbying scandals.

But it also has that Section 220, a provision that would "severely limit the ability of Americans to stay abreast of important issues being discussed."

That also would subject organizations such as Focus to "miles of red tape" that could critically hamper their ability to rally constituents to let Washington know their opinions. Violations could cost those organizations $100,000, he said.

"I'll tell you I'm just about as irritated as I'm going to get. …" he said. "The Democrats and a few Republicans are trying now very, very quickly to insulate themselves from the public by muzzling people like us."

The ministries feel their work is needed, because the average American doesn't have time to research each provision of the many legislative proposals made every day. Groups like Focus do that, and then alert their constituents when they believe there is a problem developing.

That's the message the Democrats want stifled, Dobson said.

Dobson noted the American people have had success in the past when advocates for family values such as Focus have alerted them to potential problems, and they've responded by calling their representatives and senators.

One case was when a California Democrat tried to "squash" homeschooling in the United States with restrictive legislation.

"We and others let the world know about it. That bill was going to pass handily, but it got only one vote. That one vote was George Miller's. Everybody else ran for the tall grass, because we let people know about it," he said.

He cited a second time, when there was an attempt to lessen the penalties for child pornography, and "the response from the public was overwhelming. The Justice Department phones were shut down for days. That is a function we and other pro-family organizations have provided, letting people know the things that are done in secret in Washington."

"It's called free speech," he said. "The Democrats now are trying to take away that right and keep people in the dark."

Bauer said members of Congress clearly have been upset in the past when "they've been caught red-handed." He said this legislation "is motivated by that, they don't want the average American to be told … what is going on in this city."

The Christian organization leaders noted that local pastors, under certain circumstances, would be subject to the reporting and auditing requirements of the plan if they would encourage their congregations to call their senators about marriage, life or other issues.

Wildmon said Washington is telling the American public: "We don't want to hear from you, and this is the way we're going to handle it."

However, political groups such as the MoveOn.org, which is set up under a different legal structure and funded by George Soros to defeat President Bush and other conservatives and their agendas, would be exempt, Dobson noted. Soros has pledged that "the central focus of my life" is the defeat of Bush and his ideology, and he contributed millions of dollars to that effort in the most recent presidential election.

Dobson did include a warning to Washington in his plea to listeners for help. He reminded listeners about the campaign conducted by former House Speaker Tom Daschle when he was in power, and "was doing everything he could to keep the president from getting judges appointed."

When Focus and other organizations asked listeners to comment, officials in Washington simply turned their telephones off. In the next election voters in South Dakota refused to return Daschle to office.

"We know where he's not, he's not in the Senate. I think it's because of people who were informed of the kind of shenanigans he was pulling," Dobson said.

Bauer said people need to speak up now, "or we may never have another program like this."

The plan was introduced on Jan. 4 and has been laid before the Senate, where several amendments are pending, by unanimous consent, in its most recent action, officials said.

Reid, in introducing what he called "The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007," said people all remember the scandals in Washington involving corruption, gifts and special interest influences.

posted January 11, 2007 01:40 PM              

You know very well that TRUSTED NEWS SOURCES like Associated press and Cnn won't do that so newsmax is the only place to go.

posted January 11, 2007 02:25 PM            

Let's see, the AP is embroiled in yet another fake story incident and fake source from the Middle East. Seems a source they've used more than 50 times for stories they've fed their readers doesn't exist, cannot be found, no one there knows him..including the police at the police station he supposedly works at. Not to mention all the doctored photos and staged propaganda from other Middle East sources they've been caught palming off on readers.

CNN..a trusted source? By whom? Is anyone in America still watching CNN? After the head of their news department, Jason Eason resigned after he confessed he had spiked stories from Iraq..BECAUSE they told the truth about Saddam prior to the war. He admitted he didn't permit the news to be reported because if he had, Saddam would have kicked CNN out of Iraq. Perhaps that's the reason Michael Moore had those visions of happy children in the park flying their little kites...until America showed up to cut their little kite strings.

Now, if you want to talk about more pathetic losers, we can also talk about TIME, Newsweek, NY Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, LA Times et al. I know they speak your language too. Fake stories, phony issues, lying, distorting, twisting, rumor, innuendo...they practice and uphold all the leftist journalistic values.

posted January 11, 2007 03:54 PM            

quote:

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Let's see, the AP is embroiled in yet another fake story incident and fake source from the Middle East. Seems a source they've used more than 50 times for stories they've fed their readers doesn't exist, cannot be found, no one there knows him..including the police at the police station he supposedly works at. Not to mention all the doctored photos and staged propaganda from other Middle East sources they've been caught palming off on readers.

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OH my thats depressing!

quote:

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Perhaps that's the reason Michael Moore had those visions of happy children in the park flying their little kites...until America showed up to cut their little kite strings.

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LMAO

I dunno personally i find NY Times to be okay if u dont listen to opinions and go for the overall story but then again...who ever knows wat REAL truth is these days'

posted January 15, 2007 08:50 PM            

Iraq threatens arrest of police officer
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 4, 5:11 PM ET

The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.

Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed.

Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry's regulations.

Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.

Hussein appears to have fallen afoul of a new Iraqi push, encouraged by some U.S. advisers, to more closely monitor the flow of information about the country's violence, and strictly enforce regulations that bar all but authorized spokesmen from talking to media.

During Saddam Hussein's rule, information in Iraq had been fiercely controlled by the Information Ministry, but after the arrival of U.S. troops in 2003 and during the transition to an elected government in 2004, many police such as Hussein felt freer to talk to journalists and give information as it occurred.

As a consequence, most news organizations working in Iraq have maintained Iraqi police contacts routinely in recent years. Some officers who speak with reporters withhold their names or attempt to disguise their names using different variants of one or two middle names or last names for reasons of security. Hussein, however, spoke for the record, using his authentic first and last name, on numerous occasions.

His first contacts with the AP were in 2004, when the current Interior Ministry and its press apparatus was still being formed out of the chaotic remains of the Saddam-era ministry.

The information he provided about various police incidents was never called into question until he became embroiled in the attempt to discredit the AP story about the Hurriyah mosque attack.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Thursday that the military had asked the Interior Ministry on Nov. 26 if it had a policeman by the name of Jamil Hussein. Two days later, U.S. Navy Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, sent an e-mail to AP in Baghdad saying that the military had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein worked for the ministry or was a Baghdad police officer.

Dean also demanded that the mosque attack story be retracted.

The text of the Dean letter appeared quickly on several Internet blogs, prompting heated debate about the story and criticism of the AP.

At the weekly Interior Ministry briefing on Nov. 30, Khalaf cited the AP story as an example of why the ministry had decided to form a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.

At the time Khalaf said the ministry had no one on its staff by the name of Jamil Hussein.

"Maybe he wore an MOI (Ministry of Interior) uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money," Khalaf said then. The AP has not paid Jamil Hussein and does not pay any news sources for information for its stories.

On Thursday, Khalaf told AP that the ministry at first had searched its files for Jamil Hussein and found no one. He said a later search turned up Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, assigned to the Khadra police station.

But the AP had already identified the captain by all three names in a story on Nov. 28 — two days before the Interior Ministry publicly denied his existence on the police rolls.

Khalaf did not say whether the U.S. military had ever been told that Hussein in fact exists. Garver, the U.S. military spokesman, said Thursday that he was not aware that the military had ever been told.

Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.

Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.

He said police officers sign a pledge not to talk to reporters when they join the force. He did not explain why Jamil Hussein had become an issue now, given that he had been named by AP in dozens of news reports dating back to early 2006. Before that, he had been a reliable source of police information since 2004 but had not been quoted by name.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_jamil_hussein_1
_________________________________________

posted January 28, 2007 06:15 PM            

Now, if you're looking for phony news or lying news, then AP should be your source of choice...along with the dwindling NY Times.

AP Runs Falsely Headlined Story: 'U.S., Iraqi troops clash in Baghdad'
Posted by Tom Blumer on January 26, 2007 - 07:42.

Bryan Preston at Hot Air, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq with Michelle Malkin, caught the misleading headline (still there) in a story by newly-promoted AP Baghdad news editor Kim Gamel:

The headline conveys the obvious impression that our troops are fighting Iraqi soldiers and not terrorists/"insurgents."

Based on the story that follows, the headline is obviously false.

Bryan thought the headline at the original story had been updated, but that turns out to have been incorrect. Yours truly tipped him, and he noted, that the story is still there in all its ignominy. What's more, he noted, by reviewing Google News results, that the false headline, even if corrected now, has spread around the country and around the world. Further supporting the Pandora's Box nature of the AP's journalistic malpractice, here's a regular Google search on the headline (in quotes) showing that it still generates thousands of hits. And even though most of underlying linked stories appear to have different titles now, some (like this one) still have the original.

It doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to think that either Ms. Gamel or a headline writer she didn't watch very closely is secretly savoring a "mission accomplished" moment.

Bryan's thoughts at his first post are stronger:

There’s no excuse for this, AP. That headline is a blatant manipulation of words to create a false picture of events in Iraq....

I have to say, I no longer trust a single word the AP reports from Iraq. Not. One. Word. I’ve been there. The AP’s methods and its overt bias call into doubt every single story it has published from Iraq since the war began. Its entire method of operation over there is fatally flawed, and it’s clear that the editors outside the country are just waiting to paint every single event as a disaster for our troops. They’ll even write up lies in their headlines to do it.

After the proven-false "Burning Six" story and the misadventures of the non-existent Jamil Hussein*, I find it difficult to dispute Bryan's contentions. The AP's falsely-headlined story will likely have a long life, like this lying headline about 2005's riots in Toledo, Ohio, that didn't go away for almost a year.

posted January 28, 2007 06:26 PM            

Wholly Toledo, the Bogus Story about the Toledo Riots Is Still There!
Six months later, the bogus and totally discredited headline about Toledo’s mid-October 2005 riot is still there at ABC:

Why?

The original BizzyBlog post on the headline from mid-October is here. I originally learned about it at this post by Michelle Malkin.

If you go to the story, it is oh-so-careful not to identify who actually did the rioting that it takes a reader six paragraphs to even begin to get a grip on who is at fault, and seven paragraphs to learn that the Neo-Nazi march that was planned was “cancelled because of the rioting.” In other words, the white supremacists not only didn’t riot, they didn’t even CAUSE it!

For the record: Gangs largely if not entirely consisting of African-Americans DID riot, no matter how long ABC keeps its history rewrite posted. The fact that it remains indicates that ABC has no interest in correcting the historical record, and the Associated Press, the original source of the story, has no interest in monitoring how its clients use their work.
http://www.bizzyblog.com/2006/04/17/wholly-toledo-the-bogus-story-abou t-the-toledo-riots-is-still-there/

posted January 28, 2007 06:46 PM            

Your article above at the outrage of the AP headline can be interpretted the way the Tom Blumer states, or it can also be interpretted the way it's written. It's very clear for anyone who's not braindead. I'll give a simple example to illustrate:

Bush, Pelosi to discuss weather.

This entity, and this entity, do this. Plain as day, clear as crystal. What a conspiracy theorist!