The Most Unknown Story O'the Day,

Or,

"Fat , Dumb, and Happy."

When men actually had balls and loved freedom...1988 Soviet Propaganda Poster: "Permission to Speak!"

Prehaps the most unknown story of the day is concerning one of the first acts of the Democrat majority U.S. Senate: The upcoming vote on Senate Bill 1. This bill, bandied about as campaign ethics reform legislation, has many good and very many badly-needed provisions.

What is NOT being reported, is that this bill also effectively silences all grassroots reporting and watchdog groups of what happens in government.

While this bill allegedly rose out of the Jack Abrhamoff / Indian Casino scandals, this bill only silences grassroots organizations, and strangely leaves 527's, unions, millionaire donors, celebrity activists, and other "big-money" lobbyists alone. What gives?

Pardon the expression, but this is so transparent, Stevie Wonder could see through it.

More than an attempt of reintroducting the "Fairness Doctrine" (AKA "Hush Rush" bill of the mid-1990's), this bill plainly makes the statement to the American people that the elected officials do not want to hear you, and the lobbying organizations do not want buisiness as ususal interrupted by the peasantry. One of its many provisions would require grassroots groups to report directly to the secretary of the Senate and clerk of the House any time they spend money to communicate to their constituents on public-policy issues that are before Congress.

The most obvious crime in this bill, is that it is an attempt to hide shenanigans from the voters, and to outright punish or silence watchdog groups that don't bring any "enticement" like the 527's, big labor unions, or wealthy activists.

Even religious bodies aren't exempt:
"Amanda Banks, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the provision would apply if a group called on people to take action or not.
"Any time that we send out a CitizenLink e-mail, or we write an article for Citizen magazine or Dr. Dobson goes on his broadcast and talks about legislation -- like he did today -- we would have to record and report to the government four times a year," Banks said. "If we did not meet those guidelines, we would be subject to fines of $100,000."
Dr. Dobson said the bill was prompted by senators and congressmen who didn't like the impact grassroots groups have had in leading millions of Americans to contact their elected officials.
"Clearly, the objective here is to hide what goes on from the public -- and to punish and silence those of us who would talk about what the Congress is doing," Dr. Dobson said. (http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000003592.cfm)."

This most shameless usurpation of the Bill of Rights can be read online through the Library of Congress. http://thomas.loc.gov/ Search for S.1 for the bill.

Write and call your Senator...while you still can!