Our august Senators, convened in Washington DC, have selected as their first bill of the new Congress, a measure to further stifle free speech in the former land of the free and the home of the brave.
S.1 is ostensibly a bill to regulate lobbyist influence in Congress. Possibly a good idea, although if these worthies don't have sense enough to know a bribe when they see one, and to take appropriate action, one must question their ability to make the great decisions of state which come with the office they occupy.
In reality, this is a bill to stifle the political speech of millions of American Citizens, by requiring the organizations they use to monitor the activity of Congress to file paperwork with the Feds whenever they communicate anything of a political nature to those who are not members. With mounds of Federal paperwork to file for each and every message that goes to "the general public" (the actual words used in the bill), these organizations will not be able to afford to send any of those messages due to compliance costs. Thus, the right of Citizens to petition their government for redress of grievances is seriously hindered.
In my own case, I subscribe to mailing lists of several organizations which I am not a member of (GOA, JPFO, Right to Life, etc.) , yet I am not a member of any of these organizations. I rely on these organizations to give me information on the happenings in Congress or my State Legislature. But this source of information would dry up on me if this bill passes.
Dear Reader - please contact your Senators and urge them to vote against this bill, and to support the amendment being offered by Senator Mitch McConnell and Senator Robert Bennett which would delete the offensive part of S.1.
You won't hear about this on the old media (Us? Bias?). But contact your Senators before the end of the week.
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