Time is of the Essence:
You Need to Contact the House of Representatives -- Part One of Three

Editor's note. When you drop me a line, it helps me to understand what you're thinking. Please do, about this and other TN&Vs. The address is daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

As a matter of convenience to readers, I've attached as Part Two an alert issued today by the NRLC Legislative Office. The topics are as timely as they are important: an effort to squelch legitimate grassroots lobbying and a strong-arm attempt to restrict the right of private citizens to communicate with officials of the federal Executive Branch.

Let me talk briefly about the campaign to isolate elected officials from grassroots input which would enhance even more the influence of powerful insiders.

The deluge of hypocrisy unleashed by "Democracy 21," "Common Cause," "OMB Watch," and "Public Citizen," to name just four of the proponents of "government reform," would be amusing, if it were not so dangerous. As the Legislative Office pointed out in an earlier alert, these high-powered lobbyists tell reporters that so-called "Astroturf" (get it? Synthetic grass, as opposed to genuine grassroots) groups need to be regulated.

The implication is that such groups--which include National Right to Life and its affiliates--are like cardboard fronts, largely devoid of members. This, of course, turns truth on its head. It is the Fearsome Foursome mentioned above (and others like them) that are the ones who are all surface and no depth.

Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who now serves as chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, noted that Democracy 21 "has no members," is headed by a registered lobbyist (Fred Wertheimer), and that "the bulk of Democracy 21's funding comes from the Pew, Carnegie, Joyce and Open Society (George Soros) Foundations, which themselves have no broad membership to whom to be accountable, and which operate with no accountability to the general public . . . . [Yet, they] go around Capitol Hill ridiculing Congress's constituents as 'fake' and 'astroturf' while claiming to speak for 'the American people.'" (You can read Smith's entire essay--" The Real 'Astroturf' Lobbyists"-- at www.campaignfreedom.org/blog).)

You need to contact your elected officials about these egregious attacks on free speech and the right of ordinary citizens to communicate with their elected officials.

Full details are in Part Two. The point of entry for you to make your opinions known can be found at http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/alert/?alertid=9319341&type=CO

If you have any comments or questions, please write Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part Two
Part Three