…when you can use taxpayer dollars to send the same drivel to voters in your district?

This franked campaign style mail piece from Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) arrived in the 4th Congressional District during the past week:

And, yep, a franked mail piece from a member of Congress is paid for by the taxpayers:

The franking disclaimer on the addressed outside portion of the mailing.

The details:

Detail from the “sunset” side of the mailing.

“Our rights must never be compromised.”

“The Constitution directly expresses each and every American’s right to bear arms. It couldn’t be any clearer – it’s in black and white.

Yet, despite our Second Amendment’s clarity, there are many special interests in Washington that are working to chip away at our rights and liberties at every turn.

That’s why I am working every day to safeguard the rights of law-abiding Missouri gun owners and sportsmen. And I will never back down from this fight.”

Seriously? “Our rights must never be compromised.” Representative Hartzler (r) doesn’t appear to be well versed in the 4th Amendment, does she?

Which “special interests”? Just asking. It couldn’t be President Obama, right?:

Obama’s expansion of guns into national parks raises fears for bears (May 10, 2010)

….But one thing I have found as I have hung out at gun shows and gun shops this year is that nearly 100 percent of the people I talk to there agree on one thing:

“Obama wants to take away our guns!”

Based on this universal attitude, ammunition sales went through the roof from election day until last August said Max Bosworth, who runs Max’s Gun Shop in Idaho Falls. That’s when gun owners finally ran out of money because of the economy.

At the last gun show I attended in April gun sales were slow but ammunition and other accessories were still moving. You never can have too much ammo but it sure has gotten expensive.

What is interesting about all this is that Obama has only done one thing about guns since he has entered office. He signed a new federal law that required national parks to allow gun owners to carry guns into national parks under the same rules the states have for the surrounding areas.

That’s right, Obama expanded gun owner rights. He didn’t restrict them….

Okay. So, if it’s not President Obama, who is it? Or is this mailing just fear mongering to prop up the lunatic fringe base for a politician who won in a republican landslide election year with only 50.4% of the vote? Just asking.

Detail from the interior of the mailing.

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler is leading the charge to protect and preserve our Second Amendment rights for all law abiding Missourians. Already this year, Vicky has co-sponsored three pro-gun bills in the United States House of Representatives.

And those bills are?:

Carry conceal reciprocity? You think that’ll go over well in a district with two large universities? Just asking?

Because creating jobs is a priority for everyone, right?

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): town hall in Warrensburg, part 1 (August 11, 2011)

….Voice: It’s not uncertainty about the economy, it’s a lack of con [crosstalk], consumer demand. [crosstalk] [voice: “Yeah.”][applause][voice: “Yeah, all right.”]

Voice: Consumer demand is lacking because people do not have jobs. They don’t have the money to [crosstalk]…

Voice: People don’t have money.

Representative Hartzler: Okay, let me [crosstalk]…

Voice: You all were supposed to [inaudible] [crosstalk]on jobs when you came in office. [voice: “Yeah.”]

Representative Hartzler: Wait, wait, wait [crosstalk] just a minute.

Voice: Jobs!

Voice: That’s what you said.

Voice: You said you were jobs, you didn’t [crosstalk] say anything about fighting the President.

Representative Hartzler: All right [crosstalk]. Listen, listen [crosstalk]…

Voice: When, when you ran your campaign [crosstalk] the only thing we heard was jobs, jobs, jobs [crosttalk], jobs, jobs. [crosstalk] You get into office and the only thing we hear out of you now is abortion [inaudible].

Voice: We were gonna fix it, that’s what you said….

“…You get into office and the only thing we hear out of you now is abortion…”

Well, to be fair, not just abortion. Guns, too.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): frankly, it looks like a campaign mailing (July 7, 2011)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): franking right wingnut propaganda on Medicare (August 27, 2011)

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): frankly, it looks like a campaign mailing (July 7, 2011)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) wants to kill Medicare… (April 6, 2011)

We received another franked campaign style mailing today from Representative Vicky Hartzler (r). This time it’s propaganda trying to sell Representative Paul Ryan’s (r) republican House majority plan to kill Medicare.

From Representative Hartzler’s (r) mailing:

UPDATE FOR SENIORS

…Medicare is one of our nation’s most valued programs, and we need to protect it for the millions of seniors that currently rely on Medicare for their health insurance…

That’s interesting, this appears to be at odds with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (r) view of Medicare:

…As Cantor sees it, the existing Medicare program simply must be eliminated for fiscal reasons, replaced with a privatized system. In other words, the Paul Ryan plan that was soundly rejected by voters and policy experts alike is still the preferred model for the House Republican leadership…

…Also note the rhetoric the oft-confused House Majority Leader uses: the United States has made promises to the public, and as far as Eric Cantor is concerned, “many” Americans will simply have to accept that those promises “are not going to be kept.”

Why not? Because Republicans say so. Promises to Grover Norquist are sacrosanct, but promises to senior citizens are not…

Again, from Representative Hartzler’s (r) mailing:

…I support a plan in Congress that will help protect Medicare for current seniors and preserve it for generations to come. The proposal is similar to Medicare Advantage in that it would enlist health insurance companies to offer insurance for future seniors that would be subsidized by the federal government…

[emphasis in original]

Really? Medicare Advantage will save money? Really?:

The Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage Plans-Updated and Revised [pdf]

ABSTRACT: The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 sharply increased payments to private Medicare Advantage plans. As a result, every plan in every county in the nation was paid more in 2005 than its enrollees would have been expected to cost if they had been enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. The authors calculate that payments to Medicare Advantage plans averaged 12.4 percent more than costs in traditional Medicare during 2005: a total of more than $5.2 billion, or $922 for each of the 5.6 million Medicare enrollees in managed care. This issue brief updates an earlier analysis of Medicare Advantage payments in 2005 previously published by The Commonwealth Fund; the updated estimates in this report are based on final 2005 enrollment figures that were not available at the time the previous estimates were developed, and they include the effect of policy decisions that were not reflected in the previous estimates….

[emphasis added]

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) must think her constituents are stoopid.

Yep, it’s a franked mail piece. Any idea what it cost taxpayers? Just asking.

It gets even better, on the B side of the mailing:

From Representative Hartzler’s (r) mail piece:

No changes to medicare for Americans 55 years and older

[emphasis in original]

It’s just the people 54 and younger who are gonna get screwed so that the top 1% can continue receiving their tax break windfalls.

…In Congress, I’m fighting to:

Protect Medicare and ensure doctors receive fair compensation for treating Medicare patients…

Because Medicare is all about increasing payments to doctors rather than making access to affordable health care a reality for all seniors, right?

Bragging on that nice plaque from a republican astroturf organization paid for by corporations. Here’s to looking after the little people.

The 60 Plus Association honored Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) for her work? Really?

The 60 Plus Association: A Corporate Assault in “Good-for-Seniors” Clothing

The 60 Plus Association, a pharmaceutical industry front group, claims it is a “nonpartisan senior advocacy group,” but it really operates counter to elderly citizens’ best interests. 60 Plus advocates positions on issues that benefit big corporations but that stand to harm seniors….

A Scary Primer on the 60-Plus Association

The “60-Plus Association” was AstroTurf before AstroTurf was cool. These kinds of right wing phony groups are a dime a dozen now. 60-Plus is a DC outfit mostly made up of longtime Republican operatives that pretend to be concerned about senior issues. In reality they appear to exist for little more than to help Republicans win elections and to scare the elderly….

….The 60-Plus Association fancies itself as a right-wing version of the AARP but its IRS filings show that it derives zero dollars from actual membership dues, even though it lists over $1.8 million in revenues. So if they are not getting their money from their nonexistent “membership” then how are they paying to scare… seniors? [60-Plus Association 2008 IRS Form 990]

Some of that question was answered when AARP hired an independent investigator to thoroughly research the phony group and they found that the pharmaceutical industry is actually paying a lot of the bills. The report revealed that in 2001 alone, 60-Plus got hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the following: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA); drug companies like Merck, Pfizer and Wyeth-Ayerst, and even from Hanwha International Corp.; which is the U.S. subsidiary of a Korean conglomerate with chemical and pharmaceutical interests. For this reason a Public Citizen report described 60-Plus as being part of “PhRMA’s Stealth PACS” [pdf]. [AARP Bulletin Today, “Pulling Strings from Afar”, 2003]….

Carrying water for corporate interests gets you a plaque and screws the seniors in your district, but you shouldn’t be bragging about it in your taxpayer paid for mail pieces. Yep, Representative Hartzler (r) thinks her constituents are stoopid.

Does anyone think that private insurance companies are going to insure seniors with credible health insurance at a cost less than Medicare? Anyone? Anyone?

December 11, 2007

Congressional Franking Privilege: Background and Current Legislation [pdf]

The congressional franking privilege, which dates from 1775, allows Members of Congress to transmit mail matter under their signature without postage. Congress, through legislative branch appropriations, reimburses the U.S. Postal Service for the franked mail it handles. Use of the frank is regulated by federal law, House and Senate rules, and committee regulations. Reform efforts during the past 20 years have reduced overall franking expenditures by almost 70%, to $34.3 million in FY2006 from $113.4 million in FY1988 (current dollars)…

Yesterday we received a franked mail piece from Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) which looks quite similar to the hundreds of campaign mail pieces we’ve received from various candidates over the years.

The “A” side of Representative Vicky Hartzler’s (r) franked mail piece.

Your tax dollars at work.

The reverse side of the mailing:

The “B” side of Representative Vicky Hartzler’s (r) franked mail piece.

Detail from the “B” side of the franked mail piece.

The piece reads as if they couldn’t make up their minds to just direct it to veterans or spam the district. Obviously, they made the choice to spam the district.

From the Office of the Clerk:

Franked Materials

For mass mailings to their Congressional district, Members may use their signature, or frank, instead of a postage stamp. The term mass mailing is defined as follows: “with respect to a session of Congress, a mailing of newsletters or other pieces of mail with substantially identical content (whether such pieces of mail are deposited singly or in bulk, or at the same time or different times), totaling more than 500 pieces of mail in that session…” -Rule XXIV of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives

In accordance with House Rule 24, Members must submit a sample or a description of the contents of mass mailings to the House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards and obtain the approval of the commission before the mass mailing can be sent. Copies of materials approved by and filed with this Commission are available….

I wonder what it cost taxpayers to produce and send the campaign mailing franked piece? Just asking.