[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 3, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H530-H531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I recently got some first-
hand experience with the way in which the right-wing propaganda machine 
operates. The pattern appears to be to begin with a lie and then have 
that lie multiplied through an echo chamber that repeats it and repeats 
it.
  In this case, a man named John Fund, who is an editorial writer at 
the Wall Street Journal, one of the most right-wing of our publications 
these days, on the editorial page just told a lie about me in November 
of last year. He gave a speech at Restoration Weekend. I don't know 
what they were restoring, but it certainly wasn't respect for the 
truth. And he said, ``Democrats were very rattled by the November 3 
election results. What do liberals do when they lose elections? They 
change the rules. In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank will 
propose universal voter registration.'' ``There'll be felon 
reenfranchisement too.'' ``The Feds will tell the States, `Take 
everyone on every list of welfare recipients you have, take everyone on 
every list of unemployed you have.' ''
  It's a lie. He made it up. It's not even a misinterpretation. It's 
not a quote taken out of context. It is a total myth. There is no such 
bill. There wasn't in November. Then right-wing echo chamber picks it 
up. The Washington Times, the voice of the Reverend Moon, says, Schumer 
and Frank ``have plans to ram through legislation that will produce 
universal voter registration.'' And they say it will be on the floor of 
the House in 2 weeks. It's the lie repeated. Glenn Beck joined in. Rush 
Limbaugh joined in.
  This begins with a totally fictional accusation by John Fund with no 
basis whatsoever. It is then repeated by Glenn Beck and repeated by the 
Washington Times and repeated by Rush Limbaugh. None of them have 
checked what we were talking about, none of them seeing if it was 
accurate.
  I was asked by a constituent why I had done that. My response was, 
Done what? I didn't do it. So I checked into it, and I found that the 
source of this was Mr. Fund's totally irresponsible myth in November. 
So I wrote to Mr. Fund--and I put this letter in there--and said, I was 
puzzled to hear you say this. I checked. I now write to tell you that 
you are entirely wrong in your assertion about me, and in the absence 
of your being able to show any basis on which you made such a 
statement, to ask you to acknowledge that fact.
  He is not only a liar; he is a coward. He wouldn't do it. My staff 
member, Mr. Gural, asked him, called him up and said, Well, what was 
this based on? He said, Oh, I made a mistake. Well, have you issued a 
retraction? Mr. Gural asked him. Oh, yeah, he said. Can we see a copy? 
Mr. Gural reasonably asked. Oh, I told a couple of people.
  So here we are. Mr. Fund makes it up. It's a lie. It's a myth. There 
was nothing there. And it's to discredit all Democrats. His right-wing 
cohorts then echo it and echo it. The next thing you know, it's going 
to be coming on the floor in the House in 2 weeks. People hear it, and 
it's all over the blogs. This is the Democrats' disregard for the 
electoral process. And when we call Mr. Fund's attention to the fact 
that this was a lie, what does he say? Whoops. But he's not going to 
tell anybody about it.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not the only case of this. And I know this has 
happened before; but because I was directly involved here, I am in a 
position to document this. It begins with a lie from this editorial 
writer from the Wall Street Journal. It is then a lie repeated by all 
of his right-wing colleagues. And then when he is nailed in the lie, he 
simply blithely refuses to do anything about it.
  I hope people will take from this the lesson to be very skeptical 
when these right-wing propagandas--Limbaugh or Beck or the Washington 
Times or the Wall Street Journal editorial board--propagate these 
vicious smears.

Partial Text of John Fund's Speech at Restoration Weekend November 21, 
                                  2009

       Democrats were very rattled by the November 3rd election 
     results. What do liberals do when they lose elections? They 
     change the rules. In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank 
     will propose universal voter registration.
       What is universal voter registration? It means all of the 
     state laws on elections will be overridden by a federal 
     mandate. The feds will tell the states, ``Take everyone on 
     every list of welfare recipients you have, take everyone on 
     every list of unemployed you have, take everyone on every 
     list of property owners, take everyone on every list of 
     driver's license holders, and register them to vote 
     regardless of whether they want to be.''
       By the way, there'll be felon re-enfranchisement too. At 
     that point, you have destroyed the integrity of the 
     registration process.
       Now they will sell this very cleverly. They will say, 
     ``Well, OK, ACORN did have some problems with voter 
     registration. We shouldn't have these third party rogue 
     groups out there. So let's put ACORN out of business. Let's 
     register everybody.''
       Now the problem, of course, is there are a lot of 
     duplicates. And there are a lot of people on those rolls who 
     are illegal aliens. It's not a clean list. They don't care. 
     So, this is the issue you haven't heard about. There's a 
     reason you haven't heard about it. They don't want you to 
     hear about it.
       The path between the day this bill is introduced and the 
     day it hits the House floor will probably be less than two 
     weeks. Get ready for it. You can stop it. Don't get me wrong. 
     But this is their stealth bill that is even more sneaky than 
     the health care bill.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, Jan. 7, 2010]

               Editorial: Letting Crooks & Illegals Vote

       Democrats have a political death wish. At least that's how 
     it looks. There's no other explanation for their feverish 
     push to take over the health care system when a huge majority 
     of Americans are opposed to the plan. But facing an angry 
     public, Democrats are scheming to find ways to manipulate the 
     electoral process so they can cling to power even when voters 
     want to kick the bums out.
       Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Rep. Barney 
     Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, have plans to ram through 
     legislation that will produce universal voter registration. 
     No matter what they claim, the rule changes will make it 
     possible for illegal aliens to register to vote and for 
     others to register multiple times.
       The proposal is to register everyone on every welfare list, 
     everyone getting unemployment insurance, everyone with a 
     driver's license, everyone who has had run-ins with the legal 
     system, everyone owning any property--basically everyone on 
     every list the government keeps. People will be registered to 
     vote whether or not they want to be registered. If 
     individuals are on any public record, they will be 
     automatically registered.
       Obviously a lot of illegal aliens have driver's licenses, 
     and many get other government benefits. Quite a few have rap 
     sheets. People's names and other identification information 
     are frequently recorded differently across these different 
     lists, which means that one could be registered a separate 
     time for every slight variation in how their personal 
     information is kept on file.
       The legislation is also expected to give felons the right 
     to vote. Why Democrats insist on letting someone who has 
     raped multiple women vote on social policy is beyond us. 
     According to Democrats, robbers who have preyed on helpless 
     victims--and even murderers--have the judgment to tell us how 
     law enforcement should be run in this country.
       In May 2005, Public Opinion Strategies surveyed felons who 
     had their voting rights restored and nonfelons who voted in 
     Washington state. Even after accounting for the voters' race, 
     gender, education level, religious habits, employment, age 
     and county of residence, the book Freedomnomics found that 
     ``felons were 36 percent more likely than nonfelons with the 
     same characteristics to have voted for [John] Kerry [a 
     Democrat] over [George W.] Bush [a Republican] and 37 percent 
     more likely to be registered Democratic.''
       For years, Democrats have fought against requiring photo 
     IDs at polling places. The

[[Page H531]]

     practice, which is simply a way to make sure voters are who 
     they say they are, is used in about 100 other countries. 
     Mexico, for example, has cracked down on voter fraud and is 
     strict about requiring photo identification to vote. If 
     Democrats have their way, it will be easier for Mexicans to 
     vote in America than in their own country.
       It speaks volumes about Democratic unpopularity that they 
     have to look to criminals and illegal aliens to try to shore 
     up their voting base.
                                  ____



                                     House of Representatives,

                                 Washington, DC, January 13, 2010.
     Mr. John Fund,
     The Wall Street Journal,
     New York, NY.
       Dear Mr. Fund: I was puzzled during the last couple of 
     weeks to be asked why I was supporting something called 
     ``universal voter registration,'' which supposedly would 
     allow all sorts of undesirable people to register to vote. I 
     was puzzled because I have had absolutely no involvement in 
     such a proposal.
       I asked my staff to check the source of the rumor, and we 
     discovered that it is you. Apparently last fall, you invented 
     a story that Senator Schumer and I planned to introduce such 
     legislation. I've since learned that Senator Schumer is 
     working on legislation regarding voting, but I am told that 
     it does not remotely resemble your version of it. But more 
     importantly to me is that I have had no involvement with this 
     whatsoever, with Senator Schumer or anybody else.
       You simply made this up with regard to me. I must tell you 
     that I was not surprised, because this sort of fictionalized 
     attack on political opponents has sadly become characteristic 
     of many on the right. And once you lied about me in this 
     regard, several of your right-wing colleagues in the media, 
     including Rush -Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the Washington 
     Times, repeated it.
       I should note that, again not surprisingly, you made no 
     effort to check with me or anybody who works with me to find 
     out if what you said was true. You made your assertion with 
     no factual basis and without any effort to verify it. To me, 
     that qualifies as a lie.
       So I now write not simply to tell you that you are entirely 
     wrong in your assertion about me but, in the absence of your 
     being able to show any basis on which you made such a 
     statement, to ask that you acknowledge that fact.
     Barney Frank.

                          ____________________