Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Nancy Pelosi Is Banning Patriotic Hold Music On Congressional Phones
Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Nancy Pelosi Is Banning Patriotic Hold Music On Congressional Phones
Today, the right-wing site The New Ledger has a report about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) “problem” with “patriotic music”:
If you’ve ever been stuck on hold with a congressional office in the past, at least you’ve been able to enjoy some good patriotic music, as opposed to the lilting tones of generic smooth jazz that have been driving elevator users insane for decades. For years, congressional offices have played patriotic anthems as the background music during hold times.
Not any more. After we were startled by the hold music when we called a House office recently, sources on Capitol Hill informed us this week that the Democratic House leadership has made a sweeping decision that congressional offices now have the options of “smooth jazz” elevator music or no music at all.
The post was picked up by various right-wing blogs. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) has even sent a letter to House Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Daniel Beard — who, The New Leader points out, “reports to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi” — objecting to the change.
This conspiracy theory is the craziest thing since freedom fries. And birthers. ThinkProgress spoke with Beard’s spokesman Jeff Ventura, who cleared up the confusion:
The music was changed during recess as a pilot program in an attempt to offer offices a choice of hold music. [...]
This had nothing to do with the leadership — not in the beginning or the final outcome.
Here’s what happened: Congressional offices have traditionally been able to have a choice of music or no music. The CD that had been in the congressional muzak system for “a long time” was a “patriotic tunes CD.” The CAO’s office wanted to test a program giving people a choice of multiple CDs and decided to try out a jazz CD because it’s “what a lot of companies have when you’re on hold.” However, based on the feedback they received, they simply decided to go back to the old system.
So for the record, there is no left-wing conspiracy to ban patriotic muzak.
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there is no left-wing conspiracy to ban patriotic muzak.
Well, maybe not…but there should be a human-conspiracy to ban muzak altogether. Just play a real song, for f**k’s sake.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:53 pmI heard they were going to be forced to play Scandanavian Death Panel…
September 1st, 2009 at 4:54 pmThey are completely and mentally bankrupt, these poor people are grasping at the last strands of there being. They know the ship is sinking but they just can not understand why or how to stop it.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:55 pmThey need the guy that was in San Diego the one with the copy of the USS Constitution and has read it 3 times.
Like the telltale purple tongue one gets from drinking grape koolaid, repeating the lie that Nancy Pelosi banned “patriotic anthems” is an indicator of a shallow, gullible mind.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pm“Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Nancy Pelosi Is Banning Patriotic Hold Music On Congressional Phones”
And this is news for the day? And this is shocking news from the right-wing site The New Ledger that is making them cling on to their pearls? Obviously, the right wingnuts have time on their hands. Pass the popcorn please?
September 1st, 2009 at 4:58 pmThe same crowd chanting “Secession” and “I hate America” and obstructing democratic debate by shouting and brandishing firearms is trying to act as if they’re the real patriots?
What dimension did these people emerge from and how do we send them back?
September 1st, 2009 at 4:59 pmGuess we all should be glad they did not say she was banning patriotic anthems and replacing them with nazi anthems and un-patriotic ones.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:59 pmWe have that going for us at this moment in time.
The new improved electronic flag lapel pin…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:00 pm**snort**
September 1st, 2009 at 5:00 pmI love it how the teabaggers can be trusted to go frothing at the mouth at the slightest provocation without even checking out the absurdity of it first.
Did anybody stop to think that Nancy Pelosi MIGHT have more important things on her plate than the freaking HOLD MUSIC???
By the way, I may have to quit e-mailing my Congressman and try phoning his office instead. I want to hear this “patriotic tunes CD”. I wonder if it’s good stuff like the Marine Band playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” or if it’s just cheesy crap like “God Bless the USA”.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pmDoesn’t take much at all to get those Righty panties t’bunchin.
(Also shows just how pathetically desperate they are to gain some traction)
September 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pmI suggest they use the Jimi Hendrix version of The Star Spangled Banner. When the wingnuts complain you can ask why they hate our national anthem.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pmThank God the right wing is fighting for my right to hear ‘America the Beautiful’ played poorly on a pan-flute…
God Bless us, everyone!
/sarc
September 1st, 2009 at 5:06 pmGood grief. Insanity IS contagious.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:07 pmIf Pelosi would force republican offices to play Air Supply or Celine Dione for their hold music, then I might agree that there’s some kind of conspiracy out there…
Come to think of it, if she actually did that, perhaps that would finally complete the job of making the wingnuts’ tiny little heads explode…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pmGO HERE to tell Fantasy Island Fred that there is no conspiracy…Also, he has a poll on health care!
BUT…the question is…Do you support a gov. take over of healthcare? What a joke!
http://www.house.gov/upton/
September 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pm***
this is a perfect opportunity for
a troll to drop by and remind
us of the national debt.
:|
September 1st, 2009 at 5:09 pm16
September 1st, 2009 at 5:10 pmI’d be happy just to have kwsventures tell us about his business. I don’t know if you know this but it was built by sweat…
I’s rather stick a needle in my eye then listen to jazz.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:10 pmHey the numbers changed again…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:11 pmIt reminds me of the primaries when they were trying to brand rural Americans as the “Real Americans” while claiming that us liberal Eastern elites were traitors who’d forgotten about 9/11.
Yeah, us NYC elitist snobs don’t remember 9/11 at all. The only threat “Real Americans” face is their own kind – the Timothy McVeighs, Jim Adkissons, Ted Kazinskis, etc… They are also the ones who most need health care reform because rural America is the most obese, has the most teen pregnancies and so many other health and social problems. They are their own death panel.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:11 pmThe Dogfather,
Who do you think actually still buys Air Supply and Celine Dion albums? Wal-Marts in the Heartland I’d be willing to bet sell a lot more of those than record stores in NYC, Austin or other liberal bastions of evil.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:14 pmNever understimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:18 pmI, for one, won’t stand for socialized Musak. Actually, I won’t stand for Musak period.
Good grief. If you’re trying to support Musak by saying that the government’s out to control it, you’re REALLY pulling as many crazy strings as possible.
The GOP won’t be happy until the government plays Ted Nugent and Kenny Chesney over their phone lines 24/7.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:24 pmI
September 1st, 2009 at 5:26 pmWhen they have nothing to offer to constuctive dialogue, the Repub fallback position is to invoke the flag, patriotism, Mom and apple pie, and “family values” in a futile attempt to appear that they give a damn about America and its citizens.
…”the last refuge of scoundrels”…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pmI can’t remember the last time I heard
“So be kind to your web footed friends….”
While on hold during a call to my congressguy.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pmI want my patriotic music baaaaacccckkkkk…..
Jesus, these maroons will believe anything that makes Pelosi look bad. The logic, it is not used….
September 1st, 2009 at 5:31 pmMaybe “Afternoon Delight” would be a good selection…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:31 pmHeh! They could use Black Sabbath, or other “Satanic” music, and wouldn’t have to ever take another call from a Psycho-christian.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:32 pmI wish these jackasses would make up their minds. On one hand you have Texas wanting to secede, and on the other, they come up with some screwball talking point they they probably pulled out of KKKRove’s a$$ (now – there’s a disgustnig thought – yuk)
September 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pmDr. Matt, there’s JAZZ and there’s that crap they play on Muzak!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-r1LMDk6j0
September 1st, 2009 at 5:35 pmGee, are all Republicans insane or paranoid or stupid? Oh, I get it now, it’s a three-fer: they are all insane, paranoid and stupid…
September 1st, 2009 at 5:37 pmRs and their conspiracy theories, how funny. Probably related to those that tried to ban jazz as devil’s music, by ideology, anyway.
Reminds me of John Lennon:
The sound you make is muzak to my ears,
You must have learnt something all those years,
How do you Sleep?
Ah how do you sleep at night?
Maybe about Paul, maybe about republicans, who knows.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:38 pm:)
As if the right wingers are patriotic at all! Gees. They need their music to remind themselves? Yep!
September 1st, 2009 at 5:45 pmBecause you know Musak and other music companies are left wing anti-Americans who want to bring down the government…Oh wait that’s the right, my bad.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:46 pmbenji85,
Actually, Musak is the essence of the GOP – Southern and bankrupt.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Is this what Andrew Card’s life has been reduced to: campaigning on behalf of telephone hold music lobbies?
I thought Rush lost it when he was making his arguments about the gorilla who used sign language.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:56 pmI’ve got it! I’ll invent a yellow ribbon magnet that plays John P. Sousa, have them made in China, sell em to Republiklan suckers and retire in style!
September 1st, 2009 at 5:59 pmThe truth to the situation is irrelavant. This type of meme allows the right wing to bunker further down and lay further claims about how unamerican those terrible liberals can be. This will like the death panel claims, continue to be pushed around. The republican sheep will believe anything that is pushed at them under the guise of “terrible liberal plots”.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:13 pmMore proof the right wing are absolute idiots. Please, someone, save all this SH*t & replay it when Repubs hope to regain power. What a bunch of stupid, ill-informed, racist, sexist dolts. That’s the GOP!
September 1st, 2009 at 6:13 pmI am outraged! Republicans give great hummers. Lift the ban immediately!
September 1st, 2009 at 6:16 pmRUCerious says:
I’ve got it! I’ll invent a yellow ribbon magnet that plays John P. Sousa, have them made in China, sell em to Republiklan suckers and retire in style!
Sean Hannity presents the Hong Kong orchestra in their playing of the Star Spangled Banner. Brought to you by My Giant 2, starring Yao Ming and Larry the Cable Guy.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:17 pmNot to put too fine a point on it, but isn’t jazz an American invention? Like blues, bluegrass, R&B, and rock and roll?
September 1st, 2009 at 6:24 pmI wish she would ban the use of Christian religious music on all government phones. I recently listened to fifteen minutes of Christian music while on hold at a US Air Force Base office.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:27 pmThe Republic Fascist Party is desperate for anything that they can twist into negative propaganda for their ignorant morons who will believe anything they put out on the airwaves.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:51 pmIt is nice to see that the right is capable of tackling the big problems facing this country and not just fixating on trivia.
September 1st, 2009 at 7:40 pmthey have nothing better to worry about than the kind of music you listen to on hold? that’s a dman shame.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:17 pmIn the grand scheme of things given all that is wrong in the country after 8 years of Bush, do we really need coverage of such utter horse cheney?? Come on TP.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:49 pmReminds me of the ending to the movie “Mars Attacks”. lol
September 1st, 2009 at 11:04 pmHave every last one of the GNOP gone absolutely mad?
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:44 amI love Leonard Cohen’s patriotic music……
Democracy is coming, to the U.S.A
Sail on, sail on,
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:53 amO mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on.
Dear tenthers,
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:09 amYour government does not have the right to play any music, right?
Wait isn’t it a requirement to play nationalistic music while you are on hold in a Socialist Dictatorship? These Republicans have me so confused.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 amAs long as I don’t have to listen to Nancy Nutjob Peelosi and her clinking capped teeth.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:41 pmvery thanks for article!
September 4th, 2009 at 10:48 am