March 31, 2011
Polk County, WI

Recently, Sean Duffy addressed a constituent at a town hall meeting when asked about congressional salaries. He was asked how much he made and if he would move to cut his own salary.

His answer was ‘yes‘.

Yes, he would and had moved to cut his own salary…which was previously established long before he was sworn into office 6 weeks earlier – from the time of the town hall meeting.

Since the publication of the video by the Polk County Republican Party of Wisconsin, liberal bloggers and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have gone out of their way to take segments of the video out of context to slander Congressman Duffy.

Although some bloggers suggested the Polk County Republican Party was trying to cleanse the video from the internet, as if that is possible, few failed to simply call and ask why we took it down in the first place.  That is precisely what is wrong with the media today.

The actual reason the video was removed is simple:

When it became apparent that the video was being used recklessly to defame an elected member of Congress from our district, we decided to remove it from YouTube until we could determine a way to keep it from being edited, re-purposed, and used without permission.

Some, however, including TalkingPointsMemo.com, have decided to break DMCA Copyright Law, by infringing on the ownership rights of the videographer who shot the video and blatantly violate the law by republishing the video despite clearly being told they did not have permission to do so.

To protect his intellectual property, the videographer and the Polk County Republican Party asked that it be removed from the Talking Points Memo Blip.TV account.  Upon review by Blip TV, the video was found to be in violation of copyright law and removed.

Not long afterwards, TPM posted a shortened version of the video, again in violation of the DMCA copyright law along with another blog with more liberal talking points.  But hey, when do organizations like TPM care about silly things like the law anyways?

The Polk County Republican Party supports free enterprise and the legal use of copyright protected material, but not the theft of material owned by others.  It has long been the practice of the Democrats to scrape video from other sources and include it in campaign videos.

It should be noted, that at no time before the infringement took place, was the Polk County Republican Party asked if they would be willing to permit use of the video by TPM or any media source.

This is the unfortunate reality of politics in and out of Washington D.C., where focusing on real issues, like the 14 Trillion Dollar Deficit and 1.5 Trillion Dollar spending spree the president and democrats are hurling on the American public, go unmentioned.

It is Congressman like Sean Duffy who are attempting to stop the irresponsible spending in Washington by cutting the budget.  It is because of this that the Polk County Republican Party stands behind their Congressman 100%.

Some bloggers and media outlets are falsely reporting that the GOP, Polk County GOP specifically, are trying to keep the video off the internet.  They use accusations like this to get people excited and to take the attention away from what their base is doing to ordinary Americans like those of us in Wisconsin.

If you watch the video in its entirety, you’ll soon understand that Congressman Duffy is being mis-quoted out of context and the clips they are using are creating an illusion.  The many bloggers who have followed suit by reposting the story over and over, have an agenda!  It doesn’t matter if it is the truth; because honesty wouldn’t sell the B.S. the Liberals are shoveling out.

Sadly, even the “real” media failed to recognize the inaccuracy of the reports and further more failed to correct the liberal spin flowing freely on the internet.  I guess it is easier to just copy and paste a story than actually investigate the source and write your own version with the facts.

We are reposting the video, knowing that we can’t stop people from breaking the law, but we want everyone to be able to see for themselves what was actually said by Congressman Duffy in context.

You’ll notice that Congressman Duffy’s comments about his finances were in regards to the previous seven months as a candidate – after he chose to resign as the Ashland County DA and not campaign on the taxpayers of Wisconsin’s payroll.

His comments had nothing to do with his congressional salary being enough; he stated clearly that he had only received 1 pay check since being sworn into office.  This is much ado about nothing.  If liberals want to discuss salaries, have them talk about their own Congressman who gets the same paycheck as Congressman Duffy.

The Polk County Republican Party would like to personally thank Congressman Duffy for standing up for fiscal responsibility and being willing to serve as our congressman from the 7th District.  We stand united behind him and what he is doing in Washington for the people of the great state of Wisconsin.

We condemn the tactics of the left wing bloggers and their entourage who drink their kool-aid.  We would like to however, thank you for the amazing support you’ve given us as traffic to our site is significantly higher and our membership list continues to grow.

If you would like to become a member of the Polk County Republican Party, click here.

Media inquiries can be sent to: media@polkcountyrepublicans.com