I have seen so many of these kind of emails that have claims that are so outrageous, that if true, we should dismantle our present two-party system of government, toss out the constitution, and start all over again to build our country. But almost every one of them was started by an extremist that makes up a lie, does a little Photoshop magic, and all of a sudden, everyone in the world is receiving an email purporting the "truth." My basic feeling on forwarding these emails, Jim, is if it has the words "I hope this one makes it around the world repeatedly!!!!," it's a fake.
As far as its authenticity, I usually check first with scopes.com and see if they have any info on it. If not, I try to do the research myself. In this case, I searched for the House bill number, then searched for a PDF with the entire bill, downloaded the PDF, then went to page 144 and found nothing. So if that van in the photo actually did exist, the person who owned it was a liar who had an agenda or someone who knows Photoshop took a picture of a van with no writing on the side and typed in their propaganda.
And honestly, Jim, if I found that provision on page 144, line 22, I would have forwarded that email to a ton of people, because I think it would be outrageous for politicians to pass a bill that everyone has to abide by except themselves. But just like the photo of Obama holding an upside down telephone, or a similar photo of Bush holding a phone upside down, or the picture of Obama at an early Black Panthers' rally, or Bush holding a book upside down... there are people that are so blinded by their "party affiliation" that they are willing to doctor photographs and make up stories and rely on the internet rumor mills to turn it into reality. We will be a far better nation when people stop lying and spreading lies and use their own brains to make independent decisions rather than taking as gospel everything they read on the internet, see on TV, read in the newspapers, or hear on talk radio.
For God sakes, DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ and please don't forward it to your friends unless you know it is true.
