Taxpayer-Funded Campaigning At SRS

CONTRACTOR: “SHOW YOUR CONTINUING SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA”

A U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) contractor using a taxpayer-funded email address blasted out a missive to her co-workers at the Savannah River Site (SRS) this week – providing instructions on how to vote for U.S. President Barack Obama and a straight Democratic ticket in November.

Wait … aren’t these people supposed to be managing radioactive waste or something?

Pattie Lewis, described by her co-workers as “high-ranking public affairs administrator” with an SRS contractor, used her government-provided email to inform an undetermined number of recipients that “if you are planning to vote a  ’STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET’ this November, be sure to ‘PUNCH PRESIDENT OBAMA’S NAME ‘FIRST’ on the card.  THEN PROCEED TO PUNCH ‘STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET.’”

“Let’s not let them steal another election from us again,” Lewis writes. “SHOW YOUR CONTINUING SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA.”

Nice …

The email was forwarded to us by a recipient who said they were “offended” by the political nature of the communication.

Presumably Lewis was not one of the SRS employees or contractors accused of being “high” or “illiterate” by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley last year - but something has clearly impaired her judgment to make her blast out such an overt political missive from a taxpayer-funded address.

Or maybe not.  Sadly, such government-funded campaigning is par for the course in South Carolina.  In fact government-funded email is one of the primary weapons used in the fight to deny South Carolina parents additional choices in the education marketplace.

SRS is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility on the Savannah River that once refined nuclear material for deployment in offensive weaponry during the Cold War. The site is currently transitioning into a mixed-oxide fuel manufacturing plant that will convert weapons grade plutonium into energy for commercial nuclear reactors – a process which is being assisted by Savannah River Remediation.

SRS PRO-OBAMA EMAIL (.pdf)