More than 100 teacher union activists, parents, and students, gathered Saturday to protest the nomination of Betsy DeVos to head the Education Department and insist they were not paid union supporters protestors.

The crowd acknowledged that Gardner and his staff were not at his office Saturday, noting that the senator was attending a fundraising event in Florida. To get their message across, organizers urged attendees to take to Twitter as well as continue to call and e-mail the senator.
Ralliers said they had been phoning Gardner — some once or twice while others said they’ve rung up the senator every day for the past two or three weeks.

Gardner was actually at the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s winter retreat, the organization he chairs.

In an interview Friday, Gardner’s communication director Alex Siciliano said the senator has received 22,000 phone calls in January alone. During his first two years in the Senate, Gardner’s office sent and received over 500,000 constituent e-mails and letters. In comparison, the office has received more than 120,000 correspondences in January.
Siciliano said the staff of 40 has people whose sole responsibility is listening to every voicemail and compiling the concerns to relay to Gardner. Siciliano said he understood  peoples’ frustrations when they get the voicemail, but emphasized that the senator was listening to their concerns.
Siciliano couldn’t be reached Saturday.

At least the Post explained by Siciliano could not be reached by phone for comment, but allow us to elaborate.

There are organized movements out there that we’ve dubbed “Occupy Phone Lines.” Democratic activists are being directed by numerous organizations to flood phone lines and report back to the media.

Mostly what they are reporting, are complaints that they can’t get through because the voice mail is full. When protests are staged and reporters can’t get through, only one side of the story is reported — that of the Democrat activists.

We actually overheard one activist bragging they are telling other activist leaders to clog the phone lines, then call the media and complain that they can’t reach their representative in Washington.

We don’t have any proof, other than our own ears, but felt it important enough to share so that when reporters get these complaints from activists, they are aware that phone lines are actively being jammed on purpose.

Please don’t fall for it.