“NO LIVE HUMAN BEING HAS ONCE PICKED UP THE PHONE”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Mar. 2, 2017) — Approximately four weeks ago, The Post & Email interviewed long-time reader and citizen researcher Michael Jackson about his concerns that telephone numbers leading to the offices of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan do not result in a response by a live person in either Washington, DC or at any of his three Wisconsin district offices.
As well as serving as Speaker, Ryan represents the first congressional district of southern Wisconsin, which encompasses from Janesville in the west to Racine and Kenosha on the shore of Lake Michigan to the east.
On February 7, 2017, Jackson sent letters to members of the House Ethics Committee to inform them that over the course of more than 15 months, he has received an automated greeting or busy signal when calling the five numbers.
Jackson has been attempting to reach Ryan’s office since October 29, 2015, when Ryan replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House. “No live human being has once picked up the phone to answer,” Jackson wrote in his letters.
When first reaching Ryan’s Washington, DC office, Jackson said he received an automated greeting containing several options. However, with the advent of 2017, Jackson said the pattern changed.
Jackson told us that at one point, he enlisted the assistance of a congressional staffer to try Ryan’s numbers and that she, too, obtained a busy signal. “Hasn’t anyone in Wisconsin tried to call?” he wondered during his interview with us.
On Thursday, The Post & Email called Ryan’s Washington, DC Speaker’s office at 202-225-0600 and received a voice recording containing six options, the last of which was to leave a message for the Speaker. We did not leave a message at that time.
We then called the Janesville office at 608-752-4050, checking it against Ryan’s congressional website for accuracy. At both 10:09 EST and 2:41 p.m. EST, we received a busy signal.
Calls to the Kenosha and Racine district offices at 262-654-1901 and 262-637-0510, respectively, yielded the same result during the same respective time frames.
At 10:11 a.m. EST, The Post & Email called Ryan’s Speaker’s office again, selected option #6 and left a message to the effect that his district office numbers were yielding busy signals on Thursday.
Jackson’s letters and fax records showing their dispatching to Ethics Committee members can be read here:
Welcome to Washington DC! Business as usual, too many HOGS at the entitlement trough-Republican or Democrat. Occasionally you might get someone live but they are usually “blockers” designed to keep you from speaking to anyone in “authority”. It’s the new corporate norm-robots-multiple questions push one/two/three- if you know your parties extension, eeeetc. Once most of these people get into any position they become untouchable/unreachable. Phony email websites that have limited “character” boxes where all you can say is hello, please help-ridiculous forms to keep you on the list of deplorable losers and the best part is once you write the purpose in your request box and hit send- you are informed that “DUE TO THE HIGH VOLUME- YOUR EMAIL MAY NOT BE READ BUT WE TRY TO READ ALL EMAILS” ON AND ON! Thanks see ya’ by!