Dino Rossi Hides Facebook Comments By 8th CD Voters Questioning His NRA Ties
Rossi is pretending these voters and their concerns don’t exist.
After the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday, voters in the 8th Congressional District took to Dino Rossi’s Facebook page to express their worries about Dino Rossi’s close ties to the NRA and to ask him where he stands on keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. Their concerns are understandable, given Rossi’s track record of putting what’s best for the gun lobby before citizens:
- In 2010, the NRA spent $414,100 supporting Dino Rossi’s unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid against Senator Patty Murray.
- Rossi has been endorsed by the NRA in the past and has consistently received an “A” rating from the NRA.
- Rossi has opposed restrictions on assault rifles and extended magazines.
- This past year, Rossi has refused to state his position on background checks and other common-sense gun reform laws.
Rossi has not made any public statement about Wednesday’s shooting, and has refused to respond to even one request for comments on the shooting.
The day after the shooting in Parkland, Dino Rossi’s sole Facebook post was a graphic with the words “GO TEAM USA” over an image of US flags and fireworks. Facebook users, at least one identifying herself as a resident of the 8th Congressional District and therefore a potential constituent of Rossi, expressed that they felt this was inappropriate given the gravity of the past day’s events and Rossi’s lack of explanation for his ties to the NRA and voting record with regard to guns.
Rossi responded by hiding or deleting their comments.
Below is a screenshot taken at 8:19 p.m. on Thursday, February 15th:
At 10:08 a.m. on Friday, February 16th, the total number of comments had increased to 11, according to the next screenshot.
But after clicking on the “View all 11 comments” link, we discovered that only one comment with three replies remained, as shown by this screenshot taken at 10:10 a.m. on Friday, February 16th. The rest of the comments had been hidden or deleted.
It is worth noting that this comment is favorable to Dino Rossi. We have seen Rossi hide unfavorable comments in the past, and now he is pretending the people of his district who have legitimate questions about his ties to the NRA simply don’t exist.
What’s worse, many of these users never know their comments have been hidden. When they return to the page while logged in to their Facebook accounts, they still see their own comments and often assume that their comments are still visible to anyone.
Chris Petzold (the individual who identified herself as a resident of the 8th Congressional District in her post on Rossi’s page) sent the following screenshot this morning and confirmed that she could still see her own comment despite the fact that it is no longer visible to others.
Dino Rossi hopes you believe his claims that he wants to “work together” with his constituents and says that he has “received wide acclaim… for his ability to bring people together from all walks of life…”
That’s nonsense. What Dino Rossi actually wants is to continue benefiting from his relationship with the NRA, and he is noteworthy only for his ability to so brazenly silence the cries of help from constituents who ask that their elected officials take simple steps to address gun violence.
For more information about the Washington State Democratic Party, visit: https://www.wa-democrats.org/ or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
