RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Free Speech in the Era of Obama

Carnahan Met By Angry Mob At News Conference
By George Sells
August 4, 2009

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - One of St. Louis' best known Congressmen was met by an angry mob in South City Tuesday. Russ Carnahan was talking about the Cash for Clunker's program that's looking more and more like it will be extended, but his news conference took a relatively odd turn. Carnahan is urging the Senate to allocate additional funding for the "Cash for Clunkers" program. As Congressman Carnahan tried to speak about three dozen demonstrators, who had been locked out of a South City auto showroom, tried to shout him down. They pressed signs against the glass in an effort to get the attention of media inside.

Carnahan said, "We have some nay-sayers here today, and it's their right to do that."
...

dont you think print can skew based on the author? Seeing is believing.

that didnt make sense.

Health Debate Turns Hostile at Town Hall Meetings
Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press, via Associated Press

Published: August 7, 2009
The bitter divisions over an overhaul of the health care system have exploded at town-hall-style meetings over the last few days as members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds. In several cities, noisy demonstrations have led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations.

Democrats have said the protesters are being organized by conservative lobbying groups like FreedomWorks. Republicans respond that the protests are an organic response to the Obama administration’s health care restructuring proposals.

There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

“Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

The memo was obtained by the liberal Web site ThinkProgress. Its author, Robert MacGuffie, a founder of the conservative Web site Right Principles, confirmed to The New York Times that the memo was legitimate.

In response, liberal groups and the White House have also started sending supporters instructions for countering what they say are the organized disruptions.

A volatile mix has resulted. In Mehlville, Mo., St. Louis County police officers arrested six people on Thursday evening, some on assault charges, outside a health care and aging forum organized by Representative Russ Carnahan, a Democrat. Opponents of the proposed changes, organized by the St. Louis Tea Party, apparently clashed with supporters organized by the Service Employees International Union outside a school gym.

That same day in Romulus, Mich., Representative John D. Dingell, a long-serving Democrat, was shouted down at a health care meeting by a rowdy crowd of foes of health care overhaul, many crying, “Shame on you!” A similar scene unfolded in Denver on Thursday when Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California visited a clinic for the homeless there.

In a statement Friday, Mr. Dingell, 83, deplored those trying to “demagogue the discussion,” but said he would not be deterred. “As long as I have a vote, I will not let shouting, intimidation or misinformation deter me from fighting for this cause,” he said.

The tenor of some of the debates has become extreme. Ms. Pelosi has accused people at recent protests of carrying signs associating the Democratic plan with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols, and some photographs showing such signs have been posted on the Web.

On Thursday, the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the administration’s health care logo was itself similar to a Nazi symbol.

On Friday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League released statements criticizing the comparison.

“It is preposterous to try and make a connection between the president’s health care logo and the Nazi Party symbol, the Reichsadler,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Wiesenthal center.
...

The Weekly Standard has a great piece exposing this latest version of the "if you're not with Obama you're a potential terrorist/cockroach/racist/bigot/etc. The whole conspiracy theory is based on, get this, a memo written by the leader of an obscure grassroots organization with something like---OOH SCARY--thirty members... Right Principles PAC was formed by Bob MacGuffie and four friends in 2008, and has taken in a whopping $5,017 and disbursed $1,777, according to its FEC filing.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

The memo was obtained by the liberal Web site ThinkProgress. Its author, Robert MacGuffie, a founder of the conservative Web site Right Principles, confirmed to The New York Times that the memo was legitimate.

In response, liberal groups and the White House have also started sending supporters instructions for countering what they say are the organized disruptions.

A volatile mix has resulted. In Mehlville, Mo., St. Louis County police officers arrested six people on Thursday evening, some on assault charges, outside a health care and aging forum organized by Representative Russ Carnahan, a Democrat. Opponents of the proposed changes, organized by the St. Louis Tea Party, apparently clashed with supporters organized by the Service Employees International Union outside a school gym.

You're the one using a memo written by the head of a thirty-person group as the smoking gun to "prove" that there is some sort of big conspiracy at play.

If you're going to use something as your evidence, you can't whine when people point out how weak the proof is.

...

...Weakly Standtard...

Wow. That's the best you can come up with?

The Weekly Standard report is based on government filings. I suppose it's possible that that the Standard fabricated those records. However, regardless of how you feel about their politics, I don't think it likely that a well established opinion magazine would falsify government documents. That's a pretty serious felony.

It's an opinion magazine and you were the one that posted the piece from it that you claimed I presented as evidence. Whats up with that or are you done with that bit?

You're the one using a memo written by the head of a thirty-person group as the smoking gun to "prove" that there is some sort of big conspiracy at play.

Go up to the top of the page where you get all bitchy amid your whining...

With all due respect, you're still unclear. Again, I'm not trying to be coy here but your post is very hard to follow.

No, you have misread what I wrote.

Three days ago I posted the Weekly Standard article, debunking the notion that the author of the memo was the leader of a large group and pointing out it was a group with about $5000.00 in donations to its name.

Today, apparently ignoring or forgetting that, you posted a piece citing that memo as proof of a large organized effort.

...

Inventing tales of a union "beating"
August 08, 2009 10:11 am ET by Eric Boehlert

The conservative blogosphere is absolutely atwitter with news that an activist was attacked by union thugs at a town hall meeting this week in St. Louis. It's the best the right-wing can do to deflect blame for unleashing mini-mobs on town hall forums: They did it!

The tale was first told in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Kenneth Gladney, 38, a conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.

The newspaper had no witnesses, just Gladney's account. Then Gladney's attorney got involved and from conservatives' perspective, the tale got better and better:

He went to the ground. Subsequently, two other SEIU representatives or members, however you want to say it, jumped on top of him, yelled racial epithets at him...kicked him, punched him...He sustained some injuries to his back, some bruising.

And even better:

The SEIU member used a racial slur against Kenneth, then punched him in the face. Kenneth fell to the ground. Another SEIU member yelled racial epithets at Kenneth as he kicked him in the head and back. Kenneth was also brutally attacked by one other male SEIU member and an unidentified woman. The three men were clearly SEIU members, as they were wearing T-shirts with the SEIU logo.

Gladney was clearly beaten at length (it was "brutal"), and at least from this description, was lucky to survive with his life, right?

Mary Katharine Ham wrote up an especially excited write-up at The Weekly Standard about the vicious union thugs and how Gladney was severely beaten. The only mistake Ham made was including a YouTube clip of the incident; a clip that pretty much undercuts the entire tale of run-away union violence.

Go watch the YouTube video. (Or, the "shocking video," as Power Line hypes it.) The first thing you notice when the camera starts rolling is a union member already sprawled out on the ground with somebody standing over him. No explanation of how he got there (pushed, shoved, punched?) and Ham couldn't care less. Then yes, Gladney is pulled to the ground by somebody wearing a union shirt. (At the :06 mark.) But instead of Gladney being beaten and punched, as his attorney describes, and instead of union "thugs" standing over him and threatening him, Gladney bounces right back on his feet in approximately two seconds and the scuffle ends.

That was the savage "beating" the conservative blogosphere can't stop talking about?

The only real mystery from the incident is why Tea Party member Gladney, who's seen up-close after the brief encounter walking around and talking to people and who appears to be injury-free, then decided to go to the hospital to treat injuries to his "knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face." All that from a two-second fall to the pavement?

Also unclear is why he contacted a newspaper reporter, or why his attorney wrote up lavish accounts and sent them to conservative bloggers, or why Gladney and his attorney appeared on Fox News.

FYI, according to his attorney, Gladney plans on filing a civil lawsuit against the union.

If you two learned how to think for yourselves you might make more sense.

If I learned to think I might make more sense.

Dear MoveOn member,

Can you join a Town Hall Meeting on health care with Rep. Eric Massa
TONIGHT?

We need to make sure Rep. Massa hears from constituents that we're
counting on him to fight for health care reform with a real public health
insurance option that will expand coverage and bring down costs for all of
us.

The Town Hall is tonight at 7:30 p.m. and the more of us who attend, the
more likely we'll be to get our message across.

Here are the details:

What: Health Care Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Eric Massa
When: Thursday, August 6th at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mendon Community Center, 167 N. Main St, Honeoye Falls, NY

Click here to RSVP:

Yes, I'll attend the Town Hall tonight at 7:30.

Sorry, I can't make it.

This is a critical month for President Obama's agenda. Corporate lobbyists
are trying to weaken or kill both his energy and health care plans. MoveOn
members from across the district are participating in this event as part
of MoveOn's "Heat Up Congress" campaign to fight back.

And recently we've seen a trend that makes it even more important for us
to speak out. Right-wing opponents of President Obama's agenda have been
flooding town halls and other public events--and they're even using
fraudulent tactics, like bringing in people who don't even live in the
district.1 We urgently need to make sure everyday constituents are heard
in the public debate over health care--and this Town Hall Meeting is a
timely and easy way to do that.

Thanks, and we hope you can make it.

--Nita, Anna, Lenore, Ilya and the rest of the team

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million
members--no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Sounds like manufactured Left-wing "astro-turf" to me !

I just have a standard of right and wrong that isn't based on party affilliation