Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:18am

Blueshirts, Pelosi, and Mobs, Oh My!

It’s been an interesting week in the world of American politics.  With the arrogance of congressional Democrats and the White House attempts at discrediting a grassroots movement, the passions will certainly continue to climb after the weekend is over.

Here are some highlights from these past few days:

1. At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly “mob” with “manufactured” outrage questioned AARP’s support for nationalized health care, asking: “Do you work for us or do we work for you?”

There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday’s meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they “taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said.

But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the name of government-run medical insurance. That perception was not helped when the AARP town hall on the subject was shut down by the seniors outfit once the members dared to ask questions. The AARP representatives did not want to hear from the members at all. Just send in your dues, granny, and be quiet.

To read the rest of this IDB Editorial click here.

2. You’ve heard a lot about this crazy, scary, vicious mob on some shadowy GOP payroll. By the way the DNC, Rachel Maddow, and President Obama talk, you’d think it was a motley crue of Hell’s Angels.

Let me introduce you to the mob:

scary mob 1

scary mob 10

To view the rest of Dana Loesch’s article click here.

3.  America’s liberals have gone from swooning over Barack Obama’s ascension to the White House and gloating over their Bush-induced domination of Congress to near-hysteria because ordinary middle-class Americans are rising in anger against the Democrats‘ planned hijacking of the nation’s health care system. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews worked himself into his characteristic spittle-laced frenzy while sputtering about the legions of protesters showing up to make meetings designed to sell Obamacare into “Town Hell” occasions.

He had Sen. Barbara Boxer of California on his “Hardball” program to pass along a condemnation of these town hall protesters as being “well-dressed middle-class people in pinks and limes ? [a] Brooks Brothers Brigade.” How dare these people adopt the tactics of the left, like the ACORN or SEIU organizers, and plan demonstrations of political dissatisfaction. The left would have us believe that such actions are illegitimate if performed by any other than their own supporters.

This is amusing, as are the awkward attempts by Mr. Matthews and his like to suggest that those folks giving the health care reform backers from Congress a frosty reception as they try to sell their nationalized health care plans are shills for the health insurance industry.

To read the rest of Ron Smith’s article from the Baltimore Sun click here.

4.  And finally Paul Krugman’s amateur New York Times column calling poor elderly white people as racists were condemned by a Black group:

Members of the Project 21 black leadership group have come out swinging against New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for “scurrilously pinning racist motives on critics of President Obama’s health care proposals.”

(Earlier today, Clay Waters covered Krugman’s column for NewsBusters here.)

The group (full disclosure: I work for the National Center for Public Policy Research, which sponsors Project 21) has also called on President Obama to condemn “this effort to stifle debate with race-baiting tactics” as well as “all efforts to derail legitimate public debate.”

Krugman’s column drew the following specific comments from Project 21 members:

Mychal Massie (Pennsylvania):

“Paul Krugman is the one with race on the brain.  Specifically, he is using race in the lowest and most repulsive declinations.  He is using it because every other argument to stem the growing tide of condemnation for the proposed health care reform bill has failed.  Ergo, when all else fails, parade out the race card and attempt to incite blacks into becoming the useful idiots.

“Opposition to the proposed health care bill isn’t based on race.  It is based on a people who are tired of Congress and the President spitting in their faces.  It is the collective resolve of a people who are tired of being tread upon.  One would think a Nobel prize-winner such as Krugman could figure that out.”

Mychal Massie is chairman of Project 21.

To read the rest of Amy Ridenour’s article click here.

5.  Our own Donald R. McClarey was prophetic when he voiced concern of the liberal reactions denigrating into violant attacks on Americans:

Lots of videos of townhalls here where members of Congress face outraged constituents.

Liberals can relax however.  The AFL-CIO is going to send out union members to restore order at the townhalls.  I look forward to the footage when a union leg breaker decides to take a swing at someone who is not enamored of ObamaCare.  In the age of cell phone videos nothing will escape being placed on video.   Conservative union members, your dues money at work.   My late father was a member of Allied Industrial Workers for 30 years, and it used to anger him intensely that his dues were used to support political causes he adamantly opposed.  If you don’t like this and you are a member of a union, you might want to attend a townhall meeting!  Although maybe they won’t let you in.  At the Russ Carnahan town meeting in Saint Louis over a thousand protesters were locked out and only Carnahan supporters were allowed in. Similar tactics were used at a townhall in Tampa.  That will solve the problem!  Lock people out who disagree with the person purporting to represent them in Congress!

To read the rest of Donald R. McClarey’s column click here.

6.  The SEIU Blueshirts made their national television debut when they were disgruntled that a black American dare think and speak his own mind, rather getting his talking points from the mainstream media, by savagely beating him up.  Six arrests were made, including a St. Louis Dispatch-Post journalist, who was so flabbergasted to find an actual black conservative that he jumped into the fray.  Kenneth Gladney, the black American who thinks for himself that was assaulted, was released from the ER at a local St. Louis hospital.

To read the rest of my article on this click here.

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Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 6:39am

A superb roundup Tito! You have a real talent for putting these together!

Paul
Paul
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 12:15pm

It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people. And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.

How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a lynch mob advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.

christianliberal
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 12:48pm

If you don’t know who Rick Scott is then you don’t know who is duping you. This is the false prophet. Scott is the money-changer you let into your temple. Scott is a big health care CEO (whose company by the way was fined $1.7 billion for fraud) who is financing the disruption of the town hall meetings. He is the temptor who has cause you to stumble into the gospel of hatred for your fellow man. His “salvation” (money) is to get you to serve corporate profits instead of your fellow man.

One Master said “Feed my sheep,” “As ye do to the least of these my brothers, you do unto me.” Perhaps you can appreciate how that would be served by universal health care?
The other “master” says, “shout them down,” and “voice your anger.” Does that really serve your mission to be the spreader of the Good News?

I truly feel sorry for good-hearted people who have been drawn into the hatred of political extremism and who honestly think they are serving Christ, when in fact they are serving corporate lobbyists. What a shame!

Check it out: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/06/rick-scott-sanchez/

Tito Edwards
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 4:41pm

Paul,

Those were very hateful elderly people in those posts.

I guess the GOP Hate-van picked them at an early bird dinner and bussed them over to these town halls.

It’s called grasping at straws.

Subvet
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 9:11pm

I really don’t care how great the proposed healthcare bill is, even if it give cradle to grave care to all at the same level Congress enjoys (don’t mention the military, our healthcare isn’t all that great). I don’t care if B.O. & Company summon up a genie to pay for it all with no expense to the taxpayers. I don’t care if there is absolutely no provisions for funding abortions in it.

If it doesn’t expressly forbid coverage for abortion and euthanasia it isn’t good enough. Period.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Saturday, August 8, AD 2009 10:22pm

The health care plan on offer provides for government funding of abortions. Pointing to shady corporate lobbyists doesn’t change that gruesome fact. Who’s the temptor who put that murderous, needless and revolutionary language in the bill? Mr. Scott may be a fraud, but he hasn’t snuffed human life on the scale contemplated by this health bill.

It has no place in a “health care” bill. Demand that it be taken out and I’ll stand with you, CL. Ignore it, and I’ll ignore you.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, August 9, AD 2009 8:52am

Paul,

Do you have a citation for your assertion that the military receive the ‘the best health care in the world’?

I am not aware that anyone has asserted that private enterprise is infallible, merely that it generally performs more efficiently in the provision of merchandise and services unless the good in question is one that cannot be vended on a market (e.g. law enforcement, or natural environments) because the costs and benefits of the provision of the service are very poorly aligned, payer and recipient being different parties (for the most part). A secondary problem you have is that often the use of markets to provide certain goods and services leads to a distribution of same that people find unpalatable. Medical services is one of those goods.

People’s demand for goods and services (including medical services) is invariably going to exceed the capacity of producers to supply these services. From the perspective of the consumer, if you spend more on x, you have to spend less on y. Rationing of the fruits of productive capacity may be done through price systems or through administrative controls, but it must occur. Neither the individual household, nor the commercial insurer, nor the government have unlimited resources, so some party must be in the business of ‘denying coverage’ (i.e. refusing to pay for it). The commercial insurer charges you a premium which is derived in part from an understanding of a particular benefits configuration. If you change the benefits configuration post hoc, the insurance program is not actuarially sound and eventually goes bankrupt.

The program as proposed is hideously rococo, is proposed to be enacted when there are severe demands on public resources from the banking crisis, and is being enacted when simpler alternatives that allow for more decision-making by consumers and providers are available. People also tend to be rather risk-averse in these sorts of situations, preferring a devil they know. That there is opposition is unsurprising. Get used to it.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Sunday, August 9, AD 2009 5:06pm

Paul,

the plan at offer bears no resemblance to the plan which congress generously offers itself, it’s more akin to medicare or the veterans administration. Active military enjoy excellent trauma care, but their “routine” medical system leaves a lot to be desired.

ChristianLiberal (an oxymoron),

and your well-crafted talking points are financed by George Soros. Whatever the agenda of Rick Scott’s organization, they fund NOBODY to attend any townhalls, they, along with many other conservative groups help to analyse the proposal (it’s >1000 pages for legalese and Orwellian “newspeak”) and communicate their findings. It’s the well funded SEIU that is far more in line with what you’re accusing us of.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Sunday, August 9, AD 2009 10:22pm

Advocacy groups, at ALL points on the political spectrum, exist for a very good reason: because most ordinary people cannot take the time to thoroughly perform completely original research and personally lobby their legislators on EVERY single issue of interest to them.

That’s why we have issue-based organizations that do it for us — National Right to Life, the NRA, AARP, the Sierra Club, etc. If they organize an event and provide transportation, meals, etc. for people to participate, does that automatically mean that every individual who attends is being “manipulated” or “bought” and therefore their views don’t deserve consideration? Do people’s views “count” only if they happen to find out about an event completely on their own and attend totally at their own expense, without using any arguments or “talking points” that have ever been used by anyone else?

The mere fact that an advocacy group organizes an event or actively invites people to participate (no one has, as far as I know, claimed that anyone on either side was ordered or forced to attend) does NOT mean that the views expressed by those attendees are insincere or not worthy of attention. I think that applies just as much to SEIU as to any alleged GOP political operatives — if they care enough to show up for an event, they have a right to be heard AND a responsibility to let others be heard as well.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Sunday, August 9, AD 2009 11:09pm

Elaine,

you’re right of course, but in the case of the townhall ‘mobs’ the only support provided has been information as far as we know, and that’s generally the case with conservative causes. On the other hand, there is a LONG history of leftist groups using all sorts of enticements, including cash payments to individual protesters. Furthermore, it’s curious that the SEIU is showing a lot of interest in this matter, since union negotiated health care plans are largely exempted from interference under this law. Also notable is the special treatement afforded SEIU and other democrat activists at these supposedly “open forums”.

I remember SEIU “protestors” involved in a janitorial contract dispute a couple of years ago marching around Cincinnati. I asked one of them what it was about and after a short discussion he acknowledged that he had no idea what it was about he just got paid to come out.

trackback
Monday, August 10, AD 2009 12:45am

[…] from San Francisco, wrote early this morning in a special USA Today editorial that those protesting against government run health care are “un-American“. Drowning out opposing views is […]

trackback
Monday, August 10, AD 2009 7:10am

[…] is referring to the many town hall meetings where Americans were voicing their displeasure to government run health care.  Deliberately smearing Americans for voicing their opinions. […]

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Monday, August 10, AD 2009 7:28am

I probably should have added that I have very little if any sympathy for SEIU, since they were among the biggest supporters of and donors to Illinois’ disgraced Governor Blago, and also among the most strident groups now pushing for a massive tax increase to cover the state deficit. I believe their efforts to organize home health care workers and demand taxpayer support for them are doing more harm than good to their cause and those of the elderly and disabled people they are supposed to be helping. Also, it is true that completely original arguments offered by someone acting on their own will carry more weight than canned “talking points”.

What I take issue with, however, is the notion that participating in ANY kind of organized effort or campaign regarding an issue somehow invalidates one’s point of view or makes it less genuine.

Also, Pelosi obviously doesn’t know what “astroturfing” means. In my experience as a journalist, it referred to instances in which an advocacy or lobbying group creates fake grass roots support for its point of view by getting its own members or clients to write a bunch of letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, blog posts, etc. in a way that makes them APPEAR to have come from ordinary citizens moved to write purely out of personal conviction — with NO mention of the authors’ group affiliation or personal or financial interest in the matter. However, the mere fact that a letter-writing campaign or public event is organized by some group does not make it “astroturf.”

Paul
Paul
Thursday, August 13, AD 2009 11:36am

Tito Edwards, Art Deco, Matt McDonald: It is very American to want to help our fellow countryman. I believe in my government especially our men and women in our military, firefighters and police. You, not so much. Lets face it the previous administration did nothing (except start two wars of choice that are bankrupting our country with all the “war profiteering” contracts to Halliburton) well you and I will just have to agree to not agree. I did not believe any of the Republican rhetoric before the last election and I do not believe them now. I do not believe that your sentiments are in line with the majority, but your comments, funny stuff.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Thursday, August 13, AD 2009 11:42am

Paul,

Tito Edwards, Art Deco, Matt McDonald: It is very American to want to help our fellow countryman.

yes, and we do. In fact, if you are a typical liberal, and we are typical conservatives then we do far more to help our fellow countrymen than you do… shame on you.

I believe in my government especially our men and women in our military, firefighters and police. You, not so much.

I believe in God Almighty. I appreciate and thank our military, firefighters, and police. The FEDERAL government bureacracy which you worship, not so much. State and local governments I appreciate and trust more because they are closer to the people.

I do not believe that your sentiments are in line with the majority

based on all the liberals you hang out with it’s not surprising that you have no idea what the majority think. Check the polls buddy.

e.
e.
Thursday, August 13, AD 2009 12:37pm

“I believe in my government especially our men and women in our military, firefighters and police. You, not so much.

And this comment was meant to prove what exactly?

It reminds me of a corrupt company when faced with possible prosecution for dumping toxic wastes into rivers; they all of a sudden introduce the rather conspicuous red herring: well, our company, as you know, believes wholeheartedly in the greatness of these United States and, in fact, donate regularly to charitable causes!

Well, quite frankly, much like the Demo-n-Caths and other like-minded felons who capitalize on the veneer of societal goodness, professing such remarkable love of country and their fellow man, all the while, advancing deterimental policies that only hinder and even injure the common citizen; I don’t buy the seemingly noble facade even for a second.

Go sell your liberal goods elsewhere; while McDonald might play gracious host to you, I, on the other hand, see you for who you truly are: an actor disguising sheer demagoguery in mere sentimentalism but, as even evident in the agenda and actions of the current administration, nothing substantive or even noble where the average American Family is concerned, which policies as these can only prove injurious as regarding any purported benefits such policy claim to advance and can prove even fatal, especially in light of end-of-life issues which will certainly be truncated — not so surprising given the fiercely Pro-Abort administration bent on only advancing the merits of the Culture of Death.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Thursday, August 13, AD 2009 12:38pm

e.,

very eloquent!

Paul
Paul
Friday, August 14, AD 2009 11:50am

Matt & e: Sticks and Stones……. Stick and Stones

I do not believe that your sentiments are in line with the majority, but your comments, funny stuff.

e.
e.
Friday, August 14, AD 2009 12:20pm

Paul:

I do not believe that your sentiments are in line with sanity; but, hey, such is the sorry state of the world.

All things besides, interesting that you should flaunt your views as being the right one simply because you make the rather tenuous claim that it happens to be the majority, which doesn’t necessarily make them right even if so.

That notorious ad populum is an old fallacy that even your own ignoble confreres have used time and again.

Please do visit us again should you have something more substantive to share. Thanks.

Paul
Paul
Friday, August 14, AD 2009 12:22pm

e: Snore….Snore

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