Yesterday I wrote about the effort organized by lobbyists to drown out real debate on health care reform at town halls being held by Congresspersons during the August recess, and here’s yet another great example of the kind of “debate” opponents of health care reform want to have. The video in question was taken at a town hall meeting held by Congressman Steve Kagen, who represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District:
I haven’t heard if Congresswoman Gwen Moore will be holding a town hall meeting during the House recess, but if she is, I’ll be sure to be there to catch some video of the event, just to see what kinds of shenanigans might get pulled by opponents of health care reform.
EDIT: Jorna Taylor, the Organizing Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, has some great thoughts of her own on the conduct of those opposed to health care reform at Rep. Kagen’s town hall.
I couldn’t help but notice that most of the people in the crowd were elderly, and I would presume that many of them were on Medicare. I can’t help but wonder if they would give up those benefits to save themselves three dollars a year in taxes?
For some strange reason I doubt they would, Chris.
The people want to be hurd, and they have A different idea on health care. So when they speak out its called shenanigans. Have you ever been to A DNR listening session, when the tree huggers show up? Now those people are demented. I’m thinking you have no problem with them.I would’nt go to rep Moore’s meeting. If you have An opposing view your tires might get slashed.
“The people?”
Don’t you mean, “the lobbyists,” ray? After all, that’s who’s behind these efforts to disrupt the town hall meetings. To be honest, it’s kinda sad to see so many folks willing to be tools for big pharma and the health insurance companies.
When a person’s confidence exceeds his/her intelligence there will be a problem for everyone.
Lobbyist???? Did you get your email directly from the White House telling you that these people were lobbyist? Talk about getting your marching orders…. Sheeeesh. The only lobbyist that were there were the 2 bus loads of union members Kagen brought in. Why is it so strange for the left to think that many people might be a little pissed that possibly the democrats aren’t acting on their behalf. These people read HR3200 and were asking Kagen for answers that he didn’t have…. Explain why this is kooky? Calling a constituency lobbyists…. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there who think this congress and president aren’t doing the right thing here……
E, the people at the town halls may not have been lobbyists, but the entire effort was organized by corporate lobbyists.
I just realized – it’s kinda funny that you’re criticizing the people who attend the town hall meetings and disagree as somehow being puppets and it’s all organized by lobbyists – when you turn around and post a linking White House Communications video and even lift verbatim, the title, “Facts Are Stubborn Things” from the White House Blog.
Sounds like the kettle calling the stainless steel frying pan black.
Ummmmm… No Zach it wasn’t. These are real people. Republicans, democrats, independents, conservatives. Just because people disagree and speak out doesn’t mean there is a greater force backing them. Did you ever think that maybe these people are speaking their OWN minds. Where are the emails that went out to gather these people? What basis of fact do you have to support your claim? Are you just believing the DNC and White House talking points? Anytime you or your friends disagree are funded and given talking points by lobbyists or do you use your own brains?
Yeah E, there’s no greater force at work here.
By the way, the memo I linked to was written by Bob MacGuffie, who happens to be associated with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots. In case you were wondering, FreedomWorks is a conservative political action group.
This evil FreedomWorks PAC you speak of. According to their Mid-year report with the FEC, from 1/1/09 through 6/30/09 it began with $0 cash on hand, and during those six months, has raised a whopping $222.50.
By the way, just as a point of reference, MoveOn.org’s Mid-year report lists $3.3 million on hand and $5.4 million raised over the same period. (I linked to their documents page rather than directly to the PDF since the PDF file is over 75 MB.)
Looks like it didn’t like my direct link to the PDF. Here’s the link to the FEC documents page for FreedomWorks PAC.
Where’s the numbers for AFP which was funding the work FreedomWorks did for them?
WOW… A document with information sent out from a group that doesn’t like what it hears. That’s not a lobbyist. That’s not BIG Insurance. It’s a clearing house for information. Good thing the left doesn’t have anything like that……. Try again… Don’t forget to check the White House blog for more info.
Sure thing Silent E, I absolutely believe that all of these people, that just coincidentally happen to be mostly elderly and white, happened, by sheer chance to go to meetings all across the country, screeching the same things, following the same game plan, all by chance.
Furthermore, it is, I’m sure, just pure luck that these same events, with the same words being screeched, by the same kind of people, happens to line up with what these moneyed special interest groups were promoting.
What are the odds? Oh yeah, pretty good, since it was well coordinated by these same special interest groups that don’t care about the people, only their profits.
The only really scary part about this is that people like you have yourself so afraid of reality that you believe this crap you’re trying to push on others.
Reality Capper? Please.. The only crap here is the health insurance reform the dems are trying to push. If this bill is so fantastic, why aren’t they debating it’s merits? Why does the left have to gin up the numbers to make it look like 47 million people don’t have insurance when the actual number is closer to 20 million? That’s 20 million out of over 300 million. Fix what’s broken. Don’t change the whole system. Start with tort reform. Go ask your doctor how much his/her insurance is for their practice.
The malpractice worries only account for a few percentage points of the total spent on health care in this country. Your numbers say only 20% are without health insurance. How many are insurance poor, paying more towards their health care than they do in taxes, which you on the right love to tell us is too high. But when there is something even worse, you want to save it? Please.
These are the lobbying organizations that are in partnership with the Tea Party Patriots “Health Care Freedom Coalition”. These organizations need to register with the IRS and the state they reside in. They are subject to the same lobbying laws as “big lobbyist”.
From their own website:
Tea Party Patriots Health Care Freedom Coalition Partner (s)
Let Freedom Ring ~ Pledge to Read
Freedom Works
Conservatives for Patients Rights
American Liberty Alliance
Health Care Horserace
Patients First
Americans for Prosperity
Association of American Physicans and Surgeons, Inc. (the incorrect spelling of Physician is theirs)
http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/page/health-care
RUSH was right when he said the great community organizer can’t stand that the community has organizd against him. He lost my mothers support and she was A liberal diehard. She used to be so proud of the party.I cannot repeat what she says about Obama and his healthcare. She read the bill,said she was worried about her future
ray, did she read the bill, or did she read the chain emails full of mistruths and falsehoods about the bill?
Did she read the actual bill, or just some right winger’s “summary” of it?
Didn’t we elected a guy who was a community organizer? I’m really confounded by the vilification of the very same methods they’ve been employing. The folks who followed Move On’s every word were grassroots. But the Tea Party folks or those speaking out against Obamacare are astroturfing & it’s all orchestrated by lobbyists.
Sorry that’s just crap. Your dividing line is whether you agree with the ideology or not, not the actual methods.
Has everyone forgotten about Obama’s pre-politics career?
“Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.”
So Obama was A lawyer. whats your point could it be lawyers are scumbags
Right wingers summary of the bill? http://www.lc.org/media/9980/attachments/healthcare_overview_obama_072909.pdf
This link tells you what HR3200 says and gives the section and page number so you can verify it. Are you afraid of facts or just old white people?
Yep, it’s just the usual interpretation, or to be more accurate, misinterpretation of the true facts. Are you afraid of the facts or just any non-white non-conservative people?
I’m afraid of the stupidity of our legislators. Your the one who had to make the statement about old white people at these meetings which happened to take place during the day when many people, except for the possibility of older retired folks, would be at work. You made the point racial not me. Don’t you DARE try to play the race game with me.
You never did explain way none of these elected representatives could answer any of the questions by this angry mob of old people. Please feel free to point out the misinterpretations of the facts.
Thanks for the link! I was truly disappointed with the mob’s behavior. At some points it felt like the Congressman could have said, “grass is green” and the mob would have shouted him down immediately and disagreed. Like I said, I expected dissent to HR 3200, but I also expected a level of intelligent discourse and decency. It is too bad that folks are so easily swayed by the lies from the private insurance company lobbyists and special interests.
So it was “organized by corporate lobbyists”. Does that mean they paid people to go? I know firsthand people who went without corporate prodding to let Kagen know they don’t want him to vote for it. Even if it was organized, people still had to be willing to get into their cars, wait in line, and make time to attend the event (and in some cases take off work).
It’s amazing that liberals are so defensive when critism comes their way. And as if they never had ACORN or any organized effort to denounce Republicans.
FMSN-
If you would look at the video, very few looked liked they needed to take the day off, since most are retired.
Silent E-
What questions? All I heard was unintelligible screaming and squawking.