More GOP crazy: "Town hells!"

[natty bumppo 297]

We're talking about healthcare reform and town hall meetings being disrupted by thugs because Obama's trying to deliver on his promise, but the minority (the ones who didn't vote for him) are having a temper tantrum because they want it their way even though their way lost the election.

so just because obama won the election ... those that didn't vote for him have to blindly follow his agenda without voicing opposing views? they must be silent or sing his praises?

[SMOKE 1,426]

Would you rather I didn't pay taxes? I can always see if that's possible...legally.

if you can do it. do it. 1/2 of obama's cabinet did/do it.

[Peikko 1,575]

We're talking about healthcare reform and town hall meetings being disrupted by thugs because Obama's trying to deliver on his promise, but the minority (the ones who didn't vote for him) are having a temper tantrum because they want it their way even though their way lost the election.

so just because obama won the election ... those that didn't vote for him have to blindly follow his agenda without voicing opposing views? they must be silent or sing his praises?

No, the opposition should do what the opposition is meant to do appose politically. However, holding government to account is not criticizing government for enacting policies they campaigned on during the election, that's called stupidity.

[Heracles 417]

Some of the rebuttal are a joke. Like the lady who said you cannot even run a car rebate. Umm the rebate sold out which means it worked.

Healthcare needed to be reformed 20 years ago. GOP had 8 years and did jack ######.

I called anthem the other week to inquire myself why they did not want to pay for the wife's mammogram. The person on the phone said, once again, "she is under 35 and we are not in the business of preventative care". Never heard of such a thing under NHS.

Edited August 5, 2009 by haza

[Peikko 1,575]

Would you rather I didn't pay taxes? I can always see if that's possible...legally.

if you can do it. do it. 1/2 of obama's cabinet did/do it.

I don't know a legal way of not paying taxes. Do you?

[Peikko 1,575]

Some of the rebuttal are a joke. Like the lady who said you cannot even run a car rebate. Umm the rebate sold out which means it worked.

Healthcare needed to be reformed 20 years ago. GOP had 8 years and did jack ######.

I called anthem the other week to inquire myself why they did not want to pay for the wife's mammogram. The person on the phone said, once again, "she is under 35 and we are not in the business of preventative care". Never heard of such a thing under NHS.

Good for you for trying - preventative care is cheaper in the long run in the vast majority of cases.

[Heracles 417]

so just because obama won the election ... those that didn't vote for him have to blindly follow his agenda without voicing opposing views? they must be silent or sing his praises?

That is why this country is in a mess. The dems are in office so they should call the shots. Same way when the GOP was in office they should have called the shots. Works quite well under the parliamentary system. Otherwise nothing will ever get done. Hence the state of the US compared to other developed countries.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Would you rather I didn't pay taxes? I can always see if that's possible...legally.

if you can do it. do it. 1/2 of obama's cabinet did/do it.

I don't know a legal way of not paying taxes. Do you?

no. if i did i would. how did obama's boys do it?

[Ban Hammer 13,366]

Would you rather I didn't pay taxes? I can always see if that's possible...legally.

if you can do it. do it. 1/2 of obama's cabinet did/do it.

I don't know a legal way of not paying taxes. Do you?

apparently being on obama's cabinet is a good start.

[Heracles 417]

Some of the rebuttal are a joke. Like the lady who said you cannot even run a car rebate. Umm the rebate sold out which means it worked.

Healthcare needed to be reformed 20 years ago. GOP had 8 years and did jack ######.

I called anthem the other week to inquire myself why they did not want to pay for the wife's mammogram. The person on the phone said, once again, "she is under 35 and we are not in the business of preventative care". Never heard of such a thing under NHS.

Good for you for trying - preventative care is cheaper in the long run in the vast majority of cases.

That is what I said to her. I was like, "um if the wife ended up with cancer, that will end up costing you more in the long run". No brainer really. Then again I thought I am sure they have some clause somewhere in the 500 page policies to protect their shareholders that if cancer is x and not c type, they don't cover it. Once again something i have never heard of under NHS. If you are sick under NHS, you receive the appropriate treatment.

Edited August 5, 2009 by haza

[Brian&Naty 0]

The Republican operatives fighting President Obama's health insurance reform proposals are reaching new lows. (OK, not quite Birther lows, but getting there.) The National Republican Congressional Committee is boasting that the GOP is turning Democrats' summer-recess "town hall" meetings into "town hells." Way to engage in productive political discourse, fellas!

In Connecticut one lout suggested Sen. Chris Dodd commit suicide as a cure for his recently announced prostate cancer. "How come we don't just give Chris Dodd painkillers? Like a handful of them at a time! He can wash it down with Ted Kennedy's whiskey!" Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy. Rep. Tim Bishop needed a police escort back to his car. In Austin, Texas, a blue outpost in that red state, Rep. Lloyd Doggett was shouted down by abusive GOP protesters.

Doggett told ABC's Jake Tapper "the Republican Party has coordinated this apparent outrage." But the head of former Rep. ####### Armey's so-called Freedom Works, the GOP Astroturf organization that helped organize the April 15 tea parties, insists "you can't fake this sort of outrage outside the Beltway." (It's nice to have the admission you can fake it inside the Beltway.)

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, echoed that assertion on Twitter, tweeting Tapper: "You can't manufacture the kind of anger many Americans feel toward their government right now. There are many parallels to '94."

Scarborough's perspective actually helps. If we look back at the class of '94 -- Scarborough's scandal-plagued class -- as an example, in fact Obama may be in good shape. The GOP Class of '94 rode a phony wave of anti-Clinton outrage to control of Congress, but two years later, after their ideas were exposed as dead-end (orphanages for welfare families, anyone?) the president they opposed was reelected overwhelmingly. Let's hope the Democrats can course-correct enough to avoid a '94-style drubbing, but if Scarborough's right, Obama will get a second term and a second shot at his agenda anyway.

But the real lesson here is: The Democrats may well lose seats in 2010 if they don't deliver on what they promised. Healthcare reform was a cornerstone of every leading Democratic contender in 2008; it was key to the forward-looking Obama economic agenda that made John McCain look even more lost and left-behind than he actually is (which is saying a lot). Democrats consistently fail to deliver on campaign promises to their base, where even if Republicans screw their cultural-conservative base -- George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did a great job making abortion illegal! -- they do deliver on tax cut and deregulation promises to their corporate masters.

Tuesday night Rachel Maddow made a comparison I'd been thinking about: between the current "Town Hells" and the 2000 "Brooks Brothers riot," in which paid GOP staffers, posing as grass-roots activists, stormed the Miami elections office conducting the recount of presidential votes to try to stop it -- and they succeeded. Maddow noted that many Democrats wondered why their party didn't mobilize them to protest in Florida the same way, and I certainly wondered that too. Nine years later, I'm signed up on various Obama, DNC, MoveOn.org and other liberal mailing lists, and I get healthcare reform alerts, but I'm still waiting for an aggressive activist push to counter the GOP's healthcare lies -- from silly claims that Obama's plan forces "end of life" counseling on seniors, to Arthur Laffer's sad, bewildered denunciation of the Democrats' plan for a government takeover of Medicare and Medicaid -- which are, of course, government programs.

The stupid is accelerating, but I'm not sure that a progressive pushback is accelerating at the same rate (Jane Hamsher's efforts aside; if I'm missing something, please let me know in comments). If Obama can't deliver real healthcare reform, Scarborough might be right: It could be 2010 all over again, but 2012 wouldn't look anything like 1996 for the Democrats.

-- Joan Walsh

http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politic.../walsh/politics

AHEM: Isn't Obama the one that said to GET IN YOUR NEIGHBORS FACE, IF THEY BRING A KNIFE, THEN WE BRING A GUN. Its alright for the left to rile people up but when the same method is used on them, they say we are insane, we are terrorists, we are being programmed and funded by "big insurance" But they do not have any proof. Its all ####### like Clinton's propaganda trip to N Korea to "use diplomatic efforts" to "free" these 2 people WHOM work for none other than AL GORE. The inventor of the Internet and Global Warming.

[GaryC 7]

These thugs will stop at nothing to deceive the public.

i know just look at all these anti GOP threads. thugs i tell ya thugs

Mike, I'm specifically talking about these goons that show up at these town hall meetings pretending to be regular citizens when they have a specific agenda. Is that democracy for you? Because that's what thugs do.

[natty bumppo 297]

We're talking about healthcare reform and town hall meetings being disrupted by thugs because Obama's trying to deliver on his promise, but the minority (the ones who didn't vote for him) are having a temper tantrum because they want it their way even though their way lost the election.

so just because obama won the election ... those that didn't vote for him have to blindly follow his agenda without voicing opposing views? they must be silent or sing his praises?

No, the opposition should do what the opposition is meant to do appose politically. However, holding government to account is not criticizing government for enacting policies they campaigned on during the election, that's called stupidity.

the gov't (administration) IS being held to account and is failing miserably. trying to ram a huge program into existence without full exposure is just plain stupidity. trying to enact a policy without exposure of details also falls into this category. it's not obama's money ... it's ours.

That is why this country is in a mess. The dems are in office so they should call the shots. Same way when the GOP was in office they should have called the shots. Works quite well under the parliamentary system. Otherwise nothing will ever get done. Hence the state of the US compared to other developed countries.

yup ... glad to see you know the US gov't isn't a parliamentary system where one group (as you defined) gets a blank check.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We're talking about healthcare reform and town hall meetings being disrupted by thugs because Obama's trying to deliver on his promise, but the minority (the ones who didn't vote for him) are having a temper tantrum because they want it their way even though their way lost the election.

so just because obama won the election ... those that didn't vote for him have to blindly follow his agenda without voicing opposing views? they must be silent or sing his praises?

Of course not. But what are they all up in arms about? Because he's not delivering on his campaign promise? Hardly. That's just sour grapes. If people oppose his plan, they have every means to public debate the merits of their point of view. But thugs showing up to town hall meetings, with the specific purpose of deliberately misleading the public is not democracy...it's thuggery.

[Heracles 417]

That is why this country is in a mess. The dems are in office so they should call the shots. Same way when the GOP was in office they should have called the shots. Works quite well under the parliamentary system. Otherwise nothing will ever get done. Hence the state of the US compared to other developed countries.

yup ... glad to see you know the US gov't isn't a parliamentary system where one group (as you defined) gets a blank check.

One Group... Why even bother having elections when having the majority of votes means nothing? The only thing I have seen since Obama came into office is that republicans have just as many whinny twits as there were liberals during Bush. That is not politics, that is stupidity. It's like get over it, your not in office. Give these guys a chance. GOP had 8 years but wasted the time and money on two unfunded wars. Alas, listening to them on health care reform is the equivalent of taking pharmaceutical advice from a drug addict.

I am waiting on the GOP's version of reform but I am sure the latest GOP healthcare policy involves tax cuts for the rich.

Edited August 5, 2009 by haza