*Tampa Tribune pulls story references to Obama as "The Joker;" conservative witness reports witnessing Joker signs
On Thursday, August 6, 2009, State Rep Betty Reed (Dem.-Tampa) and the Service Employees International Union were met by a town hall tea-bagger-type mob of hundreds. The mob had been spurred to attend the forum by the conservative activist group, the 9-12 Project, promoted by conservative broadcast host (Fox News) Glenn Beck. The Hillsborough County Republican Party urged e-mail recipients to attend the town hall meeting.
From Huffington Post, August 6, with August 7 updates:
Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county Republican party, according to the St. Petersburg Times:
Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.
The Times added:
The spectacle at the Children's Board in Ybor City sounded more like a wrestling cage match than a panel discussion on national policy, and it was just the latest example of a health care meeting disrupted by livid protesters.
The Tampa Tribune reports that some protesters carried racist caricatures of President Obama and added details of more fights and scuffles:
Several of the protesters' signs bore an image of Obama with his face painted as the Joker, an image that drew protests of racism locally when it appeared on a Web site thought to be associated with the Pinellas Republican party.
There were at least two scuffles between protesters trying to enter and organizers manning the doors.
One of those involved in a scuffle, Randy Arthur, of Oldsmar said he was injured by those manning the doors and said he would file a police report... Randy Arthur, who owns an air conditioning service company, later talked to police officers, his knit shirt ripped and a few scratches visible on his chest. "They slammed him into the wall,'' Kathy Arthur said.
*Health insurers confident that they are winning the health care debate, as Blue Dog / Blue Cross Democrats praise the lobbyists
From "Business Week," August 6, 2009, "The Health Insurers Have Already Won
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit":
As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET), and WellPoint (WLP). The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall . . . .
Blue Dog / Blue Cross Democrats have nice words for lobbyists:
" . . . UnitedHealth parked a shiny 18-wheeler outfitted with high-tech medical gear near the Capitol and invited members of Congress aboard. Inside the mobile diagnostic center, which enables doctors to examine distant patients via satellite television, Representative Jim Matheson didn't disguise his wonderment. "Fascinating, fascinating," said the Democrat from Utah. "Amazing." "
. . . .
UnitedHealth has distinguished itself by more deftly and aggressively feeding sophisticated pricing and actuarial data to information-starved congressional staff members. With its rivals, the carrier has also achieved a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry.
Matheson, whose Blue Dogs command 52 votes in the House, can't offer enough praise for UnitedHealth, the largest company of its kind. "The tried and true message of their advocacy," he says, "is making sure the information they provide is accurate and considered."
Representative Mike Ross, an Arkansas Democrat who leads the Blue Dogs' negotiations on health reform, also welcomes input from UnitedHealth. "If United has something to offer on cutting costs, we should consider it," says Ross, a former small-town pharmacy owner. "We need more examples that work, and everything should be on the table."
*RACHEL MADDOW (MSNBC) DETAILS HOW CORPORATE INTERESTS SPONSOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DISRUPTIVE RIGHT-WING MOBS.
The Raw Story summarizing Maddow's report:
who are behind these groups?
“The executive director of American Majority’s Minnesota office — ko’inky dink — regional field director for Bush-Cheney ‘04,” began Maddow. “Executive director of their Kansas office would be a former Republican state legislator; executive director of their Oklahoma office, a former Washington, D.C. conservative lobbyist — you know, just your average middle-class Americans.”
Another ‘Recess Rally’ sponsor is The Sam Adams Society, run by “the former executive director of the Illinois State Republican Party,” said Maddow. “Sam Adams Alliance is also led by a former Dow Chemicals engineer who’s also president of the nation’s largest conservative state-level policy think tank…”
Finally, and what Maddow called “the most illustrative of all,” is Americans for Prosperity, run by Art Pope.
“Art Pope. Art Pope,” she said. “Why does that name sound familiar? Oh, right! That’s the headquarters of the North Carolina Republican Party. That building is named after Art Pope because Art Pope is a multi-millionaire far-right activist who’s given the Republican Party in North Carolina so much money over the years that they could think of no grander gesture than to name their headquarters building after him.”
*FORMER CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST REVEALS CORPORATE CONNECTIONS AND TACTICS OF DISRUPTERS
Francis Schaeffer wrote on the corporate connections to the right-wing mobs and their tactics.
Schaeffer on corporate sponsorship
Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox News-organized "tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the Republicans have embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down orchestrated fake grass roots campaign by corporate interests to try and protect the profits of the insurance business. Armey's FreedomWorks is organizing against health care reform. Armey's lobbying firm represents pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's lobbying firm also represents the trade group for the life insurance industry. FreedomWorks is supporting the status quo at all costs. (They are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's lobbying firm represents Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE, on energy related issues.)
Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building "amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey. FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years.
He described how he used to organize crowds to harass Congressmen and abortion providers, foreshadowing the harrassment we're seeing this month.
Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building "amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey [Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey]. FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I know this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late Jack Kemp and Dick Army and the rest of the Republican gang about using their business ties to help finance the pro-life movement to defeat Democrats. I know this script. I helped write it.
Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's the tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their neighborhoods. "Protesters" surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. We used to do the same to Dr. Tiller... until someone killed him.
Schaeffer explains why Armey and other activist Republicans took an ugly turn.
Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his political views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to America's Brown Shirts today?
I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them don't run the country any more -- and never will again. To them the black president is leading a column of the "other" into their promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court... for them this is the Apocalypse.
Reminds us of Dick Armey's leaked memo, on how to confront while avoiding intelligent, civil debate
- Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: "Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington."
- Be Disruptive Early And Often: "You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early."
- Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions."
Armey's organizing formula:
Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing -- Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works -- American Brown Shirts at the ready.
What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well, think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic and how that story ended. In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save our economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care costs may be lost, not because of a better argument, but because of lies backed up by anti-democratic embittered thuggery.
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