At a townhall in Cincinnati, Republican Congressman Steve Chabot decided that people should not be allowed to videotape the event and had a police officer seize the camera of citizens recording the public event of a public figure inside of a public building:
Schwartz said that sometimes at the town hall meetings, citizens ask questions about their own personal situations and the Chabot staff did not want them videotaped. The media cameras were allowed to continue to roll, Schwartz said, “because they can be expected to respect people’s privacy.”
They are asking questions at a public townhall and they are pulling the privacy card. How stupid does Chabot's people think we are?
This has to be one of the saddest periods in American history. We have a major political party hellbent on turning us into the Soviet States of America. We can't video public events of public figures. We even have Republicans charging to talk to them now, and this is a Republican who the right was pushing to run for President!
The right is going after lawmakers who are not holding townhalls during the recess. I believe there is merit to this charge. We have a representative government and townhalls are a perfect opportunity to make sure that representation is well shared. However the list compiled on Hot Air seems to be rather partisan. They have listed a couple of Republicans, but are missing some big names. I’ll take right here in southern Ohio. My own representative, and the House Minority Leader, John Boehner is not holding any townhalls. Add to that the district directly south of me, OH-02, which is represented by Jean Schmidt (R), and our Republican Senator George Voinovich.
The closest townhall the people of southwest Ohio have had is one held in Columbus last week by Senator Sherrod Brown, however Steve Driehaus (D-OH-01) is also planning an event.
I can fully get behind what the right is doing, but I can’t tolerate partisanship in such an endeavor. To me its amazing, yet not shocking that John Boehner isn’t holding one. Boehner is a pro at ignoring his constituency. A few years back during the Medicare debacle his office flat out refused to talk to seniors, even when there was a large gathering only a couple of miles from Boehner’s house.
Without insulting the guy, here's how I would describe him. He's clearly either the recipient of Veteran's Administration healthcare (note the USMC cap) or Medicare or both. Both of which are single-payer "socialized" healthcare programs run by the government. And I seriously doubt this old misguided man would ever give up his socialized healthcare.
At the same time I was watching Countdown and they were showing a clip from a townhall meeting held by Steny Hoyer, in which this guy was disrupting the meeting:
Another senior citizen, and the woman next to him was doing the same thing – another senior citizen. These are the kinds of people that don’t want government run healthcare and thinks the government better not touch their Medicare.
It’s bad enough that these sparks of outrage and disruptions at townhalls about healthcare are being pushed by major lobbying companies and the insurance companies, but I think there is something even more disturbing there. These people already have access to our elected officials. They write them big checks, so that means they are given attention you and me are never afforded. That means that our only chance to ask questions and/or raise concerns are at these townhalls, which isn’t possible thanks to them.
So they think its fine and dandy to deny Americans their basic right to representation. That’s bullshit. We pay taxes and are good citizens, but can’t hear or talk to our elected officials? Maybe people in attendance at these meetings should start bringing that up and ask that the police remove these people for disrupting our constitutional rights to a representative government.
