Here's the scene when I arrived a few minutes after 7:00pm. Representative Adam Schiff had just begun speaking. An estimated 3,000 people were in attendance:
The event was orignally scheduled to be held inside the Alhambra Public Library. Organizers changed the venue to the lawn at City Hall, across from Alhambra High School on 1st Street. I walked around to the other side of the demonstration to snap this shot below. This was as close as I could get. ObamaPlants had set up shop in folding chairs up front:
My friend Mark Goluskin attended the event. He suggests that "there were at least 2,000 people that showed up. And without a doubt, the majority of the crowd were opponents of the so-called health care 'reform'."
You get a sense of the excellent anti-ObamaCare turnout at this video:
At this one, Representative Schiff gets a "startling" welcome from conservatives:
Some demonstrators anticipated the ObamaCare thugs:
This group of conservatives stood right behind a huge batch of pre-print/chicken-wire/yard-sign ObamaBots. Most of the leftists had cookie-cutter signs, in contrast to the grassroots conservatives who have been protesting Democratic-socialism all year:
This gentleman was happy to pose with his poster, "Marxist Jihad:
This fellow might have more to say about ObamaCare's "death panels":
This guy's sign gets right to the point:
Okay, how about the leftists? A couple of young women, local communists, were trying to squeeze-in and settle among the AARP lawn-chair shills and SEIU plants:
The radical women were cadres from the "Freedom Socialist Party." According their Wikipedia entry:
The party views the liberation struggles of women, people of color and sexual minorities (such as homosexuals) as intrinsic to working class revolt, and it looks to these specially-oppressed sectors of society to provide revolutionary leadership.
The Lyndon LaRouche communists were out in force. Both the mainstream press and hardline netroots blogger are trying to pin the LaRouche forces on conservatives and Rush Limbaugh. But LaRouche is a perennial candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; and the LaRouche activists are just extreme left-wing publicity seekers. See Newsbusters, "NBC, CNN and MSNBC All Assign Communist LaRouche's Obama-Hitler Poster to Conservatives, Limbaugh," and the Weekly Standard, "Video: Democrats Bring Obama-As-Hitler Signs to Town Halls" (via Memeorandum):
Below, this guy was handing me flyers from the radical Progressive Democrats of America, a Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich front-group. The guy's sign boasts the URL for the Coalition for World Peace, a partner with Code Pink and the neo-Stalinist International ANSWER:
Here's a local ACORN representative speaking to a reporter from the Spanish-language Univision network. ACORN thugs reportedly beat peaceful demonstrators at last week's Tampa Bay town hall meeting.
This woman was nestled in among the ObamaCare plants. She had one of the pre-distributed signs from the National Nurses Organizing Committee, a socialist single-payer health group.
The guy below in the red shirt is an ObamaCare goon. He was aggressively in-your-face making juvenile "L" for loser hand signs, telling conservative activists to "shut up and get out of the way." He kept yelling "loser!" loser"! "Health reform now"! He also started yelling "Wait until 2012!" at conservatives who tried to speak back to him. I talked calmly with the guy. I asked him "why should the democratic process come to a halt if your side won?" He couldn't answer the question. He was confident and said "Obama's health care is coming and you guys can try to win in 2012." I guess that's the street-level version of President Obama's "I don't want folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking." That's him with the sign below as well, "YOUR HEALTH VS. INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?"
Local activists from the International Socialist Organization posed for pictures. This woman was very nice, but I got the feeling she was new to community organizing (not thuggish enough). She was selling copies of the Socialist Worker for a dollar:
As I was getting ready to leave, I saw Mr. Red Shirt Blowhard again (below). Notice his right hand is grabbing the strings of his hat? I just missed getting a picture of him making the "L" sign while yelling "loser!" at the conservatives standing at right. The guy's now listening to what the tea partyers had to say, and this is the moment when I asked him, "why should the democratic process come to a halt if your side won?" That's his wife to the right. She spoke more calmly with some of the conservatives. The tea partyers gave specific citations of key portions of the House bill. I gathered, amid her befuddlement, that Mrs. Red-Shirt hadn't read the bill:
This woman below let me take her picture a littler earlier. Her sign is totally appropriate to what conservatives are facing at the town halls: "STOP AMERICA'S ENEMIES: ACORN + SEIU + ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA = OBAMA!":
Here are the local news trucks along 1st Street, preparing their 11:00pm reports:
This morning's Los Angeles Times refused to run a story on the conservatives against ObamaCare. Instead we got a tear-jerker front-page report on the healthcare event this week at the Inglewood Forum, "Free Care and a Reality Check: Uninsured Flood Clinic at the Forum."
The local ABC7 news report was pretty good actually. I reported on it last night. See, "Adam Schiff Town Hall: ObamaThugs to Conservative Protesters - 'We Won in 2008' (So STFU)." See also, "Tempers Flare at Adam Schiff Town Hall in Alhambra."
Plus, some thoughts from a local blogger, "Better Dead Than Red - Reflections on Congressman Schiff's Agitprop Town Hall."
19 comments:
I was so proud to see all the Americans come out to fight against Obama Care. My aunt is the lady in the "The Mob" shirt with the great sign. My little sister made the sign. It's turned into quite a family afair to rally against Obama and his crappy health care plan, that is frankly not a plan at all.
Great report and pics!Thanks!
the look on schiff's face is priceless. i so wish i could have been there with you and my other friends. no big surprise that lat ignored it...
I'll concur with Anon- great report and pics, Donald. My fave- "we can't afford free health care."
Camille Paglia has the best written slamdown of the ridiculous implosion ObamaCare has engendered:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/08/12/town_halls/
Her best lines, however, are reserved for the syncophantic suck-ups on the MSM/blogosphere agitprop front:
"The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
That guy in the red shirt looks VEEEERY strange. Orange County leftists! Who woudda thunkit!
That video of Shiff's astonishing welcome is GREAT! He looks completely unable to deal with anyone who doesn't agree with him. He's sort of shell-shocked looking, isn't he?
I gotta tell ya, it's been a beautiful thing watching people get out and get their voices heard, Donald. Beautiful.
My guy, Specter, has been getting an earful - and as much as I despise him I have to give credit where credit is due. Knowing what he is going to be facing in his townhall meetings - he hasn't cancelled them, he's been right there listening and hearing and talking to people. Many representatives have cancelled all meetings which is a disgrace.
Great pics - thanks for sharing them. I'm glad that you were able to attend!
Pathetic and inaccurate post.
Great post! Keep up the excellent work!!
COMMON CENTS
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/12/765777/-Adam-Schiff-HCR-Town-Hall:-Voldemort-Is-Funding-Your-Protest
Well then why does Daily Kos say that the 3,000 in attendance were on their side?
A question: Why do you refer to the International Socialist Organization as "Stalinist"? Their intro announces they're actually "internationalists" who seek to unite "workers of all countries," which would make them Trotskyites -- there's even a large ad for Comrade Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution" featured.
Uncle Joe was a national socialist.
These protests are occurring because the people representatives are "not listening" to the people that elected them to office. This is the Supreme Insult to the taxpayers.
If you don't mind, I have some pictures to add.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14579203@N06/sets/72157621901644237/
Great report and pics, Donald! As always, the right makes it a family affair, and the left looks like they're from the circus
Schiff is responding to his constituents. Pro-healthcare reform and robust public option. It's why you foolish conservatives got your clocks cleaned nationally in the 2008 election.
Elections have consequences.
My question to you is, do you respect our democracy or do you feel that it's only a democracy when your side wins?
Second question, will you take up arms against us if we keep winning these political battles over the next several years?
Well, I was at that event too. Those who decry the shouting tactics of the anti-Obamacare crowd should remember that when you're the underdog in opposition of those in power, it's necessary to talk a little louder. I was disappointed they didn't have a microphone for live questioners. Also, the stilted, boring speeches of the panelists went a little too long.
Adam Schiff turned this "townhall" into a rally FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. I was there with my husband, sister and brother and the OBAMA ACORN people were angry and would not let us speak. We started chanting "READ THE BILL" and some kid in a USC Keck Hall Doctor t-shirt (probably borrowed by a hard working pre-med student) got in my and my sisters face and told us to read the bill and to shut up. He then told me to take the bill out of my purse (what?) and start reading it. I told him I was NOT THE CONGRESSMAN -Adam Schiff was and it was my right to speak. He kept starring us down and making nasty comments to us the entire RALLY. IT WAS NOT A TOWNHALL. IT WAS TURNED INTO A RALLY. I BET SCHIFF got the word from the Whitehouse to not allow questions unless they were ACORN people. Very enlightening. Made us more angry and against this bogus bill than before I came. Adam Schiff was a total Pussy.
I have an event you should show up to:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-protesters-at-this-health-care-forum.html
Has anybody actually tried to read this thing? No wonder our representatives havent read it. Its nearly incomprehensible. Take a look for yourself...google hr3200.
If people at town halls would just bring a copy of this bill with them, and read it to their congressman...we would all be laughing at youtube videos of our representatives who support this thing looking completely baffled.
Bring the bill, read sections to them, then ask what it means...expose these phonies.
I was also there and know that it was 2-1 protesters vs. supporteres but of course that is not the way it was reported. Check out my on line debate with the Glendale Outlook Editor regarding his reporting of the event. Google Glendale Outlook Sunroom and then scroll down a few articles to the townhall story. I've said all I need to there but you all are welcome to add to it if you like. No sign in needed. Just post. Btw- the "red shirt" (how appropriate) is hot head Pasadena activist/moveon.org organizer Patrick Briggs.
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