http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=13290

And they said the right was bad.

I am really beginning to think that the very best thing the Democrats can do at this point is just shut the hell up.

Pelosi and a few others have said some things that have just had me shaking my head and wondering what in the blue hell they were thinking.

Well to be far Rush Limbuge said that the Demorciates are Nazis and the health care bill is similar to the one used in Nazi Germany. Yea...

It's one thing for a person to express his opinion right or wrong.It's another when you have the third highest ranking person in power in our Government calling the US citizens Nazis for expressing their freedom of speech.This kind of thinking and talking by our elected leaders can start alot of problems and such insults should not be spoken in public.

The anti healthcare folks were the rowdy ones here the other day when she was here. The pro healthcare folks were very orderly and considerate.

Rush Limbaugh is a dangerous joke inflicted on the American people thanks to the 1st amendment.

He was just pissed because of the joke Wanda Sykes said about him..
I think Rush was the 11 th hijacker and he was so messed up on oxycontin that he missed the flight..

I'm no fan or Rush or Nancy.

Oh yeah they were really civilized!

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the police showed up toward the end of the forum held by Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan. One conservative activist, interviewed at a local emergency room where he was being treated for injuries, said he was attacked by some of the individuals who were arrested as he passed out "Don't tread on me" flags.

He got treaded on

Yea I guess they did not listen to his flag huh? LOL


The anti healthcare folks were the bad ones here so I don't know about elsewhere. I would have to see the whole story to see if they were in the wrong, it could have been self defense.

Many people are supporting The Health Care Plan...Yet they have not read the bill or even experienced it in real life. It is a BIG issue and deserves some civil debate and dissection.

I am not going to waste time debating you because I already know it is impossible for you to see it any other way but yours despite if you were there watching it with your own eyes.I think we should start a new room devoted to you called "Dragoness's fantasy world" because you certainly can not accept facts and have no intention of having a debate.A debate would mean that you would actually have to(gasp)admit that you may have it wrong from time to time.But feel free to do what liberals do best...live in denial.

Aye but Rush Limbaugh is not a government official...

Just a loud mouth with opinions.

Our leaders are people too. When you show up at townhall meetings with Nazi symbols expect to be called a mob or worse. .

Guess you missed the hundreds of others in the crowd acting like crazies, huh?

Sorry that was tooo funny.

I am not a liberal, never have claimed to be one.

Just because you cannot snow me with the bull you believe doesn't make me wrong.

Did somebody mention my city? lol

By Kim Bell and Patrick O'Connell
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/07/2009

UPDATED: 2:22 P.M.

U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan today criticized protesters who disrupted his forum on aging Thursday night and subsequent clashes outside, saying it was time for a calmer, more civil debate on health care reform.

At a news conference today, Carnahan, D-St. Louis, criticized GOP leaders whom he said have encouraged protesters, but also expressed disappointment with the actions of left-wing counter-protesters.

"Sadly, they got out of control on both sides," he said. "That's not helpful, and I condemn that activity."

St. Louis County police arrested six people after the forum in Mehlville, including a Post-Dispatch reporter.

The back-and-forth between factions in the crowd created a contentious atmosphere inside and outside the forum. The event attracted several hundred people. They included members of the movement opposing President Barack Obama's policies and groups who came to show support for the president's proposals.

Carnahan on Friday called for a more civil debate over health care reform moving forward.

"Let's have a spirited debate, a debate worthy of our country," he said.

It's unclear, though, if passions will cool soon. In fact, leaders of the St. Louis Tea Party, which had mobilized supporters to attend Carnahan's forum and protest health care reform proposals, have announced a protest Saturday at the St. Louis headquarters of the Service Employees International Union. Members of the union showed up in Mehlville on Thursday night to show support fo the proposals.

The Tea Party, in a press release, called the event a "peacable protest."

Dana Loesch, a blogger, radio talk show host and St. Louis Tea Party activist who was at the Mehlville event, said, "Last night, it was a whole different scene. That's not what this should be about."

Loesch said Tea Party supporters generally haven't caused any problems. They're loud, they're frustrated, but if Congress would allow for more debate on health care, people could have their questions answered, she said.

"I can't blame them for being frustrated, but there are ways to handle this without calling these people mobs," she said. "This isn't an angry mob."

A spokesman for the SEIU, which represents about 1 million health care workers, said the appearance of union members at Carnahan's town hall meeting was not in response to protests mounted by opponents of Obama's health care plan.

Ramona Oliver said the union has conducted an intensive national campaign over the last several months and plans to organize more 400 events this month alone around the country advocating health care reform and economic recovery.

“The members didn't come to talk to the angry mob outside, they came to talk to the congress people inside," Oliver said. Oliver said about 15 to 20 members attended Thursday's rally.

“All our members want is to have a civil discussion. There is no campaign to confront the tea baggers,“ she said.

St. Louis County police did not release the names of the people arrested outside Bernard Middle School on Thursday night but provided the following details:

-- Two men were arrested for misdemeanor assault for allegedly punching, pushing and holding a man who was handing out American flags and fliers outside the school.

-- One woman was arrested for misdemeanor assault and destruction of property for allegedly pushing another woman who was recording the events on her cell phone, then grabbing the phone and breaking it.

-- One woman was arrested for interference and resisting arrest. One officer used pepper spray on the woman, police said, when she did not comply with officers' demands. That woman "just would not leave," when asked by officers to back away from the scuffles, said spokesman Rick Eckhard said. She also passively resisted when an officer tried to handcuff her, he said.

-- One man was arrested for peace disturbance when he entered a circle of people who had gathered near the pepper-sprayed woman and refused to comply with officers' demands to leave.

-- Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman also was arrested for allegedly interfering.

No charges have actually been filed yet. Eckhard said police officials will meet with the St. Louis County counselor's office next week to determine if charges will be pursued. All those arrested were booked into the St. Louis County jail overnight and released.

Fifteen St. Louis County police officers were assigned to the event for crowd control.

"You've got to understand -- we're at a very volatile situation, we've got 800 people and we've got to maintain order," Eckhard said today. "They did what they had to do."

Other recent Carnahan appearances, including one earlier this week on the Cash for Clunkers program, have drawn similar protests. And last week, hundreds turned out to voice their opinions on reforms to the staff of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

The St. Louis protests are part of the increasingly vocal debate across the country.

In the week since the House began its break, several town hall-style meetings have been disrupted by demonstrators. These episodes have drawn widespread media attention, and Republicans have seized on them as well as polls showing a decline in support for Obama and his agenda as evidence that public support is lacking for his signature legislation.

Energized conservative activists have vowed to fight Obama's policies. They say they're part of a ground-level movement that represents real frustration with government spending and growth.

The Carnahan forum in Mehlville on Thursday night drew an overflow crowd to the Bernard Middle School gym. Dozens of people, many carrying signs about the health care debate, were kept out because of the turnout. The forum was supposed to be a panel discussion on aging. But the speakers were often interrupted by yells from audience members who wanted to shift the focus to health care.

During and in between panelists' talks, people in the audience shouted at Carnahan, the panelists and each other. The shouts made much of the discussion impossible to hear.

After the forum ended, the crowd spilled outside, where others were already gathered. The tense, contentious atmosphere inside carried outdoors. Shortly after, police started responding to several disturbances and clashes.

On the arrest of Wagman, the Post-Dispatch reporter, Eckhard said Wagman and a P-D photographer were repeatedly asked to back up and stop taking flash photographs because the bursts of light were making it hard for officers to see.

Wagman moved back, then came closer to the officers, he said. Eckhard did not know how close Wagman was to the officers, but said the reporter was asked several times to "stay back."

"We have to maintain the peace, we have to restore order," Eckhard said. "It's not time for debate at that time of the evening when you have assaults and people reacting to assaults."

Arnie Robbins, editor of the Post-Dispatch, issued this statement Friday.

"In arresting our reporter, we think the police overreacted and were overzealous. While we understand that police have difficult jobs and were in a volatile situation, we hope they understand that reporters, too, have difficult jobs and were in a volatile situation."

Robbins also said, "On two separate occasions, police asked our reporter to move farther away from the scene. He identified himself and complied -- he was also wearing his press badge clearly visible around his neck. On a third occasion, two police officers asked him to leave.

Before he could explain who he was and that he was standing where two other officers had told him to, a police officer counted to two, handcuffed him and arrested him. Even later, after identifying himself as a Post-Dispatch reporter, the police processed him.

"We absolutely think that our reporter handled himself responsibly. We absolutely do not think that charges are warranted," Robbins added.

Wagman was not using any type of lighting when videotaping. He said he was shooting video near a parking lot of Bernard Middle School when he was asked by a St. Louis County police officer to step back. Wagman, wearing a Post-Dispatch identification card around his neck, asked where he should stand. He was directed to an area of the sidewalk. He complied, he said.

A few minutes later, Wagman said, another officer asked him to move further away from the scene. Wagman identified himself as a reporter and did as he was told, he said.

Then two different officers approached the sidewalk where Wagman stood.

Here is Wagman's account of what happened next:

"A pair of officers began instructing everyone to leave. I asked, 'I'm not sure why I have to go.' (We were, after all, on public property - a school.)

"One of the officers responded, 'You can either leave now or come with me to jail.'

"I attempted to interject. He cut me off. He began counting. I attempted to interject again. I was unsuccessful.

"Once the officer's count reached 'two,' he grabbed my wrists and handcuffed me behind my back. My camera -- which had been recording the conversation - dropped to the ground."

Another one of those arrested was Brian Matthews, 34, of St. Louis city, who works as a rehabber and previously worked on a campaign for a Texas statehouse candidate.

Matthews said he had been inside the forum because he is in favor of a public option for health care. He had attended with a friend, a 51-year-old woman. After the event, as the pair walked to their car, they saw a man on the street who looked as if he had been assaulted. Police surrounded the man.

"My friend took pictures," Matthews said, "and an officer told her not to. She contested that."

Matthews said he and his friend walked away, arm in arm. The officer followed them, and Matthews' friend exchanged words with the officer, Matthews said.

Matthews said he was told he was arrested for interference. His friend was pepper sprayed .

The friend, Javonne Spitz, 51, of O'Fallon, Mo, said she doesn't think she was interfering with anything.

The officer "told me I couldn't take a picture of them. He may have thought that was interference, I don't. That was a matter of opinion," she said.

Spitz, who works as a teaching assistant with kids who have emotional problems and behavioral disorders, said she came to the forum because "I wanted to see what it was all about."

Spitz admitted that she had been tossed out because she had been taking photographs. On her way out, a man "grabbed my arm and my camera and tried to break my camera." She said a policeman did nothing when she told him about the incident. She said she took a picture of the officer and his badge, and "that made them all very angry."

She also said the pepper spray made her sick. "I was crying, hyperventilating."

(Spitz was the woman in the salmon-colored shirt whose arrest was featured Friday in a video on stltoday.com).

Kenneth Gladney, 38, an activist from St. Louis who believes in a no-tax stance, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room on Thursday night at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face.

"It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," Gladney said. On Friday, he said he had been hired by the Tea Party folks to hand out the flags and added: "I was attacked for something I believe in."

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/5420430FDF2036F08625760B00136BBC?OpenDocument

Arrests follow contentious health care forum

Michael Calhoun Reporting
mrcalhoun@cbs.com

ST. LOUIS (KMOX News) -- St. Louis County police arrested six people Thursday night after a forum on health care for the aging turned antagonistic.

Two women and four men were arrested, one of which was a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Two arrests were for third-degree assault, one was resisting arrest and three were disturbing the peace.

Lines to enter the event at Bernard Middle School in south St. Louis County circled the building. The school's gymnasium quickly reached capacity, prompting police to seal entrances into the school. Hundreds of spectators stranded outside waved signs, chanted and sang to pass the time.

The forum was sponsored by Congressman Russ Carnahan. The event's speakers included representatives from organizations including AARP, Medicare and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

There were conflicting reports on when people believed the program would begin. Some attendees thought 6 o'clock, others said 7. The doors opened after 6 and the event concluded much later than scheduled.

The first friction was felt when a group of people wearing t-shirts bearing the Service Employees International Union logo were brought past the waiting crowd and allowed to enter through the handicapped entrance.

Congressman Carnahan's office told KMOX News that, regardless of the t-shirt they were wearing, those allowed inside early were people who had RSVP'd.

Confrontation between those in favor of national health care reform and those against was sustained at such a loud level that the speakers were often inaudible. Audience members were assured that a chance for questions would come when the speakers finished. That didn't happen.

The arrests occured in front of the school. Pepper spray was smelt in the air.

Congressman Carnahan's last words were to invite the crowd to a future town hall meeting on "manners." He then said some last words to his staff and ducked out of the gym's back door.

Speaking with KMOX News by cell phone later in the evening, Carnahan said "those profiting from the broken health care system are orchestrating the opposition."

http://www.kmox.com/Arrests-follow-contentious-health-care-forum/4958140

Btw, Russ Carnahan is a respected man in my area.