Patterico's Pontifications

8/6/2009

Angry Mob of Racist Extremists Beats Black Man at Town Hall Meeting

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:52 pm



I guess the Democrats were right after all. At a town meeting held by a Democrat congressman, a rowdy group of organized and angry thugs showed up to make a point about ObamaCare, and then beat up a man. Race was involved, too: the victim was black — attacked by a man yelling racial slurs.

It’s every Democrat talking point you’ve read about in the last day or two, come to life in an ugly fashion.

With one twist. The black victim was a conservative, and the assailants may well have been union thugs:

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, 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 of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.

Not when you have angry mobs of left-wing extremists around . . .

Thanks to Thomas A.

UPDATE by DRJ, adding video:

Retired New York Cop Admits to Racial Profiling

Filed under: General,Race — Jack Dunphy @ 10:09 pm



[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

Former NYPD Detective Jake McNicholas confessed in the New York Daily News last Sunday:

I used a person’s race to initiate investigations and make subsequent arrests. In fact, according to the definition bandied about by those on the left who have no idea what they are talking about nor a clue when it comes to police work, I was – yes – a racial profiler.

Sounds shocking, doesn’t it? But you have to read the whole thing.

–Jack Dunphy

Old Lincoln Days (It’s Not What You Think)

Filed under: Current Events — DRJ @ 8:22 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

It’s time for Old Lincoln Days in Lincoln County, New Mexico, a site made famous by Billy the Kid. The Lincoln Pageant Festival Corporation takes visitors back to the days of the Wild West including a cowboy church service, a parade, and a reenactment of the events of the Lincoln County War in The Last Escape of Billy the Kid, a play that “starts with the killing of John Tunstall and it goes all the way to Billy the Kid escaping the courthouse.”

I’ve been to Lincoln County dozens of times and it always fascinates me, plus I like that the organizers don’t forget good old common sense:

“I advise people not to wear flip-flops because there are a lot of horses,” [DeAnn Kessler, manager for the Lincoln State Monument] said.
***
[Beverly Hammond, a historic interpreter for the Lincoln State Monument, also] volunteered a bit of advice for newcomers.

“I advise people to bring trash bags because it always rains opening night.”

Lincoln County is off the beaten path but check it out if you’re ever in the area, especially if you liked the John Wayne movie Chisum. And if you’ve never heard about Lincoln County, there’s background here and here.

— DRJ

Sotomayor Confirmed

Filed under: Judiciary — DRJ @ 1:27 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Today the Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court:

“Democrats praised the 55-year-old Sotomayor as a mainstream moderate. But most Republicans voted against her, saying she’d bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench.

Senators took the rare step of assembling at their desks on the Senate floor for the historic occasion, rising from their seats to cast their votes.”

The vote was 68-31. Nine Republicans and two Independents voted to confirm Sotomayor, and Senator Edward Kennedy was absent.

— DRJ

Fishy Emails

Filed under: General — DRJ @ 12:46 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Obama Administration has asked Americans to forward to a government email account (flag@whitehouse.gov) any email or website link about the Democrats’ health care reform that “seems fishy”:

The Administration’s efforts are raising a lot of red flags about Big Brother, including a letter from Texas Senator John Cornyn objecting to the program and accusing the White House of using the information to compile an “enemies list”:

“In his letter, Cornyn asked that the effort cease immediately and that the administration inform Congress what it’s doing to ensure that names and electronic information about citizens weighing in on health care are not collected.

Kevin McLaughlin, a spokesman for the senator, said that the office had received no response from the administration.”

Richard Nixon was rightly criticized for his enemies list, and Obama’s actions make him look more and more like Nixon every day.

— DRJ

No Car Left Behind

Filed under: Economics — DRJ @ 12:11 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Given the problems and uncertainty associated with the government’s Cash-for-Clunkers program, fifty large car dealers have come up with their own automotive stimulus rebate program:

“The dealers’ program, dubbed the Automotive Stimulus Plan, was slated to start on Aug. 14 but was launched early due to instability in the Cash for Clunkers program. But unlike the federally-funded program, the dealers are declaring all vehicles older than 2007 models to be eligible for trade-ins, and they are allowing the money to be used to buy or lease both new and used cars.

Brian Benstock, vice president and general manager of the Paragon Auto Group in New York City, one of roughly 50 participating dealers nationwide, said the private push is designed to fill “gaps” in the federal program, including the exclusion of used cars from the Cash for Clunkers plan.

“So you left out nearly half of the potential market,” Benstock told FOXNews.com. “We wanted to come up with a program in that no car would be left behind.””

Apparently there are still a few capitalists in America.

— DRJ

L.A. Times Uncritically Spouts Democrat Talking Points on ObamaCare

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Obama — Patterico @ 7:34 am



The latest Democrat talking point is that opposition to ObamaCare is fueled by angry mobs of right-wing extremists. On Tuesday Allahpundit quoted the DNC’s latest missive on the subject. Today, the L.A. Times does its best to peddle that set of talking points, albeit with a shrugging acknowledgement that there might be some actual opposition out there:

Damn Right Wing Mobs

The headline: Healthcare debate gets uglier, with a deck headline reading: “Special interests are accused of organizing disruptive outbursts as Democrats try to answer voter concerns.” See where we’re headed with this?

Here is a quote from the DNC talking points:

The right wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President’s citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are.

Note how the opening paragraph of Janet Hook’s piece echoes the concern about effigies:

An effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. was hung outside his office on the eastern shore of Maryland. Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin was shouted down by angry constituents. Rep. Timothy H. Bishop of New York had such a raucous experience with critics on Long Island that he avoids town hall meetings for more manageable settings.

Further down, we’re told about the devil’s horns:

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) ran into a group opposed to the Democrats’ healthcare proposals Saturday when he tried to hold a constituent meeting in an Austin grocery store. Protesters surrounded him and followed him into the parking lot, chanting, “Just say no!”

Their signs included one with a picture of Doggett sporting devil’s horns.

“Many of these people were summoned in by the local Republican and Libertarian parties,” Doggett said on MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews.” “They didn’t even live in the neighborhood. They were there not just to be heard but to ensure other people weren’t heard on this.”

How does Doggett know this? Did he have staffers interview the people, who all admitted to taking large checks from insurers and hopping on buses from Washington D.C. to Austin? We’re not told. You might think that Hook would, in an aside, remind readers that Doggett provided no evidence for his assertion. Yes, you might think that — if you’re stupid. But if you’re sentient and have read this paper for any period of time, you know that repeating talking points uncritically is Job Number One — and the “busing in protestors” point, along with the effigies and devil’s horns, showed up in that DNC set of talking points:

These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington.

Reporter Hook oddly echoes this contrast between “change” and “special interests” in her story, telling us Democrats are “trying to show the need for change” but are being opposed by “powerful special interests.” In other quotes I am not making up, Hook says that the debate “has gotten especially ugly,” with the fiercest opposition having been “fanned by talk radio and conservative advocacy groups.” She laments that “critics have been able to demonize provisions that may not be in the final bill.”

You might think that a newspaper article trying to decide whether there is genuine opposition to Obama’s health care proposals might look at objective evidence of public opinion on the matter. But has mankind devised any way to measure such a thing as public opinion?? [Bespectacled man leans over and hands Patterico a torn scrap of paper, which Patterico briefly looks at before resuming.] I’m told there do exist such measures, and they are called “polls.” Does the article tells us what the polling says? Why, yes it does — in paragraph 25 of a 27-paragraph story:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in late July found that support for Obama’s healthcare plan had dropped: 42% called it a bad idea and 36% said it was a good idea. In mid-June, opinions were about evenly divided.

Ah. So a plurality thinks the health care plan is a bad idea! (And this is consistent (as Karl noted yesterday) with other recent polling data on key elements of the debate.) Yes indeed, let’s bury that as deeply as possible!

The fact is that many Americans want something done. But they are also wary of a government takeover of health care, which is what this is, as you can tell by the fact that Obama repeatedly tells us that it’s not so.


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