Bizarre, Politics, Society

Problem Solved: Democratic Members Told To Avoid Town Halls and Open Events With Constituents

With anger bubbling over with Congress and White House across the political spectrum, the House Democratic leadership have found an answer: stop holding town hall meetings and unscripted events. As reported by the New York Times, Democratic members are avoiding encounters with constituents in such meetings and relying on invitation-only events.

By keeping constituents from simply walking into meetings, Democrats hope to avoid anger scenes on YouTube.

In the meantime, members are trying to avoid new big spending projects before the election as worldwide alarm grows over their runaway spending. It is a bit late with debt now scheduled to overcome Gross Domestic Product in 2012.

President Obama also appears to be losing core liberal support after his adoption of Bush policies on offshore drilling, faith-based initiatives, barring the investigation of the Bush torture program, asserting the right to order the killing of US citizens believed to be working with terrorists, killing privacy lawsuits against telecommunication companies and other controversies. The fact is that members are hearing hostility from people other than tea party members in these meetings. Congress is facing all-time lows in the polls with developing environmental and economic disasters.

It now appears that Democratic members are working on developing campaign without constituents — or at least one’s with unpredictable questions.

For the full story, click here.

45 thoughts on “Problem Solved: Democratic Members Told To Avoid Town Halls and Open Events With Constituents”

  1. bdaman,

    Africa? Really? That goes to show how little you know about international politics. Africa has been a political basket case since before either of us was born. Most of the regimes in Africa wouldn’t know bias if it bit them on the ass. You need to, as usual, source your information better.

    As to ICC bias? The US isn’t a signatory to the Treaty of Rome and ergo ignores the ICC anyway when it’s domestically “politically expedient” (read “purchased by corporate graft”). As we are not signatories, any influence you imply is greatly exaggerated. As to the domestic fascists protecting “their own”? This is demonstrated by the fact that no one from the Bush regime (but specifically Cheney) has been arrested and sent to the Hague despite their numerous violations of domestic and international law. Our rapidly dwindling allies that are signatories to a the treaty – designed specifically for prosecuting people like Cheney who are international criminals – look askance at this too.

    You want to see America get back on the right track? The first thing that needs to be done is Dick Cheney needs to be in shackles and stand before the bar – preferably ours but the ICC would do. Anything else is just whitewash, bullshit, and flight from prosecution in furtherance of the crimes the Bush regime committed.

    Injustice is injustice. And it’s always been “justice for all”. Or there is justice for none.

  2. Jericho: you confuse liberty with license. For example, no one has a right to kill a viable human organism in the womb.

    Maybe people who think so should have been aborted themselves since they think it is okay.

  3. Buddha: Your reading skills are ridiculous as I DID decry oppression from both sides. I wrote

    “And is leftists in both parties who are responsible for the rise of the totalitarian police-state in America.”

    Your knee-jerking early today.

  5. Most blogs like this one are taken over in the Comments Section by right wingers. It is amazing.

    Isn’t it, Only in America. Don’t like it, move to Venezuela

  6. Most blogs like this one are taken over in the Comments Section by right wingers. It is amazing.

  7. Transcript of video above

    JEFFREY SACHS: This White House just hasn’t done that in any area. And that’s the huge surprise.

    MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Isn’t that the problem right now, moving ahead though? I mean, look at banking reform —

    SACHS: We precisely thought we were electing someone who was going to show the direction and take us forward. And what we ended up so far with is a lot of back-room negotiations with Congress on everything without the president being out in front.

    Let’s have some sympathy for Sachs: tough to discover your idol has feet of oily clay. Later, Donny Deutsch, another big Obama fan, broke out the l-word.

    BRZEZINSKI: Everybody that you talk to, we talk to folks who are very close to the president, very high up in the White House, they say that [providing leadership] is exactly what he’s doing, but they’re very frustrated with the narrative and the negativity surrounding his, quote, leadership pertaining to the oil spill.

    JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jeffrey Sachs, big Obama supporter, but did you see Jeffrey? Jeffrey just is down right now.

    BRZEZINSKI: Yes. I think he’s still really pulling for this White House–he’s an Obama supporter —

    SCARBOROUGH: He still supports the White House. What about you, Donny? You’ve been a huge fan of the president. What’s going on? Are we being too tough?

    DONNY DEUTSCH: No.

    SCARBOROUGH: Actually, we’re just asking questions. Are the guests being too tough?

    DEUTSCH: No. They’re citizens of this country as I am also. And I’ve come on, and there’s been nobody who’s a bigger Obama supporter. We’re in a Rubik’s cube now. There’s just some serious stuff going on now. And you, you don’t feel [pause] the leadership.

    Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2010/06/07/bummed-out-obama-fans-you-dont-feel-leadership#ixzz0qB8ghzZa

  9. “President Obama also appears to be losing core liberal support after his adoption of Bush policies on offshore drilling, faith-based initiatives, barring the investigation of the Bush torture program, asserting the right to order the killing of US citizens believed to be working with terrorists, killing privacy lawsuits against telecommunication companies and other controversies.”

    Yup, that would include me. While I support the President on some issues, there are a few that I clearly do not, such as the aforementioned items listed by the Professor. As far as the Democrats are concerned, like the GOP, they are cowards. And Congress wonders why their approval ratings are in the toilet.

    Toots:

    Please. Give the psycho-babble a rest. It’s become quite tiresome. No, actually, it’s become VERY tiresome.

  10. WASHINGTON (AP) – The 2010 elections have changed the direction of government only half way through the primary season, with voter anger and economic jitters causing lawmakers to balk at their most basic duties as well as key elements of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

    After betting their political future on a government-mandated expansion of health care to include millions more Americans, Democrats appear to have little appetite for more legislative showdowns given voter rebellion against government spending amid trillion dollar-plus annual deficits.

    The solution in some cases is to simply not vote. Immigration reform is too politically toxic. Key bills with massive price tags are getting shelved.

    Congress’ core duty, exercising its power of the purse by passing a budget? Negative. A vote for it could be seen as a vote for deficit spending. There’s no sign of the 12 annual spending bills that typically come up in June.

    Five months out from the midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans say they have no choice but to draw lessons from the nominating contests and their own, increasingly vocal constituents.

    “We are hearing from the public, ‘You’re adding to the deficit, you’re adding to the deficit,'” said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, a member of the conservative Blue Dogs who have held together against many proposals that require even more borrowing by the Treasury to pay for them.

    Obama himself gave his party cover for dropping any real plans to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which he’d promised to address in his first presidential year. Passing the massive health care overhaul on the heels of an economic stimulus package and several industry bailouts has sapped Congress of any “appetite” for polarizing legislation.

    “I don’t want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn’t solve the problem,” Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.

    In March, Congress sent Obama a modest $38 billion jobs bill exempting employers who hire laid off workers from the 6.2 percent Social Security tax through the rest of the year and providing about $20 billion for highway and transit programs. Employers also can get a $1,000 tax credit if new hires stay on their payroll a full year.

    The bill was supposed to be only the first of many election-year measures to hammer home the “jobs, jobs, jobs” rallying cry that Democrats hoped would persuade voters to stay with them in November.

    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100607/D9G6D6NO0.html

  12. Jericho,

    I’m not sure that’s technically ventriloquism in Tootie’s case, although you have selected the issuing orifice correctly.

  13. Tootie, beware, you’re talking out of the wrong end. Anal ventriloquism is nothing to toy with…

    Sure right-wingers are keen on freedom…, keen on their freedom to police the ‘others’ from migrating, having abortions (no matter what), getting a hand-out, doing drugs and having a gay wedding…. while doing it all themselves, in all their hypocritical glory….

    All very helpful policies, I must say, especially for anyone thinking out of the rear…

  14. What could go wrong with this?

    I think Mr. Kratovil has it right about last August’s town hall meetings.

    “At town halls, there was a group of people who were there to disrupt, purely politically driven, not there because they wanted to get answers or discuss the issues.”

    And if they are kept out, they will just show up outside on the sidewalk.

    Politicians should try town meetings again and if the nuts show up, then is the time to keep them outside. Irrational behaviour is not what town halls are about. On the other hand, form letters in answer to thoughtful correspondence only exacerbates the problem.

    It looks like what the tea party wants – getting rid of all incumbents – may take place this year. We’ll see how that works out.

  15. Perhaps they want to avoid questions about this:

    Did the Bush Administration Experiment on Detainees?

    “In the course of trying to prove that its “enhanced” interrogation program was legal, the Bush administration may have broken the law, according to a new report (PDF) by Physicians for Human Rights. The watchdog group claims that in an attempt to establish that brutal interrogation tactics did not constitute torture, the administration ended up effectively experimenting on terrorism detainees. This research, PHR alleges, violated an array of regulations and treaties, including international guidelines on human testing put in place after the Holocaust.

    According to the report, which draws on numerous declassified government documents, “medical professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA” frequently monitored detainee interrogations, gathering data on the effectiveness of various interrogation techniques and the pain threshholds of detainees. This information was then used to “enhance” future interrogations, PHR contends.

    [. . .]

    Physicians for Human Rights makes the case that since human subject research is defined as the “systematic collection of data and/or identifiable personal information for the purpose of drawing generalizable inferences,” what the Bush administration was doing amounted to human experimentation:

    Human experimentation without the consent of the subject is a violation of international human rights law to which the United States is subject; federal statutes; the Common Rule, which comprises the federal regulations for research on human subjects and applies to 17 federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense; and universally accepted health professional ethics, including the Nuremberg Code… Human experimentation on detainees also can constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity in certain circumstances.”

    Read the rest at http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/bush-administration-experimented-detainees-phr-report

    Thanks to CCD for bringing this to my attention.

  16. Tootie,

    Your partisanship is still ridiculous when you decry repression from one party, but not the other. Left, right, R, D, makes no difference whatsoever. It’s all a distraction from the fascists writing the campaign contribution checks designed to do one thing: twist up the panties of people like you who cannot see beyond the “party line” to see that the problem is not just one party or the other but systemic in nature.

  17. Obama and Bush merely wish to continued Abe Lincoln’s policy of killing American citizens (anywhere) without trial, intercepting private communications, and suppressing the media (the democrats wants this and the republicans do not).

    Until you reject the usurpations Lincoln established, liberty and freedom will continue to die as “we the people” will feel more and more the crush of the federal government jackboot.

    I assure you, what has become of America is NOT what the Founders intended. And is leftists in both parties who are responsible for the rise of the totalitarian police-state in America.

    Democrats think they can hide from the people. They are as stupid as they are evil.

  20. Ahhh, isn’t that precious, er, propagandistic.

    Herr Goebbels would be proud.

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