My morning with the tea baggers - pictures

proud2BlibKansan

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Sat Nov-07-09 09:08 PM
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My morning with the tea baggers - pictures

Edited on Sat Nov-07-09 09:12 PM by proud2BlibKansan

I was really hoping to stay away from them. I have been to way too many events since summer with way too many tea baggers in attendance. And oh how I despise those people. But you gotta do what you gotta do to get health care legislation passed so I reluctantly went to this morning's rally.

The background: Almost immediately after the House released its Health Care Bill a week or so ago, our local right wing wacko state Senator, Mary Pilcher Cook (whose role model seems to be Michelle Bachman) announced that she would propose legislation to opt Kansans out of a public option. So our awesome Young Democrats here in Kansas got busy. They made over 2000 calls to constituents in Cook's district and planned a march for this morning in Cook's district. They planned to begin the march in a local park at 10 am and end up in front of city hall with speakers and a rally.

Just two days ago we found out that tea baggers were planning on disrupting the march. So several of our YDs planned on arriving early today to secure the site for the march and rally. When they got there very early this morning, they found the parking lot in front of the city hall packed with tea baggers. They had set up a p.a. system and signs.

There were also several cars parked on surrounding streets with out of county and out of state plates and bumper stickers indicating they were tea baggers. So yes, they do bring in out of towners for their events.

The police were also there and the organizers of our event asked them to please help us set up separate areas for both sides and they refused. So at the last minute the plans for the march were changed and we had a rally instead. About 30 minutes before 10 am, the tea baggers turned on their microphone and Senator Cook took the stage. I was busy setting up my cameras and had no desire to hear what the senator said so I didn't listen.

Here is the senator (in the green):

As soon as she was done, we turned on our microphone and our first speaker stepped up and began talking. Immediately several tea baggers came over and stood right next to our speaker and began chanting. I was standing very close to the tea baggers and a cop came over and I told him we had been respectful and had not interrupted their speakers and would he please ask these people to not interrupt our speakers. He refused. So I asked the tea baggers to please stop. They refused. Several other people also asked them to remember that we had not interrupted their speakers and they laughed. One of them was especially loud and aggressive and he caught the cop's attention and the cop finally came over and talked to him and he shut up.

One of our speakers was this young woman, who went to a town hall this summer to talk to her congress rep, Lynn Jenkins, a republican. When she asked Cong Jenkins about affordable health care, Jenkins laughed at her. Keith O talked about this incident on his show.

It was pretty much downhill from there with lots of shouting and aggression from the tea baggers. The majority of them stayed at one end of the sidewalk in front of the city hall while we were at the other end. But a precious few spent the entire time walking among us yelling obnoxious stuff. One of them was particularly hateful. At one point he pulled his insurance card out of his wallet and held it up claiming he was self-employed and paid for his own family's insurance which cost $300 a month. Several of us found this hard to believe and he did finally admit he had a high deductible. I pulled out my video camera and he held his card up to the lens and once again yelled that he paid for his own insurance. I said "Great. Now we all know your name and Social Security number. And it's on tape. Smart!" He said "Dumb. The number on this card is NOT my Social Security number. Boy are you dumb." I said "And of course no one who watches this video will be able to take this information and trace it to get your Social Security number. Who's the real dumb one here?" He put his card back in his wallet and said "Well that's not my real name anyway!" So I then said "Great. Now I have you on tape admitting fraud!"

Lovely guy, ain't he?

He walked away and I didn't see him again. :)

And for the record, I have no idea if you can take someone's insurance ID and use it to find their SS number. But that did seem to shut the guy up which is all I wanted to do.

One of my friends decided to walk over and talk to Senator Cook. As she approached, she noticed two cops standing there talking to the senator. One was telling her he supported her stance against health care reform and asked her to sign some things for his children. So my friend told the cops they were supposed to be impartial and telling the senator they supported her was highly inappropriate. The cops walked away without their autographs.
:)

One neat thing was a guy who is running for state rep here came and brought two tables, two white plastic table cloths and two markers. He set one up at the tea bagger end of the sidewalk and wrote in big letters at the top: TELL THE WORLD WHY THE PUBLIC OPTION IS BAD. He set the other table up at our end of the sidewalk and wrote on the tablecloth: TELL THE WORLD WHY THE PUBLIC OPTION IS GOOD.

We asked this guy why he hated America.

This guy's shirt says RUSH LIMBAUGH FOR PRESIDENT

Other pics: