Town Halls Turning Into Town Brawls

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

These town halls are really getting out of hand, as we saw last night in two examples.

In Missouri, at a town hall by Rep. Russ Carnahan, a fight broke out between Tea Party activists and supporters of the health care bill. Six people were arrested. It’s not at all clear who started it and both sides appear to be blaming the other. To a certain degree, this is probably a consequence of so many people being packed together in a contentious debate, where the venues have been filled to capacity and people have been turned away as a result.

Check out this amateur video. Both the Tea Party and labor union folks are yelling at each other:

And of course, there’s the Florida event of Rep. Kathy Castor, where a fist fight reportedly occurred. Here’s a video of the protestors yelling about the doors being closed:

One thing that should be noted, despite the right-wing chants of “You work for us,” and “Hear our voice,” is that both of these districts are overall heavily Democratic. Carnahan’s district voted 60% for Obama, and Castor’s district voted 66% for Obama

Latest DC
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: