John Velleco, chief lobbyist for Gun Owners of America, just told Chris Matthews that he thinks people in the audience at presidential events should be allowed to bring their guns with them.
We’re kind of curious whether this really happened or whether it’s just from some dream reverie brought on by too much dance practice. But when asked this evening whether he was surprised by recent town hall antics Tom DeLay told Chris Matthews that at one of his town halls in the 1980s protestors “brought quadriplegics in on gurneys and dumped them on the floor in front of my podium.”
That sounds pretty out there.
We’ve done a little research and we cannot find any press reports about such a bizarre and somewhat hard to credit event. And DeLay’s office has not responded to requests for comment.
Anybody help us on this one?
We were hearing rumblings of this today and now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Senate Dems may split health care reform legislation into two separate bills, sticking the more politically controversial provisions into one bill and using budget reconciliation rules to get that bill around a filibuster.
Reading through our email — or, okay, in this case, it’s more the hate mail — it’s clear that a growing number of base conservatives believe that the Obama White House is collecting their anti-health care reform emails and compiling them in a master White House database to surveil these people, keep tabs on them and so forth.
From the Times …
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
In a sobering acknowledgment of his own mortality and the importance of his vote in the health care reform battle, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) is privately pressing state officials in Massachusetts to amend state law so that the governor can appoint an interim senator should the seat become vacant. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
Joe Scarborough wrings his hands over all the “name-calling” coming from the “extreme elements” on “both sides” of the health care reform debate. Watch as Mornin’ Joe channels his inner David Broder.