This time it’s in St. Louis at an event hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO).
According to the Post-Dispatch there were at least six arrests. And the only person identified in the still very sketchy reporting appears to be a reform proponent rather than a teabagger.
The backstory to this event appears to be a local Tea Party group which pushed for large teabagging contingent which in turn brought a big pro-health care reform crowd.
Late Update: I’m not sure quite what it means but the article just posted by the Post-Dispatch does not mention the arrests and apparent shoving matches noted in the paper’s earlier flash reports from the scene.
The reports from the ground are still sketchy. But in both cases of unrest this evening we appear to have a similar pattern. Relatively small venues (200 to 300 size spaces) get quickly filled to capacity. The doors get closed because of fire codes. And then locked out teabag activists start banging on doors and windows demanding to be let in and yelling about various forms of political oppression. From what I can tell, the shoving and whatever fisticuffs took place grew from that.
In post-event retellings on the right fire code enforcement became a form of political repression of teabaggers.
More broadly, there’s a more general pattern — escalating mayhem and near-riot behavior from teabaggers escalating into physical confrontations. Already, not surprisingly, right wing websites are attempting to blame these developments on pro-health care reform advocates.
Late Update: I have an unconfirmed report that what touched off the outburst at the St. Louis event was that after the doors had been shut, two SEIU employees who were staffing the event (SEIU was a sponsor) came to the door and were allowed in. This provoked the teabag contingent, who believed this was prima facie evidence of discrimination against their political views.
Video of this moment after the jump … Read More
Senate extends Cash for Clunkers program. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
We had a number of emails last night discussing how much of what we’re hearing from the right now should be considered incitement. There are numerous instances of anti-reform advocates explicitly comparing President Obama’s health care plan to the Holocaust, for instance — jumping from the hideous and outrageous claim that reform means euthanasia and going from there. We get desensitized to this stuff. But it’s worth taking a moment to give that a long think — comparing the president’s reform plan to the Holocaust.
Most significant here is not the right-wing liars and demagogues making this stuff up but the fact that they’ve convinced a significant number of their followers that this stuff is true. That’s a very dangerous situation. Read More
Grassroots activist and “just a mom” at town hall turns out to be GOP official and former staffer for candidate who the host of the town hall, Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) beat last year.
We’ve gotten quite a few emails on the issue of tea-bagging nomenclature. This one though sort of stood out for us. Our main takeaway being that there seem to be at least a few reasonably hip right-wing activists …
I am not a “Tea Bagger” or a “Right Wing Activist” and my like-minded community members are NOT either. Please, to be credible, you must get your facts straight. I may have performed the “Tea Bagging” procedure in my own sexual life but do not perform it at public forums (maybe you have wishful thinking for your own selves possibly not having experienced that method?) What I do do is practice “Tea Party” style activism based on the principles created by citizens from our own history and protected under the First Amendment, which also protects you. And, although, I appreciate be compared to a “Right-Wing Activist” I must say that I do not meet that criteria. I am a middle class woman, I run a family of four and a small business.
Apparent Teabag voice mail to SEIU headquarters tells union folks to “calm down [and] act like American citizens” or “come up against the Second Amendment.”
Meanwhile twittering tea-baggers call on fellow baggers to bring firearms to health care town halls.
We’re gliding toward the end of a long week here at TPM HQ. And in one of our free-ranging all-staff skype bull sessions I mentioned something I’d hardly remembered, which is that not long before I started TPM during the November 2000 Florida recount, I’d actually briefly did a sort of proto-TPM on the website of my then employer, The American Prospect.
I guess maybe Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal TPM.
I only had a hazy recollection of it and hadn’t thought about it in ages. But through the magic of the Internets Andrew Golis pulled it up in seconds on the Internet Archive. This appears to be the first post, from August 10, 2000. I’d forgotten how similar it looked to the original TPM site and even the name (“Washington Memo“) was pretty similar.
In any case, I only hazily remember it. My only real memory is why I stopped. I remember starting to get calls from HQ up in Boston (I was the Washington Editor at the time) with various complaints about how what I was writing was too edgy or unprofessional or funny or I guess just too interesting. So I figured WTF and basically just stopped. Later, after I started real TPM, they started picking it up back on the Prospect site in a sort expurgated, lam-ized edition. But not long after that I was on my own.