Shaheen Should Be Ashamed for Cowardly, Misleading Press Release
This story from August 2009 deserves a bump. Over the Memorial break, local press is noticing that none of our congresspeople held town halls. But what Shaheen did in response to her constituents (and that is what we were, not protesters) who showed up to ask questions at her office hours early on in the health care controversy, was despicable and must not be forgotten.
UPDATE: Hear Shaheens’ phony tele-townhall, the coward’s way of answering questions from one’s constituents. Most people that oppose this takeover of health care by government, such as Lou Renaud of NH, were denied the right to speak.
SHAHEEN: ORGANIZED GROUPS SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR INTIMIDATING CONSTITUENTS
Protests Prevent New Hampshire Citizens from Getting Help
Wow. Really?
Senator Shaheen, you should be ashamed for printing such outright lies and exaggerations.
The patently false title and subtitle of your press release is a weak but expected attempt to paint a completely different picture of something in order to serve your interests.
It is indicative of the total lack of respect for us, your NH constituents.
The fact that you felt the need to specify the few supporters present as “New Hampshire” citizens, and we the real constituents as “protesters” is right away a demonstration of your guilty awareness that most of those “supporters” present in Hampstead yesterday did not even live in NH!
It is bad enough that one must constantly deal with your long-time habit of dodging constituents and your inability to answer their questions, but to put out this misleading press release about what happened in Hampstead on August 5th, and in Grafton on August 6th, is extreme.
To begin with, everyone on our group’s mailing list was informed ahead of time that these were merely ‘office hours’ and an opportunity to protest in lieu of a face-to-face meeting. We clearly stated that you would not be present and never claimed otherwise.
Your presser contains manufactured details about the event, as well as many other fantastic lies; such as the typical talking points that we are mainly being organized by “Washington insiders, insurance companies, and well-financed special interests.”
Really?
How sad you should have to resort to these fabrications to cover up for you lack of courage to accept the opinions of those you call ‘protesters’. Unlike the heavily-funded, paid union workers from out-of-state who stood silently in the purple shirts, we are your constituents!
Contrary to your baseless accusations, we are 100% self-organized and not funded by outside interests, and we have never, EVER “intimidated” anyone.
When we arrived, our group of about 50 gathered on the front lawn and held up our signs to passing cars. Almost immediately some unknown person tried to intimidate us by relaying the threatening message that our cars would be towed. We responded that since we were there to attend something in the town hall, we had every right to park in the town hall lot.
Apparently the police thought so too, because none ever confronted us. We have just as much right to exercise the first amendment and the police have never bothered us.
On the other side of the lawn were a few people, some wearing purple SEIU shirts. Later we found that at least one of them came from Massachusetts, may even be an illegal alien, and was definitely being paid to be there.
In the interest of presenting ‘both sides’, our videographer gently approached each person and asked them if he could film. No one was filmed without his or her permission!
In addition, one of our group went across the street to buy water, and gave the SEIU workers each a bottle. (Readers, does this sound like Shaheen’s presser so far? I don’t think so.)
We went inside to register our demand to be heard in person in the future, and then to show that we as constituents are indeed the majority, just as the most recent polls clearly show. This sentiment was clearly stated by myself and others inside the hall. I personally never interacted with any supporters, in fact, other than the ones who were paid to stand on the lawn, I didn’t see any.
Because the staffers tried to hand us pieces of paper to “sign up and be contacted later”, people did become quite angry and began shouting at the staffers. People said they had already contacted the Senator numerous times and got nothing but talking points on form emails in return.
During this time someone asked if Shaheen had even read the bill, to which the staffer replied, “there is no bill”. This, as you can imagine, further enraged the people and they began shouting at her again.
Finally after about 10 minutes of this I led the group back outside, because it became apparent we were not going to be offered a meeting with the Senator any time in the future. We stayed and held our signs for an approving public for another hour or so. Other than the 10 minutes of loudness, most of the time spent there was UNEVENTFUL.
I can assure you that at NO TIME was anyone “deliberately” or otherwise “blocked” from speaking with staffers, and at no time did protesters “prevent NH citizens from getting help”. In fact, the only supporters present were the few standing outside in the purple shirts who were paid to stand there.
Regarding this part of the press release: “Earlier this week, some protest groups emailed and posted online misleading descriptions of Shaheen’s staff office hours. The mislabeling of the meetings was intended to drum up protestors who have been given instructions to disrupt town meetings.”
No one was ever “given instructions to disrupt town meetings”. Further, even more appalling is the wild assertion that “The organizations that staged these protests knew these weren’t town hall meetings because we called them to tell them so”. Yes, we already knew she would not be there, and NO there were no phone calls to us.
However, the OFA people are the ones who relayed that erroneous the message, and they are the ones who misled the public.
Just before 9 AM on Thursday morning, I received an email from the “Organizing for America NH” group. That email clearly stated that Shaheen would be holding a “town hall” on health care to answer questions from the public. This has been captured onto a PDF file. [Be sure to read this incriminating email that proves it was Organizing for America who told their members that Shaheen would be ‘taking questions’ when this was not true.]
We knew it was wrong information and even sent a second reminder email to our group to confirm that it was wrong and that our purpose was simply to go there and relate to staffers our demand for Shaheen to hold REAL town halls.
If Shaheen’s thin-skinned staffers could not give 10 minutes of time to what Shaheen herself described as “hordes” of constituents who were clearly in the majority both in Hampstead and, as was reported to me, even greater numbers in Grafton, then there is something terribly wrong with our representation.
In Grafton, none of the 7 supporters present were “prevented” from seeing the staff. Many NH State Representatives were present in Grafton and I doubt they would have allowed that to happen.
Yes the “hordes” were angry and at one point, did some shouting for all of about 10 minutes. But apparently it was not wild enough to get the officer standing at the door to even look inside the room! Some intimidating bunch we are, eh?
Earth to Shaheen: Grow up and get over it!
Instead of making up stories about the purpose of our visit, the message the staffers should have taken back to the Senator was, these people are angry, and they are the majority. They want you to listen!
Sadly, Senator you have proven once again that you aren’t interested in getting the message.
You, Senator, are obviously contributing to the dark-sided tactics of this administration by buying into their smear machine. You should be ashamed for refusing to listen to the majority of your constituents, and then on top of that, misrepresenting them to cover up for it.
We suggest you stop catering to the minority! And stop putting out press releases that everyone knows are false.
As long as you refuse to absorb the message, we will not back down.
UPDATE: If you want to read how SEIU directs their paid goons to disrupt and block people, there is a good account of it on Politicalticker.com
And if you are still not sure that the majority is AGAINST the passage of this ‘bill that does not exist’ watch this. NO BUSSES. Just people being denied access to the town hall and even attacked all because they oppose Obamacare.