Friday, August 28, 2009

Rep. Paul Ryan Town Halls Get Away with Throwing Protester out and Silencing Dissent. No Media Outrage

Here are a few bits of information about Rep. Paul Ryan's town hall meetings getting little coverage nationally. Nothing here is earth shaking, but does show how dissent is dealt with at Republican town halls. One individual reported party affiliation checks at the door the Roma Lodge town hall.

Jsonline: A member of Community for Change, a local group of former Obama campaign volunteers, complained that one of its members had been vilified for trying to get reform supporters to pack Ryan's town hall meetings.

Ryan said the group's plan to "overwhelm" the meetings -revealed in an e-mail that found its way into Ryan's hands and onto the Web - had threatened the notion of civil discourse. The group said it had only intended to have its volunteers ask questions at Ryan's meetings.

WISN: Police are on alert after a threat is made over a local town hall meeting on health care reform.

Officers said an Internet blogger made the threat over a Thursday meeting organized by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville. IBEW Local 430 is allegedly the target of an internet blogger who promised to disrupt the meeting by going after union members

Todaystmj4: A protester disrupted the meeting by grabbing a microphone and claiming health care would have had more funding if Congressman Ryan hadn’t voted for the war in Iraq.

As the protester shouted his question, Ryan asked a police officer to remove him. The man walked out with a police escort.

Journal Times: Kurt Kromm, a Kenosha resident who was with his 8-month-old granddaughter, Payton, took the day off from his job at Case in Racine to attend the event in Sturtevant. The event was "an embarrassing performance," Kromm said.

He didn't get to ask any questions. However, Ryan admonished him more than once for interrupting and talking over him and at least one member of the audience during the 45-minute session.

"These are just pro-Ryan rallies. Nothing substantive got discussed today. I was here because I was hoping we'd have a
substantive debate," said Kromm


No comments:

Post a Comment