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Far Left Ambush Florida Congressman Dan Webster
By Tom Tillison
Florida Political Press
So the radical Far Left have moved into Florida.
Republican Congressman Dan Webster held a town hall yesterday in Orlando that quickly deteriorated into “bedlam”, as reported in the local paper.
Far Left organizations MoveOn.org and Organize Now, among others, orchestrated a well planned ambush.
There were about 300 people in attendance at this, the third town hall held by Webster in the past week. The other two were also well attended and totally uneventful. Included in today’s crowd were approximately 25-30 Far Left provocateurs who were instructed in an e-mail to meet in front of the building 30 minutes prior to the start of the event, where talking points would be handed out. Final instructions from the e-mail included;
“When you go inside, spread yourselves around the room so our presence looks as though we have more people. GIVE ‘EM HELL!!!”
And give ‘em hell is exactly what they did. From the very beginning, every time Congressman Webster attempted to speak he was interrupted by vile, disrespectful comments shouted out by the radical Far Left. Webster tried to go over a series of charts showing growing levels of federal spending and debt, but was constantly interrupted by rude, despicable behavior.
Most in the room were just average constituents, many of whom quickly tired of these antics and began shouting back. The opportunity to actually listen to Webster and learn anything about his position or the state of events was lost and many seniors simply gave up and left early.
A question and answer session followed the opening segment, which did not progress any better.
One individual who did get to pose a question turns out to have quite a interesting background. It just so happened that a tea party member was sitting near by and offered this observation;
“Three seats away from me was a woman, whom I had noticed before Congressman Webster started speaking. She was wearing a “Hands off my Social Security” sticker (most of the Far Left agitators were wearing this sticker).
She seemed to be studying a typed paper intently. The Congressman eventually called on her. She was accusing him of cutting off Medicaid with the Ryan budget. Went into a story about how Medicaid had “saved her life” and how dare him to cut it.”
This woman is Tamecka Pierce, who was sitting by herself among several conservatives. She also happens to be the “Member of the Month” for Organize Now.
Her question is included at the 2 minute mark of the following heavily edited video that was put out this afternoon by Think Progress. At no point does Ms. Pierce identify herself as being with Organize Now, nor does Think Progress mention this.
Upon further investigation, she is not only just a member of Organize Now, but is the current president! And former Florida ACORN State President!
The Florida ACORN chapter was riddled with complaints of fraud and improper behavior during Pierce’s time with the organization, so much so that Senator Marco Rubio and senior leaders of the Florida Legislature asked then Gov. Charlie Crist to call for a state-wide investigation into ACORN’s activities.
Pierce’s name also comes up in a story by Michelle Malkin on ACORN – SEIU collaboration. She is listed as a board member of a corporation named Wal-Mart Alliance For Reform Now, Inc., along with Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and SEIU Local 100.
ACORN has since disbanded and the question that begs to be asked is did Florida ACORN evolve into Organize Now?
Think Progress posted the video below of Ms. Pierce commenting on the town hall, listing her as a “constituent”. At no point do they call attention to her role as one of the key organizers of the Far Left opposition in the room.
At the conclusion of the event, the local paper was quick to post an article detailing what took place. As was hoped for by those causing the bedlam, the paper made it appear as if Webster was confronted by an ‘angry crowd’, when, again, there were no more than 30 very vocal opponents out of a room of 300. The article also states that the 300 people at Tuesday’s meeting were so raucous they were scolded by a police officer to act “like grown people” when, in fact, this comment was directed toward the Far Left agitators.
To give you an idea of the level of vitriol now being seen here in Orlando, here’s a sample of some of the comments from that article;
What is actually happening here is a national campaign by the Progressive Left to duplicate, at least in ‘appearance’, the healthcare town halls from 2009 in an attempt to take back the narrative from the tea party – this time supposedly prompted by the Ryan Budget.
There are some striking differences between Webster’s town hall today and the one ‘orchestrated’ by former Congressman Alan Grayson back in 2009. For starters, Webster announced his town hall in a release by his office last week, while Grayson announced his town hall a mere 23 hours before it was held.
Grayson held his town hall in a local union hall where the Democrat Party REC had just completed a meeting. Today’s town hall was at the Orange County Education Extension Center.
Over 1,000 people showed up at Grayson’s town hall. The room sat 126 people and 95 seats were filled before the room was opened to the public. As stated earlier, a Democrat REC meeting had just adjourned and very few left the room, plus union members and OFA members were given advance seating. That left just 31 seats for over 1,000 people!
Webster’s town hall today was completely open, with no controls and no pre-seating. Out of a room that held 300, the Far Left managed to muster 30 minions, at best.
Grayson only answered questions that had to be submitted on index cards before the event got started and permitted no interaction otherwise, while Webster took random questions and interacted freely with the room. And on and on…
It’s very clear that the effort to duplicate the events of 2009 will fall far short. However, as we see from the media explosion of today’s town hall, a lazy and/or complicit media will give the Far Left every opportunity to be successful.
Be warned America, Orlando was just the starting point!
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