Here's a YouTube video of the Tampa meeting:
In Tampa, Florida, FoxNews is reporting:
A freelance videographer was roughed up in an altercation, which damaged his camera equipment and glasses, and at least one man was treated for minor injuries after a scuffle left his shirt partially torn from his body.
Union thugs push out opponents and close doors:
Elsewhere, it is reported:
Inside, Democratic lawmakers had a difficult time delivering their opening remarks, as they were met with shouts of "You work for us!'' "Tyranny! tyranny! tyranny!'' and "Read the bill!" the Tampa Tribune reported.
In Mehlville, Mo., St. Louis police arrested six people, some on assault charges, outside another forum that was billed as a meeting on aging but was attended by activists on both sides of the health care debate.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the police showed up toward the end of the forum held by Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan. One conservative activist, interviewed at a local emergency room where he was being treated for injuries, said he was attacked by some of the individuals who were arrested as he passed out "Don't tread on me" flags.
FoxNews.com also is reporting:
Top White House officials counseled Democratic senators Thursday on coping with disruptions at public events on health care this summer, officials said, and promised the party and allies would respond with twice the force if any individual lawmaker is criticized in television advertising.
The Democrats are withering under the heat of protests.
Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote (I have not been a big fan of hers since her antics during last year's campaign, but she is calling it right today):
We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.
They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.
What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.
To read Noonan's full article, go here.
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