Dobbs and Crowley Try to Paint Town Hall Protests as Grass Roots Movement
By Heather Wednesday Aug 05, 2009 1:00pm
Even after admitting the involvement of groups like Right Principles and other lobbyists groups, Dobbs and Crowley attempt to paint the movement as grass roots, rather than being funded by the insurance and health care industries. Dobbs and Crowley also ignore that groups like CPR are now taking credit for ginning up the outbursts at the town hall rallies.
DOBBS: Joining me now for more our senior political analyst Candy Crowley -- Candy, what do you make of these protests and we just heard Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, obviously mocking these people and saying fairly straightforwardly that this is organized protests. Is that true?
CROWLEY: Well, listen, there is no doubt there are a lot of conservative groups out there who are using their Web sites to encourage people to go to their town hall meetings. But this is not some subterranean movement that they don't want people to know about. And there are groups that you heard of before, some of them well heeled, Conservatives for Patient's Rights.
They've had a number of ads against a sort of Obama style health care reform. They are now on their Web site trying to reach out to some of these groups -- the tea party people that we saw on tax day. Others are saying, you know, here's where the town hall meetings are and schedules like that. There's another group, Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, I'm sure you're familiar with that...
DOBBS: Sure.
CROWLEY: ... is a conservative social group. If you go on that Web site, you can see indeed where there are town hall meetings. Now, there's also an interesting place called Right Principles and I just talked to the head of that group. Now -- and his name is Robert McDuffie and he wrote a memo that has gone all over the Web about how to rock the town hall meeting. And it's very lengthy and it says, you know, go in there and stand up, you know...
DOBBS: Does it suggest whether that be a Democratic or Republican town hall meeting?
CROWLEY: It does not, but this is a group that's definitely protesting the current form of health care reform, as they see it. And he said -- and I said, so, you're starting this movement. He said you know anybody that thinks that a guy sitting in Connecticut with a Web site can influence someone in Texas to go to a town hall meeting, you know, is crazy.
I wrote this for -- he says he wrote it for grassroots activists in Connecticut. He is indeed connected to those -- was a volunteer for those who put together the tea party on tax day. And he said, but you know -- he sort of tapped into -- he said you know people come to him and say I write my congressman and then I get back a letter that doesn't even respond or I get back a letter like I'm on the other side.
And he said he just feels his frustration, so they all sort of say this is not some big master plan, but it is a loosely knit group of various conservatives who are -- the insurance industry also sending a representative to 30 states trying to urge people sympathetic to them to go to these town hall meetings, so yes there is this -- there are lots of groups out there doing this.
But it doesn't seem to be some master plan of sending people who don't understand what they're talking about. They're trying to urge like-minded people to go to these town hall meetings, which they say is what town hall meetings are about.
DOBBS: Certainly part of it. It's also, if you will, synthetic grassroots if that turns out to be the case that it's organized as Gibbs suggested today. It is also quite a different thing if people are simply inspired and alerted to go to a town hall meeting on an issue that is of obviously vital interest to nearly all of us. Which is closer to the reality, as you've examined the facts?
CROWLEY: As far as I can tell from talking today, there is one central group that is bussing people from one state to another. There is by the way a group that's going out on a bus this summer to try to talk about health care that's ante the reform they see, but there doesn't seem to be say one central organizing group. But there are lots of organizing groups. And it's interesting just -- one last thing...
DOBBS: Sure.
CROWLEY: ... is if you look at the politics of this, it is in the interest of the White House and those who support the president and his bid for health care reform to say, you know what? This is all the insurance industry, it's all these whackos. It's the birthers. It's the you know the crazy people.
DOBBS: Oh God, don't say birthers whatever you do not on this...
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: What I mean is -- so they're trying to -- you know and they're describing you know sort of these people that are fringe. But it is in the interest of those who oppose it to have the YouTube videos go up, to have us talking about it, because it strengthens their side. And the truth of the matter is what you're looking at here is a health care debate which all the polls show is split right down the middle and you are seeing the results of that.
DOBBS: In a highly passionate debate...
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: ... prospect. Perhaps we're going to have that great national conversation about this extraordinarily important issue. We're certainly going to do our part on this broadcast and you're leading the way for us, Candy Crowley. Thank you very much.
CROWLEY: Sure.
DOBBS: We appreciate it and by the way, you can say birther whenever you want. It's OK. It's what you say after that...
CROWLEY: I don't think so. Thank you though.
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I lost what little respect I had for Lou Dobbs and CNN.
When a "group" sends out a memo telling you how to disrupt a meeting that might be the only way for some people to interact with their elected officials and another "group" pays for the buses to drive these
goonsconstituents to these meetings takes money and backing hardly what I would call a "grass roots movement".Straight from a page of Mafia tactics to eliminate their criminal competitors in crime..
This is the type of actions you would expect from a criminal mob,,,
Wait a minute ,,, that is exactly what they are..
Leave it to the compassionate corporate Republicans to have to manufacture an astroturf-grassroots movement.
I knew Dobbs is a Birther, but i didn't know Crowly is a Birther too. You can never tell by how a person looks...
There could be a Birther near you and you might never know - creepy.
TV is not your friend. As nice as they appear to be, CNN is not your friend:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care...
CNN is intentionally keeping their viewers ignorant of the knowable facts. CNN is intentionally keeping their viewers ignorant of public opinion.
CNN really has no shame. What a laughable clownact.
Clownact Noise Network
...Where are all the buses full of people with an alternative to "a form of Obamacare"?
Maybe this movement, organic or synthetic, would carry some actual weight if the message wasn't "Do nothing, preserve the status quo, protect rich people's profit margin at the expense of my ability to receive health care free of bankruptcy".
If they were interested in finding out information ,,,,, They would be discussing the policies and debating the issues instead of stopping the debate so one could hear what the details about health bill were.
But is it very clear that this Global Health Empire's control over our health and our very lives , wants to keep things as they are ,,, for their huge profits..
Why do we need a private insurance empire anyway??? All it does is dilute the citizens money to their pocket books , while denying tests and care to the patients...
You know the health empire is hauling in a lot of money to be paying the billions of dollars they have to shut down the health plan.. But we still have to watch and make sure they do not turn the health bill into a policy for them to continue screwing their policy holders.
We have to make sure that if they pass this bill and makes health insurance """manditory"" , that it is not a Health Insurance bill with their demands and wishes in it....
1) Lou Dobbs no longer wants to work at CNN
2) He actually does believe this shit
He's trying to dig his way in or out of the birfer movement?
I'd be surprised if he could handle a bowel movement.
... is coming out of Dobbs ass.
Can anyone tell me why the Family Research Council would be against providing affordable health care for everyone? Oh wait, I'm using logic . . sorry.
They and others are all riled up because they want to make sure that any health plan coming from the govt. doesn't pay for any abortion, no matter what the cause or need.
Let the pubs pay for their own abortion out of their own pocket then. Over many years working in surgery most of the people I knew could afford the abortion and knew the "right" doctor to perform the necessary procedure. I wouldn't even try to guess how many were xtians. LOTS of them.
is the GOP.
it's just a thinly veiled front group used to 'rile up the base' and keep the under-informed voting against their interests.
I'll tell you. Because it is run by Rick Scott, a former hospital executive. He was forced out of the job of a hospital executive because fraud investigation that forced his company to pay a $1,400,000,000 fine. This asshole is a front lobbying group who take millions of $$$$$ from insurance corporations and for profit health care conglomerates. The more many these companies make the less health care they offer.
has nothing to do with Family.
candy crowley mouths: But this is not some subterranean movement that they don't want people to know about. And there are groups that you heard of before, some of them well heeled, Conservatives for Patient's Rights.
no, candy? nothing that they are trying to keep from people? all cool and on the up and up? then, my journalistic-fraud-friend, why not mention the history of Conservatives for Patient's Rights?
why not? because you and lou dobbs are fucking frauds.
since cnn fails to actual inform their viewers, let me help a bit:
Conservatives for Patient's Rights is led by a fuckwad named richard scott, who has teamed up with the group responsible for the swiftboaters.
but, more importantly, this is richard scott's background:
Maggie Mahar at the Century Foundation's Health Beat blog reports that Scott previously started the for-profit hospital chain in 1987 that later became the $23 billion Columbia/HCA. He was ousted from this post in 1997 after an FBI investigation of Columbia/HCA that led to 14 felony convictions and $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Co...
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/03/who-is-...
candy crowley and lou dobbs are working to deceive the public (again), or are so incompetent they can't help but fail in their roles.
from the Dope/Private hospitals for their ad revenue?
Of course this is a setup by all parties involved
when large groups march around yelling "Just sa no" they are theree for discussion and debate. Sorry Dobbs and Crowley, they are acting just short of rioting. If there was some opposition there probably would be a riot.
Let them riot then. Then send them to the hospital to find out how their insurance doesn't pay.
Has Dobbs become so far to the right that Fox won't even hire him?
I get the feeling there is no such thing as "too far to the right" where Fox is concerned. I think it's just a simple case of Grampa Lou's mind is starting to...fade.
Grandpa Lou sounds like he' working for someone and it's not the media, or someone has something on him.
There's beginning to be no difference between the two.
Dobbs is just pissed cause Beck beat him to the punch.
Now he believes if he ramps up his crazy high enough, that FOX will hire him too.
The problem is...FOX is a business...so there's a good chance that they're already at or near the YTD target on their "crazy expenditures".
Dobbs may have to wait till next year.
Lou is worried about someone "mocking" these teabagging morons? These same morons who are shouting down, booing, insulting, and attempting to intimidate elected officials and anybody who agrees with them, while simultaneously guaranteeing with this boorish behavior that there will be NO civil discourse at these meetings? Lou, you are one serious asshole dressed up as a concern troll.
Conservatives [he growled with deep, deep disdain]. They never cease to amaze me with their ability to whine and wax hypocritical all at once.
You know what happens when Code Pink disrupts assemblies? They get arrested and taken out of the assembly. They know it is going to happen but they are willing to pay that price. Same with any other group who protest in this fashion. It is part of the deal. Why has that not happened with these nut cases.
I'm glad you mentioned Code Pink because tonight Beck said that Code Pink shows up at military funerals with blood on their hands. I have never heard anything about them doing that and if they haven't done anything like that they need to jump on beck's ass.
This time I have the clip. Hahaha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvqT13dStpc&fe...
Come on, folks. Lou Dobbs can't even admit he got taken by a conspiracy-nut bimbo with a forged document.
Lou needs to admit his failures or resign, because we wouldn't want DAN RATHER and the 'liberal mainstream media' to have higher standards than the 'conservative FRINGE media,' would we?
And, seriously, Candy - don't stand too close, I hear it's catching. Dobbs wouldn't recognize a legitimate issue if Pancho Villa came back from the dead and raided his hairpiece.
CNN: Clueless NItwit Network
I guess each cable news channel is required to have one goof ball. MSNBC has Scarborough, CNN has Lou and Fox got greedy and got a whole bunch of them.
Dobb's and his moron guests are complete lying assholes, like Faux noise, so that is why he is quickly losing his audience.
They are blazingly white and there seem to be a lot of them. He's a cross between Archy Bunker and Eric Cartman.
Hey, leave Eric Cartman out of this. He doesn't deserve to be abused by having his name in any way associated with Lou Dobbs.
Cartman is a class act compared to Dobbs.
Lou Dobbs is Mr. Hankey
on the loo, now Loo Dobbs has new choppers.
How does one get to be a "senior analyst" or "senior correspondent?" I have yet to see anyone with a title like that who has any idea what's going on... or will admit it anyway. I honestly think you have to be a little stupid to be on TV these days, or at least be able to act like you are so you don't rock any boats.
... that the title reflected your knowledge and the hard work put into a long career.
Now, it's pretty much just a case of 'which dipstick is on top of the pile'.
They give them a title in lew of money.
n/t
Keep in mind Lou is in Atlanta, and as progressive as that city is, it is still in the middle of one of the most conservative states in the country.
Remember the Political Spectrum Quiz that was all over the tubes a couple of years ago? (I am far-left moderate social libertarian. Left: 7.64, Libertarian: 2.8-just a little more liberal than Ghandi!)
The quizmasters now have taken all of the results and mapped the nation. Georgia is shown as socially authoritarian, economically right, neocons on foreign policy, and moderately conservative culterally.
So Lou is just fitting in with his neighbors.
;o}
No Health Insurance Due To Lack Of Enema
its not grass roots. these people are just shouting what they've heard on fox.
...co-opted! (After the Presidential Election)!
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 17:05 — Truth_Critic
... was indeed hijacked by the Neo-con Populist sect as a recruitment tool to bolster their numbers and appease their disgruntled ranks... following the 2008 election cycle. Show me an earlier Tea event similar to the ones we've see recently, pushed by the big money corps and ask yourself why the Ron Paul base was seen throwing snowballs at Hannity awhile back... before he chose to promoted the idea. Kinda like that Kerry thing. :P
[ http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/tweety-p... ]
Before:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx7Q8-5PtOs ](0:47)
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5rJI5e0jBU ](2:04)
After:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoA9MHwFBts ](2:22)
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLEzkwdcp04 ](3:35)
Yes we have "The (R) $$$" now bankrolling the radicals of the Ron Paul "grassroots" R3volution and of course all like minded fellows, though we'll never see the true leaders on the front lines.
Amended: Shepard Smith Calls Out "More and More Frightening" Fox E-mailers
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxvunbIWNyI ]
Maybe these geniuses missed Keith's and Rachel's shows. These people (the protesters) are thugs and sheep. Thugs because they shout down and intimidate those who disagree with them. Sheep because they're following the leaders, who are millionaires that could give two sh*ts about them.
Good work Dobbs and "protesters". Stick to the script.
How come these people aren't asked to leave or escorted out if they're making a commotion and bringing NOTHING to the conversation at hand? When Bush was urinating on our rights, if anyone dared disrupt an event, they'd be led outside with/without handcuffs.
Couldn't get in to a Dubya speech without signing a loyalty oath.
aren't going to have any impact until it affects the only thing that seems to matter with corporations -- their bottom line.
Along with protesting Dobbs connection with CNN, they should protest every advertiser whose commercial appears on CNN during the Lou Dobbs Show.
A product list should be included, with new products added whenever a new one first airs during Dobbs show, which signers vow to boycott until Dobbs' has been fired.
IF you have the option with your cable provider, cancel your CNN subscription. That's money immediately out of their pockets.
"-- the insurance industry also sending a representative to 30 states trying to urge people sympathetic to them to go to these town hall meetings"
Don't you love the way Crowley casually drops this nugget in there near the end?She goes to some lengths to paint these "protests" as respectable and actually implies that it is the Government not the Pharma industry putting out false and misleading propaganda.
She's a pain in the ass.
...a lot of conservatives out there that despise what Democrats and Obama are trying to do and it hasn't taken much to get 'em to come out and express their anger. The problem with this is, and the folks at Faux, and now CNN, either don't realize or don't care, there are even more of us that despised what the Republicans and George Bush, et.al., did to the country over their term - and prior - at least as much. And should we decide, or if progressive leaders suggest that we go out and do all we can to see to it that these tea-baggin', hate-mongers don't succeed in their efforts to disrupt the sessions, then there will be 'hell-to-pay'. I'm talking throw-back to the goon-squads businesses called out to break unions early in the 20th Century. I know if I'm in the midst of these people and they shout their crap in my face, somebody's gonna go home with their ass whipped...or in jail...or worse. These people are inciting to riot and that's the real tragedy that Dobbs and the rest aren't talking about.
this story really bothers me. these are the very people who would be helped the most by a better health care plan, and they are so obviously being misinformed and misled. don't kick them out, find a way to use this to our advantage. and by "our" i mean everybody.
I don't mean to come off like a jerk, but have you ever tried to talk to one of these people? You would make more progress just bashing your own head with a hammer.
These people don't have a clue and don't want one. For years it used to make me so sad to know anyone could be fooled by the repugs, but even if you try to show them the light, it's like trying to teach someone to breath underwater. I don't know what hope there is for them, and even worse I don't know what future we can have in this country as long as people like this are clouding up the conversation.
You can't have a civil conversation with opinionated teabagger louts that listen with their mouths. They are pedantic and inflexible and have already made up their simplistic mind that they are right and you aren't. Best to ignore them rather than have a conversation with a hysterical half-wit.
These paranoid bombthrowers and anarchists are a short term but unpleasant part of our political discussion. At some point this too, shall pass.
well, maybe not try to talk sense to them, but use them as a foil to show how unreasonable and anti-american such behavior is. it looks like that message is already starting to get out:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/re...
then maybe more people who are subjected to this nonesense will be more receptive to the truth once they see how ridiculous and ignorant these attacks are. "get your government hands off my medicare" ?? remind people that medicare IS government healthcare.
There are few people in this world that I would like to see run over - but for Lou, I would love to see him get run over by a truck load of illegal aliens.
Just to add a cherry on top: with his wife driving! - that would put a smile on my face...hell, I'm smiling just thinking about it!
Ya , i guess Dobbs and Crowley will be driving the buses to the next Birther meeting. Too bad about lou's career. From now until forever Lou Dobbs will be known as a Birther, and it couldn't have worked out any better. Keep digging old man.
He deserves as much respect as blitzer, john king, crowley, hannity, o'reilly, beck.
Oh wait, never mind. Carry on.
...one of the most hateful "thread of comments" I have "scrolled through" in a long time...
face up to it and get used to it...(Cuz there is gonna be more of it)!
...thousands of Americans are losing their jobs everyday and are starting to get out in the streets...(and it aint) just republicans.
America is fed up with the wars, lobbyists, bankers, and corporations, (not just) insurance companies.
Congress (has like a 10% approval rating) ...and our govt and the Banks and corporations that run it, suck.
The people are mad about it. (period) (end of story) (game over)
I say three cheers (for everyone republican, democrat, commie, fascist, or libertarian) who gets out onto the street and into the faces of our politicians that fail us!
you missed the Maddow and Olbermann shows yesterday?
watch it - good stuff, and all of it the knowable truth.
...that there may be a little (co-opting) going on if thats what you mean, and I'll agree it may happen on a small scale but they (insurance companies) can't pay everyone...
I think it is grass roots...and that a lot of the activism isn't even about healthcare.
Congress sucks and there are a million and one reasons to go tell your congressperson that you are mad...to his face!
we shall see - ya, saying you are mad is a reasonable strait forward way of saying you are dissatisfied. What's going on here is a bit more sinister, i think.
It never makes sense to disturb a civil meeting though, even if through non physical abuse. it still ammounts to terrorism, just a milder form.
If you want to know more knowable truth watch the clips.
I haven't watched a whole socalled news show since.
I get clips here sometimes, if I can stomach them.
I often wonder if all the money these prostitutes get paid for lying is really worth the loss of self respect that has to come along with being a paid liar?
Do they ever feel ashamed of the lies and the lives they have ruined with their lies?
I have been so ashamed of these corporate prostitutes, but even more so in the last 9 years. It seems they have given up all thoughts of honesty or integrity for greed.
They sold their souls for a few gold coins.
I say republicanism is a mental illness.
You have to be batshit crazy to be a republican.
The worst thing I can think to say of someone is; he is a republican! YUK.
My brother said hes not a republican anymore hes now a teabagger because its nonpartisan. I really tried to talk to him but it was no use, all I could do was laugh and hang up.
do they shoot Dobbs in soft focus.
They ran out of Vaseline.
Just like most of their other colleagues in the MSM that belch their toxic corporatist garbage disguised as "impartial and detached journalism." What a laugh to think these arrogant Beltway bozos have the nerve to insult us every day with their vile trash and want us to believe they are even marginally competent. When you pay people enough they'll say any damn thing, just don't repo my luxury condo or cancel the country club membership where I can hang and sip martinis with my fellow insular backslappers, please.
I'll gladly get the real story from C&L and other respectable blogsites than some condescending snobatorium like CNN.
CNN is now refusing to run political adds because of concerns of pharmaceutical companies. That is wrong.
CNN gets a big ugly F in their report card for that.
No where close to that is she. She was the major one who broadcast and pushed all the lies about Al Gore in the 2000 election. She has no credibility at all as far as I'm concerned. She and Lou Dobbs are one and the same.
Exactly right---the MSM (with some exceptions) is an insular and dysfunctional support group that boasts of their self importance and usefulness--listening to these two arrogant incompetents congratulate each other on enabling fraud and deception is a sickening perversion of journalism.
CNN attracts crap
talent, Dobbs, Corwly, John King, Dana Bash, Worlf Britzer, on and on. Turn it off!!takes 30 seconds. click on this link, tell CNN you won't watch it until Lou Dobbs is off (AND they run the ad critical of the health care insurers, which is entirely factual).
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form11b.html?2
Yes we can ? No we can't . The corruption , the greed , the total loss of conscience and integrity , the ignorance and stupidity ... even if Obama was sincere and the real deal which is getting more and more difficult to believe , it was mission impossible . Too many rotten apples , the rot and the decay has spread to deep . We are self destructing .
These teabaggers and birthers are pissed off white people who are believing what faux and rush are telling them, racism like it or not is a huge flash point as well. What really sets them off is a reality check on Bush and Cheney needing to be prosecuted for war crimes.
These people are born again repubs down to the bone that I have met on other sites, they really believe if you look up a clunker car your computer is scanned, all public health care is going to be for illegals and ACORN is behind the whole thing.
Snip - As the person who filmed this event. I would like to say that although Andrew may appear to be a conspiracy theorist, he still was accosted by the police after Senator Kerry said he wanted to hear ...
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s&NR=1 ](3:33)
Wed, 08/05/2009 - 16:43 — Milquetoast
"I say three cheers (for everyone republican, democrat, commie, fascist, or libertarian) who gets out onto the street and into the faces of our politicians that fail us!"
It's interesting how you save your own political ideology for last, in your inclusive summation. That's that radical anything goes, free will personality only a true libertarian would have, at least you were honest enough to acknowledge the fact a short time ago.
Like they say... it's all fun & games until somebody gets hurt. :-/
The courthouse, most often, is a public venue, though from a mature and just standpoint they demand order and decorum with all due respect. I'm not attempting to change you, only you can do that. The alternative is to go kicking and screaming like a child or out with a "bang"... there again, it's your choice... in a civil vs uncivil society.
PS. Ya had few civil peeps, at first glance, in that 2008 libertarian primary. But they sold-out to the big shot from GA... Bob Barr.
[ http://www.bobbarr2008.com/ ]
Quite similar to the Big shot / Tea baggin scenario we see before us. That is unless you went for the Churchy strain prevalent in the Pastor Chuck Baldwin wing of the constitution party?
[ http://www.baldwin08.com/ ]
John Candy Crowley strikes again. She is a GOP shill and has been since her days of promoting W.
You can lift the face, but you can't stop the ugly.
The only grass roots Crowley knows are the ones she grazes upon. She's a cow.
Both of these wastes of human flesh act like these meeting dispruptions are benign, just a little boistrous fun.
These are serious, deliberate actions to shut down the democratic process of free and open meetings by shouting down the speakers and driving decent people out. All they want is to make it look for the You Tube media like this was a national consensus against health care reform when in fact it is a noisy bunch of thugs.
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