Allison Bricker

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) hosted a student town hall featuring Representatives Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Ron Paul of Texas this past Friday at Northrop Auditorium located on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Both Congressional representatives spoke to the students about limiting the size and scope of government, monetary policy, and free market economics after having earlier in the day been present during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee regarding Dr. Paul’s bill to comprehensively audit the FEDERAL RESERVE, H.R. 1207.

Despite the seemingly complex subject matter, students, faculty, and residents filled the auditorium to hear both Representatives rail against the consequences of big government and central economic planning at the hands of a private central bank. After a short introduction by Representative Bachmann, the crowd rose to its feet to give Dr. Paul a standing ovation, a scene repeated throughout and upon conclusion of Dr. Paul’s speech.

Editor’s Note: The video is approximately thirty-seven minutes in length and contains Representative Ron Paul’s speech during the town hall. The question and answer portion is unfortunately not included.

The Smoking Argus

OFFICIAL STATEMENT – Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) delivers the weekly Republican address on the Health Care Reform bill that is currently being debated in the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Isakson also sends his condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives due to the recent flooding in Georgia.

Senator Isakson discusses how important this Health Care Reform bill is to the American people and how the Republicans have listened to what their constituents have demanded at local events and town hall forums.

Senator Isakson declares that “Americans are rightly concerned about the rush to pass a massive overhaul that will raise their taxes, lower their quality of care and put government between them and their doctor.” And that “Republicans believe the key to reforming health care is strengthening the doctor-patient relationship by using choice and competition rather than rationing and restrictions to contain costs and ensure access to affordable health care.”

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Related Material(s)
	TRANSCRIPT: Republican National Committee, Weekly Republican Remarks by Rep. Johnny Isakson of Georgia (PDF 12.1Kb)

Source(s): House Republican Conference • The Weekly Republican Address YouTube Channel

The Smoking Argus

OFFICIAL STATEMENT – Rep. John Kline (R-MN) delivers the Weekly Republican Address on health care reform that makes coverage more affordable and accessible for families and small businesses without costing millions of Americans their jobs or adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Related Material(s)
	Minnesota Congressional Rep. John Kline Confronted for Refusing to Hold a Town Hall Meeting
	GOP Weekly Address Representative John Kline Transcript (PDF –kb)

Source(s): U.S. House of Representative, Republican Conference • YouTube User DustyRice “Kline Confronted For Refusing To Hold Town Hall!!!”, uploaded 08/28/2009

Allison Bricker

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – During a town hall held at the Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church this past Thursday, California Congressional Representative Diane Watson (CA) continued the standard rebuttal to critics of President Obama’s health care overhaul, charging them as “racist”. At the onset of the Congressional recess and the now infamous town hall meetings, Supporters of government intervention into health care originally attempted to dismiss opposition as a staged grassroots effort funded by lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PAC’s) from the insurance industry.

Consequently, after support for President Obama’s plan continued to erode with news of a secret $80 Billion deal brokered by President Obama and top pharmaceutical lobbyist, Bill Tauzin, Congressional supporters of the President’s plan such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (CA) changed strategies and began an attempt to label opponents to government health care as Nazis and “brownshirts”.

Representative Diane Watson however, opted to avoid any references to the Third Reich and instead sought to sum up opposition wholly based on skin color stating:

“So remember they [opponents] are spreading fear and trying to see that the first president who looks like me, fails; don’t misunderstand what is at the bottom line [racism].”

Representative Diane E. Watson
33rd Congressional District, California

Continuing, she then offered her praise for both the communist Cuban socialized medical system and Dictator, Fidel Castro; calling on her constituents to disregard what they may had heard in the past about the Communist dictator, and referred to him as one of the brightest leaders she has ever met.

Whether painting opponents to the President’s plan as racist will stem the dwindling support for a public government run option remains yet to be determined. Perhaps the biggest liability to a government run option may prove to be the cost and projected National Deficit of $17.27 Trillion by 2019 as opposed to the inferences made on opponents’ racial sentiments.

Allison Bricker

In what may be seen as a move to stave of the exodus of viewers, old-media cable news outlet MSNBC attempted to further enrage passions surrounding the debate over government health care. In a clip that quickly found its way to YouTube, an MSNBC intro piece showed a man attending a protest outside of President Obama’s health care rally in Phoenix, Arizona armed with an AR-15 rifle. The heavily edited and purposely cropped video then gave way to host Contessa Brewer who transparently opined:

“There are questions whether this [health care town hall protests] have racial overtones. Here you have a man of color in the Presidency with white people showing up with guns.”

Contessa Brewer
August 19th, 2009

Unfortunately for Ms. Brewer, her attempt at further entrenching divisions amongst Americans is revealed to be nothing more than a poorly constructed attempt at race-baiting; the original unedited video clearly shows the man to whom Ms. Brewer’s comments reference is African-American.

Attempts to contact both the MSNBC newsroom and Ms. Brewer for comment have thus far gone unanswered. Moreover, with the old-media’s first attempts at promulgating that the town hall protests were “staged” it is growing ever clearer that the old-media’s faux “journalists” are now seeking to go down a much more unethical and shameful road of inflaming racial tensions.

Source(s): “Obama back in Phoenix 8-17-09 Yes a man had an AR 15… get over it.” YouTube User: WeAreChangeAZ • MSNBC “Morning Meeting” originally aired Tueday, August 18th, 2009