There is no other reason to bring the rifle except to make a threat.

You must have been a ton of fun when your English teacher tried to explain the concept of metaphors to you.

<yawn>

You bring the damn penis everywhere so maybe quit this nonsensical 'argument' ok? It was funny for a moment but it has nothing to do with anything.

Who's the dangerous ones again?

The videographer appears to have happened upon the last nine seconds of a minor altercation on the sidewalk. The tape doesn’t show how the scuffle started. We do see the SEIU member, identifiable by his t-shirt, prostrate on the pavement.

About six seconds into the clip, a figure in a beige t-shirt and khaki pants with his back to the camera falls on his butt and immediately gets up and moves out of frame. It’s unclear clear what caused him to fall. Nobody appears to be punching or kicking anyone.

A few seconds later, we see a black man in a beige polo shirt and khakis darting around, trying to convince various police officers that he’s been attacked.

The man, later identified as 38-year-old conservative activist, Ken Gladney, doesn’t look savagely beaten: Gladney has no visible injuries and his light-colored clothes are clean and intact. At one point, he stops to exchange a few words with the videographer before trying to flag down a police car.

Lawyer Dan Brown later claimed to have seen SEIU members punching his client in the face and kicking him in the head.

The St. Louis County police cannot confirm whether the video is authentic or whether it shows what various parties claim to see in it. After the arrests, the police asked witnesses to come forward with statements, video, or photos of the incident.

“We have no idea the source of the video,” Officer Rick Eckhard, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police, told In These Times, “If someone wants to come and say “that this is my video…” Otherwise, it’s just speculation. We haven’t received it.”

Officer Eckhard said police investigators are preparing a report for the county council’s office. The council will decide whether there’s enough evidence to issue arrest warrants.

Former exec: Insurers fomenting town hall chaos
By Mike Soraghan
Posted: 08/12/09 05:12 PM [ET]
A former health insurance executive says the disruptions taking place at lawmakers' town halls around the country are the result of stealth efforts by health insurance companies.

Wendell Potter, a former CIGNA vice president, detailed what he said were past covert efforts by the industry. Though he said he does not have specifics for what is occurring now, because he's been out of the business for a year, it follows the same pattern.

"The industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year," Potter said at a Capitol news conference after meeting with House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), an avid supporter of the Democrats' plans for a healthcare overhaul.

"When you hear someone complaining about traveling down a 'slippery slope to socialism,' some insurance flack, like I used to be, wrote that," Potter added.

Potter said during his 20 years in the insurance business, the industry would funnel money to large public firms who would create front groups and find friendly voices in conservative media.

In particular, he cited front groups created to fight "Patients' Bill of Rights" legislation in the 1990s, as well as a campaign to discredit the Michael Moore film "Sicko," which harshly criticized the industry.

Slaughter joined in the attack, saying "the notion that this is going to be something devilish comes from the people who would lose money on it."

A health insurance trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), sent a letter to congressional leaders earlier this week stating support for "bipartisan health reform" and denying any role in fomenting disruptions at meetings.

"There is no truth to the allegation that AHIP’s employee grassroots program is responsible for disruptive and inappropriate tactics at health care town hall meetings," wrote the group's president, Karen Ignagni. "We are urging our member plans to participate in town hall meetings to provide members of Congress with real-world examples of how they are helping to expand access, reduce costs and improve quality."

The town hall meetings of Democratic lawmakers during their August recess have been marked by shouting and heckling from vocal opponents of President Barack Obama's healthcare plan and from opponents of the protesters. There have been several instances of fisticuffs and some reports of guns being brought to events, usually legally.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has dubbed insurance companies "villains" and encouraged her members to focus on the companies' business practices, such as denying coverage for "pre-existing conditions."

The insurance industry has not launched open attacks on the overhaul plan, as it did against President Bill Clinton's plan in the 1990s. But it has lobbied to change specific provisions.

I'll remember that the next time I'm pulled over by a gun toting police officer that wants to give me a speeding ticket. I am going to demand an apology from him for needlessly threatening a peaceful law abiding citizen.

I'd say it's to protect themselves from all the government sanctioned union thugs.

lol. What on earth are you drinking? Ok I'll bite. I'll settle for the last time you were pulled over for speeding by a maniac facist police officer...what was going to happen if you pulled a hand gun on him? He was suddenly going to respect your 'personal liberty' to speed?
This is as stupid as the penis metaphor.

Not at all.

The gun lobby in the US is concerned about Obama
putting new restrictions on weapons.

1. Bringing a weapon to a protest will generate publicity
about this issue, and hopefully also undermine the
Health care bomb he will drop.

2. It is a legal activity.

I might be drinking, but I am certainly not drinking and driving. And if you suggest that we should ban all drinking because of drunk drivers, I think that I could come up with some pretty good penis analogies for that too.

possesion of something doesn't make you a criminal. and I feel a need to remind you of this.

Why will it generate publicity? - because showing up somewhere with an automatic rifle slung over your shoulder insinuates a threat. The gun lobby is concerned about Obama putting forth what gun restrictions?
That it is a legal activity is hardly a reason.

No, its a new way to generate publicity, I guess the open carry states
have just thought this one up.

That it is a legal activity is hardly a reason to condemn it
as something illegal and sinister.

Well we'llhave to agree to disagree on that one.


Free speech is legal...unless you're crying 'fire' in a theatre or making death threats. In which case its very easy to condemn.



TO THE REST of you: gotta run now, sorry.