What REALLY Happened at Obama's Montana Town Hall

This is a real letter a very good friend of mine got from a friend of hers who attended the Town Hall in Montana. Neither wanted to have their names on the internet and I am respecting that. Given what this former Obama supporter(yea really, and she was pretty hard core over the moon for Obama as well) I take her account even more seriously.

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since XXXXX and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.

On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.

On about Tuesday XXXXX found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because XXXXXX knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.

FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. $$$$$

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.

Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.

This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

On Friday XXXXXX and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.

The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them.....professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)

Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.

So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.

If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.

We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho. Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.

It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America, more like the USSR!! I was physically nauseous. XXXXX and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country.

America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!

LOL

Here is another account from someone in Yellowstone Montana. Granted any Presidential Motorcade is $$$$$$$$$$$$ not just Obama’s, but at the same time I don’t recall President Bush moving with such a huge entourage. Big yea, but he wasn’t taking date nights in NYC either...

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Thank you for sharing... and please, share back my perspective of the visit that continued from there to here... and into Yellowstone park
we had helicopter fly overs, starting on Wednesday... sometimes 3, 4 or 5, at one point there were 11 (ELEVEN) helicopters here... flying over, mostly low flights, ‘checking things out’ over the park, forest service and surrounding areas
checking around, each one of those cost about $6500-$7500 just to TAKE off the ground! and another $800-$1,000.00 PER Mile to fly... from Bozeman to here is 90 miles... (they did not stay here until Friday - but flew back to ‘whence they came’.. possibly Bozeman again.... ) ONE day;’s take off is $71,500.00 in Tax $$$$$$$
AND they flew each of Wed, Thurs, Friday and then Saturday, started low flying checks at 7 AM
those helicopters were in addition to Air Force One plane... the Marine One Helicopter (for the Family - see below) and escorts, and let’s not forget the transport plane that brought in the ‘First Family’s SUV’ and ‘backup’ and Secret Service bullet proof cars as well....
in addition, flights ‘in the area’ (IE.. from north of Salt Lake to Billings MT, and from Boise ID to Gillette WY) were ‘delayed or rerouted’ for security.. but ‘customers were compensated for the necessary inconvenience’ — friends that were going to be here for a few days, planning to fly into here, were told they could not fly in until late Saturday after the family had left.. but were given flight vouchers and rental car vouchers..to the tune of almost $1,000. in credits!! to use in the next 2 years... how many other travelers were displaced and ‘compensated’???? what cost?????/?/
there were aprox 30 (35 by one count) cars rented for the ‘presidential motorcade’ -— not little ‘economy’ cars mind you.... 30 midsize cars times ‘fleet rate’ of $55/day x 3 days = $4950.00
there was a fishing excursion — including a trip over to Ted Turner’s ranch, in the Madison Valley on the way to Ennis (Hwy 287)... and the family stayed in Big Sky MT - Hwy 191 - at Huntley Lodge (originally put up by Chet Huntley years ago)... the lodge has 300 rooms... reservations are usually 2 years in advance... the gentleman I spoke to had reservations for 2 1/2 years, but was not miffed... said he was ‘WELL Compensated’ for the inconvenience... did not disclose an amount... but gee, rooms there average $170 a night... $170x300 rooms = $51,000.00 IF only that was given.. and sounds like MORE was.. that would not off set the ‘inconvenience’...
there were Forest service employees blocking off and watching roads in the forest, extra law enforcement from the area as well as the State patrol (I saw 8 officers) and Sheriff’s Dept and local as well... and pilot cars to bring us down hwy 191 past all the blocked and closed roads with the helicopters checking over head...
and the family came by motorcade down from Big sky to the airport... they met Airforce One here at the airport... the motorcade went into the park (one person said 42 vehicles) and the family was on Marine One helicopter with escorts ( what appeared to be armed Black hawks) and met the motorcade at a completely blocked off from the public Midway Geyser basin... where they entered the cars.. and were driven to the blocked from the public Old Faithful... some folks got pictures with long range lenses from the 500 or so yards away... and others waited by the sides of the road where they had been stopped.... (for 3 or more hours).. the family left in the motorcade, met the choppers, were flown back to our airport where they boarded Air Force One and flew to Grand Junction CO... (a total of maybe 2 1/2 hours was the ‘first family tour of yellowstone) the motorcade came back and according to pictures in the media, the people waved and waved along the way

we heard Marine one come back, heard Airforce One take off and a couple hours later, the transport plane and more helicopters...

then, they were here on the Park’s Free weekend... had more than one family that had come to see the park on Saturday... there were two sisters here that brought their kids from Idaho Falls to see Old Faithful their only ‘vacation’ of the year - they were detained so long that they had to go back for one of them to get to work as a night shift nurse.. what is the price of that disappointment??? the audacity of HYPE

gee for what was spent on ‘touring Yellowstone’ most of the west could have free medical care for the year!
i am outraged!!

Rush had a caller on describing the event and it validates the e-mail.
RUSH: We’re going to go to Roundup, Montana, and start there. Sandy, hi. Great that you called. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s a privilege to be on your show.

RUSH: Thanks very much.

CALLER: I just wanted to comment on the Belgrade town hall meeting in Montana.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: My family and I were first-time attendees for any kind of protesting at all. I’m a stay-at-home mom, raised four children, homeschooled them. But, you know, just like many other people in America, it’s high time that we state our opinion and exercise our First Amendment right, you know, freedom of speech and we went there even though we didn’t have tickets. We wrote out our signs, signs saying things like, “Government Hands Off,” “Give Me liberty and Give Me Life,” those sort of things. When we showed up, we didn’t really know where to stand. We saw many other first-time protesters, as well. They were equally confused on where to go. But all we had to do was listen and look, and we heard a tea party group set up on a five-acre lot, and we actually heard your program being aired, and as soon as we heard your voice, we said, “A-ha, that’s where we’re supposed to be.”

RUSH: Well, it was just like being at home!

CALLER: (giggling) So we went ahead and followed that area, and some of the people that were holding protesting signs that were first-timers also went in that direction. When we arrived, though, there was a whole lot of confusion because all we heard was your voice over a loudspeaker. But then we heard a big group saying, “Hush Rush! Hush Rush,” and we thought, “Wait a second, what’s going on? Are these for or against? What in the world?” We later found out that the tea party group that rented the five-acre area were infiltrated by the ACORN group. The ACORN group had another area but it wasn’t as strategically placed in as good of an area to protest or support and they had actually come and mixed themselves among the protesters, and there was utter confusion. I could not believe it, because every time you turned around you saw an Obama sign supporting it, and then you’d see sprinkled throughout protesters here and there. But my point is that ACORN clearly infiltrated the area where the protesters were. And one of the things that was so glaring that I noticed is I know the media has this big thing about how, “Oh, the conservatives, you know, the people that are protesting this health care are angry mobs that are showing up at town hall meetings.” Well, we find the opposite to be true. All the conservatives that I saw, my family includes, were simply holding up our signs. And what would happen was these ACORN people would come up — or people that were walking to the town hall would come up — and literally shake their heads and start screaming something at you. And our response was never venomous back to them. You know, at one time there was a gentleman that walked by my husband’s sign and he had all these, you know, “No Universal Health Care” signs and so forth —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — and he literally shook his head and had a position as if he was going to hit my husband and all my husband said back to him was, “It’s great to be an American, isn’t it, sir?” which I think of course made him even angrier. But what ended up happening was after, you know, the whole scene went we looked back and noticed that ACORN was such an organized group that most of the protesters were people just like myself — people that love their country, that simply want their voice to be heard and they may never have done that before in their life. And I don’t consider myself a political activist, you know, I pray for my country, I love my country but I finally got to the point where I said, “Hey, there’s an area that we can, you know —

RUSH: Right. Here’s what happened —
CALLER: — show up and look like we’re in support. And I’ll tell you, Rush, the terrible thing, too, that every time the media would come, these ACORN people would get out of their vehicles. They would be waiting until the perfect time, they’d get out of their vehicles and then they tried to crowd out where we were holding our signs. And I had heard that also when the tea partiers had tried to ask the folks to leave the area because it was a rented area for the tea party group, they were arrested. And, you know, I was so outraged when we had gotten home after it was all over... We had gotten home I knew that, you know, it was going to be on the media, on the TV, on the news, we even went to some conservative news sites like NewsMax.com. And we were so disheartened because the consensus was that, “Oh, he was fairly well received.” That’s not the way we looked at it. We looked at it as we were crowded out by an organized group that has their job.

RUSH: Right. Sandy, here’s what happened to you. This is a great story. It’s a great illustration, too. You show up because of passion. You show up for the first time ever anything like this because of passion, fear, whatever it is. You don’t want what is being proposed. You don’t want what is being shoved down the throat. It doesn’t remind you of what your country is. And the Obama people are not showing up at these town hall meetings because of passion. They’re not showing up to support this. They’re showing up because they’ve been given orders. ACORN is part of this organizing group. They’re showing up here to try to disrupt; they’re showing up trying to intimidate. That’s why I said last week, I’m so proud of people like you and the people that are showing up at these town hall meetings because it’s genuine. It’s the truth versus lies. It’s real passion versus fake and it’s available for everybody to see, like you saw it. And it’s always more powerful when somebody experiences something rather than has it described to them. Now, listen, I’ve got a sound bite here that will go very well with her call. This is Saturday on NPR, All Things Considered. The host was interviewing a senior writer for something called “The Root,” and I’m not even going to try with these names. The question: “There’s a lot of confusion and misinformation out there on the various plans for changing the health care system,” and an essay on the website TheRoot.com argues, the rage isn’t really about health care at all. The author, Kay Wright, says it’s really about the anxieties of a whole segment of America that increasingly feels shut out.

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