Posted on 08/03/2009 2:49:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
U.S. Representative Tim Bishop has temporarily suspended holding “town hall” style meetings after Suffolk County Police were called by residents to escort him back to his car amid a throng of rowdy protesters who turned out for a meeting in Setauket last month.
The Southampton congressman, who has held more than 100 of the open meetings since being elected in 2002, cancelled another town hall meeting scheduled the week after the Setauket event and has not scheduled any others for the immediate future. Instead, he has opted to attend a variety of other events in the district.
Aides say he will hold the town hall meetings again once they can be sure the meetings will be constructive.
“The only issue that needs to be addressed is to make sure that we’re able to do town hall meetings in a way that is helpful and constructive,” Jon Schneider, Mr. Bishop’s aide, said this week. “The congressman always says the reason he does open town halls is because he wants to hear from people who disagree with him. We just need to have those exchanges in a civil manner.”
When he arrived at the June 22 meeting in Setauket, Mr. Bishop was greeted by nearly 200 boisterous protesters shouting criticisms on a wide array of topics, from global warming to health care reform to financial bailouts of automobile manufacturers. About 75 of the protesters filed into the back of the meeting room, along with another 75 attendees, while the rest of the crowd remained outside chanting and shouting protests and waving placards at passing motorists.
According to Mr. Schneider, who was at the meeting, and news coverage of the meeting appearing in the Times Beacon Record, a North Shore newspaper, the vocal crowd of protesters hijacked the conversation, shouting out their questions and shouting over answers.
Video footage taken at the meeting and shown on the website YouTube shows Mr. Bishop attempting to answer questions from protesters about global warming and being shouted down by criticism, and follow-up questions after only a few words of response.
Mr. Schneider said the harsh treatment was not reserved only for the Democratic congressman. He said that an older woman, nearly in tears, had stood up to speak, asking Mr. Bishop about government plans for health care reform that could help her son, who had recently lost his job and his healthcare plan along with it. Someone standing along the walls at the back of the room shouted: “Why doesn’t he get a job!” Mr. Schneider recalled.
“The congressman can take it,” the longtime aide said. “But when something like that happens, people aren’t going to want to ask questions. We want a forum in which people can share their opinions and share their stories. We all need to be respectful of one another.”
Five Suffolk County Police officers arrived about an hour into the Setauket meeting. Mr. Schneider said he asked one of the officers who had called them, and the officer responded “everybody.” Mr. Schneider said Mr. Bishop never felt threatened by the protesters and that none of them ever made any threatening gestures toward him or touched him physically in any way.
Nonetheless, after the 90-minute meeting was over, the five officers walked with Mr. Bishop back to his car, which he had been forced to park several blocks from the meeting hall due to the large turnout. The swarm followed him and during the walk Mr. Bishop held an on-camera interview about global warming with a woman in a T-shirt and baseball cap who said she was from the Long Island Alternative News Channel. She stated during the interview that there is “scientific proof” that global warming is not happening.
“They seemed to be of the belief that the government doesn’t do anything right,” Mr. Schneider said of the protesters. “When the congressman said he believes in climate change, that brought a vast howl from the crowd. When he said the government is delivering some good services, he cited the VA, and that got a howl.”
Another Bishop legislative aide, Will Jenkins, said the protesters, who seemed to be affiliated with a number of local grassroots groups, have been attending public meetings featuring other Democratic legislators and protesting at the offices of Democratic U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Mr. Jenkins said Mr. Bishop, who was in Washington, D.C., this week, cancelled another town hall meeting scheduled for later that week, though he has attended a number of public meetings since and will resume town hall meetings in the future. Despite being in session all week, the congressman attended five community events this past Saturday, including a senior citizens group meeting at which a small crowd of protesters turned out.
They need to be even more afraid. When they have enough fear to start resigning their positions it will be a good start.
These people can run, but eventually they WILL get tired of being chased and will have to fess up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw
The man is just as pompous an a$$ as Zerobama is.
He is lucky he made it out of there without being on a rail and with no tar or feathers on him.
The Congressman and his fellow Democrats have been ramming bills down the People’s throats without any Republican input or consideration for their ideas. They’re now getting equal measure for disregarding the People.
The Congressman and his fellow Democrats have been ramming bills down the People’s throats without any Republican input or consideration for their ideas. They’re now getting equal measure for disregarding the People.
Wow! This is wonderful! I have hope—I have REAL hope!
So he’s holding his “public” meetings in secret?
Only a despicable politician such as the overwhelming majority (including Republicans) on Capitol Hill could maintain such a ridiculous farce.
The United States Congress is at war with America.
This is MY prediction (and mine, alone). Turban Durban has just made a statement concerning the town hall meetings (and that was predictable, as always..i.e. If you say something many times, it becomes synonymous(meme)
Anyhoo, I think we will see more and more town halls canceled and BLAMED on ‘right wingers’ or ‘tea party types’ because the politicians will lie about ‘feeling threatened’. THEN they’ll go to the libtard sheeple and say, “Look what they made us do. We couldn’t answer ‘the people’ because we feel threatened.”....which is a LIE, as usual...but the sheeple will lap it up.
Mark. My. Words. Straight out of the libtard playbook.
That makes a Stony Brook grad like me proud...
Looks like Bishop got a wake up call from his voters.
Let em say it. After all, the only other option is to bend over and take it.
While activism can be a source of some participation, this is just “truth-to-power” as the left has called it for, oh so long.
And the 2010 elections are not that far away.
sw
I just watched the entire video.
here is (I hope) an active link.
Great stuff. Poor sound quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw
It's not respectful for Government to steal money from hard working people and give it to the people the think deserve it. It's not respectful when a government that has failed to operate medicare, medicaid and social security, failed to protect citizens with border security or basic vote fraud protection, then assures it's citizens that they can operate the health care system better than what we have today - which is by far the most advanced health care system in the world - knowing full well that they can do no such thing. That's not being respectful.
Removing profit from health care is a recipe for terrible health care. As with every other program you already have, get one right and then we'll talk. And while you're tinkering, how about you take the profit motive out of lawsuits? Lawsuits used to be a protection for the little guy from the big guy, now it's nothing more than a shake-down racket with the Democratic party being paid off to look the other way.
Yes, with a true representative you don’t have to always be watching over their shoulders to make sure you’re not being cheated.
TIM BISHOP PROTEST, SETAUKET, NY (part two)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOdlZgMHKcQ&feature=related
“The central purpose of the Constitution is to provide for the common good” ___ Rep Tim Bishop
Crowd: NO!
Arkansas 1st Congressional District
Just called Congressman Berry’s office to get a schedule of events that he plans to attend during the August recess.
NO EVENTS PLANNED UNTIL LABOR DAY
Do you think he is avoiding us?
How common is this across the country?
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