I attended my Teabagger rep's town hall today
My representative is Lynn Jenkins of the 2nd district of Kansas. She is your typical right wing nut - a true party lemming that is not quite as extreme or crazy as others, but not by much. I attended her town hall in Topeka which was kept to the strict lunch hour time limit.
I arrived early so I would have a seat. I'm guessing around 75 or so people attended. Before it started, two men near me were debating which party had the worse offenders when it came to sex scandals. The usual suspects were name dropped but the man arguing that Dem scandals were worse said he subscribed to only one newspaper - The Washington Times. Not The Post but The Times. That told me everything I could want to know about him.
Anyway, the town hall started with a slide show filled with all sorts of charts and bullet points, almost all of which were unsourced except for one which she specifically cited both the CBO and OMB and dealt with past and future budget deficits. She flipped through the charts very quickly while spewing the usual Repub bullshit. One slide of bullet points started with a statement that two top economists said the Republicans' proposals would lead to growth. I never saw the source for that nonsense.
During the slide show, she dropped these statements (paraphrased):
-- A budget conference will not happen because she said the Democrats will not agree to a balanced budget in 10 years
-- We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world which is holding back growth and hiring and forces corporations to locate overseas and not repatriate assets
-- Her (the Republican) tax plan for individuals involves eliminating loopholes, lowering rates and broadening the base
The Q&A session started. Attendees were given the opportunity to submit questions on paper which were inserted into a metal pail. They were not pre-screened and the pail was always in sight. She read the questions and answered/dodged them. There were questions from Dems that were asked along with questions from the Teabaggers.
A couple of questions dealt with the farm bill/SNAP. One asked why SNAP was removed. She talked about the farm bill that failed because Dems failed to deliver promised votes so SNAP was pulled. She said people in New York City probably didn't know where milk and beef come from so they would not vote for or care about farm bill. The other farm bill/SNAP question asked why she voted for billions in subsidies to corporations while cutting billions in food assistance to the poor. She said she was towing the status quo on subsidies and it was ridiculous that SNAP cuts were taking food away from the poor. She talked about returning to Clinton-era levels of SNAP funding and requiring recipients to work.
One question wanted to know why don't we balance the budget by eliminating all foreign aid. She responded by saying the aid was less than 1% of budget expenditures and eliminating all of it would do nothing to balance the budget.
She dodged the question about climate change and I still have no idea what she said about it apart from too many regulations or something.
She refused to answer the question if she would support a government shutdown in order to defund the ACA. She said she did not want to give away her bargaining position.
One question dealt with the NSA spying issue, namely why the government denied it for so long as the questioner said he was subpoenaed by Ashcroft under Bush related to NSA spying on Ameicans. Her response was that government had run amok and needed to be reigned in.
One man asked if she would reauthorize Sec. 4 of the Voting Rights Act. She said she didn't know what that was until an audience member said it was the section the USSC threw out in June. She replied that the House would not address the issue this year.
There were several questions about immigration which riled up the teabaggers in the audience.She said she would not support amnesty of any kind. She also said Boehner would not bring up the Senate bill for a vote.
There were several questions about the ACA. She said it was not a waste of time or money to vote 40 times to defund or repeal it because she said they were making progress and claimed nine elements or items were being curtailed or cut back or something similar becaus of these 40 votes. She said her (the Republcan) health care plan involves the same children under 26 provision, attacking malpractice driven costs and selling insurance across state lines. When asked why none of this was passed under Bush (although she was not in office then) she said she runs against both Republicans and Democrats in Washington.
That was pretty much it. The audience was definitely very extreme right wing as would be expected here. She is clearly an empty suit with no ideas of her own. She also only does what the party tells her to do as she is definitely unable to process information on her own.
All in all, it went about as well as could be expected. The level of ignorance of the audience members based on their comments during the Q&A was astounding. These people truly are as dumb and uninformed as we all know them to be.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Try this one. (96 questions)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0104/Could-you-pass-a-US-citizenship-test/Who-signs-bills?cmpid=sectionpromo
(I scored 100%)
I know I couldn't do it.
compared to my congressman. trade ya.
