Obamacare Opponent Calls for Town Hall Violence via Twitter
Update: SEIU gets phone call “threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about ‘the Second Amendment’”
Brian Beutler reported at Talking Points Memo on Friday that a health care protester in New Mexico had been encouraging those following him on Twitter to bring their guns to town hall meetings — and use them if provoked.
“If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry….carry,” Scott Oskay wrote in one tweet. In another, he suggested, “Stop being peaceful, and hurt them. Badly.”
The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) appears to be the latest bogeyman for the anti-health care protesters. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, claimed on Friday that “SEIU thugs rolled up their sleeves and attacked a black conservative protester in St. Louis.”
As described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, the facts of the incident cited by Malkin were far less clearcut. Out of the half a dozen people arrested following a town hall held by a Democratic Congressman, at least three do not appear to have been involved in violence of any kind. One supporter of a public option for health care told the paper that he and his companion had been arrested for interference after his companion tried to take pictures of a man who seemed to have been assaulted. A Post-Dispatch reporter was arrested on the same charge.
A poster at Daily Kos elaborated on this incident, writing angrily, “St. Louis cops arrested Democrats… people supporting reform and reporters… and not the GOP thugs mobbing the healthcare townhall. A video clearly shows a SEIU man down on the ground, injured, after he had been attacked. Another SEIU man comes to his aid and gives him a hand up. A woman who had been on the sidelines photographing this attack on the injured SEIU man appears to be the 51-year old woman who was arrested for ‘interference’ with police. She was peppersprayed after she was subdued.”
On the other hand, the Post-Dispatch also spoke with Kenneth Gladney, a 38 year old conservative activist, who claimed that some of those arrested had attacked him as he handed out “Don’t tread on me” flags, forcing him to seek treatment in a hospital emergency room. According to the paper, “Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.”
The Gladney incident is clearly the source of Malkin’s story about “SEIU thugs” attacking a black conservative protester. It may also be the ultimate reference point for what seems to be a highly garbled blog entry that appeared on Friday in the Orange County Conservative Examiner, headlined “SEIU thugs respond to Obama’s marching orders”:
By Friday evening, Oakley was clearly aware of how much notice his tweets for violence against SEIU and ACORN were drawing. “Didn’t expect the attention to be any more vicarious than the tweets lol. You all have a good weekend. Gotcha(thinking)!” he tweeted, somewhat obscurely.
Update: The Plum Line further reports that “an official with SEIU, which has been sending members to town halls to counterbalance the Tea Party brigade, sends over this audio of a phone call the union says it received on its central voicemail system, threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about ‘the Second Amendment.’ … The threat comes after Rush Limbaugh went on the offensive against SEIU today and even gave out the address of the union’s St. Louis’ headquarters.”
SOURCE
Brian Beutler reported at Talking Points Memo on Friday that a health care protester in New Mexico had been encouraging those following him on Twitter to bring their guns to town hall meetings — and use them if provoked.
“If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry….carry,” Scott Oskay wrote in one tweet. In another, he suggested, “Stop being peaceful, and hurt them. Badly.”
The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) appears to be the latest bogeyman for the anti-health care protesters. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, claimed on Friday that “SEIU thugs rolled up their sleeves and attacked a black conservative protester in St. Louis.”
As described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, the facts of the incident cited by Malkin were far less clearcut. Out of the half a dozen people arrested following a town hall held by a Democratic Congressman, at least three do not appear to have been involved in violence of any kind. One supporter of a public option for health care told the paper that he and his companion had been arrested for interference after his companion tried to take pictures of a man who seemed to have been assaulted. A Post-Dispatch reporter was arrested on the same charge.
A poster at Daily Kos elaborated on this incident, writing angrily, “St. Louis cops arrested Democrats… people supporting reform and reporters… and not the GOP thugs mobbing the healthcare townhall. A video clearly shows a SEIU man down on the ground, injured, after he had been attacked. Another SEIU man comes to his aid and gives him a hand up. A woman who had been on the sidelines photographing this attack on the injured SEIU man appears to be the 51-year old woman who was arrested for ‘interference’ with police. She was peppersprayed after she was subdued.”
On the other hand, the Post-Dispatch also spoke with Kenneth Gladney, a 38 year old conservative activist, who claimed that some of those arrested had attacked him as he handed out “Don’t tread on me” flags, forcing him to seek treatment in a hospital emergency room. According to the paper, “Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.”
The Gladney incident is clearly the source of Malkin’s story about “SEIU thugs” attacking a black conservative protester. It may also be the ultimate reference point for what seems to be a highly garbled blog entry that appeared on Friday in the Orange County Conservative Examiner, headlined “SEIU thugs respond to Obama’s marching orders”:
Reports are pouring in from around the country that the well-dressed swastika carrying seniors are being pounded by Obama’s storm-troopers.
The Obama brown-shirts are showing up town halls and running rough shod over the elderly. Some of the elderly have been hospitalized from their beatings
SEIU connected to criminal’s of ACORN are filling pathetically small halls and pushing, literally, the legitimate protestors out.
By Friday evening, Oakley was clearly aware of how much notice his tweets for violence against SEIU and ACORN were drawing. “Didn’t expect the attention to be any more vicarious than the tweets lol. You all have a good weekend. Gotcha(thinking)!” he tweeted, somewhat obscurely.
Update: The Plum Line further reports that “an official with SEIU, which has been sending members to town halls to counterbalance the Tea Party brigade, sends over this audio of a phone call the union says it received on its central voicemail system, threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about ‘the Second Amendment.’ … The threat comes after Rush Limbaugh went on the offensive against SEIU today and even gave out the address of the union’s St. Louis’ headquarters.”
SOURCE
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