The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading "Death to Obama" outside a town hall meeting on health care reform in western Maryland.
Barbara Golden, the special agent in charge of the agency's Baltimore field office, says an investigation is ongoing but declined further comment.
Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich (LAWZ'-itch) says the sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids."
He says the sheriff's office turned the unidentified, 51-year-old man over to Secret Service agents Wednesday after deputies detained him near the entrance to Hagerstown Community College.
Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin was hosting the meeting, but President Barack Obama was not there.
This is NO JOKE and again, DANGEROUS. GOP allowing this kind of scare tactics is totally irresponsible.
MSNBC just aired footage of the crowd gathering at the Obama town hall meeting on health care that's supposed to start later today in New Hampshire and pointed out one man in a group holding protest signs with a gun in a holster on his hip. Apparently not a law officer, but a civilian.
Whatever the concealed carry laws in New Hampshire, you have to figure guns not allowed at a presidential event. Right?
Late Update: Also important to note, the gun-toting protestor was holding a sign referencing the Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It's a well known quote from one of the archetypal founding fathers. And in itself it's part of the American heritage, something that echoes with Jefferson's always ambivalent and frequently dilettantish attitude toward political violence. But in the context of these townhall excesses and while carrying a firearm at a presidential event, it's quite a menacing statement, in as much as it is about the need to kill tyrants. -- jmm
I am for gun rights, a gun owner, but I do not understand the logic of anyone carrying a gun to a presidential visit. Can anyone explain that to me?
Again, this is not surprising. The way things have been going, someone will eventually get hurt. Republicans, do you even care?
Angry protesters and strong supporters are clashing inside and all around a health care reform town hall meeting in Downtown Tampa. The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance.
As the building filled to capacity, angry protesters stuck outside began to scream, yell, and chant. At one point, those trying to get inside began banging on windows as Tampa Police officers quickly spread out guarding all entrances.
10 Connects photojournalist Kevin Carlson, currently inside the meeting reports at least one fist fight breaking out inside. Some other journalists remain outside.
Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor and State Representative Betty Reed were hosting the event.
UPDATE 7:13pm
Police on bullhorns are trying to break-up the crowd outside the building on 1002 E. Palm Ave.
Last week, after Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," we asked ColorOfChange members to call on Beck's advertisers to pull their funding from his show. More than 50,000 people have already joined the call, and today we have great news to report -- advertisers are starting to listen:
Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck -- NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance -- today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.
Since we released our statement announcing the news this morning, another company, S.C. Johnson (Pledge, Ziplock, Off!) told us that it was a mistake for their ads to be running on Beck's show, and that they'd make sure it wouldn't happen again in the future. (UPDATE: Our contact at S.C. Johnson wanted us to clarify that they have had no knowledge of their ad running on the Glenn Beck show (they wanted to verify this for themselves), and if it did happen, it was not something they requested.)
This is great progress, and it shows how effective it can be when thousands of people tell advertisers not to support this kind of hateful rhetoric. Now we need to step up the pressure on Beck's other advertisers. While Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance were quick to respond, many others have avoided answering us, or refused to budge. We're currently in conversations with advertisers, and the more people they see joining this campaign, the more reason they'll have to listen.
If you haven't done so already, please sign our petition to Beck's advertisers, and ask your friends and family to do the same. Moving forward, we'll keep you informed about effective ways you can pressure the advertisers to withdraw their support from Beck's show.
Here's what Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, and Progressive Insurance told us this week:
"Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention," said John Michaels, Senior Communications Manager at LexisNexis in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "We have suspended further advertising during Mr. Beck's program."
"We have no plans to continue advertising on Mr. Beck's show," Michaels continued in another email.
When executives at Procter & Gamble were contacted by ColorOfChange.org, they said that any ads run during Glenn Beck were run by mistake, and that they would correct the problem going forward.
"No P&G ads should have appeared on this program in the first place," said Martha Depenbrock, Brand Building Stakeholder Relations for Procter & Gamble in an email. "To be clear, if any of our advertising appeared on the Glenn Beck show, it was in error and we appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention. We will do what we can to see that it doesn't happen again."
Since we released our statement announcing the news this morning, another company, S.C. Johnson (Pledge, Ziplock, Off!) told us that it was a mistake for their ads to be running on Beck's show, and that they'd make sure it wouldn't happen again in the future.
This is great progress, and it shows how effective it can be when thousands of people tell advertisers not to support this kind of hateful rhetoric. Now we need to step up the pressure on Beck's other advertisers. While Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance were quick to respond, many others have avoided answering us, or refused to budge. We're currently in conversations with advertisers, and the more people they see joining this campaign, the more reason they'll have to listen.
If you haven't done so already, please sign our petition to Beck's advertisers, and ask your friends and family to do the same. Moving forward, we'll keep you informed about effective ways you can pressure the advertisers to withdraw their support from Beck's show.
Progressive Insurance said any ads running during Glenn Beck were a mistake by Fox News Channel -- a mistake they have asked the network to fix immediately.
"Our (advertising) order specifies no Glenn Beck," said Linda J. Harris, Media Director at Progressive Insurance in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "We have confirmed with the network that our spots should not be running there," Harris said in a later email.
The decision by these three advertisers to distance themselves from Beck should help increase the pressure on others. The writing is on the wall -- Beck should not have the backing of mainstream advertisers. If we keep the pressure on, we believe we can seriously threaten his platform.
OH, PUHLEAZE. Nobody, I mean, nobody is believing that old trick card from a very old playbook. for real.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Barack Obama of behaving like his White House predecessor and called on him to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following Iran's elections.
Obama has ramped up his previously muted criticism, saying he was "appalled and outraged" by a crackdown on protests which followed Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
"Mr. Obama made a mistake to say those things ... our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former U.S. President George W.) Bush used to say," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Before the election, the Obama administration had indicated that it was interested in reaching out to Iran, after years of a diplomatic freeze following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has given no clear signal that it is interested in Obama's overture, and in the wake of the election, the U.S. leader has slowly ratcheted up his criticism of Iran.
Meanwhile, 70 university professors were detained in Iran in a widening government crackdown on protesters, according to a Web site affiliated with opposition politician Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says he was robbed of victory in a rigged presidential election.
The professors were detained on Wednesday, immediately after meeting with Mousavi, the Kalemeh site said. The report said it is not clear where the detainees were taken.
Mousavi said for the first time Thursday that he is being isolated by authorities and pressured to drop his presidential election challenge. read more here....
Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened to crush any protests as the Guardian Council announced Monday that voting irregularities found in 50 constituencies would have had no impact on the outcome of the presidential election.
There will be a "revolutionary confrontation" if demonstrators take to the streets again, Iran's elite military force said in a statement on Monday.
Demonstrators must "end the sabotage and rioting activities," said the statement, adding that the protests by supporters of reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi amount to a "conspiracy" against Iran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide re-election on June 12 has spurred allegations of vote-rigging and sent tens of thousands of supporters from both sides into the streets for massive protests.
Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, spokesman for the 12-member cleric Guardian Council, was quoted on state TV as saying a probe into the disputed election results has found that in 50 constituencies there were more votes cast than there were registered voters.
But that "has no effect on the results of the election," which saw Ahmadinejad winning by a 2-to-1 margin, Kadkhodaei said. read more here....
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
Basically, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states that Ahmadinejad won the election and that anything going forward as protests, people will peril at their own risk.
People in Iran must make a decision. Keep protesting and remain the opposition or fall in line. It will get ugly because the protestors are still protesting.And funny that Ahmadinejad is still out of Iran. I don't expect to see that character until things settle in Iran, one way or the other. Correction, Ahmadinejad is there, behind the Supreme Leader in the videos below.
The sense of threat against the opposition was growing. Reuters reported that Mohammadreza Habibi, the senior prosecutor in the central province of Isfahan, had warned demonstrators that they could be executed under Islamic law.
"We warn the few elements controlled by foreigners who try to disrupt domestic security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson that the Islamic penal code for such individuals waging war against God is execution," Mr. Habibi said, according to the Fars news agency. It was not clear if his warning applied only to Isfahan or the country as a whole, Reuters said.
Huffington Post has been doing a magnificent job live blogging everything. Read it all, here.
We know that when you have unprecedented voting as in 80% in Iran that means CHANGE. We know this, we saw it on November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama became the next President of the United States.
So, to say Ahmadinejad won that election is well, bogus. Now the international community is looking at Iran and just letting it happen. In the meantime, the powers that be, are doing everything to keep the unrest down, but the information is getting out as to what is actually happening and it is not good. Folks voted and their votes were denied, not counted.
Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message. Here's the Twitter from a Moussavi supporter:
ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection
That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.
It's increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and the old guard mullahs were caught off-guard by this technology and how it helped galvanize the opposition movement in the last few weeks. That's why they didn't see what those of us surgically attached to modems could spot a mile away: something was happening in Iran. If Drum is right, the mullahs believed their own propaganda about victory until reality hit them so hard so fast, they miscalculated badly and over-reached.
And why is the mainstream media not on this story? Oh, yeah, right, they cut all their budgets for international coverage and don't have a voice, so we are relegated to re-runs of stuff like, Larry King Live, while one of the biggest news stories of 2009 is breaking. This is why the public has no trust in the MSM.
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