Given the EXTREMELY modest nature of the reform, this has gotten batsh*t crazy really fast.

This is just wrong.

Where is the outrage against this kind of behavior? If it were a Democratic activist, it would be the topic for discussion, 24/7 on the cable news. Instead? Crickets.

This is despicable.

It makes perfect sense. Threaten violence, threaten the lives of members of Congress, and bring guns to a health care reform forum, all in the service of lobbyists for huge corporations that don't want to see a loss of revenue. What an upstanding citizen!

Let's run through that again from the other direction. Huge insurance company in near-monopoly has customers pay ever-increasing costs for insurance, while trying to avoid paying claims, and rakes in enough to give their execs ridiculously high pay and compensation and make huge campaign contributions to friends in Congress. When lucrative venture is threatened by attempts to give uninsured and low-income people an affordable alternative, big insurance corporations pull out all the stops to thwart it.

Pulling out all the stops includes telling mind-numbingly ridiculous lies about the reform bill, hiring lobbyists to form fake grassroots groups and saturate right-wing media outlets with those lies, and encouraging violence against Democratic members of Congress, fueled by ignorance, bigotry, and a dependence on right-wing media for all information.

End result: moron brings gun to a town hall meeting.

Good show, AHIP!

Isn't the second message a blatant incitement to riot? If the message went out of state, wouldn't that be a federal crime? Where the f**k is the FBI on this?

I suspect another fatty in his bathrobe who's set up shop in Mom's garage. Nonetheless, he should be arrested.

"Given the EXTREMELY modest nature of the reform, this has gotten batsh*t crazy really fast."

This is SO true. Seriously, I refuse to believe these folks are showing up because they've got:

--Deep-seated opposition to healthcare spending. This year the medicare drug bill will cost $1 trillion dollars, it was ALL deficit financed, and I don't remember these guys coming out en masse to oppose it.

--Opposition to ACTUAL provisions of this bill. Sure, they're freaking out about euthanasia, and making private insurance illegal but that's not actually in the bill.

These guys are the unhinged fringe with their own reasons to hate Obama and the Democrats. They're being ginned up by cynical people who think they can ride this wave of crazy to fame, fortune, and power.

This right-wing hysteria is incredibly dangerous. They're convinced this is their great chance to beat back some kind of imaginary horde. Someone is going to get hurt, and I blame the Republican Party for publicly lying about this bill, and for recklessly ginning up these unhinged fringe elements.

You can't have a functioning democracy when one of your two parties has been taken over by its most reckless cynics who are fanning the fire of an unhinged base.

Time for Homeland Security and the FBI to join forces with local police departments and break these thugs. With extreme prejudice.

This is being a classic bully--which the anti-reform movement as a whole is a bullying movement. When the Dems and supportive groups start to respond to bring some kind of order, the nuts have to respond with a greater threat.

The best way to challenge these kooks is to expose them and their tactics. Publish their marching order letters from FreedomWorks and hand it out at all town hall meetings - let the kooks know that everybody in the room is on to them.

I think they're hurting their cause, I really do. One would hope these tactics being condoned by the Republican leadership will anger Dems to the point they say "Screw bipartisanship - you have your kooks threatening us and we're supposed to work with you in good faith bi-partisanship? "

Healthcare needs to get passed before the 2010 election because the GOP should make natural gains and they'll trumpet it as Obama losing his mandate, and along with the Blue Dogs might have enough numbers to block bills out of the House and Senate.

This is serious shit. Mark my words, someone will be seriously injured or killed before this is over. It's taken on a life of it's own and it is going in a bad, bad direction.

Come on people. There is absolutely nothing in this guy's myspace page that would suggest he is anything but an average Republican.

Will his health insurance cover any damage incurred during the prying of the gun from his fingers? (I'm assuming that at some point law enforcement will arrive to quiet the discussion.)