Video at Tampa Town Hall Meeting on August 6th, 2009. “The mob” chants “You work for us!” and “Hear our voice!”
According to the YouTube channel publisher’s report, Kathy Castor’s union thugs beat up a guy (in the green shirt – evidence 3:21) and shut the doors to prevent the opposing opinions from being heard. She then proceeded leave, not taking any questions, because “she couldn’t hear.” Translation: she doesn’t have answers ’cause she hasn’t read the House bill.
There are other videos of citizens who accidentally made it into the hall through the back door before the event because people thought they were union. Castor’s constituents were basically banned from the event because they picked a small venue and stacked the audience beforehand.
Kathy Castor is the Democratic congresswoman for Florida’s 11th congressional district. This district covers most of the city of Tampa, most of south St. Petersburg, a small portion of unincorporated Hillsborough County, a small section of the city of Temple Terrace and a small section of Manatee County.
Castor hosted a Health care reform forum along with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Castor has stated her support for President Obama’s health care plan, including a public option health program. During the night of the debate, an overflow crowd of Tampa residents attempted to enter the hall, being turned away by local police due to occupancy concerns. The town hall meeting lasted approximately three minutes before protesters opposed to the health care reform measure disrupted the meeting. The protesters have been labeled by the White House and Democrats as a mob supported by an organized Republican effort to disrupt health care reform. The Democratic National Committee has called the demonstrators ‘angry mobs.’
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) responded that the town halls are being filled with people from the insurance companies just trying to scare the American people whom he claims the majority are for healthcare reform.
Durbin claims “people like them” are just trying to “load” these town halls with people crying socialism for visual impact — looking for a YouTube opportunity to catch a congressman running to their car.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing over 2 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The main divisions are health care (around 50% of the union’s membership), including hospital, home care and nursing home workers, public services (government employees), and property services (including janitors and security officers). With over 300 local branches, SEIU is affiliated with the Change to Win Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress. It is based in Washington, D.C., and has seven internal divisions: Communications, Education, Human Rights, International Affairs, Organization, Political, and Research.
SEIU is sometimes referred to as the “purple ocean,” easily recognized at political events thanks to the union’s purple shirts. The union is also known for its Justice for Janitors campaign.
The union has been known locally to agitate employees against hospital management.
During a ruthless campaign to unionize employees at two Chicago hospitals in 2005, SEIU and its “community organization” allies at ACORN reportedly brought uninsured sick and injured people in cars and vans overload emergency rooms outside their own communities. According to Dr. Stephen Crouch, chairman and medical director, Department of Emergency Medicine at Good Samaritan, said, “In this case, people [with so-called medical emergencies] were driven past other hospitals.”
Dr. Douglas Propp, chair of emergency medicine at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, warned the
Daily Southtown: “When a person with chest pain bypasses several emergency departments and is brought unsuspectingly 40 miles to get care at a facility, that’s dangerous.”