Courtney health insurance reform meeting in Woodstock tonight
If you can muster the courage, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) is having a Town Hall-type meeting tonight in Woodstock. Look, yelling at these meetings and showing your anger will get the movement nowhere. If you expect the media to “like” conservatives it’s not going to happen. Come with facts and good questions. Your roll should not be to shout down anyone, but to educate attendees at the meeting.
Bring facts. Remind them about the United States Constitution and how brilliant the founders were. Offer compromise – suggest getting the federal government completely out of health care and allowing the states to fill any perceived gap.
Read our other posts on the subject and go prepared. My Tea Party talking points from April are still valid, but so is my Symptom of the Disease series of articles.
Update: Watch out for union thugs. Allah at Hot Air has more too. They seem to be throwing the term astroturfing back in the face of conservatives, after guys on the left like David Axelrod invented it! Note also the comment from reader Janet below. Courney’s office claiming it is a speaking engagement, without opportunity for public comment. I guess someone has the wrong playbook.
Here’s text of the invite sent via e-mail about one hour ago. Click on the image to see the actual e-mail – well, most of it (it got cut off).
I wanted to send you an urgent invitation to an important town hall with Rep. Joe Courtney this evening, Thursday, August 6th. He’ll be talking to constituents and gathering feedback — this is an ideal opportunity to make sure your support for health insurance reform is seen and heard at exactly the right time.
Our congressional representatives are back home this month, and they’re facing more and more pressure from special interests on health insurance reform. It’s critical that we get out there and show them where we stand.
I hope you can join us.
What: Health Care Town Hall with Rep. Joe Courtney
Where: Woodstock Academy, 57 Academy Road, Woodstock, CT 06281
When: Thursday, August 6th, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.Our representatives are under attack by Washington insiders, insurance companies, and well-financed special interests who don’t go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear. We need to show that we’re sick and tired of it, and that we’re ready for real change, this year.
Please come to the town hall, and make sure that the most powerful voices in this debate are those calling for real reform, not angrily clamoring for the status quo.
RSVP here:
http://ct.barackobama.com/WoodstockTHThanks,
Jennifer Just
Connecticut State Director
Organizing for AmericaP.S. — Before the event, please print off a flyer (sic) to display and make sure that your support is visible.
This is what they have for the flier…
4 Comments
The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.
You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.
The site is not broken.
It seems that Rep. Courtney may have made a last-minute change in the purpose of his appearance in Woodstock tonight.
I called Courtney's Norwich office late this morning. A spokesman gave me information about the event that conflicts with the e-mail posted above. This is what he told me:
This event is not a town hall; he called it a "speaking engagement."
He did not know if there would be an opportunity for public comment.
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. and the end time is undetermined. (The original information I saw said it would run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.)
Despite this apparent attempt to dodge criticism from voters who oppose the health care proposal, I think we should definitely be there to politely but firmly make our views known to this man who is supposed to be representing us.
My guess is, by sending out a mass e-mail to their distribution list less than eight hours prior to the meeting, they hoped to get a large turnout of residents who prefer the Democrats current plan. I've got no problem with their approach, but I think Courtney's staff is realizing the turnout will be mostly against the federal governments involvement in health care reform. Is Congress getting the message?
I find it interesting that Rep. Courtney is having this meeting. I called and talked to his office in Enfield and was told that there were NO meetings like this being held during the legislative break. I respectfully expressed my concerns with the direction of proposed legislation. I was lied to and am disappointed to see that Rep. Courtney is willing to purposely ignore the views of what is likely a large part of his constituency.