Congresswoman Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) Walks out of Meeting

The White Mountain (AZ) Independent ^ | August 11, 2009 | Mara Knaub

[Migraine]

HOLBROOK - Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick abruptly walked out of a scheduled event Thursday morning in Holbrook after people became upset that she wasn't addressing the crowd as a whole.
Kirkpatrick, a Democrat representing Arizona's District 1, announced she would be holding one of her new "Chat with Ann" events at the Safeway store at 10:45 a.m., which she said would make it "as convenient as possible for folks to talk about their concerns and issues."
The congresswoman planned to speak to people one-on-one for a period of one hour, but the crowd of about 50 people expected her to address them in a "town hall" style.

"Although the event was listed in the local paper as a 'Chat,' many people came with the impression it would be a 'town hall' type event where questions would be taken from the audience and answers given to all," Jeff Lineberry, chairman of the Navajo County Republican Committee, told The Independent.
"Given how and where the event was planned, there appeared to be an expectation of having only five to 10 people show up. The event was staged in the front lobby of Safeway, and the crowd kept getting in the way of shoppers entering and leaving the store," Lineberry said.
Lineberry noted that people from all over Navajo and Apache counties attended the event and it became obvious there would not be enough time for Kirkpatrick to meet with everyone who attended.

"Suggestions were made from the crowd that the event could be moved outside or it could be changed to a 'town hall' style meeting in order for everyone to get their common questions answered. Those suggestions were dismissed and Rep. Kirkpatrick tried to continue the discussion with individuals at the table while the crowd strained to hear the questions and answers," Lineberry said.
"After about five minutes, one of the people asked a question aloud about requiring members of Congress to fall under the same health care as being considered for the rest of us. At this point, Rep. Kirkpatrick got up from the table and left without further comment, to rousing applause from the audience.
"As I left, there were still people coming to Safeway looking for the meeting and becoming disappointed that she had left," Lineberry added.
"She tried to control it by going just one-on-one with the folks who where there. We were all upset with this format," Steven Slaton of Winslow said.

"Needless to say, we were stern in saying, 'Have the people ask the questions so we can hear it and we want to hear your answer.' After the first couple was done, the second person asked - not one-on-one - if Congress will sign onto the health-care bill for their own coverage, and she just keep on asking the person to just sit down so we can talk one-on-one.
"When the person didn't want this type of format, but kept on pressing for an answer, well, she had nothing to do with that. She got up and left," Slaton said.
"This is getting out of hand, when a U.S. representative of Congress walks out from their folks whom they are suppose to represent, us the people," he added.
"Our representative walked out on us. She arrived 10 minutes late and walked out after eight to 10 minutes," Lakeside resident Richard Nash said, adding, "I wanted to talk about the Medicare bill. I am extremely disappointed in Ann Kirkpatrick."

Show Low resident Evonne Young said she drove to Holbrook to meet with Kirkpatrick.
"I have no opinion of her. Based on her Web site I thought she's pretty good," she noted, before saying that Kirkpatrick "talked very quiet so nobody could hear the questions and answers" and the "angry mob kept asking her to speak louder so we could hear."

However, Terry Hill, Shumway disagreed with the description. "It was not an unruly crowd. They only became upset when she would not talk to the people and she walked out."
St. Johns resident Ray Webber said he wanted to hear what Kirkpatrick had to say, but "there were no loud speakers, no microphone. Obviously she did not want to talk to the group, only individuals. I agree with how she's voted on some things, and I want to know her opinion on other things. I'm very upset with her. I hope she doesn't get reelected. I'd rather have someone you can talk to, even if you don't agree."

Joseph City resident Eli Blake, first vice chair of the Navajo County Democrat Party, said he saw something different.
"This is what I observed. She set up a table, attempted to meet people coming in and out. The first couple of people talked, then the crowd showed up. They were not interested in the answers she was trying to give them. They started to shout her down and it got to the point she grew so frustrated she left. There was no point in her staying," Blake said.

Sheriff K.C. Clark, who stressed that he was there to deliver chairs and a table at the congresswomen's request and not to provide security, agreed with Blake.
"She was trying to talk one-on-one and it just didn't work out. That seemed to anger people. She wanted to talk one-on-one and people weren't going to let her do that. She didn't want to talk to a crowd, so what's the sense in staying? Nothing would be accomplished," Clark said, adding that it appeared most people wanted to talk about health care.
He said that he was "shocked" by the crowd's reaction. "You couldn't hear. I was definitely shocked."
The sheriff also noted that most of the people in the crowd didn't appear to be local folks from Holbrook and Joseph City, as was the case that afternoon in Winslow, where Kirkpatrick was to tour the Winslow levee and police department. She also canceled those events.
"There were a lot of the same people and a bunch of others I didn't recognize. They showed up with posters and signs," Clark said.
It's unclear whether it was an organized protest. Some people told The Independent that it was not organized and they simply showed up.
However, one Democrat, who asked to remain anonymous said he heard someone at the Safeway event say that he had been contacted by the RNC (presumably the Republican National Committee) and told to be there. He said he overheard another person say he had driven 260 miles to be at the event after getting an e-mail telling him to be there and "to be disruptive."
Joe Katz, Kirkpatrick's press secretary, said there's a trend across the nation of people "shouting down" and "folks trying to silence those with opposing opinions."

Asked if he thought the crowd's reaction was part of an organized efforts, Katz said, "It's unfair for me to speculate, but there has been a fair amount of evidence of this kind of thing being encouraged by groups with ties to lobbyists. Some are so set against changes to the system, a system that is clearly not working."
Katz, who was not at the Safeway event, said Kirkpatrick is "very dedicated to having a dialogue" with constituents and "hearing the voice of folks in Greater Arizona to get a sense of their life and turn it into good policy.

"This requires honest dialogue between folks, to sit down one-on-one, but folks there weren't willing to have that dialogue. They were looking to silence folks, not in sharing opinion. It's understandable that they're frustrated, but there comes a point when they're stopping people from expressing their opinion."

In a statement e-mailed to The Independent, Kirkpatrick said she was "disappointed that the event was disrupted by a small but vocal group."
She said she scheduled Thursday's "Chat With Ann" to give "folks a chance to share their thoughts with me about what is happening in Washington, including critical issues like health insurance reform and getting our economy back on track."
She added, "These 'chats' are meant to give people a chance to let me know what they need and what's important to them, and today's disruptions meant that a lot of folks did not get that chance."
She said her goal is to "bring the thoughts and common-sense ideals of rural Arizona back to Washington, and talking with people at these public events is critical to achieving that goal."
Having grown up in Arizona, she said she remembers "the days when folks who disagreed would do so respectfully and were still able to work together on the important issues to find solutions.
"In my short time of representing folks in District 1, I have never been afraid to stand up for Arizonans. Sometimes that meant voting against my party, but I did it because it was in the best interest of folks back home."

In spite of how the Holbrook event turned out, Kirkpatrick said she will reschedule the "chat" and looks forward to more public events, "but more importantly I look forward to a return of civility and respectful dialogue where the focus is on the people and not scoring political points."

[Migraine]

Enormous distances in this district. Some people drove over 100 miles, thinking there would be a forum. Instead, the rookie dem congresslady wanted to run it like the Santa line at Macy's -- and in the entryway to a grocery store. Her seat is not very safe.

[April Lexington]

Tar and feather the lass...

[April Lexington]

Her seat is not very safe.

Snicker. Snicker...

[April Lexington]

Obviously, Pelosi and company failed to train these newbies up properly in “good little communist” class.

[silverleaf]

well, I hope she gets 5 votes, not 500

and what’s with anonymous democrats quoting hearsay ...?

[berdie]

I wonder how many of our “elite” know anything about history.

[Jeff Head]

As the heat turns up on Health Care, and as more and more Americans simply refuse to be quiet and accept what the Obama administration and the DNC propose, the lies and deception of the Obama administration and the DNC leadership are becoming more and more apparent...and as they do, they also become more and more shrill.

Here is what Obama said to the American people at a contrived "town hall" in New Hampshire on Tuesday, August 11, 2009.

"I have not said that I was a single payer supporter.” Pres. Barack Hussein Obama, Aug 11, 2009

Compare that to what he said while campaigning for the Senate to his union supporters, and was cheered while so doing:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we’ve got to take back the White House, we’ve got to take back the Senate, and we’ve got to take back the House.” - Barack Hussein Obama, June 30, 2003 to AFL-CIO

I guess he thinks he can say whatever he wants at any given time and it will be truth. That is the definition of a pathological liar. He and those around him and supporting him are drunk with power and control, and this issue is rapidly sizing up to be a "Bridge too Far," for their marxist ideology and radical health care agenda.

Their pronouncements and actions are like every other repressive, tin-horn regime in history. Label the opposition with exactly what they themselves are doing and then use the government controlled and co-opted press to spread that lie, and then use their thugs to try and enforce it and stamp out dissent.

Well, not any more in this country. The health care debate has blown the lid off and it's time to carry it through on this issue and every other similiar issue (like Cap & Trade, FOCA, etc.) that these wanna-be tyrants propose.

President Barack Hussein Obama said on August 7, 2009, that he expected the people who caused the financial and health care mess to be quiet, stand out of the way, and let it be fixed. Well, Mr. President, if you do not want the people who created this mess standing in the way of fixing it, then you, Mr. Obama...and Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, et all had best step out of the way yourselves. Because you not only helped engineer the problems that ensured the fiasco...you are now intent on making it immeasurably worse in your drive towards abject marxism.

In order to hide this, and in an effort to push their monstrosity Health Care, the liberal-left and Obama seem intent on turning the frustration and angst of the American people over his policies into something more akin to Iran over this issue, with their own Basij thugs sent out to silence us, and Obama supporters called on by the Whitehouse to report any dissent.

MY LETTER TO THE WHITEHOUSE AND OBAMA ABOUT FREE SPEECH

Despite all this, the American people are downloading the Dem Health Care Plan HERE and elsewhere and educating themselves.

They are also reading the cited quotes of the main architect of the plan and Chief Advisor to Obama on Health Care HERE and elsewhere, and seeing the context of the plan from the designer of it.

So, when Sarah Palin callis it evil, they know for themselves that she speaks the truth.

So they continue to take their feelings...and their own documentation...to their reps and gett in their faces about it.

EZEKIEL EMANUEL AND THE OBAMA CARE FINAL SOLUTION
(Must Read - Shocking quotes by Emanuel)

OBAMA CARE BY THE NUMBERS

[FlingWingFlyer]

We need to get that seat back. She pulled the wool over a lot of the old timey folks eyes in the district by passing herself off as some kind of old timey cowgirl. She’s a fraud like any other ‘RAT.

[muawiyah]

On the other hand, her seat is very hot ~ too hot ~ so hot she can't sit down on it anymore ~ WOW!!!!

A one termer Fur Shur~

[Frantzie]

Republicans should be holding at least 2 or 3 townhalls. Show the people that the GOP are not cowards (except the RINOs).

The GOP has been handed a gift.

The Dems don’t give ***t about seniors. They are banking on illegal alien votes to stay in power.

Seniors and baby boomers better wake up. That death/euthanasia talk with the former ACORN member now govt stooge may be sooner than you think. The age limit could be lowered to 70 or 65.

[JoanneSD]

She wanted to be like Obama he had a meeting with union thugs in a Kroger store,... one on one chat.... call their offices, and u cannot get any kind of an answer...no wonder people are pissed...

[tiki]

Ya think the sheriff has a D after his name?

[aft_lizard]

This is one district that will for sure flip, as long as that toad Rick Renzi doesn’t try to reclaim his seat anyways.

[Parley Baer]

The dimoKKKRATS seem to be having trouble with their “town hall” meetings. I don’t see any Republicans having the same problems.

[j-damn]

Watching all these interactions between the Congress and the People is really extraordinary. It’s like living in pre-revolutionary France, in a way. Let’s hope these elitist scum end up like the Bourbons—deposed and exiled or worse.

The most hilarious aspect is the Press. They act like the Dems won 80 percent of each and every race and are shocked when around 48% of the population opposes any of their initiatives. Everyone with half a mind knows the country is almost evenly divided. So to see the Press revile dissenters in a way that would make Stalin-era Pravda blush, well, that’s a laugh.

[Frantzie]

Did this DemoRat at least spew the Dem talking points on “how AARP supports Obama’s Deathcare bill?”

LOL!

[FreedomPoster]

>>Her seat is not very safe.

Good. Y’all get to work for 2010, she need to be sent home.

[joejm65]

If she wanted to have one-on-one conversations, maybe she should have held them in an office instead of a public place like the entry way to a freakin’ GROCERY STORE! That’s the place to sell Girl Scout cookies, not a place to hold private meetings with constituants. I swear, these reps must sprinkle stupid dust on their cereal in the morning.

[Salvation]

Who is the conservative to run against her?

Find someone who is well spoken and listens to the people.

[Kartographer]