Dem Congressman's Office: His Life Has Been Threatened Over Health Care Bill
By Eric Kleefeld - August 5, 2009, 5:54PM
Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) will not be hosting any town hall events this August -- instead, he's making himself available to constituents for one-on-one meetings about health care reform -- and at least part of the reason is this: His offices have received threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life.
"We had no town hall events scheduled for the August recess anyway, but in light of everything that's happened -- we have received a threatening phone call in the D.C. office, there have been calls to the Raleigh office," said Miller communications director LuAnn Canipe, in an interview with TPM. The threatening call in question happened earlier this week.
"The call to the D.C. office was, 'Miller could lose his life over this,'" said Canipe. "Our staffer took it so seriously, he confirmed what the guy was saying. He said, 'Sir is that a threat?' and at that time our staffer was getting the phone number off caller ID and turning it over to the Capitol Police."
They haven't heard anything back from the police yet, but they did get the caller's number. So this could develop into something soon enough.
Canipe explained that Miller had no plans for a town hall before and won't be holding any now, due to this event and the examples he's already seen from the around the country: "Our point is, we're not gonna be bullied into having a town hall so it can then be interrupted by the fake grassroots folks."
"We don't want to people to think we're shutting out our constituents," Canipe added.. "We're meeting with them one on one to discuss health care reform."
Link
Rep. Kratovil hung in effigy by health care protester UPDATE
If this is the face of anti-health care reform protest, the GOP has a serious problem.
This unidentified man decided he was doing the Tea Party-anti-reform effort a real solid by hanging freshman Maryland Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil in effigy [note the creepily expert knotted noose] with a placard "Congress Traitors The American [and a word that looks like "idol"].
The event -- a rally in Salisbury, Md. on the Eastern Shore -- was attended by members of the business-funded Americans for Prosperity, a group that includes James Miller, a Federal Trade Commission chairman and budget director during the Reagan administration.
UPDATE: The rally wasn't officially sanctioned by AFP -- but the group's members attended the protest, which coincided with an AFP health care meeting, says a spokeswoman for the group.
"We held an event the previous night, where this man passed out flyers asking people to join him the next day at the office for a protest. That is how some AFP members ended up coming, but they were disgusted by his behavior. I repeat, this gathering WAS NOT an AFP event or sponsored by us in any way," writes AFP's Amy Menefee.
"Frank has no problem with people letting him know how they feel about legislation or him in general, but of course he feels that this one guy was way out of line and most reasonable people would agree that an effigy doesn't add anything productive to what is a very important debate," said a Kratovil spokesman.
"He has had a lot of constructive conversations with constituents where he has expressed his concerns with the bill and they have done the same, he prefers to focus on those."
Last month, some anti-energy bill protesters tarred and feathered an effigy of Rep. Alan Boyd (D-Fla.) in Panama City. And some genius hung an effigy of Sarah Palin in L.A. last Halloween.
The pic was snapped by the conservative Salisbury News, which supported the rally but was repulsed by the noose guy.
SBYNews blogger Joe Albero, who apparently took the photo, writes:
My hat is tipped to ALL of the AFP individuals who chose to walk away as they refused to partake in such ignorance and abuse. You know me Folks, I call it like I see it.
I firmly believe in any one's first amendment rights. However, there comes a time when that right is abused and IMHO this is one of them.
To The Kratovil Family, my apologies for posting this image but it had to be done and these people had to be called out for their actions.
h/t Washington Independent
UPDATE: As it turns out, the dangling of a noose has distant but painful historical resonance on the Eastern Shore.
The Salisbury area was the site of the last two racial lynchings that took place in the state of Maryland -- both in the 1930s, according to Polly Stewart. a former Salisbury University professor interviewed by NPR earlier this year.
Stewart, a folklorist who researched the crimes, detailed the reaction of predominantly-white local historical society when she confronted them with evidence of the lynchings in the mid-1980s:
"I thought that because I was in a position of prestige at the university, or the college then, and because I was socially friendly with a lot of this people, I would be able to present to them some theory which would explain why the lynchings had happened... [W]hat did happen was that I was attacked. They were furious with me. They were in flames. They were just shaking with rage, some of them.
She added, "[T]he result of it was really that I was iced out of the upper crust for the next 20 years. I was there for 30 years and 20 of those years I was - my name was mud."
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