Pete Stark’s Town Hall Meeting

If it sounds too good to be true, it isn't true – Judge Judy

You muck up everything you get your hands on – Senior Citizen at Pete Stark's Town Hall Meeting.
"I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg, it wouldn't be worth wasting the urine" - Pete Stark to Senior Citizen, Town Hall Meeting

Don't blame Pete - He just can't help himself

.

Imagine your representive saying to one of your Senior Citizens "I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg." This is exactly what arrogant toilet mouth Pete Stark said to a Senior Citizen at the Town Hall Meeting on September 12. Why do voters keep this guy in office? Click on foul mouth for other incidents of Pete Stark. This is a pattern. He doesn't care about you the voter. He cares about power. The voter is a second class citizen.

Go to the fourth video for a high quality video provided by Steve Kemp.

Saturday, I decided to attend the town hall meeting of the feckless, buffoonish, foul-mouth, contemptuous, imperious and egotistical Pete Stark. The meeting took place at the Senior Center at Lake Elizabeth in Fremont California. Outside the Senior Center in front of the serene and calm waters of the lake, a group of Chinese men and women were practicing the martial art of "Tai Chi." I watched as the Chinese men and women stretched their arms and legs in carefully coordinated movements with such grace that they seemed to mimic the rolling currents of a river. An occasional quack of a duck could be heard in the background. This serenity was juxtaposed against the backdrop of our so-called representative Pete Stark who spoke and answered questions in the confines of the Senior Center about Barack Obama's Health Care Plan – a plan certain to remake America into Barack Obama's utopian vision of government control.

I have attended Pete Stark's meetings before, and the meetings are usually small, and more like a liberal love-fest where Stark speaks to his choir. This meeting was different. Parking was difficult to find, and there were people from all walks of life. As we entered the room, we were given a number, and Stark would randomly pick one from the myriad of people present. I thought this was actually a good idea. There were the occasional angry bursts and applauses for and against the bill. The meeting was dotted with a few Union Supporters wearing yellow tee shirts. The citizenry came prepared with information. It seemed that each individual seemed compelled to state that he or she was not part of an organized group, but just concerned citizens. They wanted to make sure they were not identified as some right-wing conspiracy group or card-carrying NAZIs as Nancy Pelosi would have you believe. These were as they would state "concerned citizens" who feared a government takeover of the health care system. In one instance, a high school girl went up with her question and asked how many people were against the health care plan sitting in the meeting. About half the group many of whom were seniors raised their hands. It was astonishing to see so many raise their hands in liberal Fremont.

I brought my Iphone 3GS and I took some video of typical questions or statements. I wish I had brought my video camera, because the quality would have been better. In any event, you can get an idea of how people feel about this health care plan even in the Bay Area.

What I believe is happening is that the people just do not believe the administration. It is simple as that. Why is that? – Because it doesn't make sense. What rational person actually believes that Obamacare will reduce the deficit yet this is exactly what Obama said on Sunday night's 60 minutes? Obama said, "Ironically, health care reform is critical to deficit reduction." He then went on to say that he knew that it was counterintuitive to think that health care would reduce the deficit. Counterintuitive? That is the dumbest thing I had ever heard. The CBO says that in the Senate version there is a 900 billion dollar increase in the deficit or the house version a 1.6 trillion addition to the deficit over the next ten years, and the CBO states there will be a deficit in its first ten years, and even worse the next ten years, (and considering that Medicare cost estimates was off by a factor of ten, you can imagine how off the CBO will be with Obamacare.) Obama flat out lied. Does he think the America people are stupid? He has to know these figures. Who in their right mind believes that Obama will be able to reduce the deficit by his so-called health care reform, and who in their right mind believes that Obama will be able pay for this boondoggle by the fraud and waste in Medicare? Well, the follow up question is if there is so much fraud and waste in Medicare, why have we not cleaned it up yet? And if there is fraud and waste in Medicare, who in their right mind believes we will not have the same fraud and abuse in a government takeover of the healthcare system? No one believes that adding 30 million or 47 million people to the health care system will not increase costs. None of it makes sense. None of it adds up. Obama has a knack for making his vision sound true, but to believe it, you have to be very gullible.

In his speech, the number of uninsured mysteriously dropped from 47 million to 30 million underinsured. Well, that is because he threw the illegal aliens under the bus. But, that doesn't mean they will not be insured because they will be. That is why the Democrats have blocked every amendment to verify the legal status of illegal aliens. There may be verbiage in the bill that says illegal aliens will not be covered, but there is no teeth in it. Moreover, Judge Napolitano on Fox News has said illegal aliens will be covered under a national healthcare plan, regardless of what wording to the contrary is added. He maintained that it would be ruled unconstitutional by the courts, in the same way the initiative to disqualify undocumented aliens from public healthcare in California, was struck down.

The following youtube videos are clips I recorded during the town hall meetings. I have included the transcripts since the audio is sometimes difficult to hear.

(begins at 5:55 seconds on Steve's video)
I am here as a concerned citizen. I don't represent one side or the other. I am here first of all to give praise to our great country. For us to be able to even be here today to speak what we want to speak…remember and realize why our nation is such a great nation today is because we have those freedoms. I want to make sure that we represent the US constitution. I believe that the government's role is to make sure that the constitution is upheld and not to put all these programs together. My husband comes from the automotive industry and has been out of work since December but we have scraped our pennies and things together and we are picking ourselves up. I come from good Midwestern stock and I have been taught to work hard and when times are lean you work harder and have been on very very lean times but I am not asking for a hand-out or a bailout. We work harder. Our family has not been without insurance. The group plan that my husband had through his employer was not as good as what we could have had myself being an independent business owner. So, we put our own plan together. We have options we got to choose what we want I don't feel that the government right now has shown us through any of their major programs and organizations over the decades that they have been successful in running any major plan, and the last thing we need to do is to ramrod this undecipherable program at lightning speed through congress without understanding the process. Now, Do I agree that reform and things need to happen – absolutely, because being an independent payer of my own health care for my family, the costs are exorbitant, they are outrageous, and it's going up. We just got a 250 dollar a month increase on our private insurance. Let's get down to the root cause of what the problems are. Let's talk about the physicians. Let's talk about all of this extra waste and spending. Let's approach the fraud that is going in through the Medi-Cal, Medicare, Medicaid…. Let's not make an immediate decision in 30 days because we have to. But what we want to do is let's take a look at those things. What I want to see right now especially for all of you Fremont-Nummi people I have very close friends many years working at Nummi my husband sold cars that were produced at Nummi and is now out of work- okay. What I want to see our government focus today on changing the 12.2% unemployment in this state and it's going up. That is where our focus needs to be, put money in our pocket so we can choose the insurance plans that we want. We are spending way too much time to put another layer on top. We are not fixing the root cause. If we put another layer, there is no fix to the root cause, and the fraud is going to increase, so Mr congressman I ask that you please take our message back and let's get to the root cause and what is the plan for addressing that and focusing more on our unemployment than the health care at this point.



(begins at 4 minutes and 22 seconds in Steve's hiqh quality video)

This is my second town hall and yes I have attended a tea party. I had to get up at 6:00 this morning so I wrote down some thoughts. The lightning and thunder woke me up. I am not here because I got a call from some organized group. I am here because I am a concerned citizen, and I am fired up. I am fired up not just because of the massive health care reform bill that is coming up for a vote, I am fired up about the government taking over our banking and financing industry. I am fired up because of the government taking over our American car industry.... 47 million people are going to be losing their jobs after the first of the year and tens and thousands of others are going in the area to be losing their job, and I am especially fired up because of the huge massive spending deficits that we are dealing with, yes Bush did leave us with a federal deficit of approximately 490 billion dollars. After eight years, the World Trade Center Bombings, a new homeland security department that has kept us safe, two wars whether we agree with them or not and the aftermath of having to deal with hurricane Katrina you know we have a sagging economy. I am a CPA. 130 million citizens got 600 to 1000 dollars in stimulus that he had to spend in order to try and get the economy back together. It didn't help too much. Obama in eight months has accumulated a deficit almost three times larger than what Bush did in eight months not eight years and no matter what you think of Bush, one man did not create these federal deficits ….. But you know what Republicans like their pork too and it is just awful. Now we are suppose to believe that the government is going to take over our entire health care system and make everyone healthier and save or cut (I'm sorry) our deficits. Our taxes won't go up one dime because the cost of this overhaul is going to be paid for by the insurance industry and 2/3rds of it from cost savings from Medicare…. If you have 60 billion dollars a year for ten years and deficits you know this pay as you go that you say I think savings for cutting fraud and waste are not pay as you go. You don't know if you are going to realize those. If I need to buy something, I need to save the money first, so let's cut the waste now. I think we need to break it down into four or five like many Republicans, Conservatives and even some Democrats Let's cut it down into sections. Deal with fraud and Medicare. Let's save those 60 billion dollars first. Cut it down… Let's create tort reform and let's create an insurance market that is competitive across the board.



Hat tip to Steve Kemp for providing the following video.

Stark: Social Security Card or Do you require that everyone has proof of citizenship? – followed by (yes yes). (this can also be seen about 1 minute and 40 seconds in Steve's video)

Starting at 1:04 on video: Mr Congressman, you answered part of my question a little while ago how this will affect Medicare. Medicaid is going to be available to more and more people.

…The question is President Obama's plan – he doesn't have a plan, Whatever plan is out there he talks about he is going to get half the savings for that from the waste in Medicare. That is all smoke and mirrors. He says he will raise taxes by ten cents, another smoke and mirrors. It is common sense. And If he can get this much savings out of Medicare, why isn't he doing it right now… Why didn't we do earlier. You got Social Security broke, you got Medicare broke, you got abysmal care for veterans, rats running around in Walter Reed Hospital, before they finally fired a couple of generals they finally got the message. Now, you muck up everything you get your hands on. Now why - Mr Congressmen Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Stark - Thank you. I wouldn't dignify peeing on your leg. It wouldn't be worth wasting the urine. (Boos)

The San Francisco Chronicle says it this way:

Only a politician who assumes he has a job for life could behave so badly on a semi-regular basis by spewing personalized invective that might get him punched in certain East Bay taverns. Would-be challengers sometimes sense a whiff of opportunity, but the reality of taking on a 16-term Democrat in solidly liberal terrain is nothing short of daunting.

Surely there must be someone along the shoreline between Alameda and Fremont who could represent the good citizens of the district with class and dignity. It's not the case now.

Need I say more. These are the people who will be running Obamacare. Thank you but I don't think so.
.

Debra Saunder's makes a few good observations in her piece ObamaCare is too good to be true.

Michelle Malkin also blogged about Pete Stark's latest rant click here.