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Wheelchair-Bound Woman Shouted Down At New Jersey Health Care Town Hall (VIDEO)

Huffington Post   First Posted: 10/18/09 Updated: 5/25/11

Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the man who recently "let it be known" that he'd step in should Gov. Corzine drop out of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, had his hands full at a town hall meeting in Red Bank last week.

More than 1,500 people showed up to talk health care, but things quickly turned ugly. Much like the unruly town hall meetings that have been going on across the country, the angry crowd held up bizarre and nonsensical posters of protest while hurling insults at Rep. Pallone, and each other.

A new low for these meetings may have been set when the crowd shouted down a wheelchair-bound woman with "two incurable auto-immune diseases" who had the gall to ask a question.

NJ.com has footage of the meeting:



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Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the man who recently "let it be known" that he'd step in should Gov. Corzine drop out of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, had his hands full at a town hall meeting ...
Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the man who recently "let it be known" that he'd step in should Gov. Corzine drop out of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, had his hands full at a town hall meeting ...
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
heroine addict
habitual goddess worship
01:31 PM on 09/06/2009
...I haz ur capzlock.

...Is turnd off now
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12:37 PM on 09/06/2009
Great job from the reporter.

There is a level of IGNORANCE and PARANOIA that is just shameful.

I had an older person tell me yesterday about the DEATH PANELS. I just didn't have the energy to explain. By looking at the level of BLANKNESS and FEAR in this person's eyes, I don't know if there was anyone who could CHANGE that person's MIND.

Thanks to the mainstream media for reporting on the FEAR, but NEVER, EVER reporting the FACTS.

Gotta get those news numbers up for the sponsors.

WAY TO GO.

What are you gonna report when health care reform gets passed?
01:45 PM on 09/06/2009
I agree. This woman looked like she was programmed­. The funny thing about the opposers is they have no explainati­on or facts as to why they feels this way. Just mumbling and fumbling ignorance.
09:42 AM on 09/06/2009
In the final analysis, a pretty sad portrait of what our society has become.
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04:47 AM on 09/06/2009
dining table (n) folks that vociferous­ly protest based on tenuous rumors and innuendos marked by density of an oak and polished to perfection empty of their own thoughts serving as a good reflective surface.
ex. One of the dining tables in Barney Frank's townhall meeting asked if the public option was going to be mandatory or optional.

(v) a heinous stunt ill conceived and carried out with extreme certitude
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JohnSawyer
arglebargy
01:58 AM on 09/06/2009
The "death panel" believers, etc. seem to be the same people who Jay Leno interviews on the street, in his show's "Jay Walking" segment, who can't answer the simplest questions.
01:03 AM on 09/06/2009
I am a 69 year old retired female from New Jersey on social security. I am sorry to see my fellow citizens go to these "meetings" and be so poorly informed. I was amused to see the 75 year old woman who thinks the Obama health plan would 'kill" her. Have ANY of these people READ the plan? I think not. Instead of shouting and hollering, stay home and READ the "dang" thing!!!!!­!!!!!!!!! I think too many of these folks are listening and watching Faux "news".
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
heroine addict
habitual goddess worship
01:29 PM on 09/06/2009
...maybe they haven't read the plan because they can't read.
01:46 PM on 09/06/2009
Lol! It seems that way.
11:37 PM on 09/05/2009
I watched a similar scene at a town hall with OK Sen. Tom Colburn. A woman in tears, hardly able to speak - her husband needed specialize­d care to help him swallow to eat and drink after a head injury. The nursing home sent them home and told them they were on their own. She was asking - begging for help. Colburn told her "governmen­t wasn't the solution . . . we all need to depend more on our neighbors.­" Well, her "neighbors­" were those folks in that room all clapping and yelling at that (lame) suggestion­. Wonder how many of those "neighbors­" have volunteere­d their time or money to help her husband eat and drink?
03:39 AM on 09/06/2009
@ you? Did you take up her cause and offer help?
08:10 AM on 09/06/2009
You bet I'm trying to help her! I have written letters to Sen. Colburn (even though I'm a Texan living in Canada), the President, my Texas members of Congress, as well as all the rest of them, urging them to pass REAL health care reform so that every citizen of America can have decent health care and not need to rely on bake sales and car washes to raise funds for life saving care.

Health care reform is something we do for ALL of us. We are our brother's keeper and that's not a Communist mantra.

Who would Jesus insure?
03:51 AM on 09/06/2009
Psalm 56:9
Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me.
10:34 AM on 09/06/2009
Yeh, that's gonna help this woman get the $50,000/ month specialize­d care her husband needs.

Ignorance is bliss!
10:38 PM on 09/05/2009
In the famour words of Forest Gump's mother: "Stupid is as stupid does."

I think preachers should show this video to all churchgoer­s every Sunday and ask if this is something that Jesus would do to someone in a wheelchair­. What about the part of "Do unto others". Our country is full of the "ME, ME, ME" idiots. I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. Despicable­.
06:29 PM on 09/05/2009
These are the same Neandertha­ls who gave us 8 years of Bush. Their stubborn insistence that they have a right to their stupidity, and a right to inflict it on the rest of us has driven this country to ruin. Has anyone else noticed that most of these so-called liberty patriots are on medicare, or will be shortly? Just as they don't want to pay taxes that might benefit poor or 'foreign' people, or help save a useless species, they also don't want to share their Medicare with younger people. They know they are sucking up a huge proportion of the healthcare dollar, and that current practices encourage the system to overspend on their treatment, which they are fine with. They want to preserve their privilege, and feel that opposing the expansion of Medicare to the rest of the population is the way to go. The reason that you can't argue with these people is that they know their arguments are bogus. The woman who was asked about her medicare, however, knocked off her talking points, made it clear that she felt she was entitled to free health insurance, having worked all her life, but that others, not having worked a full lifetime yet, are not deserving of help. That is their entire motivation in a nutshell.
06:56 PM on 09/05/2009
We can all have healthcare and an improved position in the world if we drasticall­y cut military spending!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
taquinas
09:53 PM on 09/05/2009
Obama is working on that too.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
sector1463
01:52 PM on 09/05/2009
How can you be a centrist when you are using that obviously radical computer the Macbook?
03:09 PM on 09/05/2009
A conservati­ve is a liberal who hasn't been ill yet.
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BN2112
My micro-bio does not meet standards
01:16 PM on 09/05/2009
Just when you think these right wing sore losers can't sink any lower, they manage to show us there are always further depths to which they can descend. Shouting down a wheelchair bound woman at what should be a civil forum by allegedly grown men, many I'm sure claiming to be good christians­, is a perfect example.
03:08 PM on 09/05/2009
Perfect. The Dems have miles of footage now to use in ads that clearly show the inanity and insanity of wingnut right opposition to health care. Not to reform, but to health care.
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12:32 PM on 09/05/2009
Good video.
12:31 PM on 09/05/2009
Some people are just plain stupid, and there is no cure for stupidity. Th3e majority of these knucklehea­ds are clueless and ill informed, so they figure if the rant and rave , they will get what they want. They ar e no better than a spoiled chiled. But the sad thing is, I here this nonsense about being a true american, yet when someone's opinion differs from there's, that person is a communist. People, we have a long way to go, and we can thank the rethugican leadership for all thei nonsense.
10:34 AM on 09/05/2009
Because the Republican­s lost the election, this is their way THROUGH the media (Faux News) to
disengage their supporters from Obama's platform. I knew the right was hateful and down right nasty, but what the news channel has done is whip these "birthers" and "deathers" into an actual country frenzy. I am ashamed to be a former member of the media. How CAN Murdoch spew his venom through the mouths of Sean Hannity and Glen Beck!! And people BELIEVE everything these idiots say! I'm amazed at what is happening; but mostly appalled. So when they show up at town hall meetings they are just parroting what they have seen on Faux News; can our people no longer think for themselves­? Here's what happened I'm sure: After Obama won the election, Faux NEWS probably had a staff meeeting to discuss WAYS to move THEIR propaganda through the country (tea parties, town hall meetings). It was done in Germany too, many years ago. Faux NEWS should be very careful indeed.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JohnSawyer
arglebargy
03:59 AM on 09/06/2009
Some of the biggest executives at Fox News have been quoted as saying that they will do whatever they can to oppose anything Obama tries to do.
12:09 PM on 09/06/2009
Names and quotes and references please. I'd like to see these.
10:17 AM on 09/05/2009
This YouTuber took it a little personal..­..........­..

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=gUvOVgyQu­qw
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
sector1463
01:55 PM on 09/05/2009
Great reedit!