Tea Party Patriots Attack Family Who Lost Daughter And Grandchild (VIDEO)

A group called the Chicago Tea Party Patriots publicly heckled a grieving family and suggested that the couple fabricated their tragic story.

At a town hall held by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) on Nov. 14,, Dan and Midge Hough spoke about how they believed the death of their daughter-in-law and her unborn child were caused, in part, by a lack of health insurance. Twenty-four-year old Jennifer was uninsured. According to her in-laws, she was not receiving regular prenatal care and was not properly treated when she got sick. She ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock, had a heart attack, a brain bleed and a stroke. The baby died and Jennifer died a few weeks later.

Midge Hough was heckled by anti-reform crowd members. "You can laugh at me, that's okay," she said, crying. "But I lost two people, and I know you think that's funny, that's okay."

A local Tea Party organizer falsely claimed that the couple had made up the story and tried to justify the town hall behavior, according to the Southtown Star.

Catherina Wojtowicz, of Chicago's Mount Greenwood community, an organizer for a Tea Party splinter group, Chicago Tea Party Patriots, falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story. In an e-mail, she called them operatives of President Barack Obama who "go from event to event and (cry) the same story." [...]

The audience, Wojtowicz later explained, was exasperated by stories of isolated tragedies that cloud debate over the health care bill itself.

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Comments

[Balzac]

12:37 PM on 12/08/2009

They're ruining the "Tea Party" legacy and they're not fit to be called "Patriots". Can we just call them "family haters"?

[LittleMittens]

03:19 AM on 11/29/2009

teabaggers suck, why else would they dangle that in your face

[EndTheEcho]

09:37 AM on 11/28/2009

The Tea Baggers are showing that they can be angry free of emotion. That may get them some new recruits, but in general it will turn off a majority of Americans.

[Maccafan]

09:11 AM on 11/28/2009

The Tea Baggers bringing guns is the strangest thing for me. Who are they planning on shooting? Why are they bringing guns if not as a threat to shoot someone? Since when is it okay to bring guns to a policital gathering? Everywhere I go (in Texas no less) there are signs that say 'NO FIREARMS ALLOWED' , where are they holding these town hall meetings that it is okay to bring them? Isn't that what terrorists do? Hospitals, Libraries, Grocery stores, Schools, Shopping Malls, on and on, NO FIREARMS ALLOWED! What kind of message is this sending...it says to me that they are a bunch of nutcases.

[Why2Late]

02:25 AM on 11/28/2009

Nobody should have to work. Everything should be free.

[believethelie]

06:04 AM on 11/27/2009

"If our nations economy completely folds"
This is the premise you need to keep your behavior alive and well. Fear. Can you for one minute stop with the hyperbole and realize that Obama does not have death panels nor some socialist master plan that scares you silly,

Here is the hard part to comprehend, under the present framework, the economy is already under threat of folding. So why the fear? you really think the present system is so great? Prove it, Prove your mental prowess as to why the present system is so wonderfully efficient.

You can't because it isn't and as fearmongers feed you talking points you actually support a system that is threatening the economy

And what is your rallying cry? that any change of any kind will cause the economy to fail.
And this is the best you can do, no better ideas of any kind, just insult the Canadians and insult those with new ideas, and fearmonger like there is no tomorrow

[MeggieO]

09:19 AM on 11/27/2009

"The economy is already under threat of folding" and you think that adding a tremendous debt load is responsible? Where do you see in my post that I think "the present system is so great?" Excessive borrowing by Republicans and Democrats has created part of our problem. The present system of relying upon the government to solve all of our problems does not work.

You are attributing comments to me that I have never made about another country. And such prejudice is what is really stopping the flow of new ideas. Can you not see that the intense division between the parties is more fictitious than fact? It is the aim of the political parties to fire you up with rhetoric implying that the other party consists of awful people, when in reality we are much more alike than we are different in our desires for people to have basic needs met.

Our government has shown a shocking inability to perform the functions we pay taxes to support. It has chosen to spend huge sums on drawn-out wars, failed to efficiently help people stricken with natural disasters, and in many other ways made me extremely reluctant to place more control in the hands of the federal government. You can parrot the Democratic line and call that "fear" if you chose. I call it facing reality.

[believethelie]

12:05 PM on 11/27/2009

Actually
You are right, and you are displaying more common courtesy than I did toward you.
I agree with you and what you just said, I won't debate the finer points of if or why, except to say this...

There is a tremendous debt load, and there are ways to shift the way the money flows and a great deal of that can be done without changing the size of the debt, some of the proposed changes would increase expenses and some changes would save tremendously

I think the reason a new health care plan is needed, is simple
The existing money being spent could create health care for a far larger number of people

[tompoe]

05:51 PM on 11/28/2009

Meggie0 must be very tired at this point, having voiced her concerns over and over: Bush's $1 trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy, the Republican eight year strategy to destroy any remaining vestige of regulation of Wall Street, 8 years of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for the invasion/occupation of Iraq, Bush's $1 trillion dollar going away present for his Wall Street cronies. I'd enjoy reading some of those concerns, but googling doesn't reveal even one post anywhere. Maybe Meggie0 can help by linking to them for those of us who are concerned, but not partisan. I don't want to be left with the impression Meggie0 is a flaming member of the Party of Corporate Welfare.

[OOOOOMY]

04:16 AM on 11/27/2009

My take. First of all I am against This National Health Care Bill. The story as presented does indeed bother me in a way that I am simpathetic for the family 100%. I am disgusted by the sneering and laughing by some in the audience...We must keep in mind these pictures are taken out of context and made to illicit a particular point of view. We all want reform, ALL OF US. What is troubling to me (to be kind) is the total absense of any imput by minority Republicans, and All Behind Closed Doors. Does this not bother anyone? Do we really need something massive as this, that will create over 50 new agency's, will cost us over 2.5 Trillion dollars estimated, in these very hard times economically,Pay for it in advance and yet see benefits until 4 years later? Take the overhall in stages, get it as right as possible make it truly bipartizen..instead of this rushing through such as complicated monster of reform, that nobody can foresee truly, the results or the costs. ..

[Danderu]

06:31 AM on 11/27/2009

I'm sorry OOOMY, but I saw no editing, nothing out of context. The bill now might not be the best, but it is something we can work with and work on. I'd much rather take our money out of the defense department and put it into insuring lives, and insuring our veterans' lives. As long as health insurance is a for-profit industry, and that industry is allowed to pay congressmen not to legislate against it, we are in a world of trouble. We can fine tune the bill later, once everyone is insured, and people aren't dying for lack of insurance. The USA is such a joke in the world when it comes to health care; it's embarrassing, as well as unethical.

[24hourrifle]

08:00 AM on 11/27/2009

@ooooomy...please put these pictures in the proper "context" for me.seriously.

because ive watched the video,and i saw these people tell their story live.when they explained that yes,it was just as appaling as it seemed,were they recalling the incident "out of context"?

i understand taht both sides do use certain images and quotes out of context to prove a point,but this is not an example of that.

[Bryno]

10:43 PM on 11/26/2009

I thought the idea of the tea party activist was to get lower taxes, not heckle and yell at people who lost loved ones. But I say let them continue to put their foots in thier mouths. Sooner than we can blink they will not have a foot to stand on.

[hapiday]

06:31 PM on 11/26/2009

The story this lady told is the same story I see on a daily basis in the many hospitals I work in. People just don't get it. The people out in the audience at these tea party events aren't thinking that they too will be on the rolls of the uninsured. If something isn't done soon Medicare will be a thing of the past. Maybe that's what the Republican party really wants. Remember they never wanted Medicare or Social Security. What makes these people think they are still in favor of Medicare? After all, it is a socialized medicine.

[MeggieO]

12:30 AM on 11/27/2009

The point is that Medicare is failing. Do you not see the bigger picture? If our nation's economy completely folds, we will not be able to sustain even basic needs, such as food and water. There is a reason why people are choosing to buy groceries and shelter before insurance. We cannot afford everything as individual families, and we cannot afford everything as a country right now.

[machivellianX]

03:15 PM on 11/26/2009

Sometimes I wonder how many agent provacetuers are involved at these staged events. You people do realise that these are indeed staged events. Any political party can easily hire a few shills to make outlandish statements and sway public opinion one way or another, or simply for the reason of fanning the flames of division and hatred for the opposite side. Whenever you witness such events with such controversies you have to question one thing : "Cui bono"

[oldandintheway1]

03:10 PM on 11/26/2009

Single payer..WHY isn't THIS on the table?? NO ONE in Government will answer this question.
It WORKS.. i Am Greatly disappointed with the man i voted for..but then again i knew going in that he was a rank amature..

[rmonroe]

12:13 PM on 11/26/2009

Heartless people. It's rather disturbing.

[CaptRuby]

12:24 PM on 11/26/2009

True representatives of current republican party.

[youhavebeenhad]

02:36 PM on 11/26/2009

Not heartless, just reality. These health care bills before Congress wouldnt have help this girl.

[Xarnego]

11:26 AM on 11/26/2009

Remember that there is much video footage of Teabaggers or Fleabaggers in the 50's and 60's opposed to civil rights. If you look closely at the video, they are saying the same kind of things and acting in much the same way. They stand for much of the same things, namely big@try, ignorance, and oppression.

[pt001]

11:23 AM on 11/26/2009

republican lowlifes who can't think for themselves
why are we even taking any of this crap seriously?

[Xarnego]

11:28 AM on 11/26/2009

Pretty sad when one of the two political parties in a country is made up of these cr@zy fringers, isn't it?

[Xarnego]

11:20 AM on 11/26/2009

Why do Republicans h@te the victims of the insurance cartels?

There is a Psalm that reads "he who insults the poor mocks his maker", it applies very well to the GOP and the pseudo-christian right...