Pictures & Press Coverage of Carol Shea-Porter's Portsmouth Town Hall

Right: Seacoast for Changers Bill Duncan and Larry Drake. Photo courtesy of Daily Kos.

Saturday morning was cold, wet, and windy -- but that didn't discourage local health care voters from turning out early and en masse for Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's town hall at the Thomas J. McIntyre Federal Building in Downtown Portsmouth (August 29, 2009).

Supporters of affordable, quality health care outnumbered tea party protesters by nearly 3-to-1 in the waiting line. There were no serious altercations outside the event (although a few of my fellow Democrats tried to cut to the front of line, which was bad form and irked the tea party folks so much they asked to police to intervene).

Members of the Leftist Marching Band stopped by around noon and played a lively and suitably patriotic set. By the time the doors opened at 1:00 PM, over 200 people were standing in line to get a seat (only 150 were allowed to enter the building).

There are some terrific pictures of the sign-waving action outside Saturday's event on Daily Kos; a reporter from the Portsmouth Herald also interviewed people who were waiting to get into the event. Details about the heated discussion inside the town hall are reported in the Portsmouth Herald, Foster's, the Concord Monitor, and the Manchester Union Leader.

Lunatic Fringe Department: People leaving the building after the event were serenaded by the vocal harmonies of several Lyndon LaRouche culties carrying a larger-than-life poster of President Obama rendered to resemble Adolf Hitler. No lie, the singing was not too bad -- except for the part about the President's Nazi plan for a government takeover of the health care system and killing grandma.

Seacoast for Change volunteers supported Change That Works organizers and Organizing for America in building early-morning supporter turnout for the Portsmouth event.

We Have Fan Mail! "You are too nice for your own good..."

I received an unsigned email from classicmacos@earthlink.net this morning in response to my post about our whoppingly successful visibility outside Judd Gregg's health care forum at the Red Hook Brewery last week.

Mr. (or Ms.) Classic had quite a lot to say, so I'll share the entire text of the email with you (below). I do want to respond directly to Mr. (or Ms.) Classic's concern that the comment function on this blog is disabled. The primary reason is that the Seacoast for Change blog is a broadcast tool, and not a discussion space. The other reason is that I have no desire to offer a free public forum to anonymous blog trolls who are ideologically opposed to all forms of fairness and progress, and I'm too busy doing the serious work of organizing for change (as opposed to, say, spreading a scatter shot of inane and/or nasty chatter across the progressive/pro-Obama/pro-health care reform blogosphere) to moderate random and generally unhelpful comments from visitors who don't share my values and goals.

For dissatisfied readers who take the initiative to email me directly, I will be happy to periodically publish your emails and email address in this space, because you seem to feel that people like me are not sufficiently aware of your position on the perils of health care reform and need to be reminded that creating a public health insurance option that will reduce costs, ensure consumer choice, keep the private insurance industry honest, and expand affordable coverage options for working families and the uninsured is the de-facto equivalent of sending our great country to Hell In A Handbasket. So, thanks for sharing.

Judy Stadtman
Lead Organizer, Seacoast for Change Grassroot Network
seacoastforchange@gmail.com

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Subject: No place for comments on your blog so.....
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:05:15 -0400
From: CLASSIC
To: yeswecan.nh@gmail.com

On your article here:

You ask a question of Gregg:
Hey, Judd Gregg! How 'bout a public health insurance option?

... and I have the answer for you.

This is not about giving insurance to those who don't have it. Otherwise the bill would be 10 pages long. (And by the way, the rest of us should not be taxed to pay for it... none of the gov'ts purview!)

This is about control of society.... a utopian dream of Obama's world communist handlers Soros, Kissinger and Rockefeller.

And Gregg doesn't want it because Gregg knows this is what the Nazis did after they stole the money, devalued the dollar, took over the car companies, and now want to nationalize the health care so they can decide if someone doesn't agree with them politically they can pull the plug?

This stuff is only done in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nazi Germany.. NOT in a free country.

Please educate yourself to what you and your wingnut president are doing to this country. You are too nice for your own good, wanting to 'help' people and are too willing to swallow a bill of goods to do it. Obama is a sly criminal to take advantage of you all.

Have you studied the RECENT writings Zeke Emanuel, John Holdren and Cass Sunstein to find out how they feel about YOUR LIFE and YOUR RIGHT TO LIVE? They believe in EUGENICS!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are advising this scary monster.

Does it make you wonder the parallels? Obama just stole $23 trillion to GIVE to his euro-trash banking oligarchs, the ones we fought to get rid of in the revolution, then he takes over the car companies and now the health care. Education was already lost and gone to the brainwashers.

NO.YOU.WON'T make this country into Nazi Germany!