Police Detain Protester with "Death to Obama" Sign at Townhall Meeting

As the debate over health care escalates, law enforcement are becoming "increasingly" concerned over threats and violent protesters target President Obama.

The Associated Press reports the Secret Service "is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading ‘Death to Obama’ outside a town hall meeting" held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) in Hagerstown. Authorities detained the unidentified, 51-year-old man after people called 911 due to the sign, which also declared, “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids."

Also on Thursday, Los Angeles police officers used tear gas and tasers to apprehend the man in the red Volkswagen above who made numerous threats against the President at the federal building.

Earlier this week, a gun was brought to a New Hampshire townhall meeting, which apparently was legal in that state. At a Missouri townhall meeting held by Sen. Claire Mccaskill, another protester violently ripped apart a photo of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. All this to prevent something so threatening as universal health care?

Comments

[Gurlene]

What makes this entire situation even more pathetic is the very people who are screaming out the loudest about this plan are the very people it is designed to help.

Poor white people who think they are still the cream of the crop and too dumb to realize they are working slaves just like the rest of the country are now an obvious danger to themselves and others. This is really getting ugly.

Japan, Korea, Germany, France, Great Britain, and just about everyone else out there who makes cars and goods that are sold to us ignorant Americans all have national health care plans, including Israel.

Those national health-care plans are also the reason why their auto makers are profitable because the are not shouldering the expense of health-care for their employees.

And they wonder why Europeans, who more or less have a green light to immigrate to the US, thumb their noses at us and refer to us as dumb Americans. They are correct.

[kayman]

Yeah, working-class and poor white Americans are tripping like hell. They are probably the most gullible group of voters in this nation. So many of them are so easily manipulated by the wealthy special interests that they will justify them killing their own relatives with the right words.

One doesn't need a college degree to realize that most of this is being pedaled by the greedy healthcare, prescription, and insurance companies to keep things status quo. Meanwhile those of us who know what is going on are being told we are just mad that they are protesting.

[Luther]

I agree with the excellent posts of Gurlene and kayman.

I'm not a praying person at all, but, with all the hate and venom being spewed to Obama and death threats galore, I'm about to chnage that.

[Nathan James]

The activities of these mentally unbalanced individuals are an eloquent argument for universal, or single-payer, healthcare. At least with a single-payer system, disturbed people like these would be able to get psychiatric care, whether insured or not.

I, too, hope and pray that our Secret Service is up to the challenge of protecting President Obama from the growing number of off-their-medication, would-be assassins that are coming out of the woodwork lately.

[Chitown Kev]

@Gurlene

That is the sad part.

That and the fact one who really duped them and used them was Bush and Rove, not Obama

There were some rednecks and other poor rural Southern folk (who are doing as bad as black folk, really, on an economic level), of course, that woke up and realized that they were being used by the Republicans; enough that Obama won Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana and almost won Missouri. And came within 5 percentage pts. of winning Georgia. I hope that at least some of them are still on their side and that they have sustained the ability to resist the hate.

[Diva1961]

Unfortunately it will get worse before it gets better. We are at the edge of the storm. When the Obama love affair is really over, the real turmoil will begin.