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Some of the town halls held by other lawmakers have turned raucous, with liberal activists and others pressing GOP lawmakers on dismantling Obamacare, implementing tough new immigration rules and where they stand on other controversial policies emerging from President Donald Trump's administration.

A frustrated Rubio staffer dismissed the empty-chair event as "not a true or constructive dialogue."

"The protesters -- some of whom failed to show up for meetings they scheduled with our staff -- continue to fundraise off of it even though we informed them days ago Senator Rubio will not be there," Rubio spokesman Matt Wolking said. "We have been fully accessible and responsive to constituents, and our staff has already met with dozens of these liberal activists at our offices across Florida. As their manual reveals, their goal is to stage a hostile atmosphere, record themselves booing no matter what is said, and refuse to give up the microphone. That is not a true or constructive dialogue."

One Internet posting by the liberal group publicizing the event, Indivisible Tampa, said: "Citizens of Tampa are organizing a town hall event during the Congressional recess for Sen. Marco Rubio to address urgent concerns regarding health care, national security, and the President's links to Russia. We have invited Sen. Rubio to attend but cannot be certain he will attend"

Another posting said organizers hope to get Rubio to a future town hall.

"While we really wanted our Senator to attend and hope to work with him and his staff in the future to deliver a town hall to Tampa with his attendance - we are very happy to have a town hall where our voices will be heard," the group said in a Facebook post.

The event is planned for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 599 in Tampa and will be streamed live by organizers on Facebook.

Rubio is away all week in France and Germany, according to his office.

"Senator Rubio is traveling overseas this week to attend multiple bilateral meetings with heads of state and senior government officials in Germany and France, two countries with upcoming elections who are facing concerns about Russian interference," Rubio's office explained. "As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Appropriations Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Rubio is conducting this official oversight trip to discuss the US/EU relationship, NATO operations, counter-ISIS activities, foreign assistance programs, and Russian aggression in Europe."

See more here:
Liberals plan 'empty chair' town hall for Rubio - CNN

Many of those showing up at town hall events have never done anything like that in their lives. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images

Americans are flooding into town halls across the country. Fearful that their country is being torn apart, they are turning out to protest their representatives in record numbers. Clearly, the furious crowds have gotten under Donald Trumps skin. In a sneering tweet, the president dismissed the so-called angry crowds at town hall events as planned by liberal activists. Well take that as a compliment.

More than two dozen progressive activist groups are using ResistanceRecess.com, a site posted just last week by MoveOn.org, to search among more than 500 local congressional events around the country. Anyone can RSVP for an event and get a reminder email. So yes, thats evidence of planning apparently more planning than goes into a typical executive order issued by this White House.

But heres the thing: the crowds are unmistakably real, and the anger runs deep.

Many of those showing up at town hall events have never done anything like that in their lives. Just like the participants in the millions-strong Womens March and the spontaneous airport protests, the people filling these town hall events are acting with moral urgency and with a deeply responsible sense of civic duty. Now its up to members of Congress to decide how to respond.

They can listen to their constituents, do their jobs and pull the country back from the precipice that Trump seems so determined to drive it off of. Or they can fail to heed the voices of their own voters and face the consequences at the ballot box.

But one things for sure: even after Congress returns from recess, the resistance isnt going anywhere. We voters are watching.

The intensity at the town halls is so high that more than 200 elected officials have reportedly abandoned public forums in February entirely. But theyre in for the worst of it. Where politicians are cowering in fear of their constituents, citizens are forging ahead with town hall events of their own with an empty seat at the front reserved for their member of Congress.

If their invited representatives dont show up, the absence will speak volumes to the local news cameras and Facebook Live feeds streaming from their constituents mobile phones. And to make sure nobody forgets that their officials have gone AWOL, theyre buying local newspaper ads calling them out and plastering milk cartons with MISSING stickers in their local supermarkets.

Resistance Recess is blowing the Republicans momentum out to sea. But its not just Republicans facing energized crowds. In blue states and congressional districts, citizens are thronging to public events as well, demanding full-throated, no-fear resistance from Democratic lawmakers.

Their message: when fundamental principles, and our very constitution, is at stake, there is no room for compromise. Democrats who get the message and pledge to fight are greeted by cheers. Those who still havent realized that these arent normal times and that their role now is to resist, not appease are engulfed by fierce chanting: Do your job!

What are the thousands of people asking for? Protection of the vital healthcare programs that millions of lives depend on. An immediate, public, and comprehensive investigation into Trumps ties with Russia. The rejection of Trumps big-business-is-always-right supreme court nominee. Opposition to Trumps racist and xenophobic immigration policies and the travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.

From Republicans, a willingness to put country before party. From Democrats, the use of every available tool to block Trumps toxic and unconstitutional agenda that would divide our communities, poison our environment and bankrupt the country for the personal benefit of billionaires like the president himself, his cabinet and his corporate-honcho allies.

If Congress doesnt start standing up to Donald Trump, we liberal activists have a lot more planned from now through the 2018 elections and beyond. We are only getting started.

Read more here:
Yes, liberals are planning town hall protests. It's called democracy - The Guardian

Alan Colmes, a top-rated television commentator who, as co-host with conservative Sean Hannity of Hannity & Colmes, became best known as the liberal in the lions den of Fox News, has died at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 66.

His wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley, said that he died late Feb. 22 or early Feb. 23. The cause was lymphoma.

Mr. Colmes joined the fledging Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted the political talk show with Hannity for 12 years. It became the channels longest-running prime time program before Mr. Colmess departure from the show in 2008.

Mr. Colmes gamely endured withering criticism from some liberals, who perceived a betrayal in his presence on Fox, which was founded by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch as a counterbalance to what many conservatives saw as the left-wing bias in the news media.

Some liberals have a problem with me simply because I work at Fox and nothing I do short of storming off the set in a rage will get them to respect that I work there, an interviewer for The Huffington Post, Steve Young, quoted Mr. Colmes as saying.

I feel quite lucky to have the platforms I have on both television and radio, Mr. Colmes continued. Even if everything its detractors say about Fox were true, the most liberal of liberal attitudes would be that one would get credit for being in the lions den. After all I do have the biggest audience of all the liberals.

Alan Samuel Colmes was born on Sept. 24, 1950,and grew up on Long Island, N.Y. His father, an auctioneer, ran jewelry stores with his mother.

Mr. Colmes graduated in 1971 from Hofstra University on Long Island before venturing into radio and then television.

Hannity, who knew Mr. Colmes from his own radio work, joined Fox at its inception and was slated to host a show privately dubbed Hannity & LTBD Liberal to Be Determined. The liberal to be determined turned out to be Mr. Colmes.

Mr. Colmess books included Red, White and Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong (2003) and Thank The Liberals* *For Saving America (And Why You Should) (2012).

Survivors include his wife of 13 years, Jocelyn Elise Crowley of New York City; and a sister.

This obituary is a developing story and will be updated.

Read more here:
Alan Colmes, co-host of 'Hannity & Colmes' and liberal in 'lion's den' of Fox News, dies at 66 - Washington Post

The first congressional recess of the new Congress is playing out exactly how a group of dejected former Democratic Hill staffers had hoped in the wake of President Trump's victory.

Liberal activists across the country have apparently read a 26-page "how to" manual created by a new non-profit called "Indivisible" and are flocking to Republican lawmakers' town hall meetings, ribbon-cutting ceremonies and district offices to support the Affordable Care Act and protest Trump.

"Indivisible: A practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda" was written by former Democratic staffers that outlines how progressives can use the most successful tactics employed by the Tea Party to their advantage.

Just as the guide's main authors envisioned, the Tea Party town hall shoe is now on the other foot.

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Some Republicans welcome the feedback while others are avoiding open-ended forums, opting for small group meetings, conference calls and closed events.

Videos of rowdy meetings dot social media sites, with members requiring police presence to control crowds and hecklers peppering Republicans with questions and jeers.

Residents of Charleston scoffed when Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., repeated Trump's claim that Mexico will pay for the wall he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border. Virginians broke into choruses of "Thanks Obama!" when Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said the economy is doing well.

A women's group called Ultraviolet, gathered scores of supporters outside of House Speaker Paul Ryan's Janesville, Wis., office Wednesday to deliver nearly 86,000 post cards urging him not to repeal Obamacare. They came with guitars, cake and a singing telegram, signs reading "Impeach Trump" and "Hands off our health care" but Ryan was in Texas touring the southern border.

For members who refuse to hold open meetings or have canceled town halls, locals are posting "missing" signs and declaring them "AWOL."

Also from the Washington Examiner

"I think one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history was his immediate withdrawal from TPP."

02/23/17 2:37 PM

Trump and some Republicans are dismissing the demonstrations as paid affairs but "Indivisible" says neither its founders nor its members accept salaries or payment from any political group or organization.

"We simply are providing constituents with the information and tools to make their voices heard," spokeswoman Sarah Dohl told the Washington Examiner.

"As of today, we have a group registered in every congressional district in the country. The website has been visited over 13 million times. We're floored by the momentum building and the number of people showing up and speaking out for the first time to hold their members of Congress accountable. These constituents are effectively changing the narrative from coast to coast, and everywhere in between, and we're more confident than ever that, together, we will win," Dohl said.

Trump took to his favorite medium to refute the authenticity of the protests.

"The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!" he tweeted Tuesday evening.

Also from the Washington Examiner

"Hold us accountable to what we promised, and delivering what we promised," Bannon said.

02/23/17 2:28 PM

"Indivisible" denies "targeting" any specific member but Republican offices with close ties to Trump think they are being singled-out.

Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., who was the first lawmaker to endorse Trump has never held a town hall he prefers meeting constituents in smaller groups his spokesman explained but voters inspired by "Indivisible" are hounding him to hold one, his office said.

Under the banner "reclaim recess," former Labor Secretary Robert Reich takes to a white board to draw how Democrats can make Republicans feel the pressure.

"No town hall, no problem," "Indivisible" explains.

"Something strange has been happening in the last month or so: Members of Congress from all over the country are going missing," the group wrote on its website. "They're still turning up for votes on Capitol Hill, and they're still meeting with lobbyists and friendly audiences back homebut their public event schedules are mysteriously blank. Odd."

Lawmakers "do not want to look weak or unpopular and they know that Trump's agenda is very, very unpopular," it reads. Some "have clearly made the calculation that they can lay low, avoid their constituents, and hope the current storm blows over. It's your job to change that calculus."

Their strategy is apparently paying off in terms of making some members of Congress look silly.

"Heller now says he'll do a town hall if 'no applauding and no booing.' Seriously? He's a U.S. senator!" well-known Nevada pundit Jon Ralston tweeted Wednesday about Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

Continued here:
Liberals copy Tea Party tactics to protest Trump at town halls - Washington Examiner

It is absolutely comical to watch various elements of liberalism scream, pout, march and spew vulgarities since that paragon of virtue, Hillary Clinton, lost the election and messed up their playhouse.

It is astounding that a vulgar-mouthed woman who calls herself Madonna seems to be the spokesperson for todays liberal woman.

It is sad to see that our public universities have become liberal indoctrination centers as opposed to education centers.

Please witness the current trend for rude mobs to shout down any speaker with whom they disagree.

This culminated in violence recently on the University of California, Berkeley campus with ninja-clad rioters throwing fire bombs at police. Shades of the Ku Klux Klan!

Want to know whats wrong with our country?

Its called humanisim, where many are so progressive that they think they are wiser than God.

Dont believe it? Just look at the menu of sexual ideas and practices many worship, which God clearly states are sin.

Galatians 6:7 states: Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Continue reading here:
Liberals pout, weep and stage protests - Greensboro News & Record