Obama in Montana (What the Don't want us to know)

[Chris]

I call BS, probably something heard on Limbaugh, O'Rielly, Hannity & Fox "News" as fact. But I'm a flaming liberal so don't listen to me.

[Funrover]

Chris previously posted:

[Chris]

You're a smart man Aaron, I trust smart enough not to believe the "Fox side" either.

[scout man]

Alright, so given my line of work, I have been involved with Obama rally's and Campaigns since about July of last year. No, I did not vote for him, so this is not as biased as you might think. I have been involved with about 11 Obama events around Colorado so far, including the most recent Town hall meeting in Grand Junction. Lets just say some of his staff and secret service actually know me by name at this point. Some parts of this are true to the average event, and some are not (i do not know whether or not they were true to the Montana event).

To begin with, yes, there are rediculous amounts of money spent and good shipped in for these events. However, most of it (i dont know about lobster) is to create the image you expect to see of the president. Aka proper lighting, nice crisp wall of flags, etc. I have done these events with 2 semi's of stuff (106 feet x 8ft of goods), including only sound, lights, decor, and chairs. They drop thousands of dollars for this part of the event alone. They do, however, generally shop around for a good price, and dont pay just any amount for it. There are also generally other companies involved that may ship in their own goods, such as additional decor, and maybe catering. Not to mention the white house AV staff also ships in some of their equipment, as there are certain parts of events that are only to be operated by white house staff.

Are there wasteful things brought in??? absolutely. In fact, at the stimulus signing here in Denver, they brought in thousands of dollars worth of solar pannels to use as decor. Some were just set up in hallways that the media would walk past, but most notably there was a giant wall of solar panels errected behind the president's desk that he would be signing the bill on. Why was this wasteful? Because by the time the event actually started it was decided that the pannels did not look how they had hoped, so they ended up covering the pannels with drape. This giant pannel, which took some guys all day to assemble, was hidden by drape and no one ever knew it was there.

As far as the press goes, I have to comments to enlighten. First of, these events arer designed for the press, and no one else. It is known that we are to break our backs to make the press happy, and the audience is just there because they want to watch. If there is any ball dropped in the event, it is to be towards the audience, not the media. Honestly, if the speakers were to go out during an event, that is not a big deal bacause all of the press receive their own audio feed. They don't care about the audience necessarily, they are mostly there to fill the room and make it look good. The second truth about the press is that they do not care what they trample or who they interfere with to get their shot. The press are always confined to very specific areas, because if not they would trash the place, and people would get hurt. We spend hours making sure all our cables are tucked away and not going to be tripped over, and the press comes in and just drags their cables right across walkways, handicap ramps, anything. Whether they were purposely kept out of way of the protestors at that event I do not know, but I can say that at most events there is nothing preventing them from filming protestors. I can also say that at the Grand Junction meeting they expected 3,000 protestors to fill the park next door, and even provided speakers so that they could hear the event... no one showed up. The only people out there were pople that happened to wander through the park and decided to stop and listen. In fact, there was a larger support rally than protest rally.

They are also very careful about not revealing how or when the president will arrive. We have to keep in mind there are a lot of people who want our president dead... especially this specific president. He will never be in line of sight of any person who has not passed a metal detector. Example, at the Grand Junction event I was outdoors running the protestor's speakers, and I saw Airforce one fly over. Then a helicopter came and almost landed on the football field, but just before he landed he flew away. then a line of cars appear behind the building, but no one ever got out (in line of sight of unsecure people), then the president was inside. In fact, since I was in communication with people inside, I know that they were informing us the president was in the building before air force 1 even landed... they dont take any chances.

As far as the pre-screening questions goes, yes they do that. However, it is done to limit the direction of conversation. You are allowed to ask any question as long as A) it is withing the greater topic of the event (AKA healthcare), and B) it is not too obscene. However, when it comes down to it, you hold the mic in your hand and use your own voice... and people ask the questions they want, whether it was pre screened or not, and as long as you are not causing an unnecessary scene, you will not be disciplined for it at all. I have seen it many times... I have also seen people escorted out, however, for flat out being rude.

To sum it up, these events are all about the smoke and mirrors. Yes, they limit certain people to certain areas, yes they cost rediculous amounts of money, and yes they try as hard as they can to regulate the proceedings in the meetings. However it must be kept in mind that this is a very powerful man, and a man that a lot of people would like to get their hands on. And regardless of your political beleifs, he is the President of the United States, and it would be a negative for our country if someone else were to ever get their hands on him. As I said before, I am not a democrat, and I do not agree with everything he does, and I do not agree with everything that occurs at these events. however, having been involved with them I very much see the reasons that a lot of these things occur, and it IS NOT to keep the average American down, and to trick him. That fact of the matter is if American citizens ALWAYS kept themselves in check and did not ever cause problems or disrepect their own leader (different than keeping him in check), most of these regulations and restrictions would not need to exsist.

Alright, thats the end of what I have to say. Hope it made sense. It is actually a really cool thing to see in person regardless of your political beleifs. I am not one to sit and watch this stuff on tv, but it person it is way more fascinating.

[scout man]

Haku previously posted:

[Chris]

scout man previously posted:

[4runner freak]

1freaky1 previously posted:

[Chris]

Hi Danny,

I have no argument with anyone's religious beliefs or political leaning but this information doesn't scare me at all. Like so much information it's tilted towards the belief of the organizations rightist goals. Not exactly unbiased IMHO though I will read it in its entirety later today.

"Liberty Counsel is a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family."

They are primarily focused on anti-homosexual issues and church/school issues both of which have no place in government mandates. Banning Harry Potter books? There's much more important things to spend time, energy and money on in this broken economy.

Remember separation of church & state?

[Aaron]

Now that we have politics out of the way, can we move on to religion and sex. Please...