http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/finger-biting/

Eyewitness Tells Of Finger-Biting At Health Rally
Ben Frumin | September 3, 2009, 12:56PM


I just got off the phone with Karoli Kuns, a blogger in Camarillo, CA, who attended the health reform rally last night where a pro-reform demonstrator bit off the finger of an aggressive 65-year-old anti-reformer.

Earlier, we were a little unclear about who did what to who, but Kuns has helped clarify things.

On one side of a big intersection outside of a shopping mall in Thousand Oaks, CA, were between 150 and 200 pro-reform demonstrators at a well-publicized MoveOn rally. Across the street were no more than a dozen anti-reform protesters who arrived just before the MoveOn rally began. Four were holding hands in silent prayer. Another wore a tea party t-shirt. Some held signs with slogans like "No Obamacare." All but one were relatively restrained.

The exception was a tall 65-year-old man in an orange shirt who Kuns said "was displaying what I would consider to be intimidating behavior." He first picked on a pro-reform woman more than a foot shorter than him, stretching his arms out and shooing her away as he advanced on her and she backpedaled.

"It appeared to me that he was saying, basically, get on your own side of the street now," Kuns said. "He was chasing her."

Next on the anti-reformer's harassment list was a pro-reformer who appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s, was stocky, and several inches shorter than the 65-year-old. Though Kuns isn't sure how the pro-reformer ended up on the anti side of the street, she saw the two men face to face, exchanging words.

Then the anti-reformer in the orange shirt "punches him straight up in the face, right between the eyes." The smaller pro-reformer's glasses and hat flew off, and he fell into the street.

"I don't know who started it wordwise," Kuns said, "but I can tell you for sure that the guy who threw the first punch was the anti guy. And can he punch hard! He knocked this guy down into the street."

The pro-reformer got up. The anti-reformer tried to block him from standing on the curb. A short scuffle ensued, and it was unclear to Kuns who was doing what to whom. The anti-reformers surrounding the fighting men stayed back. When the fight ended, the pro-reformer crossed the street and announced to the MoveOn rally that he'd bitten the man's finger off.

"He was certainly not swaggering," Kuns said, referencing earlier reports saying he had been. "He was pissed and he was shaking."

"He was angry. His demeanor was what you'd expect from somebody who'd just been hit hard. He was defensive."

Sheriffs deputies soon arrived. Kuns isn't sure where the finger biter took off to, but did see the bitten man walk in the direction of a hospital a couple blocks away. The AP has since reported that a hospital spokeswoman said the anti-reformer lost half his finger, though doctors reattached it and sent him home last night. "She says he had Medicare," the story states.

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I don't even know where to begin...

thats pretty crazy stuff. i'd be hesitant to bite strangers though. aids and all.

Republicans don't get AIDS.

o ya. thats only teh gays. lul.

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.co ... hp?ref=fpa




I can't believe they never caught this guy.

this is nothing. didn't you guys see berlusconi?

Berlusconi is a criminal and deserves it, though.

Interesting. The way the left talks, it's the tea-party goers who are the violent ones.

are you kidding? that pic is my current desktop wallpaper.

Wow, did you come up with that yourself?

Hundreds of incidents of teabaggers screaming in people's faces, interrupting people legitimately trying to speak to their congressional reps, painting signs with violent and/or racist threats, and there is one case of a healthcare supporter biting a teabagger's finger (AFTER he was punched in the face first), and I was the one who brought this story to RM.

Shut up.

Then what exactly was the point of posting this story?

It's a crazy story, didn't you find it entertaining?

And, holy fucking shit, I might actually post a story that is not favorable to my political allies! Like I posted the John Edwards affair story, and other such things over the years.

Also, this was an example of a teabagger being violent FIRST, and getting a good beatdown in return.

No, I found it interesting. These people are an embarrassment to their cause, regardless of which side they stand on.

Jumping on Stelly, though, I don't get. We wouldn't have to go back too far into the archives to find more examples of this sort of thing happening by the hands of liberals. It's not like this is strictly a Republican phenomena.

Relax, PD. Really. All I'm trying to say is the left is constantly trotting out how violent the tea partiers are, and here we have a story of how one of their own bit the finger off someone else. I just find it funny. Both sides are guilty.

I know of one other incident in the healthcare "debates" where an "anti" protester was injured by "pro" protesters, and that was the guy who got into a scuffle with some union guys in St. Louis. Again, it's quite unclear how the incident got started, only how it got finished.

In just about every other case, it was the teabaggers who acted completely obnoxiously, and the pro-reformers who tried to act civilly.

Whatever incidents of violence related to whatever, one can point to on the left, you and I both know that the number of incidents is FAR from equal, to the point that equating them is turning a blind eye towards the rights ingrained tendency to lean towards violence, force and intimidation. Not to mention whenever there is a violent act by a left-winger, the left's leaders are QUICK to condemn it, and they condemn it uniformly. That is absolutely NOT the case on the right, where their spokespeople fan the flames of violence right up until someone actually does something (and then maybe they'll condemn the actions of a "lone nut"). Real big and responsible of them.

Sorry. One vs Dozens does not equal "both sides are guilty". In this particular fight, both sides are guilty. In the totality of politics in 2009, not so much.

I'd agree. The right tends to lean more towards violence. The left has a storied history of it as well (WTO riots, environmental groups burning and destroying shit, spitting on Viet Nam veterans, etc.). I'm not going to pretend it's even, and I won't justify any of it.

No matter what, I don't see any justification for violence, but I also think it is a sad state of affairs when these sorts of things begin to define a particular movement. People in opposition to the Government's runaway spending will always be defined as "Teabaggers". It's a way for them to be compartmentalized by the opposition, and it allows a great deal of legitimate dissent to be attributed to a fringe group of idiots.

I'm probably of the opinion that that sort of behavior is much more common on the left than it is the right. I'm sure you disagree.

i have no real moral qualms with a guy biting off a finger in self defense

Leftist violence has tended in the last 40 years or so (at least in America) towards destruction of property, as you have noted. Also, the Vietnam vets being spit upon story bears a lot of the hallmarks of an urban myth. Good debunking here, with a reasoned critique of the debunking here. Make up your own mind.

Seriously. Why the fuck was this guy's finger in or near his mouth to begin with? Sounds like he had a hold of the guy's face, and he did what he could. And seriously - complaining about putting everyone on government healthcare when you're on it yourself? I'd like to take a chunk out of him myself.