I just attended a Town Hall Meeting

I attended a town hall meeting today in Fayetteville, Tennessee with Senator Corker. He spoke about the deficit and gave examples about why it is so difficult to get anything done. That was his sole focus before he opened the floor for questions. I was the first called upon, and I was stunned by the brief exchange.

ME: “The TSA has moved out from the airports to the highways of Tennessee. Why was Tennessee selected for this pilot program, and what is your opinion of this TSA expansion of power?”

CORKER: “I have no idea what you’re taking about. I never heard of this.”

My jaw dropped and I was momentarily shocked speechless – a rare event. After several seconds, all I could think of was something like:

ME: “You’re kidding!”

CORKER: “No, and I come away from these meeting with homework to do.”

ME: “You haven’t heard of the VIPR program?”

CORKER: “No.”

LADY SITTING BEHIND ME: “The TSA is searching trucks on Tennessee highways without warrants.”

Corker then told his aide to exchange contact info with me after the meeting. As soon as it ended, she rushed over with her business card and told me that anytime I’d like Corker to receive information, to send it to her and she will see that he gets it. She will be hearing from me regularly!

Near the end of the session someone told Corker that the senator only spoke about the economy and hadn’t mentioned anything about foreign policy, Arab spring, Libya, illegal immigration, and several other issues and asked if Corker would be willing to speak about any of them. Corker talked about Libya, and I liked what he said. He said that Kaddafi was a terrible person who had committed atrocities, but he didn’t see how it was in the interests of our country to help take him out. He said as bad as that dictator was, we had established diplomatic relations with Libya several years ago, and were working with him to get Al Queda.

The overall impression I received from Corker at this meeting is that he is sincerely concerned about the deficit and that is where his main focus lies. That isn’t a bad thing, but his apparent cluelessness about the TSA’s unconstitutional expansion of power in the state that he is Senator of tells me that he isn’t as aware as he should be of some other vital issues. I walked out next to a man who said to me in an aside, “I can’t believe he didn’t know about VIPR!”

Or else the senator was lying. Although I disagree with some of his policies, I saw him for the first time today, liked a lot of what he said, and was pleased that he didn’t seem unnaturally polished and unctuous like Lincoln Davis. - Lady Luna

 

OMG! What? He is either completely incompetent or he is lying through his teeth...if I were you in TN, I'd be more scared of this than ever! Something very strange is going on with Homeland Security right now, for sure....WTF is going on with this?

I would be very pissed off if I were you! It was even on your local news channel.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZKIfgk5oJk&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZKIfgk5oJk&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

 

The senator went to office to accomplish a few things that probably put money in his pocket. He could care less about anything else. That's my assumption anyway.

 

He's on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

He has a staff of dozens of experts and assistants, taxpayer paid.

But we might note, he is worth close to $100 million! We can guess that inding excuses to lower his taxes is the ONE issue he cares about.

The loss of civil liberties of his constituents is just an "abstraction" to him, since neither Senators or millionaires are subjected to such mundane humilities as the TSA.

Powerful people who fly private aircraft do not get searched by the TSA. Even of one of these elite were to deign to fly a commercial air flight, they have their own special VIP line.

The regular citizens of Tennesee, along with the rest of us, are On Our Own, as far as the current Republican legislature is concerned.

You sure are "dysfunctional". Senator!!

 

Excellent points.

Either he should have known about this, or he shouldn't have lied. This was a big fail for him.

 

First off... kudos to you for going to the meeting!

I am floored that he does not know what the Federal Government is doing unique to any other state in his home state. I would fire him and find a new person that not only cares about the Constitution buy also about Fiscal Responsibility.

 

I vote for lying though his teeth...he just wasn't prepared to answer...figured the public was unaware...LOL

 

i am amazed how little our congress knows about anything!!

 

I love the totally unreasonable assumptions being made. I would not expect a congressman or senator to be up to speed on every single issue that might interest me or which I might consider critically important. I would expect them to have someone check and get back to me, though.

 

Some of you actually believe he was not aware of what the TSA was doing in his state???...LMFAO!!!! It's Big Sis...the TSA for Gawd's sake...really???

I knew it LL knew it...it was all over the internet...get real.

 

How could he not know about this???? This is a rural, agricultural community, and he may have expected a bunch of ignorant country bumpkins. Perhaps the first question knocked him off his stride.

I have been very impressed with the grasp of politics, knowledge of current events, and the intelligent questions posed by my rural compatriots at the local town hall meetings.

 

Too bad the the questionee was not as prepared.

 

I have to agree with Patrick. It was a definite negative that he was blind-sided by the question. But a positive that he admitted he didn't know and went to great lengths to make sure Lady Luna gets an answer to her question... even if it has to be later.

His office expressed willingness to 'hear' anything she has to say. I'd say that's a positive, too.

My rep is Eddie Bernice Johnson. I can assure you if someone puts her on the spot in a townhall, you won't get nearly that courtesy a response from her office. I'll trade ya!

 

Well Lady L, you keep him on his toes....lol-

Sen Bob Corker (R-TN)​

 

I'm working on it. This is what I sent his aide this evening:

After my commentary I pasted this article by Ron Paul:

 

I didn't look at it that way...I have to agree with you.

If in fact he was telling the truth, I guess I would have to commend him for his honesty.

However, I still find it hard to believe he didn't know anything about it, sorry.

 

I bet he finds it hard to believe, too. If he really didn't know... he must've been embarrassed. Lady Luna might've given him a motivational kick in the pants!

Politicians focusing on one issue reminds me of the poster who was here for awhile... running for office on child support reform. He wouldn't even TALK about other issues. It's like he was transfixed! Wonder where he went to? Another forum to sell his wares?

 

I posted my synopsis of the town hall meeting with Corker on several political forums. I received the following PM from one member of another forum:

This is bizarre. I still would like to know why Tennessee was chosen for the VIPR program and wonder if our Congressmen volunteered our state and are playing dumb so we don’t tar and feather them.

And this is really cool: the lady who told Corker what VIPR was is on that same forum. After she read my synopsis she PM’d me that she was the one sitting behind me who said that! Small world!

 

Keep the heat on him LL.... you own this one now, so don't let up.

 

Illegal immigration shoulda been a hot topic .

 

He didn't address it at all. When that one audience member mentioned a list of important subjects Corker omitted, including illegal immigration, and asked Corker if he'd be willing to address any of them, Corker limited his remarks to Libya.

 

Do you have any suggestions?

 

I received the following email today from Senator Corker's aide, the one I had emailed the article Ron Paul wrote about the VIPR program:

I started a reply to ask what Senator Corker planned to do about this abuse of the Fourth Amendment rights of his Tennessee constituents, but then reread the underlined information and realized the answer would be: nothing.

 

This is the reason why my proposal of dividing the House into 8-10 smaller, specialized Houses of Congress (no more than 60-65 members, divided equally into population areas, regardless of state lines) where each elected member comes from the specialized fields in which they would govern. A member of the House of Commerce wouldn't need to know about the goings on in defense and vice versa. The house of Education wouldn't have to care about the House of International affairs. So on and so forth. Put experts in place, regardless of party lines and you can choose to elect lobbyists, experienced field members, Doctoral experts or loony baffoons. Either way, you'd reduce government simply by taking away the Gerrymandering and back scratching that pads every district and causes massive trading of votes on issues these guys know nothing about.

Give each Congressmen a narrow focus and narrow responsibility when you elect them to office, and you'll get the efficient, smaller, more focused government that conservatives want. Give them a narrow focus and wide ranging responsibility and you get the government we have right now, which is broken and unmanageable. There is no way our founding fathers could have conceived of the complexities of modern government when it was founded.