Local News Station Busts Darrell Issa for Silencing Supporters During ACA Investigation

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The mainstream media might be letting the public down, but some local media outlets are still diligently reporting the news instead of chasing after Beltway Cool Kids with a GOP playbook in their front pocket.

Melissa Hankins at Charlotte, North Carolina’s WBTV 3 reported that Darrell Issa’s ObamaCare “hearings” in Gastonia called “Obamacare Implementation: Sticker Shock of Increased Premiums for Health Care Coverage” weren’t exactly unbiased.

In fact, people who had positive things to say about the ACA were not only told they couldn’t speak, but they were told that if they spoke “out of turn” they’d have to leave.

Watch here:

WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC

WBTV 3 reported:

The meeting got off to a contentious start on Friday, with people complaining that they won’t get a chance to be heard. People were told they would be removed from the meeting if they spoke out of turn. Residents were angry because Issa picked the five witnesses that we will hear from, all residents of North Carolina.

The piece goes on to list several supporters of the ACA whom Issa refused to let speak.

Allison Ward, who says the ACA offers her insurance she can afford for the first time ever, wanted to be heard. If she had been chosen to “testify” (is it really a hearing if it’s all staged? Not so much), she would have said, “My president has said I hear you, I’m going to help you and frankly the way I see it is that other people are getting in the way.”

You can see why Issa wouldn’t let Ms. Ward speak.

Another Charlotte resident wanted to speak about how no one would give her insurance because she was diagnosed with MS. Dana Wilson said the ACA changed the fact that no one would insure her. Ms. Wilson thinks if it’s a real hearing, then all sides should be heard. “I think if it’s a true hearing than all sides should be heard and they don’t want to hear us,” she told WBTV 3.

The reported explained that the area has seen some of the highest increases in premiums in the country, and that’s why Issa was there. Fair enough. But that’s no reason not to hear from supporters of the law.

Issa claims that no Democrats picked any witnesses and that is how he justifies not using supporters of the law. But see, that’s an admission that Issa is not trying to get at the truth, as he claims he is. He’s got a show to put on, and he can only use haters in this script. It’s called propaganda, and it’s following the GOP playbook exactly. The main messages of the GOP attack ACA playbook are: “Because of Obamacare, I Lost My Insurance”, “Obamacare Increases Health Care Costs” and “The Exchanges May Not Be Secure, Putting Personal Information at Risk”. ”

Good old Issa is up to his usual tricks, where he only lets the people who he knows will say what he needs them to say in front of the cameras, and then he blames Democrats when he’s busted. Issa got busted doing this on Benghazi as well. Issa refused to let the experts on the Benghazi attacks speak in front of the cameras, and then blamed the White House for not inviting them:

While the rest of the media is reporting that the co-chairmen of the independent review on the Benghazi attacks, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, have finally agreed to testify, in truth Pickering was not invited by Darell Issa (R-CA) to testify at the televised hearing. When called out on his lies on national TV, Issa finally tried to blame the White House for not inviting Pickering.

Darrell Issa wants you to believe that he is wasting all of this money just to get the truth, but the GOP “truth” involves refusing to let anyone with a dissenting point of view be heard. It’s just like the founders envisioned…

Only not.

h/t Diane Sweet at Crooks and Liars

Sarah Jones

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