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Former Air America Host Arrested After Heckling Rep. Allen West at Town Hall

Posted on | April 26, 2011 | 70 Comments

The Palm Beach Post has identified former Air America radio host Nicole Sandler as the woman who was arrested and led out of a town hall meeting in handcuffs after she heckled Rep. Allen West and got into a confrontation with the Republican congressman’s wife.

Javier Manjarres at The Shark Tank has video of repeated disruptions at the town hall in Fort Lauderdale where West declared: “You’re not going to intimidate me.” The video ends with Ms. Sandler being arrested and led out of the meeting by police.

UPDATE: Among the things shouted by the hecklers: “How about our Medicare that you’re stealing?” Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit:

This is the left’s latest strategy- disrupt, heckle, insult, and silence conservatives.
Unfortunately for the left, the strategy won’t work with Allen West.

I’m trying to remember a quote from Nancy Pelosi where she compared the Tea Party protests at 2009 health-care town-hall meetings to Nazis.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE III: Ah, I knew I’d find it. Nancy Pelosi asked about Tea Party protests, August 2009: “I think they’re Astroturf — you be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town hall meeting on health care.”

UPDATE IV: The Sun-Sentinel reports on the arrest:

Nicole Sandler of Coral Springs interrupted when West was explaining the Republican position on Medicare.
Sandler shouted a question, which prompted responses from other audience members: “Shut up lady.”
She didn’t stop. As people recorded the scene with their camera phones, she was escorted out by a Fort Lauderdale police officer.
Sandler objected to being asked to leave, arguing with the officer as he escorted her out, including emphatically cursing at him. Ultimately he arrested her for “trespass after warning” and transferred her to another police officer who took Sandler away.
Sandler used to be a host on the now defunct Air America liberal radio network.

Allahpundit:

You’d think progressives would be out in force to try to embarrass a tea-party all-star, but no. . . . When the big dissident presence at a rally is a host from a defunct radio network, you’ve got yourself an optics problem.

Speaking of “Astroturf,” thanks to Joe Fein in the comments for pointing out that MoveOn.org has called for “Defend the Dream Recess Action” by the Left.

UPDATE V: Dan Riehl:

Given that 2008 established the Racism Rule of political criticism, if the candidate is black, it must be a racist attack, I think we can conclude Nicole there could benefit from some serious sensitivity training.

Now a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE VI: Yeah, this one’s going viral: Macsmind, The Hayride, Trevor Loudon and All American Blogger.

UPDATE VII: The Democrat response:

Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff told The Daily Caller that “Floridians are disappointed that Allen West refused to answer the hard questions from his constituents, who are clearly upset with his voting to end Medicare.”
“Once again tonight, we see that Allen West is completely out of touch with the people of South Florida, which is why they are going to send him into retirement in 2012,” Jotkoff said in an e-mail.

Did he refuse to answer any “hard questions”? I don’t think so. Accusing him of “stealing our Medicare” isn’t a question, it’s just a lie. It appears that Democrats who wanted a MoveOn.org “Recess Action” were angry they didn’t get to run the show according to their own plan.

UPDATE VIII: A little background on Nicole Sandler: Since leaving Air America, she now has her own 2-hour daily podcast, and Tuesday guest-hosted the Randi Rhodes Show (Rhodes being Sandler’s former Air America colleague). Then she sent this message via Twitter:

She’s not very popular: A former nationally syndicated radio host, yet she’s got fewer than 4,000 followers on Twitter.

You know who has more Twitter followers than Nicole Sandler? Jimmie Bise Jr. — who also has a podcast.


Category: Allen West, Florida

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