Congressman Limits Attendance at His Town Halls to Keep Protesters Out

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Getting Carded

Texas Democratic Congressman Gene Green has decided to limit attendance at his town hall events in order to maintain what he calls, a civil discussion of the issues. Green writes on his Web site: "Unfortunately, due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings — we will be restricting further attendance to residents of the 29th Congressional district and verifying residency by requiring photo identification."

But Green hasn't always favored such restrictions. A non-partisan-issues Web site says Green has voted twice against requiring photo ID in federal elections. Green's office explains: "Previous votes on the voter integrity project requiring picture identification would have restricted voter participation — whereas our decision is to enhance our constituent's participation in town halls — without interruption from non-constituents."

Poster Child

News outlets focusing on conservatives' incendiary posters outside Tuesday's town hall meeting with President Obama failed to even mention provocative and sometimes violent rhetoric by liberals outside a 2002 appearance by then-President George W. Bush.

The event in Portland saw demonstrators chanting "Bush is a terrorist," and holding expletive-laden signs. One seemed to advocate assassination, reading: "Bush — Wanted, Dead or Alive" — with an X over the word Alive. Although journalists from several national news organizations were traveling with the president and witnessed the displays, they did not report on them.

By contrast, the media focused extensively on over-the-top signs held by protesters outside President Obama's town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A Washington Post headline read: "Obama Faces 'Scare Tactics' Head-On" and went into detail about the signs and posters present.

Banking on Disaster?

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has some dire predictions about the environment. He told a global forum in South Korea: "Climate change...is the fundamental threat to humankind." He added that, "The human suffering will be incalculable."

Looking ahead to the U.N. conference on climate change in December, Ban warned: "We must seal the deal in Copenhagen for the future of humanity. We have just four months ... to secure the future of our planet."

Atmospheric and space physicist Fred Singer said of the ominous forecast, "The warm-mongers are becoming desperate as the Copenhagen confab in December is staring them in the face. It promises to be a complete disaster."

License to Kill?

And Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Ed Rendell was channeling his inner James Bond villain when he told reporters Tuesday that he was frustrated with state lawmakers' deadlocked budget negotiations, saying it reminded him of a scene from the classic "Goldfinger" movie, in which the bad guy kills a room of gangsters in one fell swoop: "He just filled the room with poison gas and knocked them all off. You might have thought after watching those two [conference committee] days that that would have been a good idea."

Erik Arneson, a Republican aide told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "No one has ever said that the governor's sense of humor is one of his strong suits" and another GOP staffer, Steve Miskin, said: "There's no comment to make. He's obviously losing it."

— FOX News Channel's Lanna Britt contributed to this report.