BRITISH HEALTH CARE: “A MUM suffering chest pains died in front of her young son hours after being sent home from hospital and told to take painkillers. Debra Beavers, 39, phoned NHS 24 twice in two days before getting a hospital appointment. But a doctor gave what her family described as a cursory examination lasting 11 minutes, before advising her to buy over-the-counter medicine Ibuprofen.”
Painkillers for heart patients? Just following Dr. Obama’s prescription!
PRESIDENTIAL SIGNING STATEMENTS: Sauce for the goose.
ONLY IF THE ANTI-VIRUS IS PERFECT: If you could have computer chips wired into your brain, would you?
I had some related thoughts on this a while back.
AUSTIN, TEXAS: Hundreds Protest Against Obama Plan.
Judging by this video, a lot of people are unhappy in Massachusetts, too. (Via Hot Air).
UPDATE: Then there’s Leah from New Hampshire.
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE: Preventive Care Will Raise — Not Cut — Costs. “In yet more disappointing news for Democrats pushing for health care reform, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, offered a skeptical view Friday of the cost savings that could result from preventive care — an area that President Obama and congressional Democrats repeatedly had emphasized as a way health care reform would be less expensive in the long term.”
Plus, Senior Citizens Skeptical of Obamacare: “Senior citizens are emerging as a formidable obstacle to President Obama’s ambitious health-care reform plans. . . . Proposals to squeeze more than $500 billion out of the growth of Medicare over the next decade have fueled fears that his effort to expand coverage to millions of younger, uninsured Americans will damage elder care. As a result, barely one-third of seniors support a health-care overhaul, several polls found.”
VIDEO: Meet The Mob.
TIGERHAWK: Dissent, then and now. “The right has never really been effective with “out-of-doors political activity” for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that American righties, at least, have jobs and businesses in much larger proportions than American lefties . . . . So what has changed? Is it the scary prospect that a federal government dominated by the Democrats might change the country forever, or is that the left finally taught the right how to tear down people in power (the right having failed miserably versus Bill Clinton in the 1990s)? I suppose that most righties did not know there was such a thing as a ‘community organizer’ until the Democrats nominated one as their presidential candidate. Now that we know what it is and how effective it can be, we’re learning to do it.”
JOHN PAUL KEITH’S NEW SINGLE, “KNOXVILLE TOWN,” is now out. They didn’t send me one, but I’ve always liked his stuff.
WOULD YOU WATCH Gourmet Detective? Maybe if it starred Padma Lakshmi.
THOMAS JEFFERSON ENCOUNTERS THE HEALTHCARE DEBATE:
MEMPHIS: Town hall tension: Meeting turns ugly over health care. “Hundreds of people crowded into the BRIDGES building in Downtown Memphis on Saturday for a congressional town hall meeting that quickly deviated into a raucous shouting free-for-all, requiring extra law enforcement officers to watch over the scene. The meeting, hosted by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, was scheduled to address constituents’ concerns about Social Security and veterans’ benefits, but the real topic of the day was health care reform legislation being crafted by Congress. Most people in the crowd of close to 500 were in loud opposition, although Cohen supporters held their own, waving signs that read ‘Health Care Now.’”
And reader Jeremy Kendall writes: “Interesting note: there was only one handmade sign in support of the public option at the event. All of the rest were handed out by MoveOn.org and the Tennessee Health Care Coalition.”
UPDATE: I wonder if there were any of these “astroturf” signs there?
ANOTHER UPDATE: ABC News wins the headline-irony contest with this: Painting Protestors as “Partisan Mobs with Lies About Health Reform,” Democrats Rally Their Own Activists to Visit Members of Congress at Town Halls, District Offices.
RUSH LIMBAUGH RESPONDS TO DAVID BROOKS. But it sounds like what’s really going on is that Brooks was suckered by David Gregory with an out-of-context soundbite.
CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON reports from Gladney Ground Zero.
JOHN LEO: Did Nancy Pelosi Forget the Bush Years?
MICHELLE MALKIN’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION is now number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
KENNETH ANDERSON: Can You FOIA to Find Out If You Have Been Reported to the White House? And What is the ACLU’s Position? “I served for several years on the Free Speech Policy Committee of the ACLU way back when, and I can’t imagine that back then it would not have taken a strong position on such a move by any White House, regardless of party. On the other hand, as Wendy Kaminer has shown, it’s not that ACLU anymore, so I’m not so sure.”
NEW GUIDANCE ON schools and swine flu. “Most schools should be able to stay open even if swine flu outbreaks occur again this fall, government officials said Friday as they issued recommendations for dealing with the illness when the school year starts.”
TUCSON TEA PARTY: Rep. Giffords a no-show at her own event due to Tea Partiers — then lies and says she never meant to go!
UPDATE: Fish, barrel, busting Keith Olbermann.
ROGER KIMBALL: Get Out Of The Way? Not Likely. “I doubt whether most of the people turning up at town hall meetings to express their dismay about the President’s plans to revolutionize American health care have Robespierre in mind. But the people that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs disparaging referred to as the ‘Brooks Brothers Brigade’ sense that a lot is at stake in the controversy over the future of health care. It’s not just a question of what doctors you can see when, or even what sort of doctors will be available to be seen in a government-run health care system. No, it’s a question of what Ronald Reagan called ‘imposing statism’ in the name of pursuing a humanitarian project.”
POT, MEET KETTLE: Crazed Conspiracist Bemoans Crazed Conspiracists.
UPDATE: Fears of hidden hands? Is Frank Rich paranoid?
“MASSIVE ORDNANCE PENETRATOR:” The most massive non-nuclear bomb ever.
JAPANESE OIL & GAS COMPANIES to tackle hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint, Grantville Gazette V. More stories in the world of 1632.
CHARLES LANE, IN THE WASHINGTON POST: House Bill Oversteps on End-of-Life Issues.
I was not reassured to read in an Aug. 1 Post article that “Democratic strategists” are “hesitant to give extra attention to the issue by refuting the inaccuracies, but they worry that it will further agitate already-skeptical seniors.”
If Section 1233 is innocuous, why would “strategists” want to tip-toe around the subject? Perhaps because, at least as I read it, Section 1233 is not totally innocuous.
Until now, federal law has encouraged end-of-life planning — gently. In 1990, Congress required health-care institutions (not individual doctors) to give new patients written notice of their rights to make living wills, advance directives and the like — but also required them to treat patients regardless of whether they have such documents. . . . Section 1233, however, addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. Supporters protest that they’re just trying to facilitate choice — even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care. I think they protest too much: If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?
Read the whole thing.
MARK STEYN: The Community Is Restless.
ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF THE AUTO BAILOUT: GM gets out from under its polluted sites scot-free.
REMEMBERING WHEN PROTEST WAS PATRIOTIC: My column for the Sunday Washington Examiner is up.
AT THE OLD KEY LIME HOUSE in Lantana, Florida, an Osama bin Laden urinal.
TRYING OUT adjustable eyeglasses.
MORE REPORTING on SEIU, St. Louis, and the Gladney beating.
UPDATE: More at Hot Air, including this from Jim Treacher: “If Kenneth Gladney was an Obama supporter, right now he’d be more famous than Rodney King.”
Indeed.
ANDREW STUTTAFORD: Republicans still not getting it on fiscal responsibility.
VIDEO from the Tea Party protest at SEIU headquarters in St. Louis.
U.S. REP. DAVID SCOTT loses his temper and screams at a constituent.
Protest: They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
SMILE! You’re on Government Camera.
HOW THE APPLE TABLET could ruin computing.
JOHN DINGELL’S TOWN HALL, ETC.: Citizen Video Reports coming in.
REMEMBERING NIXON’S FINAL DAYS: Paranoia, insularity, hatred of criticism, trying to get union goons to “knock their heads off” to end protests. Good thing that’s all in the past.
A BUNCH OF INTERESTING FOOD LINKS. Plus, ice-cream cookbooks.
REPORT FROM THE RECESSION: So I’ve been at a conference in Lantana, Florida, in Palm Beach County and just about a half hour down the road from Palm Beach proper. Even in tony downtown Palm Beach you see a lot of shuttered shops — and sales in the ones that are around. Restaurants are offering discount menus and specials. And there are speed traps everywhere, to the unhappiness of many locals. That’s because Palm Beach County is nearly broke:
Palm Beach County’s property tax revenue has more than doubled in the past decade.
But despite the windfall, the county faces its tightest budget year in ages. It’s proposing double-digit tax rate increases and preparing to lay off employees, slash bus service and leave some beaches without lifeguards. . . . So where did all the money from the boom years go? Much was spent in just two places: hefty debt payments and a burgeoning sheriff’s budget. Over the last eight years, the county’s yearly debt payments have ballooned by more than 75 percent, to $173.6 million. Like many homeowners, the county borrowed big-time during the boom. As the bills come due, the county’s purse strings are pulled tighter.
And the revenue-enhancing traffic policing takes on a new priority. If I were a municipal-bond rating agency, I think I’d try to devise a metric for that; it’s probably an early indicator of financial stress.
READER JIM DAVILA REMINDS ME that today is InstaPundit’s 8th anniversary. I had forgotten. Oh, well — thanks for sticking around!
BARREL ROLLS in a vintage P-51 Mustang.
PROTESTING VIOLENCE at SEIU Headquarters in St. Louis. “Although he was too weak to speak after his beating on Thursday, black conservative Kenneth Gladney attended the event. Kenneth was beaten, kicked and called racist names by SEIU Russ Carnahan supporters after a town hall meeting on Thursday.”
UPDATE: Here’s a news report.
BEACH READING: Enjoying Steve Carter’s Jericho’s Fall.
HAPTICS UNLEASHED: A roundup of cool haptic feedback devices at Singularity Hub.
JENNIFER RUBIN: Black Panther Case Draws Scrutiny. “Republicans on the Hill have teamed up with the Commission on Civil Rights to find out why the voter intimidation case was dropped.”
THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS DISSIDENT. “It feels to me, as it did during the campaign, that the art community is not meeting its duty of always questioning those in power.”
IN THE MAIL: From Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis, And Less Than Kind.
IRS GETS HAMMERED BY THE D.C. CIRCUIT:
In this case it took the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS” or “the Service”) aggressive interpretation of the tax code to part millions of Americans with billions of dollars in excise tax collections. Even this remarkable feat did not end the IRS’s creativity. When it finally conceded defeat on the legal front, the IRS got really inventive and developed a refund scheme under which almost half the funds remained unclaimed.
In sum, the IRS unlawfully expropriated billions of dollars from taxpayers, conceded the illegitimacy of its actions, and developed a mandatory process as the sole avenue by which the agency would consider refunding its ill-gotten gains.
Michael Silence asks, “And these people want to run more of our lives?”
Much more at TaxProf.
BOB OWENS says the Marines’ social-media ban may not go far enough.
SPORTS OMERTA: Jack Lail: Blogging has its limits in the SEC. “The Southeastern Conference is seeking to control how many blog posts or, presumably, even Twitter updates, can be done during a football game as well as control even video from press conferences.”
DAVID BOAZ: The boys who cried “racist.”
Paul Krugman can’t understand why people would oppose government control of health care — or skyrocketing deficits, or a federal takeover of education, energy, and finance along with health care — unless they’re driven by racism. But he’s not the only one who sees racists under every bed. . . . It cannot be the case that every parody of a president who happens to be black is racist. And it is not good for democracy to try to counter every opposing argument with such a blood libel. The good news for advocates of limited government is that our opponents are displaying a striking lack of confidence in the actual arguments for their proposals. If they thought they could win a debate on nationalizing health care, or running trillion-dollar deficits, they wouldn’t need to reach for such smears.
Read the whole thing.
Yesterday, at a rally for R. Creigh Deeds in Virginia, President Obama said: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”
For Barack Obama, democracy appears to be a distraction. He really does seem to view himself as a Caesar.
Shortly after taking office, Obama held a meeting with governors. At the time, one person in the room relayed Obama’s request that critics and skeptics of the stimulus plan keep their concerns to themselves. Just let me do it, was his attitude. He got pushback and he wasn’t happy. He wanted democratically elected state governors to shut up so he could do as he pleased. He knows better and we should respect that, seems to be the attitude.
Thug-in-chief? What would the reaction be if a Republican President said this?
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: He and Kent Conrad have been cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee. But there’s this: “Oh and by the way, it’s been 378 days since Chris Dodd promised to release all his mortgage paperwork to the public for examination. He still hasn’t made good on that promise. Regardless of whether the Ethics Committee has cleared him, if Dodd really had nothing to hide he’d release the mortgage documents already.”
KEITH HENNESSEY: Will Health Care Reform Cause Lower Wages?
AGAIN: Tempers flare in South Florida over healthcare overhaul. “A raucous group of about 100 protesters confronted staffers of U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, expressing their displeasure with the healthcare overhaul bills being considered in Congress.”
UPDATE: And in Boulder: “U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, was swarmed by people Friday morning when he dropped by the Vic’s coffee shop in north Boulder, expecting a friendly chat with a couple dozen constituents. But the event, the first of a series of meetings dubbed ‘Congress on Your Corner,’ drew hundreds of people, many with health care issues on their minds.”
FROM JIM HOFT, a first-person account of SEIU violence at the Russ Carnahan town meeting. Racial epithets and a beating from union members? Incredible. “Tomorrow, Saturday, the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition is holding a rally at the local SEIU headquarters. We are going to demand justice for Kenneth Gladney, who was brutally beaten on Thursday night. The St. Louis Coalition will request that the NAACP and the ACLU come out in support of Kenneth Gladney’s rights which were trampled by the union hooligans.”
UPDATE: More here, and a Mary Katharine Ham interview. “SEIU Representative Punched Him In the Face.”
THE NEW PJTV Healthcare page is up. And they’re soliciting citizen-reporters to cover townhalls and other healthcare-related events around the nation.
A BIG SALE on Indie DVDs.
A NEW PLUG-IN HYBRID coming from Buick in 2011. “Soon after the Chevy Volt debuts late next year, Buick will release its own plug-in hybrid. This yet unnamed model will be a small SUV and will use the two-mode hybrid system from the recently canceled Saturn Vue Green Line. The non-hybrid version of the new Buick will debut in 2010 with GM’s 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine and 3.0-liter V6. Both employ a six-speed automatic transmission.”
JOHN STOSSEL: “Obama says his health care plan will cut costs and increase patient choice. It won’t.”
PELOSI’S VISIT TO DENVER A LIGHTNING ROD. Photo caption: “A supporter of health care reform, left, who did not want to give her name, pushes forward to rip a sign out of Kris McLay’s hands outside the Stout Street Clintic visited by Nancy Pelosi.”
Good thing we elected a “post-partisan” President.
ASHEVILLE TEA PARTY FOLKS MET WITH HEATH SHULER: Before we closed the meeting, Congressman Shuler told us he will vote no on HR3200. “We ended our time by telling him we would relay the news that he is not ‘in hiding’ if he will tell his colleagues in Washington that we are not a pitchfork wielding ‘angry mob.’”
WHAT EVERY AMERICAN GIRL NEEDS: A breastfeeding baby doll.
THE EXAMINER: Mr. President, Americans are not an ‘angry mob’. “They aren’t carrying swastikas, either, contrary to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s rant about the legions of worried citizens who have been standing up in multiple town halls and congressional forums to demand straight answers from their congressmen about what they are doing under the guise of ‘health-care reform.’ Pelosi’s attempt to smear honest citizens as Nazis is only the most reprehensible manifestation of a White House-directed propaganda campaign to discredit anyone who disagrees with President Obama’s health-care proposal.”
VIDEO: Obama’s Brooks Brothers Brigade. I saw one guy in camo shorts, though. He’s probably a dangerous right-wing terrorist.
UPDATE: Breaking: Carnahan staffer admits to causing trouble?
Plus, hate crime video?
DOUG BANDOW: AARP Members Not Buying Obama Health Care Plan.
These people obviously were having trouble with the line, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” And they were quite vocal in stating their concerns. But they were acting well within the American political tradition, which seems to be what has spooked advocates of a government medical takeover speaking breathlessly of “mobs”–presumably like the one in Dallas–opposing “reform.”
Protest is extremely dangerous unless it’s engaged in by Officially Sanctioned Aggrieved Groups.
MEET THE SCARY MOB.
SO IF “URBAN” IS A SYNONYM FOR “BLACK,” then does that mean that people who say gun control is particularly appropriate for “urban” areas are . . . racist?
CELEBRITYPAYCUT.COM: Encouraging celebrities to take a pay cut to fight global warming.
IN THE MAIL: From Robert Anthony Waters, Jr., the Historical Dictionary of United States-Africa Relations. Looks quite interesting, but I wonder if they didn’t mean to send this to my brother the Africanist. Oh, well.
DEAN KAMEN: Health Care Debate is “Backward-Looking.” ” Dean Kamen, one of the world’s most prolific inventors of healthcare technologies, challenges the notion that the U.S. has a healthcare crisis. Rather than slowing the pace of medical progress in order to cut healthcare costs, he argues, America should be encouraging more innovation in life-saving drugs and technologies.”
I agree.
THE NEW rules for radicals.
Get this: The party of “community organizers” is now whining that President Obama’s critics are organizing communities — against his health-care scheme.
The nerve of ‘em, huh?
Faced with mushrooming opposition to ObamaCare, Democrats have launched a multi-media campaign that attacks foes as “extremists” who’ve “called out the mob” to “destroy President Obama” and “intimidate and silence regular people.” They cite “the playbook of high-level Republican political operatives.”
Actually, that sounds more like the tactics of the Chicago street, where Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel cut their political teeth. Indeed, you can almost hear Richard Nixon grousing about angry anti-war protestors and pleading for “the great silent majority of Americans” to rise up.
Except, you know, that that’s what they’re complaining about . . . .
ROGER KIMBALL: Paul Krugman and Dorothy Parker.
MICHAEL YON SENDS A PHOTO FROM AFGHANISTAN, and reports: “I made this photo last night in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This Landing Zone is very dangerous. A few weeks ago, another helicopter was coming into this LZ and was shot down at the last minute, killing all passengers and crew. Two children on the ground also were killed. The sparks coming off the rotors occur when the helicopters land in hot, dusty conditions. The landing itself occurs in a dangerous ‘brownout.’ Brownout danger is compounded by the sparks which light up the dust and can confuse pilots who are wearing extremely sensitive nightvision goggles.”
U.S. DEFICIT climbs to 1.3 trillion dollars. “The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2009, which began October 1, reached 1.3 trillion dollars, close to 880 billion dollars greater than the deficit recorded through July 2008, said the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO).”
DANNY GLOVER: The media take aim at “the mob.” “Journalists are beginning to deploy subtlety as a weapon in their coverage of the protests over healthcare reform. They have learned that tank barreling down the middle of the street, like the one CNN’s Susan Roesgen drove during the Chicago Tea Party in April, is too obvious to work, so they have assumed high and hidden perches instead.”
More here.
TAKING ON PHARMA-MOCKERY:
Here’s something else that mystifies me: the progressive derision for Viagra. Here’s a group of people who are opposed to abstinence-only education on the grounds that it is simply not possible, or for that matter worthwhile, to persuade teenagers to keep it in their pants. They go into convulsions every time a Catholic hospital refuses to dispense birth control, or pay for its employees to buy same. So why the fixation on Viagra? Sexual dysfunction may not be a disease, but it’s still a problem. Considering how vital most progressives seem to think healthy sexual functioning is to people in their prime reproductive years, you’d think they’d be happy that we can now help more people participate in this vital sphere of human life. Instead, ED drugs are the poster children for Drugs Big Pharma Wasted A Ton of Money On Rather Than Developing Something Useful*.
Well, we don’t need birth control either–we could just decide to be celibate–but I don’t hear so much complaining about the commercials for Seasonale or the HPV vaccine.
These inconsistencies are accounted for by the any-weapon-to-hand style of debate. Or maybe sex for older people is just supposed to be icky.
Some related thoughts of mine are here.
STIMULUS: Fannie Mae needs another big bailout.
IOWAHAWK: Know Your Town-Hall-Mob Agitators. Some of ‘em look pretty scary. . . .
ARNOLD KLING asks what progressives believe. Tyler Cowen answers.
OOPS: Blanche Lincoln to health-care protesters: Hey, sorry for calling you “un-American”. I guess she forgot that dissent is the highest form of patriotism! Plus this: “Cited in this same piece as smoking-gun evidence of a top-down Republican astroturf campaign: The memo debunked by Mary Katharine Ham 27 hours ago. Sigh. Exit question: Is Lincoln’s retreat a sign that the backlash to the left’s demagoguery is now in full swing? Foolproof though it may seem, calling your constituents Nazis actually isn’t a surefire path to reelection.”
MICKEY KAUS: “If an ‘astroturfing’ campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn’t it … community organizing?”
FRANK J. FLEMING criticizes those Obama/Joker posters: “The Joker was very careful in his planning, while the chaos from the Obama administration is explainable by pure incompetence.”
MEGAN MCARDLE: The politics of Ick.
HARTFORD COURANT: Protesters Confront U.S. Representative At Simsbury Supermarket Meeting. “Chanting ‘Dump Chris Dodd’ and ‘No national health care,’ scores of angry constituents confronted U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy at a meet-and-greet outside the Super Stop & Shop Wednesday afternoon.”
GATEWAY PUNDIT: More Carnahan hijinks.
UPDATE: Similar report from Tampa. “I got to the ‘public’ townhall sponsored by Rep. Kathy Castor and the SEIU an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open. Apparently, it would not have mattered when I arrived. We stood out in the 90 plus degree weather only to be told that that the hall had been filled through a side door and no one else would be let in. . . . I am upset, like everyone else that showed up, that we were locked out of what was supposed to be a public meeting. On the other hand, I am really proud of my fellow citizens. We represented every age group, every race and ethnic group. Rep. Kathy Castor made it clear that she doesn’t represent us. That is okay. Next election, we will find someone who does.”
Related: Flag Me.
DAVE HARDY: Obama Snitch Plan Illegal.
UPDATE: Power Line: Taking the dissident database seriously.
CONSERVATIVES who hate Sarah Palin.
JEANNE SHAHEEN: “Rights were trampled” by anti-Obamacare protesters, but pro-Obamacare protesters are fine.
WOMEN EAT LESS when men are present.
A TRAILER FOR The Blind Side.
EVAN COYNE MALONEY: Did the White House violate the Privacy Act.
FAMILY HEADS TO ALASKA on five-person bike.
BEES ARE getting drunk in the Smokies.
