GALLUP: Majority Says Dem Health Reform Tactics Were “Abuse Of Power.”

NEWSPAPERS: Substance vs. “Digital Razzle-Dazzle.”

HMM: Close Call With Death Leaves Its Mark On DNA. Stress shortens telomeres.

DANA LOESCH: Nominated for Miss Tea Party USA?

WHILE EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT TEA PARTIES, apparently it’s Hollywood that is a nest of neo-Nazi White Power types. Well, it’s more evidence than Keith Olbermann has come up with.

Related: Violent Blue-Dog Extremism.

MORE FROM MEGAN MCARDLE regarding Excessive Outrage on Retiree Subsidy Accounting. “Now we’ve changed it, we have made retiree health benefits more costly for the companies. That means that some of them will probably drop their benefits. Fine, if you think that’s good policy, but let’s not pretend this is some righteous campaign against dastardly companies. We were paying them to take expensive seniors off our hands. Now we want to reduce the payments.”

DISRUPTING MORAL JUDGMENT with magnetic fields?

A GLAUCOMA TEST in a contact lens.

INTRODUCING LINCOLN’S NEW MKZ Hybrid.

IN THE MAIL: Anywhere: How Global Connectivity is Revolutionizing the Way We Do Business.

PJTV: Beltway Bandits: Spending America into Oblivion.

THIS WILL BE GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY: Obama to open up offshore drilling. “The Obama administration’s plan adopts some drilling proposals floated by President George W. Bush near the end of his tenure, including opening much of the Atlantic and Arctic Coasts.” Good for him; just be sure it doesn’t get bogged down in fine print and environmental challenges . . . .

MICHAEL BARONE: Tea Partiers Embrace Liberty, Not Big Government.

A CATO VIDEO: 10 Rules For Dealing With The Police.

UPDATE: Oops — the video premiered at Cato, but it’s from Flex Your Rights. Sorry for the error.

SOME MILITIA TAXONOMY, via CNN. Plus, don’t trust content from Mark Potok. . . .

And I also recommend Robert Churchill’s book.

UPDATE: Some less-hyped history. “When left-wing Indymedia writer Andrew Mickel ambushed and killed Red Bluff Police Officer David Mobilio as he sat in his car on November 19, 2002, he did so for the exact same reasons that authorities attribute to the Hutaree. Mickel was trying to start a civil war as well, one that he hoped his fellow socialists and communists would support.” I don’t recall the nationwide media explosion over that case.

GONORRHEA becoming a superbug?

ANOTHER “UNEXPECTED” EMPLOYMENT DROP: “Private payrolls unexpectedly fell in March, according to data released Wednesday. Private-sector jobs in the U.S. dropped by 23,000 this month, according to a national employment report published Wednesday by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy firm Macroeconomic Advisers.”

UPDATE: That’s interesting, they’ve rewritten the story to take the “unexpectedly” out. Thanks to reader Gerald Gidcumb for the tip.

INCENTIVES: “Assume you are a teenager contemplating suicide. If you knew the 9 kids at school who were meanest to you would get criminally prosecuted if you killed yourself, would you be more likely to kill yourself or less? I don’t know enough about the psychology of suicide to answer my own question, but my intuitive sense is that self-murderers — or some self-murderers — intend to deal a severe blow to the people they leave behind. And knowing your enemies will be prosecuted might spur you on.”

STANDING UP TO THE FOOD POLICE, with Neapolitan Easter Pie.

Plus, a one-day sale on Ghirardelli chocolate.

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, Carol Shea-Porter charged with holding stacked-audience “Potemkin town halls.” I expect that a lot of members of Congress will be trying this, as public anger has not abated.

REASON TV: 3 Reasons Public-Sector Employees Are Killing The Economy. I think public-sector unions should be illegal.

DAVID KIRKHAM SENDS THIS TEA PARTY REPORT FROM UTAH:

Last night an reporter from CNN travelling with the Tea Party Express showed up at our shop to talk about the Tea Party Express that was coming through Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah today. (I was the local organizer for the Provo event). I gave him a tour through our shop and then took him for a drive up the canyon in one of our cars. We talked the entire time. We ended up speaking for about 4 hours. At the end of our conversation, he dropped a bomb, “You know, I decided to come and find the facts about you guys for myself. The facts are the facts. Keith Olberman is way out in left, crazy field! You guys aren’t anything like the media has portrayed you.” I replied, “I know.” He told me he was then going to write a story on the “real” Tea Party people he met on his travels through Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.

This morning the Tea Party Express stopped in Provo. We had about 500 people show up. I introduced Mayor John Curtis who was just elected to office (off-year elections for the cities here). He inherited a 5 million budget shortfall. The first thing he did was cut funding for the Miss Provo Pageant. He said they were welcome to have the pageant–just not on the city’s dime. He then asked the city employees to pick 5 guys from each department to figure out where they could save money in the budget–and they DID! He balanced the budget without raising taxes a penny, just like he promised before he was elected. He left his business to run for mayor. He obviously brought his business skills with him. There are some great ones out there.

The comment of the day (Provo) came from a reporter who asked me, “I am trying to take a picture of a counter protester’s sign and I can’t find one. Do you know where any are?”

In Salt Lake over 1000 people attended. A total of 2 counter protesters showed up. They left after 10 minutes.

I spoke with several media people today. This morning I was on KSL radio, in the afternoon I was on PJTV (coming soon, I gave you a shout out!) and tonight I was on ABC Channel 4 News. The Channel 4 News anchors were most respectful and exceptionally nice both on the air and off the air. Throughout the day I spoke with more print journalists than I can remember. I have hopes all these flared emotions of late will temper. It was a great day.

Here’s a pic from Salt Lake City.

A CONTRAST, FROM EVAN COYNE MALONEY: How the Media Treated Anti-Bush Protesters.

MICKEY KAUS: “When the parties are competing domestically mainly on the issue of who can rev up the economy, will the relatively small differences between them (neither party’s socialist, neither is for killing Social Security or Medicare or–soon–Obamacare) yield more vicious campaigning, faculty politics style?”

PRICING ANNOUNCED FOR THE NISSAN LEAF: $32, 780. There’s a lease option, too.

UPDATE: Yeah, a lot of people are quoting the price as $25,780 after the tax credits. But that’s not the price.