The good news is that flag-at-whitehouse.gov is dead.  Remember that little inbox for people to snitch to the government on their friends, family and neighbors who didn't want Obamacare rammed down their throats?  I call it "Snitchgate."  From Politico, we have:

The “flag” service was introduced Aug. 4, with a White House blog post saying: “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

To top it off, we have Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who plans to vote for a single-payer plan, stating:

I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.

Can you believe it?  Those who voted him into office by a very slim 2% margin deserve him, and his "I know what's better for you than you do" philosophy, but the rest of us in this country don't.

Here's the link to the video in case the embed doesn't work: 

David A. Patten's article on Newsmax that covered Obama's Town Hall meeting outside Bozeman on Friday has some interesting highlights.

Pundits are warning that a fact-challenged President Barack Obama is hurting his own credibility and further confusing the healthcare debate, after yet another litany of misstatements and dubious assertions during Friday's town hall meeting in Belgrade, Mont.

David Limbaugh wrote a recent column for Townhall about how Obama's credibility is already shot.  That was published the same day as the Montana meeting, but made no mention of the meeting itself.  Limbaugh writes:

Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?

How, indeed?  The Patten article goes on to mention that tickets for the event were not supposed to be handed out on a first-come-first served basis until 9am, yet had all been given out before 8am, to a lot of union people who were bused in from Chicago.  This is a tactic we've seen employed at other Town Hall meetings of late, hosted by members of congress.  In this case, Obama's union homies were bused in from Chicago, which, let's face it, is an awfully long way from Bozeman.  It just smells really fishy.

His strategy of reiterating talking points that already had been debunked or challenged drew heat from analysts who fault tactics they say are long on presidential charisma but sometimes short on credibility.

"Apparently he's more committed to 'selling' his plan than telling the truth," lamented Heritage Foundation spokesman Jim Weidman.

"Clever might have worked on less important issues, at least if the president had taken more care to maintain his credibility, which he has badly shot on healthcare," commentator Andy McCarthy fired off on a National Review blog.

Limbaugh isn't the only one who thinks Obama's credibility is shot.

"Something's a little fishy here," Jim Walters, eastern coordinator for Resistnet, a grass-roots organization affiliated with the Grassfire.org Alliance, told Newsmax prior to the event. "They weren't supposed to start handing out tickets until 9 o'clock. I had people up here at 8, and the tickets were already gone."

Walters estimated 1,000 people were gathered outside the airport near Bozeman, Mont., where the event was held. Walters told Newsmax that union members who arrived via bus from Chicago had initiated an altercation with town hall protesters. He said he saw police making several arrests.

What's unclear from the article is who was being arrested -- the union goons or the protesters.

The article quotes Rich Noyes, research director at th Media Research Center, states, regarding the Obama administration's bet that the MSM "remains sufficiently dominant to swing the debate in Obama's favor."

"It may have the boomerang effect of getting people more familiar with the facts than they otherwise would be, to the point where people may not come to the conclusion the network reporters and the White house want," Noyes says.

I think that's already happening.  Noyes is referring to people increasingly getting information from the internet, rather than the broadcast networks.  If that were not the case, would we see so many protesters at these Town Hall meetings?  I think not.

Limbaugh's article states:

All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.

They also wouldn't be busing in union goos to populate these meetings, and rough up the crowds of protesters.

The Newsmax article says Everett Wilkinson, a leader and spokesman for Tea Party Patriots . . .

. . . emphasizes that the Tea Party Patriots' movement transcends party lines. And despite efforts to paint town hall protesters as violent extremists, corporate lackeys, or GOP operatives, voters identify with them and sympathize with their concerns, he says.

Obviously.  The lefties wouldn't be panicking, were that not the case.  Until the unions started busing in members to these meetings, the attendees were mostly senior citizens and small business owners, of all political parties.  Why?  Because they were either retired, or had the flexibility to take time off work to attend.  Your average rank-and-file employee doesn't have that luxury, unless he or she blows a vacation day on it.  The fact that some attendees were able to take time off work certainly explains the business suits they were wearing; there's nothing sinister about it.

And, yes, Obama and the lefties are losing credibility.

Anne Flaherty reports on My Way news that members of congress were flooded with emails yesterday, to the point of shutting down the servers.

Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site.

I don't ever recall such a reaction from an electorate.  Sure, the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s roused a lot of people, but they were demonstrating on street corners and on college campuses, not flooding their representatives' snail mail boxes with letters of disgust.

Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House's chief administrative officer, which maintains the Web site, said traffic data was not available and could not be released without the lawmakers' consent.

But anecdotally, he said, the spike in e-mail volume was widely believed to be a result of the health care debate.

"It is clearly health care reform," Ventura said. "There's no doubt about it."

Duh.  Do.  Not.  Want.  Ever think it might be a good idea to scrap the bill(s), if this many people feel so strongly about it?  I think this is going to be a long, hot, August, even though climate-wise, it's been one of the coldest on record in a long time.

Democrats are trying desperately to regain control of the debate, with the White House posting a new Web site designed to dispel what it called "the misinformation and baseless smears that are cropping up daily." House Democratic aides have set up a health care war room out of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office.

The shriller you get, guys, the more it's obvious that you're losing your case for this health care reform baloney.  You have to set up a "war room," Steny?  War on your constituents, and those of fellow Democratics in the House?  Not cool.

Anne Flaherty reports on My Way news that members of congress were flooded with emails yesterday, to the point of shutting down the servers.

Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site.

I don't ever recall such a reaction from an electorate.  Sure, the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s roused a lot of people, but they were demonstrating on street corners and on college campuses, not flooding their representatives' snail mail boxes with letters of disgust.

Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House's chief administrative officer, which maintains the Web site, said traffic data was not available and could not be released without the lawmakers' consent.

But anecdotally, he said, the spike in e-mail volume was widely believed to be a result of the health care debate.

"It is clearly health care reform," Ventura said. "There's no doubt about it."

Duh.  Do.  Not.  Want.  Ever think it might be a good idea to scrap the bill(s), if this many people feel so strongly about it?  I think this is going to be a long, hot, August, even though climate-wise, it's been one of the coldest on record in a long time.

Democrats are trying desperately to regain control of the debate, with the White House posting a new Web site designed to dispel what it called "the misinformation and baseless smears that are cropping up daily." House Democratic aides have set up a health care war room out of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office.

The shriller you get, guys, the more it's obvious that you're losing your case for this health care reform baloney.  You have to set up a "war room," Steny?  War on your constituents, and those of fellow Democratics in the House?  Not cool.

This article from the AP states that the Senate health care bill has dropped the provision for end-of-life counseling.

Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.

As I mentioned in my previous post, even Camille Paglia realizes that Sarah Palin's death squad metaphor is merely capturing Americans' collective unease with potentially ceding end-of-life decisions to a government-run national heath care system.

For more than a decade in Congress, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer . . . So it is something of a surprise to the Portland Democrat that he has earned a new measure of fame in recent days — as author of a health-care provision that some critics say would set up a "death panel."

That's pushing it, but it does have potential for abuse, if patients are pushed into making such decisions by their doctors.

Blumenauer responds:

In nearly four decades of public life, "this is the starkest example I've ever seen of how, if we're not careful, political discourse dissolves into some type of partisan cage-fighting, where there are no rules and anything goes," said Blumenauer, 60.

Palin's response was this:

"With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," she said, noting that the provision authorizes consultations whenever a Medicare recipient's health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home.

Blumenauer defends his position thusly:

Blumenauer said the measure he supports would merely allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. Topics include living wills, designating a close relative or a trusted friend as a health care proxy and information about pain medications for chronic discomfort.

What on earth ever happened to people making these decisions for themselves, with their family members, and drawing up the paperwork either with a lawyer, or by using one of the sample forms available from various sites online?  Doctors don't already have enough to do treating their patients without having to play the role of lawyer, for which they don't have a degree and are not licensed to practice, as well?  It's absurd.  Let the doctors treat patients, and let the lawyers do the legal paperwork.

Blumenauer conters with this:

"This has taken on an outsized significance and so more people are paying attention to it than ever before," Blumenauer said. "I think you will see more people use this to say, 'What will happen to me if I am in an accident? Here's what I want.' More people are going to take matters into their own hands."

If that's the objective of the provision, then draft a bill requiring all citizens who are no longer minors to have such documents.  Make the forms available through congressional representatives' offices, and let those who don't have internet access and a printer print them out at their local library.  Don't make it part of a nationalized health care system.  And don't push lawyer duties onto doctors.

What I find really confusing though, is that the article switches back and forth between the Senate and Congress bills, and quotes from Senators and Representatives.  It sounds like the provision has only been dropped from the Senate version, and not from any of the ones floating around in the House.

Granted, the AP is one of the MSM news outlets, so the article has a liberal bias to begin with.  But, it really astounds me that anyone with a journalism degree is so devoid of clarity, and full of "reporting" that is just plain confusing.  There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension.  The author of the piece was not given a byline -- just an AP dateline -- but, the article was about as clear as a potter's clay slurry.  A news article shouldn't require the reader to examine the subtext, and possibly re-read several paragraphs to digest it all, as if it was classic literature.

I almost never agree with Camille Paglia, but I have to hand it to her this time around.  Her article on Salon.com titled "Obama's Healtchare Horror" blasts Obama and the health care bill that the Democrats are trying to ram through Congress.  She even takes a jab at Nancy Pelosi.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens.

Even Paglia considers the protests that have been taking place at Town Hall meetings across the country to be perfectly legitimate.

Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation . . .

Yes.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way?

Good question.

How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

Judging by the Town Hall meeting protests, and the reaction from members of congress, our representatives are shocked that their constituents are so out of touch with their benevolence.  I smell more than a whiff of panic in the air.  Somehow, though, I fail to see how bussing in union goons to fill Town Hall meetings, and locking out their constituents is going to help them get re-elected.  There was no violence at these meetings until the SEIU showed up.

Speaking about Republicans, Paglia states:

Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.

That's not true.  House Republicans proposed their own version of health care reform -- HR 3400, Empowering Patients First Act.  Can't say I really blame Paglia for not doing her research on it, since most mainstream media outlets aren't giving it any coverage.  To CBS's credit, however, it did provide a link to the bill.

And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.

They're only committed to freedom of thought and speech from those who agree with them.  Otherwise, all bets are off.  Witness the union goons sent in to silence dissent.

The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast.

Right you are, Ms. Paglia.

I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives.

A brilliant, if obvious, deduction.

What was needed for reform was an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Of course, it didn't help matters that, just when he needed maximum momentum on healthcare, Obama made the terrible gaffe of declaring that, even without his knowing the full facts, Cambridge, Mass., police had acted "stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama's automatic identification with the pampered Harvard elite (wildly unpopular with most sensible people), as well as his insulting condescension toward an officer doing his often dangerous duty, did serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the president's standing. The strained, prissy beer summit in the White House garden afterward didn't help. Is that the Obama notion of hospitality? Another staff breakdown.

Ms. Paglia is absolutely right about both of the points she made in those paragraphs.  "Facile, vulgar innuendos" seems to be the only way our Chicago-on-the-Patomac community-organizer-in-chief knows how to operate.  Of course, it also doesn't help that Obama admitted to not knowing what was even in the health scare bill he wants rammed through congress at all costs.  And, yes, those costs will be plenty, for a wildly inefficient system.

Regarding Gates and the "beer summit," most of the coverage I've read about it seemed to ridicule both the summit itself, and the fact that Obama stuck his nose smack dab into a local matter in Boston that didn't concern him as President.  I suspect Biden was invited simply to make the racial quota even, but still, it was three guys ganging up on a cop who did nothing more than respond to a report of a break-in.

It was the wealthy, lordly Gates who committed the first offense by instantly and evidently hysterically defaming the character of the officer who arrived at his door to investigate the report of a break-in. There was no excuse for Gates' loud and cheap charges of racism, which he should have immediately apologized for the next day, instead of threatening lawsuits and self-aggrandizing television exposés.

Amen.  Ms. Paglia begins to stray from her original topic of the health care bill, but her article is an opinion piece, not a news article.  And, she's absolutely right.

When the director of the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County cancelled its agreement with several urban day camps to use its private pool, the controversy was portrayed entirely in racial terms. There were uninvestigated allegations of remarks about "black kids" made by white mothers who ordered their children out of the pool, and the racial theme was intensified by the director's inept description of the "complexion" of the pool having been changed -- which may simply have been a whopper of a Freudian slip.

Personally, I think that's exactly what it was.

I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way!

That pretty much sums up the incident.  The swim club at which it happened isn't very far away from where I live.  Although I'm not familiar with the town in which the swim club is, characterizing it as a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia is accurate.

The rest of Ms. Paglia's article strays even further, into music and the arts, and is thus irrelevant to this particular blog entry of mine.

As previously stated, I almost never agree with her, but she's smack on in this particular article of hers.  The health care bill is abhorrent, as is the way Obama's trying to ram it through without knowing what's in it.  Members of congress' behavior, doing their best to stifle dissenting opinions (by people who hope to get re-elected by the constituents they're locking out of Town Hall meetings, and roughing up, courtesy of union goons), is also abhorrent.  If they can't be bothered reading the bill upon which they were asked to vote, there's no rationale for walking into contentious Town Hall meetings to discuss the bill, armed with nothing other than talking points they were spoon-fed from the Obama administration -- and union goons.

Is congress out of touch with its constituents?  To be facetious -- just a little.  Are our representatives panicking?  Obviously.  Nobody busses in thugs to beat up the people who helped get them elected, and gives the goons reserved seating, if that's not the case.  Keep it up kids -- you just might get kicked out of congress, and have to enroll in that scary health plan you want to impose on the rest of us.  Karma.  It's a female dog.