The American people are exercising their first amendment rights. They are using their RIGHT to protest and show their distaste not only of this healthcare debate but of what is happening to our country. Don’t be fooled, this IS a path towards a Socialistic, Marxist, Communistic society. Call it what you will this dismissive attitude of the American people is not going to stand. Being dismissive, calling patriots mobsters, evil mongers, terrorists etc. by the White House is unheard of. We are not an organized mob, we don’t Astroturf, and we aren’t getting paid or sent. That is what liberals do. It’s so hard for them to understand that we don’t want Government running our lives. WE want to live the American dream so stop mucking up the works and fix the country!

“You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

Democrat Martha Coakley was on with Ken Pittman from WBSM in Massachusetts today. Martha told Ken that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic then…
“You probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

 From the interview:

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.

Martha Coakley: No we have a seperation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.

Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.

Martha Coakley: (……uh, eh…um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.

The entire interview is posted here.

Updates at Gateway Pundit.

The Democratic National Committee released a web video yesterday entitled "Enough of the Mob," which suggests that Republicans and their allies are "organizing angry mobs" to "destroy President Obama and stop the change Americans voted for."

The video concludes by asking supporters to call the Republican Party and "tell them you've had enough of the mob." The phone number of the Republican National Committee then appears onscreen. Those who call the number are told to press one if they are calling in regard to the DNC video. When they do, they are told to call a different phone number "to give us your feedback on the Democratic National Committee's advertisement." Concludes the recording: "Thanks so much and have a great day."

The phone number that callers are given, however, is the main number of the DNC. Callers are not informed of this fact. At no point does the RNC allow callers to register their complaints. (The situation was first flagged by the satire site Wonkette.)

I asked RNC chairman Michael Steele, who held a conference call this afternoon, why the RNC is redirecting the callers, noting that Republicans believe Americans should have the right to complain to Democrats at town hall meetings and elsewhere. Steele responded that "we are not inciting anyone to go out and disrupt anything."  "We are encouraging people to visit their congressman or their senator," he said. "As citizens they have a right to express their points of view."

Steele, sounding angry, then said, "don't sit there and think that you're going to direct a bunch of angry liberals to call the RNC when I know full well what that's all about." He added that he gets "the joke." Steele went on to complain about the "arrogance" of an Obama administration that he said was looking down its nose at his mother, sister, family members and coworkers. "To sit back and say that this is some Republican cabal is a bunch of baloney," he said. "And you can substitute that B for something else if you want."

Steele added that callers should "talk to your own party because they're the ones that are ginning this nonsense up."  He concluded his comments by saying, "and besides, I thought it was a good idea."

"Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the President is speaking?"

Um Katie it is called the 2nd amendment. We have the right to bring a freaking gun anywhere as long as we have a permit! God this woman is ain idiot.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

PHOENIX (AP) - About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday—the latest incidents in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president. Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested. The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said. Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who was monitoring the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends." Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg. "It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."  Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado. Authorities in Montana said Monday they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama's health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority. Heather Benjamin of Denver's Mesa County sheriff's department, the lead agency during Obama's visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. A permit is required if the weapon is carried concealed. Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

"To me, this is craziness," he said. "When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you're just making the situation dangerous for everyone." He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. "The more guns we see at more events like this, there's more potential for something tragic happening," he said. A call to a Secret Service spokesman was not immediately returned Monday.

I wonder if the people who actualy protested this seen some of the videos where people are getting attacked by the SEIU?

This is the biggest piece of crap EVER. This has been going on since Obama was first nominated. The "Hate" group mentality is NOTHING more than a way for SCARE people into thinking that if you speak out about this man's policies that you are racist. Well let me tell you it won't work. Race is NOT the issue and only cowards and desperation will invoke this fallacy.

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges. 

The Secret Service is investigating a Maryland man who held a sign reading "Death to Obama" and "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids" outside a town hall meeting this week. And in New Hampshire, another man stood across the street from a Presidential town hall with his gun on full display.

Los Angeles police officers apprehended a man Thursday after a standoff with him inside a red Volkswagen Bug car in Westwood, CA – the latest disturbing case even though officials said the man had mental problems.

"I don't think these are simply people who are mentally ill or off their rocker," Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told ABC News of those behind the threats. "In a very real sense they represent a genuine reaction, a genuine backlash against Obama." Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s – and are now using YouTube, rock music and the Internet to recruit members and spread hate and fear - shouldn't be ignored. "It's certainly a scary time," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett, now an ABC News consultant. Garrett said the Secret Service "cannot afford to pass on anyone," and he believes "they really do fear that something could happen to [Obama]." Garrett said statements like one recently made by controversial radio host Rush Limbaugh comparing a logo for the White House plan to a Nazi symbol "legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something."

"And if you go and take a look at this, you will find that the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo," Limbaugh said. Later, someone painted a swastika outside the office of Congressman David Scott of Georgia, one of Obama's supporters.

Mark Potok is a leftist NOBODY who likes to tout how he "tracks" these groups and he as been exposed.

This is 100% total manufactured BS.  It all comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a guy named Mark Potok. I don't know how to pronounce his name but Mark Potok is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project.  He's a columnist at the Huffington Post.  He is the source of all of these hate crime stories, and he has been for years.  There is also an article at ABC posted by Brian Ross on their website.  Much of this article has been dutifully spouted almost word-for-word in literally dozens of articles generated by Mr. Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center.  They only differ, really, in citing contemporary details to make the story seem fresh, but they're ultimately the same claims that Potok has been making from the start.  If you Google "Potok" and "hate" and "racism," it returns 21,600 hits.  This guy has been trying to gin this up since before Obama was inaugurated.  In fact, even since before Obama was elected.  This whole thing is calculated to divide and distract.  It indicates just how unhinged and out of whack the White House is on this.

NOTE: The ironically wealthy Southern Poverty Law Center (truly a “hate” group in its own right) has now attacked Oath Keepers, using the same tired tactic of deliberately lumping us in with racists and neo-nazis (as if all those who oppose anything Obama does just MUST be racists down inside).  Here is the SPLC screed: Link

Below is the response of Sheriff Richard Mack, one of our keynote speakers on April 19, who is given special attention in the smear attack. I’ll have more to say on the other side. – Stewart Rhodes.

In all the years that Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center (a name to this day I still don’t understand) have been writing about me, not once has anyone in Dees’ office nor he personally, ever made any attempt to contact me to get my side of the “information” they put out about me. Dees has claimed that I am some icon of the militias and quite honestly, I have no idea where he gets this stuff. I have had no contact with any militia group and have never been a member of any militia. What little I do know about militia groups is that they do appear to be much more honorable people than Morris Dees. The SPLC ought to follow the rules of common decency and stop spreading their own hate speech about people they know very little about.

Anyone who has heard me speak at the Oath Keepers ceremony in Lexington or anywhere else in the country, know that I abhor violence and have never advocated or encouraged such tactics. In fact, at the Lexington Oath Keepers event I spoke of my admiration for Rosa Parks and how we should all follow her example. What does the SPLC call Rosa Parks? I simply suggest that we should all stand against stupid laws just as she did; and yes, even if some of those laws today are IRS tax codes, many of which are the epitome of stupidity.

If Morris Dees and his SPLC believe the words in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are offensive and extreme, then I suggest he find a place to live that is not given to such “hate speech.” Those of us who do not believe in putting Americans in concentration camps (as the government did to Japanese Americans during WWII) or don’t believe in gun control or out of control spending or bailouts for Wallstreet criminals or the trampling of our freedoms by those in office who swore to protect the same, just because we don’t believe in such things does not make us racists. Mr. Dees, why don’t you tell us all how much money you have made by spreading such misinformation?

I challenge Morris Dees to an honest open debate about any or all of these issues. If he really believes his information to be true; he should have no problem accepting my offer.

Sheriff Richard Mack (RET)

It’s this week’s fashion on the left, and among such fashionably contemplative moderates as Mort Kondracke, to blast Rush Limbaugh for comparing Democrats to the Nazis. It’s no surprise that the Obama hardcores are misrepresenting the sequence and substance of events, but I would have hoped that Kondracke would at least have noted that Rush’s comparison — even if Kondracke thought it unwise — was neither gratuitous nor demagogic.

To recap, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, started this episode by comparing American citizens who oppose Obamacare to the Nazis and asserting that her political opponents were donning “swastikas.” (Sen. Barbara Boxer simultaneously ripped Obamacare dissenters for their Brooks Brothers suits — it’s not altogether clear where on the twill the swastika goes.) Pelosi’s tactic was the shopworn smear we on the right have dealt with for six decades. There is no conceivable substantive connection between opposition to Obamacare and German National Socialism — they are antithetical. By invoking the Nazis, Pelosi was patently slandering dissenters as racist thugs. Rush responded, and the response did not smear Democrats. He repeatedly and explicitly qualified that no one was saying Obama was Hitler, that Pelosi was Goebbels, or that the Democrats were engaged in the genocidal barbarity of the Third Reich. The comparison he drew was a substantive one: between the Democrats’ proposal for socialized medicine and the German installation of socialized medicine beginning with Bismarck and reaching its shocking apotheosis with Hitler’s National Socialism. (A transcript of what he actually contended is here, and his website has other relevant transcripts, since the argument was reiterated other times during the week.) The point was to show that if Pelosi wanted to engage in Nazi comparisons, the health-care policies of Nazi Germany had far more in common with the health-care policies of the Democrats than with those of the conservative opposition, which wants health care kept private and reforms to be market-based.

Whether you agree with that or not (I happen to think it’s undeniable), Rush was also making a larger point that is not only fair argument but essential argument. There is a trajectory of socialism, regardless of the good intentions of many socialists. As he framed it, you take things such as health care, things that are traditionally understood as within the ambit of individual liberty and free choice; you move such things into the ambit of state responsibility as the welfare state emerges and grows, on the theory that it is government’s responsibility to provide for everyone’s needs (by redistributing resources); as more things are moved from private to public control, the state by definition becomes totalitarian; and, inexorably, the totalitarian state gets bad leaders and the society comes to reflect the policy choices of those leaders.

Now, we can argue until the end of time about whether that trajectory really exists and whether it is inevitable. But however you come out, it is an argument very much worth having. It goes to what kind of society we are going to be, to what the proper relationship between the citizen and the state is.

Nazi Germany is a useful historical example of socialism run amok. The genocide and terrorism ultimately practiced by the Nazis were horrible — that goes without saying. But National Socialism went on for a dozen years, it was the last stage in a progressive nationalization of German society, and there was a lot more to it than genocide and terrorism. It cannot be that because there was genocide and terrorism, the socialist aspects of National Socialism are outside the lines of acceptable political discourse. Given the immense popularity of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, one of the most important political books of the last quarter-century, it doesn’t look like Americans are as convinced as Mort Kondracke seems to be that these comparisons are verboten.

CONTINUED    1    2  Next >

WISH-TV: Indiana Congressman Baron Hill is on the hot seat in the health care reform debate after making controversial comments about town hall protesters. "They have only one purpose in mind and that's to blow up the meetings that are being held and that serves no one, ladies and gentlemen," said Hill. Hill recently called them political terrorists, a term he avoided in his speech but not in a 24-Hour News 8 interview. "If you just want to blow up a meeting that's a political terrorist," said Hill.

GOP demanding apology from Baron Hill

Town hall protesters are "evil-mongers," says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily. Such "evil-mongers" are using "lies, innuendo and rumor," to drown out rational debate, Reid said. "It was an original with me," Reid said of the term. "I maybe could have been less descriptive," he said, adding that "I doubt you'll hear it from me again." Nevertheless, Reid worked in the word one more time during the interview. "I feel I haven't done anything to embarrass [my children]," Reid joked. "Except maybe call somebody an evil-monger."

Americans who want to express their opinions on health care reform at town halls across the country are encountering a host of roadblocks, ranging from fake schedules to a demand that they show their driver's licenses or photo identification. Supporters of President Obama's plan say they are pushing back against opposition that is disruptive and designed to shut down debate. But opponents say the supporters' tactics are underhanded and designed to undermine democracy in action.

In Texas, Rep. Gene Green's office is requiring town hall attendees to present a photo ID that proves they live in his district. On his Web site, Green says "due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents ... and verifying residency by requiring photo identification." Green's spokeswoman, Brenda Arredondo, told FOXNews.com that the Democratic congressman enacted the policy after she and other staffers overheard attendees saying they were going to keep disrupting the town halls. After the policy went into effect at the fourth town hall Green hosted this month, she said eight out of 10 attendees were found not to be constituents.

They were allowed to stay, she said, leading to the same outbursts seen at the other three. But they won't be allowed to attend the fifth one, she said. "Those people are welcome to call their members of Congress and voice their opinions," she said, adding that Green is trying to listen to his constituents. She said the policy is not intended to block opponents of health care reform. "If you want to come yell and scream and are constituents, we obviously more than welcome your voice," she said. "It's not to silence anyone's voice from the district."

In Illinois, two Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Obama this week complaining that Democratic organizers scheduled meetings between them and their constituents without ever notifying them, misleading their constituents into going to town halls on the wrong day. Illinois Reps. Mark Kirk and Judy Biggert wrote that their constituents had apparently signed up for meetings to discuss health care reform with them after receiving an Aug. 9 e-mail from BarackObama.com urging them to do so. "However, the names of our constituents and the times they wished to visit were never communicated to us," the letter said.

As a result, the lawmakers claimed more than 20 constituents came to their district offices on Monday. "When they learned neither the White House, the Democratic National Committee nor Organizing for America had passed their request to our offices, they were understandably confused and upset with the BarackObama.com e-mail they had received," they wrote. They urged the organizers not to keep them in the dark in the future.

In response, Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement saying that the OFA members were not told to go to offices unannounced.

"They are mischaracterizing this -- which is not surprising if you look at the falsehoods Republicans are spreading on this issue," he wrote. "OFA sent an e-mail to all its supporters asking them to sign up for drop bys with every House and Senate office -- Democrat and Republican -- to drop off a flyer in support of heath insurance reform." Woodhouse said the e-mail advised supporters that "they should call ahead to make sure the office was open and that if they wanted to do more than drop by the office they should schedule a meeting on their own."

Health Care for America Now, a coalition group organizing support for Obama's proposal, e-mailed a four-page memo to activists across the country on how to provide "cover" to lawmakers at the town halls. The group, whose members include ACORN, the Service Employees International Union and the National Council of La Raza, urged activists to contact lawmakers before the town halls to plan ways to preempt opposition.

"Ask the member's staff what would be most helpful and talk through a strategy for making sure the right messages don't get drowned out by chaotic protesters," field director Margarida Jorge wrote. "Address the [member of Congress] directly with a positive message: Remember, these members need cover and they are getting beaten up by right wing zealots in these meetings." Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for HCAN, told FOXNews.com that the group sent the memo after many of its 120 field organizers in 44 states encountered screaming and shouting at the town halls.

"Not that the opposition caught anyone off guard," she said. "The level of screaming and shouting and lack of intelligent discourse caught people off guard." Schechner noted that the memo does not emphasize any one tactic, but rather coordination with lawmakers to facilitate the town hall. She rejected the notion that the memo is designed to undermine democracy. "We would love to have more conversation," she said. "What undermines democracy is the screaming and yelling and not allowing people to talk. "There's a very important detail being lost here. There are details of health care not being explained because no one can get a word in edgewise," she said, adding that the town halls are intended for lawmakers to explain those details. "That legitimate conversation is not happening because there's such an angry din of noise."

Schechner said the memo has already helping lawmakers like Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who was rushed by protesters at earlier town halls where one held a sign showing Doggett with devil's horns. But now the town halls are more orderly, she said.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Steny Hoyer have called the constituents speaking out against ObamaCare at town halls “un-American,” and that didn’t slow them down. Will calling them “racists” do it? MS-NBC’s Ed Schultz tosses a softball to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), last seen being flummoxed by his own constituents last week. At the time, Dingell dismissed his critics as “infiltrators.” Today, they’re the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.

What message has the House Democratic leadership sent this week to voters in their district? If you show up to town halls to criticize us, you’re un-American Klan members. Somewhere in here, there’s a killer GOP television spot just itching to run in the summer of 2010.

This is rich. White House smear merchants and their nutroots water-carriers are decrying “corporate lobbyists” funded by the evil health care industry. Referring to Rick Scott, chairman of Conservatives for Patients Rights and former Columbia/HCA executive, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs jeered: “I think you’ve got somebody who’s very involved, a leader of that group that’s very involved in the status quo, a CEO that used to run a health care company that was fined by the federal government $1.7 billion for fraud. I think that’s a lot of what you need to know about the motives of that group.”

Just to make the Gibbs’ moral equation clear:

1) Ties to the health care industry = suspect motives.

2) Ties to health care companies involved in government settlements = suspect motives.

Keep this in mind as you read two excerpts below from Culture of Corruption about the legal and financial work of Attorney General Eric Holder and health care czar Nancy DeParle. In Obama World, some health care industry ties are less suspect than others.

***

From Chapter 4: Meet the Mess: Inside the Crooked Cabinet…

Among the other eyebrow-raising cases [Attorney General Eric] Holder took on at Covington & Burling:…

*Forging a massive settlement for Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, with the state of West Virginia in 2004. The state accused the drugmaker of deceptively marking OxyContin as safe and effective for minor pain. The firm’s marketing practices, the state maintained, led to West Virginia users becoming addicted to the drug. State attorney general Darrell McGraw Jr., a Democrat, filed suit. In an article entitled, “Why Eric Holder Represents What’s Wrong with Washington,” liberal columnist David Corn described Holder’s pivotal role in negotiating a settlement that spared executives a criminal trial:

This suit was a serious threat to the drugmaker, and it eventually called in Holder. And in November 2004, the morning that the case was about to go to trial, Holder helped negotiate a settlement. Working in the judge’s chambers in West Virginia, he forged an agreement under which the firm would have to pay $10 million over four years into drug abuse and education programs in West Virginia. Purdue would not have to admit any wrongdoing. (Days earlier, the firm had offered the state about $2 million to settle; McGraw had turned down Purdue and had not bothered to produce a counter-offer.)

The settlement was a big win for the company. Ten million dollars was a piddling amount compared to what Purdue was reaping from OxyContin sales. More important, this settlement helped keep the lid on the firm’s criminal activities. There would be no trial—and no public release of documents or testimony about the company’s actions, which were already being investigated by federal prosecutors. In late 2002, the feds had begun an investigation of Purdue, with the first of what would be nearly 600 subpoenas for corporate records related to the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of OxyContin.

In May 2007, the company and its three top executives pleaded guilty to federal charges of fraudulently marketing OxyContin by claiming it was less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause withdrawal symptoms. Purdue and the three execs agreed to pay fines of $634.5 million.

 

 

*Brokering a settlement for pharmaceutical kingpin Merck, which had been besieged by multiple state lawsuits over Medicaid overbilling and doctor kickbacks involving four popular drugs. Merck admitted no wrongdoing, paying $671 million to make whistleblowers, state probes over their pricing, and bribery charges go away.

From Chapter 5: Backroom Buddies: Dancing with the Czars…

Despite President Obama’s loud denunciations of the revolving-door lobbyist culture in Washington, [health care czar Nancy] DeParle’s industry ties didn’t bother the White House in the least. DeParle served as an investment advisor at JP Morgan Partners, LLC, a private equity division of a private equity division of JP Morgan Chase & Co; sat on the board of directors at Boston Scientific Corporation and Cerner Corporation; and held directorships at Accredo Health Group Inc. (now owned by Medco Health Solutions Inc.), Triad Hospitals (now part of Community Health Systems), Guidant Corporation (now part of Boston Scientific), and DaVita Corporation, among others. In all, she sat on at least 10 ten boards while advising JP Morgan and working as managing director at a private equity firm, CCMP Capital. From 2002 to 2008, while holding all those titles, DeParle also served as a member of the government-chartered Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC), an influential panel that advises Congress on what Medicare should cover and at what price.

In 2006 and 2007 alone, DeParle collected at least $3.5 million from fees and the sale and awards of stock from health-care businesses whose businesses will likely fall under her jurisdiction, according to the Chicago Tribune. That amount likely represents a small portion of DeParle’s corporate earnings since 2001.

Philip Klein of The American Spectator concluded: “”[DeParle’s] journey from the public sector to the private sector and back again would seem to represent the type of revolving-door relationship between Washington and corporate America that President Obama pledged to put an end to during the campaign and in an executive order.”” The point is not that administration officials should be barred if they have any ties to business or any past lobbying experience that might raise conflict-of-interest questions. Indeed, DeParle’s significant private-sector experience arguably is could be a strength. The point is that the Obama administration has taken a self-aggrandizing stand against hiring such players…while hiring them left and right.

As with previous czar questions, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs shrugged off concerns about DeParle’s industry ties:

Question: Robert, I just wanted to ask about Nancy DeParle and the fact that she sits on corporate boards that have health and medical-related interests. Is that— — does the administration view that as any potential conflict of interest? Are there any potential problems there?

MR. GIBBS: No. I mean, obviously, the White House has confidence in her and her abilities as part of the health care reform effort here.

 

 

DeParle, the White House announced, would not need a waiver to the president’s famous executive order requiring appointees to pledge not to participate “in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to any my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts”” for a period of two years from the date of his or her appointment. The health czar will simply resign from all her corporate boards and directorships and recuse herself from any issue that “would directly impact in a significant way any of the companies for which she was a director,” according to an anonymous administration official quoted by Politico.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor stated that “”Nancy will recuse from each and every particular matter involving a specific company on whose board she served.””

Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. It’s hard to imagine any health care reform-related issue that won’t involve one of DeParle’s vast array of former employers, clients, and corporate boards in the health care industry.

She earned at least $376,000 from Cerner Corporation., for example, which specializes in health information technology. As health czar, DeParle will have unmeasured clout in directing $19 billion of federal stimulus money earmarked for, yes, health information technology. GOP Rep. Congressman Darrell Issa of California stated the obvious: “There’’s no question that there will be a large presidential earmark for integrating a data system to try to reduce costs to try to put people’’s health records all into a single data base. A lot of these efficiencies, although merited, are going to lead to picking very large multibillion dollar winners, and she’’s going to be at the center of it all.” Financial writer Richard Gibbons notes that Cerner’s annual revenues are about $1.7 billion, “so even a fraction of the $19 billion can make a huge difference to Cerner’s bottom line.”

Nevertheless, liberal Beltway supporters see no reason for concern. An article in The Hill, quoting various ethics experts giving the health czar a pass, declared, “DeParle’s industry ties a non-issue.” Would these ethics experts have been equally sanguine if the Bush Administration had appointed a drug industry official to head up the Food and Drug Administration or an oil executive to head up the Department of Energy?

This article is by Peggy Noonan, one of my least favorite pundits. But it's relevant and very long, so I'm taking snippets.  

We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.

They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.

In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.

And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.

What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed,” that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.

The Democratic National Committee chimed in with an incendiary Web video whose script reads, “The right wing extremist Republican base is back.” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement that said the Republicans “are inciting angry mobs of . . . right wing extremists” who are “not reflective of where the American people are.”

But most damagingly to political civility, and even our political tradition, was the new White House email address to which citizens are asked to report instances of “disinformation” in the health-care debate: If you receive an email or see something on the Web about health-care reform that seems “fishy,” you can send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. The White House said it was merely trying to fight “intentionally misleading” information.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Wednesday wrote to the president saying he feared that citizens’ engagement could be “chilled” by the effort. He’s right, it could. He also accused the White House of compiling an “enemies list.” If so, they’re being awfully public about it, but as Byron York at the Washington Examiner pointed, the emails collected could become a “dissident database.”

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.

The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.

And frankly they ought to think about backing off. The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they’re all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what’s going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation’s in crisis, the timing is wrong, we’ll turn to it again—but not now. We’ll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.

You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up. Even Congress’s would. Because they’d look responsive, deliberative and even wise. Discretion is the better part of valor.

Absent that, and let’s assume that won’t happen, the health-care protesters have to make sure they don’t get too hot, or get out of hand. They haven’t so far, they’ve been burly and full of debate, with plenty of booing. This is democracy’s great barbaric yawp. But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s critics.

Somehow that doesn’t sound like a peace initiative.

Are you opposed to ObamaCare?  Willing to attend a town hall to express your disapproval?  Odds are good you're a racist.  Just ask Cynthia Tucker . . . As Clay Waters has noted, Paul Krugman alleges that racist motives are at the heart of the town hall protests against ObamaCare.  On this evening's Hardball, Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was willing to get specific, estimating that "45 to 65%" of the protesters are motivated by racism.

View video here.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Put 100 of these people in a room. Strap them into gurneys.  Inject them with sodium pentathol. How many of them would say "I don't like the idea of having a black president"? What percentage?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: Oh, I'm just guessing. This is just off the cuff. I think 45 to 65% of the people who appear at these groups are people who will never be comfortable with the idea of a black president.

What a bunch of Bull Crap! But of course not surprising. It's always about race. Let's just skip the facts or the issues. Let's just run head on towards the cliff. Pathetic.

Another video that catches some of the thugs pushing around citizens –

[Notice the two guys in SEIU shirts with the "pro health care" message on front - Editor]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Kenneth Gladney, 38, a conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them.

He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.

More Video Here LINK.

Mini-UPDATE: Gladney and his attorney were on the Neil Cavuto Show. The three men and the large woman in SEIU t-shirts all kicked and hit Gladney. Gladney is taking legal action against the SEIU and the four individuals identified.

Peaceful presser today for Kenneth Gladney

Hundreds of Gadsen flag-waving citizens turned up at the Pershing Street address of the SEIU headquarters for a peaceful demonstration and press conference for Kenneth Gladney, the man who was videotaped being beaten by men wearing blue SEIU shirts in the parking lot following Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall on aging. Gladney suffered multiple injuries as a result and required hospitalization. He was released the following morning.

Gladney appeared in with his attorney, David Brown, and also brought a box of Gadsen flags to distribute. His attackers came at him for distributing the flags and hurled racial slurs; one woman arrested in the melee is on camera referring to his ethnicity pejoratively.

Several people, including myself, said a few words following Bill’s condemnation of Gladney’s treatment. Invitations were extended to the NAACP and ACLU to stand with us and decry violence as a means of debate; neither organization sent a representative.

Developing, video and more photos on the way.

Compare Kenneth Gladney’s situation with that of Henry Louis Gates. So far, I haven’t heard the president come out and accuse the Mehlville police for acting “stupidly.”

Instead of issuing an apology, SEIU instead spent all night cobbling together a video, careful to omit their aggression and also the fact that one of their shirt-wearing people was arrested for assault.

(Josh has part of my speech, Craig as well.)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's most powerful Democrat on Thursday scolded health care protesters dogging his party's lawmakers at local meetings, arguing that some critics on the political right have run out of ideas—and ditched their civic manners. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada accused the protesters of trying to "sabotage" the democratic process.

A small group of lawmakers blocked out the fevered rhetoric and vowed to keep pursuing an elusive bipartisan deal on a broad remaking of the health care system. With encouragement from President Barack Obama and business leaders, the group reported progress on financing an overhaul. But as polls show Obama's approach losing favor with voters—particularly independents—Democrats are talking more openly about the possibility of moving legislation without Republican support. Energized conservative activists said they'll keep up their fight against Obama's effort. The president wants to use the government's clout to subsidize coverage for millions now uninsured, regulate insurance companies more closely and attempt to slow the rise of medical costs. The protesters' shouts and chants, captured on amateur video, went viral on the Internet.

The Republican Party says it's not behind the protests, but Reid scoffed at the notion that the protesters reflect grass-roots sentiment. He held up a piece of artificial turf during a session with reporters. "These are nothing more than destructive efforts to interrupt a debate that we should have, and are having," Reid said. "They are doing this because they don't have any better ideas. They have no interest in letting the negotiators, even though few in number, negotiate. It's really simple: they're taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers ... and insurance rackets."

Republicans answered back.

"All the polls show there is serious concern, if not outright opposition, to the president's health care plan," said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "Democrats are ginning up this cynical shell game." Boehner had said last week the Democrats would be in for a hot summer on health care. Republicans say the political pressure is also on them, from unions and liberal activists targeting conservative lawmakers. Obama's top political adviser, David Axelrod, participated in a Capitol Hill session at which senators were shown video of some of the boisterous town-hall meetings, and discussed how to respond to disruptions.

"It's a challenge, no question about it, and you've got to get out there and make the case," Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said afterward. "This is not the time for the faint-hearted." Democrats and the White House are claiming that the sometimes rowdy protests that have disrupted Democratic lawmakers' meetings and health care events around the country are largely orchestrated from afar by insurers, lobbyists, Republican Party activists and others.

Some of the activists who've shown up at town-hall meetings held recently by Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and other lawmakers are affiliated with loosely connected right-leaning groups, including Conservatives for Patients' Rights and Americans for Prosperity, according to officials at those groups. Some of the activists say they came together during the "Tea Party" anti-big-government protests that happened earlier this year, and they've formed small groups and stayed in touch over e-mail, Facebook and in other ways.

But they insist they're part of a ground-level movement that represents real frustration with government spending and growth. About 20 protesters gathered in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Thursday to let Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy know they oppose the health care plans in Washington. They carried signs saying: "Obamacare Seniors beware! Rationing is here," and "If socialized medicine is best ... why didn't Ted Kennedy go to Canada?" Motorists honked as they drove by. Most said they learned about the event from various community groups that oppose the health care overhaul. All rejected the notion that they had been organized on a large scale, or had connections to the insurance industry.

John Wagner, a 71-year-old retired salesman said he wasn't affiliated with any political groups. He said he and his wife, 68-year-old Anne Wagner, came try to talk to Murphy. Both of the registered independents voted for Murphy's Republican opponent. "We think it's the start of our government taking over every facet of our economy, and of our health, to make sure that the government runs everything," John Wagner said. At one point, a constituent asked Murphy if he thought the country was headed for universal health care.

"That phrase means a lot of things to a lot of people," Murphy said. His answer was greeted with a chorus of groans. In the end, the real action may still be in Washington. Six senators—three from each party, all members of the Senate Finance Committee—agreed to keep working over the August break and assess the situation when they return, working against a Sept. 15 deadline. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Thursday the group is making progress. The outlines of a the Finance Committee compromise have emerged in recent weeks—although nothing is final. The package would cost around $900 billion over 10 years and would be fully paid for through a variety of revenue raisers including a tax on health insurers that offer high-cost plans worth more than $20,000 a year.

Individuals would be required to get insurance, either through an employer, on their own, or through a government program. Federal subsidies would help low-income and many middle-class households afford the premiums. Medicaid would be expanded to cover more people close to the poverty line. Nearly all Americans would be covered.

But even the usually optimistic Baucus says it's not a done deal.

"If Republicans aren't there, it could get to the point where some time after the recess ... Democrats may have to go in a different direction," Baucus said after the group returned from a meeting with Obama at the White House.

"I hope not," Baucus added, "but we have to face facts." 

President Obama likes to pose as the tribune of the common people, but Americans who show up at town-hall meetings to object to Obama’s plans to nationalize health care are, in the words of Obama’s Democratic National Committee, “the mob,” a bunch of “extremist” yahoos who must be publicly denounced and ridiculed. It’s a remarkable piece of condescension and snobbery, but one that is indicative of how President Obama thinks and does business.

Except when he condescends to make the occasional offhanded jibe about cops policing “stupidly” in Boston or hapless Special Olympics competitors, Obama famously likes to strike a pose of being above it all — but what country does he think he is president of, anyway? We cannot recall a similar episode in recent history in which a group of Americans bringing their concerns about a public-policy question to their representatives were told to sit down and shut up. It’s true that democratic discourse should be respectful and dignified — but it also should be two-way: Politicians should expect to listen as much as they expect to be listened to.

The DNC’s ad, “Enough of the Mob,” abominates those Americans who show up to address their congressmen and to exercise their constitutional rights to speak freely, to assemble, and to petition their government for redress of grievances. You know, that old pre-hope-and-change, hopelessly retro, pre-messianic democratic stuff. The ad is deeply dishonest, even by the standards of Washington discourse: The beginning and ending images, and many of those in between, are not those of people protesting Obama’s health-care proposals, but rather of the wacko fringe “birthers” (about whom much has been written here and elsewhere), who have nothing to do with either the town-hall meetings in question or with the Republican party as such. This is pure chicanery: The people protesting Obamacare have not gone out and comported themselves like a gang of buffoons, so Obama’s partisans simply took video of different people comporting themselves like a gang of buffoons and substituted it. That’s a low, shoddy, and intellectually dishonest way to operate. It’s also a little ironic: This smear job is being shepherded by the DNC’s Brad Woodhouse, who back in his Americans United days acted as a front for the union bosses working to defeat President Bush’s Social Security reforms, doing precisely what he now accuses Republicans of doing — packing town-hall meetings with political activists and party operatives posing as regular people, shunting lobbyists’ money into phony grassroots action, etc. We’ll take Mr. Woodhouse’s tender concerns for decorum with a grain or two of salt.

Sen. Barbara Boxer has added to the national mirth, as she often does, by arguing that these people cannot possibly be real American voters. Why? Because they’re too “well dressed.” Presentable, peaceable protesters? It’s a set-up!

The Obama gang is derided, often and justly, for practicing cheap racial politics, but even more poisonous, if less remarked upon, is its class politics. The entire intellectual infrastructure behind the stimulus, the bailouts, the auto-industry takeover, and the proposed health-care takeover rests on the assumption that the people who staff the Obama administration are smarter, better, more caring, and more decent than you yahoos out there in the general public, who simply cannot be trusted to make your own decisions about important matters, such as what sort of health insurance to purchase or whether to buy a car that gets 20 miles per gallon or 22 miles per gallon. Given that line of thinking, it’s easy to understand why Obama’s partisans would dismiss those citizens who dare to criticize his proposal as “the mob.”

The most mockery-inviting aspect of all this is that Obamacare-supporting Democrats are now ducking constituent meetings back in their home districts, afraid to face questions from the people they are paid to represent. Given the Obama team’s contempt for these people, and its utterly dismissive attitude toward their concerns, is it any wonder “the mob” doesn’t want Obama in charge of their health care? Obamacare will constitute an injury to Americans’ well-being — and the president now adds insult to it.

Lanny Davis, Attorney and Democratic strategist:

WASHINGTON -- The White House isn't concerned that increasingly vocal protests around the country are frustrating its push for health-care legislation. Briefing reporters Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs suggested that the opposition is being organized by a small group seeking to create "manufactured anger."

"I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the AstroTurf nature of so-called grass-roots lobbying," Mr. Gibbs said. In recent days, administration officials and Democratic members of Congress have been shouted down by angry protesters at town halls in Pennsylvania and Texas, an uproar that could grow when lawmakers return to their districts for the August recess.

Mr. Gibbs compared the protesters with the "Brooks Brothers Brigade" that he said appeared in Florida after the 2000 presidential election. "I seem to see some commonality in who pops up at some of these things," he said, without elaborating. "You can see quite a bit of similarity between who shows up where."

While protests intensify, the White House also has stepped up its response. It reacted early Tuesday to one online video featuring clips of President Barack Obama appearing to suggest that his health-care plans would eventually replace the private insurance sector, producing its own video shooting down the claim. In the White House's video, its main health-care spokesperson, Linda Douglass, accuses opponents of taking old footage and using it out of context as a scare tactic.

"They simply cherry-pick and put it together, and make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say," Ms. Douglass says in the video, which can be seen on the White House's Web site. Asked why the administration decided to respond, Mr. Gibbs said, "There's a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around on health care."

Democrats would like to play the victim card in response to the hostile pushback against their proposed government takeover of the US healthcare system. The word has gone out from Sen. Democratic Whip Dick Durbin to a raft of lefty blogs to discredit anti-ObamaCare critics and protesters as vicious mobs ginned up by “lobbyist-run groups” like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks (Josh Marshall gets bonus points for going all the way with the Nazi allusion). From lefty blogs, the message goes directly to the Politico’s Glenn Thrush, Keith Olbermann and CBS News — though CBS conceded that the “turnouts also reflect the real fear over the increased taxes and government controls that are part of the health bills being considered in Congress.”

The role of established conservative groups may be more of following and facilitating the protesters. But even if such groups are becoming more involved in organizing opposition to ObamaCare, the hypocrisy here is rather staggering, given the amount of astroturf involved in trying to sell ObamaCare to an increasingly resistant public. As Michelle Malkin noted upon the launch of the lefty campaign:

On Thursday, a national “grassroots” coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal healthcare. The ground troops won’t have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, DC — smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of “progressive” groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as “The Other K Street.” The Washington Post noted in 2007 that “its most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who’s who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party….Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns.”

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn, the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank), and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

Indeed, HCAN includes all of the aforementioned groups, plus the AFL-CIO, ACORN and more. HCAN is conducting a joint campaign with Organizing for America (OFA), the Democratic National Committee-run vestiges of President Obama’s campaign. The astroturf has been on public display at events like Pres. Obama’s healthcare town hall meeting in Northern Virginia, where all of the live questions came from members of SEIU, HCAN, and OFA. Heading into the August recess, the White House and the Congressional Democratic Leadership are working in close coordination with outside groups, including but not limited to, HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, and AARP.

If there is anyone putting their own interests ahead of those they claim to represent, it is the AARP. If there is anyone who should not be whining about vocal anti-Obamacare protests, it is the muscle for money crowd at SEIU and ACORN. If there is anyone who knows about shouting down their critics, it is OFA. If there is anyone without standing to complain about activists getting in people’s faces, it is Pres. Obama.

The Community Organizer in Chief, advised by master astroturfer David Axelrod, has amassed a campaign that dwarfs the efforts of the Right. But they are currently outnumbered and out-messaged on a shoe-string budget, primarily because of the merits of the issue. And that, more than anything, is what has the Left demonizing dissent from ObamaCare.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/08/04/obamacare-the-grassroots-are-always-greener/

Americans have been waiting for nearly a century for quality, affordable health care. Health coverage for all was on the national agenda as early as 1912, thanks to Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose presidential run. Months after World War II came to an end in 1945, President Harry Truman called on Congress to guarantee all Americans the "right to adequate medical care and protection from the economic fears of sickness." From President Lyndon Johnson to President Bill Clinton, to President Obama's winning campaign on the promise of reform, there hasn't been a more debated domestic issue than the promise of affordable health care for all.

 (Steny Hoyer)

(Nancy Pelosi/USA TODAY)

We believe it is healthy for such a historic effort to be subject to so much scrutiny and debate. The failure of past attempts is a reminder that health insurance reform is a defining moment in our nation's history — it is well worth the time it takes to get it right. We are confident that we will get this right.

The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are "un-American," as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning.

"I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments. "The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important. Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down." At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH, tomorrow, Burton said, President Obama "thinks that we're going to be able to have a constructive conversation tomorrow and he'll continue to do that at the town hall later in the week and throughout this effort."

The number three Democrat in the House, behind only Pelosi and Hoyer, and a longtime practitioner of toxic race-baiting on behalf of his party. Unbelievable.

“I have seen this kind of hate before. I have seen this discussion before,” he said. “I have seen snarling dogs going after people who were trying to peacefully assemble. I have seen the eyes of people who were being spat upon.”

“This is all about activity trying to deny the establishment of a civil right. And I do believe that health care for all is — a civil right,” the House Majority Whip argued. “And I think that is why you see this kind of activity. This is an attempt on the part of some to deny the establishment of a civil right.”

Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement, said he was particularly appalled by the use of the Swastika symbol at some of these town hall events. Noting that one had been painted on the office of Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), an African-American, Clyburn insisted that was proof enough that some of the protests were racially motivated.

“There is no question in my mind,” he said.

This is a guy who’s so intimidated by the supposed terror tactics he’s witnessing that he’s actually been known to doze off at town halls of his own. Here’s my question: At the end of the HuffPo piece, he’s quoted tsk-tsking at the House GOP for not formally denouncing the swastika aimed at David Scott — as if the Republican Party’s supposed to take collective responsibility for something done by one anonymous nut whose party affiliation we don’t even know. If the GOP’s supposed to do that, how come it’s not similarly incumbent upon our blessed savior, the avatar of Hopenchange, to say a discouraging word or two about the insane amount of demagoguery and demonization pouring out of his own party right now? And I don’t mean the stuff coming from nutroots blogs; I’m talking about the Senate majority leader mumbling about “evil-mongers” and the Speaker of the House wringing her hands about swastikas and other congressmen warning of “brown shirts” and “political terrorists” and now this from Clyburn. The rhetoric from the Democratic leadership has turned completely poisonous, yet The One won’t open his mouth to calm it down. How come, champ? Are we playing good cop/bad cop again with these cretins? Exit question: How come this didn’t earn any Bull Connor analogies back in the days when protest was still patriotic?