Tweet from Sen. McCain: "Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man."

President Obama puts out the message that rationed care and bureaucrats denying health coverage are indeed serious concerns -- that is, they happen right now under the present system. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Wild in the West

Senate Democrats have given a seat at the bargaining table to a senator who first endorsed the "death panel" canard and is now going around hawking copies of Glenn Beck books.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Has it really come to this?

Watching the current "debate" over healthcare reform, I find myself in the strange position of giving thanks for John McCain. His behavior during the election was anything but classy, but he did refuse to take that final step of endorsing the fully crazy wingut memes (Obama is a Kenyan Muslim terrorist, etc.) even though certain folks were urging him to go there. When I see how easily the "death panel" and other completly-divorced-from-reality memes have taken hold of the public and the media, I can't help but wonder if such crap would have propelled McCain to victory, if he had chosen to embrace it. Oh, the irony: McCain's last shred of integrity saved us from a McCain presidency.

Even if this isn't true, you can bet this is the lesson the GOP will take into 2012. What we're seeing right now is a preview of the election (God help us).

Slideshow: Behind the Scenes at the Obama White House, Summer of 2009.

Dick Armey resigns from lobbying firm over his role in orchestrating teabag protests, town hall shut downs.

Conrad: I'll vote against a bill if it includes a public option.

Health Care tweet war breaks out between two 70-something senators.

That's about where Congressional Republicans are on the escalating health care debate. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) just sent out a letter that tells voters, among other things, that "When mama falls and breaks her hip, she'll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient."

Watch: Colbert mourns Glenn Beck's loss of advertisers.

The Chris Christie/US Atty scandal story continues to percolate in the New Jersey press. And there's a point that's come up in discussions I've had with several NJ political watchers over the course of the week.

When Bob Menendez (D) ran for senate in 2006, after being appointed by Jon Corzine, Republicans knew that it was such a strong Democratic year that beating Menendez would be very difficult. And because of that they signaled early on that they would try to make political corruption the centerpiece of their campaign. (Remember this GOP allied ad from October 2006 with over-the-top caricatures of Italian-American mafiosos saying how Menendez was their guy? If you don't take a look. It will help give you a sense of the tenor of the campaign.) It's not too much to say that leaks about a corruption investigation into Menendez (what Christie eventually provided) was the one thing the GOP needed more than anything else to get their guy Tom Kean, Jr. elected and maintain control of the senate.

Read more »

Leaked memo shows energy industry execs sending employees to industry sponsored events to play average citizens outraged about cap-n-trade.

With all the hoopla about Democratic town halls across the country, the GOP ones have generally flown under the radar -- the assumption being that because the members are already committed to opposing reform, there's not going to be much ruckus. But a lot these have actually been not held at all, private or admission restricted to supporters. That deserves some more attention.

Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) says President Obama told him that he'll pass health care reform, even if it means he would be a one-term president. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Morning Roundup.

CEO of Whole Foods goes on the record: Screw health care reform, just shop at Whole Foods and you'll be fine.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Death (Panel) Wish

From TPM Reader TM ...

From where I'm placed, I have to say that I agree with TPM Reader CS about how our side is losing the message war, and TPM as well. Even if the lies are not believed by a majority, they are believed by a significant number, and those people are well represented in Ohio, based on my experiences canvassing for healthcare reform in the last couple of weeks. Then there's the layer of people who know that the palaver about death panels is nonsense but are very fearful that they have much to lose from a public option. I have had a tough time with seniors and those who believe (or want to believe) that their insurance policies will insulate themselves and their families from any peril. We know that there is a significant generational divide, and I think that divide is also regional, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is also an urban vs. rural divide as well. I'm in a rural area.

Read more »

Is there anything quite as unsettling as when the nation's political class (and I use that term broadly to encompass the occasionally political, like the tea partiers) turns its fleeting but intense focus to a new (for them) and complex topic, like end-of-life issues?

It seems like years of painstaking work to nudge our death-denying culture toward a more frank and humane approach to our own mortality and dying could be erased by one misguided national discussion set off by none other than Sarah Palin.

So Brian Beutler talked to one medical oncologist just to try to bring the discussion back to some semblance of reality.

Steve Kornacki picks up on the Chris Christie USA Atty firing story.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Robert Reich discusses his own experiences with end-of-life counseling as his mother neared the end of her life.

Limbaugh praises Palin's "intellectual heft" on "death panels."

Slideshow: President announces Medal of Freedom Winners.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) pleads with supporters: "Don't Let Them Palinize Me!"

Newspaper website redesigns are a dime a dozen these days. But if you have a moment today take a look at the newly released version of the LA Times website. It's hard for me to evaluate how successful it will be for them in core publishing terms. And I'm still deciding what I think of it overall. But if nothing else I give them a lot of credit for what is actually a deceptively radical redesign of a major metro daily website. It has far more the design feel of an alt weekly or perhaps the New York Observer or even TPM than what you'd expect from a organization like the Times.

On first blush I like it a lot.

Man carrying "death to Obama" sign at Maryland town hall detained by Secret Service.

The full sign actually read: "Death To Obama, Death To Michelle And Her Two Stupid Kids"

Whole Foods CEO: We don't need no stinkin' health care reform, just eat more of my whole foods.

I've been interested to see how the recent Rove revelations have resurfaced questions about whether Chris Christie, now Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey, pushed political investigations as US Attorney in order to get right with GOP power brokers in DC and avoid the kind of axing suffered by the other nine US Attorneys canned in late 2006.

As you'll remember, the common thread uniting all but one or two of the canned USAs was that they refused to use or rather abuse their offices by using their prosecutorial powers to help the Republican party -- in most cases by pursuing bogus prosecutions of Democrats. That was what got David Iglesias fired down in New Mexico. But in the background there's always been the question, if these folks lost their jobs for refusing to bend to Karl Rove & Co.'s will, there must be more than a few out there who held on to their jobs by doing just that.

And Chris Christie has always been at or near the top of the list of US Attorneys who were logical suspects in that regard. Christie didn't get canned. But his name did appear on two lists of US Attorneys under consideration for firing over the course of 2006. And he did push what was even at the time (before any of the firing scandal was known) seen as a transparently political series of leaks about what ended up being a baseless probe of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) just as Menendez's own hard-fought campaign for senate (he'd earlier been appointed by Gov. Corzine) was coming down to the wire.

Since Christie is now running against Corzine on what amounts to an anti-corruption platform, we had TPMMuckraker's Zack Roth go back and look at where the evidence now stands and what new questions have been raised by the new evidence from Rove's depositions.

Take a look.

Todd Gitlin on the swift-boating of health care reform.

The legendary guitarist and inventor has died. Watch a sampling of his work.

Former Clinton majordomo Betsey Wright (played, loosely, by Kathy Bates in Primary Colors) charged with trying to smuggle contraband into a maximum security prison in Arkansas.

And Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is on board.

Late Update: Well, maybe one foot on the train and one still on the platform?

Fired US Attorney David Iglesias on the latest Rove revelations: "I feel one hundred percent vindicated."

As he should.

Sarah Palin marries new school (Facebook) and old school (footnotes) and still comes out whacked on health care.

TPM Reader JR:

I'll make this short. Our daughter suffered for years in the United States with an undiagnosed case of Myasthenia Gravis. Her doctors, including a neurologist in New York, failed to diagnosis her disease and dismissed the symptoms as psychosomatic. Mind you, the symptoms, as we learned later, were classic for a young woman with this admittedly rare disease.

After moving to Scotland to start a Masters program, she could finally no longer swallow reliably or talk for more than a few minutes before her muscles no longer worked. ...

Read more »

Will Dick Cheney really spill the beans on Bush in a tell-all memoir? That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Ann Coulter: I'm in favor of death panels if I can be on them -- and Rahm's brother Zeke is on my "death list."

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Raging Against the Machine

President Obama commemorates life of Harvey Milk.

An American living in France, who is currently fighting breast cancer, talks 'death panels' and the surreal experience of watching our health care debate from across the Atlantic.

From across the country, reformers and protestors face off.

A new USAToday/Gallup poll appears to show that the tea bag protests are driving voters to be more hostile to reform rather than less. This seems to be particularly so among Independents.

From Susan Page: "n a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say the sometimes heated protests at sessions held by members of Congress have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views; 21% say they are less sympathetic."

We're looking to find the internals to get a closer read on just how the questions were asked.

Late Update: Gallup itself has up the internals of the poll. And the details paint a more mixed picture than the USAToday lede. That said, they do not seem to show any of the backlash against the craziness that many reformers are hoping for. And at a minimum they seem to be hardening opposition among Republicans and right-leaning independents.

First Palin, then Steele, now an actual U.S. senator is passing on the "pull the plug on grandma" canard. Charles Grassley, no less than the ranking member on a key health care reform committee, did it at a town hall meeting in Iowa today.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Micheal Steele: Palin was right about "death panels."

AP: Whatever else happens on health care, it may be a good reason to phase out Social Security.

Transcending the issue of privately insured or publicly insured care, Hearst has put together a broad-ranging series, with its own site, about medical mistakes that result in death.

Rep. David Scott (D-GA): We can't let the swastika win this debate.

Not just death panels! Rep. John Mica (R-FL) says there will be, gasp!, a whole "cottage industry" of "death counselors."

More on the guy who allegedly sneaked past security into the venue where Obama would later speak yesterday and who was subsequently arrested for having a concealed gun in his car.

From TPM Reader RT ...

I recently lost my father and an uncle to lung cancer. Both were diagnosed with stage 4 diseases within three weeks of each other. My father lived for nine months after diagnosis and my uncle lived for eleven. Both were covered by Medicare.

Having done battle with employer-provided insurance companies and because of the right-wing bamboozlement about the quality of Medicare, I was actually very surprised that Medicare covered the illnesses of both with no "rationing" or typical insurance-co wrangling.

Read more »

TPM Reader DR checks in from Kansas ...

I am a Kansas constituent of Congressman Dennis Moore. I had signed up early to attend the health care town hall he had planned to hold at Cleveland Chiropractic College in Overland Park. I'm not sure whether it's possible to feel both relieved and infuriated at the same time, but that's what I'm feeling after reading that he has felt compelled to cancel the event. Readers need to remember that Dr. George Tiller was murdered recently not very far from here, with the murderer captured in this county. So threats aimed at Dennis Moore have to be considered deadly serious. I'm relieved not to be walking into a potential battle zone, but infuriated at the power of these crazies to short-circuit an important expression of the democratic process.

A new wrinkle on the whacked argument that health care reform is a cover for killing old people, via former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, appearing today on Fox: "You push elderly people into hospice instead of life extending treatments."

This line of attack crystalizes for me one of the hallmarks of the anti-reform campaign. It implicitly acknowledges the worst deficiencies of the current system by arguing that reforms will make those existing problems far worse. Never mind that those deficiencies have proved to be intractable problems for the current system to address.

Read more »

TPM Reader KS reminds us of the sobering, bleak realities beneath the din of nonsense over 'death panels' ...

I have much sympathy for the folks that are saying crazy things about death panels. I also have much sympathy for the people that staff the evaluation committees that have had the nasty tag of death panels hung on them. My wife died of cancer 8 years ago. From initial diagnosis to her death was 5 1/2 increasingly awful years. We spent a lot of time researching treatment options. It gave us a calming sense of control. During the last 2 years we sought a few experimental treatment options most of which our very solid corporate health insurance judged not worthwhile. We talked them into one experimental surgery. It turns out their dispassionate judgment was correct. It did no good and left her debilitated for 4 months of what turned out to be her last year and a half. I've followed the threads of the experimental treatments we put our hopes on. Several have progressed, none are useful for my wife's illness. We should have gone to Venice.

We've gotten a hold of some Tea Party planning meeting emails. Here's one that caught our eye. "We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC."

How many Town Hall riots has CNBC put in requests for?

From TPM Reader EK ...

I am an middle aged, white male American who lives in the UK working for a medium sized US company. The following is a true story about my many years experience of the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK, only the names have been changed to protect the identity of my family.

I live with my wife and son just outside of London. When our son Leo was due to be born, like virtually every family in the UK (rich or poor), we went to our local NHS hospital for the delivery. An unpredictable chain of events resulted in unforeseeable complications during his birth. Leo was born in very poor health and was immediately transferred to a SCBU (Special Care Birth Unit) in another hospital. Because of the severity of Leo's condition we were transferred to the most advanced SCBU in the region.

Read more »

The Chamber of Commerce is up on TV with a new anti-health care reform commercial in 20 states.

From TPM Reader PR ...

I am sure you receive many such stories. My father was chronically ill with kidney problems with a very grim prognosis. This was in the 1970's around the time dialysis became a possibility. The National Health Service paid for the installation of a dialysis machine plus all the necessary plumbing and renovation of a room in his home so that he could use the machine three times a week rather than travel to the hospital in London. The cost was enormous and there is no way my parents could have afforded it. His quality of life for his last years was improved beyond recognition. I don't recall any bureaucracy or fuss: the entire decision was the doctor's. After he passed away the NHS paid for the disassembly and removal of everything too.

Read more »

Kansas Dem decides not to hold Kansas town halls after receiving threats.

The Investor's Business Daily runs a premise-undermining pseudo-correction admitting(!) that physicist Stephen Hawking is ... British.

Meanwhile, Brits are making #welovethenhs a top trending topic on Twitter.

From TPM Reader MG ...

Bowers is right for a change. There isn't a media outlet around including TPM that isn't distorting the truth.and making it seem as if every townhall meeting is a hate fest for Dems and the president. Clair McCaskill's event yesterday looked like it was at least a 50/50 split on teevee if not more so with only 20% at most making noise yet Eric K said the crowd was anti-reform. Obama takes 3 or 4 questions from people who aren't supporters or grumble about curent health care and MSNBC claims he only answered questions from plants, or Chuck Todd's take "they were too awed by the office of the presidency to be assholes" and then they spend half the day on the Paultard outside with the gun.

Read more »

TPM Reader SF:

Perhaps there will be some brave republican willing to spearhead an investigation of whether Stephen Hawking actually IS British? Isn't it awfully convenient that a man with no discernable British accent suddenly claims that he is British just after it's pointed out the the UK health system would have euthanized him as a child? Where is his birth certificate? And, if he is proved to be a Brit (long shot, I bet) then ought he not be forced to alter his speech-machine to clearly add a few "guv'nah" and "by jove" references to his speech so that he's no longer able to hide it?

Rep. Michele Bachmann's son has brought shame on his family by up and joining AmeriCorps' Teach for America. His mom has derided AmeriCorps as a "re-education camps" run by Democrats.

It's come to this. The gist of a Senate Democrats talking point on health care reform: We won't kill old people. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Health care policy guru Jonathan Cohn on Colbert last night. Watch.

If you were White House counsel and someone from the White House political shop approached you, just before the midterm elections, about intervening with the Justice Department to help out a congressman from your party under criminal investigation, you would:

(a) Fire his ass on the spot.
(b) Drop kick him from the West Wing to a closet-sized office in the EEOB, never to be heard from again.
(c) Send a memo to everyone in the political office warning against any contacts with DOJ officials regarding any ongoing investigations.
(d) Get the deputy attorney general on the phone and see whether you could get him to publicly exonerate the congressman, then dutifully email back the political operative to report on how the call went.

If you answered (d), you're qualified to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Rick Santorum headed to Iowa to test waters for 2012 run. It's like Christmas in August.

Stephen Hawking responds to the bizarro report that if he were English (which he is) that his life would be considered worthless by the National Health Service: "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Among the DOJ emails released by Congress yesterday involving the U.S. attorney firings was this hard-hitting gem from then-Washington Post reporter (now Washington Times executive editor) John Solomon to a department flack:

Of course, the White House counsel's office had to sign off. Of course, an administration in its last two years looks for some fresh blood to inject into jobs. Of course, DOJ's analysis of prosecutors goes beyond performance evaluations to achievements or failures on policy issues like immigration.

I think we can get this just right with your help.

There was also a White House email where officials were discussing an alleged offer from National Review's Rich Lowry to help defend Tim Griffin, the Karl Rove protege and former RNC oppo researcher who was installed as the replacement for one of the fired U.S. attorneys in Arkansas.

Chris Bowers:

The health care reform debate narrative should be about average Americans struggling against a powerful, for-profit health care financing industry. Instead, it has become a narrative about grassroots conservatives (no matter who funds them) against Democratic politicians. While this is still a people vs. the powerful debate, it is not exactly the people vs. the powerful debate we want to be having. ...

As tempting as it may be for progressive media to focus on conservative insanity, and as rewarding as it might be in terms of audience size, to win the health care reform debate we need to focus on more than what wingnuts are saying. The narrative of the average American versus a for profit health care reform industry needs to be cultivated to a much greater degree.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Pwn Hall

If you can't bring a gun to a presidential event, the terrorists win.

From TPM Reader CB ...

Just got back from Schiff's meeting which was held outside its original location, the Alhambra Civic Center Library, to accommodate the crowd which I estimate to be in the 800-1000 range. Not sure if he's a genius or just incredibly dull, but Schiff had the below panel speak before getting to audience questions, and the talks they gave were boring enough to lull the audience into a bit of a stupor. I was there for an hour and a half beforehand, and the anti- and pro-Obama forces traded shouts and cheers, no shoving, but the place bristled with anger, that was for sure. I saw a million little conversations between pairs and quartets of those with opposing views trying to make their cases to each other, but it didn't seem like anyone got anywhere with their argument. I did see a very articulate Brit making the case for, I think, the public option, to a Latino man, which, in the end, I don't think worked, either. There was a small but active group of LaRouche'sters there with their poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache. There was also a presence of anti-immigration activists, and with their fear of paying for illegal aliens' health care, I think they contributed a good percentage of the anti-Obama camp. I left before the whole thing was over, because the event never became more than I expected it to be--a shouting match between opposing sides.

Moderator Dr. Bruce Hensel, Medical, Health, and Science Editor/Reporter for NBC4 Panelists Dr. Benjamin Chu, President, Southern California Region, Kaiser Dr. Richard Brown, Director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research Jerry Flanagan, Health Care Advocate, Consumer Watchdog Leeba Lessin, President, CareMore Health Plan

Here's a flash report on the event filed for the LA Times.

Admittedly, It gets a little difficult to keep track of all the different guns brought to health care town halls across the country. But what about that gun dropped at a town hall down in Arizona? Eric Kleefeld's been playing phone tag with the police down in Douglas, Arizona. And this afternoon he finally got the story.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

With the rash of people bringing firearms to health care town halls, I'm starting to wonder whether folks on the right are under the impression that there's some sort of transitive property of amendments -- like First, gives right to free speech and redress of grievances and second, gives right to bear arms, which equals the new virtual amendment "(1+2)" which is the right to armed free speech and redress of grievances.

Or maybe it's just that the first and second amendments are right next to each other in order so they're supposed to blend together.

I'm all against handpicked town halls and loyalty oaths at the gate, but I feel like maybe we can get a no fire arms at town halls movement going? Grassroots and everything ...

The guy who brought a loaded gun to the rally outside of Obama's town hall along with a sign calling for death to tyrants showed up this afternoon on Chris Matthews. And the major take away is that he's about as whacked as you'd expect. Plus, he says, the gun was loaded.

November 2006 -- Then-White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, reacting in an email exchange to the planned U.S. attorney firings: "Someone get me an oxygen can!!"

Then later, anticipating the fallout: "Give me a double shot -- I can't breathe."

March 15, 2007 -- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, defending the firing of U.S. attorneys at the daily press briefing:

No, I think -- again, what the President has -- the Department of Justice has made recommendations, they've been approved. And it's pretty clear that these things are based on performance and not on sort of attempts to do political retaliation, if you will.

Right.

Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has issued a statement:

"Let's be clear: it is dangerous to allow the carrying of loaded handguns to the 'town hall' meetings hosting heated discussions about health care and other issues around the country. Except for trained law enforcement, it is unthinkable to allow people with loaded guns near the President of the United States.

"We should decide contentious public issues with ballots, not bullets. The 'any gun, any where, any time' mentality of a few must give way to common sense before innocent people get hurt."

Karl Rove directly tied to the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias.

TPM Reader DM:

It really is amazing to watch a fringe right-wing movement completely dominate the narrative surrounding the health care debate. The Democratic Party has the strongest governing coalition we have seen in years, and yet, they are being run over by misinformation campaign that includes lies so bold and outrageous that one actually grows to gain begrudging respect for the Machiavellian mindset that allows otherwise seemingly rational people to perpetuate this stuff on a public whose gullibility should never again be underestimated.

Read more »

At TPMmuckraker, we're combing through the House Judiciary Committee's document dump. Please join in.

You can leave comments regarding the Rove and Miers interview transcripts here and comments regarding the White House and RNC emails here.

Our reporters will be going through your comments, so if you find juicy parts before we do, flag it for us.

The House Judiciary Committee has also released more than 5,400 pages of Bush White House and Republican National Committee e-mails on the U.S. attorney firings.

The White House emails are here. The RNC emails here.

And Teabaggers ask, How high?

TPMMuckraker's Zack Roth looks at who's calling the shots in the tawdry FreedomWorks/Teabag love affair ... watch out for astroturf burns.

The House Judicary Committee has released the transcripts of committee investigators' interviews with former White House staffers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers about the 2006 firings of U.S. attorneys.

The Rove transcripts here. The Miers transcripts here.

We hear the House Judiciary Committee is about to release the transcripts of the depositions of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers in the U.S. attorneys firing investigation.

The committee website has this:

PRESS RELEASE: 8/11/2009

House Judiciary Committee Releases Rove and Miers Interview Transcripts and Over 5,400 Pages of Bush White House Documents

Conyers: White House "Driving Force" Behind US Attorney Firings

But, frustratingly, the link seems to be broken. Stay tuned.

Just listening to the Obama Town Hall in New Hampshire, and I just remembered that this is about health care and not Logan's Run or a Soviet-Cuban invasion of America.

It's getting to the point where we rely on these townhall meetings for advance warning on the latest anti-heath care conspiracy theory being ginned up out of the conservative freak-o-sphere. And this morning, during that crazy Arlen Specter town hall meeting, there were a number of questioners angry at Specter because the health care reform bill would allow the government to access at will, surveil and withdraw money from everyone's bank account.

Sounded a bit loopy so we had Zack Roth run this one to ground.

How long before this nationwide right-wing primal scream gets out of hand?

MSNBC just aired footage of the crowd gathering at the Obama town hall meeting on health care that's supposed to start later today in New Hampshire and pointed out one man in a group holding protest signs with a gun in a holster on his hip. Apparently not a law officer, but a civilian.

Whatever the concealed carry laws in New Hampshire, you have to figure guns not allowed at a presidential event. Right?

Late Update: Also important to note, the gun-toting protestor was holding a sign referencing the Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It's a well known quote from one of the archetypal founding fathers. And in itself it's part of the American heritage, something that echoes with Jefferson's always ambivalent and frequently dilettantish attitude toward political violence. But in the context of these townhall excesses and while carrying a firearm at a presidential event, it's quite a menacing statement, in as much as it is about the need to kill tyrants. -- jmm

Later Update: The local police tell MSNBC that the man is legally carrying the gun, is nowhere near where the President will be, and is "under constant surveillance."--dk

Packing Heat Update: The gun-wielding protester was interviewed by Chris Matthews late today: "I'm not advocating violence," William Kostric said. "I'm advocating an informed society, an armed society, a polite society."

Help me out here. Is the swastika scrawled on the district office door sign of Rep. David Scott (D-GA) in Smyrna supposed to suggest that he's a Nazi (blacks being especially favored by Hitler, don't you know) or is it a warning that the vandal is a fascist thug?

Scott had a town hall meeting last week that was especially heated on health care reform, but it's not clear if the two events are connected.

Here was one of the more entertaining moments of Sen. Specter's (D-PA) town hall when one question went from talking about health care to how the Koran says that "all unbelievers will be executed." The question then adds: "That's why I cannot support Islam."

Scenes from the contentious heated crazy-making town hall meeting Arlen Specter held this morning in what is apparently the cranky old white people Capital of the World: Lebanon, Pa. Watch.

Late Update: Not so! says Fox News' Megyn Kelly:

"And there you have it. An extraordinary showing out of Pennsylvania. As we watched for the past hour non-stop, an informed, articulate, and very concerned group of American people take their questions directly to their elected representative, Senator Arlen Specter, who they attempted to put on his heels with some very tough questioning. This is American democracy at work. This will not provide fodder for those who describe these folks as angry mobs or dismiss them as un-American. It will however provide a lot of fodder for debate."

Watch.

Too bad we didn't just have a national election where voters got to decide between health care reform or health care status quo. That would have really helped clear things up ...

Late Update: TPM Reader JM does me one better:

Funny, funny but it should be: "Too bad we didn't just have a national election where voters got to decide between health care reform proposed by both parties. That would have really helped clear things up ..."

If you watch the MSM on health care you'd think McCain never even ran for President in 2008 and never even suggested taxing employer based health benefits, or never suggested a "federally supported Guaranteed Access Plan" for people denied due to preexisting conditions, or never proposed cost containment measures including coordinated care and moving away from fee-for-service, or cutting Medicare Part D subsidies for Big Pharma. One can argue whether these were good or bad ideas but Mccain did in fact have ideas to reform health care.

It's like Republicans suddenly woke up in the summer of 2009 and discovered they lost the White House.

We're watching an Arlen Specter town hall at which one protestor after another gets up with a question more unhinged than the last. I confess I hadn't read the part of the bill which would abolish democracy in America.

The latest question is a demand that all legislation be written in junior high school level English.

Late Update: Specter finally got a pro-health care reform question, after about a dozen antis. It makes you wonder who managed getting pro-health care folks to turnout for this event.

Watch scenes from a tea bag event in Anchorage, Alaska outside the office's of Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) at which participants claim that under the Obama plan "the older citizens will be euthanized." Watch.

Great moments in journalism. Times calls 'death panel' of the right's "questionable but potentially damaging charges" that Obama must combat.

White House flack, on their new communications strategy for health care reform:

There's a whole set of rumors that the old playbook would tell you not to do anything about because you draw attention. The lesson we've learned is you ignore these rumors at your peril, and the right answer is to take them head on in as big a way as possible.

That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The founder of the Special Olympics and sister to Jack, Bobby and Teddy has died at age 88.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Save My Baby!

From TPM Reader CS ...

I just saw the clips of Mike Sola and have to say that the Democratic Party has completely lost the message war. Social Security Disability Insurance and Medicaid were created by the Democratic Party for the sole purpose of allowing people with disabilities and retired people to live their lives with independence and dignity--against fierce opposition from the Republican Party. The Democrats have allowed the right [to claim] that the left now wants to kill those people they fought so hard to protect. Can some Democrat please--please call the right out on this and pass some bill, even if only a token, to assure the solvency of SSI and Medicare? Something, anything, please! I am a civil rights attorney who specializes in disability rights and there is no--NO civil right legislation that is Republican.

Let me start by saying that while I share the sentiment, I don't agree as a matter of fact. While the president's plan may be in rough waters, I don't think they've lost the message war. Because I think the number of people who actually believe this stuff is really, really small.

But that doesn't mean it is insignificant.

I've spent the last day or so trying to get my head around just where the health care debate is right now because it's clearly in a place where any sort of logic is incapable of making sense of what's going on.

Read more »

I guess that whole Birther thing didn't pan out.

We've posted the ethics agreement and the waiver that were the subject of the big Sunday Times piece on then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson's extensive communications with Goldman Sachs around the time Goldman was rescued by the bailout of AIG.

Obama hangs with Prime Minister Harper and President Calderon.

We came into the office this morning to find two reports of firearms showing up at townhall events. The first in Tennessee turned out to be basically a non-story. But police in Douglas, Arizona are investigating an incident in which one townhall attendee dropped a gun at an event with Rep. Grabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).

Giffords aides called police after finding the gun and being concerned for her safety.

When I posed that question this morning, I intended primarily to call out the cable nets and others for letting the public debate veer so far off point that doctors had become irrelevant to it. But in reader responses to the post, I detected a thread of suspicion and wariness about the health care reform plan even among docs with progressive sensibilities. I don't think that fully explains the absence from the public forum that I was noting, but it would surprise me if it doesn't play a part.

Here's a sampling of the responses from physician readers:

Read more »

Maybe Fox should have realized they had a credibility problem when the townhall protestor they had in for an interview this morning went from saying Obama wanted to sentence his family to death to claiming that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer had health care policy "thugs" to his house in the middle of the night as payback for his townhall tirade.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

A brutal new anti-reform ad that just ran on CNN a few minutes ago claims, falsely, that under public option, "The government -- not doctors -- will decide if older patients are worth the cost." Watch.

The ad is from the 60 Plus Association, whose previous efforts included working to abolish the estate tax.

TPMDC checks into a local report that a man brought a gun to a heated weekend town hall meeting held by Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN) in Memphis. The bad news: Yes, an attendee was packing heat. The good news, if you can call it that: He did so in accordance with concealed weapons laws and was fully cooperative when law enforcement asked him to bring the gun out to his car.

Once you thoroughly unfasten yourself from reality, truly all things are possible.

AJC columnist Jay Bookman noticed that in the latest Investors Business Daily editorial about how the 'death panel' will condemn all handicapped or disabled people to death on some horrid wind-swept mountain, the editors note that ...

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Needless to say, Hawking, who is recognized as one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st century, was born in the UK and has lived his entire life there.

I did not envision that we could get this far down the road toward fundamental health care reform with so little input in the public discourse from physicians. Sure, the AMA has come out in favor of the House bill that includes public option. But where are voices of individual docs whose front line experience with the impediments to delivering quality health care offer invaluable instruction?

My personal experience has been that there remains a strongly conservative core segment of physicians who are wary of reform for temperamental and financial reasons (not to paint with too broad a brush, but a group that is anchored in the high-dollar medical specialties). But I've seen over the last 20 years or so, an equally strong segment emerge from the physician ranks: primary care docs who struggle to reconcile the demands of the modern health care financial infrastructure with their calling to make people well (or better yet, keep them healthy).

So where are the family practice docs, the public health docs, the rural practitioners, those who staff the inner city clinics? I'm not suggesting they're purposely sitting on the sidelines, but they do seem to have been sidelined in this debate. Can we hear more from them? Have I just missed it?

Impeached and indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich performed his Elvis impersonation in public over the weekend. You'll be all shook up after watching this.

Ed. note: Yes, that's Fabio in the background.

James Fallows has a modest proposal: journalists should be informing their readers about the lies and misinformation being injected into the health care reform debate.

The conservative activist who claims he was beaten up by union thugs in St. Louis while protesting against health care reform is accepting donations towards his medical care because he was laid off recently and ... has no health insurance.

On Friday afternoon former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) made the dire and patently false statement that Obama's health care reform plan could result in a "death panel" killing her infant son, who suffers from Down Syndrome. See who defends the truth and who attempts to defend her in today's Sunday Show Roundup ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

After "death panels", Palin calls for civility.

This would appear to be as far as the Post is willing to go on Sarah Palin's 'death panel' canard ...

Conservative talk-radio shows have raised the prospect of euthanasia based on a provision to reimburse doctors through Medicare for counseling sessions about end-of-life directives.

And comments posted on former Alaska Republican governor Sarah Palin's Facebook page Friday said that people would have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

There are no such "death panels" mentioned in any of the House bills.

The health care reform battle is putting Obama's grassroots political operation -- Organizing for America -- to the test. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

I keep hearing good things about this book Israel Is Real by Rich Cohen. Now MJ Rosenberg says so too.

Alas, not on Kindle yet. But what can you do.

Late Update: On the other hand, this review would seem to present a severe and impossible to ignore corrective.

Reich: I'm "appalled" by White House deal with pharmaceutical industry.

Teabaggers say they want their country back. But Afro-Arab socialists have only had it for like 6 months. Can't they wait their turn?

Health care is the big topic on the Sunday shows -- especially that whole Sarah Palin "death panel" thing. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Sunday Roundup.