False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots  —  WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama's health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.

Was Whole Foods CEO's Op-Ed in Bad Taste?  —  Branding Experts Say CEOs Should Stay Quiet When It Comes to Politics  —  Joshua has been taking the bus to his local Whole Foods in New York City every five days for the past two years.  This week, he said he'll go elsewhere to fulfill his fresh vegetable and organic produce needs.

Climate Change Measure Should Be Set Aside, U.S. Senators Say  —  Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Senate should abandon efforts to pass legislation curbing greenhouse-gas emissions this year and concentrate on a narrower bill to require use of renewable energy, four Democratic lawmakers say.

Host Loses Some Sponsors After an Obama Remark  —  ABOUT a dozen companies have withdrawn their commercials from “Glenn Beck,” the Fox News Channel program, after Glenn Beck, the person, said late last month that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Armey leaves firm amid health care flap  —  Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is resigning from DLA Piper law firm amid a wave of negative attention his grassroots organization, Freedom Works, has drawn for helping to organize protesters at health care town hall meetings with members of Congress.

Fear for Obama's Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash  —  Violent Signs, Gun, Standoff Latest in Emerging Anger Towards the President  —  Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama …

Republican Death Trip  —  “I am in this race because I don't want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s.  I don't want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.”  So declared Barack Obama in November 2007 …

From ‘Yes, We Can,’ to 'No!  Don't!'  —  Obama turns out to be brilliant at becoming, not being, president.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Don't strain the system.  Don't add to the national stress level.  Don't pierce when you can envelop.  Don't show even understandable indignation when you can show legitimate regard.

Senator Conrad Says He'll Vote Against the Public Option  —  Why is this man smiling?  —  In a town hall meeting with his constituents, Senator Conrad pushed his co-operative plan, and said that he would vote against the public option in any Senate health care package. … This is too rich for my blood.

Why I Interrupted Bill Clinton's Speech at Netroots Nation  —  I love Bill Clinton, but we all make mistakes.  Sometimes we even are forced to do things we don't want to.  That's why I was prepared to ask Bill Clinton a tough question last night as he delivered the opening keynote address at Netroots Nation 2009.

Down with the health insurers  —  Dear conservatives: Health insurance companies are not your friends.  Keep opposing a new government-run insurer, a single-payer plan, and new regulations on the HMOs.  But grant that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is correct on this: Insurance companies are villains.

Obama's big problem in Big Sky country  —  LIVINGSTON, Montana (CNN) — Spend a day in this tiny town about 23 miles or so from where President Obama held a town hall meeting on Friday, and it's easy to see why his health-care push is facing big problems in Big Sky country — even from the people he's trying to help.

‘Squeaky’ Fromme released from prison  —  (CNN) — Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was released from federal custody Friday, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said.  —  Fromme was convicted in 1975 of pointing a gun at then-President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California.

Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return  —  Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — More than 150 publicly traded U.S. lenders own nonperforming loans that equal 5 percent or more of their holdings, a level that former regulators say can wipe out a bank's equity and threaten its survival.

Afghan law savages women's rights  —  Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands  —  Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands …

Bush as Hitler, Swastika-Mania: A Retrospective  —  At recent rallies, town hall meetings and “tea parties,” a few protesters have shown up with signs comparing Obama to Hitler (i.e. depicting him with a Hitler mustache), or displaying swastikas in the context of implying that Obama and/or his administration are Nazi-like.

Speaking in Mexico, Obama Calls American Opponents of Immigration Amnesty ‘Demagogues’  —  (CNSNews.com) - At a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Guadalajara, Mexico on Monday, President Barack Obama referred …

Voters Say Carter Is Best of Living Ex-Presidents  —  For nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%), Jimmy Carter is the living ex-president who has done the best job since leaving the White House, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  —  Carter, who served in the White House …

Out with “Mobs”...  ...in with There Are Far More Civil Town Halls Taking Place That Conflict-Loving Cable News Stations Aren't Covering.  —  Roll Call's John Stanton:  —  White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday argued that despite extensive media coverage of the protests …

Obama: ‘TV loves a ruckus’  —  BELGRADE, Mont. — It was another town hall and another well-mannered crowd for President Barack Obama as he took his pitch for health care reform to the Rockies, telling residents of a small town in this big Republican state that none of the insurance nightmares raised by opponents will come true.

Obama's Senior Moment  —  Why the elderly are right to worry when the government rations medical care.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Elderly Americans are turning out in droves to fight ObamaCare, and President Obama is arguing back that they have nothing to worry about.  Allow us to referee.

Nazis for Me, but Not for Thee  —  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 …

Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY  —  Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez.

GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010  —  It's a possibility many Republicans speak of only in whispers and Democrats are just now beginning to face.  After passionate and contentious fights over health care, the environment, and taxes, could Democrats lose big — really big — in next year's elections?

Palin signed resolution promoting end-of-life directives in 2008  —  Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) recently claimed that the end-of-live provision in the healthcare reform legislation would create a government “death panel” to decide such issues.  But during her term as governor …

Roxana Mayer Invited to Town Hall by Obama Organizer Who Sported Che Guevara Poster at Obama Campaign Office  —  The Houston Chronicle reports: … I don't know if Jackson Lee had anything to do with Mayer's attendance.  But I do know that Mayer was invited to the event by a radical Obama supporter …

Stamford Marriott claims woman was negligent in her own rape  —  STAMFORD — A downtown hotel being sued by a woman raped at gunpoint in its parking garage is claiming she was careless, negligent and “failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use …

Septuagenarian Twitter Flame War: Grassley Warns Specter He Never Said “Death Boards”  —  Earlier today, I reported that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) planned to call his old friend Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to admonish him that health care legislation will not result in the creation of death panels.

Hagel Climbing the Ladder in Obama White House  —  Former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel (R), a senior administration official-in-waiting either later this term or in President Obama's second term (if there is one), is taking another step into Obama's national security team.