Top Items:
Katie Ryan / Jamestown Sun:
Conrad says he won't support government-run health care program — CARRINGTON, N.D. — Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. presented his cooperative health care proposal here Thursday and told an audience of 100 that he would not vote for a government-run health care program.
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Carol E. Lee / The Politico:
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 health care nightmares raised by opponents will come true.
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:Conrad Says He'll Vote Against The Public Option
Discussion:
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!
Jonathan Martin / Ben Smith's Blog:
Obama embraces the new “exception not the rule” strategy on town halls — The double-down on the town hall drama — highlighting the outbursts and deeming protesters as “mobs” — was probably untenable for the White House and Dems. — For one thing, it's tough for members of Congress …
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William Spain / MarketWatch:
Advertisers deserting Fox News' Glenn Beck — Cable host calls Obama ‘racist’ and sponsors move to distance themselves — STORY QUOTES COMMENTS SCREENER (1815) … NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — In what is shaping up to be one of the more effective boycott campaigns in years …
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Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Senators use Twitter to argue about ‘death panels’ — Sens. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) took to Twitter Friday to clash over comments the latter made regarding end-of-life provisions included in healthcare reform legislation. — Specter initiated the tussle, tweeting about a call he made to Grassley's office.
Discussion:
The Reaction
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David Mark / The Politico:
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.
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ABCNEWS:
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 …
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Jules Crittenden:
Woodstock, Celebrating 40 Years Of ... ... flaming hypocrisy from the back-to-nature crowd, which trashed a meadow, disturbed the bucolic peace with electronic noise, disrupted dairy operations, narrowly avoided a public health disaster, contributed to the destruction of untold thousands upon thousands …
Ed Henry / CNN:
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.
Timothy P. Carney / Washington Examiner:
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.
Lane Hudson / Firedoglake:
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.
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Matt Glazer / Burnt Orange Report:
Kirk Watson's Statement on Running for Re-Election — As we reported earlier, Kirk Watson has decided to run for re-election in Senate District 14. The Senator released the following statement on his intentions to remain in the Texas Senate (emphasis added)
BBC:
Deadly gun battle in Gaza mosque — At least 13 people have been killed and at least 85 injured in a fierce gun battle in Gaza, emergency services say. — Eyewitnesses say hundreds of Hamas fighters and policemen surrounded a mosque where followers of a radical Islamist cleric were holed up.
Amy Sullivan / Swampland:
Oh, Those Death Panels — You would think that if Republicans wanted to totally mischaracterize a health care provision and demagogue it like nobody's business, they would at least pick something that the vast majority of them hadn't already voted for just a few years earlier.
Discussion:
The Plum Line, Taegan Goddard's …, Iowa Independent, Radio Iowa, MyDD, RedState, Salon, Washington Monthly, The Political Carnival and Jezebel
Zombie / zomblog:
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.
JammieWearingFool:
Brooklyn Mobsters: ‘You Are Bankrupting Our Country. You Guys are Crooks’ — Angry, un-American evil-monger dares to question a Democrat — Keep in mind as you read this that Anthony Weiner's district votes overwhelmingly for him every two years, and prior to that it was Chuckie Scumer's …
Scot Lehigh / Boston Globe:
When the kooks take the stage — IT'S HARD TO SAY what's more amusing, the wild-eyed rants at town hall meetings or the conservative attempts to portray those snarling sentiments as genuine mainstream anger about the president's health care plans. — Some Republicans are gleeful in the hope …
WhiteHouse.gov Blog:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN TOWN HALL ON HEALTH CARE — THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Montana! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here. Please, everybody have a seat, have a seat. Thank you so much. Thank you. I am excited to be back in Montana. (Applause.) I want to —
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times
Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit:
THIS ROBERT REICH COLUMN ON THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE is supposed to make you feel bad about the “right wing hate machine,” but instead it's a stunning admission of incompetence: … Hmm. So it's like this: … Remember how Bush was supposed to be the idiot who went into Iraq without a plan …
Discussion:
Patterico's Pontifications
Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review:
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 …
Discussion:
Right Pundits
Jon Boone / Guardian:
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 …
US News:
Mark Sanford's Wife Urged to Write Tell-All Book — Ever notice how the guys of political affairs write books about their cheating, make big dollars, and then sometimes go on to greater fame? What about the victims in those cases: the wives? Well, we hear that the New York publishing world …
Bloomberg:
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.
City Room:
Back at Work, Harlem Store Owner Recounts Shooting — A day after shooting four men who tried to rob his restaurant supply store, killing two of them, Charles Augusto Jr., 72, was back at work in Harlem on Friday morning. His feelings the day after he pulled the trigger? “I wish I didn't need to,” he said.
Tara Parker-Pope / New York Times:
Mutation Tied to Need for Less Sleep Is Discovered — Researchers have found a genetic mutation in two people who need far less sleep than average, a discovery that might open the door to understanding human sleep patterns and lead to treatments for insomnia and other sleep disorders.
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