Hudson Crash Video: Plus, Air Traffic Controller on Phone During Collision

Tourists caught the small plane/helicopter crash on video:

Plus, from the New York Daily News, "Air traffic controller suspended, was chatting on phone with girlfriend during Hudson River crash":

The air traffic controller at Teterboro Airport was on the phone with his girlfriend during the mid-air collision over the Hudson River.

His supervisor had wandered off and wasn't even in the tower.

Horrified officials called their actions "unacceptable," even though they were not blamed for Saturday's crash.

Both controllers - who were not immediately identified - have been suspended and will likely be fired.

Crash probes by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration revealed the two controllers seriously deviated from their assignments at the time of the collision.

Nine people died when a single-engine Piper plane with three aboard clipped a Liberty Helicopters sightseeing chopper carrying a pilot and five Italian tourists. Both aircraft plummeted into the river.

The NTSB and FAA discovered the controller lapses by listening to audio recordings from the Teterboro tower.

"We learned that the controller handling the Piper flight was involved in apparently inappropriate conversations on the telephone at the time of the accident," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said.

"We also learned that the supervisor was not present in the [tower] building as required."

Babbitt said, "We have no reason to believe at this time that these actions contributed to the accident" but he called the laxness unacceptable.

"We have placed the employees on administrative leave and have begun disciplinary proceedings," he said.

More at the link.

Also, the New York Times, "Controller Was on Phone During Hudson River Crash."

Hey, No Fair! White House Pissed - Critics Co-Opt Obama Organizing Playbook

From ABC News, "Analysis: Critics Co-Opt Obama Organizing Playbook":

The 20th century community organizer who used 21st century tools for his people-powered White House campaign now finds himself besieged by citizens airing their grievances at 19th century-inspired town hall style meetings.

Barack Obama's top legislative goal hangs in the balance and his popularity is suffering as critics co-opt his tech-savvy organizing methods, tag him as a boogyman and disrupt local gatherings on his proposed health care overhaul.

Is the groundbreaking campaigner, whose White House political arm is aptly called Organizing for America, being outmaneuvered?

"That's a fair summary of where things are at the moment," said Sanford Horwitt, a biographer of Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing.

"The other side has the anger and the intensity, and Obama's side doesn't," Horwitt said. Harking back to the presidential campaign's tactics and success, Horwitt said, "This really first-rate community organizing has not revealed itself in the first months he's been in office, particularly when it comes to the health care issue."

The White House and its allies claim the protests are simply a fake grass-roots movement — "astroturfing" — but a USA Today/Gallup Poll this week found that most Americans believe the protesters' sentiments are genuine.

Fake?

You want fake? The Democrats got it. See, "ObamaPlants for ObamaCare!"

ObamaPlants for ObamaCare!

From Dana Loesch, Let's Talk Astroturf:

It’s the stuff like this that makes me type WTF. The San Antonio Tea Party has some proof of astroturfing coming from left field. While Democrats like to make baseless allegations as to the validity of tea party movement’s roots, they place ads on Cragislist (St. Louis had one advertising for paid, progressive activists, $90 a day) to attract employees to counter the tea parties. It would be funny if it weren’t sad.

Hey, this gig comes with health coverage too! Who knew?

I've written much about Democratic Astroturfing. See, "Work for Change! Paid ObamaCare Shills $10-15 hr!," and "Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!."

Also, from the Astute Bloggers, "BECAUSE OF HIS DEMAGOGUERY ON OBAMACARE, OBAMA HAS LOST ALL CREDIBILITY."

The Left's Masters of Disaster

From Nikki's blog, "Master-Haters and Master-Debaters:

I love liberals, I really do. They are America's retarded little step-brothers and sisters that we tolerate because Jesus wants us to be kind to our enemies. I think this health care debate is so fun to watch from the sidelines. Mostly because Obama's approval rating is worse than America's first retarded cousin, George W. Bush's at this stage of the game. I have written before about how extreme popularity is not good for any politician, it just gets the other side buzzing like hornets. This time its rightfully so. That probably sounds pompous and arrogant, but democrats ARE always wrong. I don't make the rules, I only point them out and try to enforce them. Suck on that lemon demon-ocrats.

It isn't shocking that when faced with disagreement and opposition the left turns to the HATER AND NAZI plan. We aren't debating, we are hating. Plan B, Operation Nazi racist, is the go to guy when things get rough for the demotards. First, assocrats start trolling Town Hall meetings and paint swastickas on donkey signs and yell Nazi stuff at the drunk Nancy Pelosi and blame it on the phants. This is the oldest trick in the book. You see republicans actually have jobs and pay for all your donkey shit, so we don't have time to spray paint. Plan C goes even further, You see it goes like this, how can anyone hate Obama? He is our first black President and that in itself should keep all the right-wing haters in check. It is after all our job to make sure Obama succeeds and only lefty white people can guarantee that for our good little negro. Remember the hissy fit by the media when Rush Limbaugh wanted to see Obama fail? It was as though someone had punched Mother Theresa in the face and called her a bitch in front of the Pope and then it was blasted all over YouTube. Chris Matthews wet himself he was so traumatized. Who doesn't want this worthless health care plan to fail at this point? Are we all haters because we don't like the government taking over our lives? People don't want the government to say who can and can't get married and yet we will soon have a government telling us that granny with the bad hip is old and gonna die anyway so she CAN'T HAVE THAT HIP? Are you liberals retarded? OOPS, yes you are.

More at the link.

Cartoon Credit: William Warren at Americans for Limited Government.

Town Hall Activists Are 'Bullies'

Here's another version the left's anti-democratic position on conservatives and the town halls. This time it's Steve Benen and the opposition to Obama's death panels. The Senate Finance Committee is stripping that provision from the bill:

Up until very recently, this provision was a common-sense idea that enjoyed bipartisan support. It would help seniors and their families plan for end-of-life care; it would help guide physicians and doctors; it would help save taxpayers money; and it would help honor patients' wishes. Even insurance companies are fine with it.

But after a right-wing temper tantrum, based on confusion and lies, lawmakers are prepared to dump the idea altogether.

Who wins? Unhinged activists, who are effectively being told that they'll get their way if they scream loud enough. Who loses? Everyone else.

It reminds me of kids who give the bully their lunch money thinking, "Well, if I give him the lunch money today, maybe he'll leave me alone tomorrow." I don't think that ever works.

Benen's screed reminds me of another schoolyard analogy: the sore loser.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giulani (no right-wing extremist) says Palin's death panel comments are on the money. See, "Giuliani Slams Dems on 'Death Panels' Issue."

Statement from the American College of Surgeons on ObamaCareGaffes

My friend's dad is a surgeon. She one of my fellow town hall activists, and she told me about this statement from the American College of Surgeons:

The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.

Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon’s decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what’s right for the patient.

We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President’s remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.

We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.

There are some concluding remarks at the link (via Memeorandum).

Work for Change! Paid ObamaCare Shills $10-15 hr!

From Andrew Malcolm, "Wanted: Obama Healthcare Reform Volunteers Willing to Be Paid $15 An Hour:

The first picture at top from Malcolm's piece above. It's a classic shot of the manufactured, pre-print signs that the Democrats are distributing to their plants at the town hall meetings.

The second shot is from, Shelley, an American Power reader, from her Flickr page. Shelley says of the ObamaBots: "Professionally printed signs were passed out to them. I saw very few hand-made signs among the pro-Obama Care people."

It's true. At the Adam Schiff town hall Tuesday all the major leftwing groups were using pre-print signs. Some of the socialist radicals brought their own, but for the most part, it was a sea of "Reform Now" and "Put Single Payer On the Table" and "Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform." Hundreds of people were waving signs like this below on Tuesday night:

Here's Malcolm's comments:

It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer in it for the sake of helping move the country forward and gaining medical attention for millions of uninsured Americans.

The website's large-type headline announces: "Work to Pass Obama's Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!"

It's a web ad on Craigslist: "You can work for change. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $400-$600 a week."

So both sides appear to have paid lobbyists in this colossal summertime struggle for public opinion and control of the multi-billions flowing into the nation's burdened healthcare system.

It's true, to a point. If you ask a leftist, they'll say insurance lobbies and Freedom Works frontgroups are "Astroturfing" the town hall rallies. But the reality on the ground is that the Democrats are really mobilizing ObamaPlants and fitting them with pre-print manufactured signs. It's totally fake.

El Marco captured it perfectly in his essay last week, "Nancy and the Astroturfers." Some of the Latino demonstrators didn't even speak English. It wasn't as blatant as in Denver, but the ObamaPlants were out in force on Tueday night in Alhambra. See my photo-essay, "Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!"

Patrick Briggs, Red-Shirt Goon at Schiff Town Hall: Daily Kos Blogger, OFA Brute, 'Bush Lied, People Died' Antiwar America-Basher!

While working on an update for my Adam Schiff town hall reporting, I came across a comment at Daily Kos by pbriggsiam, a.k.a, Patrick Briggs, a Pasadena local with a long record of hardline leftist activism.

It turns out that Briggs is a Daily Kos blogger who runs his own website at Green Eggs and Ham. He's got a report up on the Schiff event, "Healthcare Townhall - Congressman Adam Schiff - Alhambra.

In 2005, the City of Pasadena ordered Briggs and his wife, Mary Gravel (pictured above), to remove two signs they had posted at their home in support of antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan. The couple had mounted one sign reading "Support Cindy Sheehan," and another with "War Starts With 'W.' Bush Lied. People Died." The signs violated city ordinances and the couple was threatened with a $500 fine. After initially complying with the municipal code, the Briggs' filed suit in Federal District Court alleging abridgment of their First Amendment rights. The ACLU brief is here. A Los Angeles Times report on the lawsuit is here. And ACLU's press releases are here: "Pasadena to Residents: Watch What You Say," and "Pasadena to Allow Residents to Hang Political Signs." The second ACLU report notes:

City officials say they plan to rewrite an ordinance regulating the posting of political signs on residential property and the city attorney has recommended the city stop enforcing some of the regulations until a new ordinance is written.

That's an important victory for the couple and for freedom of speech.

What's ironic is that, in my interaction with him, I found Patrick Briggs totally hostile to the political opinions of his opponents. Mr. Briggs was bellicose and confrontational - "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" He was essentially telling conservative activists at the Schiff event STFU. He was, in other words, a brutish thug. As I reported yesterday:

The guy ... is an ObamaCare goon. He was aggressively in-your-face making juvenile "L" for loser hand signs, telling conservative activists to "shut up and get out of the way." He kept yelling "loser!" loser"! "Health reform now"! He also started yelling "Wait until 2012!" at conservatives who tried to speak back to him. I talked calmly with the guy. I asked him "why should the democratic process come to a halt if your side won?" He couldn't answer the question. He was confident and said "Obama's health care is coming and you guys can try to win in 2012." I guess that's the street-level version of President Obama's "I don't want folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking."

That's right. Briggs didn't want to hear ObamaCare opponents "doing a lot of talking." He's a classic example of radical leftists who only support First Amendment rights when their issues are under challenge. If conservatives have an opinion, that's fascist and their views should be regulated as hate-speech. Typical.

In any case, Briggs is a hardliner with the Pasadena chapter of Democracy for America. The group is registered as a "Non-federal '527' Political Organization" under FEC guidelines and supports "progressive issues and non-federal Democratic candidates."

He also an Organizing for America cadre. He was the contact person for Tuesday's Democratic Astroturfing activities for the Schiff event. Here's the Oganizing for America link and information:

Time:	Tuesday, August 11 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Host:	Patrick Briggs
Contact Phone:	626-664-3487
Location:	Alhambra Civic Center Library – Community Room (Alhambra, CA) 101 S. 1st St. Alhambra, CA 91801

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Briggs is also a member of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena." Interestingly, it turns out that the church's Rector Emeritus, George Regas, has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration. A Los Angeles Times profile is here. Regas is closely allied with a number of hardline leftists organizations, including the neo-Stalinist International ANSWER. The All Saints Church is mentioned in this article, "A Small Protest Against Anti-War Elitists in Pasadena, California." And Regas is identified in a 2009 article here, along with both ANSWER and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.

In 2007, at the Democracy for America website, Patrick Briggs reported on Regas' push for impeachment proceedings against then-Vice President Dick Cheney. See, "All Saints Episcopal Church - Rector Ed Bacon Advocates Impeachment Investigations of Cheney in July 1 Sermon!"

Briggs signed this manifesto, "IMPEACHMENT: RESOLUTION TO IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY."

Plus, in 2007, Briggs threw his support as a DFA member behind the local grocery union's thug agitation (United Food and Commercial Workers). See, "Southern California Grocery Workers - When Unions Prosper, America Prospers."

Briggs' Pasadena chapter of Democracy in America was also an affilated organizing cell of the White Rose Coalition Protest at Pasadena's Rose Parade. Kevin Lynn of Democracy in America posted an announcement and photo for the event at Revolution, a local newspaper for the Revolutionary Communist Party (here). And, Cindy Sheehan published a commentary at AfterDowningStreet.org on January 1, 2008, "The White Rose and the Rose Parade." Daily Kos posted on the event the same day, "'IMPEACH" signs at the Rose Parade":

Check Discover the Networks' entry for AfterDowningStreet, here. And Gateway Pundit has a report, "It's Official -- Sheehan & Pals Will March Following Last Float In Rose Bowl Parade (Video) ... Update: Sheehan Gets Booed!!

Patrick Briggs, in the various capacities I've noted here, has either actively or incidentally promoted the work of these organizations. And by mounting signs on his home saying "Support Cindy Sheehan" and "War Starts With 'W.' Bush Lied. People Died," Patrick Briggs unequivocally endorsed the statements of a deeply troubled woman who called President Bush a "lying bastard," a "filth spewer," an "evil maniac," a "fuehrer," and a "terrorist" guilty of "blatant genocide."

And now, this man, Patrick Briggs, is out telling citizen anti-ObamaCare demonstrators to STFU, "you guys can try to win in 2012."

Other than that, I'm sure he's a real nice guy.

Briggs' Flickr antiwar photostream is here, with LOTS of America-bashing iconography. Also, a bunch of Patrick Briggs news citations at the Pasadena Public Library are here.

Tough Time for Democrats

From USA Today, "Town Hall Meetings Not For Everybody":

It's a tough time out there for Democrats right now, as we all know. Still, some soldier on, despite the protests. Democratic senators like Ben Cardin of Maryland, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Claire McCaskill of Missouri have held mulitple events and gone toe-to-toe with protesters.

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., is holding town hall meetings just about every day.

Others, though, are giving up on the town hall format and looking for other ways to communicate with constituents.

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., is the latest to say she will hold a tele-conference with constituents rather than a public meeting. Castor was involved in one of the nastier town hall events -- and it wasn't even hers. She was invited to speak by a state lawmaker at an Aug. 6 event and was scheduled to talk for 15 minutes, but she gave up when the meeting devolved into a shoving-and-shouting match. By one estimate, the meeting attracted 1,500 people and the meeting room held just 200 people.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Tex., has refused requests for a town hall meeting, and instead went on a local radio show to take calls about health care. He told the El Paso Times: "I'm not going to give people a stage to perform."

That's pretty much the spin you'll get from Democrats totally unable to defend ObamaCare.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner tried to ban the local news channel from his Queens town hall on Wednesday, and we saw Georgia's David Scott town hall meltdown last week. Scott totally lost his temper, calling one constituent a "hijacker" for asking a question (just to mention a couple).

More at Hot Air, "Cardin Offers Weird Idea of Competition, Regulation in Town Hall." And The Hill, "Sen. Cardin Hears An Earful on Healthcare."

Also, check Memeorandum.

Video Hat Tip: CNN, "Maryland Senator Has Boisterous Health Care Town Hall."

The Not-so-Kind Face of Socialism

From Victor Davis Hanson:

The road to socialism is not natural. It must be paved with the hard work of class envy, demonization of the successful, and obfuscation that each new massive spending program that will raise both taxes and deficits (that’s the point, after all, to create so much red ink that we must raise taxes and redefine what constitutes income) must be passed immediately, without delay, now-or-never to stave off Biblical hunger, plague, and flood.

Congressman Anthony 'Single-Payer' Weiner Tries to Ban Local News From Town Hall

Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, who represent New York's 9th District in the House, tried to ban local CBS 2-HD cameras from a Queens town hall event yesterday.

See, "Rep. Weiner Tries To Ban CBS 2 HD From Town Hall: Though Likely Fearful Of Backlash Against President Obama's Health Care Plan, Congressman Eventually Relents, Forum In Queens At Times Raucous, Heated, But Order Is Kept":

Representative Weiner is one of the biggest advocates for ObamaCare's single-payer takeover in the Congress. See, "Single Payer Gets a Vote."

Lots more at Memeorandum. See especially, Lone Star Times, "Obama Camp Plants Fake Doc, Che Fan at Jackson Lee Forum."

Communist Party USA Mobilizes for ObamaCare!

More evidence of the left's push for the communist nationalization of the American economy. From the website of the the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA):

Within our country, the Obamajority is needed to take to the streets in support of health care with a public option paid for by reversing the obscene tax giveaways to the super rich during the Bush years. If health care reform fails, it will be a giant step backwards for the Obama administration and for working people, the labor movement, African American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Island communities, women and youth on every issue including the economy, peace and democracy ....

Progressive forces are organizing to attend every congressional town hall meeting and counter the right-wing attempts to disrupt, take them over, and deny the democratic process.

Organizing for America (OFA) is planning thousands of events, door knocks and phone banks in August. In an email to OFA President Obama called on all those who built the movement for his election to step forward now. He reiterated, "every day we don't act, Americans watch their premiums rise three times faster than wages, small businesses and families are pushed towards bankruptcy, and 14,000 people lose their coverage entirely. The cost of inaction is simply too much for the people of this nation to bear."

The phone banks, rallies, vigils and marches in favor of health care reform that have been organized in the last few weeks around the country have had good turnout and media. Much more street heat and visibility is needed, with those who lack healthcare coverage in the forefront. Many excellent materials are available. The daily on-line edition of the People's Weekly World, as well as the weekly print edition, covers breaking news and provides a deeper understanding of the issue and how to win support.

See also, "Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!"

Image Credit: Serr8d's Cutting Edge, "Democrats STUNNED by opposition. Why can't we UN-AMERICAN PROLES just co-operate and ROLL OVER? (After all, They are our BETTERS, and they KNOW IT!)."

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

LaRouche Supports Single-Payer

Dan Riehl, speaking of the Democratic-left's ruthless reign of deception, notes that "no dirty trick will be left in the bag, no Big Lie will remain un-spun ..."

We see that again, with Meteor Blades' post last night at Daily Kos, "Rep. Schiff Turns Out 3000 at Townhall Meet":

Supporters of reform made up the bulk of the participants, although the LaRouchies appeared with their cult message and, of course, there were a few Obama-is-a-Nazi morons gathering their share of boos.

It's not just that theses comments are blatant lies, but that the meme that "LaRouchies" are right-wing tools has been so thoroughly discredited.

And see my post, "Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!:

LaRouche is a perennial candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; and the LaRouche activists are just extreme left-wing publicity seekers. See Newsbusters, "NBC, CNN and MSNBC All Assign Communist LaRouche's Obama-Hitler Poster to Conservatives, Limbaugh," and the Weekly Standard, "Video: Democrats Bring Obama-As-Hitler Signs to Town Halls..."

The LaRouche forces, communists, are attacking the administration from the left. While the media and the netroots hordes are smearing conservatives as a bunch of "LaRouchies," that truth is that Lyndon LaRouche supports single-payer healthcare - along with the ObamaCare plants and socialist goons who were out in force at Tuesday's event.

Here's the statement from LaRouchePac.com:

Advocates for a single-payer health care system are on an organizing drive across the country to try to get single-payer into the debate on health care reform. The LaRouche movement supports single-payer, but nothing will happen on it until the Obama Administration's Nazi health care policy is defeated and the HMOs are defeated.

Fake Doctor Planted at Sheila Jackson Lee Town Hall Meeting

Via Gateway Pundit, "Figures ... Dems Are Planting Fake Doctors at Town Hall Meetings."

Gateway links to Patterico, who's done two posts on Roxana Mayer, who was reported in the Houston Chronicle as a "pediatric primary care physician":

One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee's district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system.

“I don't know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said.

See Patterico's post for the details, "Roxana Mayer: I’m Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings." Despicable deception, but what's especially bad is apparently the Chronicle knew that Ms. Mayer was an Obama convention delegate at the time of publication - and thus the reporter id not detail the conflict of interest.

This is just one more in a line of Democratic deceptions coming out in the last few days. President Obama was caught planting participants at the yesterday's New Hampshire town hall. See Fox News, "White House Says Girl With Campaign Ties Chosen at 'Random' to Speak at Obama Town Hall." Also, "Question by a Malden Girl Becomes the Target of Conservative Critics."

Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!

Last night's Adam Schiff town hall was the biggest anti-Obama protest I've attended this year.

Here's the scene when I arrived a few minutes after 7:00pm. Representative Adam Schiff had just begun speaking. An estimated 3,000 people were in attendance:

The event was orignally scheduled to be held inside the Alhambra Public Library. Organizers changed the venue to the lawn at City Hall, across from Alhambra High School on 1st Street. I walked around to the other side of the demonstration to snap this shot below. This was as close as I could get. ObamaPlants had set up shop in folding chairs up front:

My friend Mark Goluskin attended the event. He suggests that "there were at least 2,000 people that showed up. And without a doubt, the majority of the crowd were opponents of the so-called health care 'reform'."

You get a sense of the excellent anti-ObamaCare turnout at this video:

At this one, Representative Schiff gets a "startling" welcome from conservatives:

Some demonstrators anticipated the ObamaCare thugs:

This group of conservatives stood right behind a huge batch of pre-print/chicken-wire/yard-sign ObamaBots. Most of the leftists had cookie-cutter signs, in contrast to the grassroots conservatives who have been protesting Democratic-socialism all year:

This gentleman was happy to pose with his poster, "Marxist Jihad:

This fellow might have more to say about ObamaCare's "death panels":

This guy's sign gets right to the point:

Okay, how about the leftists? A couple of young women, local communists, were trying to squeeze-in and settle among the AARP lawn-chair shills and SEIU plants:

The radical women were cadres from the "Freedom Socialist Party." According their Wikipedia entry:

The party views the liberation struggles of women, people of color and sexual minorities (such as homosexuals) as intrinsic to working class revolt, and it looks to these specially-oppressed sectors of society to provide revolutionary leadership.

The Lyndon LaRouche communists were out in force. Both the mainstream press and hardline netroots blogger are trying to pin the LaRouche forces on conservatives and Rush Limbaugh. But LaRouche is a perennial candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; and the LaRouche activists are just extreme left-wing publicity seekers. See Newsbusters, "NBC, CNN and MSNBC All Assign Communist LaRouche's Obama-Hitler Poster to Conservatives, Limbaugh," and the Weekly Standard, "Video: Democrats Bring Obama-As-Hitler Signs to Town Halls" (via Memeorandum):

Below, this guy was handing me flyers from the radical Progressive Democrats of America, a Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich front-group. The guy's sign boasts the URL for the Coalition for World Peace, a partner with Code Pink and the neo-Stalinist International ANSWER:

Here's a local ACORN representative speaking to a reporter from the Spanish-language Univision network. ACORN thugs reportedly beat peaceful demonstrators at last week's Tampa Bay town hall meeting.

This woman was nestled in among the ObamaCare plants. She had one of the pre-distributed signs from the National Nurses Organizing Committee, a socialist single-payer health group.

The guy below in the red shirt is an ObamaCare goon. He was aggressively in-your-face making juvenile "L" for loser hand signs, telling conservative activists to "shut up and get out of the way." He kept yelling "loser!" loser"! "Health reform now"! He also started yelling "Wait until 2012!" at conservatives who tried to speak back to him. I talked calmly with the guy. I asked him "why should the democratic process come to a halt if your side won?" He couldn't answer the question. He was confident and said "Obama's health care is coming and you guys can try to win in 2012." I guess that's the street-level version of President Obama's "I don't want folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking." That's him with the sign below as well, "YOUR HEALTH VS. INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?"

Local activists from the International Socialist Organization posed for pictures. This woman was very nice, but I got the feeling she was new to community organizing (not thuggish enough). She was selling copies of the Socialist Worker for a dollar:

As I was getting ready to leave, I saw Mr. Red Shirt Blowhard again (below). Notice his right hand is grabbing the strings of his hat? I just missed getting a picture of him making the "L" sign while yelling "loser!" at the conservatives standing at right. The guy's now listening to what the tea partyers had to say, and this is the moment when I asked him, "why should the democratic process come to a halt if your side won?" That's his wife to the right. She spoke more calmly with some of the conservatives. The tea partyers gave specific citations of key portions of the House bill. I gathered, amid her befuddlement, that Mrs. Red-Shirt hadn't read the bill:

This woman below let me take her picture a littler earlier. Her sign is totally appropriate to what conservatives are facing at the town halls: "STOP AMERICA'S ENEMIES: ACORN + SEIU + ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA = OBAMA!":

Here are the local news trucks along 1st Street, preparing their 11:00pm reports:

This morning's Los Angeles Times refused to run a story on the conservatives against ObamaCare. Instead we got a tear-jerker front-page report on the healthcare event this week at the Inglewood Forum, "Free Care and a Reality Check: Uninsured Flood Clinic at the Forum."

The local ABC7 news report was pretty good actually. I reported on it last night. See, "Adam Schiff Town Hall: ObamaThugs to Conservative Protesters - 'We Won in 2008' (So STFU)." See also, "Tempers Flare at Adam Schiff Town Hall in Alhambra."

Plus, some thoughts from a local blogger, "Better Dead Than Red - Reflections on Congressman Schiff's Agitprop Town Hall."

Adam Schiff Town Hall: ObamaThugs to Conservative Protesters - 'We Won in 2008' (So STFU)

Okay, the video clip below, from KABC-TV Los Angeles, is a good one. This is Debra Evans, in the photo here and at the video. I listened to her for a couple of minutes, and of course we only get a soundbite at the clip. Ms. Evans was feeding ABC7 reporter Leslie Miller with ObamaBull on health care. Notice Ms. Evans' paraphernalia. That's an Organizing for America badge at left, and a SEIU button on the right. The ObamaThugs were out in large numbers, and they were getting agressive.

Look at Ms. Evans' poster: "We Won in 2008! It Was About Change! Remember?"

In other words, "shut up and get out of the way," to paraphrase Dear Leader. I'll post the picture tomorrow, but I got a shot of one big thug making the "L" sign, for "loser," while commanding some of the conservatives to lie down and take it until 2012. (By the way, my son's peers in junior high school also do the "L" sign, although the local kids in our neighborhood are smarter than the SEIU bullies.)

In any case, check out the video:

KABC provides the AP report, "Obama Assails Health Care Foes.:

My previous entry is here, "Tempers Flare at Adam Schiff Town Hall in Alhambra."

See also, Michelle Malkin, "The Illustrated Guide to Obamacare Human Props." (Via Memeorandum.)

Tempers Flare at Adam Schiff Town Hall in Alhambra

Here's KTLA's report, "Tempers Flare at Local Health Care Town Hall":

Tempers flared during a boisterous town hall meeting on health-care reform attended by 3,000 people.

The event was organized by U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D- Burbank). People who support President Obama's proposal to reform the system and those who liked things the way they are faced off with signs and shouting. But it appeared that most were in favor of changes to a current system that has seen employers' costs for employee coverage plans double since the dawn of the millennium.

There's more at the link.

Check also, the Pasadena Star-News, "Hundred of Protesters, Supporters Show Up to Schiff's Health Care Meeting."

It was more like "thousands of protesters, supporters" who showed up. I arrived right at 7:00pm, when Representative Schiff started to speak. I walked around and took a lot of pictures. My sense is the Democratic-leftists outnumber conservatives by about 2-1. Especially noteworthy was the large contingents of Organizing for America, SEIU, and assorted radical socialist organization that came out in big numbers.

Yet, I bumped into Jonathan Wilson of the Pasadena Patriots and his group estimated about 2,000 anti-ObamaCare protesters at the event, so I'll have to confirm some of the numbers.

I'll have my full photo-essay tomorrow, with personal stories. I'm going to get into contact with a couple of other tea party activists to get some feedback, and I want to check facts and get authorizations for posting pictures and identifying information.

Congressman Adam Schiff Town Hall Tonight: 3,000 People Expected; ObamaThugs Organizing for America to Field Large Turnout

I'm preparing to head up to Alhambra to attend a town hall meeting sponsored by Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff.

The event is getting a lot of attention.

There was a prayer vigil in Hollywood this morning along Sunset Boulevard. The Los Angeles Times has the story, "Healthcare Reform Supporters, Opponents Gather in Hollywood." It turns out that Lyndon LaRouche activists have come out of the woodworks to oppose ObamaCare, and the Times made sure to focus on a reported six individuals as representing some king of extremist opposition to the Democrats' collectivist agenda: The LaRouche contingents "were holding jumbo photos of President Obama in a toothbrush mustache similar to that worn by Adolf Hitler." These folks are from LaRouchePac.com. They've been showing up at a few events across the state, and Daily Kos and Firedoglake want you to know about it - all except the seven times LaRouche ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination!

Speaking of which, Dear Leader's Organizing for America has put out a communiqué: "Town Hall Health Insurance Reform Forum with Congressman Adam Schiff and OFA (Health Care Organizing Event)." The ObamaThug group has been working closely with the SEIU to "drown out" voices of dissent against ObamaCare.

A couple of days ago, Representative Schiff's office announced that the meeting would be open only to constituents living in the 29th Congressional District. Then, interestingly, I got a report yesterday from the Pasadena Patriots indicating that Schiff changed his mind:

We just received word from Congressman Schiff's office that tomorrow's Townhall is not limited only to residents of the 29th Congressional District. It is open to everyone ... Tomorrow's Townhall promises to be an historic event. Patriots from all over Southern California are converging on our district to lend their voices and support.

I sure hope so.

Another Pasadena blogger indicated that the leftists were busing-in agitators from around the county, "SCHIFF IN TROUBLE - OPENS MEETING TO BUS IN NON-CONSTITUENTS FROM LOS ANGELES."

No matter what, turnout is expected to be huge:

Tonight’s meeting is at 7 outside the Alhambra Civic Center library. Schiff says there will be a panel of experts to answer questions. He expects as many as 3,000 people to attend.

One blogger has written "An Open Letter to Congressman Adam Schiff," which includes the rather pointed message: " I command you to vote NO against Barack Obama’s Healthcare Train Wreck."

I'll have a report later.

Meanwhile, check out Gateway Pundit, "Reports: Tea Party Protester Assaulted by Union Thug In New Hampshire," and "Classy vs. Classless: How Bush Handled Critics vs. Obama" (via Memeorandum).

Ezra Klein: Town Hall Protesters Are Killing Democracy!

Here's Ezra Klein:

When you have to explain why your bill won't create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn't, you've pretty much lost the argument.

That's an excellent point, and I'm glad he admits it, because the rest of Klein's essay makes the case that just asking if ObamaCare will create "death panels" is killing democracy. That's right, Klein argues that the concerns over Democratic plans for cost rationalization, felt by literally hundreds of thousands of regular Americans, amount to "unthinkable madness."

Klein links to an essay at the Post by Danielle Allen, "Health Reform's Hearing Problem: Both Sides Are Deaf to the Real Debate About Consequences":

In asking lawmakers to consider not merely the goals of their policies but also the experiential meaning of concrete realities that those policies may bring, they have a point. One can't answer them by saying: "These policies won't ration; there will be no death panels." If these reforms do either of these things, they will do so as a matter of unintended consequences. The appropriate answer, therefore, is to explain the institutional checks that will prevent the emergence of such unintended consequences.

Actually ,"unintended consequences" are part and parcel to policy evaluation. Leftists had no problem attacking the Bush administration's robust forward policy of democracy promotion, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, by excoriating neo-imperialist "blowback." Yet, now that the Democrats are in power, and when they're being asked legitimate questions - and whether folks are angry while asking the questions is immaterial - they throw up their hands and cry, "Ahh, this is madness ... you're killing the democratic process." Ezra Klein's basically endorsing the Pelosi/Hoyer formulation of criticism of the administration as "un-American." Leftists, people who are supposed to be all about civic participation and civil liberties, want to squelch freedom of speech faster than you can say "comparative effectiveness."

In any case, watch Glenn Beck at the video above. He argues, at about 2:40 minutes, that "I am so sick and tired of the media, and everybody else, equating union thugs with everyday Americans."

But you won't get that from Ezra Klein and the secular collectivists. All you'll here are smears of "Astroturfing" and "teabagging," and how the right's "hooligans" are destroying democracy.

Frankly, grassroots American democracy hasn't been quite this vigorous in some time, and we can thank Barack Obama's own hubris for that, not to mention the Pelosi/Reid/Hoyer faction's own sense of royal entitlement.

Meanwhile, our all-American town hall demonstrators just need to keep repeating: "You work for us"!

Arlen Specter: 'Do You Want to Be Led Out of Here?' Angry Citizen Walks Out on Town Hall as Crowd Fires Back at Specter: 'You Work For Us'!

Amid booing from the crowd, Senator Arlen Specter, at a town hall meeting this morning, yelled back at a gentleman who wasn't allowed to speak: "If you want to stay in here, we’re not going to tolerate any demonstrations or booing. So, it’s up to you."

Watch the CNN video. The crowd is cheering ecstatically in solidarity for their fellow consitituent:

And from the report:

Emotions ran high, with questioners complaining of government intrusion in their lives on health care and other issues. One man implored Specter and the government to "leave us alone," while another said the message Specter should take back to Washington is that he and others "want our country back."

The shoving incident occurred early in the 90-minute session, when a man started shouting that he had been told by Specter's staff that he could speak, but he didn't get one of the 30 cards distributed to people allowing them to ask questions. Another man stood up and shoved the protester, and Specter approached the men shouting for calm.

"You and your cronies in government do this kind of stuff all the time," the protester shouted before leaving the hall. "I'm not a lobbyist with all kinds of money to stuff in your pockets. I'll leave you so you can do whatever the hell you do."

The Politico's got a nice breakdown of what happened, "Arlen Specter Faces Fury: 'You Work For Us!'":

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) fired back Tuesday at a raucous town hall audience that booed and jeered him for more than an hour.

Specter immediately tried to temper the rough crowd, which started booing him before the question-and-answer session even began, with the blunt warning: “If you want to stay in here, we’re not going to tolerate any demonstrations or booing. So, it’s up to you."

But minutes later during the senator’s response to a question on whether Americans would be able to maintain their private insurance under the Democratic health care proposal, a protester who was not selected to speak stood up, walked into the aisle and began shouting at him.

“Do you want to be led out of here?” the senator told the man, pointing at him. “You’re welcome to go.”

Specter then walked toward the heckler who was being pushed back toward his seat by another member of the crowd.

“Now wait a minute,” Specter shouted repeatedly into the microphone. “You want to leave? Leave.”

“I’m going to speak my mind before I leave, because your people told me I could,” the protester said once the room quieted down. “I called your office, and was told I could have the mike to speak. And then I was lied to because I came prepared to speak.”

“I’ll leave,” the protester said, as several police officers stood nearby. “And you can do whatever the hell you please to do. One day God’s going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you’ll get your just deserts. I’m leaving.”

The man received loud applause and shouts of support as he walked out of the room.

So, what's the response among the chattering leftist-media classes? Blame the Repubicans, of course. Here's Mark Ambinder, "How Conservatives Are Blowing Their Chance":

Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. They ramped up much too quickly. When smaller, conservative groups Astroturfed, they inevitably brought to the meetings the type of Republican activist who was itching for a fight and who would use the format to vent frustrations at President Obama himself. There were plenty of activists who really wanted to know about health care, and some who were probably misinformed -- scared out of their chairs -- to some degree, but the loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock.

Yep, blame the Astroturfers. Typical. But let's not forget what's really going on: Americans want reform of healthcare, not a bureaucratic takeover that destroys the marketplace.

The left is losing this battle, and the townhalls are actually forcing the Democratic Party to do what what needs to be done: go back to the drawing board and write-up a market-driven reform plan that gives incentives for individuals to invest in ownership of insurance policies and health savings accounts. Reform should preserve functioning employee-based insurance programs (eliminate incentives for employers to abandon private markets); allow greater private competition, with individuals empowered to seek cost savings across state lines. Further, state-governments can reform Medicaid into a voucher program, which will help remove some of the stigma of public assistance in health care. As Arthur Laffer wrote recently:

By empowering patients and doctors to manage health-care decisions, a patient-centered health-care reform will control costs, improve health outcomes, and improve the overall efficiency of the health-care system.

More at Memeorandum.

Don't Insult Southerners: Hey, Michael Lind Gets it Right on the Left's 'Creepy Bigotry'!

From Michael Lind, at Salon, "Are Liberals Seceding From Sanity? The Left is Crazy to Insult White Southerners as a Group":

Back in the 1960s, Seymour Martin Lipset and Richard Hofstadter and other liberal sociologists, historians and political scientists, puzzled that anyone could support Barry Goldwater rather than Lyndon Johnson, concluded that Goldwater supporters were deranged. They didn't say so directly, of course. They said that members of the radical right were emotionally disturbed victims of "status anxiety." The evidence? They didn't vote the way that Lipset and other academics thought that they should vote. Therefore they had to be crazy.

In the decades since, far better scholars than Hofstadter and Lipset, for whom history and sociology are not exercises in partisan Democratic mythmaking, have established that Goldwater and Reagan Republicans often were highly educated, socially secure individuals who happened not to share the values of liberal professors and journalists. This scholarship has been wasted, to judge by the glee with which the liberal blogosphere, in the aftermath of the ephemeral "Birther" flap, has dusted off the old conservatives-are-crazy meme, and revised it to suggest that all white Southerners are crazy.

In a recent Washington Post column, Kathleen Parker quoted Ohio Sen. George Voinovich's assertion that the Republican Party is "being taken over by Southerners" to suggest that the GOP risks becoming a permanent minority party of the old Confederacy. In itself this is a legitimate point that I and many other critics of Republican conservatism have made for years. However, at Mother Jones, the blogger Kevin Drum used Parker's political argument as an excuse for all-too-typical liberal Southern-bashing. According to Drum: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Southern whites who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Southern white culture is [redacted]. Jim Webb can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." Drum did the redacting on his own blog post, explaining he'd blacked out the offending text "on the advice of my frontal lobe".

Drum's creepy bigotry becomes clear when other groups are substituted: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual blacks who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, black culture is [redacted]. Barack Obama can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." Or maybe this: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Jews who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Jewish culture is [redacted]. The late Irving Howe can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]."

Lind goes on about how in recent years California has in fact been more bigoted than Texas, blah, blah ... But his larger point is that, frankly, leftists aren't too smart. They should be appealing to white of lower SES instead of disparaging them as backwater hicks. And THAT'S the thing. As Lind points out:

Liberals should respect and promote the interests of working Americans of all races and regions, including those who despise liberals. They are erring neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked.

What Lind doesn't do is explain why lefists are hostile to cross-cohort political alliances. There's a number of reasons, but the main thing is that leftist elites don't care about poor minorities or white Southerners. All they care about it political power to ram down their statist program of collectivism on the population. The left's bigtotry runs from blacks to rednecks and beyond. Frankly, folks like Kevin Drum are a dime-a-dozen across the leftosphere. This is what these freaks do.

More at Memorandum. And check the response Amanda Marcotte's response at Pandagon. And look for something at the biggest left-wing racist going, TBogg.

Tanking! Public Support for ObamaCare Falls to New Low

From Rasmussen Report, "Support for Congressional Health Care Reform Falls to New Low":

Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.

More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan while 56% of those over 65 are opposed. Among senior citizens, 46% are strongly opposed.

Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it. Yet while 44% of Democratic voters strongly favor the reform effort, 70% of GOP voters are strongly opposed to it.

Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.

Via Memorandum. See also Hot Air, Moe Lane, Power Line, Pundit & Pundette, and Weekly Standard.