Democrats Host Few Traditional Town Halls During August Recess: Henry Waxman Holds 'Secret' Climate Change Forum at UCLA

The video clip was just uploaded from Representative Henry Waxman's cap-and-trade town hall at UCLA today. At about 30 seconds, you'll see my friend Jonathan Wilson speaking into the camera:

But check this out: Just as Fox News reports that "Democrats Host Few Traditional Town Hall Meetings During August Recess," Representative Waxman has come under fire for holding a "secret" climate-change forum and for cancelling a town hall event.

The event announcement is a bit restricted, "Climate Change Forum: Creating Security & Prosperity for the 21st Century":

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED: Seating will be limited only to those who registered via the UCLA RSVP site and received a confirmation or wait-list notice will be admitted. Individuals on the waitlist or walk-ups can not be guaranteed seats. This is a UCLA-sponsored event only. Only those who have registered with UCLA will be admitted.

Here's UCLA's press release, "US Rep. Waxman, state Sen. Pavley plan climate change forum at UCLA": "The event is at capacity and there is limited seating for news media. R.S.V.P. required." (Or, "general public keep out"!)

And as Ari David notes in, "A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To a Town Hall Meeting":

I found out that one had to RSVP to the event to reserve a space ... I called his office and asked to be put on the list. A staffer told me about the ticketing process, and lo and behold the reservation system was not even being handled by Henry Waxman’s office but out of California State Senator, Fran Pavley’s website. How odd, the headliner, Waxman, is keeping access to the event focusing on his landmark energy bill hidden behind the opening act of a rather anonymous State Senator. I wonder why? ...

Next, I went to Senator Pavley’s website to follow the RSVP instructions for the event and instead of just having an online page to confirm that I am coming, the page took an “application” for the event and requested certain data about me in the “required fields” such as name, email address, organization, position in the organization and (not required) phone number.

I filled this all in and the page gave me a message that my application was being processed and I would hear back from them shortly.

Ok, so minus salary information and my SS# this was equal to the amount of information I gave on my first credit card application ....

There are many issues at play here. One is that the most powerful elected official from the LA area is either afraid of or smart enough not to face his voters after doing his best to wreck their lives with his two latest pieces of legislation. Another is transparency. When the Democrats took over Congress after the 2006 elections, Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of the culture of corruption. This theme was repeated when Obama took office and promised a “new age of transparency and government accountability.”

Some accountability this is.

Passing thousand page bills in the middle of the night that no one has or could read, rushing the bills through by claiming how urgent they are and then taking a couple days vacation to find the right photo opportunity for the signing… If anything this is the least transparent and most opaque government American’s have had in generations. We have no idea what the Cap and Trade and the health care bills will actually contain once they are written – other than a bunch of horrible things that will make our lives harder and cost us more money.

Plus, it turns out another event was planned for this evening. See, "Citizens to Host Town-Hall Meeting in Lieu of Representatives, Senators":

A group of young people will host a citizen-based town hall meeting Friday at 7:00PM at UCLA, in Bruin Plaza. The southern California based pro-life group, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, was planning a protest for Henry Waxman's town hall set for Friday evening.

However, Rep. Waxman canceled the event for fear of disruption.

"The meeting was canceled almost as soon as it was announced," said Charles Cox, a representative of Survivors. "If our elected officials are too afraid to hold an honest town hall meeting then we will gladly hold one for them."

The group has recently launched a campaign against tax-funded abortion. As part of the campaign they attended another town hall meeting in Alhambra lead by Rep. Adam Schiff last week. After learning that the questions were pre-screened, the Survivors shouted their concerns to the panel. A video of the Survivors at the meeting is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SA3-Uq6-ao.

"HR 3200 contains provisions that are unacceptable to the majority of Americans," said Timmerie Millington, a volunteer with Survivors. "it provides a mandate for abortion on demand paid for by taxpayers through the Public Option."

This is pretty common nationwide, of course. See, "Officials avoiding town hall-style health care forums, " and "Lawmakers’ priority during recess: avoid town halls."

And recall Michelle Malkin's post, "Phoning it in."

What Happened to the Antiwar Movement? Sheehan to Protest Obama at Martha's Vinyard

In another example that radical leftists are all about power, not principle, note how the Democratic Party, the media, and the netroots have all but ignored Cindy Sheehan's drive to revive the antiwar movement. Here's the letter she sent to Byron York at the Washington Examiner":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I read your column about the "anti-war" movement and I can't believe I am saying this, but I mostly agree with you.

The "anti-war" "left" was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the "anti-Republican War" movement.

While I agree with you about the hypocrisy of such sites as the DailyKos, I have known for a long time that the Democrats are equally responsible with the Republicans. That's why I left the party in May 2007 and that's why I ran for Congress against Nancy Pelosi in 2008.

I have my own radio show, "Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox," and I was out on a four-month book tour promoting the fact that it's not about Democrats or Republicans, but it's about the system.

Even if I am surrounded by a thousand, or no one, I am still working for peace.

Sincerely,

Cindy Sheehan

Sheehan is responding to York's essay, "For the Left, War Without Bush is Not War at All."

But see this morning's piece, "Sheehan: Pro-Obama Media Want the Anti-War Movement to Go Away":

This week ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson, who extensively covered anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's demonstrations against George W. Bush in 2005, said "Enough already" when it comes to Sheehan's plans to protest next week at Martha's Vineyard, where President Barack Obama will be vacationing.

Now Sheehan has responded. "I am sure that he just wants me to go away like most of the rest of the anti-war movement has done under the Obama presidency," Sheehan writes at her website.

Actually, we have had a couple of large protests this year, but they're not protests against the "regime" in Washington. They're protests against "the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine." See, "Friday Protest in Los Angeles Against Gaza Assault." It's interesting that International ANSWER, the largest antiwar organization, which spearheaded dozens of nationwide protests against the Bush administration, has pretty much abandoned antiwar protests in favor gay marriage and immigration issues. And even when ANSWER has sponsored a major antiwar rally with President Obama in office, gone are the calls for war crimes trials and death to the "dictator" ... blah, blah, blah ...

Check the photo-essay from Ringo’s Pictures, "Anti-War Protest - Hollywood, CA on March 21, 2009." There are a couple shots of protesters carrying anti-Obama signs, but the post-Bush/Cheney antiwar movement has shifted to a more generic revolutionary agenda that eschews specific attacks on the current administration:

More at Ringo’s Pictures.

Related: And back to the left's double-standards in the war on terror, see Gateway Pundit, "Outrage! ... ACLU and Gitmo Lawyers Accused of Passing Personal Info About CIA Agents to Al-Qaeda ," Kim Priestap, "ACLU and Jihadi Defense Attorneys Expose Under Cover CIA Operatives to the Enemy, and the Washington Post, "Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos: Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo."

Added: USA Today, "Martha's Vineyard abuzz about the Obamas" (via Memeorandum).

Need I Say More?

Cross-posted from Vinegar and Honey, "Need I Say More?":

Need I say more?

No, but I will.

President Abraham Lincoln said a lot in his address at Gettysburg, but the one statement that has always gotten my attention was this:
"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln - November 19, 1863

The speech, itself, was to honor the fallen of the war, and to dedicate a portion of the land where they had fallen, but it, in a sense, became much more than that, in that the words came to define democracy, itself, and are taken quite seriously by many with the strong conviction that the words meant what they said, and that it would ever be so. However, there are too many who think that they are nothing more than "words, just words," and what a travesty it all has become.

How far we have fallen as a nation, but the flaming fire of that conviction--the conviction that freedom, and the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth-- still burns as brightly as ever in the hearts of most of the citizens of our great country.

That in itself, should give us the determination to stand, even in the face of all adversity.

There's another cartoon at the link.

Say hello to my friend Jan in the comments. She's a great blogger and I love her analysis!

Cartoon Credit: William Warren at Americans for Limited Goverment.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Obama and Progressives

After citing Paul Krugman's angry repudiation of President Obama for selling out progressives, Ta-Nehisi Coates has this:

I don't quite understand why progressives would feel punked. Perhaps, I'm just a cynic but I voted for Obama in the primaries, because I thought he was most likely to beat John McCain--not because I thought he was to the left of Hillary Clinton. Obama always struck me as a very talented and cerebral politician, with a left-ish bent. Again, maybe I'm a cynic, but his flip-flops don't really surprise. Isn't this what politicians do?

And Ta-Nehisi adds this regarding the ObamaCare debacle:

I have no idea what will happen, ultimately. Moreover, I'm not sure that most voters are bothered by any of this. still, it this whole escapade smacks of Obama being too clever by half--of an Obama who can't get over his own high-mindedness and holds out the bipartisan spirit as a kind of fetish, a gimmick. It's all so unserious.

Voters not bothered. Unserious.

Right.

That's why the Washington Post reports:

Public confidence in President Obama's leadership has declined sharply over the summer, amid intensifying opposition to health-care reform that threatens to undercut his attempt to enact major changes to the system ...

But, of course, bipartanship is "a kind of fetish."

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

Court Expected to Send Rifqa Bary Home to Near-Certain Death

World Net Daily has a report, "Christian Girl Begs State: Don't Let Them Kill Me! Judge Decides Fate of Honor Student, Cheerleader Who Fled Muslim Parents":

A young Christian runaway in foster care awaits her hearing tomorrow when Florida authorities will decide whether she will be forced to return to her Muslim parents – whom she says will kill her for converting to Christianity.

Also, Fox News is reporting, "Court Expected to Send Runaway Teen Home Despite Muslim Honor Killing Fears":

A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say, despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents' faith.

Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to Ohio.

The Fox piece interviews Phyllis Chesler:

Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an author and professor of psychology at the Richmond College of the City University of New York, said she believes Bary will be in danger if she is sent back to her parents.

"Anyone who converts from Islam is considered an apostate, and apostasy is a capital crime," Chesler wrote FOXNews.com. "If she is returned to her family, if she is lucky, they will isolate her, beat her, threaten her, and if she is not 'persuaded' to return to Islam, they will kill her. They have no choice."

Chesler, who wrote "Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?" for Middle East Quarterly, said the tradition of such slayings is not fully understood by most Americans, including those in law enforcement.

"She escaped from her family's brutal tyranny and shamed her family further through public exposure," Chesler said. "Muslim girls and women are killed for far less."

Here's what Phyllis wrote at her blog yesterday:

The mainstream American media simply refuses to cover the Islamification of the West. Publishers run scared when I mention this as a possible next book title of mine. Newspapers are reluctant to cover honor killings or attempted honor killings in America at all, or in an accurate and informed way. If and when they write about jihadist attacks against the West or honor killings in America, the information is often buried on a back page or is, amazingly, biased against the victim and/or sympathetic towards the killer–yes, even if he has confessed. Yes, even if his victim or victims are also people of color born into the Muslim faith.

Apparently, the victims win no sympathy even if they, too, have also been born in formerly colonized or “occupied” countries, are currently also immigrants of color, or Muslims. What matters is only who the perpetrator is. Muslim-on-Muslim crimes, including genocide, do not count.

As yet, I cannot find Rifqa’s amazing and important story anywhere in the national mainstream media. I know that Fox is working on a story because they’ve talked to me about the issues this case raises. Am I surprised? Not really. There was either no or very little coverage of the honor killings that took place in the last decade in North America in Cleveland, St. Clairsville, Toronto, Chicago, Jersey City, British Columbia, Scottsville, Ottawa, Toronto, Dallas, Atlanta, Oak Forest, Alexandria, Buffalo, Kingston, Canada, Roslyn. You may read about some of these honor killings in my study and in my many articles at this blogsite.

What is really going on?

The guiding, hypnotic template is Israel versus the Palestinians. The actual aggressors are seen as innocent, misunderstood, and noble, their real victims are seen as provocative, rebellious, evil or mentally ill–especially if they dare to fight back, run away, or expose the truth of the matter.

The Israelis are “Nazis” perpetrating a new “Holocaust” against the Palestinians. In the case of the incredibly brave Rifqa Bary, we now have a victim of a potential honor killing trying to save her own life–and she is being portrayed as “mentally ill” or as a liar. I am told that she is being characterized in the local Ohio media as unstable while her father is being portrayed as loving and caring.

See also, Jawa Report, "Extremist Ohio mosque becoming focus of Rifqa Bary custody dispute."

And from Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs:

* "Rifqa's Day in Court."

* "Terrorizing Rifqa Bary: Media Crimes and Misdemeanors and Immorality."

* "The Media Puts Rifqa and those trying to help her on trial: Orlando Sentinel Shills for Islamic Misogynists and Rifqa Bary's Promised Honor Killers, Continues to Prints their lies."

* "Rifqa Bary Before her Escape: Beatings, Brutality, Subjugation."

No Apology Needed: Ambinder is Right About Left's 'Gut Hatred' of George W. Bush

Andrew Card, former chief of staff in the first George W. Bush administration, has repudiated former DHS secretary Tom Ridge's claim that color-coded terror alerts were politically motivated:

“We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions,” former White House chief of staff Andy Card told POLITICO. “The clear instructions were to make sure politics never influenced anything.”

Check the article for the full story. The Card quotation is provided for context. What's more interesting is the related intra-leftist debate over Marc Ambinder's claim that the radical left's skepticism of the terror alerts was based on "gut hatred of President Bush."

Marcy Wheeler, at Firedoglake, hammered Ambinder, saying:

Ambinder's lame explanation for why we all knew the terror alerts were bullshit but he didn't is particularly atrocious for two reasons.

First, he relies on a stereotype--the activists motivated solely by their gut hatred of George Bush--to avoid reflecting on why normal people relying on simple empiricism had access to truths that journalists somehow couldn't access.

But then there's the stereotype itself, the activists motivated solely by their gut hatred of George Bush. Accepting for a moment the totally bullshit premise that all of the people who believed the terror alerts were bogus hated Bush and were motivated soley by their hatred of Bush--accepting that false premise as true--how do you think those "activists" got their gut hatred of George Bush? Were they all birthed with it?

Glenn Greenwald, unsurprisingly, jumped on the no-Bush-hatred bandwagon:

Ambinder's belief that there is nothing other than blind "Bush hatred" that could have justified such a belief -- and his accompanying self-defense that journalists like him had no way of knowing any of this -- is patently false.

The timing here is crucial. Ridge claimed that terror alerts were manipulated during the general election of 2004, when G.W. Bush was running against Democrat John Kerry. So there's something of a chicken-egg problem, and it's easily resolved. Leftists hated Bush well before the 2004 election. It's rather funny now that leftists would use Ridge's book as "evidence" that they were right about the administration "manipulating people's perceptions of fear and terror," since Secretary Ridge was also certainly hated as one of the Evil Bush-Cheney Nazi Administration's henchmen. In fact, we have it from none other than Firedoglake's own "Thers" that the Evil Bush-Cheney Cabal was sent by the devil himself, well before November of 2004:

I remember first encountering the "Irrational Bush Hatred" thing back during the Great Run-Up to War in 2002. I was at first baffled by it, being younger and, happily, less acquainted with the twisty backwards-logic of the wingnut reptile mind. There was always a certain inverted genius about the accusation. Because I did hate George W. Bush! But it was nothing personal. Strictly business. See, I thought, correctly, as it emerged, and as indeed was absurdly easy to figure out at the time, that George Bush was making up ridiculous crap in order to sucker the nation into a disastrous war that would get a lot of people killed for no sane reason. It seemed to me, not unreasonably, that someone who would do such a thing was kind of an asshole. And hence I concluded that George W. Bush was an utter asshole, as were his advisers, cronies, Sith-lords, sycophants, and Internet Fan-Base. They were all crazy assholes. And they still are!

Note also, as we can see in the Zombietime photo above from 2003, that visceral hatred of President Bush - uniformly accompanied by death threats - was a constant from the earliest days of the administration.

What's also interesting is that Ambinder, in his apology for using the "gut hatred" line, admits that journalists are natural allies to the nihilhist netroots bloggers:

It was wrong to use the phrase "gut hatred." Had I spent more time thinking about the post, I would have chosen a different phrase. And I should have ... Though American politics has never been beanbag and it has never been nice, for political journalists, our not calling out Republicans on these tactics -- not calling them strikes, as they were definitely within the strike zone -- was our deepest failing.

Isn't that fascinating? Two blog posts, one at Firedoglake, the home of the hysterically dishonest "Hammering" Jane Hamsher, and one by Glenn "Sockpuppet" Greenwald, and Ambinder offers an epic mea culpa? That's really too much.

Ambinder was right in the first place, and he should have stuck to his guns. The left hates Bush. Indeed, leftist ideology is an ideology of hatred. Ambinder should know this as a "journalist," but a quick Google search would have helped. Charles Krauthammer offered his psychological diagnosis of "Bush Derangement Syndrome" in 2003. Dr. Sanity wrote a retrospective of Bush hatred in 2004, "The Psychology of Bush Hatred." She links to a Virginia Postrel piece, eviscerating Maureen Dowd, Bush-hater extraordinaire, in July 2004: "The Voice of Fear."

But note this from Peter Berkowitz's article, "The Insanity of Bush Hatred":

Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims--who pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance--to reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster instead of a political opponent.

And Berkowitz is specifically describing the vicious hatred that had its orgins well before anyone in the administration even contemplated manipulated color-coded terror alerts. It's a shame that Marc Ambinder would now deign to elevate the denials of the very same Bush haters to a level of rational and respectable discourse.

Lockerbie Bomber Gets Hero's Welcome in Libya: Victims' Families Outraged at Mass Murderer's Release; White House 'Deeply Disappointed' at Injustice

CNN has the story, "Most Families Outraged at Pan Am 103 Bomber's Release":

"I feel sick. I feel depressed and outraged. I mean, I am just heartbroken," said Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, a 20-year-old Syracuse University music student, was killed in the bombing ... I feared they would do this," she said. "Now that they've made friends with Gadhafi ... the Western countries want to give him everything that he wants, appease him. He wanted [Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al] Megrahi, they are rushing Megrahi out; they aren't even giving this a day. And the tiny little shred of justice we had is gone."

And, check the CBS interview with victims' families, as well as the Fox clip below of the extended cheers and applause on the ground in Libya:

Plus, from Fox News, "White House: U.S. 'Deeply Regrets' Release of Lockerbie Bomber." And more from Fox, "Lockerbie Bomber Freed From Prison on Compassionate Grounds."

Early Post-Mortems on ObamaCare: Don't Forget the Tea Parties!

Folks are already discussing what went wrong with the Obama administration's healthcare agenda. Carrie Budoff Brown's piece at the Politico suggests that President Obama bears the brunt of the blame:

What went wrong? Bearing the brunt of some of the criticism is Obama himself – once viewed as a sure-fire closer, now facing grumbling on the left for letting critical months slip by without a constant, coherent and consistent argument. Think “change” and “hope” from the campaign, catchwords that Obama practically trademarked. In this fight, his key messages have shifted, from fixing health care to fix the economy, to “stability and security” for people who already have insurance.

And this week, he returned to an argument Democratic strategists said shouldn't be part of the pitch this year – trying to convince Americans they have a “moral obligation” to help people without insurance, a discredited argument from the reform effort under President Bill Clinton.

“I don’t think the messaging has been very clear,” said Celinda Lake, a leading Democratic pollster on health care. But more so, she added, “the campaign to disseminate the messaging has not been as relentless and organized as it needs to be.”

This is good, up to a point. At the video, Mitt Romney argues that the administration not only lost the message from the beggining, but outsourced policy to the hardline leftists in the Democratic Congress. Totally abandoning any effort at bipartisanship, Nancy Pelosi's forces have sought a socialized health bill that the public was guaranteed to reject.

What's interesting in both Budoff Brown and Romney's discussion is the complete omission of the effectiveness of grassroots opposition. In "ObamaCare and the Tea Party Effect," I argued that "grassroots conservative activism" was having a significant influence in shifting public opinion against Democratic healthcare proposals. At the time of publication, public opinion surveys rarely asked specific questions on the effect of tea parties and town halls. Polling shows now, however, that right-wing protests have had a dramatic impact in shifting the debate in this country - and in handing the administration a major domestic policy defeat.

See, USA Today, "Poll: Health Care Views Take Sympathetic Tilt."

See also, "Zogby: Obama Hits Record Low in Poll":

President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance, according to the latest Zogby International poll.

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.

Hat Tip: Hot Air, "Oh My: Obama Down to 45% Approval in New Zogby Poll."

Obama's Waterloo on Health Care Reform

Here's President Obama live from the White House with conservative radio host Michael Smerconish:

See The Hill for details, " 'One Way or Another,' Obama Guarantees Reform." Also, the New York Times, "Obama Still Optimistic on Health Care Overhaul."

Meanwhile, leftists are talking as though a defeat on health care would be Obama's Waterloo. ABC News has this, "Obama Ally: Dem Majority Is History If Health Reform Fails." And Mike Soraghan has this, "Left Flexes Muscles on Healthcare Reform."

Plus, Hammering Jane Hamsher gets ugly in, "If Progressive Members of the House Think We’ll Accept Co-Ops As Public Plan, Think Again." To which, William Jacobson responds, "Left-Wing Attack On Obama's 'Health Care Toenail Clippings'." (Via Memeorandum.)

And although he bugs the hell out of me, I love the title of John Avlon's piece, "The Coming Liberal Suicide":

Liberals are in deep denial about the source of the President’s falling poll numbers during this summer’s healthcare debate. They think the problem—perceptions of arrogant over-reaching liberalism—is the cure. It’s the same self-serving mistake that the extremes always make.

President Obama needs to depolarize the health care debate. He got off-message because he got off-center. Embracing a bipartisan bill that replaces the public-option with a non-profit co-op will not “muddy” the debate but help clarify it. It will not be a retreat but a way forward.

Lyndon Johnson once joked that “the difference between liberals and cannibals is that cannibals don’t eat their friends and family members.” In half-century long history of failed healthcare reforms from Harry Truman on down, liberal cannibalism has been as much to blame for defeats as fear-mongering from the far-right.

Actually, the "fearmongering" is a grassroots political tide of conservative opposition that rightly smells blood. After Obama's health care debacle, look for good things coming on the right of the spectrum. See also, Jay Cost, "Amateur Hour at the White House."

International Officials Launch Gender Inquiry on Caster Semenya

Freaky story from the Los Angeles Times, "Questions Raised About Gender of Winner of Women's 800-Meter Race":

A South African teenager's stunning victory in the women's 800-meter race at the World Championships on Wednesday was only a precursor to the shocking circumstances unveiled afterward.

At least two of the seven runners who lost to Caster Semenya said they are convinced she is not a woman, and track and field's international governing body has launched an investigation into the 18-year-old's gender.

Semenya, a muscular 5 feet 7 inches and 140 pounds, was an unknown before she ran a blistering time at the Africa Junior Championships three weeks ago. She did not speak to media after the race. An interview sheet distributed by the International Assn. of Athletics Federations said "no comment available," and Pierre Weiss, the IAAF's general secretary, appeared in her place at a news conference because officials determined Semenya was unprepared to face a barrage of questions.

Weiss said it could take several weeks to get the results of the investigation, which he said included testing of Semenya in both South Africa and Berlin. Without that evidence, the IAAF could not keep Semenya from running here.

"We entered Caster as a woman and we want to keep it that way," South African team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane told the Associated Press. "Our conscience is clear in terms of Semenya."

The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the international federation began to ask questions about Semenya on July 31, when she ran what then was the fastest time in the world this season, 1 minute 56.72 seconds, at the Africa Junior Championships in Mauritius.

She ran even faster Wednesday, winning in 1:55.45, a time bettered by only a dozen women in history. With 150 meters to go, she turned the race into a rout, leaving defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya (1:57.90) and Jennifer Meadows of Britain (1:57.93) far back in second and third.

"I've never seen her [Semenya] before today," Meadows said. "She took the race by storm."

Also, KTLA, "Man or Woman? Officials to Test Gender of 800-Meter Runner."

Plus, "South Africa's Track President Defends Gold Medalist Semenya."

Video Hat Tip: Right Fielders.

Frank Rich on Rachel Maddow Show: 'We Have to Worry About Right Wing Political Violence'

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, for her relentless disinformation and fearmongering, deserves as much condemnation as Contessa Brewer and her leftist gang of propagandists and smear merchants. New York Times columnist Frank Rich appeared on Maddow's show last night. Maddow, referencing Rich's weekend op-ed, compares the gun-toting demonstrators at town halls and at Obama appearances to the assassins emerging out of "the political climate of the 1960s."

In response, Nick Gillespie has this piece at Reason, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Still History's Patsy":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As Matt Welch and Jesse Walker and others at this site have been pointing out, loose analogies between between angry, sputtering citizens at town hall meetings and Nazis street thugs and political assassins are pretty damn lame. As important, they are almost inevitably the result of a strange ideological lesion that precludes inclusion of inconvenient facts. A propos of the above: JFK was not assassinated by a right-wing crank, but by a demonstrably pro-Castro defector to the Soviet Union who tooks shots at a rising right-wing freakazoid not long before shooting the president (yes, Oswald done did it). And, you might remember, that revolutionary (coff, coff) violence that wracked the '60s and early '70s was the result primarily not of out-of-control Barry Goldwaterites but by groups on the left.

Precisely what relevance any of this has to the current moment is far from clear. Maddow seemed most freaked out by a recent Arizona incident in which people toted guns to a rally near where President Obama was speaking. The incident has been revealed (on CNN) as a stunt pulled by radio show host and longtime Libertarian Party activist Ernest Hancock, not the nefarious workings of a secret army of camo-wearing zombies mad over mandatory UNICEF collections ...

More at the link.

Hat Tip: Megan McArdle.

Americans for Limited Government: Heads Should Roll at MSNBC

Americans for Limited Government has issued a demand for the "immediate termination of Contessa Brewer, Toure, Dylan Ratigan" and others involved in the fraudulent August 18 broadcast on the "white racist" threat to President Obama.

Mr. Steve Capus
NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

Dear Mr. Capus:

On Tuesday, August 18, at 10:45 AM, your network -- with a blatantly racist broadcast -- took the falsification of the news to a dangerous new low. I am writing to you today on behalf of the 400,000 members of Americans for Limited Government nationwide to ask that all involved in this nefarious assault on decency be immediately fired from their jobs.

I am referring, of course, to the MSNBC “news” cast on that morning in which your anchors hysterically raised the specter of impending racial violence -- while carefull y cropping the very video upon which they based their duplicitous charges. Leading audiences nationwide to believe that militant whites were mounting violence against a black President, they deliberately covered up the fact that the individual they were framing was himself African-American.

I could go on with a graphic description of the horrendous misrepresentation foisted on the American people by your anchors and those who worked with them on your distorted reportage, but by now, I am sure that you are well aware of the despicable fraud they perpetrated. Even if you, like most Americans, were not watching MSNBC at the time, you undoubtedly have been apprised of the transgression by now.

Therefore, I will not waste your time or mine regurgitating the facts of the blatant abuse of the public trust. Instead, let me simply get to the vital thrust of this letter:

On behalf of the nearly half million members of Americans for Limited Government – and tens of millions of other equally appalled Americans of all races nationwide -- I hereby demand the immediate termination of Contessa Brewer, Toure, Dylan Ratigan and any and all others involved in any way with the fraudulent “news” that ran in the 10:45AM segment of your August 18 broadcast.

Your network has besmirched the dignity and honor of American people. You have endangered the life of the President of the United States. You have purposely fanned racial tensions. And you have deliberately lied to your own audience.

Failure on your part to act will be proof positive that you, your corporation and the corporation that owns you intended this deception. As such, you can no longer claim to be “press” in any sense of the word but will have crossed the line, becoming a political advocacy organization. That, then, becomes a matter for the FCC and the courts to consider the proper punishment for this gross transgression of the rules of a civil society.

Thank you.

William Wilson
President
Americans for Limited Government

cc:

Jeffrey Immelt, President and Chairman, General Electric
Phil Griffin, President MSNBC News

See also, Michael Calderone, "ALG to MSNBC: Fire Brewer, Ratigan, Toure" (via Memeorandum).

Don't Forget Threats Against President Bush

From Zombietime, "Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years" (via Memeorandum):

On Wednesday, August 12, a man holding a sign that said “Death to Obama” at a town hall meeting in Maryland was arrested and turned over to the Secret Service, which is pursuing an investigation into charging him with threatening the president.

As well they should. I fully and absolutely agree with this arrest, since anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted ....

But the story of this arrest got me to thinking: Why was no one ever arrested for threatening President Bush at protests, when they displayed signs in public that called for his death?

Many readers may naively think, “The answer is obvious: no protester was ever arrested for threatening Bush at a protest because no one ever threatened him at a protest. Who would be that stupid? I certainly never heard of any such threats.”

Alas, if only it were that simple. Because the bald fact is that people threatened Bush at protests all the time by displaying menacing signs and messages — exactly as the anti-Obama protester just did in Maryland. Yet for reasons that are not entirely clear, not a single one of those Bush-threateners at protests was ever arrested, questioned, or investigated.

More at the link, and here too.

Guy With AR-15 at Obama Rally Was Black Dude: MSBNC Kinda Leaves That Part Out

Newsbusters and Hot Air have the story (via Memeorandum).

But Neptunus Lex really captures the heart of the story, "Shameless":

MSNBC rolls out a video of a weapons carrying citizen outside the president’s address to the VFW in Phoenix, acknowledging the 2nd amendment demonstration but noting the “racial overtones” inherent to a “man of color” in the presidency with “white people showing up with guns strapped to their waist.”

Sounds awful when you say it like that.

Just one problem: The citizen exercising his constitutional right to keep and bear arms was black, a fact conveniently hidden by intentionally tight video framing. Because obviously, the only comprehensible reason to agitate against the president’s policies is because you’re a racist.
You pig!

You know, even in the worst days of Soviet-era airbrushing, I don’t think that even Pravda would have been so abandoned, so profligate in their disinformation campaigns.

There's lots more on this:

AOSHQ, "Oh, My: MSNBC Carefully Crops Shot of Black Man Carrying AR-15 at Health Care Rally to Avoid Skin Color, So They Can Then Rant and Rave About "White People" Showing Up With Guns When a 'Person of Color' is President."

Newsbusters, "MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner."

Democrats Should Think Twice About ObamaCare

From Investor's Business Daily, "The Voters' Option":

Sure, the Democrats could pass a health care bill. They have the votes to do whatever they want. Well, good luck with that. As we all have seen from constituents shouting down their quaking representatives, the public is up in arms about the "reforms" proposed. Democrats would be wise to think twice about trying to ram them down the public's throat.

One new poll shows that Americans, by an overwhelming 59% to 36%, agree Congress shouldn't pass a health care bill with just Democratic support. And a Pew Poll shows that, for the first time in the Obama era, fewer than half of all Americans have a favorable view of the Democrats.

If Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman and the wonks in the White House think they'll get a free political pass on this, they're in for a big surprise.

The problem is that they're so wedded to the idea of a "public option" — the Trojan horse plan that will, by design, inevitably lead to a single-payer system — that they can't see how destructive they're being to their own party.

Both bills now being mulled by Congress would cost $1 trillion, possibly more. Neither covers all of the estimated 45.6 million uninsured. Neither cuts costs. Neither improves the quality of care.

What those bills do isn't pretty. Both involve government in individual health care decisions. Both let bureaucrats, not individuals, decide the value of life in old age. Both inevitably lead to rationing.

Americans don't like any of this.

Our own polling shows that 91.6% of those who are insured are satisfied with their coverage. Under plans contemplated by the Democrats, many would lose that care. The Lewin Group, a respected health consultancy, estimates 119 million of today's 170 million insured would lose private coverage. This is intolerable.

More at the link.

Cartoon Credit: William Warren at Americans for Limited Government.

All Aboard the Tea Party Express

Mark Williams, of the Tea Party Express national bus tour, was interviewed this morning on Fox News, "All Aboard":

Check the website, here.

Pamela Geller and Freedom for Rifqa Bary

I wanted to give Pamela Geller a huge shout out and congratulations on her coverage of Rifqa Bary, the Ohio teenager and Christian who, fearing death, escaped the clutches of her Muslim father. Rifqa Bary believes she'll be murdered by her father for converting to Christianity, in a ritual honor killing.

ABC News has given the Rifqa Bary story mainstream (and questionable) coverage.

See, "Christian Teen Flees Home, Says She Fears Honor Killing by Muslim Father: Rifqa Bary Turned Up in Florida Pastor's Home Weeks After Leaving Ohio Home," and "Muslim Parents Deny Threatening Daughter With Honor Killing Over Christianity: Statement From Lawyer Indicates Rifqa Bary's Parents Blame Pastors for Creating Story."

But check Pamela's piece at Newsmax, "Dad Claims Brainwashing As Muslim Girl Fears He’ll Kill Her":

Rifqa Bary says she ran to Florida to save her life: “I was threatened by my dad.” She says that her father told her, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter. I will kill you.” But now her father is trying to regain custody of Rifqa, and he and the Islamic Society of Central Florida say she has been “kidnapped” and “brainwashed” by a “cult,” and that she’s a “rebel,” a “troubled teen.”

Well, which is it?

“This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” claims Mohamed Bary, Rifqa’s father.

She hitchhiked to the bus station and took a Greyhound from Ohio to Florida. How is that a kidnapping?

Brainwashed by a cult? Which is the cult? Is it the group that silently approves of the murder of a daughter who shames her family by not wearing the proper head dress (like Aqsa Parvez), or by wanting live a free life (like Hatin Sürücü), or by dating the wrong boy (like Amina and Sarah Said), or by choosing another religion (like Rifqa Bary)? Or is it the group that offers sanctuary to a poor threatened girl?

Rifqa Bary’s father is also claiming that she was “brainwashed” by the pastor of the Global Revolution church in Orlando. Pastor Blake Lorenz denies that, saying, “she has been a Christian for four years, long before we ever met her.”

Let’s look at the facts.

Read the whole thing, here. See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Rifqa Bary Before her Escape: Beatings, Brutality, Subjugation."

Related: Aqsa Parvez was murdered in December, 2007, for refusing to wear the Muslim hijab. As of July of this year, Muhammad Parvez, who is accused of strangling his daughter, was still awaiting trail. See, Michelle Malkin, "The murder of Aqsa Parvez, and "Whitewashing the murder of Aqsa Parvez …"

Sarah Yaser Said and her sister, Amina Yaser Said, were murdered in 2007. The girls' father, Yaser Abdel Said, is wanted by the FBI for murder. The Dallas Observer ran a big story in June 2008, "American Girls: Crossing between American and Egyptian cultures, he Said girls made one deadly misstep: They fell in love." See also, Andrew Waldron, "Honor Killing in Dallas." As of June 2009, America's Most Wanted has Yaser Abdel Said listed as "one of the nation's most-wanted men."

See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Honor Killing: Islam's Gruesome Gallery."

Michele Bachmann: 'Now Is Not the Time to Take the Pressure Off'

Congresswoman Michele Bachman gave a must-see interview on last night's Sean Hannity. What's especially interesting to me, as one who's supported and defended Bachmann since she broke out as a target of the left last fall, is how increasingly penetrating her observations have become. At about 3:45 minutes, Bachmann notes that the town halls "are a wonderful thing ... we're actually seeing democracy in action, and it will be very difficult for Members of Congress to go back to Washington in September and clearly vote against their constituents' interests. None of them can say now that they didn't realize where the heartbeat of the American public is, and we'll truly see if the liberals in Congress are listenting to regular Americans." This is just gold!

Also, after blowing the lid off the alleged shelving of the public option, Bachmann says "the American people need to realize that they've been extremely effective with Congress ... now is not the time to give up, now is not the time to take the pressure off" because Democrats will move forward with some kind of public option.

Plus, conservative opposition to ObamaCare continues to influence public opinion. See Rasmussen, "Without Public Option, Enthusiasm for Health Care Reform, Especially Among Democrats, Collapses" (via Memeorandum).

Americans for Prosperity Takes Page From Left's Online Playbook

From the Wall Street Journal, "Conservatives Take a Page From Left's Online Playbook":

A group of Republicans, looking to recoup the party's clout, is borrowing a page from liberal Democrats by beefing up Internet efforts to energize the grass roots.

The conservative Americans for Prosperity has further embraced Internet activism to energize its 700,000 members and point them to dozens of town-hall meetings with lawmakers over the past weeks, leaving Democrats on the defensive on a signature issue: overhauling health care.

Americans for Prosperity held their conference Right Online here last weekend. It centered on ramping up the use of Facebook, Twitter and other online megaphones to rally conservative opposition to what they consider ultra-liberal policies -- strategies popularized by organizations such as MoveOn.org and President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.

That's a shift, these activists say, from recent years of GOP strategy, where the shaping of the party's message has been largely top-down, with the message coming from party leaders. Now, the message is bubbling up more from groups of online activists.

"People are saying we're not hearing encouraging or inspiring messages from our leaders in Washington," said Erik Telford, Americans for Prosperity's director of online strategy. "We need to rebuild from the ground up."

Timothy Phillips, the 45-year-old GOP strategist from South Carolina who leads the six-year-old organization, said his group was only one of many that are urging members to speak out against liberal policies. He said they help channel discontent with Mr. Obama's agenda.

it comes to health care, Mr. Phillips outlined a straightforward strategy: Americans for Prosperity looked at every town hall scheduled by lawmakers across the country. It flagged the group's members within 100 miles of each event, and enlisted local representatives in each area, instead of "some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington," to contact supporters, Mr. Phillips said.

"We have three things: passion, news-talk radio and now online presence. Those three things are building our movement," Mr. Phillips said.

More at the link.

Michelle Malkin was the star of the Right Online conference. See Freedom's Lighthouse, "Michelle Malkin Urges "Extreme Vigilance" at Right Online Conference - Video 8/15/09."

Photo Credit: Americans for Prosperity, "Over 400 People Rally Against Cap-and-Trade on AFP's Hot Air Tour."

Would Roger Ebert Go Before Obama's Death Panels?

I read Roger Ebert's attack on Sarah Palin this morning (see, "'Death Panels.' A Most Excellent Term").

The essay's an amalgam of heart-tugging feel-sorry-for-me anecdote and wickedly selective faux-fisking of Palin's criticism of Team ObamaCare's health-rationing policy.

Ebert's basically dishonest in omitting any mention of Ezekiel Emanuel's published comments on comparative healthcare effectiveness. For a perfect rebuttal to Ebert, see Martin Feldstein's, "ObamaCare Is All About Rationing":

Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report in June explaining the Obama administration's goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating "high cost, low-value treatments," by "implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt," and by "directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers."

The president has emphasized the importance of limiting services to "health care that works." To identify such care, he provided more than $1 billion in the fiscal stimulus package to jump-start Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea. That could morph over time into a cost-control mechanism of the sort proposed by former Sen. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama's original choice for White House health czar. Comparative effectiveness could become the vehicle for deciding whether each method of treatment provides enough of an improvement in health care to justify its cost.

In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it. The existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as "too expensive."

One reason the Obama administration is prepared to use rationing to limit health care is to rein in the government's exploding health-care budget. Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S., primarily through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The White House predicts that the aging of the population and the current trend in health-care spending per beneficiary would cause government outlays for Medicare and Medicaid to rise to 15% of GDP by 2040 from 6% now. Paying those bills without raising taxes would require cutting other existing social spending programs and shelving the administration's plans for new government transfers and spending programs.

An interesting hypothesis is whether Roger Ebert himself would be a prime candidate for ObamaCare's death panels.

After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Ebert underwent agressive medical treatment, including multiple surgeries and a four-week course of radiation therapy to his salivary glands. However, the cancer spread to his lower jaw and he had surgery to remove part of his mandible in 2006 at the age of 64. Unsuccessful follow-up surgeries, to repair surrounding tissue, resulted in "unplanned bleeding" complications. Doctors administered a tracheostomy to Ebert's windpipe to help ease breathing during recovery.

At today's essay, Ebert admits that "I am happy that heroic measures were made to save my life." He also notes that "I had good insurance coverage." But would he have received coverage as good under ObamaCare? Now 69 years-old, Ebert would probably be denied treatment under Ezekiel Emanuel's "Complete Lives System." As Emanuel argued in his paper, "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions":

Although not always recognised as such, youngest-first allocation directs resources to those who have had less of something supremely valuable—life-years ... These justifications explain much of the public preference for allocating scarce life-saving interventions to younger people ...

Allocation systems based on quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) have two parts ... One is an outcome measure that considers the quality of life-years. As an example, the quality-of-life measure used by the UK national Health Service rates moderate mobility impairment as 0·85 times perfect health.66 QALY allocation therefore equates 8·5 years in perfect health to 10 years with moderately impaired mobility. The other part of QALY allocation is a maximising assumption: that justice requires total QALYs to be maximised without consideration of their distribution. QALY allocation initially constituted the basis for Oregon’s Medicaid coverage initiative, and is currently used by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Also, Emanuel has argued:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years ...

But note something important: As Joseph Ashby pointed out last weekend, ObamaCare's death panels are not hypothetical - they already exist:

H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose ....

Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Death himself Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel's views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old.

On average 25-year-olds require very few medical services. If they are to get the lion's share of the treatment, then those 65 and over can expect very little care. Dr. Emanuel's views on saving money on medical care are simple: don't provide any medical care. The loosely worded provisions in H.R 1 give him and his Council increasing power to push such recommendations.

Similarly hazy language will no doubt be used in the health care bill. What may pass as a 1,000 page health care law will explode into perhaps many thousands of pages of regulatory codes. The deliberate vagueness will give regulators tremendous leverage to interpret its provisions. Thus Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein will play a major role in defining the government's role in controlling medical care.

Roger Ebert received agressive medical treatment for his cancer illness. My sense is that over the course of a few years of extensive and multi-faceted treatment, Ebert's insurance company incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost outlays. It's clear that Ebert was not subject to a "Complete Lives System" in the determination of his eligiblity for care. Ebert lost his voice as a result of therapy and breathing treatment, and today he uses a computerized voice system to speak. In 2008 he underwent additional surgery to repair a fractured hip. Ebert has obviously received outstanding medical care, and in his continued writing he offers a passionate and valuable perspective for his policy positions.

His ability to do so - and in fact, the existential question of Ebert's contributions to the debate - would be seriously compromised under the ObamaCare medical regime, with its death panels seeking to ration medical care for people battling the same life challenges.

Hat Tip: Pundette & Pundette, "This Will Hurt, Especially If You're Old or Disabled."