Last Call

As I said earlier, the plan for the anti health care forces is to win the debate by making sure there is no debate.

The plan is working beautifully.

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

Game.

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

Set.

These results suggest that the backlash against the protestors among Americans is not so severe as to outweigh an increase in sympathy for the protestors' views. This appears to be driven mainly by the fact that Democrats don't report a lessening of sympathy for the protestors' views as much as Republicans report gaining sympathy -- coupled with the fact that more independents report gaining sympathy than losing it. Republicans split 51% more sympathetic to 8% less sympathetic, while Democrats are 17% more sympathetic to 39% less. Independents resemble the Republican pattern more than the Democratic one.

Match. Obama and the Dems are losing the health care battle. Time's almost up.

Why are they losing? As usual, Obama and the Dems are playing chess. The other side has given up playing checkers and has gone straight to playing All-Out Global Thermonuclear War. They don't particularly care if the pieces get knocked off the board, dig?

Here endeth the lesson.

[UPDATE 10:01 PM] NMMNB's Steve M. has more.

The last two election cycles were fun, but for decades we were told that right-wingers and Republicans are "normal," even when they engage in racist attacks or blow up federal buildings, while liberals and Democrats are dirty hippies who don't go to church and eat arugula and use four-letter words in public. That ingrained notion doesn't go away overnight, or even in a few years. And the right-wing/corporate noise machine knows just how to tap into it.

Democrats can never win. It's only a measure of how temporary the setback is for the Republicans.

Calling Them Like He Sees Them

There is the usual OUTRAGE!!!11 from the usual suspects over this video (via Real Clear Politics) of Indiana Blue Dog Dem Baron Hill referring to the Town Hall Blitzers as "political terrorists."

"They have only one purpose in mind and that's to blow up the meetings that are being held and that serves no one, ladies and gentlemen," said Hill.

Hill recently called them political terrorists, a term he avoided in his speech but not in a 24-Hour News 8 interview.

"If you just want to blow up a meeting that's a political terrorist," said Hill.

Not the best choice of words, frankly. But then again, it's Republicans who defined the act of "political terrorism" as trying to affect policy change of a government entity through violence or the threat of violence.

You know, stuff like sending threatening faxes to Democrats and calling their office with death threats and hanging Congressmen in effigy in order to try to stop health care reform.

The GOP keeps pulling this garbage, and then DEMANDS an APOLOGY when Democrats have the balls to call them on the fact they are freely engaging nutbars.

Just like yesterday. Just like the day before. They'll DEMAND an APOLOGY NOW!!! again tomorrow when they find another Democrat willing to call it like they see it, with all the false indignation they can muster. They will then complain that their side of the story isn't being heard.

Meanwhile, they'll push more outrageous lies and ludicrous slander across the airwaves and the internet and claim it's the truth that needs to be heard, and woe betide anyone who interferes with their right to claim Obama is trying to euthanize their children or Grandpa and Grandma or put them all in internment camps.

They have decided that if they cannot control the country, then they will paralyze America's democratic process to prevent the Democrats from accomplishing anything, taking the country's political and media debate hostage until their demands are met.

So tell me, where exactly is Baron Hill wrong in his assessment, per se? Seems to me the man is correct .

He's calling them like he sees them.

Attention The Twelve Percent Of North Carolina Democrats Who Are Birthers

...what the hell are you smoking?

Seriously? One in eight Democrats in NC think Obama wasn't born in the U.S.?

Then again, the twelve percent of Democrat birthers in the state makes sense. It's almost as bad as the fact eleven percent of all Republicans in NC are unsure about Hawaii being a state.

Jesus wept. It never ends.

Negotiating In Good Faith

Senate "Gang of Six" member Chuck Grassley had his own town hall meeting today, in which he displayed his keen negotiating skills and informed his Iowa constituents on how he is helping America towards finding a serious, bipartisan solution to our health care crisis.

...Just kidding, he spent most of his time scaring the crap out of people with threats of Obama coming to kill your Grandmother.

Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Which it's not. But there's zero penalty and only upside if Grassley continues to tell these lies. Why shouldn't he?

Remember, Grassley is basically the GOP's point man and lead negotiator in the Senate on health care reform. This shows you just how "serious" the Republicans are about negotiating in good faith, when the lead Senator is spending his time during the recess telling his constituents that the government has no business in people's family planning matters. (Well, that is unless you're looking for an abortion. In that particular life or death matter, I'm sure Grassley would agree the government has every right if not every duty to get between you and your doctor.)

On the other hand, as I said, what's the penalty for Grassley to continue to lie? Republicans have no desire to reform health care. Ever.

Controlling The Narrative

I'll say this now.

Obama and the Democrats are losing the health care debate badly. Why?

There is no health care debate right now. All that matters is the volume of the yelling, and what crazy, outrageous things the teabaggers/birthers/healthers are doing next. The more outrageous the story, the more the anti-health care forces win. And as long as the Village assures that's the case, it's all a foregone conclusion.

CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, "should be a riot ... literally."

Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party google group. Martin told the group: "We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC."

She then asked: "So, where are the big events this week and where can TPP best be represented on the news?"

Whether or not millions of Americans can even afford to get sick is irrelevant to our media. All that matters to them is "good television" and ratings, seeing if they can be the next darling of the news cycle, seeing if they can get the next batch of hot footage for the networks as they cover the growing lunacy and encourage more of it.

Martin tells TPMmuckraker that she did not forward the Scott event -- or, in fact, any event -- on to CNBC as a candidate for coverage. She stressed that her group "does not endorse anything that incites violence of any kind," adding that the email list is un-moderated. "I can't moderate every single comment," she said.

Asked whether CNBC had specifically told her they were looking for an event with "lots of energy and lots of anger," Martin replied: "That was the impression that I received from them." She declined to elaborate.

CNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Everyone in the Village wants to get that seminal moment that defines the complete and total lack of civility that this has become. They can smell it coming, and they're doing what they can to fan the flames just to see if they can catch that spark that ignites the country into a much greater conflict.

And as long as the anti-health care forces can continue to have lunatics doing stupid human tricks anywhere near a waiting Village reporter with a camera, the health care debate continues to die a slow, painful death. Millions more Americans will continue to lose their health care before the next election, some of them will be the same people so eagerly crying out against the tyranny of having the government help provide it. "After all, anyone who doesn't have health insurance is either lazy, poor, sick, or some combination of the three. Why should we have to pay to help them? That's tyranny!"

If they make it to 65, they can get Medicare, right?

The practical upshot is that Obama is being fully played. The lunatics are promising a huge story when Obama Derangement Syndrome spills over into violence. That's all that matters this summer. There's no intention of getting to the actual policy debate.

And without that, the push for reform is all but dead. At this point all the anti-health care forces have to do is start attacking the budget reconciliation process as the ultimate tyranny, and Obama's done. It'll be time to sit back and wait until the Clintonian triangulation begins, in which case we'll be right back to the natural state of Washington: Democrats giving the Republicans everything they want, or else the GOP cries "fascism!" and the Village pimpslaps the Dems into line.

Jesus hell, this is depressing.

[UPDATE 3:32 PM] Why waste time debating health care when you can just make shit up about how our Black Seekrit Muslim Usurper Dictator is going to lock you up for being crazy enough to oppose him?

It's your basic Sun Tzu/Caesar/Machiavelli/Army Counter-Terrorism Manual stuff here: If side A has rules and follows them and side B is fully of batshit crazy people willing to go to any extreme to win, then side B wins the war every damn time.

Making Friends And Influencing Like, Three People

The crew at Rumproast have been kind enough to link me. Much appreciated, and be sure to check them out, they have a hell of a good operation over there.

The Theory Of Everything

Via Yggy, The Guardian's Hugh Muir reminds the world that the UK's National Health Service has magically failed to slaughter millions of Brits, despite the warnings of GOP nutjobs about the Obama health care reform initiative:

The danger, says the Investor's Business Daily, is that he borrows too much from the UK. "The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." We say his life is far from worthless, as they do at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, where Professor Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, was treated for chest problems in April. As indeed does he. "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." Something here is worthless. And it's not him.

The IBD research department needs an overhaul, methinks. Despite the fact that Dr. Hawking is in fact British and grew up in the UK, he somehow slipped through the fingers of the British death panels and went on to become one of the world's foremost theoretical physicists. This would seemingly counter the claim that he "wouldn't have had a chance in the UK."

Go figure. As one of David Kurtz's readers at TPM notes:

Perhaps there will be some brave Republican willing to spearhead an investigation of whether Stephen Hawking actually IS British? Isn't it awfully convenient that a man with no discernable British accent suddenly claims that he is British just after it's pointed out the the UK health system would have euthanized him as a child? Where is his birth certificate?

Doesn't take a world-class scientist to do a little background work, guys.

The best part? IBD's "correction" simply omits the Hawking reference altogether, and still goes on screaming about Britain's death panels coming for your grandmother.

Sins Of The Mother

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Insane) blew a gasket a couple months ago, calling the AmeriCorps program "re-education camps for young people".

Think Progress notes that Bachmann's son has joined the Teach For America program. You know, part of AmeriCorps.

Ironically, Bachmann’s son, Harrison, has now joined Teach for America (TFA). According to the TFA website, “Teach For America is currently a member of AmeriCorps, the national service network.” The Serve America Act, which she voted against, supports programs such as TFA.

Rebel with a cause, it seems.

Political Cartoon Of The Moment

From Joel Pett, at the Lexington Herald -Leader.

And boy, does this very much describe the NKY.

Terminal Velocity

Second quarter 2009 median home prices down a record year-over-year decline figure of 15.6% from second quarter 2008.

In the vast majority of metro areas -- 129 out of 155 -- median prices dropped year-over-year. Some of the decline can be traced to an increase in the percentage of foreclosures and short sales. They accounted for 36% of all transactions during the quarter.

These "distressed properties" are usually sold at discounts of at least 15% compared with traditional sales.

Patrick Newport, a real estate analyst for IHS Global Insight, while admitting the year-over-year results are still awful, said recent evidence indicates that prices are stabilizing.

"The state sales data show sales picking up across the country," he said.

Newport expects prices and sales to trend down again, especially when the impact of the first-time homebuyers tax credit starts to fade. The credit ends December 1. "Afterward, sales will take a hit," he said.

His forecast is for prices to drop another 5% this year, driven down by added inventory as the foreclosure plague continues to worsen.

Still a long way to go, prices will continue to fall well into next year and possibly beyond. All that lost real estate waelth will smother the recovery effort. It's going to be a long couple of years. That's the problem with happy face calculus numbers: when your rate of descent has stopped accelerating and you've hit terminal velocity, you're still falling.

Republicans Discover The Truth Hurts

As Steve Benen notes, Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson is having a bit of a problem having come out on the side of truth on Death Panels For Trig.

At the town-hall discussion in New Hampshire yesterday, President Obama addressed the ridiculous "death panel" argument the right has been carelessly throwing round. He noted, "The irony is that actually one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican -- then House member, now senator, named Johnny Isakson from Georgia -- who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people's options. And somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of 'death panels.'"

The president's remark came soon after Isakson told Ezra Klein that Sarah Palin's attacks on this are "nuts." Isakson added, "You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up. It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.... And it's a voluntary deal."

The problem, from Isakson's perspective, is that he's now inadvertently defended reality, when his party is committed to doing the opposite. Republican senators aren't supposed to debunk nonsensical talking points; they're supposed to repeat nonsensical talking points.

Isakson is now having to explain to his GOP whackjob friends that he's one of them still instead of being a heretical liberal Palin-hater and Grandma murderer, which explains pretty much everything you need to know about Senate Republicans right now.

When you're betting on the whackjobs as the future of the party and as the path out of the wilderness, more and more Republicans are discovering that this particular path has some very nasty potholes in it, and all that goes back to what I said earlier today about the GOP betting everything on pulling in people to the right of where the party is, and not the more moderate left.

Partisan screaming matches, fringe paranoia and outright lies are the order of the day. Sen. Isakson got busted this week for telling the truth, which in the world of Republican politics is a sin that requires a press statement in order to "correct".

Republicans have no interest in an honest discussion of health care reform. They never did. Why do Democrats stupidly continue to act like the GOP is still acting in good faith, or that they ever did have any intention of doing so? That continues to bother the hell out of me. Why aren't Democrats honestly using this example to say "Look, Sen. Isakson told the truth and now he's having to duck and cover from his own party."

Reconciliation is looking better and better.

[UPDATE 12:06 PM] Anyone want to make some predictions on how long it will take before Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski will have to walk this comment back?

"It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there's these end-of-life provisions, these death panels," Murkowski, a Republican, said. "Quite honestly, I'm so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn't (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill."

Will it happen before or after Democrats thanks her for trying to tell the truth on health care reform legislation?

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Rejoice, for the Sadly, No! crew has finally posted another Two-Minute Townhall.

Once again, all is right with the universe.

The Seven Billion Mark

Global population is expected to hit 7 billion sometime next year.

A staggering 97 percent of global growth over the next 40 years will happen in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Population Reference Bureau's 2009 World Population Data Sheet.

"The great bulk of today's 1.2 billion youth -- nearly 90 percent -- are in developing countries," said Carl Haub, a co-author of the report. Eight in 10 of those youth live in Africa and Asia.

"During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment, and adequate health care," Haub continued, calling it one of the major social questions of the next few decades.

In the developed world, the United States and Canada will account for most of the growth -- half from immigration and half from a natural increase in the population -- births minus deaths, according to the report.

High fertility rates and a young population base in the developing world will fuel most of the growth, especially in Africa, where women often give birth to six or seven children over a lifetime, the report says. The number is about two in the United States and 1.5 in Canada.

Needless to say, the planet doesn't have the resources to handle that kind of growth for long. How we respond to this issue as a global entity will decide much about our future on Earth.

Sadly, I personally believe we'll see more so-called "resource wars" where countries or groups will be fighting over basic items like water and land for crops, or in our case, oil. No matter how you feel about global warming, the real problem is population growth. It's simply unsustainable at its current rate.

Half-Truth Is Too Generous, It's More Like One-Sixth

The WSJ's editorial board launches another broadside this morning against Obamacare, proclaiming state reforms to have failed in states like New York and Massachusetts, and that Obama is threatening to impose such failures upon all of us.

Sounds like a good time to explain a few facts about the modern insurance market. Start with the reality that nine out of 10 people under 65 are covered by their employers, most of which cover all employees and charge everyone the same rate. President Obama's horror stories are about the individual insurance market, where some 15 million people buy coverage outside of the workplace.

Mr. Obama does have a point about insurance security. If you develop an expensive condition such as cancer or heart disease, and then get fired or divorced or your employer goes out of business—then individual insurance is going to be very expensive if it's available. But what the President and Democrats won't tell you is that these problems are the result mainly of government intervention.

The WSJ conveniently ignores the 50 million Americans who aren't covered, but they don't count. And yes, the 150 million Americans under 65 who have health insurance, roughly 90%, 135 million or so, have employee-based insurance.

But blaming the higher cost of self-insurance on government intervention is a bit like blaming the cost of a $200,000 Italian sportscar on import fees. I've been in the insurance business, folks. Insurance works off of the Law of Large Numbers, which basically says if you have a large enough group of people insured, you'll make more money off the premiums on the healthy people than you'll pay out on the sick ones. Self-insurance is expensive because it's just that...self-insurance. For the most part that means that large number is one...which is not a large number. Needless to say, you'll pay more. Government intervention has nothing to do with it, it's actuarial science and economics, and profit motive. Period.

Now, the op-ed piece goes on to suggest that forcing the insurance companies to cover sick people is going to basically double everyone's premiums. If that was done without a mandate to cover all Americans, without a public option, and without an insurance exchange for people to shop around in, the WSJ's board would be correct. Lack of competition is the exact reason why insurance premiums are higher. The point is, a major part of the Obamacare plan is to take measures to lower costs through both competition (public option, insurance exchange) and increasing the number of people covered (Law of Large Numbers, mandates) will lower the premiums for all Americans.

It's the entire package that is the reform. Just saying you're going to cover people regardless of illness, without the rest of the measures, will not work. But saying that's all the reform plan consists of and not mentioning the rest of the plan is rank dishonesty.

Then again, this is the Wall Street Journal's editorial board we're talking about here.

Not So Slick Rick

Here in the NKY, Rick Pitino news is always going to be buzzworthy, especially if it's the juicy extortion case surrounding the Louisville basketball coach.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino told police that he had consensual sex with and paid for an abortion for the woman who has been charged with trying to extort him, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported on Tuesday.

Karen Cunagin Sypher was federally charged in April with demanding cars, tuition for her children and finally $10 million. Police interviewed Pitino, who is married, regarding the incident last month, and according to the newspaper, he said that he gave the woman $3,000 to have an abortion.

Police records obtained by the Courier-Journal show that Pitino said he had sex with the then Karen Cunagin at a Louisville restaurant where he had been drinking on Aug. 1, 2003. He denied Cunagin Sypher's allegations that he raped her at the restaurant and then again later at a different location.

Sypher's attorney, James Earhart, said Wednesday morning that he hadn't yet talked to Sypher about the release of the police documents, but planned to later in the day. He said he didn't know how it would affect the case against her since all those involved were already aware of the documents.

This case is ugly all the way around, and I don't want to make any judgments on the matter before it goes to court. But $10 million? Pitino's a college basketball coach, not an NBA team owner. Where the hell is he going to get that kind of money from? If you're going to extort someone, make it reasonable.

Sheesh.