Gallup poll: 52 percent of respondents say the government should promote traditional values.

The Gallup numbers also suggest that Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate have fundamentally misread their own victories. Did voters elect Democrats because they desperately wanted national health care? Sprawling and expensive environmental regulation? Federal deficits triple the size of just a few years ago? No. The voters elected Democrats because they were sick of Bush and Republicans. Now Bush and the GOP are gone and out of power. Democrats are doing what they thought the voters wanted. And it turns out the voters didn’t want that at all.

Another Gallup poll has 61 percent of Americans saying that health care is a matter of personal responsibility, not government. 

Blanche Lincoln voted against the public option (government-run insurance) in the Finance Committee. Here is her statement explaining her vote. She credits her contact with constituents over the summer, though her contact with them was minimal. What she now knows is that she will lose next year if she votes for a government overhaul of health care.

The public option has gone down twice in the Senate Finance Committee.

New Scientist: The population explosion began in Europe in the 18th century and sent people all around the world. Now Europe faces a population implosion with the lowest fertility rate and highest elderly population in the world. European countries will not be able to sustain their welfare state systems that depend of younger workers supporting older people. Some countries are called hyper-ageing. That's how bad it is.

You would think that a smaller, declining population would be better, let's say, for the environment. But the per-person cost for a country's intrastructure actually increases as the population declines. Immigration may not be the answer.

All this is not new. The trend has been observed for some time, but it has been ignored. Back when I read sociology, the chapter of population always warned of a population explosing, and a future world population of 10 billion.

Why is the deer population exploding? Here's an article that answers some questions. Arkansas has an enormous deer population. In the 2005-2006 season, hunters killed 132,415 deer, acccording to Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Their populations are especially heavy in south Arkansas. If you drive at night in the country you are taking a chance that you will crash your car into one of them. See this blog.

I'm looking for more recent data on the population.

Instapundit recommentds Bruce Barlett's Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past.

This AP report indicates that the only real advantage that Obamacare will offer seniors is an improvement in prescription drug costs, and that advantage will phase in over time.

The Washington Times describes the situation that Blanche Lincoln faces. Everybody is watching for her next move.

Hugh Hewitt reprints a column by Clark Judge on the current status of the health care debate. See this publication.

This Politico report finds that only 43 percent of Arkansas voters view Blanche Lincoln's performance favorably. She may be vulnerable in 2010. If she loses, health care will be the main reason.

Rasmussen: Support for Obamacare has fallen to a new low.

Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.

Seniors are more opposed than younger voters.

For the first time ever, a slight plurality of voters now express doubt that the legislation will become law this year. Forty-six percent (46%) say passage is likely while 47% say it is not.

Pines Mall

The ADG has a story this morning on Pines Mall in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. (Subscription required.) Its major restaurant, Garfield's, has recently pulled out, leaving the mall with about 30 vacant stores. The current recession has taken its toll, but Pine Bluff and southeast Arkansas as a whole have lost population. Several years ago, Wal-Mart left Pines Mall and built a new, larger store 5 or 6 miles away. The mall still has Sears, J.C. Penney, and Dillard's. But many people shop at Dillard's without actually ever entering the mall. Pines Mall has that dying look.

After more than a century, according to the ADG, Arkansas cotton fields are at last free of boll weevils. In 1906 the boll weevil arrived from Mexico and farmers fought against and suffered from this incidious insect year after year. Nothing was a bigger threat. But none have appeard in the fields this season.

I doubt that today the average person even knows what a boll weevil is. Well, that's progress. For information see here.

Early retirements during the current recession will cause Social Security to run a deficit in 2010 and 2011. Disability claims have also jumped.

Anatomy of a smear

The ADG has an editorial this morning defending Mike Ross (D-AR)  against the attacks on the sale of his Prescott pharmacy. The title is "Anatomy of a smear." The paper has previously run a story by Jane Fullerton this past Wednesday, September 23. She quoted Scott Pace of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association and Robert Jackson of Mercer University in Atlanta, both of whom view the price Ross received as within the normal range.

As I have followed Ross over the summer, he at first seemed willing to vote for the public option, which would have made his critics happy. But the town hall meetings he stumbled into, especially the first one at Children's Hospital in Little Rock, changed his mind as he envisioned defeat for re-election next year.

If you are on Medicare Advantage, you are going to see its benefits cut if Obamacare goes through. Count on it. So says Charles Krauthammer.

Superfetation: woman becomes pregnant while she is pregnant. No, it's true even if it did happen in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock opened an exhibit yesterday called World of the Pharaohs and it will run through July 5, 2010. I saw a similar exhibit many years ago in New Orleans and it was fascinating.

The AAC goes back to the 1930s but it was really Winthrop Rockfeller who helped it become what it is today. Rockefeller brought in Townsend Wolfe as the director.

The Pharaohs exhibit is presented by Harriet and Warren Stephens.

This exhibit is a not to be missed event.

Democrats themselves are killing Obamacare.

Dick Morris has some comments on Obama's health care plan that resonate with me:

Nobody has the president’s huge microphone. But we all have voices and, when they swell to a chorus, they dominate the national dialogue.

It is, essentially, a program to force people who don’t need it to buy health insurance so as to lower costs for those who do and to subsidize part of the price tag by cutting medical care to the elderly.

Jennifer Rubin: Hillary has been a disappointment as secretary of state.

Rubin offers this speculation:

Had she stayed in the Senate, she might have inherited the mantle of liberal leadership from Ted Kennedy. Clinton might have been the one to pull a rabbit out of the hat to save health-care reform. But once again her ambition got the best of her and her self-image of super-smart, super-capable policy wonk led her to a poor career choice. Now, politics is filled with second and third acts, and maybe her political career will recover. But I’m not sure her reputation ever will.

Mike Ross has released details on the sale of his Prescott pharmacy to USA Drug. The ADG carried the story this morning, quoting people in the pharmacy industry as saying that they "didn't see anything out of line." Ross made a good deal but at the same time his pharmacy was one of only two in town. The paper doesn't not provide a free link to the story.

See the AP story here.

Why is this not a surprise?

Washington Post: "Democratic political committees have seen a decline in their fundraising fortunes this year, a result of complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party's harsh rhetoric about big business"

Jay Cost: How close are the Democrats to finalizing a health care bill? He doesn't know.

I've been wondering. Where has Hillary been lately?

According to this report, hybrid cars are dangerous because they are so silent.

Forbes: "The sad truth is you can't believe a word President Obama says about his health care plan."

Mike Ross and his pharmacy deal are in the news again this morning. A group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a request to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an investigation into the sale of Ross' pharmacy. The group asserted that Ross accepted a bribe from the USA Drug chain.

This is an example of hardball health-care politics and Ross is feeling the heat.

Who was the father of the VW Beetle? Was it Josef Ganz, a Jewish engineer, and not Hilter and Porsche?

Tony Blankley: The Democratic party is playing with fire. They are flagrantly assaulting the honor and decency of 60 percent of our people.

Mike Ross is all over the ADG today. The front page has a report on the sale of a Prescott, Arkansas, pharmacy in 2007 for $420,000. The online site ProPublica has published an article entitled "Mike Ross Raises Eyebrows with Healthy Haul." The story questioned whether the business was sold for more than it was worth to Stephen L. LaFrance, who operates it as a USA Drug store. Ross has received campaign donations from LaFrance, but LaFrance has supported his opponent as well. The Gazette cites people in the pharmacy industry who claim that the price was not excessive. For more see the Arkansas Times here. This link includes the text of Mike Ross' reply to ProPublica.

The ADG also carried an editorial defending Ross in the health-care debate.

Taylor Branch has a new book on Clinton called The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. So far it sounds more interesting than Clinton's own memoirs. See Amazon.

Arthur Laffer discusses taxes, the Great Depression, and our current troubles.

"The damage caused by high taxation during the Great Depression is the real lesson we should learn. A government simply cannot tax a country into prosperity."

Betsey Wright has been officially charged with smuggling contraband into a state prison.

Mike Ross (D-AR), leader of the Blue Dogs, spoke to a business group Monday and make several comments on health care. He said, "I cannot support a public option, because I came home, I listened to the people, and I can tell you people made it clear to me they don't want the government in the health-insurance business." Left-wingers are not happy with him (see here) and claim he is obligated to the health insurance industry. Ross said that less than half of one percent of his donations have come from this source. Yes, but that is still suspicious to me. Many politicians like to site a percentage, but a low percentage may mask quite a large number of dollars. Still, he is taking heat from both sides.

He was disingenuous in other ways too. He said we are paying for the uninsured now and that health-care rationing is going on now. Both contain an element of truth, but overstated. We are probably not seeing anything like we will see under Obamacare. Many people won't see a doctor unless it's an emergency. I used to be like that.

Michael Barone: "I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up."

Dick Morris, the former Clinton adviser, says that Obamacare is losing just about all segments of voters, old and young, etc. The process started with seniors who worry about their Medicare, and now young, middle class workers are finding out they will face a stiff tax (excuse me, a fine) if they don't buy medical insurance. Even people on Medicaid will face high premiums.

Morris sums it up like this:

In other words, health-care "reform" is a health-care tax dressed up as a program to cover the uninsured.
No matter how Democrats get the money to cover those who need insurance, they offend supporters that they need to pass the bill:
* If they get the money from more Medicare cuts, they alienate the elderly still further.
* If they get it from raising the deficit, they lose moderates.
* If they hike taxes to do it, they lose the "Blue Dog" Democrats who've gone on record as opposing such increases.
* If they don't increase the subsidies, they lose the uninsured themselves.

I've seen several comments to the effect that right-wing hatred in Dallas was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This mistake is endlessly repeated. Not true. Yes, Dallas contained such extremists, but Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist.

When a tax is not a tax

On one of his Sunday appearance on talk shows Obama argued that health care mandates are not a tax. Yes, that's right. Not a tax. Medicare is not a tax either, but you pay it anyway. So he's not raising taxes in reforming health care. No, sir.

UPDATE: AP report: It's a tax all right. 

Betsy's Page has a post that includes a YouTube link to Roger Mudd's interview with Ted Kennedy in 1980. Kennedy was gearing up to run for president against the incumbent Jimmy Carter. He failed of course, and the interview is one reason why.

Mudd caught Kennedy flatfooted: Why do you want to be president? "Well, I... uhmm...." Do you think that anyone will ever fully believe your explanation of Chappaquiddick?



I had forgotten all about the interview. Maybe I didn't see it.

Mountain Meadows Massacre survivors

The ADG today has an article about the 17 children who survived the Mountains Meadows Massacre of an Arkansas wagon train in 1857. (No free link is available.) Their memory was honored on Saturday at Carrollton, Arkansas, with an re-enactment of their return to their families — a sesquicentennial celebration. The wagon train was led by Alexander Fancher and George W. Baker whose descendants still survive in northwest Arkansas. All 120 members of the party — men, women, and older children — were massacred by Mormons and possibly Paiute Indians. John D. Lee was the Mormon leader who led and organized the attack against the wagon train.

The children who were spared were age 6 and under. Mormons assumed they were too young to remember what happened but they did.

Their story is heartbreaking, and their homecoming produced more emotions than people could handle. Sallie Baker Mitchell, one of the children, recalled in a 1940 newspaper article that the returning children rode in a buggy parade through the streets of Harrison, Arkansas. She looked for her mother in the crowd. "I remember I called all of the women I saw 'Mother.' I guess I was still hoping to find my own mother, and every time I called a woman 'Mother,' she would break out crying."

See these photos from my old blog. The people who died are listed here.

Chris Wallace on the Obama administration:

AP report: Starting October 1, Arkansas will ban texting while driving, but this week the state started to provide information on road conditions on Twitter. Many states have this inconsistency. I can tell you what road conditions are right now: bad.

Arkansas TV ads

According to this AP report, a liberal group in favor of Obamacare will run TV ads in Arkansas next week criticizing Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Rep. Mike Ross. See this link. The ad charges that Lincoln and Ross favor the insurance industry.

Putting it in historical perspective

David Brooks: The conflict we see across the country today is not about race. We have revived an old and deep division between populist and progressive traditions. Unfortunately, in my view, these are not the best terms to use, but the populist tradition go back to Jefferson and the agrarian tradition, Jackson who fought the Bank of United States, rural populism in the late 19th century which opposed monopoly. These people were hard-working, ordinary Americans, and sometimes they were rude: "Farmers ought to raise less corn and more hell! The progressive tradition, in this view, goes back to Hamilton who favored federal power over state's rights and included presumably the New Deal and Great Society, although Brooks does not lay out its lineage fully.

He may be on the right track here, but his idea needs work.

Jennifer Rubin on recent polls: "All in all it is a stunning repudiation of the president’s health-care vision. Moreover, it makes one point crystal clear to lawmakers: they are much better off voting for nothing than voting for a bad bill that contains elements voters dislike and increases the deficit. And that is the last thing Obama wants lawmakers to figure out."

Rasmussen: 56 percent of voters nationwide now oppose health-care reform.

Jonah Goldberg has an article on the racism issue that has arisen in the health care debate. Some people just can't see that other people are less hung up on racism than they are.

Michelle Duggar, of Rogers, Arkansas, has 18 children and is pregnant with her 19th. Well, okay, good luck with the expenses, college tuition, health care, and all that.

Why does college cost so much?

Dick Morris: ". . .[T]he high cost of college is entirely avoidable! There is one higher education institution – York College in Pennsylvania – that shows that if colleges required their faculty to work harder (approximating the work week the rest of us find normal), held down administrative spending, and reined in borrowing for capital improvements, that these institutions could charge half of what they now do in tuition and fees."

Note: he said colleges could cut their tuition in half.

In short, the full-time faculty work part-time and the administration is top-heavy.

Mary Travers has died at age 72. She was part of the Peter, Paul and Mary trio in the 1960s and 70s. They were famous for "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Blowin in the Wind." See Wikipedia. The AP has this story.

Read the bill, Mr. President

Eric Cantor (R-Va): "The notion that health-care reform has foundered because of Republicans is flatly false. Some of President Obama’s most ardent critics are moderate Democrats. The president would be better served by taking a closer look at the content of the bill and by starting to work with Republicans to find solutions that are more acceptable to the American people. He may not get another chance."

I watched Exodus Decoded last evening. The program argues that the Biblical story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt was an actual historical event along with the accompanying plagues, parting of the Red Sea, and so on. This link contains a counter argument. More information and many links are found here.

The film moves the date of the Exodus to about 1500 B.C., about 300 years after it has traditionally been dated. The reason for this change is to align the Exodus with a volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini -- an eruption that offers an explanation of the plagues.

The program connected a lot of dots, so to speak. As always, evidence is subject to interpretation.

The House has chastised, rebuked (whatever) Joe Wilson.

The Corner website has this post on "new" information on the Great Depression. It's not new information at all.

If I were a physician, I would consider quitting or retiring early if Obamacare passed. That's what 45 percent of physicians said they would do. When something is not fun or worthwhile anymore, just let it go.

Rasmussen: 12 percent of voters nationwide say that most opponents of Obamacare are racists. That means a whopping 88 percent don't believe the wild accusations we have heard lately.

Thomas Sinex: Seniors need to wake up on health care. True, polls show a dramatic drop among seniors because of Obama's plan to cut Medicare and his opposition to Medicare Advantage plans. But you would expect even less support.

Ann Althouse posted this video of a Joe Wilson ad.

The Obama no-bounce

The bounce ObamaCare received from the speech last week was very modest but now it is over. According to Rasmussen, 45 percent of all voters nationwide are in favor, 52 percent are opposed. Support peaked recently at 51 percent.

Michael Barone has an insighful analysis of the House of Representatives based on districts. I was surprised to see how strong the Republican party is in rural South districts and in rural and suburban districts in general. The idea of white working class men as Democrats is largely obsolete, he says. No surprise there. Why would they be Democrats?

Betsy's Page explains why Americans don't trust Obama's plans for health care reform, with help from George Will and Thomas Sowell.

Jeremy Lott at Politico goes over Obama's record so far: Cap-and-Trade legislation, Employee Free Choice Act, and health-care reform.

Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina defeated Roger Federer at the U.S. Open. A shocker. According to the AP, Federer fell apart.

Patrick Swayze is dead at age 57 of pancreatic cancer. I had several friends who died of this killer form of cancer. He fought it for two years.

Deroy Murdock: Obamacare will be one of many federal failures. Medicare, Social Security, Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Post Office, Internal Revenue code. The list goes on

Dick Morris: "The president’s plan is, essentially, a program to take medical care away from the elderly and give it to those who are not younger, healthier, and - in the main - richer."

Byron York reflects on the 9/12 protest.

AP: Election trouble brewing for House Dems in 2010.

Robert Tracinski provides another analysis of the contradicions in Obama's health care speech. He says, "... what Obama's supposed gift for rhetoric amounts to: the ability to tell a smoothly polished bald-faced lie." Call Joe.

Dana Loesch gives the background of the tea party movement.

Camille Paglia is a liberal who is having buyer's remorse.

"Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing."

As parents send their kids off to college this fall, they should be concerned about the availability of free speech on campus. One parent commented that he had send his daughter to Cornell University, and they sent back a liberal. Why didn't he know that's what his tuition was paying for?

Drudge shows that the Dow Jones was at 9605 on September 11, 2001. And on September 11, 2009, it was again at 9605. I don't know what that means, but it's curious.

Two million people yesterday demonstrated in Washington, protesting Obamacare, taxes, and deficit spending. They were tea partiers, and American patriots in action. Roger Simon has this reaction. Rick Moran notes that this is one of the rare conservative protest movements in American history. See Michelle Malkin's coverage.

Jennifer Rubin: "We are witnessing a grass roots outpouring of support for limited government, the rule of law, fiscal sobriety, and generational responsibility."

Matt Welch's impressions.

The numbers are in question but they were undoubtedly large.

Michael Jordan proved again that he is a class act at his induction into the Hall of Fame.

Mort Kondracke, a writer for Roll Call, argues that a war on diabetes should be part of health care reform. Amen to that!

Mark Steyn predicts that the Democrats will ram through some kind of health reform legislation. They have learned nothing from recent town hall meetings. The long term consequences will be disastrous.

John Hawkins interviews Cong. Joe Wilson.

Medicare is a government-run program with a world of problems. It is full of waste and is going broke. Many doctors will not accept Medicare patients. I have been turned down myself. Medicare is not a reassuring example of government health insurance.

Fact check

Obama: Health care proposals "would not apply to those who are here illegally." Joe Wilson: "You lie!" Who is telling the truth?

The House version of the health-care bill explicitly prohibits illegal aliens from getting health-care assistance. The bill reads, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully in the United States." But is this prohibition enough? How will it be enforced? There is in fact no requirement that anyone verify their legal status.

An article making these points appeared in the ADG this morning. CBS News has conceded that Wilson has a valid point. Indeed, Democrats have explicitly rejected any means to enforce the prohibition.

How to buy a used car? Here is some advice.

Michael Barone: "There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1 trillion over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.

"The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500 billion from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits."

Joe Wilson (R-SC) should not have spoken out, because it distracts from the main issue. The Democrats did it to Bush in the SOTU 2005. It's common practice in Parliament. And besides that, Obama had just accused the Republicans of lying. So tit for tat.

Obama: "Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed."

What we've seen recently at town hall meetings and elsewhere is not bickering, no one is playing games. This is democratic debate about a vital issue that affects everyone. Honest people disagree about the proper role of government in health care. Yes, we need to make some changes but no emergency exists that justifies a system overhaul. I don't believe Obama has listened to the debate at all.

I noticed that the number of uninsured has suddenly dropped from 47 million to 30 million, according to Obama. If it keeps dropping like this, we won't have to do anything after all. See Byron York's explanation.

Dick Morris: How can any medical reform plan treat 50 million new patients without extra doctors?

Morris also shows that seniors have defected from the Democrats in larger percentages than any other group because they understand what they are doing.

The Democratic Party, led by Obama, is systematically converting the elderly vote into a Republican bastion. The work of FDR in passing Social Security in 1937 and of LBJ in enacting Medicare in 1965 is being undone by the president's healthcare program. The elderly see his proposals for what they are: a massive redistribution of healthcare away from the elderly and toward a population that is younger, healthier and richer but happens, at the moment, to lack insurance. (Remember that the uninsured are, by definition, not elderly, not young and not in poverty - and if they are, they are currently eligible for Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP and do not need the Obama program.)

Seniors just can't wait until November 2, 2010.

Fed: The worst recession since the 1930s may be over. I don't know. Why did the stock market drop after the announcement? Wait and see.

Why are Democrats so detached from ordinary Americans?

Ann Althouse links to an article by Camille Paglia:

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year's tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. But the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web -- both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy -- I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows. 

She asks, why have Democrats become so detached from ordinary Americans? See her full column here.

Nine is an interesting number, and today is 9/9/09.

The real estate market is absorbing a set of new realities.

According to this AP report. Mike Ross (D-AR) has changed his mind and will opposed a government-run public option if it's in the final bill. He apparently listened to his constituents at recent town hall meetings.

Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, is also waffling on the public option.

UPDATE: The ADG has the report on Wednesday morning. The entire Arkansas congressional delegation is making noises against the public option but probably only because they no longer believe it can pass.

Rasmussen: 83 percent say that proof of citizenship should be required to get government health aid.

The Hill reports that 23 Democrats will vote no on health-care reform.

Mary Grabar: College professors like to grade others on what they learn, but they don't like to be graded on what they teach.

Donald Lambro has a good summary of the health care controversy at this point.

Economist James Buchanan, a Nobel laureate, argues that Obama is making the same mistakes and following the same destructive path that Roosevelt followed in the Great Depression. I've been waiting on someone to pick up on this parallel. We never seem to learn from history, we only repeat it.

According to a study done at Arizona State University, there are now 814 conservative blogs compared to 436 liberal blogs. In the analog days, the mainstream media controlled all information. Walter ended his program every day with the pontification "...and that's the way it is." Those days are long gone, but those who didn't want to tell us about Van Jones find them nostalgic.

The Corner is giving Gateway Pundit credit for exposing Van Jones.

 Ann Althouse has a link to a column by a cardiologist who agrees that reform is needed, but he provides his list of "10 Things I Hate about Health-Care Reform." This list is her summary of his points:

1. Private insurance companies escape real regulation....

2. We urgently need tort reform, but it's nowhere to be seen....

3. "Prevention" won't magically make costs go down....

4. Reform efforts don't address our critical shortage of health-care workers....

5. We need more primary-care physicians -- but we also need specialists....

6. We have to streamline drug development and shake up the Food and Drug Administration....

7. We can't fund health-care reform by cutting payments to doctors....

8. We can't forget about research....

9. Cutting reimbursements could shut some hospitals down....

10. We need to improve the quality of care....

For the original column see here.

How to ride a stationary bike

I saw this book recommended on Instapundit: Horsemen of the Esophagus: Competitive Eating and the American Dream. What a great title! What a great idea for a book! The Amazon reviewers really like it, and one of them says: "An[d] in a completely unexpected turn, this book is the first I've ever read while riding a stationary bike at the gym. Best motivation ever." LOL. I'll get a copy.

I've seen eating contests on "Emeril Live" and other shows, and always wondered how people could do that.

A leftist Democrats may challenge Obama for the nomination in 2012. You may have noticed that Hillary has not been heard from on the health-care debate. Could she be the challenger?

I don't believe this has happened since 1980, when Ted Kennedy challenged Carter. He was unsuccessful of course.

Then we could have Hillary vs. Sarah.

Van Jones resigns

Van Jones resigned at midnight. It was clear that his days were numbered. If you have not been watching FNC or reading internet news you won't know who he is, lol.

Power Line had this reaction. What is most interesting in this whole debacle is the lack of coverage in the mainstream media (MSM).

What other stories are they missing?

Jeers, boos and cheers

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Marion Berry (D-AR) ran into jeers and boos and some cheers at Arkansas State University yesterday. The ADG reported little of the crowd's reaction, but stressed that Lincoln favored a health insurance "exchange" that would sell private plans. She opposed a government-run insurance system. But apparently the crowd remained suspicious.

The Jonesboro Sun's report contains more details. Berry acknowledged that 10 million of the uninsured were in this country illegally.

Ann Althouse: The fact that women are now hosting two of three network news programs means that network news is not important anymore. Well, I don't watch it, and that's not the reason.

If you Google Van Jones you get virtually nothing. Byron York used Nexus and found nothing in the NYT, Wash Post, ABC, NBC, or CBS News.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama has become a mere mortal.

Unemployment hit 9.7 percent in August, a 26-year high. That's lower than expected but it's still bad news.

Obama's plan for a television speech to the nation's school children has many parents in an uproar. The Education Department wanted kids to write a letter about how they could help the president's program. Parents want to know what he's going to say in advance. The word "indoctrinate" has been used. The speech is scheduled for next Tuesday, September 8. Some kids will have the "Constitutional flu."

UPDATE: The ADG this morning said that the Cabot School District will not broadcast the speech. In Little Rock, school will leave the decision to principals or teachers. School districts have received numerous calls from parents.

In 1991, according to the paper, George H. W. Bush made a similar speech and Democrats objected to it as a campaign commercial.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) yesterday held a relative tame town hall meeting in Pine Bluff. She seemed a little tamer herself, based on this report. She has a final meeting at Jonesboro today.

Van Jones, the Green Jobs czar, has called Republicans "assholes." See here for a transcript. He apologized for that remark, but it was reported this afternoon that he signed a call for an investigation into the question of whether the Bush administration deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen as a pretext for war. I guess we will be hearing more about that.

Ed Feulner has a good summary of what happened in August.

Toyota's Prius is selling well. "Toyota sold 19,173 Prius hybrids here in the States in July and another 18,866 in August. It seems highly likely that Cash for Clunkers helped those figures a bit for both months, and the Toyota brand in total saw a sales increase of about 15 percent last month over the previous August."

Learning from history

Jean Edward Smith: Democrats should go ahead and pass health care reform without Republican support because that's the way Franklin Roosevelt did it. Since the New Deal failed to produce any meaningful recovery, the lesson I learn from history is that we should not repeat any of Roosevelt's mistakes.

Are we in a global revolt of the masses?

Blanche Lincoln at Arkansas Tech

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) held a town meeting at Arkansas Tech in Russellville yesterday, but so far I can't find a link for it. Accordingto the ADG today, the crowd was loud and unruly. She tried to walk a tightrrope, it seems to me. She's for government incentives and subsidies to create public health insurance, but opposes a "fully government-funded new entitlement" because we can't afford that right now. She thinks that taking the uninsured into the system will reduce costs. The money would come from eliminating waste and inefficiency.

I can't imagine what all that wordage really means, and neither could most members of her audience. Nearly all of their questions were critical of current health care plans, and the audience increasingly interrupted her. Obama was not a good name to bring up either.

Lincoln has been criticized for not holding town hall meetings earlier, and now she has scheduled a handful of them, only to prolong her pain. Six opponents have already lined up to challenge her next year for re-election.

Guess what: next comes Cash for Clunker Appliances. John Stossel: "Finally, there is something revolting about the government subsidizing the destruction of useful things. It reminds me of the New Deal policy of killing piglets and pouring milk down sewers to keep food prices from falling" — when, he might have added, people went hungry in the Depression.

I felt at the time I turned over my clunker that it truly was a clunker, but it had a little life left. I just didn't want to have to fix it.

Keith Hennessey, who served as an economics advisor in the Bush White House, has some thoughts on the Democrats' legislative options in health care. See the comments here.

Politico has an evaluation of Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-AR) position on health care. She is placed on the "August recess casualty list."

Football coaches tend to vote Republican.

Stop the presses!!!!

Charlie Gibson is leaving something called World News. Oh my, oh my. At least I won't have to stop watching him anymore.

Tom Coburn (R-Ok), a family practice physician: "Congressional leaders have been using apocalyptic rhetoric about angry "mobs," "un-American" protestors and "evil-mongers" at town halls because they know that voter concerns about spending may not only derail the "public option" in health-care reform but could turn into a referendum on our real problems—our crushing burden of government and the politicians who defend the status quo. For the sake of future generations, such a referendum couldn't come soon enough."

"Too much bullshit"

Steny Hoyer (D-Md), House majority leader, held a volatile town hall meeting with people with booing, jeering, and screaming on both sides of the health care debate. No wonder, they crowd had to wait through 45 minutes of introductory remarks. Some of them had already waited in line for three hours. Then they chanted, "We want questions! We want questions!" One man left early saying, "Too much bullshit."

More on this meeting is found here. 

Expired tags

People around central Arkansas are putting off renewing their car tags because of the economy.

Glenn Reynolds brings together several links on Obama's continuing slip and slide.

George Will: "There is no underlying discontent commensurate with the scale of the changes [Obama] is trying to propel."

Cong. Mike Ross (D-AR) predicted Congress will pass a health-care overhaul without the public option by the end of the year.