Sources say FBI arrests man for allegedly threatening Pelosi over health care

Can you imagine how freaking tired of these yahoos the FBI must be?

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press the FBI has arrested a northern California man for making threatening phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over health care reform.

Charges against the alleged caller have yet to be disclosed.

Several federal officials say the man made dozens of calls to Pelosi's homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband's business office, reciting her home address and saying if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that was recently enacted.

One official said the man is believed to have spoken directly with Pelosi at least once.

RNC says "no" to joint statement calling for civility

By GottaLaff

Greg Sargent has two interesting tidbits to share with us.

Tidbit numero uno:

Has anyone else noticed that the Dem efforts to demand that Republican leaders condemn the threats and intimidation have suddenly gone silent today? I’m told Dems made a concerted decision to dial down the noise.

IMHO, they weren't noisy enough. But what do I know?

Tidbit numero dos:

Speaking of threats and intimidation, DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse emails that the DNC sent a letter to RNC chair Michael Steele today asking him to issue a joint statement calling for civility. The RNC declined, Woodhouse says, which makes sense, since GOPers wouldn’t want Dems to set the agenda on this story.

But of course they declined. Politics are much more important than the health and welfare of the country. Better to maintain the boiling hot tone than to show any sign of unity. Benefiting one's party is the priority, not benefiting the nation.

Well, at least the Party of No is consistent...ly wrong.

Twitter's "Mob Watch" trying to intimidate health care reform advocates?

By GottaLaff

There is a user name on Twitter called Mob Watch. Some Twitterers think they might be trying to tell all pro-health care reform advocates that they are being watched. Here is what their page of tweets looks like:

(click on image to enlarge)

On the other hand, it could be equal opportunity targeting. Either way, it's a little unnerving... if for no other reason than it could be gathering info for some bot or another.

Such are the pitfalls of the Interwebs.

Health care debate must be fought below the belt

By GottaLaff

Right in the middle of writing this post, I stopped and read this piece about how the White House and the DNC will now try to turn all those nasty town hall mobs and Drudge reports into gold. They plan on making them the face of the opposition by taking on these thugs in new ads, playing by new rules. Good.

Phil Singer, who worked on rapid response for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and dealt frequently with the largely unfavorable conservative site, said:

"To be sure, Drudge asserts a certain level of influence. But I think it is fair to say Obama exerts a little bit more. And one of the things that has been interesting to watch has been the way that the White House and before that the Obama campaign was able to turn some of the old media rules on their head and create a new media dynamic."

Now back to my current blog already in progress, and opinion piece by Dan Neil:

How could the left possibly be losing the debate on healthcare reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry -- an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

It's because the insurance industry's demagoguery is better and smarter than the reformists' demagoguery.

This is a gunfight to which the reform agenda has brought a dull spoon. [...]

You might as well have Spencer and Heidi advocate for the public option. [...]

The American public is being roasted in a caldron of bull like St. Antipas, and this ad calls for increased reasonableness and bipartisanship? With allies like Big Pharma, who needs enemies?

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee, through its Net-roots operation Organizing for America, has spent weeks and millions on the "It's Time" ad spot, a series of close-ups of people telling their sad tales of falling through the cracks of the healthcare system. [...]

Do these advertising strategists even live in America? When it comes to healthcare, appealing to the public's sympathy is a dead end. The whole healthcare debate is precisely about avoiding responsibility for less fortunate citizens. Then the kicker: "It's time for healthcare reform."

That's it? That's the galvanizing take-away? It's the emotional equivalent of "It's time to storm the Bastille." [...]

The insurance industry's ads are more effective. They are big, scary, threatening. Reform gets rolled like the British at the Somme by this ad.

Liberal progressives and advocates are going to have to get down and dirty if they want to win this fight. There's some hope on the horizon, though, in the ad from Americans United for Change [...]

[T]he female narrator asks, "Why do the insurance companies and the Republicans want to kill President Obama's health insurance reform?" Note the yoking of insurance companies to Republicans. Note also that it's Obama's health insurance reform. Evil insurance. [...]

The important thing is that the ad hominem ad is pointed, shrewd and manipulative.

And yes, it's class warfare. But then again, this is war.

Hopefully, after the aforementioned new efforts by Obama and the DNC, this is a war we can win.

Anti-Reform Group Takes Credit For Disrupting Town Hall Rallies

By GottaLaff

In a post back in May, I wrote about David Plouffe's warning about impending SwiftBoat attacks by Rick Scott's gang of thugs. Then, last month, I posted about the developing Rick Scott corporate grassrootery.

Now we see that Hooligan Ricky is going public, taking a bow for interfering with democracy via intimidation:

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the operation that’s running a national campaign against a public health care option, is now publicly taking credit for helping gin up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country.

CPR is the group headed by controversial former hospitals exec Rick Scott that’s spending millions on ads attacking reform in all sorts of lurid ways, a campaign that’s being handled by the same P.R. mavens behind the Swift Boat Vets.

In response to my questions, a spokesman for the group confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform. The spokesperson, Brian Burgess, confirmed that CPR is emailing out “town hall alert” flyers, and schedules of town hall meetings, to its mailing list. [...]

CPR spokesman Burgess confirmed that the group had set up a list serv designed to reach out to “third party groups” involved in the health care fight, including the Tea Party activists. And in a statement emailed to me, Scott, who was ousted as a health-care exec amid a 1990s fraud probe, took credit for the town hall showings. [...]

[H]e claimed outrage was spontaneous.

Similarly, America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, the insurance industry group, has stationed employees in 30 states to track local town hall events.

Be proud, Rick. Take those bows. You may ending up helping our side more than you know.

Rachel, from last night's show:

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Wiretap whistleblower: Bush FBI sent 18 armored agents to search my house

By GottaLaff

Typically BushCo bullying, terrifying payback. One might even call it terrorism:

The Bush Administration’s FBI sent 18 agents in body armor to the home of a man who revealed details of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, according to a little-noticed account of the whistleblower published Thursday.

Thomas Tamm, a former Justice Department lawyer in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, revealed details of the wiretapping program to the New York Times in 2004. In 2007, FBI agents raided his Potomac, Maryland home.

Tamm wasn’t there. His college-aged son, wife and young daughter were — but their father had never told them of his leak to the Times.

And what did the 18 agents do? Treat the family politely? Nah. Take care to avoid frightening a child out of her wits (are you listening "pro-lifers"?) with guns (that can kill children as well as adults)? Uh-uh. Act in the least bit respectful to their fellow Americans? No way:

“They asked me questions like ‘Are there any secret rooms or compartments in the house’?” Terry Tamm, his son, told Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff last December. “Or did we have a safe? They asked us if any New York Times reporters had been to the house. We had no idea why any of this was happening.”

Abrupt, surprise attack and intimidation are so much more fun. Who needs genteel foreplay? It's more important to scar kids for life and take as long as possible to do that, while brandishing deadly firearms:

“They were all wearing body armor, they were all well armed,” he told the audience, according to Wired. “They asked my kids if we had any secret rooms in the house … or whether I had any weapons. They were in my house for over seven hours.”

“I’m sure before that time my phone was listened to,” Tamm added. My wife “will never feel the same in my house … She really felt that her security had been victimized.”

But the ObamAdministration will come to the rescue... won't they?

After the 2007 raid, Justice Department prosecutors tried to convince Tamm to plead guilty to revealing classified information. He refused. To date, he’s had a criminal indictment hanging over his head — but authorities have yet to charge him with a crime. [...]

Now that President Obama has taken office, however, Tamm seems more likely to elude jail. Prosecutors told the Bush lawyer-cum-whistleblower last year that they’d delay a decision on whether to charge him until this year. It’s unknown whether the Justice Department will continue to pursue a criminal charge.

Dear ObamAdministration: Do the right thing. Love, Laffy