From The Spokesman-Review:

(Rep. Cathy) McMorris Rogers spoke at All Saints Lutheran Church to about 50 people representing the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association and the AARP, the national advocacy group for people 50 and older.

Although the media were not allowed to attend, a few people who did said afterward that health care was the primary topic of discussion and that a woman in the audience who spoke in favor of the public option received the loudest applause.

Which personally I think is fine. Members of Congress should have meetings with members of appropriate groups in their districts. How interesting that the loudest applause was for the public option, too. I guess when you actually put folks who are likely to be most immediately interested in a room, they get real.

It wouldn’t even really be worthy of note, except for the deliberate insurance industry-GOP strategy of fostering anger and deception at other member’s town halls. To her credit, McMorris Rodgers has decried some of the worst of the nuttiness.

Sure, it would have been nice for McMorris Rodgers to have a public town hall in Spokane, since some tradmed outlets have declared them mandatory for Democrats. But hey, we’re pretty used to the double standard by now. I’m sure the howls of outrage from right wing talkers about facing constituents will echo across Eastern Washington tomorrow.

Public Policy Polling (PDF:)

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

Sometimes I really think we should just repeal Medicare, look over at the Republicans and go “there.” We won’t, of course, because it would be inhumane to millions of our fellow citizens, but still…

(Props to Think Progress.)

The Columbian: has a roundup of primary night down here.

Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard faces a heated battle to keep his job in November after waging a neck-and-neck struggle with Councilman Tim Leavitt in Tuesday’s primary.

Preliminary tallies released Tuesday night show Pollard with 43.1 percent of the vote, followed by Leavitt with 42 percent.

A third candidate, citizen activist Charlie Stemper, had 14.9 percent and will not advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

This should be a very interesting race to watch. As the article notes, Pollard is a 14 year incumbent, and the blunt former military officer has only once received less than 60% in a general election. Leavitt is campaigning on “change,” which is evident if you check out his web page. Remind you of anyone else’s?

There’s a generational component at play, with Pollard generally receiving backing from many long-time establishment figures. But Leavitt has secured some pretty impressive endorsements as well, including some union locals, various civic and community groups and of course, the Building Industry Association, the local BIAW affiliate.

Perhaps as importantly, Leavitt is endorsed by county commissioners Marc Boldt and Steve Stuart, whose party labels read “Republican” and “Democrat” respectively, but who in reality are both solidly in the BIAW camp.

There are long-standing frictions over growth between the county and the city, and one way to view Leavitt’s run is as an attempt by the pro-developer forces to take over the city government as well. The bubble may have burst, but the local bidness guys and gals are busy planning for the next one, and it would be great for them if the city doesn’t give them any trouble.

While there are the usual assortment of hyper-local issues, like redevelopment of Vancouver’s waterfront, the big regional issue at play is a new bridge over the Columbia River, ie the CRC project. This might wind up being a key factor in the race, with Pollard sticking to his vision of a completely revitalized downtown replete with waterfront, new bridge, capped freeway and light rail.

Leavitt has been pretty vocal about resisting tolls on any new bridge, which makes for good populist fodder, but doesn’t really match up with existing federal, state and local budget realities. Without tolls there won’t be a new bridge, as federal transportation funds aren’t what they used to be and there is strong political pressure in Oregon on the issue of cars coming in from the Washington side.

So to boil it down, the long-term incumbent and former military guy is the one with the vision for the future, including light rail and a more viable urban landscape, and the “change” guy endorsed by the BIAW is the one pecking around the edges, with the support of some Democrats, campaigning to stop a new bridge, even if he doesn’t say so explicitly.

It’s not that there aren’t real issues to address, and there are legitimate beefs with the city over where to put resources. The arts community is supposedly quite unhappy with Pollard over what they perceive as a lack of support, and many downtown merchants got their dander up early on about the possibility of light rail disrupting their businesses. Sprawl and traffic on the east side of town is as bad as ever, although over the last decade the city has made significant improvements in services delivered to that area.

The real issue, I suppose, may actually turn out to be the lack of funding for municipalities in general, and just how much less in basic services people want. There’s never any shortage of people to complain about taxes, and in this economy that would seem to work in Leavitt’s favor. This could wind up being the race of Pollard’s career.

So even while town halls are being held, contentious but not violent tonight in the case of Brian Baird, the political situation has bypassed the right wingers earnestly stamping their feet and holding their breath about “socialism” and “death panels” and such. From The New York Times:

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

“The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

So in their zeal to, well, be wienies, the righties have managed to convince even Rahm Emanuel that there’s no sense in playing ball with them. They just keep moving the goal posts.

My, oh my, isn’t this all so interesting?

I’m sure this will turn out to be good news for Republicans, somehow.

Portland Fox Noise affiliate KPTV is going to stream Brian Baird’s first town hall, being held tonight at the Amphitheater at Clark County, capacity approximately 18,000.

The event is scheduled to be streamed starting at 7 pm.

The temperature in Vancouver just before 4 pm is 91 degrees.

Next up at the Amphitheater, in ten days, Nickelback, followed by Def Leppard in September.

From Pacific County blogger/writer Arthur Ruger, who makes a lot of good points. Worth checking out, here’s a taste:

After the last two election cycles, I backed away from lots of writing. At 63, I want to retire as soon as possible from my full-time job at the local welfare office in South Bend.

That’s right, the welfare office – where a day doesn’t go by without older American residents of our county coming in seeking any kind of relief from medical expenses that take larger and larger bites out of their fixed income.

It’s also the office where younger Americans come in – not asking for a welfare check – but to find out if there’s any kind of help with medical expenses. They don’t want a government hand out. They seek a way to keep their families safe. And they are not seeing or hearing any constructive ideas from reform opponents, especially the current minority party, it’s willfully propagandistic leadership and its public broadcast shills who are all talk and no solution.

I may not be the county expert on health care reform, but I’m willing to bet that short of medical professionals, I see the problem more closely and with more clarity than most citizens nationwide who have gone to town meetings scared, worried and nervous. They seem to feel that way because they are driven by outrage and fear inspired by the disinformation and outright lying that has come out of desperate Republican political organizing, coaching and talking point tactics.

After all the shouting, real people still need real solutions. That’s why this fight is worth it, and good on Ruger for reminding us.

No public option, no passage. And the votes are there, apparently.

You’d never know about this from most media accounts, probably because progressives aren’t screaming, yelling and waving guns around. Yes, it’s a battle of wills, and no, I can’t predict the final outcome.

But I’d wager that progressives around the country are now in little mood to compromise on anything, and we’re certainly not going to cotton to some giant industry turd with “health care reform” written on it.

While the diversionary clown shows continue, the administration faces the basic decision Molly Ivins used to describe as “dancing with them what brung you,” to paraphrase the late and great Texas columnist. It’s pretty clear that’s what Max Baucus and Kent Conrad are doing.

The conservative clown shows are already wearing thin, in addition to getting creepier, and their political utility will continue to decrease as we get more into the fall. At some point clowns grow tiresome.

So it seems like the short term strategy is to move the debate back to actual policy, rather than the incomprehensible nonsense we’ve been witnessing. You can add “death panels” to the long list of recent American political idioms like “Schiavo,” “Katrina” and “”weapons of mass destruction” that are shorthand for conservative craziness, incompetence and lies.

No rational person can do much but shake their head in sorry amazement at how the right always doubles down on being nuts, never seeming to realize that the short term media attention eventually gives way to the broader, non-cable watching public recoiling in horror.

If progressives in the House can hold firm, everyone is going to have to deal with them. If that upsets some Blue Dogs, well, cry me a river. The ongoing political re-alignment needs to be helped along sometimes, and if we wind up with fewer Blue Dogs, so much the better in the long run.

As another Texan, Jim Hightower, used to say, there’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.

Seems that the people of the United Kingdom actually kind of like their health care system, and don’t take too kindly to the infamous lies being spread on Fox Noise. From BBC:

Labour has stepped up its criticism of Daniel Hannan, who waded into the debate over Barack Obama’s health bill.

They claim his view – that the NHS is outdated, unfair and should be scrapped – is shared by many Conservatives.

But David Cameron said Mr Hannan’s view was “eccentric” and accused Labour of making a meal of the row, stressing that the NHS was his top priority.

Mr Hannan has made a series of appearances on American television in recent weeks, describing the NHS as “60 year mistake” and saying that he “wouldn’t wish it on anyone”.

And the right wing lies are pretty obvious and infuriating to Britons:

Kate Spall, who appeared in a US free market group’s TV commercial opposing Mr Obama’s health bill, said her views were misrepresented.

She told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: ” “Absolutely I was deceived yes because when I then found out the link to the website and it was a huge political machine I was horrified because it was the polar opposite of what I believe in. I absolutely believe in universal health care.”

If you click through to the BBC story you may notice a nice little graphic they have that shows, in percentage of GDP, health care expenditures by country. The US is at 16%, while the UK is at 8.4%. The graphic also includes the rather damning information “45.7 million people have no health insurance.” So we manage to spend twice as much and still leave a tremendous portion of the population vulnerable.

This is what the righties have been reduced to: they’re willing to tell infamous lies about and insult one of our staunchest allies in the world in order to block health care reform. Guess that “special relationship” only applies when Republicans are in the White House.

Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, WA-05, has condemned the crazy disruptors:

“I certainly don’t condone violence, I don’t condone calling President Obama Hitler and painting swastikas on signs at town halls,” continued McMorris Rodgers, vice chairwoman of the GOP conference.

McMorris Rodgers is the first member of the House Republican leadership to decry the Nazi comparisons. It follows a week of attacks by the House Democrats’ campaign arm on House Republican leaders, who Democrats say should speak out against Rush Limbaugh’s remarks comparing Democrats to Nazis in the healthcare debate.

As Think Progress noted, she didn’t mention Limbaugh by name, so it’s not clear whether the big fat idiot will require an apology.

So good on McMorris Rodgers anyhow.

Lost in the furor is a basic economic question: what are we going to make? From The Oregonian, about a Port of Vancouver ceremony for an expansion project:

In a ceremony full of speeches, however, a top longshore official nearly stole the show by asserting that free trade agreements may have benefited cargo shipping, but not American workers.

Brad Clark, president of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 4, aimed his words at Congress in general and, in particular, Democratic U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Brian Baird — all of whom attended the ceremony on a rocky patch of Terminal 5.

“When I started on the docks over 20 years ago,” Clark said from his prepared remarks, “our terminals were full of American-made cargo ready for export. With the signing of various free trade agreements, this is no longer the case.”

—snip—

He concluded: “As we look around this beautiful new terminal, many of you visualize the profits that will be made with the increase in import vessel calls.

“But my vision, my dream, is that before I retire, this space will be used to export cargo — cargo that is manufactured by the American worker.

“If that dream happens, you benefit, I benefit, my union benefits and most importantly, this nation benefits.”

Sometimes you forget we used to send stuff the other way, and people around the world liked our stuff. Americans are pretty hard workers, clever and will do a great job if you don’t crap all over them just to satisfy CNBC.

There will be town halls in WA-03 after all.

Although, while I still don’t have details, those who think they will be able to show up and just scream might find that is not exactly the case.

One of the Portland television stations had a segment today on a town hall held by Rep. David W, D-Or. They showed a youngish man and his male friends holding a sign depicting President Obama with a toothbrush mustache, and the man claimed health care reform will be like the Tiergarten 4 program the Nazis carried out in Germany.

Like this idiot could come up with that himself.

The man seemed sincere, which begs the question, who is feeding these stupid, gullible fucks this outrageous and false bullshit? It’s also worth asking why the media is intent on showing stupid, gullible fucks without explaining that they are stupid, ignorant gullible fucks.

Hey, lookie, stupid gullible fucks managed to ask stupid questions, it’s a story! Well, it is a story in one way, and the story is that there are a very small number of people who are very, very stupid gullible fucks. There’s just no other way to put it.

Portland curmudgeon/blogger Jack Bogdanski on the difference between health care protestors now and anti-war protestors then:

The Democrats were protesting killing people, and the Republicans are protesting healing people.

Sometimes simple observations are good.

Andrew at NWPI NPI notes that Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has embraced a “robust” public option in an appearance last week on The Bill Press Show.

This is good.

A conservative activist who opposes health care reform and who claims “union thugs” roughed him up in St. Louis doesn’t have health care insurance. So the righties are taking up a collection, which is nice, because it’s nice to help people.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

(Props to TPM.)