I was out of the office (and to some degree, out of touch with the important breaking news of the day) for the past two days, so the whole flapdoodle over First Lady Michelle Obama wearing (gasp!) shorts on her family vacation to the Grand Canyon got right by me.

But this morning, I got gobsmacked by the “news” when I broke my prohibition against watching The Today Show and saw not only a produced package report on it but an interview about it with the author of an upcoming book on Mrs. Obama.

So I’m damned if I write about this nothingness (because by doing so I am just perpetuating the media echo chamber on this particular non-news item) but if I sit by and let this phenomenon continue to go unchallenged I look either a) out of touch or b) like I condone such piffle.

So let’s be clear: Blame the Internet, blame the increasingly content-hungry online news media who will write about anything as long as it gets pageviews and resonates and gets Reddit’ed or Digg’ed or whatever’ed. But mostly, blame ourselves, the consumers of this mental junk food, because if we weren’t eating it, they wouldn’t be feeding it to us.

By Rob Piccirillo
PoHo contributor

It may be a surprise to most people who know me that I used to own an insurance agency. That’s right! I, Rob Piccirillo, for a period of about one year and seven months, owned and operated a Florida Insurance Agency, which specialized in selling private health insurance.

My company sold various forms of private insurance, but our bread and butter was Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage is a private option that beneficiaries may select instead of Original Medicare (parts A & B), which is provided by the federal government.

I will tell you now, and may the Lord Almighty strike me dead if this is not so: Sometimes it was hard to sleep at night knowing the disservice many in the industry, my cohorts, perhaps even those in my own company had done to many people on many occasions. And although the money I made got me the necessary REMs, the moral question made me quit the business! (That’s why I’m here writing this blog. Do you think the owner of a successful insurance agency would bother scribbling a Political Whore post? Negatory…)

Anyway, the fact of the matter is this: I received a bird’s eye view of what goes on in the health insurance industry.

I witnessed agency owners and mid-level managers conning their agents into believing they were doing the right thing by their clients. I saw beneficiaries bamboozled by those who lied to them, telling them they would receive extra benefits by signing their names onto forms that would switch their doctors and deny them coverage! I understand the way health insurance agencies are organized and managed like a true pyramid scheme, and how political it can be, i.e. the conducting of backroom deals with executives of health care facilities to attain access to leads.

If it was against regulations, I have either seen it, known someone who’s done it or participated in it myself! (That admission of guilt was worked into this piece purely for shock value…wink wink.)

I am for Obama’s “public option” and here is why.

Congress passed a “private option” for Medicare recipients. They allowed millions of older, mostly unknowledgeable and somewhat senile senior American citizens to be fast-talked and hoodwinked by silver tongued, sleezeball salesmen such as myself! So why can’t the vast majority of Americans, many unknowledgeable and somewhat senile as well, opt for public insurance instead?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, you may disagree with the following statements if you’d like, for I truly don’t give a shit! So, here it goes:

Private health insurance companies, as a whole, are a bunch of scumbags. They do not care about you, your health, the well being of your family, or anything, for that matter, that might be construed with good, decent, morals and human interest. The only thing they care about is their bottom line, which is MONEY.

I hope Obama’s plan passes. I also hope, no pray, that if your opinion is anywhere in line with the psychos that pass the propaganda that blinds people into believing Obama’s “public option” is a bad thing, you will begin the process of self-realization. For you, my friends, are sheep.

By Tom Bortnyk
PoHo correspondent

“Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American” - Nancy Pelosi

Madam Speaker, I could not agree more. Freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights as American citizens. So, too, is the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government without fear of punishment or reprisal. These rights are the foundation for Western Civilization as we know it.

Why then, Madam Speaker, do these rights only apply to citizens who share your ideological views? It seems to be the very definition of irony and a text book example of hypocrisy. The political Left in the US has been working diligently to silence opposition, not only with the current health care debate, but in numerous instances in the past.

I have personally experienced such measures. Just this past semester, while at Florida State University, I helped organize an effort to protest Bill Ayers, the self-proclaimed Communist and admitted terrorist of the Weather Underground, from coming to speak on the school’s dime. When the opposition was peacefully organized outside the event, the campus police forced us to back off into a “free speech zone“. This Orwellian sounding abomination is a slap in the face to the Constitution and the rights we hold dear as Americans.

“Danger lies not in some speaker’s ideas. Danger lies in teaching students that ideas they don’t agree with
are not important”, proclaimed FSU President TK Wetherell upon hearing that the event would be protested. Very true, Mr. Wetherell. Again, I agree. Which is why I am, to this day, perplexed that police were called in to silence the ideas that opposed Mr. Ayers.

Recently, at a town hall meeting on health care reform in, members of the community group ACORN commanded police to remove, from a public street, those demonstrating against the bill. A small group having a polite discussion on the issue (on a public sidewalk, no less) were told that they had to stop conversing, and move to another location.

“When a police officer tells you to do something, and you don’t do it, you’re actually resisting. So you have to listen to him” said a representative of ACORN, regarding the officer’s actions. Really? So then what was the outrage of the Henry Gates incident at Harvard recently? Was he not “resisting” as well?

Democrats and the political left have been characterizing their opposition as thugs and mouthpieces for the insurance lobby, but all evidence points to the contrary. A recent Rasmussen poll puts opposition to the health care bill at 53 percent, the highest it has ever been. Forty-four percent of voters strongly oppose the bill, while a meager 26 percent strongly support it.

Mike Sola, a man who recently had a heated confrontation with Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), has been bullied with threats and harassment ever since he voiced his opinion of the bill. At a town hall debate in Tampa, a Democratic Party official slapped a man in the face. Tell me again who the thugs are?

This of course says nothing about the “snitch” program that the White House has created. The administration has encouraged proponents of the bill to flag those who are speaking out against it, by reporting them to flag@whitehouse.gov. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has openly criticized this program, suggesting that it is merely an attempt to intimidate political opponents. It is certainly reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s enemies list, and it may be illegal under the Privacy Act of 1974.

Individual rights were trampled during the Bush year, say the Democrats, so why is there outrage from the Right now? I would respond by simply citing the age-old philosophy: two wrongs don’t make a right. The hypocrisy of some does not excuse the hypocrisy of others, and the suppression of ideas is wrong no matter which political party is in power.

You are correct, Madam Speaker. Silencing opposing views is, indeed, un-American. Including when you do it.

Tom Bortnyk is a student at Florida State University.

Pro-reform AARP has planned a town hall meeting for Wednesday afternoon in Lakeland, and the big question is: Will it feature the same kind of testiness, shouting, shoving and calamity that has befell other town halls, including one last week in Tampa’s Ybor City?

Organizers don’t think so. A Florida AARP spokesman told March on Politics that the organization has already held some of these town halls (part of a grassroots-TV ad blitz to support the president’s initiative) and while some got heated none reached the level of the Ybor event. UPDATE: Florida AARP spokesman Dave Bruns tells me this afternoon that while the AARP events have seen some “very pointed exchanges” (and, in Leesburg, one woman who came forward and dumped her cut-up AARP card in front of the speaker) that they have not seen the kind of disruptions that have plagued other town halls. “There’s been some backlash about what happened in Tampa,” Bruns said.

The town hall is on the radar screen of the Lakeland 9-12 Project, an offshoot of Fox host Glenn Beck’s right-wing fomenting. But RedCounty — a conservative blog that chronicles various counties across the nation, including Hillsborough — is urging civility:

Before attending this meeting or any other, keep in mind that calling people names and screaming will get you nothing more than bad publicity.  Many Democrats have flooded politics with incorrect attacks and have often demonstrated their bad manners in public forums over the years.  That is no reason for those against their current plans to act like them. They should have plenty of room inside a church to have a sizable crowd.  It’s great to have signs and even be a little loud outside.  Decorum and civility should always be in mind while inside the meeting.

Be polite and read up as much as you can about the health care legislation, from credible sources, before attending a town hall.  Make sure your words are defendable and clear. If Democrats and their allies really want to debate, then lets give them a real debate!

It is likewise on the radar screen at Conservatives for Patient Rights, which is also urging civility from its members who want to attend.

My best guess is that they will be testy but violence-free. Two reasons: the lack of a congressperson on hand to direct anger at, and the lack of the SEIU, which is always a target of conservative criticism and stereotyping (yeah, we know, all union members are goons, thugs and mobsters, just like everyone who is against the current health care reform bills are knuckle-draggers and naysayers.)

The town hall is set for 1-3 pm at Faith Lutheran Church, 211 Easton Drive in Lakeland.
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By Tom Bortnyk
PoHo correspondent

There is no doubt that Sarah Palin has every intention in the world of running for higher office. You could see it in her twinkling eye as she made the announcement that she was stepping down as governor of Alaska.

Will she host her own talk show? Will she get a book deal? Speculation has run rampant, but the consensus among the political news commentators seems to be that she is gearing up for a run for president in 2012.

Oddly enough, this news is exciting for many Republicans. To quite a large sect of the conservative base, Palin is a rock star. She is the answer to their prayers, and the savior of the Party.

Such an analysis is misguided, at best. More accurately, it could be described as delusional.

The media went out in full force to destroy any credibility she had at the beginning of the race. They successfully painted her as dumb and uninformed, with limited oratory skills; certainly a stark comparison to the smooth-talking Obama, whom the media worked hard to characterize as a godsend.

Some of it was propaganda, and some of it was not. Facts were distorted and myths were created, and it didn’t help that Palin’s gaffes ingrained her buffoonery into the minds of the average voter.

But Palin’s problems aren’t all rooted in the malpractice of the media; to the contrary, Palin herself has done more than enough to destroy her own electability. One of the most notable problems is her Peggy Hill persona that she can’t seem to shed. Americans have trouble viewing her as the leader of the free world when all they see in front of them is a slightly dim hockey mom. Her “Joe Six-Pack” rhetoric may have earned her a few fans among the red-state working class, but most people just roll their eyes; Americans don’t want to be patronized.

I’m rather surprised that more Republicans haven’t turned against Palin. The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of ideas and innovation, yet Palin supporters seem content listening to her regurgitated rhetoric.

Another disturbing trend is Palin’s constant pandering to the base. Republicans should reject pandering and start listening to new ideas, or better yet, returning to tried-and-true conservative principles. Rovian politics may have worked wonders in the past, but Obama’s campaign victory was a game changer. In order to win, Republicans have to adopt new tactics and leave liabilities like Palin behind. Don’t worry about social conservatives and the “family values” voters; they’ll vote Republican anyway, even if they do so begrudgingly.

In the end, however, it doesn’t matter if Palin were as brilliant as Milton Friedman and as charismatic as Reagan; at this point, she has become a toxic asset. If the GOP wants to win, they’re going to need to do better. It’s nothing personal; she’s a very nice lady. Americans just can’t shake that image of Tina Fey whimsically saying “I can see Russia from my house!”

Tom Bortnyk is a student at Florida State University.

Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and Joe Bardi of Creative Loafing’s Film & TV section join me later this morning to tape the weekly HoCast. What do you think about this week’s top political news? Have something to say on the show topics below? How about your nominee for Political Whore of the Week? Post a comment or tweet it to @poho and we’ll try to read it during the podcast.

Download or listen to a streaming version of the podcast, after the jump:

Download the episode here.

Here is our tentative show rundown, because we have no secrets from our loyal PoHo readers:

1. Brian Blair’s “comeback” interview with Gayle Sierens. Blair wants to focus on empowering parents (yes, he’s the Dr. Phil of our generation); More interestingly, Blair said he woke up at 3;30 am night of his arrest on child abuse charges and went to fix himself some … salmon??? Huh? What’s wrong with Count Chocula? With audio from the News Channel 8 interview. Blair says scuffle with sons could revive political career

2. PETA says it will give money (it won’t say how much) toward the reconstruction of the Friendship Trail bridge on two conditions: that fishing is banned on it, and that it is renamed the “Sea Kitten” Memorial Bridge Trail. After we laugh our asses off, we ask: Why in the name of Citizen Kane would the Tampa Tribune run this fiction on page 1A??? http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/29/peta-provisos-backs-effort-save-friendship-trailbr/ With audio of kittens either being slaughtered or the YouTube cat that plays the keyboard. [Ed's note: No actual kittens will be harmed in the making of this podcast. As much as we'd like to.]

3. The Blue Dogs: Who are they, and do they have to be walked twice a day? Looking at the compromise between centrist Blue Dog Democrats and libs on health care, we ask this: does anybody really understand this stuff? http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/health-deal-sparks-fury-on-the-left-2009-07-29.html

4. Tampa City Council raises a bunch of parks, rec, and burial plot fees, among others. We point out the irony about a public that demands government be run like a business, but then when it does run itself like a business to recapture the real cost of providing a good or service, the public whines like a 4-year-old in the candy aisle at Publix. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tbo/news/~3/fcHuJsMFE7U/

5. Scientoloy’s new ads, with audio. Genius marketing? http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/2009/07/28/lat-ad-critic-raves-boffo-about-scientologys-new-tv-ads-that-are-part-of-pr-pushback/

6. Tony Blair for EU president? http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/07/30/tony-blair-for-european-president.aspx

And another new feature: Here’s the live video stream of our taping.
Live TV : Ustream

By Tom Bortnyk
PoHo correspondent

The notorious Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara spent his entire life fighting the evils of capitalism and murdered anyone who did not agree with his socialist agenda. Yet here we are today, in 21st century America, where any hipster can walk into a Target super-store and buy a Che T-shirt and a “Yes We Can” poster. Apparently the college students wearing the shirts missed the chapter on irony in English 101; they must have been attending a “hope & change” rally. Politics, it seems, has become just as much of a battle of commercialism as PC vs. Mac or Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi.

There is no doubt that this is a distinctly 21st century phenomenon. Mass media and explosion of the internet into every household has only fueled America’s consumer culture, to the point where even our political candidates must be marketed and sold. If Billy Mays were still around, and the Sham-Wow guy didn’t beat up a hooker, odds are good we’d see them recruited for campaign ads in 2012.

In the ’60s and ’70s, student activism may have meant something. At the very least, it was a genuine movement for change. It is difficult to say the same for Obama. The campaign strategy was devised with the utmost attention to appeal to idealistic young people. The power of “cool” took hold and attracted more idealistic young people, spreading through college campuses like a disease. I may disagree with Obama on the issues, but I admire his tactical brilliance. Not since Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness have we seen such a massive and mindless army of zombies rallied to a cause.

It looks like Obama’s team and Apple’s Steve Jobs compared notes. The Left managed to sell Obama to the American public as if they were selling the newest iPhone. From the “O” graphic to the “Hope” poster, it seems that the campaign had just as much attention to detail as a corporation marketing its new product. Obama has taken such tactics to new heights, and as Andrew Romano of Newsweek writes, “is the first presidential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand.”

In the past, it was easy enough to ignore the younger demographics, considering their exceptionally low voter turnout. But in today’s tech-savvy world, having energetic worker-bees at your disposal is the difference between winning and losing. The same determined youth that built Facebook and Twitter into billion-dollar enterprises built a foundation for Obama’s electoral landslide.

Obama is the same substance of the Democratic Party with a shiny new exterior; he managed to take old ideas and repackage them for easy consumption by young people. The campaign promised “change”, but the administration itself has yet to come up with anything new; instead, it relies on the policies of the past. At the same time, they’ve managed to convince an entire generation that their policies are radically new methods for tackling the issues.

Thus far, it has served them well, as it has given Obama and the Congressional Democrat majority the political capital they need to fulfill their agenda. It would be wise, however, for them to tread carefully. One day, they may get too comfortable with being in charge and jeopardize the public’s trust, or worse: discover that they are no longer “cool”.

Tom Bortnyk is a student at Florida State University. This is his first post as a new PoHo contributor.

Because we just can’t get enough of her, the farewell speech of (now former) Alaska Gov. and Head GOP Whacko Sarah Palin is on full display on the interwebs, first off with this link to stunning interpretation of the Republican grande dame’s verbiage, as performed on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien by “master thespian” William Shatner.

Full video after the jump:

Then, Vanity Fair editors give Palin a hand by red-penciling her speech script in a desperate attempt to have it make sense:

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Last week had to the roughest in the first half year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would not be able to vote on a health care bill before the August recess; Obama admitted his comments regarding the controversy over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates had in a way exacerbated the conflict; and one major poll now shows him below 50 percent in approval ratings.

To add to all of that,  there was this: The bizarre world that is the deniers of his citizenship suddenly broke out of the conservative blogosphere and into mainstream conversation.

The “Birthers.” Again.

In a just world, television satirist’s John Stewart’s takedown of the “Birther movement” (also dubbed “The Born Identity”) would be the last word on the world of conspiracy mongers who believe President Obama is not a citizen of the United States. But that’s doubtful.

The resurgence of this story that surfaced during the campaign began anew with a near uprising at a town hall meeting hosted by Delaware GOP Rep. Mike Castle last week.

Then it became local. Last week a federal judge in Tampa denied the request of Lutz resident Stefan Frederick Cook, who was asking that he be rehired by the Odessa based Simtech Corporation. The military contractor canned him, he claims, due to pressure applied by the Department of Defense. Why did the DOD want him out, you may ask?

Reservist Cook claims they pressured Simtech to deny him employment after it became public that he was fighting orders to deploy to Afghanistan, because he says President Obama is not an American citizen.
Cook’s attorney is Southern California dentist/lawyer Orly Talitz, one of the “superstars” in the Birther movement

In a brief phone conversation last week, I tried to engage Talitz on the merits of Stefan Cook’s legal situation. Wasn’t his reasoning for balking at serving overseas a bit of a reach for a reservist who possibly doesn’t want to shoot or be shot at?

“Oh, no, no”, Talitz replied in her thick Eastern European accent. “He wants to go. (His attitude is) I want to go today. Show me that we have a legitimate commander in chief, I’ll pack my things and leave today.”

Further questioning on Cook proved fruitless, as that’s obviously not part of Talitz’s MO. Talking trash about the President of the United States, the first black commander in chief, clearly is, though.

She claims that in a search through a national database, she found 140 addresses for Barack Hussein Obama, and those addresses are connected to 39 different Social Security numbers. To Talitz, that means something sinister.

In case you didn’t hear, the theories of Obama’s citizenship have been thoroughly debunked.

But that apparently isn’t stopping allegedly responsible citizens, such as elected officials, from jumping on the Birther bandwagon.

Established Republicans, such as Melbourne GOP state Rep. Bill Posey, are part of the movement as well. He’s the author and main sponsor of a bill in the House to require presidential candidates to submit proof of citizenship.

Back to Orly Taitz. I asked her last week if reluctant members of the military simply weren’t using her to avoid serving their country, by using this discredited notion that Obama is not the commander in chief?

“Give them some time”, she replied. “You’ll see more people challenging this. Right now I have 170 members of the military that signed up to be plaintiffs. Everyday I get emails…I have something like 47,000 e-mails. I don’t have time to process them. Keep in mind not everybody has been called to duty….”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer dubbed the anger liberals had over our last president “Bush Derangement Syndrome”.

What to make of the animosity that stalks Barack Obama, beyond the sometimes hyperventilating rhetoric that he is damaging the federal deficit more than any previous president has in our history (a line that was expressed to me at a recent Tea Party event in Brandon)?

Going into 2010, Democrats may very well be vulnerable after their big successes in the past two election cycles. But questions about the fitness of the Republican Party to lead will continue to be expressed until more of them denounce this disturbing ‘movement’ amongst some in their base.