A MARCH BY UNIONS, ETC., FOR OBAMACARE IN SEATTLE brought out a counterdemonstration of about 100 according to this report from reader Michael Babbitt:

Amazingly, we had about 100 or so there — and that is on pretty short notice for downtown Seattle — a few days.

We chanted, “Who Will Pay?” and “Healthcare Yes, Socialism No.” Baghdad Jim McDermott spoke to the group and he was upset with us as we made a lot of noise. We got to them. Here are a few pics.

It seems to me that some people are really getting into this whole protest-turnabout thing.

Related: Obamacare will lead to a U-Turn on life expectancy. “Specialists, and underpaid generalists will hang it up years ahead of their planned exit from medicine in just about any system that the Obama administration is likely to devise. They’ll scarcely need to ration care: there just won’t be anyone around to deliver it. Government will kill the golden goose, and then blame it upon everyone and anyone else. As usual.” Seems plausible to me. Plus, what to do about it.

BLAMING IT ALL on the nights on Broadway.

CALIFORNIA UPDATE: ">CBS5: State Worker Obligations Dwarf California Deficit.

TIME FOR A TEA PARTY? Big tax increases planned in Illinois. Didn’t Blago warn us about that?

UPDATE: Illinois Senate passes 67% income tax increase.

GETTING IT BACKWARD:

The Tennessee Firearms Association is seeking to publicly identify each law enforcement officer and prosecutor who attended Gov. Phil Bredesen’s veto of a bill to allow people with handgun carry permits to take their weapons into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas said Friday that the move could be seen as an effort to “chill people’s rights to speak their opinion.”

If government officials do it to citizens, it might be an effort to chill people’s speech. But when citizens do it to government officials, it’s called political accountability.

TRAINS FOR AMERICA.

DEVO ACTION FIGURES? So wrong, and yet, somehow, so right . . . .

MICHAEL RUBIN: An Open Letter To Amnesty International.

WHEN POLITICIZING THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT is O.K.

SO MUCH FOR FIERCE MORAL URGENCY: U.S. vows to keep using ‘state secrets’ defense.

UPDATE: The Emily Litella Presidency? “It’s one more in a long series of instances in which the Obama administration has backtracked on its campaign promises–fortunately!–by keeping Bush administration anti-terror policies in place.”

MORE: Some related thoughts at The Belmont Club.

P.J. O’ROURKE: “The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of economics. It’s a tragic romance, whose magic was killed by bureaucrats, bad taste and busybodies.” Plus this: “We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. . . . And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat.”

UPDATE: Larry Kudlow: Little Green Cars.

ILYA SOMIN: Property Rights Cases are Not “Pro-Business” vs. “Anti-Business” Cases.

NEWSWEEK WRITES ABOUT RAY KURZWEIL. Ray Kurzweil points out some errors.

ABC NEWS: First President in US History to Have Voted to Filibuster a Supreme Court Nominee Now Hopes for Clean Process. Heh. That’s their headline, not mine.

THE LATEST PJM POLITICAL includes me on Judge Sotomayor, and valuable shaving advice from James Lileks.

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama may be doing many good things with the GM and Chrysler bailout deals, but one thing he isn’t doing is ‘reinventing capitalism for the 21st century’–which is Marc ‘Spin Me’ Ambinder’s characterization of what Obama thinks he’s doing.” I think that Arnold Kling has a better handle on what’s going on.

AN INCONVENIENT Tennis Court.

POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND ADMISSIONS SCANDALS at the University of Illinois.

BOB OWENS: Sotomayor: Obama’s End Run on the Second Amendment.

A “TEA PARTY” PROTEST IN NEVADA: Hundreds protest taxes in front of State Legislature:

Drivers passing by honked in support of signs reading, “Government is the Problem,” “I’m Mad as Hell Harry” and “Let’s Put the Taxanation Devils on a Starvation Diet.”

Shyrl Bailey of Washoe Valley said legislators need to start paying attention to the people who pay their salaries. Most politicians would rather spend taxes on new programs than consider the consequences of spending, she said.

“I just feel like I have to do something,” she said. “We wouldn’t run a house like our country’s being run. We’re borrowing, borrowing, borrowing instead of living in our means like I would do in my household and it’s wrong. It’s wrong for younger generations.”

Olavo Kluft of Reno said he is angry about new state taxes and bailouts for auto makers.

“It’s like every time I turn on the news, something new is going on,” he said. “It’s socialism creeping in — not creeping in, it’s almost a complete takeover.”

Another account here: Gov. Gibbons joins tax opponents at rally.

Several hundred anti-tax foes, including Gibbons, staged a late afternoon rally on the Capitol Mall, many of them lining Carson Street with signs bearing anti-tax and anti-Harry Reid slogans. Organized by the group Anger Is Brewing, the event was billed as a “Tax Freedom Day Tea Party.”

Gibbons and conservative Assemblymen Chad Christiansen, R-Las Vegas; John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas; Don Gustavson, R-Sparks and Ty Cobb, R-Reno, urged attendees to turn their attention to the Legislature, especially in the next election.

As I say, these things are happening all over, mostly below the national-media radar.

UPDATE: Reader Rand Keller writes:

It is remarkable that the tea parties are still going on (even on Friday afternoons in Carson City)

But what I really can’t figure out is this: Is someone (other than you) tracking these? Do we know how many parties/people are still going? Instapundit seems to be the only news source on these. I’ve looked at various sites on the web, I’ve looked at twitter, I’ve looked at FreedomWorks, PJM…I can’t find anything. For example, FreedomWorks – Nevada has news last posted in 2006!!!

I know, I know Army of Davids and all that, but still….Obama has his well organized Meetups on Healthcare in June (I bet with fewer people), are these tea parties strictly local eruptions? Locally created, locally reported?

Yeah, pretty much. Which has its pluses as well as its minuses.

MORE INEXCUSABLE INTERNET LAMENESS FROM BILL O’REILLY.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple empire.

TED RALL thinks Obama should resign. “We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.” I think this is just something Axelrod set up to make Obama look more centrist . . . .

UPDATE: Rand Simberg emails that Rall is probably bitter and clinging to his lack of religion because he got laid off. And the “stimulus” doesn’t look likely to save him.

MORE: “If Obama’s lost Ted Rall, he’s lost un-America.” Heh. Now that’s funny. Plus, a stroll down memory lane.

GENE HEALY: Time to downsize the imperial vice-presidency. Plus this: “Joe Biden’s antics are certainly amusing, but they may also be useful if they prompt the president to put some much-needed distance between himself and his potential successor.”

ACTION / REACTION? Conservatism on the upswing in Minnesota, Midwest? “Ostermeier’s data suggests that the way forward for Republicans isn’t to find people who will meekly acquiesce to Obama’s fiscal policies, but to find candidates willing and able to express and defend conservative principles. If every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, Obama’s radical restructuring of the American economy gives conservatives a great opportunity to take seats in Congress at the midterms.”