ALAN BOYLE: How Blight Becomes A Killer.

CHARLIE RANGEL: PAYOLA KING.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: What’s this “we” business, Limey?

HMM: Inquiry opened into New Black Panther case. “The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an inquiry into the dismissal in May of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during last year’s presidential elections.”

ED MORRISSEY: Obama science czar: Redistributionism as the cure for American exceptionalism. “With more focus getting applied to Barack Obama’s czars, the first to receive scrutiny should be John Holdren, Obama’s science czar.” Note that Ed has been critical of attacks on Cass Sunstein, making his arguments here more significant.

INSTAVISION: The Congressional Corruption Parade: Rangel’s Hits Keep on Coming. With Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation. And my new virtual set. Plus, tips on what you can do to fight Congressional corruption. (Bumped).

THE HILL: Analysis: Obama speech to Congress unlikely to be game changer.

UPDATE: Arnold Kling:

He said,

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.

And if we don’t pass this plan, does he intend to keep the waste and inefficiency, out of spite?

Ouch.

Related: And You Thought This Was All About Health Care. “The simple truth is that for the single biggest advocacy bloc pushing the health care bill, your health is the furthest thing from their mind. Their objective is to use the bill to make it easier to unionize health care workers, which certainly won’t enhance patient care, and to advance the larger goals of organized labor as a whole, and use the resulting debt from the administration to push through the noxious ‘card check’ bill through despite public opposition.”

JACOB SULLUM: Drug Control Becomes Speech Control: A federal prosecutor tries to silence a pain treatment activist.

JOHN TIERNEY: Is A.M.A. Support for Health Reform a Bad Sign?

UNION TRIBUNE: Sure, he was a rude jerk. But Rep. Joe Wilson has a point. “The president is right that his proposal specifically says the plan does not extend to illegal immigrants. But one of the most undercovered stories in national politics is the fact that congressional Democrats have gutted the plan’s enforcement provisions.”

I’m finding it hard to get excited about this. It was a breach of decorum and civility. But someone who says “get in their face” and “punch back twice as hard” has little standing to bring that up. If you want to benefit from traditions of civility, you should respect them, and that has hardly been a hallmark of this administration, which has gone out of its way to try to demonize and shout down opponents.

UPDATE: Video Flashback: Dems Shout And Boo At Bush During 2005 SOTU. Goose, meet gander.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Video: Obama supporters boo Bush at inauguration. Like I said, you can’t stand on decorum when you’ve acted without it.

Or maybe we’re seeing the beginnings of British-style parliamentary debate in Congress!

MORE: Reader James Somers writes:

Glenn, it might also be noted that a lot of Democrats and MSM journalists (same thing, I know) who suddenly have the vapors over Joe Wilson’s breach of decorum thought it was just dandy when an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President Bush. Sure, the journalist wasn’t a Congressman; and sure, a press conference isn’t the same as the SOTU. But that journalist became a folk hero to a lot of folks on the Angry Left – I think you actually could become a Fan of his on Facebook. The point is that lefties loved Sticking It To The Man when Chimpy McHitler was president, but now they’re prissily toting around copies of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Indeed. Sticking It To The Man is supposed to be their sole prerogative.

STILL MORE: Bill Quick: Remember When Harry Reid Called Bush a Liar?

NO ANTITRUST WORRIES HERE: Google developing a micropayment platform and pitching newspapers: “‘Open’ need not mean free”. I’d actually like to see a micropayment platform succeed — it’s probably an essential for the survival of paid media — but I’m a little troubled at this giving Google more power. They already control huge swathes of search and advertising.

EDUCATION YOU CAN USE: UT class boosts confidence of novice wine drinkers.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Obama’s Speech — Did It Help Him? “I’m not sure whether Obama and his handlers understand how this sort of talk grates on those of us who are not liberal Democrats (a large majority of the country). Debating public policy issues is not ‘bickering.’ Disagreeing with a proposal to radically change one of the largest sectors of our economy is not a ‘game.’ This kind of gratuitous insult–something we never heard from President Bush, for example–is one of the reasons why many consider Obama to be mean-spirited.”

PETER SUDERMAN: If You Only Read One White Paper On Health Care Today, Make It This One. “The criticisms of liberal reforms are sharp, but what really makes the paper worthwhile are two aspects. The first is that, contrary to the president’s accusation that those who oppose reform have no solutions of their own, they actually propose and detail a number of useful, specific reforms, including some that tend to get less attention, like curbing regulations on medical devices and new drugs that artificially increase scarcity (and, as a result, drive up costs). The second is that they fully recognize that the current health-care system is a disaster, and that the reforms they propose wouldn’t necessarily ensure that those with chronic preexisting conditions have access to health insurance. But, they say, the current patchwork of ill-thought-out government regulations of the health care market is so problematic—and, in fact, exacerbates our health care problems so much—that it must be fixed before addressing the few remaining problem cases.” Perhaps someone could send a copy to the President.

TOP HDTVS for around a thousand bucks.

MICKEY KAUS evaluates Obama’s speech. “Why, after posing as a practical moderate, go on and on about the need to avoid timidity and do ‘what the moment calls for’ and ‘history’s test.’ Obama couldn’t let a speech slip by without veering into grandiosity — but this very grandiosity undercuts his attempt to appear like a reassuring, centrist who wants to disrupt existing arrangements as little as possible. Makes kicking the can ‘further down the road’ suddenly seem vaguely appealing.”

BYRON YORK: Obama: I used to say 47 million uninsured. Now, it’s 30 million. “The interesting question is why Obama has chosen to downgrade the number from 47 million to 30 million. Look for Democrats to begin using the new figure in making the case for Obamacare.” If we keep going at this rate, we’ll have eliminated the uninsured entirely by sometime next spring. . . .

BILL WHITTLE, SCOTT OTT, STEPHEN GREEN: Who’s Funding Your Local Elections?

RADLEY BALKO: Hold On to Your Assets: The Supreme Court reviews Illinois’ awful asset forfeiture law.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA vs. the First Amendment.

CATO HEALTH CARE EXPERTS will be live-blogging Obama’s speech.

Plus, Republicans will unveil their bill — in Obama’s presence. Tired of being ignored, I guess.

Also, more liveblogging at United Liberty.

And Peter Suderman predicts more of the same.

UPDATE: Most importantly, Stephen Green is drunkblogging!

I just noticed that Obama looks a lot older all of a sudden.

And from the Cato commenters: “If we spend more than other countries, and aren’t any healthier, why does the president want us to spend another $2 trillion?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Conclusion at Cato: “Strikingly political/partisan rather than statesmanlike speech. Obama chose to pressure Republicans to support his plan rather than attempt to persuade them to do so. He risks a another wave of (effective) opposition from conservative talk radio & cable TV.”

I see that Michael Graham liveblogged it too, with his son.

Dan Riehl emails: “I figured out his strategy. He’s going to put the country to sleep so they can pass the bill without us knowing it.”

And Prof. Jacobson calls it the Have your cake and eat it too speech.

Stephen Green: “Self-reliance! Love of freedom! Skepticism of government! And socialized medicine! Sing it with me now: One of these things is not like the other…”

Ali Eteraz notes subconscious Marx-ism.

Ann Althouse: “I can’t believe anyone is watching.”

My question: Is America ready to believe that a politician from Chicago will eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse?

MORE: A wrapup from Megan McArdle: “In the end, I think this speech satisfied no one. There’s a little information for the wonks, but not nearly enough. There’s a little stirring rhetoric for the non-wonks, but again, not nearly enough. Journalists seem to have liked it. But if journalists were any reliable key to the sentiment of the American people, we’d already have national healthcare, and national second homes in Maine.” And profitable newspapers everywhere!

And Larry Sabato tweets: “That was a tough, partisan speech. All pretense of bipartisanship is gone on both sides.”

Meanwhile, Keith Hennessey figures the score. “Nowhere in the speech does he promise universal health insurance, or universal health care.”

Dana Loesch liveblogged it, too.

MICHAEL BARONE: The Post’s campaign to ‘Macaca’ McDonnell takes a new tack. “Amy Gardner’s story and the Post’s placement of it on the front could be used in journalism schools as a classic example of a newspaper using its news pages to affect the outcome of an election. On the front page it suggests that McDonnell is the kind of bigoted person its targeted audience—the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post’s circulation area—would never want to vote for, while the exculpatory material is buried on page A16, above the Mattress Discounter and Clyde’s Restaurant Group ads.” They’re so transparent. Remember, it’s a “smear” if you report the truth about a Democrat.

And maybe Clyde’s and Mattress Discounters will hear from some readers.

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED: 11 accused of faking voter registration cards in Miami-Dade.

Eleven people hired to register potential voters in Miami-Dade County before last year’s presidential election were being sought Wednesday for falsifying hundreds of voter registration cards.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, (ACORN).

By early Wednesday morning, six were in custody, authorities said.

I thought all that voter-fraud stuff was just a “myth.”

FRANKLY, I RESPECT PAM ANDERSON AND TSA ABOUT EQUALLY: Pam Anderson Strips A Dude To His Skivvies In Banned PETA Commercial. Only TSA has actually improved a bit over the past few years.

CHINA PLANS world’s largest solar plant.