Six people, including P-D reporter, arrested at Carnahan meeting  —  UPDATE: St. Louis County police say six people were arrested.  Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances.  Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started.

SEIU Gets Threatening Phone Call: “You're Gonna Come Up Against The Second Amendment”  —  An official with SEIU, which has been sending members to town halls to counterbalance the Tea Party brigade, sends over this audio of a phone call the union says it received on its central voicemail system …

First on the CNN Ticker: Florida senator to resign seat  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, will announce that he is resigning his seat, three GOP sources tell CNN.  —  The sources said that Martinez will officially announce his intention to step down on Friday.

Embattled S.C. Governor Sanford, Wife Are Splitting Up  —  Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, announced Friday morning that she and their sons will leave the governor's mansion in Columbia and settle in the Charleston area, a split that comes after the couple tried for seven weeks to mend their marriage.

41% View Town Hall Protesters Favorably, 35% Don't  —  Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. voters have a favorable opinion of the people opposing health care reform at town hall meetings now being conducted by members of Congress, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Palin: Obama's “Death Panel” Could Kill My Down Syndrome Baby  —  In a new posting on her Facebook account, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) made a dire statement about health care reform — that it could result in an Obama-created “death panel” killing her infant son with Down Syndrome:

New Rule: Smart President ≠ Smart Country  —  New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country.  A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country.

Ben Stein finally Expelled from NY Times  —  You'll forgive me if I take some small measure of credit for this one: after something in the region of 35,000 words of the Ben Stein Watch, the world's worst financial columnist has finally been fired from the New York Times.  And I couldn't be happier.

White House Move to Collect ‘Fishy’ Info May Be Illegal, Critics Say  —  The White House has been under fire since posting a blog on Tuesday that asks supporters to e-mail any “fishy” information seen on the Web or received electronically.  —  FOXNews.com  —  The White House strategy …

Is This Health-Care Reform's Worst Idea Yet?  —  The Senate Finance Committee does not want to propose an employer mandate to promote health-care coverage.  But it doesn't want to let employers entirely off the hook, either.  So it has come up with one of the worst ideas in recent memory: A so-called “free rider” tax.

So where's your birth certificate, congressman?  —  From POLITICO's Kathryn McGarr:  —  Last week, POLITICO asked the 11 House Republicans co-sponsoring the so-called “birther” bill — requiring presidential candidates to prove they were born in the U.S.— for copies of their own birth certificates.

Reactions to Rush Limbaugh's Obama/Hitler comparison  —  [updated below (ADL) - Update II (Simon Wiesenthal Center) - Update III]  —  As I noted yesterday, the comparison of an anonymous person in the 2004 MoveOn.org ad contest of Bush to Hitler generated a massive media firestorm for a full week …

A Better Plan for Health-Care Reform  —  In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Bill Bradley created a legislative miracle.  They fashioned a tax reform that stripped loopholes, political favors, payoffs, patronage and other corruptions out of the tax system.  With the resulting savings, they lowered tax rates across the board.

Twitter, Facebook attack targeted one user  —  A Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial-of-service attack that led to the sitewide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive.

Another Hurdle for the Jobless: Credit Inquiries  —  Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks to screen job prospects.  —  Out of work since December, Juan Ochoa was delighted when a staffing firm recently responded to his posting …

Sincerely, John Hughes  —  I was babysitting for my mom's friend Kathleen's daughter the night I wrote that first fan letter to John Hughes.  I can literally remember the yellow grid paper, the blue ball point pen and sitting alone in the dim light in the living room, the baby having gone to bed.

Taliban Leader in Pakistan Is Reportedly Killed  —  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Baitullah Mehsud, the main leader of Pakistan's fearsome Taliban movement, was killed Wednesday in a C.I.A. drone missile strike, two Taliban fighters said Friday, though American and Pakistani officials could not confirm the reports.

247,000 Jobs Lost in July; Rate Falls Slightly to 9.4%  —  The American economy lost 247,000 jobs in July, and in a reversal, the unemployment rate fell slightly, to 9.4 percent, the government reported Friday.  —  Although businesses are expected to keep cutting jobs through the rest of the year …

Hikers Who Crossed Into Iran Have Been Moved to Tehran  —  ABC News' Martha Raddatz reports:  —  American hikers detained by Iran after allegedly crossing over from Iraq have been moved to Tehran, a U.S. official tells ABC News.  —  The move may be a sign that the hikers' ordeal will continue to drag on.

Gillibrand Rival Won't Run in Primary  —  WASHINGTON — Representative Carolyn B. Maloney announced Friday that she had changed her mind and had decided not to mount a Democratic primary challenge against Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in next year's election.

What is progressivism?  —  Arnold Kling asks this question, so I thought I'd try a stab at it, but trying to cast progressivism in the best possible light.  Of course my answer is not exclusive to Arnold's, as we might both be right about the elephant.  From an outsider's perspective …

Presenting new rules for radicals  —  If you're a virtuous and patriotic American, you may find this column either offensive or misleading.  If so, please forward it to White House authorities at the Department of Fishy Activity.  (E-mail the good people at flag@whitehouse.gov.)