It’s getting ugly out there:

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.

The St. Louis examiner has more:

I was at the event. My name is David Brown. I am an atty in St. Louis. My friend, Kenneth Gladney, who is black, was passing out Don’t Tread on Me Flags and Tea Party buttons at the end of the event to Tea Party supporters and conservatives. He was then called a racial slur by two SEIU members. He was then attacked by two black males (SEIU reps) and white male, another SEIU rep., and a white woman. The punched him in the face and he fell to the ground. He was then kicked and punched by all four. One fled on foot, and three were arrested. Kenneth was taken to St. John’s Mercy Hospital to the emergency room. He has suffered numerous injuries. For more information, please contact me at PHONE NUMBER EDITED OUT. Thank you.

This is likely to get worse. The AFL-CIO just declared these town halls to be their principal battleground.

Peggy Noonan looks at the increasingly disturbing tone of the national debate and finds fear and abuse of power:

The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

…every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s critics.

Somehow that doesn’t sound like a peace initiative.

It’s going to be a long August, isn’t it? Let’s hope the uncharted territory we’re in doesn’t turn dark.

Recent statements from the White House seem to indicate a certain easiness with darkness:

And White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina said Democratic senators who are attacked for supporting the health-care bill can count on the White House to help organize local doctors, nurses, religious leaders and others to come to their defense.

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Mr. Messina told senators, according to two people in the room.

Republicans say the health bills working their way through Congress cost too much, won’t help most Americans and will lead to excess government control over the health system. They say momentum for the bills is likely to slow after the August break, once lawmakers hear from their constituents.

I’m actually somewhat surprised that Macon Phillips’s request, which was posted on the White House blog, is actually still there:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

It’s not hard to imagine a couple of junior political strategists and new media consultants running with this idea but you’d expect someone in charge to veto it on the first pass. Still, mistakes happen and things are released that shouldn’t have been so you’d expect a quick retraction. That retraction hasn’t happened and that can only mean that Obama’s team is incapable of understanding why this request is misguided and dangerous. Of course, it could also mean that heavy-handed attacks on free speech are exactly what they’re after. It’s scary any way you look at it.

Sen. John Cornyn is asking Obama to end this program immediately:

Dear President Obama,

I write to express my concern about a new White House program to monitor American citizens’ speech opposing your health care policies, and to seek your assurances that this program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America’s tradition of free speech and public discourse.

Yesterday, in an official White House release entitled “Facts are Stubborn Things,” the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, asserted that there was “a lot of disinformation out there,” and encouraged citizens to report “fishy” speech opposing your health care policies to the White House. Phillips specifically targeted private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that “rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.” Phillips wrote “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed “fishy” or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests.

By requesting that citizens send “fishy” emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.

I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House. I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program-and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.

So I urge you to cease this program immediately. At the very least, I request that you detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in “fishy” speech. And I respectfully request an answer to the following:

* How do you intend to use the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in “fishy” speech?
* How do you intend to notify citizens who have been reported for “fishy” speech?
* What action do you intend to take against citizens who have been reported for engaging in “fishy” speech?
* Do your own past statements qualify as “disinformation”? For example, is it “disinformation” to note that in 2003 you said:”I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan”?

I look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN

United States Senator

I’ve thrown together a page that automatically pulls the latest discussion on this topic from Twitter. Check it out. (The page may not work at times due to the attack on Twitter.)

Found at the intersection of Montrose and Dallas but I doubt it will survive rush hour.