If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change. There are some who theorize that this was not a hacking, but an inside job.

Governor Sarah Palin began her book tour this week, speaking to O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush, Greta, Oprah, and Barbara Walters, and drawing huge crowds wherever she signs books.

Sarah Palin is compared in newspapers and on various news and opinion sites to Eva Peron by Eugene Robinson, David Neiwert, Frank Schaeffer, Naomi Wolf, etc.

AARP, which has given its full-throated support to Democratic health care legislation even though seniors remain largely opposed, received an $18 million grant in the economic stimulus package for a job training program that has not created any jobs, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.gov website.

It has come out that the SEIU spent $85 million on the 2008 election and SEIU president has visited the White House 22 times; more than anyone else. SEIU is now buying $1 million worth of ads to thank certain members of Congress who are standing up against Big Insurance.

U.S. Preventative Services Task Force decides that women are getting breast exams too early, and that they need to wait until age 50 before having a mammogram. Many have hailed this as a harbinger of things to come, if the federal government gives a hold of healthcare.

The Reverent Jesse Jackson about Rep Arthur Davis: "We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill from Alabama...You can't vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man."

CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips, about the children who teased a boy who would not say the pledge of allegiance to the flag until homosexual marriage is accepted: "And a message to you boys who are bullying Will, shame on you. It's obvious you are jealous that Will is smarter and more well spoken than you are. Hopefully one day you will grow up and realize that you were being the wads, dork wads."

Chris Matthews: "President Obama has his chin out on just about every hot issue out there....He's exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping. Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egg head?"

Michael Eric Dyson, an author and sociology professor at Georgetown University, on MSNBC, heaped praise upon President Obama: "We have a man in the White House who has made, you know, thinking sexy, who's brought sexy brilliance back to the White House."

David Gregory, in an interview with NBC's Meredith Vieira, said, "You've got Wall Street doing better than most American workers in this country, you've got 10.2 percent unemployment and a ballooning federal debt. Those are the problems for Secretary Geithner, and he's just the proxy, because those are really the problems for the President. Overall, it's a perception problem that the administration has to deal with."

Allan Meltzer, during a debate, said, "Leadership consists of getting people to do the things that they don't want to do. It doesn't consist of blaming the Congress, and blaming past administrations, for problems that were there, when you came in."

Al Gore, "People think about geothermal energy - when they think about it at all - in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees."

Steve Moore on the mistakes in numbering jobs produced by the Stimulus Bill: "These resurrection not honest mistakes on jobs because all of the mistakes are overestimations."

David Harsanyi, Denver Post, writes: "These days, where you fall on the crucial issue of Sarah Palin tells the rest of us all we need to know about your character. You're either A) a scum-sucking, terror-loving elitist or B) a radical, tea bag-loving simpleton."

President Obama, after his visit to China, said, "It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

Steve Hayes about Obama's trip to China: "You know you're in trouble when communists criticize you for the size and scope of government."

If you don't think that SEIU is evil, watch this video (these are people from Fresno county; SEIU thugs lied to them, bullied them and intimidated them into voting for SEIU):

Senator Lindsay Graham rakes Attorney General Eric Holder over the coals (this is excellent):

Just in case you forgot, this was Obama selling his Stimulus package (and did you know there were going to be hundreds of thousands of green jobs which will revamp our entire energy system?):

Obama speaking in favor of military tribunals and how KSM would be tried in a military tribunal:

In case you did not see this, MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell Grills Young Palin Supporter (did she ever straighten out any Obama supporters?):

http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/ (choose "Pinheads and Patriots" and then choose the Clnt Eastwood video—there is a portion of Bob Dylan's video "Must be Santa")

1) In case you are a confused Democrat, and you do not understand why Obama is simultaneously destroying smaller businesses and yet propping up large businesses and Wall Street companies with government bailouts, it is quite simple: a large business entity can be controlled. Why do you think the AMA and AARP are supporting Obama-care? There are a combination of carrots and sticks that can be used to get a large organization to do what you want them to, because you are dealing with someone else who also like power and money, and who realizes that government can crush them and their company.

2) Rush made the simple observation that, now that environmentalists know that the earth is not heating, if they are real scientists, they would collectively breathe a sigh of relief. However, that is not the case.

3) One of Eric Holder's problems is, he does not subject himself to any previous case law, which is one of the side issues that Lindsay Graham brought out.

4) Holder has explained that civilian targets require us to put a terrorist in a civilian court with more rights (and a bigger megaphone); a military target means, the terrorist ought to go to a military tribunal. Now, if I were a cowardly terrorist, would I want to attack American civilians in the United States or some military target outside the United States?

5) I hope that you heard the Holder promised, if Kalid Shaikh Mohammed is acquitted, he will not be released on American soil. Excellent; I feel so much better now.

7) Frank Luntz pointed out that, the larger a person's face appears on TV, the less they are trusted. In the Barbara Walters interview of Sarah Palin, Palin's head was about 20–30% larger than Barbara's throughout the interview.

8) If there is one good thing which we can credit this administration with, it is raising the awareness of many Americans as to just how much graft, corruption and evil is crammed into Congressional bills. Obviously, the majority of Americans don't know; but there is a growing minority of Americans who are starting to pay attention, while Congress steals billions of dollars and gives itself power undreamed of by our forefathers.

9) Here is what I think is going on behind the scenes, for Obama's trip to China. He tells the Chinese leaders to continue to lend him money, or he will just continue to print as much as he needs and pay China back with devalued dollars. It is a dangerous gamble, because if China calls his bluff, Obama has to have enough money for all of the debt he has incurred; and the end result is going to be runaway inflation, possibly greater than what we saw in the years of Jimmy Carter.

(below Bill Clinton's first day for My Life and above Hilary's first day for Living History.

CMI analysts found that ABC, CBS and NBC aired 18 negative stories for every one positive story on Sarah Palin

11 is the number of AP reporters assigned to fact checking Sarah Palin's new book.

$18 million on of the costs of updating Recovery.gov; the White House will not release the complete cost of the site. By comparison, my costs about $200/year. As an addendum, one invoice related to this site was released, but about 90% redacted (far more than any CIA document which has been released under the Obama administration).

60 votes. 2,000 pages. $2.5 trillion in spending. A half trillion in new taxes. Public funding for abortion. A public option. One step closer to Obamacare (from Heritage.com).

In any Republican administration, 10.2% unemployment would be the leader story about every other day for a month.

CNN fact checked a SNL skit; AP fact checks Sarah Palin's book. Now, here's a crazy, crazy idea—Obama has given about 500 speeches on healthcare and there is a House and Senate healthcare bill...why not fact check what is being said by our president as compared to the bills which could be passed? Since this will affect 1/6^th of our economy, doesn't that seem sort of reasonable?

I’ve got to give credit with credit is do; last week’s cold open with Joe Biden was pretty good:

Most of the cold open this week was pretty good as well (although this would have worked without the continual references to sex):

Now, when will SNL have a skit about on air reporters harassing young Sarah Palin supporters ("did you know that Levi Johnston is both her son and her lover? Do you still support Sarah Palin now?")

It has occurred to me this week, maybe if the terrorists get off on a technicality in open court (if we give to them the rights of citizens, then they automatically will get off) then the Obama administration can then blame Bush some more?

Isn't it interesting that President Obama chooses to grant an interview to FoxNews the very week that Palin's book is released and Palin is out hawking her book in every venue.

Yay to Obama for saying a few good things about free speech in China, and then showing that he meant business by granting an interview to FoxNews.

The president used a lot of phrases like fiscal responsibility since his return from China. And he will sign the Democratic healthcare fill, no matter what.

Can you match up specific portions of either healthcare bill to your healthcare bill promises?

If you think Eric Holder made his decision to try 5 terrorists in a New York criminal court without running this by Obama. My guess is, he was told to wait until Obama was out of the country, and then to make the announcement.

If you think Obama is seriously concerned about the deficit (he is only concerned enough so that China will continue to lend us money).

If you really think the healthcare will, which will insure an additional 30,000 people (which I think will, in all actuality, be much lower), will actually reduce the deficit. If you know anything about Medicare and Medicaid, believing that the Democratic healthcare bill is deficit neutral is delusional and denies all previous experiences in this area.

Two of the Republican platforms: stop any further the Stimulus Bill payouts and, if it passes, repeal healthcare legislation. This will be the first year that either party runs on a platform to repeal recently passed legislation.

I will admit, I have held out hope against hope that some principled Democrats would be hold outs in the healthcare bill; that either those who were against abortion or those who are pro-choice would take a principled stand against this bill. However, I no longer think that is the case. Since Democrat Mary Landrieu accepted a $100 million bribe (possibly, $300 million), and signed onto the healthcare bill, I no longer have any faith in any of the Democrats, with the exception of Lieberman, and I am not holding my breath. I thought that Evan Bayh would be a hold out simply from the standpoint of fiscal responsibility, and I no longer see that as the case, which is a big disappointment to me. They know that they must pass something, so there will be a sweeping healthcare bill passed, but with no real torte reform, portability or sales across state lines included (things which would lower healthcare costs for most people). There will be a public option; perhaps with a trigger, but the regulations of the bill will pull that trigger. Those who seem to take strong stands for or against the public option, for or against abortion, for or against fiscal responsibility, will all, at the very end, fall into line. A handful of Democrats will be allowed to vote no from the House, in order for them to get reelected; but that will only be with Pelosi's approval. I so hope that I am wrong in this prediction.

I was close on the Oprah show ratings; not the best ever, but the best in 2 years when Palin was interviewed (and higher than when Obama appeared).

A couple weeks after the +10% unemployment was made known, Obama's job performance approval rating is below 50% in every poll that I am aware of. Since this unemployment number is not front page news, I took awhile for the public to catch on.

Attorney General Eric Holder is going to take 5 of the most dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo Bay Prison and try them in a criminal court in New York City. If memory serves, he claims that he talked over this decision with his wife and brother. Governor Paterson indicated, in his own protest, that he was aware of this possibly happening 6 months ago.

We are given 3 basic reasons for this: (1) to show off our justice system to the world; (2) to bring these evil men to justice (although, I doubt that the Obama administration would ever use the word evil); and (3) to try these men in the shadow of the fallen towers, bringing them back to the scene of the crime.

Reasons 2 and 3 are hokey. A military trial would bring these men to justice more quickly and surely that would an open criminal trial. And, does anyone in their right mind think that these terrorists will see the faces in the courtroom, and know that they are down the street from the scene of the crime, and that this will somehow make them feel badly? How preposterous. This will be a victory for terrorists all over the world, regardless of the outcome.

The first reason is what Holder actually believes, but in a far different way than we think of it. First of all, this trial cannot match up with a normal, criminal trial for several reasons: (1) the defendants were not mirandized; (2) Evidence was not collected and preserved according to legal standards; and (3) criminals in this country have a right to a speedy trial. (4) Defendants are promised a jury of their unbiased peers. (5) Quite obviously, confessions cannot be obtained through torture, and the President of the United States has proclaimed waterboarding to be torture. (6) Eric Holder's own law firm has defended terrorists, so that suggests a lack of objectivity as well.

In other words, in order to try this case, certain common aspects of our criminal justice system must be thrown out the window. How this is done legally perplexes me, but then, as Lindsay Graham pointed out painfully to Holder that this approach to terrorists is unprecedented. We have never once before taken an enemy of the United States man from a foreign country and given him a common criminal trial, affording him all of the rights of an American citizen. We have, on some occasions, done this for terrorists arrested on American soil.

Our own president has (1) said that these men were subject to torture and (2) both he and his attorney general have pronounced these men guilty.

I need to first paint a picture of the Obama administration to explain. This is an administration of amateur ideologues who are always in campaign mode. The one thing which they have done well is, they got Obama elected. We also know that these are ideologues, given people who have been in the administration. One who views Mao as a man she admires; another who is both an avowed Communist and a 9-11 truther, another who wants to solve global warming by painting everyone's h roof white, etc. So, this is not an administration of moderates.

Since New York Governor Paterson first heard about this 6 months ago, that means this was an executive decision that came from higher up than Holder. However, since this administration is in campaign mode, they use a member of the cabinet as their attack dog, who does the dirty work. The president does not do any of the dirty work. So, this has to appear as if Holder woke up this morning, said to his wife, "I think I am going to try KSM in a New York criminal trial setting," and she said, "That's nice dear." In other words, they do not want Obama fingerprints on this action (which may account for why they waited for some time to pass since the decision was made and timed the decision for when the president was outside of the country).

Ideologues hate the CIA. From the very beginning, Obama has done everything possible to neuter the CIA. All of their methods and all of their concern not to go too far was brought out in the public. This is an administration which will not even reveal the details of their contract for the website Recovery.gov; so transparency is not what they are going for. Neutering the CIA is what they wanted. The CIA is no longer dealing with terrorists who have been picked up, and all of their methods are made public, so terrorists can train to resist these methods if they are ever brought back.

This trial is not about the CIA, however; as they have already destroyed their effectiveness. This trial is all about the Bush administration. Here is where we can recognize that Holder (and Obama) want to hold up our legal system to the world to admire. They want to use this trial to pivot to the Bush administration and the tactics used to gain information (which Obama has proclaimed to be torture), and in a very big, and very public trial, the Obama administration will be forced to indict the Bush administration. It is going to look as though this is the natural outgrowth of a criminal trial. And Obama wants the world to see that, we are willing to indict members of government for such evils as torture and improper treatment of prisoners. Just like any 3^rd world dictator does.

The secondary purpose is, this is going to grab a lot of newspaper space and take over cable television news. This means, less time will be available to closely watch what the executive and legislative branches are doing. Behind this barrage, the Obama administration is going to be able to draft its most radical legislation (which I believe will be comprehensive immigrant legislation, which will fast-track many of them to being voters before 2012). Maybe that is a bit too paranoid. Whatever it is, the Obama administration will be able to more effectively put through various bills and riders and amendments without the same close scrutiny that they are receiving now (from FoxNews, anyway).

So, as in a campaign mode, this seems to all come out naturally, without Obama's fingerprints on it; they get to go after the real criminals of the people—namely, the Bush administration (and, to a much lesser degree, the CIA); and they get to sneak through radical legislation because we are not looking at what the other hand is doing.

Just as many of us have been struck dumb by the action of this administration in such a short time, this will be absolutely amazing, and an incredible thrill to the far, far left.

The Organizing for America website had a contest for the best Health Reform Video. Here is a transcript from a portion of the winning video...

BOY: A year from now I'll break my leg and my parents will have to sell our house because we couldn't afford health care.

GIRL: Three months from now I'll need surgery and my parents will go bankrupt because they couldn't afford health care.

GIRL: Two years from now I'll be diagnosed with leukemia and I'll die 'cause we couldn't afford health care.

Each state in the United States does have a State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for kids though that provides children from birth to age 18 with free and low cost health insurance. This health insurance can help pay for visits to a Pediatrician, prescription medications, immunizations, hospitalizations, etc.

However, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and their Covering Kids and Families' Back-to-School Campaign, 'more than 70 percent of these children are likely eligible for low-cost or free health care coverage through SCHIP or Medicaid, but have not yet enrolled.'

If we already have programs in place for children, how are new programs going to make this somehow better? In just one way: you can be arrested and fined and even imprisoned if you do not get healthcare insurance.

And in case you don't think the end game is a one-payer system, listen to President Obama:

Meet the unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.from the Wall Street Journal

As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve-and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.

Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year-and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."

On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."

As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission-all 15 members appointed by the President-would have to meet certain budget targets each year. Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation. After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as GDP, plus one percentage point.

The theory is to let technocrats set Medicare payments free from political pressure, as with the military base closing commissions. But that process presented recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Here, the commission's decisions would go into effect automatically if Congress couldn't agree within six months on different cuts that met the same target. The board's decisions would not be subject to ordinary notice-and-comment rule-making, or even judicial review.

Yet if the goal really is political insulation, then the Medicare Commission is off to a bad start. To avoid a senior revolt, Finance Chairman Max Baucus decided to bar his creation from reducing benefits or raising the eligibility age, which meant that it could only cut costs by tightening Medicare price controls on doctors and hospitals. Doctors and hospitals, naturally, were furious.

So the Montana Democrat bowed and carved out exemptions for such providers, along with hospices and suppliers of medical equipment. Until 2019 the commission will thus only be allowed to attack Medicare Advantage, the program that gives 10 million seniors private insurance choices, and to raise premiums for Medicare prescription drug coverage, which is run by private contractors. Notice a political pattern?

But a decade from now, such limits are off-which also happens to be roughly the time when ObamaCare's spending explodes. The hard budget cap means there is only so much money to be divvied up for care, with no account for demographic changes, such as longer life spans, or for the increasing incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

Worse, it makes little room for medical innovations. The commission is mandated to go after "sources of excess cost growth," meaning treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage will boost spending. If researchers find a pricey treatment for Alzheimer's in 2020, that might be banned because it would add new costs and bust the global budget. Or it might decide that "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," as President Obama put it in June.

In other words, the Medicare commission would come to function much like the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which rations care in England. Or a similar Washington state board created in 2003 to control costs. Its handiwork isn't pretty.

The Washington commission, called the Health Technology Assessment, is manned by 11 bureaucrats, including a chiropractor and a "naturopath" who focuses on alternative, er, remedies like herbs and massage therapy. They consider the clinical effectiveness but above all the cost of medical procedures and technologies. If they decide something isn't worth the money, then Olympia won't cover it for some 750,000 Medicaid patients, public employees and prisoners.

So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a "high" efficacy but also a "high" cost.

Currently, the commission is pushing through the most restrictive payment policy in the nation for drug-eluting cardiac stents-simply because bare metal stents are cheaper, even as they result in worse outcomes. If a patient is wheeled into the operating room with chest pains in an emergency, doctors will first have to determine if he's covered by a state plan, then the diameter of his blood vessels and his diabetic condition to decide on the appropriate stent. If they don't, Washington will not reimburse them for "inappropriate care."

If Democrats impose such a commission nationwide, it would constitute a radical change in U.S. health care. The reason that physician discretion-not Washington's cost-minded judgments-is at the core of medicine is that usually there are no "right" answers. The data from large clinical trials produce generic conclusions that rarely apply to individual patients, who have vastly different biologies, response rates to treatments, and often multiple conditions. A breakthrough drug like Herceptin, which is designed for a certain genetic subset of breast-cancer patients, might well be ruled out under such a standardized approach.

It's possible this global budget could become an accounting fiction, like the automatic Medicare cuts Congress currently pretends it will impose on doctors. But health care's fiscal pressures will be even stronger than they are today if ObamaCare passes in anything like its current form. And that is when politicians will want this remote, impersonal and unaccountable central committee to do the inevitable dirty work of denying care.

The only way to take the politics out of health care is to give individuals more power to control medical dollars. And the first step should be not to create even more government spending commitments. The core problem with government-run health care is that it doesn't make decisions in the best interests of patients, but in the best interests of government.

A government panel's decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.

As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer-the second leading cause of cancer death among American women-has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening.

So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel-which includes no oncologists and radiologists, who best know the medical literature-did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.

The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren't valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.

Of course, this calculation doesn't consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That's a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel's own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 665 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.

The recommendation to cut off all screening in women over 75 is equally as myopic. The committee notes that the benefits of screening "occur only several years after the actual screening test, whereas the percentage of women who survive long enough to benefit decreases with age." It adds that "women of this age are at much greater risk for dying of other conditions that would not be affected by breast cancer screening." In other words, grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money to reduce the chances that she dies of a leading cause of death among elderly women?

The effects of this new breast cancer cost-consciousness are likely to be large. Medicare generally adopts the panel's recommendations when it makes coverage decisions for seniors, and its judgments also play a large role in the private insurance markets. Yes, people could pay for mammography out of pocket. This is fine with us, but it is also emphatically not the world of first-dollar insurance coverage we live in, in which reimbursement decisions deeply influence the practice of medicine.

More important for the future, every Democratic version of ObamaCare makes this task force an arbiter of the benefits that private insurers will be required to cover as they are converted into government contractors. What are now merely recommendations will become de facto rules, and under national health care these kinds of cost analyses will inevitably become more common as government decides where finite tax dollars are allowed to go.

In a rational system, the responsibility for health care ought to reside with patients and their doctors. James Thrall, a Harvard medical professor and chairman of the American College of Radiology, tells us that the breast cancer decision shows the dangers of medicine being reduced to "accounting exercises subject to interpretations and underlying assumptions," and based on costs and large group averages, not individuals.

"I fear that we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people's lives for money," Dr. Thrall continued. He's not overstating the case, as the 12% of women who will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes may now better appreciate.

More spending on "prevention" has long been the cry of health reformers, and President Obama has been especially forceful. In his health speech to Congress in September, the President made a point of emphasizing "routine checkups and preventative care, like mammograms and colonoscopies-because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse."

It turns out that there is, in fact, a reason: Screening for breast cancer will cost the government too much money, even if it saves lives.

The president says he understands the urgency of our fiscal crisis, but his policies are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg.

President Barack Obama took office promising to lead from the center and solve big problems. He has exerted enormous political energy attempting to reform the nation's health-care system. But the biggest economic problem facing the nation is not health care. It's the deficit. Recently, the White House signaled that it will get serious about reducing the deficit next year-after it locks into place massive new health-care entitlements. This is a recipe for disaster, as it will create a new appetite for increased spending and yet another powerful interest group to oppose deficit-reduction measures.

Our fiscal situation has deteriorated rapidly in just the past few years. The federal government ran a 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion-the highest since World War II-as spending reached nearly 25% of GDP and total revenues fell below 15% of GDP. Shortfalls like these have not been seen in more than 50 years.

Going forward, there is no relief in sight, as spending far outpaces revenues and the federal budget is projected to be in enormous deficit every year. Our national debt is projected to stand at $17.1 trillion 10 years from now, or over $50,000 per American. By 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the president's budget, the budget deficit will still be roughly $1 trillion, even though the economic situation will have improved and revenues will be above historical norms.

The planned deficits will have destructive consequences for both fairness and economic growth. They will force upon our children and grandchildren the bill for our overconsumption. Federal deficits will crowd out domestic investment in physical capital, human capital, and technologies that increase potential GDP and the standard of living. Financing deficits could crowd out exports and harm our international competitiveness, as we can already see happening with the large borrowing we are doing from competitors like China.

At what point, some financial analysts ask, do rating agencies downgrade the United States?

When do lenders price additional risk to federal borrowing, leading to a damaging spike in interest rates? How quickly will international investors flee the dollar for a new reserve currency? And how will the resulting higher interest rates, diminished dollar, higher inflation, and economic distress manifest itself? Given the president's recent reception in China-friendly but fruitless-these answers may come sooner than any of us would like.

Mr. Obama and his advisers say they understand these concerns, but the administration's policy choices are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg. Perhaps the most vivid example of sending the wrong message to international capital markets are the health-care reform bills-one that passed the House earlier this month and another under consideration in the Senate. Whatever their good intentions, they have too many flaws to be defensible.

First and foremost, neither bends the health-cost curve downward. The CBO found that the House bill fails to reduce the pace of health-care spending growth. An audit of the bill by Richard Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, found that the pace of national health-care spending will increase by 2.1% over 10 years, or by about $750 billion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill grows just as fast as the House version. In this way, the bills betray the basic promise of health-care reform: providing quality care at lower cost.

Second, each bill sets up a new entitlement program that grows at 8% annually as far as the eye can see-faster than the economy will grow, faster than tax revenues will grow, and just as fast as the already-broken Medicare and Medicaid programs. They also create a second new entitlement program, a federally run, long-term-care insurance plan.

Finally, the bills are fiscally dishonest, using every budget gimmick and trick in the book: Leave out inconvenient spending, back-load spending to disguise the true scale, front-load tax revenues, let inflation push up tax revenues, promise spending cuts to doctors and hospitals that have no record of materializing, and so on.

If there really are savings to be found in Medicare, those savings should be directed toward deficit reduction and preserving Medicare, not to financing huge new entitlement programs. Getting long-term budgets under control is hard enough today. The job will be nearly impossible with a slew of new entitlements in place.

In short, any combination of what is moving through Congress is economically dangerous and invites the rapid acceleration of a debt crisis. It is a dramatic statement to financial markets that the federal government does not understand that it must get its fiscal house in order.

What to do? The best option would be for the president to halt Congress's rush to fiscal suicide, and refocus on slowing the dangerous growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He should call on Congress to pass a comprehensive reform of our income and payroll tax systems that would generate revenue sufficient to fund its spending desires in a pro-growth and fair fashion.

Reducing entitlement spending and closing tax loopholes to create a fairer tax system with more balanced revenues is politically difficult and requires sacrifice. But we will avert a potentially devastating credit crisis, increase national savings, drive productivity and wage growth, and enhance our international competitiveness.

The time to worry about the deficit is not next year, but now. There is no time to waste.

The picture that emerges of prominent climate-change scientists from the more than 3,000 documents and emails accessed by hackers and put on the Internet this week is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices. It could undermine the idea that the science of man-made global warming is entirely settled just weeks before a crucial climate-change summit.

Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, were victims of a cyberattack by hackers sometime Thursday. A collection of emails dating back to the mid-1990s as well as scientific documents were splashed across the Internet. University officials confirmed the hacker attack, but couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of all the documents posted on the Internet.

The publicly posted material includes years of correspondence among leading climate researchers, most of whom participate in the preparation of climate-change reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative summaries of global climate science that influence policy makers around the world.

The release of the documents comes just weeks before a big climate-change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, meant to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change. Momentum for an agreement has been undermined by the economic slump, which has put environmental issues on the back burner in most countries, and by a 10-year cooling trend in global temperatures that runs contrary to many of the dire predictions in climate models such as the IPCC's.

A partial review of the emails shows that in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discussed ways to paper over differences among themselves in order to present a "unified" view on climate change. On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to "beef up" conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash."

The release of the documents has given ammunition to many skeptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific "consensus" was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracized other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.

Since the hacking, many Web sites catering to climate skeptics have pored over the material and concluded that it shows a concerted effort to distort climate science. Other Web sites catering to climate scientists have dismissed those claims.

The tension between those two camps is apparent in the emails. More recent messages showed climate scientists were increasingly concerned about blog postings and articles on leading skeptical Web sites. Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centered on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent skeptics, for example.

Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as "prats" and "utter prats." In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" a prominent, skeptical U.S. climate scientist.

In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.

One email from 1999, titled "CENSORED!!!!!" showed one U.S.-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics. "As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' . as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email said.

More recent exchanges centered on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers. The hacked folder is labeled "FOIA," a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures.

Many of the email exchanges discussed ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was intellectual property. In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some U.K. researchers asked foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary. In others, they discussed boycotting scientific journals that require them to make their data public.

WASHINGTON -- The White House stepped back Thursday from its tally of the number of jobs its economic-stimulus package has created or saved through September in the face of mounting criticism over errors in reports filed by recipients of stimulus money.

The move came after a testy hearing Thursday of the House oversight committee in which Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which is responsible for monitoring the stimulus, said the number of jobs displayed on the official government stimulus Web site, recovery.gov, at 640,329 was possibly inaccurate.

"It may be a fact that that's what's on my Web site, but that may not be the correct number," Mr. Devaney testified.

Hours later, administration officials organized a conference call for reporters and said that the overall total of jobs credited to the stimulus could be lower or higher than the number claimed on the Web site.

White House officials didn't offer a precise tally of jobs. Instead, they sought to focus attention on some economists' estimates that without the stimulus, as many as one million more people could be without jobs now.

"While the data may be imprecise," the overall conclusions of the stimulus plan's impact are "irrefutable," White House senior adviser Ed DeSeve told reporters.

The House hearing also reviewed a report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which raised questions about 58,000 jobs claimed to have been created or saved by stimulus recipients who said they had not yet received any money.

Administration officials said in a blog post released Thursday afternoon that it is possible to see job creation before a recipient gets stimulus money because hiring decisions can be made in the expectation that funds are on the way.

The administration has been scrambling in recent days to respond to growing evidence that the data underlying its claims that the stimulus "created or saved" the equivalent of more than 640,000 full-time jobs is flawed in a variety of ways.

Thousands of recipients of stimulus money ranging from small contractors and nonprofit organizations to state and local governments struggled to complete lengthy forms designed to account for stimulus spending and the resulting jobs. In the process, some stimulus recipients claimed to have created jobs that didn't exist, reported spending money they hadn't received, and listed their addresses in nonexistent congressional districts.

Republicans in Congress have pointed to the discrepancies to bolster their arguments that the $787 billion stimulus program hasn't achieved Mr. Obama's goals and hasn't been effective in reversing the rise in unemployment, which is now just over 10%.

Some Democrats have also expressed frustration with the shifting accounts of how many jobs can be linked to stimulus spending. The confusion over stimulus jobs comes as House Democratic leaders are trying to fashion a new job-creation measure, and the White House is gearing up for a jobs "summit" in early December.

I never gave much thought to why liberals act like they do until this last campaign cycle. Such questions as; "Why do libs insist on trying to change what I do and say?", "Why can't libs just live according to their mores, and leave me to mine (ours)?", and "Why are libs obsessed with "changing" things, when they don't really need fixing?", have been hounding me.

I have noticed certain landmark characteristics as well. Liberals observe no code of ethics in trying to achieve their agenda. They lie, cheat, and resort to slurs and innuendo to turn circumstances to their advantage.

Liberals aren't content with freedom, they want to dictate to us how to live, but they are exempt from those same heavy handed rules. Al Gore is a classic example. He demands that we alter our lifestyles, to conform to a smaller "carbon footprint", while he consumes more "carbon" than a small town in the midwest.

Liberals have no legitimate platform. Their political philosophy is entirely based upon their opposition to conservative values. Case in point; Obama's vehement loathing of GITMO, and his subsequent failure to deal with this issue, as thought it needs to be dealt with! This is but one issue that the left excoriated Bush for, but now that they are in power they (1) find that Bush actually had a sound reason for maintaining that facility, and (2) that closing GITMO is much more difficult than campaign rhetoric would suggest. The result is that they are locked into a course of action by their own past actions, even though that policy is clearly wrong. They have to maintain their image, and save face, so good or bad they forge ahead.

Liberals don't know the meaning of "civil discourse". They resort to mudslinging, slander, and gutter tactics to gain the upper hand. If you disagree with them, they try to silence you, marginalize you, insult you, and intimidate you.

The liberal agenda is rife with political favors, not sound fiscal and social policy. They bribe constituents with federal handouts to keep their offices. They employ groups like Acorn and the SEIU to act as their goon squads, and exert pressure on institutions and the public.

I am no salivating fan of Ann Coulter and Limbaugh, but I understand why they insist that liberalism is a mental illness. I would frame that argument in terms of the angelic conflict. Liberals are the minions of Satan, basically. They are anti-freedom, and against the principles of governance and national policy that is based upon the Word of God.

Well, that was definitely a world class bow in Tokyo. His apologists will say it was protocol or politeness, but I have looked at pictures of other presidents, vice presidents, and others, and they haven't gone halfway to the emperor's toes on the bow.

I have seen pictures of MacArthur with Hirohito and he never bowed, and MacArthur wasn't even a president, although at times he thought he was.

But there was a second incident here that I found interesting, when the president declared himself the first Pacific president. That's because presumably he grew up and spent some of his childhood in Hawaii, and in Indonesia, and his mom took him on a visit to Japan, although all he remembers of that, as he says, was the ice cream. The first Pacific president? Well, Teddy Roosevelt, he built the Panama Canal in order to make the United States a Pacific power and he did. William Howard Taft, his successor, was the governor of the Philippines, and John Kennedy and George Bush, Sr. were in the Pacific in the Second World War and spent some time in the Pacific Ocean itself; Bush, after having been shot down from his airplane and Kennedy after having his ship cut in half by a Japanese patrol boat.

So these people actually spend time in the Pacific, but in Obama's mind, it doesn't in any way match the experience of the baby Jesus - excuse me, the baby Obama growing up on some Pacific island. The narcissism of the man is rather unbounded.

An open letter to all members of Congress who might be thinking about voting for more trillions spent in the name of Obama and his radical Chicago-style anti-free-enterprise henchmen and stooges.

You ignored our protests, our letters and e-mails, our tea parties and our town hall outrage. I would strongly suggest you do not ignore our collective voice from the ballot box - lest unemployment rise by one in your district.

Stop the madness. 1) Dump "Pelosi/Obama Care" and initiate the free reforms of the other party - saving us more than a trillion dollars. Two years from now when you've come to your senses, consider additional reform if it is still necessary. 2) Repeal the so-called "stimulus" and put our money back where it can do some good - like creating jobs - 10 percent-plus unemployment is unacceptable! 3) Sell our interest in GM, Chrysler, AIG and all the other private businesses you have nationalized and apply that money to the debt you have created. 4) Then cancel "Cap and Trade," and free up oil and nuclear production so we can be free of foreign control.

5) If you're still concerned about saving the planet, adopt a strict 100-year plan. Then ignore it for the next twenty years while we save the planet-dwellers and restore independent energy production.

Show the world there is still a beacon of freedom and creativity and wealth and it is no longer ashamed of any of it. And it is still America!

The Associated Press got an advance copy of Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, and assigned eleven reporters, apparently, to try to find errors in it. The eleven collaborated on an article titled "FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts." In fact, though, the AP's catalogue of alleged errors--six in total--is thin at best.

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking "only" for reasonably priced rooms and not "often" going for the "high-end, robe-and-slippers" hotels.

THE FACTS: Although she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) for a five-hour women's leadership conference in New York in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000.

This is frankly pathetic. Palin says she didn't "often" stay at high-end hotels, and the AP counters by saying she did, once. Yes, that's why she said "not often" rather than "never." What is indisputable is that Palin sold the Governor's private jet and flew commercial, thereby saving the taxpayers a large amount of money and qualifying her as a frugal traveler.

PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, "you'll have to be brave enough to fail."

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring Obama's stimulus plan--a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts--and the federal bailout that President George W. Bush signed.

Palin's views on bailouts appeared to evolve as John McCain's vice presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said "taxpayers cannot be looked to" to bail out Wall Street.

The next month, she praised McCain for being "instrumental in bringing folks together" to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said "it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in."

The AP doesn't quote Palin, so it's hard to say whether she "blurs" the bailouts or not. But by the AP's own account, Palin has consistently opposed bailouts, except that during the Presidential campaign, she loyally supported McCain's position on the initial TARP program. That's what a Vice-Presidential candidate is supposed to do, and this is not a "fact-check."

PALIN: Welcomes last year's Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation's largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she'd had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court's ruling went "in favor of the people."

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Palin said then she was "extremely disappointed" and it was "tragic" so many fishermen and families put their lives on hold waiting for the decision.

Again, the AP doesn't quote Palin but rather asks us to take their word for the fact that Palin "welcomes" the Supreme Court's Exxon Valdez decision in her book as a "ruling [that] went 'in favor of the people.'" I would bet that the AP is mischaracterizing what Palin says in her book. She criticized the Supreme Court's decision at the time, as did most Alaskans, and cited it as a Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed in the Katie Couric interview. I seriously doubt that she contradicts that position in her book, although I wouldn't doubt that she called the verdict against Exxon (which was slashed by the Supreme Court) as a decision "in favor of the people."

It appears to be a tribute to the factual accuracy of Palin's book that eleven hostile AP reporters can't come up with anything better than this.

It's funny how the press fact-checks some things but not others. Here is just one of thousands of examples one could cite: John Kerry, arguing for the cap-and-tax bill that he co-sponsored with Barbara Boxer (these are two of the least intelligent legislators of modern times, by the way), claimed that "over the last eight years, emissions in the United States of America in greenhouse gases went up four times faster than in the 1990s." This is a typical example of a "fact" that John Kerry just made up. In fact, carbon emissions rose much faster in the 1990s than over the last eight years:

According to data from the Energy Information Administration, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions increased by 15.14% between 1990 and 1999, but from 2001 to 2008 carbon dioxide emissions only increased by 1.88%. If Senator Kerry were correct, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would have increased by 60.5% over the last 8 years, but they only increased by 1.88%. Senator Kerry overestimated [the growth in] U.S. emissions by a factor of 32.

Do you suppose the Associated Press will assign eleven reporters to "fact-check" John Kerry? No, I don't think so, either.

Forget the media chin-stroking and head-scratching. The intentions behind the administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his sideboys in Manhattan could not be clearer. Simply put, Obama wishes to Mirandize the entire murderous crew.

I'm using that term as shorthand for the liberal tendency -- not to say "compulsion" -- to treat all underdogs as victims, no matter the circumstances. In the liberal worldview, criminals are the ultimate underdogs, the romantic rebels with all the power of society ranged against them. The liberal role in this regard is to help even the odds, to protect and nurture the criminal so that his more "worthwhile" aspects -- whatever those might be -- aren't simply snuffed out by a vengeful society. This paradigm has governed the treatment of criminals since at least the 1950s.

By redefining Islamist terrorists as "criminals," liberals have automatically retrofitted them with "victim" status, endowing them with all the rights and privileges granted to American street hoodlums. If the record is any indication, this is going to end far worse than anyone can foresee.

Criminal justice reform was a major pillar of liberal utopianism during the postwar period. American liberals wanted to "humanize" the treatment of criminals under the impression that this would in and of itself end crime. As in so much else involving the liberal program, criminal justice reform was a wish-fulfillment daydream carried out without adequate research or foresight. (I devote a chapter to the topic in my upcoming book, Death by Liberalism.)

These reforms amounted to loosening all legal and social restrictions on criminals and lawless behavior. "Sentencing reform" cut sentences to little or nothing. "Rehabilitation," which usually took the form of a few hours spent with a harried social worker, replaced punishment. In the late '50s, the Supreme Court stepped in with a series of decisions heralded as the "procedural revolution," which overturned previous criminal justice procedure and subjected the entire system to minute control by the federal courts. In 1958, Mapp v. Ohio rewrote the rules regarding admissible evidence. Four years later, Gideon v. Wainwright (1962) guaranteed a defendant adequate legal representation. Escebedo v. Illinois (1964) guaranteed that a criminal had contact with his attorney, while Miranda v. Arizona (1965) required that police go through an elaborate and unvarying ritual pantomime to inform suspects of their rights every time they made an arrest.

Some of these decisions were justified, even overdue -- Gideon, for instance. But coming all at once, with no preparation, guidance, or warning, they acted as a sledgehammer to the justice system, resulting in a confused court system, a demoralized police force, and an increasingly frightened populace. From the criminal point of view, they promised unlimited get-out-of-jail-free cards, free legal representation, and a sentence that at worst involved a few encounters with a tired parole officer.

The end result was exactly what any sane individual would have predicted. Beginning in 1964 (not coincidentally, the year of Escebedo), crime exploded. Major crimes jumped for the first time in five years. By the end of the decade, they had more than doubled. They continued soaring each year thereafter, and by the mid-'70s, they had increased by up to 400%. Rates dropped slightly in the early '80s before roaring back mid-decade, fueled by crack and the drug trade, finally topping even the incredible levels of the '70s.

This long witch's sabbath did not begin to abate until the early '90s, when New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and police chief William Bratton adapted George Keller's and James Q. Wilson's "Broken Windows" thesis -- coming down hard on such crimes as squeegeeing, jaywalking, and graffiti on the premise that creating an impression of public order leads to more public order. Broken Windows has brought down crime wherever it has been applied. Where it has not been applied, as in towns like Detroit and Newark, crime continues as rampant as ever. (It's no coincidence, by the way, that Giuliani has been the most vocal critic of the administration's jihadi maneuver.)

The cost of the great crime explosion is impossible to calculate. There is scarcely a single individual, and not a single family, unharmed by it in some fashion during the thirty years in which it raged. In my own case, I can recall an old man strangled to death in the first-floor apartment of my building (a murder for which I was questioned); a girlfriend raped while waiting for a ride on a Manhattan street corner; a man's face half carved off in a street brawl, breaking up an attempted invasion of a woman's apartment; and witnessing, from a moving car on an expressway, what could have been nothing else but a man being stabbed to death on a Lower East Side street. These crimes all occurred in a seven-year period between 1975 and 1982. This record is in no way unusual for people of my generation.

As for the numbers, the people murdered amount to over a quarter of a million. My own calculations, admittedly untutored, put the total at 268,000. Regarding assaults, rapes, robberies, and lesser crimes, the statistics are literally incalculable.

It is this paradigm, with those results, that is being invoked in the case of the jihadis. Never let it be said that liberals ever learn a lesson, or fail to fumble the opportunity to apply one.

What can the administration's purpose be here? Far be it from me to gaze too deeply into the blazing furnace that comprises the messiah's intellect, but the simplest answer is that it makes things easy. It's a much simpler matter to transfer so many generic "criminals" from Gitmo to Yourtown, USA, as opposed to a detachment of theologically-crazed mass murderers. Similarly, when some of their number are acquitted, as will inevitably occur, it will cause much less uproar when they have to be released. Mirandizing the jihadis is a first step in gearing down the War on Terror so that Obama can afford to ignore it and instead concentrate his attention on more interesting tasks, such as wrecking the economy and turning the U.S. into an international laughingstock.

It's easy to see how the pattern will work itself out. As in most criminal cases over the past thirty years -- OJ or Phil Spector can serve as illustrations -- the heart of the case will be buried under paper and legalisms. Much will be made of the discomfort Khalid suffered during his "torture" sessions -- the Couric-Moore-Olbermann axis will carry the ball here. Proceedings will drag on interminably, featuring numbing detail and endless repetition, contradictions, open fraud, and bogus controversy. By the end, a bewildered America will have tuned out, unwilling to hear any more. Many will have bought into various conspiracy theories and controversies cooked up by the attorneys and the media. Once the jihadi-as-victim portrait is complete, the "defendants" will be receiving full public support from the ultraviolet elements of the American left, including fundraising, demos, and "monkeywrenching." The verdict, whatever it is, will come obscured by a fog of trivia, and the entire exercise will climax in a whimper.

But that isn't how it will end. Because whatever they may think, the chain of events is not under the control of Obama and his people. As I have pointed out previously, their activities have served to open a door that reveals only darkness. Out of that darkness will come something to blow away all the daydreams, all the games, all the bogus little ideals and rituals. We are being made to look weak, childish, and silly in the eyes of the barbarians. There is a price for that, and that price will be paid, as it was paid by the millions of victims of the great crime explosion. History possesses its own dynamic, and it will not be denied. Eventually, even the liberals will have to learn that.

Good news: Obama creates 30 new jobs in one congressional district. Bad news: No such district

Global warming update: Chinese snowstorms kill 40 and leave thousands homeless; for one city, this was the heaviest snowfall since 1955.

Here is what one citizen is doing; Andrew Breitbart is blackmailing Eric Holder: "You investigate ACORN, or I release the rest of the tapes during the election cycle."

Senator Mary Landrieu (D–LA) scores a $100 million for her state, which gains her vote on the Senate healthcare bill:

Charge that Obama did favors for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson by firing Gerald Walpin resurface. This could get ugly.

The Harvard study which said 45,000 Americans die each year as a result of having no healthcare, was not really a Harvard study:

• Major network news shows ran 69 stories about Sarah Palin between September 29 and October 12. 37 stories were negative, just 2 were positive, and 30 were neutral. Not a single evening news show ran a positive story about Palin.

• Overall, 21 network stories portrayed Palin as unintelligent and unqualified. 8 of these stories played a total of 11 clips of Saturday Night Live ridiculing Palin. 14 segments featured the most embarrassing clips from Palin’s interview with Katie Couric.

Hacking of environmentalists' email to show that climate change research was intentionally overstated:

CALLER: I love your show and I love you and I just wanted to share, quickly, a story with you about my ten-year-old son. During the election, they were given a sheet of paper, and they had on there, you know, to vote for Obama, McCain, or "other." And I found out "other" meant, like, Ron Paul or somebody else. Well, Chance put "other,' and he put "Rush 'Baugh'" because he didn't know your whole last name. So I got a call from the principal to come down there, and they got him in the principal's office, and they asked him to read to me what he had wrote down. Well, I knew who he was talking about, and I said, "He's talking about Rush Limbaugh," and they said, "No, we know that. That's not appropriate for him to be talking about him in class. You shouldn't be throwing your views on him." And Chance said, "She's not. All I know is that she says that Rush is smarter than my daddy." (laughing) So he thought you should have been president.

RUSH: Wait a second here! I want to make sure I understood the theme, the main point here. Your ten-year-old is filled in the "other" blank with my name, spelled it "Rush 'Baugh"?

RUSH: Yeah. And the school people were alarmed by this to the point they called you in. Did you actually say that they told you that you shouldn't be throwing my views onto your son?

CALLER: Yeah, that I should not be getting a ten-year-old involved in adult stuff; and so I said, "Well, then why are you doing the election?" Because the school overwhelming voted Obama.

CALLER: They just told me that wasn't appropriate for a ten-year-old, and I was like, "Well, you know, I didn't know that you all are having an election." I didn't know they were having it. Chance didn't even know they were having it. But apparently in class they were asking the kids how they voted, and everybody voted Obama, and when Chance said "other," and said "Rush," the teacher stopped him and then sent him to the office, and then that's where they called me. And they thought --

CALLER: (laughing) They took it as that I, I guess, had known in advance that this was going to happen, and that I had told him to put that down.

CALLER: Oh, it ended up with me telling her to mind her own, you know, business. And they obviously know where I stand, 'cause I've got a car with bumper stickers, you know? That's how I let it known who I am.

CALLER: So, obviously, my ten-year-old was scared to death. All he could say was my husband and I always joke around and I say that you're a lot smarter than he is 'cause he said global warming was a farce from the get-go.

RUSH: I can't hear that. Would you spell that for me? I can't understand the name. What county?

RUSH: Duval County, Duval County schools. That's the name of this particular school?

CALLER: (laughing) Yeah. I thought it was kind of funny and I kept meaning to call you but, you know, things happen, and I had time today to sit around and wait, so I did. I just thought it was unbelievable.

RUSH: Well, it is unbelievable, but at least you're laughing about it. I will bet you... Thank you, Leslie. I'll bet you she is not telling us the big piece of her mind she gave 'em. I mean, getting called in for something like this like your son is some subversive plotting the overthrow of the school or some such thing? Leslie, thanks much. I appreciate it.

RUSH: Here is Kenneth in Houston, Texas. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: I'm a Democrat and proud of it. What I was really calling about... I don't listen to your show that much because I'm not really around the radio, but I have not really heard you preaching your solution to the medical crisis. I've heard you bash what the Democrats want to do, but have not really heard what you all want.

RUSH: Well, it's not all that complicated. It really isn't all that complicated. The first thing I think that needs to happen is this has to be stopped, and that's why I oppose it. I don't accept the premise, Kenneth, that "We gotta do something! We gotta do something! We gotta do something!" I don't accept the premise. The Democrats are always telling us everything is a crisis. "We gotta do this, we gotta do that. We gotta bail out the banks. We gotta have a stimulus. We gotta do it now or we're dead!" I don't buy their premise. What has to happen is this has to be stopped. Now, for health care to be reformed, you got three things: You got cost, you've got access, and quality. Those are the three things, Kenneth.

Cost needs to come down. How do you do that? You increase the relationship between the patient (the customer) and the provider. Get the insurance companies out of the way as much as you can. Get the government out of as much of it as you can and get costs down to where people can afford them, just like anything else you buy. You want to go to a motel? You choose the one you can afford. You want to buy a car? You choose the one you can afford. Health care? Go where you can afford it. Shop it. Get competition back in it. That will lower the price. That will increase access. You increase competition among insurance companies and doctors, and you'll improve the quality.

And you don't regulate the drug companies and you don't punish doctors and you don't tell them what they can treat and who they can treat and when they can treat 'em. You let doctors be doctors. You start health savings accounts. Let people take what portion of their taxes are being thrown into Washington to spend on who knows what, put those in bank accounts that they get to spend on their own health care. Shop around for it. Whatever they don't spend they get to keep at the end of the year. All kinds of incentives, Kenneth, to make it a private sector concern and get the public sector bureaucracies out of it. But that's for... Oh! Get rid of tort reform. You have some tort reform. Get rid these malpractice suits. Sell insurance across state lines and increase competition. But first: Stop! This! Disaster!

RUSH: The sad thing is this is not complicated. What's complicated is what we have to go through and deal with now in health care. The fix would necessarily be complicated to unravel all this stuff, but it's real simple. We go back to what our health care system was like before the government got involved. I don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember going to the doctor, the dentist or whatever, and at the end of the month my parents got a bill. We paid it. The hospital, yeah. You needed insurance for that if it was catastrophic, but we could go to the doctor and it was fine and dandy, and it was priced so you could afford it. That's not the case anymore. Why is that, I wonder?

[Let me append this with, almost every conservative I know, who pays attention to the news, can give you a list of 3–6 things that we ought to do for healthcare reform; things which cost little or nothing, which are popular (with 60% and above favoring these policies) and which would lower healthcare costs. These same people understand that this is a power grab, not a healthcare reform (something which some liberals understand as well, except that they rae cool with it). However, the assertion that Republicans have no healthcare plan is repeated again and again in the news, as if it is true.]

RUSH: Now here's a story out of Cleveland by Kevin O'Brien in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "There was a time when you and I could be trusted to change a light bulb. In those days, powerful people who made weighty decisions understood that if a light bulb burned out, even the dimmest of us common folk would know enough to remove it from its socket, choose a suitable replacement and install it." We made jokes about it, it was so simple.

"Apparently all of the weighty decisions have been made, because powerful people have now worked their way down to telling us what kind of light bulb we will use -- and even bringing some to us, apparently fearing that even the brightest of us common [people] might botch the job. How is it that an act whose very simplicity spawned a genre of humor, based mostly on ethnic, sexist and sectarian slurs ... has suddenly become a complicated, labor-intensive, expensive, public endeavor? ... In just a few days, people dressed in green T-shirts and green caps will begin the rather enormous task of delivering two 23-watt, warm-white, compact fluorescent light bulbs to every residence FirstEnergy," which is the power company, "serves. They won't ask whether you want them."

Stick with me, here. This is Cleveland. "They'll just leave them on your doorstep, in a bag that will also contain a brochure called 'More Than 100 Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill.'" Now, don't... Folks, stick with me on this because we haven't even gotten to what's outrageous about this. "They won't ask for payment, though. As you might expect with an electric utility, that's already wired. These whiz-bang new light bulbs -- which cost FirstEnergy $3.50 each, and which you could buy all by yourself at any number of stores for even less if you were still trusted to do that sort of thing -- will cost you $21.60 for the pair." So $3.50 each is what the power companies has to pay for them. They're going to charge their customers 21.60 for the pair of 23-watt bulbs.

"You'll pay it off over the next three years, at 60 cents a month added to your electric bill." Hang on. "The bulbs you would buy at the store might come from China, like FirstEnergy's do, but they wouldn't come with delivery vans, or brochures, or paid bulb valets clad in green shirts emblazoned ... 'Providing energy-efficient light bulbs is just one way we can help our customers save money while also helping the environment,' FirstEnergy's Web site proclaims. Except that FirstEnergy really isn't 'providing' them. You are. FirstEnergy is just inflating your cost tremendously by having them brought to you. And, by the way, the $21.60 you'll pay for those bulbs [in Cleveland] also includes a little assessment to cover the cost of the electricity that FirstEnergy won't be selling you because you use those bulbs.

"Think of it as paying money to save money so FirstEnergy won't lose money." So can I set this up for you? The utility in Cleveland is going to deliver two 23-watt compact fluorescents to every customer. You're going to be charged $21.60 for the two of them when the utility is buying them for $3.50. You will pay for them over the course of three years at 60 cents a month added to your bill. But because they ostensibly save power, and you won't be using as much, you are going to be assessed an additional charge to make sure that FirstEnergy does not lose money by having you install the new bulbs; the purpose of which everybody believes is to reduce power consumption, to save the energy or save the climate because we're not going to be emitting as much carbon.

Do you follow that, folks? What? No, it's not insanity, it's liberalism! Pure and simple. It's liberalism. After they rope everybody in on all of this "Save the planet stuff! Save the planet stuff! We gotta reduce our carbon emissions," they're going to charge you for "saving" the planet. They're going to charge you for not using the electricity they tell you that you should not use! They're going to bring the light bulbs to you. "The General Assembly passed a law last year requiring Ohio's utilities to reduce their customers' energy use by 22 percent, and to shift 12.5 percent of their power production to 'renewable' energy sources -- solar and wind, for instance -- all by 2025." So this utility is just following the law, as passed by the Ohio legislature, folks. Liberalism is behind this.

Now, Snerdley, it's not a question of them getting away with it, it's that they're obligated to do it by the legislature, or what is it called in Ohio? The General Assembly. "The General Assembly passed a law last year requiring Ohio's utilities to reduce their customers' energy use by 22 percent, and to shift 12.5 percent of their power production to 'renewable' energy sources -- solar and wind, for instance -- all by 2025. The Great Light Bulb Boondoggle is the leading edge of an energy-reduction effort to comply with commands the government of Ohio has issued to the tides of technology. Those commands -- to foist immature and inefficient generation methods on consumers and push aside less expensive, more efficient power sources, like coal -- will be enforceable only at great expense to the public.

"People are upset about FirstEnergy's light bulbs, as folks with sore ears at the PUCO will attest. But let's keep this in perspective: $21.60 is nothing, compared to the expenses we'll pay if the greenshirts drop a bag full of cap-and-trade taxes on our front porches. ... Call your senators and your congressional representative instead. Tell them you've had enough of command-economy enviro-thuggery. And invite them to put cap-and-trade in a place where a solar array would be both impractical and painful." The author of this story is Kevin O'Brien at Cleveland.com. I don't know if the legislature or the General Assembly in Ohio mandated the price structure. Could be that the power company did that. I mean, folks, two light bulbs, $3.50 is what it costs the power company in Cleveland to buy them, and they're going to sell them to you for $21.60. You have no choice. You're going to pay for them whether you put them in or not. And you're going to get billed 60 cents a month for three years, but since you're going to be using less electricity because those two light bulbs, they're going to assess you a fee so that you will be paying what you would have been paying had you not put the light bulbs in. Huh? Well, but, Snerdley, health care costs aren't going to go down. He's asked me if health care costs go down like the government promises when they run everything, they're going to raise fees to keep the price up.

Health care costs are not going to go down, just like utility costs are not going to. Nothing is going to go down! For crying out loud, no price is going to go down. You have dips in prices and so forth with sales and a number of other factors, but as a general rule, prices of everything go up and they will continue to go up. When is the ban on incandescent light bulbs go into play? It's not that far down the road, a couple years, right, couple, three years? I don't think anybody knows about this. I mean this is not the same as requiring you to go to digital on your TV. This is not the same as that. This is bringing a light bulb into your house that requires a hazmat team to throw away because there's mercury in it. And when people find this out this could be one of many tipping points that wake up all these precious moderates and independents out there, say, "What do I have to do? You're telling me I gotta use these little spaghetti light bulbs here, and you're going to charge me more for it even though I'm supposed to save the planet by using less electricity?" What then?

RUSH: We are going to open this hour with a rare personal interview, a rare guest. It doesn't happen much on this program, but we are happy to have with us former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose book, Going Rogue, hits the shelves today and it's already headed for I think a record in sales. Governor Palin, thanks for making time. It's great to talk to you again. We spoke last Thursday in an interview for the Limbaugh Letter, but it's great to have you here on the radio.

GOV. PALIN: In a hotel room in New York City. I'm going to do a couple of interviews after that and then head to Grand Rapids for the kickoff of the book tour.

GOV. PALIN: I am so looking forward to this. I cannot wait to meet some of these good Americans all across this country. It's going to be a blast.

RUSH: They can't wait to meet you, judging by the reception you got during the campaign. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Governor Palin, when we spoke last Thursday I spoke to her a lot about the things in her book regarding the campaign. That stuff you'll read in the Limbaugh Letter, and I predicted to Governor Palin then that much of her book would be ignored in light of the dirt that she was supposedly dishing from the campaign. So Governor Palin what I'd like to do here is go some different directions from what we did in the newsletter interview and start with the economy. We have 10.2% unemployment. We see no end in sight. The administration and others are suggesting next year could be just as bad with unemployment going up to 11%. What would you do differently than is being done now?

GOV. PALIN: It's over 10%, and in fact it could be closer to 17 or 18 when you consider those who have kind of given up and are not applying for unemployment benefits. So it's bad, it's really bad and then of course Fed Chair Bernanke announced that there are still weak job prospects for the very short term and probably long term, and that's an uncomfortable place for our country to be. What we need to do is shift gears and really head in another direction because what we're doing right now with the Fed, it's not working. We need to cut taxes on the job creators. This is all about jobs, creating jobs. We have to ramp up industry here in America, and of course reduce the federal debt, quit piling on and growing more. But those commonsense solutions there, especially with the cutting taxes on the job creators, that's not even being discussed. In fact, increased taxes is the direction it sounds like Obama wants to go.

RUSH: You mean that you don't even hear it being discussed on the Republican side or within the administration?

GOV. PALIN: Within the administration, and as it is discussed on the Republican side, Republicans need to be bolder about it. Independents need to be bolder about that solution that has got to be considered and plugged in. This is the only solution that will be successful. We need to rehash some history that proves its success. Let's go back to what Reagan did in the early eighties and stay committed to those commonsense free market principles that worked. He faced a tougher recession than what we're facing today. He cut those taxes, ramped up industry, and we pulled out of that recession. We need to revisit that.

RUSH: Why do you think this administration is ignoring that blueprint? What is their ultimate objective here? They're sitting in the middle of abject failure of their number-one stated goal, and that's job creation. So what are they really trying to do here do you think?

GOV. PALIN: Well, you wonder, you wonder because history proves what will work and you wonder if they're realizing that and if it's just perhaps a stubbornness at this point that they are so committed to going down this road of growing government and interjecting the Feds' control in the private sector more and more, which will prove to be more failure. I don't know if it's obstinate thinking that they're engaged in right now or if they truly just do not believe what the free market, free enterprise economic solutions are that built up this country.

RUSH: Do you think this is going to be a major issue in the congressional elections in 2010, and if so, how would you advise Republicans to pursue it?

GOV. PALIN: It better be a major issue, absolutely. Of course, national security will be, too, and hopefully we'll talk a little bit about some of the decisions being made in that arena that cause so many of us concern but, yeah, the economy, that's what it's going to be because it's all about jobs, it's all about Americans who are hurting right now and what those solutions are that are so obvious, so commonsense that need to be plugged in. And those are Republican, they're commonsense conservative principles that we just need to apply.

RUSH: New York-23 is being portrayed as a race in which you and I -- because we supposedly went up there -- handpicked Doug Hoffman, he supposedly lost, even though that race, they still haven't finished counting the votes. It's two weeks! This is not Chicago. They haven't finished counting the votes. He says he wishes he could un-concede now. But they're trying to diminish conservatism, and I think in the process intimidate the Republican Party from going in that direction. What's your read on New York-23?

GOV. PALIN: I think this is exciting. It's encouraging. No matter the outcome even with his recount of some of those, well, uncounted ballots, it's exciting that the race is going to be even closer, and it's a clearer and clearer picture that what Americans are seeking, even in a district there in New York, they are seeking commonsense, conservative solutions to all the challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to see this.

RUSH: So the positive thing there is that the Republican Party was rebuffed in nominating essentially a RINO, a liberal?

GOV. PALIN: Well, I think what you saw there is -- and of course it's not just the Republican machine, it's the Democrat machine, too. You know, if you're not the anointed one within the machine, sometimes you have a much tougher row to hoe and that's what Hoffman faced. He was the underdog. I think great timing for him, though, to stand strong on his conservative credentials and essentially come out of nowhere and prove that an American without that resume, without that machine backing can truly make a difference in an election like this.

RUSH: Well, now, you used the term, "If you're not the anointed one by the party machine, you're the underdog and you have a tough row to hoe." Based on things that I read, the Republican establishment would not anoint you to be a nominee of their party should you choose to go that way. I'm not asking you the question because I know you're not going to answer and give away what your plans are in 2012.

RUSH: Do you consider yourself one of these unanointed ones within your own party?

GOV. PALIN: Well, to some in both parties, politics is more of a business. It's not so much a commitment to an agenda or a person or values or issues. It's more of a business -- and, no, I'm not a part of that. So if they're going to keep using that way of thinking in their decisions on who they anoint, who they will support or not then, no. I'll never be a part of that. But hopefully we're going to see a shift with independents, with the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, and we're going to get back to what the issues are, what really matters, and then hopefully we're going to go from there, which will be much fairer to the electorate.

RUSH: All right, independents, slash, third party. A lot of people -- mistakenly, in my view -- are looking at New York-23 as evidence that, see, a third party could actually do well. But that's not a good example because there was no primary there. As you said, the party bosses chose Dede Scozzafava on the Republican side and a Democrat. Had there been a primary, New York-23 would not have been constituted as it was. So what are your thoughts now on the viability of a third party if the Republican Party can't be brought around?

GOV. PALIN: You know, to be brutally honest, I think that it's a bit naive when you talk about the pragmatism that has to be applied in America's political system. And we are a two-party system. Ideally, sure, a third party or an independent party would be able to soar and thrive and put candidates forth and have them elected, but I don't think America is ready for that. I think that it is... Granted it's quite conventional and traditional, but in a good way that we have our two parties, and I think that that's what will remain. And I say that, though, acknowledging that I'm not an obsessive panther, I understand why people -- good people like my own husband -- refuse to register in a party. Todd's not a Republican and yet he's got more commonsense conservatism than a whole lot of Republicans that I know because he is one who sees the idiosyncrasies of the characters within the machine and it frustrates him along with a whole lot of other Americans who choose to be independent. But in answer to your question, I don't think that the third party movement will be what's necessary to usher in some commonsense conservative ideals.

RUSH: Now, you mentioned independents. We need to get independents. Independents right now are abandoning the Democrat Party. They did so in New Jersey. They did so in Virginia. And the White House pretty much proves this because the White House was out prior to the election saying, "Ah, Republican Party identification in polls is as low as it's ever been." Therefore, for Republicans to win these races there had to be independents moving in their direction. Now, I know you're not in politics now but you have political experience. I'm not in politics. I've never gone out and gotten votes. I've always been curious about the professional politicians' insistence that we go out and "get independents." Sure you want to shore up the base. But these magical, whatever it is, 20% of people that are not identified or do not self-identify themselves with either party, what's the way to get them?

GOV. PALIN: I think just naturally independents are going to gravitate towards that Republican agenda and Republican platform because the planks in our platform are the strongest to build a healthy America. We're all about cutting taxes and shrinking government and respecting the inherent rights of the individual and strengthening families and respecting life and equality. You have to shake your head and say, "Who wouldn't embrace that? Who wouldn't want to come on over?" They don't have to necessarily be registered within the Republican Party in order to hook up with us and join us with that agenda standing on those planks. In Alaska, about 70% of Alaskans are independent. So that's my base. That's where I am from and that's been my training ground, is just implementing commonsense conservative solutions. Independents appreciate that. You're going to see more and more of that attraction to the GOP by these independents as the days go on.

RUSH: If the GOP articulates what you just articulated. I've always believed the way to get them... Reagan got them by just being who he was, articulating conservatism. Conservatism is nothing different than the founding principles of the country. Therefore, the key to getting independents is Republicans who can articulate those beliefs.

GOV. PALIN: You know another key to this, too, is to not hesitate duking it out within the party. This is what I appreciate about the Republican Party. We have contested, aggressive, competitive primaries. We're not like this herd mentality like a bunch of sheep -- with the fighting instincts of sheep, as Horowitz would say -- like some in the Democrat Party; where, heaven forbid, you take a stand and you oppose somebody within your own party because it's the right thing to do. I appreciate that in the Republican Party. Some on the other side say -- you know, they're observing what goes on in the GOP and say -- "That's infighting, and they can't get along, and there's no consensus there." No. This is healthy debate, good competition that makes candidates work harder. It makes for a better product, if you will, at the end of the day. I appreciate that about our party.

RUSH: We are talking to Governor Sarah Palin. We take a brief prosperity time-out. We'll be back and continue with Governor Palin right after this.

RUSH: And we're back. Our remaining moments with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, starting her book tour today. Let's talk about your book tour, your career in general, Governor Palin. Who are you trying to reach, and for what purpose, with the book and your book tour? What's your goal here?

GOV. PALIN: I'm not trying to reach the liberal elites in this country, and it's a good thing I'm not trying to, because I'm not succeeding there. Just everyday, hardworking Americans who want government back on their side and I want to help them have their voice be heard. And the book is all about that, and the book is about my record and my accomplishments as a mayor and as a governor that kind of lay the foundation for Americans to see where it was that I was and how I got to where I am. It was just a lot of hard work and it was a lot of very commonsense measures that I undertook politically and practically speaking, and the book is about that, and hopefully people will read it and enjoy it and learn something from it.

RUSH: What's our biggest energy challenge as a country? Do you believe at all or some or a lot in the modern-day go-green movement of solar and wind and all of these nefarious things that really don't produce anything yet?

GOV. PALIN: I think there's a lot of snake oil science involved in that and somebody's making a whole lot of money off people's fears that the world is... It's kind of tough to figure out with the shady science right now, what are we supposed to be doing right now with our climate. Are we warming or are we cooling? I don't think Americans are even told anymore if it's global warming or just climate change. And I don't attribute all the changes to man's activities. I think that this is, in a lot of respects, cyclical and the earth does cool and it warms. And our greatest challenge with energy is that we're not tapping it to the abundant domestic supplies that God created right underfoot on American soil and under our waters. It's ridiculous that we are circulating hundreds of billions of dollars a year in foreign countries, asking them to ramp up production so that we can purchase it from them -- especially from the regimes that can control us via energy, using it as a weapon against us, potentially. It's nonsense that this administration and past administrations haven't really understood yet that inherent link between energy and security. I think more and more Americans are waking up to the fact, though, and we will hopefully see changes there soon.

RUSH: Vice President Biden chided you, saying, "It's a little bit more complicated," Governor Palin, than "Drill, Baby, Drill," which is one of your chapter titles. What's complicated about drilling for oil?

GOV. PALIN: Exactly. What is complicated about tapping into abundant, safe domestic supplies that could provide stability for our country and security for our country? I know Alaska has billions of barrels of oil underfoot, and we have the natural gas that's waiting to be tapped, too; and other states do, too. It's not that complicated. It's political, and that's what is the shame in this, is that for political reasons we're not allowing to tap these domestic supplies.

RUSH: What are your thoughts on the congressional health care reform bills going through the House and the Senate?

GOV. PALIN: Well, we don't really know, do we, what's in that Senate version, the Senate consideration? It will be soon but we have no idea of costs. We don't know how many will be insured. We're waiting to hear that. We don't know if the tax funding of abortions will be in this new version that's sitting over on the Senate side. We don't know if those who choose not to purchase this government-mandated level of coverage will face jail time as punishment. There are so many questions unanswered. I don't like the idea, in general, of the federal government thinking it needs to take over health care -- which essentially this is -- and control one-sixth of our economy. Not when there are commonsense solutions to meeting health care challenges in our country, like allowing the intra- and interstate competition with insurers, tort reform, cutting down on the waste and fraud that the Obama administration insists if we just did that we'll pay for this one-point-some trillion-dollar health care reform package. So lots of commonsense solutions that need to be plugged in before ever considering federal government taking it over.

RUSH: You mentioned earlier you wanted to talk about national security, that you hoped it came up. Well, here it is: What do we face? What are our threats, and are we prepared, or not?

GOV. PALIN: Well, I think domestically a threat that we're facing right now is the dithering and hesitation in sending a message to the terrorists that we're going to claim what Ronald Reagan claimed. Our motto is going to be: "We win, you lose." The way that we do that is allow McChrystal to have the reinforcements that he's asking for in Afghanistan. That sends that message to the terrorists over there that we're going to end this thing with our victory. We need to start facing Iran with tougher and tougher sanctions that need to be considered. We need to work our allies with the Iranian issues, like Britain and France and not allow access to favorable international monetary deals. That's a great threat that I think would kind of shake up Ahmadinejad and get him to listen. We need to look at halting Iran's imports of refined petroleum products. They're quite reliant on imported gasoline, and we need to use that hammer to wake up the leadership there, too. Those are two big challenges that we have right now, domestically and in naming those two countries, Afghanistan and Iran. Two big challenges there, too.

RUSH: Thirty seconds: Immigration. Can you do it in 30 seconds before we have to go?

GOV. PALIN: I can't do it in 30 seconds but just know that... You know, let me put it simply: Illegal immigrants are called "illegal" for a reason. We need to crack down on this. We need to listen to the border states where the governors there have some solutions and we need to get serious about that.

RUSH: Governor Palin, thanks very much. It's been a pleasure. It's been fun. Thanks for last week as well and good luck on what I know is going to be a life-changing book and book tour.

RUSH: The stimulus, not only are they making up jobs "created or saved," now they are making up congressional districts, which do not exist at Recovery.gov, that $18 million website. Do you know how this happens? The people, let's say at the Fred and Maude Shoe Store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, they go on to Recovery.gov and say they created or saved however many jobs and then they can put in their congressional district to show where it is. And the White House is saying, "We're not fudging any of this. What's happening here is that these good people who are reporting jobs created or saved just don't know their congressional district, and they're just putting in a number in there that's wrong." And people say, "Then take it out, why don't you fix it?" "Well, not that easy to do. Website design is such that we're going to leave it the way it is."

So we've got imaginary districts. Can you imagine how ACORN is going to have an orgasm over this? Good God! When you can go in and make up an entire congressional district and then ballot stuff from a district that doesn't exist except that it does on an Obama website, whoa. And State-Controlled ABC uncovered this last night on ABC's World News Tonight, a montage of a report by Jonathan Karl. You will also hear in this sound bite Joe Biden, the vice president, from September 3rd this year.

KARL: The $18 million website created by the White House to track the stimulus lists millions of dollars spent and jobs created.

KARL: The website, for example, says 30 jobs were created and over $700,000 spent in Arizona's 15th congressional district. The problem? The state has only eight congressional districts. There is no 15th district. In virtually every state the website lists millions of dollars spent and jobs created in fictional congressional districts. The administration chalks it all up to human error and says the mistakes were most likely made by grant recipients who filled out their forms correctly and may not even have known what congressional district they live in. They say that the overall numbers given by the White House about job creation are still accurate.

RUSH: How can they say that? How can it be? They're literally making up numbers out of whole cloth. They are sending money to places that are not there. Where is the money going? Where is it going? What do you think, Snerdley? Where is the money going? God only knows where it's going. I'm telling you it's a slush fund. As I explained yesterday and also brilliantly on Friday, it's a slush fund. It's a giant slush fund. Imaginary, made-up congressional districts, and when they get caught they blame it on who? Idiot Americans. Oh, yeah, but the numbers they're reporting are correct. If Arizona only has eight congressional districts why would somebody think that they live in the 15th? And if you don't know, why would you just make it up? I mean, if you're reporting to the government, if you're really into all this, you're going to send in as many legitimate items -- well, maybe not because they're lying about the numbers of jobs, too.

These people cannot even read maps. It's not just Arizona. The reporting problems are not just in Arizona. Oklahoma, Recovery.gov lists more than $19 million in spending, 15 jobs created in more congressional districts that don't exist. In Iowa, it shows $10.6 million spent, 39 jobs created in nonexistent districts. In Connecticut's 42nd district, which also does not exist, the website claims 25 jobs created, with zero stimulus dollars. The list of spending and job creation in fictional congressional districts extends to US territories as well, $68.3 million spent and $72 million spent in the first congressional district of the US Virgin Islands; $8.4 million spent, 40.3 jobs created in the 99th congressional district of the US Virgin Islands; $1.5 million spent, three jobs created in the 69th district, and $35 million for 142 jobs in the 99th district of the Northern Mariana Islands. None of these places exist! Forty-seven-point-seven million spent, 291 jobs created in Puerto Rico's 99th congressional district. The White House didn't catch any of this and you've got Biden out there, "The state-of-the-art website will blow you away." And these are the people -- this is the common rejoinder -- these are the people that claim they can fix and run more efficiently and cheaper one-sixth of the US economy known as health care.

In New Mexico, in New Hampshire, in California, all of these fake districts in all of these real states -- if the congressional districts are made up, what about the jobs being made up? I mean of course the two go hand in hand. This website is an $18 million boondoggle joke; it's a propaganda machine; it's run right out of the White House. And to now blame these phony, nonexistent congressional districts on the people in the states not knowing what district they're in. (interruption) Yes, the official program observer with another question. What's the question? My website did not cost $18 million to build. Someday it will generate $18 million but it did not cost $18 million to build. And this thing probably did, but how much graft, fraud and deceit is in that?

RUSH: Naperville, Illinois. Rick, welcome to the EIB Network, grab a couple calls here, and you're first.

CALLER: Rush, mega manly Boy Scout dittos from the land of the Ronald Reagan Tollway, of all things they named after the great man. My comment is, first of all I want to put up my Dick Turban shield right now, because I'm much too close in the broadcast, I'm too close to all those foolish things that he was uttering right before I came on. So normally I've never voted for the man, never would. But my comments earlier, you were commenting on the districts that did not exist, where the jobs were being counted. And my statement on that is, it's really an interesting contrast and a very negative interesting contrast that things could be made up about things that you never said and that things could be picked apart for Sarah Palin's comments that, you know, they need 11 reporters to find six minor, what they call discrepancies, and while the huge discrepancy is right in front of their eyes about things that don't exist that they're touting.

RUSH: Well, it's interesting, a lot of news is fake. A lot of news is totally made up. And if the made-up news is beneficial, they stick with it. In this case they're going to stick with the fabricated districts because the focus is all the jobs created or saved. "Ah, the districts are wrong. That was bad input by citizens reporting to us. But no, we've created and saved all these wonderful jobs." So it's fake news, and that has become almost the foundation of modern-day media.

RUSH: To the audio sound bites. This afternoon, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) breaking news. Sarah Palin sat down with Rush Limbaugh. She's talking to Politico's John Harris. She said, "Moments ago, Sarah Palin sat down with Rush Limbaugh to talk about her book tour and her political future."

RUSH: Okay. What do you think she's saying there? I didn't think I had the need to translate this. But apparently for the State-Controlled Media I need to translate it. It sounds to me like she likes robust debate, that she likes the fact that the Republican Party has diverse views, that you're not kicked out of the party if you have a certain view; whereas in the Democrat Party, you gotta be lock, stock, and barrel or they kick you out. You can't be pro-life in the Democrat Party. You can't be for tax cuts in the Democrat Party. If you are, you're going to be marginalized. So I interpreted her as... Remember, the question oriented around third parties and reforming the Republican Party, and she clearly stated her desire to not go the third party route, but to take over and reform the Republican Party. And then she said what you just heard her say. So they hear the interview at MSNBC and they go with their template anyway. What Palin was espousing throughout this interview was Reaganism, but they didn't want to hear that. Remember, Reagan ran against an incumbent Republican president in a primary. That would be Gerald Ford. And those are the kinds of things that she was talking about. So listen to this exchange.

MITCHELL: Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment about not going after, uh, fellow Republicans in primaries?

HARRIS: -- than when Ronald Reagan, uh, uh, laid down his so-called Eleventh Commandment and she obviously has a different view (snicker).

HARRIS: Her book makes it unmistakably clear she's not afraid to duke it out. Uh, this was a score-settling memoir, and I guess that reflected her approach to politics, and probably the approach of a lot of the people, uh, who are her supporters and admirers.

RUSH: So the template: Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment about not going after fellow Republicans in primaries? Reagan went after Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election on ideas. He narrowly lost, and he clearly emerged from the Republican convention that year in Kansas City as the clear emotional sentimental favorite. It's just that Ford was the incumbent president, and party boss rules ruled the day back then, and Ford narrowly eked out a win! I've always been fascinated that the Democrats say, "Oh, you shouldn't criticize other Republicans." They do it all day long! They live and die, not just criticizing, but destroying or trying to, Republicans. So after this exchange, Andrea Mitchell then talked to Democrat strategerist Steve McMahon about the same pull quote from the interview. And Andrea Mitchell said, "What is the impact on the Democrat Party to have this much energy and excitement on the Republican side?"

MCMAHON: Sarah Palin demonstrates every single day why she was such a bad choice for vice president, why she would be such a bad choice for the nomination of her party. And I think this is really about selling books and selling out old friendships. Because if she can gin up the right, she can sell a lot of books and she can make a lot of money -- and that's, after all, what she did. She traded her friendships, she traded her loyalty, she took the shekels like Judas, and she's selling everyone out along the way.

MCMAHON: As a political professional, I gotta tell you, it's pretty disheartening to see that these are the people who brought her to primetime, and this is the thanks they all get --

MCMAHON: -- including John McCain, who had to have a phone call to his aides today to apologize to them on behalf of Sarah Palin, since she doesn't have the decency to apologize for getting rich by whacking them.

RUSH: Oh-ho! She "took the shekels like Judas," and she's selling everyone out along the way. All I can say is read the book. It's about 10 to 12 pages of the campaign, and after you finish it, you will not think that she is selling anyone out. She is setting the record straight. Man, these people are just obsessed with her. The hatred for her... I think they actually hate her more than they hate me, and I didn't think that was possible. (interruption) You don't think so? I'm wrong about that? My staff's all saying I'm wrong about that, that they hate me more than her. I don't... (interruption) That's true, that's true. (laughing) That's true. They've hated me for 20 years and it's still going strong, still ratcheting it up.

Anyway it's fascinating. So this one little, five or six lines here about how she loves "duking it out" in the Republican Party becomes, "She's attacking Republicans! She's ungrateful! She's ungrateful to the people who made her famous, ungrateful to the people who put her on the national stage. She took the shekels like Judas; she's selling them all out for money!" The truth of the matter is that many people in the McCain campaign set her up, and they would not let her be who she is. She

writes about it and it's just... I don't know. Read it for yourself. It's a set-the-record-straight sort of memoir, if you will, and there is some substantive policy stuff in this book as well, even though they -- that's another thing. That quote of mine, that this is a very substantive book, "one of the most substantive policy books I've ready by a politician in a long time," that made all over the cable news networks yesterday as though, "Whoa! What kind of take is this? Why, this is outrageous! Look what Limbaugh is saying about this." They haven't read book yet. It's 415 pages. They were just stunned that anybody would say this. What are we supposed to say the quintessential political book is, Obama's? Obama's is a navel-gazing book! Obama's book is all about me and all about him and all about the trials and tribulations and how tough was being there and being black and being this or that, and how tough it was and how tough it was and this. I mean, it's all navel-gazing. He's a narcissist. He focuses totally on himself. So her book's on sale today. It's been preordered at Amazon at #1 for all these weeks before it even came out.

RUSH: The comedy of errors that is the decision to try the 9/11 mastermind and his cohorts in a civilian court in Manhattan continues. This morning on NBC's Today Show, the chief White House correspondent F. Chuck Todd interviewed President Obama in Beijing China, and F. Chuck Todd said, "Can you understand why it's so offensive for some for this terrorist to get all the legal privileges of an American citizen?"

OBAMA: I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.

TODD: But having that kind of confidence in the conviction... I mean, one of the purposes of doing the justice system, going with justice, going with legal and not the military court, is to show off to the world our fairness in our court system. But you've also now just said he's going to be convicted and given the death sentence.

OBAMA: Look, what I said was that people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not prejudging it. I'm not going to be in that courtroom. That's the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury.

RUSH: He's already poisoned the case! He says from Beijing that he's going to be convicted and he's going to be put to death. And so KSM's lawyers can say, "Hey, this has been prejudged by the president who also admitted my client was tortured." There's something diabolical about this, and it is not about showing the world the fairness of the United States of America. The world doesn't doubt that. The world that we care about doesn't doubt that. We do not have a rotten image in the world. It is manufactured by the left in this country and around the world and it's supported by people like Obama. We do not have a rotten image. We're on the way to acquiring one, however, because we are going to willingly give away what it was and is that makes this country exceptional and makes this country the place that everybody on this planet wants to come and wishes they lived.

We've chronicled on this program all of the pitfalls of this trial: Miranda rights, he didn't get any; the president admitting that the client was tortured, thereby jeopardizing the validity of the confession and so forth; the circus soap opera aspect; the opportunity for these terrorists to just launch and make their case against the United States in a courtroom in our country that will be broadcast all over the world. But here's another aspect that I think is worth considering in a sort of generic, overall way. What rules are they going to use in this courtroom? What rules? What precedent? For example, if they apply existing rules and precedent to these cases, which includes Miranda and all the rest, then what? The case has to get thrown out, does it not? And who determines what rules and precedent applies? The judge? And if not, where are these rules written? We don't have rules for what's going to happen here. If they should be tried as criminals, then that would seem to require the application of the usual rules of evidence and the usual defenses. If that's not the case, why bring them to a civilian court in the first place and how are they going to be tried here?

There's a bit of conventional wisdom that is evolving out there, and it is this: "Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush! Don't worry about this. There's no judge in the world that's going to let these guys go. There's no judge in the world that's going to let these guys get off -- and if that happens, there's no appellate judge that's going to let these guys get off." Oh, really? Now, that seems to be conventional wisdom because no judge wants to become that kind of a target. Folks, they just confirmed one of the most radical leftist judges in the history of this country yesterday, a guy named Hamilton. You don't think there's some ACLU types that are judges who would love to let these guys go who think the United States is the guilty party here? I'm not at all convinced that some judge won't let him off. The left is so perverted, they have plenty of judges who would probably consider themselves heroes to find the United States guilty here, as opposed to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Remember all the conventional wisdom: "Hey, Rush, don't worry about Bush signing campaign finance reform. The Supreme Court will never, never find it constitutional." Today we've got campaign finance reform. So all of this conventional wisdom, when it forms, you'll find old El Rushbo running in the opposite direction. I don't know if these questions are being asked of Eric Holder today: "What rules are you using standard criminal rules, precedent? What rules are you going to be using to try these cases here?" All the legal defenses, the usual legal defenses would apply. If not, then what does apply, who decides, and how? And what's the point of all this if the same rules don't apply? What this is is chaos. And don't forget one of the ancillary objectives here is to have some international court issue indictments or charges against Bush, Cheney, members of that administration for war crimes and all this. Make no mistake: That's what Eric Holder and Obama have in mind here.

Now, here's something else, and some people are talking about this but not loudly enough. Eric Holder has (in my opinion, anyway) a huge conflict of interest and should have recused himself from these decisions. You know why? Eric Holder's law firm has had a significant role already in defending over a dozen of these terrorists, and that law firm did so when Holder was a senior partner there. No one is asking this question or any of the others I asked today. I know that they own media and so forth and so on. But to not even question regarding Eric Holder's conflict or to question how the cases will actually be tried is incompetence of the worst kind. This is deadly serious stuff. Now, some of what Holder said today, he called the shooting at Fort Hood "tragic." No, it was a jihadist massacre. It was a terrorist act. It was not a "tragedy." He also said that the civilian justice system has been handling terrorism cases successfully for years. He doesn't mention the case of Mamdouh Salim, the Al-Qaeda founder. He was never brought to trial for 1998 US embassy bombings because he maimed a Bureau of Prisons guard in an escape attempt during which he attempted to kidnap his taxpayer-funded defense lawyers.

Eric Holder said, "We can protect classified material because of the Classified Information Procedures Act." But, folks, it's not just classified information that's helpful to terrorist organizations. The list of people who might be identified as unindicted coconspirators that Andy McCarthy had to turn over in 1995 at his trial of Omar Abdel Rahman wasn't classified but it told Al-Qaeda who was on the government's investigative radar screen. This is a disaster! He says we're going to be able to protect classified information just as we do in a military commissions act, in the military tribunals 'cause they're based on the same set of rules. Well, they might be based on the same set of rules, but they're NOT the same set of rules. "A civilian trial is no more a platform for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed than a military commission would have been," which is ridiculous. This guy was ready to plead guilty and be executed 11 months ago. Whatever soapbox he's going to have he's largely already had and while we would have had to let him speak before a sentence was imposed, that would have been the end of it. Now he's going to get a full-blown trial after combing through the discovery for a couple years, after putting the Bush administration under the spotlight.

And then Dick Durbin got into the act. "Durbin claims that no one complained about the Moussaoui trial being in a civilian court." Not true. A lot of people did complain, Senator "Turban." And that trial, if you've forgotten, folks, that trial was a circus. The Moussaoui trial was exactly what we're going to get here. Durbin forgets it; Holder forgets it. The district judge in this case... Look at me. The district judge in the Moussaoui trial actually tried to dismiss the indictment. People may have forgotten that, but I haven't. And that's why I'm not convinced at all that the judge in this trial is going to bend over backwards to make sure these guys don't get off. I know the left. I know how much they have people who despise this country and would love to acquit these guys and have it all blamed on the corrupt, unjust, immoral systems of intelligence gathering, torturous punishment and so forth that has become the United States of America.

The district judge in the Moussaoui trial, Zacarias Moussaoui, "actually tried to dismiss the indictment, and that we don't know what would have happened had Moussaoui not surprised everyone by pleading guilty," and he did defend himself. So the judge tried to dismiss the indictment. "When the Court of Appeals reinstated the Moussaoui indictment, it also said it was sensitive to the trial judge's concerns and would look very carefully to ensure that the government made available to Moussaoui all the information he needed to present his defense. What would have happened if Moussaoui had continued to press his demand for access to classified information and testimony from al-Qaeda captives like KSM? We don't know. If Moussaoui is their shining example of how well the civilian courts handle international terrorism cases during wartime, they're in trouble." And Andy McCarthy reports that a reader at National Review Online remembered some other things, too: "Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota at a time when the military commission system did not yet exist. Unlike KSM & Co., he wasn't captured in wartime outside the US and detained outside the United States at a time when a military commission system had been implemented."

So there are enough similarities here but a significant number of differences, too, but enough similarities here to really give us great pause over this -- and, folks, I refuse to believe that this is being done, as Holder says, 'cause "it's the right thing to do. We've looked at it and I think it's a fair thing. We're going to bring these guys to trial." Lindsey Grahamnesty has accused Holder of making bad history with this decision. "A top Senate Republican on Wednesday accused Attorney General Eric Holder of "making bad history" in his decision to send professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators to New York for trial in civilian court. Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Holder testified, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, raised concerns that the attorney general was imperiling national security by determining that war-time combatants, potentially even Osama bin Laden, might be sent into the criminal system. 'We're making bad history here,' Graham said. 'The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war. ... I think you've made a fundamental mistake here.' ... 'I know that we are at war,' Holder declared."

A little side note: Lindsey Grahamnesty voted to confirm Eric Holder as attorney general.

RUSH: Now let me give you a couple of other things to think about here based on the salient (and I might add, brilliant) questions I asked moments ago: What rules are going to be used in this trial? Standard criminal justice rules, like Miranda? Rules of evidence, rules of discovery? If not, what rules will be used? And who's going to make 'em? Let's assume here that standard rules that have been established over time in our legal system were used. Remember something here -- and I know this statement is going to be controversial to some who don't know it. The ACLU's original goal was to bring down the US legal system. Now, think about something here.

There are going to be a lot of precedents set in this trial. For example, let's just look at Miranda. Right now, every suspect has to be read his rights and is told he doesn't have to say a word, that he can get a lawyer.

But if he says something, it can be used against him. Now, if these clowns, if these terrorists are convicted without having been Mirandized, what does that precedent set? If he can be convicted without being Mirandized, if he didn't get his habeas corpus rights, can't they then be denied to us in the future, under this precedent? Well, but they're being given every constitutional protection as though they were citizens. See, this is the point. They get Mirandized, or they don't get Mirandized, and they get convicted. So a precedent is set that suspects do not need to be Mirandized and they can still be found guilty. Okay, so then you end up in the court system, and they don't Mirandize you, and you say, "Wait a minute, I wasn't Mirandized!"

"Doesn't matter, they were still tried in a US civilian court, criminal court in New York."

Let me go to an extreme. If the president of the United States can tell the world that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured, and then did not get Mirandized, and was convicted, does that mean that the rest of us can then be waterboarded? If we're going to convict anybody, despite being waterboarded, and they got their confession after that waterboarding, then is torture -- as they define it -- now permitted by officials? Even though these are military people that did it? This is why this doesn't belong anywhere near a US civilian court, ladies and gentlemen. Habeas corpus rights, the same thing. Can't they then be denied to us in the future under the precedent that's going to be set here?

And a friend of mine sends another brilliant point. He says: "If the goal of the civilian trials is to showcase to the world the fairness of our system, it's going to have exactly the opposite effect. Holder's explicit promise is that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is so clearly guilty that he can never be acquitted. And even if he were, [that] the government won't let him walk away anyway sends what message? That our judicial system is rigged! That the result of the trial is fixed in advance -- and that's how the Islamic world's going to interpret it." So this is a disaster. It's insane. It is diabolical and it is insidious and I refuse to believe these people are that stupid. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they're diabolical or if they're stupid. The result is still the same: Rotten.

So here we got this big, "Oh-ho! We know the world hates us because of George Bush! The world hates America! We have destroyed our image of being a beacon of freedom and fairness and morality, and here we tortured, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay... Oh, it's horrible what we did! Oh, we flushed a Koran down the toilet" even though we didn't "at Guantanamo Bay. Oh, but we've gotta do this! We have got to show the world that our values are back and that we are fair. So we're going to put these guys on trial. We're not gonna hang 'em, we're not going to execute them at dawn in front of a firing squad, but we're going to give 'em a fair trial." Except (laughing) the president has already convicted 'em. He's already said they're going to get the death penalty. Holder has said (paraphrase), "They're so clearly guilty that there's no way they're going to get acquitted, and even if they are, we're not letting 'em go." And the rest of the world is supposed to see this as the new, reborn United States of Fairness, Justice, and Equality? What an abomination this administration is!

RUSH: Now, more on the Moussaoui trial, ladies and gentlemen, because here we've got the president in China (being lambasted by the ChiComs, by the way, on our debt) and the president says, "Eh, he's going to be convicted. He's going to get the death penalty. People will like it then." So he's already prejudged the case. Holder has said the same thing: "Oh, he's so clearly guilty the guy's going to fry -- and if he doesn't, we're not going to let him go anyway." Washington Post, May 12th, 2006: "'One Juror Between Terrorist and Death; Moussaoui Foreman Recalls Frustration -- Only one juror stood between the death penalty and Zacarias Moussaoui and that juror frustrated his colleagues because he never explained his vote, according to the foreman of the jury that sentenced the al-Qaeda operative to life in prison last week. The foreman, a Northern Virginia math teacher, said in an interview that the panel voted 11 to 1, 10 to 2 and 10 to 2 in favor of the death penalty on three terrorism charges for which Moussaoui was eligible for execution. A unanimous vote on any one of them would have resulted in a death sentence. The foreman said deliberations reached a critical point on the third day, when the process nearly broke down."

Then, on April 6th of 2006, Richard Cohen, a column: "Let Moussaoui Live." The libs, they didn't want to execute Moussaoui. You think we're not going to be able to find a couple wacko jurors and a judge? Let's go to audio sound bite number three, Mike. This is Holder today swearing in his opening statement that justice is why he decided to try these terrorists in New York City.

HOLDER: For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even further --

RUSH: Stop the tape, stop the tape, stop the tape. That's another slam at Bush -- and it was the libs that caused these delays! It was libs and lawyers who were getting in the way trying to stop the military tribunals. They did everything they could to delay this. Recue that, Mike. Here's Holder now once again dumping on Bush. "It's time, it's time, eight years, justice has been delayed." Listen to the rest.

HOLDER: For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even further for the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. No longer. No more delay. It is time. It is past time to finally act, by bringing prosecutions in both our courts and military commissions, by seeking the death penalty, by holding these terrorists responsible for their actions, we are finally taking ultimate steps toward justice. That is why I made the decision.

RUSH: That is an outrage. Only now with Obama in are we actually going to take some action on these guys? Only now? Bush didn't care? Well, which was it? You guys cannot have it both ways. You can't say that Bush was out there torturing these guys and masterminding all the torture and making sure these guys paid the price and now say he had nothing to do with it, that he was lackadaisical, lazy and wasn't moving on this. And about punctuality, how many years before we even get to opening statements in this stupid trial? Do you realize how many years it's going to take with the discovery process and all the motions that the defense will file to delay this? Jeff Sessions had an exchange with Holder.

SESSIONS: I don't think the American people are overreacting. I don't think they're acting fearfully. I think they think that this is war and that the decision you made to try these cases in federal court represents a policy or a political decision. Wouldn't you agree?

HOLDER: It was a policy decision. It was a decision that was case driven. It's a decision based on the evidence that I know and, frankly, some of the people who have criticized the decision do not have access to.

RUSH: Ohhhh, there's secret stuff, huh, that we don't know? How about the secret stuff that your law firm where you were a senior partner defended 18 of these same kinds of guys, defended them? Anybody else would recuse themselves and anybody else the pressure would be on to recuse. Now we move on to sound bite 22, and this is the exchange between Lindsey Grahamnesty and Eric Holder. Grahamnesty says, "Let's say we capture Bin Laden tomorrow. When does custodial interrogation begin in his case? If we capture Bin Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the moment of capture?"

GRAHAM: Well, it does not depend. If you're going to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs, the defendant, the criminal defendant is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught Bin Laden tomorrow, we have mixed theories and we couldn't turn him over to the CIA, the FBI, or military intelligence for an interrogation on the battlefield because now we're saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States, and you're confusing the people fighting this war.

RUSH: Exactly right. And who in the world is going to want to join the intelligence agencies now with the possibility their work is going to be made public and brought into court in trials of these people? On this one, I mean, I gotta say Grahamnesty is right. This is why I was asking: What rules? What rules? He says our law is clear. The moment custodial interrogation occurs the defendant is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent -- and that didn't happen to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any of these other clowns. And if they're convicted without having been Mirandized don't they have an automatic appeal to get the thing thrown out? This is sick stuff.

By the way, you want to hear something funny? Chuck-U Schumer moments ago -- I was reading it on the closed-captioning here on the TV -- is asking Attorney General Holder if he, meaning the federal government, will reimburse New York City for the cost of security during these trials. Now, wait a second. You know what's funny about this? We just yesterday were told by Dick "Turban" and a number of other Democrats all the jobs that are going to be created by bringing terrorists to the United States. Oh, yeah, we could bring 200 of these clowns from Gitmo, put them in an Illinois prison and Durbin is out there talking, "Whoa, look at all the jobs created! Schools, roads, bridges, all the jobs." So they made the joke yesterday that seems to be the Democrat job creation theory is to bring every terrorist we can find into this country and we'll create jobs like we've never seen before. And yet the next day, here is Chuck-U Schumer asking to be reimbursed for the costs of the security. I thought bringing terrorists here was going to create all kinds of jobs! Apparently that's not the case.

RUSH: By the way, folks, this audio sound bite we played, sound bite number three? Grab that real quick. I just want the first couple sentences here. Eric Holder was talking about the delays. It's just been too long. It is time to finally act.

HOLDER: For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even further for the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. No longer.

RUSH: Stop the tape! Attorney General Holder, we've got you. It's been delayed even further for the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. The USS Cole was bombed in Yemen in the year 2000. You know who was deputy attorney general? Eric Holder! The current attorney general was the deputy AG in 2000 when the Cole was bombed, and the Clinton Justice Department never even filed an indictment. That didn't happen until the Bush Department of Justice filed one after 9/11. Have you no shame, Mr. Holder? These Republicans that voted for this guy to be confirmed, some of them are backtracking now. Byron York had that story yesterday. It's a little too late now because all this was known about this guy. It was known who he is, just as it was known who Obama is. And what about justice for the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996? That was investigated on Holder's watch. He was deputy AG then. No indictment ever filed by the Clinton administration. The charges, again, were finally brought by the Bush administration years later.

You know, Clinton never paid a dime's worth of attention to terrorism because Clinton didn't take on tough issues. He was obsessed in the second term with Lewinsky, a semen-stained blue dress and keeping the approval numbers up while sending Carville and The Forehead out to destroy Ken Starr -- and that's when terrorism was a criminal matter to boot. That's when Jamie Gorelick and Reno had made it a criminal matter and they weren't even pursuing it all. (interruption) Well, I know he had a terrorism summit. I know he fired a bomb into an Iraqi building on a Saturday night that killed a custodian, and he bombed an aspirin factory somewhere in Africa, a Tylenol factory or whatever it was. But Clinton refused to intervene with the Saudis to let the FBI conduct the investigation of Khobar Towers and interview the witnesses. Do you remember that? See, Clinton was trying to engage the mullahs and strike the grand deal with Iran, but somehow seeking justice and applying the rule of law wasn't all that important back then. When Eric Holder was deputy AG they aren't paying a dime's worth of attention to terrorism. Holder goes out there today (summarized), "Well, it's been too long. It's been too long. We're going to get in gear; we're going to fry these guys." Ha.

RUSH: Just to sum all this up, folks, this Holder guy and this whole administration offends me each and every day. I try not to give people the power to offend me, but these people infuriate me. They probably more than offend me; they infuriate me. Obama's people, including Holder, are fictionalizing the facts. It was a Democrat president, Bill Clinton, who did nothing about the '93 bombing at the World Trade Center. It was Bill Clinton, a Democrat president, who did nothing about the buildings being blown up in Kenya or the USS Cole or the Khobar Towers and Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. He did zilch, zero, nada. What Clinton did was bomb Kosovo and the Chinese embassy in the Balkans, and a building in Iraq with a custodian. Remember he bombed the Chinese embassy "by mistake"? The military got that wrong.

RUSH: Now, I have ten snippets of stories here; ten snippets of news stories from today highlighting the economic crisis, government waste, and fraud and mismanagement that cannot be spun. Beijing, November 18th, Reuters: "President [Barack] Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising US deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession." I know it's schizophrenic but there are two reasons for this. The ChiComs are laying into him. The ChiComs are laying into him about the cost of health care, about the deficits. The ChiComs are laying into him. They are saying, "We want you to pay back your loans. We want to get paid! We own your debt! You have got to start paying us. You are running your country into the ground. If you run your country into the ground, our debt is worthless to us, and you're worthless to us and you don't want that."

Plus, on the political side, this sets up massive tax increases. My friends, coming up later in the program an explanation of how we might be looking at $3 trillion in new tax increases from every American. Now, of course it won't add up to three trillion because these tax increases are going to further hamper economic activity and they score all these tax increases by. It would involve repealing every Bush tax cut, not just the ones that expire in 2011. There are the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and let both of those go and then add more, and they score these things in a static way; they don't score them dynamically -- they never do -- and that's why they're always shocked when tax increases don't produce the revenue that they expect. So the ChiComs are laying into Obama, make no mistake about it, and he's setting up tax hikes. He's already spent us into a destructive debt to the point that this country will not be what it was for years and years. Now he says (paraphrase), "If government were to pile up too much debt..." and it's always Bush's fault.

AP Beijing: "President Obama says creating jobs isn't the goal of a coming White House forum on jobs[.]" Number three. "Democrats realize the problem with the phony stimulus numbers. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis): 'The inaccuracies on Recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous, and the administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct these ludicrous mistakes.. Credibility counts in government, and stupid mistakes like this undermine it.'" A little editorial comment here: It was Joe Biden who was established by President Obama as -- 'cause "nobody messes with Joe." Joe was going to police all this. He was going to make sure people weren't playing games with it. He was going to make sure the money was being used properly. He was going to make sure that people were not engaging in fraud or abuse or any of that. Old Joe! Because "nobody messes with Joe." Well, Joe can't keep himself out of automobile accidents! Two accidents this week alone involving his motorcade! Three people injured.

RUSH: So Obey wants accountability from the most transparent (Obama promised) administration in history: Barack Obama's. This is in reference to the congressional districts which don't exist. Tim Geithner is in trouble again. Fred Barnes explains it in the Weekly Standard. Some details have come out about the AIG bailout, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and it doesn't make Geithner look good. Fred doesn't he think he can survive this, but, I mean, who's going to pressure him out?

RUSH: I want to continue with this economic list, ten snippets of news stories from today, highlighting the economic crisis -- government waste, fraud, management -- that cannot be spun. Fred Barnes says Geithner is in trouble again: "Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in trouble again, and this time he may not be able to save his job. You'll recall that his confirmation was threatened by revelations of cheating on his income taxes. Now he's accused of paying billions too much for the bailout of AIG and allowing the insurance firm's Wall Street creditors -- Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia -- to be paid in full for their derivative contracts with $27.1 billion in taxpayers' money."

Now, what is noteworthy about that is that in bankruptcies or similar situations creditors always accept less-than-100% paybacks. It can be anywhere from 50 cents on the dollar to 60 cents on the dollar. Geithner paid back everybody in full with the AIG bailout and their creditors -- which is a bad deal and it smacks of cronyism, 100% cronyism. Geithner is one of those guys. Henry Paulson is one of those guys. And when this news gets out, if it does, it's the kind of thing that's going to irritate people even more and more who think that there is a special scratch-the-back relationship between Washington and Wall Street.

Reuters: "Improper payments by the US government to people, firms and contractors rose sharply to $98 billion in fiscal 2009 and President Barack Obama plans new rules to clamp down, the White House said Tuesday." I was under the impression President Obama had already fixed all of this. (interruption) Yeah, that's a good point. The bondholders of GM in that bankruptcy were told to take a hike. Obama called them selfish for wanting even a portion of what they were owed to be paid. The bondholders were held up as villains. The people who had invested in General Motors, which Obama now owns, were held out as villains. They were pointed to as the bad guys, as the demons. And yet here's Geithner paying back Goldman Sachs -- which is just rolling in money right now -- Merrill Lynch, Wachovia in full for their derivative contracts, with $27 billion of taxpayer money from the AIG bailout.

Oakland, California: "California faces a budget gap of nearly $21 billion over its current and next fiscal years according to the state government's budget watchdog agency, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday." Meanwhile, the state is proceeding with its attempt to reduce the size of giant-screen TVs that consumers are allowed to have. Number seven, a setup for rationing: "Mammography Outcry Points to Trouble for Health Care Reform." You know, this mammography story that came out yesterday, we had this two weeks ago on this story. The American Cancer Society put the news out first; they were shocked at this, that the age for mammograms will go up to 50 instead of 40. Remember that story we had said that mammograms can cause problems, early mammograms can cause problems because they can find things that are really not bad that end up being treated and cost a lot of money and are wasteful? So they moved the age to 50.

Los Angeles Times: "A core tenet of the healthcare overhaul President Obama is pushing through Congress is that medical care can be improved -- and costs contained -- if the country relies more on experts to determine which procedures and treatments work best. But Monday's mammography report by the US Preventive Services Task Force delivered a swift and stark reminder that few ideas are more explosive in healthcare. The expert panel -- which recommended that women in their 40s should no longer get annual mammograms to screen for breast cancer -- sparked an outcry from those who say that the federal government is more interested in saving money than in improving women's health. ... 'This is really the first step toward that business of rationing care based on cost,' said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a physician.'"

He's exactly right, and we've all predicted this. There's no question that this is what's going to happen. This is a little leading indicator, and you might even say that we got death panels going on here. Number eight: "Recovery Board Chairman: We Can't Certify Jobs Data at Recovery.gov. -- The chairman of the Obama administration's Recovery Board is telling lawmakers that he can't certify jobs data posted at the Recovery.gov website -- and doesn't have access to a 'master list' of stimulus recipients that have neglected to report data." Well, this is a comedy of errors also totally predictable, folks. Another government bureaucracy acts like a bureaucracy and doesn't know what it's doing and can't keep track of what it's overseeing. Big shock!

"Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can't vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding." Number nine, the Wall Street Journal: "The $1.9 Trillion Gimmick -- What passes for a joke on Capitol Hill these days is that Bernie Madoff, given his experience managing Ponzi schemes, should be put in charge of the federal budget. Nancy Pelosi & Co. seem to have taken it as a serious suggestion. The House is expected to vote on a $210 billion fiscal swindle that will prevent automatic cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. The entitlement's price controls are scheduled to fall by 21.5% in January and another 2% every year after that under a formula known as the sustainable growth rate. . The 'doc fix' was originally part of Obamacare, until Mrs. Pelosi realized that adding a quarter-trillion dollars to the total tab made it difficult to pretend the bill would reduce the deficit. In the 'Fiscal Responsibility' section of the press release announcing the separate SGR package, Democrats insist that it will be subject to 'the "pay as you go" principle of budget discipline,'" which she promised, by the way, in 2006-2007, there is no pay-as-you-go.

"The Comedy Central punchline: 'The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act would not increase total payments to physicians above what they are today and therefore, would not be subject to the paygo requirement.' In other words, under the Madoff school of accounting, Democrats rely on straight deficit spending." It is criminally irresponsible here what is happening in the US House of Representatives and the Senate when it comes to health care. And finally number ten from the AP: Washington, "The trucking industry lost another 7,500 jobs in October as the US unemployment rate surpassed 10% for the first time since 1983 and is likely to go higher." If the recession's over, you can't tell it by the trucking industry. They just lost 7,500 more jobs lost.

RUSH: And one more economic story. I'm not trying to depress you here, folks. Actually, the purpose for reciting all of this is to document the failure of Barack Obama, because all of this is on him. All of this is on his administration. Every story that we have had, including the budget problems in California, it's all on him because he has set up circumstances where nobody can recover. California's got their own independent problems (they're being run into the ground by liberals, of course) but they don't have a chance. Hardly any other states have a chance. There are some states doing pretty -- well, not pretty well -- but that are less damaged by the economic circumstances, but this is the documentation of Barack Obama's failure, failure for the United States. To him it's a success story. This is what is maddening and infuriating. All of these items are a success story. He wants this chaos; he wants people on welfare; he wants people dependent on government. New York Times: "New home construction slowed unexpectedly in October to the lowest level in six months according to the Commerce Department." What in the world would be "unexpected" about new home construction slowing town in the middle of a recession with 10.2% unemployment? Nothing unexpected about that! Nobody would be surprised by this, and anybody who claims to be surprised is incompetent.

Obama himself tells us that too much debt can lead us into a double-dip recession:

RUSH: "The number of newly laid-off American workers seeking unemployment benefits, unchanged last week, remains above the level that would indicate the economy is adding jobs." (laughing) They're struggling so hard, State-Controlled Associated Press, "remaining above the level that would indicate the economy is adding jobs." Still, "new claims are down about 22% from the spring." That's because so many people have given up! "The Labor Department says first-time claims for jobless benefits were a seasonally adjusted 505,000, the same as the previous week's revised figure and matching analysts' expectations." Oh, so nobody was surprised. (laughing) This is a first. Nobody was surprised! When was the last time we've read a jobless report where the experts weren't surprised? Mark this day down on the calendar! It actually says here, "matching analysts' expectations." Okay. So how is that hope and change working out for you?

Here's a little added data to this from Rasmussen: "Data from Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 15% of Democrats in the workforce are currently unemployed and looking for a job. Among adults not affiliated with either major party that number is 15.6%, while just 9.9% of Republicans are in the same situation." So the story here is that Democrats and unaffiliateds are more likely to be unemployed than Republicans are. Democrats hardest hit. Democrats, women, and minorities hardest hit. "These findings are from interviews with 15,000 American adults in October. The numbers show an increase in all categories from earlier in the year. The percentage of unemployed Democrats has grown less than a point from 14.2% in February." But it's inching up almost a full point to 15% now. (laughing) I shouldn't be laughing. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing.

It's going to be a long, cold winter, ladies and gentlemen. "One Million Workers Could Lose Unemployment Benefits in January Unless Congress Extends Aid -- More than 1 million people will run out of unemployment benefits in January unless Congress quickly extends federal emergency aid, a nonprofit group said Wednesday." So the pressure being brought to bear -- does anybody doubt that we're going to extend unemployment benefits? I don't. This is exactly the agenda. This is the point: Get as many people as possible depending on government. I'll tell you, the more you extend unemployment benefits, the less -- this is just human nature. The less people are going to look for work. Oh. And, folks, I'm sorry to keep pounding you here with reality but I must do it. "More than 14 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September, a record-high for the ninth straight quarter and a problem that could threaten the economic recovery." (laughing) Every story contains the fig leaf of hope that maybe there's a recovery going on, but this really could hamper that.

"The Mortgage Bankers Association's report Thursday suggests the housing market and broader recovery could be thwarted by the continuing surge in home loan defaults, especially as the unemployment rate keeps rising. Lost jobs, rather than the shady loans made during the housing boom, are now the main reason homeowners fall behind on their mortgages." Shady loans. So now the subprime crisis is being referred to as "shady loans." And, of course, we're supposed to be thinking that the banks are the ones who are "shady" here when it was just the banks who were forced to make these shady loans. I thought this was fixed! I really thought Obama had a program here to fix this. Let me find the related story because it proves... (interruption) Yes, yes, I'm going to get to health care. Look, I can't do everything in the first 15 minutes. I got a lot of stuff on Reid's health care bill. It's funny. Where is this? I should have gotten this off the bottom of the stack and put it up at the top, but basically all of these plans to help people pay their mortgages and so forth, I think maybe 15% of the money's been authorized. That is all there is, which just proves to me again that the whole thing is just a slush fund. It's like 15% of the stimulus. Here it is, and it's in no less than the CNNmoney.com: "Obama Mortgage Rescue: Only a few get lasting help -- Only a handful of homeowners are receiving permanent loan modifications under the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention plan." That's the headline and the subhead.

Here's the way the story starts out: "Only a tiny percentage of troubled homeowners have received permanent modifications under President Obama's foreclosure prevention plan, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the $75 billion effort." When will the fact that Obama is helping no one anywhere filter through the haze that surrounds this man? We've had 15% of the stimulus spent. It's a slush fund. And now 1.26% of all trial adjustments were made permanent after three months, only 1.26%. So this $75 billion here is just another slush fund. The overall percentage is this: "Fewer than 5% of the trial modifications on loans owned or guaranteed by Freddie Mac were converted to long-term adjustments as of Sept. 30th." So mortgage delinquencies hit a record high. Obama mortgage rescue? Only a few get lasting help. Billions of dollars were allocated to fix this! Not one thing, not one thing that he has done has resulted in a fix of anything.

At some point that fact that he is helping no one anywhere has got to filter through the haze that surrounds him. (interruption) His hair is turning gray because of the pressure? He's losing weight because of the pressure, too. Somebody not eating out there. That's the story. He cares so deeply, you know? He cares so deeply. I mean, his heart aches over all of the pain that is happening out there. Now, this CNN story contradicts the AP story: "While the foreclosure rate has eased a bit recently thanks in part to the growing number of people in trial modifications, some experts fear foreclosures will start rising again unless more people receive permanent assistance." Mortgage delinquencies hit record high is the AP story. Foreclosure rate eased a bit.

Get this: "Experts fear foreclosures will start rising again unless more people receive permanent assistance." Permanent assistance. Now, those of you who are in a mortgage, who have a home in a mortgage and you're paying it, understand that there are experts out there who think others ought to have their mortgages permanently paid for by a plan that only has spent 5% of the money allocated to it. So there are slush funds all over this administration. TARP is a slush fund. The stimulus package is a slush fund, no question about that; and now this foreclosure plan, that's obviously a slush fund, too, because it's not being spent on the stated purpose.

Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll out just today: Obama's approval rating is 46% in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamic poll. The last period was October 27th and 28th. He was at 50% approve and 41% disapprove. This polling period is 900 registered voters. The 17th and 18th of November which is just the last couple of days. Forty-six approve, 46 disapprove. Eight percent don't know. So he's under 50% in two polls now, Quinnipiac and the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll. Gallup has him just teetering on the little teeter-totter at 50% and they're doing everything they can -- they're upping the sample to black Americans -- to keep him up at 50% in the Gallup poll.

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.

Conservative Review
Issue #102	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	November 22, 2009