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).

President Barrack Obama held a job summit this past week, but did not invite any representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) or the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). In fact, no business organization from the D.C. area was invited. The Chamber of Commerce, by the way, represents businesses which employ approximately half of the private sector workers.

The estate tax was renewed and made permanent. That means, a 45% tax on estates over $3.5 million ($7 million for a couple, but how many couples die at the same time—or does the government get to squeeze in between a husband and wife’s fortunes?). You may be thinking, who has that kind of money? Small farms do. This will wipe out almost all small farms within a generation.

There is a bill which has just passed successfully through the House Finance Committee which will allow government to take over any business they see as being unstable and in danger of failing.

There is an amendment to the Senate healthcare bill to require all Congressmen, their aides and employees to be enrolled in the public healthcare plan. Of course it will not pass.

The principal and a teacher at Goleta Valley Junior High School in Santa Barbara County, California are apologizing to parents for not following school district policy relating to a pro-homosexual workshop given to 8th grade students in a leadership class at the school.

It snowed here in Houston, the first time ever that it snowed during 2 consecutive winters. Damn that global warming!

UK climate scientist Phil Jones steps down. Lord Monckton calls for prosecutions of climategate perpetrators.

A few months ago, at a townhouse meeting, some SEIU thugs beat up Kenneth Gladney, sending him to the hospital. They also called him the n-word while beating on him. Charges were finally filed—the SEIU thugs were charged with the misdemeanor disturbing the peace. Despite their language, no hate crime charges were filed.

"I know what it takes to meet a payroll," said House Republican John Boehner; "[and I know] What it means to create jobs. And without certainty, without some confidence about what tomorrow's going to bring, I'm not going to move. Look at all of these policies that are being proposed—Tax rates that are so uncertain - it's no surprise to any of us that employers continue to do nothing."

Boehner also said, "And the biggest problem that we heard from our economists as in regard as to why employers aren't hiring, it's all the job-killing policies that are being offered by this administration and this Congress and creating an awful lot of uncertainty for American employers."

President Obama: “Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?”

House Minority Leader John Boehner again: "You have to remember that President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have never run a business, much less ever had a real job in the private sector; so how do they know what it takes to create real jobs?”

New Gingrich on President Obama: “When you are at 10.2% unemployment and you don’t have a clue what you are doing and the country begins to think you...don’t understand reality...in the real world, people are frightened about their jobs and they don’t think he understands what’s going on”

Rudy Giuliani, after being shown the Newsweek cover of Sarah Palin in running shorts, said, “She is an exciting figure in the Republican party.” Honest. I saw him say this with my very own eyes.

Chris Matthews on Obama giving his Afghanistan speech to West Point cadets: “He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case.”

A source close to Angelina Jolie tells Us Weekly that, "She [Jolie] hates him [Obama]...She's into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise,"

Ed Schultz: “But I think this president deserves more. I think he deserves the absolute best around him. He doesn't deserve a cheaper cut or any less of an attitude and I would even go so far as to think it might not be bad to have politically like-minded people around the president in the Secret Service who would pledge allegiance to make sure that you go beyond the profession of a security that, you know, hey, that's my guy! That's my guy!”

E-mail sent out to cancel global warming lecture in Austin, TX this week: “Given the travel advisories issued and the likelihood of freezing weather for the Austin area tomorrow evening, we are postponing the December 4 event, Global Warming - Lone Star Impacts.”

President Bill Clinton: “Global warming is occurring at a pace roughly twice as fast as had been previously thought, so I believe if we don't change things by the end of the century, instead of going up four degrees, the earth's temperature will go up nine degrees. And if that happens, we're in trouble here. Eight percent of the whole Earth's freshwater is on top of Greenland. As it begins to melt, if it melts faster, it could change the composition of the north Atlantic and interrupt the normal flow of currents, and ironically global warming could make some places colder.”

"During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end. leading into the next ice age." so says the National Science Board (in 1974).

These pronouncements of science were not confined to one spirited outlier. Science predicted "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," in its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.

Iran announced yesterday (Saturday) that it needed 20 uranium enrichment plants to provide fuel for its nuclear power plants.

British television show on the fudge-factor in the CRU’s climate change data (this is both the show’s segment, which is only a few minutes, and a portion of the transcript):

A discussion about free enterprise versus redistribution of wealth (Forbes, one of the speakers, is outstanding):

Chris Matthews says that Obama speaking at West Point was like speaking in the enemy camp:

This is an old video, but I had not seen it before, called Obama keeps it classy:

Jodi Miller, “As a part of the Democrat healthcare bill, Senator Harry Reid proposed a 5% tax on plastic surgery...this just in, Nancy Pelosi just became a Republican.”

1) You have heard over an over again, if you are a conservative, how bad the unions have been for GM. If you are a liberal, then you have heard how good the union is for Costco. What is the difference? Time. Once a union reaches a certain age and bleeds a company dry through retirement benefits, that company becomes over-burdened. Costco is a relatively new company.

2) In Obama’s job summit, apparently no one who has been critical of the president was invited. So, that is how the president takes in all different viewpoints? By precluding those he disagrees with from the outset?

3) The bill which came out of committee that gives the government the ability to seize businesses which are in trouble—this means one of the most financially irresponsible governments of all time will have the responsibility to determine if a business if being financially responsible? This makes my head spin.

4) Someone pointed out a tremendous difference between the environmental movement of the 60's and 70's as compared to the Climate Change enthusiasts today: back then, it was all about clean water and clean air, something which could be easily measured, seen and tasted. Now, the thrust of global warming legislation is to take money from one group of people and give it to another group of people, which is the undeniable result of all cap and trade legislation which has been proposed (whether it will have any affect upon the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is a completely other thing).

5) It is interesting how selective Congress is when it comes to proposing new taxes. When it comes to the Stimulus Bill, no new taxes were proposed to cover it. Stimulus II will be the same way. However, there is discussion of a war tax.

6) No hits when searching NBC or CBS news for climategate; however, there are 5 links on ABC’s site.

7) As liberty chick pointed out, the majority [who attended Obama’s jobs summit] are labor union leaders, leaders of businesses with government contracts, or leaders of businesses that operate on partial public funding.

8) As a conservative, I listened to Obama’s Afghanistan speech, and automatically determined that one portion of the speech, the U.S. exist from Afghanistan in 18 months to be so many words thrown out there to placate to the left. Many on the left seem to understand that in the same way. So, have we come to a point where, when we hear our president, and then try to figure out what he said, and where he was speaking the truth and where he is lying, when trying to appeal to both sides.

9) Here is an interesting concept which I heard this past week: we are fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan to provide freedom the Muslims in these countries. Why aren’t American Muslims joining the armed forces in large numbers in order to help?

10) One of the arguments I have seen put forth by liberals in favor of government healthcare is, the insurance companies continually stand between a doctor and their patient, not allowing this or that procedure to be done. Although this certain does occur, and these are economic decisions; the government (in Medicare and Medicaid) refuse to pay for such treatments twice as often as insurance companies do.

11) Just exactly what did Obama learn in the past 90+ days before he made his Afghanistan decision? What happened or what information did he gain that he did not have 3 months ago?

12) What government can do to create jobs is not some great mystery that nobody really knows what ought to be done. If you know any informed conservative, you can ask them, and they will reel off 2–6 things which government can do to facilitate the creation of jobs. We know about these things because this has been don many times in the past. There is an article in this issue by Newt Gingrich, who presents his solutions to the jobs problem.

13) The remarks of former Vice President Cheney and, more recently, from Donald Rumsfeld are unprecedented. I do not recall a previous administration chiming in every few days to correct a current president on his speeches. However, since the President continues to attack the previous administration in every other speech (also unprecedented), he will get what he deserves.

2 is the number of full time jobs at the largest solar facility in the country—this is apparently our green job growth spurt?

Over the past 20 years, 80% of the new job creation has come from small businesses.

8% of private workers have unions; nearly 40% of government workers belong to a union. It is more clear by Obama has such strong union support and why he is expanding the government sector as quickly as he can?

8% of Obama’s cabinet have private sector experience, the lowest of any president ever. This number is disputed and discussed here:

52% believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming;

59% of Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming.

27% of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. That's down five points from August.

Unemployment Fell in August, But Drop Is Called Insignificant (NY Times headline when unemployment under Bush went from 5.9% to 5.7%).

Jobs Report Is Strongest Since the Start of the Recession (this story is about how only 11,000 jobs were lost last month).

Certainly, they could have with Obama’s job summit. Obama can call on various people at the summit, they give their opinion, and Obama asks them, “Have you ever created a job?”

Comcast announces its support for Obama-care the day after announcing an NBC merger.

President Obama is sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and he is going to do this quickly. Despite the rhetoric in his Afghanistan speech, his actions are what are important. Even Newt Gingrich recognized that this was a very difficult thing for Obama to do.

NPR ran 2 stories on Climategate and, with respect to Obama’s speech on Afghanistan, presented a number of man-on-the-street opinions which were reasonably representative of the general public. I know that NPR is not officially a Democratic institution, but...

Since small business creates 3 out of 4 jobs, why was not the Chamber of Commerce invited to your jobs summit?

What suggestions have you received about job creation which you have rejected; and why did you reject these suggestions?

We have created a great many jobs after every recession in America’s history, and the economy typically roars back with 5% growth; why is this not happening under your administration?

You think that there is anything to Obama’s grand jobs summit or that anything will come out of it that will increase jobs.

Despite all of the questions raised by Climategate, President Obama will never publically question the notion of manmade global warming.

No one at the upcoming Copenhagen global warming summit will speak of climategate.

I still believe that there will be a healthcare proposal of some sort agreed to by the House and Senate which the President will sign. Only 1 or 2 Republicans will vote in favor of this legislation.

When speaking of Obama’s recession recovery, none of the alphabet media will point out that, in previous recessions, the economy came roaring back with growth rates of 5 and 6%.

The more Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld speak out, the more their popularity will increase.

As I said at least a month ago, there will be a 2^nd stimulus bill not called a stimulus bill, but it will be called a Jobs Bill or the Employment Recovery Act; it is coming.

Not only is government going to prop up traditional sources of media, but it will help to shape the message as well.

I finally heard someone else express this opinion, that President Obama is an amateur, and that explains most of his presidency.

There is the Rush Limbaugh opinion, that Obama is doing what he is doing on purpose, to destroy our economy, to the point where, only huge government action and takeover will save us. He could care less about the economy and those who are out of work, because he is looking ahead in time, when we are so far in debt that we must lay punitive taxes upon everyone in order to pay back the debt, which will result in a European-type socialism. Quite frankly, I don’t know if I buy into this, although, Rush speaks convincingly on this particular topic.

However, this past week, I heard, finally, another radio talk host saying, the problem is, Obama is a rank amateur, with no idea what he is doing, and that explains his presidency (along with the fact that he is an ideologue with no real-world experience with economics).

This helps to explain a lot. He sends a plane out to fly low over New York City in order to get a cool photo (which could have been photo-shopped). No one seems to realize that this might disturb some New Yorkers.

Obama has found that he can take trips all over the world, and so he does. He loves speaking to crowds, especially if they adore him. However, whereas, in the past, other presidents worked out deals behind the scenes before going anywhere, Obama goes to a variety of nations, with no deals worked out in advance, so that he always returns home empty handed.

The person originally in charge of checking the guest list at the door is removed from that position. Then, one of Obama’s people is given this responsibility, and she just puts her own name on the list so that she can attend the party. Because she is not at the door, at least 2 party crashers manage to gain entry to an Obama party.

This past week, Obama held a jobs summit. Those who actually create permanent jobs are, for the most part, not invited. Those who do not create jobs, like SEIU; and companies with big government contracts (or, with substantial federal funding) are invited. So, is Obama going to be exposed to real-life solutions? Of course not. He excluded the very people who could have provided real solutions to this problem.

I think these examples show Obama and his underlings to be rank amateurs, with no idea as to what they are doing.

Now, whether or not this is intentional, that Obama does know some of the answers, but wants our nation to crash and burn, I am not ready to take that position yet.

Tomorrow, the Obama Administration will hold its much-hyped "jobs summit" in Washington, D.C. Plenty of politicians will be there, as well as labor bosses and academics. No doubt, some business representatives have been recruited to attend as well.

Today, in contrast, a very different group of Americans will kick off a series of "Real Jobs Summits" in Cincinnati. Tomorrow, we will be in Jackson, Mississippi.

Instead of politicians who talk deceptively of "saving or creating" jobs, we will have entrepreneurs who have actually created jobs. Instead of so-called "experts" who offer theories, we will have small business people who know the reality of joblessness in America today.

As the Obama Administration convenes with the so-called "experts" in Washington, how many in the White House have actually created a job?

What the Obama Administration is promoting as a jobs "summit" tomorrow is in fact a jobs valley.

After 10 months and the authorization of $787 billion in government spending, the economic policies of the White House and the Democratic Congress have failed. 15.7 million Americans are out of work, 3.2 million of them since the stimulus was first passed in February. Unemployment, at 10.2 percent, is higher than the President promised it would be if he did nothing. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies are hurting, not helping.

Number 1: Ideology. Secular Socialism Has Never Worked to Create Jobs and It Won't Work Here

The mainstream media roll their eyes and laugh at the term, but the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies are genuinely secular-socialist policies.

The problem is this big government, high taxing, big bureaucracy and politician driven model simply does not work to create jobs. It was the model of the United States in the 1970s and the model of Europe today. It has never worked anywhere to create jobs and wealth, and it won't work here.

As the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine attempts to force its secular-socialist model on Americans in the form of job-killing health, energy, and big labor legislation, American small business people are crying out for a very different set of solutions.

These are the solutions that will take center stage at the American Solutions Real Jobs Summit in Cincinnati today.

Reduced taxes to spur jobs and investment. Controlled government spending to favor entrepreneurs over bureaucrats. Reduced regulation and litigation to produce jobs and create wealth.

If the goal is more jobs, both history and the opinions of American business people couldn't be more clear: More economic freedom works, more government doesn't.

Number Two: Democratic Interest Groups. Redistributing Rather Than Creating Wealth

The second fact that cripples the Obama-Pelosi-Reid jobs effort is the liberal special interest groups these politicians are beholden to.

Trial lawyers, labor unions and government employees are redistributors of wealth, not creators of wealth.

When Democratic special interest groups meet, there is practically no one in the room who has created a job.

The American Solutions Real Jobs Summits will work with those who create jobs and wealth to make their jobs easier and their success more likely.

Our interest groups are the engines of our economy -- the small business owners and entrepreneurs whose voices aren't being heard in Washington today.

Number Three: The Obama Cabinet. The Least Private Sector Experience in Over 100 Years

The third reason to doubt that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies will produce more jobs is succinctly illustrated in this graph.

It shows that the Obama Administration cabinet has far less private sector experience than any administration in over 100 years. A stunning 90 percent of the prior experience of the Obama cabinet is in government, not the private sector.

These are the people America is supposed to listen to in order to create new jobs?

American Solutions, in contrast, is building a Small Business Advisory Council, a network of entrepreneurs with long experience in job creation.

The American Solution Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First Solutions

These experienced entrepreneurs have helped us formulate a real plan for real job creation that we can enact right now to create new jobs.

1) Reduce Spending and Reform Government to Achieve a Balanced Budget.

While I was Speaker, federal spending rose by an average of 2.9 percent per year, the lowest increase since the 1920s. We can apply the same principles that worked from 1995 to 1998 to create jobs and four straight balanced budgets through smaller government, less spending, lower interest rates, and less debt.

2) Five Tax Reforms to Reward Job Creation, Entrepreneurship, Savings, and Investment.

a. Immediate Payroll Tax Relief. Allow workers and employers to keep more of their hard earned money through an immediate, two-year, 50 percent reduction of the payroll tax. This step would immediately boost the take home pay of every worker, and dramatically free up cash for every employer to hire and invest. This tax relief could be paid for with unspent TARP and stimulus money.

b. Incentives for Small Business Investment. Allow small businesses to expense 100 percent of new equipment purchases each year to help them invest in new, more productive technologies.

c. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match the Chinese capital gains rate of zero. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified in the 1990s that this was the best rate for economic growth.

d. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. America has the second highest business tax rate in the world. We should match the Irish business tax rate of 12.5 percent. Combined with a zero rate of taxation on capital gains, America would become the most desirable country in the world in which to invest and start a business.

e. Abolish the Death Tax. Inheritance is the most powerful accumulator of capital. Studies show that eliminating the death tax would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

3) American Energy Plan to Create American Jobs and Keep American Money at Home.

Developing more American energy while protecting the environment would mean the creation of millions of new American jobs and the generation of billions of dollars in new federal tax revenues, largely without the need for any new federal spending. The first steps we need to take are to develop more of America's oil, natural gas, and oil shale resources, expand nuclear power, provide prizes for key energy breakthroughs, and an emphasis on incentives, not taxes, to achieve our energy and environmental goals.

And for more information about the American Solutions Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First plan, go to www.AmericanSolutions.com.

This week will present more than two contrasting visions of how to create new jobs, it will present two contrasting visions of America.

For reasons of ideology, interest groups and personnel, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid vision is one of bigger and more controlling government, but smaller and more anemic private enterprise.

To try to pretend that this model will produce the jobs America desperately needs is to do a grave injustice to the American people.

Americans whose goals are to provide for their families, not perpetuate their political power, know what really works to create jobs.

In Cincinnati today, Jackson, Mississippi, on Thursday, and more cities next year, these Americans will have their voices heard. We hope you'll join us.

On November 21, the Senate voted by a 60-39 majority to commence debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill that would radically expand government control over private health care decisions. The bill is over 2, 000 pages long, costs an estimated $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years of implementation, and carries a half trillion dollars in new taxes. The bill contains 13 tax increases, includes funding for abortions, and provides health care coverage for illegal immigrants. There are so many harmful provisions in the bill, it is hard to keep track of them all.

It will be a long debate in December, with a complicated amendment process likely. But despite the tweaks made to the bill, it is important to keep the five major flaws of both the Pelosi and Reid bills in mind:

1) A New Public Plan: Both the House and Senate bills would create a new government-run health care plan - a so-called public plan - intended to "compete" with private insurers in a new health insurance exchange. In the House bill, millions will lose private insurance. In both bills, there would be substantial consolidation of federal control over health care through the exchange. Notwithstanding their rhetoric, Congress is incapable of guaranteeing the American people a level playing field for competition between the government plans and private health plans.

2) Federal Regulation of Health Insurance: Both the House and Senate bills would impose sweeping and complex federal regulation of health insurance that will drive up (not down, as promised by the President) the cost of everyone's health insurance premiums.

3) Massive Expansion of Medicaid and New Taxpayer-Funded Subsidies: Both the House and Senate would dramatically expand eligibility for Medicaid and create expensive, taxpayer-funded subsidies. Combined, this would make millions of Americans dependent on the government to finance their health care.

4) Employer and Individual Mandates: Both the House and Senate bills would impose an employer mandate for employers who do not offer coverage and for those whose benefits do not meet a new federal standard. An employer mandate would hurt low-income workers and would stifle much-needed economic growth. Our country does not need a job-killing employment tax at a time of 10.2% unemployment. The bills would also require all people to buy health insurance. Those individuals who do not purchase government-qualified health care coverage would be subject to new tax penalties and, in some cases, jail time.

5) Costs: Don't be fooled by the reported cost estimates. The Senate and House bills use budget gimmicks and unrealistic formulas to make their proposals fit under the $900 billion limit put forth by the President. As history has proven, government health care programs end up costing much more than first promised. When fully implemented with taxes and subsidies combined, the real 10 year cost of the Senate bill would be around $2.5 trillion.

Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY . coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end.leading into the next ice age."

You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.

In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.

I remember sometime back in 1975-76 reading about the "coming" Ice Age in the weekly magazine HIGHLIGHTS...wish I would have saved it.

Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.

It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.

Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.

His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.

The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.

That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.

While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.

Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."

To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?

I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.

[CBS news may not find enogh time in their schedule to cover climategate, but they did have time for this story]:

Friday's CBS Evening News devoted a full story, filed by correspondent Jim Axelrod, to late-term abortion Doctor LeRoy Carhart - who stepped in to succeed Dr. George Tiller, known for performing many partial birth abortions, after his murder last spring - during which Carhart was given several soundbites to justify his work. At one point gushing that "Until I can find someone else to care for women, they still need somebody to care for them," he later asserted: "I totally believe in this cause every bit as much as I did believe every morning when I got up in the military that I was doing the right thing. And if dying for this cause is what I have to do, then that`s what I will do."

But CBS's Axelrod never used the term "partial birth abortion," or described the horrific procedure involved in some abortions. And, while anchor Katie Couric acknowledged that Carhart's work is "controversial" as she introduced the report, she also conveyed a more positive connotation as she referred to his and Dr. Tiller's activities as a "cause," as did Carhart himself. Couric:

“Few issues divide Americans more than abortion. It`s a conflict that`s erupted in deadly violence. Last spring, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors who provided late-term abortions, was murdered in Kansas. Tiller`s clinic is now closed, but his cause has been taken up by a former colleague.”

At one point, as Axelrod used a clip of himself talking with a pro-life protester outside Carhart's clinic, instead of relaying to viewers that "most" strong critics do not "condone violence" against abortion doctors, Axelrod instead used the more odd choice of words that "not all" such critics "condone violence," as if perhaps most do believe in violence: "While not all of his strongest critics condone violence, Carhart is nothing short of evil to them."

Axelrod introduced his report by recounting the precautions Carhart must take to avoid being attacked both as he drives to work and after he arrives. Describing Carhart as someone who "believes in his work and doesn`t hide what goes on inside this building," the CBS correspondent passed on Carhart's contentions that the abortions he performs either involve fetal health problems or mental health problems by the women: "Carhart says about half the abortions he performs between the 22nd and 28th week are due to fetal health issues. Half, the mother`s mental health. After the 28th week, it`s 90 percent fetal health."

Axelrod soon recounted the case of one woman who is "aborting because she put her last baby up for adoption and had a nervous breakdown. She`s waited so long this time, she says, because she didn`t have the money."

Carhart justified the abortion of her child: "Which I think is probably a rational choice on her part. ... I mean, she went through it, she already knows the amount of trauma that she went through with the last child."

While Axelrod was not shown in any clip directly confronting Carhart with any arguments against abortion, when the CBS correspondent did devote a clip to an abortion opponent who was protesting outside Carhart's clinic, Axelrod first brought up religious belief - instead of a more solid physical argument - as he asked the man if Carhart was "going to hell," and then asserted that "it`s the law of the land that he`s allowed to do what he`s doing." On the bright side, he did at least set up the pro-life protester to argue that just because something is legal that does not mean that it's right, or that it should remain legal:

AXELROD: While not all of his strongest critics condone violence, Carhart is nothing short of evil to them.

AXELROD, TALKING TO PROTESTER It`s the law of the land that he`s allowed to do what he`s doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER: It was the law of the land in Germany to corral Jews and gas them. It was the law of the land to make black people slaves.

AXELROD: The lines are clearly drawn, and LeRoy Carhart stopped trying to change his critics` minds a long time ago.

CARHART: I totally believe in this cause every bit as much as I did believe every morning when I got up in the military that I was doing the right thing. And if dying for this cause is what I have to do, then that`s what I will do.

AXELROD: In fact, the only thing that will change for now is the route Dr. Carhart takes to work.

Below is a complete transcript of the report from the Friday, December 4, CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: Few issues divide Americans more than abortion. It`s a conflict that`s erupted in deadly violence. Last spring, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors who provided late-term abortions, was murdered in Kansas. Tiller`s clinic is now closed. But his cause has been taken up by a former colleague. Tonight, national correspondent Jim Axelrod has an inside look at his controversial practice outside Omaha.

AXELROD: But not every doctor is LeRoy Carhart, a 68-year-old former Air Force surgeon who performs up to 3,500 abortions a year-

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE PROTESTER: A child should never be separated from its mother!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE PROTESTER PRAYING: Have mercy.CARHART: Until I can find someone else to care for women, they still need somebody to care for them.

AXELROD: That LeRoy Carhart believes in his work and doesn`t hide what goes on inside this building here in Nebraska is pretty plain to see. You also might find it a bit surprising given what happened to his close friend and colleague earlier this year. When George Tiller was shot at his church last May, he was America`s best-known provider of late-term abortions, those ending pregnancies after 22 weeks, a point when the fetus might survive outside the womb. For more than a decade, Carhart spent a week each month assisting at Tiller`s clinic.

CARHART: When he approached me to come work with him, he said, you know, "Both of us are very vulnerable targets, and I feel the need to have somebody else to carry on what I`m doing."

AXELROD: After Tiller`s death, Carhart started doing late-term abortions at his own clinic, on average one every 10 days. Carhart says about half the abortions he performs between the 22nd and 28th week are due to fetal health issues. Half, the mother`s mental health. After the 28th week, it`s 90 percent fetal health.

AXELROD: Women like Sue, an unmarried 28-year-old mother of three come from around the country. Sue`s somewhere between 21 and 23 weeks pregnant. She`s aborting because she put her last baby up for adoption and had a nervous breakdown. She`s waited so long this time, she says, because she didn`t have the money.UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At this point, this is the easier decision for me. And that may sound selfish to people, but I`m having a lot of complications that aren`t good for my health.CARHART: Which I think is probably a rational choice on her part.

CARHART: Yes. I mean, she went through it, she already knows the amount of trauma that she went through with the last child.AXELROD: So you wouldn`t have any problem performing an abortion on her?

AXELROD: While not all of his strongest critics condone violence, Carhart is nothing short of evil to them.

AXELROD, TALKING TO UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER It`s the law of the land that he`s allowed to do what he`s doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER: It was the law of the land in Germany to corral Jews and gas them. It was the law of the land to make black people slaves.UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE PROTESTER: No choice!

AXELROD: The lines are clearly drawn, and LeRoy Carhart stopped trying to change his critics` minds a long time ago.CARHART: I totally believe in this cause every bit as much as I did believe every morning when I got up in the military that I was doing the right thing. And if dying for this cause is what I have to do, then that`s what I will do.

AXELROD: In fact, the only thing that will change for now is the route Dr. Carhart takes to work. Jim Axelrod, CBS News, Bellevue, Nebraska.

Let's set the stage. After 25 years of economic growth, the U.S. stumbles into a recession and double-digit unemployment. An unpopular war aggravates the crisis; the national debt skyrockets. In response, the nation elects a fresh face: a first-term U.S. senator from a Midwestern state, with a vice president from an Eastern state. They promise hope and change; their party builds a formidable coalition of blacks, whites, and immigrants, and sweeps both houses of Congress. After his election, we had a President's Conference on Unemployment to deal with the job crisis. What emerged was a sensational plan: a stimulus package to create jobs -- especially infrastructure jobs -- and thereby attack unemployment directly.

Sound familiar? It should. The year was 1921, and the newly elected President Warren G. Harding and Vice President Calvin Coolidge faced many of the same issues as Barack Obama and Joe Biden 88 years later. What's different is how these men responded. Coolidge and Obama embody two starkly contrasting visions of economic order.

Over the last century, all presidents have bought in to one of these two visions. Harding, Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan were constitutionalists. Limit the government, they argue, and let entrepreneurs and free markets create growth. By contrast, Barack Obama and most of his predecessors -- especially Franklin Roosevelt -- have been interventionists. Government planning, federal spending, and a Keynesian fine-tuning of the economy are the methods they choose to spark the economy and sustain prosperity.

In the case of the 1921 recession, unemployment had indeed soared to 11.7 percent, and industrial income had fallen almost 25 percent in one year alone. But Harding and Coolidge (who became president in 1923 when Harding died) were constitutionalists. They opposed the popular stimulus scheme to use tax dollars to build public works. "The excess stimulation from that source," Harding insisted, "is to be reckoned a cause of trouble rather than a source of cure." They epitomized what President Obama would later call "The politics of No."

But what they said yes to was cutting income tax rates and slashing federal spending. That kind of discipline, they argued, would unleash entrepreneurs, reduce the federal debt, and release human energy for recovery.

Andrew Mellon, their secretary of the treasury, was a banking genius. He had helped launch Alcoa, Gulf Oil, and many other corporations. He designed the plan to cut tax rates and federal spending. In making his case, he made the astonishing claim that cutting tax rates might actually increase revenue. "It seems difficult to understand," he said, "that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the Government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower rates."

When Mellon's prediction was attacked, Coolidge came to the rescue. "I agree perfectly with those who wish to relieve the small taxpayer by getting the largest possible contribution from people with large incomes. But if the rates on large incomes are so high that they disappear, the small taxpayers will be left to bear the entire burden."

With Congress in Republican hands, Harding, Coolidge, and Mellon began to implement their free market plans piece by piece. Therefore, the 1920s budgets showed surpluses every year, and income tax rates were chopped across the board, leaving the wealthiest Americans paying at a 25 percent marginal rate. The results were spectacular. By 1923, unemployment had plummeted to 2.4 percent. From 1921 to 1929, GNP soared a remarkable 48 percent, the "average annual earnings of employees" rose 34 percent, and almost one-third of the national debt simply disappeared.

Entrepreneurs enjoyed one of their most creative periods in U.S. history: from radios to sliced bread to Scotch tape, inventors marketed new products. Older inventions finally secured the capital to emerge: air conditioners, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and zippers thus found their way into millions of households across America. U.S. patent numbers were higher in 1929 than in every year thereafter until 1965.

Calvin Coolidge became an American icon. His reelection in 1924 was so overwhelming that the Democratic Party, with a mere 28.8 percent of the vote, appeared near death. In Coolidge's six years as president, he averaged 3.3 percent unemployment and less than 1 percent inflation -- the lowest misery index of any president in the 20th century.

ONE MIGHT THINK that Coolidge's spectacular success would have ended the economic debate. The constitutionalists had triumphed. Instead, after 1929, the interventionists, starting with Herbert Hoover, dominated American politics for the next 50 years. Hoover, who had been secretary of commerce in Coolidge's cabinet, often dissented from the president. In turn, Coolidge labeled him "Wonder Boy" and said privately, "That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad." Hoover believed that targeted intervention could improve the economy without losing any of the gains from Coolidge's free markets.

Once in office, Hoover signed the highest tariff in U.S. history and then started a flow of federal subsidies (and loans) to farmers, bankers, industrialists, and those unemployed. The Federal Reserve, which is somewhat independent of the president, also intervened and contributed to the Great Depression that followed, by raising interest rates and shrinking the money supply. As the country wallowed in federal deficits, Hoover signed a bill raising income taxes to a top marginal rate of 63 percent. Entrepreneurs retrenched, and jobs rapidly disappeared.

With unemployment at 25 percent in 1932, Gov. Franklin Roosevelt of New York, the Democratic nominee for president, was poised to oust Hoover from office. In doing so, FDR decided to campaign as a constitutionalist, someone much less interventionist than Hoover.

Calvin Coolidge could have written FDR's campaign speech in Pittsburgh two weeks before the election. Hoover's deficits, FDR announced, were "so great that it makes us catch our breath." Such spending was "the most reckless and extravagant past that I have been able to discover in the statistical record of any peacetime Government, anywhere, any time." Of Hoover's tax hikes, FDR concluded that such a burden "is a brake on any return to normal business activity. Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors because they are a burden on production and are paid through production. If those taxes are excessive, they are reflected in idle factories...."

Mellon was from Pittsburgh, and if he had been in the audience that day he would have cheered. You can't create jobs by taxing one group and giving to another -- you can only redistribute existing wealth. To create wealth, you had to cut tax rates, not raise them. That was the chief premise of the constitutionalists.

FDR may have used the rhetoric of limited government, but once in office he practiced the art of full-scale interventionism. Farm prices were low because of overproduction, for example, so Roosevelt offered the AAA, which paid farmers not to produce. Farmers obligingly took the free cash and stopped planting crops on part of their land; however, by 1935, the U.S. had crop shortages and had to import 36.4 million pounds of cotton, 34.8 million bushels of corn, and 13.4 million bushels of wheat. We were thus paying farmers not to produce what we were importing instead.

Then, under the NRA, FDR fixed prices for hundreds of industrial products, and Jacob Maged, Sam Markowitz, and Rose Markowitz, among others, went to jail for giving discounts to customers. "For a parallel," the New York Herald-Tribune said, "it is necessary to go to the Fascist or Communist states of Europe."

FOR THE UNEMPLOYED, FDR launched the WPA with an astounding $4.8 billion, the largest appropriation of its kind in U.S. history. The WPA built roads, schools, hospitals, and bridges-all of which gave work to many Americans. Coolidge had rejected that idea because of its constitutionality and because it merely transferred jobs from the private to the public sector.

Economist Henry Hazlitt, who wrote for Newsweek and the New York Times during the 1930s, argued that the WPA destroyed as many jobs as it created. "Every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation," Hazlitt emphasized. If the WPA builds a $10 million bridge, for example, "the bridge has to be paid for out of taxes....Therefore," Hazlitt observed, "for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing. But there are other things that we do not see because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence. They are the jobs destroyed by the $10 million taken from the taxpayers. All that has happened, at best is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project."

Hazlitt had an interesting point. In 1930, the United States had a top tax rate of 24 percent and a starting rate, after exemptions, of 0.5 percent. In 1935 and 1936, the WPA spent billions of dollars on bridges, roads, airports, and school buildings, but the new tax rate, after exemptions, started at 5 percent and skyrocketed to 79 percent on top incomes. The country also saw a host of new excise taxes passed in the interim. That tax money could have been invested in the very projects (or maybe better ones) than the WPA was undertaking.

Since Roosevelt was merely shifting employment from private jobs to public works, we would expect few new jobs to be created. Also, because of the high tax rates, many entrepreneurs were investing in tax-exempt bonds, collectibles, and foreign businesses -- all of which did little to jump-start the American economy. Thus, with a few ups and downs, the unemployment rate was almost 21 percent in 1939 -- more than six full years after FDR took office.

Henry Morgenthau, FDR's good friend and also his secretary of the treasury, was frantic at the persistent unemployment. To leading Democrats, he confessed, "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work....I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started....And an enormous debt

Even spending for World War II did not cure the ailing economy. Going into the war we had more than 10 million people unemployed, and we put 12 million Americans in uniform overseas. After paying their expenses and shelling out for weapons, we had increased the national debt sixfold from $40 billion to $260 billion. Furthermore, in 1943 we made the income tax a mass tax and set the top rate at 90 percent. FDR wanted a 100 percent rate on all income over $25,000, but Congress insisted on letting wealthy Americans keep some of their earnings.

THE SEVEN PRESIDENTS AFTER FDR more or less continued the pattern of economic intervention. President Harry Truman signed the Employment Act of 1946, which empowered the federal government "to use all practical means" to achieve "maximum employment." President Eisenhower, alarmed by several recessions, signed a bill to build interstate highways because they were a large public works project that might lower unemployment. Instead, unemployment went up, and the Democrats took control of Congress in 1958 and the presidency in 1960.

President Kennedy did support tax rate cuts, and they did reduce the deficit, but President Johnson built the Great Society on a flurry of new entitlement spending, another tax hike, and massive federal debt. President Nixon instituted price controls, passed a 10 percent tariff increase, and spurred the regulatory state by creating the EPA, OSHA, the Clean Water Act, and more.

President Carter fully subscribed to government fine-tuning of the economy, but his intervention hit

a sour note. He encouraged the Fed to inflate the money supply and the highest inflation in the 20th century resulted. Turning to the energy crisis, Carter called it "the moral equivalent of war." He tried gas rationing, wellhead price controls, a windfall profits tax, and urging businesses and households to turn down their thermostats. When all of this failed, he declared, "We must face the fact that the energy shortage is permanent." By 1980, Carter's misery index (unemployment plus inflation) was up to 20.8 percent -- quite a contrast from Coolidge's 4.3 percent during the Roaring Twenties.

After 50 years of interventionism, most Americans (according to Gallup polls) no longer believed their children would have more prosperity in the next generation. Although our federal spending had not stopped the U.S. economy from growing -- at least not until the Carter administration -- it had not delivered the freedom to expand into strong economic gain. As economist Lester Thurow concluded, "The engines of economic growth have shut down here and across the globe, and they are likely to stay that way for years to come."

Ronald Reagan thought differently. After he became president, he put Calvin Coolidge's picture up in the cabinet room, and thus signaled his intent to pursue Coolidge's constitutional policies of more limited government. Reagan did not accept the advice of Keynesian economist Paul Samuelson, author of the best-selling economics textbook in the United States. Samuelson suggested "five to ten years of austerity, in which the unemployment rate rises toward an 8 or 9 percent average and real output inches upward at barely 1 or 2 percent per year, might accomplish a gradual taming of U.S. inflation." Instead, Reagan, through Fed chairman Paul Volcker, stopped --or at least slowed down-printing money and inflating the currency. Also, Reagan, on the day he was inaugurated, signed an executive order ending all price controls on oil and natural gas. Then he promoted a series of tax rate cuts on corporate and personal income. In other words, his strategy was stop the printing presses, free up the flow of oil, and turn entrepreneurs loose.

And it worked -- in a spectacular way. In Reagan's presidency, the U.S. GNP grew by more than one-third -- a record 6.8 percent in 1984 alone. Inflation and unemployment plummeted and Reagan's misery index when he left office was a mere 8 percent -- exceeded at that time in the 20th century by Coolidge alone.

WHAT MADE REAGAN'S PROSPERITY different from the 1920s was that it lasted for fully 25 years. Coolidge's limited government dominated only his administration because he was followed by Hoover and FDR -- two of the most persistent interventionists of the 20th century. Reagan was followed by Bush, Clinton, and Bush, who were not exactly constitutionalists, but they did emulate some of Reagan's actions. At least they avoided massive government spending. George H. W. Bush, like Hoover after Coolidge, did raise the top income tax rate, but only from 28 to 31 percent. Clinton further hiked that rate to 39.6 percent, and the American economy stumbled a bit in the early 1990s. But the Republicans in Congress were led by Newt Gingrich, the constitutionalist Speaker of the House, and in 1994 he masterminded a Republican capture of Congress. His Contract with America bound the GOP to 10 reforms to limit government.

To be fair, President Clinton accepted some of these reforms and they transformed his presidency. First, he cut the capital gains tax, and business began to expand. Then he signed the third Republican welfare reform bill, which slashed the welfare rolls from more than 5 million to fewer than 2 million people. From 1994 to 2000, Clinton enjoyed prosperity, a low misery index, and even budget surpluses in the last years of his administration.

President George W. Bush had a brief slowdown in 2001 because of the dot-com bubble and the 9/11 attacks. But to his credit, he resisted some pleas to inflate the currency and spend his way back to prosperity. Instead, he further limited government's role in the economy by cutting the top income tax rate back to 35 percent, slashing the capital gains tax from 20 to 15 percent, and reducing the dividend tax from 39.6 to 15 percent. That produced what economics writer Stephen Moore called a "supply-side recovery." Business capital spending increased and, according to Moore, median household wealth increased by almost $20,000 ($40,000 to $60,000) from 2003 to 2007. Furthermore, individual and corporate tax revenue increased by 40 percent -- the largest dollar amount of revenue increase in U.S. history.

With U.S. economic growth dominating the world, leaders in other countries began to imitate the U.S. and reduce their governments' roles in their economies. New Zealand curtailed farm subsidies and saw growth in agriculture; Ireland slashed its corporate income tax rate from 48 to 12.5 percent and in 10 years its economy easily outperformed the European average, and more than 1,000 international companies moved there. Russia cut its income tax from more than 50 percent to 13 percent and watched the revenue increase. More than 20 countries, including socialist Sweden, cut their income or corporate tax rates, and most enjoyed strong increases in economic growth. Germany and Switzerland even have no tax on long-term capital gains. The world followed the United States, which had more than doubled its GDP from 1982 to 2007.

President George W. Bush (unlike his father) did recognize the value in cutting tax rates. Unfortunately, he did not use his veto power to control spending. In fact, he encouraged federal intervention by promoting a prescription drug benefit for seniors. He allowed his fellow Republicans in Congress to use earmarks to deploy federal dollars into their districts at home. The classic example was the proposed (but so far not enacted) Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, a pet project of Sen. Ted Stevens, which cost $200 million to service an island of about 50 people.

During Bush's last year in office he veered far from constitutional government. When faced with rising unemployment, he supported not fiscal restraint but a $152 billion stimulus package. When the banking crisis hit later in 2008, he supported the TARP program of massive, and mandatory, relief for all large banks. The 25 years of steady growth and prosperity were over. Enter hope and change.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA fiercely admires FDR, and the two have much in common. Both went to Ivy League colleges and law school; then they started active political lives with victories in their state senates. Neither man had experience or interest in business, and both believed that the national economy needed much federal intervention to target spending and redistribute wealth.

Interestingly, both used the rhetoric of fiscal restraint in launching their presidential campaigns. FDR, as we have seen, promised a balanced budget, and 25 percent cuts in federal spending. Obama made a similar plea, only he did so more shrewdly. He knew that constitutionalists hated deficits because they shifted wealth to interest groups living now and imposed burdens on the future generations to pay the debt and the interest on it. Thus, when President Bush urged a raising of the debt ceiling in 2006, then senator Obama announced, "Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership."

Obama continued this cry for fiscal restraint during his campaign and sometimes argued that the new programs he was proposing would actually help achieve a balanced budget. For example, during his presidential campaign, he regularly presented universal health care as a money saver for the nation. More recently, as president, he said, "Our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close." The statisticians at the independent Congressional Budget Office emphatically disagree and argue that universal health care Obama-style will cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years, and that assumes rosy economic growth and no surprise expenses. Since almost all federal programs have cost overruns -- for example, "cash for clunkers" was three times the anticipated cost -- the $1 trillion deficit number is probably wildly optimistic.

Granted, when Obama came into office he faced hard economic times. So did FDR. In both cases, failed government programs triggered the crises. In the case of FDR, poor Fed policy, the highest tariff in U.S. history, and a huge income tax rate hike stifled economic growth. In the current crisis, the Community Reinvestment Act mandated that banks provide loans to low-income Americans who could not meet traditional criteria for safe lending. These dangerous loans increased sharply when the Fed lowered interest rates to 1 percent (and less) during 2003 and 2004.

Some critics warned that banks were making too many risky loans, but the banks simply sold the "toxic assets" to Fannie Mae (a New Deal creation) and Freddie Mac. Barney Frank told a nervous financial community not to worry. Critics of these loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he said, "exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness" and "conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see."

When the housing bubble broke in 2007, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with many banks, began to crumble. Thus the creation of TARP to supply the banks with a sufficient reserve to hold off massive collapses.

"NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE," Rahm Emanuel reportedly quipped, and President Obama early in his presidency has followed that advice. When we study his $787 billion stimulus package, and the huge annual budget that followed, three points need to be stressed. First, is the large numbers being used. FDR popularized the idea of discussing spending programs in billions of dollars, instead of millions. With Obama, we have graduated to using trillions instead of billions. For example, the deficit for 2009 alone is projected to be $1.6 trillion. Until the 1980s, our entire national debt was only about half of that. Hitting the 1-trillion-dollar national debt in the 1980s was eye-popping and sobering, but now it seems tiny.

Second, such massive spending has not been followed by either economic growth or a decline in unemployment. The same happened to FDR when he launched a flurry of spending in 1933. After two years of FDR's unprecedented spending and deficits, the economy was sluggish and unemployment was 22 percent. When Obama sponsored his $787 billion stimulus package, he bragged it would "create or save" about 600,000 jobs. Instead, we have lost more than that in the past year, as unemployment has lurched from 8 to almost 10 percent. Meanwhile, economic growth has stagnated.

Third, such massive federal spending has helped transfer cash from taxpayers to targeted interest groups. Not just the stimulus package, with its aid for education, green jobs, and community organizing, but Obama's omnibus spending bill had more than 9,000 earmarks in it. Cap and trade, and even universal health care, target aid to special interests and also favor unions. Obama has endorsed Card Check, which makes union organizing much easier, and he has increased the power and wealth of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), among others. When General Motors came under government control, Obama made sure the UAW received aid beyond that mandated by legal bankruptcy laws.

To pay for this cornucopia of spending, President Obama, like FDR, has targeted rich Americans. In fact, Obama has promised tax breaks for those Americans earning under $250,000 and wants to leave the bill for his programs with the upper 1 to 5 percent of American families. He has proposed increases in the income tax rate and the capital gains tax, which, if enacted, are likely to stifle investing and entrepreneurship. When FDR raised the marginal income tax rate to 79 percent, he discouraged investors from starting or expanding businesses.

In 1929, with the top income tax rate at 24 percent, federal income tax revenue was $1.1 billion; in 1935, with the top rate at 79 percent, income tax revenue had plummeted to $527 million. Thus, FDR had to rely on (and sometimes increase) excise taxes on cigarettes, liquor, cars, gas, telephone calls, and movie tickets to pay for his New Deal. Likewise, Obama has already signed a tax hike on cigarettes, and he is discussing higher taxes on gas, wine, liquor, and soft drinks. Since these excise taxes tend to hit lower-income earners hard, that will mean a transfer of wealth from lower incomes to targeted special interests.

When, during the campaign, President Obama was asked about the data that showed that cutting tax rates increased revenues, he brushed it all aside and said the issue of fairness was most important. But the most recent data (from 2006) on income taxes shows that the top 1 percent of the population pays 39.9 percent of all income taxes. What is their fair share? And what is the fair share for the bottom half of all workers, who currently pay 2 percent of all income taxes?

HERE IS ANOTHER QUESTION: What will Obama do when his policies fail, when economic stagnation and unemployment persist at high rates? When FDR faced that problem throughout the 1930s, he had three responses. First, he used businessmen as a scapegoat for supposedly thwarting recovery. With high tax rates on income, corporations, and even the undistributed profits of corporations, most businessmen refused to risk their capital. FDR denounced them, and even used the IRS against some of them (Andrew Mellon in particular). Ray Moley, one of FDR's speechwriters, discussed this strategy at length with the president. According to Moley, FDR "launched into a denunciation of bankers and business men and said that every time they made an attack on him, as they did in the Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., he gained votes and that the result of carrying on this sort of warfare was to bring the people to his support."

Obama has already adopted this scapegoat approach. He started with President Bush, the alleged source of most economic trouble, and then, like FDR, shifted to businessmen. They were benefiting from tax cuts and their salaries were outrageous. With health care, Obama switched to insurance companies, who were supposedly ripping off consumers. Doctors as well, the president insisted, were removing tonsils unnecessarily and cutting off feet for loads of cash.

Businessmen may well return for an encore of denunciation. The Fed has inflated the money supply more dangerously than ever before in history, and we run a strong risk of inflation. When that happened to Jimmy Carter, he blamed businessmen for raising prices, and that option will be open to Obama as well.

FDR's second tactic for surviving failed policies was to use much of his federal spending, in effect, to buy votes. When the WPA received $4.8 billion in 1935, much of it was targeted to key voter groups for his re-election bid in 1936. As Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia concluded, "The 1936 elections would have been much closer had my party not had a 4 billion, 800 million dollar relief bill as campaign fodder."

In a somewhat similar way, Obama has benefited from the work of ACORN, which registered more than 1.7 million voters between 2004 and 2008. Rep. Darrell Issa has issued an 88-page report documenting illegal registrations and other criminal activity. Two amateur sleuths, with videos documenting ACORN officials offering to help set up brothels with underage immigrants, may have damaged ACORN beyond repair. The House and Senate have voted to cut off its funding.

Oddly, FDR also lost much of his WPA war chest when reporter Thomas Stokes exposed how the WPA used its workers to campaign for one of FDR's favorite senators, Alben Barkley of Kentucky. Stokes won a Pulitzer Prize for his exposé, and Congress passed the Hatch Act to limit the campaign activities of federal employees.

Like FDR, Obama has much of the media in his favor. In radio, FDR solidified that advantage by having the FCC reduce the period for renewing radio licenses from three years to six months; some radio station owners who did not cooperate with FDR did not have their licenses renewed. When FDR gave a fireside chat, radio stations rarely provided rebuttals. When Obama makes a major address, NBC, CBS, and ABC tend to be supportive, but Fox News presents both sides and talk radio is often critical.

If President Obama persists in massive federal intervention, he will -- if history repeats itself -- be faced with economic stagnation and high unemployment after four years in office. Whether he can be reelected, and win further support for his ideas depends on whether he is more like FDR or Jimmy Carter. With the WPA, a good scapegoat, and strong media support, FDR won elections and had high poll numbers even when he had unemployment of more than 20 percent in 1939. But even FDR had some luck. Polls had him losing to Willkie in 1940 until World War II knocked the ongoing depression off the front pages of newspapers.

Obama is developing his own scapegoats and he still has strong media support; even though he may have lost ACORN, he still has the 1.7 million voters registered by them in recent years. FDR had the good fortune to draw Alf Landon, the lackluster governor of Kansas, as his opponent in 1936; Jimmy Carter, by contrast, drew the great communicator Ronald Reagan in 1980. If Obama in 2012 should face someone who can effectively articulate the historical vision of economic growth and prosperity through limited government, then there will be new hope and change: hope for constitutionalism and change in the executive branch.

When President Barack Obama was trying to sell his $787 billion economic stimulus plan to the American people, there was no louder cheerleader for the plan than Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. Zandi confidently produced scientific tables purporting to prove that for every $1 the Obama administration gave to states, GDP would grow by exactly $1.36. Zandi later produced an analysis claiming that Obama's stimulus would create 2.2 million jobs.

But as millions of Americans now know all too well, Zandi was very, very wrong. President Obama's stimulus has completely failed to create any jobs and instead has witnessed more than 4 million jobs lost in 2009. Commenting on the state of the U.S. economy, Zandi now tells USA Today: "It's getting increasingly unusual that we're not seeing a hiring kick set in."

If Zandi and his allies on the left want to figure out why the economy is not creating any jobs, they need to put down their failed Keynesians formulas and talk to real business owners and executives. Executives like Dan DiMicco, CEO of steelmaker Nucor Corp, who told the Wall Street Journal: "Companies large and small are saying, `I am not going to do anything until these things - health care, climate legislation - go away or are resolved.'" Or Porta-King CEO Steve Schulte who tells USA Today his company is not investing because "proposals in Congress to tackle climate change and overhaul health care would raise costs." These businessmen have every right to be worried. As we've detailed before, the Senate Health Bill currently being debated in the Senate would be a disaster for the U.S. economy:

Kills Jobs: All told, the Reid Bill raises taxes by $370.2 billion over the next ten years with many of those taxes starting to be collected this year with unemployment at 10.2% and rising. Worse, the bill includes a job killing employer mandate which taxes companies for hiring people. Specifically, companies with more than 50 employees that do not offer a health plan approved by federal bureaucrats will be forced to pay a $750 per employee job tax.

Hurts Small Businesses: The Reid Bill acknowledges it is terrible public policy for small businesses and tries to address this problem by including a "small business tax credit" to minimize the impact of the job killing employer mandates and regulation-caused increases in private health insurance premiums. But the tax credit only lasts two years and largely excludes small business owners, small businesses with high-average payrolls, and firms with 25 or more workers. Essentially, after all exclusions, the only eligible firms are those firms with 10 or fewer workers as well as those with low-income workers-the least likely to offer coverage even with a significant price reduction.

Hurts Poor: The Reid Bill's employer mandate is especially punitive on poor families. Firms that hire an employee from a low-income family who qualify for an insurance subsidy are charged a tax penalty of $3,000. So a company could save $3,000 by hiring, say, someone with a working spouse or a teenager with working parents, rather than a single mother with three children. Worse, companies only have to pay $750 an employee instead of $3,000 if one quarter of employees are low-income. This creates a situation where, if a company has a lot of low-income workers, they can actually save money by dropping their health plan and just dumping all their employees into the federal exchange at their own expense.

This morning the White House will host a "Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth" or what everybody else is calling a "jobs summit." At the summit, the 130 invited executives, union leaders, academics and local government officials will discuss what the White House wants to call a "jobs plan" but what everybody else is calling a second stimulus. But the ideas being discussed for the second stimulus are the same failed ideas from the first stimulus.

It is way past time for a new direction. Yesterday, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) outlined a seven point common sense plan for job creation here at the Heritage Foundation. Item number 1: "Halt Any Proposed Rule or Regulation Expected to Have an Economic Cost, Result in Job Loss, or Have a Disparate Impact on Small Businesses." As Cantor explained in his speech, that means a merciful end to Obamacare.

* During a Senate Armed Services hearing yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified that the July 2011 date for a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is "locked in."

* President Obama's withdrawal date rattled nerves in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as American diplomats worked to convince the two countries at the center of the president's war strategy that the United States would not cut and run.

* When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the White House ordered the F-22 the servicemen had placed in the hangar moved because they didn't want Obama speaking in front of the weapon he fought so hard to kill.

* According to the Gallup Job Creation Index - based on U.S. employees' self-reports of hiring and firing activity at their workplaces, job creation remained weak in November.

* President Obama's $787 billion stimulus has been a boon for the economy of Washington, DC.

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

Eric Burns, once the host of Fox News Watch (an excellent show) writes an angry anti-FoxNews and mostly anti-Beck column for the Huffington Post. It is a little sad, as I remember Burns as a good host of a terrific show (one of Fox’s best):

CNN’s Saturday Morning Edition had a show segment where they mentioned Max Baucus nominating his girlfriend to serve as a federal prosecutor. Surprisingly enough, his party was never referred to in this story:

Rachel Maddox gives the real meaning of teabagging on her show, with video. She is confused by why she is blamed for using the term teabagger although, I do not recall anyone in the TEA party movement using the term teabagger (although, some signs said, Tea Bag Obama, apparently, I do not recall seeing them on the news until Maddox’s show):

Global Warming event cancelled due to the weather being too cold (something which has occurred on several occasions):

RUSH: I just had a chance to watch a little bit more of what he said, and let me translate this for you, Snerdley. I'm watching it with Snerdley and it's fun because Snerdley is sitting there shouting and muttering and all that at the television set with every sentence Obama says -- and I, of course, just sit there and study it. "Hmm, hmm, hmm." And basically what Obama said today was that he doesn't know how to stimulate growth in the private sector. He doesn't know how to do it. He has to bring in a bunch of people to now segregate in groups, and he's gonna check back with them later this afternoon to get their ideas. He doesn't know how to do it. I mean, if you know how to watch these things as I do, that's what just happened here. Now, what Obama wants people to think is he's got his sleeves rolled up and he's working hard on it and he knows that growth can only come in the private sector. That's what he says. He's saying all the right things.

But what he's really saying is he needs to convene all these people and he doesn't know how to do it himself. The reason he's convening all these people is it's a circus. This is a show, and this arrogant little guy, he just said (doing impression), "All right, you segregate into your groups. I'm going to be back later this afternoon to get your reports -- and I want details! I want details." What's he doing now? Where did he go? Go off to have lunch, play tiddlywinks in the Oval Office? What did he do? All these groups segregate and so forth, but you must hear this. What...? It's so timely. It is a godsend for all of you in this audience to hear this. If you have doubted me on occasion in my contention that what is happening in the US private sector is intentional, if you have doubted me when I have suggested to you that Obama looks at this country with a chip on his shoulder -- it's unfair, it is unjust, it is it is immoral; there's no equality, there's no fairness -- all of this is wrapped up in this quote. And those of you who own small businesses were attacked. You were blamed for the current joblessness and economic crisis that we face.

OBAMA: Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?

RUSH: (pause) A little dead air never hurt anybody here, folks. So what businesses normally do... What this man pretends not to understand is that the objective of a business is not to hire people so that he looks good. The objective of a business is not to raise employment so that Obama's poll numbers go up. The first objective of a business is to stay in business. If that doesn't happen, all the rest is academic. Most people, other than the... Well, I'm not going to characterize them the way I think about them. Other than the people that live off everybody else in these so-called nonprofits. But everybody in business needs a profit to stay in business. We are in a recession, sir! We are in a horribly rotten, bad, recession. It is a struggle to stay in business. People cannot raise prices. The unemployed cannot buy.

It is a struggle to stay in business. It is a struggle to show a profit! A profit is the only way to stay in business. I mean, you can borrow, you can do that, but in a climate like this if you can even get credit you're just digging yourself into a hole. So he goes out there today -- and this was at the beginning of his remarks. He goes out there today and basically chastises you in small business for being greedy! With sales down, you are greedy! You can't raise prices, your sales are down, and you have now found a way to enrich yourself at the expense of "workers" because you now have a new culture. Embedded in your culture, you are making your existing workers work harder. So you are becoming a sweatshop!

You are not hiring new people because you are greedy, and you want your profits, and we've gotta do something about that. How do we make you start hiring people? What Obama wants out of this is further class envy. He wants to ramp up the anti-business sentiment that exists in this country, particularly among the unemployed. He wants the unemployed mad at you; not at him, or government, or Democrats in Congress. He wants everybody who is about to lose a job -- everybody who's overworked, everybody who isn't getting a raise, everybody who's getting job salary cuts -- blaming business. Not him. Not government. Not policy. This is traditional, it is a tactic out of the well-worn Democrat Party playbook. Hell, Democrat Party playbook? This is a page out of the leftist worldwide playbook. Listen to this sound bite again.

RUSH: Stop the tape right there. "Squeeze" productivity. Squeeze productivity, squeeze workers! Make you work harder at no additional pay! Squeeze productivity. Productivity is the objective! Something has to be produced. Something has to be produced and in significant quantities or levels that enough is paid to keep the business going! We're in a recession and yet this man insists on blaming you so that you will get mad at your boss or even small business owners. He wants you mad at the business sector in general. Here's the rest of it.

OBAMA: And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture.

RUSH: Stop the tape. Cost-cutting and wage cutting for the pursuit of profit -- which is evil -- has now become embedded in your culture. I hope you realize, those of you in small business, how you are being targeted today. I hope you realize what this summit has as its primary purpose. Oh, yeah, he's saying all the right things. "We know that real recovery will only come in the private sector" and so forth, and yet let's go trash it. Let's get as many people in this country as angry at businessmen and businesswomen as we can. (doing Obama impression) "Not me! I don't want 'em blaming me. I don't want 'em blaming Nancy or Harry. Blame, uhhh, Walmart," and then this, the big piece de resistance.

OBAMA: That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?

RUSH: I'll take a stab at that. Get the hell out of their lives! Cease and desist on this debacle known as health care reform. Stop any precedence of a carbon tax under the hoax premise of "saving the planet." Start talking about tax cuts. Stop spending these people's children and grandchildren into debt that they'll never recover from. That's how you do it! You basically have to quit, sir. If you want to revive the private sector, resign.

RUSH: A couple of more sound bites from Obama's professorial lecture to the students where he told them to gather and come up with ideas while he's out playing golf and he'll check back with them later. Here's the first of these additional two.

OBAMA: I want to be clear. While I believe that government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector. We don't have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis.

RUSH: Uh, wait a minute, now. Just a year ago, almost a year ago, he said only government could fix the problem, and now we don't have enough public dollars to fill the hole that private dollars created as a consequence of the crisis? Uh, true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector. Not as long as you're around with these policies, sir. Not as long as you are around proposing your agenda and passing it. Finally, Coach Obama sends the attendants out to their little huddle groups.

OBAMA: I need everybody to bring their A-game here today. I'm going to be asking some tough questions, I will be listening for some good answers and I don't want to just brainstorm up at 30,000 feet. I want details in our discussion today. I'm looking for specific recommendations that can be implemented that will spur on job growth as quickly as possible. I want to be clear. We won't overcome our unemployment challenge in just a few hours this afternoon. I assure you there is extraordinary skepticism that any discussions like this can actually produce results. I'm well aware of that. I don't mind skepticism. If I listened to the skeptics I wouldn't be here, but I am confident that we'll make progress.

RUSH: "I want details. I'm looking for specific recommendations. I want to be clear." None of it's gonna work. Bring their A-game. Folks, the only way that somebody can bring their A game is if somebody's got the guts to say, "Mr. President, you need to stop your agenda. It's your agenda that's causing the problem, sir. Have you considered resigning? Maybe go run the UN."

RUSH: This sound bite from Obama today, this, folks, is the clincher, this is how we know the whole thing today is strictly BS.

OBAMA: If there are things that we're doing here in Washington that are inhibiting you then we want to know about.

RUSH: That's all you need to know, this is a dog-and-pony show; it is a scam; it is a sham. In fact, it is a golden oldie. I have to think they're doing this out of panic and the unemployment number's going to come out tomorrow and it's going to be up. His numbers are cratering and I have to think here that this is not good, you say things like this and go out there and bash small business and greedy profiteers and so forth, and then say "if we're inhibiting you in any way," your whole administration is a giant inhibition standing in the way of all kinds of progress, on purpose. That's why all this makes me livid.

RUSH: Look at it this way, folks. Would you hire Barack Obama to run your business? Well, then why let him run your business? Would you hire him as an employee in your business? Why let him be part of your business? He's admitting he doesn't know anything about it today with his summit.

RUSH: Rather than just play bites from the speech last night, we want to play bites from the president's March 27th speech at the Executive Office Building when he made a speech on Afghanistan and contrast that with a similar area of the speech last night at West Point. So in March, he was convinced of the danger of letting the "Tal-ee-bahn," as he says, have the country.

OBAMA MARCH 27TH: Al-Qaeda and its allies, the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks, are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that Al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from a safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows Al-Qaeda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill some of our people as they possibly can.

RUSH: Last night he sounded less convinced, even though HE said he was convinced.

OBAMA DECEMBER 1ST: ...I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by Al-Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and Al-Qaeda can operate with impunity.

RUSH: Okay, so one of the things you're going to conclude is you listen to these side-by-side is: "No wonder he sounded so bored last night, he's given the speech before! He gave it before." Now, March 27th, 2009, here's another side-by-side comparison.

OBAMA MARCH 27TH: For six years Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq. Now we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals.

RUSH: All right. So it was bash Bush time in March. Here it is from last night...

OBAMA DECEMBER 1ST: The Iraq war drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy, and our national attention -- and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world.

RUSH: So he's given the speech before. Here the final two, March 27th, 2009, we have "a clear and focused goal."

OBAMA MARCH 27TH: We have a clear and focused goal: To interrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to

prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just.

OBAMA DECEMBER 1ST: Our overarching goal remains the same: To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

RUSH: All right, now, here's the question that occurs to me, ladies and gentlemen. The speeches are identical. As you just heard, they are identical. Same amount of passion, same strategery, same words. And so the question occurs to me, your host, is: What took a hundred days to figure out strategy? It's the same speech, almost word-for-word in sections from last March! So what took 100 days from the request by General McChrystal? And I'll tell you what took 100 days. It's exactly what we were told by Richard Benedetto in USA Today. He was making it look like he was studying the issue, deliberating, taking comments of all sides, listening to every bit of advice. It's so crucial Obama was seeking the best and brightest he had access to! He gave the same speech, same speech last night that he gave in March. It didn't require 100 days. The strategy last night was no different than the strategy in March. In fact, there was no strategy. There were a couple of objectives, but no strategy. The only thing different about last night, from March, was we got a withdrawal date of summer 2011.

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to say something to you here very important. I'm going to take a brief departure from the jobs summit focus of the program today. Something just struck me. Sometimes these things happen. Actually, this is related to the jobs summit because this is what lit the candle, firing the neurons in my exceptional and unique brain. I said, "We all have the blueprint for coming out of a recession: 1982. In fact, we could go back to Kennedy, John Kennedy, who preceded Reagan in making the case -- the supply-side case -- for income tax cuts to create economic growth in the private sector." Then I recounted the same situation occurring in the nineties after Clinton failed with health care and the Republicans won the Congress. And the idea hit me. I don't know how these things happen -- and then I flashed to, "Who are we targeting in health care?" Old people. We're rationing the care of old people.

We're shutting down nursing homes. Why focus on the elderly? In political circles the elderly have been gold. They're the ones that show up and vote. They're the ones you cater to. But there are $500 billion in Medicare cuts for the elderly! Why do this? Then it hit me -- and don't doubt me on this. Leftists, Marxists, socialists -- wherever they are -- are leftists, Marxists, socialists. What's the first thing Mao Tse-tung did? He took out the educated people. He took out people who had a cultural, historical memory of China's past. He killed them, and Stalin did the same. He took out the people who remembered how things work. The left has been busy rewriting, revising the history of Reaganism and the eighties and tax cuts ever since it happened. They have been hell-bent on our population not knowing the truth, particularly the young population that was born during that period of time or ten years prior to it. They want them thinking the exact opposite of the truth, and they have to eliminate the people who know the truth to cement their power. Mao Tse-tung did it, Stalin did it. "Are you comparing Obama to those people?" No. Not in terms of genocide. But they're not invited to the summit. The people that know what to do to fix this are not invited to the summit, folks.

RUSH: You know, I'm reminded that I forgot to mention Pol Pot. Pol Pot wiped out, in Cambodia, an entire educated middle class. He didn't consider them counterrevolutionary enough. They were the problem. These dictator types have to get rid of the people who know what has worked in the past, all the cultural and social goodness of a society, if you're going to ruin it and take it over.

RUSH: Okay, I'm looking for ways here to illustrate and dramatize the Porkulus, just how much money $800 billion really is. And, of course, we're told we've got a couple hundred billion in TARP money that hasn't been spent, so we've got basically a $1 Trillion slush fund for the executive branch, for Obama to use.

Now, even the liberals in Congress and even some in the State-Controlled Media were shocked when they learned that Mary Landrieu was bribed with $300 million for her "yes" vote on Obamacare. But even that is chump change. The liberals have much, much street money to buy votes now. And that more than anything threatens our democracy. Look at it this way. The stimulus that did not stimulate has enough money in it to give $1 billion (billion with a B) to every Democrat Senator, every Democrat member of the House, every governor $1 billion each and not spend half the stimulus money. If you add TARP into it, maybe just a little over half. Now, we hear so much about the dangers of "money in politics." I have news for you. It's not the five or $10 million a lobbyist tosses around. It's the hundreds of billions the liberals use to buy votes, to buy influence.

They're buying Congress, buying the auto industry, buying the banking industry, and soon the health care industry. The liberals are looting Fort Knox and hardly anybody seems to care. Well, I do, and I know you do, too. A lot of people on the left don't care but the polling data indicates that Americans are getting fed up with this. Seventy one percent are very angry. Yeah, that was $300 million to Landrieu but she could have gotten a billion. And there are ways for Obama to give that money to these people. There are ways for that money to get to them, under supposedly and in supposedly official ways that can be used for reelection campaigns. This is their ace-in-the-hole against plummeting poll numbers.

RUSH: Sound bites, couple real quick ones here. This is on the McLaughlin Group Sunday morning. Syndicated columnists Pat Buchanan and Eleanor Clift have this very brief exchange about climate change.

RUSH: "There's no known proof that there's God, either. How much proof do you need, Pat?" Religion does not pretend to be science; science is now pretending to be religion. You see how easy this is? Here's Paul Krugman. Now, this guy's a genuine idiot. This was on This Week during the roundtable. He said this about the e-mails from East Anglia University...

KRUGMAN: All these e-mails, um, people have never seen what academic discussion looks like. There is not a single smoking gun in there. There's nothing in there. And the travesty is that people are not able to explain why the fact that 1998 was a very warm year, uhh, doesn't actually mean that global warming has stopped.

RUSH: Here is a respected economist in the New York Times proving his absolute idiocy. Ah, we just don't know. The scientists use the word "trick" and they send e-mails to each other. We just don't know what an academic discussion looks like. We're too stupid, too stupid to understand what we've read. It's sort of like saying, "Hey, look, of course politicians steal. They're politicians! What's the big deal? It's no different than that. Of course scientists lie. That's what they do! You're just not smart enough to understand what it all means," and then during the roundtable, George Will spoke with Cokie Roberts. He said, "Is there a larger venture capital firm in this country than the Energy Department of this government which right now is sending out billions and billions of dollars in speculation on green energy?"

ROBERTS: But I think that that's something the -- the -- the American people want. I mean we -- we -- we want green jobs. We don't want to see those polar bears, you know, on those ice floes without any ice around them.

RUSH: Cokie Roberts speaking for liberals everywhere: Forget the evidence. Forget the evidence! We need green jobs. We'll support cap and tax to save the polar bears.

This is what an academic discussion looks like. George Will is an academic; Cokie Roberts fashioned herself as one. Here's an academic discussion. "Of course the American people want that. We want green jobs." There aren't any! There's no such thing! "We don't want to see the polar bears on ice floes without...?" Those are doctored pictures, Cokie. Besides, a polar bear can swim 60 miles. Sometimes they like to frolic, but those are not melting glaciers. How is it that we know this and the supposedly smarter media people around us just are as ignorant as a whale?

NY Times seems to be quite happy that the stigma of getting food stamps has been lessened:

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 #104	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	December, 5, 2009