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).

Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown square off in a special election this Tuesday to replace the late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. So far, the Democrats have sent in the big guns (Obama and Bill Clinton) and advertising for each candidate is virtually continual. Polls are all over the place here (although most have them neck and neck, within the margin or error). This vote could be the one which determines the outcome of the healthcare bill, as it could break the super-majority of the Senate. Massachusetts has its own healthcare plan, and that must factor into the voting.

Coakley run a gaff-filled campaign, misspelling Massachusetts on a video ad; saying there are no more terrorists left in Afghanistan, saying that devout Catholic nurses should not work in the emergency room, and a person with Coakley pushed a reporter to the ground for asking her questions she did not like.

Backroom deal is cut between the healthcare framers and the unions: unions will not be charged the 40% tax on their gold-plated healthcare plans until 2018.

Hide the decline Michael Mann gets $500,000 in grant money from the Stimulus bill.

NBC realizes that putting Jay Leno on before the news was a bad idea. At this point, it appears as if they will put him back after the news and hang Conan O’Brien out to dry.

Pat Robertson explains the Haitian earthquake: “[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you get us free from the prince." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”

Danny Glover offers another explanation for the Haitian earthquake: "When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I'm sayin'?"

New York Sen. Charles Schumer sends out a fundraising e-mail in which he calls Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown a "far-right tea-bagger." Tea-bagger is a pejorative referring to a homosexual practice, and applied to those who support the TEA party movement. It is exactly the same as calling someone a faggot or a homo.

Liberal Ed Schultz said, “Ed Schultz: 'If I lived in Massachusetts I'd Vote 10 Times...I'd Cheat to Keep These Bastards Out'”

Ed Schultz again: "If the tea party-endorsed candidate nabs Ted Kennedy`s seat in Massachusetts it`s the end of change as we know it" Maybe he is not getting enough listeners anymore?

From the Brown/Coakley debate:

GERGEN (the Moderator): Mr. Brown, you said you're for health care reform, just not this bill. If this bill fails, it could well be another 15 years before we see health care reform efforts again in Washington. Are you willing, under those circumstances, to say, "I'm going to sit in Teddy Kennedy's seat, and I'm going to be the person that's going to block it for another 15 years?"

BROWN: With all due respect, it's not the Kennedys' seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat.

Another Scott Brown quote from the debate: "To think that we would give people who want to kill us constitutional rights and let them lawyer up ... makes no sense to me."

Speaking of hyperbole, Martha Coakley accuses Scott Brown in one of her mailers, “1736 women were raped in Massachusetts in 2008. Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn them all away.”

After Democrats voted down a motion to compel Eric Holder to investigate an instance of voter intimidation (3 Black Panthers, one with a nightstick in front of a polling place), Kris Kobach, former chief advisor, justice department commented: “In a typical year, the Justice Department gets maybe two or three complaints of voter intimidation. In 2008, they got 48 complaints of voter intimidation. And then take the broader context of hundreds of complaints of voter fraud across the country. And so it was clear that many people brought credible complaints of efforts to take away the integrity, to affect the integrity of our elections, and voter intimidation and voter fraud go hand in glove. This isn't isolated incident.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said he uses a tax preparer for his own returns: "I've used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer."

Of the White House claim that the Stimulus Bill saved 1.5 million to 2 million jobs, Christina Romer said, "That's truly a stunning and important effect...It has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do."

Moderate liberal Harold Ford Jr., in contemplating running for Senator in New York, “If I am elected Senator from New York, Harry Reid will not instruct me how to vote.”

Elizabeth Edwards apparently called John Edwards, “A hick with redneck parents.”

Glenn Beck got a great response from his show with the brothers (and sisters), so he did another one. It was excellent:

This is a very good vid, sort of a take off of 24 Hours, called Keep America Safe: 100 Hours

Here is President Obama making promises of what is going to happen once he becomes president:

Here is what President Bush said about adding troops to Iraq and how then Senator Biden and then Senator Obama telling you how much of a failure this surge would be:

Whether you like Hannity or not, he did a good interview with the Game Change authors (this should fascinate anyone who likes politics):

Obama's TSA Nominee Characterized Groups That Were Domestic Security Threats as `Anti-Abortion' and Having `Christian Identity' (video and text):

“President Obama recently appointed a transgendered woman to the department of commerce; it is the highest position a transgendered person has held since Janet Reno,” said Jodi Miller.

“Little Wayne’s new album was accidently shipped early to hundreds of customers on Amazon dot com. Apparently, Little Wayne was so upset, he busted 3 caps in his own ass.” Jodi Miller.

1) Okay, okay, maybe Sarah Palin is not exceptionally bright and maybe President Obama is. It is becoming apparent that Obama’s high I.Q. is not helping our economy very much.

2) After seeing 3 interviews with Sarah Palin in one week, I think I am Palin’ed out.

3) Bernie Goldberg observed that Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich moved effortlessly from politicians to being political analysts. He asks if Sarah Palin can do the same.

4) IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman hires a tax service to do his taxes because the tax laws are too complex.

5) It appears as if Scott Brown is not running any attack ads against Martha Coakley.

6) I don’t recall who pointed this out, but President Obama even today asserts that the Gitmo Prison is a terrorist enlistment tool. Hmm, I wonder about drone attacks...I wonder how terrorists feel about those and their collateral damage?

8) I was a bit disappointed with O’Reilly’s interview of Palin; she seemed to stray from giving a clear answer to some of the questions.

9) If you are a liberal, how do you feel about one person calling another, faggot, homo, gay-boy? It is exactly the same as calling someone a tea-bagger.

Do you wonder why Obama and Congress are trying to figure out from where they can get more tax dollars?

Oppose Dem-care 52% (interestingly enough, Obama has said little or nothing about healthcare in the past month)

Okay, okay, to the liberal mind, Harry Reid is not racist; and that is fine by me. However, you know had any Republican said, “President Obama is very-well spoken; he hardly uses a Negro-dialect at all;” there would be a front-page crap-storm on almost every media outlet, and that Republican would be eviscerated. You don’t think so? Do you remember what happened to Rush Limbaugh a few months ago?

Obama wants to go after the financial institutions who have paid the government back; here are some media headlines:

A meeting between Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and perhaps some other Democrats, deciding who they ought to tax more. Maybe Biden could be there too, “Fishermen, Firemen, Forest rangers, I’m just going with it; there are no wrong answers.” “You’re not getting it, Joe; we have to tax people we can demonize. This is why we are taxing the bankers and the financial institutions.”

A political meeting of Coakley and her ad writers; they begin with a few ads which Coakley has actually used (like Scott Brown wanting to turn rape victims away from hospitals) and moving into even more absurd ads (e.g., Scott Brown wants to beat rape victims with a lead pipe and then smoke crack from this lead pipe).

Obama and the Democrats are spending money as quickly as possible, so they have to tax more and more.

One point I have driven home is just how amateurish President Obama and company are. Here is another example—they could have been out talking about the economy and jobs over the past year, yet quietly trying to pass healthcare and climate change legislation. That would have been the politically astute move for a dishonest person. Obama is dramatically dishonest, but he does not know how to run things.

Everyone agrees, conservatives and liberals alike, that.... This includes everyone between the far left to avowed communists.

How is it possible for any Republican to have a chance winning Teddy Kennedy’s Senate Seat? Do you think this has anything to do with the public’s reaction to your healthcare bill?

You think it is fair for banks which have paid back government loans with interest should now give the government even more money, while the institutions which actually caused the crisis still receive government money, still pay their top executives millions of dollars, and still owe the taxpayers money.

There is a reasonable chance of several busloads of paid Democratic operatives to converge on Massachusetts, and there may be a fair amount of voter fraud as well.

President Barrack Obama has proposed to levy a fee on the largest financial institutions in order “to recover every single dime the American people are owed.”

At first glance, it appears as though the President is saying, in this speech, that the American people want their money back from those who borrowed money from them. However, that is not what he is really saying. The large banks were called in, they were all told to take money from the government, so that no one would be concerned that this bank is ready to fail, but that another bank is not (based upon who took money and who did not).

Then the federal government stepped in to tell these same banks what they could and could not pay in bonuses. Apparently there is a number in the President’s head which is too high for a person to make if they work in the banking industry...and many people agree with this (not me).

This interfered with the banks making money and it interfered with executive pay, so nearly every bank paid the government back with interest (I think that Citibank is the only one which has not reimbursed the government).

The President has decided that is not enough. He now wants more money back from these firms who already paid back the money that they owed. As the President sees it, these banks were allowed to prosper and profit from this loan, so now, over a period of the next 10 years (and probably forever, as legislators rarely repeal taxes), the president wants these banks to cough up more money.

And—this is not very shocking—pundits and commentators from all over are saying, “This isn’t that much money” and “The banks can afford it.” (the article from which I have taken the President’s remarks will have a link to a discussion which follow his remarks).

(1) You lend Peter and Paul, two independent people, money. Peter pays you back, but Paul does not. So you go to Peter demanding that he pay back Paul’s share of the money.

(2) You agree to lend money to Peter at a specified interest rate and he pays you back with interest. Then you go back to him and say, “I don’t think I got enough interest, so you still ow me.”

There are exclusions. FNMA and FHLMC (Fannie and Freddie) handed out big bonuses to their executives, but did not pay back the government and are not being asked to pay this additional fee. GM and Chrysler are being asked to pay any additional funds back; right now, they aren’t even paying back what they owe.

The President’s remarks follow:

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: My commitment is to the taxpayer. My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people, folks who have not been made whole and who continue to face real hardship in this recession.

We want our money back. And we're going to get it. And that's why I'm proposing a financial crisis responsibility fee to be imposed on major financial firms until the American people are fully compensated for the extraordinary assistance they provided to Wall Street.

If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers.

The fee will be in place for 10 years, or as long as it takes to raise the full amount necessary to cover all taxpayer losses.

This will not be a cost borne by community banks or small financial firms. Only the largest firms, with more than $50 billion in assets, will be affected.

And we're already hearing a hue and cry from Wall Street suggesting that this proposed fee is not only unwelcome, but unfair, that by some twisted logic, it is more appropriate for the American people to bear the costs of the bailout, rather than the industry that benefited from it, even though these executives are out there giving themselves huge bonuses.

What I would say to these executives is this. Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal, or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I would suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities and I would urge you to cover the costs of the rescue not by sticking it to your shareholders or your customers or fellow citizens with the bill, but by rolling back bonuses for top earners and executives.

BINYAMIN APPELBAUM: They don't want a tax that would fall on everyone who received government aid. Rather, they want to collect the cost of that aid from the firms that they say caused the crisis.

These the largest financial firms, the ones that played on Wall Street, the ones that, you know, took advantage of the laxity in rules to make huge profits, and then to take huge losses. And those are the firms that the administration believes ought to cover the money that the government has spent rescuing the financial industry.

My comment: Two things made me bilious this week—I heard the phrase predatory lender on NPR again; and the president blamed the financial institutions for the economic mess that we are in. The firms which caused this economic crisis were FNMA and FHLMC (also known as Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac). At one time, these were decent government programs, which I, as a conservative, did not get upset over. What these two organizations do is, they buy up mortgages made by a number of banks and mortgage companies, and they gave these banks and mortgage companies more money to loan out. At one time, the FNMA and FHLMC guidelines were very strict. A home buyer had to qualify under a number of different rules; they had to hold their job for several years; they had to have a reasonable debt to income ratio; they had to be able to verify their income; they had to have almost spotless credit; and a certain percentage of the money had to come out of their pockets (it could not be borrowed).

These guidelines reduced the risk factor considerably. When a bank made a loan, they had to meet the FNMA or FHLMC guidelines. Obviously, meeting these guidelines usually guaranteed that the home loan would be paid back, making the loan a high-performing loan and a good, safe investment (for investments like, mortgage backed securities). This is why so many different investment portfolios included mortgage-backed securities—they were reliable.

Then one day, the rules all changed. No longer was good credit required. A person could be behind in their rent and still qualify. If they did not have a down payment? No problem. The American people would give them the money. Income? Tell me how much you make, and that is your income.

Those were the new FNMA and FHLMC standards. Furthermore, banks and mortgage companies were pressured to make mortgages to minorities, regardless of their qualifications.

Then end result was predatory lending practices based upon FNMA and FHLMC guidelines, and pressure from ACORN to lend. A company who did not make these risky loans may find that FNMA and FHLMC would not buy their mortgages any more.

The end result was, housing prices increased dramatically because of the increased demand, which produced the housing bubble. Mortgaged-backed securities, once a reliable investment, went to crap. Housing prices went up dramatically, and homeowners borrowed against their quickly-rising equity, and when the housing bubble burst, there they were, in a house that they owed 20% more than it is worth.

And Congress sits on the sidelines, and acts as if they had nothing to do with it. Our President, who argued against stricter guidelines for FNMA and FHLMC as a junior Senator, points his finger at the banks and said, “You did it, you lousy profit-mongers; give your money to us, because you’re bad and because we can better spend it.”

And yet, FNMA and FHLMC hand out bonuses and take more money from the government.

The panicked Democrats are thrashing about trying to come up with a way to save health care reform if Republican Scott Brown wins the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday to fill Ted Kennedy's seat.

The first scenario involves challenging the results of the election, no matter how much Brown wins by. The Democrats have already deployed their crack team of election law lawyers who will attempt to muck up the process of counting the ballots, challenging machine counts, trying to force a recount if the result is close enough, and generally throwing a monkey wrench into the proceedings.

The Massachusetts Secretary of State must certify the results within 10 days of the election. That means it's likely that the earliest Brown could be seated would be January 29 - barring challenges to the vote. It would only be earlier if the Democrats in the senate agreed to swearing Brown in before certification - good luck with that one.

If a Brown victory is within the 3-5% margin, it will be days, perhaps weeks before he is sworn in. The watchword will be "Delay" and if it's close enough, they will probably succeed in keeping the caretaker senator Paul Kirk in his seat until health care reform is safely passed which, according to ABC's Rick Klein, won't be until February 2 at the earliest.

But suppose Brown wins by a large margin or the Democrats run out of challenges before reform is passed? Then things can get a little sticky.

As the likelihood grows that Republicans could win the special election in Massachusetts, it's worth thinking again about alternatives for health care reform in case that happens. I see three, in descending order of preference:

1. Finish up the House-Senate negotiations quickly and hold a vote before Scott Brown is seated. Republicans will scream, but how could they scream any louder? It's a process argument of murky merits that will be long forgotten by November.

2. Get the House to pass the Senate bill, and maybe use a reconciliation bill (which only needs a Senate majority to pass) to implement as many House-Senate compromises as possible.

Option #3 is to flip Olympia Snowe. The Maine senator may very well end up voting for the revised package since, according to Chait, all of her concerns about the bill have been met. Her calculation now is purely political; how badly does she want to remain in the Republican party?

Mainer Andrew Ian Dodge insists that Snowe is never likely to bolt the GOP in Maine, even if the national Republicans would strip her of her seniority or punish her in other ways. But former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords bolted for a lot less than the Dems would offer Snowe to switch parties. It is a distinct possibility given the alternatives.

Obviously, #3 would be the preferred route. The fact that #1 is almost certainly off the table giving the time period I mentioned above, the only other option is to blow up the senate by using reconciliation to pass reform.

If the Democrats were to employ reconciliation in getting health care reform passed, the Republicans would have no choice but to bring the senate to a standstill. If they didn't, the Democrats would be able to ride roughshod over them for the rest of the year, not to mention destroying the principle of minority rights. It is a scorched earth option that the Democrats use at their own peril.

The only other option the Democrats have is to vote to get rid of the filibuster entirely. This, I don't see happening. Saner heads in the party realize that they will not always be in the majority and that the filibuster is a useful tool to block legislation. Besides, they would need a supermajority to change the rules of the senate which means several Republicans would have to go along with the scheme - not very likely.

The most likely scenario? If Scott Brown pulls off the upset and is seated before health care reform is passed, I think reform will die. It may not even be able to pass the House as a couple of dozen members take note of what happened in the most Democratic state in the union and resist voting for this unpopular monstrosity of a health care reform measure.

3. "I will make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork-barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws."

6. "When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we will put as many as possible online for every American to watch."

7. "When there is a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get."

8. "We will put every corporate tax break and every pork-barrel project online for every American to see. You will know who asked for them and you can cast your vote accordingly."

[My commentary: Of course, politicians make promises which they cannot keep and promises which they are unable to keep. However, the tenor of candidate Obama was being a new kind of president, one with an open administration, with the implication that he would listen to the people. As you will recall, when Obama became president, I had to admit that I did not know what he was going to do, as did many commentators, including those who strongly supported him. However, most should agree that the open and transparent administration, as well as the bipartisan approach, promised by both candidate Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi were just meaningless words. With a super-majority in both Congressional houses, Obama knew that he could push through any legislation that he wanted to; there was no reason to compromise or to consider those on the right.]

Can you imagine what would happen if a British politician had the guts to stand up in Parliament and say what Geert Wilders is saying, he would probably have his head cut of there and then by the Dhimmis in Parliament on behalf of their Islamic Kingdom that they are nurturing upon the British homeland. LH

"Madam Speaker, allow me, first, to express my sincere thanks to you personally for having planned a debate on Islam on the very day of my birthday. I could not have wished for a nicer present! Madam Speaker, approximately 1400 years ago war was declared on us by an ideology of hate and violence which arose at the time and was proclaimed by a barbarian who called himself the Prophet Mohammed.

Madam Speaker, let me start with the foundation of the Islamic faith, the Koran. The Koran's core theme is about the duty of all Muslims to fight non-Muslims; an Islamic Mein Kampf, in which fight means war, jihad. The Koran is above all a book of war, a call to butcher non-Muslims (2:191, 3:141, 4:91, 5:3), to roast them (4:56, 69:30-69:32), and to cause bloodbaths amongst them (47:4). Jews are compared to monkeys and pigs (2:65, 5:60, 7:166), while people who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God must according to the Koran be fought (9:30).

Madam Speaker, the West has no problems with Jews or Christians, but it does have problems with Islam. It is still possible, even today, for Muslims to view the Koran, which they regard as valid for all time, as a licence to kill. And that is exactly what happens. The Koran is worded in such a way that its instructions are addressed to Muslims for eternity, which includes today's Muslims. This in contrast to texts in the Bible, which is formulated as a number of historical narratives, placing events in a distant past. Let us remind ourselves that it was Muslims, not Jews or Christians, who committed the catastrophic terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London; and that it was no coincidence that Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered by a Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri.

Madam Speaker, I acknowledge that there are people who call themselves Muslims and who respect our laws. My party, the Freedom Party, has nothing against such people, of course. However, the Koran does have something against them. For it is stated in the Koran in Sura 2, verse 85, that those believers who do not believe in everything the Koran states will be humiliated and receive the severest punishment; which means that they will roast in Hell. In other words, people who call themselves Muslims but who do not believe, for example, in Sura 9, verse 30, which states that Jews and Christians must be fought, or, for example, in Sura 5, verse 38, which states that the hand of a thief must be cut off, such people will be humiliated and roast in Hell. Note that it is not me who is making this up. All this can be found in the Koran. The Koran also states that Muslims who believe in only part of the Koran are in fact apostates, and we know what has to happen to apostates. They have to be killed.

Madam Speaker, the Koran is a book that incites to violence. I remind the House that the distribution of such texts is unlawful according to Article 132 of our Penal Code. In addition, the Koran incites to hatred and calls for murder and mayhem. The distribution of such texts is made punishable by Article 137(e). The Koran is therefore a highly dangerous book; a book which is completely against our legal order and our democratic institutions. In this light, it is an absolute necessity that the Koran be banned for the defence and reinforcement of our civilisation and our constitutional state. I shall propose a second-reading motion to that effect.

Madam Speaker, there is no such thing as "moderate Islam".... As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, "There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it".... Islam is in pursuit of dominance. It wishes to exact its imperialist agenda by force on a worldwide scale (8:39). This is clear from European history. Fortunately, the first Islamic invasion of Europe was stopped at Poitiers in 732; the second in Vienna in 1683. Madam Speaker, let us ensure that the third Islamic invasion, which is currently in full spate, will be stopped too in spite of its insidious nature and notwithstanding the fact that, in contrast to the 8th and 17th centuries, it has no need for an Islamic army because the scared "dhimmis" in the West, also those in Dutch politics, have left their doors wide open to Islam and Muslims.

Apart from conquest, Madam Speaker, Islam is also bent on installing a totally different form of law and order, namely Sharia law. This makes Islam, apart from a religion for hundreds of millions of Muslims also, and in particular, a political ideology (with political/constitutional/Islamic basic values, etc). Islam is an ideology without any respect for others; not for Christians, not for Jews, not for non-believers and not for apostates. Islam aims to dominate, subject, kill and wage war.

Madam Speaker, the Islamic incursion must be stopped. Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it. Where is our Prime Minister in all this? In reply to my questions in the House he said, without batting an eyelid, that there is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered. Very many Dutch citizens, Madam Speaker, experience the presence of Islam around them. And I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, so-called honour revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister's Sharia mortgages, and the enormous over representation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists.

In spite of all this, Madam Speaker, there is hope. Fortunately. The majority of Dutch citizens have become fully aware of the danger, and regard Islam as a threat to our culture. My party, the Freedom Party, takes those citizens seriously and comes to their defence.

Many Dutch citizens are fed up to the back teeth and yearn for action. However, their representatives in The Hague are doing precisely nothing. They are held back by fear, political correctness or simply electoral motives. This is particularly clear in the case of PvdA, the Dutch Labour Party, which is afraid of losing Muslim voters. The Prime Minister said in Indonesia the other day that Islam does not pose any danger. Minister Donner believes that Sharia law should be capable of being introduced in the Netherlands if the majority want it. Minister Vogelaar babbles about the future Netherlands as a country with a Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, and that she aims to help Islam take root in Dutch society. In saying this, the Minister shows that she has obviously gone stark raving mad. She is betraying Dutch culture and insulting Dutch citizens.

Madam Speaker, my party, the Freedom Party, demands that Minister Vogelaar retract her statement. If the Minister fails to do so, the Freedom Party parliamentary group will withdraw its support for her. No Islamic tradition must ever be established in the Netherlands: not now and also not in a few centuries' time.

Madam Speaker, let me briefly touch on the government's response to the WRR [Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy] report. On page 12 of its response, the government states that Islam is not contrary to democracy or human rights. All I can say to that is that things can't get much more idiotic than this.

Madam Speaker, it is a few minutes to twelve. If we go on like this, Islam will herald the end of our Western civilisation as well as Dutch culture.

I would like to round off my first-reading contribution with a personal appeal to the Prime Minister on behalf of a great many Dutch citizens: stop the Islamification of the Netherlands!

Mr Balkenende, a historic task rests on your shoulders. Be courageous. Do what many Dutch citizens are screaming out for. Do what the country needs. Stop all immigration from Muslim countries, ban all building of new mosques, close all Islamic schools, ban burkas and the Koran. Expel all criminal Muslims from the country, including those Moroccan street terrorists that drive people mad. Accept your responsibility! Stop Islamification!

The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a perilous moment. They said they wanted to let the market run free but instead they let it run wild, and in doing so, they tramped our core values of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another. As a result, we are facing a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression. As a result, your jobs, your savings, and your economic security are now at risk.

This week, we must work quickly, in a bipartisan fashion, to resolve this crisis and avert an even broader economic catastrophe. And as we do act, Washington must recognize that true economic recovery requires addressing not just the crisis on Wall Street, but the crisis on Main Street that so many of you have been feeling in your own lives long before the news of last week. We need a plan that helps families stay in their homes, and workers keep their jobs; a plan that gives hardworking Americans relief instead of using taxpayer dollars to reward CEOs on Wall Street. And we cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and accountability when no oversight and accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place.

But no matter what solution we finally decide on this week, it is absolutely imperative that we get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place.

We did not arrive at this moment by some accident of history. We are in this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to the rest of us.

We're here because for too long, the doors of Washington have been thrown open to an army of lobbyists and special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play - who have shredded consumer protections, fought against common-sense regulations and rules of the road, and distorted our economy so that it works for them instead of you.

We are here because an ethic of irresponsibility has swept through our government, leaving politicians with the belief that they can waste billions and billions of your money on no-bid contracts for friends and contributors, slip pork projects into bills during the dead of night, and spend billions on corporate tax breaks we can't afford and old programs that we don't need.

And today, even as Congress debates an emergency plan to save our economy from the verge of collapse, there are reports that lobbyists and CEOs are already lining up to figure out what's in it for them; to find out how they can get theirs.

I began this race for the presidency as the one candidate who hasn't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know this - if we want a government that puts the needs of middle-class families before the whims of lobbyists and politicians; if we want to grow this economy and prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again, then the ways of Washington must change. We must reform our lobbyist-driven politics. We must reform the waste and abuse in our government. We must reform the rules of the road that let Wall Street run wild and stuck Main Street with the bill. We must change Washington now.

This has been our message from the day we began this campaign. Our opponent, on the other hand, has spent much of the last nineteen months arguing that what qualifies him to be President are the decades he's spent in Washington.

But with forty-two days left, he's had a sudden change of heart. An election-time conversion. After twenty-six years in Washington - years where he voted for the same trickle-down, on-your-own policies that got us into this mess - he now claims that he's the one who can clean it up.

Well let's be clear. When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could've prevented this crisis. His economic plan was written by Phil Gramm, the architect in the US Senate of the de-regulatory steps that helped cause this mess. Even knowing what we know now, Senator McCain said in an interview just last night that de-regulation actually helped grow our economy. Well that might be true for the profits of a few CEOs, but it's certainly not true for America's prosperity.

When it comes to taking on the special interests, my opponent sounds like Fighting Bob Lafollette. But he acts like a guy who's spent three decades of his life in Washington. He's put seven of the biggest corporate lobbyists in charge of his campaign - lobbyists for the insurance industry and the oil industry; for foreign governments and Freddie and Fannie Mac, who paid his campaign manager nearly $2 million to defend them against stricter regulations. I guess they got their money's worth.

And rest assured, those lobbyists who are working day and night to elect my opponent aren't doing it to put themselves out of business.

When it comes to reforming government waste and spending, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks. And while he deserves credit for not requesting many of those earmarks during his time in Congress, what he never mentions is that he voted for 144 billion dollars worth in just six years; or that he voted for four out of the five Bush budgets that have been filled with special interests giveaways and left us with the largest deficit in history.

The truth is, our earmark system in Washington is fraught with abuse. It badly needs reform - which is why I didn't request a single earmark last year, why I've released all my previous requests for the public to see, and why I've pledged to slash earmarks by more than half when I am President.

But let's not pretend, as John McCain does, that proposing the elimination of 18 billion dollars of earmarks will make up for the more than 300 billion additional dollars he wants to spend on tax breaks for big corporations and multi-millionaires that don't need them and weren't asking for them - more than 300 billion dollars at a time when taxpayers are being asked to help finance two wars and a historic financial bailout. That's some pretty creative math, but it doesn't add up to is change. And change in Washington is what we need right now.

This change will not be easy. It will require reforming our politics by taking power away from the lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans with secret meetings and campaign checks. It will require reforming our government by taking on the spending habits of both parties and going after the tax havens and loopholes that big corporations use to avoid paying their fare share while you pay more. And it will require reforming our out-dated, unfair regulatory system that favors Wall Street over Main Street but has ended up hurting both.

But I am ready to reform our politics because I've done it before. I've spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I've won. When I was a state Senator in Illinois, if you wanted a favor, there was actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their own personal use. In the State House, they called it business-as-usual. I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn't make me the most popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it. I brought Democrats and Republicans together, and we passed the first ethics reform in twenty-five years.

When I got to Washington, Jack Abramoff and his lobbyist pals had engaged in some of the worst corruption since Watergate. I led the fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you - not everyone in my party was too happy about it. When I proposed forcing lobbyists to disclose who they're raising money from and who in Congress they're funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor of the Senate. But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists, and discounted rides on their corporate jets. And I'm the only candidate in this race who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund my campaign, you do - with donations of $100, and $10, and $5.

I also joined with one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress to end the abuse that allowed no-bid contracts to waste taxpayer dollars instead of using them to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Katrina. And we worked together to put the federal government's checkbook online - so you can see how and where Washington is spending trillions of dollars of your money.

For years, I have also pushed for reform of the same loose regulations and lax oversight that could've prevented the crisis we're in. It was two years ago that I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse. It was one year ago that I called on our Treasury Secretary and our Fed Chairman to bring every stakeholder together and find a solution to the subprime mortgage meltdown before it got worse. In March, when John McCain was saying "I'm always for less regulation," I called for a new, 21st century regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust in our financial markets.

These are the types of reform I will pursue beginning on my very first day in office as President of the United States - political reform, government reform, and regulatory reform.

First, I'll reform our special interest-driven politics. When I am President, I will start by closing the revolving door in the White House that has allowed people to use their Administration job as a stepping stone to further their lobbying careers.

I'll make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama Administration is not about serving your former employer, your future employer, or your bank account - it's about serving your country. When you walk into my administration, you will not be able to work on regulations or contracts directly related to your former employer for two years. And when you leave, you will not be able to lobby my Administration - ever. I will also institute an absolute gift ban so that no registered lobbyist can curry favor with members of my administration based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.

I'll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people's business. As Justice Louis Brandeis once said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. As President, I will make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork-barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one is looking because when I am president, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. No more secrecy.

When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it. When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we will put as many as possible online for every American to watch. When there is a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get. And we will put every corporate tax break and every pork-barrel project online for every American to see. You will know who asked for them and you can cast your vote accordingly.

The second set of reforms I'll make will eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government.

We are facing the largest deficit in history. We are facing the largest government bailout in history. And we are also facing some of the greatest challenges in our history. All of this will cost money - to fix our health care system, and our schools, and build a new energy economy. And the only way we can do all this without leaving our children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking responsibility for every dime that it spends.

We can start by ending a war in Iraq that is costing us $10 billion a month when the Iraqi government is sitting on a $79 billion surplus. We should also stop sending fifteen billion dollars a year in overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare and go after tens of billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud. We need to stop sending three billion a year to banks that provide student loans the government could provide for less, and hundreds of millions a year in subsidies to agribusiness that can survive just fine without your tax dollars and use some of the money to help family farmers who are struggling. I will put an end to this waste when I am President.

I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there. There are some that don't work like we had hoped - like the Bush Administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program that hasn't improved our children's reading. And there are some that have been duplicated by other programs that we just need to cut back - like waste at the Economic Development Agency and the Export-Import Bank that has become little more than a fund for corporate welfare.

I understand there are parts of these programs worth defending and politicians of both parties who will do so. But if we hope to meet the challenges of our time, we must make difficult choices. As President, I will go through the entire federal budget, page by page, line by line, and I will eliminate the programs that don't work and aren't needed.

As for the programs we do need, I will make them work better and cost less. I will create a High-Performance Team that evaluates every agency and every office based on how well they're serving the American taxpayer. We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money, and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

I will also save billions of dollars by cutting private contractors and improving management of the hundreds of billions of dollars our government spends on private contracts, and I will end the abuse of no-bid contracts for good. One employee of a former Halliburton subsidiary actually admitted that he was ordered to put his company's logo on towels provided to U.S. troops because our government - our tax dollars - would pay for it no matter how much it cost. That is wasteful, that is wrong, and that will end when I am President.

And for all his talk about earmark abuse, what Senator McCain doesn't mention these days is the corporate abuse of our tax system - abuse that has cost far more than earmarks ever have. In 2003, loopholes and tax breaks allowed 28 major corporations to actually have negative tax

liabilities. We lose $100 billion every year because corporations get to set up mailboxes offshore so they can avoid paying a dime of taxes in America. Imagine if you got to do that? There is a building right now in the Cayman Islands that is the address for 18,000 corporations. Well that is either the biggest building in the world or the biggest sham in the world, and I think we know which one it is. I will shut down those offshore tax havens and all those corporate loopholes as President, because you shouldn't have to pay higher taxes because some big corporation cut corners to avoid paying theirs. All of us have a responsibility to pay our fair share. That's putting country first.

Finally, the third set of reforms I will pursue are the updated, common-sense regulations of the financial market that I've been calling for since March; rules of the road that will make Wall Street fair, open, and honest; that will ensure a crisis like this can never happen again.

First, if you're a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. Taxpayers who have now been called upon to spend nearly a trillion dollars to save our economy from the excesses of Wall Street have every right to expect that financial institutions are not taking excessive risks.

Second, we need to reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions, investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating, and establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders.

Third, we need to streamline our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies that cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape.

Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system.

Fifth, we need to crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them. The SEC should investigate and punish all market manipulation.

Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy. We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It's time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.

These are the principles that should guide the reforms we need to establish a 21st century regulatory system - a system that recognizes our free market economy has only worked because we have guided the market's invisible hand with a higher principle - that America prospers when all Americans can prosper.

To restore this prosperity, we must change Washington. We must reform our regulations, our politics, and our government, but we will not be able to make these changes with the same policies, the same lobbyists, or the same Washington culture that allows politicians and special interests to set their own agenda.

That's exactly what we will get from John McCain. After twenty-six years of being part of this Washington culture, all that he has changed is his slogan for the fall campaign. And the people in charge of that campaign prove that if we elect John McCain, it's not a team of mavericks we'll be sending to the White House - it's a team of lobbyists.

It won't be easy. The kind of change we're looking for never is. What we are up against is a very powerful, entrenched status quo in Washington who will say anything and do anything and fight with everything they've got to keep things just the way are.

But I feel good about our chances, because I've got something more powerful than they do: I've got you. In this campaign, you have already shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

Change has always come from places like Wisconsin - the state where the progressive movement was born; where laws were passed to regulate the railroads and insurance companies; laws that protected consumers and the safety of factory workers. It was a movement rooted in a principle that was known as the Wisconsin Idea - the idea that government works best in the hands of the people, not the special interests; that your voices should speak louder than the whispers of lobbyists.

That's the Wisconsin idea. That's the America idea. And that's the kind of government we need right now.

So if you want the next four years in Washington to look just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change - if you want to shine a bright light into the backrooms of Washington; if you want to replace the special interests with your interests, if you want a government that costs less and works better for everyday Americans, then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls, and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th. And if you do, I promise you - we will change America together. Thank you.

The world is cringing looking at pictures of the terrible earthquake in Haiti. No one knows for sure, but the death toll could top 100,000. And right now lives are in the balance, as there are folks alive in the rubble.

Already, thousands of American military are going to Haiti trying to save lives and impose some kind of order there. Thursday, President Obama pledged an enormous amount of money.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I'm also announcing an immediate investment of $100 million to support our relief efforts. This will mean more of the life-saving equipment, food, water and medicine that will be needed. This investment will grow over the coming year as we embark on the long-term recovery from this unimaginable tragedy.

Since 1992, the beginning of the Clinton administration, the USA has given Haiti close to $3 billion in assistance. And billions more have been donated by other countries. President Clinton took a personal interest in improving life for the Haitian people, but he failed. And today, his wife knows the pitfalls of the Haitian situation.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: We have systems in place now to be able to track the money, to hold it accountable, to look for results. We're doing that across the board. I'm revamping our aid system so that I can look you in the eye and the American taxpayer in the eye and say, look, you know, I'm not going to spend a penny unless I have some confidence that it's going to go to the right place.

So why did Bill Clinton and everyone else fail in Haiti? The reason is fairly simple.

There is no central authority there. The police are corrupt. There's no army, and many politicians are thieves. In slums like City Soleil, neighborhoods are run by drug dealers, voodoo priests or common extortionists.

Say relief workers give food and clothing directly to Haitians in need. Odds are as soon as the relief person leaves, a thug will steal the charity from the poor person. Block by block in Haiti, gangsters rule, and the people are powerless to do anything about it. If you fight the criminals, you and your family will be brutalized.

So with the world now focused on a true humanitarian disaster, perhaps it is time to really help the good people of Haiti and have the United Nations impose some discipline there. Yes, we should send aid immediately, but President Obama should not just promise $100 million with no accountability. Every dollar needs to be managed. And if that means the USA calls the shots, "Talking Points" says good. And I believe the Haitian people would say good as well.

The earthquake in Haiti rated 7.0 on the Richter scale, the same as the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 when 62 people died. The death toll in Haiti, as we said, may be hundreds of thousands. Infrastructure is the difference, and money can buy that. But not in Haiti, where billions of dollars have gone right down the drain.

Karl Rove wrote a little blurb for the Washington Post, as part of a larger article entitled:

Congressional Democrats pushed through ineffectual legislation such as the stimulus that didn't produce the promised results.

They raised discretionary spending by 24 percent from President George W. Bush's last full-year budget and will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years.

They made a priority of the unpopular cap-and-trade energy tax while Americans were worried about jobs and the economy.

They squandered every opportunity for the bipartisanship President Obama promised in his campaign.

Then they ended the year with a pork-filled monstrosity of a health-care bill that's increasingly detested.

The solid support that Democrats enjoyed at the start of 2009 among independents and college-educated voters is gone: They and seniors have propelled the GOP to a nine-point lead in Rasmussen's generic ballot.

Congressional Democrats can't reverse their midterm fortunes by trying to pass itsy-bitsy pieces of insignificant but popular legislation. Voters will stay fixated on their existing mistakes. So Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi should push for big things:: In for a penny, in for a pound. It would be hard to come up with less popular causes than they've already embraced. So find something that might redirect voter anger, especially if Republicans cooperate by failing to offer a positive alternative. Good luck: You made the mess.

For its Topic A feature last Sunday, The Post invited a panel of political operatives to offer their advice to the Democratic Party on strategy for 2010 [Sunday Opinion, Jan. 10]. Improbably, one of the operatives asked was Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's longtime chief strategist.

Rove has some impressive campaign victories to his credit. But given the shape in which the last administration left this country, I'm not sure I would solicit his advice. And given the backhanded advice he offered, I'm not sure he was all that eager to help.

Of all the claims Rove made, one in particular caught my eye for its sheer audacity and shamelessness -- that congressional Democrats "will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years."

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.

This fiscal irresponsibility -- and a laissez-faire attitude toward the excesses of the financial industry -- helped create the conditions for the deepest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.

That is why President Obama and Congress crafted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Despite Rove's assertion, it is widely accepted that the difficult but necessary steps Obama took have helped save our economy from an even deeper disaster. And while Rove conveniently ignores that it was President Bush -- not Obama -- who signed into law the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout for banks, the Obama administration's rigorous stewardship added transparency and accountability that have cut the expected cost of that program by two-thirds.

At the same time, we also recognize that we need to address the long legacy of overspending in Washington. That is why, shortly after taking office, Obama instructed his agency heads to go through the budget page by page, line by line, to eliminate what we don't need to help pay for what we do.

As a start, the president proposed billions of dollars in cuts, and he'll continue to fight for them and others in the upcoming budget. An analysis by the Washington Times concluded that in this first year, Obama had been more successful in getting his proposed cuts through Congress than his predecessor was in any of his eight years in office.

And even as Obama has pursued landmark health insurance reforms that will hold the insurance industry accountable and expand coverage to working Americans, he has insisted from the beginning that any reform legislation must not add to the federal deficit and must help reduce it over time. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the legislation making its way through Congress upholds this principle. As the president has said, the federal budget is like an ocean liner, not a motor boat, and it will take time to redirect its course. But the course correction that was so badly needed after the previous administration has begun in earnest.

There's an old saying that everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. The next time Karl Rove would like to offer us some advice, I'd urge him to take that to heart.

President Obama's misbegotten bank tax is precisely the wrong policy at precisely the wrong time. It will wind up backfiring across the board. Why? Because bank consumers and borrowers are the ones who will wind up paying this tax, creating an obstacle to economic recovery.

Obama is actually rewarding losers and punishing winners -- exactly the reverse of free-market capitalism.

Who's being rewarded? Obama's bank-tax penalty is being used to finance the failed government takeovers of GM, GMAC, and Fannie and Freddie. And let's not forget the $75 billion failure of the so-called foreclosure loan-modification program. To this day, no one knows where that money went. But the big banks are going to be forced to finance this through a tax that will damage lending, stockholders and consumers.

This is sheer political favoritism. Crony capitalism at its worst, with a sub-theme of bailing out Obama's Big Labor political allies. It's just like his bailout of the unions by exempting them from the so-called Cadillac insurance tax until 2018, all while the rest of us may have to suffer under that tax.

Speaking of political unfairness and favoritism, mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie will not pay a nickel of this tax. These government-sponsored enterprises were at the very center of the financial maelstrom, financing the government's quotas and targets for unaffordable mortgages.

Think about this for a second. President Obama is out there bashing away at excessive bonuses. And yet Fannie and Freddie's CEOs stand to make $6 million in the next year or two. Huh? These are big-government-owned bureaucrats. They ought to be paid like GS-18s.

Of course, the Federal Reserve, which is having its most profitable year ever, was probably the main culprit in all this, with its negative-real-interest-rate easy-money policy, which amounted to throwing red meat to a pack of sharks in the deepest waters. But this tax punishes and penalizes the biggest banks -- institutions that have already met their obligations by paying down TARP, with interest, and by providing taxpayers with a tidy profit on the stock warrants they held.

Now, this is not to condone the major mistakes made by the big banks. They were overleveraged, borrowed way too much and sold highly flawed mortgage bonds and other complex derivatives. And the banks should not be paying big bonuses for 2009 -- not for the period during which they were TARPed. That's their biggest mistake.

With the banks having (SET ITAL) paid down (END ITAL) TARP, however, the U.S. government should not be waging war against them. Somebody ought to tell the White House that al-Qaida is the real enemy, not the banks.

At the same time, taxing the living hell out of the banks will not promote economic recovery and long-term prosperity.

President Obama says he wants to stop risky bets. Well, look, the way to accomplish that is through higher capital requirements, stricter limits on leveraged borrowing and an end to the policy of "too big to fail." Across-the-board FDIC insurance assessments are a much better way of maintaining a bank safety net.

Instead, Team Obama wants to place a 15-basis-point tax on the banks, essentially layering it on non-insured bank funding. It amounts to a tax on future lending, shareholder equity value and the consumers of bank services who will pay the tax costs passed on by the banks. It's just like the corporate tax: Businesses don't pay taxes, people do.

And consider this: One dollar of bank capital generally works out to around 10 dollars of potential bank loans. That means this $90 billion tax proposal could very well cut off a staggering $1 trillion of future bank lending when credit demand picks up.

That's how this works. This tax will slow down profits and capital. And the diminished capital will mean fewer loans when loan demand picks up. It's exactly the reverse of what we need to grow our economy.

And the unfairness continues. Insurer MetLife, a bank holding company, and the regional Hudson City Bank Corp., both of which never took a dime of TARP money, will be penalized by this tax. That just ain't fair.

President Obama's crony politics rewards losers and penalizes winners. He is engaging in sheer, raw, left-wing class-warfare politics. It's yet one more reason why the Democrats are going to get clobbered at the polls come November.

Voters know a smoked turkey when they see one. Remember, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

Mark my words, all of this left-wing demagoguery, political favoritism and crony capitalism will not end well for the Obama Democrats.

Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent-and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an elected president's second year.

A year ago, he was leader of a liberal ascendancy that would last 40 years (James Carville). A year ago, conservatism was dead (Sam Tanenhaus).

Now the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in bluest-of-blue Massachusetts is surprisingly close, with a virtually unknown state senator bursting on the scene by turning the election into a mini-referendum on Obama and his agenda, most particularly health-care reform.

A year ago, Obama was the most charismatic politician on earth. Today the thrill is gone, the doubts growing-even among erstwhile believers.

Liberals try to attribute Obama's political decline to matters of style. He's too cool, detached, uninvolved. He's not tough, angry, or aggressive enough with opponents. He's contracted out too much of his agenda to Congress.

These stylistic and tactical complaints may be true, but they miss the major point: The reason for today's vast discontent, presaged by spontaneous national tea-party opposition, is not that Obama is too cool or compliant but that he's too Left.

It's not about style; it's about substance-about which Obama has been admirably candid. This out-of-nowhere, least-known of presidents dropped the veil most dramatically in the single most important political event of 2009, his Feb. 24 first address to Congress. With remarkable political honesty and courage, Obama unveiled the most radical (in American terms) ideological agenda since the New Deal: the fundamental restructuring of three pillars of American society-health care, education, and energy.

Then began the descent-when, more amazingly still, Obama devoted himself to turning these statist visions into legislative reality. First energy, with cap-and-trade, an unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. It got through the House, with its Democratic majority and Supreme Soviet-style rules. But it will never get out of the Senate.

Then, the keystone: a health-care revolution in which the federal government will regulate, in crushing detail, one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

By essentially abolishing medical underwriting (actuarially based risk assessment) and replacing it with government fiat, Obamacare turns the health-insurance companies into utilities, their every significant move dictated by government regulators. The public option was a sideshow. As many on the right have long been arguing, and as the more astute on the left (such as the New Yorker's James Surowiecki) understand, Obamacare is government health care by proxy, single-payer through a facade of nominally "private" insurers.

At first, health-care reform was sustained politically by Obama's own popularity. But then gravity took hold, and Obamacare's profound unpopularity dragged him down with it. After 29 speeches and a fortune in squandered political capital, it still will not sell.

The health-care drive is the most important reason Obama has sunk to 46 percent. But this reflects something larger. In the end, what matters is not the persona but the agenda. In a country where politics is fought between the 40-yard lines, Obama has insisted on pushing hard for the 30.

And the American people-disorganized and unled but nonetheless agitated and mobilized-have put up a stout defense somewhere just left of midfield.

Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

It's inherently risky for any charismatic politician to legislate. To act is to choose, and to choose is to disappoint the expectations of many who had poured their hopes into the empty vessel-of which candidate Obama was the greatest representative in recent American political history.

Obama did not just act, however. He acted ideologically. To his credit, Obama didn't just come to Washington to be someone. Like Reagan, he came to Washington to do something-to introduce a powerful social-democratic stream into America's deeply and historically individualist polity.

Perhaps Obama thought he'd been sent to the White House to do just that. If so, he vastly over-read his mandate. His own electoral success-twinned with handy victories and large majorities in both houses of Congress-was a referendum on his predecessor's governance and the post-Lehman financial collapse. It was not an endorsement of European-style social democracy.

Hence the resistance. Hence the fall. The system may not always work, but it does take its revenge.

Massachusetts: 'Bottom has fallen out' of Coakley's polls; Dems prepare to explain defeat, protect Obama

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. "I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."

Intensifying the gloom, the Democrat says, is the fact that the same polls showing Coakley falling behind also show President Obama with a healthy approval rating in the state. "With Obama at 60 percent in Massachusetts, this shouldn't be happening, but it is," the Democrat says.

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor's race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama's policies or those of the national Democratic party.

The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. "This is a Creigh Deeds situation," the Democrat says. "I don't think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she's a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware -- you better run good campaigns, or you're going to lose."

With the election still four days away, Democrats are still hoping that "something could happen" to change the dynamics of the race. But until that thing happens, the situation as it exists today explains Barack Obama's decision not to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley. "If the White House thinks she can win, Obama will be there," the Democrat says. "If they don't think she can win, he won't be there." For national Democrats, the task is now to insulate Obama against any suggestion that a Coakley defeat would be a judgment on the president's agenda and performance in office.

The private talk among Democrats is also reflected in some public polling on the race. Late Thursday, we learned the results of a Suffolk University poll showing Brown in the lead by four points, 50 percent to 46 percent. That poll showed Obama with a 55 percent approval rating. Also on Thursday, two of Washington's leading political analysts, Stuart Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, each changed their assessment of the Brown/Coakley race from a narrow advantage for Coakley to a toss-up.

After a three-week holiday break, the House of Representatives returned to session yesterday, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) marked the occasion with an op-ed detailing her "record of achievement" and outlining her agenda for the rest of the 111th Congress. Pelosi writes: "At the halfway mark in this Congress, our priorities are clear: strengthening the security of the American people and building a new economy that offers our families lasting prosperity." But the 111th Congress is not the first Congress Speaker Pelosi has presided over. When Pelosi was first handed the gavel in January 2007, the U.S. economy employed 137.3 million people and our nation's unemployment rate stood at 4.6%. According to the Labor Department's most recent report, the U.S. economy has shed 6.3 million jobs since then, and 10% of our workforce is now unemployed.

Speaker Pelosi goes on to claim that President Barack Obama's failed stimulus has "created or saved" 1.6 million jobs so far, but even the White House has abandoned its controversial "saved or created" jobs accounting scheme after more than 90,000 of the 640,000 jobs it claimed to create were found to be completely fraudulent. Pelosi then touts the Cash for Clunkers program as another success despite the fact the program did nothing to create auto sector jobs, led to a crash in auto sales, and did nothing to help the environment. Pelosi also celebrated the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which only further bankrupts our states and inched us ever closer to government-run health care.

Even worse than her past "accomplishments" is Speaker Pelosi's future agenda, which basically calls for super-sizing the policy failures mentioned above. First on the agenda is President Obama's health care plan which, like SCHIP, expands health insurance coverage through the welfare state. Both the House and Senate bills achieve over half of their health insurance expansion through Medicaid, which is a welfare program. The taxes and employer mandates used to pay for the expanded coverage are going to hit small businesses hard at a time when we desperately need them to be creating new jobs to move us out of recession.

After health care, Speaker Pelosi is promising continued action on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, which is built on the same failed policy ideas behind Cash for Clunkers. A Heritage Foundation analysis of the Waxman-Markey energy legislation found that for a household of four, energy costs (electric, natural gas, gasoline expenses) would rise by $436 in 2012 and by $1,241 by 2035, averaging $829 over that period. Higher energy costs would also increase the cost of many other products and services. Overall, Waxman-Markey would reduce gross domestic product by $393 billion annually and by a total of $9.4 trillion by 2035.

Finally, Pelosi promises "the most sweeping reform of the financial industry since the Great Depression." But as Heritage fellow James Gattuso has previously demonstrated, the House financial overhaul bill would give financial regulators sweeping powers to control firms deemed "too big to fail" and establish a fund for FDIC to use to resolve the affairs of firms it takes over. The real-life effect of the new powers would be to signal to markets that firms are supported by the federal government and guaranteed against failure - thus leading them to take more undue risks, not less. Pelosi will have essentially created a permanent TARP.

We share Speaker Pelosi's vision for "swift action to restore accountability to Washington and opportunity for the middle class, to create good-paying jobs for our workers, to use innovation to power America in a global economy and build a strong and smart national defense." But as business owners, small and large, across the country are saying, Speaker Pelosi's big government solutions are not the answer.

* Citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems, Google said Tuesday that it will stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and is considering shutting down operations in the country altogether.

* President Hugo Chavez plans blackouts in Caracas and other cities such as oil town Maracaibo to combat nationwide power shortages.

* The Obama administration plans to ask Congress for an additional $33 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on top of a record request of $708 billion for the Defense Department next year.

* A Weekly Standard reporter trying to ask Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley a question was pushed to the ground outside a Washington, DC, fundraiser.

* According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, 54% of voters disapprove of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy, 59% of voters disapprove of his plan for creating jobs, and 58% disapprove of his handling of health care.

I am not sure if anyone in Massachusetts gets this, but this article laid out 5 key differences between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley; I think the differences are fairly laid out with reasonable quotations to support them:

When Bush fell in the polls, these was news for every news outlet in the land; but for Obama, not so much:

Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot remember a time when politicians in Washington so completely rejected the interests and desires of their own constituents. That is because of the radicalization of the Democrat Party under Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. It is more important to destroy the country and detach the public from decisions that affect them than to win temporary reelection. These people are willing to throw their seats away and their jobs. Permanent transformation of this country to a welfare state is the objective. And they figure they'll come back in a couple election cycles and finish the job even if they do lose their majorities. Obama has already been rejected by the people. Thirty-five, 36% support him on health care. That's it. No issue that he's pushing has majority support. Zilch, zero, nada. The nation has already rejected Obama, and socialism, and people, when they have a chance to show it, they are, whether in Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Virginia.

And, by the way, folks, if there's no difference in our two parties, then why do we care who wins in Massachusetts? Really. No, no, no. I'm dead serious. If both parties are the same, if there's not a dime's worth of difference and we ought to throw all the bums out, why do we care who wins in Massachusetts? What's the big deal? Coakley no different than Brown, Brown no different than Coakley, is that what we're being asked to believe, no difference in the two parties? I cannot remember a time when politicians in Washington so completely rejected the interests and desires of their own constituents. And let's go back, National Press Club, April 25th, 2005, in Washington, Barack Obama spoke about Social Security reform. Remember, Bush was trying to partially privatize Social Security and the Democrats just said ain't no way, Jose, all over the place. And during the Q&A, an unidentified moderator asks Obama: "Somebody in the audience would like to know what should the American people do to stop privatization."

OBAMA: That's a different perspective. The -- from the previous one. You know, I think the American people have already done it and are continuing to do it. I mean, the fact of the matter is, is the president has been on his 60-day tour, and everywhere he goes the numbers just get worse. The American people have essentially voted on this proposal and really what you have is a situation now where I think that the president and the Republican Congress are going to need to figure out a way to save face and -- and step back a little bit. And if -- if they let go of their egos -- listen, I've been on the other side of this where -- particularly with my wife. (laughter) Where I've gotten in an argument and then at some point in the argument it dawns on me, you know what, I'm wrong on this one and it's -- it's -- it's irritating, it's frustrating. You don't want to admit it, and so to the extent that we can provide the president with a graceful mechanism to -- to say we're sorry, Dear, then I think that would be -- that would be helpful.

RUSH: So at the time there was 35% support for Bush's Social Security reform. And Obama said, (paraphrasing) "The people have already voted. The people have already voted everywhere Bush goes, the numbers just get worse, the American people have essentially voted on this proposal, and really what you have is a situation now where I think the president, Republican Congress need to let go of their egos and just apologize and then take it off the table." Mr. President, do you have the guts to follow your own advice? You are at 35, 36% on health care. You are governing against the will of the people. The fact of the matter is, wherever you go, your numbers go down. Your numbers get worse. The American people have essentially voted on your health care proposal and really what you have now, Mr. President, is a situation where I think that you and the Democrat Congress are going to need to figure out a way to save face and step back a little bit, maybe drop your ego and apologize to everybody.

Well, I'm just turning his words around on him. This is what he suggested to George W. Bush in the midst of the attempt to privatize Social Security.

RUSH: The headlines from Massachusetts are devastating for the Democrats. "Massachusetts: 'Bottom Has Fallen Out' of Coakley's Polls; Dems Prepare to Explain Defeat, Protect Obama." "Poll Shocker: Brown Surges Ahead in Senate Race," and it's largely the independents. The reason they might send Obama up there is the urban vote, the black vote. That's Democrat turnout. It's going to be a low turnout on the Democrat side. There's no energy. The Republican side is far more energized. They might send Obama up there. He might go. I predict he'll only go if they have polling data that shows his appearance would push her over the top. He's not going to go up there if she's going to lose. It's that simple. "Martha Coakley: Devout Catholics 'Probably Shouldn't Work in the Emergency Room'" because of "separation of church and state." It's really convoluted.

She told a radio host in Massachusetts that if you object to abortion, then you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room, meaning devout Catholics should not work in an emergency room. This is about the conscience clause. She's just all over the place. "Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg move the Massachusetts Senate race to a toss-up. It's a sign that the Massachusetts special election is moving in Scott Brown's direction. The two leading political handicappers in Washington have moved the contest into their toss-up category today." By the way, Charlie Cook, The Cook Report: "Colossal Miscalculation On Health Care." "Honorable and intelligent people can disagree over the substance and details of what President Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do on health care reform and climate change. But nearly a year after Obama's inauguration, judging by where the Democrats stand today, it's clear that they have made a colossal miscalculation." This will be published tomorrow.

"The latest unemployment and housing numbers underscore the folly of their decision to pay so much attention to health care and climate change instead of focusing on the economy 'like a laser beam,' as President Clinton pledged to do during his 1992 campaign. Although no one can fairly accuse Obama and his party's leaders of ignoring the economy, they certainly haven't focused on it like a laser beam."

Mr. Cook, if I may add more to the point: What they have done has screwed it up like a laser beam. What they have done has made it worse. We should be thankful they haven't focused on it any more than they have! "Last week's disappointing December unemployment report was the final blow in what was already a bad week for Democrats. One of the most sobering findings in the report was that if 661,000 Americans had not given up even looking for work that month, the unemployment rate would have moved up rather than holding steady at a horrific 10 percent." That's right. So many Americans have given up hope of finding a job. How is that hope and change working for everybody? Most economists had been expecting an increase of about 50,000 jobs in December; instead, the total declined by 85,000.

"Some 6.1 million Americans, the highest number in the post-World War II era, have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. The 'U-6' rate of unemployment, which adds in people who are working part-time while seeking full-time work and those who have stopped looking, stands at 17.3 percent, the highest level in the 15 years that the Labor Department has calculated it. A number of economists expect that unemployment will get worse before it gets better. ... Since World War II, unemployment has exceeded 8 percent in a total of only 12 months in even-numbered (meaning, congressional election) years. All 12 months were in 1982." What this means is that Obama is failing. This is an epic fail, an historic fail, because he has succeeded in way too much of his economic agenda. He is in his own mind a success. His agenda has succeeded; the country is failing.

Obama has failed. It's making the country fail. This is why I wanted his agenda to fail, so America would not fail. I wanted him to fail implementing his agenda so this would not happen, and everybody at the time knew what I meant. I wanted him to fail. I want him to fail on health care, 'cause I want the health care system to remain the best in the world. "Even before December's negative jobs report, economist Robert Reich, who was Labor secretary in the Clinton administration, wrote on TalkingPointsMemo.com that 'the chances of unemployment being 10 percent next November are overwhelmingly high.' ... Another piece of bad news was the distressing late-December report that the housing sector's slow improvement had stalled, raising the specter of a second dip. ...

"'If prices sink 15 percent from here, which is a possibility, and the 2008 and 2009 loans go bad, then we're back where we were before -- in a nightmare.'" By the way, companion story: People are just walking out on their mortgages. Just walking out of them! "Much of the political debate, meanwhile, has been obsessed with details of competing health care reform bills. Some analysts have wondered whether Democrats in Congress would be better off passing an unpopular bill or risking the consequences of failing to pass one at all." Mr. Cook, just look at the polls. This is not a hard question. This is why you're even writing the piece. They're focusing on health care and they're going to lose their majorities. They're going to lose seats. It's not a hard question here. "More to the point, though, is the probability that if Obama and Hill Democrats had taken a more modest approach to health care reform, they could have pivoted back to jobs and the economy sooner."

Now, Mr. Cook, I love you, but that's inside-the-Beltway groupthink. A socialist statist cannot "pivot back to the economy" because everything they do by definition kills economic growth! It's the mission. Some people are starting to get it. Charles Krauthammer now fully understands. You can tell by his latest column. You can tell he fully understands. One year ago, I doubt Mr. Krauthammer would have used these words: "Then began the descent -- when, more amazingly still, Obama devoted himself to turning these statist visions into legislative reality." A year ago Mr. Krauthammer would not use those words, nor would anybody else on our side, except... Well, no, Levin. It's all through his book, Liberty and Tyranny, "statist." Everybody else started coming up with different words 'cause they didn't want to be accused of stealing from Levin. So they said fascist, whatever it was. Socialist, communist.

Back to Krauthammer: "First energy, with cap and trade, an unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. It got through the House, with its Democratic majority and Supreme Soviet-style rules. But it will never get out of the Senate." A year ago this would not have been said by anybody on our side. So people are beginning to catch up, and soon people like Mr. Cook are going to understand that this is purposeful. They did not spend time on the economy after they did their stimulus because they knew the stimulus would work exactly as it's working. I know it's hard to get your arms around that; it's hard to believe that. Trust me. It's true. Cap and trade and health care are just more of the same destruction, more of the same expansion of government. More of the same -- and they want to get it done as quickly as possible 'cause they know they're going to lose majorities, lose seats.

They want to get this done. Steny Hoyer is out there saying, "Yeah, we might have this whole health care thing done in 72 hours." You know why? Because they had another special interest given a goody: The unions! You know, autoworkers and people who make these salaries, if you add their salaries and their health care benefits, the combination adds up to $175,000 a year! These people have Cadillac health insurance coverage which bankrupted their companies. May we be blunt? They've got Cadillac health insurance coverage, and under Obama's new health care reform, they were going to be taxed at 40%. Except the unions yesterday struck a deal! They're exempt until 2018 and when 2018 comes up they'll simply extend it again. The unions are exempt from the 40% tax. Now, the tax, that 40% is going to be levied on employers and on insurance companies, and the purpose of this tax is to get them to quit offering insurance.

The purpose of that is to drive everybody to "the public option," which still exists in the form of these exchanges. The public option is still there and it's always going to be there. There's no other reason for these people to be doing what they're doing. Public option, government-run, single payer: That's where they're headed. Forty percent tax except the unions. So if you're not a member of the AFL-CIO -- and the way it's written is anybody whose health care is a derivative of a collective bargaining agreement. So if you're a member of the Service Employees International, if you're a member of the AFL-CIO, United Mine Workers, auto unions (UAW), government unions, teachers unions (National Education Association), you are exempt. It's not just Richard Trumka's boys. It's not just Andy Stern's boys.

It's everybody that's unionized is exempt, which means all the rest of us are going to be paying it big time, and when that 40% tax is levied on insurance companies and on our employers, what the hell do you think is going to happen to employment? People are going to be losing their jobs. You think this isn't done on purpose? "As political analyst and data-cruncher extraordinaire Rhodes Cook noted in the December issue of The Rhodes Cook Letter, no other president in the past half-century has seen his Gallup job-approval rating drop as far as Obama's has in his first year (down 21 points), and no president in that same half-century has seen his approval rating go up, even as much as 1 point, between the end of his first year and the eve of his first midterm election. Obama and his party have no doubt taken on big and important fights. But given the nation's tremendous economic troubles, they don't seem to have picked the most urgent ones." Mr. Cook, it won't be long and you will realize here that the focus on health care and cap and trade was specific. They had, quote, unquote, "fixed" the economy. They've had a couple jobs summits. They're getting everything they want. This is in TheHill.com: "Obama Tells Democrats That the Economy and Health Care Will Help in the Midterms." Well... (chuckles) It's a suicide pact.

Obama and company made a colossal miscalculation about pushing healthcare and global warming over the economy (I think written by an Obama supporter?):

RUSH: Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge. I told you this yesterday. We were the firstest with the mostest about a secret backroom deal between the White House and labor unions over the Cadillac health insurance tax. "Officials say the White House and labor leaders have reached a tentative agreement on how to tax high value health insurance plans to help pay for a revamped medical system. The proposed tax has been a major sticking point because labor union leaders fear that their members with some of the more lucrative benefit plans out there would be hurt. President Obama supports it as a way to hold down costs by nudging workers into less pricey coverage." People going out and buying what they want, or getting what they want, Obama thinks they're spending too much. Barney Frank today is all over, (paraphrasing) "We are going to legislate compensation everywhere we can on Wall Street. There's no reason for these high bonuses to be paid. I'm not aware these guys could all play Major League Baseball." They're moving in for the kill of the capitalist system.

Now, the unions were always going to be exempted from the Cadillac tax plans, they were always going to be exempted. They are the major contributors to the Democrat National Committee and to Obama. They are the foot soldiers. They're the goons that are dispatched to keep people in line at town hall meetings and so forth. The only problem here is how to justify it because everybody else with a Cadillac health insurance plan is going to get this big tax, and it could be as much as 40%. The unions would be exempt from it. The trick here is how to justify it and how to avoid, if possible, not ticking people off who don't get the exemption. The Amish, by the way, will be totally exempted on religious grounds from any of the new health care mandates. That religion may grow in tremendous numbers. And other religions say, "Why just them? You know, why not us?"

"Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December --" This is State-Controlled Associated Press. "-- leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record and highlighting the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades. In another disappointing economic report, the number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as jobs remain scarce." Here's a quote from Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets: "We cannot expect a true turnaround in consumption until the jobs numbers improve significantly and consistently."

Now, given this obvious statement, why is any negative economic news unexpected? I swear it's in the template. Command-U writes "unexpected." When the private sector's capital is deleted, job creation is depressed. This leads to spending decreases by consumers. That leads to lower sales and profits, and it all results in the erosion of the tax base, which then shrinks tax revenues. And only an anti-capitalist statist would conclude that this situation requires tax increases, which starts the process all over again. None of this is unexpected. This is totally predictable. I, your host, El Rushbo predicted it on the same day that I expressed my hope that Obama fail in his policies.

So let's go through the progression here. When the private sector and its capital, money, is depleted, when it shrinks, job creation is depressed, that leads to spending decreases by consumers. That, in turn, hurts sales and profits. And it all causes an erosion of the tax base, federal and state, which reduces tax revenues, which reduces revenue to run governments in Washington and state capitals. At this point, only somebody intending for all this to happen would then talk about tax increases. Because tax increases will start the whole cycle all over again. It will lead to more unemployment, more depletion of the private sector's capital, spending decreases by even more consumers, more sales and profits hurt, more tax base erosion, less tax revenue to state and federal governments. And then, oh, my God, another double down, more tax increases. Only a statist, somebody doing this on purpose, would employ the policies that we are employing.

"Decline in Auto Purchases Sinks Retail Sales." "Sales at US Retailers Unexpectedly Fell in December." What is unexpected? I just gave you the progression of how things happen. It would be insane to expect sales to go up in this climate. As more and more people file claims for unemployment more and more people are obviously out of work, more and more people are not even looking for work anymore. The situation is bleak. Why would it be unexpected that retail sales would fall in December? Even the media told us it's not going to be a good Christmas. Who told us it was? Who are these people that expected retail sales to go up in December? "Consumers spent less on cars and an array of other goods during the holiday shopping month, data showed on Thursday, raising concerns about the durability of the economic recovery." There is no recovery! Right after Christmas they said we were in a recovery. They've been saying we're in a recovery since November, but we're not. "Compared to December 2008, sales rose 5.4% but fell 6.2% for the whole of 2009. That's the biggest decline on records that go back to 1992. The only other year that sales had fallen was 2008, when they slipped by 0.5%. Motor vehicle purchases fell .8%."

Anybody want to take a guess as to why? We predicted this! Cash for Clunkers. All Cash for Clunkers did was move purchase decisions up a month or two. It didn't increase auto sales at all. We predicted this. We are not economists here at the EIB Network. We are not highly trained economic experts. But we know more about it than those who are. We are able to predict it more than those who are. Cash for Clunkers came along and it was designed to make it look like Obama had done something spurring economic growth. "Wow, it's going, it's going, it's going," but we knew that this was facilitating people buying cars earlier than they were already going to, and this statistic proves it. "Decline in Auto Purchases Sinks Retail Sales. The data coming in the wake of a report last week showing a surprise drop in non-farm payrolls in December could add to worries that the economic expansion that started in the third quarter of 2008 could falter once government stimulus --" this is just plain old ridiculous.

"Stubbornly high unemployment remains the weakest link in the recovery from the worst economic downturn since the thirties." Stubbornly high unemployment? Oh, so unemployment out there is an "it." Unemployment is a thing, and it's stubborn. Unemployment is fighting Obama. They're in a death match, unemployment versus Obama, and Obama is raising taxes, and unemployment is saying, "Screw you, buddy, I'm not working." What is this stubbornly high unemployment, as though unemployment is working against Obama's great and courageous efforts to do something about it. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is not all of the bad news. From those unfazed at Reuters: "US foreclosure actions shattered all records in 2009 and will do so again this year, with unemployment and wage cuts overcoming programs to remedy failing home loans, RealtyTrac said on Thursday. A record 2.8 million properties with a mortgage got a foreclosure notice last year, jumping 21 percent from 2008 and 120 percent from 2007, the Irvine, California-based real estate data company found. The loan failure rate -- and thus the fallout for home prices and the economy -- would have been even worse without foreclosure prevention programs and loan processing delays caused by sheer volume, the company said."

It would have been even worse had it not been for Obama's foreclosure program, but we have also heard that hardly anybody is accessing the foreclosure program. They're behind on their payments and it's worse than being said because some lenders exempted December payments because of Christmas just to be compassionate and keep Obama off their back, like he's on the backs of the bankers right now. "US foreclosure action shattered all records, despite aid." Despite Obama's courageous efforts to help, foreclosure actions shattered all records. It's no wonder that only 39% of the American people would again vote for Obama if the presidential race were held today.

RUSH: In the latest attack -- and it's right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. In the latest attack on the American private sector, Barack Obama this morning in Washington at the White House spoke about a new tax on banks.

OBAMA: When I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people -- folks who have not been made whole and who continue to face real hardship in this recession -- we want our money back, and we're gonna get it. And that's why I'm proposing a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee to be imposed on major financial firms until the American people are fully compensated for the extraordinary assistance they provided to Wall Street.

RUSH: Now, folks, I'm telling you: This is right out of Saul Alinsky. He is trading on the fact that he believes you despise Wall Street, that you despise fat-cat bankers, and that anything done to punish them you will agree to and support Obama for doing. They have paid back the TARP money. They were forced to take it in the first place. Let's get the history of this right. Many of these CEOs at these institutions were dragged into an office at the Treasury department by then-Secretary Henry Paulson, and they were given three hours to sign a document saying that they will accept bailout money. The CEO of Wells Fargo bank did not want any bailout money. They weren't in any problem. They had no exposure to the subprime mortgage crisis. Still, they had to take $25 billion. These firms who were forced to take the TARP money have mostly paid it back. This is, again, a flat-out lie and disingenuous as hell. "When I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people..."

They were said to be "too big to fail" by you, sir! You said they couldn't fail. We were told an economic crisis of biblical proportions would happen if we didn't do this. You forced it on them, and you forced it on everybody else. Folks, don't make a mistake here of assuming that I don't think bankers and financial people ever do anything wrong. What I'm objecting to here is this move by Obama to run in and control every aspect of what they do. It's just another grab at a portion of the private sector that is none of his business, and he's relying on this class envy, him thinking that you hate these people. That's why he didn't object to any of the protests at AIG headquarters homes, the CEOs' homes (which were, by the way, conducted and organized largely by ACORN). So he forces the banks to take the TARP money, they mostly pay it back and now he's going to tax them for forcing them to take it in the first place! Here's another sound bite, before we get to the Alinsky connection here.

OBAMA: Our goal is not to punish Wall Street firms but rather to prevent the abuse and excess that nearly caused the collapse of many of these firms in the financial system itself.

OBAMA: We cannot go be back to business as usual, and when we see reports of firms once again engaging in risky bets to reap quick rewards -- when we see a return to compensation practices that seem not to reflect what the country has been through -- all that looks like business as usual to me.

RUSH: Well, it seems to me, Mr. President, the one area of our economy that's doing well is Wall Street! There's money being made on Wall Street, Mr. President. Is that what bugs you, Mr. President? There's money being made there. That's the reason bonuses are being paid. Have you seen what happened to the Dow Jones Industrial Average? It's climbing. It's up 22 points right now. It's at ten six: 10,600. It's the only area of the economy doing well and now you're assaulting it. There's nowhere in the private sector left to invest. That's why money is going to Wall Street, pure and simple. "Business as usual." Not punish Wall Street firms? Yes, it is. It's exactly what you're doing. "Prevent the abuse and excess that nearly caused the...

It was not bonuses and salaries that caused the collapse. What caused the collapse was Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky and ACORN taking over the banks and demanding that banks make loans to people that they knew could never pay 'em back. The banks were holding worthless paper. So they came up with a bunch of new Financial Products to sell to try to get some insurance on this worthless paper they were forced to lend. This is just mind-boggling here. It's more manipulation. It is another undisguised attack on free markets, and the president of the United States insisting that go there aren't going to be free markets anymore. He's going to regulate it. We're not going to have risks. We're not going to have up and down cycles. We're not going to have any entrepreneurism, and we're not going to have any qualified people in these institutions because they're all going to leave to find jobs elsewhere, even if they have to leave the financial services industries. One more bite...

OBAMA: We're already hearing a hue and cry from Wall Street suggesting that this proposed fee is not only unwelcome, but unfair, that by some twisted logic it is more appropriate for the American people to bear the cost of the bailout rather than the industry that benefited from it, even though these executives are out there giving themselves huge bonuses. What I say to these executives is this: Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal, or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities. And I'd urge you to cover the costs of the rescue not by sticking it to your shareholders or your customers or fellow citizens with the bill, but by rolling back bonuses for top earners and executives.

RUSH: They've already paid most of the TARP money back, and getting rid of these bonuses would not make a dent in how much TARP money there was. There's nowhere near $700 billion in bonuses. There's still $200 billion of TARP money that's not spent. What the hell is he talking about here? I'll tell you what he's talking about: 100%-pure class envy. He wants you to hate these people, and he wants your support because he wants you to believe he hates 'em, too, and he's getting even with them. At the end of the day you're no better off. Regardless what he does to these Wall Street executives and these fat cats and their compensation packages and their bonuses -- he could strip 'em, he could cut 'em in half -- it's not going to change your life at all. It's not going to put an additional dollar in your pocket. "Repaying" you, the taxpayers, is another one of these euphemisms that's just that. This guy has already placed us $12 trillion in debt! Repaying this is chump change, it's nothing. This is pure, 100% politics. And Valerie Jarrett, his cohort, was on TV this morning. "The banks should step up to their responsibility and be our partners and not try to fight their obligations." Obligations! These people have largely paid back the TARP money to get out from under the federal fist and the hand that is regulating and running these businesses. I wonder what the buyer's remorse factor is on Wall Street, because a lot of those people are liberal Democrats, and a lot of those people voted for Obama. I wonder if they're having buyer's remorse yet.

RUSH: I think Obama has the same speechwriter as Hugo Chavez. He's down there nationalizing businesses left and right, all kinds of threats aimed at businesses. I'm going to tell you what Obama's doing here, folks. Obama is doing all of this, engaging in these unwarranted attacks, class envy oriented attacks on banks and Wall Street firms to divert attention from his monumental failure as president in dealing with the economy and job losses and foreclosures. He is a dismal failure, dismal. And in his mind he's a success, he intends to do this, but he is failing to reignite this economy so he has to distract people's attention from that. This is what sociologists and what Marxists do. You could take every bonus given on Wall Street and add 'em all up, and it wouldn't add up to anywhere near the trillions of dollars in fiscal waste and deficit spending of Barack Obama. It wouldn't come anywhere near it. It's too bad that Obama doesn't show the same outrage about the waste of taxpayer dollars by ACORN or the enormous costs passed on to the consumer by big unions or the enormous cost of government created by all of these unions that work in the government public sector. This has a direct impact on our quality of life.

Now, let me tell you why bank profits are up. It's not because of any chicanery on their part, it's not because they're cheating people. Do you know what the cost of money, the Fed fund transfer rate is? It's practically zero. There's no interest rate, bank-to-bank borrowing. Larry Kudlow says that any idiot can make money when money costs them nothing. That's why they're not lending to anybody else. Why would you lend to somebody that is kind of risky when you can get money for nothing and buy Treasuries with it or invest in the government for a guaranteed three-and-a-half percent? And this is exactly what's happening. That is why they're turning a profit, not because they're stealing from anybody. The big banks paid back the loans with interest. They bought back the warrants. But who didn't? General Motors didn't. Chrysler didn't. Fannie and Freddie. They are the people who need to be taxed. They are the people who need to have taxes placed on them because they have not paid back the TARP money. The big Wall Street firms paid back the TARP money with interest, and now they're still being taxed and they were forced to take it in the first place.

Now, to Saul Alinsky. Bank stocks took a big hit a couple days ago due to this intent to tax 'em. Not General Motors, not GMAC, not Fannie Mae, not Freddie. And this is all under the guise of paying back TARP money which they've already done. The fact is that Obama is returning to his roots here, folks. This has been the playbook for years, controlling banks, controlling mortgages, has been the goal of people like Alinsky and organizations such as ACORN from the beginning. Now, what Obama is doing now is what he used to do for ACORN, only now it's much easier, and he can cripple the entire private sector, not just one banking organization at a time. Some background on this to help you understand this, Peter Schweizer in his book Architects of Ruin, and I read to you here from pages nine and ten.

"Alinsky understood the world of finance because many of his early backers were financiers. Alinsky would brag, 'I feel confident I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution on a Saturday, out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday, even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.' Alinsky directed much of his fire against banks. He understood not only the power of banks but their potential to act as a fulcrum by which he could advance his ambitious agenda. They also make a convenient enemy. As Alinsky taught, finding an enemy was important. And thus he was quoted in Hillary Clinton's senior thesis." This is what Hillary wrote about Alinsky: "In order to organize, you must first polarize. People think of controversy as negative, they think consensus is better, but to organize you need a Bull Connor."

Now, on page 23 of Schweizer's book: "ACORN and other activist organizations also subscribe to the view that the banks were part of a larger structural effort to keep minorities and the urban poor oppressed. Banks were not simply in the practice of making money, they were political institutions whether they knew it or not, part of the privileged white power structure. Lending practices, therefore, were less a function of rational criteria than racial politics. With the arrival of the Community Reinvestment Act, the crusading housing activist discovered that they now had a seat at the table and a vehicle for their redistributionist schemes. By using a cadre of lawyers and an army of activists, ACORN believed it could dramatically alter the terms of the financial free market and force banks to lend to those they would ordinarily not consider qualified. As the sympathetic professor Heidi Schwartz put it, 'Through the CRA, activists could extract resources from banks, take money out of them, give them to the poor and working class people, simply a euphemism for extortion and income redistribution.'"

Alinsky taught to target the banks. They're a convenient enemy. Everybody hates 'em. They think bankers steal and cheat and lie, inside information making them and nobody else rich. Alinsky said go after the banks, intimidate them and we take 'em over and we get the money outta there to our constituents. And that's exactly what Obama has done from day one. It's all in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.

RUSH: Now, don't we want the bank profits to go up, folks? Isn't that what this was all about, bailing out the banks? What did that mean? Don't we want bank profits to go up? Haven't we just spent hundreds of billions of dollars because we want bank profits to go up so that we would no longer have to subsidize them? And now the profits at banks are up and all of a sudden they're an enemy, they're a demon and they've gotta be cut down to size. This is how Alinsky radicals work. Obama is one.

RUSH: Okay, Obama is taxing the big banks. I want to spend a little bit more time on this in the monologue, and we'll get to your phone calls shortly in the next segment of this hour. But this is important. Not only is Obama doing this to distract everybody from his utter failures with the economy: Job losses, foreclosures. He's also attacking one of the highly visible sectors in the private sector, the banking industry, because that's how he has been trained. It affords multiple opportunities for him to advance his agenda. It all requires (which is something pretty simple in their view) hatred of the rich, hatred of big banks, hatred of people who seem to be making out really good during a recession and capitalizing on that. Basically give you people the pitchforks and have you storming Wall Street, metaphorically, you're so outraged. So Obama, your savior, comes along and starts punishing them for making profits in a recession and you're supposed to cheer him on.

Your life won't change at all. In fact, it might get worse because your ATM fee is going to go up. As these banks are taxed, they're going to pass it along to you and all of us as possible; it's just how it works, which Obama also knows. So again I ask: Didn't we want the bank profits to go up? Wasn't that the purpose of bailing them out? If we didn't want them to remain profitable and they must remain profitable to remain open, why bail them out? If we didn't want them to remain profitable, we wouldn't have bailed them out. We bailed them out so they could make profits, and now they've done it and they paid it back with interest, and now we are going to tax them for being successful, for profiting! Here's a story from December 7th of last year: "Administration to Slash Bailout Cost Estimate."

Our memories are long. He's not counting on that, but our memories are long. "The Obama administration will lose $200 billion less than expected from the federal bailout program and is looking at using part of the savings to fund new job creation efforts. A Treasury official said Sunday that the administration now believes the cost of the financial rescue program will be at least $200 billion below the $341 billion estimate it made in August. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the administration's new projection has not been released, said the lower estimate reflected faster repayments by big banks..." I'm just reading this to prove to you the claim that they've paid it back. This is December 2009. "The reduced cost of the bailout is reflected by faster repayments by the banks and less spending on some of the rescue programs as the financial sector recovered from its free fall more quickly than the administration originally expected."

So rather than take a tack that says, "Look, the bailout worked!" Rather than say, "Whoa, it's good! It's great! The banks have money. You can start seeing some lending now. Maybe we can start seeing some private sector activity." No! Rather than do that, cover up the fact that they paid it back with interest and now make them the enemy -- and I urge all of you not to fall for this. This is not to defend the banks. This is not to line up on their side unilaterally and without exception. It's simply an attack on the private sector, folks, and this man is in the process of destroying it; and we have to stand up against that. I want to go back to Saul Alinsky. This is where Obama was trained. He was a community agitator in Chicago. Every one of them learned Alinsky. Hillary Clinton loved Alinsky. She wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley on it. Leftist radicals all swear by Alinsky.

His primary work, the book Rules for Radicals, was dedicated to "Lucifer, the first-ever rebel." "Pages 162 and 163: New Tactics and Old. Speaking of issues, let's look at the issue of pollution. Here again we can use the haves against the have-nots to get what we want, or the haves against the haves in fact. When utilities or heavy industries talk about the people, they mean the banks and other power sectors of their own world. If their banks, say, start pressing them then they listen and hurt. The target therefore should be the banks that serve the steel, auto, and other industries and the goal: Significant lessening of pollution. Let us begin by making the banks live up to their own public statements. All banks want money, and advertise for new savings and checking accounts. They even offer premium prizes to those who will open accounts."

Now, you gotta remember this stuff is written in the Sixties. So you'd have to replace now the steel industry and some of these other businesses that banks are in league with, with high-tech industries. But the theory holds. And of course banks no longer give you a toaster for opening a savings account but they still lure people in. The point is they're still offering all kinds of things to get new customers to give them their money. "All banks want money and advertise for new savings and checking accounts. They even offer premium prizes. You open a savings account in a bank and to do that it's more than just a routine matter. First you sit down with one of the multiple VPs or employees and begin to fill out forms and respond to questions for at least 30 minutes. If a thousand or more people all moved in each with five or ten dollars to open up a savings account, the bank's floor functions would be paralyzed.

"Again as is in the case of the shop-in, the police would be immobilized. There's no illegal occupation. The bank's in a difficult position here. It knows what's happening, but still it does not want to antagonize would-be depositors. The bank's public image would be destroyed if some thousand would-be depositors were arrested or forcibly ejected from the premises. The element of ridicule is here again. A continuous chain of action and reaction is formed. Following this the people can return in a few days and close their accounts and then return again later to open new accounts. This is what I would call a middle class guerrilla attack. It could well cause an irrational reaction on the part of the banks, which would then be directed against their large customers, for example, the polluting utilities or whatever were the obvious stated targets of the middle class organizations.

"The target of a secondary attack such as this is always outrage. The bank thus is likely to react more emotionally since it, as a body, feels that it's innocent, being punished for another's sins. At the same time, this kind of action could also be combined with social refreshments and gathering together with friends downtown as well as with the general enjoyment of seeing the discomfiture and confusion on the part of the establishment. The middle class guerrillas would enjoy themselves as they increase the pressure on their enemies." Well, in this example in the Sixties, instead of a thousand people showing up opening a five or ten dollar savings account and paralyzing the bank it was ACORN that went in with the Community Redevelopment Act and demanded loans for people that couldn't pay them back. The whole point was to damage the bank, not to paralyze banks.

The whole point was to get the banks to give money to people that they otherwise wouldn't give it to -- people that had no business being lent money or having money given to them -- for the express purpose of income redistribution. Now, for all this to happen, the banks needed to be demonized. The banks had to be demonized, so the banks were lumped with, back in Alinsky's day, the big businesses of the time: The big utilities, Big Steel, Big Polluters. In this era, 2010 America, rather than big banks being associated with those kinds of industries (they still are associated with utilities and pollution) now the big banks are in league with other big banks, and the big banks are in league with themselves. The big banks are seen to be giving themselves all kinds of money and profit. The big banks are seen to be in league with the Federal Reserve. But the Alinsky theory still holds.

You run and you paralyze the bank for the express purpose of seeing to it that people who otherwise would not have access to bank money get it, and they succeeded. The Community Redevelopment Act was precisely based on the concept of "affordable housing," and as people like Barney Frank define affordable housing, affordable housing is housing you don't have to pay for! The subprime mortgage crisis is the root of all of what we are still facing today. Yet after forcing these banks to take TARP money, they pay it back with interest, and now Obama today announces a new tax on them because they're insensitive! In times of trouble and stress they're continuing to reward themselves with high compensation and big bonuses. Well, if you look at the activity on Wall Street, they're having a pretty good year. It's the only place in our economy people feel comfortable investing money, those that have money to invest.

There's nothing in the private sector worth investing in right now on a large-scale. Nobody knows what's going to happen to the private sector. It's largely stagnant. But Wall Street's sitting there and it's doing pretty well. It's the only place to put money -- and gold, of course. But the point is that these people are now made targets because they did exactly what they were told to do. They took the money, they paid it back, and they're now showing profits. We wanted them to show a profit, did we not? That's the whole purpose of bailing them out. We want them to show a profit. There's no reason to stay in business if you're not profiting from it. So it's a healthy rebound, and rather than take the tack, "Look, our bailout worked," you demonize 'em. Because the purpose of this is it's just the latest salvo on the private sector. It's to create chaos among the middle class and get them to hate as many of the institutions in the private sector as possible.

Hate the banks. Hate Wall Street. Hate whoever has more than you do. Paint them as insensitive, getting rich while you're unemployed. It's all designed to get people comfortable with the idea that Obama and the government would be more fair and more just if they just seized control and ran these institutions themselves. It's frightening, and it is genuinely scary. Now, there are a bunch of firms that got bailouts who have not paid them back. Not even close. General Motors. General Motors Acceptance Corporation. Chrysler. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barney Frank bragged the other day, have now essentially been taken over as government entities. They have the cap on the amount of money that they can be in debt. It was raised to $111 billion. The amount of money that people that work there get, the $6 million salaries, are no problem.

Daniel Mudd got $10 million for screwing up and leaving Fannie Mae. So there are institutions that took big bailout money and haven't paid it back... Obama owns the car companies, so he's not going to tax himself. And he owns GMAC and Freddie Mac. He's also in charge now of student loans. There is now, essentially, a single payer in student loans. The government is the only place you can go to get a student loan. So inch by inch the private sector is being taken over, and you can just follow the Alinsky tactics in Rules for Radicals to find out how it's being done -- and it has to happen. Remember, now, you can't have -- as Hillary Clinton quoted Alinsky... You cannot have... Uh, what's the phrase? I'm having a mental block here on one word. Basically you need an enemy, but... (interruption)Yeah, you need a Bull Connor but it's what came before that. Hang on, I'll find it here. (muttering) I put it somewhere. I'll find it.

I'll find it. But you need a demon, you need an enemy. Oh! "Before you get consensus you need polarization." You have to divide people. This is the essential element to Alinskyite-ism. You have to divide people, and you have to keep them upset and despondent. The more they think that there's no hope, the more they think that there's no chance for a job... There was just a story yesterday: People think the opportunity to get rich no longer exists in the country. This is by design. Obama wants people to think this way because that opens the floodgates, it opens the doors to revamping the system. At some point, Obama's going to say -- and he'll probably use almost these exact words. He's going to say: "Capitalism hasn't worked. The old ways have been shown not to work. It's time for a new direction."

He may not use the word "capitalism," but the whole point -- if you want to remake a country, remake a culture, remake a society -- is it takes time. Your first step is you have to make the citizenry absolutely miserable. You have to make the people of the country think that there is no hope. You have to convince them that the system in which they're living will never succeed, will never help them, that the system in which they live is rigged against them. That's how you make them open for "change." So this business today of coming out and announcing a punitive tax on banks is just the next incremental step in forcing as many Americans as possible to essentially give up on the last 200 years of America and accept a transformation to a socialist or fascist-type of (probably more likely fascist) private ownership that's government-directed.

RUSH: Now, one more thing here then we'll go to the phones. Compare, ladies and gentlemen, Wall Street to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both had their cap removed on how many failing mortgages they can hold to above $400 billion, meaning it's still on the government take. The cap for both was raised $111 billion, meaning there are still hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgages out there. The subprime mortgage crisis is still with us and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have had their cap raised so they can increase the number of failing mortgages they can hold. Their CEOs can get paid upwards of $6 million, and you'll never see Obama go on television to bitch about it because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are part of the government now. There's not even any precedence that there's a private sector component to either of these. Fannie and Freddie have not returned a dime of bailout money. Ex-CEO Daniel Mudd, like I mentioned, got $10 million for being part of the mortgage debacle. GM, Chrysler, ditto. They haven't paid back anything. Their profits, such as they are, are not being taxed, they are not being targeted; they're not being demonized. Only the banks; only Wall Street; only conservatives.

CALLER: Rush, it is a pleasure to finally speak with you. I have to tell you your opening monologue today was absolutely stunning. I've been listening to you since you've been on radio.

CALLER: It was stunning. I mean you went through, you know, the whole economic reasons why --

CALLER: And that brings us back to your four pillars, you know, the media, education, science, government, that the liberals have taken control of.

CALLER: The Four Corners of Deceit. Perfect. Liberals demonize everything, that's so true. Finally today, and Mr. Snerdley was kind enough to put me on the air, the banks are coming back at Congress and saying, "Hey wait a second." It was Alan Greenspan who two times put this country in a state of mania. If you remember, the stock market crash of 2000 was Greenspan's lack of acting on those famous words, what were they in December 1996 --

CALLER: You betcha. And when it really came to irrational exuberance, he sat with his thumbs -- I'm not going to say any more, and he did nothing. And Obama says today, "Business as usual." That's code for Goldman Sachs. So everything comes out of Goldman Sachs, all these bankers, all these things, but the main point today is the Drive-Bys are starting to look at Alan Greenspan. This is what I do for a living, I sit home with my wife and we trade stocks. We were handed a 21-year gift last year when everybody was throwing their stocks out the door, they were throwing them into our hands, although we were caught in it as well, and it nearly bankrupted our family but we were lucky enough to have had some cash aside to buy up these companies, pennies on the dollar. Now, when we talk about companies that have failed, what about the company that took no money, Ford Motor Company? It went to a dollar.

RUSH: Well, you know, that is another excellent point. Even financial institutions that took no TARP money are subject to this tax. You are exactly right. And the Obama-owned or operated companies that also took bailout money who paid none of it back, are not going to be taxed.

RUSH: The Obama administration, in addition to taxing the profits of Wall Street firms today and bonuses and everything else is now prepared to criminalize capitalism. This a story from today by Daniel Wagner at the State-Controlled Associated Press: "Attorney General Eric Holder told a bipartisan panel exploring the roots of the US financial crisis that the Justice Department is using 'every tool at its disposal' to fight the financial crimes that contributed to the meltdown and could cause another.

"Holder said fighting financial crime will foster confidence in the system. He is appearing before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in its second day of hearings. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro will tell the panel her agency has been reviewing its operations in light of crimes exposed by the crisis. ... Holder highlighted the work of a new interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force created by President Barack Obama to coordinate efforts between the Justice Department and other agencies. The regulators and officials are expecting to discuss investigations into crimes that became known during the crisis, including mortgage fraud and the large financial crimes like the landmark pyramid scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff."

Holder highlighted the work of a new interagency financial fraud enforcement task force created by Obama to coordinate efforts between the Justice Department and other agencies. The regulators and officials are expecting to discuss investigations into crimes that became known during the crisis, including mortgage fraud and the large financial crimes like the landmark Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff. Now, this is part and parcel of going after the banks, right out of the Alinsky Rules for Radicals. You now criminalize all of capitalism, and when they start talking about mortgage fraud, you know, I swell up to the point of bursting when I hear mortgage fraud. This whole mortgage fraud was forced by a federal government program called the Community Redevelopment Act, which was authored in part by ACORN. The whole point was to make mortgaging that were worthless; to make loans that were worthless.

Where is the fraud? The fraud exists in people not being able to pay the mortgage back or to make monthly payments on the loans. The fraud's giving them one in the first place, but the banks were forced to do this. Janet Reno was threatening these banks with all kinds of things if they didn't start making these kinds of loans. If only the Obama administration would go after terrorists with the same zeal that they are pursuing evil capitalists. What they're doing, my friends, Obama, the Democrats, are criminalizing the making of money, capitalism itself. And you can see it in the bank tax. They're persecuting the very people who do so much to help create investment and wealth in our country and around the world. The very people whose industriousness creates the wealth that is on display now in bailing out people in Haiti. The government can't do this. It is capitalism that made this country the greatest country on the face of the earth.

But speaking of terrorists, will these bank CEOs and other financial criminals be afforded the same presumption of innocence and other rights that we are now extending to those confused innocents who have been captured red-handed on the battlefield? Will the CEOs and the bankers be able to retract any and all statements they have made or might have appeared to be an admission of guilt? Will they be provided a dramatic forum where they can present their side of the story to the world without any fear of future retribution? Probably not. They will not be given the same presumption of innocence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is given. After all, these banks and mortgage lenders were following the mandates of previous Congresses and presidents. They should be shown no mercy. This is exactly what is going on.

Holder Tells Financial Crisis Panel White-Collar Crime Enforcement Is 'Priority'

Media Tweaked: "Light-Skinned" Remark Pinned on Rush, Not Reid (Rush takes on an angry caller)

RUSH: To Paducah, Kentucky. This is April. That is one of my all-time, top ten favorite female names. April, thank you for calling. Nice to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Where in your right mind do you get the cojones to just completely -- I don't know, I guess -- dismiss a tragedy of possibly a hundred thousand people dead in Haiti? You're -- you're going around discouraging people to send donations because we already donated to Haiti and it's called the US income tax; and Obama, the president of our United States -- your president as well, whether you like it or not.

CALLER: Uh, I read it in, uh, a news thing called the Huffington Post, but that's not the point. I was going to finish my sentence if that's okay with you.

RUSH: Well, but what you just said is a lie. They reported a lie. I did not discourage donations to Haiti.

CALLER: Okay. Well, um, actually the point I was getting to, whether or not you said that -- which actually I believe you did. But...

RUSH: No, it's not "whether or not." That matters. I mean you call here and ask, "Where do I get off suggesting that we don't donate to Haiti because we do in the income tax?" and I tell you I said that, but I also said private donations are going to be much better than a government donation. They're all going, go to the Red Cross, do other things, don't go through the government. It's just going to go through hands and bureaucracies and a dollar is going to end up being 30 cents by the time they get through with it. I did not say, "Don't make donations." That's not a "whether or not" thing. That's why you called.

CALLER: Calm down. I planned on it, but actually I... Keep denying that, but what is this you were saying about our president of the United States trying to just basically establish credibility in the black community among white (sic) and dark-skinned African-Americans? And why do you, like... After saying that, why would you call yourself a patriot?

RUSH: All right. Now, this is funny. This was our Media Tweak of the Day yesterday, April. You know, what we do here on this program is, purposely, play the media like violin, like a Stradivarius. And I love tweaking them. I love irritating them, and I love upsetting them and all you do is take words uttered by liberals and apply them to current events. It was Harry Reid who looked at Obama and said he's a "light-skinned" guy that "doesn't speak in a Negro dialect."

RUSH: I was. You see, this is the point. You didn't listen to the program. You're reading people who take what I say out of context precisely to create this sense of outrage that you have.

RUSH: In fact, I want you to listen to something with me. Before I said all of this I made a prediction, because this was my Media Tweak of the Day -- and it's getting too easy. I mean, you're illustrating how easy it is to outrage these people. I enjoy it. This is a great success. When people start squealing like pigs is when I know I've hit a home run. This is what I said yesterday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Before this week is out, I will be the one who uttered the words "light-skinned" and "doesn't speak the Negro dialect when he doesn't want to." I'll be the one that said it. Before the week is out I'll be the one that said it, not Harry Reid, and they'll be asking, "Why have you not condemned Rush Limbaugh for what he said (in repeating what Harry Reid said)?" and Harry Reid will condemn me from the Senate floor!

RUSH: And then I proceeded to suggest that Obama is going to be giving aid to both light-skinned and dark-skinned Negroes in Haiti, just designed to get the reaction I got -- and it worked. The people that listen to this program laugh and chuckle every day at this stuff, because we're just needling the media. They talk about me all the time and I can create it any time I want. It's made you mad, and you believe things they take out of context that don't completely say what I fully said, and you get mad.

CALLER: Okay, so you're basically evading the second part of my question. You're not going to tell me why you decided to go around saying something, like, a tragedy that's happened to hundreds of thousands of people, who are suffering.

RUSH: No, I'm not evading it at all. If I said it I meant to say it, and I do believe that everything is political to this president. Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion. I went further than that even. I'll have to tell you what else I said after the break if you want to hold on.

RUSH: We go back now to April in Paducah. I had to interrupt you because we had a hard break and I couldn't miss it. What is it you were going to say?

CALLER: Well, if I remember correctly I was about to go say, like, I've been trying to get you to explain to me, at least -- if not the entire country listening to your show right now -- what...? Like what... Why...? It doesn't sound like the president is making this Haiti donation business a political thing. It sounds like you are. You're just... Uh, you brought up a completely inane, baseless point about establishing credibility in the light- and dark-skinned black communities, and, like, there's no reason for that. There's, like --

RUSH: Now, April, I must ask a serious question: Do you ever listen to my program or do you hear about it in places like the Huffington Post?

CALLER: Um... I... When I'm upstairs in the bedroom I'll have the radio on and I like to listen to some local stations. So, yes, I have heard your show.

CALLER: And I've heard dozens and clips and quotes that you've said and most of the time I'm absolutely disgusted with you. I'll be perfectly honest with you.

RUSH: I see. Okay, now that we've established that you listen sometimes and you're absolutely disgusted. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of the Democrat Party and President Obama politicizing a natural disaster?

RUSH: Yeah, has that ever happened? Has Barack Obama and the Democrat Party ever politicized a natural disaster?

CALLER: Umm, well, this is the -- at least if you're speaking specifically about President Obama, this is the first natural disaster that we've had on, uh -- on his term. So...

RUSH: We had a natural disaster when he was Senator. It doesn't matter whether he was president or not. I said the Democrat Party and President Obama, as a Senator, certainly politicized Hurricane Katrina. You see, the difference, April, is that I know these people. I know who they are and I love to tweak them. I love to tweak the media. I predicted yesterday... How come there's no outrage, by the way, at Bill Clinton suggesting that Obama's nothing more than a slave when he was trying to get Ted Kennedy to endorse Hillary and he says (doing impression), "Come on! Come on, Ted. You know, a few years ago this guy would be fetching us our coffee." You're not outraged about that because the Huffington Post isn't outraged about it. They probably don't write about it but I talk about all of it.

CALLER: Actually... Uh, are you implying that the Huffington Post as the one and only resource that I watch (sic--read)? I even watch Fox News once in a while.

RUSH: What I'm illustrating here is that you're a blockhead. What I'm illustrating here is that you're a closed-minded bigot who is ill-informed. I am being patient and tolerant and I'm trying to explain this to you, and you're totally closed to it. I'm hitting you with piercing, penetrating logic, and it escapes you -- and it is irritating people like you that I revel in. I absolutely revel in it. I've got 19 sound bites here today, April, of media people going bat manure yesterday over what they think I said. They didn't hear me say it, either. They got it from the Huffington Post or they got it from Media Matters or they got it from someplace else. I did not say don't donate. I did say Obama will use this to help burnish his credentials, 'cause there's no question he will. I'll tell you something else I said, April: It took him three days to go out and talk about the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber. It took him less than 18 hours to get out there and start rallying people about this earthquake.

I'll tell you something else, April. I'm going to make prediction to you, and I'm gonna be right about this. Before the week is out we're going to have to be stories in the Huffington Post and other places that you read pointing out how fast Obama moved into action versus Bush during Hurricane Katrina. To accuse me of politicizing everything is to be ignorant about what I do on this program. I simply react to the left. They're the ones that politicize virtually everything that's happening from health care to terrorism, and I love illustrating absurdity by being absurd. And if you had listened to this program for a modicum of time you would know it. But instead you're a blockhead. You're mind is totally closed. You have tampons in your ears. Nothing is getting through other than the biased crap that you read. So I've had enjoyment here talking to you and illustrating that it's impossible to deal in the truth with you. I appreciate your calling and I appreciate your holding on. I grew up not far from Paducah. If I'd known you were there, I might have stayed.

RUSH: Let me tell you by way of Tony Blankley, a sound bite we played yesterday. What all of this is, is reacting to what I did not say yesterday on this program.

BLANKLEY: The lesson that we learned from this is not that the Senator said anything particularly remarkable, but that when conservatives say something equally unremarkable, that the feigned outrage drives them out of office; whether it's Rush Limbaugh saying that a black quarterback got better press than had he been white or whether it was Senator Allen who used the word "Macaca" -- whatever that means -- that got six stories on the front page of the Washington Post. The point is, they're not sincere when they're outraged. They're just trying to drive out a political opponent.

RUSH: Exactly. And so all of this outrage that you saw on television last night is feigned. It is fake. I'm not the one that ever used light skinned, dark-skinned. That was Harry Reid! We're laughing at him. We're making fun of him. And they fake all this outrage that I would say this, not even understanding -- and they do understand I was making a joke. They are just feigning outrage to try to take me out, and that's why I do the Media Tweak every day because they're going to bomb out every time they try. I mean, it's just fun.

The truth has slipped out on this program and on many others. When we have these nattering nabobs on the left call here and complain that there are this number of millions of people uninsured, we always say, "It doesn't matter, everybody gets treated in this country, especially if you go to the emergency room. Everybody gets treated." Technically nobody doesn't have health care coverage in this country, technically. And now the truth has slipped out. New York congressman Anthony Weiner -- or is it Whiner? He pronounces it Weiner? I don't want to purposely mispronounce it because some people might think Weiner is, you know, taking a jab here, but if it's the way he really pronounces it, I want to get it right. Question: "We could easily have a natural disaster, if not quite on this scale at least the same broad ballpark, a slightly heavier earthquake in California could do extraordinary devastation in San Francisco or Los Angeles. Thinking about this and maybe it's appropriate, tell me if it's inappropriate in asking, but how would survivors of something like this here fare in terms of getting on their own feet economically after this with the health care system we have in place right now?"

WEINER: Frankly, every single day when people go into a hospital emergency room, you know, there's some questions asked, "Let me see your insurance card," but at the end of the day we care for them. So we really don't have a discussion in this country about whether or not we're going to have health care for everyone. We really do. The only question that we're having now, it seems almost silly it's so petty, is how are we going to distribute that health care.

RUSH: How are we going to distribute -- thank you, Congressman Weiner, the truth is out, everybody gets treated. The question that he was asked was a softball setup. The question, "With the health care system in the condition that it's in now," meaning it's horrible, "and if we had a natural disaster here, oh, my God, what would happen with health care in this country?" And Weiner just shot down the question, "Oh, everybody gets treated here. That's not the problem. What we have to do is redistribute the health care."

RUSH: Now, if in order for the American people to turn their economy over to Obama -- car manufacturers, banks, health care, the environment... By the way, there is a picture of Nancy Pelosi at the Detroit auto show plugging in a Chevrolet Volt to a charger with one of her employees -- General Motors president, vice president -- looking on.

This is hilarious. These Democrats are going up to observe what their companies are doing. Ford reported gangbuster business while GM and Chrysler haven't. Anyway, for people to turn the economy over to Obama -- car manufacturers, banks, health care, the environment -- it was necessary to position young Barack Obama as a once-in-a-lifetime genius, a phenom, a man who was so brilliant he didn't require experience of any kind. He had "a gift," and we simply weren't capable of understanding the munificence, the magnificence of Barack H. Obama: A man of brilliance, unflappable, oozing with good judgment and a cool demeanor. He was simply The One. Well, in one year, we have progressed from women fainting at the sight of the Most Merciful Barack Obama, to where people now faint when they get their pink slip from their construction firm that never received any of those shovel-ready jobs.

See what's happened out there, folks, is that Barack H. Obama has met reality and his perceived IQ has fallen precipitously as a result. This man is so much less than special. He's inexperienced, he's cold, he's detached. He has, as I frequently say, a chip on his shoulder about this country. He is resentful of the private sector, poorly educated in free markets. He has exhibited no interest in admitting to or learning from his mistakes and is either not particularly bright or has spectacularly bad judgment. Everywhere we look, folks, it's a mess. Obama has all the votes he needs in Congress to do everything and anything he wants. His party has controlled Congress since 2006 (2007 when they were inaugurated). The deficit is an economic black hole.

There are no new permanent jobs saved, created, or funded. We've had two terrorist attacks that the president barely acknowledges. He's appointing czars like he's living in the Soviet Union. The country has seen one failure after another and identified it as such. Out of sheer tolerance and politeness, the country has chosen not to dislike this phony as much as they hate his policies. We don't like Obama's America. The State of the Union is far worse than we are ready to admit, and we know that it's bad. His party, the Democrat Party, is imploding. A Senate seat in Massachusetts once held by the swimmer, Ted Kennedy, is actually in play! He's down two governors now, and the Blue Dogs are retiring and headed back to the pound. Some are even switching parties. If results mean anything -- and we look at results on this program; we don't judge intentions.

If results mean anything, Barack Obama is closer to a dunce than a genius. He doesn't know what he's doing any more than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. I mean, these people are raging ideological incompetents and we're way past pretending otherwise. I know that he believes all this stuff, and it's dangerous as hell. He's been educated so improperly, that the stuff that he believes is just dangerous. Barack Obama was overpromised and he has under-delivered. I thought that it would have been the end of the day when he said "and we're going to lower the sea levels." No, come on, people aren't going to fall for that! But at the time most of them believed that New York is going to be underwater in 20 years. He has spectacularly under-delivered and yet he wants more power over us as if he's earned it, as if his collectivist-statist agenda has made a positive difference in people's lives.

CALLER: You know, talking to you almost takes my anger away, but I'm just so incensed that the Democrats think we're all stupid. You know, they live in an opposite world and they think the rest of the country followed suit. They keep telling us lies and they expect us to believe whatever they say just because they say it, you know.

RUSH: Like the two million jobs they created in the last half of last year. That's the news today, two million jobs created.

CALLER: Yeah. They assumed that they succeeded in mesmerizing all of us in removing all sense of decency, ethics, and common sense. Their arrogance is just astounding. It's beyond astounding.

RUSH: Yeah, and of course if you look at the latest polling data on health care, Obama is in the mid-thirties on approval. His job approval is at 45 and 46% in major polls. They have to be clearly aware of this, and their technique is just to lie even bigger.

CALLER: Do they even care that their poll numbers are so low? I don't think they care. That's just really frightening to me.

RUSH: Well, you'd have to conclude they don't care in one sense because they're governing against the will of the people. Look, this is why Levin wrote his book, Liberty and Tyranny, it's why he calls them statists. These people are not interested in democracy. They really are not interested in it. You can't trust the electorate to do the right thing as defined by Democrats. Voting is a problematic thing, and even though they have clear majorities in the House and the Senate, supermajority in the Senate, they still are governing against the will of the people. And buyers remorse is settling in on Obama. At this point I'm really not interested in their motivations. I'm interested in stopping them. It's fun to try to figure 'em out. I've done as good a job psychologically as anybody ever has or will, because I know these people. And basically what I'll tell you is they care in an ego sense, they want to be loved but they are more committed to their agenda than they are to being loved. They've never been this close to getting health care, and that's ball game. Single payer, socialized national health care is ball game. That's total control of the country, pure and simple. And they are committed to that. And they think they're so close to it, it doesn't matter. Ted Kennedy could send them all a vision in their sleep: "Don't do it, it's going to ruin the country," nobody can talk 'em out of it. Glad you called, Joni. Thanks very much.

RUSH: Oh. "Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress. So supporters are embracing research they once opposed. California's Proposition 71 was intended to create a $3 billion West Coast counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, empowered to go where the NIH could not -- either because of federal policy or funding restraints on biomedical research centered on human embryonic stem cells. Supporters of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, passed in 2004, held out hopes of imminent medical miracles that were being held up only by President Bush's policy of not allowing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) beyond existing stem cell lines and which involved the destruction of embryos created for that purpose.

"Five years later, ESCR has failed to deliver and backers of Prop 71 are admitting failure." This is from an Investor's Business Daily editorial, and I remember how intensely... I worked hard, this whole campaign in Missouri. Michael J. Fox was out there with Claire McCaskill and Michael J. Fox was out there running ads against Michael Steele when he was seeking a Senate seat in Maryland. The Breck Girl was wrong: Christopher Reeve would not have walked if John Kerry had won in 2004 because of embryonic stem cell research. This is what happens when you make science a political issue. You end up with fraudulent, fake, politically oriented causes that have nothing to do with science, and everything about it ends up being a lie. Nothing, $3 billion, no cures, no therapies, no progress. Adult stem cells are a different matter entirely.

Barney Franks says that the FNMA and FHLMC multi-million dollar bonuses are too high, but we just can’t do anything about it.

Remember how Dems touted Cash for Clunkers as a great success? Falling car sales hurt end of the year retail numbers (in other words, people who were going to buy cars, bought cars, and C4C just caused them to buy these cars a month or two early—at as cost, if memory serves me, of $40,000 per car).

Black Professor: If a White Republican said what Harry Reid said, it would be huge news:

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.

And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:

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 #110	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	January 17, 2010