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).

Having cancelled a meeting with the Dali Lama a few months earlier to appease China, Obama met with him a few days ago.

ConocoPhillips, BP America, and Caterpillar Inc. have have publically stated that they will not renew their memberships in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

Representative Ron Paul of Texas wins CPAC straw poll as presidential candidate.

The Jackson Five: CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were questioned just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

President Obama, February of 2009, when he signed the Stimulus Bill: “...we're putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done -- (applause) -- in critical areas that have been neglected for too long; work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.”

Also from February of 2009, President Obama: "We will need to do everything in the short term to get our economy moving again, while at the same time recognizing that we have inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, and we need to begin restoring fiscal discipline and taming our exploding deficits over the long term."

Evan Bayh, in his speech saying that he would not run again, added, “If I could create just one job in the private sector, that would be one more job than the stimulus package created.”

People are saying that Washington is broken and that we cannot get anything done in Washington. Daniel Henninger comments, “The Republican [and] Democratic parties are just far apart on those issues and the Democrats, certainly with healthcare, have given no indication that they want to push towards the middle. That’s not dysfunction; that is simply 2 parties unable to agree on anything.”

George Will, on the same topic, commented, “No one when George W. Bush had trouble reforming Social Security said, 'Oh, that's terrible - the government's broken'”

NBC reporter asks Olympic gold medal winner Sven Kramer to tell her who he is and where he is from, he answered, “Are you stupid? Hell, no, I’m not going to do that.” When she asked him how he felt, he said, “I feel pretty good.”

Bill Mahr (while it appears that Obama may reveres his position on a civilian trial for KSM): “Americans do not really care which position that you take; just stick with one, just be strong. Americans are not bright enough to understand the issues, but like an animal, they can sort of sense strength.”

Mitch McConnell said about the White House and healthcare: "I think they're having a hard time getting the message here. The American people do not want this bill to pass. And it strikes me as rather arrogant to say, 'Well, we're going to give it to you anyway, and we'll use whatever device is available to achieve that end.'"

Elton John, speaking to Parade Magazine: “I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems.” As a side note, many decades ago, I noticed how so many people attempt to co-opt Jesus for whatever their issue happens to be. They won’t say, “I know Jesus said, this, but I believe something else.” If they speak of our Lord, they try to attribute ideas and positions which He has never had.

Biden said "I don’t know whether the new senator from Massachusetts [Brown] understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer, too." Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for 30 years and he is currently a defense attorney for the guard.

The IAEA believe that Iran is now working on a delivery system (a missile) for the delivery of a nuclear weapon.

It is not as stirring as Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC speech last year, but Glenn Beck did a decent job and made some very good points:

Speaking of Beck, his Tuesday show was quite good, examining the budget and what we really need to do; followed by the TEA parties and how the alphabet news is characterizing them:

Ann Coulter explains why the shoe bomber was a whole different situation than the underwear bomber. It puts all of this into an historical and legal context.

O’Reilly was warned about one of the far right groups, the Oath Keepers, founded by Stewart Rhodes. O’Reilly saw him as being a bit extreme; you make your own call here. Maybe I have lived in Texas for too long, but he seemed sensible to me.

Bill Mahr stating that Americans are not bright enough to understand the issues:

The Sven Kramer interview (it’s pretty funny; the NBC interview is 23 seconds into the vid):

In case you wondered why Biden had ashes on his forehead, Dennis Miller explains that is where Obama puts out his cigs.

1) Greta asked a pretty good question, which I paraphrased: why is the President out there selling the Stimulus Bill? If it worked, there would be no reason to have to sell it.

2) Here is the big difference between government and private enterprise. When Walmart’s sales start to fall, then they reduce their costs and/or reduce the prices on their merchandise to keep Walmart’s profits up. When government screws up some venture, they tax more, they borrow more or they print more. There are no checks o government waste and fraud and inability to do anything efficiently. Bulls and Bears suggested that Washington be moved to Bentonville, Arkansas (to the Walmart home base) to see how it ought to function.

3) I have seen at least 2 Democrats with ashes on their foreheads. So, is this their way to snag the Catholic vote, while still supporting abortion?

4) As Lores pointed out today, every poll in existence shows that the people oppose the healthcare bills in the Senate and in the House and that, they would prefer (1) that Obama give it a rest and concentrate on jobs or (2) that healthcare be started from scratch. What does Obama do? Full speed ahead with Obamacare. He could care less what the American people think; he knows what is best for us.

5) If you are a Democrat or a liberal, I want you to think on this: right now, government spends about 47% of all the healthcare dollars. How is it possible that not everyone is insured by one of the many government programs? Are there more than 47% of Americans who cannot afford medical insurance?

6) How many times have you heard in the news media that we have turned the curve on the economy and that we are now moving in the right direction? State budgets right now are in terrible shape, and they deficits look as if they will keep getting worse.

5) How many times have you head a political commentator or even a newsman use the expression, the party of no? What does that tell you about the Democratic party and the media?

Cash for Caulkers: according to government released numbers, 9100 homes have been weatherized by the Stimulus Bill over the past year. The Department of Energy, which runs the program, says it is 22,000 homes. It is nowhere near close to the 593,000 the government claimed it was going to weatherize. The cost for this program? $57000 per house.

In the 100 days since its passage, the economic stimulus has "saved or created nearly 150,000 jobs," as Barack Obama on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 in a speech.

Recovery.gov lists 595,263 jobs reported in the final quarter of 2009.

The CBO estimated the stimulus created as many as 1.6 million jobs in a November report.

Biden recently stated that the Stimulus Bill created 2,000,000 jobs.

Senator Evan Bayh said that if he goes out in the public arena and creates 1 job, it will be one more job than the Stimulus Bill created.

I guess it depends upon who you ask.

If you go to www.recovery.gov and run your cursor over a state, you will find out, for instance, that Nevada got $413,750,000 from the Stimulus Bill, which created or saved (verbiage not used on this page anymore) 3149 jobs, which is a cost of $131,000+ per job (you will have ot use your calculator here, as the WH will not do this math for you). Also, you have to accept the WH figure of jobs reported as being accurate. Somehow, with these nearly 600,000 jobs created or saved by the Stimulus Bill, unemployment is still high.

Obama is officially the most polarizing president in Gallup’s history, with a 65 point gap between Democrats who approve of him (88%) and Republicans who approve of him (23%). Clinton had a 52 point gap in his first year as president.

(To be fair, a considerable number still believe that the Stimulus will kick in, in the future).

21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.

I also mention this in the prophecies fulfilled column: news about Iraq and Afghanistan is very hopeful and positive now, whereas, when Bush was president, it was negative most of the time.

How many news stories have you seen trying to pass off 9–10% unemployment as the new normal? Do you see where the news is trying to change your thinking and perception? It was only a few years ago where 4–6% unemployment was unacceptable and that the Great Depression loomed large over the United States (according to the press).

The TEA party movement is a sensible movement, where many of the people are involved in politics for the first time in their lives. However, the media is portraying them as far, right radicals.

E.J. Dionne writes a story with the headline Tea Partiers Are Anti-Statist Radicals.

The Washington Post has a fairly lengthy article on that nutjob who flew his plane into an IRS building in Austin, and in the first paragraph, links him to the TEA party movement (even though there is no relationship between him and the TEA party movement—not even in his 34 paragraph rant. But, there is the TEA party, in the first paragraph of the story.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/02/_joseph_stack_was_angry.html

From the New York Magazine:

“He was mad at the IRS, and left what CNN reports was a suicide note on a local website, detailing his trials with the agency. In fact, a lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a tea party rally.” (Emphasis mine). If you read the manifesto, he is far more aligned with the left than with the right.

Now there was a crazy who recently killed a few people who was directly connected to a political movement—Professor Amy Bishop, who strongly supported candidate Obama so much as to be off-putting.

Now neither candidate Obama nor the TEA party movement ought to be stained by these two individuals. They were nutjobs with their own problems. However, the media tried to make a connection with the Austin man and the TEA party movement which did not exist, and it covered up the political views of Bishop.

Their Biden character could simply give relatively accurate quotes of what Biden has said, from attempting to school military defense attorney Scott Brown in military tribunals, to revealing where his special vice president bunker is, to his 3-letter word, J-O-B-S, to his claim that Washington is broken (where the Democrats control the White House, Senate and House).

CNN commentator on global warming being cut off in order to discuss Kevin Smith being booted from Southwest.

MSNBC would be fun to spoof; and how they tie every wacko to the TEA party movement.

The meeting which Obama will have with the Republicans this week ill have nothing to do with finding some ground upon which they can compromise. It is to give Obama cover, so that he can ram an unrelated healthcare bill through Congress without any Republican votes. The smart move for Republicans would be to send one man, Republican Senator Tom Colburn, who is a doctor, and knows this issue from all angles.

This new commission by Obama to deal with the debt is going to suggest either a national sales tax or an underlying tax on everything produced in the United States.

When I first heard that Evan Bayh said he would not run again because of the horrendous partisan politics in Washington, I first thought, “Yeah, your party too, buddy.” Then I realized, Bayh made this announcement at a time when no suitable replacement could be found for him, thus giving up his seat to a Republican. I believe all that was intentional.

I also support Obama’s offensive in Afghanistan and what appears to be support for nuclear power.

Tax cut = a one-time tax credit, which may or may not be offset by additional fees or taxes which are passed on to the taxpayer.

How is the surge in Afghanistan going? (In case you are nonplussed by this question; Obama will not call the surge in Afghanistan a surge).

Why are you and others in your administration out there trying to proclaim the efficacy of the Stimulus Bill?

The White House reports that Abdulmutallab began giving information again, now that his family has been brought in. Even though this may gain Obama a little favorability, it also puts the Christmas Day terrorist’s family in the crosshairs.

You think that Obama wants to compromise on healthcare with any position taken by Republicans. His concept of compromise is, he might not include the public option in the bill.

Next thing that government wants? Your 401K savings account. The government will look to co-opt or somehow get their hands on your 401K savings, so that they can give this back to you as a revenue stream when you are ready to retire. The prophecy is from Newt Gingrich.

Obama will put Evan Bayh on the ticket as his vice presidential running mate in 2012 (from the WSJ).

The Obama commission on deficits will propose a national sales tax of some sort (from Bulls and Bears).

If the 5 Muslim soldiers detained at Fort Jackson and questioned become known (and the news may completely ignore this story), they will be called the Jackson Five.

I said that, after Obama was elected president, all of the news stories about Iraq and Afghanistan would change. You would no longer see negative stories, stories about dying soldiers, about the latest bomb which has gone off (which led the news broadcast almost every single night when Bush was president), stories about corrupt or angry soldiers; now, the stories about Obama’s two wars are hopeful and upbeat.

I said the healthcare bill is not dead (even though the Dems do not have a filibuster-proof majority now) and that Obama just says the word jobs, but it is meaningless. Obama plans to meet with republicans this week about what—jobs? No. The economy? No. Healthcare. While Pelosi and Reid try to work out a deal in the background, where they are not being televised, to get the healthcare bill through using reconciliation.

The White House is returning to a more disciplined campaign mode when it comes to messaging. See the article on the New White House Communication Strategy. These people are very good at campaigning; but they suck when it comes to governance.

WASHINGTON -- In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.

A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board -- and fueled two decades of economic growth.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.

It's 2010 and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health care reform -- lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."

Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.

Leave it to Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health care reform, to debunk these structural excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... But in this case there's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health care reform plan to American voters. He failed."

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections -- Virginia, New Jersey and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself -- despite the special interests -- through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

There has been a lot of talk about combining the tea party movement with the Republican Party. And on a small scale, that seemed to happen last week in South Carolina after state GOP representatives agreed to create a "Tea Party Republicans" group to coordinate activities with tea partiers in Greenville and Spartanburg.

This week, however, those arrangements fell apart as some tea party groups dissented from the decision. Other attempts to draw tea party groups into formal alliances are running into similar difficulties. That is a good thing. The tea party movement will be more effective than it otherwise would be if it refuses to allow itself to become an appendage of either major political party.

The tea partiers have made an important splash because they are not yet another auxiliary to the Democratic or Republican parties. Like the pro-life and Second Amendment movements before it, the tea party movement will have a bigger impact if it holds the feet of politicians in both parties to its fire. Each party must know it can win or lose swing tea party voters.

The movement arose spontaneously as ordinary Americans reacted to a rising tide of federal spending and debt, growing federal power, and the too-cozy relationship between Washington and corporate America.

The bank bailout in the fall of 2008 may have lit the fuse, but the tea party movement began in earnest last April 15 with protests after congressional Democrats and the Obama administration unleashed a torrent of spending: the stimulus package, a swollen omnibus appropriations bill, and auto company bailouts. Democrats also raised the specter of new energy taxes when the House passed a cap-and-trade bill.

The movement's activity reached a fever pitch in August with raucous town hall meetings where senators and congressmen felt the burning-hot opposition of tea partiers to ObamaCare.

The tea parties have drawn into politics many Americans who were previously on the sidelines. In recent months, for example, I have met with local tea party leaders as varied as a grizzled Vietnam vet in his biker jacket, an oncology nurse from a small hospital, a woman at the car rental counter, scads of retired seniors (many of them war veterans), and a passel of stay-at-home moms, including one who organized a tea party protest in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco office.

What these people have in common is a deep concern about the future of the country that their children and grandchildren will inherit. Many are also considering the next steps for their movement and often conflicted about its political course.

My advice to them is to keep their distance from any single party and instead influence both parties on debt, spending and an over-reaching federal government. Allowing third-party movements to co-opt the tea partiers' good name, which is happening in Nevada, will only serve to elect opponents of the tea party philosophy of low-taxes and fiscal restraint. It could also discredit the tea party movement.

A small fraction of the tea partiers' leadership are ambitious individuals who haven't been able to hold office in either the GOP or Democratic Party. Some are from fringe groups like the John Birch Society or the remnants of the LaRouchies. Others see the tea party movement as a recruiting pool for volunteers for Ron Paul's next presidential bid.

If tea party groups are to maximize their influence on policy, they must now begin the difficult task of disassociating themselves from cranks and conspiracy nuts. This includes 9/11 deniers, "birthers" who insist Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and militia supporters espousing something vaguely close to armed rebellion.

The GOP is also better off if it foregoes any attempt to merge with the tea party movement. The GOP cannot possibly hope to control the dynamics of the highly decentralized galaxy of groups that make up the tea party movement. There will be troubling excesses and these will hurt Republicans if the party is formally associated with tea party groups.

We've seen the rugged populism akin to the tea party movement emerge in our nation's history before, often as a force for good and sometimes for ill. This episode is likely to make a positive impact if its members keep their political choices private while making their policy demands public.

The Republican Party and the tea party movement have many common interests right now. But they are, and should remain, distinct from one another. This is one instance when, if they merged, the sum would be less than the parts.

First, they said, is a return to the disciplined messaging that was a hallmark of the 2008 campaign, in which unhelpful themes were filtered out in favor of topics that advanced the candidate's goals. In the White House, they said, that will mean a tighter focus on Obama's commitment to the economy and jobs for average Americans. "The threshold for things he will go out and talk about is higher," one senior aide said.

Second, White House advisers promise a quicker, more aggressive response to GOP attacks on the president and his policies. They noted that Obama and his top White House advisers have pushed back hard against Republican accusations that the FBI mishandled the interrogation of the man accused of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day -- and as Biden did on Sunday.

Gibbs argued the administration's case in a Feb. 3 e-mail to reporters with the subject line "Just to be clear . . ." The e-mail was the first of what he says will be a regular outreach to the media. Over the weekend, Gibbs began using the online service Twitter.

Pfeiffer, who took over as communications director in December, said he has directed more resources toward rapid response, especially online. When Bloomberg News ran a headline suggesting that Obama was indifferent to the issue of bonuses for bankers, aides immediately posted a rebuttal on the White House blog. They e-mailed online news sites to change the headline and asked progressive bloggers to convey their interpretation of the president's remarks.

A third change is a return to the backdrops for Obama that aides considered so effective during the presidential bid. The image of Obama standing in the Diplomatic Room surrounded by men in dark suits will be replaced, as often as possible, by scenes of a more relaxed president in crowds. The goal is to have Obama travel outside of Washington -- what they call "the bubble" -- at least once a week, advisers said.

Finally, aides said it was recognized inside the West Wing that Obama has strayed from his most successful message of the campaign: that he would be a change agent in Washington.

Phil Jones, the head of the British Climatic Research Unit at the heart of ClimateGate, told the BBC: the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented.

Also this week, Hollywood director Kevin Smith got bumped from Southwest Airlines for being too fat. This story was reported by:

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America's principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead - forward or backward, up or down? Isn't this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature's God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man's self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government's powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America's safety and leadership role in the world.

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

♦ It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.

♦ It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.

♦ It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.

♦ It supports America's national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.

♦ It informs conservatism's firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America's founding principles.

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

President Obama was in front of the cameras again on Wednesday (when is he not?)trying to gin up support for the failed $trillion stimulus bill which has been in effect for a year now.

Obama's fighting a losing battle as people aren't buying the phony claim that the stimulus bill saved or created two million jobs. If that were true then unemployment which rose 2.5% as nearly 4 million Americans lost their jobs during the first year of the Obama Administration would have been cut substantially. As the Congressional Budget Office said in early 2009, the Obama Stimulus plan really is "worse than doing nothing."

When Democrats rushed their massive 1,100 page, "stimulus" through Congress last year, they promised that unemployment would not rise above eight percent and that job creation would begin "almost immediately". But one year later, more than three million more Americans have lost their jobs, the deficit is set to hit a record shattering $1.6 trillion, and Administration reports on how many jobs were "saved or created" have been "riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions," noted USA Today.

By the metrics the Democrats themselves set, the "stimulus" hasn't worked - it's chock-full of wasteful government spending that's funneled money to Congressional districts that don't exist and claims of jobs "saved or created" were so exaggerated that the Administration quietly abandoned the metric at the end of last year.

Poll after poll confirms that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the "stimulus" program. In fact, a CBS/New York Times poll released yesterday found that "just 6 percent of Americans think it has created jobs." Any wonder that a CNN survey reported that "3 of 4 Americans say much of stimulus money wasted."

And I just want to point this out - there has never been a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently as the Recovery Act. I'm grateful that Congress agreed to my request that the bill include no earmarks, that all projects receive funding based solely on their merits. And despite that, I was still concerned - Joe and I were just talking in the back - when this thing passed we said $787 billion - somewhere there's going to be some story of some money that ended up being misspent; $787 billion spent out over 18 months, that's a lot - that's a lot of money. And it is a testimony to Vice President Biden and his team that, as Joe puts it, the dog, so far at least, hasn't barked. (Laughter.)

And of course the bill was loaded with earmarks and special payoffs to liberal districts. By now, we've all got our favorite examples of government waste in the stimulus bill. My favorite is the National Endowment for the Arts stimulus grants to fund pornography in California. Talk about stimulating!

12. $30 MILLION FOR A SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL COMPLEX FOR THE ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS AND COLORADO ROCKIES

The Stimulus bill was never intended as a jobs bill. It was intended as a $trillion payoff to Democrats to fund their pet causes. It would have been much cheaper to put in place greater tax cuts and job growth measures that actually encourage job growth. But when GOP Congressmen took their ideas to Obama at the beginning of his Administration in 2009 their ideas were dismissed when he said "I won" I'll do it my way. His way doesn't work.

There is a better way to create jobs and the answer doesn't lie in more government spending and bureaucracy. But it takes a president willing to put his ego and ideology aside for the good of the country. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

One Year Of Spending Taxpayer Dollars Studying Malt Liquor And Marijuana, Researching Drunk Mice, Funding Martini Bars And Steakhouses, And Examining Facebook

SHERYL ATKINSON, CBS News: "You probably wouldn't guess that a martini bar and a Brazilian steakhouse would be on tap for stimulus funds, but in St. Joseph, Missouri, two privately owned facilities are getting 100,000 of your tax dollars." (CBS's "CBS Evening News," 12/9/09)

"The State University Of New York At Buffalo Won $390,000 To Study Young Adults Who Drink Malt Liquor And Smoke Marijuana." ("Senate GOP Point Out 'Pure Waste' Found In Stimulus Package," The Hill, 12/8/09)

"The University Of Hawaii Collected $210,000 To Study The Learning Patterns Of Honeybees, And $700,000 Went To Help Crab Fishermen In Oregon Recover Lost Crab Pots." ("Senate GOP Point Out 'Pure Waste' Found In Stimulus Package," The Hill, 12/8/09)

"Half A Million Dollars Went To Arizona State University To Study The Genetic Makeup Of Ants To Determine Distinctive Roles In Ant Colonies; $450,000 Went To The University Of Arizona To Study The Division Of Labor In Ant Colonies." ("Senate GOP Point Out 'Pure Waste' Found In Stimulus Package," The Hill, 12/8/09)

"The Rodent Study At Florida Atlantic University In Boca Raton Used $15,551 In Stimulus Funds To Pay For Two Summer Researchers To Help Gauge How Alcohol Affects A Mouse's Motor Functions." ("Stimulus Money And Weird Science: Benefit Or Boondoggle?" The Orlando Sentinel, 2/16/10)

"President Obama's Stimulus Plan. Is Now Paying Americans To Buy That Great Necessity Of Modern Life, The Golf Cart." "Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama's stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart. The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart." ("Cash For Clubbers," The Wall Street Journal, 10/17/09)

"Five Hundred Syracuse University Freshmen Will Divulge The Details Of Their Sex Lives . $219,000 In Stimulus Funds For The Study." "Five hundred Syracuse University freshmen will divulge the details of their sex lives as part of a women's health study called `The Women's Health Project,' being conducted by Michael Carey, SU professor of psychology and medicine. Carey has found himself the target of nationwide criticism from conservatives since he received $219,000 in stimulus funds for the study, which looks at the sex patterns of college women." ("SU Sex Study Raises Concern," The [Syracuse] Daily Orange, 9/8/09)

"Sunset Boulevard, Also Known As `The Sunset Strip' And One Of The Most Famous Streets In The World, Will Be Getting A $7 Million Facelift After More Than 75 Years Of Use, With A Free Million Dollar Nose Job Coming From Uncle Sam. The City of West Hollywood Council received one million dollars in federal funds from the Federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), (otherwise known as the $700 billion federal stimulus package), for the long-planned Sunset Strip Beautification Project, which is scheduled to break ground soon. The guaranteed funding will allow the City to increase the already nearly $7 million budgeted for this project by an additional $1,105,000, meaning enhancements to a project that already included the resurfacing of the roadway, sidewalk and improved landscaping." ("Feds Stimulus Sunset Strip Beautification Project," WeHoNews, 9/28/09)

The Cactus Bug Project At The University Of Florida Is More Ambitious, Spending $325,394 In Stimulus Money To Determine How Environment Affects The Mating Decisions Of Females. According to the project proposal, it should also answer the question, `Whether males with large weapons are more or less attractive to females.'" ("Stimulus Money And Weird Science: Benefit Or Boondoggle?" The Orlando Sentinel, 2/16/10)

"A $498,000, Three-Year Grant" To Study "Social Networks Like Facebook." "Millions of Internet users have been enjoying the fun -- and free -- services provided by advertiser-supported online social networks like Facebook. But Landon Cox, a Duke University assistant professor of computer science, worries about the possible down side -- privacy problems. . To delve deeper into these issues and begin the search for alternatives, Cox recently won a $498,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The funding is part of the federal stimulus package called the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)." ("Seeking Privacy In The Clouds: Research Aims At Isolating Social Network Information From `Control Of A Central Entity,'" Science Daily, 10/15/09)

"The Other Third Of The Stimulus, Government Infrastructure Spending, Has Been The Most Controversial From The Start. Some Proposals Have Been Criticized As Wasteful, Such As . A $3.4 Million `Ecopassage' To Help Turtles Cross A Highway In Tallahassee, Fla." ("The Challenge In Counting Stimulus Returns," The Wall Street Journal, 10/27/09)

12. $30 MILLION FOR A SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL COMPLEX FOR THE ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS AND COLORADO ROCKIES:

"A Big Chunk Of The Money That Will Pay For A New Spring-Training Baseball Complex On Tribal Land In The East Valley Will Be Delivered Via A Financing Program That's Part Of The Federal Economic-Stimulus Plan. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community says it may borrow as much as $30 million of the estimated cost of the $100 million complex near Scottsdale that will become the spring home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies." ("Stimulus To Help Tribe Build Baseball Complex," The Arizona Republic, 9/17/09)

JONATHAN KARL, ABC News: "The Napa Valley Wine Train, To Tourists A Great Way To See America's Most Celebrated Wine Region, To Others Exhibit A In What's Wrong With The Stimulus." SEN. TOM COBURN: "What that is, is a situation where you see the wealthy or well connected get taken care of and the community suffers." KARL: "He's talking about the Napa Valley wine train relocation project, 54 million stimulus dollars to build a new rail bridge, elevate and relocate 3,300 ft of tracks and put flood walls around the train's main station." (ABC News' "Good Morning America," 2/2/10)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN: "I Came To Bozeman To Find A City On Thin Ice Over How It's Spending Stimulus Money -- $50,000 To Erase All Of These Cracks And Potholes In City Tennis Court. ... Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer wants to make Bozeman an example of how not to spend stimulus money." ... GOV. BRIAN SCHWEITZER: "What they violated was that rule of common sense. There ought to be that little guy in your head that waves his finger at you and says, wait a minute, we might want to rethink this thing." (CNN, 1/25/10)

MEGYN KELLY, Fox News: "Thousands To A Million Of Your Stimulus Dollars Have Gone Straight To Convicts. That's Right, The Feds Sending $250 Stimulus Checks To Thousands Upon Thousands Of Prisoners... We're Talking First Degree Murderers Who Are Getting Your Money." (Fox News' "America's Newsroom," 8/26/09)

The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) published a report on the economic effects of the Administration's economic stimulus plan.[1] The report claims that the stimulus legislation boosted gross domestic product (GDP) and employment above what they otherwise would have been. That is, the real results the economy is experiencing (10 percent unemployment, for example) are better than where the White House is now predicting the economy would have been without the fiscal stimulus.

However, the CEA's proof of the economic impact of the fiscal stimulus policy fails basic standards of economic analysis.

The CEA's method, in brief, compared a statistical forecast of the economy based on historical patterns (no stimulus) with the actual economic results in 2009. On this basis, it claims that there are 2 million more jobs in the economy than otherwise would have been the case. The CEA then concludes that this difference between this statistical forecast and the actual results were the effect of the stimulus.

Yet the CEA's benchmarks for unemployment and GDP numbers were completely arbitrary. If the Administration had used other economic forecasts, the results would not have been as impressive--in fact, some would have shown that the economy lost more jobs after the stimulus package was implemented.

One way to see the inadequacy of the CEA's method is to compare it with other economic forecasts made for 2009--before details of the stimulus plan were known. These forecasts were done by companies and agencies that have a direct interest in making the most accurate forecast possible so that businesses and governments can plan accordingly.

Two comparable forecasts for 2009 were made by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), whose sole purpose is providing Congress with accurate budget forecasts, and IHS/Global Insight (GI), a private company that has been recognized as the most consistently accurate forecasting company in the world.[2]

GI's assumptions for its most probable forecast scenario are similar to CBO's. In late 2008, GI assumed that a decline in housing prices would remain a central issue. It projected housing markets continuing to struggle, causing home prices to fall 14 percent from the third quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2010.[3] Both CBO and GI predicted that inflation would continue to decline due to decreased demand for commodities in world markets and an overall world economic contraction.

GI also assumed that consumers would curb spending and that the Federal Reserve would continue to cut interest rates to spur lending and investment.

Although the assumptions for 2009 were similar, CBO and GI used different forecasting methodologies that led to fairly different results although all predicted a small expansion by the fourth quarter of 2009. The CEA, in constructing its statistical forecast, used yet another methodology.

It should be noted that this comparison exercise is not meant to legitimize the method of subtracting an economic forecast with actual data and attributing the difference to a specific set of policies. Rather, it is meant to show that this method provides inconclusive evidence of an effect and is therefore useless for answering the question of what economic impact the stimulus had in 2009. The Administration needs to do a rigorous dynamic economic impact study on the role the stimulus played in 2009.

The economic impact of the fiscal stimulus bill must be evaluated by projecting the economy without the stimulus bill and then introducing the fiscal stimulus to that same forecast. The CEA's report constructs and then analyzes a forecast of a downward spiraling economy. It runs a "what if" scenario in the wrong direction. Rather than analyzing the economic impact of the fiscal stimulus on a benchmark forecast, the CEA constructs a forecast and benchmarks it to what actually occurred.

The CEA claims that the stimulus bill created jobs in 2009, but this claim is based on its newly constructed "it would have been worse" forecast for 2009. When trillions of dollars are being spent, the American people deserve to have a true economic analysis done and should not waste money on meaningless reports.

Karen A. Campbell, Ph.D., is Policy Analyst in Macroeconomics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. Aleksey Gladyshev, an intern in the Center for Data Analysis, contributed to the research of this paper.

[1]White House Council of Economic Advisors, "The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," January 13, 2010, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/100113-

[2]For a list of rankings and references see HIS Global Insight: Highlight, at http://www.ihsglobalinsight.com/accolades (February 8, 2010).

[3]Congressional Budget Office, "The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019," January 2009, at http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm

For the first 39 years of my life, I was a walking, talking useful idiot. I believed without question what I saw on TV, and adopted as fact whatever I saw in the newspaper headlines.

Armed with this information, I figured I knew it all. There were no questions I couldn't answer and no opinions I wouldn't espouse. Especially when they were formed by others.

In my younger days, I still had respect for authority and institutions. I believed the `experts.' I took their pronouncements as fact and defended them with fervor. I never doubted the premises. I truly believed that since everyone else believed that way, why, that was the correct way to think. If it was on TV or in the newspapers, it was true. That was the way things were. Absolutely.

I had the certainty of youth. Where all issues are black or white, where people were good or bad. Where no gray areas intruded to cast doubt on my wisdom. Things were ever so much clearer then.

Until age 39, I was too busy being the center of my own universe to give deep thought to any issue that didn't affect me directly. I lived in a magical place where no analytical thinking was required. I kept abreast of other's opinions and considered myself not only informed, but pretty darn smart.

Imagine my surprise when reality eventually intruded. When I found out that, gasp, Che was a mass-murderer, not a freedom fighter. That Kinsey was a sexual pervert and pedophile, not a scientist. That the earth wasn't melting and that Obama wasn't the answer to all the world's problems. When I found out that `is' doesn't necessarily mean `is.'

To my chagrin, I finally realized that no matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides. And I had only been exposed to one. I was the quintessential `useful idiot.'

The term `useful idiot' was originally coined by Russian mass-murder Lenin, referring to blind defenders and apologists for the Soviet Union in the Western democracies.

The most famous of these useful idiots was New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty got a Pulitzer prize for his [non] reporting on Stalin's man-made famine in the Soviet Union in the 1930's. Duranty reported to the American people and the world that things were peachy keen in the Soviet Union, totally ignoring the fact that Stalin was starving millions of his own people. Stalin eventually killed more people than Hitler did in the Holocaust.

By proxy, Duranty turned millions of Americans into useful idiots. By reporting on what people wanted to hear instead of what was actually happening, America's policies continued to enable Stalin's killing spree.

Fast forward to 2010 and we see history once again repeating itself. Agenda driven, ideological reporting by the mainstream media is being accepted as fact by millions of Americans. And the powers that be are counting on increasing numbers of useful idiots to accept their premises without question. Like lemmings, blindly following their fellows into the sea.

All I feel now when I think of those days is acute embarrassment. The innocence, the naivety, the absolute certainty. Those happy days before I realized that I had been manipulated into accepting and promoting someone else's agenda.

I had been treated as fodder in a war I wasn't even aware was being waged. A war for the hearts and minds of American citizens. And because I had blindly parroted and regurgitated every popular consensus without question, I deserved the label of useful idiot.

Fortunately, this is not a life long condition. I am now a recovering idiot. I keep my mouth shut unless I am sure of my facts. I rely on common sense instead of the experts. And if I want to spout opinions, I make sure they are based on my own research instead of talking heads and soundbites. I also try to keep in mind that there are always two sides to every issue.

This doesn't make me wise, but at least I am no longer an unwitting pawn in someone else's agenda. Or a useful idiot.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich joins us live from, yes, Miami. And on the table, the president's televised bipartisan health care summit on February 25th. Good evening Mr. Speaker. And lucky you, you're missing the snow here in Washington.

GINGRICH: ... you're (INAUDIBLE) nationwide weather. It's going to be 35 degrees here tonight in Miami.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes, and lots of crocodile tears from us here in Washington for you that you're in 35-degree weather there. Anyway, all right, health care -- the president's got this February 25th call to the Republicans for a bipartisan meeting. It's going to be televised. First of all, why now? And do you see this as a good gesture? And how about the fact that he's televising it, which we, of course, hammered him to do?

GINGRICH: Well, I'm glad he's televising it. I think it's a good thing to do. Whether or not he's sincere and serious, we don't know yet. I think that Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent a very good letter outlining some key steps to test whether or not he's serious.

The first step is simple. Are they prepared to give up the 4,500 pages of legislation that the House and Senate Democrats rammed through without a single Republican vote and have an honest discussion, or is this just paper dressing before they ram through a bill? If it's the latter, then this would be a really cynical step by the president and I think it would further undermine popular belief in whether or not his words mean anything.

So the president's put a lot of his prestige on the line here, and he had better mean that this is a real bipartisan meeting because if this is just window dressing, the average American is going to be very disgusted with that kind of manipulation.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, hasn't he made it plain that he does not intend to give up the 45-page (SIC) legislation? I assume that you're combining the House and the Senate bills.

VAN SUSTEREN: He's made it plain that he's not going to scrap them, that he sees that as sort of a starting point, a baseline. I mean, that's plain, in his view.

GINGRICH: Well, it's not. I mean, but if that -- but if that's what he's doing, then the Republicans ought to go pleasantly (ph) -- they ought to take their -- they ought to insist on an equal amount of time with the Democrats. And they ought to say, in their time -- and let's say it's a two-hour meeting, so an hour goes to the Republicans and an hour goes to the Democrats. They ought to outline what they would do so the country gets to see that there is, in fact, a positive Republican approach.

We -- I had a column this morning from the Center for Health Transformation that John Goodman and I wrote outlining 10 specific good ideas. The Republicans in both the House and Senate have many good ideas. Republican governors have many good ideas. And I think that the Republicans ought to be very cheerful (ph) about outlining what they think would work, most of which, by the way, the American people prefers to a giant-government, high-tax, big-bureaucracy model.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let's go to your op-ed piece today. Let's just seize -- let's just take one topic, take one and explain it carefully and slowly, what it is and why it's a good idea because one of the things the president has said has been -- in addition to the fact he doesn't intend to scrap the bill -- is that he wants good, constructive ideas. So take it away. Give us one simple one and explain why it's so much better.

GINGRICH: Look, the first one and the easiest one is litigation reform. Virtually every doctor in the country will tell you that there are billions of dollars wasted on defensive medicine because of fear of trial lawyers. Virtually everybody in the -- and the American people believe that we ought to have a more practical approach than massive lawsuits. The Congressional Budget Office said that the Republican House proposal on litigation reform would save $10 billion over the next five years for Medicare at a time when we don't have the money. So litigation reform would be an easy starting point.

The second example, which we wrote a book about it, the Center for Health Transformation, called "Stop Paying the Crooks," which Jim Frogue edited, is very simple. There's somewhere between $70 billion and $120 billion a year in fraud and theft in Medicare and Medicaid. Why don't we focus on a simple, practical system to cut out most of the crooks and save probably somewhere between $50 billion and $90 billion a year? We need the money. It would help Medicare survive.

Those two steps alone would be better than most of what's in the left- wing bills that are currently sitting at the White House.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, now, you and I have spoken many times off camera about my ideas on litigation reform, but let me -- and -- and you know, sometime, we ought to talk even longer about it.

But let me ask you this. Congressman Murtha -- it looks like his death may have been malpractice. Assuming that he's a 35-year-old man, goes in for gall bladders, his intestines gets nicked -- he's got a wife and two children at home. Under your thought on litigation reform, would his family be unable to recover for that? Is that -- is that what you see as litigation reform or not?

GINGRICH: No. No. No, there -- look, there are no litigation reforms which block people from recovery. There are no litigation reform proposals which would protect bad doctors. But the fact is today, we have a system which is wildly different state by state and in which you can get the kind of attacks -- many of them are, frankly, phony. They're filed by lawyers for the purpose of blackmail, in order to seek a negotiated settlement.

In Texas, when they provided caps on pain and suffering and they had - - they -- and they put it in the Texas constitution with the vote of the people of Texas, 4,000 additional doctors a year have been moving into Texas. Parts of the Rio Grande Valley that had no doctors now have doctors serving the people. It saved an enormous amount of money for a Catholic hospital system in Galveston, Texas, for example. And it allows people to focus on good medicine.

You don't want a system which allows bad doctors to go unpunished, but you don't want a system which threatens every good doctor with the constant need to practice defensive medicine just because somebody might file a nuisance lawsuit.

VAN SUSTEREN: And one of the things that you and I have talked (INAUDIBLE) about the need -- at least, I think the need to put a cap on the defense bar in terms of legal fees because that's the engine that runs these things, lawyers who are getting paid by the hour by the insurance companies to litigate these cases from now until eternity and thus dragging them out and bringing to court when maybe the case should be resolved. But you and I have -- we've talked about that many times. So a lot of good ideas.

But that's one of the ideas you'd have discussed at the White House. So you recommend the Republicans, even if the president doesn't scrap his 4,500 pages, they should go and talk anyway, even if that's what -- there's no starting point going back to zero?

GINGRICH: I think -- well, I think the minimum demand they should make is that the time be equally divided, half goes to the Democrats, the president, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, half to Republicans led by Leader John Boehner and by Leader Mitch McConnell. If they're going to get a fair hearing, then the president has done them the advantage of drawing the entire country to watch the fact that, in fact, Republicans do have serious proposals. And they should come.

I also like the proposal that I think Congressman Boehner and Senator Mitchell -- Senator McConnell sent in that they also invite some governors. You look at somebody like a Governor Pawlenty, Governor Jindal, former governor Jeb Bush, Governor Haley Barbour, Governor Mitch Daniels. There are a lot of governors who have very good ideas.

On the Democratic side, Governor Bredesen of Tennessee is one of the leading experts on health reform in America and a person who deeply opposed the unfunded mandates that were in the House and Senate bills. I'd love to see a Governor Bredesen invited by the Democrats and one of the governors I just mentioned invited by the Republicans. It'd be good for the country to see that there are ideas outside of Washington and a great deal of the health reform that we need could happen at the state level without some kind of massive Washington bureaucracy.

VAN SUSTEREN: I think it's a great idea since they're the ones who have to implement so many of the policies, as well.

Speaker Gingrich, if you will stand by? And here's a tease! Speaker Gingrich's political opponents just got some bad news. We're going to ask Speaker Gingrich about that next.

VAN SUSTEREN: If you are a Republican, you will like this one! According to a new Washington Post poll, Republicans have narrowed the gap on Democrats about who is more trusted to deal with our country's problems.

Speaker Gingrich -- he's back with us. Mr. Speaker, these numbers are on an upward trend in favor of the Republican Party over the Democratic Party. For instance, the question is, "Who do you trust to do a better job handling the economy?" In the last year, President Obama's points -- percentage points have gone down 14, and the GOP has gone up 16. It's still with 47 to 42, but that trend must make the Republicans quite satisfied tonight.

GINGRICH: Well, you know, Michael Barone made the point that in -- since 1981, there have only been eight polls in the whole time done by The Washington Post, only eight polls in a 19-year period in which the Republicans were as strong as they were in the poll they released this morning.

So I do think if you're -- you know, if you're Leader Boehner or if you're Leader McConnell, you suddenly look at that and think you have a lot better chance of being a majority at the end of this cycle then you would have guessed a year ago.

But it's also a commentary for the country, and I think the American people know this, that the team currently in charge, the -- the President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid -- that that team isn't doing a very good job as measured by most Americans, and that's actually bad news for the country. I mean, Republicans don't want to see high unemployment levels. We don't want to see terrorists getting into our country. We don't want to see the government throwing away billions and running up gigantic deficits. All those are bad for America's future. It's not a partisan question.

And I think what you're seeing is a lot of Americans are rendering judgment that the Obama administration is not keeping its word, not getting the job done, and is trying to do things that the country, such as the health bill -- that the country deeply distrusts. This country does not want to see 4,500 pages negotiated in secret at the White House without the American people knowing what's going on.

VAN SUSTEREN: Which brings me to the second poll. In the last six months, on the issue of "Who do you trust to do a better job handling health care reform," the GOP has gained 14 points to 41 percent and President Obama has lost 9 points to 46 percent, which may be a reason why this February 25th, meeting was called or is so important to the president because, you know, he is losing the American support on this.

GINGRICH: Well, I think there are two things going on there. Of course, Scott Brown's great victory in Massachusetts coming on top of the elections of Governor McDonnell and Governor Cristie in Virginia and New Jersey all sent a signal that the country's drifting from the left and drifting away from the Obama administration.

But you know, historically, individuals do better than parties. So for the president to have slid down to within 4 or 5 points of a generic Republican -- you know, that's a huge drop for a president. Presidents have an enormous advantage. They're in your living room every day. You get to know them as people. You want them to succeed because they're the leader of the country. When a party can match a president, the president is in deep trouble.

And I think that what I'm surprised by is that the president had an opportunity at the State of the Union and since then to give up on this 4,500-page monstrosity and say, Why don't we sit down and work together in a serious way? And instead, I think he's setting himself up for one more defeat by clinging to this giant bill and pretending he's being bipartisan. He's either got to be seriously bipartisan or he's going to lose even more ground as people conclude it's all cynical, manipulative ploy.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, though, it's said that it was the election of those governors, and then the point was finally driven home with Senator Scott Brown that the American people might feel a particular way or that there was growing discontent, which is sort of stunning because there were tea parties and town halls in the eight or nine months leading up to that, and it was almost as though no one was paying attention until these sort of landmark elections, and then the one with Scott Brown. I mean, but if you were listening to the people earlier, you would have known the disconnect was brewing. It was going on for eight or nine months.

GINGRICH: Well, look, one of the reasons Fox News has gained so much ground over its competitors is that at a time when the old-fashioned elite media were refusing to take the tea party seriously, they were refusing to take the town hall meetings seriously, people who were, in fact, concerned about the administration, and that's now over half the country, found that the one place that was actually taking it seriously was Fox.

Your point's well made. But as you well know, the elite media in this country and the other elites who are so far to the left had rigorously rejected it. And now, all of a sudden, when you see Massachusetts and symbolically Senator Teddy Kennedy's seat have a 31-point swing from the 26 percent victory by Obama last year to the 5 percent victory by Brown this year, as Michael Barone has pointed out, that would mean up to 150 Democratic House seats could be in jeopardy, if you had the same size swing. That sends a real-world message to every practicing politician that even the elite media can't hide from.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, I'm going to take the last word on this. And if it took Scott Brown's election to let you know what's going on, you just were not -- and I don't mean you, but one was just not paying attention because there was certainly a lot of grumbling leading up to that. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I'm taking the last word on that. Enjoy Miami. We've got lots of snow here. You'll see it, I'm sure, when you get back. Thank you, sir.

Kudos to the Washington Examiner. They're keeping tabs on the Obama administration's phony stimulus claims. They've set up an interactive map that documents instances of government exaggeration-- or lies --over how many jobs were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package.

The Examiner has found that just over 10 percent of the jobs supposedly "created or saved" are bogus. I'm not surprised.

Sacramento Bee: The California State University system received $268.5 million in stimulus funds and claimed that the money allowed them to save over 26,000 jobs. But when pressed, the University officials admitted they weren't really going to lay off half their workforce, and that in fact, few or none of these jobs would have been lost without the stimulus. "This is not really a real number of people," a CSU spokesman said. "It's like a budget number."

The New York Times: A $1,000 grant to purchase a single lawn mower [in Arkansas] was credited with saving 50 jobs.

Tacoma News-Tribune: Of the 34,500 jobs allegedly saved or created by the stimulus in Washington State, 24,000 belong to state teachers already under contract to finish out the school year, whose jobs were never in jeopardy ..

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A joint venture [in Oklahoma] that received six military contracts counted the same 10 jobs six times.

Chicago Tribune: [S]timulus funds were said to have saved the equivalent of 382 full-time teaching jobs -- 142 more than the [Dolton, Ill.] district actually has.

Chicago Tribune: The city claimed to have saved the jobs of 473 teachers with its $4.7 million education stimulus grant. The [North Chicago] district employs only 290 teachers.

Greenville News: "The Greenville Housing Authority `saved or created' 118 jobs by use of federal stimulus money, according to the Obama administration. The agency only has 35 employees."

Even if the jobs really were "saved or created", that's not real job creation. There is no new wealth created. All the stimulus did was shift resources to stimulus recipients, at a hidden cost. That money would have been spent or invested privately by other people if it hadn't been taxed away. It's Bastiat's broken window fallacy in a nutshell.

It has been a bad-make that dreadful-few weeks for what used to be called the "settled science" of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.

First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.

Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there's no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC's headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.

Take the rain forest claim. In its 2007 report, the IPCC wrote that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state."

But as Jonathan Leake of London's Sunday Times reported last month, those claims were based on a report from the World Wildlife Fund, which in turn had fundamentally misrepresented a study in the journal Nature. The Nature study, Mr. Leake writes, "did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning."

The IPCC has relied on World Wildlife Fund studies regarding the "transformation of natural coastal areas," the "destruction of more mangroves," "glacial lake outbursts causing mudflows and avalanches," changes in the ecosystem of the "Mesoamerican reef," and so on. The Wildlife Fund is a green lobby that believes in global warming, and its "research" reflects its advocacy, not the scientific method.

The IPCC has also cited a study by British climatologist Nigel Arnell claiming that global warming could deplete water resources for as many as 4.5 billion people by the year 2085. But as our Anne Jolis reported in our European edition, the IPCC neglected to include Mr. Arnell's corollary finding, which is that global warming could also increase water resources for as many as six billion people.

The IPCC report made aggressive claims that "extreme weather-related events" had led to "rapidly rising costs." Never mind that the link between global warming and storms like Hurricane Katrina remains tenuous at best. More astonishing (or, maybe, not so astonishing) is that the IPCC again based its assertion on a single study that was not peer-reviewed. In fact, nobody can reliably establish a quantifiable connection between global warming and increased disaster-related costs. In Holland, there's even a minor uproar over the report's claim that 55% of the country is below sea level. It's 26%.

Meanwhile, one of the scientists at the center of the climategate fiasco has called into question other issues that the climate lobby has claimed are indisputable. Phil Jones, who stepped down as head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit amid the climate email scandal, told the BBC that the world may well have been warmer during medieval times than it is now.

This raises doubts about how much our current warming is man-made as opposed to merely another of the natural climate shifts that have taken place over the centuries. Mr. Jones also told the BBC there has been no "statistically significant" warming over the past 15 years, though he considers this to be temporary.

All of this matters because the IPCC has been advertised as the last and definitive word on climate science. Its reports are the basis on which Al Gore, President Obama and others have claimed that climate ruin is inevitable unless the world reorganizes its economies with huge new taxes on carbon. Now we are discovering the U.N. reports are sloppy political documents intended to drive the climate lobby's regulatory agenda.

The lesson of climategate and now the IPCC's shoddy sourcing is that the claims of the global warming lobby need far more rigorous scrutiny.

SANDPOINT, Idaho - Pam Stout has not always lived in fear of her government. She remembers her years working in federal housing programs, watching government lift struggling families with job training and education. She beams at the memory of helping a Vietnamese woman get into junior college.

But all that was before the Great Recession and the bank bailouts, before Barack Obama took the White House by promising sweeping change on multiple fronts, before her son lost his job and his house. Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated - even manufactured - by both parties to grab power.

She was happily retired, and had never been active politically. But last April, she went to her first Tea Party rally, then to a meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots. She did not know a soul, yet when they began electing board members, she stood up, swallowed hard, and nominated herself for president. "I was like, `Did I really just do that?' " she recalled.

Worried about hyperinflation, social unrest or even martial law, she and her Tea Party members joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement.

When Friends for Liberty held its first public event, Mrs. Stout listened as Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff, brought 1,400 people to their feet with a speech about confronting a despotic federal government. Mrs. Stout said she felt as if she had been handed a road map to rebellion. Members of her family, she said, think she has disappeared down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But Mrs. Stout said she has never felt so engaged.

The Tea Party movement has become a platform for conservative populist discontent, a force in Republican politics for revival, as it was in the Massachusetts Senate election, or for division. But it is also about the profound private transformation of people like Mrs. Stout, people who not long ago were not especially interested in politics, yet now say they are bracing for tyranny.

These people are part of a significant undercurrent within the Tea Party movement that has less in common with the Republican Party than with the Patriot movement, a brand of politics historically associated with libertarians, militia groups, anti-immigration advocates and those who argue for the abolition of the Federal Reserve.

Urged on by conservative commentators, waves of newly minted activists are turning to once-obscure books and Web sites and discovering a set of ideas long dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists, interviews conducted across the country over several months show. In this view, Mr. Obama and many of his predecessors (including George W. Bush) have deliberately undermined the Constitution and free enterprise for the benefit of a shadowy international network of wealthy elites.

Loose alliances like Friends for Liberty are popping up in many cities, forming hybrid entities of Tea Parties and groups rooted in the Patriot ethos. These coalitions are not content with simply making the Republican Party more conservative. They have a larger goal - a political reordering that would drastically shrink the federal government and sweep away not just Mr. Obama, but much of the Republican establishment, starting with Senator John McCain.

In many regions, including here in the inland Northwest, tense struggles have erupted over whether the Republican apparatus will co-opt these new coalitions or vice versa. Tea Party supporters are already singling out Republican candidates who they claim have "aided and abetted" what they call the slide to tyranny: Mark Steven Kirk, a candidate for the Senate from Illinois, for supporting global warming legislation; Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who is seeking a Senate seat, for supporting stimulus spending; and Meg Whitman, a candidate for governor in California, for saying she was a "big fan" of Van Jones, once Mr. Obama's "green jobs czar."

During a recent meeting with Congressional Republicans, Mr. Obama acknowledged the potency of these attacks when he complained that depicting him as a would-be despot was complicating efforts to find bipartisan solutions.

"The fact of the matter is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party," Mr. Obama said. "You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, `This guy's doing all kinds of crazy stuff that is going to destroy America.' "

The ebbs and flows of the Tea Party ferment are hardly uniform. It is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure. Not everyone flocking to the Tea Party movement is worried about dictatorship. Some have a basic aversion to big government, or Mr. Obama, or progressives in general. What's more, some Tea Party groups are essentially appendages of the local Republican Party.

But most are not. They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.

That is often the point when Tea Party supporters say they began listening to Glenn Beck. With his guidance, they explored the Federalist Papers, exposés on the Federal Reserve, the work of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Some went to constitutional seminars. Online, they discovered radical critiques of Washington on Web sites like ResistNet.com ("Home of the Patriotic Resistance") and Infowars.com ("Because there is a war on for your mind.").

Many describe emerging from their research as if reborn to a new reality. Some have gone so far as to stock up on ammunition, gold and survival food in anticipation of the worst. For others, though, transformation seems to amount to trying on a new ideological outfit - embracing the rhetoric and buying the books.

Tea Party leaders say they know their complaints about shredded constitutional principles and excessive spending ring hollow to some, given their relative passivity through the Bush years. In some ways, though, their main answer - strict adherence to the Constitution - would comfort every card-carrying A.C.L.U. member.

But their vision of the federal government is frequently at odds with the one that both parties have constructed. Tea Party gatherings are full of people who say they would do away with the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and countless agencies, not to mention bailouts and stimulus packages. Nor is it unusual to hear calls to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A remarkable number say this despite having recently lost jobs or health coverage. Some of the prescriptions they are debating - secession, tax boycotts, states "nullifying" federal laws, forming citizen militias - are outside the mainstream, too.

At a recent meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party, Mrs. Stout presided with brisk efficiency until a member interrupted with urgent news. Because of the stimulus bill, he insisted, private medical records were being shipped to federal bureaucrats. A woman said her doctor had told her the same thing. There were gasps of rage. Everyone already viewed health reform as a ruse to control their medical choices and drive them into the grip of insurance conglomerates. Debate erupted. Could state medical authorities intervene? Should they call Congress?

As the meeting ended, Carolyn L. Whaley, 76, held up her copy of the Constitution. She carries it everywhere, she explained, and she was prepared to lay down her life to protect it from the likes of Mr. Obama.

The Tea Party movement defies easy definition, largely because there is no single Tea Party.

At the grass-roots level, it consists of hundreds of autonomous Tea Party groups, widely varying in size and priorities, each influenced by the peculiarities of local history.

In the inland Northwest, the Tea Party movement has been shaped by the growing popularity in eastern Washington of Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, and by a legacy of anti-government activism in northern Idaho. Outside Sandpoint, federal agents laid siege to Randy Weaver's compound on Ruby Ridge in 1992, resulting in the deaths of a marshal and Mr. Weaver's wife and son. To the south, Richard Butler, leader of the Aryan Nations, preached white separatism from a compound near Coeur d'Alene until he was shut down.

Local Tea Party groups are often loosely affiliated with one of several competing national Tea Party organizations. In the background, offering advice and organizational muscle, are an array of conservative lobbying groups, most notably FreedomWorks. Further complicating matters, Tea Party events have become a magnet for other groups and causes - including gun rights activists, anti-tax crusaders, libertarians, militia organizers, the "birthers" who doubt President Obama's citizenship, Lyndon LaRouche supporters and proponents of the sovereign states movement.

It is a sprawling rebellion, but running through it is a narrative of impending tyranny. This narrative permeates Tea Party Web sites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and YouTube videos. It is a prominent theme of their favored media outlets and commentators, and it connects the disparate issues that preoccupy many Tea Party supporters - from the concern that the community organization Acorn is stealing elections to the belief that Mr. Obama is trying to control the Internet and restrict gun ownership.

WorldNetDaily.com trumpets "exclusives" reporting that the Army is seeking "Internment/Resettlement" specialists. On ResistNet.com, bloggers warn that Mr. Obama is trying to convert Interpol, the international police organization, into his personal police force. They call on "fellow Patriots" to "grab their guns."

Mr. Beck frequently echoes Patriot rhetoric, discussing the possible arrival of a "New World Order" and arguing that Mr. Obama is using a strategy of manufactured crisis to destroy the economy and pave the way for dictatorship.

At recent Tea Party events around the country, these concerns surfaced repeatedly.

In New Mexico, Mary Johnson, recording secretary of the Las Cruces Tea Party steering committee, described why she fears the government. She pointed out how much easier it is since Sept. 11 for the government to tap telephones and scour e-mail, bank accounts and library records. "Twenty years ago that would have been a paranoid statement," Ms. Johnson said. "It's not anymore."

In Texas, Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, stood on a stage before several thousand people, ticking off the institutions she no longer trusts - the federal government, both the major political parties, Wall Street. "Many of us don't believe they have our best interests at heart," Ms. Walker said. She choked back tears, but the crowd urged her on with shouts of "Go, Toby!"

As it happened in the inland Northwest with Friends for Liberty, the fear of Washington and the disgust for both parties is producing new coalitions of Tea Party supporters and groups affiliated with the Patriot movement. In Indiana, for example, a group called the Defenders of Liberty is helping organize "meet-ups" with Tea Party groups and more than 50 Patriot organizations. The Ohio Freedom Alliance, meanwhile, is bringing together Tea Party supporters, Ohio sovereignty advocates and members of the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. The alliance is also helping to organize five "liberty conferences" in March, each featuring Richard Mack, the same speaker invited to address Friends for Liberty.

Politicians courting the Tea Party movement are also alluding to Patriot dogma. At a Tea Party protest in Las Vegas, Joe Heck, a Republican running for Congress, blamed both the Democratic and Republican Parties for moving the country toward "socialistic tyranny." In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican seeking re-election, threw his support behind the state sovereignty movement. And in Indiana, Richard Behney, a Republican Senate candidate, told Tea Party supporters what he would do if the 2010 elections did not produce results to his liking: "I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too."

Fear of co-option - a perpetual topic in the Tea Party movement - lay behind the formation of Friends for Liberty.

The new grass-roots leaders of the inland Northwest had grown weary of fending off what they jokingly called "hijack attempts" by the state and county Republican Parties. Whether the issue was picking speakers or scheduling events, they suspected party leaders of trying to choke off their revolution with Chamber of Commerce incrementalism.

"We had to stand our ground, I'll be blunt," said Dann Selle, president of the Official Tea Party of Spokane.

In October, Mr. Selle, Mrs. Stout and about 20 others from across the region met in Liberty Lake, Wash., a small town on the Idaho border, to discuss how to achieve broad political change without sacrificing independence. The local Republican Party was excluded.

Most of the people there had paid only passing attention to national politics in years past. "I voted twice and I failed political science twice," said Darin Stevens, leader of the Spokane 9/12 Project.

Until the recession, Mr. Stevens, 33, had poured his energies into his family and his business installing wireless networks. He had to lay off employees, and he struggled to pay credit cards, a home equity loan, even his taxes. "It hits you physically when you start getting the calls," he said.

He discovered Glenn Beck, and began to think of Washington as a conspiracy to fleece the little guy. "I had no clue that my country was being taken from me," Mr. Stevens explained. He could not understand why his progressive friends did not see what he saw.

He felt compelled to do something, so he decided to start a chapter of Mr. Beck's 9/12 Project. He reserved a room at a pizza parlor for a Glenn Beck viewing party and posted the event on Craigslist. "We had 110 people there," Mr. Stevens said. He recalled looking around the room and thinking, "All these people - they agree with me."

Leah Southwell's turning point came when she stumbled on Mr. Paul's speeches on YouTube. ("He blew me away.") Until recently, Mrs. Southwell was in the top 1 percent of all Mary Kay sales representatives, with a company car and a frenetic corporate life. "I knew zero about the Constitution," Mrs. Southwell confessed. Today, when asked about her commitment to the uprising, she recites a line from the Declaration of Independence, a Tea Party favorite: "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Mr. Paul led Mrs. Southwell to Patriot ideology, which holds that governments and economies are controlled by networks of elites who wield power through exclusive entities like the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

This idea has a long history, with variations found at both ends of the political spectrum. But to Mrs. Southwell, the government's culpability for the recession - the serial failures of regulation, the Federal Reserve's epic blunders, the cozy bailouts for big banks - made it resonate all the more, especially as she witnessed the impact on family and friends.

"The more you know, the madder you are," she said. "I mean when you finally learn what the Federal Reserve is!"

Last spring, Mrs. Southwell quit her job and became a national development officer for the John Birch Society, recruiting and raising money across the West, often at Tea Party events. She has been stunned by the number of Tea Party supporters gravitating toward Patriot ideology. "Most of these people are just waking up," she said.

At Liberty Lake, the participants settled on a "big tent" strategy, with each group supporting the others in the coalition they called Friends for Liberty.

One local group represented at Liberty Lake was Arm in Arm, which aims to organize neighborhoods for possible civil strife by stockpiling food and survival gear, and forming armed neighborhood groups.

Also represented was Oath Keepers, whose members call themselves "guardians of the Republic." Oath Keepers recruits military and law enforcement officials who are asked to disobey orders the group deems unconstitutional. These include orders to conduct warrantless searches, arrest Americans as unlawful enemy combatants or force civilians into "any form of detention camps."

Oath Keepers, which has been recruiting at Tea Party events around the country and forging informal ties with militia groups, has an enthusiastic following in Friends for Liberty. "A lot of my people are Oath Keepers," Mr. Stevens said. "I'm an honorary Oath Keeper myself."

Mrs. Stout became an honorary Oath Keeper, too, and sent an e-mail message urging her members to sign up. "They may be very important for our future," she wrote.

By inviting Richard Mack to speak at their first event, leaders of Friends for Liberty were trying to attract militia support. They knew Mr. Mack had many militia fans, and not simply because he had helped Randy Weaver write a book about Ruby Ridge. As a sheriff in Arizona, Mr. Mack had sued the Clinton administration over the Brady gun control law, which resulted in a Supreme Court ruling that the law violated state sovereignty by requiring local officials to conduct background checks on gun buyers.

Mr. Mack was selling Cadillacs in Arizona, his political career seemingly over, when Mr. Obama was elected. Disheartened by the results, he wrote a 50-page booklet branding the federal government "the greatest threat we face." The booklet argued that only local sheriffs supported by citizen militias could save the nation from "utter despotism." He titled his booklet "The County Sheriff: America's Last Hope," offered it for sale on his Web site and returned to selling cars.

But last February he was invited to appear on "Infowars," the Internet radio program hosted by Alex Jones, a well-known figure in the Patriot movement. Then Mr. Mack went on "The Power Hour," another Internet radio program popular in the Patriot movement.

After those appearances, Mr. Mack said, he was inundated with invitations to speak to Tea Parties and Patriot groups. Demand was so great, he said, that he quit selling cars. Then Andrew P. Napolitano, a Fox News legal analyst, invited him to New York to appear on his podcast.

He said he has found audiences everywhere struggling to make sense of why they were wiped out last year. These audiences, he said, are far more receptive to critiques once dismissed as paranoia. It is no longer considered all that radical, he said, to portray the Federal Reserve as a plaything of the big banks - a point the Birch Society, among others, has argued for decades.

People are more willing, he said, to imagine a government that would lock up political opponents, or ration health care with "death panels," or fake global warming. And if global warming is a fraud, is it so crazy to wonder about a president's birth certificate?

"People just do not trust any of this," Mr. Mack said. "It's not just the fringe people anymore. These are just ordinary people - teachers, bankers, housewives."

The dog track opened at 5:45 p.m. for Mr. Mack's speech, and the parking lot quickly filled. Inside, each Friends for Liberty sponsor had its own recruiting table. Several sheriffs and state legislators worked the crowd. "I came out to talk with folks and listen to Sheriff Mack," Ozzie Knezovich, the sheriff of Spokane County, Wash., explained.

Gazing out at his overwhelmingly white audience, Mr. Mack felt the need to say, "This meeting is not racist." Nor, he said, was it a call to insurrection. What is needed, he said, is "a whole army of sheriffs" marching on Washington to deliver an unambiguous warning: "Any violation of the Constitution we will consider a criminal offense."

Mr. Mack shared his vision of the ideal sheriff. The setting was Montgomery, Ala., on the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white passenger. Imagine the local sheriff, he said, rather than arresting Ms. Parks, escorting her home, stopping to buy her a meal at an all-white diner.

"Edmund Burke said the essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws," he said. Likewise, Mr. Mack argued, sheriffs should have ignored "stupid laws" and protected the Branch Davidians at Waco, Tex., and the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge.

It is a defiant and mocking rejoinder to last April's intelligence assessment from the Department of Homeland Security warning that recession and the election of the nation's first black president "present unique drivers for right wing radicalization."

"Historically," the assessment said, "domestic right wing extremists have feared, predicted and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States." Those predictions, it noted, are typically rooted in "antigovernment conspiracy theories" featuring impending martial law. The assessment said extremist groups were already preparing for this scenario by stockpiling weapons and food and by resuming paramilitary exercises.

The report does not mention the Tea Party movement, but among Tea Party activists it is viewed with open scorn, evidence of a larger campaign by liberals to marginalize them as "racist wingnuts."

But Tony Stewart, a leading civil rights activist in the inland Northwest, took careful note of the report. Almost 30 years ago, Mr. Stewart cofounded the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations in Coeur d'Alene. The task force has campaigned relentlessly to rid north Idaho of its reputation as a haven for anti-government extremists. The task force tactics brought many successes, including a $6.3 million civil judgment that effectively bankrupted Richard Butler's Aryan Nations.

When the Tea Party uprising gathered force last spring, Mr. Stewart saw painfully familiar cultural and rhetorical overtones. Mr. Stewart viewed the questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace as a proxy for racism, and he was bothered by the "common message of intolerance for the opposition."

Mr. Stewart heard similar concerns from other civil rights activists around the country. They could not help but wonder why the explosion of conservative anger coincided with a series of violent acts by right wing extremists. In the Inland Northwest there had been a puzzling return of racist rhetoric and violence.

Mr. Stewart said it would be unfair to attribute any of these incidents to the Tea Party movement. "We don't have any evidence they are connected," he said.

Still, he sees troubling parallels. Branding Mr. Obama a tyrant, Mr. Stewart said, constructs a logic that could be used to rationalize violence. "When people start wearing guns to rallies, what's the next thing that happens?" Mr. Stewart asked.

Rachel Dolezal, curator of the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene, has also watched the Tea Party movement with trepidation. Though raised in a conservative family, Ms. Dolezal, who is multiracial, said she could not imagine showing her face at a Tea Party event. To her, what stands out are the all-white crowds, the crude depictions of Mr. Obama as an African witch doctor and the signs labeling him a terrorist. "It would make me nervous to be there unless I went with a big group," she said.

Pam Stout wakes each morning, turns on Fox News, grabs coffee and an Atkins bar, and hits the computer. She is the hub of a rapidly expanding and highly viral political network, keeping a running correspondence with her 400 members in Sandpoint, state and national Tea Party leaders and other conservative activists.

Mrs. Stout forwards along petitions to impeach Mr. Obama; petitions to audit the Federal Reserve; petitions to support Sarah Palin; appeals urging defiance of any federal law requiring health insurance; and on and on.

Meanwhile, she and her husband are studying the Constitution line by line. She has the Congressional switchboard programmed into her cellphone. "I just signed up for a Twitter class," said Mrs. Stout, 66, laughing at the improbability of it all.

Yet for all her efforts, Mrs. Stout is gripped by a sense that it may be too little too late. Yes, there have been victories - including polls showing support for the Tea Party movement - but in her view none of it has diminished the fundamental threat of tyranny, a point underscored by Mr. Obama's drive to pass a health care overhaul.

She and her members are becoming convinced that rallies alone will not save the Republic. They are searching for some larger answer, she said. They are also waiting for a leader, someone capable of uniting their rebellion, someone like Ms. Palin, who made Sandpoint one of the final stops on her book tour and who has announced plans to attend a series of high-profile Tea Party events in the next few months.

These questions of strategy, direction and leadership were clearly on the minds of Mrs. Stout's members at a recent monthly meeting.

Their task seemed endless, almost overwhelming, especially with only $517 in their Tea Party bank account. There were rallies against illegal immigration to attend. There was a coming lecture about the hoax of global warming. There were shooting classes to schedule, and tips to share about the right survival food.

The group struggled fitfully for direction. Maybe they should start vetting candidates. Someone mentioned boycotting ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC. Maybe they should do more recruiting.

Lenore Generaux, a local wildlife artist, had an idea: They should raise money for Freedom Force, a group that says it wants to "reclaim America via the Patriot movement." The group is trying to unite the Tea Parties and other groups to form a powerful "Patriot lobby." One goal is to build a "Patriot war chest" big enough to take control of the Republican Party.

Not long ago, Mrs. Stout sent an e-mail message to her members under the subject line: "Revolution." It linked to an article by Greg Evensen, a leader in the militia movement, titled "The Anatomy of an American Revolution," that listed "grievances" he said "would justify a declaration of war against any criminal enterprise including that which is killing our nation from Washington, D.C."

Mrs. Stout said she has begun to contemplate the possibility of "another civil war." It is her deepest fear, she said. Yet she believes the stakes are that high. Basic freedoms are threatened, she said. Economic collapse, food shortages and civil unrest all seem imminent.

"I don't see us being the ones to start it, but I would give up my life for my country," Mrs. Stout said.

"Peaceful means," she continued, "are the best way of going about it. But sometimes you are not given a choice."

My comment: I want you to recall that there were TEA parties hld all over the United States in hundreds of cities, with crowds of thousands down to a 10 or 20. But they were all over, with almost no organization whatsoever, all with hand-written signs. And the alphabet media and the NY Times ignored them. No articles and no pictures. The NY Times does not print all the news that is fit to print; it tells us how we ought to think, and what is important and what is not.

Map of the bogus jobs created or saved by the Stimulus Bill (this is great work by the Washington Examiner, and should be praised, no matter which party is in power):

RUSH: The Obama administration is one gigantic, Big Lie. The Democrat Party is one gigantic, Big Lie. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli turned up the heat on global warming yesterday. On behalf of the state, Cuccinelli filed a petition asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its December finding that global warming poses a threat to people.

Cuccinelli also filed a petition with the federal appeals court in Washington seeking a court review of the EPA finding. Cuccinelli had no comment beyond a brief e-mail to news organizations. A news conference on the issue is scheduled for this afternoon. Gov. Bob McDonnell supported the moves." Basically what's happening here is the same thing that happened in Texas yesterday, and that is the states are fighting Obama crap. They're fighting the EPA having blanket authority to regulate carbon dioxide, on the premise that there is man-made global warming. They want to opt out! So it's interesting, under the rubric of the Big Lie, to go back to the audio sound bites. This afternoon in Washington at the National Press Club: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Jane Lubchenco presented the NOAA fiscal year 2011 budget request, and here is a portion of what she said.

LUBCHENCO: NOAA's 2011 request includes investments for the core climate services and observations needed to enable the nation to effectively address the impacts of climate change. Climate science covers a range of inquiry from topics that have been well studied and documented, such as the tracking and fate of greenhouse gases; to those on the cutting edge of knowledge, such as the consequences of ocean acidification and the melting of sea ice.

RUSH: Big Lie continues. Dr. Jones, University of East Anglia has admitted there hasn't been any warming since 1995. All of his data he "lost." It's a hoax. The e-mails from the university prove it's a hoax. Responsible people, smart people are backing away from this now. But it's government people, politicians, who will be the last to give this up because it's a political thing. They wail and they moan about everything being politicized. They're the ones that are politicizing even the weather! She says forget the evidence. Forget the evidence. Global warming is happening. A reporter, Karen Schuberg, from the Cybercast News Service. I'm wondering your opinion on what climate change expert Phil Jones, former head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia when he told the BBC last weekend he agreed with the statement that from 1995 to the present there has been no significant statistical global warming. I'm wondering do you agree with Dr. Jones there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?"

LUBCHENCO: There is very strong evidence that, uh, there have been global increases in global temperatures over... Let's take the last century just to hone in on that. Umm, over that period of time, there have been significant periods where there are ups and downs and periods where there are no changes. And if you choose to be selective in highlighting any decade in there, you can see different patterns. Sometimes increases, sometimes decreases, sometimes no change. What you really need to do is look at a longer history of temperature records, which is what we have because we've been taking good data, and that longer history shows unequivocal increases in global average temperatures.

RUSH: So the reporter says, "So you would agree with Dr. Jones? There has been no significant statistical global warming since 1995?"

LUBCHENCO: I am saying that, uhh, it is inappropriate to look at any particular short period of time to discern the long-term trend.

RUSH: The Big Lie. Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Obama administration. Not only did Phil Jones say there hadn't been any warming between '95 and the present. He also pointed out that the hockey stick graph (of this fraud scientist from Penn State, Michael Mann) was also wrong, that there was medieval warming, much warmer than it is today. The whole thing's a hoax, folks, but they're not going to give it up. Because it's not about global warming, and it's not about "saving the planet." It's because advancing socialism, Marxism, whatever you want to call it; expanding government and taking away people's freedom and liberty and raising their taxes and making you feel guilty and responsible for all of this destruction that has taken place.

RUSH: Now, how is it that Biden is the soul of nitwits? Well, he was on CBS today in a, quote, unquote, "wide-ranging interview" with Harry Smith. Now, keep in mind: I want you to put yourself in a position of a Democrat in Congress. Obama made you write health care legislation. No fingerprints of his on it. Obama made you write the slush fund, the stimulus. It isn't working. Obama put you in charge of wrecking the US economy, and then you get to turn on CBS today and you hear Biden. Harry Smith: "You said to me at lunch you've never seen Washington this dysfunctional."

BIDEN: I've never seen it this dysfunctional. I'm trying to get the other team to cooperate, to get in the game here a little bit. I understand their political motivation but I think people say the message out of Massachusetts election was to Democrats. I think it was to everybody in public life, and it was, "Hey, guys, get your act together. Get something going on."

RUSH: Never seen it this dysfunctional? Well, who's trying to? Who's trying to from top to bottom? You think Scott Brown's election was against all incumbents? It was against one! It was against Ted Kennedy and the handpicked "Marcia" Coakley, as his son Patrick calls her. So now imagine you're a member of Congress and you're turning on CBS and you hear Joe Biden get this question: "Unemployment is hovering around ten. The real unemployment number is probably closer to 15 or 20%. People don't think you or a lot of other folks in Washington get it. Does the Obama administration get it?"

BIDEN: We -- we get it. We understand why they're angry. Uh, look... Umm... We are in good shape compared to the Congress. No one in Washington is in good shape. It reflects the reality that Washington right now is broken. I don't ever recall a time in my career where to get anything done you needed a supermajority, 60 out of 100 senators.

RUSH: I don't remember a time in my life where if somebody had 60 votes out of a hundred he couldn't get anything done! This is so convoluted, folks, as to be hilariously humorous. Did you hear what he just said? "Uh, I never recall a time in my career where to get anything done you needed a supermajority, 60 out of..." How about every year you've been in the Senate, doofus! You've always had to get 60 votes on a piece of legislation to stop debate and move it to a vote. I've never seen a party with 60 votes in the Senate not be able to get anything done like this bunch. But the point here is, he said, "Look, we," meaning Obama and me, "we're in good shape, compared to Congress." Didn't Biden just push Democrats off the cliff? "Oh, yeah, we're in good shape up here! Obama and I, we're in good shape compared to Congress."

See, Obama doesn't face the electorate until 2012. Congress faces them in November. So, yeah, in that regard the White House is in good shape compared to Congress. Biden said, "The atmosphere of high anxiety across the country reflects the reality that Washington right now is broken." Well, here we go: The brevity soul of nitwits, Joe Biden, once again just whacked his boss. Washington's "broken." He's never seen it so broken. Who's running it? Democrats! His party! Obama, Pelosi, Harry Reid. Brevity is the soul of wit. Thank you, Joe Biden! While standing up there trying to support Obama he throws every one of them under the bus here. "I've never seen it this dysfunctional." Stop and think about that. This is part of the Big Lie. The Big Lie also includes this notion it's the Republicans stopping all of this. The Big Lie is out there that Evan Bayh is a moderate when he's voted down the line with Obama on everything.

The Big Lie out there is that Evan Bayh is even a conservative. He's a full-fledged, 100% liberal in terms of supporting every Obama agenda item out there. So here's Biden, the vice president, saying, "I've never seen it this dysfunctional." Well, what's the circumstance? The Democrats have megamajorities in both houses of Congress. Obama has set the table for what he once said he needed: A slush fund bill and Obamacare health care. Both are disasters, and Biden blames a dysfunctional Congress. There is no honor among thieves, which again begs the question when discussing Joe Biden: "Is brevity also the soul of nitwit?" I guarantee you're not going to hear about this in the Drive-By Media, but when these Democrats up in Capitol Hill, both the House and the Senate, read this -- and when they see this, that Biden dumping on them for not being able to get anything done and everything being dysfunctional -- who's running the place? Who's running it? Who has 60 votes and can't get anything done? I've never seen that.

RUSH: This is the anniversary of the Porkulus slush fund, and 6% of the American people, only six, believe that it worked. Fifty-two percent of people in a CNN poll say Obama does not deserve a second term. They're doubling down on the Big Lie. Only 6% believe it worked. Seventeen percent of Americans are unemployed. This is why Obama does not deserve a second term, and this is why a lot of Democrats are jumping off their sinking ship. Senate Republicans have assembled some examples here of stimulus spending on this, the one-year anniversary. Sheryl Atkinson, CBS News, number 1. "You probably wouldn't guess that a martini bar and a Brazilian steak house would be on tap for stimulus funds. But in St. Joseph, Missouri the two privately-owned facilities are getting $100,000 of your tax dollars."

2. "The State University Of New York At Buffalo Won $390,000 To Study Young Adults Who Drink Malt Liquor And Smoke Marijuana." 3. "The University Of Hawaii Collected $210,000 To Study The Learning Patterns Of Honeybees, And $700,000 Went To Help Crab Fishermen In Oregon Recover Lost Crab Pots." 4. "Half A Million Dollars Went To Arizona State University To Study The Genetic Makeup Of Ants To Determine Distinctive Roles In Ant Colonies; $450,000 Went To The University Of Arizona To Study The Division Of Labor In Ant Colonies." This is all stimulus spending. 5. "The Rodent Study At Florida Atlantic University In Boca Raton Used $15,551 In Stimulus Funds To Pay For Two Summer Researchers To Help Gauge How Alcohol Affects A Mouse's Motor Functions."

Do we have any doubt how alcohol affects human beings' motor functions? 6. "President Obama's Stimulus Plan... Is Now Paying Americans To Buy That Great Necessity Of Modern Life, The Golf Cart." "Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama's [slush fund], Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that ... the golf cart. The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart." Stossel went out and bought one to test the theory. He's driving around outside of Fox News headquarters there on Sixth Avenue, also known as the Avenue of the [Former] Americas. He explained the whole process. He got a golf cart and the rebates and the kickbacks paid for it. So he's driving around and he's telling New Yorkers walking by, "Thanks." He's thanking them.

"I want to thank you for buying me this golf cart." They're looking at him, "What the hell are you talking about?" "Oh, yeah. You did it. The Obama stimulus." I'm thinking of going and getting one. You know, my property is pretty big, I'd just as soon ride a golf cart around and inspect it rather than have to take the Hoof Express. If I get a golf cart -- golf cart paid by you, why shouldn't I do it? Then I'll come in here and highlight the process. Yeah, I should do it. I absolutely should do it. We're not through. We're halfway through the list here. . "Five Hundred Syracuse University Freshmen Will Divulge The Details Of Their Sex Lives ... $219,000 In Stimulus Funds For The Study." 8. "Sunset Boulevard, Also Known As "The Sunset Strip" And One Of The Most Famous Streets In The World, Will Be Getting A $7 Million Facelift After More Than 75 Years Of Use, With A Free Million Dollar Nose Job Coming From Uncle Sam."

But, Rush! But, Rush! This is a stimulus-ready job! It's not creating any jobs! It's just giving union workers on the staff in LA some more make-work to do. It's not creating any jobs. 9. "The Cactus Bug Project At The University Of Florida Is More Ambitious, Spending $325,394 In Stimulus Money To Determine How Environment Affects The Mating Decisions Of Females." Once again, I would do this for a dollar: "$325,394 In Stimulus Money To Determine How Environment Affects The Mating Decisions Of Females." 10. "A $498,000, Three-Year Grant'To Study 'Social Networks Like Facebook.'" Number 11. "$3.4 Million for a [frigging] Turtle Tunnel in Florida -- The Other Third Of The Stimulus, Government Infrastructure Spending, Has Been The Most Controversial From The Start. Some Proposals Have Been Criticized As Wasteful, Such As ... A $3.4 Million 'Ecopassage' To Help Turtles Cross A Highway In Tallahassee, Fla."

On the one year anniversary of the stimulus, this is what we're paying for. 12. "A Big Chunk Of The Money That Will Pay For A New Spring-Training Baseball Complex On Tribal Land In The East Valley Will Be Delivered Via A Financing Program That's Part Of The Federal Economic-Stimulus Plan. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community says it may borrow as much as $30 million of the estimated cost of the $100 million complex near Scottsdale that will become the spring home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies." 13. Jonathan Karl, ABC News: "'The Napa Valley Wine Train, To Tourists A Great Way To See America's Most Celebrated Wine Region, To Others Exhibit A In What's Wrong With The Stimulus.' Sen. Tom Coburn: 'What that is, is a situation where you see the wealthy or well connected get taken care of and the community suffers.' KARL: 'He's talking about the Napa Valley wine train relocation project, 54 million stimulus dollars to build a new rail bridge, elevate and relocate 3,300 ft of tracks and put flood walls around the train's main station.'" 14. "$50,000 in Stimulus Funds for a Tennis Court in Montana," and, "$250 Stimulus Checks to Prisoners." Megyn Kelly of Fox said: "Thousands To A Million Of Your Stimulus Dollars Have Gone Straight To Convicts. That's Right, The Feds Sending $250 Stimulus Checks To Thousands Upon Thousands Of Prisoners... We're Talking First Degree Murderers Who Are Getting Your Money." I don't know what for. I don't know what for. But it's the first anniversary of Obama's slush fund.

RUSH: you just heard all of the waste in the slush fund, the Porkulus bill, right? You just heard it. I just went through it. Here's what Obama said about that today at the White House, the one-year anniversary of his slush fund.

OBAMA: Joe and I were just talking in the back, when this thing passed, we said $787 billion, somewhere there's going to be some story of some money that ended up being misspent, $787 billion spent out over 18 months, that's a lot -- that's a lot of money, and it is a testimony to Vice President Biden and his team that, as Joe puts it, the dog so far at least hasn't barked.

RUSH: So you just heard all that waste, but he said this morning there hasn't been any. The Congressional Budget Office has come out and said that the actual cost of the stimulus is not the $787 billion -- it's actually a trillion, leaving out the earmarks it cost to get votes for this thing -- the actual stimulus, 787, but the CBO's come out and said, no, no, no, it's $862 billion because of the increase in unemployment compensation benefits we've had to pay. And the White House is rejecting the CBO estimate of how much the stimulus act will cost. "They don't know what they're talking about over there." Isn't it interesting the Congressional Budget Office is all knowing and all seeing unless they say something the White House doesn't like. Now, Obama and Biden know that all of this money is being wasted and they don't care. They don't respect the taxpayers of this nation.

This administration has contempt for you. You are trashed endlessly, businesses are trashed endlessly. They don't care where their money goes or how much more they're going to take from people. They don't care about any of this. They don't care whether there's waste or not. Biden's not controlling anything. These people are out there saying that congressional gridlock and, you know, bye-bye Bayh is saying, no, no, no, congressional gridlock, excessive partisanship, gotta get out of there, it's why the deficit's so big. Oh. Well, let's examine that. Congressional gridlock is the reason the deficit is so large. Somebody on my vast research team needs to find something out for me. Find for me what legislative budget cuts were on the table that were blocked. I want to know. 'Cause they're out there saying gridlock is responsible for the deficit, which means there had to be somebody out there trying to cut the budget but the Republicans got in the way. I want to know any legislation that was advanced and debated and voted on to cut the budget. Don't bother looking, folks. There isn't any. And there hasn't been any.

To the phones. To Hartford, Connecticut. We start with Pete. Nice to have you and I'm really glad you waited, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Listen, earlier you mentioned how Obama is taking credit for this two million jobs saved which is obviously ridiculous. But if that's going to be his measure then shouldn't Bush get credit after the 9/11 attacks for saving all of the jobs, since Al-Qaeda was trying to ruin the country?

RUSH: You're exactly right. That is why I said earlier I wanted to congratulate Bush for any and all economic growth that has or may occur during the Obama administration. Because the Obama administration's doing zilch, zero, nada to cause any economic growth. Now, if they're going to run out there and blame Bush, if they're going to say that Bush is responsible for the downside of the economy, he deserves credit for any upside. I mean, for the economy to plummet, it has to have been up there somewhere, right? Who did that? Who put the economy up there for it to fall to these depths? It sure as hell wasn't Obama, was it? So we gotta credit Bush. I mean if he's gonna get blamed for this we gotta give him credit for getting it up there. The Big Lie, ladies and gentlemen. The Democrat Party, American liberalism, Barack Obama.

CALLER: Yeah, Rush, Vice President Hair Plugs was up on the talk shows this morning telling all American taxpayers got a real good deal out of the stimulus package. I got stimuled. First of January my federal income tax withholding went up 1.01%.

CALLER: And president teleprompter was telling us during his State of the Union message that only 5% didn't get a tax cut, 95% of us got a tax cut and the other 5% didn't get a tax cut and I must be part of the super rich because I got a tax increase.

CALLER: Not even $12,000 a year. I got stimuled. Stimul you, stimul me, and stimul us. I wish these guys would go stimul themselves instead of us.

RUSH: Weren't you a little shocked out there to get stimuled for a tax increase of 1% at less than $12,000 a year?

CALLER: Well, I don't know. I wasn't complaining too much when my pumpkin pies in the local bakery went up double. I didn't complain too much. What really got my goat was president fat mouth Biden up there telling everybody that they got a good deal out of this stimulus package.

CALLER: No. No. Well, Hitler used to do that. Goebbels was great for that, just tell a bigger lie and bigger lie --

RUSH: Hitler didn't need Goebbels. Hitler was the architect of all this stuff. Goebbels, he just implemented it all. He didn't need Bormann. He might have needed Rommel --

RUSH: -- and he might have needed Christoph Waltz, and Hitler might have needed Bormann.

CALLER: -- totalitarians, not anything there -- that's what they want to do is spread the wealth around, but it comes out of my pocket, and your pocket.

RUSH: There's no wealth being spread to anybody except unions. And, by the way, that Rodney Dangerfield bit where he's talking the arrogant professor and he says, (paraphrasing) "Well, you gotta pay off the teamsters here if you're going to use concrete in this building of yours," and the smug professor, "Mr. Melon, there may be kickbacks and bribes and Mafia payoffs in your world but not in the legitimate world we're talking about." Really? I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that President Obama has mastered the art of union kickbacks, wouldn't you? The only people making out like bandits during all this are the union people: state, federal, you name it, government union people. The unemployment rate among union people in the government is 3%. I mean that's statistically zero.

RUSH: Dave in Vancouver, it's great to have you here. Thank you so much for waiting. Great to have you on the program.

CALLER: Yeah. I'm a first-time caller and I have only been listening to you for about three or four months, and I'm in your corner.

RUSH: Well, three or four months and you're in my corner, you've gone well past the minimum required six weeks to become addicted, so welcome to the EIB Network, sir.

CALLER: Yeah, thank you. These tax breaks that Obama's been talking about, now, I'm a middle class blue-collar worker. Last year I made a little over a hundred thousand dollars, between me and the wife, and this year we just barely cracked 70. I lost my job, got a new job and all that kind of stuff, and I got a whole whopping $500 back from Uncle Sam in federal taxes on my tax return.

RUSH: Now, wait, wait, wait, wait just a minute. That does not mean you got a tax cut.

CALLER: No. No. What it means is I got raked over the coals. I lost $30,000 in annual income and I don't get anything back from the federal government? What's going on there? How do you call that a tax break?

RUSH: Well, wait a second, now. You didn't get a tax cut, there's no question you didn't get a tax. Nobody got a tax cut. The tax cuts you're talking about were one-time tax credits, you go out and buy a new muffler was what the original idea was. But you can't compare when you get $500 back on your tax return. That just means that your withholding was adjusted in such a way that you paid more than you should have. So that $500 refund was you overpaid your taxes, and I'm sure that was due to the fact that you kept the withholding where it was when your income was at a hundred thousand dollars. So you did pay less in taxes but you did not get a rate cut so you didn't make out, I mean you're not ahead of the game at all other than the way you did it, you had a $500 lump there that you might otherwise not have had. That was just because you didn't readjust your withholding to match -- because you didn't know. It sounds like you're an independent contractor in a lot of ways, your income varies from year to year. But, Dave, it's great to have you in the audience. Thank you so much.

RUSH: To Jimmy, Pascagoula, Mississippi. You're next on the program, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you very much. Longtime listener. Please indulge me to make my point. If Obama and the Demolition-crats want to truly create jobs, there's over 250,000 structural steel bridges in the United States that fail at one per week. The bridge in Minneapolis had just been inspected by the process that they used for inspection (which is just visual) up until about a year ago. It had just been inspected one month prior to its collapse up there on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. They could create so many jobs putting people on the infrastructure, working on these bridges. In the United States right now, 250,000 structural steel bridges have fatigue and stress. Most of them were built in the fifties and sixties that trucks weighed a lot less, carried a lot less load, the amount of traffic that went across these bridges was nowhere near the amount of traffic that there is --

RUSH: And the kids going across were not nearly as fat which didn't put as much pressure on these bridges.

CALLER: Exactly! And now there's a company out that has an electronic fatigue sensing device that can structurally test these bridges down to one one-hundredth of an inch. I mean, that bridge was visually inspected so all they did was go to most of the stress points, look of them, and say, "Hey, it's okay," but what about the fatigue of the fact that those bridges were engineered and designed to only carry traffic. Some bridges, if people truly knew how unsafe they were, they wouldn't much less drive a 2,000-pound car across it.

RUSH: Well, I mean, that's what the purpose was, to fund "shovel-ready jobs," fix the infrastructure. Obama said today it's been a marvelous success. He said it's a marvelous success, Jimmy. Are you sure about your facts on this one?

CALLER: Oh, yeah. I'm very sure because I'm going to tell you what. Not only that, do you see steelworkers and the teamsters and all going to work right now? Do you hear of any large quantities of workers working on these bridges? No, you don't because no one's doing it.

RUSH: Well, it's an excellent idea. Jimmy, I think these bridges just have to be patient. I think all that work that you're talking about comes in 2013.

RUSH: Okay. We played for you excerpts and we read portions of Governor Chris Christie's speech to the legislature in New Jersey where he said (paraphrased), "We're going to cut programs, 375 programs. We can't go on. We're bankrupt. We're cutting back. We're cutting back. We're cutting back. We're cutting back, and we are not raising taxes. As predicted, the New York-Philadelphia media has unloaded." They are attacking Chris Christie with all their might. The same thing happened when Rudy took office in New York City. It happened when Reagan took over California. Here's a montage of New York and Philadelphia media.

REPORTER: New Jersey citizens railed about Governor Chris Christie's proposed budget cuts.

REPORTER: Governor Christie is not budging on his plan to cut the agency's funds, and officials say that means riders are going to have to pay the price.

RUSH: So the media, predictably, is outraged. "Nobody wants these cuts!" It's only why he was elected. I just looked at the roster of calls. Are you really...? Snerdley, are you wanting me to explode today? Okay, so that's the media. Now let's go to the Democrats in New Jersey, going back to the same old page in the same old playbook: A parade of victims to blast Chris Christie's budget cuts. Here we have at the statehouse in Trenton an assembly budget committee meeting, a 13-year-old blind student, Rocco Fiorentino, testified. Here's what the 13-year-old blind student said.

FIORENTINO: These budget cuts would directly affect the education of each and every child who deals with a visual challenge. Cutting costs, at all costs, is not going to solve the long-term budget challenges in this great state.

RUSH: So who wrote this guy's statement? Same old page, same old playbook: Bring out a blind 13-year-old! This is no different than the '95 budget battle where they brought all these students saying, "The Republicans want us to starve! They want us to starve no school lunch! (sobbing)" It's just same old playbook. I'm telling you, people are fed up with this.

RUSH: Now back to Chris Christie, responding to the stuck pigs and weasels in the New Jersey-Philadelphia media and the New Jersey Democrat Party, all bent outta shape about his attempt to save their little state from utter bankruptcy.

CHRISTIE: No, I think they could be better. I think that the contracts they've given out have been too rich. They have been, at times, a patronage pit for political hiring. That's why they're called hard choices, Christine. If there were easy choices left we'd make them. I got hired for this job to come in and clean up this mess. That's what I'm going to do.

RUSH: That's Chris Christie. He was on where we CBS TV's News at Five, Eyeball News at Five, in New York City last night with the correspondent Christine Sloan asking the questions. This is last night on WNYW-TV's Eyeball News at Six, the correspondent Giovanna Drpic interviewed Christie and said, "What will be affected here?"

CHRISTIE: This will not affect classroom instruction, teachers, kids. They pay nothing, zero, most teachers for their health benefits. Is there anybody out there in New Jersey and New York, who's watching this, who pays nothing for their health benefits? It's just not sustainable.

RUSH: Pow! Pow! He just said, "These people are not paying a damn thing for their health benefits. Are any of you not paying anything for yours? We can't sustain this!" I love this guy. They're gonna try to take him out. They are going to try to destroy this guy. He is going to need support. If you're in New Jersey, he's gonna need your support. Then yesterday in Berkeley heights, New Jersey, Columbia middle school, Governor Christie held a budget roundtable. Here's a portion of what he said.

CHRISTIE: You will hear that this means that property taxes are going to go up, what we're doing. When you hear, "This means instruction is going to have to be cut. Teachers are going to have to be laid off," take a deep breath. That's the folks down in Trenton who are trying desperately to hold onto their feeding spot at the trough. We are in an awful circumstance right now of people at 10.1% unemployment; declining property tax revenues, declining sales tax, income tax, business tax revenues. That's all because of the awful national recession we're in and because of the awful job we've done in New Jersey in terms of overspending, overtaxing, and over-borrowing.

RUSH: Every word is the truth, and these stuck pigs in the New Jersey Democrat Party -- the stuck pigs in the Philadelphia and New York media -- cannot stand hearing the truth because it's an indictment of everything they believe. And it properly focuses the blame for this destruction on them, their beliefs, their policies, and their mandates. This morning on Squawk Box on CNBC, the cohost Melissa Lee says to Governor Chris Christie, "Manage the expectations of New Jersey. How difficult will things be getting? I mean, there are reports in terms of the municipal bond downgrades. New Jersey has the fastest downgrade out there, debt obligations below investment grade. How do you keep up basic services when you're trying to stopgap that budget and keep the state going?"

CHRISTIE: We've spend too much, and we borrow too much. The only way to fix that is to stop spending so much. It's the only way to do it.

LEE: Well, there are other peoples would say, "Raise taxes, too." Bring in higher revenue and cutting spending. Are you going to have to do both?

CHRISTIE: No. We're not raising taxes. That's it. Our income tax when it was established in 1977, at 2.5% top rate, under Governor Corzine was an 11% top rate on income tax. We --

CHRISTIE: No. We can't! You know, we had, in the last four years of the Governor Corzine -- a study just came out -- $70 billion in wealth left the state of New Jersey. And it left it because we are the most overtaxed people in America. We've done enough of that already. It is time to get tough and to say "no."

RUSH: You hear now the questions from the media people. I don't care where they are, CNBC, Eyeball News 5, Eyeball News 6, they're all right out of the playbook. "Well, you're gonna raise taxes, right?" He just got through explaining that high taxes have caused $70 billion of wealth to flee the state! High taxes have led to declining revenues in the state of New Jersey. So back to CNBC's Squawk Box, guest panelist Darden Restaurants CEO Clarence Otis said, "Well, what are the big things that went wrong to get you to this point?"

CHRISTIE: An absolute addiction to spending. You know, at the state, county, and municipal level. We spend more on school aid than any state in America per student. We spend more on providing services. We have more government per square mile. We've 566 municipalities, all of them are taxing. You just have had an abundance of taxation and everybody always having that same attitude: "Well, just raise taxes this time." Well, people are now fed up and what's happening is you're seeing an enormous flight from our state. So even if you raise tax rates, revenue continues to go down. Governor Corzine raised tax rates last year. Revenue was down by $2 billion.

RUSH: New Jersey is a microcosm of what's happening in the United States, a microcosm of what's happened in California. Well, not microcosm. It's the exact thing. So Clarence Otis, the CEO of Darden Restaurants, "Are people ready to see shared services?"

CHRISTIE: The worst thing that we have that we really need to tackle is pension and benefit reform. I gave an example in my speech last week which you all understand. A 49-year-old man who retires, state worker, $24,000 he contributed to his pension, and his health benefits over the course of his career. What does he get? $3.3 million of pension payments and $500,000 in health care costs -- $3.8 million on $24,000 investment. Those numbers don't add up.

RUSH: Now, I should tell you: On CNBC they were gunning for him. They came after this guy with both barrels and he stuck to his guns and gave them what-for. Finally, back to CNBC's Squawk Box, cohost Becky Quick finally says, "You know, when you look back at what's been happening in the state, happening around the country, though, this big swing where voters have registered the displeasure with how things are going -- they've done it in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, across the board on these things -- do you think that continues into the 2010 national elections for Congress? Do you think this is something that swings one direction and then comes back towards another? I mean politics tends to bounce back and forth."

RUSH: This is a philosophical swing and not a partisan swing. I think that's what we saw in my election in New Jersey. Let's face it: We have 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey. A Republican hasn't been elected in 12 years statewide. They were listening to the message. People are saying, "I've lost my job, my home is being foreclosed on, and you want more taxes from me? Are you kidding?" That's what people are saying.

RUSH: And everybody better learn that. Everybody that's elected and wants to hold onto their seat, wherever it is, had better learn that. There is a genuine contempt for these politicians out there. These people love their country. They are very, very proud of the hard work they've put in to have the home and the life that they have, and they're watching a bunch of elitist politicians destroy it right in front of their eyes. They don't want any part of this. There is a real, real contempt for these elected officials -- and if they don't understand it now, they will understand it in November.

RUSH: Here is Linda somewhere in New Jersey. She doesn't want anybody to know where because she's going to be disagreeing with a bunch of Democrats there. Great to have you on the program, Linda. Hi.

CALLER: (laughing) Listen, I am a teacher of the visually impaired, blind, and also an orientation and mobility specialist in New Jersey.

RUSH: Wait a second, now, I know what the visually impaired are. And I know what the blind are, I mean those are Democrats. What is orientation and mobility specialist?

CALLER: That is a person who is trained to work with kids who are blind or visually impaired on their travel skills.

CALLER: Okay. So I'm a freelancer, and there are not very many of us in New Jersey. New Jersey educates its blind kids a little bit differently than other states do. In New Jersey, there is a state agency called the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired out of Trenton that sends out teachers to different school districts to provide Braille instruction and O&M, orientation and mobility instruction, to blind students.

CALLER: Right. It's a different certification. It's a completely different training --

CALLER: Other states, school districts will hire their own teachers or O&M people, so they're a member of the school staff and they're paid by the school and they're accountable --

RUSH: Okay, I had to do that when I was in grade school, they had a speech -- what was it? What did you call them? It was not speech defect, it was --

RUSH: When I was a kid, people said, "You sound like you need a drain in your mouth." My parents sent me off to this speech impediment person, so I know what you're talking about.

CALLER: So actually O&M is a related service just like speech or occupational therapy or physical therapy.

RUSH: Let me step in here and tell people why you're calling. The reason she's calling is because we played an audio sound bite, Democrats in New Jersey opposing budget cuts brought in a 13-year-old blind student to wail against the new governor's budget cuts saying it's just not fair, it's not right, and Republicans don't care about kids with impairments.

CALLER: I am so outraged at the parents of this student. I may even know them. I didn't get to hear the clip, I don't know the student's name, but --

RUSH: Well, hang on a minute. Let's find the clip. Hang on just a second. Here's the clip, and this is from earlier in the program.

RUSH: That's the 13-year-old blind child they brought out, the Democrats, the same page of the same playbook that they've been using for as long as I've been alive.

CALLER: Absolutely. Now, what this student probably doesn't understand but his parents should if they're this involved with their child's education is that cutting the budget, Governor Christie cutting the budget and therefore probably cutting funds from the Commission for the Blind or not increasing funds results in less free services to school districts or very minimal, minimal fee, like a couple thousand dollars a year for services.

RUSH: Right. So you don't like them using the kids this way, exploiting them basically?

CALLER: They're exploiting the kid, and the kid doesn't understand -- what the kid is asking for is quality services so that he can be an independent and competent adult, and I agree with him a hundred percent. What I disagree with is that this entitlement that these services should be free or a couple thousand dollars a year. Now, if the parents --

RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Welcome to the people that vote for Democrats. Who do you think created this sense of entitlement the last 50 years? Let's go back to FDR, shall we? Who created it and guess who's afraid of tackling it up until now? Republicans, elected Republicans. Well, some of them have been afraid, not all. Linda, thanks very much for the call.

CALLER: Thank you. This week had a very awkward moment. My wife comes in from getting a haircut, or getting her hair done, and when she walks in the door we kind of look at each other and we both know what each other's thinking. I'm staring at her and she's kinda looking down at the ground and what I say was --

RUSH: Geraldo just showing up to talk about Tiger Woods here on Fox. He's a grim reaper there. When Geraldo shows up, somebody's either dead or they're going to die pretty soon. I'm sorry to interrupt, I just thought maybe something had happened I didn't know.

RUSH: You were saying, your wife walked in with a hairstyle change, you both knew what each other was thinking, which was what?

CALLER: What I said was, "Holy Lord, you look like." and in a low tone, she says, "Don't even think about it." And at that moment I said, "Rachel Maddow."

CALLER: See, I have two quick questions. One is, okay, the health insurance, you know, they talk about doing it over state lines. Insurance is based on, you know, spreading the risk, more people in the risk pool, lowers the cost. Why can't we open it up worldwide? That's question number one. Number two is the cost of medicine. You know, how much is it costing it manufacturers to make it? Where is this price getting inflated at? Is it at the pharmacies? And, if so, you know, can the government possibly, instead of paying the pharmacies' rates, why can't they pay the manufacturers' rates, sell it to the pharmacy, so it's going to cost the government less?

RUSH: Well, now, on the latter, I have a very simple market-based understanding of drug prices. And I have been led -- I'm pretty much convinced that on the drugs that people need -- the newest, the latest -- the R&D on these things is through the roof. The regulatory process, the hoops they have to jump through at the Food and Drug Administration at every level, all the testing, the blind testing, the placebos and the regulations here and regulations there -- I think the cost of bringing a drug to market would stun us.

CALLER: What would be interesting is to find out the cost of the drug at the manufacturer, and then what the markup is once it hits, like, Walgreens or whatever.

RUSH: Well, that changes over the course of time, after they make the R&D back, it takes them awhile to make back the R&D, the production costs, and that's when prices start coming down. I don't know what pharmacy markups are.

RUSH: Well, now, the reason that the states are the ones -- of course Obama, Democrats -- states are the ones that do not want insurance companies to be able to sell across state lines because every state has different mandates on these insurance companies. Alabama -- and I'm just picking Alabama at random -- Alabama may mandate certain kinds of coverage at certain kinds of premium, they may say you can't cover this and you can't cover that, and as such, they don't want Texas to be able to counter what their mandates are with something that would undercut Alabama. So we don't have a single mandated system here that says what insurance policies can do. I've had so many insurance agents call here and tell me --

CALLER: Just think about what health insurance being available in a worldwide market would do as far as pushing the capitalist agenda, getting more people off of government -- say over in Europe, getting more people off of the government --

RUSH: Well, in theory I like what you're talking about, but you're going to have a different quality of health care system from country to country to country.

CALLER: But health care here is not the issue, it's the cost. And that's another thing is the health care crisis. It's not the health care crisis, it's the cost of care.

RUSH: It's the cost, not just the cost, but access. And there are so many mandates -- I had a story in the stack a couple days ago --

RUSH: Well, some only have access through the emergency room, but others don't want insurance because of their relative youth.

CALLER: Sure. They can afford it. Or they can afford not to have insurance, I understand.

RUSH: Yeah. I can't find it. But there's an insurance company, "Wellness" or something like that in California, that just bumped up rates 39%. And the Democrats are saying, "See, see, see? This is why we need national health care! See, see? This is why! Because look how they're screwing their customers!" And the truth of this story -- the Wall Street Journal did a great story on it -- the truth of this is that this is exactly what's going to happen if Obama's health care takes over. The reason they are raising rates out there is because of the restrictions and the mandates the state of California puts on them!

You know, if you look at the cost of a house, you look at the city, state, whatever regulations there are before you can get a permit to build and construct and you get your occupancy permit, if you take all of these onerous state, city, federal regulations out of so much of what goes on in the private sector, you would not believe how cheap things would become! And that's true of drugs, it is true of building a house, it's true of building commercial real estate, developing commercial real estate. It's just onerous as it can be. You can't build because of a snail darter, environment or whatever. It's ridiculous. And it's been building, and this is all found to be percolating in the property rights movement.

Okay. In New Jersey, the governor appoints. So if Frank Lautenberg were forced to resign because of this illness, Chris Christie would be able to appoint. I imagine right now, as we speak, the Democrat legislature in New Jersey is meeting to create a law that requires a special election. And they're trying to make sure that they will have enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto. This is what Kennedy did in Massachusetts. They demanded a special election there, and, what was it? The law was in place, and they didn't like the law, they had changed it previously to make it more advantageous, so they changed it again to make it what they thought would be more advantageous this time, and it ended up Scott Brown being elected. So they sort of shafted themselves and the Democrats in New Jersey will do the same thing if they start monkeying around with this.

RUSH: "Please, Rush, there are inspectors and building officials out there very honest, and we work our rear ends off. Come on, Rush. There are honest conservative building inspectors and building officials, which I and my stuff just happen to be. We don't get paid off, maybe in Florida, but not here. Please don't dump us in with everybody else with a few bad apples. We take our jobs very seriously just like you do yours and we do save lives with what we do." A fair comment. It's a joke. It's primarily in New York, California. I'm not aware of any shenanigans here in Florida, and believe me, there are a whole -- do you realize, folks, that where I live, you have to get approval from some town commission on how you're going to paint your house and how it can be decorated? Ho. You do. And if your neighbors don't like it, they can show up, complain, whine and moan, even if they'll never see it. So we got even with them. I'm not going to tell you how. I'm not even going to go there. I'm not even going to go there.

CALLER: Hi, Rush! It is an honor it's an honor to talk to you and thanks for all you do.

CALLER: I work for the big, evil pharmaceutical company and I wanted to let you know that you are right about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. It is research and development, and it can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to bring a novel product to market, almost a billion dollars to bring, you know, medicines that save lives and help people live better lives. So I just want to let you know you're right about that.

RUSH: Yeah, I know. A lot of people, even when they hear that, they think that they're being lied to because they've been conditioned to suspect all of big business by the Democrat Party for all of these years. But tell us, if you will, very briefly, I've got about a minute and a half year, give me an idea of just the hoops, the regulatory hoops at the FDA you gotta go through when you come up with an idea for a new drug.

CALLER: Well, I'm probably not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be on that, but what happens is once a molecule is recognized by the scientist and it's gone through its animal studies and safe for human consumption, you know, these studies are years --

CALLER: Exactly. But we have to make sure it's right for human consumption and, you know, people want to have safe medication, medications that can change your lives and improve the quality of life, and it takes years and lots of dollars to get these drugs to market, and it's very important.

RUSH: This is a stupid question, but the only way to not stay stupid is ask for an answer. The relationship between a pharmaceutical company and a pharmacist or a nationwide pharmaceutical chain, who determines the price markup there?

CALLER: I think it's between the company and again, this is probably out of my league, it's between the company and the pharmacist --

RUSH: Well, but, see, there's another factor in there, too. You can choose a whole bunch of different pharmacies to go to. So if a pharmacy wants to offer a spectacular new drug at a lower price than what they think somebody else is offering, they'll do that, too. Free market usually works these things out if it's left alone but when you start tacking on all kinds of onerous regulations and requirements, just raise costs, you end up paying for it at the end of the line, which is retail.

RUSH: Now, we've got a pharmacist on the phone from Chicago. I'm going to get to him in just a second. He's going to tell us where profits go which means I'm going to ask him which union in Chicago gets his profit. But I have a friend in Kansas City whose family owned a food product, I'm not going to mention the food product, but you've heard of it. They sold it. They sold the food product. It's still there on your shelves in your favorite grocery store. The company that bought it decided it would make more sense to buy an existing product that was already a success than to start from scratch, do the R&D, and come up with a new product, because it could take between twenty and a hundred million dollars to create their own. So they scarfed up an existing product. The company, the family that had the product liked the money and they got out of it. These are just the facts of life. R&D drugs, R&D new food product, whatever it is, if you're starting from scratch, and you don't have any in that product line, it's going to cost you big bucks and you gotta make it back at some point. Now, here's Kirk in Chicago, a pharmacist who's going to tell us where the profit goes. What union gets your profits in Chicago?

CALLER: Good to get on the air with you for the first time here, a long time trying and this time I tried about 70 times because I really wanted to get through here --

RUSH: I'm glad you did. I've got about a minute. I don't mean to cut you short but time is running out.

CALLER: Quickly, you know, it's all based on volume, basically one to three percent profit markup at your pharmacy counter.

CALLER: Exactly. And that's why we do such a volume. And when you look at the pharmaceutical industry, there's so much failure in terms of the pipelines that go on, you're looking like 4%. This is something that I wrote about when I was actually in college --

CALLER: -- it infuriated the liberals, they were just furious, they said, "Where did you get your numbers? Where did those numbers come from?" It really lit 'em up.

RUSH: No, no, no. That is an excellent point. We never hear about the drug failures, the ones that don't work, even that get to market, they're not being prescribed and don't work and they have to recall 'em or whatever or they just never make it and all that has to be made back, too, as well. I don't know, for example, Zicam, big sponsor here, I don't know what the original startup cost for Zicam was. But I do know that it wasn't until they started advertising the product here that they started a huge, huge profit spike. Of course we're very proud of that but their product is very affordable. And you know what they've had to go through, FDA banning one of their delivery systems just because they're sponsors here, they've had to go through a whole bunch of stuff for a product that works, and now they've got all kinds of new delivery systems and they've had to R&D that, but they keep their prices down because market dictates it. My favorite kind now is the new oral spray, four times in the mouth, first time you think you get a cold, stuff is amazing. But this is econ 101 that is not taught enough in the school system. I wish we didn't have to go but I do, the constraints of time are such that I cannot bend the clock.

RUSH: Look, folks, Snerdley reminded me to do this on Monday. I've got a story here about premiums are jumping 14% on Medicare private plans because of government regulations and actions. Here's Obama telling us how his health care plan's going to reduce costs and his own government is causing a 14% increase in Medicare coverage or private plans.

Remember how Obama kept saying the word jobs and that he kept this up for a week or so? Good times. The Republicans want to talk about it with him—on tv.

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.

Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.

The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):

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 #115	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	February 21, 2010