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).

Turns out that, during the recent financial crisis, SEC officials who are supposed to be providing oversight, were surfing for porn and downloading porn.

Comedy Central’s irreverent animated comedy, South Park, edited out footage which made fun of Muslim traditions, because veiled threats began to surface on the internet at revolutionarymuslim.com.

Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi claims immodest dress and extramarital sex cause earthquakes. Several (mostly male) scientists have urged women to put this theory to the test by donning low cut tops and short shorts on Monday April 26 to see if they can spark a tremor. That is science I can get behind.

General Motors takes money from TARP in order use that money to pay back its government loans.

Arizona governor signs tough immigration enforcement bill. Somos Republicans (among others) take issue with bill. 70% of Arizonans support this bill.

While the White House is pushing a 1300+ page bill to reform the financial sector, Goldman-Sachs finds itself being sued in a fairly public forum, at the same time. The SEC Inspector General will launch an investigation on the timing of this Goldman Sachs filing based on a letter from Congressman Issa.

Joe Klein of Time Magazine: “Sedition...is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the state; and a lot of these statements—especially the ones comeing from people like Glenn Beck and, to a certain extent, Sarah Palin—[are] right up close to being seditious.”

RevolutionMuslim.com posted this message on its website earlier this week warning South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker that “what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show.” (Theo Van Gogh produced the 10 minute short Submission, which was critical of the treatment of women by Islam; he was assassinated by a Muslim 2 months after the show aired).

New York Subway bomb plotter gives this statement in open court to explain his motivation: “Your Honor, I would like to quote from the Qur'an. Quote, Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their wealth for the price of Paradise, to fight in the way of Allah, to kill and get killed. It is a promise binding on the truth in the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur'an, end of quote.” (From Qur'an 9:111).

“Where’s the money? Where’s the cash?” said by a New Jersey teacher demonstrating.

Bertha Lewis, head of ACORN, speaking at the winter conference of the Young Democratic Socialists: “This is the group that says, ‘I’m young, I’m democratic, and I am a socialist.’ And it’s alright with me.”

Lance Baxter, (former) voice of Geico insurance, left a voice mail message at freedom works, asking what was "...the percentage of people that are mentally retarded who are working for FreedomWorks and who are following it."

Bill Mahr talking about the TEA party gatherings: “What a day for the Tea Party people. Did you see that? America's parks and fairgrounds were lost in a sea of man-boobs. (Laughter) As they were venting their anger and rage against taxes, which in most cases for them went down. Protesting, their taxes went down. Why let the truth spoil a perfectly good Klan rally?”

Mahr continued his brand of humor with, “It's true, it's true. These are the facts. Federal taxes went down for 98 percent of people -- working families, individuals, almost everybody. But when asked about this, only 12 percent of the teabaggers thought this was the case. Eighty-eight percent of them were wrong. A spokesman for the tea parties said 'We don't just want to be taxed less. We want to be taxed less by a white person.”

Maher continued, about TEA party objections to the size of these tax bills: “It's not taxes they hate. It's reading.”

“The national Bureau of Economic Research isn’t quite ready to declare when the economic recession actually ended...mainly because it hasn’t.” Jodi Miller.

When it was suggested that the recent Arizona Immigration bill might result in racial profiling, Greg Gutfeld remarked, “Duh, they’re from another country.”

Mark Steyn: “For a long time, tea partiers were racists. Everybody knows that when you say "I'm becoming very concerned about unsustainable levels of federal spending," that's old Jim Crow code for "Let's get up a lynching party and teach that uppity Negro a lesson." Frank Rich of the New York Times attempted to diversify the tea-party racism into homophobia by arguing that Obamacare's opponents were uncomfortable with Barney Frank's sexuality. I yield to no one in my discomfort with Barney Frank's sexuality, but, with the best will in the world, I find it hard to blame it for more than the first 4 or 5 trillion dollars of federal overspending. Eschewing such cheap slurs, Time's Joe Klein said opposition to Obama was "seditious," because nothing says sedition like citing the U.S. Constitution and quoting Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately for Klein, thanks to "educator" William Ayers's education reforms, nobody knows what "seditious" means anymore.”

Larry King interviews Willie Nelson on the collapse of the buildings on 9/11 (and about the different guitars that Willie owns):

Scientist Willie Nelson questions everything about 9/11; “It looks too simple.”

One common leftist approach is to brainwash children. One of the results of this is, kids being taught to live green in school, and then coming home to educate their parents.

The last of he Hitler parodies? The Hitler clip which has been used by so many to dub, has not been removed from YouTube for copyright infringement.

Willie Nelson: Never before has a building collapsed because it was hit by an airplane—a steel building—never before.

1) Let us temporarily grant liberals the proposition that Washington, even though it is giving itself greater and greater power—to the point that they can tell us what to buy (in this case, a private healthcare policy which they have approved), is acting in our interest. Let us assume for the moment that the Democrats in Washington D.C. have our best interests at heart, and this healthcare bill (along with cap and trade, immigration, and the financial regulation bills), are all done with the people in mind. The whole idea is to make life better for the people, which involves giving Washington much greater power over our lives. At some point in time, this great power will be seized by evil—maybe in the next election and maybe not for several election cycles, but, at some point, evil will gravitate toward and take this power. All that person has to do is, give the impression of being a benevolent ruler. People even today adore Mao, who killed more people (as far as we know) than anyone else in the history of mankind. I personally know a reasonably-intelligent Chinese woman living here in the United States who, despite all the access to information that she now has, sees Mao as a great and benevolent ruler. She does not believe that he murdered 49,000,000–78,000,000 people. This is why our founders sought to limit the power of government, because the greater the power, the greater the corruption. It is only a matter of time.

2) This was on Glenn Beck’s program: www.freepress.net is all about 2 things: reforming the media and transforming democracy. They are very concerned about who owns the media. What entity is large enough to take the media away from the people who control it now and give it to the people who they believe ought to control the media? Government. For those of you who read 1984, this is it in real life.

3) By the way, just in case you are concerned that so few groups own various types of media, bear in mind, if we allow bankruptcies to work unfettered by bailouts, such conglomerations will collapse on themselves and be parted out.

4) Here is the deal with the new healthcare law: you may have to pay more of your healthcare insurance (I will pay about 5x as much), but you will get better and more comprehensive coverage. This is just like the government mandating that you purchase a car with a minium price that they determine. No longer can you simply drive around in your used $500–$3000 car, you will now have to pay no less than $12,000 for a car, which you must buy. However, don’t worry—it’s okay—because it will be a better car.

5) I think our government needs to return to one-issue reform bills. I want short simple bills, easy to read and understand, which attempt to do no more than affect one aspect of my life. I do not want comprehensive immigration reform. I want Congress to take a couple of ideas which are reasonably popular, and to enact these few ideas in a few bills. Will government end up moving more slowly? Sure. I’m fine with that.

6) I was never a strong critic of President Clinton, but what he has done lately is despicable. In case you don’t know, he is tying the so-called angry rhetoric of the TEA partyers to Tim McVeigh, and said then, as well as now, that angry rhetoric from the right caused Tim McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma (that is, the angry rhetoric is a catalyst which set him off). Personally, I have lost all respect for President Clinton. There is no excuse for that.

7) Dick Morris, for the first time, implied that Clinton gave Janet Reno the order to invade the Waco compound, and that she continued in her position as Attorney General because she knew this.

8) I have explained in fairly simple terms how we are here in an economic crisis because of government housing loans to people who cannot pay for a house loan (they lack the finances and the credit record). Guess what? Government is doing it again. More loans are being given to first-time buyers with bad credit and iffy ratios. We need to disband FNMA and FHLMC, or have a statutory limit on the percentage of loans that they can make.

9) Do you recall what a big deal people made out of George W. Bush receiving so much money from the oil companies, and how this corrupted him. I actually have a relative who sincerely believes that Bush made gas prices go down for the 2008 election. Goldman-Sachs has given President 10x as much money, and there have been many meetings between executives of Goldman-Sachs and the President (despite his demagoging). For all we know—and maybe I am being too paranoid here—the recent civil suit against Goldman-Sachs may have been a sop from them to Obama to get the financial reform bill passed.

10) Speaking of the financial reform bill, do you know who is not regulated in this bill? FNMA and FHLMC, the ones who caused our present economic distress (which has been exacerbated by a president who understands nothing of the free market).

11) Did you know that are armed forces were integrated until President Woodrow Wilson, who then segregated the services?

12) Can you imagine attempting to access porn sites 16,000 time during a single week at your job, and the end result is, you only get a 2 week suspension? That is one of the benefits of working for the federal government. As my cousin Richard used to tell me, “If you’re not working for the state, you are working too hard.”

Among the findings of the SEC report on their people viewing porn while on the job:

- A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When his government computer ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs. He later agreed to resign.

- An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a single month from visiting "sex" or "pornography" sites, but still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material by using Google to bypass the SEC's internal filter. He wound up with a 2-week suspension.

- Seventeen of the randy employees were "at a senior level" earning salaries of up to $222,418.

In the past 18 months, the federal government gave out 90% of the home mortgages (historically, FNMA and FHLMC would back approximately 50% of all home mortgages). How many of these are bad loans, ready to cause havoc to our economic system again?

65% say Americans not willing to make major lifestyle changes to help environment

On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president's views are closer to their own.

SNL’s skit with Obama last night was him meeting with Goldman-Sachs and other Wall Street firm executives, and, when it comes to reform, they simply said, “No.” If comedy has a grain of truth in it, it can be funny. This skit was not funny. The President is meeting with such executives, and there is no reason to think that they are not on board with his so-called reform. These big Wall Street firms are at the table, and don’t think for a moment that they oppose these regulations. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wall Street lackeys wrote most of the Wall Street Reform Bill.

Democrats are spending so much money, that Republicans will have to raise taxes in order to pay for it all, and lose the 2012 election because of raising taxes. Furthermore, they are amassing so much power that, who knows if the Republicans will be willing to give it up?

When selling the Financial Reform Bill, President Obama says, “Instead of worrying about deceptive small print...” while his 1300+ page reform bill is filled with deceptive small print.

Have you ever run a business? Have you ever had to make a consistent payroll? Describe the financial risks which you have taken.

A memo from Secretary Gates to President Obama was leaked this week about Obama not having any backup plan for Iran, in case negotiations do not work. This is very problematic. I only see 4 possibilities here: (1) Obama thinks that he will be able to talk Iran into a good outcome; (2) Obama believes that a nuclear Iran is not a problem; (3) Obama just does not have the stones to plan a military approach that he initiates; (4) he just has not really bothered to think about that.

There seems to be no connection between the bills which Obama pushes and their reality. I don’t know who is writing the bills and how close they are to the President, but what these bills do is quite different from what Obama says they do. Either he does not know what is going on in these bills or, more disturbingly, he does.

If you believe that reforming Wall Street is all about preventing future catastrophes and standing up for the little guy. It is about power, pure and simple.

Vice President Joe Biden predicted on Friday the U.S. economy would create 100,000 to 200,000 jobs next month, with a rise to 250,000 to 500,000 jobs per month soon afterward (162,000 jobs were created in March).

President Obama will continue to beat down Wall Street firms, blame them for the economic downturn, and meet with them behind closed doors. Regulation of FNMA and FHLMC will not be included in this financial regulatory bill.

ACORN is resurfacing under a variety of new names in every state. They are probably receiving federal funding as well.

So much power has been concentrated in Washington because of President Obama, that the Republicans will not be willing to dial it back or legislatively limit their own power when they take control. This is not a crazy paranoid thought; this is a real possibility.

Is the suit against Goldman-Sachs something which Goldman-Sachs suggested to the White House?

It is common knowledge that the large financial institutions led us into he economic mess that we are in. Not really true, exactly, but still widely believed. There is no doubt that they were a contributing factor. Therefore, don’t we need to reform Wall Street? Doesn’t government need to get in there and make things better for Main Street. Isn’t it right that the Democrats stand up for the little guy (us) and fix Wall Street so that we do not have another broken economy?

I am against the President’s Reform of Wall Street Bill for several simple reasons:

(1) It is over 1300 pages and 300+ page amendments are surely to be added at the last minute, all written in incomprehensible language. I know that there is stuff hidden in there that I am not going to like. Even though we had a lot of time to examine the healthcare bill, there are still studies being done today as to how it will impact us.

(2) I do not trust the president; the Health and Human Services just released a report on the healthcare law, indicating that nearly everything the President touted about this bill is false (and that is HHS—not FoxNews—which released this report). These are government people.

(3) The president has absolutely no experience whatsoever with Wall Street, with a small business, with a large business, with making payroll, with making financial decisions of any sort (except how to spend government grants) or with business in general. Do I want to trust the people who wrote the monstrous and failed Stimulus Bill to regulate Wall Street and all of our financial institutions? This was the largest stimulus bill in United States history by any measure and, despite all of the talking heads, there are very few people who believe that it had any positive effect upon our economy. So, no, if the same economists who put together the Stimulus Bill are putting together this Wall Street regulatory bill, I don’t want any part of it.

(4) It is my understanding that the executive branch can seize any large corporation that they believe is engaging in risky business practices. It is my understanding that Congress is giving the executive branch this power. That is, there are no checks and balances. If the White House declares your business to be in trouble, then they get to do whatever with it. It makes little sense to me to put that kind of power into the hands of someone who knows nothing about business and risk.

(5) If the government can seize whatever business for whatever reason, then this is going to encourage a cozy relationship between large businesses and the White House. When there is one man who can essentially shut your down or screw up your business—possibly forever—then you want that man to be on your side. Essentially, what we will have here is soft-blackmail. No one is going to walk into AT&T and say, “Give my campaign fund $1,000,000 or I will shut you down.” However, that will be the power of the presidency, which can be exercised at any time. This is the liberal’s way of dealing with the recent Supreme Court decision which allows corporations to give contributions to political candidates. And be perfectly aware that all of this money that are dealing with comes out of our pockets as taxpayers. It becomes a part of the bottom line for all large businesses. If you think I am exaggerating here, there are millions of Americans who often pay more in income taxes than they need to, simply because they fear an IRS audit. Think of this aspect of the bill as being akin to an IRS audit of a financial institution, where the institution is assumed to be in the wrong from the get go.

(6) What we have observed over the past 20 years (or more) is, government continually goes in and shuts down small banks because there are problems with those banks. Then some large bank gets to buy them. But, if a large financial institution is in trouble, it gets a bailout. I don’t like that approach. It makes me suspicious of government. Giving the federal government even more power—particularly after the White House has seized vast portions of the American economy to control already—is the wrong move. I do not like large corporations having built-in safeguards where no such safeguard exists for small corporations.

(7) I have heard some good things that are in this bill. For instance, a credit card company must reveal to you how much this credit is actually costing you in the long term. That is not a bad thing. Like the healthcare bill, there are a few, simple, inexpensive things which can be done in a series of small bills, which are easy to examine and understand.

(8) Government oversight sounds great in theory. The government looks over the shoulder of big business (in this case, Wall Street) and monitors what is going on, and protects us little guys. However, that is not what happens in practice. We end up with large, unwieldy government boards and regulatory organizations, who may start out with a great vision, but, after awhile, those running these organizations are replaced with men who get these positions as political favors—men who rarely have any experience in the field over which they have oversight—and these people simply watch porn all day rather than doing their jobs. Of course, I don’t trust every Wall Street company; but I do not trust the SEC either. Remember, they were contact about Bernie Madoff for years, by reputable people, who explained why Madoff was a crook and how this was easily uncovered. The SEC let him go on for decades before making a move.

(9) The promise that this bill will stop a boom and bust economy is just not realistic. Such promises have been made before by much better presidents, and we still have up and down markets. In a free market—or in a market where there is some semblance of freedom—we will continue to suffer downturns and enjoy up markets. Businesses will continue to come up with innovative ideas, and their products will sell. Other businesses will produce other products and it will turn out that no one likes their products. This is just normal activity. No matter how much control you give the government, it cannot fix business cycles. That is because there are good and bad ideas; there are good and bad products; there is good and bad marketing.

(10) The cause of the economic downturn are FNMA and FHLMC, which I have explained in detail on many occasions in the past. Do you know what this regulatory bill does not regulate? FNMA and FHLMC. That in itself should reveal the brilliance of those who have conceived this bill, and be a strong indicator of its future success.

Maybe President Obama is sincere in his approach, and maybe he believes in his heart everything that he is telling us. But, so far, his sincerity hasn’t done jack for our economy.

If there is going to be financial reform, I want it to be a short and simple bill, something that I can read and understand over a cup of coffee. These few regulations I have heard touted, which make sense and are easy to implement are also easy to spell out in a bill. However, what is being sold to us as common sense reform is only a minuscule part of this bill.

This is a season of discontent for congressional Democrats. This week's Pew Poll holds plenty of bad news for them. Congress's favorability ratings stand at 25%, the lowest in the poll's nearly three decade-long history. The Pew Poll also found that the more upset independents are about the current state of politics, the more likely they are to throw out the Democrats. The independents that are most upset favor Republicans 66% to 13%.

All of this explains why Democrats hope Sen. Chris Dodd's proposed financial reform legislation will put some distance between them and the Obama administration's reckless spending policies over the past year. They believe that by overhauling the rules Wall Street lives by, they can redirect populist anger away from them and toward the financial sector. But voters are smart enough to see through the ploy.

Republicans made a smart early move by pointing out that Democrats want to enact legislation that would create a $50 billion bailout fund for big Wall Street firms. After being forced to admit the fund is part of the bill, Democrats defended it by saying it would be funded with money from the firms themselves.

Senate Republicans responded by saying that regardless of where the fund got its money, it would give Wall Street a leg up on Main Street. Why? Because the fund would allow government-favored Wall Street firms to borrow money more cheaply than their Main Street competitors.

Goldman Sachs, for example, would likely be able to borrow money at a lower interest rate than a regional bank or credit union. That idea isn't sitting well with voters already upset about the cozy relationship between Big Government and Big Business.

Feeling the heat from the public, Democrats might drop their government-sanctioned rescue fund. But that won't end their troubles.

Democrats are also playing with fire by pushing to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Republicans oppose interfering with or duplicating existing regulatory agencies. Voters might side with the GOP on this one.

Then there's the thorny issue of derivatives, which are complex financial instruments increasingly used by Main Street companies to hedge risk. For example, airlines use derivatives to insulate themselves against swings in jet fuel prices, and manufacturers use them to protect against commodity price increases.

Democrat proposals would restrict many of the derivatives Main Street firms use to remain competitive. That's not a smart approach at a time when voters are already worried about the economy. It also allows Republicans to argue that, in a rush to punish Wall Street, Democrats will end up harming Main Street companies and cost many Americans their jobs.

There are other potential pitfalls for Democrats in Mr. Dodd's bill. One is a provision that would create an Office of Financial Research that would receive half a billion dollars a year to gather information on individual financial transactions so government bureaucrats can analyze the data and suggest policy changes. I suspect Americans don't want a new bureaucracy sweeping their brokerage and bank accounts for information.

Mr. Obama should hope Republicans are successful in convincing Democrats to write a sensible financial regulation bill. After all, if congressional Democrats and the administration enact a bad financial reform bill, they could raise the cost of capital, retard economic growth, and drive wealth out of this country and into foreign financial markets that are more welcoming to derivatives. That, in turn, could hurt the president's re-election chances in 2012.

For Democrats in 2010, economic conditions are already baked in the cake. Incipient growth, high unemployment, lots of disgruntled job seekers, battered family budgets, and intense concern about government spending and deficits have energized voters and convinced many of them that change is needed in Washington. As a result, congressional Democrats will likely suffer bigger loses this year than the post World War II midterm average of 24 seats in the House and four in the Senate.

On the other hand, the economic circumstances of Mr. Obama's re-election are still up in the air. If Democrats get financial regulation right, there's a chance the economy could be strong enough by 2012 to give Mr. Obama a good shot at winning a second term.

But if Democrats get financial regulation wrong and the economy is stumbling come 2012, Americans are not going to reward the man who gifted them four straight anemic years. If that's the case, no amount of whining, spinning or adroit use of teleprompters will save Mr. Obama from voter wrath.

Speaking in New York City Thursday, the president told the world that the U.S. financial system is still largely unaccountable and needs new rules to cut down on corruption and speculation.

And that will happen, as Republicans, as well as Democrats, understand that the financial system is far too easy to game. Conmen often run wild.

But the president has to be careful here because the feds cannot run Wall Street. In fact, the feds right now may be leading the country into bankruptcy.

But let's get back to the basic problem. Maybe you are like me and work hard for your money. Maybe you invest, like I do, trusting the system is fair. And maybe you got burned, like I did, when the financial system collapsed in 2008. I had no idea that my brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, was trading bad paper, and apparently the CEO of Merrill, Stanley O'Neal, didn't know either:

STANLEY O'NEAL, FORMER MERRILL LYNCH CEO: Merrill Lynch held mortgage-backed securities, like many other financial institutions and the rating agencies as well as others, we believed carried low risks. Unfortunately, due to a number of unforeseen factors, that turned out not to be the case.

Now, I don't believe Mr. O'Neal. I have no proof he's a charlatan. I simply don't believe the man, and we sent Jesse Watters out to talk with him.

JESSE WATTERS, "FACTOR" PRODUCER: Millions of people lost millions of dollars at Merrill Lynch. You pulled a lot of money out of there and didn't do a very good job. How do you feel about that?

You know, a lot of people trusted you. Mr. O'Neal, you don't have anything to say? You had a $161.5 million golden parachute. You don't have anything to say to any of the shareholders or any of the investors, any of the employees?

After running Merrill Lynch to the ground, as you heard Jesse say, they had to get rid of him, and he took out more than $160 million bucks. Now that's got to stop. That's got to stop, and that did it for me. I closed all my accounts at Merrill.

Now, I use the illustration because it's so blatant. I trusted Merrill Lynch. You probably trusted financial institutions as well. We were conned, so something has to be done.

But as "Talking Points" has said, relying on the federal government is downright scary. For example, a USA Today investigation found that the banks receiving the most federal bailout money are among those lending the least to you right now. And they pay bigger salaries to their employees and banks that didn't get the bailout money.

So why is the Obama administration permitting that? We get no answer. Reluctantly, I have to support new laws to reform the financial industry. But I have to pray, pray somebody in Washington will finally look out for the folks.

Democrats are taking aim at the tea party movement. In a recent fund-raising email, the Democratic National Committee called those who attend tea party events "narrow minded . . . nut jobs" and "vile two-bit wing-nuts." Democratic leaders routinely denigrate tea party participants and President Barack Obama dismisses them as an extremist "strain [that] has existed in politics for a long time."

But that's not true. Democrats are attacking the tea party movement because it is a new force that's bringing millions of here-to-fore unengaged Democrats, independents and Republicans into the political arena. If there's something a ruling party doesn't like, it's a new political player converting spectators into participants.

The Democrats are particularly concerned because the No. 1 target of the tea partiers-ObamaCare-is not rising in public opinion polls. It remains as unpopular as before it was jammed through Congress.

The president's popularity briefly increased after health-care reform passed but has since fallen back below 50%. Also, the generic ballot, a measure of support for each party, indicates that the GOP could win a large congressional victory this fall.

The White House's promised campaign to sell its health-care reforms is unlikely to pay off. Mr. Obama delivered 58 speeches on health care in the 51 weeks leading up to Congress's passage of ObamaCare and was still unable to halt a slide in public opinion against his reforms. What new can he say in the 31 weeks before Election Day?

The president will speak against a background of bad news about health-care reform. For example, already 3,500 companies are considering dropping or reducing the drug coverage they offer hundreds of thousands of retirees because ObamaCare changes the tax status of those benefits.

If insurance premiums now rise and states push back against ObamaCare's expensive Medicaid expansion, Mr. Obama could be speaking into a fierce wind.

To maintain their influence, tea partiers will have to maintain their current energy and concern over health care and federal spending.

I suggest that to do that tea partiers design a citizen's pledge and then ask friends and neighbors to sign it with them. The pledge should make five concrete commitments.

The first would be to educate themselves about the key issues of health care, spending, deficits and the economy. The second commitment would be to ascertain with certainty where their candidates for the U.S. Senate and House stand on these issues.

The third would be for each signatory to agree that they will register and then vote this fall for candidates they personally believe best represent their views on these issues.

Such a pledge would also draw on the tea party movement's record of spontaneous growth with a fourth commitment that each signatory make a manageable list of 10 to 25 people whom they would individually approach to take the pledge.

The fifth and final commitment would be that each signatory personally see that each of their recruits register and vote.

These steps would build on the natural inclination of tea party groups to use social networking tools and draw on the energy of people fresh to politics looking for ways to affect the country's direction.

But tea partiers will have to do more than surf discontent with the Obama administration's policies. They will also have to coalesce around a positive agenda.

Some political leaders, like Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), have offered good ideas (see his "Roadmap for America's Future"). Good ideas are also being generated by conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation with its new publication, "The Patriot's Guide: What You Can Do for Your Country." This can be downloaded from Heritage.org.

Politicians who hope to appeal to tea partiers must offer solutions that are heartfelt and well thought out. Tea party members may be new to politics, but they have a keen instinct for what's authentic. Attempts to pander will fall flat.

The tea party movement must also distance itself from the "birthers" who insist Mr. Obama wasn't born in the U.S., the 9/11 deniers, and other conspiracy fans who make wild comments the media will seize on to undermine the movement's credibility.

The unhinged quality of the White House and the DNC attacks show that they understand how much the tea party movement can affect this year's elections. Now is the time for the movement to ensure its energy-and influence-stay high.

An April 14 op-ed by Norman J. Ornstein, "The great 'socialist' smear," argued that to those "outside the partisan and ideological wars," it is "bizarre" to accuse the Obama administration of "radicalism, socialism, retreat and surrender." I was among those he cited, for having called Barack Obama "the most radical president in American history" and describing the goals of the left and its methods of operation as a "secular-socialist machine."

In fact, Ornstein has it exactly backward. It is only from the perspective of the cultural elite that the left-wing governing of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team could be seen as moderate.

Arthur Brooks, who is the president of the American Enterprise Institute (where Ornstein and I both serve), has analyzed years of Gallup data to show that America is largely (70-30) a center-right country. Polling by American Solutions, a citizen action network I founded in 2007, shows that on issues such as producing more American energy, cutting taxes to create jobs, balancing the budget by cutting spending, English as the language of government, and more, Americans oppose the views of academic elites by 75 to 85 percent. And a recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 52 percent of Americans think the Obama administration's actions are leading America more toward socialism (38 percent disagree).

It was precisely my effort to place the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team in some historic context that led me to conclude that this is, indeed, a secular-socialist machine. While clarity may make some uncomfortable, such language is appropriate in explaining a movement of big government, high taxes, big bureaucracy, massive deficits and huge debt run from a politician-centric system of power.

-- "Machine": Getting $787 billion from Congress in February when no elected member had fully read and understood the economic stimulus package. This is behavior worthy of the Chicago political machine. If no elected officials know what is in the bill, how can someone assert that this was an act of self-government?

-- "Machine": Rejecting the will of the American people expressed through town hall meetings, tea parties, polls and elections by ramming through an unpopular 2,600-page health-care bill. The moment of real clarity came after Republican Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special Senate election, when by every traditional American measure the Democrats should have stepped back and said to voters, "I hear you." Instead, their actions said: "Your voice and vote do not matter."

-- "Socialist": Creating czar positions to micromanage industry reflects the type of hubris of centralized government that Friedrich von Hayek and George Orwell warned against. How can a White House "executive compensation czar" know enough to set salaries in multiple companies for many different people? Having a pay dictatorship for one part of the country sets the pattern for government to claim the right to set pay for everyone. If that isn't socialism, what word would describe it?

-- "Socialist": Violating 200 years of bankruptcy precedent to take money from bondholders and investors in the auto industry to pay off union allies is rather an anti-market intervention.

-- "Socialist": Proposing that the government (through the Environmental Protection Agency or some sort of carbon-trading scheme) micromanage carbon output is proposing that the government be able to control the entire U.S. economy. Look at the proposals for government micromanagement in the 1,428-page Waxman-Markey energy tax bill. (I stopped reading when I got to the section regulating Jacuzzis on Page 442.) If government regulates every aspect of our use of power, it has regulated every aspect of our lives. What is that if not socialism?

-- "Socialist": Nationalizing student loans so that they are a bureaucratic monopoly. This will surely lead to fraud on the scale we see in Medicare and Medicaid, from which more than $70 billion per year is stolen.

-- "Socialist": Expanding government mortgage intervention to 90 percent of the housing market.

-- "Secular": Describing America's promise as a "secular country that is respectful of religious freedom," as Obama did last April, is an act of willful historical revisionism. The United States was founded as an intensely religious country that believes our rights come from God, including the right to worship as our conscience dictates. The Founding Fathers forbade the establishment of a national religion to protect individual rights of conscience but understood that public life would reflect the religious nature of the American people. This understanding of America's promise is far more tolerant of religion in the public square than the secular purge that we have seen since the Supreme Court outlawed school prayer in 1963.

-- "Secular": Appointing David Hamilton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. That Hamilton had previously ruled that opening legislature sessions with sectarian prayers is unconstitutional is further evidence of this anti-historical secular outlook.

Although its actions may seem like "centrism" to some, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid system is clearly a secular-socialist machine. And Obama is the most radical president in American history.

The latest liberal meme is to equate skepticism of the Obama administration with a tendency toward violence. That takes me back 15 years ago to the time President Bill Clinton accused "loud and angry voices" on the airwaves (i.e., radio talk-show hosts like me) of having incited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. What self-serving nonsense. Liberals are perfectly comfortable with antigovernment protest when they're not in power.

From the halls of the Ivy League to the halls of Congress, from the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq to the anticapitalist protests during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, we're used to seeing leftist malcontents take to the streets. Sometimes they're violent, breaking shop windows with bricks and throwing rocks at police. Sometimes there are arrests. Not all leftists are violent, of course. But most are angry. It's in their DNA. They view the culture as corrupt and capitalism as unjust.

Former President Bill Clinton smiles as he receives a medallion from Cathy Keating, wife of former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, as a part of the Reflections of Hope Award ceremony in Oklahoma City.

Now the liberals run the government and they're using their power to implement their radical agenda. Mr. Obama and his party believe that the election of November 2008 entitled them to make permanent, "transformational" changes to our society. In just 16 months they've added more than $2 trillion to the national debt, essentially nationalized the health-care system, the student-loan industry, and have their sights set on draconian cap-and-trade regulations on carbon emissions and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Had President Obama campaigned on this agenda, he wouldn't have garnered 30% of the popular vote.

Like the millions of citizens who've peacefully risen up and attended thousands of rallies in protest, I seek nothing more than the preservation of the social contract that undergirds our society. I do not hate the government, as the left does when it is not running it. I love this country. And because I do, I insist that the temporary inhabitants of high political office comply with the Constitution, honor our God-given unalienable rights, and respect our hard-earned private property. For this I am called seditious, among other things, by some of the very people who've condemned this society?

Former President Bill Clinton broadened his warning that Tea Party protesters could fuel violence reminiscent of the Oklahoma City bombing. Video courtesy of Fox News.

I reject the notion that America is in a well-deserved decline, that she and her citizens are unexceptional. I do not believe America is the problem in the world. I believe America is the solution to the world's problems. I reject a foreign policy that treats our allies like our enemies and our enemies like our allies. I condemn the president traveling the world apologizing for America's great contributions to mankind. And I condemn his soft-pedaling the dangers we face from terrorism. For this I am inciting violence?

Few presidents have sunk so low as Mr. Clinton did with his accusations about Oklahoma City. Last week-on the very day I was contributing to and raising more than $3 million to fight leukemia and lymphoma on my radio program-Mr. Clinton used the 15th anniversary of that horrific day to regurgitate his claims about talk radio.

At a speech delivered last Friday at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., the former president said: [T]here were a lot of people who were in the business back then of saying that the biggest threat to our liberty and the cause of our domestic economic problem was the federal government itself. And we have to realize that there were others who fueled this both because they agreed with it and because it was in their advantage to do so. . . . We didn't have blog sites back then so the instrument of carrying this forward was basically the right-wing radio talk show hosts and they understand clearly that emotion was more powerful than reason most of the time."

Timothy McVeigh was incensed by the Clinton administration's 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. It's no coincidence that the bombing took place two years to the day of the Waco siege. McVeigh was not inspired by anything I said or believe and to say otherwise is outright slander. In the aftermath of the bombing, I raised millions of dollars for the children of federal employees killed in that cowardly attack through my association with the Marine Corp Law Enforcement Foundation.

Let me just say it. The Obama/Clinton/media left are comfortable with the unrest in our society today. It allows them to blame and demonize their opponents (doctors, insurance companies, Wall Street, talk radio, Fox News) in order to portray their regime as the great healer of all our ills, thus expanding their power and control over our society.

A clear majority of the American people want no part of this. They instinctively know that the Obama way is not how things get done in this country. They are motivated by love. Not hate, not sedition. They love their country and want to save it from those who do not.

from a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as reported by FoxNews

-- About 14 million people would lose their employer coverage by 2019 as smaller employers terminate coverage and workers who currently have employer coverage become enrolled in Medicaid;

-- The estimated reductions in the growth rate of health spending "may not be fully achievable" because "Medicare productivity adjustments could become unsustainable even within the next 10 years, and over time the reductions in the scope of employer-sponsored health insurance could also become an issue";

-- New fees and taxes on medical device makers will "generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums";

-- By 2011 and 2012 the initial $5 billion in federal funding for the creation of a national high-risk pool "would be exhausted, resulting in substantial premium increases to sustain the program; we anticipate that such increases would limit further participation";

-- It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would be difficult to meet, particularly over the first few years";

-- Businesses would pay $87 billion in penalties between 2014-2019 for failure to offer insurance.

Democrats are spending trillions at the worst possible moment, with a new poll showing public trust in government at a historic low of 22%.

There was always something eerie about the way the Democrats said their health-care legislation was what the American people had waited "70 years" for. Invoking the ghosts of 1939 was kind of creepy. Then when the moment in history finally arrived, history got no votes from the other party. Whatever the politics, there was something ominous about all this. One felt something else was going on.

A Pew Research Center report just out, the one that says trust in government is at an "historic low" of only 22%, looks like the something else.

Dig past the headline of the Pew study and one discovers why Bill Clinton is insinuating that "demonizing" government could cause another Oklahoma City bombing. If these numbers are at all close to reality, something one can hardly doubt just now, the American people have issued a no-confidence vote in government, at both the national and state level. To the extent one believes in the "consent of the governed," consent is being eroded.

Daniel Henninger says that the American people have issued a no-confidence vote in government.

The survey compares views sampled in 1997 with now. The "now" is the Democrats' problem. The survey took place this mid-March. After one year of the charismatic, ever-present Barack Obama, after passage of the party's totemic health-care bill, after spending zillions on Keynesian pump-priming, the American people-well beyond the tea partiers-have the lowest opinion ever of national government.

A year ago, 54% said government should exert more control over the economy; a year later it's 40%.

Some 58% say Uncle Sam is interfering too much in state and local affairs; 53% want "very major reform" of the federal government. After health care passed in March, Pew re-sampled in early April: Trust in government rose-to 25% from 22%. Inspector Clouseau would call that a "bmp."

Pew concludes: "A desire for smaller government is particularly evident since Barack Obama took office." That's pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey without blindfolds.

Democrats could cite one passage in Pew to mitigate this dire portrait. Historically, the report notes, whichever incumbent party is standing next to a big disaster gets pulled down in the undertow. Thus Bush and the Iraq war and Katrina. They can argue that Mr. Obama and the Democrats are getting hit with the legacy of the Bush downdraft and the after-shocks of the financial meltdown of September 2008. Once that passes, and after the inevitable November losses, the economy will stabilize and by 2012 the playing field will reset to normal.

I don't buy this. Something unique happened in the first Obama year, about the last thing the Democratic Party needed: The veil was ripped from the true cost of government. This is the ghastly nightmare Democrats have always needed to keep locked in a crypt.

Before the Internet, that was easy. Washington, California, New York, New Jersey-who knew what the pols were spending? The Democrats (and their Republican pilot fish) could get away with this. Not now. Email lists, 24/7 newspapers, blogs, TV and talk radio-the spending beast is running naked.

When the financial crisis piled in atop a recession, the Democrats' academic/pundit economists blandly convinced the party to wave a $787 billion stimulus at the problem in early 2009. Then, on April 30, the Democrats passed an FY 2010 budget of $3.5 trillion. This year the FY 2011 budget hit $3.8 trillion, reaching a post-World War II high of 25% of GDP. In March, they passed the trillion-dollar health-care bill. Total headline spending commitments in one year: about $9 trillion. That's a lot of "trust" to ask for during a recession with 9% unemployment. And now a sense is building of some broad middle-class tax grab. After soaking the rich, comes the deluge.

Barack Obama's speeches are filled with the Democrats' core claim to legitimacy: Government must and will do good. It must "act." But in a crucial period when voters across the political spectrum were losing faith in that core claim, the Democrats lost any self-protective sense of what they were doing with public budgets. Barack Obama took a rising reservoir of public trust for his party (62% said they liked the Democrats in January 2009), and emptied it. Since he took office, the percentage of people who want smaller government and fewer services has risen, to 50% from 42%.

A Quinnipiac poll released yesterday has the Obama presidential approval rating down to 44%-after health care, after the arms treaty with Russia, after the 47-nation, anti-proliferation convocation in Washington.

He insists on more government. People want less, and don't trust what they've got. They want reform. Here's the Pew blowout data:

In 1994 when the Democrats lost over 50 House seats at mid-term, the party's favorable rating was 62%, and for the Congress they controlled it was 53%. They still got killed. Now the party's favorable is 38% and Congress's approval is 25%. The Republicans' numbers are low, too, but they're not in charge.

The Democratic Party is on the edge of an electoral cliff with a long fall to the bottom. No wonder they're seeing a demon under every bed.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There is a legitimate debate taking place about how best to ensure taxpayers are held harmless in this process. And that is a legitimate debate, and I encourage that debate.

But what is not legitimate is to suggest somehow the legislation being proposed is going to encourage future taxpayer bailouts as some have claimed. That makes for a good sound bite but it's not factually accurate.

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: President Obama pitching his financial regulation overhaul at Cooper Union College in lower Manhattan today as the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he is plowing ahead no matter what toward a vote on financial regulatory reform. And the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell saying shouldn't we understand what is in this? There are a lot of potential consequences for small banks and lending institutions. Let's take our time to reach a bipartisan agreement.

That is what we're dealing with. Let's bring in the panel, Steve Hayes, senior writer for the Weekly Standard; Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio; and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Charles?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I am glad you played the package from the president's speech. We knew what the content was, but I was intrigued and appalled by the tone of the speech and the rhetoric in the sound bite.

The way, and he has done this before - he tries to denigrate, cast- out, and de-legitimize any argument against his. And here he is talking about that it's not legitimate even to suggest that the bill he is supporting might encourage a bailout. It's certainly possible there had been strong, very good economists and others who have argue because of the provisions in the ball, and one in particular, where a treasury has the right to designate any entity, private entity a systemic risk and then to immediately, even without Congress approving and appropriating money to guarantee all the bad loans, that is an invitation to a bailout.

Now the president could argue otherwise, but to say that to raise the issue is illegitimate is simply appalling. What he is doing here is he is making a lot of provisions that will be changing a very complex financial system. At least have the intellectual honesty to admit you can't predict all the outcomes. The president has a tick in which he presents himself as having this sort of academic, reasonable discourse, but it really has inside of it a sharp edge of partisanship. He won the presidency. That gives him a big house, a lot of power, and a fabulous airplane, but does it not make him the arbiter of American political discourse.

BAIER: Mara, we talked about how it's a tough issue for Republicans to push back on. And Republicans are saying, hey, listen, we want financial regulatory reform but we want to do in a bipartisan way that takes our time, and it's a 1,500-page bill. Let's go through this.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: I don't think Republicans are actually saying we want to kill the bill. There are two things they are doing that are not completely consistent, but they are trying to negotiate. Mitch McConnell says over and over again he thinks we can get a deal.

LIASSON: Yes. At some point, either Shelby and Dodd have a deal or the Republicans put amendments on the floor that they can get, that they can pass or certainly have the votes to block parts of the bill if they want to filibuster it.

I actually think that the argument being made that this bill does not solve the too big to fail problem is a legitimate argument. I haven't heard the Republicans proposing a solution. One way it solves too big to fail, if you are too big to fail, you're too big, and do something about that. But I haven't heard a solution to that from the right.

Certainly from the left there is. Some people say the big banks should be broken up.

BAIER: But Republicans say if you don't deal with the core of the bill it's going to be tough to amend on the floor with 41 votes. You need the 19 Democrats to sign on to the deal.

LIASSON: There is no doubt a political game is being played and the Democrats think they have the upper hand. But it's also true that Senator Dodd did spend a lot of time and would like a deal with Shelby or Corker or whoever it is to do this.

BAIER: Steve, we talked about the tone in the speech. Here's another little clip from President Obama's speech today.

OBAMA: Unless your business model depends on bilking people there is little to fear from these new rules.

BAIER: He's talking to a Wall Street crowd. There aren't too many business models built that way.

STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: What he is trying to do is suggest that the problems we saw that manifested themselves in the collapse or near collapse of our economic system are far more widespread than we think they are. That's not to minimize the problems we saw as a result of them.

I think his speech was an incredibly cynical speech, and one reason I think it was is he called for an end to cynical politics. And then he did exactly that. He talked about not having specialists and not giving favors to people. He suggested that the Republicans were in bed with Wall Street, once again. We've heard this rhetoric before.

What the bill does in effect in some cases is enshrine exactly those politics by giving gifts to organized labor. You have got these provisions where the labor gets a proxy, they get a say in executive compensation. You've got a specially designated position for labor to come in and work the negotiators, one thing after another.

This is sort of a give-away to big labor, at least in some of its provisions. I think he has to explain that.

BAIER: With a 1,500 page bill, as we saw with the health care bill that was more than 2,000 pages, potentially there are unintended consequences in the middle of there.

HAYES: There is no question there are unintended consequences. That's one reason I think Republicans want to slow this down. But I agree with Mara that ultimately most Republicans want to be on board with some bill in part because they are afraid of politics but also because they agree with some limited regulations on these things.

KRAUTHAMMER: As the speaker of the House said about the health care monstrosity, once you pass it you'll discover what is in it. That's what this is. If you have a bill this size about regulatory reform, we're going to be discovering stuff in it, some intended like the goodies to the unions, and some unintended for months. It's very unwieldy.

And the president is doing exactly what he did in the summit he had with Republicans over health care in which whenever they would raise an objection he would rule it out and say there are legitimate arguments over this, however, that's a sound bite or talking point, as if he never engages in that.

This kind of partisan rhetoric where he refuses to accept the legitimacy of those who argue against, which I think is distressing in a president, and particularly one who paints himself as he did in 2008 and does today as a man who stands above the partisanship and all the pettiness and all the special interests.

He is a politician like all of us, and when he pretends he hovers above the fray like a neutral arbiter, it's grating.

BAIER: Mara, Senator Reid and Senator Schumer said time has run out. We need to move fast, we need to move now. Republicans say we're on a bipartisan track. What about the politics of this?

LIASSON: First of all, although Democrats feel certain this is an issue the public is on their side, Wall Street is so unpopular, Republicans don't seem that worried being tarred with the accusation they're on the side of the big banks. I think it's possible you get a filibuster vote where it worked once.

LIASSON: Yes, head back to negotiations. But something has to come up to get a couple Republicans or at least one to vote for the bill.

HAYES: That could be useful for Chris Dodd as he goes back to work on the House and Senate and come up with a compromise.

BAIER: Be sure to log on to our homepage at foxnews.com/specialreport. Vote for your topic of the week for tomorrow's lightning round.

REP. JAMES OBERSTAR, D-MINN.: I know what it means. And it's the purpose of this act to establish and maintain the chemical, biological, and physical integrity of the nation's waters.

REP. DOC HASTINGS, R-WASH.: It potentially puts government in charge of all waters including mud puddles and irrigation ditches. If you take "navigable" in this bill, it could potentially lead to the federal government usurping state laws as it relates to water and regulating therefore mud puddles. I just think that's bad policy.

BAIER: Well, in 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there are regulations, limits to what the EPA can and regulate, because in the 1972 Clear Water Act, the word "navigable" was in that particular bill that became law. Now there is an effort to take that word out, "navigable," and there are some potential consequences to that.

HAYES: The important reason that "navigable" was so crucial to this entire debate from 1972 to 2001 and more recently with the Oberstar measures, two of them, is that it enabled the people who were pushing the regulation of these waters, these navigable waters, to take this from state to federal jurisdiction by, in effect, using the commerce clause.

They're saying that the commerce clause allows federal government to regulate these thing things because they're navigable waters and they could be used for commerce.

By taking that out, you are essentially saying anything goes. The language in the original Oberstar bill said we can regulate all waters. That language has been stripped out. And the proponents of that bill say we didn't really mean that. We were looking for something far more limited. We just want to restore the clean water act to meaning from 1978 to 2001.

The problem is there is nothing that says it in the text of the language. So Oberstar says if it was not regulated before 2001, it will not be regulated with the enactment of this legislation. It's nice he said that for the legislative history, for the purposes of legislative history. It's not at all clear that that will actually be the way it's carried out once it's in the hands of federal bureaucrats.

Doc Hastings, it sounds like he is being hyperbolic when he says we would regulate mud puddles, but there is nothing to keep the federal government from regulating those things.

BAIER: We heard politicians say words matter, but when it comes to writing specific law, words really do matter.

LIASSON: Words matter. What Oberstar's job now is take the intent, which he just described, and put it in legislative language so there is no question that nothing is regulated that wasn't regulated before 2001, period.

I'm sure they can do that. It does push the takings buttons of conservatives because it sounds scary, but he does have a Republican cosponsor and they should be able to work it out.

Words mean something. In 1972 even liberals had respect for constitution. They understood if you want to regulate the waters by the feds you have to say "navigable" so it will be under the commerce clause. You take it away, and how do you explain why the feds ought to regulate un-navigable waters?

Doc Hastings is right. You can expand this to apply it to every sinkhole, mud hole, swim hole in America. Probably they'd exclude potholes to leave it in the jurisdiction of locals.

But there is - a statement by Oberstar which would establish legislative intent is not protection against encroachment of the federal government against our rights. Our protection is the Constitution.

I don't know how you explain it under any interpretation of the commerce clause. A pond in a guy's field is not interstate commerce. I don't care if a bird lands on it and then it ends up in another state, which is how liberals want to interpret it.

BAIER: The potential onerous effect of that is to have the EPA regulating those small waters, pond, mud hole, whoever.

KRAUTHAMMER: It means it's unlimited. And it even has a provision that says and "the land that impacts it" so it could regulate not only the water but everything around, meaning every square inch of the United States.

This is an EPA that unilaterally decided it will to regulate CO2 giving it total control over our energy economy, and now it wants all control over waters. And is there not an iota of respect for the federalist structure of the country?

LIASSON: Yes, they fair questions, and they need to be answered and figured out. As I said Oberstar says that is not his intent. Now he has to write a bill that reflects that.

HAYES: If this were to pass and become law you talk about not only expanding the meaning of Clean Water Act of 1972 but expanding what the commerce clause is. If the court comes in and finds the new law is constitutional, which, you know, given judge shopping and the way the bench is trending, is not a stretch, you can make this a meaningless provision of the Constitution.

BAIER: There will be, I guarantee you, no other news organization that covers this particular aspect of this bill. But in the overall umbrella of concern about federal power grab, this fits into the narrative.

KRAUTHAMMER: It's also in the individual mandate in health care, which is also excused away or under the commerce clause which I think will be a brand new, novel, original, and incorrect interpretation.

The liberals understand they have a window of '09 and '10 that they have all of the power now and they'll lose it after Election Day, and they want to expand the strength of government in unlimited way as long as that window is open. And they are doing it, here as in health care.

BAIER: That is it for panel. But stay tuned for, well, I can't explain it. Just stay tuned.

A new study by Pew Research says that 76 percent of Americans do not trust the federal government, at least some of the time. Also, just 25 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.

The Pew people say it is driven by economics, especially in the independent precincts. Folks are worried about their wallets

, and they don't think the feds are responding very well. Thus, they don't trust the federal government.

When President Obama was elected 18 months ago, there was big time hope in the air. In fact, the president ran on hope and change, and many Americans were very optimistic that good times would be here again.

The president still has time to turn things around, but we Americans are not a patient people, and there is anger in the air.

Yes, there has been change. We now have record spending and a new tone of humility overseas, but those things might not be good things.

Also, whenever you build up someone's hopes and don't come through, you become suspect. And the bigger the hope, the harder the fall.

President Obama's charisma energized many Americans, and now they are disappointed with reality. Therefore, a combination of those who didn't like Mr. Obama from the jump, and disillusionment because things have not gotten better, is driving all the negativity towards the federal government.

It is true that Congress is doing a terrible job. The health care bill was a colossal mess, and partisan bickering is out control. Both parties are at fault. The Republicans are undermining President Obama. The Democrats simply don't seem to care if the country goes bankrupt. They continue to spend irresponsibly, to load up bills with pork, and to basically thumb their noses at fiscal reality. That's not just incompetent, that's dangerous.

So once again, the American people are the ones with the common sense. They know the feds are not doing the job.

This is not a healthy place to be for America, and it is incumbent on the incumbent - President Obama - to turn this around, fast.

While President Obama assails the culture of greed and recklessness practiced by the men of Goldman Sachs, his administration is infested with them. The White House can no more disown Government Sachs than Obama can disown Chicago politics.

Obama is headed to Wall Street tomorrow to demand "financial regulatory reform" -- just as the US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil suit against Goldman Sachs for mortgage-related fraud.

As the New York Post reported Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee immediately bought sponsored Internet ads on Google that direct Web surfers who type in "Goldman Sachs SEC" to Obama's fund-raising site.

Democrats are silent on the $994,795 in Goldman Sachs campaign cash that Obama bagged in the 2008 presidential race. The class-warfare Dems are also mum on all the president's Goldman men sitting in the catbird's seat:

* Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler is Obama's Commodity Futures Trading Commission head. He was confirmed despite heated congressional grilling over his role, as Reuters described it, "as a high-level Treasury official in a 2000 law that exempted the $58 trillion credit default swap market from oversight. The financial instruments have been blamed for amplifying global financial turmoil."

Gensler said he was sorry -- hey, it worked for tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner -- and was quickly installed to guard the henhouse.

* Goldman kept White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on a $3,000 monthly retainer while he worked as presidential candidate Bill Clinton's chief fund-raiser, as first reported by Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney. The financial titans threw in another $50,000 to become the Clinton primary campaign's top funder.

Emanuel received nearly $80,000 in campaign contributions from Goldman during his four terms in Congress -- investments that have reaped untold rewards, as Emanuel assumed a leading role championing the trillion-dollar TARP banking bailout law.

* Former Goldman lobbyist Mark Patterson serves under Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout -- $10 billion of which went to Goldman Sachs.

Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based think tank devoted to transparency in government, noted that, while Patterson agreed to recuse himself on any Goldman Sachs-related issues or related policy concerns, it "still creates a serious conflict for Geithner, as Treasury is being partly managed by a former Goldman lobbyist. Geithner is also placed in a tough position considering that his chief of staff is limited in the areas in which he can work (supposedly)."

* National Economic Council head Larry Summers reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees from many of the major financial institutions and government bailout recipients he now polices, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Lehman Bros. and Goldman. A single speech to Goldman in April 2008 brought in $135,000.

Summers has prior experience negotiating government-sponsored bailouts that benefit private concerns. In 1995, he spearheaded a $40 billion Mexican peso bailout that bypassed Congress.

Summers personally leaned on the International Monetary Fund to provide nearly $18 billion for the package. Summers' boss, then Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, was former co-chairman of Goldman -- the Mexican government's investment banking firm of choice.

Rubin continues to mentor another of his former employees with regular visits and chats -- Treasury Secretary Geithner, who was head of the New York Federal Reserve in 2008 when it ordered bailed-out AIG not to disclose its sweetheart payments to big banks including, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs.

As Obama harangues Wall Street to clean up its house, all the president's Goldman Sachs men have their feet on the coffee table at his.

What do you get when you cross a corny old joke with a network news report? Something like this:

A black guy walks into a tea party, and a white lady says to him, "You know, we don't get many African-Americans in here." The black guy replies, "And at these prices, it's no wonder!"

The joke, at least as we originally heard it, involves a kangaroo and a bartender. The news report, brought to our attention by the fellows at NewsBusters.org, involved NBC reporter Kelly O'Donnell and tea-party activist Darryl Postell. O'Donnell approached Postell at a Washington rally, and hilarity ensued:

Another joke, attributed to our friend Rich Miniter circa 1991, goes as follows: What do you call a black man at a conservative event? Guest speaker. To the New York Times's Charles Blow, this is no laughing matter. Blow visited a tea party in Dallas last week and didn't like what he saw:

Blow was especially put off by Alphonzo Rachel, a black comic who spoofs the president by performing skits as "Zo-bama." Blow sums up the experience this way: "Thursday night I saw a political minstrel show devised for the entertainment of those on the rim of obliviousness and for those engaged in the subterfuge of intolerance. I was not amused."

Blogger Conor Friedsdorf notes that there is a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose quality to the Blow approach:

In any context except a Tea Party, the vast majority of liberal writers would praise the act of highlighting the voices of "people of color" even if they aren't particularly representative of a crowd or corporation or university class. Let it happen at a rally of conservatives, however, and this winds up on the nation's premier op-ed page. . . .

It's this kind of piece that causes people on the right to think that on matters of race, they're damned if they do, and they're damned if they don't--if they don't make efforts to include non-whites they're unenlightened propagators of privilege, and if they do make those efforts they're the cynical managers of a minstrel show, but either way, race is used as a cudgel to discredit them in a way that would never be applied to a political movement on the left.

Or, for that matter, to any nonpolitical institution that aspires to become more inclusive. Imagine Kelly O'Donnell questioning a black man in a largely white company or university or country club or suburb the way she interrogated Darryl Postell. She would come off as clueless and prejudiced--as, come to think of it, she does. (Kudos to NBC for airing this revealing though embarrassing footage.)

The political left claims to love racial diversity, but it bitterly opposes such diversity on the political right. This is an obvious matter of political self-interest: Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Even in 2008, the Democrats' best presidential year since '64, if the black vote had been evenly split between the parties (and holding the nonblack vote constant), Barack Obama would have gotten about 48% of the vote and John McCain would be president.

To keep blacks voting Democratic, it is necessary for the party and its supporters to keep alive the idea that racism is prevalent in America and to portray the Republican Party (as well as independent challengers to the Democrats, such as the tea-party movement) as racist. The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country and thereby necessitated an intensifying of attacks on the opposition as racist.

These charges of racism are partly based on circular reasoning. Among Blow's evidence that the tea-party movement is racist is "a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday [that] found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic." Other polls have put the black proportion as high as 5% (and, as Tom Maguire notes, Blow misreports his own paper's Hispanic figure, which is actually 3%). But with blacks constituting some 12% of the population, there's no question that the tea-party movement is whiter than the nation as a whole.

Yet to posit racism as an explanation is to ignore far more obvious and less invidious causes for the disparity. The tea-party movement's racial composition reflects a pre-existing partisan alignment: The movement arose in opposition to the policies of a Democratic government, and the vast majority of blacks are Democrats, or at least vote for Democrats. Pride in the first black president, a normal and wholesome attitude, reinforces this partisan allegiance.

There's another factor that might keep blacks away from tea parties: the perception, whether true or not, that the movement is racist--a perception that liberal politicians and commentators have worked tirelessly (and tiresomely) to propagate. Add to this the risk of race-based opprobrium from fellow blacks and even from white liberals for deviating from the way blacks are "supposed" to think. Charles Blow's nasty descriptions of the blacks at the Dallas tea party reminded us of an Associated Press dispatch we noted April 7:

So, there aren't many African-Americans at the tea parties? At these prices, it's no wonder!

Rep. Heath Shuler is taking some heat back in North Carolina over an incident he apparently had nothing to do with. Last week we noted that the Associated Press, based on a local newspaper report, had cited Shuler as corroborating the claims of three black congressmen that tea-party protesters shouted the "N-word" at them on March 20. Shuler's press secretary told us that the local reporter had misunderstood and that Shuler did not hear the "N-word," although he did hear someone call Rep. Barney Frank a "communist faggot."

The local paper, the Hendersonville Times-News, ran a story Friday titled "Shuler Changes Story on What He Heard at Health Care Protests":

Also on Friday, we received an emailed press release from Robert Danos, chairman of the Henderson County Republican Party:

This story, as far as WNC [western North Carolina] goes, has nothing to do with what did or did not happen on that very heated day outside of the Capitol.

It has everything to do with Heath Shuler's dishonesty and his need, in this case, to place himself in the middle of a much focused on story.

I have no 1st hand knowledge of what occurred that day.

*The problem is that we now know that neither did Heath Shuler.*

He told the T-N he was there--he was not. Even after the T-N reported his "witness account" in its story on his health care vote, he did nothing to set the record straight until confronted by the AP with the fact that the video and stills show 100% that he was not there.

In doing so he hurts the stories of the African-American Congressmen who say they were assaulted with the n-word, he smears the protestors by indicting them with this vulgar charge without cause, and he shames the voters back home.

All 3 of those parties are owed an immediate and sincere apology.

Here our professional pride compels us to note that we, not the AP, first reported that Shuler disputed the Times-News story--though more on this anon.

In the dispute between Shuler and James Shea, the Times-News reporter, we have no way of knowing who's right. Politicians have been known to change their stories for expedience' sake, but reporters have also been known to get things wrong, and to stand behind even demonstrably false stories (cf Rather, Daniel Irvin).

Shuler was walking with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, an African-American, toward the Capitol building when the crowd starting yelling racial epithets at Cleaver, who was a civil rights activist in the 1970s. They even spat at him.

"It was the most horrible display of protesting I have ever seen in my life," Shuler said.

Multiple members of Congress reported racial epithets being shouted at African-American members over the weekend.

"It breaks your heart that the way they display their anger is to spit on a member and use that kind of language," Shuler said.

It was not clear from this what slurs, if any, Shuler heard, which is why we called his office for clarification. Only one specific fact from the original story is in dispute: the statement that Shuler was "walking with Cleaver." (Though it also seems to us that Shea embellished Cleaver's account. The Missouri Democrat said that one man, not "the crowd," spat at him. The evidence suggests that it happened, though Cleaver later said he didn't know if it was intentional.)

We would, however, like to set the record straight about another reporter's work. NewsBusters.org gloated late Thursday about what it called a "correction" (actually a follow-up report) by the Associated Press, acknowledging Shuler's denial of the Times-News report, which the AP's Jesse Washington had picked up in an April 13 dispatch. According to NewsBusters:

In fact, we spoke with Washington on April 8, while he was reporting the story. He told us at the time that he had attempted to contact Shuler's office for comment but his phone calls had gone unreturned. This should have been mentioned in his story, but that is a minor oversight, not a serious dereliction.

Now, it is true that when we called Shuler's office on April 14, his press secretary came straight to the phone and readily answered our questions. Our surmise--and this is only a surmise--is that Shuler ducked Washington because he hoped to avoid being drawn into what by then had become a bitter controversy. This hope was in vain, as Washington picked up the Times-News report anyway. But the piling on by the press and the GOP back home illustrates why Shuler might have preferred to stay out of it.

Kate Zernike of the New York Times puzzles over the results of her paper's tea-party poll:

It makes sense that people would take to the streets to protest government spending and enormous deficits during the Great Recession, when they are feeling economic pain most acutely.

But the Tea Party supporters now taking to the streets aren't the ones feeling the pain.

In the results of the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, they are better educated and wealthier than the general public. They are just as likely to be employed, and more likely to describe their economic situation as very or fairly good.

Yet they are disproportionately pessimistic about the economy and the nation. A breathtaking 92 percent said the country is on the wrong track.

It's a twist on the old Thomas Frank "What's the matter with Kansas?" argument. Frank and Zernike both find it puzzling that people would act contrary to their putative economic self-interest. Frank wonders why the nonrich would oppose liberal politicians, who promise to make them less nonrich; Zernike is mystified by discontent among the well-off. She attributes it to cultural forces of the sort that Frank deplores:

The poll reveals a deep conviction among Tea Party supporters that the country is being run by people who do not share their values, for the benefit of people who are not like them. That is a recurring theme of the previous half-century--conservatives in liberal eras declaring the imperative to "Take America Back."

There may be some truth to this. But couldn't there be a rational basis for their cultural intuitions? If tea-party activists tend to be people with the wherewithal to put their own lives on the right track, maybe they're on to something when they say the country is on the wrong one.

This is a first, and a rather amusing one. The following quote comes from an article by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, who used to host a program on CNN called "Reliable Sources":

It's certainly nice to know that the people who run our government are so discreet and respectful of personal privacy!

Our lead item Monday, "Why the Left Needs Racism," seems to have struck a chord. One hostile response is especially interesting because it illustrates our point so effectively. It comes from MediaMutters.org, a formally independent group that produces propaganda for the Democratic Party:

It is a commonplace that politicians frequently make appeals based on fear. It hardly seems controversial to assert that fear of racism is not uncommon among black Americans. It would be surprising if it were otherwise at a time when the regime of systematic subjugation known as Jim Crow is still a living memory. We argued that politicians appeal to a fear that is widespread among their constituents--which is to say, they behave in a way typical of politicians.

MediaMutters' suggestion that black voters are "just puppets" is racist and repugnant. In this day and age, one hesitates to dignify such a foul idea by rebutting it, but since MediaMutters raised it, here goes: Black voters are just like other voters. They make their decisions based on a combination of reason and emotion--and on elevated emotions as well as base ones. (The item MediaMutters is attacking attributed black support for President Obama in part to "pride in the first black president," which we called "a normal and wholesome attitude.")

The smear artists of MediaMutters have put forward a racist idea and falsely imputed it to us in an effort to defame us as racist because we criticized Democratic politicians. This is one of the clearest examples we've seen of how the appeal to fear works.

"A rally of about 40 white supremacists Saturday on the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall drew hundreds of counter-protesters, sparked brawls in which two people were severely beaten and ended with crowds of demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles at police and departing supremacists," the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The violence came from those who had come to counter the hate:

A bare-chested middle-aged man with Nazi insignias tattooed on his chest and back walked into a crowd of hundreds of counter-protesters gathered near 1st and Spring streets.

Surrounded, the man mockingly bobbed his head to the rhythm of demonstrators chanting "Nazi scum." About a dozen protesters suddenly began pelting the man with punches and kicks. He fell and was struck on the back with the wooden handle of a protester's sign, which snapped in two. Police eventually reached the man and pulled him from the melee, as blood poured from the back of his neck.

Another man was rushed by a mob on Spring Street. He was punched in the face and kicked for about 20 seconds before police made it to the scene. After that beating was broken up, the man began running south on Spring Street, only to be chased down by a protester and slugged in the face. He collapsed and his face slammed to the curb as protesters began pummeling him again.

The bloodied man was then escorted away by police. Both victims were treated and released, police said.

His sign, unclear in its intended meaning, read "Christianity=Paganism=Heathen$" with an arrow pointing at a swastika.

"Gosh, I think he just didn't have a clear message. I don't even think he was a Nazi," said one man, looking at the broken pieces of the sign left behind.

If you haven't heard about this until now, you're not alone. Blogger William Jacobson points out that the media hardly noticed:

Outside of the local media and a handful of blogs, the event received scarce attention. None of the usual suspects bothered to cover or comment on it. Firedoglake and Huffington Post [sic] covered it, but we saw none of the hyperventilated commentary and lecturing that is directed at Tea Parties.

How curious. Tea Party events which are not white supremacist events are met with derision and abuse, while a real white supremacist rally is met mostly with silence.

There is a lesson here. The attacks on the Tea Parties have nothing to do with stamping out white supremacy and everything to do with shaping the political dialogue to stamp out legitimate opposition to Obama administration policies.

It must be said that the L.A. rally got little play in the media because it was not, in fact, an important story. It was, rather, a civic routine, as we described in an article about a Ku Klux Klan rally in New York 11 years ago:

The whole tale was a reassuringly familiar ritual of contemporary American democracy. Each of the players made his didactic point: The counterdemonstrators taught us that old-fashioned bigotry is beyond the pale; the ACLU, that the Constitution applies not only within the pale; the mayor, that free speech isn't absolute; the courts, that rights and responsibilities can be balanced. And of course the Spartacists [counterdemonstrating communists] proved that America doesn't discriminate in its toleration of crackpots.

As for the Klansmen at the center of this civic circus, they taught us by their inferior numbers that they are not a serious force in 1999. A perfect foil for everyone else, they put on a preposterous show and subjected themselves to the city's ridicule. How could anyone have persuaded them to endure such humiliation? Strangely enough, it was their own idea.

The only major difference is that the New York police in 1999 did a better job of maintaining order than the Los Angeles police in 2010. But Saturday's tumult is a timely reminder that in 2010, as in 1999--and, for that matter, in 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court held that neo-Nazis had a right to march in Skokie, Ill.--white supremacy is a fringe ideology that appeals only to a minuscule number of weirdos.

The people who claim to be alarmed by the "racism" of the tea-party movement know this as well as we do--which is why they respond to a display of actual racism as nonchalantly as we do. They desperately attack the tea-party movement for the same reason we cheer it: because it is made up of ordinary Americans anxious and unhappy about the ever-expanding power of government over their lives.

A mass movement of Americans concerned about preserving their freedom is a threat to the political agenda of the left. A gathering of a few dozen actual white supremacists is a threat only to whatever shred of dignity the supremacists may retain.

Government teachers in New Jersey may teach class, but they don't have much of it. The Associated Press reports on the latest attacks against Gov. Chris Christie:

In Facebook messages visible to the world - not to mention their students - the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he were dead.

"Never trust a fat f...," read one profane post on the Facebook page, "New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie's Pay Freeze," which has some 69,000 fans, many of them teachers.

"How do you spell A- - - - - - -? C-H-R-I-S C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E," read another.

The rhetoric has become ever more heated as residents of most of the state's school districts vote today on property-tax levies that support district budgets. . . .

One educator, a librarian with a master's degree, described the cuts as "rediculous."

Another pointed out that Christie's late mother was a member of the teachers union: "It's not right to bite the hand that feeds you. Oh I forgot it's Chirs Christie, He's so large I bet he'd bite anything that's put in front of his face!"

"Remember Pol Pot, dictator of Cambodia?" warned another. "He reigned in terror, his target was teachers and intellectuals. They were either killed or put into forced labor . . . King Kris Kristy is headed in this direction."

The attacks on Christie for being fat especially caught our attention. We met Christie last week, and it is not inaccurate to describe him as a bulky man. But schoolteachers of all people should know better than to mock somebody for his appearance. It also reminded us of an August 2008 item, in which we noted that Slate's Timothy Noah had asserted that "Any discussion of [then-Sen. Barack] Obama's 'skinniness' and its impact on the typical American voter can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race."

If "skinny" is code for "black," as Noah claims, does that make "fat" code for "white"? If so, we hope none of the anti-Obama crazies get wind of this. We hate to imagine what they'd make of Michelle Obama's efforts against obesity.

R. Emmett Tyrrell calls it the Taranto principle: the observation that "the press's failure to hold left-wingers accountable for bad behavior merely encourages the left's bad behavior to the point that its candidates are repellent to ordinary Americans." Because journalists tend to be far to the left of ordinary Americans, their reporting on politics gives liberal pols a false sense of comfort, which actually makes it harder for them to win elections.

A Los Angeles Times analysis of the 2010 campaign for Congress suggests that the Taranto principle may not apply this time around:

Of course, even after Sen. Brown's victory, the Democrats acted as if they believed imposing ObamaCare on Americans was somehow going to win them favor--a bizarre notion endlessly repeated by so-called mainstream journalists.

Yet it's at least true that this time around, they have a sense that they're in trouble. Does this mean the Taranto principle has been consigned to history's ash heap? It could. Then again, maybe they underestimate the degree of trouble they're in, and the press's reassurance that this time they know there's a problem is itself an example of the principle at work.

A grandmother whose life is being ruined by a debilitating condition says she has been told that she cannot have an operation that could help her.

Jennifer Lane suffers from such extreme and uncontrollable shaking that she struggles to hold her baby grandson.

Mrs Lane, 52, says she was refused surgery for the brain condition dystonia by one health authority, despite the treatment being available to patients living a few streets away in another health area.

She lives in Spondon, just inside the area covered by NHS Derby City.

It has told her she cannot have the £30,000 [$46,000] operation because it does not believe it could dramatically improve her condition.

Mrs Lane lives just 200 metres [2.2 football fields] away from the area covered by NHS Derbyshire County, which has funded three such operations.

Mrs. Lane, this is your lucky day! According to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, "in Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."

Last week we noted that an ObamaCare provision requires congressmen and their staff members to buy insurance through state exchanges--which, pursuant to ObamaCare, will not exist until 2014. Since there is no effective date on the restriction for congressional employees, under a straightforward interpretation of the law, the federal government must stop providing insurance to these workers.

National Public Radio reports that the Office of Personnel Management has adopted a twisted interpretation of the law that avoids this problem:

If only regular Americans had an "office of personnel management" to protect us from Congress's mistakes.

GLENN BECK: We started telling you about Cass Sunstein, last night, our regulatory "czar." I called him the most dangerous man in America because Sunstein's job is to figure out how to make people do what the government wants them to do, but in a stealth sort of way.

He is a good candidate for a job like that. We told you about the paper he wrote way back in 2008, when he pondered how to make people stop believing in what he calls conspiracy theories. But conspiracy theories sound an awful like disagreement with the government, you know what I mean?

One: Ban conspiracy theorists. The government should ban them. How a government with an amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech bans a conspiracy theory is absolutely beyond me. But it's not beyond a great mind and a great thinker like Cass Sunstein. He promises just a few sentences later his idea, quote, "will have a place under imaginable conditions," end quote.

Another idea that will have a place under these imaginable conditions is this one. Government might impose a special kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such conspiracy theories.

This is weird. If I may go back to history: It's kind of like when - here, when gave the right to vote to everyone and then some decided to apply a poll tax on those they didn't want voting. Remember? That didn't work out real well. So what we did is we amended the Constitution to stop it because it was wrong.

And another thing here, they impose a tax, financial or otherwise. What other kind of tax is there besides financial? What is the "otherwise" part? Don't worry, Cass Sunstein has got it all worked out.

And by the way, he doesn't advocate either of those ideas being implemented right now. No, no, no. What he thinks the government should be doing right now is very, very simple:

"Our main policy claim here is that the government should engage" - should engage - "in cognitive infiltration of the groups." He's talking about Americans coming in and infiltrating the groups that produce conspiracy theories.

Yes. Conspiracy theories equal anti-government speech. That is what it is. Government might itself engage in counter-speech. That is the next one. They might engage in counter-speech, marshalling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories.

Really? That sounds an awful lot like all the websites that Barack Obama has started. Remember the campaign, "End the Smears?" And now, "WhiteHouse.gov" - reality check?

BECK: Conspiracy theories to Cass Sunstein, equals anti-government speech - anti-government speech.

How do you get people to stop believing anti-government speech? Tea Party has been called anti-government, conspiracy theories by Cass Sunstein.

Well, ban conspiracy theories, impose a tax, engage in counter-speech. This is from a paper that he wrote way back in 2008.

The fourth one here is hire private parties. Government, he says, quoting, "might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counter-speech."

Well, now, wait a minute. This doesn't sound anything like Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist, who is writing a completely objective op-ed about the glories of health care reform while no one asked him a single question about the fact that he was being paid about $400,000 by the Obama administration.

Also recall that the left was constantly complaining about this tactic back when George W. Bush was in office - I was, too - claiming that it was illegal - they claimed. I said it was unethical.

Finally, Sunstein advocates sending covert agents into your chat room; a covert government agent into your online social network or your real space group. So the guy next to you at Tea Party meeting or something might be a covert government agent.

Wow, that sounds good. After seeing the widespread reports of Tea Party-crashing, not to mention dozens of identical letters to the editor supporting Obama's policies written to newspapers all across the country, one might have to question: Is that a coincidence? Is that a conspiracy theory?

Sunstein himself admits that some of these conspiracies have been proven true, such as Watergate. But don't worry, he recommends, and I quote, "as a general rule, true accounts should not be undermined."

Oh, as a general rule, the truth shouldn't be? I'd like to make that a blanket - that is just wonderful.

We tell you all the time it's not about right and left, it's about right and wrong. Big government, small government. Small government, because if your government isn't big, they don't have the power to do things like sending in covert agents.

Let me talk directly to Democrats just for a second. If you are a Democrat, please, please ask yourself this question: Sunstein, right now, is targeting those who don't agree with global warming, you know, because they say he says it's a conspiracy. It's the conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe - flat-Earther.

In the paper, he specifically targets a sitting senator, James Inhofe. Now, that may be wonderful to you. But another conspiracy theory he targets is the idea that AIDS was created by the government.

Now, think about what that means. Because if Cass Sunstein's ideas were implemented and then George Bush followed this president, it's very possible that a target of infiltration would have been Jeremiah Wright's church. Therefore, it would have been possible that the man sitting next to Barack Obama in the pew every Sunday would have been an undercover federal agent working on behalf of George W. Bush.

How do you think you would have reacted the day that was flashed on the front page of The New York Times? Do that you have reaction, the outrage? Is that the feeling that you have right now? If it's not, you have to ask, why are you reacting differently today?

Are you a big fan of government regulation? Thanks to the EPA, you can win $2500 if you help them create 90-second videos propagandizing for the nanny state:

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan "Let your voice be heard," and it must direct viewers to the government's regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public's participation in it.

For some reason, this bit of irony seems to have escaped the EPA and the Obama administration:

Maybe the fact that federal regulation touches almost every aspect of our lives already is reason enough not to cheerlead for it, and especially not to produce propaganda for an expansion of regulation.

The EPA's motives are rather obvious. They have declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, despite its natural presence in the atmosphere, in order to give the agency leverage to vastly increase its regulatory powers. That will create a big increase in energy costs, which will have an exponentially inflationary effect on the economy as prices rise at every stage of production and distribution. That effort won't make the EPA any more popular, which is why they need an Army of Peons to sing hosannas to the regulatory state.

Government shouldn't produce or publish videos about how great it is, or how much more government is needed. If interest groups and elected officials want to debate those issues through advertising, that's their right. This smacks of a government propaganda campaign that Congress should nip in the bud ASAP, before the EPA gets around to bestowing its first annual Leni Riefenstahl Award.

Update: I wrote "90-minute videos" but it's actually limited to 90 seconds. My apologies for the momentary brain fade; I knew it was 90 seconds, but typed "minute" instead.

[It is blogs like this which make the White House determined to take some control over the internet]

Today's last-minute trip to the post office to mail in your return is a reminder of one of life's unpleasant realities: paying taxes. Always important in politics, the tax issue is likely to play a larger role this year than in any midterm election since 1994.

A recent Rasmussen survey reported that 66% of Americans believe the nation is over-taxed. There's a reason. Under President Barack Obama taxes are going up-a lot.

House Ways and Means Committee Republicans have issued a summary of the 25 tax increases signed into law by Mr. Obama so far. They total $670 billion over the next 10 years, including 14 tax hikes (including an annual tax on every insurance policy and an annual tax on brand-name drugs) that break Mr. Obama's solemn 2008 campaign pledge never to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

Many of these taxes are part of the ObamaCare monstrosity. New levies on investment, drugs, medical devices and insurance policies eventually will hit ordinary Americans, and the public knows it. A late March Fox News poll asked, "If major health care reform legislation is passed, do you think your taxes will increase, decrease or stay about the same?" Seventy-five percent think their taxes will increase.

Tax concerns will hurt congressional Democrats. In rural areas, their opposition to repeal of the death tax antagonizes farmers and ranchers. Then there are America's 32 million small-business owners, who feel put upon by the administration's tax everyone-and-everything philosophy.

Families, especially in the suburbs, are pressed by rising property, sales and state income taxes in addition to the federal tax increases. And don't forget the 53 million investors whose battered accounts are only now recovering. There's a new 3.8% surtax on certain kinds of investment income for high earners, but it is not indexed for inflation, so it will bite an increasing number of people over time.

Between the March 2009 CNN poll and the March 2010 Associated Press survey, Mr. Obama's approval rating on taxes dropped to 44% from 62% while his disapproval rating rose to 43% from 37%. Similarly, the Rasmussen poll of March 31-April 1 found 46% of voters believe today their taxes will increase under Mr. Obama, compared to 36% who think they will stay the same and 8% who think they will decrease.

It's somewhat unusual that so many believe themselves over-taxed when half of all Americans don't pay federal income taxes. But many of them shell out for payroll and property taxes, and virtually everyone pays sales taxes. Plenty of Americans understand higher business taxes are eventually paid by those who buy goods and services.

Politicians would be wise to remember that high taxes also are a matter of principle. The Rasmussen poll of March 31-April 1 found three-quarters of Americans believe that no one should pay more than 20% of their income in taxes-a figure we are well beyond. This makes taxation a moral issue as well as an economic one.

The public isn't stupid. They understand, like night follows day, that Mr. Obama's blizzard of spending is generating a much larger national debt, and that debt, in turn, will create enormous pressure to raise taxes.

Mr. Obama will use more spending and bigger deficits as justification for additional taxes-perhaps even a European-style value-added tax (VAT), an idea already floated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obama economic adviser Paul Volcker. At the heart of Mr. Obama's agenda is the further empowerment of Washington, which Americans will not easily accept.

Jobs remain the No. 1 political issue, understandable when unemployment presses near double digits. Taxation as a stand-alone issue falls way below that according to most polls. But some issues are connected, and I'm convinced that Americans increasingly understand that rising spending and deficits and large tax increases will hurt the nation's ability to create jobs. This will help the GOP and hurt Democrats.

In this week's George Washington University Battleground Poll, for example, congressional Republicans lead their Democratic counterparts on which party is better able to hold down taxes (56% to 28%), control wasteful spending (44% to 32%), and control the deficit (45% to 36%). This puts the GOP within striking distance of catching the Democrats on who can turn the economy around (currently 41% to 47%) and create jobs (38% to 46%)-both issues that Democrats dominated not long ago. Historically, Republicans win-and win big-when they are within six points or less of the Democrats on the economy and jobs.

Things look bleak for Democrats right now. And if Republicans connect the dots among record spending, skyrocketing deficits, rising taxes and a weak recovery, Democrats will suffer a midterm loss from which the Obama presidency may never fully recover.

I was a bit mystified the other day when I saw this GM ad crowing about how the company had paid off its government loans. Could it be true? The ad was pretty unequivocal:

"I'm Ed Whitacre from General Motors. A lot of Americans didn't agree with giving GM a second chance. Quite frankly, I can respect that. We want to make this a company all Americans can be proud of again. That's why I'm here to announce we have repaid our government loans in full, with interest, five years ahead of the orginal schedule."

If that seems too good to be true, it is. In fact, at best it seems like an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of American taxpayers. The loans have been paid off but with other government funds, not GM's own earnings. From a letter Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner yesterday (PDF link):

On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP, testified before the Senate Finance Committee. During his testimony Mr. Barofsky addressed GM's recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says "The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account." See, Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP, Quarterly Report to Congress dated April 20, 2010, page 115.

Furthermore, Exhibit 99.1 of the Form 8K filed by GM with the SEC on November 16, 2009, seems to confirm that the source of funds for GM's debt repayments was a multi-billion dollar escrow account at Treasury-not from earnings. In the 8K filing GM acknowledged:

* Of the $42.6 billion in cash and marketable securities available to GM as of September, 30, 2009, $17.4 billion came from an escrow account with Treasury,

* $6.7 billion of the escrow account available to GM was allocable to the repayment of loans to Treasury,

* $5.6 billion in cash would remain in the Treasury escrow account following the repayment by GM of their loans, and

* Upon repaying Treasury, any balance of escrow funds would be released to GM.

If Americans think this confirms their suspicions that the incompetent automaker is still refusing to take responsibility for their copious failures and are more convinced than ever that bailing them out was a terrible idea -- quite frankly, I can respect that.

Persuaded that lax regulation of financial derivatives contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, policymakers in Congress and the Obama Administration have adopted a knee-jerk solution: regulate everything.

The Obama Administration has proposed and the House Financial Services and Senate Banking Committees have each approved schemes for regulating derivatives that differ in many details. But the proposals agree on the most significant point: that derivatives regulation must be "comprehensive." By "comprehensive," regulators mean that every financial product, every buyer, every seller, every intermediary, and every transaction must be regulated unless expressly exempted by statute or decree.

The premise supporting the blanket regulatory diktat-that every derivative contract poses systemic risk to the financial system-is unproven, the application overly broad, and the resulting bureaucratic burden excessively heavy. Congress should:

* Resist simplistic calls for "more regulation" until proponents demonstrate that particular types of derivatives caused or intensified the financial crisis;

* Apply any new regulation to the derivative products, institutions, or market mechanisms that caused economic harm; and

The differing financial reform proposals passed by the House and awaiting consideration in the Senate would impose comprehensive derivatives regulation by subjecting derivatives now traded over-the-counter (OTC) by banks and other financial institutions to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and/or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Proponents of additional derivatives regulation apparently view the need for more regulation as self-evident. CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler analogizes derivatives regulation to building codes to prevent fire[1]-without, however, explaining what role derivatives played in the financial conflagration.

In the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, then-New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Phelan blamed a new and fast-growing derivative-S&P 500 Index futures-traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Phelan's charge sparked an outcry for more regulation. But after the crisis subsided, careful studies concluded that the 1987 crash was caused not by derivatives but by macro-economic factors and government policy mistakes such as anti-takeover legislation. To the extent that flaws in markets intensified the crash, the problems were in the NYSE's own antiquated order fulfillment system.[2]

In the wake of Lehman Brothers' 2008 bankruptcy, former Lehman CEO Dick Fuld blamed a new and fast-growing derivative-credit default swaps (CDS)-for his firm's failure, fueling calls to regulate CDS. But after a year's review, Lehman's bankruptcy examiner found that Lehman failed due to its own poor business decisions. There was also evidence that Fuld himself approved misleading financial statements.[3] Lehman's derivatives positions represented only about 3.3 percent of its net assets, and the examiner found its derivatives trades were reasonable and more carefully monitored than other asset classes.[4]

There is legitimate debate about the role that credit default swaps (CDS), and other derivatives played in the 2008 financial crisis.[5] But as Phelan and Fuld's inaccurate accusations show, initial claims can be misleading. Awaiting the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and other careful studies would empower Congress to make informed decisions rather than simply throwing a regulatory blanket over anything called a derivative. Congress and the CFTC cannot design a useful "building code" until they understand the role, if any, that derivatives played in the crisis.

Derivatives are financial instruments used to transfer risk from a party seeking to "hedge" (limit) risk to a party willing-for a fee-to assume the risk. Risks transferred may be related to prices (whether they rise, fall, or fluctuate), interest rates, exchange rates, or they may be related to whether a third party will pay its debts.

Derivatives play a productive economic role by allowing firms to plan based on stable economic factors while transferring the risk (including the potential reward) of economic disruptions to others who are willing and able to assume it. The term derivative applies to this diverse set of products because their value is determined by reference to another underlying product or transaction.

Some derivatives, such as commodity or stock futures, are regulated by the CFTC or SEC. Other derivatives related to interest rates, foreign exchange, and debt (called "financial derivatives") are traded largely OTC among banks, whose operations are regulated by the Federal Reserve and other banking agencies.

Financial derivatives differ significantly from commodity derivatives in their characteristics, uses, and markets. For instance, most non-financial derivatives involve a single payment followed by settlement at the end of the contract term, such as a commodity future that sets in advance the price to be paid when products are delivered months later. In contrast, many financial derivatives involve long-term streams of payments between parties, which is more akin to a typical lending relationship.

There is no suggestion that interest rate swaps (the largest category of OTC financial derivatives) or foreign exchange swaps played any role in the financial disruptions of 2008. Yet the House and Senate proposals extend regulatory rules for physical commodities and stocks to these bank-based products. Wantonly extending commodity-focused regulation to financial derivatives applies the wrong tool in the wrong application. The result would be ineffective regulation damaging everything involved. For instance, commodity and stock futures are normally settled by physical delivery whereas most financial derivatives are settled by cash payments-often over an extended period.

Gensler is anxious to impose a clearing mandate, among other rules, on OTC derivatives. The mandate would require most derivative contracts to be settled through a clearinghouse rather than directly between the parties. The clearinghouse acts as a middleman, receiving and distributing payments after a contract is formed between the original parties. This arrangement arguably reduces the risk that a contract will not be honored.

What percentage of OTC derivatives contracts can be cleared, at what cost, is critical to determining whether a clearing mandate is appropriate. Gensler asserts that 75 percent of OTC derivatives could be centrally cleared. Gensler's source, however, is not an analysis by his agency, a peer-reviewed study, or a market survey. The only evidence Gensler cites is a ballpark estimate by a single executive whom Gensler never names.[6]

An agency head owes Congress and the public more than an uncorroborated opinion from an unnamed source to justify a massive expansion of regulatory authority. Gensler has not bothered to address this question rigorously, but he has made up his mind and is eager to issue orders to the market.

Gensler and other Obama Administration officials also insist that exemptions to derivatives rules be very narrow. For instance, the Senate Banking Committee bill requires approval from both the principal regulatory agency and certification by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to exempt any end user, swap dealer, bank, non-bank financial institution, security, or other product from derivatives rules. Imposing a duplicative exemption process guarantees that one-size-fits-all mandates will be imposed with little reason.

The principal justification for regulating derivatives is that they pose "systemic risks" to the financial system. Yet some derivatives, such as interest rate swaps, pose no systemic risk because their values change slowly and their characteristics are well understood. Other derivative types or user categories are so small as to be insignificant to the overall financial system. Gensler acknowledges, for instance, that corporate end users represent only about 9 percent of derivatives transactions, but he argues against their exemption from collateral requirements for no better reason than to uphold the "regulate everything" principle.[7]

Applying ill-designed blanket regulation will make financial derivatives more costly, more difficult to customize, and consequently less widely used. Because properly used derivatives reduce rather than increase financial risks, bad regulation will increase rather than reduce overall risk in the economy.

The Obama Administration and committees in Congress propose to regulate financial derivatives with an antiquated scheme designed for physical commodities. This inflexible and damaging mandate is unjustified. Instead, Congress should:

* Consider carefully any evidence that particular types of derivatives caused or intensified the financial crisis;

* Craft regulations to address specific problems rather than imposing blanket mandates; and

* Create rules that encourage rather than discourage risk-mitigating uses of financial derivatives.

Leading derivatives reform proposals amount to little more than a frenzied insistence to do something, anything, to regulate financial derivatives. Proponents must show why particular derivatives need to be more closely regulated and that the schemes they propose will reduce rather than increase risks in financial markets.

President Obama signed a government takeover of health care into law. Here is a list of new boards, bureaucracies, and programs created in the Obama health care bill. Bureaucracy Grows.

3. Committee to review administrative simplification standards (Section 1104, p. 71)

7. Exchange grants to establish consumer navigator programs (Section 1311(i), p. 150)

13. Program of risk corridors for individual and small group markets (Section 1342, p. 233)

14. Program to determine eligibility for Exchange participation (Section 1411, p. 267)

15. Program for advance determination of tax credit eligibility (Section 1412, p. 288)

16. Grant program to implement health IT enrollment standards (Section 1561, p. 370)

17. Federal Coordinated Health Care Office for dual eligible beneficiaries (Section 2602, p. 512)

19. Medicaid health home program for people with chronic conditions, and grants for planning same (Section 2703, p. 524)

20. Medicaid demonstration project to evaluate bundled payments (Section 2704, p. 532)

21. Medicaid demonstration project for global payment system (Section 2705, p. 536)

22. Medicaid demonstration project for accountable care organizations (Section 2706, p. 538)

23. Medicaid demonstration project for emergency psychiatric care (Section 2707, p. 540)

24. Grant program for delivery of services to individuals with postpartum depression (Section 2952(b), p. 591)

25. State allotments for grants to promote personal responsibility education programs (Section 2953, p. 596)

27. Medicare value-based purchasing demonstration program for critical access hospitals (Section 3001(b), p. 637)

28. Medicare value-based purchasing program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 3006(a), p. 666)

29. Medicare value-based purchasing program for home health agencies (Section 3006(b), p. 668)

31. Grant program to develop health care quality measures (Section 3013, p. 693)

35. Independence at home medical practice demonstration program (Section 3024, p. 752)

36. Program for use of patient safety organizations to reduce hospital readmission rates (Section 3025(b), p. 775)

38. Demonstration project for payment of complex diagnostic laboratory tests (Section 3113, p. 800)

39. Medicare hospice concurrent care demonstration project (Section 3140, p. 850)

41. Consumer Advisory Council for Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 1027)

42. Grant program for technical assistance to providers implementing health quality practices (Section 3501, p. 1043)

43. Grant program to establish interdisciplinary health teams (Section 3502, p. 1048)

44. Grant program to implement medication therapy management (Section 3503, p. 1055)

45. Grant program to support emergency care pilot programs (Section 3504, p. 1061)

46. Grant program to promote universal access to trauma services (Section 3505(b), p. 1081)

47. Grant program to develop and promote shared decision-making aids (Section 3506, p. 1088)

48. Grant program to support implementation of shared decision-making (Section 3506, p. 1091)

49. Grant program to integrate quality improvement in clinical education (Section 3508, p. 1095)

50. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)

51. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)

52. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)

53. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)

54. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)

55. National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)

56. Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)

59. Grant program to support school-based health centers (Section 4101, p. 1135)

60. Grant program to promote research-based dental caries disease management (Section 4102, p. 1147)

61. Grant program for States to prevent chronic disease in Medicaid beneficiaries (Section 4108, p. 1174)

63. Grant program to provide public health interventions (Section 4202, p. 1188)

64. Demonstration program of grants to improve child immunization rates (Section 4204(b), p. 1200)

65. Pilot program for risk-factor assessments provided through community health centers (Section 4206, p. 1215)

66. Grant program to increase epidemiology and laboratory capacity (Section 4304, p. 1233)

69. Grant program to plan health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(c), p. 1275)

70. Grant program to implement health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(d), p. 1279)

74. Grant program to provide mid-career training for health professionals (Section 5206, p. 1307)

76. Grant program to support primary care training programs (Section 5301, p. 1315)

77. Grant program to fund training for direct care workers (Section 5302, p. 1322)

79. Demonstration program to increase access to dental health care in underserved communities (Section 5304, p. 1331)

80. Grant program to promote geriatric education centers (Section 5305, p. 1334)

81. Grant program to promote health professionals entering geriatrics (Section 5305, p. 1339)

82. Grant program to promote training in mental and behavioral health (Section 5306, p. 1344)

84. Student loan forgiveness for nursing school faculty (Section 5311(b), p. 1360)

85. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors and outcomes (Section 5313, p. 1364)

88. Grant program for demonstration projects to address health workforce shortage needs (Section 5507, p. 1442)

89. Grant program for demonstration projects to develop training programs for home health aides (Section 5507, p. 1447)

90. Grant program to establish new primary care residency programs (Section 5508(a), p. 1458)

91. Program of payments to teaching health centers that sponsor medical residency training (Section 5508(c), p. 1462)

93. Grant program to establish demonstration projects for community-based mental health settings (Section 5604, p. 1486)

95. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6102, p. 1554)

96. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6103(a)(3), p. 1561)

97. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 6103(b)(3), p. 1568)

98. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 6112, p. 1589)

99. Demonstration projects for nursing facilities involved in the culture change movement (Section 6114, p. 1597)

101. Standing methodology committee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1629)

102. Board of Governors for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1638)

105. Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (Section 6703, p. 1776)

106. Grant program to create elder abuse forensic centers (Section 6703, p. 1783)

107. Grant program to promote continuing education for long-term care staffers (Section 6703, p. 1787)

108. Grant program to improve management practices and training (Section 6703, p. 1788)

109. Grant program to subsidize costs of electronic health records (Section 6703, p. 1791)

111. Grant program to conduct elder abuse detection and prevention (Section 6703, p. 1798)

113. National Training Institute for long-term care surveyors (Section 6703, p. 1806)

114. Grant program to fund State surveys of long-term care residences (Section 6703, p. 1809)

118. Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 8002(c), p. 1938)

119. Multi-state health plans offered by Office of Personnel Management (Section 10104(p), p. 2086)

122. Value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers (Section 10301, p. 2176)

123. Demonstration project for payment adjustments to home health services (Section 10315, p. 2200)

124. Pilot program for care of individuals in environmental emergency declaration areas (Section 10323, p. 2223)

125. Grant program to screen at-risk individuals for environmental health conditions (Section 10323(b), p. 2231)

126. Pilot programs to implement value-based purchasing (Section 10326, p. 2242)

127. Grant program to support community-based collaborative care networks (Section 10333, p. 2265)

128. Centers for Disease Control Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

129. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

130. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

131. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

132. Food and Drug Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

133. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)

134. Grant program to promote small business wellness programs (Section 10408, p. 2285)

138. Grant program to promote centers of excellence for depression (Section 10410, p. 2304)

139. Advisory committee for young women's breast health awareness education campaign (Section 10413, p. 2322)

140. Grant program to provide assistance to provide information to young women with breast cancer (Section 10413, p. 2326)

141. Interagency Access to Health Care in Alaska Task Force (Section 10501, p. 2329)

142. Grant program to train nurse practitioners as primary care providers (Section 10501(e), p. 2332)

143. Grant program for community-based diabetes prevention (Section 10501(g), p. 2337)

144. Grant program for providers who treat a high percentage of medically underserved populations (Section 10501(k), p. 2343)

145. Grant program to recruit students to practice in underserved communities (Section 10501(l), p. 2344)

147. Demonstration project to provide access to health care for the uninsured at reduced fees (Section 10504, p. 2357)

148. Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)

149. Indian Health demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (S. 1790, Section 112, p. 24)*

151. Indian Country modular component facilities demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 146, p. 108)*

152. Indian mobile health stations demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 147, p. 111)*

154. Indian Health Service mental health technician training program (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 173)*

155. Indian Health Service program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 192)*

156. Indian Health Service program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 194)*

157. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 204)*

158. Indian youth life skills demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 220)*

159. Indian Health Service Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment (S. 1790, Section 199B, p. 258)*

*Section 10221, page 2173 of H.R. 3590 deems that S. 1790 shall be deemed as passed with certain amendments.

This is an extremely important legal move: Tennessee attorney Van Irion, a Republican candidate for Congress, filed a lawsuit against President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that challenges the constitutionality of the entire health care law. While several lawsuits are pending against the health care law, this lawsuit may be the only one taking broad aim at the law's constitutionality. The idea is this: the constitution and the bill of rights were designed to limit the authority of the federal government. If they can use the commerce clause to enact any kind of legislation that they desire, that gives them unlimited power, and is in opposition to the tenor of the entire constitution. More than 5000 Americans have joined with this suit. The result of this lawsuit could actually determine the direction that our entire government takes over the next 50 years. It boils down to this: either our legislators are actually limited by the constitution or they have unlimited power based upon a majority vote.

This is why traditional media is dead; Newsweek writer claims that there are 200,000 Coffee Party members. This is the same Newsweek that completely and totally ignored the first wave of TEA parties, the total of which was far over 200,000 (as did almost all media).

The president on this week’s message talked about new workers being hired at either Chrysler or GM (I forget which) and how GM paid the taxpayers back with interest 5 years early. I guess I have missed all of the rosy reports of GM’s recovery.

Just in case you think some of these things are scare tactics, it is now being discussed in Europe whether a vacation is a human right. It is as if we have fallen into the rabbit hole.

If you are late to the ACORN party, this is a good reference website with pertinent information:

Sec Inspector General to launch investigation on timing of Goldman Sachs filing. FoxNews interviews the inspector general:

RUSH: So have you seen the lead paragraph in the McClatchy news story today? Well, let me read it to you. "While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times." My friends, do not doubt me. I wonder what happened in those four visits of the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein is his name, I wonder what happened. I can imagine it. I can just imagine it. The president says, "Hey, don't fret, Lloyd. We have to do this first. We have to charge you guys, the SEC, we have to do this first before we can partner up in private and run all your competition outta business." But Obama says, "Oh, we learned about this on CNBC. We didn't know about this 'til we watched it on CNBC."

The market is plunging, down 84 points since Obama began speaking, Honest Obe speaking now at Cooper Union. It was supposed to start at 11:30, didn't start 'til ten 'til noon. I wonder why. He-he-he-he. We're not going to JIP any of it. We're rolling on it, but the whole thing is typical Obama, typical setup, it's a head fake, it's to get everybody looking in the wrong direction while something else actually happens. This is all about pushing his financial regulatory reform bill, and I was just reading the closed-captioning, he just said it's not correct to say that this is a bailout bill. It most certainly is. It is indeed a bailout bill. It's a bailout bill or a destroy 'em bill. The regulatory powers the executive branch is going to have after this bill passes is just another piece of the puzzle being put together to totally convert this from a private sector free-market economy to a command-and-control economy with the command-and-control coming from the regime in Washington.

Nicole Gelinas has a great piece today at the Investor's Business Daily on the op-ed page. She also writes for the New York Post, and the headline of her piece: "Wall St. Bailouts Would Be Invited, Not Prevented, Under Dodd's Bill --

President Obama castigated Senate Republicans last week for opposing Sen. Chris Dodd's Wall Street 'reform bill.' Democrats say Republicans' main argument -- that the bill won't prevent future bailouts -- is false. The bill itself, though, is irrefutable evidence that the Republicans are dead on. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell started the fight earlier in the week when he said the bill 'not only allows for taxpayer funded bailouts for Wall Street banks, it actually institutionalizes them.' The White House and congressional Democrats have hit back hard. 'I am absolutely confident that the bill that emerges is going to be a bill that prevents bailouts,' Obama said."

How can this literal know-nothing be so confident what he's talking about? He told us all these wonderful things that were not and were going to be in the health care bill. What is in his background that makes anybody have any confidence he knows what he's talking about? This question occurs to me more and more now. Who is Barack Obama? Where is it written that Barack Obama, of all people in this country, is qualified to regulate the financial services industry? Where is it written that Barack Obama is qualified to manage, control, design, and run the health care industry in this country, one-sixth of our economy, where's the experience, where's the resume, where is the training? Why do we assume that just because he's been elected president and we got a bunch of know-nothings in Congress, they happen to be the experts? They get to cause all of these problems, then they get to act like spectators who were watching along with the rest of us and then they spot a bunch of fraud and say, "Look at how bad the capitalist system is. Look at how rotten the free market is. Unfettered free market, we never intended that, it's not a free ride."

Obama's bashing the free market again today. Who's he? I know he's been elected president but why is he reacted to -- this will make him mad, too -- why is he treated like Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai after a conversation with the burning bush? And that's exactly how he's being portrayed to us. This guy is coming down from the mountain, he's got the tablets, he's got the Ten Commandments, he's Moses, he's talked to God or whoever, he has all the answers. Where did this get conferred? Who conferred all of this on Barack Obama? Tim Geithner, by the way, was even stronger on this bailout business. He said the bill "will ensure that 'if a major institution manages itself to the edge of the abyss, we're able to ... dismember them safely without taxpayers being exposed to a penny of loss.'" Now, doesn't that make you feel good? To have the government discuss how they will deal with a business they think has crossed the line. Dismember? Is that kind of like how when you rip kids' tonsils out for profit? Do you realize the power that they are granting themselves here? And they say, "without taxpayers being exposed --" guess who's going to be exposed? Taxpayers, because the taxpayers are the shareholders. The taxpayers are the investors. And the taxpayers are the employees of these firms that are now gonna come under command-and-control authority of the regime.

Ask the bondholders at Chrysler how it is to do business with the regime. They're called greedy 'cause they want to get paid back on their investments when everything goes belly up. Obama said they're the problem. Too much greed. "Chris Dodd was the bluntest: 'The bill as drafted ends bailouts. Nothing could be more clear,'" says the man who helped ruin our economy. "In the 1,336-page text, though, Dodd left room for regulators to be generous with citizens' money. For example, the bill would direct the FDIC, which would wind down too-big-to-fail financial firms, to operate under only 'a strong presumption that creditors and shareholders will bear the losses.'" Duh! And what are they if not taxpayers? "The bill would direct the FDIC, which would wind down too-big-to-fail financial firms, to operate under only 'a strong presumption that creditors and shareholders will bear the losses.'" Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, over there is Fannie Mae and over there is Freddie Mac, and they have been bailed out and will continue to be bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars by the regime. They are effectively now being run by the regime. They were a combination private sector, government-owned operation, was always an oxymoron to me.

So we're not going to hold them accountable because they're Uncle Sam. Over there, Fannie Mae, over there, Freddie Mac, we're not going to hold them accountable because they are the government, they are the regime. But these private sector people, these investors and these shareholders, they're the ones who are going to bear the losses. Now, you might ask, how is an investor supposed to gauge what company is going to be too big to fail, and what is it that's going to have the regime cracking down on these firms? Is it that they make too much profit? If they make too much profit should they not invest in the firm that makes too much profit because a firm that makes too much profit is going to be targeted by the regime? Do they just try to pick losers to invest in knowing that the regime will be sympathetic to these people? "As for whether the bill puts taxpayers at risk: failed firms must repay 'any amounts owed to the United States, unless the United States agrees or consents otherwise.'" (laughing) He means that the Feds and the Congress can forgive repayment. That's what this means. "Any amounts owed to the United States, unless the United States agrees or consents otherwise." So the command-and-control economy under the authority of the regime will be able to forgive loans, pick winners, pick losers. I wonder on what basis they will do that?

Now, Nicole Gelinas says, "Why would the financial firm owe Uncle Sam money in the first place? Partly because of something else in the bill: an 'orderly liquidation fund.' Big or complex financial firms would have to pay upfront into a Treasury-controlled $50 billion pot of money that would bear the cost of liquidating a future AIG." In other words, Obama's stash. This is a tax. This is an up-front tax. They gotta put the fund in there, $50 billion that would bear the cost of liquidating the future AIG. That's why a financial firm would owe Uncle Sam in the first place. "The FDIC would have the authority to use this money as it sees fit, including guaranteeing bondholders, uninsured lenders, counterparties and other creditors to a failed company just as the government did with AIG and Citigroup in 2008. The idea that the financial industry can pre-fund its next arbitrary bailout with $50 billion is a pleasant fiction. How much would an 'orderly liquidation fund' have needed to stem investor panic starting in 2008?"

Are you ready for the number? Twenty trillion dollars. Investor's Business Daily has the chart, way beyond TARP, Washington has committed $20 trillion to support Wall Street since 2008, including TARP but way above it. And they've categorized here line item by line item how much the government has spent or bestowed on Wall Street, and it comes out to about $20,450 billion, that's $20 trillion. So if we have spent $20 trillion in the last two years to make sure Wall Street didn't collapse, what is a $50 billion fund going to do? "The true tab is not the retroactive cost. Rather, it's what investors demand at the time of an acute crisis so as not to flee the unknowable risks of a financial system in meltdown, precipitating depression. Think about everything that Washington has done in the past two years. TARP was $700 billion; that's easy. Outside of TARP, the Treasury said it would guarantee $3.4 trillion worth of money-market funds in the fall of 2008." We have told you about that story, and that's the thing, the falling money market, that is what made everybody panic, that's what pulled McCain off the campaign trail, that's what everybody thought was going to start a run on every bank around the world, that's what they had to stop, and they did it by guaranteeing $3.4 trillion worth of money-market funds in the fall of 2008, right during the campaign.

"The Fed has purchased $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities over the past year or so -- providing a floor to avoid deeper housing-price declines and bank losses. It also offered $1.8 trillion to commercial-paper markets. The FDIC guaranteed up to $940 billion in financial-firm bonds and committed another $700 billion in expanded deposit guarantees, which allowed banks to avoid selling off assets at crisis-level prices. Taking Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship and guaranteeing other housing agencies and their debt? Another $7 trillion. Other sundry programs add up quickly," and they've got the table here, and it does equal $20 trillion in the last two years. So just like we look at California, these underfunded and unfunded pensions of half a trillion dollars, $500 billion, the overall indebtedness of the state, you sit there and say nothing was real, nothing was real.

Has anything been real on Wall Street? If it has taken $20 trillion, which we don't have, to keep Wall Street above ground, has anything been real? Well, if you want to know where the $20 trillion is, we'll link to her piece here. Investor's Business Daily, we'll link to it and link the table at RushLimbaugh.com where you can go line by line and see what we have spent beyond TARP, which was $700 billion.

I gotta take a time-out here, folks, we're a little long here but this is just a prelude to what's happening with Obama at Cooper Union today demanding financial regulatory oversight, command-and-control, the regime running your money.

RUSH: Okay, here's the close of Nicole Gelinas' piece at IBD: "Democrats can't really believe that a $50 billion fund could avert the kind of investor panic we saw in 2008 -- and if they do believe that, we're in real trouble." They don't believe that, Nicole. They just want the money to do other things with like fund ACORN under the desk. It's a slush fund is all this is. It's a way of getting Obama control of $50 billion via legislation. It's the same thing that the Porkulus bill really was. It wasn't a stimulus to the economy. It was a slush fund, the vast majority of it yet to be spent. So, anyway, "The Feds could not invest $2 trillion in any financial markets -- Treasury bond markets, global stock markets, real estate or some combination -- without distorting them. And in a crisis, global investors would expect the bailout fund to dump some assets to pay for its rescues.

"This expectation would exacerbate price declines. The only regulation that would better protect the economy from future financial failures is a set of predictable rules..." How novel an idea is that! "[A] a set of predictable rules -- including consistent borrowing limits and trading rules across financial firms and securities -- like those we had before the 1980s. The Dodd bill doesn't propose such rules -- and Republicans should point out that the mere idea of those rules is what really annoys the too-big-to-fail financial firms." We're being scammed here again, folks.

RUSH: The New York City mayor is defending Wall Street. He did so today before Obama's visit. It's kind of like the pot calling the kettle... Uh, can't say that in this case because that would be racist. But here's Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, all upset about what Obama's going to do to Wall Street. Yet he's using his rich man's guilt to force all kinds of taxes and regulations and laws all over New York: Trans fats, salt, you name it. He's used his money to make himself king of New York forever. Here comes Obama, as Michael Goodwin said yesterday, to finish the job on Wall Street to really ruin it now, and Bloomberg starts whining and moaning. Now, I respect that he knows this business certainly a hell of a lot better than Obama does, but it's a problem for me 'cause he's done his own damage to New York, as the mayor.

RUSH: We have some audio sound bites here from Obama's address at Cooper Union, and as you listen to this -- and we have, let's see...one, two, three, four, five of them if I use them all. We have five of them here, and as you listen to this man, as you listen to Obama, remember: You are listening to a guy who has never, ever held a real job in the productive economy. He has never, ever invested or taken a risk in a business. He has never, ever had to make payroll. He has not the slightest understanding for how commerce works. He has only resentment for capitalism. Yet this man (as I just so aptly described) is telling people on Wall Street -- who risk everything, every day to make profits -- that they are the danger to the prosperity of America. A man who has no idea what he's talking about, a man who has limited -- not limited! Zilch, zero, nada experience. The only thing he's done with money is spend other people's. He has earned it by publishing a couple of books. He is the most unqualified person in any room he enters, and yet he goes to Wall Street today to tell people there that they represent -- that they pose -- the great threat to the prosperity of America. Unlike, of course, the federal government! Oh, no, no! The government doesn't pose a threat to prosperity, does it? Oh, no, no, no, no. Certainly not with this regime. So you keep that in mind as you listen to arrogance and conceit personified.

OBAMA: I believe in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get loans and invest their savings.

OBAMA: But the free market was never to be a free license to take whatever you can get however you can get it.

RUSH: That's not what it was. That's not what it is. The free market today is the most regulated free market in the history of free markets. "The free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can"? That is the dead giveaway of how this man sees this country. You all are a bunch of thieves. You who have anything are thieves because this country has allowed you to just take whatever you can get however you can get it, and that's why he's gonna cut it down to size. That's why he's gonna reverse this. That's why he's going to "reform" this. Remember Obama said he felt like he was "behind enemy lines" when he was working for a business newsletter in New York City. Resume tape.

OBAMA: Too often in the years leading up to this crisis, some -- and lemme be clear, not all but some -- on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leverage there's a family looking to buy a house or pay for an education, open a business, save for retirement.

RUSH: Really? O-ho-kay. So I remember the debate between Dole and Clinton '96. Dole got in a couple shots on Clinton's lack of character. Clinton said (doing impression), "You know, no attack -- no attack! -- ever fed a hungry child." I guess we're back to this now. Trades on Wall Street destroy a family's chance to buy a house. Trades on Wall Street deny a family an opportunity to pay for an education. Trades on Wall Street mean that it's tougher to open businesses on Main Street. Because traders on Wall Street are trading, it's hampering others' ability to save for retirement. That's the message from a guy who has never, ever held a real job in a productive economy, who wouldn't know where to go to get a real job, whose only experience with money is spending other people's -- and here he is passing judgment on others. Here's another sound bite.

OBAMA: The system as it stands is what led to a series of massive, costly taxpayer bailouts -- and it's only with reform that we can avoid a similar outcome in the future. In other words: A vote for reform is a vote to put a stop to taxpayer-funded bailouts. That's the truth.

RUSH: Now, that's not true as we have demonstrated in Nicole Gelinas' column today and any number of places. You've got a $50 billion slush fund. The regime will now be in charge of who makes it and who doesn't, who fails and who doesn't. What he means here, what he's trying to convey is: "Instead of bailing somebody out, we are gonna shut 'em down. If we decide that they're not worth it, we're going to fire their management." They are going to be in control of it! The same people that write our tax code, the same people that gave us Social Security, the war on poverty, Medicare and Medicaid -- the same people that gave you the DMV -- are going to be running our financial system now. Somehow they are more qualified than experts. And the system did not lead "to a series of massive, costly taxpayer bailouts." Government action did. So we have a classic case now: The government instituting policies that create great harm on the people that have to follow the regulations. The great harm results in massive losses, huge problems caused by the government, and then the government who caused the problem gets to sit around as a spectator and say, "Look what you SOBs did to our economy! Look what you evil capitalists did. We've gotta fix this now." So they get to do two things: They get to destroy it, and then rebuild it in their own image. Here's another sound bite from our man-child regime leader.

OBAMA: Markets operated in the shadows of our economy, invisible to regulators, invisible to the public. So reckless practices were rampant. Risks accrued until they threatened our entire financial system. And that's why these reforms are designed to respect legitimate activities but prevent reckless risk-taking.

RUSH: All these straw men. The construction of Obama's speech is a magical thing here. "These reforms are designed to respect legitimate activities" of which he doesn't see any, by the way, "but prevent reckless risk-taking." Now, what is "reckless risk-taking"? We don't know. He gets to decide now. The regime gets to decide what is "reckless risk-taking," and if you are judged to be engaged in "reckless risk-taking" the regime can shut you down -- or fire you and your board of directors and put their own people in there; ignoring, of course, the role that risk plays in the establishment of greatness, the invention of products and services and the efficiency of markets. Now here he is. You knew this was coming. It's time to dump on CEO pay and bonuses.

OBAMA: These Wall Street reforms will give shareholders new power in the financial system. They will get what we call a "say-on-pay," a voice with respect to the salaries and bonuses awarded to top executives. Americans don't begrudge anybody for success when that success is earned.

OBAMA: But when we read in the past, and sometimes in the present, about enormous executive bonuses at firms -- even as they're relying on assistance from taxpayers or they're taking huge risks that threaten the system as a whole or their company's doing badly -- it offends our fundamental values.

RUSH: It's also none of your damn business! They've paid the money back. They have paid it! All these people have paid back the TARP money. It's none of your damn business what they pay people. They don't care what your "fundamental values" are. You don't have the right to impose them on every entity in this country, Mr. President!

RUSH: Keep in mind you're listening to President Obama, a guy who has never, ever held a real job in a productive economy. The only thing he knows about money is how to spend other people's. He doesn't know how to earn it; he doesn't know anything about capital formation; he could not have known in 2007 what was coming. He has no experience. Somebody had to tell him what was coming in 2007, meaning the crash in 2008. He didn't have any experience to know. Somebody had to know, somebody had to tell him, for that somebody to know they had to have a hand in it. Can anybody say George Soros? Pulling the marionette strings here of our leader of the regime. This guy is such a sophist. You know the whole business of trades? We talk about the economy here being not a zero-sum game. The liberals have always wanted you to believe that somebody gets hired, somebody got fired, that if somebody got a raise, somebody got a pay cut, that if somebody's taxes went up, somebody's taxes went down. And the economy is not a zero-sum game. The pie is always expanding.

But trades on Wall Street are a zero-sum game. For every winner there is a loser. It affects only the wrong side of the trade. Obama doesn't like that there are winners. That's his problem. No leftist likes winners. It's not fair because where there's a winner there's a loser. The loser feels bad, maybe the loser got shafted. But what was going on here at Goldman Sachs and the hedge fund and this John Paulson guy, these were sophisticated investors that were looking at these collateralized debt obligations, these pools of mortgages that had no value to them, and you had some sophisticated people thinking, "Okay, this pool is going to make money. Investors are going to come in and buy it and make money." Paulson said, "Nope, I think it's going to bomb out, I'm going to sell short." He won, others guys lost. Happens every day. You take a look at the action, how many trades there are on Wall Street, there are that many winners and there are that many losers. You look at the volume, Dow Jones Industrial Average volume, whatever it is, there are that many winners and there are that many losers. It's a zero-sum game. He thinks it's a rigged game and he's gonna take the rig out of it by making sure nobody wins because the regime is gonna run the show. Here's the final sound bite.

OBAMA: We produced a proposal that, by all accounts, is a commonsense, reasonable, non-ideological approach to target the root problems that led to the turmoil in our financial sector and ultimately in our entire economy.

OBAMA: So we've seen business as usual in Washington, but I believe we can and must put this kind of cynical politics aside. We've gotta put an end to it. That's why I'm here today. (applause) That's why I'm here today.

RUSH: You are the cynic. You are Mr. Cynical Politics. Non-ideological? Don't make me laugh. Cynical politics aside, business as usual in Washington. You are defining that, pal. Reverend Wright told PBS back in 2007, this is one of Obama's mentors, "People don't realize that to be rich you gotta keep somebody else poor. Most of us don't understand that. We enjoy the standard of living we have in the US by virtue of new poor people we keep so-called dead in developing countries and Third World countries. There's no connecting of the dots at all. That's amazing and disturbing to me." Jeremiah Wright, this is what Obama believes. He spent 20 years in the guy's church. To be rich, you gotta keep somebody else poor. Zero-sum game. Total lack of understanding of how capitalism works, but this is what Obama believes. And he believes that every winner is a cheater. Every winner has screwed somebody in order to win. The loser has been jacked with. The loser has been defrauded. The loser's been tricked or what have you. And too often I'm sure he's thought of himself as one of those losers in a manner of speaking.

Gary in Ringwood, New Jersey, as we start on the phones, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call. Despite what family members say, that I should walk around on eggshells, I have to make this comment. If you allow this to pass with these financial derivatives, this could set a bad precedent throughout this whole economy. Like you said there's a buy and sell for everything. If I'm in the dress business or apparel business, if I have a dress at $39.99, and two weeks later I have to mark that dress down to $29.99, could they now come in and say, "Well, you knew you were going to mark it down, so what you did is fraudulent." So they can really go with this and start to take every single buy and sell order --

CALLER: We cannot allow this to happen. Otherwise our whole economy will be totally taken over. This is scary.

RUSH: Well, we mentioned that yesterday. You don't have to own the banks, and you don't have to literally take 'em over like you have the automobile business. To control the financial industry all you have to have is full regulatory authority. I mean rubber-stamp regulatory authority. That's what this bill gives the regime, rubbe-stamp regulatory authority on the fly. There aren't any rules here. They make 'em up as they go However Obama is feeling that day about the X, Y, Z widget company and did they donate to McCain or Sarah Palin. This is how regimes like this work.

John in Tucson, Arizona, I have about a minute but I wanted to get to you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, I just had a comment. Almost 25 years ago this country went through, on a smaller scale, an S&L savings and loan crisis, and what was a small percentage of S&Ls that were underfunded the Democrats came in, changed the rules and made a whole lot more of these savings and loan banks, made them underfunded and they all went belly up. We don't have very many of them left anymore. They're doing the same thing on a much bigger level.

RUSH: Yeah, hello Charles Keating. Well, part the whole thing. And not only that, you had tax reform in 1986, which also took away some of the deductions for real estate investments. They changed the rules in the middle of the game and that's what led to the S&L crisis having a problem because so many of the S&Ls had invested in condo projects and commercial real estate projects, and the tax deductiblity was just yanked out from under people's feet when this happened. But he's gotta good point. This is just a much grander scale than what happened with the S&L crisis in the late eighties.

RUSH: In that first sound bite that we played of Obama at Cooper Union, he said a free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get however you can get it. A license to take what you want? That's the definition of this regime. This regime is in the process of taking whatever it wants however it can get it. Usually, my friends, this is identified as theft, which is what is occurring here at the top of our federal government.

RUSH: You know, Snerdley just had an interesting observation. Would it be fair to call this financial regulatory reform bill "voodoo economics"? Because, after all, the press is under a spell and everybody is expecting magic to happen from this. Yeah, I like it. Obama: Voodoo Economics.

From Anne Kornblut and Michael D. Shear at the Washington Post. I need a magnifying glass to read this. It printed out small. I mean, I literally do, but here's the headline: "Obama Urges CEOs to Abandon 'Furious Effort' to Block Financial Overhaul -- Bringing his case for financial reform directly to the industry's epicenter, President Obama urged Wall Street executives Thursday to join with consumer advocates in urging lawmakers to pass stricter regulations." Now, listen to this. This is Obama. "Unless your business model relies on bilking people, there's little to fear from these new rules." In other words, it's sort of like the Ben Roethlisberger approach to women in a bar. "Just shut up, just relax, and eventually you're gonna enjoy it -- and don't tell anybody. Shut up, relax, you'll enjoy it eventually." Look, does this not betray everything Obama believes? "Unless your business model relies on bilking people, there's little to fear from these new rules"? That's how he views the entire private sector: People get bilked, and of course the people that get bilked are the true owners, the rightful owners of the nation's wealth.

RUSH: The chairwoman of the SEC was appointed by Reagan in 1988, reappointed by Bush 41 and Clinton, and elevated to chairwoman by Obama -- and she's a Democrat. She's running the SEC.

You know the old stand by: "It's not the nature of the evidence that matters; it's the seriousness of the charge." That's what's at play here with the Goldman Sachs business because it's apparent to a lot of people who now looked into this (from the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNBC) that they don't see any evidence here. They could not find anybody who thinks they have a case here. They couldn't find anybody who thinks they got a case. But that doesn't matter because, you see: It's the seriousness of the charge, not the nature of the evidence. I find this laughable that there are people who have doubts that Obama and the White House were not involved. After all that's happened in a year (14 or 15 months, whatever it is) how can anybody have any doubts?

Do you think Obama gets anything done by policy? Did he get the health care debate that way? Did he win that by policy? Did he win that in the arena of ideas? No. He never does! He never triumphs in the arena of ideas. His ideas are not what secure him victory. This is key. You don't think Obama is going to be depending on silly policy discussions to win, do you? You don't think he really cares how the debate in the Senate goes on Dodd's bill on financial regulatory reform. He doesn't even care! He doesn't care what the debate consists of. He didn't care how the debate went in health care. He didn't care what was in the health care bill. All that mattered was what he said was in it, but even what he said was in it was not enough to get it passed, was it?

This is why, if you want to know for sure -- if you want to have no doubts about it -- why the tea party is doing what it's doing and why so many people are becoming part of that movement -- and they may not even know specifically. They just know something's not right here. This is not how things get done in America. This is not the way massive legislation is passed, because this is governing against the will of the people. The people know that a majority of them are opposed to every aspect of Obama's agenda, and yet he's getting it. How? He's not winning any policy debates. So how is he doing it? Well, let's reconstruct a little Obama history. Do you think Obama depended on policy to get his opponent for the state legislature seat in Illinois disqualified? No. There wasn't anything policy about that.

Do you think he depended on policy or a superior argument in policy to reveal the sealed divorce papers of his primary opponent for his Senate run? No. He didn't defeat either of those candidates because he had a better plan or because he beat them in debates or because

people liked his ideas better than anybody else's. Obama hasn't won diddly-squat on that basis. He has won everything on the basis of thuggery, as detailed by no less than President Clinton. He's a good, old-fashioned Chicago thug. They all know what Obama is in the Democrat Party. They know every aspect of what he is. They know that Obama's ideas do not prevail anywhere, except within his little core group. Obama's ideas could not prevail in America today. Obama's ideas did not win the election in 2008. His cult of personality did. Not his ideas.

He benefited from his party and the media ratcheting up a level of hate against George W. Bush that we couldn't understand, a level of hate for the US military, a level of hate for the US economy. I play golf with a bunch of Democrats. One of them is a good friend of mine, a very smart guy. He hated Bush with a purple passion but couldn't tell me why. "It can't get any worse, Rush! It can't get any worse than what it is!" You want to bet it can't get any worse? It has proceeded to get worse. Do you think that Obama depended on policy to reveal the sealed divorce papers of his Republican opponent for his Senate run? He didn't. He didn't depend on policy when his henchmen tanked the markets in September 2008. Do you think he was running on policy then?

Obama never even tries to win via debate. Obama never even tries to win via the political process. He wins by thuggery. He wins by tanking the economy. They call the tea party people "haters"? They call the tea party people "seditious," and me and others seditious? Barack Obama is single-handedly overthrowing this country from within, without winning a thing in policy, without winning a thing! (interruption) Do you know what I mean by "policy," Snerdley? Am I using the right term here? What I mean is, Obama's not coming to us and saying, "Look, I want to take over Wall Street because I want to improve this country. It will make it better. It will get your credit card rates down." No, he's not doing that. He's winning the debate by having the SEC going in and besmirch and impugn Goldman Sachs whether they deserve it or not.

It's to create the illusion that there's all these demons on Wall Street and that they're out there screwing you day in and day out, "And if it weren't for Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs or Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase or whoever, why, you'd be okay! If it weren't for them, your house would still have its value. If it weren't for those guys, your life would be fine. Unemployment would be nonexistent." That's what Obama does. He's not convincing anybody his ideas are superior because he can't because they aren't. He's simply muscling his way through here. He didn't convince anybody. Look at the polls! He didn't convince anybody. Even in his own party they had to bribe (and who knows what else) to get votes in the Senate and in the House for his own health care bill. He didn't convince them on the superiority of his ideas, the superiority of how great his plan was for the country.

No, it was all about, "You can't embarrass him. He's gotta get this! I mean, if he doesn't get this, his presidency is over." This is a man who doesn't like this country much and hasn't his whole life, and really has it in for some Americans, too. He's bound and determined to cut this country down to size and make it pay for whatever transgressions he thinks it's guilty of -- and if you want to know what those are, just go listen to any sermon of Reverend Wright, his pastor for 20 years; or go listen to Father Pfleger, or listen to Calypso Louie Farrakhan, or now Al Sharpton; who is, it is said, Obama's direct link to the streets. (snorts) What a title: "Direct Link to the Streets." My point here, ladies and gentlemen, is that we're not losing because our ideas are in the minority. We're not losing 'cause the country's turning liberal. We're not losing 'cause the country's turning socialist.

Yeah, we got some freeloaders. Yeah, we got a lot of people aren't paying income taxes. Yeah, the Democrat Party has a created a bunch of people that are dependent. But that's not the country yet. We haven't lost the country. I don't believe we're even at 47% freeloaders. I know the number of 47% of people are not paying federal income taxes. I do not think that we are anywhere near 47% of the country who wants to sit on their butt all day and simply collect $300 a week on unemployment. It may be 35%, it may be 40, but it's nowhere near 50 yet. If it were we wouldn't have the tea parties doing what they're doing. If it were, we wouldn't have a chance. If the country had reverted to over 50% of it wanting to sit on its butt and receive federal handouts, then you wouldn't see polls for the November elections like you're seeing, where the Democrats are gonna get thrown out in record numbers.

'Cause everybody knows it's the Democrats that enable you to sit on your butt and not have to do anything for 300 bucks a week. If a majority of people wanted that, why, we would see Democrats winning in landslide majorities in November. We're not seeing that. So Obama here is not succeeding at all within the conventional norms of the American political system. He is a thug! He is a community organizer! Ideas? Those are to distract you. Get all bogged down in the superiority of the left argument versus the right argument, socialism versus capitalism? He doesn't care about that. He is going to thug his way through whatever he wants. He's now going to control one-sixth of the US economy in health care, via regulation and direct control, 'cause he's gonna put the private sector insurance business out of business -- and now the financial services industry.

By regulation, he's going to end up controlling every aspect of that -- and make no mistake. When we do talk about ideas and policy, let me just tell you: Listen to Reverend Wright, listen to Father Pfleger; listen to whoever it is at Harvard, Columbia, wherever Obama was taught. They all think the same thing: "Wall Street's a bunch of SOBs. Wall Street rich fat cats got money. They haven't deserved it. They paid themselves billions of dollars." I mean, it has been tradition to hate bankers. It has been tradition in this country to hate executive bankers. But the minute you start sounding off your suspicions about elected officials, "Why, that's sedition!" But you want to go destroy any private sector industry, you are a hero to people like Barack Obama.

If you want to help him destroy the private sector, "You're a hero, because that's where all the real criminal activity is! The white knights and the saviors and the people that care about you, The Little Guy! Yeah, they're all in Congress and they're in the White House." Come on! An "independent agency," SEC, had no clue that filing their charges here was going to help Obama get his regulatory reform. Anthem Blue Cross, a 39% increase? "Look at that! By God, we can't allow that! That's exactly what we're talking about. That's why we need health insurance reform." Now Goldman Sachs, and there's no evidence to get a conviction. The nature of the evidence is irrelevant; it's the seriousness of the charge that matters here. This is not a lawsuit. This is a prop.

RUSH: So make no mistake about it, the tea party people know full well that what's going on here is not right. They know full well that something isn't right. They look at it as Obama governing against the will of the people. Well, yeah, but it's more than that. This is not about policy; it's not about triumphing; it's not about convincing a majority of people to agree with you. It's about thuggery, pure and simple. And I'm going to tell you something else, just to give you some confidence here that I'm right. I don't buy anywhere near 50% of this country is a freeloader bunch. I know it's easy to think that, but if we were there, Obama wouldn't have to be lying every step of the way about every agenda item he's got. If we were at 50% freeloaders, that would be his agenda. He's out there talking now about his first conversations with the Senate leaders over the next Supreme Court nominee, 'cause he wants a consensus builder. BS. He doesn't care about a consensus builder. He's going to find the hardest left judge that he can get confirmed.

There's no consensus with Obama. That's precisely the point. There's no traditional politics with Obama. This is not civics 101 where our ideas are better and we convince people. We've already won that battle. What we're up against is a thug. We're up against a Chicago thug. Bill Clinton called him that and he's exactly right. We're up against somebody who doesn't care about the US political process. He doesn't care about the traditions and institutions that made the country great. He doesn't like 'em. It's all there. It's happening right in front of our faces.

RUSH: Troy, Michigan, this is Rita and you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.

CALLER: You keep me so informed and I've just become a big fan. And I just think the liberals are showing their real face. Did you hear about this guy from Geico who called FreedomWorks and asked how many "retards" they had working there?

RUSH: Oh, so what? He called and he left a message at FreedomWorks, left it on tape or something?

RUSH: Well, I'm sorry. He doesn't have any grounds here. Geico doesn't want the guy working for them anyway. Look, Geico doesn't want to make anyone mad. The tea party people have to buy insurance, too.

RUSH: The Geico voiceover guy and has gone out and basically told the tea party people, "We don't want you at Geico." Well, that's not Geico's point of view so let the guy sue the tea party.

CALLER: I know. I'm just saying: They're just showing their ugly heads, aren't they?

RUSH: They are all over the place. No question about it. They're getting bold, but Obama still cannot say what he's really going to do or what his real plans are. If he was able to do that then I would tell you, "Yes, we've lost America. Half the country wants to be taken care of. Half the country is a bunch of freeloaders," but we're nowhere near that. Don't believe that we are. We haven't lost the country. If we had, Obama wouldn't have to be so misleading about what he's doing.

RUSH: As you know, I don't talk about myself very much. That happens anyway. I have had this piece sent to me by a number of people. It is a blog called Bookworm Room. It's a woman. I don't know her identity. It's BookwormRoom.com, and she posted the following piece yesterday. "Ordinary People View Rush as a Dangerous Svengali -- If you'd been around in 1894, you would instantly have recognized the name 'Svengali.' He was the chief villain in George du Maurier's blockbuster novel Trilby. The Svengali plot-line was a simple one: Trilby was an innocent (and tone deaf) laundress and model living in fin de siecle Paris. Svengali hypnotized her into becoming a great singer and the toast of the music world. When [Svengali] suffered a heart attack during one of her performances, his spell over her broke, and she was left standing on stage, bewildered and humiliated. Since then, we use the word 'svengali' to describe a person who steals the will of another with evil intent.

"It's become increasingly clear to me that liberals view Rush Limbaugh in precisely that light. And no, I'm not making the obvious point that the Obami and the Democratic [P]arty fear Rush's bully pulpit and consistently demonize him. I'm talking about the rank-and-file's fear that even listening to Rush for a moment or two causes a person to lose the will to be a liberal. Those liberals to whom I speak shy away from him, not because they disagree with what he has to say, but because they fear he will convince them that he's right. The following is a talk I had just the other day while driving in the car with a liberal friend who, having voted for Obama, is now deeply regretting that decision:

"Me: How would you like to do something completely different? Let me put Rush on the radio.

"Me: Come on, you'll like him. He's not at all the way you've heard him described in the other media. He's very well-informed, quite funny, and amazingly prescient.

"So here we have a woman who realizes that she made a mistake voting Democrat this election, who is open to conservative news ... yet who assiduously avoids any contact with Rush. Incidentally, this was not a one time-only conversation. I had virtually the same conversation with two other regret-filled liberals. The belligerently liberal ones are equally averse to exposing themselves to Rush.

"Me: No. But I do think that you should listen to him. At least then you'd have firsthand knowledge of what he says and whether you agree or disagree with it.

"And so on, ad infinitum and definitely ad nauseum. During the 1990s, when I was an unthinking liberal, I knew Rush was out there, but he existed on the periphery of my existence. I read Al Franken's [book], and laughed at how 'stupid' Rush was, but I actually didn't care about any of the core issues at stake. I had no interest whatsoever in finding out what Rush was like, because nothing he said really mattered. I was working hard at my career, getting married, starting a family, and was therefore disinterested in things political. The world seemed to be rolling along just right, with a Democratic president and a booming economy. To give myself some retroactive credit, though, if a conservative had challenged me back then to listen to Rush, I would have done so - because I would have been certain that Rush was a big joke, and that I could have laughed at him just as Franken did.

"I might have expected to be bored or offended, but I wouldn't have been worried about being mesmerized and brainwashed. And then came September 11, 2001 and I started paying attention. I began to be concerned about what was going on around me. This concern led me to start reading anything I could get my hands on about all sorts of subjects. I read blogs, both liberal and conservative. I opened my mind to the possibility that my attachment to the Democratic party was wrong -- a possibility helped by the fact that I found myself agreeing with the major political decisions George Bush was making, both regarding national security and the economy. In other words, once I realized that my old political staples were failing, I started looking for new information. I wasn't scared of the new information but, rather, was curious.

"Both my old attitude ('Sure, bring silly Rush on, 'cause he'll be good for a laugh') and my new attitude ('There's something out there I need to learn about') make it impossible for me to understand the resistance, shading into fear, that my friends and family show when confronted with the possibility that they might hear a minute or two of Rush's mellifluous tones over the airways. They don't seem to recognize either the possibility that they might laugh at a fool or learn from a wise man. Instead, they seem genuinely afraid that any exposure to Rush will corrupt them irreparably. Like poor Trilby, they'll be seduced into an unsustainable way of being, only to find themselves suddenly abandoned and exposed. To them, Rush is no mere conservative; he is Satan incarnate, a tempter who will destroy their liberal souls and leave them in an endless conservative Hell. It's quite a high compliment to Rush that ordinary liberals believe he has extraordinary powers. It isn't every conservative radio or talk show host who is perceived as so compelling and seductive that he can destroy people's world view in an instant. ... For all the wrong reasons, they're right about one thing: he will change their minds."

RUSH: Back now to "Ordinary People View Rush as a Dangerous Svengali," from a woman identified as Bookworm, her website is BookwormRoom.com, although we've shut it down. "It's quite a high compliment to Rush that ordinary liberals believe he has extraordinary powers. It isn't every conservative radio or talk show host who is perceived as so compelling and seductive that he can destroy people's world view in an instant. It's also very frustrating to me because, in a funny way, I agree with my liberal friends that Rush can rejigger their world view very quickly. The only thing is that I don't believe Rush works his magic through hypnotism and trickery. Instead, I think Rush's real magic lies in his ability to view the political world as a vast chess board, one on which he can see multiple future moves; his prodigious memory; his well-informed mind; his logical analyses; and his funny persona. He convinces by appealing to our rational mind, our sense of humor, and our knowledge of the world as it is, and not as some Ivory Tower liberal tells us it should be. So, whether by cajolery or challenge, I'm still trying to get my liberals to listen to Rush. For all the wrong reasons, they're right about one thing: he will change their minds."

A rare, rare, rare accurate interpretation of what happens here and what I do. I have referred to myself as a Svengali, people thinking I'm a Svengali on the left. Again, BookwormRoom.com. I have no idea who the woman is, zilch, zero, nada.

RUSH: Carol in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Nice to have you here.

CALLER: -- from a truly reformed Democrat. I am an escrow officer, and I close purchases and mortgage loans, and the government is now telling us that the banks, the private sector banks are not allowed to do no-down-payment loans anymore, that a person has to come in with a certain amount because that's what the evil banks have been doing, but the government is doing those loans. They're called RDA loans, rural development. In our county -- I'm actually south of Olympia -- is all considered rural, and so people come in, and they are low-income loans, they can buy a house with absolutely no skin in the game, as they say, and sometimes they get money back, and they have subsidized payments over their life of the loan --

RUSH: So essentially the affordable housing scam is still going full speed ahead?

CALLER: Oh, sure it is, oh, sure it is and they're not talking about that too much --

RUSH: Well, now, where are you gonna go, if you are a rural Democrat American, and you want to buy a house, and the private sector bank in your town will not lend you any money because they're not allowed, makes you hate the bank, "They don't trust me," you go to Obama, you go to the regime's bank and they give you this loan and you forever are grateful.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, subsidize the payments. That's the whole point. It's not fair that some people shouldn't be able to have a house.

CALLER: That's correct and these are not -- you know, I just closed one recently, and it was not a cheap house. It was reasonable for our county, it was a reasonably priced house, so, you know, it was pretty nice.

RUSH: Keep the focus on their dishonesty and their tactics and so forth is all we can do. But I'm glad you called.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's Democratic allies in the Senate promise to cut the deficit by almost two-thirds over the next five years, but their budget plan could threaten about 30 million people with tax increases averaging $3,700 in 2012 and after because of the alternative minimum tax. This is an AP story entitled:

Job seekers may have become too picky? After all, some of them still have a safety net:

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

This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.

One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):

This is a pretty radical site which alleges that Obama is a Marxist hell-bent in taking over our country:

1982 interview with Larry Grathwohl on Ayers' plan for American re-education camps and the need to kill millions

This is an interesting site; it seems to be devoted to the debate of climate change:

This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:

I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.

This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:

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 #124	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	April 25, 2010