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).

The last American combat brigade leaves Iraq, although combat missions will continue until the end of this month (I guess less than a brigade of combat soldiers are left behind?).

In order to preserve freedom of religion, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has suggested that we go after freedom of speech by investigating those who are against the Ground Zero Mosque (and, later, she decided, why not investigate the mosque funding as well).

The total number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits reached 500,000 last week, according to data released Thursday by the Department of Labor.

Republican Tom DeLay, former Speaker of the House, has been cleared in federal probe (almost every story will add, but Texas charges loom). He clearly has been proclaiming his innocence for the past 6 years.

The Associated Press has decided that the phrase the Ground Zero Mosque be eliminated from its stories.

Scottish "global warming" protester glues herself to a desk inside Royal Bank of Scotland HQ.

Attorney General Eric Holder has now set his sights on Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The official White House position on whether or not Obama is a Christian (spokesman Bill Burton): "He prays every day. He communicates with his religious adviser every single day. There's a group of pastors that he takes counsel from on a regular basis...He is Christian and his faith is very important to him." What about Jesus Christ. What is Obama’s opinion on this guy?

President and noted economist Barack Obama: “When Congress reconvenes, this jobs bill will be the first business out of the gate and the Senate Republican leadership needs to stop its efforts to block it.”

Vice President Joe Biden on why Democrats ought to be voted back into office: "They are going to look at what the Republican Party is really offering -- more of the past, but on steroids."

"Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius about Obamacare: “The more people understand this bill, the more they are going to like it."

Barney Frank: “I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie.” (Yay, Barney!)

The President has apparently turned his, the Republicans drove the car into the ditch analogy into an art form, if you will: “And we're slipping and sliding and sweating, and the other side, the Republicans, they're standing there with their Slurpees watching us. Finally we get this car to level ground. Finally we're ready to move forward, go down that road once again to American prosperity, and what happens? They want the keys back.”

Fred Thompson later remarked, “His response to the economy is to get the car out of the ditch and drive it over a cliff.”

The reigning Miss USA, 24-year-old Muslim American Rima Fakir: "I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on Constitutional rights of freedom of religion; I also agree that it shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion."

Ed Schultz: “Well, the automobile loan program seemed to have worked. General Motors also known as "Obama motors," "government motors," raked in over $33 billion in revenue last quarter. It`s G.M.`s strongest performance in six years. To top it off, the company is set to go public again, possibly as soon as Friday. Now, this is I think an unbelievable success story. This was a great American company on the brink and the ripple effect would have been unbelievable. And what did President Obama do? He put a team together that came in and fixed it. The bottom line: government intervention sometimes works.”

Leo Hindery: “...we`ve got to be real honest about what`s going to happen here over the next decade. There will be more jobs created in Mexico by the Big Three automobile manufacturers than will be created here in the United States. So, these profits are important. But we didn`t put -- we didn`t put any quid with the quo so to speak and we didn`t demand that the growth in these three companies, the recovery of these three companies be found here in American workers...I`m distressed when I hear that G.M., especially, just committed in the last week or so, $500 million more to yet another one of its plants in Mexico.”

Bill O'Reilly interpreted the new Stallone film, The Expendables, as being about "macho guys like you killing bad guys," but adds that it has received some criticism for having a pro-America subtext. So O'Reilly asked Stallone "Do you have a secret agenda?" Stallone responded "I wish I was that clever."

Grover Norquist: “Most people who voted for Obama thought that he intended to change Washington; however, Obama’s intention was to change our country.” (Paraphrased from memory).

After Newsweek magazine determined that Finland was the best place to live in the world, and the United States came in at #11, Dennis Miller observed, "You know the best thing about living in Finland? There's no Newsweek magazine there."

Dennis Miller, about the Ground Zero Mosque: “And I would tell you this, folks in the Muslim world: If you want to outreach to us, don't build this thing. That will send every message you need to do. Hire your best spokesperson, your Barack Obama, or maybe that is Barack Obama, have him step up there and say, "Of course, we're not going to build this. That would be boorish, oafish. That would be insensitive. That would be, dare I say, ham-handed." You do that, you've got a love affair with the American people the next day. As a matter of fact, I will change the ring tone on my cell phone to ‘Ai yi yi yi yi yi!’ [SHOUTING] tomorrow morning.”

Greg Gutfeld: “I went onto their website, the Cordoba House website, and it is a lovely website, and they talk about preaching tolerance and communication, and I thought, how interesting is it that they are preaching tolerance and communication to Americans.”

Charles Krauthammer (concerning Pelosi’s call to investigate those who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque): “Well, I spent the afternoon wrapping my mind around Pelosi's remark about looking into the finances of those who oppose the motion. I want to join with others. I'd like to know who the others are. Are any of them non-institutionalized? And then I'm trying to decide if the statement was out of malice or sheer lunacy. And being the generous soul I am, I go with lunacy. I mean, after all, the implication that Debra Burlingame, the sister of one of the pilots who died on 9/11, would have to be secretly paid to express her anguish over the establishment of a monument to Islam in a place where 3,000 were massacred in the name of Islam is obscene.”

Jonathon in Cashin’ In: “The combination of a government monopoly [public education] and the unions, and that is a recipe for lethargy and inefficiency.” [quoted from memory].

Rush Limbaugh: “What happened to all of those ‘shovel-ready jobs’ we were promised a year-and- a-half ago with the stimulus bill and Porkulus bill?”

One of the things I have noticed, when locating these videos is, they are often hard to find, even on YouTube. Even if you want to find the Palin Grizzly commercial, there will be a plethora of competing liberal anti-Palin vids.

Luntz focus group on the mosque, which was good, but less contentious than I expected:

The new school choice programs in New Orleans (my comment: why do we keep throwing money away on public education?):

So, Dodge does a commercial with a monkey, and PETA complains. So, Dodge fixes the commercial:

Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu says he can tell President Obama how, in 30 minutes, he could seal the border and be the hero:

Reason saves Cleveland (potentially). Off on the side are a series of how to save Cleveland articles:

Iran has developed an “ambassador of death” bomber, not unlike our unmanned drones.

Let’s say the Ground Zero Mosque is built. How will radical Muslims view this? Will they say to themselves, “Whoa, the U.S.A., they are so tolerant. You gotta love ‘em.” Or will they think, “Victory mosque; where should we strike next?”

You can read it, or here is the link to Gutfeld’s appearance on Beck’s show (you will enjoy the vid more than my text below):

As mentioned last week, Greg Gutfeld of Redeye fame (on FoxNews), has proposed an Islam-friendly gay bar to be across the street from the Ground Zero Mosque in order to reach out the gay Middle Eastern men. The following names have been proposed for the name of this bar: Suspicious Packages, Jihot, Infidelicious, Ram-a-Dam, You Mecca Me Hot. The bar will feature 72 virgin drinks.

Dennis Miller from earlier this year: “Blue blood will spill between Pelosi and Reid, because Pelosi is more unhinged than a double-wide front door in the midst of a DEA crystal meth bust.”

Dennis Miller, again from earlier this year: “Listen, it's been a weird week for health care. It started off last week at that cluster schtup (ph) of a round table where Pelosi was more indecipherable than George the animal Steele singing "Louie Louie" in Farsi while on amyl nitrate.”

1) Like most presidents, Obama got his main legislation through almost immediately, and without any real opposition: a $800 billion stimulus bill, which was going to hold unemployment in check and turn the economy around. Recall, it had to be done immediately; there was no time to waste (although Obama seemed to take his own sweet time about signing the bill after it had been passed). A year and a half later, this bill this had to be passed immediately seems to have little or no positive effect upon the economy, except as per the rhetoric of Joe Biden and the President himself, as they began to proclaim recovery summer, 16 months later, which message they seem to have backed off from. And now, there is another jobs bill for a fortieth the cost, and this bill is going to solve the problem? Are you kidding me?

2) Sure, I will admit that President Obama probably has a higher IQ than Sarah Palin. However, I understood her position on the Ground Zero Mosque, first time, without having to go back and listen for nuances. I’ve heard all of the statements by the President several times, and I know for certain that he supports the first amendment, but not much beyond that.

3) Democrats love to equivocate, and when Obama is criticized for his vision for America, which he stubbornly holds on to, liberals will point to Bush and Iraq, and say, “Bush was hardheaded too.” Bad comparison. When you are in a war, the President is commander-in-chief, and he makes all of the decisions, recognizing that lives will be lost and that war has its consequences, and if a clear victory is not secured, then that has repercussions which will last for decades (like Vietnam). When it comes to a war, a President can’t be easily blown about like a leaf in the wind. However, when it comes to a presidential policy or domestic vision, that is quite a different thing. Bush, for instance, sought to refor FNMA and FHLMC; he also looked to reform Social Security. In both cases, he had a good vision, but there was just too much opposition, both by Democrats and by the people of the United States. Bush backed off. However, Obama did not back off of Obamacare, even though it was clearly unpopular with the people. A president has to be flexible, and Bush was flexible, even on issues where he was right. However, he could not withdraw from Iraq just because the public was against it.

4) Republican President Eisenhower pushed the first civil rights legislation, but it was gutted in the Senate by Democrat Senate leader Lyndon Baines Johnson (who is associated with passing civil rights legislation as president).

5) Liberal hero, President Woodrow Wilson, re-segregated the armed forces and government (these institutions were integrated before Wilson).

In July, for the 17^th month in a row, there were more than 300,000 foreclosure filings, including default notices, auction notices and bank repossessions, according to RealtyTrac, a marketer of foreclosed properties. Over the last eight months, bank repossessions have surged.

By 2018, the largest portion of our federal budget will be servicing the debt, which interest is estimated to be $1 trillion/year by that time.

$75 billion is being spent by the government to reduce home foreclosures. Half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in this program have dropped out.

48 out of 50 states have lost jobs since the February 2009 enactment of the economic stimulus bill. Alaska and North Dakota have experienced positive job growth since early 2009. The District of Columbia also saw an increase in hiring during that period.

The government now guarantees 95% of all new mortgages, including refinanced loans. This means, the government now runs the home mortgage business as a virtual monopoly (they used to guarantee about 50% of home mortgages). Remember, they took over all student loans in the healthcare bill.

The Democratic Party (the party of the poor man) reported $10.8 million in the bank and $3.5 million in debts;

Republicans (the party of the rich and the corporations) showed $5.3 million in the banks and $2.2 million in debts.

Every income group now gives President Obama an approval rating of less than 50%. Even those making less than $2,000 per month have turned against the President.

If the media you watch, read or listen to has given you no idea how many TEA party members descended upon Washington D.C. or if you have never seen a single photo of a black TEA party member, let me submit to you that your news sources are not just incredibly biased but their intent is to tell you what to think.

So much could be done with this skit: Project Runway where one of the contestants is a fundamentalist Muslim. For each level of competition, the outfit he or she produces is a berka.

Barney Frank (whose name I never expected to place here) spoke of the demise of FNMA and FHLMC by next year.

Republicans have driven the car into the ditch, and we are getting the car out of the ditch, and the Republicans want the keys back, but they can’t have the keys back = I have nothing substantive to say about my own policies, nor am I able to defend them, therefore I have settled for this lame analogy.

If Obamacare is not rescinded, then employers will look to hire more part-time employees and contract a lot more work out (that could be happening right now, which would explain why the average worker is working around 30 hours/week).

If the Ground Zero Mosque is not relocated, then this issue will dog Democrats all the way to the election. During the election, Obama will be denounced for paying for the Ground Zero imam to go overseas and, in his spare time, raise up money for this mosque. There will be political ads dealing with this issue in particular.

The Democratic plan to run this election cycle on blaming Bush will peter out before the election. They will come to realize that Bush’s 8 years in office were much better, overall, than Obama’s 2 years (so far) in office.

Instead of being Recovery Summer, it appears to many economists that our economy is about to tank again.

Recently, President Obama talked about the Ground Zero Mosque and how they had the right to build a mosque anywhere they want. Twice afterwards, President Obama has attempted to clarify his remarks. Bill O’Reilly said, “He’s gotta know he’s gonna get hammered for these remarks all day long.” (I am paraphrasing).

He doesn’t. President Obama does not know this. He and much of his staff live in the White House bubble, insulated, to some degree, from the outside world. Furthermore, Obama and his inside circle are a bunch of ideologues. So, when Obama makes a pronouncement of great wisdom and truth (in their eyes), they are thrown for a loop when it goes bad.

They see much of the American population from an elitist viewpoint. There are so many people who cannot make it from day to day without government help and assistance. These same people do not see the whole picture, which Obama and company get.

There are fundamentalist Christians like me, who, in their view, cling to our guns and our religion and view those outside our cultural circle with suspicion and antipathy. Many of us are not too bright, and we get ginned up by various entities, like FoxNews.

So, when Obama makes a statement, primarily to a Muslim group, sounding as if he completely supports building the Ground Zero Mosque, he knows in his own heart that he is completely right on this issue. He and his inner circle have no doubts as to their brilliance and grasp of human events (after all, Obama did teach the constitution at the University of Chicago; and his inner circle is filled with intelligent and educated people).

So, how do the people get it so wrong, in his view? First, there are political forces on the other side who organize opposition to him. This is the great right wing conspiracy, and this is why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can say that we need to investigate the funding of these people who do not support the mosque. This is how they think. They do political organizing; they pay their own minions to write and to organize, so they believe there is this vast right wing conspiracy out there doing the exact same thing. It is all about power, and it is what they believe the Republicans are doing. They judge others based upon their own actions.

Remember how the left accused FoxNews of receiving talking points from the White House? They simply assumed, based upon what they did, that those on the right must be doing the same thing.

Secondly, because people are not that sophisticated or educated (in their eyes), they are easily driven by FoxNews and TalkRadio. So, when we, the hoi polloi, hear about the Ground Zero Mosque, we do not think much about it, but then, when we listen to Rush Limbaugh or to FoxNews, their persuasive speech gets us all wee-weed up. If we could hear a different viewpoint or be willing to watch a different newscast (which the president has suggested to us on the right), we would better understand the issues, and more of us would take Obama’s side on this.

This explains why the White House began to get in a war with FoxNews and proclaimed that they were not really a news-gathering operation. This explains why the White House goes into full panic mode because they think Shirley Sherrod is going to be on Glenn Beck. It is not that they find Shirley Sherrod to be wrong, but they are panicked that Beck is going to turn us into angry mobs.

So, why does Obama push through an unpopular healthcare bill, even though the polls are against him? He knows that we, the American public, have gotten all mixed up listening to TalkRadio and watching FoxNews, and that all he has to do is, get out there, and calmly explain that he knows what is best for us (yes, Dr. Obama with his extensive understanding of the medical profession), and we will get it. It does not occur to him that he is wrong; he simply thinks that his messaging is off and/or there is this vast right wing conspiracy out there trying to unseat him.

So, if you understand the White House bubble, the idea that we, the public, are really not all that bright and too easily swayed by persuasive speakers, then the things which President Obama says and does, no matter how wrong, make a lot more sense.

In 1Cor. 8, Paul talks about the idea of going to the local heathen temple and having a steak at their restaurant/market. The believer has a right to do this, to enjoy such a steak, even though the animal was sacrificed to some heathen god. However, that believer needed to self-regulate-if such an action had an adverse affect on an immature believer, he was not to exercise this freedom. My pastor taught this passage a few years ago, spent too much time on it, and gave too few examples, but this past couple weeks have given us 2 examples of freedom versus self-regulation (a distinction which MSNBC is trying to blur).

I watched a Rachel Maddox clone on MSNBC trying to tell us that the Ground Zero Mosque imam having the right to build a mosque at ground zero is unequivocal. If he wants to build it, he should build it, because this is a free country. Wrong. Americans, as a whole, are smarter than that. Americans polled 2 to 1 agreeing that Imam Rauf has the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero. However, they also polled 2 to 1 saying that he ought not build the mosque. Just because you have the freedom to do something, does not mean that you exercise that freedom. An imam who is serious and sincere about building bridges would have backed off this mosque idea long ago, when it became clear that this was a very bad idea.

Dr. Laura faced the same sort of decision recently, and in a call where the caller felt her in-laws were saying racist things, Dr. Laura told her that she was being hypersensitive and used the n-word several times (I did not hear this broadcast, so I am relaying it 2nd hand). Dr. Laura had the right to use that word; it is not forbidden by the F.C.C. Probably her intent was to desensitize this person to the word (bad idea). Dr. Laura had the right to use the word, but she should have self-regulated.

There is a fine line between self-regulation and political correctness. The former is commendable, the latter is a blight on our civilization. In the two recent examples, choosing to build a mosque close to Ground Zero and Dr. Laura's use of the n-word are times where self-regulation is called for. Not singing a Christmas carol in a public school around Christmas time falls under political correctness. Self-regulation is concerned with the greater good of society; political correctness simply caters to some small but activist political or religious group.

News organizations face this choice all of the time. There is a lot of information out there that they can print. Too often, the alphabet media chooses to downplay or even ignore stories which make the present administration look bad. Do you recall that almost no news organizations covered the first TEA parties? 3000 people were demonstrating in downtown Sacramento for the first Sacto TEA party, and the Sacramento Bee and all of the local television stations completely ignored this. It was blacked out of their news. So it was across all of America. Yet, these same news organizations might print information which will damage our war effort if this same information helps to damage a president which they do not like. They have the freedom to do this, just as we have the freedom to stop using them as a news source. Freedom requires responsibility; propaganda does not.

Let me give you an example of an entity which got this principle right. In World War II, the allied forces defeated German, Japan and Italy, and the leaders of the allied forced met in Yalta to divide up the spoils. It would have been legitimate for the United States to take Japan and make this nation into a U.S. territory. However, we did not. Under the wise and benevolent leadership of Douglas MacArthur, Japan was built into a thriving, prosperous and independent nation. The United States had the right to exploit Japan, its people and its resources yet we chose not to. MacArthur called for missionaries and Bibles and then worked to make Japan into a free and independent nation, a great ally of the United States, and they used this independence to become a free economic superpower. The United States used self-regulation here, and the end result was a great and wonderful ally.

True freedom always demands morality, responsibility and self-regulation. That MSNBC seeks to blur this distinction does a great disservice to both of its viewers.

When President Barack Obama was selling his economic stimulus plan to the American people, he promised that, if enacted, the legislation would prevent unemployment from rising above 8 percent. Three billion dollars in Cash for Clunkers bailouts, $10 billion in government union bailouts, $16 billion in Medicaid bailouts, $13 billion in home buyer tax credits, and $814 billion in stimulus act spending later the nation's unemployment rate stands at 9.5 percent. And now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that number is not going to come down any time soon. Yesterday, the CBO released its 10-year budget baseline predicting that the economy will grow at an anemic 2 percent next year (half the growth rate it predicted last summer) and that unemployment will remain above 9 percent through the rest of this year. And that wasn't even the worst news.

The CBO also said the federal deficit will surpass $1.3 trillion this year, and predicted an additional $6.2 trillion in deficits over the next decade. But even these numbers are too rosy. By law the CBO only analyzes federal budgets as written ignoring almost certain policy changes that include the annual "doc fix" (stopping cuts to doctor's Medicare payments), rising discretionary spending, and tax changes. Using more realistic assumptions, The Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl shows that: 1) annual budget deficits will never fall below $1 trillion and will reach nearly $2 trillion by 2020; 2) the national debt held by the public will pass 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020; 3) by 2020 half of all income tax revenues will go to pay just the interest on our $23 trillion national debt.

Even leftist economists are now admitting that this administration's borrow and spend economic plan has been a complete failure. But instead of cutting their losses, the left wants to double down ... with your tax dollars. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News that the only problem with the Obama administration's economic policies was that they failed to spend more and drive us into debt faster. This is insanity. It must stop. To get our country back on the right track The Heritage Foundation's Solutions for America chapter on Reining in Runaway Spending and Deficits recommends:

Stop Digging: Washington should repeal the remaining stimulus funds, which have failed to create jobs and growth. Any new unemployment assistance should be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Remaining TARP funds should be rescinded before they can be allocated to new spending. Most important, lawmakers must repeal Obamacare, a ticking spending and deficit time bomb.

Rein in Entitlements: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are driving long-term deficit growth. It is impossible to rein in runaway spending significantly without fundamentally reforming these programs.

Enact Spending Caps: Congress should enact a firm cap on the annual increase in total government spending, limited to inflation plus population growth. Lawmakers should exert all effort to keep overall federal spending to less than 20 percent of U.S. GDP, the historical post-World War II average for federal spending.

Empower States: Washington taxes families, subtracts a hefty administrative cost, and sends the remaining revenues back to state and local governments with specific rules dictating how they may and may not spend the money. Instead of performing many functions poorly, Congress should focus on performing a few functions well. Most highway, education, justice and economic development programs should be devolved to state and local governments.

Empower the Private Sector: Anyone who has dealt with the post office or lived in public housing understands how wasteful, inefficient and unresponsive government can be. Government ownership of business also crowds out private companies and encourages protected entities to take unnecessary risks. Any government function that can also be found in the yellow pages may be a candidate for privatization.

Ban Corporate Welfare: Even before the financial bailouts, Washington spent more on corporate welfare ($90 billion) than on homeland security ($70 billion). There is no justification for taxing working Americans to subsidize profitable companies. Lawmakers could start by reforming America's largest corporate welfare program-farm subsidies, which are overwhelmingly distributed to large, profitable agribusinesses rather than struggling family farmers.

Bring Federal Pay in Line with the Private Sector: Federal employee total compensation-hourly wages plus benefits-is 30 to 40 percent above that of comparable private sector workers. Congress should bring equity to federal pay and align federal compensation with market rates. Doing so would save taxpayers approximately $47 billion a year.

These spending reforms may not be easy, but the alternative-record government debt and historic tax increases-is even worse.

So what is the matter with Obama? Conservatives have been asking this question for some time. I've written a number of articles trying to solve the mystery.

Even some liberals are starting to wonder. James Carville railed about Obama's blasé attitude after the catastrophic oil spill. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd revamped Obama's "Yes We Can" motto into "Will We Ever?"

The liberal women of the TV show "The View" have expressed sympathy for Michelle Obama's living with a man so out of touch. Peggy Noonan, hardly a vehement Obama foe, recently pronounced him disconnected.

Obama's odd mannerisms intrigue a psychotherapist like me. He also presents a serious diagnostic challenge.

For one, Obama's teleprompter and the men behind the Blackberry keep him well-scripted. We know so little about the facts of his life.

But it's more than just a lack of information. Obama himself is a strange bird. He doesn't fit easily into any diagnostic category.

Many people attribute Obama's oddness to his narcissism. True, Obama has a gargantuan ego, and he is notoriously thin-skinned.

Yet a personality disorder like narcissism does not explain Obama's strangeness: his giggling while being asked about the economy; his continuing a shout-out rather than announcing the Ft. Hood shootings; or his vacations, golfing, partying and fundraising during the calamitous oil spill.

Take also Obama's declaring on the "Today Show" that he wants to know whose ass to kick. Consummate narcissists would never stoop to this vulgar display of adolescent machismo.

Obama is flat when passion is needed; he's aggressive when savvy is required. What's most worrisome is that Obama doesn't even realize that his behavior is inappropriate.

So if it's not just simple narcissism, what is wrong with Obama? Since I've never evaluated him, I can't say for sure. But I can hazard some educated guesses.

If I saw a client as disconnected as him, the first thing I would wonder: Is something wrong with his brain? And I'd consider the following theoretical diagnostic possibilities.

--Physical problems: There are a multitude of physiological conditions that can cause people to act strangely. For instance: head injuries, endocrine disturbances, epilepsy, and toxic chemical exposure.

It makes me wonder: Did Obama ever have a head injury? His stepfather in Indonesia was purportedly an alcoholic abuser. Was Obama subject to any physical abuse?

-- Drugs and alcohol: Damage to the brain from drugs and alcohol can also cause significant cognitive impairments. Obama once said that there were 57 states -- and didn't correct himself. Memory problems can be caused by both illicit and prescription drug use.

Obama admits to a history of drug use in his youth. Did his usage cause some damage? Does Obama still use?

--Asperger's Syndrome: Also known as high-functioning autism, Asperger's causes deficits in social skills. A person with Asperger's can't read social cues. Consequently, he can be insensitive and hurtful without even knowing it.

Could Obama have Asperger's? He might have some mild traits, but certainly not the full-blown disorder. In contrast to Obama, those with Asperger's get fixated on some behavior, like programming computers. Obama lacks this kind of passion and zeal.

--Mental Illness: Obama's family tree is replete with the unbalanced. His maternal great-grandmother committed suicide. His grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was particularly unhinged: He was expelled from high school for punching his principal; named his daughter Stanley because he wanted a boy; and exposed young Barry to not just drunken trash talk, but unrestricted visits with alleged pedophile Frank Marshall Davis (who might or might not be Obama's biological father). Barack Sr. was an abusive, alcoholic bigamist.

Since mental illness runs in the family, does Obama have any signs? Yes and no. No, he is not a schizophrenic babbling about Martians. But there are red flags for some other conditions.

While Obama doesn't appear to hallucinate, he seems to have delusions. His believing he has a Messiah-like special gift smacks of grandiose delusions. His externalizing all blame to conservatives, George W. Bush, or the "racist" bogeyman hints at persecutory delusions.

Along with a delusional disorder, Obama may fit for a mild psychotic disorder called schizotypal disorder. It may explain some of Obama's oddness.

People with schizotypal disorder hold bizarre beliefs, are suspicious and paranoid, and have inappropriate and constricted affect. They have few close friends and are socially awkward. A schizotypal is someone like your strange cousin Becky who is addicted to astrology, believes she is psychic, and is the oddball at social gatherings.

Schizotypal Disorder does ring some bells vis-à-vis Obama. One way the diagnosis doesn't fit, however, is that schizotypals are generally harmless, odd ducks. Not so with Obama.

--Trauma: My gut tells me that Obama was seriously traumatized in childhood. His mother disregarded his basic needs, dragged him all over the place, and ultimately abandoned him.

But I think there may be something even more insidious in his family background. While I can't prove it, the degree of Obama's disconnect reminds me of my sexually abused clients.

With serious sexual abuse, the brain chemistry may change. The child dissociates -- that is, disconnects from his being -- in order to cope. Many adult survivors still dissociate, from occasional trances to the most extreme cases of multiple personality disorder.

Apparently, young Barry was left in the care of Communist Frank Marshall Davis, who admitted to molesting a 13-year-old girl. As a teenager, Obama wrote a disturbing poem, "Pop," that evoked images of sexual abuse -- for instance, describing dual amber stains on both his and "Pop's" shorts.

Would trauma explain Obama's disconnect? In many ways, yes. A damaged and unattached child may develop a "false self." To compensate for the enormous deficits in identity and attachment, the child invents his own personality. For Obama, it may have been as a special, gifted person.

Let's return now to my original question: What is wrong with Obama? My guess is a great deal. The answer is complex and likely includes some combination of the above.

Along with the brain issues are personality disorders: narcissism, paranoia, passive-aggressiveness. There's even the possibility of the most destructive character defect of all, an antisocial personality. Untreated abuse can foster antisocial traits, especially among boys.

It means that liberals need to wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid...and that conservatives should put aside differences, band together, and elect as many Republicans as possible.

Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.

Why? Because this is a damaged person. Obama's fate was sealed years ago growing up in his strange and poisonous family. Later on, his empty vessel was filled with the hateful bile of men like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.

Obama will not evolve; he will not rise to the occasion; he will not become the man he was meant to be. This is for one reason and one reason alone:

Included is the per capital debt for each of these states ($4283 is the overall average), followed by that state’s 2008 debt ranking.

1. Hawaii: 11% (income over $400,000 (couple), $200,000 (single)). $4920 per capita debt. 2006 ranking in outstanding debt per capita: 7

2. Oregon: 11% (income over $500,000 (couple), $250,000 (single)). $3719/capita 24

9. Maine: 8.5% (income over $39,549 (couple), $19,749 (single)). $3835/capita. 21

My comments: If you check the links, you will see that, for the most part, blue states are the ones deep in debt; red states are not as far into debt (but they are). Much of the blame needs to be placed on unfunded mandates, which are costs that the federal government throws upon the states.

This should put to rest the mistaken notion that, the key to reducing debt is to simply raise taxes.

Obama sure loves his car metaphor. He keeps going on about how Republicans drove the car into the ditch, and now he's gotten it out (skyrocketing unemployment is somehow "getting it out of the ditch" in this metaphor), and now you have to choose `D' to go forward and don't want to choose `R' and go backwards. back to a time, you know, when 6% unemployment was high.

It's pretty idiotic this is the metaphor Obama is clinging to, but maybe Republicans can expand off of it into some car metaphors of their own.

"We kept telling Obama to pay attention to the road to keep an eye out for jobs, but he was too busy texting about health care."

"So the car is in a ditch and he wants to drive it forward. Do we have any proof this guy even passed the written test before he got behind the wheel? Release his records!"

"I thought he said he was going to call a tow truck! Why is he at the golf course?

"Wait a second; he's driving us to Canada! We told him we didn't want to go there!"

"While that weenie Obama is spinning his wheels in the mud, our plan is to transform the car into an awesome giant robot and have it kill Decepticons."

When it comes to the proposed Islamic center near ground zero, I subscribe to President Barack Obama's position: "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country...."

But that's old news. Today, the debate is the debate. And this debate is far more consequential.

There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith-religious institutions and symbols included-as tantamount to "bigotry."

Given that there remains overwhelming opposition to the ground zero mosque, this viewpoint would mean that 70 percent of Americans are impulsively hostile to freedom of religion and irrationally narrow-minded.

Could be. Or, maybe a few of these folks believe the First Amendment features more than one clause. Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Wal-Mart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.

In 2008, thousands of gay-rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8-the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-even though not every Mormon was involved.

I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion; it appeared to be just the opposite, in fact. And if I am offended by aspects of Mormon theology, why not voice those concerns? Put it this way: If Mormons proposed the erection of a 13-story community center in West Hollywood or the West Village, I would be happy to join the outcry of protest.

You know, though only a fraction of Catholic priests are pedophiles, the entire church is routinely broad-brushed as corrupt and depraved. I've not heard those who make generalizations about Catholicism referred to as bigots in Time magazine.

These groups inject themselves into political and cultural disputes of the day-as they have every right to do-so they become fair game. And by building the Islamic center near ground zero, the backers of Park51 insert themselves in a broader political conversation.

As a person with a libertarian political temperament, I would hate to see government shut down religious expression. As an atheist, I am distrustful of religion's influence on that freedom. But, in the end, one is a discussion about the role of government in society and the other is a discussion about civilization. Few people in this debate make that distinction.

As we know, only a fraction of Muslims are radicalized to violence. Most Muslims are peaceful-free to practice their religion unencumbered. All of this is indisputable. Prospectively speaking, unlike many other faiths, ideological Islam has a poor track record of compatibility with liberal ideals. Surely, that's worth a discussion in free society. Or is it a case of intolerance to bring it up?

I've read numerous columns claiming that "allowing" a mosque to be built near ground zero is proof of our tolerant goodness. To be certain.

But surely our ability to conduct a peaceful debate over the meaning of institutions, including religion, is also a reflection of that greatness.

Here's the question: How does the far left survive in this country? That crew is so hateful, so harmful to the nation, it is amazing they have any platform at all.

If you oppose gay marriage, you're a homophobe. If you want a secure Southern border, you are anti-Hispanic. And now, if you think building a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate, you are intolerant, an anti-Muslim bigot.

On Monday, NBC News led the way in branding opponents of the mosque as bad people:

BILL PRESS, LIBERAL PUNDIT: This is all about religion, and the opponents, there's only one reason, only one reason to oppose this mosque, and that is to paint Islam as an evil religion.

ANITA DUNN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Some people in the Republican Party and others are, you know, labeling all Muslims in this country to effect as terrorists.

NORAH O'DONNELL, NBC NEWS: Somebody's got to say that, you know, we're not going to act like the people who stole freedom from Americans, the people who attacked America and killed 3,000 people. We've got to let this end in terms of fighting over religion.

So according to Ms. O'Donnell, a NBC news correspondent, not an analyst, if you object to the mosque, saying it's inappropriate, then you're acting like the Al Qaeda killers.

Can you believe this incredible nonsense coming out of NBC News? Can you believe it?

The New York Times on Tuesday framed the issue this way: "President Obama showed his understanding of the Constitution, and his respect for the American people, last week when he defended the right of a Muslim community group to build a mosque."

Hey, New York Times, what about respecting the feelings of those who lost people on 9/11? What about that?

Do you see what's happening here? The far left will never debate the merits of the issue. They simply attack and begin branding their opponents as racist, bigots and un-American.

Let's get right down to it: There are thousands of Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11. Many of these people feel a Muslim display so near the attack zone is hurtful because fanatical Muslims killed their family and friends. So where is the tolerance toward the 9/11 families? Where is the understanding and respect for their feelings?

President Obama well understands the emotions that are in play, which is why he will not comment on the so-called wisdom of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. But the far left doesn't care about the wisdom of the project because they are promoting the fiction that America is mean to Muslims. Anything that makes U.S. policy seem oppressive is embraced by these loons.

Every poll says the majority of Americans believe this proposed mosque is simply not a good idea. Nobody I know wants to violate religious freedom. Nobody wants to persecute Muslims. Nobody wants to cause trouble. What we do want is a sane country.

1.The beginnings of ClimateGate ["Possible Conspiracy to Falsify Temperature Data Uncovered" from Nov. 20, 2009]

2. The early beginnings of the Tea Party movement ["CNBC's Santelli Explains His Anti-Obamanomics Call for Revolt" from February 19, 2009]

3. Audio of President Obama telling the San Francisco Chronicle of his desire to bankrupt the coal industry [November 2, 2008]

4. MSNBC's close-cropping video of a gun owner at a Tea Party rally so that you can't tell he's a black man -- MSNBCers were insisting the rallies were racist [August 18, 2009]

5. And perhaps our biggest news item of all, from March 18, 2008, when our very own Rich Noyes disproved Hillary Clinton's claim of having come under fire in a 1996 visit to Bosnia.

1. Chris Matthews's restless leg syndrome ["Matthews: Obama Speech Caused 'Thrill Going Up My Leg'" from February 13, 2008]

2. The birds of the air declaring the glory of Barack ["ABC: 'National Pride' Made Cold Feel Warmer as Seagulls 'Awed' by Obama's Inaugural" from January 20, 2009]

3. Evan Thomas (sort of) deifying Obama ["Newsweek's Evan Thomas: Obama Is 'Sort of God'" from June 5, 2009]

4. Chris Matthews explaining his mission in life ["Matthews: My Job Is to Make Obama Presidency a Success" from November 6, 2008]

5. Time magazine wishing everyone a Merry Obamamas ["Time Mag: Obama a 'Prince' Like Jesus Born of 'Imagination, History and Hope'" from November 11, 2008]

Obama trashes privatization of social security, a government program which is soon to become a program which loses money.

Remember that $26 billion bill to send money to school districts for the kids? 5 days later, the NY Times runs the headline: “Back to School? Bring Your Own Toilet Paper”

13 hours of audio of Imam Rauf (the Ground Zero Mosque Imam) has recently been unearthed, and examined:

On Martha's Vineyard, 'Miss Me Yet?' Bush T-Shirts outselling 'I Vacationed with Obama' Ones

RUSH: Now, let's get to this Muslim business, ladies and gentlemen. Joel Achenbach, an obscure, relatively unknown member of the ruling class partisan political operative media writes a blog at the Washington Post: "Are Americans Total Numskulls? -- God help us." Now, here you have a member of the media, in the Democrat Party, these people don't like God, they don't like Christians. This is what's amazing to me, they're going so far out on a limb here -- well, I mean they're hell-bent on convincing us that Obama is a Christian, and they don't even like Christians, and this guy starts his piece: "God help us"? I mean to these people God is a tree. "Could so many Americans really be that dumb, ill-informed, paranoid, gullible and goofy? It must be tricky being Barack Obama, winding down the U.S. presence in volatile Iraq, trying to keep Afghanistan from degenerating, pondering war with Iran, even as, according to the latest bulletin, one in five Americans thinks he is a Muslim." Yes, he's been working so hard. He's tamed the economy; he's tamed Iraq. The oil spill is fixed, he plugged a hole, and now he gets to go to Martha's Vineyard.

And Mr. Achenbach is very disturbed at the stupidity of you people, nearly 20% of you, 25, depending on the poll, believe that he is a Muslim. "Why not just believe he's an alien from outer space? Or a Manchurian Candidate, programmed by, say, the Chinese to bring America to ruin? Crazy times. It's also dismaying that so many Americans are opposed to the mosque near Ground Zero. In America you can worship wherever you want, regardless of religious belief. We protect religious minorities here. This isn't merely the law: It's a core value." Like this guy would know what a core value is. These are the people that smirk at core values. These are the people that tell us to shut up about the social issues.

By the way, a brief departure. This business that the mosque is illegal to build, is it against the law to let your 16-year-old who just got his license to drive the car? No. It's perfectly legal. Would you let your 16-year-old who just got his driver's license drive the family car across the country with a car full of friends? No. Does he have the right to do it? Yeah. Should he do it? Ain't no way, Jose. Good parents shouldn't shy away from these questions, they would embrace them, make a decision not based on a technical reading of the law, whether something is legal. Should you do it? These are judgment calls. I mean, for crying out loud, all kinds of things are legal but they're stupid to do sometimes. Anyway, this Achenbach piece, I mean this is classic. This is ruling class elitism to a T. You people are idiots, open idiots, fools, bigots, racists, stupid. Why in the world would you think Obama's a Muslim? Why, his father was, one of his mothers was, was an atheist. He has said the most beautiful sound in the world is the Muslim call to prayer at sundown. I mean, why would people think it? Aunt Zeituni, why would anybody think this? You know, on and on and on and on.

He says, "This goes back to the Pilgrims, I seem to recall. The backers of the mosques are the good guys, the ones who preach tolerance. There should be no hedging on this at all from American leaders: If we can't allow a mosque in lower Manhattan we might as well close shop for good and turn out the lights. A lot of times, polls are deceiving, through vague wording, or perhaps by not giving people enough information to start with. For example, the question about the mosque may not have been framed in a way that made clear that this would not be a place to advance the cause of radical Islam, jihad --" what does this guy think mosques are? The divide here -- it's like, remember the brilliant but brief verbal essay yesterday on where we are with the media. There's is such a divide. We're the enemy. Their audience is the enemy. They actually do their work for other journalists and for the regime. Achenbach, I'm sure, wrote this piece hoping that it would be widely read in the West Wing and that it might be highlighted on MSNBC.

"What this shows is that disinformation remains powerful and infectious, and that large elements of the country distrust the official story about anything." Who writes the official story, Mr. Achenbach? You do. And that's the one thing in this piece that's right. You are damn right the vast majority of the American people do not trust you, do not trust what is known as the mainstream media. You're a bunch of hyperbolic scare mongers. Why do you think we called you Drive-By? Look at what you did to the Gulf of Mexico with this oil spill. Look at the tourism damage you did, you and your colleagues, over nothing. Perfect example, Drive-By Media, you guys run in there, you create all this havoc, it's a crisis, it's a disaster, and you wait for these, and you want 'em to be as bad as they can be, and then when they don't materialize, there you go down the road on to the next place that you're gonna strike while people have to clean up the mess you made. The biggest mess in the Gulf of Mexico is the one the media made, not the oil. Speaking of that, a bunch people said, "Oh, yeah, that damn oil still is there." The regime is lying. The regime's trying to get this issue off the table. And the story actually says an invisible plume of oil, an invisible plume of oil can be seen. Excuse me. Invisible plume of oil can be seen. How is that possible?

So, anyway, Mr. Achenbach, let me help you out here. The reason that we are at a starting point of thinking everything is a lie is because of people like you. We don't trust the Fake Media. You are partisan political operatives disguised as journalists. Thank God we have the New Media, we have the Internet so we can find out what is true because we won't find out what's true in the ever-shrinking pages was the Washington Post, the New York Times, or any other cable network or newspaper.

RUSH: You can say what you want about this mosque controversy, but nobody has lost their jobs because of it, Mr. Achenbach, like they have lost their jobs because of the professional left's media hysteria and intentional lies about the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We got a wish we got a drilling moratorium because of your panic, because of Obama's agenda. At least nobody's losing their jobs here over this mosque business.

RUSH: There's panic out there. "Poll shows more Americans think Obama is a Muslim." Spreading of falsehoods is to blame. Washington Post leaves out the fact in their story, one in ten Democrats think that Imam Obama is a Muslim, one in ten Democrats. On page two of the Washington Post poll: 61% oppose the Hamasque. Fifty-five percent say okay to build one next to them. But 61% oppose building at Ground Zero. This is the AP: "Americans increasingly are convinced -- incorrectly -- that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion. A poll finds that nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is just 34 percent." I mean, they're beside themselves here at the partisan political operative media. "The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don't know his religion. That's an increase from 34 percent in early 2009." You want to hear some panic from the State-Controlled Media? Well, here we go. This is The Daily Rundown, MSNBC this morning, cohost Savannah Guthrie talking about the new poll.

GUTHRIE: The more people have gotten to know President Obama since he's taken office, the more people of all parties have started to believe that he's Muslim. So, for example, now 34% think he's Christian, 18% say he is Muslim, 43% do not know, whereas in March of 2009, nearly half the country thought he was Christian, only 11% thought Muslim, and only 34% didn't know. How do you explain this?

RUSH: How do you explain it? Because more people have gotten to know Obama since he's taken office, and how are they getting to know Obama? Well, he's talking a lot, but how are they hearing what he says? It's television! And sure enough in this Pew poll, six in ten of those, six in ten -- the way to say this, 60% of the 18% who think he's a Muslim. So over half of those who think he's a Muslim said they got the information from the media, the largest portion, 16% of them saying it was on television. Eleven percent said they learned it from Obama's behavior and words. So that has gotta be a double whammy for the State-Controlled Media. They don't know yet. Tom Brokaw, Charlie Rose still don't know who Obama is, they don't know what books he's read. Wait, there's a kicker coming here. If you just hang in with me, folks, there's a big kicker coming now. People say they're learning it on television, or they just learn it from Obama's behavior and his words. Now, Savannah Guthrie over there at MessNBC was not talking to herself when she said, "How do you explain this?" She was talking to the Pew Research Center Research Associate Director Alan Cooperman who answered her question.

COOPERMAN: This is not just among the people who don't like the president, it's not just the critics, it's not just that there's nearly one in five who say he's Muslim. It's that the percentage who say he's Christian has also dropped dramatically, and so many people don't know. You would think after the president's in office 18 months to two years that the number of people who don't know would be declining. But the number of don't-knows has been rising, and it's now, even among groups who support this president, for example, among Democrats, it's fewer than half of Democrats who say the president is a Christian.

RUSH: Fewer than half. The more they get to know him. Now, Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times makes an interesting point in the next sound bite. I'm going to preempt it. Zeleny, New York Times, says, well, what does Obama do on Sunday? He plays golf. He doesn't go to church. He plays golf. Jeff Zeleny points it out in the New York Times. Here, you can hear it. That also happened today on MessNBC, F. Chuck Todd talked to Zeleny about all of this, and F. Chuck said, "Religion was a huge part of the campaign at different moments in time. Reverend Wright, of course, is the one moment that a lot of people remember, and I know that Andy Kohut, also of Pew, joked with somebody that the Reverend Wright episode, as negative politics, that was for the president, it did serve as a reminder to the country that Obama was a Christian and attended church on a regular basis." No, it didn't, F. Chuck because Obama said he never heard anything that Wright said. So we're told that he went to church for 20 years, but he never heard anything that Wright said, which leads people to believe, "Well, maybe he really didn't go there. Maybe he didn't go to church, or maybe he did and is lying." But the bottom line is, the more people get to know about Obama, the more confused they are. So Zeleny makes this point.

ZELENY: I think that is something that will probably be changing over the next, you know, if not several months, certainly over the next two years as the president moves into his reelection. What does he do every Sunday, almost every Sunday? He plays golf. I think you'll be seeing him go, you know, to black churches, white churches, you-name-it churches to try and remind people that he in fact is Christian.

RUSH: (laughing) He doesn't go to church, and the Drive-Bys can't understand why the number of people who think Obama is a Christian is dwindling. He's starting his sixth vacation, today, or tomorrow, going to Martha's Vineyard, and we'll see if Zeleny is right here. We'll see if Obama goes to church every Sunday, a bunch of different churches. But what difference does it make? Really, folks, what difference does it make? If he were a Muslim, we don't care. What's wrong with being a Muslim? Really, I mean, why the controversy here? What's the big deal? I mean, we're into outreach, if he's a Muslim, that's fine. Right? We went back to the archives of the New York Times, May 12th, 2008, Edward Luttwak. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I remember Ed Luttwak. When I lived in Sacramento, worked out there in the mid- to late eighties, Edward Luttwak was brilliant on TV. I remember I went to Washington for a week's worth of shows. The station there was hell-bent on me interviewing people and I refused to do it, so they sent me to Washington.

I remember trying to get Luttwak on and I'd get his answering machine over at the think tank and he never returned the call, and you shoulda heard these messages. "Professor Luttwak, please, please --" (laughing) It was amazing. Anyway, he wrote this piece back in the campaign, May 12th, 2008, and the headline of the piece is: "President Apostate?" I want to read to you a couple of paragraphs. "This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama's election would raise America's esteem in Africa -- indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father's native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent," where, I might add, the brother still lives in a hut. "But it is a mistake to conflate his African identity with his Muslim heritage. Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.

"As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant. Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes. ... it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder," that is, to quit Islam.

So according to Luttwak, Muslims look at this guy, he's a Muslim, his father was a Muslim and that's all it takes. The American people increasingly don't know. Stop and think about this, now. We're not talking about a local city councilman. We're talking about the president of the United States. Almost 20% of the American people think he's a Muslim. A dwindling number believe he's not a Christian, which he professes to be. We're talking about the president of the United States here. And there is obviously here, according to the Pew Center, confusion over the identity of Imam Obama. I find this -- (laughing) -- I find it Twilight Zone-ish. I mean this is not Clinton's medical records not being released. This is the president of the United States about whom the American people are increasingly confused. By the way, and can you blame them? They see a man in a state of denial over the state of the economy. He went into Ohio this week, earlier, to talk about jobs and so forth, and they're not impressed. There's a story here, one of the Ohio papers, hey, we don't need any more optics. We don't need any more photo-ops. We need jobs. We don't need mosques. We need jobs.

RUSH: I know you can expect Michelle (My Belle) and the kids to be going in and out of church every day with 20-pound Bibles being lugged around. Obama might even walk into one now and then. Let me ask you a question: If you were Obama, why would you waste time going to church to pray to yourself when you can pray to yourself in the White House? It's a waste of time to go to church when all you're doing is praying to yourself. The media is out there trying to make us believe that we're just a bunch of rubes. We're so unsophisticated, we just can't understand. We do not have the ability to understand just how brilliant Obama is. We just are not capable of being within even the aura of Obama.

You know who they ought to poll? Go poll the people that work at NASA and ask them if they think Obama's a Muslim, 'cause he turned NASA into a Muslim outreach program. The guy holds an Easter Egg Roll and the White House website promoting the Easter Egg Roll does not mention Jesus or Christ. It talks about environmentalism. Obama says he's a Christian but where's the evidence? "Well, he went to Reverend Wright's church." Yeah, but he says he doesn't hear anything that's said in there -- and, by the way, Reverend Wright's church is a weird brand of Christianity. Reverend Wright's church? Black theology is what comes out of that pulpit, which is, you know, not exactly mainstream Christianity.

The New York Times joins the media chorus, all upset with this. Sheryl Gay Stolberg: "In Defining Obama, Misperceptions Stick." She says here "the White House is struggling with the perception of 'otherness' ... even his own [Democrat] supporters are confused." "The findings suggest that, nearly two years into Mr. Obama's presidency, the White House is struggling with the perception of 'otherness' that Candidate Obama sought so hard to overcome -- in part because of an aggressive misinformation campaign by critics and in part, some Democratic allies say, because Mr. Obama is doing a poor job of communicating who he is and what he believes." He doesn't think he should have to stoop so low as to explain himself to tell us who he is or what he believes. Gods don't answer letters.

"Andrew Kohut, the Pew center's director.. said the numbers reflected that Mr. Obama had 'not made religion a part of his public persona' as much as he did during his presidential campaign -- so much so that even his own supporters are confused." We're talking about the president of the United States and a poll that shows even his own supporters are confused about who he is, about his religion. "The White House says the public -- and the press -- are not listening. Since taking office, Mr. Obama has given six speeches either from a church pulpit or addressing religion in public life -- including an Easter prayer breakfast where he 'offered a very personal and candid reflection of what the Resurrection means to him,' said Joshua DuBois, who runs the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships."

Obama is a member of the Democrat Party, and those of you who are Christians know full well the Democrat Party has you in its crosshairs. The Democrat Party impugns, makes fun of, criticizes, and attacks Christians and Christianity and their faith and their belief. They make fun of them, their comedians and movies and so forth and so on. It's not outside the realm of comprehension that some people might think that Democrats have it in nor Christians -- and if Obama is the lead Democrat, he might also harbor similar opinions.

RUSH: Let's go back, September 2008 on This Week with George Stephanopoulos before Christiane Amanpour took it over. Stephanopoulos said to Senator Barack Obama: "The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections. John McCain said that that's wrong."

STEPHANOPOULOS: The McCain campaign has never suggested that you have Muslim connections. McCain said that that's wrong.

OBAMA: No, uh, well, uh, well, look, the -- the, uhhhh. Listen, uhhh, you and I both know that the minute that Governor Palin was, uh -- was, uh, forced to talk about her daughter, I immediately said, "That's off-limits. And -- and -- and -- and --

OBAMA: And what -- what was the first thing the McCain campaign went out and did? They -- they said, uhhh, look, uhhh, his liberal blogs that support Obama (nervous laugh) are out there attacking Governor Palin. I mean, uh, uh, eh, l-let's not play games. W-w-what I was suggesting, you are absolutely right that John McCain has not, uh, talked about my Muslim faith, and you're absolutely right that that has not come --

RUSH: Yeah, that's Obama, Senator Obama September 2008 This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "You're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. You're absolutely right that he's not --" and Stephanopoulos said, "Christian faith, Christian faith." Obama said, yeah, yeah, my Christian faith. No, we're not making a big deal of it, it's just that people are wondering in the media why Americans are concerned about who the guy is. And they're saying that they're learning from television that they think he's a Muslim. Again I say, what's wrong with being a Muslim? Why is everybody acting like that is some sort of big problem? Here's what I heard Obama railing about this morning during a profit center time-out about this jobs bill that he says will not add a dime to the deficit. We need another jobs bill, small business jobs bill, we got two sound bites of what that sounded like.

OBAMA: The last several months I have been urging Congress to pass a jobs bill that will do two big things for small businesses: cut their taxes and make loans more valuable. This legislation is fully paid for and will not add one single dime to our deficit.

RUSH: I have no idea what he's talking about. What jobs bill is this? All I know is this: When he talks about small business, substitute something for it, $250,000 a year, because that's small businesses. We've been through this. They file their business taxes on their personal return as a subchapter S, double whammy. But for several months I've been urging Congress to pass a jobs bill that will do two things? We're 18, 20 months into this now, we've had I don't know how many jobs bills, we don't have any jobs. We're continuing to hemorrhage jobs, and all this guy can do is talk about another jobs bill. Here's the second sound bite.

OBAMA: This is a bill that makes sense and normally we would expect Democrats and Republicans to join together. Unfortunately, a partisan minority in the Senate so far has refused to allow this jobs bill to come up for a vote. Now, I recognize that there are times when Democrats and Republicans have legitimate differences rooted in different views about what's best for this country. There are times when good people disagree in good faith. But this is not one of those times.

RUSH: Well, I have no idea what he's talking about. Some jobs bill. All I know is that if he gets it, it isn't gonna matter a hill of beans. We've already had jobs bill after jobs bill after jobs bill. We're hemorrhaging jobs.

Jeff in Indianapolis. You're first today. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Appreciate it. Hey, I think the media in this case is really admitting their own failure that they have not vetted this guy, and I know you have that one sound bite from Tom Brokaw from right after the inauguration saying that they really don't know who this guy is. I mean he's got two books out, one of them called Dreams from My Father. Does anybody in the media know what the dreams of his father actually are? So it's almost laughable to me because they are admitting that they failed, that they don't know who this guy is, they're panicking that the public has no idea if he's a Muslim or a Christian.

RUSH: You may be right. You may have a point that the media doesn't know who he is and that they're panicking because they can't convince the American people that he's not a Muslim. You're not sure they know. I think they do. You say they didn't vet the guy, and they may not have. He represents something that they desperately think the country has needed, so maybe you're right, they haven't looked into it. And maybe they're scared to death of what they would find. Regardless, this is unbelievable. We are talking about the president of the United States, who every day becomes a bigger mystery!

RUSH: I want to suggest something to the Peeeew Research people. Next time you go out and do your poll on how many people think Obama is a Muslim, ask them how many think he's a Marxist, 'cause I'll bet you that number is increasing, too -- and that number, frankly, would be more interesting to me than how many think he is a Muslim.

RUSH: When I watch CNN, when I watch MSNBC, we're watching networks that no longer have any audience to speak of. I mean if you look at the country as a whole, the MSNBC audience could be put in a thimble, and CNN's could be put on the head of a pin compared to the country at large. Newsweek was sold for a dollar, and all the big names at Newsweek are leaving. The only one left is Howard Fineman. The New York Times, circulation is down. Same thing at the Washington Post. USA Today, LA Times, they're all down. When I watch these networks, or when I read Sheryl Gay Stolberg's piece today on the panic that's set in, both at the New York Times and at the White House over the numbers of people that think Obama's a Muslim, it just struck me again, they have no connection with you or anybody else outside of their realm of media. The American people are not their audience.

When you turn on MSNBC and watch anything on that network, you get the sense that they're doing that show not for an audience but for fellow journalists and for people in the White House and for elected Democrats in Congress. That's their audience, that's who they're doing their shows for. Same thing for CNN; same thing for the New York Times. There is really a gulf. The media in this country really do look at the people of this country as an enemy. We're not just a bunch of rubes, folks, we're not just a bunch of unsophisticated Neanderthals. We are that to them, but we're now actually the enemy. When they get this poll from Pew that says the number of people that believe Obama is a Christian is shrinking, the number of people that think he's a Muslim is increasing, they do not look at the media themselves for maybe an explanation. They don't look at the White House or Obama to try to find an explanation for this. They knee-jerk conclude that we are a bunch of imbeciles, or reactionaries or racists, bigots, or what have you.

I think the divide between media and public is as stark as it has ever been. Stop and think about this. The relationship that the media has with the people of this country is adversarial. It used to be that their relationship that was adversarial was with people in power. It used to be that people in power were those that had to be examined, had to be accountable. But now since they're leftists, they're not really media people, they're leftists first, we know that, we are the enemy. We are a bigger enemy than Iranian nukes. We are a bigger enemy than Middle East peace. The American people, particularly American conservatives, but I think the American people at large. You read one of these newspapers, read Sheryl Gay Stolberg's piece today. She's not writing it for you. She's not writing it to inform you. The New York Times is not concerned with informing you. Neither is MSNBC concerned with informing you. When F. Chuck Todd does his stand-up at the White House, F. Chuck Todd is talking to other White House reporters who he hopes are watching his work and making sure that they approve of what he's saying. He's also hoping they're watching in the White House and approving what he's saying. And when Chip Reid of CBS does the same thing, the same thing is happening. And whoever the ABC White House correspondent, whenever that guy does his stand-up at the White House he's thinking of all the other correspondents at the other networks and the White House and making sure they approve of what he or she is saying, not us.

So we have these two issues, this mosque business, what is it, 68% of the American people oppose the mosque being built there. We have this "what religion is Obama" story, and both of these the media profess not to understand the reasons we think what we think. And they thus assign the reasons, that we have bigotry or a lack of sophistication or ignorance or what have you. And it's kind of striking me more profoundly than it ever has. I think the key word is "adversarial," because they're just Democrats. They're just leftists. And when they fail to persuade us; when they fail to control us; when they fail to properly affect our opinions; then they get mad at us. Not at themselves. MSNBC has one audience member they care about, and that's Barack Obama. They exist to please him and to do his bidding. Everything else is a distraction. MSNBC, New York Times, CNN, ABC, doesn't matter, the professional left, that Robert Gibbs thinks need to be drug tested. Everywhere it is a battle between them, the professional left, whether they're professors or media people, politicians versus us, the amateur right, they're the professionals. We are the rank amateurs.

The media used to claim that their job was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. It's just the opposite now. The media exists to comfort the comfortable and to make them even more comfortable, to please them, to promote them. So when things aren't going well for the regime, then of course there's gotta be an explanation for it. It can't be that the regime is bumbling around making all kinds of mistakes and doing stupid things. It has to be that we amateurs just don't get it.

RUSH: CNN and their polling unit, Opinion Research, interviewed one thousand Americans. "More Americans have doubts about Obama's birth story than do support the mosque." I'm just reporting it. It's a CNN poll. Twenty-seven percent of Americans believe that Imam Obama was probably not born in the United States. Twenty-nine percent support building the Ground Zero mosque, and Erick Erickson at Red State said: Look, if we're going to call the 27% who believe that Obama was not born in the US fringe kooks then can't we also call the people who support building a mosque at Ground Zero a fringe group? Because the percentages are roughly the same, 27 versus 29%. "If you add to the 27% who think Obama was not born in the United States the 29% who think he was born in the United States, but are not definitely sure and more Americans have doubts about Barack Obama's birth story than support the mosque." In CNN's own data. We're just adding it up here, folks. We're not endorsing anything. We didn't take the poll. We didn't ask a single question. We're simply reporting what CNN found.

By the way, I must remind you that we, the US, approved Israel's raid on Syria. That would have been the Bush administration. That's highly unlikely to happen today. I doubt that this regime would approve an Israeli raid into Iran somewhere. So as Mr. Erickson at Red State points out: "Therein lies the great problem for the Democrats and why Barack Obama has locked in a Democratic disaster come November. In essence, the Democrats have lost the ability to connect with normal people at a moral level." The fringe is who supports Democrats, and it's a sizable number. "Seventy percent of independents --" they're all worried about the independents out there and whether or not I'm driving them away. I, El Rushbo, the titular head of the Republican Party, am driving independents away. "Seventy percent of independents oppose the Ground Zero mosque. The Democrats are screaming at the top of their lungs that we should all be talking about the economy because they know they are getting crushed on the mosque issue with independents. Think about that -- the Democrats would rather get beaten up over the economy than over the mosque." They would rather have that be the topic than the mosque issue. You stew over that while we take a brief time-out.

RUSH: You know what? The liberals are undoubtedly in panic. I mean, if 70% of independents oppose the mosque then it would appear that I, El Rushbo, am the titular leader of independents, too. Not just the titular leader of the Republican Party. Can you imagine the panic if that ever took hold, that I am the leader of the independents, and the independents...? Heh-heh-heh. The independents are taking their marching orders from the EIB Network? We gotta work to solidify that.

CALLER: I've been a listener for many, many years. I'm only 28, though, but I've been listening for a long time and my question has to do with the mosque that is being talked about at Ground Zero.

CALLER: When I first heard about it, which was maybe a month or two ago, and I heard about it on the Glenn Beck show, and my first reaction was outrage, it was, you know, how can they do this.

CALLER: Don't they realize what they're saying, that kind of reaction. Then I realized that was an emotional reaction. And I think that, you know, most of the conservative reaction to it is an emotional one.

CALLER: So my question for you is what legal basis would we have to say, no, you can't build that there.

RUSH: There isn't. The only legal basis is local, and that would be if the Landmarks Preservation Commission decided, no, this is a landmark building, you can't build it. But they have said, no, it's not landmarked, it's the only thing down there that isn't landmarked and then it would be local zoning laws which have been waved, so there is no legal reason not to build it.

CALLER: So do you necessarily oppose it, or are you just commenting on Obama's reaction to it?

RUSH: I totally oppose it. You think I do what I do because of what Obama does? It just happens to be working out that I disagree with everything he says.

CALLER: I mean, I oppose it too on an emotional basis but, you know, logically I can't oppose it.

RUSH: Of course I can oppose it. Of course we can oppose it on logical grounds. What do you mean we can't oppose it on logical grounds?

CALLER: I guess, me as being a Christian, if a Christian church were being built there I would not oppose that.

RUSH: Wait a second. Wait a second. Were you listening to the program yesterday?

CALLER: No, I listen to you almost every lunch break. I'm definitely a follower of you --

RUSH: Ahem. Excuse me. It just so happens there was a Greek Orthodox Church right across the street from Ground Zero. They have been refused permission to rebuild.

RUSH: No grounds. They are just not being allowed to rebuild it. They're not going to allow something that looks like a church to be built. If they want to build something that looks like a warehouse, a couple or three blocks away they'll let 'em do that, but they will not let 'em rebuild the church where it was, right across the street.

RUSH: No. They've been trying for two years and they've finally just thrown up their hands.

RUSH: Because the mosque -- you know, you talk about emotion, this mosque is entirely political. Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that every leftist, every socialist, every person in this country who has a problem with this country is for that mosque being built? Have you ever asked yourself why it is they are so hell-bent on the mosque being built?

RUSH: Well, you should. You think that they're really concerned about religious liberty and property rights? When's the last time you ever heard a liberal talk about property rights in the sense that anybody has any? Let me tell you something, this is pure politics. The people that want that mosque built want to stuff it down the throats of Americans. The people that want the mosque built at Ground Zero want to say (raspberry) to Americans. That's all it is. And I'm talking about the Americans who support it. I'm not even talking about the Muslims and the Islamists because I'll bet you that a lot of Muslims don't want it there 'cause they know the problems it's gonna cause them. Another caller silenced into absolute incapability because of the piercing logic and the reasoning of the host. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Who's next?

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. And it's such a pleasure to speak with you. I respect you so much, and I thank you for the job that you do.

CALLER: Yesterday I believe it was a gentleman that called and said this is an opportunity for America to show our tolerance and --

CALLER: Right. Now, when does America ever get the chance to say "no" to anything? When do we, since we are a Christian nation, we were founded on Christian values.

RUSH: Wait a second. But that's even accepting a premise. When did it get started we have to demonstrate our goodness?

RUSH: Who are we to have to prove ourselves? We're the beacon of freedom, hope, and liberty in the world. We liberate people. We bail people out financially. Where is it written that all of a sudden we're the ones that have to prove to everybody who we are?

CALLER: Absolutely. And I have to say because of this, if they build that mosque at that site, I will not attend any Broadway shows; I will not go to a ball game; I will not go to New York City. I can't. And that's the only way I can show support for all the brave men and women who defend our country and all of those families that have lost loved ones there. It's an insult and it's the only way that it can be looked at, and as you said, it is intentional, and I don't know when this country is going to wake up to that fact.

CALLER: Yeah, probably, but I can only say I don't know what else I can do to show that I do not support it in any way, shape, or form and I'm appalled that they would even think of doing this.

RUSH: "Church Destroyed at Ground Zero Is Still at Square One." This is the Greek Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas is its name. It "loses deal for new property." This is the same Mayor Bloomberg and the same Port Authority who says we have to go out of our way to prove that we are "tolerant." Why are we not tolerant of the Greek Orthodox bunch that want to rebuild their church there? Why is not Mayor Bloomberg told the Port Authority to be tolerant? They made a deal with these people for land to rebuild the church. It's been rescinded only because they want to rebuild a church and not something that looks like a warehouse. Let's go to the audio sound bites. We have a few here. This is about the mosque. There is a recurring theme popping up in the State-Controlled Media about the mosque, and that is it's a distraction. The mosque is just a distraction. The Republicans are using it as a distraction. Maybe so, because we've now figured out the Democrats would rather talk about how they've destroyed the economy than they would rather talk about Obama's support for the mosque.

This is on Morning Joe today on MessNBC. Mika Brzezinski was talking to the former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. Now, if you've forgotten, Anita Dunn went to the National Cathedral and said she really admired Mao because Mao knew how to get what he wanted. Mao Tse-tung knew how to get things done. She is no longer at the White House. But her husband, Bob Bauer, is. Mika Brzezinski asked her this question: "The mosque comments that the president made, obviously couldn't really avoid 'em at the event he was at." Yes, he could have. He'd didn't have to say anything about it, Mika. In fact, many of the attendees at the Iftar dinner were a little shocked that he brought it up. They weren't demanding he say anything about it. At any rate, "they must have known there was going to be this reaction, even opportunism on the part of some on the extreme right..." Yeah, 70% of the American people are opportunistic, extreme right-wingers. And here's what the former White House communications director said.

DUNN: (stammering) When you have these arguments being whipped up by people who seek to divide in this country, that a president has to step forward and call on the country to repudiate the intolerance that, frankly, is fueling this fight right now.

DUNN: The race to the bottom in the Republican Party this year, you know, whether it is around revisiting the 14th Amendment, whether it's around immigration or whether it is around this now, the race to the bottom means, you know, 2012 could be, you know -- could be very, very depressing to watch. It's almost like the party decided to update itself as the know-nothing version 2.0s.

RUSH: Uhhh, 2012 could be depressing to watch? That's the year Obama runs for reelection, right? Because this is 2010, and there are elections this year. This is a former White House communications director. Of course you 70%, you are intolerant. The people who blew up the World Trade Center are not intolerant. We have to learn how to relate and understand them. Ms. Dunn, I have to tell you, the most intolerant, demagogic, divisive president we've ever had is Barack Obama, Barack Hoover Obama. If there's anybody dividing this country, it's Barack Hoover Obama. I mean, for crying out loud, 70% of the independents, that's most of them that voted for Obama, have now fled and are now being led by me. Who woulda thought? It's the Democrat Party that is the party of intolerance. It's the president who's intolerant and divisive. So Mark Halperin, a guest panelist, said to Ms. Dunn, "Isn't the fundamental problem right now the president is refusing to take a position as Senator Reid has? Where does the president stand on what Americans really care about? We're all for freedom of expression, we're all for freedom of speech, but where does the president stand on what he thinks ought to happen with this mosque?"

DUNN: There's a broader issue here, which is about religious intolerance. And when you have a political party going down the road of religious intolerance, which is what is happening right now, I think the Republican Party as solidifying its reputation for intolerance in this year for -- for any -- for almost any kind of difference in American society is going down a very dangerous long-term road and they might see some short-term things although I think the American people are better than that.

RUSH: Wait a minute. Who's divisive here and who's intolerant? Where's Obama's tolerance, where is your tolerance, Ms. Dunn, where is the media's tolerance for the vast majority of the people who live in this country? The vast majority of the people in this country are against that mosque being built there. They're not saying they're against mosques. They're not saying they're against mosques. They're just against it being built there. There's all kinds of space, there are over a hundred mosques throughout New York City. Muslims don't even live in that part of town. It's a commercially zoned district. That's pure provocation. The intolerance here is being exhibited by the regime on virtually every issue, governing against the will of the American people. That, to me, is intolerant, in a representative republic, Ms. Dunn. Pat Buchanan was also on the panel and said, "What about tolerance for the views of thousands of families of those who died on 9/11, the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who were saying, 'Please, you got a right to move the mosque there, but don't do it, doesn't belong there,' what about tolerance for the vast majority of Americans and their opinions?"

DUNN: It's two blocks from -- from the site. It's -- it's a site that, you know, it's a center that is supposed to be about promoting interfaith and -- and really reaching out, which is in many ways what I think, you know, President Bush back in those horrible days --

DUNN: -- of 2001 really tried to promote, and I think that, you know, how many blocks --

DUNN: -- is okay? Is nine blocks okay? Is ten? I mean I don't know where you go with this argument.

BRZEZINSKI: And -- and -- and Anita, they have, like, other things there that a lot of people have issues with, like peep shows.

RUSH: There are in fact peep shows there, which makes you wonder why Muslims would want to be there. Greg Gutfeld wants to open a gay bar right next door. What do you think the odds of that happening are, if this mosque goes up? Anyway, that's just a sample. I mean they're running for the hills. They're in panic, and they're doing what they always do. When they're on the losing end of something, it's us, it is us, we who are intolerant, bigoted, racist, homophobic. In fact, that's the one thing they haven't said yet, which leads me to believe they haven't pulled Obama's teleprompter out. Normally on something like this they would call us racist. They haven't called us racist yet. That's probably the next shoe to drop.

RUSH: Okay, now, let me see if I understand this right. We have to get out of Iraq to show our sensitivity and to stop creating more terrorists. We have to close Guantanamo Bay out of sensitivity to terrorists and terrorist nations around the world. But we can't say no to building a victory monument at Ground Zero, which is what this mosque is. They want to build a victory monument. And we can't say "no" to that because somehow we've gotta preserve our values? This "our values" rationally, I heard that all during the Iraq war, we gotta get out of there, we gotta close Gitmo, we gotta stop torture, we gotta get back and show the world real American values. I'm sorry. Values as defined by the Democrat Party and the American left are not American values.

The real question here -- and once again this is about not accepting their premise -- the real question is why do people who don't like this country want that mosque there? What is so important about having it there, to them? They're the ones who need to be asked the question, not us. The pure logic in not having that mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero -- and that mosque location, by the way, is Ground Zero -- is a no-brainer. It's a victory monument. No Muslims live down there. There's not a shortage of mosques in New York City. It's not as though they have no place to go to worship. The real question is why the people on the American left want it there. Why are the people on the American left so hell-bent on once again doing something to poke their thumb in the eye of the country? That's the real question. They're the ones who ought to be questioned. And when they come and tell us, "religious freedom," don't tell me about religious freedom. Check and see what happens to a pro-life group protesting an abortion clinic if you want to talk about religious freedom. And don't tell me about property rights 'cause they couldn't care less about property rights. A kangaroo rat has more right to property than somebody who owns it in Bakersfield, California.

So when I hear the left talking about religious tolerance -- who is it that hates the Christian right? Who is it that despises, makes fun of, impugns the Christian right? Who is out there making fun of Christianity and Catholics all over the place? Who is it? It's the American left. You mean to tell me they have religious tolerance? They don't have any tolerance for what they don't agree with. Who are the architects of political correctness, which is nothing more than speech censorship? And property rights, don't make me laugh. Property rights? These are the people that supported the Supreme Court decision to take away a person's home in the Kelo case in Connecticut to give it to some developers. Property rights? We're supposed to sit here and believe that the Democrat Party, the American left, all of a sudden believe in religious tolerance and freedom? Ever try to build a nativity scene somewhere in your town? Guess who comes out and tells you you can't? You want to give a prayer at high school graduation, guess who's going to pop up and say you can't? They're at leftists, they're all Democrats, and these people want to tell us about religious tolerance, they want to lecture us about it? These are the people that have a respect for property rights?

This is just too much to believe. The real question is why do they want it there? Why are they so insistent that it be there, for what purpose? Why will a mosque being built on Ground Zero make them happy? How many of them are Muslims? And don't tell me, preserving American values. These are the people that are trying to destroy American values, time-honored and tested traditions, institutions that have defined this country for ages. They're the ones trying to tear it down. This is why I laugh at all of this. Every avenue they are seeking to explain, they're not even on that avenue. Religious freedom and tolerance? Property rights, American values? They don't like the Constitution, for crying out loud, because it doesn't empower the state with enough control over the American people. There was a cross out in the Mojave Desert. The left went so far as to steal it. It was a monument to soldiers that fought in World War I. We can't have a cross in the Mojave Desert. We can't have that. Somehow all that religious tolerance gets transferred to Ground Zero.

RUSH: "In 1999, national park employee Frank Buono, represented by the ACLU, filed a complaint saying the cross was unconstitutional because it represented just one faith -- Christianity. A judge ordered that it be covered with a wooden box until the matter was resolved." Religious tolerance, right, from the American left. They dare lecture us.

RUSH: Norah O'Donnell, MSNBC again on Scarborough's show today, she was queried about the Ground Zero mosque. Scarborough said to Norah O'Donnell, "Do you expect a lot of pressure coming from Democrats to the president to move in their direction and move the mosque?"

O'DONNELL: I think there's a question about whether what President Obama said and Bloomberg said were at least the right thing to do, and when do we stop praising politicians for doing what is right just because it's not politically expedient. I thought the reason everybody's groaning all the time about our politicians is because they're such hacks and nobody stands up for what's right. Who cares about the -- the concrete? Somebody's gotta say that, you know, we're not going to act like the people who stole freedom from Americans, the people who attacked America and killed 3,000 people.

RUSH: The libs are out there attacking Newt. Newt said it's no different than placing a swastika next to a Holocaust museum. They're having a cow out there over that. But here now, Norah O'Donnell has compared opposition to the mosque to killing 3,000 people. And all this courage with newfound concern for property rights, newfound concern for religious freedom and religious liberty. Everybody knows the left doesn't really care about any of that. Zilch, zero, nada. And Roger Simon today in The Politico: "Obama, The One-Term President." Here's how the piece starts. Now, don't be suckered. This is a sarcasm piece. "Q: Will Barack Obama be a one-term president? A: Yes, he might last that long. Honest to goodness, the man just does not get it. He might be forced to pull a Palin and resign before his first term is over. He could go off and write his memoirs and build his presidential library. (Both would be half-size, of course.)

"I am not saying Obama is not smart; he is as smart as a whip. I am just saying he does not understand what savvy first-term presidents need to understand: You have to stay on message, follow the polls, listen to your advisers (who are writing the message and taking the polls) and realize that when it comes to doing what is right versus doing what is expedient, you do what is expedient so that you can get reelected and do what is right in the second term. If at all possible. And it will help your legacy. And not endanger the election of others in your party. And not hurt the brand. Or upset people too much."

What he's doing here is praising Obama's courage, and he's comparing him to Lincoln. Lincoln got two terms by standing up and doing the right thing. A lot of people are misinterpreting Mr. Simon's piece here. Now, Simon says Obama's doing the right thing, he came out for the mosque. He's not doing what typical presidents do; he's not listening to the polls; he's not doing what's best for his party; he's not doing what's expedient; he's doing what's right. This is a piece that is praising Obama. Only a satirist, a good one like me can understand that. A lot of people have misunderstood this.

"It is a controversy Obama could have ducked ... but he finally decided he needed to lend his voice and the weight of the presidency to speaking out for what is right. So on Friday night, he said: 'As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances.' See what I mean about not getting it? John Feehery, a Republican consultant, told Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, 'This is not a unifying decision on his part; he chose a side. I understand why he did this, but politically I think it's a blunder.' ... The problem for Obama is that he appears to have taken seriously all the 'change' stuff he promised during his campaign. And he has been unable to make the transition from candidate to president. ... It appears, however, that at least on this occasion, Obama does not care what the polls say."

Now, the reason people are buying this, because a lot of people think the liberals live and die by polls. If you go against the polls you're crazy. This is a piece by Roger Simon attempting to give a huge bunch of attaboys to Obama. There's one problem, Mr. Simon. You don't write that Obama changed his mind the next day at the first sign of trouble. Oh, yes. On Saturday, Obama went, oh, no, no, no, I didn't mean that, no, no, I wasn't inserting myself on a local issue, I was doing that. So Mr. Simon, if you're gonna write about the courageous bravery of Barack Obama, compare him to Abraham Lincoln, doing the right thing, and he got two terms. Abraham Lincoln not listening to the polls or what have you. Don't you think it would be fair to include the fact in your piece that Mr. Obama the very next day tried to take back his own words of courage that were uttered on Friday?

RUSH: The ACLU has come out in favor of the mosque. ACLU praises the Muslim center and the mosque near Ground Zero," and we all know how the ACLU is always going around demanding free exercise of religion at Christmastime and so forth. I mean, they're famous for this, right? Ha!

RUSH: Now, this health care slide show that advises the Democrats on what to say and what not to say, is a blatant acknowledgement that Obamacare was pushed through Congress on the basis of a lie. I want to go back to his immaculation speech when Imam Obama was immaculated.

He said, "Our health care is too costly," and then he expanded on that in his speech on health care to Congress in September of 2009. Remember that speech? That was the speech where Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out, "You lie!" Remember that? In that speech, Imam Obama said, "Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government." That's what Imam Obama said. "Nobody disputes " it. That was then. Now, as with all of his promises, there's an expiration date.

The expiration date on this one has arrived. That's the speech that Joe Wilson shouted "You lie," when Obama's out there talking about how his health care plan is gonna permanently reduce the deficit, lower health care costs, and now the Democrats say, "Don't say it." Because, see, Obamacare would have had a sunset provision locked in if it did not claim to reduce the deficit. That's some newfangled law that they've had in the budget requirements for a while. The tax cuts have to sunset because the CBO said they wouldn't reduce the deficit. If it doesn't reduce the deficit, then it's gotta be ended at some point. So they had to say that health care was gonna reduce the deficit in order to make it permanent. Folks, we were lied to, scammed. This is fraud and deceit, and it's admission now by the Democrats with this slide show is profound.

To get Obamacare through the reconciliation -- you remember all of this? To get Obamacare through the reconciliation process without a sunset provision, the CBO claimed it would reduce the deficit by $118 billion. Remember they remember massaging and manipulating this to say it was never going to cost more than a trillion because that's what the Iraq war had cost and the regime was out there saying, "Oh, health care is going to cost less than the Iraq war." It was all lies, and Joe Wilson shouted that, and look what happened to him. So now we have... It's unconscionable. This entire regime has been a lie. It is an ongoing lie. They continue to lie when they say that the...

Well, the CBO is out on the Bush tax cuts. Get this. The CBO, "the nonpartisan CBO" (I always love it when they put that in the description, "the nonpartisan CBO") "says that extending the Bush tax cuts would have a temporary and immediate positive impact on the economy, but it would ruin the deficit by 2020." Now, would somebody explain that to me? The Bush tax cuts, if left in place, would have an immediate benefit to the economy and its rebound, recovery and economic growth. But the deficit would become unmanageable by 2020. So what are we to do here? How can both of those be true? Somebody needs to tell me how in hell we can have those tax cuts be an immediate economic boom leading to an out-of-control deficit?

Well, it doesn't make sense. That's another lie, and it's the lie that says tax cuts reduce revenue, that tax cuts add to the deficit. You and I all know that that's not true. It's all academic

anyway. Anybody who thinks these tax cuts are going to be extended? That is a triumph of emotion over common sense like I can think of no other example. You've got Geithner out there saying that this isn't going to happen. Obama's out there saying that it isn't going to happen. People are making it sound like this has got a chance. It ought to. These tax cuts ought to be extended, but I really do not see it happening.

New Democrat message: Improve health care, don't talk costs. Don't talk costs. Talk about all the benefits. It's not a big deal. It's now health care, actual health care is much better. "Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and the deficit and instead stressing a promise to 'improve it.'" and again, the only reason this was in there is to make it permanent. If a program expands the deficit, by law, it has to have a sunset. It has to end. And they want Obamacare to be perpetual. So they had to lie that it will reduce the deficit $118 billion. Big whoop. All a lie. Everything they have said about it is a lie.

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.

We watch FOX so you don't have to). Be clear on this; they do not want you to watch FoxNews.

News Organization (I mention them because I have seen 2 honest stories on their website, which shocked and surprised me):

Even though this group leans left, if you need to know what happened each day, and you are a busy person, here is where you can find the day’s news given in 100 seconds:

Weatherman Underground 1969 “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Janine Turner’s website (I’m serious; and the website is serious too). This is if you have an interest in real American history:

Judith Miller is one of the moderate and fairly level-headed voices for FoxNews:

Info Wars, because there is a war on for your mind (this site may be a little crazy??):

The Magic Negro Watch (this is peppered with obscenities and angry conservative rhetoric):

Do you want to watch what is happening on our border? These are actual videos of observations cams along the border:

No matter what your political stripe, you will like this; evaluate your Congressman or Senator on the issues:

AC/DC economics (start with the oldest lessons first; economics in 60 second bites):

The Freedom Project (most a conservative news and opinion site which appears to concentrate on matters financial)

This appears to be a daily pork report, apparently as pork in Washington bills is discovered, it gets posted at Tom Coburg’s website:

Weekly poll, asking you to identify what we ought to cut in governmental spending:

This is indispensable: the Wall Street Journal’s guide to Obama-care (all of their pertinent articles arranged by date—send one a day to your liberal friends):

Obamacare class action suit (as of today, joining in on the suit costs you whatever you want to donate, if I understand the form correctly):

A Muslim apologetic site (they will write out letters to express your feelings, and all you have to do is sign them, and they will send them on):

Since this will be with us for a long time, the timeline of the BP gulf oil spill:

This is cool: a continuous timeline of the spill, with the daily info and the expansion of the oil, and the response:

Army Ranger Michael Behenna sentenced to 25 years in prison for 25 years for shooting Al Qaeda operative

Maybe the White House does not need to hold press conferences? It releases exclusive articles daily right here:

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.

In case you need to reference this, here are the photos of all those on the JournoList:

Are you tired of all the unfocused news and lame talking heads yelling at one another? Just grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and see what is really going on in the world:

Conservative New Media (it is so-so; I must admit to getting tired of seeing the interviewer high-fiving Carly Fiorina 3 or 4 times during an interview):

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 #140	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	August 22, 2010