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).

At least 30 large companies are being allowed to temporarily opt out of Obamacare. It is my understanding that there are another 100 companies who also desire the same opt out.

Congress adjourns without passing a budget or determining what will happen with the Bush tax cuts (will they all expire? Will those only for the rich expire?). No bill and no debate.

It turns out that a part of Obamacare involves filing 1099's for each person that you do $600 (or more) business with in a single year.

It has just come out that California scientists overestimated by 340% future pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin meets with some 50 national conservative leaders Wednesday in Palm Beach, Florida where she discussed economic and diplomatic policy and led some to declare that she's in the 2012 presidential race.

New Jersey Republican congressional candidate, Jon Runyan, criticized his Democratic opponent, John Adller, Friday amid mounting evidence that Democratic officials planted a fake TEA party candidate in the race to siphon off conservative votes.

MTV is hosting a "townhall" for President Obama on Oct. 14, at 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C. The following casting call has surfaced: Seeking-Audience Members: males & females, 18+. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name.and what issues, if any, you are interested in or passionate about. Also, provide a recent photo and short description of your political views.

The Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday called for a mass turnout to welcome Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he arrives on a two-day official visit to Lebanon next week.

Jerry Brown team refer to Meg Whitman as a whore; within hours, NOW (the National Organization for Women) throws their support toward Brown.

Bill Maher: "All right, let me ask -- let me quote another person who is not in favor in this country and that's Osama bin Laden. He put out a tape last week. And there was nothing about violence or attacking America. See, Lindsay Lohan, people can change. It was about the Pakistani flood...he [bin Laden] said, `Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury. The phenomenon is an actual fact. All the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear the responsibility for testimony global warming crisis.' I guess my question is, how come a guy in a cave, gets it better than every Republican voting in the Senate?"

Joe Biden: "We know how to create jobs, and we know how to balance the budget. If I hear one more Republican tell me about balancing the budget, I am going to strangle them."

Nancy Pelosi: "It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance."

Eliot Spitzer: “Why there are so many folks like her [Christine O'Donnell] who seem to be taking over the Republican Party? I mean, this is not Bob Dole's Republican Party anymore- thoughtful, serious people. This (sic) is people who are kind of- I hate to say it, but kind of from the fringe.”

Bill Fletcher (writer, activist): “The participants in the Glenn Beck rally seem to relish ignorance...this country should not be dictated to by TEA party idiots.”

Obama's Labor Secretary Hilda Solis tells La Raza: “Many leaders here in the room worked tirelessly for Latinos in our communities; and you and I share that passion and commitment to help better the lives of people, especially the most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged in our society (nuestra gente) [which means, our people], because one of the things at the department of labor is we strongly believe in the protection of all workers, whether you are born in this country or whether you come here to work...we have changed the direction of the department of labor.”

David Brody [Interviewer from an interview a few months ago, but recently posted]: Can you think of a greatest living American?

Harry Reid: “I'm glad I had the opportunity to know Ted Kennedy. Whether you agreed with him or not, what a life he lead with his two brothers being assassinated, his other brother being killed in World War II. And Robert Byrd who just died. What a- he was in the Congress of the United States for more than 25 percent of the time that we have been a country. That's fairly remarkable.”

Governor David Paterson: "You heard the mantra, 'Tax the rich, tax the rich,' We've done that. We've probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state."

Linda McMahon: A follow-up, Mr. Blumenthal. You've talked about you want to incentivize small businesses. Tell me something, how do you create a job?

Richard Blumenthal: A job is created, and it can be in a variety of ways, by. a variety of people, but principally by people and businesses in response to demand for products and services. And the main point about jobs in Connecticut is we can and we should create more of them by creative policies. And that's the kind of approach that I want to bring to Washington.

I have stood up for jobs when they've been at stake. I stood up for jobs at Alderman Motors when GM wanted to shut down that automobile dealership. I stood up for jobs at Pratt & Whitney when that company wanted to ship them out of state and overseas. I stood up for jobs at Stanley Works when it was threatened with a hostile takeover.

I know about how government can help preserve jobs. And I want programs that provide more capital for small businesses, better tax policies that will promote creation of jobs, stronger intervention by government to make sure that we use the `Made in America' policies and `Buy America' policies to keep jobs here rather than buying products that are manufactured overseas, as WWE has done.

Government does not create jobs. It's very simple how you create jobs. An entrepreneur takes a risk. He or she believes that he creates goods or service that is sold for more than it costs to make it. If an entrepreneur believes he can do that, he creates a job.

After suggesting some budget cuts to those in power, Neil Cavuto adds: “You can either do it, or we will find someone who can.”

Ben Stein on environmental studies: “The scientific bias always seems to be in favor of controlling people.”

Sharon Angle on Sharia law in the United States: "It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

Possible Republican candidate for president, Newt Gingrich, has been driving home a vocabulary to shape the election, calling the Democrats the party of food stamps and the Republicans the party of paychecks.

I finally had the opportunity to see the Stossel show on the FoxBusiness station, and it was excellent (commercial first—the first 3 vids are from the show).

Carl Paladino, NY governor hopeful, buys enough time for a simple 3 minute issue. It is in the middle of the page; it is a pretty decent ad, with a fairly simple platform:

Harry Reid called Sharon Angle out of touch, because of her remarks on Sharia law. So, Angle released the following video about being out of touch:

Oregon Congressional candidate Art Robinson holds his own with Rachel Maddow (he does a nice job for not being a professional politician):

1) Last week, the meaningless discussion in California politics was all about governor candidate Meg Whitman, who may or may not have known that she hired an illegal alien. This week, the big discussion in California is a Jerry Brown aide calling Whitman a whore to Brown. Yes, these are big issues, California. I would spend hours and hours debating these (that is sarcasm, by the way).

2) Speaking of California, I am in the capitol city right now, and have read the Sacramento Bee for the past week, and, I have to report that, on at least one article, they presented what appeared to be a fair and balanced approach (this involved 2 of the propositions that Californians would be voting on, and they did a good list of the pros and cons, and listed those in favor and against these issues. As a voter, I would even take these articles into the voting booth with me. Furthermore, Charles Krauthammer had an article on the editorial page. For the past 10 years, I have been reading this unashamedly biased paper, as its readership has dropped, year after year. Now bear in mind, this is the same paper that, a year or so ago, when 3000-5000 TEA partiers gathered for the first time in the capitol, they were completely ignored by this paper. It was if they did not exist (they covered subsequent gatherings). However, now the Sacramento Bee is now about the size of my local free lawn paper in Texas, with an incredibly low readership. They are desperate now, and it looks as though they might be so desperate as to even attempting to be fair in their presentation of the news.

A 9.5% (or above) unemployment rate for 14 consecutive months is a record going back to the Great Depression.

Nevada's unemployment was 4.4% at the time of the 2006 midterm elections (at which point, Democrats took control of the House and Senate); it is not 14.4%, the highest in the nation.

41.8 million Americans now on food stamps, a record (this is an 18% increase over last year).

Media in New York is so interested in Paladino’s affairs, that they have even gone out to interview his 10 year old daughter. No such scrutiny has been given to his opponent, Michael Bloomberg. Remember how, during the presidential election, there were media types all over Alaska scouring the landscape for anything on Palin (including checking out her relationship with the public library); and, meanwhile, we knew little or nothing about Obama’s background.

New York Governor David Paterson for admitting that high New York taxes are not bringing in additional revenue. This is a big deal for 2 reason: (1) some Democrats start saying sensible things right before an election in order to get elected. Paterson is not running for governor. (2) Paterson is admitting, as a Democrat, that high taxes is not a good solution.

Also, Paterson also showed up on Saturday Night Live last week and did a bit with his imitator. Paterson did a half-way decent job, particularly considering that he cannot read cue cards (I am assuming this).

The Obama administration is quietly deporting more immigrants than the Bush administration did, and they are deporting more of the criminal element. Even though I would like to see some real punishment applied as a part of this deportation, the deportation is a start.

Scientist, weather expert, and global warming entrepreneur, Albert Gore, Jr. that global warming would make the record 2005 hurricane season seem like the good ol' days. Hurricanes, according to Gore, were going to get more powerful and more frequent. So far, Gore has been wrong.

The nation's biggest, richest and most powerful labor unions spent months organizing the "One Nation Working Together" rally at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday. With midterm elections approaching, they hoped to put on a show of political strength to energize struggling Democratic candidates. But even after giving it everything they had, they still weren't able to draw as many people as Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in August. Why not?

Because the labor movement is shrinking, aging and divided. Because the best program its leaders (and co-sponsors at the NAACP) could put together was one featuring Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Richard Trumka, Van Jones and Harry Belafonte. And because George W. Bush is no longer in the White House. Put those factors together, and Big Labor's big march fell flat.

First, the shrinking part. According to 2009 figures from the Labor Department, 12.3 percent of American workers belong to a union -- down from 20.1 percent in 1983. In real numbers, there are 15.3 million union members now; back then, when the country's population was significantly smaller, there were 17.7 million.

Next, aging. The Labor Department figures show there are more union members between 55 and 64 than in any other age group. The lowest rate of union membership is among younger workers.

Then, divided. In January, the Labor Department reported that for the first time in history, there are more union members in the public sector (7.9 million) than there are in the private sector (7.4 million). That's despite the fact that there are five times more workers in the private sector than in federal, state, and local governments. In percentage terms, just 7.2 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union, while 37.4 percent of public-sector workers are unionized.

In broad terms, the public-sector unions lean farther left, while the private-sector unions still count among their number old-fashioned blue-collar moderates who don't necessarily want to pay higher taxes to hire more public-sector employees. "The differences between them aren't violent, angry, screaming differences," says Fred Siegel, a scholar in residence at New York's St. Francis College and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, "but they're important differences."

What does a tired and aging movement do? It puts on a program with tired and aging leaders. Sharpton has long ago worn out his welcome among anyone beyond the hard-core Democratic base; the same is true for Jackson. The 83-year-old Belafonte's appearance at the rally was impressive, but mostly as a vision from an earlier era. Trumka's appeal does not go beyond the labor movement, and the young gun in the group, Van Jones, left the White House last year amid scandal. It wasn't exactly an all-star lineup.

Finally, the rally lacked a villain. Back in the days of George W. Bush, merely saying the president's name could elicit angry boos over and over and over again. Every problem in every part of American life could be attributed to Bush and his gang. Now, with a Democratic president and Congress, speakers can denounce Republicans all they want, but everyone knows who is running the U.S. government. That knowledge took a little of the edge off all those denunciations.

Put it all together, and what the rally lacked most was life. That became painfully clear during Sharpton's remarks, when he tried to illustrate the Democratic coalition's current plight by telling a Bible story.

"They say we're apathetic," Sharpton told the crowd. "They say we're not energized. Well you know, I'm a preacher. There's a story in the Bible about a man named Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw a valley full of dry bones. Somebody said, 'Can these bones live?' And the way he made them live was he started connecting them together."

Sharpton suggested that the different parts of the Democratic coalition -- black, white, Latino, Asian, straight, gay, immigrant, natural-born -- are like those dry bones. "If we can connect these bones," he said, "we can make America breathe and America live as one nation under God."

Put aside a few details -- in the Bible, it was God who brought the bones to life as Ezekiel watched -- and you're left with Sharpton's striking image of the Democratic Party as a bunch of old, dry bones. Could anything be more disheartening? In the Ezekiel story, it took a miracle to make the bones come to life. But there were no miracles to be found Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial.

I am writing to you as a concerned and sympathetic American who is a Republican. My sentiments do not represent every American -- that would be impossible. But I believe the following represent most Americans.

You may be very surprised to hear this, but in your position, millions of Americans, including me, would have done what you did.

If I lived in a poor country with a largely corrupt government, a country in which I had little or no prospect of hope for an improved life for me or my children, and I could not legally get into the world's freest, most affluent country, the country with the most opportunities for people of any and every background, I would do whatever I could do to get into that country illegally.

Mexico and many other Central and South American countries are largely hopeless places for most of their people. America offers hope to everyone willing to work hard. Who could not understand why any individual, let alone a father or mother of a family, would try to get into the United States -- legally preferably, illegally if necessary?

Now that I have made it clear that millions of us understand what motivates you and do not morally condemn you for entering America illegally, I have to ask you to try to understand what motivates us.

No country in the world can allow unlimited immigration. If America opened its borders to all those who wish to live here, hundreds of millions of people would come here. That would, of course, mean the end of the United States economically and culturally.

If you are from Mexico, you know that Mexico's treatment of illegal immigrants from south of its border is far harsher than my country's is of illegal immigrants. All it takes is common sense to understand that we simply cannot afford to take care of all of you in our medical, educational, penal and other institutions. However much you may pay in sales tax, most illegal immigrants are a financial and social burden in those states to which most them move.

Yes, many of you are also a blessing. Many of you take care of our children and our homes. Others of you prepare our food and do other work that is essential to our society. We know that. As individuals, the great majority of you are hardworking, responsible, decent people.

But none of that answers the question: How many people can this country allow into it?

The moment you have to answer that question is the moment you realize that Americans' worries about illegal immigration have nothing to do with "racism" or any negative feeling toward Hispanics.

Those who tell you it is racism or xenophobia are lying about their fellow Americans for political or ideological reasons. You know from your daily interactions with Americans that the vast majority of us treat you with the dignity that every fellow human being deserves. Your daily lives are the most eloquent refutation of the charges of racism and bigotry. The charge is a terrible lie. Please don't believe it. You know it is not true.

Democrats will act as your defenders by telling you that opposition to your presence here is race-based. There is no truth to that. As you probably know in your hearts, you have come to the least racist place on earth. The vast majority of us could not care less if your name is Gonzalez or Jones. That's why the chances are 50-50 that the child of Hispanic immigrants will end up marrying a non-Hispanic American.

One more thing: Many of you desire to return to your homelands. This is understandable, as many of you did not come here in order to become American but in order to earn the money that would allow you to afford to return home and lead a better life there. But as understandable as that is on an individual level, you must understand that that having millions of people in our midst who feel no bond to our country and who do not want to become one of us is a serious problem. You would feel the same about people who came to your countries to make money and use your country's medical, social, educational and other services paid for by the people of your country.

It is also a moral problem. There are countless people around the world who wish to come to America in order to become Americans, not just to earn money here. Many of you are taking their places. That is not fair to them or to America.

So, the truth is, in fact, simple: If you were an American, you would want to stop illegal immigration, and if most of us were you, we would do what you did to get into America. Neither of us is bad. You care about your family. We care about our country.

Now, a note to those of you who are here legally and to those of you who are American citizens.

First, while many of you understandably sympathize with the plight of fellow Latinos who are here illegally, you surely must understand that America cannot afford unlimited illegal immigration. This may well create a tension between your mind and your heart, and between your ethnic heritage and your allegiance to America.

If it does, your fellow Americans ask that you be guided by your mind (and we, believe, conscience) and by your concern for America. If anyone knows how extraordinarily welcoming America has been to Latinos -- from Mexico to Cuba to South America -- it is you. For your sake as well as America's, please do not succumb to the politics of victimization that are used solely and cynically to get your support for the Democrat Party.

Finally, and most important, by voting for Democratic Party candidates, you are voting for a type of government more like the ones most Latinos fled. Take the Mexican example. The Democratic Party is, in most important ways, an American version of the PRI. For 70 years, the PRI governed Mexico and brought its economy to its knees because of vast government spending, the squashing of individual initiative, a bloated bureaucracy, unsustainable debt and the subsequent devaluing of the Mexican peso.

Why, for God's sake, would you want to see that replicated in America? The very reason America has been so prosperous and so free -- the very reasons you or your ancestors, like almost every other American's ancestors, came here -- is that America has had more limited government and therefore more liberty than any other country in the world. The Republican Party represents all that you or your parents came to America for -- and why you left Mexico and other countries: individual opportunity and individual responsibility. It is also the party that represents your social values.

Admittedly, the Democratic Party appeals to your emotions. But a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote to make America like the Mexico of the PRI. And a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote to undo the great American achievement of uniting the children of immigrants from all over the world as Americans.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,New York, N.Y. v. 10 Cr. 541 (MGC) FAISAL SHAHZAD,Defendant.

THE COURT: Is there anything in the presentence report that contains an error that you would like to bring to my attention?

THE COURT: Very well. Then I will hear anything you want to tell me and anything your lawyer wants to tell me in connection with sentence.

THE DEFENDANT: My statement should take about five minutes to ten minutes, and I hope that the judge and the Court will listen to me before they sentence me. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, this is but one life. If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system. We Muslims don't abide by human-made laws, because they are always corrupt. And I had a firsthand experience when on the second day of my arrest I asked for the Miranda. And the FBI denied it to me for two weeks, effecting harm to my kids and family, and I was forced to sign those Mirandas. The sentence by the judge will not mean anything to me, for how can I be judged when the Court does not understand the suffering of my people. They don't understand my side of the story, where the Muslim life of is no value. Therefore, the only true judgment will be on the day of resurrection when Allah will judge between me and you as to who is fighting for the just cause. So decree whatever you desire to decree, for you can only decree regarding the life of this world. The crusading U.S. and NATO forces who have occupied the Muslim lands under the pretext of democracy and freedom for the last nine years and are saying with their mouths that they are fighting terrorism, I say to them, we don't accept your democracy nor your freedom, because we already have Sharia law and freedom. Furthermore, brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me. And only this time it's not imperial Japan or Germany, Vietnam or Russian communism. This time it's the war against people who believe in the book of Allah and follow the commandments, so this is a war against Allah. So let's see how you can defeat your Creator, which you can never do. Therefore, the defeat of U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future, inshallah, which will only give rise to much awaited Muslim caliphate, which is the only true world order. Soon the bailout money which is holding your fragile economy will run out and soon you will not be able to afford the war costs.

THE DEFENDANT: This is all coming towards the common -- towards the sentence, to how I support myself in the whole, what's my motivation for this whole.

THE COURT: All right. You became a naturalized American citizen some years ago, isn't that right?

THE COURT: Last year. Didn't you swear allegiance to this country when you became an American citizen?

THE DEFENDANT: Sure. I am ashamed that I belong to a slave country like Pakistan, who has accepted the slavery of the West from the day it was born. Bush had made already clear when he started the war on us, on Muslims, he said, You are either with us or against us. And so it's very clear for us Muslims, either we are with the mujahideen or we are with crusading losing Christians. There is no in between. Blessed the immigrants and the leader Sheikh Usama Bin Laden, who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21 century crusade and blessed be those who give him asylum.

THE DEFENDANT: He was the one who fought the first crusade from the western European countries.

THE DEFENDANT: He liberated Muslim lands from the Jewish crusade, Christian crusade. And that's what we Muslims are trying do, because you're occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, under the pretext of democracy and freedom. We don't want that. We already have Sharia law, law given by Allah. We don't need human-made laws.

THE DEFENDANT: I just want to finish off. I just have like one, two minutes more.

THE COURT: I will listen to what you want to tell me in connection with sentence.

THE DEFENDANT: Sure. This is towards the end. So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam. We are only Muslims trying to defend our , people, honor, and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace. But if you don't, then I remind you that we have watches and we have time. We will defeat you with time. And before I end my statement, I want to give you the last message, which is the message of truth. So that when you meet Allah on the day of resurrection you will not be able to say nobody gave you the message. The message is there is only one God, the lord of the universe, Mohammed, who is the last messenger and prophet, the Holy Koran is the last revelation to mankind, which obligates by its gospel to embrace Islam and become Muslims and save yourselves from the total pain of the last day.

MR. WEINSTEIN: Your Honor, I think as I informed the court in the letter about two weeks ago, Mr. Shahzad has asked that I say nothing.

THE COURT: A long time ago when I was an assistant United States Attorney, we did not think it was the function of the prosecutor to be heavily involved in sentence.

THE COURT: The one thing I would like the government to explain is what the forfeiture provisions mean. I don't understand them.

THE COURT: Very well. I'm glad to hear that because I do not understand the language of the forfeiture provision in the indictment. So you are withdrawing that I take it?

THE COURT: Very well. I have myself examined the presentence report very carefully, and I do adopt the guideline calculation of the probation officer. But I also examine with care the factors to be considered in imposing a sentence that Congress has enacted in Section 3553 of the Criminal Code in setting sentence. A number of the counts carry mandatory sentences, but nevertheless I have, as the law directs me, considered the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant. The sentence imposed must reflect the seriousness of the offense and the history, and the sentence should promote respect for the law and provide just punishment for the offense. It must also afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct to those who would be inclined to follow the example of this defendant, and, very important, to protect the public from further crimes of this defendant and others who would seek to follow him. The defendant has repeatedly expressed his total lack of remorse and his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime. So there is really no basis here for me to believe that somebody who falsely swore allegiance to this country, who swore to defend this country, who took oath a year ago to defend this country and to be loyal to it, has now announced and by his conduct has evidenced that his desire is not to defend the United States or Americans, but to kill them. Those are all serious matters that I must take into consideration in setting sentence. There are ten counts in this indictment, and there are three counts of mandatory life in prison.

MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, I'm sorry to interrupt. I believe there's one count of mandatory life in prison, which is Count Six.

THE COURT: Thank you. In any event, Count Six requires life imprisonment. Counts One and Two and Four and Five and Nine and Ten provide for penalties of up to life in prison.

MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, Counts Nine and Ten have a 20-year statutory maximum. Those can be up to 20 years' imprisonment. The other counts your Honor named do have a life maximum sentence.

THE COURT: There are a few counts which have 20 years in prison as maximums. Those are Counts Nine and Ten. Seven and Eight have penalties of up to ten years. At this time I set as your sentence life in prison.

THE COURT: I am really not inclined, even though the statute so provides, to have sentences following life in prison. It is the height of technicality for me to have sentences consecutive to life in prison. To the extent that it has any meaning, I adopt the requirements of the statutes, but I do not set any period of supervised release because no release is permitted. I want my sentence to be real, not fictitious, not formulaic. What you have done here, although happily the training you sought in making bombs was unsuccessful and you were unsuccessful in your effort to kill many Americans, you have made it plain that all of the factors that I mentioned before require that you be incarcerated for life. Accordingly, that is the sentence of the Court. Is there anything further?

MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, while understanding that it is a technical matter, and I understand your Honor's point with respect to sentence, the government would just request that the sentence per count as it would reflected in your Honor's judgment be stated for purposes of the record. There is a proposed --

THE COURT: Very well. On Counts One and Two I sentence you to life in prison each, separately.

THE COURT: I understand that you welcome that. On Counts Three, Four, and Five I also sentence you to life in prison. What I hesitate to say is they shall run consecutively. On Count Six, life in prison is mandatory. On Counts Seven and Eight, the statute requires ten years on each count, or permits ten years on each count, and those will run concurrently with the sentence on Counts One, Two, Nine and Ten. On Counts Nine and Ten I set 20 years on each count to run concurrently with Counts One and Two, but the overriding sentence is life in prison. You are a young man, and you will have a lot of time to reflect on what you have done and what you have said today and in the past.

THE DEFENDANT: My sentence, if you allow me to speak, will be only for the limit that God has given me life in this world. But if you people don't become believers, the life that you would get in the hereafter, which you don't believe in, will be forever. So I'm happy with the deal that God has given me.

MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, with respect to sentence, stating the special and any mandatory conditions of supervised release.

THE COURT: Thank you, yes. There is a mandatory assessment of $1,000, which you are required to pay. It is not a penalty, but it is collectible as if it were. The conditions of supervised release I will not go through because I consider supervised release here a meaningless technical fiction. You appear to be someone who was capable of education, and I do hope that you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.

THE DEFENDANT: The Koran gives us the right to defend, and that's what all I'm doing.

McGUIRE: Your Honor, the defendant should be advised of his right to appeal the sentence.

THE COURT: Thank you. That is correct. You have a right to appeal this sentence. If you wish to do so, you should discuss it with your lawyer. Within ten days he must file a protective notice of appeal for you, so you can then argue to the Court of Appeals, the next level of court, that your sentence is in error. Very well. There is no forfeiture sought, so I will ignore the forfeiture provision of the indictment. It has been withdrawn. You are now excused.

"The lessons of history ... show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

These searing words about Depression-era welfare are from Franklin Roosevelt's 1935 State of the Union Address. FDR feared this self-reliant people might come to depend permanently upon government for the necessities of their daily lives. Like narcotics, such a dependency would destroy the fiber and spirit of the nation.

What brings his words to mind is news that 41.8 million Americans are on food stamps, and the White House estimates 43 million will soon be getting food stamps every month.

If you would chart America's decline, this program is a good place to begin. As a harbinger of the Great Society to come, in early 1964, a Food Stamp Act was signed into law by LBJ appropriating $75 million for 350,000 individuals in 40 counties and three U.S. cities.

Yet, no one was starving. There had been no starvation since Jamestown, with such exceptions as the Donner Party caught in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-47, who took to eating their dead.

The Food Stamp Act became law half a decade after J.K. Galbraith in his best-seller had declared 1950s America to be the world's great Affluent Society.

Yet, when Richard Nixon took office, 3 million Americans were receiving food stamps at a cost of $270 million. Then CBS ran a program featuring a premature baby near death, and told us it was an infant starving to death in rich America. The nation demanded action, and Nixon acted.

By the time he left office in 1974, the food-stamp program was feeding 16 million Americans at an annual cost of $4 billion.

Fast forward to 2009. The cost to taxpayers of the U.S. food-stamp program hit $56 billion. The number of recipients and cost of the program exploded again last year.

Among the reasons is family disintegration. Forty percent of all children in America are now born out of wedlock. Among Hispanics, it is 51 percent. Among African-Americans, it is 71 percent.

Food stamps are feeding children abandoned by their own fathers. Taxpayers are taking up the slack for America's deadbeat dads.

Consider New York City, where 1.7 million people, one in every five in the city, relies on food stamps for daily sustenance.

Obesity rates have soared. Forty percent of all the kids in city public schools from kindergarten through eighth grade are overweight or obese.

Among poor kids, whose families depend on food stamps, the percentages are far higher. Mothers of poor kids use food stamps to buy them sugar-heavy soda pop, candy and junk food.

Yet Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to the Department of Agriculture that recipients not be allowed to use food stamps to buy sugar-rich soft drinks has run into resistance.

"The world might be better ... if people limited their purchases of sugared beverages," said George Hacker of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "However, there are a great many ethical reasons to consider why one would not stigmatize people on food stamps."

The Department of Agriculture in 2004 denied a request by Minnesota that would have disallowed food stamp recipients from using them for junk food. To grant the request, said the department, would "perpetuate the myth" that food-stamps users make poor shopping decisions.

What a changed country we have become in our expectations of ourselves. A less affluent

America survived a Depression and world war without anything like the 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, welfare payments, earned income tax credits, food stamps, rent supplements, day care, school lunches and Medicaid we have today.

Public or private charity were thought necessary, but were almost always to be temporary until a breadwinner could find work or a family could get back on its feet. The expectation was that almost everyone, with hard work and by keeping the nose to the grindstone, could make his or her own way in this free society. No more.

What we have accepted today is a vast permanent underclass of scores of millions who cannot cope and must be carried by the rest of society - fed, clothed, housed, tutored, medicated at taxpayers' expense for their entire lives. We have a new division in America: those who pay a double fare, and those who forever ride free.

We Americans are not only not the people our parents were, we are not the people we were. FDR was right about what would happen to the country if we did not get off the narcotic of welfare.

America has regrettably already undergone that "spiritual and moral disintegration, fundamentally destructive to the national fiber."

A president's first midterm election is inevitably a referendum on his two years in office. The bad news for Democrats is that President Obama's "reelect" number is 38 percent -- precisely Bill Clinton's in October 1994, the eve of the wave election that gave Republicans control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Yet this same poll found that 65 percent view Obama favorably "as a person." The current Democratic crisis is not about the man -- his alleged lack of empathy, ability to emote, etc., requiring remediation with backyard, shirt-sleeved shoulder rubbing with the folks -- but about the policies.

And the problem with the policies is twofold: ideology and effectiveness. First, Obama, abetted by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, tried to take a center-right country to the left. They grossly misread the 2008 election. It was a mandate to fix the economy and restore American confidence. Obama read it as a mandate to change the American social contract, giving it a more European social-democratic stamp, by fundamentally extending the reach and power of government in health care, energy, education, finance and industrial policy.

Obama succeeded with health care. Unfortunately for the Democrats, that and Obama's other signature achievement -- the stimulus -- were not exactly what the folks were clamoring for. What they wanted was economic recovery.

Here the Democrats failed the simple test of effectiveness. The economy is extraordinarily weak, unemployment is unacceptably high, and the only sure consequence of the stimulus is nearly $1 trillion added to the national debt in a single stroke.

And yet, to these albatrosses of ideological overreach and economic ineffectiveness, the Democrats have managed in the past few weeks to add a third indictment: incompetence.

For the first time since modern budgeting was introduced with the Budget Act of 1974, the House failed to even write a budget. This in a year of extraordinary deficits, rising uncertainty and jittery financial markets. Gold is going through the roof. Confidence in the dollar and the American economy is falling -- largely because of massive overhanging debt. Yet no budget emerged from Congress to give guidance, let alone reassurance, about future U.S. revenues and spending.

That's not all. Congress has not passed a single appropriations bill. To keep the government going, Congress passed a so-called continuing resolution (CR) before adjourning to campaign. The problem with continuing to spend at the current level is that the last two years have seen a huge 28 percent jump in non-defense discretionary spending. The CR continues this profligacy, aggravating an already serious debt problem.

As if this were not enough, Congress adjourned without even a vote -- nay, without even a Democratic bill -- on the expiring Bush tax cuts. This is the ultimate in incompetence. After 20 months of control of the White House and Congress -- during which they passed an elaborate, 1,000-page micromanagement of every detail of American health care -- the Democrats adjourned without being able to tell the country what its tax rates will be on Jan. 1.

It's not just income taxes. It's capital gains and dividends, too. And the estate tax, which will careen insanely from 0 to 55 percent when the ball drops on Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Nor is this harmless incompetence. To do this at a time when $2 trillion of capital is sitting on the sidelines because of rising uncertainty -- and there is no greater uncertainty than next year's tax rates -- is staggeringly irresponsible.

As if this display of unseriousness -- no budget, no appropriations bills, no tax bill -- were not enough, some genius on a House Judiciary subcommittee invites parodist Stephen Colbert to testify as an expert witness on immigration. He then pulls off a nervy mockery of the whole proceedings -- my favorite was his request to have his colonoscopy inserted in the Congressional Record -- while the chairwoman sits there clueless.

A fitting end for the 111th Congress. But not quite. Colbert will return to the scene of the crime on Oct. 30 as the leader of one of two mock rallies on the Mall. Comedian Jon Stewart leads the other. At a time of near-10 percent unemployment, a difficult and draining war abroad, and widespread disgust with government overreach and incompetence, they will light up the TV screens as the hip face of the new liberalism -- just three days before the election.

There aren't a lot of walls around Carly Fiorina. While politicos have marveled at the missteps of Meg Whitman's $140 million Titanic of a campaign, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO has made herself accessible to journalists in her bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer.

She hasn't over-parsed her positions. She didn't try to retool her take on the issues after she won the GOP primary. There's a real what-you-see-is-what-you-get feel to Fiorina.

Fiorina is new to politics and has a spotty voting record. Those are points against her. But as the first woman to head a Fortune top 20 corporation, she understands what California and Washington need to do to compete in the world and reduce painfully high unemployment.

Besides, Fiorina's not selling big government as the answer. What more do you need to know?

Boxer always has tried to paint her GOP rivals as extremists -- and that's been a winning formula since she first won office in 1992 -- so she's hitting Fiorina for being pro-life. But it's clear that social issues are not on Fiorina's front burner.

The senator also is going after Fiorina for laying off 30,000 workers and outsourcing jobs when she was at HP's helm -- then taking a $21 million severance package when the board fired her.

Fiorina doesn't run away from her record. At the only televised debate of the race, Fiorina told a former HP employee, "This is the 21st century. Any job can go anywhere. And what worries me deeply is the jobs we lose now may not come back. And so we have to fight for every job. The truth is that California has a higher-than-average unemployment rate" -- it's 12.4 percent -- "because we are destroying jobs and others are fighting harder for our jobs."

Boxer promises to be the California senator who will fight for "American jobs." How? She is a cog in a Democratic machine that adjourned Congress and left town without extending the Bush tax cuts for anyone.

How can Boxer help create American jobs when her party wouldn't even extend the tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000 because Democratic leaders are afraid of being outmaneuvered by the GOP?

Boxer isn't quite a liberal cartoon character. She has worked with Republicans on public-works bills. She backed a provision to restrict abortion coverage to win a vote by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. for Obamacare. She voted to deny federal housing funds to ACORN. She also voted to fund an extra $1.7 billion on F-22s, which the Pentagon didn't request.

Excellent article, containing the paragraph: The 47 smartest economists around the president of the United States agree that the best way to solve the "untenable fiscal situation" is to boost education spending, weatherize homes, throw more bad money after bad in the housing market, more bad money after bad in the Small Business Administration, and maybe (though only over the president's dead body) freeze all taxes for two years. That oughtta tenabilize it.

GLAAD and Universal pictures go round and round about the use of the word gay in the trailer for Dilemma.

The Daily Kos is calling on many of its members to link to negative articles about Republican candidates, so that these links will show up near the top on Google. I must admit, that is a slick idea.

CALLER: Rush, hello. You are the most intuitive man on the planet, so I have two questions.

CALLER: Do you feel, with your intuition, that Boehner and McConnell have the conviction to repeal Obamacare even if we win the House and Senate?

RUSH: Here's what I actually think. I think that they are frightened that all of us are expecting them to repeal it, and they know they can't because they don't have the votes to override a veto. So they are frightened that we think they are going to have much more control of the government than they actually will. They are hoping we will be patient until the 2012 election, until Obama is hopefully defeated. They are hoping that we understand that even with big victories there's not a whole lot we can do except maybe stop or put on the brakes, the Obama agenda.

RUSH: Because they don't have the White House. That is what my intuition tells me about where they are.

CALLER: I agree. And my other question is, intuitively speaking do you feel that Obama himself wants private industry to no longer be able to afford to provide health care so it will be a single-payer system?

CALLER: I think your audience understands that. You've implied that, but do we need to understand that?

RUSH: Well, see, that kind of frustrates me because for a year and a half I thought I've made this pretty clear, that the whole point of everything in the health care bill is to price private sector insurance companies out of business leaving only one place to go, and that is the federal government. Obama himself, we played the sound bites of Obama back in 2003 saying, "We're not gonna get to single payer overnight, it may take 15 years, may take a while." We've played all these sound bites. We're going to have to do this piecemeal and get to the point where people will go to the federal government as last resort, because Obama knows people don't want to really have to go to the government for their health care or their insurance. Only the people he's convinced it's going to be free are going to do that. We've had a number of insurance salespeople and executives on this program call and update people on what the status of the business is at various stages of the implementation of Obamacare.

I think we've been pretty clear, but if I need to say it again and again and again, I will. The McDonald's thing, these waivers, is proof positive. If this were not an election year, there wouldn't be any waivers and these people would lose their coverage. It's just that simple. Thirty companies would not get waivers, and those employees would lose coverage, they would not have health insurance, and they would be clamoring. And somehow it would be the Republicans' fault. There would be a crisis; there would be an emergency. How we gonna get 'em coverage? I guess we'll have to speed up the federal exchanges, would be the answer, as the secretary may determine, in this case, the Health and Human Services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.

RUSH: Look, the way Obama's gonna get to national health care single payer is by basically being patient, having people demand it because it's all there's going to be. He's going to do the same thing with coal. He's not going to ban coal. He's not going to say coal's illegal. He's just, as he promised, gonna make it a losing proposition to go into the coal business. It's gonna cost you an arm and a leg if you want to have a coal fired plant. "If you want to do it go right ahead, but you're going to be paying me taxes like you can't believe. You're not going to make a dime and you're gonna lose millions doing it, but go ahead if you want to." That's how he's going to do it. The guy asked me, "What's your intuition on the Republicans?" and I think that they're hoping we realize that they don't have the power to control the government even after the election because they're not going to hold the White House.

One of the things that I think professional politicians are misunderstanding about this guy, and one of the reasons I think I do understand him, everybody in Washington is a professional politician, and a professional in anything thinks a certain way. A professional politician does not think outside the box. Obama is not a professional politician. Obama is a professional agitator. He is a professional revolutionary. He is a professional organizer. His handbook is Saul Alinsky, not whatever handbook inside-the-Beltway politicians use in their business. Clinton was a professional politician. Holding onto power, keeping his job was always number one, so that Hillary could then inherit his power. Obama doesn't think that way. He's not oriented to holding onto power. His mode right now is destruction. His mode, he wants to be an historic figure. He wants to rule the world. After he has worked his, quote, unquote, magic here in the United States, he wants to be asked to be secretary general or the guy that the UFO people want to meet when they land. You know, "Take me to your leader." He wants to be that guy.

Lincoln didn't think he would be reelected. He didn't care. And Obama sees himself as a new Lincoln. You have to think outside the box. In analyzing Obama, you can't put him in the professional politician box and predict what he's going to do. To understand Obama, to predict what he's going to do, you have to understand he's not a professional politician. He's got other objectives than professional politicians. And until our guys inside the Beltway understand that, until they're able to understand that Obama's not have the desires of the traditional political politician, professional politician, they're not gonna understand what's happening.

Marty in San Antonio, Texas, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Good. I've been a fan for going back like 15 years since the Clinton years.

CALLER: I am, born and raised, and a Steeler fan since I could walk. But what I wanted to ask you about was basically what I call the relevancy of Congress.

CALLER: And to me that means -- and I think a lot of people don't think about that -- and that is, they're hoping that we take the Congress and the Senate back. And let's say that we do. So then what happens? They have all these expectations. And you were giving an example just before, you know, with what you were just saying. Let me give the example of like the student loans. The financial purse strings are held in Congress' hands, and with this Democratic Congress, they just gave that power away.

CALLER: And I know that a lot of times Congress has given away their power. That goes back to I believe Nixon, if not before then, and that has happened in many administrations. So what I mean by that is, even if we do take both houses back, with Obama doing the czars and a lot of the power being given to them, even if we do take it back, what is the relevancy of Congress going to be?

RUSH: That totally depends on what the Congress wants to make of itself. The Constitution is the Constitution. And if the Republicans who then own Congress want to hold Obama's feet and everybody else to the Constitution, then their powers will be theirs, even if Obama has usurped 'em. As you say with these czars and everything else. It just depends on what they want to do. It depends on what their objectives are. The House controls the money. Obama still doesn't have control of that. All spending bills, all tax bills still originate in the House of Representatives. Some people have asked me, "Well, Rush, couldn't they defund, not pay for some of Obama's health care provisions?" Yeah, they could. Will they? I don't know. If they try that, can you imagine? Nothing's gonna change in this regard. The Democrats and the media are going to be all over 'em. They're going to be the biggest baby killers, they're going to be starving more kids, there's going to be school lunch plan cuts all over again. You're gonna hear Republicans want to cut your Social Security, want to kick you out of your house, all of that's coming.

So it just depends on what their own agenda is and what their mettle is. They're not going to be irrelevant. Obama still had to go to them to get the spending for his stimulus bill. The Democrats gave it to him because they're in the same party. I don't care what question I am asked about this, what I think they're going to do with health care, whether they're gonna repeal it, are they going to be relevant or what have you, it all is up to them. We have a Constitution. Are we gonna hold the president's feet to it? Are we gonna start investigating some of this stuff that's happened? Are we gonna investigate the money going to the czars and what they're doing with it? I mean, if Darrell Issa wants, he can go to town on this. There could be endless investigations. It just depends what they want to do with it and what they think their mandate is after they win the election, which they're always looking forward to the next one, by the way.

RUSH: Paul in Delray Beach, Florida. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, congratulations on your wedding. I thought Family Guy was awesome. Look, I'm a guy out here, a conservative guy, I'm with two-thirds of the country that are giving the Republicans a mandate to go and stop this guy, and then I tune into your show today, and it's clear to me that the Republicans really don't know who this is. And if they don't know who it is, how are they gonna formulate strategies to beat 'em?

RUSH: They know he's gotta be stopped, they know who he is. When I say that they're putting him in a professional politician box, I only mean in the sense they're looking at him as somebody who's gonna change and moderate his liberalism, because he's gonna want to be reelected. This is their theory in 2012. I don't think that's the case. I think he's gonna try to ramrod whatever.

RUSH: They're just concerned that those of us who send them into Washington with these great majorities understand that they can't really overturn anything, roll anything back until they get the White House. They're not saying they're not going to stop it.

CALLER: I'm not worried about them not being able to do it. I'm worried about them not being willing to do it. I think about the budget battle in 1995, I think about power sharing. I mean these are not happy memories of the last Republican mandate.

RUSH: Well, if it makes you feel any better, the ranking Republican to whom I spoke today, I brought up that '95 budget battle, and I said, "They're gonna do it to you again. They're gonna let you exhibit the fiscal responsibility that they know has to happen, they're gonna blame you for it, they're gonna accuse you of starving kids with a school lunch cut and Social Security." I said, "You better have a plan better than you had in '95 dealing with it." The plan in '95 was nobody's going to believe this, who's gonna believe we want to starve kids? Well, by the time they had kids in New Orleans writing letters saying, "I'm starving, why won't you let me eat lunch," and so forth, look, they get it, they get it. And I think they're gonna surprise you, especially if this victory's as huge as it is. They know that it's not going to be this Pledge that's attracting the votes. It's helpful, but be confident. I am. This is just the first step of many of these steps that's going to have to happen. One election, and after this election's won, it's gonna get hard. The other side is just not gonna go away. They're not gonna say, "Oh, God, the country doesn't love us anymore, please forgive us." They're gonna ratchet it up. Always happens. Be ready. Be prepped.

RUSH: Let me try to put this in perspective. Rolling back, not just Obama, but the Democrats of the last 50 years, folks, rolling this back is gonna take a long time, a lot of hard work, and it's going to be intense. It's going to be the intensity of football with a 162-game schedule instead of 16. That's how intense this is going to be. People take it seriously. So this is step one in November. It'll happen.

RUSH: This is from Gallup, unemployment numbers. I want you to imagine -- this chart starts in January 2010, goes through the calendar year, and it's a chart, up-and-down green line of unemployment. And the number is tacking up beginning in the middle of July to the present, we're going up. There's no downward trend, there's no straight line. We're going up. This close to an election, a month out, partisan operatives in State-Controlled Media would be on fire from now until Election Day with this information if there were a Republican in the White House. It would not be ignored as it is being ignored by our brethren and sistren in the partisan-controlled media. It would lead the news if Republicans could be blamed for it. This would be the blockbuster story of the month, Gallup's US unemployment rate, 30-day averages not seasonally adjusted. They have us now at 10.1%, not seasonally adjusted, 10.1%. It's an election year.

"Jobless Claims Near Three-Month Low," Reuters. "New claims for unemployment benefits fell to a near three-month low last week, pointing to some improvement in the troubled labor market." Yet, if you look here at the Gallup chart, there is no trend downward. "Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 445,000." So what this means is, almost one half of a million people still can't find jobs. And we're still losing them. Where's the bottom here? How is it possible? How many more jobs are there to be laid off from out there? "Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims edging up to 455,000 from the previously reported 453,000. The government revised the prior week's figure up to 456,000." The way this works is, so that they can show good news every week, they lie, and, after everybody forgets the news, then they revise it downward or worse in the next week so the numbers continue to look not quite as bad as they really are.

Now, what Gallup does different, you might be saying, "Rush, the unemployment rate, 9.5, 9.6%, and you say Gallup shows it 10.1." Yes. You heard correctly. What Gallup does differently in their report to get 10% is they add unemployed part-time workers. They add unemployed part-time workers, and even the 10% figure is low. I mean if you look at the U6 which continues to count people who have given up looking. We're at 17%. No change. There's nothing happening in the private sector that is going to lead to any kind of a change in unemployment. And I'm telling you, less than a month away that's all we'd be hearing about if Obama was a Republican. That's all we'd be hearing. We wouldn't have stopped hearing about it for the last year and a half. Instead we've got these sycophant stories out here, "It's showing exciting improvement out there, showing we may have bottomed out, oh, goody goody goody, Obama's policies might actually be working." This is what the attempt is.

RUSH: Now they tell us. (laughing) Folks, what a day. What a day this is. Here's the headline, it's from Reuters: "Job Losses in 2009 --" that's last year for those of you in Port St. Lucie or Rio Linda "Job Losses in 2009 Likely Bigger Than Thought." Who knew? Now they tell us. "The economy likely shed more jobs last year than previously thought, but analysts say the undercount by the government should prove less severe than it did during depths of the recession. The Labor Department on Friday will give an initial estimate of how far off its count of employment may have been in the 12 months through March." Can you imagine if Bush were president and this story were worded this way? "The government admitted earlier this year that its count through March 2009 had overstated employment by 902,000 jobs."

Now, there's a way, for those of you in Rio Linda and Port St. Lucie to understand this. What this story is saying is that the government is admitting they cooked the books for 12 months. They lied. They knowingly lied, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And get this. I love the qualifiers in this story. "The economy likely shed more jobs last year than previously thought, but analysts say the undercount by the government should prove less severe than it did during depths of the recession. The Labor Department on Friday will give an initial estimate of how far off its count of employment may have been in the 12 months through March. The government admitted earlier this year that its count through March 2009 had overstated employment by 902,000 jobs. ... The department blamed its 902,000 miss on faulty estimates of how many companies were created or destroyed --" Destroyed! Not went out of business. (laughing) They're actually honest about this. Destroyed. (laughing) What a day.

Let me read this again: "The department blamed its 902,000 miss on faulty estimates of how many companies were created or destroyed --" Who destroyed 'em, Reuters, we want to know. "-- and it has not yet made any changes to the so-called birth-death model that produces this projection. Once a year, it compares payroll data from its monthly surveys of employers with unemployment insurance tax reports, which give it a much more comprehensive view of actual employment. It uses these tax records to produce a 'benchmark revision' to adjust for discrepancies. 'That adjustment is probably overstating the employment gains because we are in a very subdued recovery and the likelihood is that the birth-death factor is making the data look better than it otherwise would be,' said Neil Dutta, an economist at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York."

Now, get this next one. "Tax records will probably show more businesses closed than initially estimated by the Labor Department, analysts said." Imagine, oh, say BP. Imagine Exxon Mobil coming out with a story, "You know, ahem, we underestimated our tax obligations for 12 months. We underpaid by two billion. We're gonna revise this. We understated our taxes." Imagine the hoots and hollers there would be. "Job Losses in 2009 Likely Bigger Than Thought." So government lied; jobs died. Government lied; businesses died. They actually used the term "businesses created or destroyed." Government lied; jobs died. Government lied; businesses died. Yeah, there's more to this and I will get to it. (interruption) Who benefited from the government lie that 902,000 jobs were misssed? In other words, job losses likely bigger than thought, who benefitted? That's a good question. Who would benefit from this lie? Who would benefit from it not being reported to be as bad as it was? Hmm. Hmm.

That, Snerdley, is a brilliant question, one that we're going to have to examine. We can't knee-jerk our answer to this one. We need to research this. We need to get the best minds, best experts -- (laughing) -- the most unchallenged professionals we can find to give us this answer. (laughing) Who benefitted? Who benefitted from the fact that a million more jobs were lost than we thought? Government lied; jobs died. Government lied, businesses died. Now, the way to look at this, who would benefit from talking up the economy? It's not just who would benefit from lying about how bad it was. Who would benefit from talking it up? I mean how many times did we hear we're coming back from the brink, we're turning the corner, the worst is behind us? The economy is never talked up during a GOP administration.

RUSH: New Harmony, Utah. Brian, welcome to the EIB Network. Nice to have you here.

CALLER: I would say that they misinterpreted or misdone (sic) these jobless numbers in order to keep them from backing into that magic number of 10% unemployment. I mean they got right up to 9.8, 9.9, and then it suddenly, you know, leveled off and went back down just a tiny bit. I wouldn't be surprised if these numbers were manipulated to keep that bad, bad news from getting worse.

RUSH: Hmm. Well, that's a good thought. Ten percent, that was a threshold they didn't want to cross.

CALLER: And, Rush, if I might take one more moment of your time. When football season is over and you go back to being exposed to the bachelorette again, Monday night is my favorite night of TV. On the History Channel, two programs, Pawn Stars and American Pickers. Once you watch 'em you'll be hooked.

CALLER: Yes, sir. Pawn Stars, as in pawn shop, p-a-w-n, Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, Nevada, all the stuff they take in, and the other is American Pickers. They're both on Monday night, and I wouldn't miss either one of them.

CALLER: It's a couple of guys that go out in the little farming communities and go through people's old barns and stuff, finding old cars and bicycles, picking through what some people would say is junk and finding treasure and then reselling it.

RUSH: All right, I'll look forward to that. I'll try to remember to set the TiVo up on Monday nights when football season is over.

RUSH: Thanks very much for the suggestion, Brian. Have a wonderful day. (interruption) I wasn't going to say anything more about American Pickers. The staff is warning me to be very careful because a lot of people love the American Pickers show. Somebody tell me, is there a paint drying channel? Am I missing anything there? I mean, you got 250, 300 channels out there, there's gotta be stuff I don't know about. If I didn't know American Pickers existed, there's gotta be stuff I don't know that people are watching.

RUSH: Jeff in Greenville, South Carolina. Great to have you here as we start on the phones. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Thank you, sir, from the first state to secede from the union and also the home and friend of Jim DeMint, the honorable one.

CALLER: The reason I called you is to give you evidence about earlier what you said in the day about, you know, people that have money don't necessarily have to spend it and that they hold onto it, which if they spent it, of course, it would make the economy grow --

CALLER: -- and I sold luxury cars for ten years. At the end I was selling Lexus --

RUSH: Okay, I was gonna ask you, you sell luxury cars and you say Lexus is a luxury car. Okay.

CALLER: I used to sell Lexus. I mean I used to sell luxury cars. I'm not anymore.

CALLER: Yeah, 2007 was my best year, and 2008 I made a little under half what I made before because people that have money don't necessarily have to go out and buy a new car and what ends up happening, back in 2007 they came out with this new model of the LX which was selling anywhere from $78,000 to 81,000, and nationwide (unintelligible) sticker price.

CALLER: But come the next year, you know, when you're commissioned only, and people are not coming in, you know, people are smart, they're not going to bring, you know, go buy --

RUSH: Yeah, let me tell you what's fascinating about this caller. Let me tell you what's fascinating about this because he's bouncing off a story yesterday, Obama out there saying, "Look, the rich, they're gonna buy their big-screen TVs anyway, whether we give them a tax cut or not, they're not gonna take their ball and go home." What really needs to be pointed out here, we have to define rich versus wealthy. Far too many people mean rich people when they really are talking about wealthy, or they mean wealthy people when they're talking about rich. There's a huge difference. Somebody making $250,000 a year is not wealthy. In fact, I would go so far as to say somebody making $250,000 is not rich. They're paying the biggest burden of the federal income tax. They don't have money to burn. It's really a mistake to categorize these people as the group that will spend regardless of taxes 'cause they've got so much, I mean they got more than they need is the way the Democrats look at it. So I guarantee you most families, $250,000 a year, do not think they've got more than they need. Would you agree with me on that, Snerdley? All right. Now, I got a break here in 15 seconds, but I am going to expand on this as only I can. This is going to be a classic illustration of making the complex understandable. Because the wealthy, even they're dialing it back some. But that's not who we're really talking about here.

RUSH: Okay. Let's go back. Our caller in South Carolina says that he used to sell luxury cars. He described as a luxury car a Lexus. He said the rich stopped buying luxury cars starting in 2007 and it just continued to get worse, he's now not selling cars, the rich aren't buying luxury cars. This term rich is used to encompass and include way, way, way too many people, and it is done to the benefit of the Democrat Party because there's well-to-do, there's rich, there's upper middle class, there's filthy rich, there's wealthy, there's the idle wealthy, and then there is the elite blue-bloods who inherited great fortunes. And remember, behind every fortune is a great crime. But that's a subject for another day. I would argue just myself that a Lexus is not really a luxury car. It's way, way, way, way up there. For a lot of people it's way, way up there in a luxury car.

This whole subject has fascinated me my whole life, and back in the early nineties is when I first started meeting really, really, really wealthy people. I asked a guy, "In your circle of people that you work with, circle of people you do business with, what's rich to you?" He said, "You're not a player unless you have $500 million. Your net worth is $500 million. If you're not at $500 million you're not a player." Okay, the $500 million guys and above that, the $250 million guys, buying a Lexus is no different than buying a pack of cigarettes, they're going to do it regardless what tax policy is. We're not talking about consumption. This is not simply about consumption. This is where Obama's gone off the rails. This is where he is a jackass, an ignoramus on economics and particularly capitalism. And I do believe both. I believe he is an ignoramus on capitalism and is also purposely destroying capitalism, and I think the two go hand in hand. The only reason you'd want to destroy capitalism is if you've been lied to about how unfair, unjust, and immoral it is. And I believe he has been maleducated, ill-educated, he has been lied to by a bunch of angry people his whole life who turned him into an angry person, and who believe that the ills of this world are rooted in capitalism. I mean it's right out of the Engels and Marx belief system.

So it's entirely compatible that you could be an economic ignoramus and a jackass where capitalism is concerned and purposely want to destroy it. So he covers both bases there. Now, he says to his economic advisors, Mr. President, really, you ought to leave alone the tax structure right now. In fact this whole language, tax cuts -- nobody's taxes are gonna get cut! If the Bush tax rates are left alone, nobody's gonna get a tax cut. It's just that income tax rates are not gonna change. The only way the taxes are going to change is go up if Obama does not stand aside. If Obama lets these things sunset, he lets them end, then everybody's taxes are going up, and I mean everybody's. Not just the $250,000-and-up people. Everybody's taxes are going up. But nobody's taxes are being cut. And this is what Obama and Axelrod and the Democrats all want you to think is that what we're talking about here is cutting taxes for the rich. We are not. We're talking about leaving them alone.

So Obama's two economic advisors, one of them Martin Feldstein, says, Mr. President, the problem you have out there is that there's no confidence. Not among consumers exclusively, there's no confidence among investors. There's no confidence among people who will use what they've got to grow their businesses and thus grow the economy. If you are going to play games with their tax rates, then they are going to sit on what they have and their focus is going to be preservation of principal. This is what they were trying to tell him, their focus is going to be how do we lose as little as we can, rather than how do we take risks and grow this? Because, Mr. President, under your policy they're not going to think there is much of a chance at growth. The risk is going to be too high so they're gonna sit on it. In other words, you jackass, they've already taken the ball and gone home. They're already sitting on their trillions of dollars of cash that we've heard about for months now because the people in the media think -- like Chris Matthews said the other day, businesses are doing this purposely, to purposely depress the economy to hurt Obama. They don't understand that the self-interest aspects of capitalism are what drive it and are good for everybody.

You see, self-interest is not selfish. They are entirely different things. A father, a mother acting in self-interest incorporates the family. When they act to improve themselves they're improving everybody in whom they come in contact. But to Obama, giving these people a current tax rate of 35%, "Rush," he would say to me, "I mean they're still gonna buy their flat screens." Mr. President, the wealthy don't buy flat screens. The wealthy don't even really know what they are. The wealthy have somebody go set up their media room and they walk in and say, "Where's the power switch when I want to watch this? And who do I call if it doesn't work?" They're not walking into Best Buy or wherever and looking at flat screens, the people you're talking about. They really don't care. They're not buying Lexuses. The truly wealthy -- I don't know if you've noticed it or not -- the shops where they shop are still open, and there's still traffic in there. The wealthy are still chartering yachts for Mediterranean cruises at $250,000 a week. But they're not the rich.

See, Mr. Obama's tax policy is not going to affect the wealthy in terms of consumerism. What we're talking here about is the people who will invest what they're now sitting on in risky ideas, entrepreneurial ideas that will result in growing businesses, which will require more people to work at them, which is jobs, which is what the president keeps telling us he's interested in. But he talks about that 98%, the 2% that may see their taxes go up. (paraphrasing) "Well, they can afford it. I mean I'd rather have that $700 billion taken away from them and given to government." He actually said, the president, "I want to take that $700 billion," which is a mythical, lying number. He doesn't know what the number is. "Seven hundred billion dollars and I want to transfer it to the people who will spend it today, because they need to spend it, because they don't have much money," because of my own policies. So the president wants everybody to believe that he believes that economic recovery is driven by consumerism. Why isn't there a whole lot of consumin' going on out there?

Even people who are not rich or not wealthy, who are not the idle rich, are not the idle wealthy. They're not spending. There are necessities that have to come first. The flat screen is a luxury, if you will, to the people he's talking about. What isn't happening is productivity. We are not creating supply and therefore the creation of jobs isn't happening. Before you can have consumption you have to have disposable income. To have disposable income you have to have a job. For people to have a job there have to be ongoing enterprises and businesses that are investing in their own growth and are enjoying success, which is increasingly hard to do with this regime because success is punished. The more successful you are the bigger target you are of people like the president and his party, because somehow it's not fair that you're succeeding while somebody else isn't. So we're going to take what you have achieved as a result of your success and we're gonna distribute that to the other people who are the victims of your success. And this is how jackass neophytes look at capitalism.

So we have no hope, as long as this guy is in charge and is ignoring the people who know what they're talking about, for whatever reason, he wants to destroy it or he's an economic jackass, whichever, the two go hand in hand, as long as his policies are in play nobody's going to be buying flat screens, because nobody's going to be making 'em. Well, I take that back. There will always be people making flat screens for a relatively few who can afford them, and just charge the price that's necessary. Because the people we're talking about here at this stage really don't care about the price of things. There is a level of wealth where that doesn't matter to people. But the intelligence or the common sense of what they're doing does enter into it. I don't know how to explain this. The wealthy, to whom the cost of something really doesn't matter, even in times like this, when they check into a hotel, might forget the three-bedroom triplex suite and just go for a one-bedroom suite. But they're still gonna check in, and they're still gonna go for the one-bedroom suite, but the three-bedroom triplex at the top of the hotel is going to stay vacant simply because they don't think it makes sense in this economic time to spend their money that way. And that's all part of the whole confidence thing. So it does affect all levels.

But this idea that people at $250 grand need to be punished, need to take their earnings away from them and they're still gonna buy their flat screens, it's an insult to them and to everybody else in the country. To reduce this economic disaster to the simplistic notion of buying flat screens when they can still do it, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about having to overcome our own government. We're talking about having to overcome policies implemented by our own president. We're talking about the obstacles being placed in the way of prosperity by our own government. That's what people face today. And that's what many people don't think they have ever faced before. Sure, there's competition out there from your competitors, but the government never got in your way. Not like this. We got a taste of it with Jimmy Carter, but not this bad.

We've never had as the number one obstacle to prosperity in this country the president of the United States. That's what's new and that's what people are awakening to each and every day. So, yeah, economic neophyte jackass, or purposely destroying it, the two go hand in hand, because the only reason you'd want to destroy capitalism is if you'd been lied to about what it is by all of your professors and by all of your friends and by all the theoreticians that you have hanging around you, all the Marxists and all the communists and all the people that believe in black liberation theology, whatever, people that want to blow up the Pentagon, your closest friends, the people that hate this country and have convinced you to, too. That can make you want to destroy it and be an absolute blithering idiot at the same time.

RUSH: Let me tell you something, folks. In California, people on welfare can buy flat screens. People on welfare in California can go to Las Vegas casinos and cash their debit welfare cards. People on welfare in California can go to Miami, Florida, and get on a cruise ship. People working for a living don't seem to be able to do those things now. Just think what historic times these are, though. Right now we say it's the worst economy in the last 50 years, the worst economy since Herbert Hoover, but somewhere down the road long after we have all perspired, future generations will say, "My God, this is the worst economy since Barack Obama," if we're lucky.

Martha, Winchester, Virginia, I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.

CALLER: Hey, you have done something that is so brilliant. You have finally brought light to the thing that I've been thinking about for years. He's not a Keynesian economist. He's a jackassian theorist.

CALLER: Yes. I think that that's perfect. Also, I know that people are gonna say that you hate him because he's black and all that.

CALLER: No, it's not the color of his skin; it's the thickness of it. That's what you need to be concerned about.

RUSH: Yeah, he's been kind of thin-skinned all of his life. I don't think he's used to being criticized. He's thin-skinned, thin period. Like I'm telling you, folks, these pencil neck geek people that look like they need to eat, there's just something not right about that. I don't know. This is just me. Yeah, it's like Blumenthal. These guys that have a 14-and-a-half-inch neck, 15, come on. If a woman could wear your shirt and have it fit, there's something not right. I don't know. I can't be more detailed than that.

RUSH: There you have it, El Rushbo once again demonstrating what we do here. We make the complex understandable. Our last caller, you know, when you get right down to it, it's not the thinness of Obama's skin. Our problem is the thickness of his skull and how long it takes common sense to permeate the damn thing, get in there and start roaming around with the other neutron brain energy. It doesn't happen much.

RUSH: I don't want to leave this tax cut, tax increase business alone. I want to reiterate, nobody is talking about tax cuts for anybody and what Obama is counting on is class envy. He's counting on being able to get you to agree for tax increases on the so-called top 2% of wage earners 'cause they don't need the money anyway, we could better use that money for deficit reduction or giving it to you to spend. But here's the dirty little secret, and this is what Obama and his little gang of Marxist socialists do not understand, and they never will understand, they won't understand it while it's happening right before their very eyes. The thing that they don't get is how industrious and clever, creative, and entrepreneurish, productive Americans can be, particularly in coming up with legal tax avoidance plans. That tax code isn't multiple thousands of pages for no reason.

Now, we're talking about the wealthy here, folks. We're not talking on the $250,000 or $500,000 a year people. They're not going to have access to that multiple thousands of page tax code. They're earning wages. They have income. Income taxes, there aren't a whole lot of shelters anymore, and that's not the people we're talking about. Obama wants you to think that everybody at $250 grand is no different than somebody who has $250 million. But there is a huge difference. These people that Obama thinks you're going to be happy being targeted, these people are going to devote themselves to coming up with legal ways to avoid paying Obama's taxes. They are going to spend all of their time doing that instead of being productive. They're gonna spend all of their time protecting what they've earned and what they've got, via the tax code. They're gonna spend as much energy, creative and entrepreneurish as they have to make sure Obama doesn't get his greasy hands on it. And they will succeed.

The tax code, as I say, is not multiple thousands of pages for no reason. It is written by people to help the very people Obama wants you to hate, hold onto what they've got, while you can't. We saw this in the seventies and eighties. We saw this when the top marginal tax rate was 90%, and there were brackets way below that, I mean lots of brackets, 80%, 85%, there were brackets out the wazoo. And people who were genuinely wealthy spent all of their time in the seventies and eighties focused on more elaborate tax shelters rather than creative entrepreneurship because the tax code punished that. The tax code punished success, and that's where we're headed with this gang of jackass, neophyte ignoramuses. We're heading to the same place where success is going to be punished. So rather than be punished, the really brilliant, creative people are gonna focus on holding onto what they've got. They're not gonna let him take it and give it to you come hell or high water. It ain't going to happen. It happened in the seventies and it happened in the eighties, and this is why Reagan finally had to come in and cut tax rates from 90% to 70, from 70% to 50, and from 50% to 28. And we know the story. We know what happened to revenues when those tax rate reductions took place.

I am here to tell you, there is nothing Obama and his little merry gang of Marxists can do to stop this from happening. The tax code is written to help the very people he wants you to think are being targeted to hold onto what they've got. It's gonna cost 'em a lot of money. You may say, "Rush, why would they spend all this money on tax lawyers? Why would they spend more money than it might save them?" Because it's a matter of principle. When some socialist, Marxist gang is running your country and their efforts to take money away from you, you stop 'em. If it costs you more than it would cost you to pay taxes, you do not let them have it. It's the whole concept of estate planning. I didn't understand it at first. I had all these leeches hovering around me. "You need an estate planning lawyer and tax accountant advisor."

I said, "What do I care? I'll be dead." We're talking about estate. "What do I care?"

"There are places more valuable than the government for your money to go, charities or your family?"

And I would say, "The last thing I'm going to do is give somebody a whole bunch of money and ruin their life. It will destroy their work ethic."

"But, Rush, but, Rush, don't you --" and for the longest time I said, "Screw it, I don't care. I won't be here. I'd rather go the simple route, not have to mess with all this and not have to pay all these lawyers, not have to pay all these accountants," and finally, I forget when it was, but the light went off and now I will spend whatever I have to make sure that somebody else gets it besides Obama. I'm just telling you, and I know you in the audience here are not the kind of people that are going to be persuaded, but you know who I'm talking about. The very people Obama hopes will vote Democrat because he's gonna go soak these people, he's gonna go soak these wealthy -- I'm telling you, those people are gonna spend as much time and money as they can to make sure he doesn't get it. Which is gonna result in those people not being productive, and those people not creating jobs, and those people not investing in their own business. They're going to be investing in lawyers, and you know how that goes. They're going to be investing in lawyers and accountants as a matter of principle, folks. It's a matter of principle. I mean it's a normal thing to want to shelter your money from the government.

When you've got a Marxist little guy and his gang actually trying to take it from you, then you get your back up and you become even more resistant to it. You explore every option you can, including leaving the country, if it gets really bad, which some people are doing. That's why there are little acres over there in New Zealand that look good, except global warming is creaming these people. They've had a blizzard over there wiping out livestock, at the end of winter, but that's another matter. I'm keeping track of what's going on in New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. Europe's lost. UK is gone. They may as well have erased their borders 20 years ago. They're finished. You don't want to go there. Some of the former Soviet bloc, eastern bloc, some of the new democracies over there, they show some promise, but Putin's got them targeted. Cuba, interesting, might be a place, but I don't know if that will happen soon enough. But regardless, yes, lots of places being examined.

My only point, folks, is this. People say, "Wow, look at how much money Shaquille O'Neal has or LeBron James." Yeah, look how much money the guy paying them has, that's what nobody thinks about. You think Shaquille's rich? How about the person paying him? Shaquille's chump change to the guy paying him. LeBron, chump change. Same with Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is chump change compared to all of Nike paying him. What are they going to do? They're going to find ways to keep Obama from getting it. Individuals, corporations, but primarily individuals. They're going to do everything they can to make sure Obama doesn't get it rather than invest in growth. And this is what happened in the seventies and eighties, and this is why Carterism happened, this is why the malaise happened, just everybody shut down. The productive class, the entrepreneur class shut down. It made no sense to succeed when 90% of it had to go to the government. When 90% of the last dollar you earned had to go to Uncle Sam, when 70% of the last dollar you earned had to go to government, it made no sense to earn it. It wasn't worth the time. You lowered that 70% to 28, now we're talking, now we're going to go out and we're gonna bust rear ends, and we're gonna start creating and we're going to be entrepreneuring and we're gonna invest and we're gonna try to make as much profit and we're gonna report as much income as we can rather than sheltering it 'cause we get to keep 68 cents of it rather than 20 and 30.

That's what's going to happen, where we're headed. This socialism, this communist stuff, just cycles and repeats. The difference here is that this guy is intending for us not to come out of this. That's the difference. He is intending for this to be fini and permanent. What's he calling it? The hope and change reform, the new America or what have you. So if you are in any way dependent on anybody else for what you have. I mean if you're dependent on a job and therefore somebody having a job and work needing to be done, for which you will be paid, if you're counting on that, you cannot in any way support not just Obama, but the Democrat Party. They want to pull that rug out from underneath you.

RUSH: And let me give you another thing to think about, just one word. Snerdley, look at me. Belize. Caribbean superpower of Belize. Look it up on a map. You'll find it down there in Central America. Belize, New Zealand, Singapore. What does it say, what does it tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that three of the wealthiest Americans -- Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ross Perot -- hold the bulk of their wealth in the nontaxed form of unrealized capital gains? How many of you know what an unrealized capital gain is? Dawn doesn't. See, it's what I'm talking about. Do you think whatever Obama does is gonna cost Gates and Buffett anything, or Perot? The Clintons, I don't know if they still do, but they had three investment entities registered in the Cayman Islands as recently as 2004 with Ron Burkle. And you had John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, once upon a time he had a Cayman Islands account. That's called offshore sheltering. I mean there's one reason why you have an account down there and it's not to keep Luigi from finding you. And, by the way, John Kerry found a way to avoid paying his yacht tax, until people discovered what he was doing. Oh, yeah, you think those thousands of pages of tax code are just the result of helter-skelter addition and bureaucracy run amuck? Think again who's writing 'em. Who's writing it all? Obama keeps saying about the tax cuts, "Let's help the people out there who are suffering." Well, people who have to worry about still getting the Bush tax cuts obviously already have well-paying jobs or it wouldn't matter to 'em, so they aren't the people who are suffering. The people who are suffering are the people that don't have jobs, and the only way to help them is to get rich people to hire 'em. Really, it isn't complicated.

CALLER: Thank you very much, sir, you've brought many smiles, laughter, and much thought into my life during dark days.

CALLER: I want to convey something about UT. I was walking by a newsstand and saw a headline Sunday, and it is UT's in a mess because of the stimulus program. They were already in --

CALLER: Yes. Now, in 2008 they had already planned on making massive cuts, about 700 on the faculty and administration. They were going to do many things to streamline the program and save money because --

CALLER: Well, all this was going on. Well, they accepted stimulus money. They could not do the cuts, and the money was used to pay lecturers, renovate some classrooms, hire fundraisers and do various things. Guess what? When the stimulus money's gone, they're gonna still have to make the cuts --

CALLER: -- and the governor's office said we hoped when the money came to an end the economy would be back going strong.

RUSH: The very fact they took the money was a contributing factor of the economy not coming back. But this is starting to happen, all of the stimulus money. They hired a bunch of people, it's starting to end now, jobs, it's artificial, the artificiality is ending, and now the reality is starting to hit. Just as he says.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, yeah, you're so right. President Jackass is doing this on purpose. Anyone with eyesight could see -- I mean we fall into that category, that magically wealthy that he keeps calling us and we're absolutely middle class. We paid for all of our cars, we don't go into debt, we're very careful, but we're not living high off the hog. In fact, we just bought our first big screen TV in December after contemplating it for a year.

RUSH: See, she doesn't even know. Your husband probably knows every dimension of the flat screen TV, and you don't.

CALLER: 'Cause it took him a year to decide to buy it. It was his combined Christmas, birthday, and Father's Day gift. And, you know what? We ended up canceling cable in the end to save money.

CALLER: We did, because we're trying to make sure that we stay within our means every single month --

RUSH: So you've got rabbit ears out there, essentially, you got a rooftop HD antenna.

CALLER: We do, but it works. But, you know, we're not these people that he tries to make us out to be. There's no Cayman Islands resort for us. We're normal people. And, you know, Rush, part of the reason why we live in Texas, aside from the fact that we love it, is because there is no state income tax.

RUSH: I know. There's no state income tax in Florida. I remember when I moved here and I publicly proclaimed that was the reason. I had all these people accuse me of being unpatriotic, running away from my obligations. I was obligated to stay in New York and pay confiscatory taxes. By the way, a story out of New York, for the first time in a long time, I'll have to look at the period of time, New York per capita income is down. Folks, do not doubt me. When I know it's time to leave someplace, follow me.

RUSH: Diana in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the one and only Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. The reason I was listening to you is this government truly is getting rid of the American dream. I mean my daughter went to law school, did it with student loans, her husband, same thing, and they make within that same range you were discussing and they're barely making it, they're living paycheck to paycheck with student loans and everything else that they have to pay. Everyone assumes because they make this kind of money, that they live just wonderfully. And I mean they don't. They still have all these bills and stuff. And what's sad is I have teenaged daughters that -- me and my daughters, my oldest daughter discussed it, we want them to go to college and do things but when you look at what's going on, what can we promise them? Oh, yeah, if you can go to college and do something with yourself but you're going to be paying out everything and you're really --

RUSH: Diana, more and more people are starting to realize this. More and more kids in college -- you said your daughter's a lawyer. I know some friends of mine whose kids are lawyers. They're in law school. And they're sitting there and they're seeing the student loans pile up, and they're looking at 15% unemployment, they're thinking, "What happens to me when I get outta here? When I graduate this law school, where am I gonna go? All I'm going to have facing me is these student loans." There are people beginning to question the genuine high cost of education, how long it's gonna take to pay that back.

I want to address one thing. We've had a couple callers here, and you've heard them say that they're in this 200 to $250,000 range, and I'm sure that some of you are not all that sympathetic listening to them describe their plight. Some of you who make $50, 75, whatever, you're looking at somebody making $250, "What is this, barely make ends meet?" You can't imagine it, you're making $50, 75, "My God, if I had $250 I'd be in fat city," and you would for a while. But how do I explain this? Well, your lifestyle catches up to you. But why? You see, at every level, folks, at every level of economic class there's somebody out there willing to take your money from you for something. Either a Motel 6 for a hotel room or a Ritz-Carlton for hotel room. I mean if you make $50, 75 you'll find a hotel room you can afford. When you make $250, you'll find a hotel room you can afford. You might buy a car more expensive than you would buy if you make $50 or 75. At every level of income there is a group of people willing to take what you've got. I mean you pay them for it, they give you something back, but you know what I'm talking about. So people in the $200 and 250 range can just as easily be in the same financial condition as somebody at $75. Their house may be a little bit more expensive but they still owe on it. Their utilities, they still owe.

The point here is that Obama wants you to believe those people are wealthy, and they aren't. Now, I don't want you to think ill of these people and think that they're spoiled rotten because they didn't start out at $250. They at one point were at $50, maybe less. I can remember my first job as an adult was for $12,000 a year. We're all like this. So the people at this $250,000 range, they at one time were less than that. And it's true that if you are in that 50 to $75,000 range, if somebody came along right now, tomorrow, your paycheck goes from whatever it is from $50 to 75 to 250, the percentage increase, you're gonna say, "Wow, look at all this money I've got," and you will find a way to do something with it. If you are disciplined, you'll save some of it. But if you've got kids and cars, a wife, if you've got satellite, cell phone, if you've got any number of things -- ex-wife -- the point is that whatever income level expenses are going to match the income level, they will find you. The people that have Ritz-Carlton hotel rooms will find you. The people that will charge you $200 a year to use their credit card will find you, and you'll happily pay it because, wow, look what I can afford. It's the way things are. And it's entirely natural, and it doesn't mean when you hear people who earn $200 or 250 talking about barely making ends meet, believe me, that's true for everybody in this current economy. It's worse for the people that don't have jobs, but even some of them are going on cruises and hitting Las Vegas casinos.

RUSH: All right, here we go. I'm gonna get started with the subprime business because I promised you we would do it. October 6, 2004, House hearing on the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Allegations of accounting and management failure at Fannie Mae. Here is a portion of Richard Baker's remarks. He's a Republican from Louisiana.

BAKER: It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance -- not only to those who wish to own a home, but is to the taxpayers of the country, who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure. The analysis makes clear that more resources must be brought to bear to ensure the high standards of conduct are not only required, but more importantly, they are actually met.

RUSH: Okay, Maxine Waters at this hearing. Okay, now it's time to start the defense of Fannie and Freddie and her pal, Frank Raines.

WATERS: Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.

RUSH: So here's Maxine Waters, the first of the Democrats (paraphrase): "We don't have a problem there." This is 2004. "We don't have a problem. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are just fine -- especially our old buddy Frank Raines over there, everything is okay." Ed Royce, Republican, California.

ROYCE: In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks.

RUSH: So the Democrats turned. We had a bunch of people, "Look, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in trouble, subprime mortgage, we're in trouble here, we're out of control," and the Democrats -- Maxine Waters, Lacy Clay -- "You're not gonna get in there! No way! We're not sacrificing Frank Raines!" So they were. This is the race card, Franklin Raines, African-American, so it's the Democrats circling the wagons. They were not about to have it portrayed that anything they were in charge of was in any kind of trouble, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

House hearing on the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, management failure at Fannie Mae. This is Representative Gregory Meeks, Democrat, New York, had this exchange with an oversight director, Armando Falcon.

MEEKS: And what would make you -- why should I have confidence? Why should anyone have confidence in, in you as a regulator at this point?

FALCON: Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not try to manage earnings improperly. Freddie Mac did. This isn't about the agency engaging in improper conduct. It's about Freddie Mac.

RUSH: Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, subprime mortgages, there's all kinds of corruption going on, the Democrats circling the wagons. Now, we're doing this because Barney Frank says (paraphrase), "There never was any problem at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac; there never was. And if there was, it was Republicans. They wouldn't let us fix it." I just want you to hear that it's the Democrats who didn't want anybody fixing anything. Christopher Shays then asked a question.

SHAYS: And we passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a very tough response to that, and then I realized that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn't even come under it. They weren't under the 34 act. They weren't under the 33 act. They played by their own rules, and I'm tempted to ask how many people in this room are on the payroll of Fannie Mae, because what they do is they basically hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire some people not to lobby so that the opposition can't hire 'em.

RUSH: Do you see what's shaking out here? Now, this office, OFHEO, this was created in 1972 to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but they just ignored this regulator! He comes up: "You guys are in trouble!"

"No, we're not, not in trouble! You saying Franklin Raines is doing a bad job? We're not going to let you say Frank Raines is doing that! There's nothing wrong with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac! He's doing a great job over there!"

And Chris Shays says, "You got lobbyists hired, not hired, you're doing everything you can to keep anybody from finding out what's going wrong over there, a lot of people on the payroll at Fannie Mae, we find out, are making campaign donations to Democrats left and right."

So this is the process of the regulators trying to get in there and find out what's going wrong so that we might have some limit on the dangers of subprime mortgage, but it's the Democrats saying, "Ain't no way! There's nothing wrong here and you're not gonna find it if there is!" Next, Barney Frank in 2004, this is the same hearing, had this to say.

FRANK: You seem to be saying, "Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems." I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems.

RUSH: (imitating Frank) "Nothing in your report! Dothitzameanfubabra! What are we talking about here? There's no problem. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, they are fine. Screw you! I mean, what are we doing here?" Nothing wrong. Barney Frank again.

FRANK: But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are an issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as a kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue.

RUSH: Right. Now, you go to Barney Frank yesterday, day before, this week, there wasn't anything going on at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and if there was, it was the Republicans. The Republicans wouldn't let anybody come in and regulate it.

We're in this mess because of all of this that you just heard. The subprime mortgage debacle is why, primary reason why, we are in this economic state right now, and there were regulators that came before Congress during the Bush administration when the Republicans ran Congress, and the Democrats were intimidating them left and right. You heard it here: Maxine Waters, nothing wrong there, Franklin Raines doing a great job. We've got sound bites I don't have time to get to of the regulators actually being intimidated by these members of Congress for what they are announcing in terms of their findings.

So I meant to play this yesterday, we just ran out of time. So, actually, here I'm making up for what I said I was going to do yesterday, getting it done today because I don't want anybody saying that I said I'm going to do stuff and not do it just to get you hooked and keep you listening -- because, frankly, I don't have to do that. Show's compelling enough anyway as is without those kinds of tricks!

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.

Conservative Review
Issue #147	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	October 10, 2010