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).

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted "poison pill" cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay. This is his “insurance” in case his site Wikileaks is shut down.

14-year-old Mexican drug cartel hitman arrested. He claims to be an American citizen. Children as young as 7 are being hired as lookouts by the drug cartels.

Monsanto's 'Food Safety Modernization Act' passed the Senate on 30 Nov 2010. It is the biggest U.S. food-safety overhaul in more than 70 years.

It is possible that the START treaty may include sharing some or all of our missile defense technology with Russia. Senator Kirk (Obama’s newly-elected replacement) is attempting to get this information from the President.

Republican senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying they will block all legislation until all the Bush-era tax cuts are extended, and until the Senate passes legislation to fund the government.

A bipartisan Senate filibuster (all Republicans, 4 Democrats and 1 independent) blocked Obama’s tax proposal to increase the taxes of those who make over $250,000/year in January. Next they blocked a raise in taxes to those who make over $1,000,000/year (some of those Democrats did not go along with this).

The deficit/debt committee headed by Simpson and Bowles ends with 11 in favor and 7 against.

A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama to sign. It was championed by the first lady and it gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

The House voted to censure Charles Rangel; however, not all of the charges were read in his presence, as censuring requires.

It appears as if Ford, BMW, Toyota all took secret government money back in 2008.

Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans use of credit cards in real-time, as well as loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is about to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries.

CNN journalist Drew Griffin was put on a TSA watch list immediately after he filed reports critical of the organization back in 2008.

The World Meteorological Organisation announced that 2010 is almost certain to rank among the three warmest years since records began in 1850 - and it has long been accepted that one of the effects of climate change could be an increase in the frequency of harsher, Continental-style winters.

Howard Dean: "I would bring back the Fairness Doctrine so you couldn't have a spectacle of a Fox Flooze, which just makes stuff up and is a propaganda outlet. You would actually have to have some sanctioned human beings talking to the other side. And MSNBC would have to do the same. They would have to have some conservatives on there too. I think that's much better for the country...The level of ignorance about what’s in the constitution is just appalling; it’s just incredible; I got such a kick out of the TEA party that wanted us to enforce the constitution and then when someone pointed out what the 17^th and 14^th amendments said, well, we can get rid of those; you know Americans don’t know what’s going on and therefore the media can have their way with them intellectually"

Senator Charles Schumer: “We are for giving tax cuts to the American middle class. They need it. They're struggling. Their incomes have declined. And they need it to get them to spend money into the economy. But we don't need those tax cuts for the very wealthy among us.” No political party is giving a tax cut to anyone. There are no tax cuts on the table by either party and no one is seriously talking about any tax cuts in the near future (apart from Simpson and Bowles).

Schumer: "It's not that we want to punish wealthy people. We want to praise them. But they're doing fine, and they're not going to spend the money and stimulate the economy." Spoken like a true liberal who has not the slightest idea of how and why people make financial decisions.

Vice President Joe Biden: “Unemployment insurance is a powerful driver of economic growth—its as simple and plain as that.”

John Heilemann, New York Magazine: “...the Republicans are not serious about deficit reduction...[and] Democrats are not enthusiastic about it for all the reasons that we know in terms of their weddedness to entitlement programs. The President is the only really serious adult in this conversation.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio): "There is no real history illustrating that these tax cuts for the rich result in jobs. It's extending unemployment benefits that creates economic activity that creates jobs, not giving a millionaire an extra ten or twenty or $30,000 in tax cuts that they likely won't spend,"

Sen. Claire McCaskill: "I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for. If they think it's OK to raise taxes for the embattled middle class because . . . (Democrats) don't give more money to millionaires, it really is time for people in America to take up pitchforks."

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), regarding negotiating with Republicans: “It's almost like the question of: Do you negotiate with terrorists?”

Senate leader Harry Reid, after being informed by letter that Republicans would block all legislation until the Bush tax cuts were reinstated and at least a partial funding of the government was passed, said or Republican objectives, "Mainly, obstruct and delay, obstruct delay action on critical matters, and then blame the Democrats for not addressing the needs of the American people. Very cynical but very obvious and very transparent."

Ron Reagan Jr. “If you’re in a knife fight, you bring a knife; or bring a gun. If you’re fighting for social justice, you do what you need to do to win.”

Wiki-leaker PFC Bradley Manning "Everywhere there's a U.S. post, there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It's open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It's Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It's beautiful, and horrifying."

Alec Baldwin: “I hope they catch that WikiLeaks guy. I hope they catch him and prosecute him for all its worth. I hope they, legally speaking, throttle this guy within an inch of his life. [...] Only one condition. You hold formal hearings on the Valerie Plame scandal. And you put that Low-Down-Gutless-Excuse-For-A-Vice-President Dick Cheney and that crypto-facist maniac Richard Armitage on trial. Same as Julian Assange.”

Van Jones, when recognized in Jerusalem: “Fox News is amazing, even here [in Jerusalem]; Satan is everywhere.”

Attorney Mark Van Der Hout, a few years ago: "Going after immigrants is just the first step towards going after U.S. citizens." Van Der Hout is Nicky Diaz’s lawyer. He is known for his defense of radical Muslims.

Philadelphia mayor Nutter: “President Obama almost reinvented bipartisanship. Do we forget what happened in the Economic Recovery Act? No House Republican voted for it, only three Republican senators voted for it; $787 billion package to move this country out of near financial collapse.” Huh?

AFL-CIO presdsident Richard Tumpka: “[This] deficit commission once again tells wrking Americans to ‘drop dead.’”

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools."

Figueres, in the same invocation: "Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skillful interlacing of many threads. I am convinced that 20 years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel." For many years, many have shown that global warming is not a science but a religion.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), speaking quietly to a colleague about the Senate agenda while near a hot mic: “It's all rigged; I mean, the whole conversation's rigged. The fact that we don't get a discussion before the break about what we're going to do in the lame duck -- it's just rigged. This stuff's rigged.”

Hillary Clinton said she found it extraordinary to greet so many talented people, referring to recipients of this year's Kennedy Center Honors whom she met. She said: `I am writing a cable about it, which I'm sure you'll find soon on your closest website."

14-year-old hitman for a Mexican drug cartel: “I slit their throats” when describing how he killed 4 of his victims. "I either work or he'll kill me," he said of cartel leader Julio "El Negro" Padilla. About his schooling: "I studied," he said, adding that he later dropped out. "I didn't want to study anymore ... I didn't like it."

Newt Gingrich: "You have a private first class who downloads a quarter million documents, and the system doesn't say, 'Oh, you may be over extended?' I mean, this is a system so stupid that it ought to be a scandal of the first order. This administration is so shallow and so amateurish about national security that it is painful and dangerous."

Conservative Dennis from Forbes on Fox: “[The Chevy Volt] is Obama’s Easel.”

Alan Simpson, explaining what occurred in his deficit/debt committee: “We took a big banana and threw it into the gorilla cage, and the gorilla picked it up, like they do - they peel it, mash it, play with it, but they will eat some. And that's where we are right now because.many pieces of this [plan] will be digested and nourish this country.”

Dennis Miller, after listening to President Carter talk about FoxNews: “How can Habitat for Humanity trust him with a hammer?”

Rush Limbaugh: "If the government were a person, we would consider it a bum, a failure, a troll living underneath the bridge - somebody that can't get a job, can't hold a job, can't live within its means. All it can do is ask for another handout. The government's a bum."

Rush: "If you had to pass a course in this health care stuff to get out of prison, nobody would ever commit another crime."

Harry Reid spends 5 minutes of Senate time reading about some Nevada sports team:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CCMUrZV-Tk I hope that every person in Nevada who voted for Reid watches this video, so that they can beam with pride that this man is their leader in the Senate.

Bill O’Reilly debates Judge Napolitano on the Christmas Tree bomber (it’s a good debate; and O’Reilly takes a couple of cheap shots):

Former Democrat presidential hopeful Howard Dean explains the first amendment, free speech and the fairness doctrine:

MoveOn.org wants Obama to hang tough, like the man they elected, and not to give millionaires bailouts:

Second City did an hilarious video at the “Restoring Sanity” rally, with a sign accusing Obama of being a Keynesian. This became so popular with conservatives and so revealing as to the pure dumbness of those who attended this rally, that Second City has begun to remove this clip from its website and elsewhere:

Jodi Miller: “President Obama’s approval rating recently dropped to a new low of 39%. Apparently, those still approving of Obama’s job performance don’t have television, internet access, or bank accounts.”

Barabara Walters interviewing President Obama (via the Conan O’Brien show—this is a short clip):

White House speechwriter Jon Lovett doing a comedy routine: "Virgin Airlines had to change their name to 'Technically Still a Virgin' Airlines." And "TSA has been kind of a big story lately. A lot of people tonight have made some jokes about the TSA; I am, too. I don't understand what all the fuss is about, you know. First of all, these things are designed to keep us safe. Second of all, it's giving a way for, you know, defrocked priests to get their lives back together, give back to the community, lend a ... well, not lend a hand, but you know."

1) The United States, which has the safest food and water in the world, recently passed a food safety act—ostensibly because of a few contaminated foods which got out to the public and were quickly withdrawn. The company Monsanto will apparently profit by this new act, and the 2^nd largest shareholder in this publically-traded company is George Soros.

2) In any case, there was not a large public clamoring for food that is more safe. There has been a lot of clamoring for the deficit to be reduced, for the debt to be frozen or reduced, and for Congress to make it easier for businesses to operate. Also, taxpayers are concerned about their taxes being raised this coming January.

4) Nicky Diaz, the lone woman who possibly changed the election in California, was backed by a far leftist group (the California Nurses Association), is still residing in California. To its credit, the SF Chronicle broke this story of who was backing Diaz.

5) Recent studies have shown that marijuana use can stop the young brain from developing normally. If our President is incapable of moving toward the center, for real and not just rhetorically, could this be a chemical condition?

We are now at 9.8% unemployment (which is probably closer to 17–18%, several economists have estimated). Even though the president has been touting the new private sector jobs created each month, that has not been enough to keep pace with the increasing population of those who want a job.

2½ miles away, across the border, Eternal life Paso had 10 murders that same year. 5000 homes in Juarez have been abandoned in Juarez.

Americans who have died in the Mexican drug wars: 39 in 2009 and 36 in 2010 (so far).

85% of all private sector job created in the United Staes occurred this past year in Texas.

The U.S. city with the most tickets sold each year to attend plays: New York City. #2: Houston.

Do you recall what an uproar there was because our rights were violated by the Patriot Act, and that President Bush was at home listening to everything that we said, and without a warrant? Imagine what the uproar would have been had a President Bush instituted a pat down program, like that instituted by the TSA today. Where are the liberals on this? Why am I not reciveing a flurry of emails from my liberal friends about how terrible an attack this is against their civil rights?

What if Sarah Palin had said that it was time for Americans to take up pitchforks? Recall when she had a map of people who needed to be removed, and it looked like the were bulls eyes on them? Many members of the media through a fit over this, claiming that this would incite violence.

ABC's reporter Claire Shipman fails to tell her "Good Morning America" audience that a woman she presented as a victim of the GOP holding up an extension of unemployment benefits is actually a professional activist for liberal Democrats. We watch and think this is the testimony of the [wo] man on the street, and she is a liberal activist.

Classify this under, better late than never: it sounds as if the Obama administration may go after the WikiLeaks director Julian Assange. It also appears as though they are not going to treat the recent leaker, PFC Bradley Manning, with kid gloves.

The President has instituted a 2 year federal worker pay freeze. Although this is a drop in the bucket, hi is at least pointed in the right direction. Had he laid off 20% of the federal workforce and reduced the salaries of the reainder to 2006 levels, I would have stood up and cheered [the alien that was inhabiting] Obama.

Not giving millionaires bailouts = raising taxes on millionaires this coming January.

Obama cannot win when it comes to raising taxes, despite the poor job Republicans have done in selling this. His Democrat buddies in the Senate need to be able to say, the voted for maintaining the Bush tax cuts (although they will phrase it differently) in 2012. However, they cannot let go of the ideology that the rich are not paying their fair share of the taxes.

If the capital gains tax is allowed to rise by not acting on the Bush tax cuts, there will be a large stock market sell-off before the end of the year. This will begin when Congress adjourns for the year.

Far left liberty and civil trights groups will rise up in rebellion against the TSA terror list and the real-time warrant less tracking of American credit card use (okay, I am just kidding; they won’t do much of anything about this).

The Dream Acts is not going to pass; neither will the rest of the stuff on the Dem wish list.

Today the Labor Department released its monthly jobs report, which showed that the U.S. economy added an anemic 39,000 jobs this month and that the nation's unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent. That marks the 19th month in a row that the unemployment has been over 9 percent, a post-World War II record.

So how is this lame duck Congress, a Congress that was thoroughly rejected at the polls just last month, greeting this news? By raising taxes on the American people by $700 billion. Is this what the American people want? Not at all. According to Gallup, only 31 percent of Americans believe the best approach for dealing with the economy is raising taxes. The vast majority of Americans (62 percent) believe that the best way to fix the economy is either through deficit reduction (39 percent) or lower taxes (23 percent). But neither of those items is on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) agenda.

So what legislative gifts is Reid planning on giving the American people this Christmas? No one knows for sure, but Reid's wish list is long.

New START. Just this week we learned not only that Russia has moved tactical nuclear weapons closer to our NATO European allies but also that the State Department has been negotiating with Russia on missile defense "cooperation." This after claiming for months that New START in no way limited our missile defense options. But before the ink was even dry on the treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that "linkage to missile defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally binding." The Heritage Foundation has identified at least five sections of the treaty that limit missile defense. If the Administration has nothing to hide on this issue, then it should have no problem releasing the treaty negotiation records to confirm what U.S. negotiators were saying about missile defense.

Higher Spending. Last night the Senate approved a continuing resolution (CR) that will keep the government running through December 18. The Senate could easily pass a CR that would fund the government at current levels through early next year, but that is not want the left wants. A short CR would allow the next Congress to reduce discretionary spending to 2008 levels, thus saving the American taxpayers $100 billion in new debt. But the left wants an omnibus spending bill that will allow them to increase discretionary spending and deliver earmarks to their constituents.

Higher Taxes. Lost in the debate over personal income tax rates are the slew of other taxes set to rise on January 1. Taxes on dividends, capital gains, and estates are just some of the higher tax rates Americans will face under President Obama's tax plan. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis has estimated the impacts of the Obama tax hikes and found they would (1) decrease inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) by $1.1 trillion by 2020; (2) decrease business investment by $33 billion a year; (3) decrease personal savings by $38 billion in 2011 alone; (4) decrease consumer spending by $706 billion through 2020; and (5) kill an average of 693,000 jobs a year through 2020.

Higher Energy Prices. The left is still desperate to appease its environmentalist base, so Reid has also promised a vote on nationwide renewable electricity standards (RES), too. Mandated renewable electricity necessarily costs more than traditional electricity, because otherwise a mandate would not be necessary to force people to use it. And what would these higher energy prices do to the economy? A Heritage Foundation analysis of 22.5 percent RES by 2025 found that (1) household electricity prices would jump 36 percent; (2) industry prices would rise by 60 percent; (3) national income (GDP) would be cut by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035; and most importantly (4) RES would kill more than 1 million jobs.

Amnesty. No leftist wish list would be complete without legislation providing amnesty to illegal immigrants. This week Reid introduced yet another version of the DREAM Act, which would provide amnesty to any illegal alien who attended any college for just two years. None of these amnesty proposals has been reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and none of them has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. Reid is clearly a firm believer in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) maxim: You have to vote for the bill to find out what is in it.

This would be an ambitious leftist wish list any time of the year, but cramming it all into four weeks-just one month after the American people thoroughly rejected the left's agenda at the polls-is particularly audacious. The only way Reid can get all this done before the next Congress is sworn in is to repeat the exact same backroom deals he used to get Obamacare passed last Christmas Eve. The American people can expect to see more Cornhusker Kickbacks, Louisiana Purchases, Gator Aids, and Cash for Clotures.

Reid should stop playing Santa now and listen to his colleague from Nebraska, Sen. Ben Nelson: "Most of the [legislation] being dealt with right now should be held over until 2011, because we should be focused on jobs, taxes, and debt reduction. . I think we can hold off on START; I don't want it to crowd out taxes, debt reduction, and jobs." With unemployment at 9.8% the American people have received enough surprise gifts from this Democratic Congress.

A thought experiment for you: Imagine that CableGate happened when the name of the American President was George W. Bush and the name of the Secretary of State was Condoleezza Rice.

A frenzied hysteria would surely break out in the media and Congress. Incompetence, neglect, stupidity, betrayal, and worse would be charged.

Condoleezza Rice would be forced to resign within hours of the documents' appearance on WikiLeaks. Impeachment proceedings against Bush would start within days.

But what is good for the goose should also be good for the gander, should it not?

It just so happens that one of the greatest diplomatic gaffes in the history of global foreign affairs was committed on Mrs. Clinton's watch. Now the whole world can go to the internet and learn -- courtesy of Mrs. Clinton's State Department -- that the world's so-called leaders are for the most part liars, crooks, or worse. Thank you, Mrs. Clinton. You have done the people of the world a great favor. Now they can see what their political betters are made of.

Too bad that America became compromised in the process. Our foes and friends alike will not easily forgive us the fact that we have spilled the beans. Such rank incompetence is inexcusable.

As if this were not bad enough, our friends at the United Nations have also learned that Mrs. Clinton put them under surveillance. She was even checking their credit card accounts. What was the logic behind that? one wonders. Do they not have the right to freely spend the money they stole from their own populations? They will not take Mrs. Clinton's nosiness kindly.

When George Bush was in office, liberals constantly complained that his actions and conduct lowered America's standing in the world. But it turns out Bush was nothing when compared with the current gang.

They told us that Barrack Obama would restore respect for America on the world stage. Instead, America's reputation is today at the lowest point ever. Friend or foes -- this administration has embarrassed and offended them all.

A question to consider: Why do we have to take sides in every conflict and strife around the globe? The leaked cables clearly show that in many of those, there are no good guys. Sure, they come to us for money and aid, claiming that they are the righteous ones and that they stand for democracy and freedom. But more often than not, such talk is baloney, pure and simple. They want our help just so they can dispatch their opponents and then rule the roost. We should not be surprised that people oppressed by such allies of ours come to resent America. After all, we support and sponsor those who prey on them.

Do we really need to involve ourselves in the likes of the authoritarian King Abdullah or the corrupt Hamid Karzai? But if we are not friends with the Saudi King, some may reply, they will not sell us their oil. So what? We will drill our own. We have plenty of it, as the Deepwater Horizon spill amply showed.

We have many warnings from our founding fathers, who cautioned over and again against getting involved in other people's affairs. In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson called for "peace, commerce, and honest friendship will all nations, entangling alliance with none."

In his farewell address, George Washington urged America to have "as little political connection as possible" with foreign nations.

Some two decades later, John Quincy Adams warned that "by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she [America] would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom."

Those who do not find this convincing may perhaps consider the fact that as the greatest debtor in world history, we are broke and simply do not have the money to conduct an aggressive foreign policy around the globe.

Which brings us to another point. It would not be a bad idea to cut the State Department by half or more. We do not need an army of bureaucrats cruising around the world while spending money and causing mischief.

When Congress convenes for its lame-duck session on Nov. 29, it will be asked by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid to vote on an amnesty bill deceptively called the "Dream Act" by its open-borders supporters. If passed, it will be a nightmare for the rule of law and a death knell for genuine immigration reform.

That this amnesty bill is being taken up by the lame-duck session of a Congress that has been soundly repudiated by the American people is bad enough. Lame-duck sessions ought to consider only emergency bills with broad bipartisan backing, not contentious measures that can only be passed by politicians who can ignore the will of voters. But that is eerily in keeping with the dishonest character of the long debate over the Dream Act.

I say the debate is dishonest because the bill's true intent is hidden behind humanitarian appeals, deceptive numbers and misrepresentations. Most dishonest of all is the insistence that enacting this amnesty for over 2 million individuals will not have any incentive effect for others who will rationally calculate that they can get the same thing for their children if they can smuggle them across our border.

For the past 30 years, each amnesty has been sold to Congress as "the last amnesty," and each one lays the groundwork for the next. That anyone chooses to believe the opposite is testimony to the power of self-deception.

Ostensibly, the proposal will bar deportation and grant a path to citizenship to an estimated 2 million individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children by their illegal-alien parents. Any person up to the age of 35 can apply for this prize merely by enrolling in college or the military. They don't have to finish college; they merely have to enroll for two years - and if they drop out of a two-year college program, they can apply for a waiver under the law's "hardship" provisions. No one can be deported once an application is made, even if it takes years to adjudicate.

Concerned about the impact of illegal aliens on the United States? Don't miss Tom Tancredo's book, "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security"

Contrary to the packaging, this is not an amnesty for "kids trying to go to college" unless a 34 year-old who came here at age 7 and stayed illegally for 27 years can be called a kid. Criminal aliens convicted of marriage fraud, visa fraud, multiple DUIs, voter fraud and other "minor crimes" will be eligible for this amnesty.

A second dishonesty is in the estimated number of illegal aliens who may qualify. The number widely used is 2.1 million. Why should we be skeptical of this number? First, there is the rudimentary fact that the federal government does not know how many illegal aliens are in the United States today and continually low-balls the number to minimize the problem. The official U.S. Census estimate of 11.3 million is a laughable figure. Independent estimates not constrained by political expediency have ranged from 20 million to 35 million. In 2006 Time magazine estimated that 3 million new interlopers cross the border each year. Visa overstays alone are at least 5 million.

A second reason for doubt about the number is the immigration bureaucracy's poor record in making such estimates. In 1986, when Congress was considering the amnesty included in the Immigration Reform and Control Act, a federal interagency task force spent weeks studying the data from several sources. They concluded that perhaps 2.2 million people might qualify under the provisions of the act. Ten years after it passed, over 4 million had been granted amnesty.

A third reason I can confidently predict that the number who "qualify" for amnesty under the Dream Act will be at least double the official estimate is the absolute certainty of epidemic document fraud in student visas, ID cards, utility bills, rent receipts and pay stubs. Document fraud was rampant after the 1986 amnesty, and the technology for producing fake documents is far better today than in 1986.

The cold truth is that any illegal alien under the age of 40 will be able to obtain passable documents showing he came here with a parent at an early age and has been here all that time. Moreover, aliens sitting today in Mexico City, Cairo, Budapest or Singapore will be able to purchase such documents after arriving here in 2011.

The main argument in favor of pursing this nightmare is that "we should not blame children for the sins of their parents." But not "blaming" the children does not justify rewarding the parents' actions and offering powerful incentives to others to follow their example. The children should blame the parents for their unlawful actions, but this law asks us to thank them instead.

There is a perverse logic in the "Dream Amnesty" legislation, which runs like this. Since the open-borders lobby has been successful in blocking enforcement of our immigration laws so that the parents who entered our country illegally 15 years ago were never sent home with their children, we owe it to their children to give them citizenship. By most standards this is called rewarding bad behavior, which is a sure formula for getting more of it.

Transparency is the new watchword of good government, but somehow immigration law is exempt from this standard. There is hardly anything about this proposal that can survive the spotlight of honest scrutiny. Only a lame-duck Congress could get away with such hypocrisy and chicanery.

Just three months after the Senate immigration bill met its well-deserved end, amnesty advocates in the U.S. Congress resumed their efforts. Recently, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) announced on the Senate floor his intention to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.

The DREAM Act (S. 774) is a nightmare. It is a massive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16. The illegal alien who applies for this amnesty is immediately rewarded with "conditional" lawful permanent resident (green card) status, which can be converted to a non-conditional green card in short order. The alien can then use his newly acquired status to seek green cards for the parents who brought him in illegally in the first place. In this way, it is also a backdoor amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who brought their children with them to the United States.

What is less well known about the DREAM Act is that it also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students. It repeals a 1996 federal law that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.

On its own, the DREAM Act never stood a chance of passing. Every scientific opinion poll on the subject has shown over 70 percent opposition to giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.

Not surprisingly, the DREAM Act languished in committee for five years after it was first introduced in 2001-until the opportunity arose to hitch it to the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration bills of 2006 and 2007.

To understand just what an insult to the rule of law the DREAM Act is, it is important to look at the history behind it.

In September 1996, Congress passed the landmark Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Led by Lamar Smith (R- TX) in the House of Representatives and Alan Simpson (R-WY) in the Senate, Congress significantly toughened the nation's immigration laws. To his credit, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.

Open-borders advocates in some states-most notably California-had already raised the possibility of offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens who attend public universities. To prevent such a development, the IIRIRA's sponsors inserted a clearly worded provision that prohibited any state from doing so unless it provided the same discounted tuition to all U.S. citizens:

Members of Congress reasoned that no state would be interested in giving up the extra revenue from out-of-state students, so this provision would ensure that illegal aliens would not be rewarded with a taxpayer-subsidized college education. The IIRIRA's proponents never imagined that some states might simply disobey federal law.

However, that is precisely what happened. In 1999, radical liberals in the California legislature pushed ahead with their plan to have taxpayers subsidize the college education of illegal aliens.

Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D) sponsored a bill that would have made illegal aliens who had resided in California for three years during high school eligible for in-state tuition rates at California community colleges and universities. In August 2000, the California legislature passed his bill. However, Democrat Governor Gray Davis vetoed the bill in September 2000, stating clearly in his veto message that the bill would violate federal law:

Undeterred, Firebaugh introduced his bill again, and the California legislature passed it again. In 2002, facing flagging poll numbers and desperate to rally Hispanic voters to his cause, Governor Davis signed the bill.

Meanwhile, similar interests in Texas had succeeded in enacting their own version of the bill. Since then, interest groups lobbying for illegal aliens have introduced similar legislation in most of the other states. The majority of state legislatures had the good sense to reject the idea, but eight states followed the examples of California and Texas, including some states in the heart of "red" America. Today, the 10 states that offer in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens are: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington. (The legislatures of Maryland and Connecticut passed similar bills in 2007, but the governors of those states rightly vetoed the bills.)

In most of these 10 states, the law was passed under cover of darkness because public opinion was strongly against subsidizing the college education of illegal aliens at taxpayer expense. The governors even declined to hold press conferences or signing ceremonies heralding the new laws.

Not surprisingly, when voters themselves decide the question, a very different result occurs. In November 2006, Arizona voters passed Proposition 300, which expressly barred Arizona universities from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens- 71.4 percent voted in favor.

The American people realize the injustice of giving illegal aliens a taxpayer-subsidized education when out-of-state U.S. citizens and law-abiding foreign students have to pay the full cost of their education.

This strong public sentiment against giving illegal aliens access to in-state tuition rates is powerful enough to swing the results of an election. In Nebraska, the last of the 10 states to pass the law, that is exactly what happened. During the 2006 session, Nebraska's unicameral legislature passed an in-state tuition bill for illegal aliens. Governor Dave Heineman vetoed the bill because it violated federal law and was bad policy. In mid-April the legislature, which included an unusually large number of lame-duck Senators, overrode his veto by a vote of 30 to 19.

The veto would become an issue in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary. Heineman's opponent was the legendary University of Nebraska football coach and sitting U.S. Representative Tom Osborne, a political demigod in the Cornhusker State. Osborne had never received less than 82 percent of the vote in any election. Heineman, on the other hand, had not yet won a gubernatorial election. He became governor in 2005 when Governor Mike Johanns resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

Few believed that Heineman had a chance of winning the primary. He was behind in all of the polls. But then Coach Osborne fumbled. During a debate, he stated that he favored the idea of giving subsidized tuition to illegal aliens. Heineman seized the opportunity, and highlighted this difference of opinion between the candidates in his political ads. The voters reacted negatively to Osborn's position, and Heineman surged ahead in the final weeks of the race. He beat Osborn by 50 percent to 44 percent in the primary election on May 9, 2006. After the vote, both candidates said that the in-state tuition issue had been decisive.

First, providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens amounts to giving them a taxpayer-financed education. In contrast, out-of-state students pay the full cost of their education. This gift to illegal aliens costs taxpayers a great deal of money at a time when tuition rates are rising across the country. For example, in California, a lawsuit on the matter has revealed the staggering cost to the taxpayer: The state pays more than $100 million annually to subsidize the college education of thousands of illegal aliens.

Second, these states are encouraging aliens to violate federal immigration law. Indeed, in some of the states, breaking federal law is an express prerequisite to receive the benefit of in-state tuition rates. Those states expressly deny in-state tuition to legal aliens who have valid student visas. And in all 10 states, an alien is eligible for in-state tuition rates only if he remains in the state in violation of federal law and evades federal law enforcement. In this way states are directly rewarding this illegal behavior.

This situation is comparable to a state passing a law that rewards residents with state tax credits for cheating on their federal income taxes. These states are providing direct financial subsidies to those who violate federal law.

Third, not only are such laws unfair to aliens who follow the law, but they are slaps in the faces of law-abiding American citizens. For example, a student from Missouri who attends Kansas University and has always played by the rules and obeyed the law is charged three times the tuition charged to an alien whose very presence in the country is a violation of federal criminal law.

This gift to illegal aliens comes at a time when millions of U.S. citizens have had to mortgage their future to attend college. During 2002-2007, college costs rose 35 percent after adjusting for inflation. Two-thirds of college students now graduate with debt, and the amount of debt averages $19,200. In a world of scarce education resources, U.S. citizens should be first in line to receive a break on college costs-not aliens who break federal law.

Even if a good argument could be made for giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens, the bottom line is that the policy violates federal law. These 10 states have brazenly cast aside the constraints imposed by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.

In July 2004, a group of U.S. citizen students from out of state filed suit in federal district court in Kansas to enjoin the state from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens.[3] They pointed out that Kansas is clearly violating federal law, as well as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against them in favor of illegal aliens.

The district judge did not render any decision on the central questions of the case. Instead, he avoided the issues entirely by ruling that the plaintiffs lacked a private right of action to bring their statutory challenge and lacked standing to bring their Equal Protection challenge. The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Meanwhile, in December 2005, another group of U.S. citizen students filed a class-action suit in a California state court.[4] They too maintain that the state is violating federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Pursuant to a California civil rights statute, they are also seeking damages to compensate them for the extra tuition that they have paid above that charged to illegal aliens.

Now, just when it looks as if U.S. citizens might vindicate their rights under federal law and the wayward states might be held accountable, Senator Durbin and his pro-amnesty allies are seeking to offer the offending states a pardon.

The DREAM Act grants an unusual reprieve to the 10 states that have ignored federal law. The Act retroactively repeals the 1996 federal law that the 10 states violated, making it as though the provisions in the 1996 law never existed.

On top of this insult to the rule of law, the DREAM Act includes a massive amnesty, as noted above. This amnesty opens a wide path to citizenship for any alien who entered the country before the age of 16 and has been in the country for at least five years. The guiding notion seems to be "The longer you have violated federal law, the better."

Beyond that, all the alien needs is a high school diploma or a GED earned in the United States. If he can persuade an institution of higher education in the United States-any community college, technical school, or college-to admit him, that will suffice. Any illegal alien who meets these conditions (or who can produce fraudulent papers indicating that he meets the conditions) gets immediate legal status in the form of a "conditional" green card good for six years, according to Section 4(a)(1).

* There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Customs and Immigration Services office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act's Section 4(a) merely requires him to "demonstrate" that he is eligible-which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.

● The alien then has six years to adjust his status from a conditional green card holder to a non-conditional one. To do so, he need only complete two years of

study at an institution of higher education. If the alien has already completed two years of study, he can convert to non-conditional status immediately (and use his green card as a platform to bring in family members). As an alternative to two years of study, he can enlist in the U.S. military and spend two years there. This provision allows Senator Durbin to claim that the DREAM Act is somehow germane to a defense authorization bill.

●An illegal alien who applies for the DREAM Act amnesty gets to count his years under "conditional" green card status toward the five years needed for citizenship. (Section 5(e)) On top of that, the illegal alien could claim "retroactive benefits" and start the clock running the day that the DREAM Act is enacted. (Section 6) In combination, these two provisions put illegal aliens on a high-speed track to U.S. citizenship-moving from illegal alien to U.S. citizen in as little as five years. Lawfully present aliens, meanwhile, must follow a slower path to citizenship.

●It would be absurdly easy for just about any illegal alien-even one who does not qualify for the amnesty-to evade the law. According to Section 4(f) of the DREAM Act, once an alien files an application-any application, no matter how ridiculous-the federal government is prohibited from deporting him. Moreover, with few exceptions, federal officers are prohibited from either using information from the application to deport the alien or sharing that information with another federal agency, under threat of up to $10,000 fine. Thus, an alien's admission that he has violated federal immigration law cannot be used against him-even if he never had any chance of qualifying for the DREAM Act amnesty in the first place.

The DREAM Act also makes the illegal aliens eligible for federal student loans and federal work-study programs-another benefit that law-abiding foreign students cannot receive-all at taxpayer expense. A consistent theme emerges: Illegal aliens are treated much more favorably than aliens who follow the law. There is no penalty for illegal behavior.

In addition to being a dream for those who have broken the law, the DREAM Act raises an even larger issue regarding the relationship between states and the federal government. The 10 states have created a 21st century version of the nullification movement-defying federal law simply because they do not like it. In so doing, they have challenged the basic structure of the republic. The DREAM Act would pardon this offense and, in so doing, encourage states to defy other federal law in the future.

One thing that we have learned in the struggle to enforce our nation's immigration laws is that states cannot be allowed to undermine the efforts of the federal government to enforce the law. Only if all levels of government are working in concert to uphold the rule of law can it be fully restored.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is reportedly pursuing a vote this week on a massive expansion of food regulation. Proponents-Democrats and Republicans alike-contend that the very security of America's food supply is at stake. But rhetoric aside, the nation's food supply has never been safer, thanks largely to technological advances and market forces. Consequently, granting vast new powers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would raise the cost of food but would not increase consumer protection.

Spanning some150 pages, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would authorize the FDA to dictate how farmers grow fruits and vegetables, including rules governing soil, water, hygiene, packing, temperatures, and even what animals may roam which fields and when. It would also increase inspections of food "facilities" and tax them to do so. And, fulfilling the dream of a long line of agency officials, the bill grants the FDA unilateral authority to order recalls.

In addition to the inevitable costs to consumers, expanding the agency's regulatory reach would require additional spending of $1.4 billion between 2011 and 2015, according to the Congressional Budget Office.[1] The costs to the private sector have not been calculated but would likely reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Incident rates of food-borne illness have actually been declining for more than a decade, in spite of higher consumption of the raw foods that are most often associated with outbreaks of food-borne illness. For example, there were 51.2 cases of confirmed food-borne bacterial contamination per 100,000 people in 1996. The rate fell by a third by 2009-to 34.8 cases per 100,000 people.[2]

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), who sponsored the companion bill approved by the House in July 2009,[3] hailed the proposed act as "a monumental piece of bipartisan legislation that will grant FDA the authorities and resources needed to effectively oversee an increasingly global food marketplace."[4]

The bill has indeed drawn bipartisan support, and the "marketplace" is increasingly global, but neither the FDA nor any other centralized authority can "effectively oversee" the food market. America's food supply system is a complex and ever-shifting network of more than 2.2 million farms, 28,000 food manufacturing facilities, 149,000 food and beverage stores, and 505,000 restaurants and similar establishments.

The bill would also require the Environmental Protection Agency to "participate" in food safety activities, which would certainly not improve regulatory efficiency. Moreover, contrary to the claims of Dingell, Reid, and their allies, new regulations would not fill regulatory gaps in the food safety system. Meat, poultry, and dairy products-the most common sources of food-borne illness-are regulated by the Department of Agriculture and are not addressed in this bill.

The proposed act also calls for stepping up inspections of food facilities[5] and voluminous record-keeping requirements, but even if the FDA somehow managed to increase inspections sevenfold in the next five years,[6] meaningful improvements in food safety would not come from intermittent visits by regulators or their scrutiny of paperwork. In fact, the agency has systematically failed to apply scientific principles to its regulatory policies, which have effectively rendered its actions futile bureaucratic exercises. Only 36 percent of FDA managers believe the agency is keeping pace with scientific advances, according to a recent survey by the Government Accountability Office.[7]

At least the legislation calls for biennial reviews of epidemiological data to identify most significant food-borne contaminants and hazards.

Small farmers and local producers are particularly concerned that the proposed requirements would prove unaffordable. Indeed, all food "facilities"-including those home-based businesses that make jam, bread, and cheese for local markets-would be required to undertake periodic hazard analyses and produce "risk-based preventive controls."

Imports would also come under more stringent inspection, but contrary to conventional wisdom, food imports do not appear to carry a higher risk of contamination-at least according to FDA records. Of the 285 recalls and allergy alerts issued in the first nine months of 2010, only 16 (about 6 percent) involved foreign manufacturers.

Nor does it seem all that necessary to lard the legislation with three grant programs: grants to schools for allergy management ($107 million); food safety training, education, outreach, and technical assistance ($21 million); and food safety participation grants for states and tribes ($83 million).

History has repeatedly shown that science and technology have delivered the greatest advances in food safety. Pasteurization, water disinfection, and retort canning, for example, freed consumers from food transmission of botulism, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and cholera. And it was the food industry, not regulators, that first standardized quality grading and pathogen elimination processes. More recently, irradiation and bioengineering have also helped to destroy pathogens and extend product shelf-life. Were it not for alarmist opposition to both, consumer acceptance would likely be greater-bringing with it broader health benefits.

Market forces such as competition, brand-name value, monitoring by financial markets and insurers, and common law are also powerful drivers of food safety. There are bad actors in every pursuit, of course, but considering the sheer size of the market, Americans enjoy a remarkably safe food system.

In the end, however, as much as we might wish it to be otherwise, food-borne illness will always be with us. We are enveloped by microbes, and more than 200 known diseases are transmitted through food. Tragically, some 5,000 deaths are related to food-borne diseases each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The most severe cases tend to occur in the very old, the very young, and those with compromised immune system function.

The Reid bill clearly contradicts the message sent by voters just two weeks ago: Americans do not want and cannot afford yet more unnecessary regulation and expansion of government. This proposal constitutes a costly and ineffective answer to a manufactured crisis.

Our long national nightmare is over. Phusion Projects, the makers of Four Loko brand caffeinated malt beverages, announced yesterday that it will remove the caffeine from its products. Phusion's decisions came just one day after Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed the Food and Drug Administration to ban "these dangerous and toxic drinks."

Unfortunately Schumer never explained what exactly makes these drinks "dangerous and toxic." For now, Americans are still free to buy malt beverages. And for a limited time they are also still free to buy caffeinated drinks like coffee and Red Bull. So please, nobody tell Schumer how easy it is to buy alcohol and caffeine and mix them together. Because then Schumer might pressure the FDA to take away your morning coffee and table wine, too.

The reality is that there is little known medical evidence that caffeinated malt beverages are less safe than other alcoholic drinks. But that fact is no defense against current FDA power to ban products it deems unsafe for the American people. And now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to grant the FDA even more unaccountable administrative authority. Specifically, he is pushing for passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act in the lame duck session that opened this week.

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), who sponsored the companion bill approved by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) House in July 2009, hailed the proposed act as "a monumental piece of bipartisan legislation that will grant FDA the authorities and resources needed to effectively oversee an increasingly global food marketplace." And it is true: Our food marketplace is increasingly global. But that does not mean it is any less safe. In fact, the data show that just the opposite is true: Between 1996 and 2009 the rate of confirmed food-borne bacterial contamination has fallen by a third. But science has never been FDA's strong suit. According to a recent survey by the Government Accountability Office, only 36 percent of FDA managers believe the agency is keeping pace with scientific advances.

So just how big an expansion of government does Dingell, Pelosi, and Reid want to inflict on the American people to combat a non-existent food safety crisis? Well, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation would require 50,000 domestic and foreign inspections in 2015, compared to just 7,400 in 2009. That is a sevenfold increase in government inspections. And the government would be reaching into a lot of new places as well. The act requires that all food "facilities"-including those home-based businesses that make jam, bread, and cheese for local markets-would be required to undertake periodic hazard analyses and produce "risk-based preventive controls."

And then there is the wasteful spending that accompanies every liberal expansion of government: grants to schools for allergy management ($107 million); food safety training, education, outreach, and technical assistance ($21 million); and food safety participation grants for states and tribes ($83 million). Heritage Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy Diane Katz writes: "The Reid bill clearly contradicts the message sent by voters just two weeks ago: Americans do not want and cannot afford yet more unnecessary regulation and expansion of government. This proposal constitutes a costly and ineffective answer to a manufactured crisis."

* Haley Barbour (Governor of Mississippi. Chairman of the Republican Governors Association)

* David Bossie (Citizens United President. Citizens United v Federal Election Commission)

7) Paul Ryan (9 votes): This Congressman from Wisconsin became a conservative sensation because of his Roadmap for America's Future, which was re-released in 2010.

5) Allen West (11 votes): West is a newly elected Congressman from Florida. He stands out, not only because he and Tim Scott are the first two black Republicans in the House since J.C. Watts left Congress in 2003, but because he's a fiery, outspoken Tea Party favorite who has no qualms about standing up for conservatism or speaking out against radical Islam.

5) Jim DeMint (11 votes): This South Carolina Republican is widely viewed as the prototype of what a conservative Republican should be like in the Senate. Not only was he a ferocious defender of conservative values in D.C., he was an impact player both in the primaries and the 2010 general elections.

4) Andrew Breitbart (15 votes): Breitbart is a combative conservative who heads a burgeoning media empire. He's the man behind Breitbart.com, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Peace, and Big Journalism. Breitbart was also instrumental in exposing that Democratic Congressmen, including John Lewis, lied about being called racial slurs by Tea Partiers.

3) Marco Rubio (23 votes): When Marco Rubio, a young, exciting, conservative, charismatic, Hispanic Republican tossed his hat in the ring for a Senate seat in Florida, the grassroots instantly warmed to his candidacy. However, when Charlie Crist got into the race, the establishment Republicans immediately rallied behind him. That didn't sit too well with conservatives all across the country who immediately rallied to Rubio's candidacy. In the end, Rubio's star power was too much for Crist, who abandoned the GOP and ran as an independent. Happily, Rubio smashed both Crist and Kendrick Meek in the general election and a new conservative star was born.

2) Sarah Palin (30 votes): It might be easier to ask: What has Sarah Palin not done this year? She was one of the most effective voices in the fight against Obamacare, she became a popular Fox News contributor, she just released a new book, she has her own TV show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, and she was a force of nature in the 2010 elections, where she raised millions, swung primaries with her endorsements, and did more to get women candidates elected this cycle than anyone else in history.

1) Chris Christie (32 votes -- Right Wing News Bloggers' Choice Conservative of the Year): You probably couldn't come up with a much more unlikely conservative rock star than Chris Christie. Keep in mind that when Christie ran in 2009, it was Steve Lonegan who was the favorite of grass roots conservatives in the primary. That's not surprising, given Christie isn't a social conservative. So, how in the world did this guy turn out to be the conservative of the year?

Simple: He's a charismatic, bold, and pugnacious fiscal conservative who has absolutely no qualms about taking on Democrats, the unions, the media, and anybody else who tries to separate the taxpayers of New Jersey from their hard earned money. At a time when the people are terrified that our country is spending itself into bankruptcy while our politicians are too scared to do anything about it, Chris Christie has proven that one man with courage can make a real difference.

Howard Dean: Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine Because Fox `Makes Stuff Up' and `Americans Don't Know What's Going On'

An audio clip from about two months ago has been uncovered by The Blaze which clearly demonstrates that, even with all of his opining and public speaking skills, there is a reason that Howard Dean's most notable quote will always remain a timelessly incoherent scream. Despite being a one-word definition of ignorance, Dean doesn't mind discussing how to control the media in an effort to educate what he considers to be the ignorant masses - Americans.

"I would bring back the Fairness Doctrine so you couldn't have a spectacle of a Fox Flooze, which just makes stuff up and is a propaganda outlet. You would actually have to have some sanctioned human beings talking to the other side. And MSNBC would have to do the same. They would have to have some conservatives on there too. I think that's much better for the country."

"Americans don't know what's going on and therefore the media can have their way with them intellectually."

If Dean is so concerned about propaganda outlets making stuff up, then perhaps he should be fact-checking his own statements. Such as.

1. Lying about his ties to George Soros and MoveOn.org.

2. Lying about Fox News' coverage of the Shirley Sherrod story.

3. Lying about his level of support for an Obama re-election bid.

4. Lying about campaign ads.

5. Lying about former President Bush's immigration plan.

6. Lying about voter suppression by the Republicans.

If anybody knows about lying, it would appear to be Dean himself. So if he has been so successful at distorting facts, does this mean that he believes that he's been having his way with Americans intellectually?

Dean has long championed the Fairness Doctrine as an avenue for controlling conservative talk radio and Fox News. In a Newsweek column in 2007, George Will explained the infatuation that liberals have with regulating speech over the airwaves, specifically citing Dean:

Some of today's illiberals say that media abundance, not scarcity, justifies the Fairness Doctrine: Americans, the poor dears, are bewildered by too many choices. And the plenitude of information sources disperses "the national campfire," the cozy communitarian experience of the good old days (for liberals), when everyone gathered around-and was dependent on-ABC, NBC and CBS.

"I believe we need to re-regulate the media," says Howard Dean. Such illiberals argue that the paucity of liberal successes in today's radio competition-and the success of Fox News-somehow represent "market failure." That is the regularly recurring, all-purpose rationale for government intervention in markets. Market failure is defined as consumers' not buying what liberals are selling.

Easily manipulated and bewildered - that's what Howard Dean and his liberal cohorts think of the American people.

Republicans are squeezing Mr. Obama because they know he cannot get a tax hike on the affluent passed at this time. While the House passed it Thursday, the Senate can block. So Mr. Obama will have to compromise or give up entirely and extend the Bush 2003 tax cuts.

For his part, Mr. Obama is caught because if he gives up, the far left will go crazy. And at this point, they are the people the president needs to fund his campaign in 2012.

Radical left-wing Americans want above all to take income from the affluent and give it to those who have less. That is what the far left lives for. So they are now sending a message to President Obama: Don't compromise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, please do not compromise with the Republicans about extending the Bush tax cuts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am in the highest tax bracket. We don't need the money. The country does.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said in your campaign speech that enough is enough and it's time to fight. Please fight. I'm willing to fight with you.

BARACK OBAMA, THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will also allow the temporary Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire.

SUBTITLE: Tell President Obama: Keep your promise. Fight, don't cave, on tax cuts.

"Talking Points" believes President Obama is basically with the far left on this one. If you check out my interview with him in the book "Pinheads and Patriots," he does believe in income redistribution. He does want to take money from those who have it and give it to others. Simply because the affluent have money, he believes the government should take as much as it can.

Taking ideology out of the equation, it is risky to raise taxes on anybody with the economy as weak as it is, so caution should dictate. Congress should extend the current tax system and hope the unemployment rate comes down as consumers uptick their spending.

As we reported Wednesday night, 50 percent of any tax hike on the affluent would be paid by small business, and that will slow down hiring. It has to.

But remember this: Some on the far left want to harm the economy because the worse it gets, the more people will look to big government to save them.

In the end, that's what MoveOn and the rest of these loons are really striving for.

While reading about how Obama may sign a bill which allows the government to govern bake sales in schools, I recalled this song:

Sea levels will rise in the South and fall in the north, according to global warming experts?

Why is anti-religious material suitable for government-sponsored exhibits, but not religious material?

The 9 people just pardoned by President Obama (4 who had convictions for cocaine possession):

RUSH: The unemployment number, 9.8%. Now, this is very timely. See, I can't help but look at this stuff as a cynic. Nine-point-eight percent is going to facilitate the discussion of extending unemployment benefits. It is also gonna give Obama and whoever else needs it cover to go along with the idea of temporarily extending the Bush tax rates, that 9.8%. Who would have ever thought the number woulda gone up after the election, I ask cynically. He-he-he-he-he-he-he. It went up, by the way, we added 39,000 jobs. Now, I want you to stop and think of that. We've had people try to tell us this week the economy is starting to boom, starting to recover. In the United States of America we added 39,000 jobs. That is such a small number that it is impossible to represent statistically. That's less than one-tenth of one millionth of 1%. Thirty-nine thousand jobs in the United States. That's so small I don't even know how you calculate. That's a rounding error. My point is that's horribly, horribly poor, 39,000 jobs? That's not worth talking about. I mean, that's an accident. This is bad news. And guess what?

As the economy picks up, if it picks up, this is going to cause more people to start looking for work again, and you know what's gonna happen? The unemployment rate is going to go up because more people will be counted. Right now it's 9.8% or under 10% because so many people have dropped out of the market for a job. They're not even looking for one. And that's how come that percentage is 9.8. The U6 number is probably closer now to 18%. As the economy picks up, if it does, when it does -- it's gonna happen at some point -- more people, upon hearing the economy's coming back, will start looking for work. That will expand the pool of people looking for jobs. But the number of jobs created will lag behind the number of people who want them, obviously, so the unemployment rate could be 10% by January, could be 10% by February. (interruption) The official program observer has a question. Hm-hm. I have been asked by the official program observer, Japan's recession lasted for decades. Could this go on that long?

It could. It very easily could go on that long. In fact, I got a sound bite with Austan Goolsbee being asked if this is the new norm, and while saying I hate discussions of the new norm, yes, it's the new norm. Austan Goolsbee, I mean he's now marginally less sissy looking than Julian Assange, and he was out there in front of the White House today talking about -- we got a great sound bite roster here today, we really do. So we'll take a break here, we'll come back and get started. We are doing exactly what Japan did economically. If we don't alter what we're doing we could see years and years and years of this stuff. Let me put this in perspective for you another way. We all know that there are fixes for this. We all know we've done two years of Obama and the liberal way of trying to so-called fix the economy, grow the economy, create jobs. We all know that it hasn't worked. All this government spending, all this debt, it hasn't worked. We're now at 9.8% unemployment.

The alternative, conservatism, constitutional conservatism, smaller government, tax cuts, get out of the way of small business creating jobs, that would work. Obama and the Democrats won't dare allow it to work because if they did they would end up being discredited. The biggest obstacle to this country getting back on track is the Democrat Party, and until they are out of the way as a majority, we're not gonna fully recover. The last thing in the world Obama needs is for something he has been arguing against to work, and conservatism works every time it's tried. Lower marginal tax rates work every time they're tried. Capital gains, marginal rates, whatever, they work when you lower them, the marginal side, they work every time it's tried. And if they were tried now, it would also work. It would discredit Obama and the Democrats and that's why it won't happen. So this nation's recovery, economic recovery, the well-being of this nation's citizens is second fiddle, is placed on the back burner, subordinated, if you will, subordinated to the notion that Obama's way must not be shown to be a failure. So Obama and the Democrats -- in order to preserve their whole identity -- must, by definition, oversee the nation plunging into a further economic abyss.

RUSH: You're gonna hear in just a moment on the audio sound bite roster Austan Goolsbee even topping Pelosi with his claim that unemployment benefits grow the economy -- and they grow the economy even faster, even better if they aren't paid for, if they just add to the deficit. So it's Keynesian. So unemployment benefits, just more spending with nothing to back it up, that's better for the economy than anything. Meanwhile, the cold and hungry in Atlanta, in Georgia, are huddling, trying to find assistance for the cold in Obamaville. This reminds us of what happened in Detroit a year ago. Just amazing. All this suffering, all this pain was supposed to be eradicated, was supposed to be wiped out, and it's only getting worse -- and now we're being told it's a new normal.

Quick question: How many liberals...? This is about the tax rates, the Bush tax rates. How many liberals the past ten years have paid their income taxes based on the Clinton tax rates? Because that's what we're talking about returning to. If the Bush tax rates are not extended, we'll go back to the Clinton tax rates, 39.6% for the upper bracket. Now, how many liberals are paying that? Did Bill Gates pay that rate? Warren Buffett? What about Pelosi and her husband or Harry Reid or Obama? Did they pay that rate? "Are they willingly paying that rate?" is my point. Are they showing leadership by paying the rate that they want to take us back to? How many liberals, the past ten years, have paid their income taxes based on the Clinton tax rates? I dare say none of them. I dare say that all liberals have been paying their taxes based on the Bush tax cuts, and now they say the rich have gotta go back.

RUSH: I want to go back to this program. I predicted this whole notion: 9.8% and 10% unemployment would be the new normal, and there was a lot in this prediction. August 16th of this year, this is me on my own program.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I'll tell you what the new normal is. No, the new normal is simply a construction designed to save Obama and the Democrats from any association with this economic collapse. Calling this a new normal is simply saying, "Hey, this is not the result of any Democrat policy. This is not the result of Obamanomics, no. This is just America. And by golly by gosh, Obama's doing the best he can with it, but he's only got so much to work with. The new normal, it is what it is. This is not the result of bad economic policy. This is not the fault of Obama." The new normal is defining the Obama depression down. This is ridiculous.

And you as a citizen ought not settle for the idea that this is America going forward, that this is the new normal, 'cause I'm telling you right now, it's not. All this, quote, unquote, new normal is an excuse. It's giving Obama and the regime a pass. We've gone from optimism to opticism. And opticism, the optics, how it looks, ah, it's just the new normal. Anybody who is optimistic at Obama's stimulus program, those are the people that need to be cast away. Those are the people that need to be ignored. These Keynesians, oh, yeah, this is the way, they said. This is what we have to do. This will create jobs, shovel-ready, all that rotgut.

We now know 20 months, it's all a bust, all the bailouts, all the stimuli have failed, and so now what we have is a new normal, yeah. This is it, folks, get used to it, this is the new America, in decline. And it's just coincidental that it happened when the Obama regime took office. To give you an idea of how poorly Keynesian economics worked, the stock market never reached its 1929 peak until 1954. Now, let me put this in perspective for you.

We tried Keynesian stimulus policy, FDR, the New Deal. That's gonna bring us out of the 1929 depression. Guess what? We didn't reach stock market peaks that were existed in '29 until 1954. It only took 25 years to get back to where we were in 1929 with Keynesian stimuli. So the new normal means if you're not happy, tough toenails. If you're not happy, lower your expectations, 'cause this is it, baby. The new normal is designed to get you to give up. The new normal is a creation to get you to go ahead and accept mediocrity in your country.

RUSH: While Obama presides over the decline. So today on MSNBC more proof. This morning on Jansing and Company, the host Chris Jansing and White House Council of Economic Advisors chairman Austan Goolsbee have this exchange.

JANSING: The longer this recovery takes, the slower it goes, does it increase the chance that a high unemployment number will be the new normal?

GOOLSBEE: I don't buy into the new normal, but I do think you're highlighting a critically important issue that -- that of long-term unemployment. Whether it's simply extending the tax cuts and the unemployment benefits to maintain the demand in the short run, uh, before Christmas, I think we've gotta keep an eye on the long-term unemployment problem, and it's one of the critical issues we face.

RUSH: What did he say? What did he just say! He said zilch, zero, nada. "I don't buy into the new normal, but I do think you're highlighting" something here. "Whether it's simply extending the tax cuts and the unemployment benefits to maintain the demand"? This is gobbledygook, and this is a chief. This is the head honcho. Jansing then said, "The worst numbers in seven months: More than 15 people who would like to get work cannot find a job. Now that we're 17 months into this recovery what do you think is going on here?"

GOOLSBEE: It's certainly below what was expected. Collectively we've seen some progress in the economy but it's got to be way more. It's got to be well faster, and we've got to grow out of this. It is absolutely imperative that we extend the middle-class tax cuts -- not just the Bush tax cuts but also the Obama cuts -- and that in an environment like this people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who are searching for new work, you cannot go yank the rug out from under them and end the unemployment benefits.

RUSH: Again, we're getting gobbledygook here: "[T]he Obama cuts, and that in an environment like this people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who are searching for new work, you cannot go yank the rug out from under them and end the unemployment benefits." You can't yank the rug out from under them and end the unemployment benefits? What is he saying? This guy is wandering in vain for a cogent thought. So Chris Jansing -- who I'm sure understands every word; I'm sure this is making total sense to her -- said, "Well, let me ask you about the proposition specifically because they're huddling, maybe even as we speak, representatives from the White House and the Republicans trying to figure out in a move forward on the economy. The deal seems to be shaping up is this: Democrats would okay an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy if they get those things that you just talked about, including the extension of unemployment benefits. If that is what it ends up being is that a net gain or a net loss for the economy?"

GOOLSBEE: What is critically important right now is that for the 98% of people that are looking at having their taxes go up, that we extend those tax cuts, that borrowing $700 billion to extend tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, there's not a big rampant unemployment problem up among the billionaires.

RUSH: This guy is clueless. He cannot even make the case for his side! You can't even do the propaganda right. I mean, this is hilariously funny because this guy is totally incompetent. "[B]orrowing $700 billion to extend tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires"? That's his version of, "To extend those tax cuts, the Bush tax rates, the millionaires and billionaires is gonna cost the economy $700 billion," and here comes a shlub worrying borrowing money? (snorts) $700 billion when we got a deficit of $1.6 trillion? So clearly class envy politics is all this is. It's not about growing the economy. It's not about getting jobs going and creating jobs for people. This is just glaring incompetence right in front of our very eyes. Let's go to the phones. People are patiently waiting. It's Open Line Friday. We always try to get to the phones in the first hour of the program, and we start in Sparks, Nevada, with Dave. Thank you, sir, for calling. You're up first.

CALLER: How are you doing, Rush? This is a grand pleasure for me, and I've been listening to you on KOH radio ever since you first started in Sacramento.

RUSH: Thank you very much. Whoa. I appreciate that. Well, then you remember when we had to ban calls from Reno for a while.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was back in the early days of the program. Yeah, it was a sordid circumstance back then. We had to ban calls, but it ended up helping the situation. It worked.

CALLER: What I wanted to tell you, Rush, is, you know, I've been a veteran and I've been a truck driver. I'm retired now, but I'm so sick and tired of 10% of the public paying for all the taxes. I got tax cuts quite a few years ago. I never made over $30,000 in my life, and I just am sick and tired of not being able to pay taxes 'cause I was proud to pay taxes -- and I still think everybody should pay 20%, and that's the way it should be.

RUSH: Yeah, you're talking... This is the "skin in the game" argument that you're talking about.

CALLER: Yeah. If everybody pays taxes, everybody feels responsible for government, and they're not spending somebody else's dime.

RUSH: Not so much anymore. Well, he's talking about the latest Tax Foundation numbers. Essentially 10% of income taxes are being paid by 68 or 70% of the people. But everybody's paying taxes. There are payroll taxes, Medicare taxes and so forth. Income tax, yeah, about half the country or close to it is not paying income tax -- and, interestingly, those are the people who are the targets of what Obama and Goolsbee are talking about, "We have to make sure we keep the middle class tax cuts." The middle class, when it comes to income taxes, aren't paying that much. Anyway, I appreciate the call, Dave. Thanks much.

RUSH: The latest figures are 10%. The top 10% pay 70% of all income tax. The top 10% of wage earners, I don't care who they are, pay 70% of all income tax, and those are the kind of taxes we're talking about here. The Bush tax rates deal with income. Well, not just that. There's capital gains. The capital gains rate is on the table as well. In fact, there's an interesting story here about all the other taxes that are on the table and all the chaos waiting to happen. It's from the Washington Whispers section of US News & World Report. Mort Zuckerman owns this magazine, right? "Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax --" by the way, have you noticed just this week they're starting to talk about the Obama tax cuts as well. That tells me they're gonna extend these things. It's a done deal, folks, done deal. The Bush tax rates are gonna be extended for everybody because they're throwing Obama's name in there now. Goolsbee just talked about it, somebody else this week. Obama himself, "Our tax cuts." This is a recognition of the political popularity of tax cuts and extending them now, and Obama wants to get in on the action.

His base, the kook fringe leftists are fit to be tied that Obama is caving on this. They're fit to be tied that we still got Gitmo open. They're fit to be tied that Obama upped troop levels in Afghanistan and is over there to visit the troops. They can't believe any of this. They can't believe anything that's happened here, other than health care, and they're not happy about that because it didn't happen soon enough.

US News & World Report: "Delaying Tax Vote Could Crash Stock Market -- Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts, especially locking in the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, will spark a stock market sell off starting December 15 as investors move to lock in gains at a lower rate than the 20 percent it would jump to next year, warn analysts. While it is unclear how bad the sell off could be, it could wipe out the year's gains, they warn. 'Capital gains tax rate will increase from 15 to 20 percent if the tax cuts are not extended. The last time the capital gains tax rate increased--on Jan. 1, 1987 from 20 to 28 percent--investors realized their gains at the lower tax rate,' said Daniel Clifton at a Washington partner at Strategas Research Partners. 'We would expect a similar effect this time around as investors see the tax rate going up and choose to realize their gains and incur the 15 percent tax.'" What he means is that people sell their stocks before December 31st at the 15% rate rather than the 20% rate.

I'll tell you something else that's gonna happen. The people in a position to, are gonna shift as much income from next year into this year to take advantage of the current tax rates so they don't have to pay income next year on the new tax rates. You'll have people like Michael Eisner back in 1993. Michael Eisner dumped like $195 million in Disney shares -- he was the chairman -- to take advantage of the current tax rates to beat the Clinton tax increases up to 39.6%. Now, when that happens that's gonna have a deleterious effect on economic activity next year as well because money and economic activity that normally would take place in January-February is gonna take place in December of this year. So the year-end report, "Wow, the economy really grew, look at all that activity going on out there in December," and January and February fall off the map because all that activity took place in December.

I, ladies and gentlemen, because I'm a powerful, influential member of the media, I know lots of people who have already made the arrangement to move as much January income as they can into December, any time before December 31st. And they're waiting. If the tax rates don't change they're not gonna move the money forward. If the tax rates do change, if they're not extended, they'll take the money. Now, most people can't do this, but those who can are going to do so. That's a double whammy, not just the capital gains shift but also standard income shift. All of this activity just proves the value of tax rates and how they stimulate growth and activity.

RUSH: They're having the coldest winter in 100 years in Europe. It's not even winter yet! And from the sounds of things, it's not pleasant here in the United States. Let's go Atlanta. We have some audio sound bites, WGCL-TV Marietta, Georgia, at a federal aid center. Here is a citizen: Niko Northington.

NORTHINGTON: It's kind of cold, it's right around Christmas, and, you know, I was in need of help of the -- my energy assistance.

RUSH: Right, "I was in need of help of my energy assistance." "Despite the freezing temperatures, hundreds fought for a place in line in Marietta to apply for federal aid to help pay their heat and power bills this winter. Only 30 people were being let in at a time at the assistance center in Marietta. 'It was freezing,' [said one] applicant ... 'I was in line for three hours and 15 minutes, but I needed the help.'" I wonder if she'd-a stood in line three hours 15 minutes for a job. I'm just asking! I mean, I don't know. I'm just asking out there. Three hours and 15 minutes waiting in line for, uh, uh, uh, help.

"Some needed even more help just to deal with the cold. Ambulances were called in and took at least two people to the hospital because of the freezing temperatures," in Atlanta! When's the last time you heard of this? We don't even hear of ambulances being called in for the homeless who spend the night outside in cardboard boxes, and here a couple of people are standing in line in Atlanta for heat assistance, energy assistance, are taken to the hospital. Since Obama has shut down our economy with tax increases and moratoriums on drilling for oil in the Gulf, you would think that these frozen people of Georgia would be taken care of by the regime's green utopian promises.

Where are all these green jobs? (sigh) this is a chilling article here, folks. That's local radio. Here's from the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation. "Hundreds Line up in the Cold for Help Heating Homes -- As metro Atlanta's temperatures grow colder, the demand for heat is, well, heating up. A day after hundreds of people queued up outside a Marietta community center to apply for assistance with heat and power bills, hopeful applicants began lining up again around midnight, waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the doors to open Thursday morning. This time, however, officials let those in line come into the Mansour Center on Roswell Street an hour early at 7:30 and get relief from temperatures that dropped to 27 degrees."

Standing in line for assistance. I just wonder if they would stand in line for a job. I don't know. I'm just asking. So we heard from Niko Northington. Here is Michelle Buttler, again WGCL-TV in Marietta at a federal aid center.

BUTTLER: People that are just so much in need and it's in the holiday season. I mean, we have to all think about each other. ... To tell your children one week, "Hey, mom got a new job. Our Christmas is gonna be good this year," and now you have to turn and say, "Mom doesn't have a job."

RUSH: Obamaville. Christmastime in Obamaville. This is not what was promised to these people, is it. This is not at all what these people had in mind when Obama was elected and when Obama gave his immaculation speech. This is not what they had in mind in Grant Park on election night when Obama went out to address the hordes and the masses. This is not what they had in mind. This is the United States of America we're talking about here, a major American metropolitan area, Atlanta. Let's go back. DeCarlo Flythe. I don't think this is what he had in mind either. It's March 22nd of this year in Raleigh, North Carolina, on WRAL-TV News. This is uninsured health care patient DeCarlo Flythe saying this about the passage of health care reform.

FLYTHE: It's just going to be like Christmas. I mean, it's going to be great. No worries, you know, the bills, we can go ahead and pay our copay and be a'right.

RUSH: Right. Now, it just doesn't seem to be working out that way. Now, here's the Media Tweak of the Day. Snerdley, pay attention. Media Tweak of the Day. We always announce these, and it always works. This story raises a very un-politically correct question. If people cannot even feed and clothe themselves, should they be allowed to vote? Should they be voting? If people who are receiving government assistance, that is, taxpayer assistance, weren't allowed to vote, can you imagine the difference in the political makeup of this country? Can you imagine that? It's just a think piece. I'm just putting it out there for you to ponder. Let's move on. Let's go back October 2009 in Detroit, our man in Detroit, WJR news Ken Rogulski interviewing two people in line for stimulus money. We'll never forget this.

WOMAN #1: I don't know, his stash. I don't know. (laughter) I don't know where he got it from, but he givin' it to us, to help us.

RUSH: "That's why we voted for him! Obama, Obama, Obama. Obama's stash!" Well, the people in Marietta, lined up for Obama's stash. Now, imagine if people like this weren't allowed to vote? We're just pondering this. We're not suggesting it. Don't anybody go off crazy here. Seriously. What's the old saw: Once people figured out they could vote themselves money from the Treasury, that's the end of it? (chuckles) Who was it? I can never remember who said this. Here's Pelosi yesterday afternoon. Listen. Try to follow this math. This woman is out of her mind. This is during the debate about extending the Bush tax rates for people making less than $250,000 a year.

PELOSI: Unemployment insurance, the economists tell us, returned $2 for every dollar that is put out there for unemployment insurance. People need the money. They spend it immediately for ness-ces-sit-ties. It injects demand into the economy. It creates jobs to help reduce the deficit.

PELOSI: Giving $700 billion to the wealthiest people in America does add $700 billion to the deficit, and the record and history shows it does not create jobs. It does not create jobs.

RUSH: I don't know how to deal with this without literally screaming. This is just so senseless and outrageous. "People need the money. They spend it immediately for ness-ces-sit-ties. It injects demand into the economy. It creates jobs to help reduce the deficit." Unemployment benefits, which are unpaid for, which add to the deficit, she says create jobs! Would somebody explain that? Just that alone. Unemployment benefits, i.e., paying people not to work, creates jobs. Somebody wanna try explaining that? One of you libs out there, one of you members of the New Castrati, give me a call here and translate this for me, because I know you believe it. I know you believe that paying people not to work "creates jobs and helps reduce the deficit." I need to have this explained to me. I'm not smart enough to figure this out. I don't understand how paying people to sit on their butts and not do anything "creates jobs." Nor do I understand how this reduces the deficit, but I'm sure some of you New Castrati can explain it to me.

RUSH: I got an idea. Why don't we pay farmers not to grow food so that we will have more food? I think I'm on to something here. Yeah. That's the ticket. We pay farmers not to grow food and we'll have more food. That's how it works. That's how Pelosi and the Democrats think. Yeah. We'll eliminate starvation. In fact, let's stop drilling for oil and we'll have more energy. Yeah. We already started that, so we have more energy. We wouldn't need to be giving people energy assistance if we would just stop producing energy 'cause there'd be more of it and it wouldn't cost as much if we would just stop making it. I think I got this down pat now. I think I could become a Democrat, maybe, for a couple minutes and pull it off.

RUSH: Baghdad Jim McDermott last night was on Chris Matthews' Hardball. Matthews said to Baghdad Jim, "You're not afraid of the Republicans' worst threat against you which is to force taxes up for everyone on January 1st. You're willing to make that stand. In other words, say, 'Okay, guys, play it tough. Over Christmas, everybody get to think about the fact that you guys wouldn't let us have a vote.' You're willing to go that far. The president, obviously, isn't."

MCDERMOTT: I care about the unemployed. They are the -- they should be the number one question. This is Christmastime! We talk about good Samaritans! We talk about the poor, the little Baby Jesus in the cradle, and all this stuff, and then we say to the unemployed, "We won't give you a check to feed your family." You have to force the Republicans out in the open and take all their clothes off and let 'em stand there naked and say, "We will not take care of the poor."

RUSH: Right, we won't take care of them. We're only talking about extending unemployment benefits for 99 weeks -- and, by the way, it's just as I thought. This unemployment number of 9.8%, that's greasing the skids for extending unemployment benefits. It's been beyond 99 weeks actually for a lot of people. But here's this lie yet again -- Republicans don't care about the poor -- and comparing the unemployed to the Baby Jesus in the cradle which these guys constantly do. How come it's "Christmas" when the Democrats talking about unemployment but it's the "holidays" with every other issue? When they're talking about unemployment, the Democrats will gladly use the word "Christmas," but in any other subject, you can't say Christmas. That's offensive to people that don't believe in Jesus. You gotta say "the holidays" or what have you.

RUSH: Sean in Parkville, Maryland, Open Line Friday. You're next. Nice to have you with us. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hey, I just want to tell a story. I am a little bit of a liberal person. I -- I do find a lot of humor in what you do, though. I'm willing to, you know, see the humor in what you do sometimes. Uh, I really like your Bill Clinton impersonation a lot. I wish you would do it more.

CALLER: But what I'm calling about today is about taxes, and I was telling Snerdley that the way that I look at it, really -- in my opinion -- there's really nothing stopping a business from hiring an individual right now. I know we have a disagreement on the fact that if the government raises taxes, it does not give a business an incentive, and that may be. It may not be an incentive but there really is nothing barring or stopping them from hiring individuals to do work right now. I mean, they could choose to do that if they wanted to.

RUSH: Well, no, no, no. Wait. I know what you're trying to say, but in taking you literally, which is where I live, I have to disagree with you. There are things stopping them. But what your point is is that if they wanted to they could. They could throw all this concern out the window and start hiring people if they wanted to. You're trying to say that they're not hiring people for a reason that is what? Are they selfish? Are they greedy? What?

CALLER: I think we have to put that question to them and let them answer that question. I think for you and I to answer that question since we're not the businesses, that's kind of silly.

CALLER: Oh, okay. Well, why don't you tell me. I mean -- I mean you have people, but I'm sure you're not doing major hiring, Rush. I mean, you're a radio program. But there are businesses that produce goods and services.

CALLER: They have to constantly hire or fire or whatever but I don't think you fall under that category, though.

RUSH: Now, wait, wait. Wait, just a second now. Wait just a second. You have just done something very interesting, and I'm sure you do it throughout your daily discourse in politics, your whole life. You have just told me, without knowing a shred, all about my business. You have just told me what I don't do, what I don't have, what kind of business I am 'cause I'm just a radio show. You have told me everything in the world about my business, and formed an opinion based on it when you don't know anything about my business. How many employees do I have?

RUSH: But it's just a radio show. I'm not trying to trip you up here, don't misunderstand. There's no wrong answer here. Just take a guess. You said it's just a radio show. So how many employees do I have?

RUSH: Two hundred. Well, if I had 200 employees, that doesn't go with what you originally said: "You're just a radio show." That's a lot of employees for a small business to have.

CALLER: I think you would expect me to say a low number so that's why I actually (garbled) high.

RUSH: No, no, no. No, no. There was no wrong answer. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not trying to set you up for anything. This is a fascinating conversation, because literally you started out by saying everything you thought you knew about my business but you don't know anything about it. There's nothing wrong with that. You couldn't, you're not part of it.

RUSH: But you think you do, which tells me that you think you know a lot about a whole lot of other things that you don't really know about and then you're drawing political conclusions and opinions based on what you think you know.

CALLER: No, I'm not. I'm saying, "We all do." I didn't say "you." I said, "Don't we all?"

RUSH: This is classic of a liberal. You think you know everything everybody else is doing and thinking and saying and then you assign a motive to it.

RUSH: No, I'm reacting to you. (laughing) I'm reacting to you doing it. I'm not doing it. (laughing)

CALLER: Well, anyway, Rush, another point. Could I make one other point? I'll make it quick?

CALLER: (laughing) Okay. The other point that I wanted to make is that if taxes are raised and businesses are not gonna hire, why don't we extend that to workers? If taxes go up then why don't all workers stop? Is that right? Why don't we challenge all workers with a right-leaning ideology to just tell their employer they don't want to work anymore because the taxes are too high for them? Why don't they just stop working when the taxes do go up because evidently that's what they're opposed to? So why don't they stop working?

RUSH: You're trying to tell me that all conservative workers should, what, quit?

CALLER: Well, no. I mean, I -- I would think that they would want to do that. Because, I mean, businesses don't want to hire there's no incentive so what's the incentive for people that work whose taxes are going up? There really is none, right? I mean, it's the same thing. If you raise the taxes all in the regular working person just like me, I mean, what's the incentive for me to work? Why should I continue to work if businesses won't hire?

RUSH: Well, a lot of people have opted out of work because of that. A lot of the rest of the people work even harder to overcome that obstacle that's placed in front of them.

CALLER: Well, just like a lot of people have opted out of working a lot of people continue to work. I mean, I do.

RUSH: Yeah, you did because you said other people could just quit if taxes go up. Quit. Why not quit instead of paying higher taxes?

CALLER: I'm saying put your money where your mouth is if you're really upset about taxes.

RUSH: -- by standing up to people who get to keep more of what they earn. Wait a second.

CALLER: I'm talking about the people of the United States on your side of the ideological spectrum.

CALLER: I'm not making the decision as to whether people keep more or less of what they earn.

RUSH: You're throwing down a challenge. You're throwing down a gauntlet or something. What do you have against people keeping more of what they earn?

RUSH: You started out by saying you're a liberal. You started by telling me everything about my business, you don't know how many employees I've got, you don't whether I'm hiring or not.

CALLER: Nnnno, I was -- I was trying to draw a comparison to what's going on in the country. You're the one that brought up the whole thing about your business. I wasn't talking about your business at all.

RUSH: No! You told me everything about my business and then I stopped and asked, "Wait, how do you know this?" Look, I have a flawless memory here. You're not gonna be able to slither out of this.

RUSH: I'm still waiting for you. You are consumed here with some kind of a... I don't know, I wouldn't call it bitterness, but what is it your anger? What are you hearing people say that's making you angry when this employment tax talk is happening?

CALLER: People are saying that if taxes go up, businesses are gonna stop hiring. Well, businesses stopped hiring a long time. They actually laid people off. We lost 13,000 at my company.

RUSH: No, that's not what people are saying. People are not saying if taxes go up, business will stop hiring. Businesses aren't hiring now.

CALLER: Please, Rush! Please! You've been saying that. Are you kidding me? Do you need to go back into your (garbled) archives?

RUSH: By the time we finish with this, he's gonna tell me I called him and why am I bothering him.

CALLER: Anyway, Rush, let's leave it on a good note. I like your Bill Clinton impersonation. Continue to do that 'cause I think it's kinda funny.

CALLER: We'll just have to agree to disagree on the facts but I was just trying to raise a point and I think I did a good job of doing that.

RUSH: It's a shame we disagree, though, because you're wrong and you have a basic misunderstanding of things that's forming the foundation of your incorrectness. It's a shame. I would love to answer you. You started out asking some interesting questions. The problem is you proceeded to answer them, and you don't know the answers, which tells me that you're forming a whole lot of conclusions based on things that you don't know subject to your political bias, which makes you a lost cause. But you needn't be. I mean, you say we disagree on facts. You haven't mentioned a fact yet. You've mentioned a bunch of opinions and you've thrown out a bunch of challenges and questions, but you haven't mentioned a fact yet.

RUSH: You know that's what liberals do best. I mean this guy was -- and I like the guy, now, don't misunderstand. I wish I coulda gotten through to the guy but unfortunately I put the guy on the defensive. I wasn't trying to do that, but he was full of business should do this; conservatives should do this; employees should do that, and that's what liberals do best, is they "should" people to death. I mean you liberals are the champs at "shoulding" people. Businesses should do this; conservatives should do that; Newt should do that or whatever. But, boy, you don't like it when people start shoulding you. It was classic, wasn't it? Telling me everything about my business that he doesn't know, and he's already formed an opinion about it. (interruption) Yeah, if they're raising taxes why don't you quit work? No, we're trying to stop them from raising taxes for the sake of everybody. None of this is based in selfishness. Those of us who hold the position I hold love the country. We're thinking of everybody here. We want greatness for everybody, how many times have we gone through this? We're not at war with the country. We are at war with the people who want to harm it one way or the other, internal or external, doesn't matter.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, it's Ron from Forest Hills, Queens, New York, and the home of Geraldine Ferraro who I'm sure is listening to you right now.

CALLER: A few. I just want to go off on that one fellow who was talking to you about how he knew your business better than you did basically. He made the point that, why don't we just stop working? Well, I have a friend who's a dentist in Germany, and every year about the beginning of November the government tells him you've made enough money, that's it, you're done, so he stops working, him and his buddies stop working. All he does is see people for emergencies, if they have a crown or something, that's it.

CALLER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure that when the tax rates were 90% back in the fifties when Kennedy came into office people stopped working when they bumped up against the marginal tax rate --

RUSH: Not even taxes. Here in this country, doctors, Medicare doctors, they're quitting, they're quitting Medicare work.

CALLER: So that fellow was absolutely wrong. People do stop working when tax rates do go too high.

CALLER: Yeah. I think I have a little bone to pick about the strategery that goes on. All I ever hear about or 90% of what I hear about is how the tax rate is going to go up from 36 to 39.6%, a 10% increase.

CALLER: Well, why don't people talk about the low-end people? I mean it's gonna go up from 10% to 15%, which is a 50% increase.

CALLER: So my question to you is, what do the Democrats have against poor people and African-Americans? 'Cause that's basically the people that are gonna be affected the most.

RUSH: That is an excellent question, and I have been asking it for years. If I were African-American in this country I would be asking for the last 20 years, "When are you guys gonna deliver? You have been promising me every four years that you're gonna get me out of this bondage that the Republicans keep me in, you're gonna end discrimination, and every four years I still have the same complaints."

CALLER: The second greatest lie I think of the twentieth century, the second greatest lie of the twentieth century was that the Democrat Party is the party of African-Americans.

CALLER: It's just a lie. It's just an absolute lie. If you go back to the beginning of this country --

CALLER: -- how the Democrat Party, the party of segregation, the party of Jim Crow, the party of Jefferson Davis, the party of Planned Parenthood, you can just go on and on --

RUSH: Hell, the Ku Klux Klan was a bunch of Democrats and even one of them got into the United States Senate, for crying out loud.

CALLER: The Democrats have finally figured out, they've taken a new tack and said we're not gonna do it that way, we're gonna do it a different way. We're gonna say, "Yes, you're equal, but you need extra points on your test to get hired. Yes, you're equal, but you're not as smart as a white person or an Asian."

RUSH: The way to put this is the Democrat Party is the party of keeping you poor and keeping you downtrodden. Without that, they are nothing.

CALLER: Thank you, sir. I'm so upset I'm still shaking. I'm calling to respond to the idiot with whom you were speaking earlier, the one who said that he doesn't understand why businesses don't just hire, why they need incentives.

RUSH: Yeah, right. I can see you, I can just see you fuming out there, Allison. All this time you've been waiting to get on air to talk about that idiot -- he-he --

CALLER: I've calmed down some since I first spoke with Mr. Snerdley, but like I said --

CALLER: Well, it's clear, he has no clue what he's talking about. He has no business experience. It's not incentive. It's called cash flow. If you don't have cash flow you can't make payroll. You can't just pull payroll out of the air.

CALLER: And that's another thing. In order to have customers you have to be competitive, you have to be able to give them a price where they can then hire you. But everything is going up, don't tell me there's no inflation. Between the taxes and the insurance and the permits and all the other regulations that we have to follow and pay for, our materials costs are going up, the gas is going up so that the trucks -- it's ridiculous what we pay for gas every month, still it's going up, and if we raise our prices in order cover our costs, then the customers can't hire us, they can't afford it, and some of them, if they do, then they can't turn around and pay us so we've got several accounts right now that haven't been paid. And I'm sitting here at my desk right now trying to figure out who not to pay myself so that I can make payroll, I can pay my guys. The owner of this company hasn't been paid in over a year.

CALLER: It's tough. A lot of them I've ended up putting on credit cards so that I have the rollover. And I pay a little bit on the credit cards, but my big vendors, I'm able to keep them paid with the credit card so that we can still get materials from them every month --

CALLER: -- you know, they still work with us, but now the credit cards are mounting and it's strictly business, you know, it's not I'm not going out and buying TVs and stuff on this thing. No, we're trying to keep this business running. And then you've got people like whatever the hell his name was, I mean how can he be so stupid?

CALLER: I can't even say he's ignorant, because common sense, you would see it eventually, but he's stupid.

RUSH: No, he told you at the outset, he's a liberal. Therefore he knows everything.

RUSH: The reason you're not hiring anybody is because you're selfish. You could hire if you want to, you just want to keep the money for yourself. That's what he thinks.

RUSH: I'm just telling you the way this guy thinks. You're a business; you've got a stash of money; you're rich; you drive a Bentley; you've got a big house; you have a boat to go along with your car. You're selfish. You could get rid of the boat and hire workers, if you wanted to, but you're selfish and greedy. That's what all of that meant.

RUSH: Well, yeah, popular use of the term, but that's what they believe and they're coulda woulda shoulda people. You coulda done, you shoulda done. He doesn't know the first thing he's talking about, but he thinks he knows everything about you.

CALLER: How can he draw a breath for so many years that he's able to dial a phone and yet he doesn't pick up on any of this stuff? Doesn't he go to the grocery store ever?

RUSH: Well, now, what do you mean? Whoa, whoa, whoa, now, I want you to explain to people what you mean by that, doesn't he go to the grocery store?

CALLER: If you go to the grocery store, you have to pay for what you get, and --

CALLER: -- if you pay attention the prices on the things that you buy have been going steadily up.

CALLER: Yeah. And he made the point about incentives himself, you know, why should I do this, I have no incentive to work, or quit your job, don't pay taxes, you know --

RUSH: I think what you're illustrating here, Allison, is that particular caller really does not understand free market economics. He understands command-and-control economies.

CALLER: How can there be so many people that don't understand it, that just want to sit with their hands out and have somebody give it to them and they don't have to do anything for it. Where does it come from? Who makes this money? The government doesn't.

RUSH: I've been doing this 23 years. I could go insane because I could think after 23 years there ought not be any liberals left, right?

RUSH: Then I could think of myself as an ultimate failure. So I've have to figure out how is it that what is so easily understandable, what is just nothing more than common sense escapes these people. People have written books about this. There have been psychological dissertations about it. And the best I can come up with is you're not dealing with people who think. You just said that, too.

CALLER: Yes. In order to have common sense you have to think. They don't think and I've come to the conclusion some of them aren't even capable of thinking. And you can't fix that.

CALLER: Ignorance you can take care of, you can try to educate people, but when they're stupid, that's it, it's over. You figure, okay, they're ignorant --

RUSH: I know, stupidity is a frustrating thing. What do you do about it, because by definition stupid is stupid. Dumb is dumb. I mean you can't turn a pencil eraser into a washing machine. People are what they are.

RUSH: I probably have a better record than most of getting through to people and converting people. That's why I'm considered such a threat and so dangerous. But you're not even talking his language, when you said out there, "What does he not understand about making payroll?" it's Mars-Venus, people like him don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. What do you mean, make payroll? To him you're just making an excuse. You're just complaining about how hard it is. You're the business owner and you've got all the money and you're the one that's selfish. If you really wanted to hire somebody you could, and then you throw payroll in, "What do you mean, payroll?"

CALLER: On the 15th of every single month you have to pay 941 taxes, the federal withholding --

RUSH: And you should be damn happy you have the chance to pay those taxes, that's what he --

CALLER: And Medicare. I have had to not pay myself several times or delay my paycheck by two or three weeks so I can pay --

CALLER: -- because the government will not wait. We get paid on the 15th regardless. You can go hungry, you can go into foreclosure on your house, but we get paid.

RUSH: Do you want to know how he reacts when you say, "and I don't even pay myself," you want to know what his reaction is?

RUSH: No, well, you don't have to pay yourself. You have a big stash of money. You're actually paying yourself before anybody else gets paid. You're just greedy that you don't want to have to take away from what you already have.

RUSH: I'm telling you that's how they look at it. Businesses exist to create jobs for people and give them health care and when you don't see it that way, you're cold-hearted, cruel and mean spirited. You're unfeeling. It's just that simple. I can tell you you're going nuts out there trying to understand this, and a lot of people are like you, going nuts trying to figure it out. But keep in mind, that guy that you're talking about, in the eyes of the media he is the smartest man in the world. He's got the compassion; he has the perspective and so forth. That's what frustrates you, too. I'm glad you called.

RUSH: Folks, you know, very seldom do I point out something I think is brilliant. I know you think it's a lot, but... That liberal caller everybody's reacting to? He has the same level of economic understanding as our president has. That guy may as well have been Barack Obama. I kid you not. That's it. If you want to understand Obama, that guy was Obama. That guy has the same degree of economic literacy as Obama has got. Pure and simple. The golden goose is always gonna be golden. Business is always gonna have money. Businessmen, businesswomen are selfish and greedy. They could do all of this if they wanted to.

But since they won't do it, we gotta do it for them, and so we have to spend the money. We have to give people unemployment checks. We have to do it because they won't do it. That's exactly who that guy was. It may as well have been Obama calling us from Afghanistan instead of calling Hamid Karzai. And here! Here's Barney Frank. This is last night on PMSNBC, The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell. Question: "You got a lot of people in the top tax bracket in your district in Brookline and Dover or Wellesley. How do you explain to them that their tax rates ought to go up in your district when everybody else should get a cut?"

FRANK: (mushily) It's not the case that everybody who is doing well begrudges making a contribution. Many of these are fairly sophis-ch'icated people, and they understand if someone is making $500,000, so $250,000 of that will be subjected to a, uh -- a tax increase from 36% to 39%. That's 3% of $250,000, an increase of $7,500 in the taxes paid by someone making half a million has zero economic effect. It's just a miscon-ch'eption that the Republicans will try to peddle, that everybody is selfish.

RUSH: Is it me or is it getting harder to understand him? I think it's getting worse. Whatever "it" is, it's getting worse. Well, I think he needs a drain in his mouth for one thing. That would help. But anyway, higher taxes are your "contribution" to government. Higher taxes are your "contribution" to government! All right, here's Gil in Philadelphia. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Listen, I own a small engineering firm here in Philadelphia, what's left of it. Two years ago I had ten employees. Now I'm down to a handful. The truth of the matter is that I would hire more people if there was a marketplace for their labor. I mean, if I can sell my people's labor, I make money. I have every incentive in the world to hire people, but there's no marketplace.

RUSH: Well, that would be you 'cause you're doing the hiring. So, in other words, you don't hire them 'cause you're a nice guy and you don't hire 'em because you're trying to give them health care.

CALLER: That's absolutely correct. That's not my motive at all. My motive is the profit motive, and if it isn't there I can't afford to hire them. In my opinion, one of the problems with liberals is they don't understand the difference between money and wealth. Wealth is generated when people go to work and provide a good or service to each other.

CALLER: Money is just what exchanges hands. It's a claim on labor. And when the marketplace won't support the goods or the services, if nobody's there to buy them, then the economy doesn't grow. It's that simple.

RUSH: Well, of course you're exactly right, but I think you're being charitable in explaining liberals and wealth. To liberals, wealth is what you inherit.

RUSH: Or what you can score from somebody, from some government or something. Nobody "earns" wealth. That's just inconceivable to them. I mean, somebody who has multimillions can't possibly have earned it. Somebody had to give it to 'em or they had to steal it or there had to be something screwy about them, because they can't conceive of anybody paying somebody that amount of money -- other than an athlete or a movie star. You're right, at the end of the day, about sophistication levels of understanding of economics. You know, economics is one of those things that is so complicated, it seems, but it's nothing other than logic. Economics is just logic. But the logic has to be explained to you the right way, and when it is -- when you have a good economics teacher, professor -- you have lights going off in your head like crazy. So many things make perfect sense when explained properly, 'cause they're just logic.

RUSH: Now, to liberals wealth is also what you redistribute to buy votes. (laughing) To Pelosi, Pelosi's idea of earning money, folks, is tweaking the tax code to help her husband avoid paying taxes. They've all got their own definitions of it, but it doesn't include helping you, only them.

RUSH: Craig in Vero Beach, Florida, former home of the Dodgers at spring training. Hello, sir.

CALLER: And I am a student of the Limbaugh Institute and have learned much. This has been an outstanding program today, Rush. I've enjoyed it. You've really brought to light a tremendous amount. My point today is what you were talking about earlier, and that is the reason for extending the so-called unemployment so-called benefits and what Pelosi has to say about this -- and you described the Keynesian approach absolutely perfectly. This is all about consumerism, and I need to give you thanks and applaud you for it because consumerism is what is holding the Obama government together. And I think that your explanation was excellent. I would like you to expand upon it just a little bit more in the area of, as you just related, these so-called middle-class tax cuts. What do the Keynesians want that money to go towards? You named it, Rush: Consumerism. If consumerism falls apart, there goes the recovery. There goes Obama.

RUSH: Yeah, but why doesn't at work? Why doesn't Keynesian-sponsored consumerism work?

CALLER: Cause it's based on the false assumption that more money in circulation will lead to more spending -- and, of course, it doesn't. It leads to the word you were talking about earlier: Inflation. Not deflation, inflation.

RUSH: Right on, but if the money that ends up in the hands of consumers is essentially not theirs and not earned by them -- and, frankly, really never reaches their hands -- how much consuming can they do? Because the money generated by Keynesian spending is of course printing or borrowing. It's not produced by genuine economic activity.

RUSH: The flaw here is the Keynesians believe you can print up a bunch of money, spend a bunch of money, throw it out there and put it into various strategic points and it's gonna somehow end up in the hands of consumers. This is their silly thinking on unemployment checks.

RUSH: Their unemployment checks, they think, are gonna lead to all kinds of consumerism, as opposed to tax cuts, which won't lead to any consumerism -- and they've got it ass-backwards, because the tax cuts are what leads to consumerism because that's people's own money! Unemployment checks, by definition, are not enough for my consumin'. All you can do is basically sustain yourself.

CALLER: Exactly. And that's what the Obama administration and their Marxism is: To sustain, not grow. They don't want people to have real jobs and make real money because then they would no longer be dependent on the government, and you have described it perfectly. I think you need to say it every day over and over and over. The only thing that this younger generation understands and lives for each day is to consume, and it is a false security.

RUSH: One way I like to explain this -- and I appreciate the kind words, Craig. I really do. One way I like to explain this in light of what we were just talking about -- consumers, people consuming -- is the Keynesian theory is you throw a bunch of money out there and put it strategic points of the economy, whatever they think they are, and it will end up in the hands of consumers. They'll start spending and ergo you've got economic activity. They forget that consumerism is based on real things. People don't just spend for the hell of it. Well, some women do, but for the most part... (laughing) I'm sorry, it's stereotypically humor which I just happen to love. I know I deserve to be slapped. It's nothing but stereotypically humor. It's not tied to anything other than my sense of humor.

It's like I love mother-in-law jokes, so don't get offended. It's like... (laughing) "Good news, bad news. Your new Cadillac is going over the cliff. That's the bad news. The good news is your mother-in-law is in it attached with a seat belt." I love these old jokes. These jokes are back from the 1960s and so forth. The Lockhorns was a great, stereotypically humor comic strip. Consumerism has to be based on genuine need, not just spending idly which really doesn't happen a whole lot (except if it's by the rich). Now, in the case of unemployment compensation, let's say it's 300 bucks a week and $1200 a month. For most people, you're not gonna be out doing a whole lot of luxury shopping on that kind of money. You're not gonna buy a car.

But what are you gonna do? You're gonna make sure the utility bill is paid...maybe. (chuckles) You may skip them until you figure you have to pay, but you're gonna pay your cell phone bill. You're going to pay your cable bill. These are the things that keep life normal for you. When is the last time you ever heard anybody say that the economy really came around and started growing because utility bills were paid on time? It doesn't happen, and that's the kind of spending that the unemployment compensation permits. It's sustainment-type spending. It's not expansion spending; it's not growth spending, and that is the kind of spending they do want. I was talking to my good friend Mark Levin the other day and he had a great, great point.

It's one of these things I wish I'd thought of myself about this business that people over $250,000 shouldn't get a tax cut because they don't need it. Levin was talking to some liberal on his show, and he asked the liberal, "Why should anybody even make over $250,000? If they don't need it, if they don't need a tax cut when they make that much, why don't you guys just say, 'Nobody should have more than $250,000, period'? Not that people over that shouldn't get a tax cut, just that nobody can have more than $250,000." The liberal said that was not a bad idea. "Okay, well, then why not $150,000?" It makes the point and throws it back in their face so well, this whole tax cut argument.

"We're gonna make sure there are tax cuts except for those at $250,000 or more 'cause they don't need it." Fine. If they don't need it, they don't need any more than $250,000 period -- and what if we just had a blanket limit: No American should have more than $250,000! Not just salary, you couldn't have your car. Everything that you have could not add up to more than $250,000. Your house, nothing could add up to $250,000, because above that you don't "need" it. You don't need anything more than $250,000. So every bit of your salary, your assets, your cars, your home, your jewelry, your watches, whatever, your underwear, clothes, nothing can be more than that. Once it totals 250,000, that's it and you don't get any more because you don't need any more.

That's the kind of stuff I just love to ask these New Castrati guys, you know, 'cause liberalism cannot be supported intellectually -- and when you hit 'em with any kind of intellectual argument based on what they think and say, they crumble and they crumple like a cheap suit. It is just fascinating. When I stop and actually think about this, I can't believe that there still are liberals with credibility. It is such BS. All of it is such a crock. And yet it does.

RUSH: Let's go back, audio sound bite-wise, to me on my program, this program. This is March 12th of this year...

RUSH ARCHIVE: The TARP money was not used for its original purpose. There's something else out there, Jordan, you need to know. The Federal Reserve, before the TARP bailout, made loans totaling $2 trillion and they will not tell us to whom. We don't know who got the money. Whether the Fed loans it or the government prints it, it's our money. So you can talk about the $700 billion TARP. You can talk about the $787 billion stimulus. That's nothing compared to the amount of money that the Federal Reserve lent people at the same time: $2 trillion. We don't know where it went and they will not tell us.

RUSH: Well, we now know that it wasn't $2 trillion. We know it was a little over $3 trillion and we know where it went now. Finally we know where some of it went. "The Federal Reserve revealed details yesterday of trillions of dollars in emergency aid that it gave to US and foreign banks and to nonbank companies ranging from General Electric to Harley-Davidson during the financial crisis." So let me pause for just a second. We go to California and we look at all of the unfunded pension liabilities for the teachers, public employees unions, Teamsters, and the same thing in Illinois and in New York. We have people who have been living on federal dollars, people who have been living well on the public dole. Humongous lifestyles.

All of this has made me wonder just how many of the people who are doing well have actually done well. How much of it is real? How much of it has really been earned versus how much of it is on the come. How much of it is just paper? I don't just mean debt when I say "paper" but just worthless dollars. It makes me wonder how much of any financial liquidity or solvency from an individual to a family to any entity, government or private, how much of it's real? We're talking $3.3 trillion in loans, giveaways. That amount of money, folks, is twice the annual budget of this country! Why do banks need that kind of money? What in the world...? Now, we know at the root of this -- the foundation of this domestically -- is the subprime mortgage mess.

That is the foundation. That's where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost their value, lost their worth. It is where banks were forced to make loans to people who couldn't pay it back so therefore people were in homes they couldn't afford, therefore homes were built that really the market had no business building. There wasn't any genuine demand. All of this was the result of government policy that manifested itself in the form of government demands. Remember Janet Reno was threatening banks, bank presidents and executives. "If you don't do this, we're gonna investigate you." So how much of this is real?

For crying out loud! General Electric has always been licensed to print money just by virtue of doing business and yet they needed -- and I question if they even needed it, but General Electric ended up getting -- what was it, $116 million? Let me find the figure. Hell, even the California State Teachers Retirement System got some of this money. The city of Bristol, Connecticut, General City Retirement Fund got some of this money. I look at this, and my mouth falls open: "$3.3 trillion in loans to financial institutions, companies, and foreign central banks during the crisis in 2008. The figure comes from adding up the maximum amount of aid provided for each of the Fed's credit programs."

GE borrowed $16 billion! GE borrowed a total of more than $16 billion. Now, in the case of General Electric, let's connect some dots. The CEO of GE is Jeffrey Immelt. Jeffrey Immelt sits on one of Obama's economic commissions. CNBC is owned by General Electric. That business news channel has been obviously in the tank for Obama and regime economic policy since he was sworn in. General Electric has been big in this "green" technology movement and every other week it seems all of GE from NBC to CNBC to MSNBC "goes green." Now we find out that the regime found its way on the General Electric board in a sense.

When you end up lending this kind of money to private industry, you end up on their board, and you have a say-so in how their company is run. It's socialism. You don't have to go to the board meetings but this is Marxian. It's right out of Karl Marx. I know you start accusing these people of being socialists people laugh. "Ah, come on, Rush. That's insane talk. That's the talk of kooks." It may be but it's what it is. When Obama or anybody he wants to appoint essentially sits on the GE board and when GE doesn't care and there's this situation? It's very, very troubling, ladies and gentlemen. To try to understand all this I sought the counsel of Mike Munger who is the Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program at Duke University.

Now, here are some more details: "New documents show that the most loan[s] and other aid for U.S. institutions over time went to Citigroup ($2.2 trillion)..." $2.2 trillion to a bank? followed by Merrill Lynch ($2.1 trillion), Morgan Stanley ($2 trillion), Bear Stearns ($960 billion), Bank of America ($887 billion), Goldman Sachs..." Goldman Sachs? What do they need any money for? They were bailed out twice! They got this and they got money via AIG. Well, now, what is a little schlub like me supposed to make of this? Well, what I make of this is cap and trade. Somebody is gonna benefit from the "trades" if we actually do start trading carbon credits.

Goldman Sachs had the exclusive or the near exclusive on this, but still, why $615 billion? I remember when this was all happening. It was TARP that I was talking about, and I was being halfway facetious. But Henry Paulson was the Treasury secretary (former Goldman Sachs) and at the time, the fall of 2008, we're hearing nothing but the end of the world when it came to economics in this country and the world, and we had to do TARP or else life as we knew it ceased to exist. I said, "Oh, this is making a joke. Paulson just wants to make sure his buddies don't have to give up their homes in the Hamptons," and then I look at this list of people who got the money, and I'm sure they were able to keep their homes in the Hamptons.

Many other people are losing theirs. I mean, what are we to make of this $615 billion for Goldman Sachs? And during all this, they're paying billion-dollar bonuses to people -- in total, not individual billion dollars, but bonus packages totaling billions. "($178 billion), JPMorgan Chase" That's David Rockefeller's bank for crying out loud. He's not with it anymore, but it is. "Wells Fargo ($154 billion)." Merrill Lynch was later acquired by Bank of America. Bear Stearns collapsed and was sold to JP Morgan. And in the midst of all this was Lehman Brothers who, for some reason, they said, "Bye-bye, guys. We don't want to save you."

They went (raspberry) kaput! Why? We're bailing everybody else out, why not Lehman Brothers? "Foreign banks that benefited from the Fed's aid included Swiss bank UBS, which borrowed more than $165 billion," and isn't it interesting to note that that Swiss bank finally caved and decided to share the names and account data of Americans who had accounts with them? Now, Swiss banking used to be the epitome of privacy. You wanted nobody to know what you were doing financially if you put your money with a Swiss bank -- and nobody knew. Not even the Swiss bankers knew what you were doing.

But all of a sudden, UBS borrowed more than $165 billion, and the IRS makes a deal with them or Treasury makes a deal with them and now that notion of privacy is gone. "Deutsche Bank ($97 billion) and the Royal Bank of Scotland ($92 billion). The documents are a reminder of how crippled the financial system had become during the crisis and how much it's recovered since. Banks earned $14 billion from July through September this year. Many of the individual loans the banks took were worth billions and had short durations but were paid back and renewed many times. Among the largest recipients were foreign central banks, such as the European Central Bank, Bank of England and the Bank of Japan.

"They borrowed huge amounts of dollars from the Fed to assist their own banks." This is the EU bailout, which we learned yesterday that we participated in. That's what this story is all about. "Large non-banking companies in the U.S. used the Fed's lending programs to pay employees or..." You try to go to a bank to get a loan to make payroll and see what happens to you. You're not gonna get a loan to make payroll. You gotta get your loan to do something else. But these nonbank companies got money from the Fed "to pay employees or suppliers or to make loans through their subsidiaries," like GE has GE Capital or something. "They did so," they went to Fed "because private financing had all but evaporated," and "private financing had evaporated" because the subprime mortgage crisis, essentially.

There are obviously other reasons for it. "Over time, GE borrowed a total of more than $16 billion," and then ended up in bed with the Obama regime, "Harley-Davidson $2.3 billion and a group of independent Caterpillar dealers $733 million." Now, Caterpillar, that rings a bell, too, doesn't it? Because Caterpillar was cited by Obama as initially supporting the Porkulus bill when the CEO said, "I'm sorry, but, no, we didn't. We're being misrepresented here," and the Caterpillar CEO eventually had to say, "We're gonna keep laying people off rather than hiring people." Obama said they were gonna start hiring.

They're on the list, and then two other recipients: "The California State Teachers Retirement System" is going to the Federal Reserve and borrowing money "and the City of Bristol (Conn.) General City Retirement Fund." That's ESPN. That's all that's there: ESPN and a couple of cheap hotels. (interruption) Don't ask me, Snerdley. I don't know how you get the money. I don't know if you have to know somebody. When the Fed window is open can anybody go in there? No. Obviously it doesn't happen that way. "The documents disclosed details of more than $3.3 trillion in loans to financial institutions, companies and foreign central banks during the crisis. ...

"The Fed detailed more than $2 trillion it lent through eight programs from December 2007 to July this year ..." Now, the next question becomes: Where did THEY get the money? You see, they're independent, the Fed. Munger explained this in the e-mail this morning. The Fed is totally independent. They don't have to get money through legislation. Congress does not have to approve it. They can, as you know, print it, which they're doing. So was any of this real in the sense of was it backed by anything, or did they just essentially print this and add to the money supply with nothing to back it up? The smart money is on that.

RUSH: Now, I know what's going on out there today. The people, wherever they are and whoever they are, who know exactly what happened here, what it's all about, they are having the most fun listening to people like me trying to figure this out. They're out there and they're listening to us go through all this, they know exactly what happened, they know they got away with it, and they're saying, "Okay, let's see what these clowns like Limbaugh and everybody else in the media has to say about it." You know they're doing that. You do the same thing when you're on the inside and you know something that's happened, people are just finding out about it, you love to hear 'em talk about it when you know everything about it. So I know that's happening out there. And at the end of this, they're gonna think, "Well, we succeeded. We pulled it over everybody's eyes. They think they know, but they got no clue."

I think it's very interesting that all this news is coming out right after the elections and as long as possible before the next election. We get word of a vast emergency during the campaign of 2008, a crisis. If we don't act now, we're dead. None of us will have anything. So we act on it. We are mired in a continually down spiraling economy, so bad that our exalted leaders now tell us that unemployment checks grow the economy. That's how bad it is out there, that they have to feed us that pap. And now it's after the election and we get wind of all this, and there's still two years plus before the next election.

Jeff Immelt, GE CEO, sits on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Did GE need $116 billion? I maintain to you that if GE needed $116 billion Immelt would be gone and the stock price would be in big trouble. I think that $116 billion was a gift. I think it's free money, a bribe, a payoff, whatever you want to call it. They didn't need it. Now, Europe did. MSNBC didn't need any money to stay in business. MSNBC is a loss leader. Refrigerator sales subsidize MSNBC. Hell, the washer-dryer division probably subsidizes MSNBC. They're a loss leader. They can sit there and lose all the money in the world they want. No bailout was for MSNBC, I guaran-damn-tee you of that. Europe, those banks, yeah, they needed the money, but GE didn't, these companies, they didn't need it. But they made a fortune. Somebody gave them $116 billion, they were able to invest it or do whatever they want with it. They were bought. Something happened. Now, you don't just get $116 billion from the regime for nothing. You own something when that happens. Nothing's free. And you want in on the deal, here is the price.

RUSH: I just want you to remember all the populist bluster coming out of Obama's mouth about how he was gonna stick it to these Wall Street guys. The only thing standing between them and you with the pitchforks was Obama, and look at who got all this money. We know who's in bed with who else. They can't fool us on this.

RUSH: Bear Stearns was on the list of banks that got bailed out by the Fed. But Bear Stearns had been out of business for some time. Is it safe to say that they didn't pay that money back? He-he-he-he-he. And now they'll never pay that money back? For all of that populist rhetoric, all of that bluster, all of Obama talking about these evil Wall Street guys, how he's gonna protect you from these guys, these guys are not gonna make their bonus payments, we're gonna send ACORN out there, we're gonna disrupt their lives, we're gonna make they're lives miserable. And all the while it's the rich Wall Street bankers that voted for Obama that are getting bailed out.

I went back to my own website 'cause I wanted to actually find the transcript of what I had said. This is back in March of 2009. This is during the first three months of this regime. This is when there was all the controversy over the AIG bailouts. I'm sure you'll recall that. Everybody had been whipped into a frenzy. Here's AIG, they'd received all this bailout money and they're still paying bonuses. And so it was portrayed that your tax dollars were paying all these AIG executives their bonuses, and AIG was in debt and they were going south, they were about to go out of business, then we learned that Goldman Sachs got some bailout money after it had been laundered through AIG. So I came to the Golden EIB Microphone, I said, ladies and gentlemen, I have all of my insurance policies, most of my insurance policies with AIG. And it would be a real hassle for me if AIG went bankrupt or if they were allowed to fail. It would not benefit me at all. I'm a longtime customer of AIG. And as such, I have preferred pricing, like Chris Dodd got at Countrywide, except my preferred pricing is simply 'cause I'm a good customer, because I'm a volume buyer, not because of who I am. I have a lot of insurance.

By the way, here's another thing. I would love to be treated just once like Chris Dodd, friend of Angelo, gets a reduction on his mortgage. People see me coming and they double the price of everything thinking I can afford it. I never get a deal. Nobody even offers me a deal. Everybody tries to screw me, or rip me off. I see other media people being given this or given that. Not me. Old El Rushbo comes along and they hit me up for twice what things cost. So here I am, I'm paying the freight at AIG, I'm buying my insurance, I'm a volume buyer so I get some little bit of a discount, but it isn't much. And if AIG went away it would be a lot of hassle for me. I'd have to get with my broker, sit down, start all over again, prices wouldn't be as good. And so I said at the time, "Why shouldn't taxpayers bail out the company that underwrites my insurance? I mean after all, I am paying a bunch of people's mortgages out there under Obama. Fair is fair. If I'm gonna bail out your mortgage and a bunch of other people's mortgages and stuff, if I'm gonna buy your gasoline and I'm gonna buy your home heating oil and so forth, the least you can do is underwrite the company buying my insurance or insuring all my needs."

But seriously, it's hysterical to watch this because the dirty little secret is that all these people getting all these bonuses are friends of Barack. All these bonuses were people that vote Democrat. Most of the people on Wall Street who have their homes in the Hamptons, San Francisco, Hollywood, Chicago, New York, most of these people are wealthy Democrats. A lot of this money, the AIG bonus money, the stimulus TARP money, a lot of it's going straight to people who end up kicking it back to Obama. The reason I'm telling you this is that I was prescient. This is March of 2009. Today we learn that what I was saying back in March of 2009 was, for the most part, accurate. A lot of this money, this is TARP we're talking about here, and of course at that time we thought an additional two trillion that we didn't know who got it, a lot of this money is going straight to people who end up kicking it back to Obama in the form of campaign contributions, what have you. Now AIG, the bonuses, which came to light yesterday, $165 million, that's chump change. When you get down to brass tacks, it is. The vast majority of all these people getting bailouts are wealthy, filthy-rich Democrats.

I'm not playing the class envy card here. I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm just telling you who these people are getting these bailouts and getting these bonuses. The people getting this money, the companies are for the most part headed up by wealthy Democrats, they're huge contributors. They are donors to Democrat Party causes and if they were in financial trouble they were being helped out and paid back. So in a sense Obama was buying them, is buying their loyalty. And I said it even better in a later portion of the show. I said they've got too much debt. We're trying to prop up failures because of who's at these failures. That was the key to TARP and that's the key to what we now learn is $3.3 trillion, the banks, the Wall Street banks, European banks, we're trying to prop up these failures because of who these failures are.

All of these people have giant homes in the Hamptons or second homes at ski resorts, and by all means we have to keep them in their homes. Don't misunderstand. I'm talking about all these Ivy League eggheads hanging together protecting their own. They're all liberal Democrats. The vast majority of them are, and they're not going to go the humiliated route like Bernie Madoff. They're not gonna be kicked out of their penthouse. They're not gonna be kicked out of their summer places in the Hamptons or wherever. They're not gonna give up their parties. They're not gonna give up the social circuit. They're gonna get bailed out and they're gonna get saved regardless the damage they've done to these companies and the companies that have invested in 'em. The rest of society is gonna keep on paying for this. Those who are poor or made poor decisions are gonna have to participate in improving themselves despite setbacks as we all have or they won't succeed, either. That's the way it works. But to destroy the core of our system, to bail out failed institutions and send wealth to those who have not earned it destroys the entire system. And that's what's happening here. Giant kickbacks back and forth from the regime to wealthy Democrats at these firms are being bailed out. The money will keep circulating in the form of campaign donations. That's how it comes back.

Obama can't let these people go under. They fund his existence. It would hurt the Democrat Party if these people went south. It's a fine line here. I know I'm sounding like class warfare, but what I'm saying is that this is about the Ivy League elites, not the rich per se. This is about a certain class of people protecting themselves, and the best way to protect themselves is to be in bed with Obama, in bed with the regime. Now, all of this I was pointing out in March of 2009 when I started wondering, "Is any of this real?" This is about a certain segment of the rich protecting itself, protecting its political investment in Obama, Obama protecting their political investment in him. Let me tell you, these are the people who fund the Democrat Party. That's who's being bailed out. In March of 2009 I said this.

Now we see that I, as usual, was right. These are the people who fund the Democrat Party. They live in Manhattan; they live in the Hamptons; they live in the main line of Philadelphia, giant penthouses, San Francisco, Nob Hill, they live in Hollywood, they are the heart and soul of Democrat Party. The really super rich parts of our country are heavily Democrat now. We don't begrudge them their wealth; we don't begrudge them their success. We're just pointing out here what's going on. It's made to look like we gotta do this to save the country; we gotta do this to save our financial system, when it was about saving certain people and Obama.

So that takes us to the TARP part of this. And that's this $3.3 trillion that we've learned above and beyond TARP that went to GE, to the teachers in California, the retirement fund for the state employees, municipal employees, Bristol, Connecticut, Harley-Davidson, all the Wall Street banks, and all the European banks. What's being done here -- and this is where Mr. Munger at Duke University was invaluable in his assistance -- what's being done here is unprecedented. The Fed and QE2, Quantitative Easing, for all of its brazen chutzpah is at least legal because the Fed is independent, by design they don't have to answer to Congress or to anybody else. What they're doing is buying up debt, and that is what is unprecedented. The thing about TARP that was so unprecedented and so dangerous is that TARP gave government regulators the power and the money to buy up equity, that is, they were buying up ownership of companies.

There are two dangerous things about that. Number one, it means that the government now sits on the boards of these companies. That's socialism. You make fun of us when we say Obama, Pelosi, Reid, are socialists, but government ownership of the means of production is Karl Marx's definition, verbatim, socialism. I would add that it gets close to even fascism. It just is. And number two, it means that the government is in a position to help friends and punish enemies on a scale not seen since the 1930s. And that is what the real point of all of this is, TARP and this $3.3 trillion. The extended recession of the 1930s actually has the same cause as the high unemployment rate has today, uncertainty about government policy and the recognition that if you play ball, you'll get government money. If you play ball you get government money. But government money is a devil's bargain. Once the government has a seat at your board of directors table they'll want changes in how you produce, how you treat unions and so on. So as bad as Fed policy is right now, the real danger is that we forget the line between the debt and equity, which is ownership for government.

So on the one hand, you know, we're bailing out debt, fine. But now we're bailing out equity, or assuming equity, spending money on equity, and that dovetails so nicely with -- well, we got General Electric, General Motors, Chrysler, who knows whatever else the government is now directly involved with in how certain businesses, and now industries run. Health insurance next on the board. So you can see that this is fairly insidious. That's just the TARP side of this. There are other aspects of this, too, how we're monetizing our debt, and that has the ChiComs and everybody all ticked off at us because we're essentially paying off our debt now with Monopoly money, meaning we're printing money and paying it to ourselves. That's cheating, and as Munger explained it to me, when the ChiComs accuse you of cheating (laughing) you are cheating (laughing) because they allow so much, they're communists.

RUSH: So essentially TARP turned out to be the mother of all of Obama's slush funds, and now we know why Obama is not concerned in the slightest about all this budget spending, all the overages, all the deficits. He doesn't care, 'cause that pales in comparison to what we've done with all these other bailouts of our banks and their banks. At the end of the day, folks, we've just kicked the can down the road. None of this is real. You don't just go in and print $3.3 trillion worth of money without a price. There is gonna be a price to pay for this down the road. Inflation is gonna kick in at some point. Now, these revelations are far more shocking than the stuff in WikiLeaks, the WikiLeaks dump. But this stuff hurts the Democrats so it's gonna be buried.

You're not gonna have anywhere near the depth of detail of this stuff discussed in the Drive-By Media, State-Controlled Media. They're not gonna be interested in it. They've reported it; the Washington Post did on the front page. Get it out of the way. It's over. They'll move on to focus on how uncooperative and how mean the Republicans are. They want to starve kids again! The Republicans, damn it, they won't even go bipartisan here work with the Democrats. There's a story I've got it somewhere here in the stack where the media is all upset because the Democrats plans' are being upset by Republicans here in the lame-duck session, as though that's what all this is about: We gotta make sure the Democrats get what they want. So that will be the focus, the traditional horse race politics in the media. But the trillions of dollars of taxpayer money that we didn't even know about, who it went to and why, you're not gonna see another page about it.

To the phones we go to Tampa. We're gonna start with Don. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, it is an absolute honor to talk to you, especially on such an important day, and I think one of your more brilliant monologues. So thank you. I'm not a very smart guy. I didn't go to Princeton.

RUSH: Let me tell you: If you understood what I just said, you're very smart. (chuckling)

CALLER: What I'm thinking is that all of these progressive world governments and state governments and these big banks and these liberal companies -- the GEs, the Caterpillars -- they all mismanaged their businesses. They're progressive businesses and they imploded. And in the fall when Obama was coming in, everyone panicked. Everyone dumped everything they had poured their heart and souls into, and worked for years and saving for retirement. They dumped all of their shares. And then "the Bernank," the Bernank steps in and he says, "I'm gonna save the day," and he gives all those entities -- the progressive implosion, he gives them -- our money, and they go out, the same ones, and they buy up all their own shares in Caterpillar, GE (garbled).

RUSH: I don't know about Caterpillar in this. I know why you're including Caterpillar in this. I'm not comfortable including Caterpillar, but I think theoretically you're onto something here. I would not dispute most of what you're saying.

RUSH: You want to know how the media is treating these Fed revelations, which I essentially spent about an hour on (and it's rare that we spend an hour solid on anything on this program)? In the New York Times, they have buried this story, which is enough to tell me it's bad. They have buried this story in their Economy section. And their headline is: "Fed Documents Reveal Scope of Aid to Stabilize Economy." Well, hello. That's all I need to know. When the Times writes of it that way, I know there's a cover-up -- or, if not a cover-up, "Let's deemphasize this. Okay, the Fed, we got the news out there. It's after the election and another two years before the next election. Just put it out there and say, 'Oh, yeah, we did report this,' and we'll move on to how rotten the Republicans are," which is what they've done.

RUSH: To Chico, California. This is Aaron. Thank you for waiting, sir. Great to have you here with us.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush? Early Merry Christmas and happy New Year's to you, sir.

CALLER: Thank you. You were talking about earlier about what people were just trying to figure out with the economic crisis, what happened in '08 and everything, and something Representative Kanjorski said in February of '09 talking about how there was an electronic run on the banks, and you played a small clip of that. He was on C-SPAN. But he said something throughout the entire thing about what really happened as far as what's (unintelligible), why didn't it, but at the very end he made the statement about how somebody threw us, meaning the United States, into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft, and we are trying to determine which is the closest shore, and if we can swim that far and we ever get there and they don't know who or what did this.

RUSH: I remember this. I remember that now, Kanjorski, it was on C-SPAN, it did get a lot of widespread attention. We'll dig that out of our archives for tomorrow because, that's right, Kanjorski, Pennsylvania, did say that somebody started an electronic run on things that -- what was it, having a mental block. It's a common, ordinary term that did not mean in this case what it normally means. But, at any rate, we'll have to get the bite, 'cause I know exactly what he's talking about. We'll have to do that tomorrow. I know Cookie can find it in the archives. Thanks for reminding us of that, Aaron.

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

This is one of my favorite lists; this is a list of things which global warming causes (right now, it causes over 800 things—most of these are linked):

100 things we can say goodbye to (or, hello to) because of Global Warming (all of these are linked). They are very serious about these things, by the way:

Conservative blog, but with an eye to the culture and pop culture (there is a lot of stuff here):

Conservative and pop culture blog (last I looked, there were some Beatles’ performances here):

Send this link to the young people you know (try the debt quiz; I only got 6 out of 10 right):

PA Pundits, whose motto is, “the relentless pursuit of common sense” (I used many of the quotations which they gathered)

The anti-Jihad resistence (which appears to be a set of links to similar websites):

Mostly a liberal blogger, who says vicious things about most conservatives; and yet, says something sensible, e.g. posting many of the things which the healthcare bill does to us.

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

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

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

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

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

This is an odd blog; conservativism, bikinis and whatever else posted by either a P.I. or the brother of a P.I.:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.

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

Conservative Review
Issue #155	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	December 5, 2010