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).

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) was shot in the head by a gunman at a public event on Saturday. 6 were killed, included a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. The gunman has been identified as Jared Laughner. Loughner (I have seen 2 spellings so far) posted a video on his YouTube channel that features a flag burning. Loughner also listed his favorite books, which include "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto." Many liberals allege that Sarah Palin and her violent rhetoric and her year-old bulls eye map are ultimately to blame.

14 decapitated bodies found on a street outside of a shopping market in Acapulco.

Ellen Weiss, the senior vice president for news who so controversially canned Juan Williams, was forced to resign.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently said that there is one law for all Canadians, and no religious group should expect special treatment when it comes to enforcement of the law.

Owen P. Honors, the captain of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise has been removed from his command because of videos he made several years ago containing foul language and sexual innuendo.

Courts rule against 2 banks for foreclosing on 2 homes due to lack of documentation.

Representative Steve King has reintroduced “the New IDEA (Illegal Deduction Elimination Act) Act,” which would deny a business the ability to write off work done by illegal aliens on their taxes.

White House news liaison Robert Gibbs puts in his notice. Chicagoan William Daley, brother of Chicago mayor Richard Daley, will be President Obama’s new chief of staff.

Once the world’s fattest man is now suing the National Health Service for letting him get so far.

Representative Mike Pence offers bill to deny federal funds to abortion providers.

The White House may require you to have a unique internet ID. This is, of course, to enhance online security and privacy.

While signing a bill which bans the use of military funds to transfer Gitmo prisoners into the United States, President Obama again renewed his desire for the option of trying terrorists in civilian courts.

Former Speaker-of-the-House Nancy Pelosi graciously hands her gavel over to new Speaker John Boehner.

CBS suggests that Sarah Palin is somehow responsible for the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords: "...critics of Sarah Palin have already drawn a link between the shooting and the fact that the former Alaska governor put Giffords on a "target list" of lawmakers Palin wanted to see unseated in the midterm elections."

Michael Daly of the New York Daily News: “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' blood is on Sarah Palin's hands after putting cross hair over district. Here is what Sarah Palin said on the Facebook page where she depicted Gabrielle Giffords in the cross hairs of a rifle scope: ‘Don't retreat! Instead - RELOAD!’ Well, the guy who shot Giffords yesterday managed to keep firing until he killed six, including a child, and wounded 13. Palin would no doubt say that she was only speaking in metaphor, that she only meant her followers should work to unseat Giffords and 19 other Democrats who had roused her ire by voting for health care. But anyone with any sense at all knows that violent language can incite actual violence, that metaphor can incite murder. At the very least, Palin added to a climate of violence.”

Rep. Grijalva, when asked if the TEA party deserved any blame, assented: “[When] you stoke these flames, and you go to public meetings and you scream at the elected officials, you threaten them-you make us expendable you make us part of the cannon fodder. For a while, you've been feeding this hatred, this division.you feed it, you encourage it..Something's going to happen. People are feeding this monster..Some of the extreme right wing has made demonization of elected officials their priority.”

Markos Moulitsas tweets: Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin, http://is.gd/knNgl [the link is to Palin’s targets drawn on Democratic districts to beat]

Matt Yglesias tweets: A reminder that gun imagery and electoral politics don't mix that well: http://yfrog.com/h4j00sj

Jane Fonda, on this Giffords’ shooting, via twitter: “Progressive Arizona Rep Gabrielle Giffords was shot. In her ads, Sarah Palin had her targeted in a gun site. Inciting to violence.” Next tweet: “Glen Beck guilty too. Shame. It must stop!” Next tweet: “SarahPalinUSA holds responsibility. As does the violence-provoking rhetoric of the Tea party.”

NPR ran a Sunday morning show in which a Democrat Ed Pastor is interviewed and he blames the 24/7 news cycle and the rhetoric of bloggers for this violent act. NPR: “The motive of yesterday’s attack is really still not known, but a lot of concern has been expressed about the angry rhetoric in politics nowadays and the effects that it may have; what’s your reaction to that?” Ed Pastor: “Well, today, I mean, you have news 24/7 and in some cases, not even news—it takes a certain ideology, certain tv channels and certain radio stations have commentators who are making a living by spewing hate on both sides of the ideology. You have people who through the internet, through their blogs, tweeters, etc. and remaining anonymous, were able to bring up almost anything and spew hatred.” At no time does NPR question this ridiculous theory.

Jim Scheibel, chair of the 21^st Century Democrats: “Why did he shoot Rep Giffords? We don’t know yet...We also know that Sarah Palin and Rep. Giffords’ opponent used violent imagery last year urging her opponents to ‘target’ her.” (From a Democrat fund raising letter/email just sent out).

The Communist Party of the United States issued a statement on the shooting: “While we do not yet know the motivation of the crime, many have surmised that the motivation is political because of the atmosphere of violent language and threats against Rep. Giffords and other Congressional Democrats. Political or not, the extreme right-wing tea party movement and their anti-government rantings and ravings helped create an atmosphere that allowed or even encouraged this attack. For instance, until the day of the event when it was removed, Sarah Palin featured Giffords on her webpage with the congresswoman's district in the crosshairs of a gun, targeting her for her support of healthcare reform. Political hate speech has consequences...Yet, the link to rhetoric and violence doesn't end with the Palin and her tea party. It extends to the political leadership of Arizona and the Republican Party, who have fomented laws and policies that logically lead to violence. ”

I could have spent all day collecting quotations from liberals who blame conservatives for this tragic shooting in Arizona (e.g., comments by Roger Ebert, Paul Krugman, self-leaning AZ sherif Dupnik, Keith Olbermann, Ezra Klein, NOW, Michael Moore—of course; it is as if they cannot post or report their comments fast enough).

Harry Reid: “"The American people love government, but they don't like too much politics in government.”

Pop-psychologist and former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) supposes that TEA party types come out of dysfunctional families: “There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don't want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.”

Washington Post Editor Gene Robinson: “Michele Bachmann has a history of saying...crazy-ass things.”

CNN’s Eliot Spitzer: “the Tea Party [is] one of the most vapid, puerile groups out there, without meaningful ideas”

The New York Times, from an editorial entitled Pomp and Little Circumstance: “A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress...Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification...In any case, it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act, suggesting that they alone understand the true meaning of a text that the founders wisely left open to generations of reinterpretation. Certainly the Republican leadership is not trying to suggest that African-Americans still be counted as three-fifths of a person.”

Time Magazine's Washington correspondent Alex Altman article headline: "Cult of the Constitution" and one of the lines from this article was “...the fetishizing of the Constitution is unsettling.”

gradeAmerican wrote: “The new Republicans who now control the House of Representatives pulled a pointless stunt by reading the Constitution on the floor.”

Headline for the Gun-Toting Liberal: New "Fiscally Conservative" Tea Bagger Congresscritters To Read Constitution On House Floor - "We, The People's" Pricetag? A $1.1 Million Dollar Bargain.

Cokie Roberts: “Republicans have a role to play here too, the real question Dan is what role will it be? Do they really want to see jobs increase or are they looking at those same figures you sited earlier and saying, well, if we keep the unemployment rate up then we won't see the President get re-elected and that's something, they're eager to see him defeated.”

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee on raising the debt ceiling: "This is not a game...If we hit the debt ceiling, that's ... essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history...The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008."

Nancy Pelosi: “And if we hadn’t done it, if we hadn’t done healthcare, if we hadn’t done Wall Street reform and the rest of it, we still would have lost the election because we have 9½% unemployment. Let’s take it where that came

from: the policies of George W. Bush and the Republican support for his initiatives—tax cuts for the wealthy, [and] laissez laissez laissez laissez faire when it came to Wall Street...where recklessness...caused joblessness on Main Street.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on the record of the 111^th Congress: "Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go."

Harry Reid: "The tea party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better. And the economy's getting better all the time."

Related to Pelosi’s revival of pay-as-you-go is PolitiFact rates her statements as half true.

Colman McCarthy at the Washington Post: “To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home.”

Nicholas Benton, the owner and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, on why he decided to hire Helen Thomas as a columnist: "She's a rock star. She should be writing again. . . . She's the Betty White of American journalism."

Barack Obama in 2006: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. . Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ ” When asked about this quotation, the White House explained that his vote really didn’t count here, as there were enough votes to pass the raising of the debt ceiling.

Kevin Yamamura of the Sacramento Bee writes this lead-in paragraph: “Gov. Jerry Brown will spare K-12 schools from further drastic cuts in his budget - so long as voters extend higher income taxes in a special election, according to sources familiar with his proposal.” The headline: “Brown budget will spare schools if voters extend tax hikes.” An honest reporter on the Bee staff now? Have I accidently crossed over into a parallel universe?

After reading his prepared remarks on the economy at a window manufacturer on Friday, President Obama sought to take some photos with workers when a pool reporter caught up with him and asked him to explain the connection between the drop in the unemployment rate and the lower-than-expected number of jobs added in December.

Obama's response, according to the pool: "You know, you've got to talk to Austan Goolsbee. That's his job."

Michele Bachmann on the debt ceiling: "At this point, I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling. Congress has had a big party the last two years. They couldn't spend enough money and now they're standing back, folding their arms ... taunting us about how are you going to go ahead and solve this big spending crisis?"

Lindsey Graham: "To not raise the debt ceiling could be a default of the United States on bond and Treasury obligations. That would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large," Graham said. "But this is an opportunity to make sure the government is changing its spending ways." By the way, this is known as, good cop, bad cop.

Charles Krauthammer: “Call it constitutionalism. In essence, constitutionalism is the intellectual counterpart and spiritual progeny of the

"originalism" movement in jurisprudence. Judicial "originalists" (led by Antonin Scalia and other notable conservative jurists) insist that legal interpretation be bound by the text of the Constitution as understood by those who wrote it and their contemporaries. Originalism has grown to become the major challenger to the liberal "living Constitution" school, under which high courts are channelers of the spirit of the age, free to create new constitutional principles accordingly. What originalism is to jurisprudence, constitutionalism is to governance: a call for restraint rooted in constitutional text. Constitutionalism as a political philosophy represents a reformed, self-regulating conservatism that bases its call for minimalist government - for reining in the willfulness of presidents and legislatures - in the words and meaning of the Constitution. Hence that highly symbolic moment on Thursday when the 112th House of Representatives opened with a reading of the Constitution. Remarkably, this had never been done before - perhaps because it had never been so needed. The reading reflected the feeling, expressed powerfully in the last election, that we had moved far, especially the past two years, from a government constitutionally limited by its enumerated powers to a government constrained only by its perception of social need.”

Rush Limbaugh: "[For] the media, the Democrat adults, and the establishment, the Clinton years were their Nirvana. And, if Obama had not been African-American, he would never have been elected. It would have been Hillary and we'd still have had the love affair with the Clintons going on. This is the injection of race into the Democrat primary and overall presidential contest did what the insertion of race does to most subjects; it totally distorts it."

Breitbart editorial policy regarding the Arizona shootings: “While the internet and social media is wild with speculation on who the lone gunman is Breitbart.com's editorial policy before and after we find out the political origins if any behind the motivation of the shooting will be to not to politicize this act. If it is a lone gunman on the left, we will be at the forefront of policing those on the right who would try to seize upon this tragedy for political purposes. This is a sincere plea to those with whom we wage battle on a daily basis in a robust democracy with an appreciation for the First Amendment, but this is also a plea to our political way of thinking who would like to claim victory from a national tragedy. Our prayers go to Rep. Giffords, her family, and the victims who were senselessly attacked by a madman on an unspecified mission.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann [on the shooting of Rep. Giffords]: “My tears are flowing, and I am stunned and angered that Gabby Giffords was savagely gunned down while performing her congressional duties. I am praying for Gabby, and my thoughts, prayers, and deepest sympathy go out to her family, as well as the families of each of the victims. Gabby Giffords governed with integrity and wisdom. We came to Congress together and I had the privilege of knowing her as a friend and colleague. It is my hope and expectation that the coward who carried out this horrific act of violence will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I extend my hand of friendship to her family and staff and will keep them in my prayers.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing [of Christians]." Intelligent commentary is now coming out of France?

The Congressional Oath of Office: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

While the Pentagon downplays China's rollout this week of what appears to be a jet fighter designed using sophisticated stealth technology, military experts are warning that the aircraft - reportedly capable of besting America's F-22 in speed and maneuverability - could pose the greatest threat yet to U.S. air superiority.

The Chinese have made significant progress on a missile system designed to sink a moving aircraft carrier from nearly 2,000 miles away, according to the top U.S. commander in the Pacific. Do you see a trend here?

I just saw Michele Bachmann and Anthony Weiner and it is insane. Weiner, touting numbers from the CBO, is claiming that repealing Obamacare will cost money. It is like arguing with someone who says, “Down is up.”

Glenn Beck’s Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shows were quite good (for the first 30–40 min.); this is Wednesday’s show:

Major Garrett left FoxNews to do print news, which is surprising for a newsman who had a White House beat. However, he recently showed up at ABC’s This Week and even gave George Will a run for his money when it comes to intelligent analysis (video peppered with commercials).

Alphabet news services expressing their disdain for Republicans attempting to roll back Obamacare:

David Letterman on John Boehner’s crying: “This guy can’t get an elevator and he starts to sob.”

Jodi Miller: “Anchors on MSNBC say the reason that President Bush’s book outsold President Clinton’s book is because Bush was hated by so many people. By that logic, the low ratings of MSNBC makes them the most popular cable network ever.”

1) I am not certain who said this, but the key is not necessarily electing the right politicians for the job, but to push those who are there into a reasonable course of action. If a Congressman is unprincipled, so much the better. That means, they will want to be reelected. Therefore, some politicians can be pushed by their constituents into a course of action. There are a number of Democrats who voted against healthcare reform.

2) Those in power want more power and more money. Much of the time, when you hear politicians talk about greedy Wall Street types or greedy businessmen, they are speaking from their own personal frame of reference, which is, they themselves are greedy (for money and for power).

3) Speaking of money, the is a gob of money in private retirement plans. That may be the next power grab a liberal Congress will go after—your pension plan, because Uncle Sam can better guard and distribute these monies. This has already been proposed in some other European nations.

4) Congress needs to ban all bailouts for states and, in particular, for state pensions. At this point, I could see it being reasonable to end all tax credits.

5) Congressman Issa contacted many businesses about how regulations have negatively impacted them and their hiring. MSNBC and Young Turks both excoriated Issa for this, and Cenk Uygur claims that his motivation is to help business crash the economy again. You may be a liberal, but, does this even make sense? So, MSNBC and others will complain that the new Congress is going waste time reading the constitution and repealing Obamacare when they ought to be focused on jobs....however, when a member of Congress contacts the real world (i.e., businesses) about job creation, these so-called news organizations claim that the underlying purpose is to crash the economy.

6) The Republicans skipped reading the 3/5^ths compromise clause of the Constitution, which is one of the most misunderstood passages in the Constitution. The writers of the Constitution were not claiming that slaves were equivalent to 3/5^ths of a slave-owner. It was slave states that wanted slaves counted as a whole person (which means more representation in Congress for slave states). Since slave states claimed, in other areas, that slaves were merely property, free states reasoned that slaves should not count as anything towards representation. 3/5^ths was the compromise reached.

7) I have recently heard the phrase selective shutdown, which, I believe, has no precedent. The idea is, we reach the debt limit, and only certain things which are within this dept limit are allowed. So, as a for instance, we might keep the military functioning, but, on the other hand, temporarily shut down the EPA. This is an intriguing concept.

The economy added 103,000 jobs in December of last year and unemployment dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%. It takes about 150,000 new jobs in a month to break even with the new work force for that month. So what happened? More people have simply stopped looking for work.

Although budget director Congressman Paul Ryan has been talking about cutting spending by $100 billion, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann claims that her office has identified $450 billion of spending that can be cut.

The average person takes out of Medicare about 3x the amount that they put in. So, if you pay $100,000 into medicare over the course of your working life, and then take out $300,000 in benefits, on what planet does that make sense? Medicare is the most imminent threat to the economy of the United States of all the large entitlements.

The new census reported a record poverty rate of 14.3% in 2009 (the highest rate since 1994).

Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, has reduced state workers by 18%, raised the sales tax but dropped the property tax in Indiana, and has reduced the wait time at the Department of Motor Vehicles from 40 min. to 8 min. I have suggested that his presidential slogan be, “Not just talk.”

Next door, Illinois governor and legislature have agreed to raise their income tax from 3% to 5.25%, a 75% increase. If you owed $1000 in taxes last year, this year you would owe $1750.

Vanity Faire reports that this stunt of reading the Constitution cost the taxpayers $1.1 million. If we take the $3 trillion debt run up by the 111^th Congress over 2 years, figuring 150 work days per year and 6 hour work days...every 3 hours (the approximate time to read the constitution), they spent $5 billion over federal revenues. So, at $1.1 million, that is a bargain for Congress.

Do you recall the dozens of stories about rising gas prices when George W. Bush was in office? This was called a crisis by many, and Bush was directly asked about the price of gas on at least 2 occasions. When was the last time you saw a story about the price of gas hitting $3/gallon and hearing the word crisis? Put the word “gas price crisis” in your search engine and note the year that these stories were written. As an example, in 2006, Time magazine wrote an article about $3/gallon gas, using the words skyrocket and soaring. They featured a quote from a man who said, "Now I'm at the point, whoever's in office, I'm ready to vote 'em out." Where are those stories now?

Oh, I found one. North Carolina State economist Mike Walden sees a silver lining in higher gas prices:"Gas prices going up is actually a good sign. $3 is normal. When we were down in the $2 (range), that was abnormal due to the recession. I don't see anything diabolical, mysterious or underhanded here. I think it's just a sign that the worldwide economy is better now than it has been over the last three years."

Here’s one of the articles which cites how $3/gallon gas was dealt with when it happened on Bush’s watch and how it is treated today:

Fair and balanced NPR ran a story on the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords this morning, and the commentary was how harsh the language of politics have become, and the 24/7 news cycle was thrown in (where some of that stuff isn’t even news!) and the fact that bloggers could just write anything that popped into their little heads was also put on the table. The left is looking to limit political speech, so they choose times like this in order to make a political point. The fact that this woman is a moderate Democrat is not a part of this discussion (maybe it was a rabid left wing nut who shot her) and the fact that a conservative judge was killed is not hardly even discussed. But, NPR, through a direct and unquestioned interview, lays out 24/7 news broadcasts and bloggers as possible culprits in this tragedy. This makes me bilious.

If you will notice, up in the quotations, I have dozens of insane quotations, many of them ultimately blaming Sarah Palin for this tragic shooting. Have you heard one Republican state a single theory yet? Even a conservative blogger read by more than 3 people? Of course not!

The Republicans in the House decided to read the constitution, more or less to set the tone for this session. For reasons which are quite hard to figure out, many Democrats came out against, calling it a waste of time and a stunt; and many members of the media lined up with them in agreement. Had these people on the left thought about it or awhile, they might have realized that coming out against the constitution and ridiculing the reading of the constitution was a stupid move, politically speaking. The problem is, too many of them gave their knee-jerk reaction, which was pretty much an anti-constitution stance. When Congressmen are sworn in, they swear allegiance not to the flag or to the President or even to the United States, but to the Constitution of the United States.

Charles Krauthammer explains why Obama’s choice for chief of staff is brilliant: “This is a perfect statement, the Daley statement of a year ago is perfect statement of what Obama wants the country to think he is doing and will do for the next two years. This is a classic example of repositioning. I don't believe its actual repositioning in the sense he's changing ideology. The election of November did not give him a road to Damascus moment in which he decided to become a centrist. He's not.

He's a smart man and he understands there is no way in the next two years while the House is Republican that any of the liberal agenda is going to pass. So the next two years are devoted to presenting himself and acting as a centrist. That is smart, the only way to get reelected. Then if he gets reelected he has free hand for the next four years.

Daley is the perfect guy. In the early '90s he shepherded NAFTA and the Chinese trade agreement. So he's a free trader. He is the guy as we heard opposed Obamacare and who also as a lobbyist and worker for J.P. Morgan had opposed the financial reform.

So when all the major, liberal, semi-radical items that Obama got through in the 111th Congress, he is against it. So he's the guy you want as the face of the administration for two years. From a political perspective, it's exactly the right choice.”

Just as Sarah Palin was unmercifully attacked by the alphabet media, so the same will be done to Michele Bachmann.

One of the things which was treated as awful during the Bush administration ($3/gallon gas prices) is almost ignored by the news media under Obama (although some indicate that it is a sign of worldwide economic recovery).

One of the very few things that we know about Giffords’ shooter is, he talked about mind control. What are the chances there is something to this? Way paranoid, I admit, but it makes more sense than blaming Sarah Palin for drawing targets on various districts as the motivation for this shooting.

US Economy Going to Hell in a Handbasket; Obama and Democratic Congress to Blame

Dozens of Lefties Quick to Blame Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the TEA party, etc. without any evidence

[Howard Kurtz is a testimony to the fact that not everyone on the left is completely out of their minds].

Already, people are pointing fingers at Sarah Palin and her "target map" for fostering the tragedy in Arizona-but Howard Kurtz says military terminology has been part of politics for ages.

It began within hours of Saturday's horrifying shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and nearly 20 others, even before the gunman was identified.

One of the first to be dragged into this sickening ritual of guilt by association: Sarah Palin. Last March, the former Alaska governor posted a map on her Facebook page with crosshair targets representing 20 Democratic lawmakers she was singling out for defeat after they voted for President Obama's health care plan. One of them was Giffords. Palin, who touts her caribou-hunting heritage, also tweeted, "Don't retreat, RELOAD!"

This kind of rhetoric is highly unfortunate. The use of the crosshairs was dumb. But it's a long stretch from such excessive language and symbols to holding a public official accountable for a murderer who opens fire on a political gathering and kills a half-dozen people, including a 9-year-old girl.

On her Facebook page, Palin offered her "sincere condolences" to Giffords and the others who were shot, saying that "on behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."

Liberals were quick to denounce Palin at the time of the map posting. And after Giffords' Tucson office was vandalized that same month, the Democratic congresswoman told MSNBC, "We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is, the way she has it depicted it has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. And when people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Giffords had every right to ask Palin and others to tone it down. But is it now fair for the rest of us to tie Palin to the accused gunman, Jared Lee Loughner?

Let's be honest: Journalists often use military terminology in describing campaigns. We talk about the air war, the bombshells, targeting politicians, knocking them off, candidates returning fire or being out of ammunition. So we shouldn't act shocked when politicians do the same thing. Obviously, Palin should have used dots or asterisks on her map. But does anyone seriously believe she was trying to incite violence?

Palin seemed to pull back in a subsequent campaign appearance for her former running mate, John McCain. "We know violence isn't the answer," she said. "When we take up our arms, we're talking about our vote."

But she also mocked the criticism as politically correct, using her Facebook platform to apply the same language to basketball's Final Four: "To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season's targets! From the shot across the bow-the first second's tip-off-your leaders will be in the enemy's crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics."

A fellow Arizona Democrat, Rep. Raul Grijalva, said that the Palin "apparatus" shares responsibility for creating a climate of extremism. "Both Gabby and I were targeted in the apparatus in that cycle [saying] these people are 'enemies,'" Grivjalva told Mother Jones's David Corn. He added: "The Palin express better look at their tone and their tenor."

And MSNBC's Keith Olbermann made the link even more explicit on Saturday night: "If Sarah Palin, whose website put and today scrubbed bullseye targets on 20 representatives including Gabby Giffords, does not repudiate her own part in amplifying violence and violent imagery in politics, she must be dismissed from politics."

Of course, some rhetoric is deliberately incendiary. U.S. District Judge John Roll, one of those shot and killed in Tucson, had ruled in 2009 that a lawsuit by illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher could go forward. Afterward, U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said that talk radio shows fanned the flames and prompted hundreds of calls to the judge, some of them threatening. "They said, 'We should kill him. He should be dead,'" Gonzales told the Arizona Republic.

The act of transforming tragedy into political fodder has deep roots in American history. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, President Bill Clinton attacked "the purveyors of hatred and division" for "reckless speech," saying the nation's airwaves were too often used "to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."

Rush Limbaugh, who had tangled with Clinton, responded that "liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain." He blamed "many in the mainstream media" for "irresponsible attempts to categorize and demonize those who had nothing to do with this."

When George Tiller was murdered at a Kansas church in 2009, liberal critics savaged Bill O'Reilly for having attacked the abortion doctor more than two dozen times, labeling him "Tiller the Baby Killer." The Fox News host called the criticism "nonsense," saying "evidence shows that Tiller was a gross human rights violator. Yet, because most media people are pro-choice, they looked away. Now they are trying to justify their apathy by attacking us."

Last summer, after an unemployed carpenter named Byron Williams shot and injured two California police officers, we learned that he had told investigators that he wanted "to start a revolution" by "killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU." Some commentators blamed Glenn Beck, who had repeatedly attacked the obscure foundation, which calls for economic justice-especially after Williams's mother told the San Francisco Chronicle that the ex-felon watched television news and was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items."

And here we go again in Arizona, as people with political agendas unleash their attacks even before the victims of this senseless shooting have been buried. I find it depressing beyond belief.

This isn't about a nearly year-old Sarah Palin map; it's about a lone nutjob who doesn't value human life. It would be nice if we briefly put aside partisan differences and came together with sympathy and support for Gabby Giffords and the other victims, rather than opening rhetorical fire ourselves.

Here's something most Republicans don't want to hear: There is no way the born-again, straight and sober Republicans of the 112th Congress are going to get spending under control unless they involve the fellow at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The spending reforms that Speaker John Boehner and his counterinsurgency lieutenants have proposed-spending reductions to offset any mandatory increases or stated budget limits for the current fiscal year-are terrific. But if you think Congress, by itself, is going to sustain this discipline over time, I have a bridge in Alaska I'd like to sell you.

Congress is a legislative body. Like legislative bodies from ancient Rome till now, its DNA is not to forgo things but to do stuff. Everyone agrees that Congress holds something called the "power of the purse." And don't they know it. Nowhere in the Constitution will you find that phrase. Nor in the Constitution that they are reading on the House floor Thursday will you hear the words "spend," "programs" or "outlays." All this, though, is what Congress has been about since anyone can remember.

The reform groups and blogosphere are threatening hellfire for any Republicans who cross them on spending, but take my word for it: Once any Congress makes it to the budgeting "out years," all that hellfire will be just a puff of smoke. James Buchanan, the father of public choice theory, won a Nobel Prize for unraveling this reality.

It is not hopeless. The locus of hope, however, lies with the Executive, a word at least nominally associated with responsibility. In an article on these pages recently ("Time for Emergency Economic Reform"), a successful political executive, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, identified the sine-qua-non reform to sustain spending discipline: presidential impoundment power.

However you define the idea-impoundment, rescission, the line-item veto-it is the power of a president or governor to zero out some of the spending pile that a legislature dumps on the front lawn. It is executive pushback against wretched legislative excess.

"Presidents once had the authority," Mr. Daniels wrote, "to spend less than Congress made available through appropriation. On reflection, nothing else makes sense."

Ask New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about the impoundment power. He has it, and he'll tell you it is indispensable to what he is trying to do in his hopelessly profligate state. Absent that impoundment power, a lot of the Christie pitch would be just rhetoric.

Before getting into why 43 governors, but not the U.S. president, have this power, a comment on those who say that impoundment is a pop-gun, that it can't control entitlements or mega-programs.

Perhaps you have heard of the "broken windows" theory of urban chaos. It says that in a neighborhood wracked with murder and mayhem, it is important to repair broken windows. The idea is that leaving small matters like broken windows unrepaired tells criminals that no one cares if they break the neighborhood further, and it tells the people there is no hope of fixing the big things. In New York City, this worked.

Earmarks, pork, corporate carve-outs and all that are Congress's broken windows.

Every knowing article written on this subject points out what a "small" percentage of spending this stuff is. But the behavioral incentives for big-time criminals in the Bronx and big-time spenders in a legislature like Congress are the same. An annual federal budget of $3.5 trillion is a towering monument of broken windows. Federal highway spending has been on automatic pilot for nearly 20 years. Sen. Tom Coburn has a long list of programs uselessly duplicated across the government; nine agencies run 69 early-education programs.

Here is a list of U.S. presidents and public figures who have used or supported the impoundment power: Abe Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton, the Bushes, John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, Jeb Hensarling, Russ Feingold, Joe Lieberman, Judd Gregg, and not least both Paul Ryan, the new House Budget chairman, and Barack Obama.

In the early 1970s, Richard Nixon tried aggressively to impound spending, touching off a war with Congress's "prerogatives." Then Watergate broke. In a fury, one of the most liberal Congresses passed the Budget Control Act of 1974 (which should be repealed). It transferred most spending "control" to Congress, which one commentator at the time called "congressional government-and chaos."

Second, the Constitution is ambiguous on how to divide this authority, and the Supreme Court, in coin-flip decisions, has sided with Congress.

All the congressional names above, especially Rep. Ryan, have tried to thread this legal needle. But it doesn't exist because the bipartisan pig-out caucus-in hiding now-won't let it happen.

Yes, this week the GOP Congress is talking about a lollapalooza annual budget cut of $100 billion. Go for it! But let's hear Barack Obama put the impoundment power back in play in his State of the Union address-for this presidency and however many presidents are left in the future of our broken-windows capital.

As of November 2010, the overall unemployment rate for whites was 9.2%, but for African Americans, it was 16.0%. Among those aged 16 to 19, the difference (including both males and females) was significantly larger -- 20.9% for young whites versus 46.5% for young blacks. In job-rich Manhattan, only one in four young (16-24) black males was employed in 2010. What is especially remarkable about these statistics is their intractability. Since the 1960s and the War on Poverty, Washington has spent billions -- everything from job training programs to tax incentives to anti-discrimination laws -- to eradicate this gap, all to no avail.

Given a half-century of failure, efforts to narrow differences have grown increasingly desperate. The latest is the federal government's attempt to equalize how black and white job candidates appear to prospective employers even if they differ substantially -- just ban employers from checking credit and criminal histories so as not to "unreasonably" disadvantage black job applicants.

The facts are straightforward. First, African-Americans are far more likely to have criminal records than whites, and according to a Federal Reserve report, they disproportionally also have credit problems -- repossessions, bankruptcies, wage garnishments, outstanding unsatisfied court judgments, and high overdue credit card balances. Second, the internet (and other technologies) facilitates quick, inexpensive background checks of prospective employees (for example, here). Third, the courts have held that an employer screening of job applicants is inherently racially discriminatory if blacks are disproportionally excluded according to criteria that lack direct connections to the jobs (the principle of disparate impact).

Advocates of prohibiting this inquiry typically insist that (a) criminal and financial records are error-prone and sometimes outdated, and they often do not distinguish between serious and trivial infractions; (b) may reflect legal encounters decades back, often just youthful foolishness, and (c) past bad behavior often has nothing to do with the sought-after job. This view is gaining traction beyond the federal government's longstanding campaign against disparate impact. Several states have explicitly banned employers from using credit histories in employment screening, and a law was recently introduced (H.R. 3149) that would severely limit this practice nationally.

This anti-background check effort recently drew national attention when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued the Kaplan Higher Education Corporation for using credit histories to screen applicants, a widespread and growing practice among both private firms and the government itself. According to the suit, since January 2008, Kaplan has examined applicant credit histories, and blacks have been disproportionately rejected. The EEOC demands that Kaplan not only cease this harmful practice, but that the corporation also award back wages and benefits to those African-Americans not hired due to credit troubles. Kaplan's defense is that it already has a diverse workforce and is an equal-opportunity employer, and creditworthiness is relevant since Kaplan employees often handle financial matters.

Given the enduring gap between whites and blacks in obtaining jobs, the obvious question is whether this new approach will help African-Americans get more jobs. Probably not -- and, as with so many other well-intentioned interventions, it will widen gaps.

An almost prima facie case exists that criminal records and a poor credit rating tell a lot about a prospective employee, even for menial work. Past troubles provide clues about avoiding unwise risk, a capacity to plan, and a willingness to follow rules and otherwise behave prudently. These traits may have little to do with specific duties, but no employer wants a workforce of deadbeats and former felons. Yes, there may be a weak link between failure to pay one's credit card on time and sticky fingers when sweeping the store floor at midnight without supervision, but there may be a connection, and given multiple applicants for the floor-sweeper position, why risk hiring a thief? And even if the initial job is unrelated to past problems, what happens when this employee asks for a promotion where the shaky background is relevant? Denying this request only invites litigation.

That these hiring criteria are racially discriminatory does not mean that they are economically irrational. Especially since good-paying jobs typically attract numerous applicants (especially in hard economic times), poor credit or a criminal conviction are perfect tie-breakers to sort out applicants. There are also supervision costs associated with monitoring employees with troubled backgrounds. I owned a retail business for thirteen years, and this included hiring (and firing) dozens of employees. Predicting who will be an unsatisfactory employee, and especially a thief, is difficult enough without knowing applicants' personal histories, a situation compounded by many past employers refusing to say anything bad for fear of litigation. Given the paucity of information, I relied on the easily available applicant's history of paying utility bills, since I discovered that chronic no-payers often skipped work, to resolve these crises. Nor did I trust those whose daily finances were desperate. To prohibit background checks is just one more attack on business.

Ironically, banning background checks may exacerbate black unemployment. If an employer has inadequate information about a prospective hire, he or she is forced to use crude proxies, and race is a convenient, clear-cut proxy. So rather than risk hiring an ex-felon or chronic deadbeat, stick to whites or Asians. In fact, one study of this relationship found that employers were more likely to hire black males where they could perform background checks on past criminality. In other words, since most blacks have clean records, these "helpful" prohibitions were a liability for those who might otherwise be hired.

This ill-advised "help" is just one of many similar unhelpful government interventions. Prohibiting background checks only adds to an already heavy employer burden whose unintended impact is to price many blacks out of the job market. After all, what employer wants employees who can so easily sue for discrimination, real or imagined, on so many grounds (see here)? Similarly, why hire somebody whose educational credentials are less than bona fide thanks to government pressure on schools to "make the number" or admit unqualified applicants so as to redress historical inequalities -- and then prohibit the employer from independently testing job applicants if whites are likely to outscore blacks despite comparable credentials? Or why hire somebody who has been endlessly instructed that America is hopelessly racist and that this racism must be exposed? No wonder that as private employment grows more competitive and employers have better choices, government itself has increasingly become the chief employer of blacks, since it lacks rivals with a superior workforce (see here, for example).

What might explain this counterproductive assistance? A cynic might claim that the hidden goal is greater dependency on government, but I'll leave that devious possibility to others. Personally, I suspect that many "friends" of unemployed blacks lack any understanding of how businesses can escape these economically harmful edicts. In their mistaken view, help is just a matter of upping the pressure on white employers. Yet, faced with edicts to hire blacks they are loath to hire, a firm might relocate to largely whites areas, increase automation, hire subcontractors immune to government mandates, eliminate or sell portions of the business, hire off the books and pay in cash, or outsource tasks overseas. These actions are, of course, increasingly commonplace and perfectly legal, and each may well contribute to the intractability of black unemployment.

Unfortunately, champions of boosting black employment refuse to acknowledge these avoidance strategies. They remain stuck in the white prejudice explanation and ignore the sound reasons behind these dreadful unemployment figures (see here). So rather than counsel blacks on how to use credit prudently, these "friends" attempt to create a fantasy world where employers cannot check troubled credit histories. But as the statistics show, the sham doesn't work. To invoke the mother of all clichés, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

Governor Jerry Brown, of California, has promised that he will not cut education funds this year if he gets the tax increases that he wants. Jon Fleischman asks have we tried this first....?

●Have we gone through and eliminated every possible state employee or contractor possible, streamlining our workforce such as in the private sector?

●Have we eliminated some of the vast array of hundreds of state boards and commissions?

●Have we made permanent changes to social welfare spending to prevent future spending abuse?

●Have we eliminated all of those high-paying, cushy commissions that are landing pads for termed-out legislators?

●How about implementing all of the cost-savings suggested in the comprehensive California Performance Review?

●How about ending taxpayer-provided cars (two of them) for members of the legislature?

●Or how about ending the use of legislatures using public funds to mail "push-surveys" to constituents?

●Have we eliminated the subsidies to community colleges, which cost the taxpayers over $4 billion per year? Yes, it will be hard on their students to have to pay market rates, but higher education is a public good, not an unalienable right.

A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress. A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution. A bill will be introduced to repeal the health care law. On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber. And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arranged to have his office staff "sworn in" on Tuesday by the chief justice of the United States.

Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification. Then, they may find time for governing.

The empty gestures are officially intended to set a new tone in Washington, to demonstrate - presumably to the Republicans' Tea Party supporters - that things are about to be done very differently. But it is far from clear what message is being sent by, for instance, reading aloud the nation's foundational document. Is this group of Republicans really trying to suggest that they care more deeply about the Constitution than anyone else and will follow it more closely?

In any case, it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act, suggesting that they alone understand the true meaning of a text that the founders wisely left open to generations of reinterpretation. Certainly the Republican leadership is not trying to suggest that African-Americans still be counted as three-fifths of a person.

There is a similar air of vacuous fundamentalism in requiring that every bill cite the Constitutional power given to Congress to enact it. The new House leadership says this is necessary because the health care law and other measures that Republicans do not like have veered from the Constitution. But it is the judiciary that ultimately decides when a law is unconstitutional, not the transitory occupant of the speaker's chair.

All of this, though, is simply eyewash - the equivalent of a flag-draped background to a speech - compared with the actual legislation the Republicans plan to pass. And though much of that has no possibility of being enacted, it does suggest the depth of the struggle to come. The bill tauntingly titled the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" has nothing to do with increasing employment and will never reach the Senate floor, but shows that the leadership is willing to threaten the hard-fought access to health care for millions of the uninsured, just to make a political point.

On budgetary issues, the House Republicans' new rules bypass the chamber and even their own Budget Committee to give all power to set spending levels to the committee's new chairman, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It is hard to imagine how long such an aggrandizement of power will last in a contentious body like the House. The plans by Mr. Ryan and his colleagues to simply cut all spending back to 2008 levels also have no chance of being enacted.

The one good thing about these meaningless rules and bills is that they finally seem to be prodding House Democrats into standing up for their own programs as they enter the minority. Democrats have begun to remind Americans of what is at stake in repealing health care: popular provisions like the elimination of lifetime coverage limits, insurance under parents' policies up to age 26, and coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The Republicans' antics are a ghastly waste of time at a moment when the nation is expecting real leadership from Congress, and suggest that the new House leadership is still unable to make tough choices. Voters, no less than drama critics, prefer substance to overblown theatrics.

[I added this so that you can see how liberals think; this person believes that these are great accomplishments of the 111^th Congress]

Yesterday, some friends and I helped Tom Perriello move out of his Capitol Hill apartment. It was sad to see Tom leaving Congress. But then I received an email with some of the accomplishments of the 111th Cogress and I realized that this was one of the most productive cogresses in a really long time. Here is a list of thier many accomplishments (From Pat Lowry):

"The 111th Congress is going to go down as one of the most productive in terms of its legislative accomplishments, their sweep and scope and breadth, certainly in our lifetimes and probably within the 20th century." Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute, Financial Times 12/14/10

". Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition." David Leonhardt, New York Times 5/22/10

American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, enacted in the first month of President Obama's term, to jumpstart our economy, create and save 3.5 million jobs, give a tax cut to small business and 95% of American workers, begin to rebuild America's road, rail, and water infrastructure, and make a historic commitment to education, clean energy, and science and technology, with unprecedented accountability. Not enough, but it was a start. (Signed into Law)

TAX RELIEF & UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT, a controversial Obama-GOP agreement that includes: cutting taxes for the middle class and small businesses for the next 2 years; providing a $120 billion payroll tax reduction for workers; extending unemployment insurance for 13 months; extending the Obama college tuition tax credit, Child Tax Credit, and Earned Income Tax Credit for two years; and providing incentives to create clean energy jobs. (Signed into Law)

SMALL BUSINESS JOBS ACT, landmark legislation providing $12 billion in tax relief for small businesses by enacting eight more small business tax cuts on top of the eight already enacted by this Congress; creating up to 500,000 jobs, by leveraging up to $300 billion in private sector lending for small businesses through a $30 billion lending fund for community banks; fully paid for - doesn't add a dime to the deficit. (Signed into Law)

TEACHER JOBS/STATE AID/CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES, creating and saving nearly 320,000 jobs; providing $10 billion to save 161,000 teacher jobs and $16 billion in Medicaid aid, with the effect of creating/saving 158,000 jobs, including police officers, firefighters, nurses & private sector workers; fully paid for by closing loopholes that encourage companies to ship American jobs overseas; cutting deficit by $1.4 billion. (Signed into Law)

Student AID & Fiscal Responsibility Act, making the largest investment in college aid in history - increasing Pell Grants, making college loans more affordable, and strengthening community colleges - while reducing the federal deficit by ending wasteful student loan subsidies to banks. (Signed into Law)

HIRE Act, creating up to 300,000 jobs, by providing a payroll tax holiday for businesses that hire unemployed workers and a tax credit for businesses that retain these workers. (Signed into Law)

CASH FOR CLUNKERS, jump-starting the U.S. auto industry, providing consumers with up to $4,500 to trade in an old vehicle for one with higher fuel efficiency-spurring the sale of 700,000 vehicles. (Signed into Law)

Worker, Homeownership & Business ASSISTANCE Act, boosting the economy and creating jobs with more unemployment benefits for Americans hit by the recession, an expanded 1st-time homebuyer tax credit, and enhanced small business tax relief-expanded to all struggling U.S. businesses. (Signed into Law)

America COMPETES Reauthorization, keeping America number one by investing in modernizing manufacturing, spurring American innovation through basic R&D and high risk/high reward clean energy research, and strengthening math and science education. (On Way to President's Desk)

U.S. MANUFACTURING ENHANCEMENT ACT, to help U.S. manufacturers compete at home and abroad by temporarily suspending or reducing duties on intermediate products or materials these companies use that are not made domestically. (Signed into Law)

KEEPING UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE IN PLACE, extending unemployment insurance for millions of American families through November 30, 2010 (Signed into Law), and through December 31, 2011 (Signed into Law). Every dollar of unemployment benefits creates about $2.00 in economic activity.

Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, tripling volunteerism opportunities to 250,000 for national service for students to retirees; increased college financial awards. (Signed into Law)

Wall Street Reform, historic reforms to end taxpayer-funded bailouts and the idea of `too big to fail', and protect and empower consumers to make the best decisions on mortgages, credit cards, and their own financial future. Lack of accountability for Wall Street and big banks cost 8 million jobs. (Signed into Law)

credit cardholders' bill of rights, providing tough new protections already saving consumers money-like banning unfair rate hikes, abusive fees, and penalties-and strengthening enforcement. (Signed into Law)

FOOD SAFETY, a sweeping, landmark overhaul of the nation's food safety system in the wake of tainted food scandals; giving FDA new authorities and putting a new focus on prevention. (On Way to President's Desk)

FRAUD ENFORCEMENT & RECOVERY ACT, providing tools to prosecute mortgage scams and corporate fraud that contributed to financial crisis; creating an outside commission to examine its causes. (Signed into Law)

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring the rights of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay-to help close the wage gap where women earn 78 cents for every $1 a man earns in America. (Signed into Law)

AIRLINE PASSENGER SAFETY, to improve airline passenger safety, by several steps including strengthening commercial pilot training requirements, requiring a minimum of 1,500 flight hours required for an airline pilot certificate. (Signed into Law)

Helping Families Save Their Homes ACT, building on the President's initiative to stem the foreclosure crisis, with significant incentives to lenders, servicers, and homeowners to modify loans. (Signed into Law)

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, landmark legislation prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions and dropping coverage when you get sick and need it most; lowering costs for privately-insured middle class families and small businesses; strengthening Medicare and lowering seniors' prescription drug costs; creating up to 4 million jobs; and reducing the deficit by the largest amount in almost two decades, while ensuring affordable coverage for 32 million more Americans. (Signed into Law)

child nutrition, landmark legislation to fight both childhood obesity and childhood hunger; improving the nutritional quality of school lunches, expanding access for needy children to nutrition programs, and providing schools with first boost in reimbursement rate for school lunches in more than 30 years. (Signed into Law)

Health Care for 11 Million Children, to finally provide cost-effective health coverage for 4 million more children and preserve coverage for 7 million children already enrolled. (Signed into Law)

FDA Regulation of Tobacco, granting the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate advertising, marketing, and manufacturing of tobacco products, the #1 cause of preventable U.S. deaths, and to stop tobacco companies from targeting our children. (Signed into Law)

ensuring seniors' access to their doctors, by blocking a scheduled 25% cut in Medicare physician payments and extending current Medicare payment rates through December 31, 2011. (Signed into Law)

9/11 health and compensation act, providing health care and compensation for first responders and others exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero. (Signed into Law)

Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act, guaranteeing access to lifesaving medical services, primary care, and medications for low-income patients with AIDS and HIV. (Signed into Law)

INCENTIVES FOR CLEAN ENERGY JOBS, to extend for one year the Section 1603 renewable energy grant program, which provides grants in lieu of existing tax credits, that could create up to 100,000 jobs in the solar and wind industries. (Signed into Law)

Statutory Pay-As-You-Go, to restore 1990s law that turned record deficits into surpluses, by forcing tough choices; Congress must offset new policies that reduce revenues or expand entitlements. (Signed into Law)

JUSTICE FOR BLACK FARMERS AND NATIVE AMERICANS, funding lawsuit settlements regarding discrimination against black farmers and Native American trust account holders by the government. (Signed into Law)

weapon systems acquisition reform, cracking down on DOD waste and cost overruns in the acquisition of weapon systems, increasing oversight and competition. (Signed into Law)

IMPROVE ACQUISiTION ACT, overhauling DOD acquisition for the 80 percent of spending that is for services and other non-weapons items, saving taxpayers an estimated $135 billion. (On Way to President's Desk)

FY 2010 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION, authorizing 3.4% troop pay raise, strengthening military readiness and military families support, focusing our strategy in Afghanistan and redeployment from Iraq. (Signed into Law)

FY 2011 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION, strengthening support for service members, military readiness, and counterterrorism efforts, including troop pay raise. (On Way to President's Desk)

REPEAL OF DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, to provide for the repeal of this outdated policy, contingent on the certification that military review completed and repeal will not impact readiness. (Signed into Law)

Veterans Health Care Budget Reform Act, authorizing Congress to approve VA appropriations one year in advance to ensure reliable and timely funding of VA health care funding. (Signed into Law)

FY 2010 MILITARY CONSTRUCTION-VA APPROPRIATIONS, strengthening quality health care for 5 million veterans by investing 11% more for medical care and benefits. (Signed into Law)

FY 2009 SUPPLEMENTAL, making retroactive stop loss payments to 185,000+ service members, and expanding New GI Bill benefits for college to all children of fallen U.S. service members. (Signed into Law)

Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services, landmark legislation providing help to caregivers of disabled, ill or injured veterans, and improving VA health services for women veterans. (Signed into Law)

agent orange BENEFITS, providing long overdue disability benefits to more than 150,000 Vietnam veterans and survivors for exposure to Agent Orange. (Signed into Law)

strengthening new gi bill, making these veterans' education benefits for college easier to use; covering vocational, technical and on-the-job training, as well as more National Guardsmen. (Signed into Law)

FY 2010 HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS, strengthening security at our ports and borders and on commercial airlines, giving first responders tools to respond to terrorism. (Signed into Law)

HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT, giving law enforcement resources to prevent and prosecute hate crimes against Americans based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. (Signed into Law)

BORDER SECURITY EMERGENCY APPROPRIATIONS, providing $600 million to enhance security at the Southwest Border, including funding 1,200 additional Border Patrol agents, 500 additional CBP officers, and additional FBI, DEA, and ATF agents for the border region; paid for by visa fees. (Signed into Law)

Text of what the shooter in Arizona has actually posted (we can reasonably draw the conclusions that he is a nutcase, anti-authoritarian, pro-grammar, anti-mind control through grammar, and possibly a supporter of socialist or communist philosophies—there is no way to draw any kind of a straight line from him to Palin or to FoxNews or to the TEA party movement):

At least 14 states are looking to change “birthright citizenship” (that is, if you are born in the United States, you are automatically a citizen):

Rolling Stone’s Taibbi accuses John Boehner of speaking in a coded, racist language:

Homegrown terrorism; the year 2010 in review. Do you recall there being these many attacks and attempted attacks?

RUSH: And two more frauds have been uncovered, ladies and gentlemen, both along the lines of the global warming fraud and hoax. How many of you have been persuaded to believe that vaccines have caused autism? Do you believe it? It's all a fraud. It's all a lie. "Study tying vaccine to autism was fraud, report says. Andrew Wakefield, colleagues altered facts about patients in their research, analysis shows." This is not some kooky blog that you've never heard of. It's AP, it's PMSNBC. "The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research. The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Andrew --" and, by the way, these are the same people that write your political news every day. These are the same people that tell you what's going on with spending, the Obamacare repeal, the deficit, and all this rotgut. This pretty much typifies 90% of the crap that's in the media these days. The Center for Science in the Public Interest and all the death and destruction that's gonna come if you eat pork fried rice, for example.

"The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues were renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected to autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered." Can I say Rachel Carlson? How about banning DDT and the jump in malaria all over the world? Another hoax, another fraud brought to you by nanny state liberals. "The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied --" 12 children led to a worldwide belief in a fraud. "-- 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents."

It's an elaborate fraud, and there's a second one to tell you about today. "'Great Garbage Patch' in the Pacific Ocean Not So Great Claim Scientists -- Environmental scientists have been criticised for exaggerating the size of an 'island' of plastic waste said to be swirling around in the Pacific Ocean after a study finds that it is 200 times smaller than claimed." So the Four Corners of Deceit: science, medicine, politics, journalism, news, you name it, continue unabated. They are eventually uncovered but look at the damage they have caused.

RUSH: By the way, the autism hoax, there's a new one lined up to replace this one that's been exposed. This is from CBS News. "Autism: Air Pollution May Be to Blame, Study Suggests." So if you're just joining me now, folks, it's just been revealed as a hoax, a study tying vaccine to autism is a fraud, not somebody thinks it is, it's been exposed as a total fraud, and so now the fraud community has a backup, air pollution may be to blame for autism now. So you knock down one fraud and they just got another one waiting behind that one to pop up. Kind of like at the carnival when you're at the duck show shooting those things and they pop up, that's the fraud community, and they're out there, and their home is on the left.

RUSH: How many of you, like I do, remember the government's ban on saccharin back in the seventies? Well, I know some of you are not old enough to remember that, but saccharin was found to be a very powerful carcinogen, and so it was banned. You couldn't get Tab. Tab was taken off the market! You couldn't get the tablets of saccharin. You couldn't get the squirt saccharin. You couldn't get it. The only place you could get it was from Canada. You know how they found out it caused cancer? They took the equivalent of a case of saccharin-sweetened soda -- a case! -- and then assumed that that quantity would be consumed (like two cases a day for a year) and injected that amount into rats, and the rats got bladder cancer. They woulda gotten bladder cancer if they would have injected them with that much water.

Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen? "The US government Tuesday removed the artificial sweetener saccharin, long believed to be a potential cancer-causing substance found in diet drinks and chewing gum," they removed it, "from its list of hazardous substances." It had been added to the list in 1981 after having all this controversy happen during the seventies. So basically for 30 years a totally safe product was taken off the market because of bogus testing. The reasons? Who knows why? You probably had some sugar replacement competitors that bought off the FDA, whoever would do the banning. But my point is that nothing's real. All of this stuff, all this nanny stuff that is gonna kill us? It's all just a crock, from DDT to this phony, fraudulent autism and the global warming to countless other environmental and food-related frauds.

RUSH: How many people died from obesity because they were unable to get saccharin back in the day? This is a question. I'm just asking the question.

RUSH: To the phones we go, Colorado Springs and Ted. It's nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. You were talking about the government fraud stuff, and I was suspended from college when I was doing my undergraduate work as a pre-veterinarian major. When I did the arithmetic I had a geek sitting next to me who had a brand-new TI calculator.

RUSH: Hang on just a second. For those of you who are younger than (What would it be?) TI is Text Instruments. Yeah.

RUSH: You can get it for a buck and a quarter at the checkout stand at the grocery store today.

CALLER: But anyway, we did the math. We had a guy from the FDA who was coming out there and he was talking to us about an additive to feedlot cattle and also pigs, and it was called DES, diethylstilbestrol; and we did the mathematics on it, and the amount of DES that they gave the rats and the monkeys, I would have to eat a 106 pounds of bacon a day for 200 years to die of the cancer that these monkeys and rats died from.

CALLER: Oh, well, yeah! I raised my hand and I said, "Do you know that with all the figures that you gave us, this is what I would have to eat?" and I got suspended for three days.

CALLER: (laughing) No, I never did become a vet because I was... You know, I'm a white guy. I wasn't a female and I wasn't a minority, so...

RUSH: (laughing) You flew airplanes for the Air Force. That's quite a change from vet school and studying pigs to the Air Force. You mean if you'd-a been black and female you'da become a vet?

RUSH: (laughing) I get it. People of a certain age won't understand what he's talking about. Think Allan Bakke. People were passed and moved forward not based on grades and that kind of thing. Whatever happened to "questioning authority"? That was such a great thing! Back in the sixties questioning authority is what made you a big hero; it's what made you a star. (interruption) Well, getting good grades back then wasn't the objective. Burning down the bank building, blowing up something was the objective. Joining the Symbionese Liberation Army and spending some time with Patty Hearst while you had her kidnapped, that was the was objective back the in sixties and getting your story in TIME Magazine. It wasn't anything about grades. Here's Day Spring. (laughing) I'm looking at something else here that I can't mention right now. Day Spring in Texarkana, Texas. Hello.

CALLER: I'm really excited to be talks to you. I've been listening to you to ever for over 20 years. I really hate to call and disagree with you today. (giggles) I want to talk to you about the autism study today, the Andrew Wakefield study.

CALLER: Okay. Well, let's first of all, I concur that this study probab -- most likely was a fraud. However, that does nothing to prove that autism is not caused by vaccines. In fact, I think you really have it 180 degrees wrong.

RUSH: And you acknowledge it, but then you said, "It doesn't mean it doesn't." We have no news on that. The only news we have is that "vaccines cause autism" has been debunked as a fraud, yet you say, "Well, that may be true, but it doesn't mean that other vaccines don't."

RUSH: Why do you want to believe that vaccines lead to autism? Why? Would you have ever thought of this yourself had this fraudulent study never been reported?

CALLER: Yes, I believe so. I have a vaccine-injured child. I was recommended to have a flu shot when I was pregnant, and that resulted in a child on the autism spectrum that was significant speech delayed and social deficits et cetera.

RUSH: Has it been established? Has it been proven that a flu shot while you were pregnant led to the autism.

CALLER: No, no, but I know I received 25 micrograms of mercury, and mercury is a proven neurotoxin and that has been proven to cause fetal development problems -- and, in fact, if you look at Minamata, Japan, there were several cases of prenatal mercury poisoning that resulted in children with severe deficits (sic) even though their parents didn't have enough mercury, or the mother might not have died.

CALLER: I do my own research, just looked online, but it's public information if you look up Minamata Disease and -- and --

RUSH: Well, this is my point. How do you know? For example, this Wakefield study. Everybody believed it. Why did they believe it? Not because they never heard of Wakefield. They believed it because a bunch of irresponsible charlatans known as the Drive-By Media gave it credibility. Who are...?

RUSH: Now, wait a minute. Who are people at the Center for Science in the Public Interest? They're just a bunch of crackpots who have a Nanny State-like, arrogant attitude about food that they want to force on everybody else. So they have a logo and a fax machine and send the stuff out and the media gives them credibility. So you're "doing your own research," but how do you know that what you're reading is not just as fraudulent and biased as Wakefield?

CALLER: It may be. This is the thing. Minamata, Japan, is completely unrelated to the vaccine debate. I've never heard them paired together. I discovered this on my own but the government recommends that pregnant women do not eat fish containing high levels of mercury, such as shark and tilefish and that sort of thing. Well, they say do not have any of it while you're pregnant. The highest level of mercury that you're gonna get from eating shark is between 0.5 and 0.9 micrograms of mercury, and the amount that you get in a flu shot is 25. So that's up to 50 times more.

RUSH: Okay, if this is the case, why doesn't every pregnant mother who gets a flu shot give birth to an autistic child?

CALLER: Well, I believe there are biological differences, but, however, I have friends that have also had speech delays with their children that received a flu shot. This is a new recommendation that started about five years ago so it's just now cropping up. My friends are very intelligent.

RUSH: I'm very sensitive to what you want to believe, 'cause it's no fun what happened to you. I totally understand that. But, you know, all this anecdotal evidence, it leads to people demanding government do something. "Government must do something," and some things just happen, and a lawyer is right behind you wanting you to do something, to do something for you. Blame the government. Blame somebody with a lot of time money for it. Mercury manufacturers, importers, exporters, what have you. (sigh) Back in the days of my youth they rubbed dirt in open wounds, the coaches did. The coaches did it. "Oh, that's nothing. A three-inch gash in your head? Here, rub a little dirt in it and keep playing." Irreconcilable. I'm fine. My mother drank; she smoked. I'm a pillar of the community. I'm among the leaders in the broadcast industry. Now drinking and smoking when you're pregnant, "Oh, don't do it! Don't!" If all this stuff they say were true, the human race would have died out hundreds of years ago because of what people who were pregnant did.

RUSH: By the way, on this mercury business. I did a quick check here during the break, and I found some references to the fact that mercury has been debunked as a cause of autism. The mercury connection has been debunked. If mercury leads to autism, then we gotta get rid of the compact fluorescent lightbulb. I'm not saying go out there and eat mercury if you're pregnant. Don't eat mercury, period. Mercury is not good for you no matter what you're doing. If you're pregnant don't go eat mercury, don't go break a compact fluorescent lightbulb and start licking mercury off the floor. Dawn, don't misunderstand me here. Jeez, see how this works? (laughing) By the way, don't open a can of paint and drink that either if you're pregnant. If you're not pregnant go ahead and drink all the paint you want and hope it comes from China with lead in it. It's not nearly as bad as mercury.

Oat bran used to be a savior; then it was a killer. Coffee caused heart -- all of this stuff. And at the foundation of this is a Drive-By Media ramping up and creating hysteria associated with these fraud scientists. I don't care whether it's environmentalism or health or diet or what have you. And then 30 years later saccharin, guess what? Not a problem. Where's the media? They're already long gone creating the same kind of hysteria over global warming. Now, on this autism business, Robert Kennedy Jr. was a major champion of the claim that vaccines cause autism. In fact, some people say that Robert Kennedy Jr. almost single-handedly managed to stoke fears that vaccines were causing an epidemic of autism. This is what leftists do. They create crises, hysteria, and panic. Why? Because they want to go sue the companies involved and expand government and get rich themselves off the whole process. Now it's all been debunked. Wakefield, a fraud.

Look what happens. We have a story here, "Study Tying Vaccine to Autism was Fraud." We got people calling, "Well, maybe so, but it's still true." 'Cause people want to believe this stuff, it's human nature, believe crisis, believe conspiracy, believe people are out to kill you, companies are out to kill you. The vaccine company is out to kill you. Well, then let's talk to the Clintons because they're the big vaccine pushers of their era trying to get everybody to take 'em. If RFK Jr., if Robert Kennedy Jr. could be so wrong about autism, maybe he could also be wrong about global warming? We know that he is. In fact, in 2005 Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote a scare piece in Salon and Rolling Stone linking autism to the mercury preservative used in vaccines, and he's still promoting these scares on every talk show he can get on. It's 2005 article, it's in the Boston Globe. I'll try to link to it at RushLimbaugh.com. July 1st, 2005: "Autism, Mercury, and Politics," by Robert Kennedy Jr. It has been debunked.

RUSH: Larry in Visalia, California, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Yes. Hi. It's an honor for me to speak to you, Mr. Rush, and I just wanted to comment regarding your views on government regulations.

RUSH: Well, the premise that government must regulate is something I would reject because the starting point's much too broad. Now, are you asking if there's some government regulation that is sensible? Yeah. But not enough.

CALLER: Okay. Like, for example, with cars, we used to have cars -- I'm 60-some years old, and in my day, when I was a kid, our cars got, what, 16 miles to the gallon of gas.

CALLER: Today you can't even buy a car that gets only 16 miles per gallon. Why did that happen? Because the government kept saying to the car makers, "You have to produce cars that will meet these standards regarding miles per gallon." And it helped. I live in the San Joaquin Valley.

RUSH: Wait a minute. Miles per gallon's got nothing to do with air quality. I have a car that gets eight miles a gallon, I'm proud of it. And I bought it. I didn't modify it. I have a car that gets maybe ten if I lay off of it a bit, but my car gets nowhere near 16 miles to the gallon, and I am proud of that, because I don't fall prey to all this Jack Spratt sky is falling conventional wisdom stuff. But if you want to, it's a free country, go right ahead, just don't make me drive the moped when you go buy one.

RUSH: They're gonna do it. They're really gonna do it, and I like it. I love, ladies and gentlemen, love the idea of reading the Constitution on the floor of the House of Representatives today. It's an exorcism. Look at it that way. The House Republicans are performing an exorcism today. The Democrat controlled 111th Congress is being exorcised, evil, if you will, is being removed. When they start reading the Constitution, you watch, I want to see how many Democrats get up and leave. (laughing) You would not believe, they're calling this a fetish, people have a fetish. We have a fetish with the Constitution here. So let's see when the exorcism begins if Democrats get up, some of them, and walk out of the chamber.

Greetings, my friends, great to have you here, El Rushbo, this is the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute, it's already the middle of the week, fastest three hours in media, fastest all -- and Wednesday really comes fast when you have Monday off. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Right here it is in the Washington Post: "Recitation of Constitution Set in House Renews Debate Over Founders' Intentions." This is a serious news story in the Washington Post today. You know, it's fascinating, folks. If you notice when the Republicans decide to vote on overturning Democrat legislation, like their effort to repeal Obamacare -- even though it's gonna be vetoed, we know it's gonna be vetoed by Obama -- the news media is calling this a stunt. They're calling it political theater. And it's anything but. It's dead serious. When was the last time, let me ask you, when was the last time that a bill of any substance, any substantive size, was voted on for repeal? Do you recall? I don't mean reform. But when was the last time a vote was taken to repeal a piece of legislation? I don't know the answer. I know it doesn't happen every day. It's a big deal.

And, by the way, as I pointed out, this a birthday present to me from the House Republicans. That vote will occur one week from today on my birthday, January 12th. That's not a coincidence, folks. Don't doubt me. I haven't spoken to 'em about it, but I know they know. Now, maybe it happens from time to time, I don't know, voting to repeal big-time legislation. My impression is that once a law is passed and bureaucracies are created, they never go away. This is a remarkable effort these guys are gonna try, remarkable effort by House Republicans to repeal Obamacare. And, boy, you know we were talking yesterday about how the media sets these templates and narratives and everybody just assumes that all that they say is true and accurate and that everybody is talking about what the media is talking about. Dana Milbank has a piece in the Washington Post, really snarky piece today about the Republicans, how they're really no different than the Democrats, in terms of the rules violations in the House that they're going to employ and all these other things, and he talks about how their big, big deficit cutters and yet by repealing Obamacare they're gonna expand the deficit by $143 billion.

Now, where does that come from? Does Mr. Milbank not know that everything from the Congressional Budget Office regarding numbers and finance regarding health care was bogus? Mr. Milbank, when you're in Washington and any bureaucracy says anything, that is what's golden. The Constitution, nah, that doesn't matter. That's old-fashioned, that's old hat, that's crazy. But new legislation, that's set in gold, that's the gospel. Now, anybody with independent intelligence, anybody who doesn't just follow conventional wisdom has to know that the Obamacare budget busts like crazy. There is zilch, zero, nada deficit reduction with Obamacare. And yet right up at the top of Milbank's piece is how the Republicans are a bumbling of hypocrites 'cause they're talking about cutting the budget and yet repealing Obamacare will expand the deficit, which is patently absurd on its face, and it makes me wonder, what is this guy, a hack? Is he a partisan hack? Is he one of these people thought to be brilliant who's stupid? Or is he so caught up in the Washington Beltway that whatever happens there is gospel, whatever the CBO says is gospel? "That's right, Mr. Limbaugh, the CBO, everyone knows but you, is nonpartisan." Okay, that's how it goes, huh? The CBO is nonpartisan.

So the Democrats can send up a piece of legislation that filled with lies and incorrect financial assumptions, and the CBO, "Mr. Limbaugh, they can only deal with what Congress sends 'em, and Congress is infallible when run by Democrats." Oh, okay, so they can only deal with what the Democrats send 'em and the Democrats sent 'em a bunch of hooey that the deficit's gonna be cut with Obamacare. So here's Milbank, certainly doesn't qualify as a journalist, but here's just one example of this, because what's really happening here, this is a remarkable effort the Republicans are gonna make in voting to repeal such a massive piece of legislation, a truly remarkable effort. It is contrary to well established and heavily defended ruling class behavior. We've been talking about that a lot since Angelo Codevilla and his brilliant piece in the American Spectator talked about the ruling class. This is not ruling class behavior here, folks. I mean this is the kind of stuff that gets the ruling class tied up in knots. House Republicans need to be given the same treatment as Obama's immaculation, right? What about the historic nature of the January 12th vote to repeal Obamacare, what's this say about 'em?

The 112th Congress is blazing a new trail, they're putting their stamp, with this vote on freedom, on the role of the individual in America, the role of government in what has been private sector health care, the limitations on the commerce clause, the genius of the separation of powers, this is an historic effort and vote. We know it's gonna be vetoed. But the effort and the statement inherent in the effort, accompanies the effort, is crucial because it marks a crucial time in our nation's history, it marks the willingness of Congress to actually repeal a law, a massive one. Not reform it, but to repeal it, to get rid of it in response to the wishes of a majority of Americans, totally anti-ruling class behavior here. This vote that will happen a week from today, not just historic, but it is of substance. And who knows, it could be the beginning of reversing a destructive trend that's taken us to the brink of bankruptcy and tyranny with this bunch, the Democrats. I spent a little time today watching cable news networks, and one Democrat guest after another, one Democrat House member after another. "Well, what are you gonna have to do?" "Bipartisanship, Chris, yeah, never know, we really might find common ground."

I'm reminded of what I told the House Republicans in 1994: The media is not gonna treat you like winners. The media is not gonna treat you like the new powers in town. The media is not gonna come and bow down to your feet and beg to be accepted by you. They're still gonna treat the Democrats as the powers that be in this town. They're still gonna treat the Democrats as gods. You're gonna be cockroaches. And I couldn't find maybe a couple Republicans. I didn't watch cover to cover this morning. I, of course, am busy. But every time I looked up there was a Democrat being interviewed about, "Oh, woe is us," and, "How long will it take to get your power back? What's it gonna be like for you? Oh, woe is you working in the minority." "I think we can do it. It's gonna be very challenging, hopefully work together, bipartisanship is clearly what the American people stated." None of it was true, what we were hearing.

RUSH: Washington Post, by Jason Horowitz: "And the Founders said: Let there be a constitution. And the Founders looked at the articles and clauses and saw that it was good." That's how this story begins. "And the Founders said: Let there be a constitution. And the Founders looked at the articles and clauses and saw that it was good. For more than 200 years, Americans have revered the Constitution as the law of the land, but the GOP and tea party heralding of the document in recent months - and the planned recitation on the House floor Thursday --" actually, Wednesday "-- has caused some Democrats to worry that the charter is being misconstrued as the immutable word of God. New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler --" these people have such contempt for the Constitution, these Democrats. "'They are reading it like a sacred text,' said New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the outgoing chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties." By the way, (laughing) this is great. As they quote this clown, "They're reading it like a sacred text." That's Nadler talking about the Republicans in a critical way. "They're reading it like a sacred text." Now, listen to this, listen to how the Post describes this guy Nadler.

"Chairman, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, civil rights, civil liberties, who has studied and memorized the Constitution with talmudic --" or Talmudic -- the Talmud, Jewish Talmud "-- intensity." So here's a guy who'd looked at it as his Bible, they say, accusing the Republicans of looking at the Constitution as a sacred text. "Nadler called the 'ritualistic reading' on the floor 'total nonsense' and 'propaganda' intended to claim the document for Republicans. 'You read the Torah, you read the Bible, you build a worship service around it,' said Nadler, who argued that the Founders were not 'demigods' and that the document's need for amendments to abolish slavery and other injustices showed it was 'highly imperfect.' 'You are not supposed to worship your constitution. You are supposed to govern your government by it,' he said." Nobody's worshiping it, you fool. What we're doing is trying to reestablish it because it's under assault from people like you! Pardon my yelling. I get passionate about this.

Individual liberty, the Constitution, freedom, are all under assault. They have been since the founding of this country. The change is that a large element of that assault now comes domestically from people like Jerrold Nadler and courts like the Ninth Circus who just found another cross in a public place unconstitutional. The Democrats so hate this document, leftists so hate this document, they read it and tell us it means the opposite of what it says. A couple fascinating stories I want to share with you today about Justice Scalia answering some questions about the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment and how that just sent Democrats practically needing straitjackets and ambulances to the home. But here are a few sound bites on this Republican fetish with the Constitution. Last night on PMS MS -- whatever it is, the stupid Mess NBC. Slate.com senior editor and legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick about the Republican plan to read the Constitution. The question: "Is there an historical precedent for the Constitution fetish on the right?"

LITHWICK: I think so. I think the way some people rub Buddha and they think the magic will come off, I think there's a long-standing tradition in this country. We're awfully religious about the Constitution. I think there is a sort of fetishization here that is of a piece with the sort of need for a religious document that's immutable and perfect in every way.

RUSH: Miss Lithwick, you'll never understand it but all this is simply because health care is unconstitutional, Obamacare is. So much of Obama's agenda is unconstitutional. So much is what has come out of Congress in the form of legislation, unconstitutional. It's only the foundation for our existence, Miss Lithwick, and it's under assault. So what if it's revered. It's the most brilliant governing, founding document ever in the history of mankind. What is there about it that so threatens you, that you have to characterize people who love it, believe it, admire it as somehow having a fetish? All these people are doing, again, as I say, is showing their contempt. This is Chris Hayes. He's the guest host on this Mess NBC show and he responded to Dahlia Lithwick and her notion of a fetish here by saying this.

HAYES: They kind of fetishize the Constitution and they had to give it this sort of biblical textual status. You know, what's wrong with that? Is this sort of harmless or is there something kind of insidious underneath that?

LITHWICK: Part of what's a little bit fraud about this conversation is that the same people who are fetishizing the document as written, as framed by the framers and, you know, bracket the idea that there wasn't one framer, and there was no --

LITHWICK: -- one agenda embodied in this, but even if you bracket that idea, I think there's a real problem with the idea that we're trying to sort of fetishize the document at the same moment that we're falling over ourselves to amend and change the parts we don't like.

RUSH: Well, that's part of the process is changing and amending it. But you guys don't do that because your changes and amendments would never see the light of day if voted on legislatively so you've ginned up the courts to do it for you, and that's what's under assault here. They're simply defenders and protectors. And people are going to swear an oath today on the floor of the House to the Constitution and to God, to defend and protect the Constitution. A piece of propaganda, the left says. And, of course, the template having been established, Maud Behar had to get in on the act on her show last night on the headline whatever it is --

BEHAR: Do you think this Constitution loving is getting out of hand? I mean is it a nod to the Tea Party?

BEHAR: For the first time a lot of congressman will have heard about it, read it.

RUSH: Just to show you how the template gets started and the privates, the buck privates in the army start falling in place.

RUSH: What is it with these Democrats anyway sexualizing the opposition? "Tea baggers," "fetishists of the Constitution." These are perverts themselves! These are... (interruption) Well, don't roll your eyes in there, Dawn. It is what it is. These are perverts perverting the founding documents. Let me ask you: If the Constitution is not that big a deal, how come the same people had such a cow when they thought Christine O'Donnell didn't know what she was talking about regarding the Constitution? If it's so unimportant, how come Obama is so proud to have been a "constitutional lawyer" or professor or lecturer, whatever he was? Abraham Lincoln. Do they hate him? Did Abraham Lincoln have a "fetish for the US Constitution"?

Here's what Lincoln said, among many other things: "'We the people' are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." That's Lincoln. Is he a pervert? Did Lincoln have a fetish? Lincoln also said, "Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained for it is the only safeguard of our liberties." I wonder how many people in the media and I wonder how many Democrats know and I wonder how many of you know (the odds of you knowing are far greater than the media or Democrats knowing) our nation's first official Thanksgiving was to give thanks for the new Constitution.

Not the Indians and turkey and popcorn and all that. Not Gravy. It was to give thanks for the new Constitution. And now it's a "fetish," and all it means, folks -- all it means when Jerrold Nadler comes out with his contempt and Maude Behar follows the fax that she's sent; when Dahlia Lithwick and some of these others so-called intellectuals of the left begin to impugn the character of people who revere the Constitution, all they're telling us -- is how much it threatens them. What they're telling us is how much they fear the Constitution. They don't revere it. In order for them to succeed they have to "pervert" it. Lincoln's word, not mine (although it fits). They're really afraid of it. They're afraid of the Constitution, afraid of Sarah Palin. They're afraid of a whole lot of things. But you have to add the Constitution to the list with this latest assault on people who revere it.

RUSH: I'll tell you who has a fetish. (Well, many people have fetishes.) The Democrats have a fetish for Maya Angelou poems. They even have her write poems for their swearing-ins like Clinton's. (Angelou impression) "The Rock, The River, and the Tree" by Maya Angelou at the swearing in of Clinton in 1993. That's right. It was (interruption) "The Rock, The River, and the Tw'ee," and then they read Maya Angelou poems all over the place.

RUSH: I heard about this when I was gone. "Scalia to Talk About Constitution to House Members," and the Democrats are livid! This is a Michele Bachmann idea. This from the LA Times: "The decision by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to accept an invitation from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, to speak to incoming House members about the Constitution is drawing fire from some who worry the court is injecting itself into partisan politics. The meeting 'suggests an alliance between the conservative members of the court and the conservative members of Congress,' said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, who said Scalia had shown 'exceedingly poor judgment'" by accepting the invitation.

"He said the association of Scalia, an outspoken conservative, with the bombastic Bachmann..." (pause) Bombastic? She's just passionate. Anyway, it "could contribute to the high court becoming overly politicized." I have to laugh at that. So it's Scalia that makes the court "overly politicized;" not a bunch of liberal hacks that are on the court, but Scalia who does nothing but interpret the original intent of the Constitution when he issues opinions. That's all he does! He does not impose his agenda, whatever it is. He interprets the Constitution as best he can according to its original intent -- and that, the left hates. He's an originalist.

"But Bachmann's office said that Democrats and Republicans were welcome to attend the Jan. 24 speech. Also, it is not unprecedented for a sitting Supreme Court justice to confer with the legislative branch. Several justices have met in off-the-record sessions with the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on the Judicial Branch." Separation of powers, by the way, is the topic. She went to see Scalia. He accepted the invitation. His topic is separation of powers. Yeah, that's really a threat. Wow! Can you imagine that, a Supreme Court justice accepting an invitation from a member of Congress -- legislative branch -- to talk about separation of powers?

Well, we can't have that. No, no, no! Let's get a Marxist professor in there to talk about it and balance it out. Is that what we should do? Again, this is from the Washington Post by Emi Kolawole: "Justice Antonin Scalia has weighed in on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, leaving women's rights activists seething." I love it when women's rights activists "seethe." The thing is it's their constant state of existence. "Women's rights activists" (i.e., feminazis) are constantly seething. They are perpetually ticked off, constantly angry, as are most liberals. "In an interview with California Lawyer [magazine], Scalia said the Constitution..." This is why they hate the guy. What did I just say? He searches for the original intent.

"Scalia said that the Constitution itself does not protect women and gay men and lesbians from discrimination." (Gasp!) The horror! The horror! He's a bigot, he's a racist, he's a sexist, he's a homophobe! "Scalia said that the Constitution itself does not protect women and gay men and lesbians from discrimination. Such protections are up to the legislative branch, he said." He's got a mature idea on the restraints of his branch. Here's what he said. This is the question to Scalia: "In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?"

Scalia: "Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society." That's key: "You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant," the Fourteenth Amendment. "Nobody ever voted for that." Sex discrimination, sex-orientation discrimination, nobody even thought of that when this amendment was being proposed, debated and voted on. "Nobody voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.

"You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society." That's why they hate him, because that's precisely what judges are for: Imposing their view, imposing their personal policy preferences, imposing their ideology on society. That's how the left does it because they cannot win those votes, because they represent 20% of the thinking in this country. No matter what anybody else tells you.

You know what I hope happens today? When it's time for Pelosi to give Boehner the gavel, I hope she doesn't. I mean, I would love to see them have to pry the damn thing out of her hand. I would love to see her stand up and, make a protest speech. Say, "For the good of America, I just can't do it! Cart me off to jail, string me up, but I refuse! I refuse to turn the gavel over to these perverts who have a fetish for the Constitution. I refuse! They want to send old people out on the streets, and they want to kick seasoned citizens out of their homes and they want to deprive Medicare coverage for all elderly and they want to deprive all health care for everybody, and they want everybody to die except the banks!"

It won't happen. She'll do that behind closed doors, and probably already has. (interruption) Wait a minute here! Wait a second! Wait just a minute up here! There's a bunch of kids in that place today. Now, Pelosi and the Democrats are saying that reading the Constitution today (or tomorrow, whatever it is) is a stunt. It's theatrics; it's propaganda. But having a bunch of grandkids there isn't? When Pelosi was sworn in back in 2007 and making herself look like the grandmother of the House with all the grandkids, oh, that was great! Look, five of them are sitting in a row there in the front. Kids. Members' kids. That's not theatrics, is it? No, no, no. That's not. That's not a stunt, is it? Oh, no, of course not! "Mr. Limbaugh, that's just the sanctified ceremony of children in the family being present." Right. Right. Yeah, some little six-year-old is sitting on Pelosi's lap there next to Steny Hoyer, who's sitting next to Pelosi. Hoyer, look at that expression. It's "What am I doing here?"

RUSH: You know, the word "sex" does not even appear in the entire Constitution, you can't find it there, not in the real one.

Now, in the once-upon-a-time news magazine called TIME: "The GOP House's Opening Act: Making a Statement - or Making a Mockery?" What are they talking about here? "Two months after a sweeping victory in the midterm elections, Republicans will officially reclaim the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But before the new majority party begins the business of governing -- which it doesn't even really get down to until the end of the month -- it will take the opportunity to savor its triumph and make a statement with a good dose of Washington political theater. At about noon, the House clerk will call the chamber to order. After reciting a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, the members will elect Representative John Boehner as Speaker. The Ohioan will be presented by his predecessor, outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, before swearing in the largest GOP freshman class in more than half a century."

See, it's political theater to pray, say the Pledge of Allegiance, but when Pelosi flexed her muscles on the speaker's podium surrounded by an untold number of grandchildren and extended family, whoa, that was not theater. And then they refer to the reading of the Constitution as a mockery here in TIME Magazine. We truly do have two countries here, don't we? And I want to know where the middle ground is with these people? Even if you cross the aisle and try to meet these people halfway, where is there compromise with somebody who thinks the Constitution, if you revere it you have a fetish for it, reading it for the House of Representatives is a mockery? See, the Democrats, folks, can only win, can only get their agenda by lying and changing the rules, and that's why they hate the Constitution. The Constitution's a contract. It's our social contract. It's the mother of all rules, you might say. It's the source of the rule of law. Of course, they hate it, they want to pervert it. It's the only thing standing in their way. The Constitution is an obstacle. That's why Obama, the Democrats have conceived the new Bill of Rights and the whole concept of a charter of negative liberties, meaning for big statists and big government people, the Constitution doesn't spell out what government can do. All the Constitution does is tell the government what it can't do, and they hate that.

RUSH: To the phones, as promised. To Jacksonville, Florida. Rob, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hey, I wanted to... You were talking about the Congress, congressional Democrats and their arrogance and disdain for the Constitution. I think that's fundamentally a religious problem. They acknowledge no authority except themselves. They won't acknowledge God as the Creator and they won't acknowledge the Constitution and the people of the United States as their boss. They are fundamentally arrogant. They lie through their arrogance. They will do anything to subvert this country and subvert the Constitution.

RUSH: Well, I think you've got a basic understanding of who they are. I mean, they're not "godless," it's just they have a different god than you and me.

CALLER: The other question I had for you is even our so-called Republican conservative representatives, they always want to seek accommodation with them, even though we've told them: "We don't want accommodation. We want you to say 'hell, no' to everything that's been going on for the last years, and we don't want you to get along. We want to overturn fundamentally everything they've done be that health care, be that the curly lightbulb stuff. We just don't like what they've done," and they've gotta answer to us, the bosses of the Congress and the president.

RUSH: Oh, no, no, no, no. (chuckles) They have answered. They got shellacked. But that only makes them hold you in more contempt. That only makes you a bigger target for the next time they get their power back. They find out you're a Tea Partier? (laughing) If you're not from an unhappy family, they're gonna make sure yours ends up unhappy. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Ah, you're right, you're right. Condescension is part and parcel of liberalism.

RUSH: Thank you very much. Oh, Sophia, you're 14 years old? I just saw this on the computer screen.

CALLER: So earlier you were talking about a few clips of -- I don't know her name, sorry -- the lady who is talking about the Constitution, how people were like saying it's biblical. She was like mocking them, basically, in the way that she was saying, "Oh, they were using it as biblical text." Well, honestly, the Constitution is what this country is -- and if it weren't for this country, she wouldn't have been able to even have said that without being persecuted (probably severely) in many other countries. This country made her everything she is, and she dares to mock it. It really, really, really grosses me out. For example, like you. For example. You are just like great because you live the American dream, which is just fantastic... Sorry, I'm kinda getting nervous here.

RUSH: No, you're doing great. You don't sound nervous at all. You just sound like you're in awe of me, and you don't need to be.

CALLER: Like, the Constitution is everything this country is. If it weren't for that, what would we be? You know? Like, how would this country have built anything?

RUSH: That's exactly right. If it weren't for the Constitution, we would be a dictatorship, a tyranny of some kind like where most of the people of this world have to live.

CALLER: Honestly if it weren't for America, Benjamin Franklin -- I mean, not Benjamin Franklin, sorry. He's the one who discovered electricity. We still would be in, like, cavemen, you know? I mean, we would be nothing.

RUSH: Well, according to certain women, men still are, and you'll learn that as you grow older.

CALLER: Yeah. So it just really grosses me out when people dare to mock the Constitution when it's everything they are. If it weren't for the Constitution, they would be nothing, and they mock what they are. It's an oxymoron, honestly.

CALLER: I guess they think it's more powerful, like I guess they think that they're cool. I don't honestly know.

RUSH: They're afraid of it. It's because they're afraid of it. The people you're talking about -- the Democrats, liberals, whatever -- will tell us who and what they fear by what it is they seek to destroy or what it is they endlessly criticize. So they fear the Constitution, and they fear it for the very reasons that you have stipulated. The Constitution... This is the cut-to-the-chase way to say it: The Constitution is the greatest obstacle in their way. What does the Constitution guarantee and preserve? Liberty and freedom for the individual. That's the biggest obstacle to the left, not just in this country, but anywhere around the world. Liberalism is liberalism, socialism is socialism, communism is communism. Wherever the people who believe in that stuff are, individual liberty and freedom are the biggest threat to big-government statists, liberals and Democrats. Your education on this is superb -- don't let anybody change your mind as you grow older -- and your instincts are profound. Your parents have to be, like we are, extremely proud of you, I'm sure. I'm glad that you called. It's great to have you on the program.

RUSH: The Constitution is a limit on government. That, ladies and gentlemen, drives the left insane, the limit on government. They just can't abide it, drives them absolutely wacky.

CALLER: Rush, I want you to take these people's contempt for the Constitution, and I want you to wield it like a club. I want you to beat 'em over the head with it. I wanted to remind you of -- I don't know if you remember this, but in 2010 a left-wing publisher began putting warning labels on copies of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Federalist Papers. This was Wilder Publications, and they put out a warning stating that, "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." The disclaimer goes on to warn parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work." These people hate our country and our founding documents so much that they're putting warning labels on the Declaration of Independence.

RUSH: My brain's churning here. My memory is pretty good, but I don't remember this.

RUSH: I must not have been watching Fox News in June of 2010. I had much more important things going in June of 2010. (laughing) But I'm listening to you describe this, and I'm trying to suppress laughter, although it's outrageous. I mean, what a great parody that would be except that they're already doing it.

CALLER: Rush, I want you to take this issue, and I want you to beat them over the head every day with it. I want you to embarrass them with their own contempt for our Constitution.

CALLER: Yes. If you hound them every day, they are. You can make these people look even dumber than they already look.

CALLER: Could I make one comment about the Mount Soledad war memorial that the Ninth Circuit just found unconstitutional?

RUSH: Yeah, go right ahead. This is the cross and the memorial that's been found unconstitutional. Yeah.

CALLER: Yes, a memorial to our fallen war dead. I couldn't help but note the irony that in the same week Al-Qaeda, on their international websites, had been circulating ideas on how Muslims could destroy the cross, and I thought, what irony. Al-Qaeda, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are kinda working toward the same goals. This is who they are, Rush.

RUSH: Well -- (laughing) I know. I chronicled how I have heard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talk about America and I could swear what's the difference in that and Obama, or Steny Hoyer or any other Democrat? The talking points between the totalitarian regime enemies of this country and the Democrat Party are identical in many ways, not just about policy, but about people. You listen to your average Democrat talk about Bush and it's no different than what Ahmadinejad says about Bush. I got everybody sending me that Fox story that you cited out there, Phillip, about warning labels. (laughing) By the way, the warning label, interpersonal relations, read that again if you have it handy.

CALLER: The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."

RUSH: Classic work. Now, when you read that disclaimer, Philip, do you conjure an image of the person who might have written it? Not physically of course, but who?

RUSH: Well, who? I mean obviously somebody in a publishing company, individual there, who is this person? Give me a profile.

CALLER: Someone who is badly in need of deodorant, a bath, probably remedial lessons in economics, probably desperately in need of education as far as American history and someone who inexplicably supports a Stalinist version of government.

RUSH: Okay. Interesting. I have a totally different take, but that's why I asked you. You're right, I mean I wouldn't have thrown in the bath business, but the lack of education and the bias and the bigotry and so forth, yeah.

CALLER: Yeah, but we treat our founding documents like pornography and we treat pornography like art.

RUSH: No, we don't. The left does, the American left treats it, and, by the way, if you like it, how do you feel now being called one that has a fetish?

CALLER: Well, I have the same exact observation as you did. They have to apply some kind of sexual stigma to any idea of fealty or loyalty to our Constitution. They have to try to make me look bad or feel bad about it, and these are the same people who are wanting to talk to your kindergarten child about gay sex. It's not a fetish wanting us to adhere to the rules and the founding documents of our nation. That's what guarantees our equality. That's what enshrines our rights.

CALLER: And if we're gonna go the communist route, I'm not gonna be around very long.

RUSH: Ain't gonna happen, ain't gonna happen. The American people are awake and they are aware. This is not 20 years ago when this program -- if all this was happening 20 years ago, I'll just take you back, let's go back to 1989, '90, '91, if this exact stuff was happening, if for the first time the Democrats were talking about fetish of the Constitution, I guarantee you that the reaction to it would be much different. There would be fear. People wouldn't know what to make of it. "Oh, my gosh, what's happening?" But now there's so much sophistication about who the left is and why they say these things. There's genuine, "You are not getting hold of my country, pal. You can put warning labels all over every document you want, but you're not getting hold of our country." Twenty years ago it was much different. Twenty years ago we were in the throes of the soon-to-come upset in the '94 elections.

I've been able to chronicle in 20 years how these things have changed, and believe me, the American people, it's taken a while but they're up to speed on what they're up against now and who's actually opposed to them. I remember 20 years ago when stuff like this was happening, I can't tell you how alarmed I was by it, scared. I'd go talk to people older than I, who had lived longer than I, and without fail -- Mr. Buckley was one of them, "Don't worry about it, the American people will get up to speed on this eventually. They're never gonna get away with all they want." And when the election of Obama came along, face it, everybody thought, "Oh, my gosh, now they've finally done it." But, look, after two years of pure undiluted openness about who these people really are, look at the degree of opposition to it. I mean this election, again, I cannot emphasize what a genuine, overwhelming spanking this was for the Democrat Party all across the country.

Now, there needs to be repeats of this for many elections in the future. Not just this one time. But it's a far cry different today, the reaction to this kind of stuff than it was 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, "I can't believe this, how dare they? Who do they think they are? What are we gonna do about it?" Now the outrage is still there, but there's not fear. There is a determination to stop it, and there is, in some cases, laughing at these people. And more and more of that is also starting to take place. I must take a break. Phillip, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

RUSH: The White House apparently has flip-flopped again. Last week they were caught trying to sneak in the death panels, essentially. A federal rule that Medicaid doctors, in order get paid by Medicaid, Medicare, had to have end-of-life discussions with their seasoned citizen patients once a year. What's an end-of-life discussion? An end-of-life discussion is, "All right, the day's gonna come where you're gonna die, and you may know you're gonna die before you're gonna die, and we want you to figure out when it is you want to die so we can pull the plug, you won't be a burden on society, on Obama, or Obama's health care plan. We got a lot of money to spend on a lot of people." These would not be the words, of course, but the doctors have to say, "Look, at some point you're gonna become a burden, you're not productive, you're old, you're gonna die anyway. The money spent on you is not gonna be spent on you 'cause it's being wasted 'cause you're gonna die pretty soon so we'd rather spend health care money on younger people that have more of a chance to be productive and maybe vote for Obama a lot more times than you're gonna be able to vote for Obama 'cause you are a gonna die." And people got wind of this and said, "A-ha, a-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha, the death panels are back, death panels are back." And the regime, "No, they're not, no, they're not."

Apparently the criticism held because the regime has pulled out that requirement again today. So the New York Times: "U.S. Alters Rule on Paying for End-of-Life Planning." Obama dumps death panels as GOP prepares to go after Obamacare. Of course the question arises, why drop something that isn't there? Who was it that came up with the term death panel? Do you remember, Dawn? Sarah Palin, right. Sarah Palin came up with the term death panel, I think it was on her Facebook page, and you know what people say about Sarah Palin, "She's an idiot. Sarah Palin? Don't make me choke. Sarah Palin? She has the intellect of a pencil eraser. Sarah Palin, never gonna be president. Sarah Palin, are you kidding me? She's clueless." Sarah Palin came up with the term "death panel." Sarah Palin accused Obamacare of having death panels. They denied it. "No, there aren't any death panels." But yet the White House has now said, (paraphrasing) "Okay, we're gonna get rid of the death panel rule." How can you get rid of something that wasn't there? Proving once again how stupid Sarah Palin is.

RUSH: We've got the Democrats and the Republicans reading the Constitution on the floor of the House. Grab audio sound bite number three. This is the son of the Reverend Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr. regarding the fetishists reading the Constitution.

JACKSON JR.: This is very emotional for I know a number members given the struggle, given the struggle of African-Americans, given the struggle of women, given the struggle of others to create a more perfect document, while not perfect a more perfect document to hear that those elements of the Constitution that have been dedacted (sic) by amendment are no less serious to improve the country and to make the country better and our sense in our struggle in whom we are at the Congress of the United States at this point in American history and our desire to continue to improve the Constitution, many of us don't want that to be lost upon the reading of our sacred document.

RUSH: Right. So he wants the unamended version to highlight the original sin of slavery, which it did not, by the way. He does not want the amended version which got rid of it read. Reverend Jackson's son down for the struggle, making it sound as though it might be too emotionally difficult for members of the Congressional Black Caucus to actually sit there and listen to the Constitution because of how emotional the struggle for African-Americans and women and so forth has been.

RUSH: Thinking about the Democrats, I was watching a little bit of the Constitution being read today on the floor of the House and I said, "This has gotta be like waterboarding to these Democrats." It has to be torture, because the Constitution is anathema to them, the Constitution limits the power of the government, limits the size, limits the role of government, and to have to not only sit there and listen to it, but to share in the punishment of reading it. I'm sure that's how they're looking at this. They wouldn't have to do this if they'd won the election. They lost, so they're being punished. They have to read the Constitution, tantamount to waterboarding.

RUSH: By the way, for the son of the Reverend Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., this is important. I wonder how many people today realize that it was the slave states in the days of our founding who wanted to count slaves for representation and distribution of taxes. It was the abolitionists -- in other words, the Democrats of the day -- during the founding who didn't want slaves counted at all for representation. The three-fifths of a person calculation was a grudging compromise from both sides, and isn't "compromise" always supposed to be wonderful? After all, women were being counted back then -- and, like slaves, they couldn't vote either. So it was the slave states that wanted to count the slaves as citizens, human beings. And it was the white abolitionists of the day, Democrats of the day, who didn't. So compromise gave us the three-fifths notion.

RUSH: During the reading (laughing) of the Constitution, when they got to the part of the Constitution about presidential qualifications, and the president needing to be a citizen, needing to be born in the United States, a protester somehow who had found his or her way (her way, I guess) into the gallery, said, "Except Obama! What about Obama?" and they escorted her out. Now, who was it while I was gone? Somebody... Oh, it was Neil Abercrombie, the governor of Hawaii. He said he was there when that child was born -- he was in the manger, Abercrombie was -- and he wants Obama to release the birth certificate just to end all this. He doesn't know why Obama won't. Neil Abercrombie, the former member of Congress, now the governor of the state of Hawaii.

RUSH: Here's audio of the protester in the House as they are reading the Constitution, and they get to the portion on qualifications to be president.

REP. FRANK PALLONE (D-NJ): No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to be the office of president. Neither shall --

SIMPSON: The chair would remind persons in the Gallery... The chair would remind all persons in the Gallery that they're here as guests of the House and that any manifestation of approval or disapproval of the proceedings is a violation of the rules of the House.

SIMPSON: The chair notes a disturbance of the Gallery in contravention of the law and rules of the House. The Sergeant-at-Arms will remove those persons responsible for the disturbance and restore order in the Gallery.

RUSH: It sounds like the old Code Pink days when they got into these various Senate committee hearings on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

RUSH: News from the New York Times: "December Retail Sales Are Weaker Than Expected." Do you remember all of the wonderful stories about the great retail season prior to Christmas? Oh, it was a great comeback and it was due to Obama, the Obama recovery. We had all that great unemployment news. Even last week, great unemployment news. But now, the week John Boehner takes the gavel in the House: "December Retail Sales Are Weaker Than Expected." And guess what? They're blaming the weather. But, didn't that snowstorm hit the northeast after Christmas? Yeah. It hit after Christmas. Not before it. Well, never mind such little details. Never mind.

And here: "New claims for jobless benefits moved higher last week, but a decline in the four-week average to a nearly 2-1/2-year low indicated a trend toward better labor market conditions remained intact." These people are so deluded, they find a little chip of grass in the pile of mud and they call it a diamond. They could never manage to do that with Bush. "Jobless Claims Up, Underlying Trend Down." That's Reuters.

From the AP: "More People Applied for Unemployment Last Week -- More people applied last week for unemployment benefits, one week after applications fell to the lowest level in more than two years, but last week's increase isn't enough to reverse the downward trend." Oh, no. See, last week the big news was how low it was and shockingly, gosh, it's gone up again. Does the AP know that last week was the week before Christmas when they were taking all that's surveys and results? Of course it's gonna be down. Unemployment claims are gonna be down. They're just scrounging for every little morsel of what they might be able to portray as positive news when there isn't any. "More people applied for unemployment aid last week, one week after applications fell to the lowest level in more than two years." Now, how is it possible that unemployment has been trending down for so many weeks and yet the percentage of people unemployed has either remained steady or even gone up?

Now, are the news media and their bosses in the regime lying to us in an effort to drive up the economy? And while we're asking rhetorical questions, whatever happened to all those record-breaking private sector jobs ADP said just yesterday were created? I didn't have this yesterday, well I had it, didn't tell you about it. ADP, Automatic Data Processing, I think that's Lautenberg's company, payroll bunch. They said that it was either last quarter or last month, 292,000 jobs were created. Last month? Yeah, okay, where is that news? That's ADP. Whatever happened to all those record breaking private sector jobs if more people applied for unemployment last week and the trend is downward?

Folks, economic activity is like famed Potter Stewart, US Supreme Court, said, (paraphrasing) "Define pornography? I can't, but I know it when I see it." Well, economic growth is the same thing. You know when it's happening. You know when things are trending up, and you know when they're stagnant and you know when they're declining. So the media can try all they want, "The trend is up." Backslide the last three out of four weeks, "but we're still trending up." They don't have that much power. They still have a lot, but they don't have enough to automatically influence people to the extent that they used to.

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.

The Publius Forum (more of a newscast than a blog; located in Chicago, I believe):

Political Affairs, which used to be called the Communist (in case you are interested in what the Democratic Par, I mean, the communist party is up to.

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 #160	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	January 9, 2011