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).

127 alleged mafia members and associates were charged and most of them were arrested this past week.

President Barack Obama has named GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to lead a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. A bit of news which I missed, a couple years ago is, somehow, the TARP funds, designed to bail out the U.S. banks, were also made available to GE, which was somehow declared to be a bank. My understanding is, they got more money than anyone else. It’s nice to be friends with the prez.

Chinese President Hu Jintao came to the U.S. to chat with the President and to be treated to a fine steak dinner.

Oklahoma governor to file suit against Obamacare because it violates Oklahoma’s constitution.

Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming have joined the coalition of 20 states which have filed a lawsuit against Obamacare. Team Obama believes that states do not have standing in this lawsuit, even though the states will pick up much of the cost of Obamacare. I do not recall this many states filing jointly against the federal government before.

Flamboyant and the highest-rated host on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann,, announced on the air Friday night that he was leaving his show, "Countdown," immediately.

The Evergreen Solar Plant in Massachusetts is closing down in March of this year. $58 million in state aid was offered to this firm, which lost $54 million in the first 9 months of 2010. Residents nearby complained of the noise, and this plant had hired a veritable army of lawyers and sound engineers to bring the plant into compliance with local regulations before giving up the fight.

I forgot to mention the most significant event of last week—the Stuxnet worm was used to invade Iran’s nuclear computer system. 60% of the attacks by Stuxnet have occurred within Iran. The Stuxnet worm has 15,000 lines of code, which is unusually large, and probably was not created by one nation alone. My understanding is (and I may have this wrong), the worm caused the centrifuges to spin excessively fast, thus destroying them; but without revealing this to computer operators. Apparently a mock-up lab was built by Israel upon which this worm was tested. This may explain why the U.S. and Israel have been so slow to act aggressively against Iran’s nuclear build-up.

A recent study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years. Another 36% "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" in their four years of college. Why is there not more news about this?

Next month will begin "LGBT History Month" in Great Britain, which will encourage teaching about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues. Lesson plans and applications for math, design and technology, science, geography and languages, some designed for children as young as 4.

A privacy law that shields birth certificates has prompted Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie to abandon efforts to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was born outside Hawaii, his office says.

The History Channel has produced a mini-series on the Kennedy’s, but has decided not to air it, saying I na statement: "While the film is produced and acted with the highest quality, after viewing the final product in its totality, we have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand." Many blame the influence of the remaining Kennedy’s at keeping this series in the can.

There was a march on a Wal-Mart developer’s home near D.C. scheduled for 7 pm January 20^th. Can you imagine a busload of people you don’t know showing up at your house after dark and protesting? The flyer had the Wal-Mart smiley face targeted. Remember just 2 weeks ago what an uproar there was over the targets drawn on certain districts on Sarah Palin’s website?

CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) appears to taking a pro-gay, libertarian approach this year. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have both been keynote speakers at this event. Some conservatives (including, most notably, Jim DeMint) are avoiding this event.

The New Hampshire straw poll for Republican candidate has Mitt Romney 1^st (at 35%), with Ron Paul 2^nd (11%), and, in order, all in the single digits: Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Hermann Cain and Chris Christie. I know, about half of you have never heard of Hermann Cain. He used to be the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza (who turned the company around from bankruptcy) and has never held an elective office.

Controversial new MTV program, Skins, has had ads from GM and Taco Bell pulled.

ACORN whistleblower co-founds 1^st black TEA Party movement in Sheila Jackson Lee's back yard

Radio talk show host Mike Malloy, not quite ready to join Obama in this new civility thing: "Rush Limbaugh choking on his throat fat - that you know, to me, that is not a threat. I can't, I wish I could, but I can't reach into his throat and jiggle up his throat fat so he suffocates. I can't do it."

James Eric Fuller, 63, who was shot in the knee in Arizona, told The Post the day before his arrest, that top Republican figures should be tortured -- and their ears severed: "There would be torture and then an ear necklace, with [Minnesota US Rep.] Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin's ears toward the end, because they're small, female ears, and then Limbaugh, Hannity and the biggest ears of all, Cheney's, in the center."

Rep. John Lewis: "I think people should be required to get health insurance. We require people to get insurance for their automobile state by state but the federal government has an obligation to encourage by law, moral persuasion, to get people to get health insurance." Constitutional scholar Lewis then backed this up by citing the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble of the Constitution and the 14^th amendment.

Rep. Steve Cohen: “They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie. Just like Goebbels, you say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it, like ‘blood libel.’ That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews, and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust.”

Air America’s Montel Williams: “Yesterday, Representative Michele Bachmann delivered a speech filled with urgent and rhetorical—violent rhetoric—at a gathering sponsored by the Independence Institute of Denver....[saying] ‘What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, to be blood brothers on this thing’ [stopping Obamacare]...so, Michele, slit your wrists—go ahead, why not? Or, if you want to, do us all a better thing and move that knife up about two feet, start right at the collarbone.”

Chris Matthews: “Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO₂ pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp”

The lovely Miss Sarah Bernhard warns Sarah Palin that is she comes to New York, she will be "gang-raped by my big black brothers."

Shirley Jackson Lee: "The Fifth Amendment speaks specifically to denying someone their life and liberty without due process. That is what H.R. 2 does and I rise in opposition to it. And I rise in opposition because it is important that we preserve lives and we recognize that 40 million-plus are uninsured. Can you tell me what's more unconstitutional than taking away from the people of America their Fifth Amendment rights, their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the right to equal protection under the law?"

President Obama concerning Roe V. Wade: "Government should not intrude on private family matters." Essentially, the fetus is being treated by the law as property, not unlike slaves of 200 years ago.

Jonna Spilbor “I didn’t know that Texas had YouTube; I’m kind of shocked.” (She is a defense attorney on Fox; this was a joke :)).

Joe Scarborough: What did she say immediately upon being selected as Vice-President that would have you term her as, quote, ignorant?

Carl Bernstein: Um, I'd have to go back and look at what it was that led some of people in your party to say this really is who she is, that she doesn't know--I think part of it had to do was not knowing where the Soviet Union, where the former Soviet Union was, and where Russia was, as I remember. She didn't know where the hell it was on a map.

Sarah Palin had accurately said, you can see Russia from Alaska; it was Tina Fey who mocked this by saying (in character as Sarah Palin): “I can see Russian from my house.” A surprising number of voters attributed this quotation to Sarah Palin.

Chris Christie: "I am not arrogant enough to believe that after one year as governor [of New Jersey] that I am ready to be president of the United States."

Rush Limbaugh: "The vote to repeal Obamacare is not the fulfillment of a campaign promise. It is an attempt to fix something that will destroy the US economy. It is an attempt to fix something that will harm the US health care system."

Rush Limbaugh: "And CNN wonders why they have 54,000 viewers at eight p.m. We have that many on the corner of Fourth Avenue and wherever in Oshkosh!"

Rush Limbaugh: "Oh, come on, Snerdley [Rush’s call screener]! Come on! Look, I know Open Line Friday is Open Line Friday, but we're not going to take a call from somebody who says she has Obama's Kenyan birth certificate. What are you trying to do to me? I knew I should've taken the day off! Jeez!"

Sarah Palin: “If it weren’t for double standards, the lamestream media would have no standards.”

Glenn Beck on China, Hu’s visit to the United States and our debt. By the way, Beck on TV is much different than Beck on the radio (in my opinion, barely 20% of his radio show is worthwhile on any typical day). If you have not watched Beck’s show yet, see this one:

Here is a person I thought I would never suggest you watch; Rachel Maddow interviews former Republican Party Chair Michael Steele. It is not a bad interview and she did a fair and honest job (and I admit, I am shocked by this).

Jesus hates Obama ad, designed for the superbowl, but turned down (it’s down the page) (don’t worry; Richard Belfry, the comedian in charge of this enterprise, says that he does not believe that Jesus hates Obama):

Brent Bozell interviewed on FoxNews over the phoney CBO numbers regarding the cost of Obamacare. This is quite simple to understand; and even Brent leaves out some salient information which makes this bill even more odious, from a financial perspective:

People make the mistake of thinking that Megyn Kelly is just some cute blonde fluffy-head. Here, she talks with a Democratic strategist:

In case you think the revolution in Tunisia is some sort of ray of hope, think again. The young people who are revolting are VERY Muslim.

Dog mural at dog park deemed inappropriate by county (it is unclear whether she did this painting with any sort of permission):

Hitler finds out that Olbermann was fired (“He was like a white Reverend Wright”):

You have probably seen the woman who was texting and fell into a fountain? She is threatening to sue (really); and she is on Kelly’s Court (the first 2–3 minutes are what’s funny):

Jodi Miller: “President Obama has eased travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba. Obama figures that, since he’s become president, Cubans now have little reason to escape here.”

1) The left would much rather argue about civility and incivility, rather than to deal with the real issues of healthcare, the deficit, the national debt, and a nanny-state type government proposed by the left.

2) Almost all medical innovation, discoveries, curies, and vaccines begin in the United States? Why is that? There are a billion Chinese in China where the government is quite powerful; why aren’t there a significant number of discoveries coming from China? If government involvement in healthcare is a good thing, where are all of the innovations in Canada, Great Britain, France, Spain, etc.? There are a billion Muslims in this world, and even our President once held them on a pedestal for all of their contributions to algebra and astronomy. Where are their medical contributions today? What makes the United States’ contribution to medicine so far and above the contributions of all other countries combined?

3) Greta Van Susteren recently called for congressional bills to be written in non-legalese English. That makes too much sense. That twisted, far-right FoxNews!

4) There are several reasons why the CBO originally claimed that Obamacare would end up being a “net savings.” 2 reasons not generally stated: the very high cost of basic insurance (around $700/month by the time everything is implemented) and the shifting of the cost of much of Obamacare onto the states. If you think your property taxes are high now...

5) The left likes large organizations and groups (like unions and ACORN) because there is a clear hierarchy of authority, and deals can be made at the very top. They immediately hated TEA party members because this was a true grass-roots organization, with no one at the top pulling the strings.

6) Although we will probably never get back to the original way of electing U.S. Senators (the state government elected them, not the people), this would have likely acted as an additional check against Obamacare (because there will be a heavy burden on the states to pay for Obamacare).

7) I hope that I have not lost my mind. I found myself agreeing with liberal Juan Williams when he said that the Republican party should not have fired Michael Steele and that he was good man for the job. Furthermore, I have been unhappy with the number of times I have heard Charles Krauthammer take swipes at Sarah Palin (nothing too harsh, but nothing complimentary).

8) Tim Pawlenty, probably 2012 presidential candidate, refused twice on Greta’s show to criticize Mitt Romney’s Romneycare. Yay, Tim! My biggest problem with Romney was, he misrepresented the positions of fellow Republicans in 2008 and then ran them down for those false positions.

9) The Republican presidential hopefuls who interest me the most are, more or less in order, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Adding in Ron Paul and Jim DeMint and Mitt Romney, and this is a pretty interesting and wide-open primary. I personally want a candidate who has run a large organization before, and have no problem with political outsiders like Cain and Trump.

10) We tend to give comedians like Bill Maher a great deal of leniency because he is a comedian. Why is it that many of his bits sound like hate rants and rarely is there any punctuation by laughter?

The GOP revealed a plan to reduce the deficit by 2.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

$600 million is the approximate welfare tab for the children of illegal aliens in L.A. County this past year. Combined with public safety costs and health care costs, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich claimed the "total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers" was more than $1.6 billion in 2010.

From our official $14 trillion debt, each American owes $45,300. That number skyrockets if we throw in unfunded obligations of social security, medicare, and various pension funds.

Did you know there are 80,000 protests in China each year? And those are the official numbers.

28% think that the policies of the Obama administration have helped the economy;

32% think his policies have hurt the economy, and 37% think they have made no difference.

When Steve Cohen used the words blood-libel in Congress, it could have been argued that he used it wrong: “...you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it, like "blood libel." That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews, and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust.” Now, even though I believe that the Congressman was going on to a different but related subject by mentioning the Holocaust, had Sarah Palin said this exact same thing, she would have been hung out to dry for incorrectly associating blood-libel with the Holocaust. After all, she used this tern correctly, and still got blasted for it.

Is the ACLU on vacation? Did no one inform the Democrat media? Drone attacks regularly into Pakistan. What if W was doing this?

They did a Christiane Amanpour last week, but totally missed the lips, which seem to have a mind of their own.

Are you going to publically state your position on abortion? Are you willing to say that a fetus in the womb has absolutely no rights whatsoever?

“The overwhelming mandate of the people, in this last election, was to get Republicans and Democrats to work together.” I have heard this said by several pundits from the left. Too bad the voters were not smart enough to figure out that, if they voted for all Democrats, then “working together” and “moving forward” would have been much more likely to occur. Next time, all Democrats need to run on the slogan, “If you want to move forward, vote Democrat” and “If you want us to work together, then vote only for Democrats.”

Instead of discussing and debating the pros and cons of the “Repeal the job-killing Obama Health Care Law Act,” the left wants to argue about its name. Way too violent.

When it comes to the budget, the real cuts have to be made to social security and to medicare and medicaid. These cuts cannot be made by one party without the other party demagoging the issue (as we saw with Shirley Jackson Lee). Are Republicans willing to do such a thing while Obama is in office, because he may get the credit (just exactly how Democrats over and over again give Bill Clinton the credit for several consecutive balanced budgets). The Democrats may simply want to wait until Republicans are in power and, as soon as they try to do some real reformation, demagogue the cuts.

I hate to admit this, but I think the attack media has permanently scored against Sarah Palin. I have heard person after person manage to slip in words like ignorant, stupid, uninformed, etc. when speaking about Sarah Palin. It is unnerving that the Democrat media is still this powerful.

I think that, in terms of moving his ideology ahead, President Obama is actually becoming much more canny. His choice of Immelt was a good move; this appears to be a choice for free enterprise and moving toward the middle, even though Immelt is completely tied to government welfare.

If you believe that only religious people oppose abortion for religious reasons. If you are a secular person, then what is your argument that a fetus is not really a person? Genetically, there is no difference between a baby in the womb and a baby which has been born.

China, even though their economy is far behind ours, may surpass our economy, but for reasons different from what you have heard. There is a very large Christian population in China, one which could be numerically larger than the one in the United States within the decade. God blesses believers no matter where they are.

My understanding is that Obama will give his state of the union speech calling for a lot more spending. I suspect that he will also talk about the debt and deficit as well—just to balance things out.

There is more talk about a way for states to go bankrupt. If this doesn’t happen, it will be threatened in order to get great concessions by public unions.

Those Chinese light bulbs filled with mercury that most of us have in our homes—can they be burst open with a sonic boom or a subsonic boom or some sort of vibration? We will be forced by law to have these bulbs in every single room of the house (if have not read my articles on these bulbs, google “cfl disposal.”

My column today, by the way, was on the bizarre fact that mental illness is the only disease that has an influential lobby devoted to not treating it.

Also, I can't recommend highly enough this Jennifer Rubin post, in which she speaks to Dr. Stephen Marder, a highly respected expert on schizophrenia:

Although the percentage of schizophrenics who commit violent crimes is small, their violence tends to be more "bizarre, unpredictable and with a focus often on celebrities," according to Marder. That is because of the nature of the disease. Schizophrenics are sometimes plagued by "self-referential thinking," which converts ordinary events or experiences into episodes with personalized, "special meaning." For a schizophrenic, the TV is not merely on. The TV is speaking to him. This makes the illness incredibly difficult for "tormented" family members who are trying to help the loved one, only to see interactions converted into diabolical threats and dangers in the patient's mind.

In that regard, an interaction with a politician or celebrity can set a schizophrenic on "a mission." Marder declined to speak on the Loughner case specifically. When I gave a hypothetical, "Would an interaction with a famous figure who gives the schizophrenic a disappointing response be a trigger for violence?" He answered without hesitation, "yes."

Missing from much of the wall-to-wall coverage of the horrific Arizona shooting have been credible facts regarding schizophrenia. Bizarrely, the national debate has raged on almost everything but the issue of schizophrenia. In fact, had reporters and pundits alike had some expert information on the subject before debating whether a political graphic or, more generally, the "political atmosphere" set off accused shooter Jared Loughner, the entire debate might have been short-circuited. And instead of a raucous argument over phenomena unrelated to the mass murder, we then might have had a serious discussion about mental health.

On the off chance that it's not too late to introduce actual science into the punditry, I spent several hours yesterday talking to some experienced mental health professionals.

On the most basic question as to whether political discourse, even utterly inappropriate rhetoric, affects schizophrenia, the answer is virtually certain: no. Dr. Stephen Marder, one of the country's premier experts on schizophrenia and the Director of the Section on Psychosis at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, explained in a telephone interview: "Schizophrenia is an illness that arises during brain development." And, yes, he continued, "there is a strong genetic element." For example, with identical twins, if one twin is a schizophrenic, there is a 50 percent chance the other twin will be. "That tells us that genetics isn't everything," Marder said. Among the other factors that may contribute to the abnormal brain development, "we do know that some infections of the mother" may be one, he said.

That assessment does not seem to be seriously in dispute in the mental health field. Charles Currie, a former administrator of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), confirmed in a separate interview: "This is about fetal brain development. It is biologically based." He pointed out that in addition to being a danger to others, schizophrenics are at risk of being the victims of crimes, since they are often are unaware of, or have a distorted impression of, their surroundings.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, E. Fuller Torrey, the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, echoed these findings:

Mr. Loughner's delusions fixated on Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, one of 12 seriously injured in the shooting. Some have speculated on the possible relationship of our acrimonious political climate to the incident. It is, however, unlikely that there is any such relationship, since similar tragedies occur in politically harmonious times as well

The motivation for such killings is usually based on psychotic thinking, not political thinking. Dennis Sweeney killed Allard Lowenstein [Sweeny's mentor in the civil rights movement] because he believed that Lowenstein had implanted a transmitter in his teeth that was sending messages to him. Russell Weston stormed the Capitol [in 1998, killing two] because he believed the government had hidden a machine there that could reverse time.

If we looked at a group of schizophrenics and a group of healthy people, would their brain scans look different? There is variation among individuals, but yes, Marder confirmed, a trained professional could looks at the two sets and see a difference.

Is the patient's immediate life experience -- parenting, child abuse, etc. -- a contributing factor in the illness? Marder said, "maybe a small one." But again, he emphasized: "The most risk is in fetal development." There is some evidence, he said, that child abuse may be an influence. (One can surmise that this is because abuse can result in brain trauma which may aggravate or heighten schizophrenia.) Currie also noted that the use of recreational drugs does make schizophrenics much more likely to become violent. (And media reports have disclosed that Loughner was a frequent marijuana user.)

Do external factors, such as violent media or politics, contribute to schizophrenia? There is powerful evidence that there is no connection. Marder explains: "The prevalence of schizophrenia is pretty uniform" across countries. In other words, the percentage of schizophrenics in the U.S. is no greater than that in Australia or Iceland.

[Bryce] Tierney, described as "an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college" in the Mother Jones report, said that Loughner had repeatedly called Giffords a "fake," and that his hatred of Giffords intensified after he attended a campaign event where he posed a question to the congresswoman. According to Tierney, Loughner's question was, "What is government if words have no meaning?"

"He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question,' and I told him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,'" Tierney recalls. "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

That certainly seems like a schizophrenic's potential motivation for a horrid crime.

Schizophrenics also suffer from anosognosia, the medical term for the inability to have insight into one's own mental illness. It is not simply that schizophrenics are being difficult or are in denial when they refuse treatment; they actually don't see that they are sick. For this reason, many resist treatment or imagine that those trying to help them are actually conspiring to harm them. This puts an enormous burden on family, teachers and administrators to spot the illness and get treatment for the schizophrenic.

I'll come back to the subject in a second post today, looking at how capable lay people are in recognizing the illness, what changes in the mental health system, if any, are needed and whether schizophrenics, once treated, can function normally without endangering themselves or others.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, and in a recent speech that seemed like Larry Summers's swan song, the president's now-departed economic adviser warned that America is "at risk of a profound demoralization with respect to government." He fears a future in which "an inadequately resourced government performs badly, leading to further demands that it be cut back, exacerbating performance problems, deepening the backlash, and creating a vicious cycle."

The idea that America's problem of governance is one of inadequate resources misses this lesson of the last half-century: No amount of resources can prevent government from performing poorly when it tries to perform too many tasks, or particular tasks for which it is inherently unsuited.

Actually, government is not sufficiently demoralized. The hubris that is the occupational hazard and defining trait of the political class continues to cause government to overpromise and underperform. This class blithely considers itself exempt from the tyranny of the bell-shaped curve - the fact that in most occupations a few people are excellent, a few are awful, and most are average.

In fact, the bell curve is particularly pertinent to government. Surgeons achieve eminence by what they do "in office" - in operating rooms, performing surgery. Politicians achieve eminence simply by securing office - by winning elections, a skill often related loosely, if at all, to their performance in office.

James Q. Wilson, America's preeminent social scientist, has noted that until relatively recently, "politics was about only a few things; today, it is about nearly everything." Until the 1930s, or perhaps the 1960s, there was a "legitimacy barrier" to federal government activism: When new policies were proposed, the first debate was about whether the federal government could properly act at all on the subject. Today, there is no barrier to the promiscuous multiplication of programs, because no program is really new. Rather, it is an extension, modification or enlargement of something government is already doing.

The vicious cycle that should worry Summers is the reverse of the one he imagines. It is not government being "cut back" because of disappointments that reinforce themselves. Rather, it is government squandering its limited resources, including the resource of competence, in reckless expansions of its scope.

"There has been," Wilson writes, "a transformation of public expectations about the scope of federal action, one that has put virtually everything on Washington's agenda and left nothing off." Try, Wilson suggests, to think "of a human want or difficulty that is not now defined as a 'public policy problem.'"

Summers leaves a federal government funded by a continuing resolution. Congress has been so busy passing gargantuan legislation to expand government's responsibilities that it has not had enough time, energy or sense of responsibility to pass a budget. And the pathologies of expanding government are becoming worse because of two concepts Summers mentioned in his valedictory - Baumol's Disease, and Moynihan's Corollary to it.

William J. Baumol, Princeton economics professor emeritus, said that in certain economic sectors - e.g., labor-intensive service industries - productivity will increase, if at all, more slowly than in the rest of the economy. The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's corollary was that such services - e.g., teaching, nursing, the performing arts - tend to migrate to the public sector.

Moynihan noted that if you want a string quartet, you must hire four musicians with four instruments, just as in Chopin's day. "Productivity," said Moynihan, "just hasn't changed much. And when it does - e.g., playing the Minute Waltz in 50 seconds - it doesn't seem to work right." Actually, lopping 10 seconds off the waltz subtracts from musicians' productivity.

Moynihan noted a danger to his party in the tendency for the "stagnant services" to become government services: "The Democratic Party is identified with this very public sector in which relative costs are rising. By contrast, the Republican Party is identified with the private sector where relative costs are declining." The public sector's involuntary tendency to become, regarding productivity, a concentration of stagnation is a reason for government to become more circumspect than it has been about the voluntary acquisition of vast new responsibilities, such as micromanagement of health care's 17 percent of the economy.

As Summers returns to Harvard, he is hopeful because "markets climb walls of worry." That is, American history is replete with self-refuting prophesies of peril - predictions of national decline that prompt renewals.

Conservatives and libertarians are constantly railing against government intervention in the lives of citizens. As such, they are often accused by the left of hating all forms of government and seeking to deregulate everything to the point where corporations can take over the country and rob and enslave the citizenry.

Nothing could be farther than the truth. Conservatives understand a successful nation requires a functioning government with a strong rule of law. Without a well functioning government a society devolves into chaos and anarchy. Anarchy in turn usually leads to the rise of a strongman or powerful groups who take control and rule with an iron fist. (See Haiti and the return of Baby Doc or Mexico or Post Soviet Russia) It is not government per-se that conservatives despise; it's pernicious, inefficient, ineffective and suffocating government.

A husband and wife in Houston who have spent the last year feeding the homeless is feeling the effects of just such a government right now. The city's Health and Human Services department recently decided to shut the couple down for a lack of permit. Indeed, even the head of a local homeless advocacy group supported the action: "Even though their intentions are good, they ran into ordinances that are designed to protect the public."

For the couple, Bobby and Amanda Herring, the idea of getting the necessary permits and ensuring that the food (which was often donated by local restaurants or cooked by Amanda in their home) was prepared in "a certified kitchen with a certified food manager" was simply not possible. Their only choice was to work with other properly certified or permitted groups or cease and desist. As of this week the pair were still trying to find a solution.

A spokesman for the HHS stated that the regulations in question are all the more essential in the case of the homeless, because "poor people are the most vulnerable to food borne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care." So what you have is the government protecting the homeless from the hypothetical danger posed by potentially bad food by imposing the very real condition of taking food away from them. Brilliant.

This episode of course is far from unique. Last summer saw pint sized entrepreneurs in Portland and San Francisco get their lemonade stands shut down for not having the necessary licenses. Nor is it just food. Last week a New Jersey legislator proposed a law requiring registration and license plates for all bicycles - for a fee of course - to protect the elderly from future Lance Armstrongs.

These are perfect examples of bureaucrats fundamentally misunderstanding the function of government. The government cannot and should not try to protect citizens from every possible danger that exists. Why? Simply put, because the number of dangers are infinite. The phrase that comes to mind, if only because its opposite seems to hold sway in the United States today, is "That government is best which governs least." The phrase, which can be found in Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, is sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Payne. Regardless of the phrase's provenance, it seems to be the perfect paradigm for the problems that we face today. Dangers are everywhere and regardless of how many regulations government bureaucrats foist upon the citizenry, most of those dangers will still exist. Bureaucrats are simply not capable of protecting us from all of them, and they should not try. Interestingly, at the very time the governments of Houston, Portland and San Francisco are bullying Good Samaritans and budding entrepreneurs, it appears that Al Qaeda is interested in poising the food in restaurants, one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country.

Conservatives do not argue that there should be no government or regulation, merely that government should be limited and effective in the pursuits it undertakes. The question becomes, what fills the void? Common sense: Sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like. i.e. things that people figure out through experience, by taking risks, by failing, by watching what goes on around them, from understanding how things function and understanding that actions have consequences. That is the one thing that cannot be legislated, and indeed is something that can actually be regulated out of existence.

Perhaps there is no better example of government action doing just that than the Ft. Hood shooting in early 2010. Common sense would have dictated that a military officer publicly expressing his sympathy for jihadists and the need to kill innocents in the name of Allah would at a minimum be evaluated and had his access to military facilities limited. Instead, officers within the chain of command and others who closely interacted with Major Hassan bit their tongues because of the very real fear of being accused of racism or prejudice and as a result having their careers destroyed. More importantly I suspect, those officers felt confident (again with good reason) that even had they spoken up, nothing would have been done.

In the case of the recent shooting in Tucson, the fact that the shooter purchased his gun legally does not suggest more gun legislation is necessary. Laws already exist to prohibit the mentally unstable from purchasing weapons, and Loughner was certainly that. One question might be: did privacy or civil rights laws keep him from being evaluated and or labeled as such?

The New Year presents conservatives with a moment of opportunity. The GOP has control of the U.S. House, 29 Governor's mansions and 58 out of the 99 state legislative chambers. Many of the men and women who hold those seats can thank conservatives and Tea Party organizations across the country. If 2012 is going to be another step in the rollback of the progressive agenda smothering the country, conservatives (either via the GOP or over its carcass) will have to stand up and do battle against the perpetually growing bodies of legislation and regulation that effect governments across the country.

Doing so not only requires demonstrating the absurdity of laws already on the books, but at the same time making the argument that government cannot solve every problem any American might ever encounter. Common sense is a muscle. The less it is used the more it atrophies. The more it's used the stronger it becomes. If the President is so keen on providing benefits to the citizenry, perhaps he can pay for a magical gym membership where members can work on their common sense skills between bench press sets. Now that would be a social program worth paying for.

If the FDA deems saccharin safe enough for coffee, then the EPA should not treat it as hazardous waste.

For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known. That vibrant entrepreneurialism is the key to our continued global leadership and the success of our people.

But throughout our history, one of the reasons the free market has worked is that we have sought the proper balance. We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people and businesses from abuse.

From child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to our most recent strictures against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies, we have, from time to time, embraced common sense rules of the road that strengthen our country without unduly interfering with the pursuit of progress and the growth of our economy.

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business-burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs. At other times, we have failed to meet our basic responsibility to protect the public interest, leading to disastrous consequences. Such was the case in the run-up to the financial crisis from which we are still recovering. There, a lack of proper oversight and transparency nearly led to the collapse of the financial markets and a full-scale Depression.

Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

Where necessary, we won't shy away from addressing obvious gaps: new safety rules for infant formula; procedures to stop preventable infections in hospitals; efforts to target chronic violators of workplace safety laws. But we are also making it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.

For instance, the FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month.

But creating a 21st-century regulatory system is about more than which rules to add and which rules to subtract. As the executive order I am signing makes clear, we are seeking more affordable, less intrusive means to achieve the same ends-giving careful consideration to benefits and costs. This means writing rules with more input from experts, businesses and ordinary citizens. It means using disclosure as a tool to inform consumers of their choices, rather than restricting those choices. And it means making sure the government does more of its work online, just like companies are doing.

We're also getting rid of absurd and unnecessary paperwork requirements that waste time and money. We're looking at the system as a whole to make sure we avoid excessive, inconsistent and redundant regulation. And finally, today I am directing federal agencies to do more to account for-and reduce-the burdens regulations may place on small businesses. Small firms drive growth and create most new jobs in this country. We need to make sure nothing stands in their way.

One important example of this overall approach is the fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. When I took office, the country faced years of litigation and confusion because of conflicting rules set by Congress, federal regulators and states.

The EPA and the Department of Transportation worked with auto makers, labor unions, states like California, and environmental advocates this past spring to turn a tangle of rules into one aggressive new standard. It was a victory for car companies that wanted regulatory certainty; for consumers who will pay less at the pump; for our security, as we save 1.8 billion barrels of oil; and for the environment as we reduce pollution. Another example: Tomorrow the FDA will lay out a new effort to improve the process for approving medical devices, to keep patients safer while getting innovative and life-saving products to market faster.

Despite a lot of heated rhetoric, our efforts over the past two years to modernize our regulations have led to smarter-and in some cases tougher-rules to protect our health, safety and environment. Yet according to current estimates of their economic impact, the benefits of these regulations exceed their costs by billions of dollars.

This is the lesson of our history: Our economy is not a zero-sum game. Regulations do have costs; often, as a country, we have to make tough decisions about whether those costs are necessary. But what is clear is that we can strike the right balance. We can make our economy stronger and more competitive, while meeting our fundamental responsibilities to one another.

Mr. Obama is president of the United States, and he signed two bills of approximately 2000 pages each, which will eventually generation hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations.

It was a miserable decade. From Baghdad to New Orleans and from the Patriot Act to TARP, the last 10 years sometimes felt like nothing more than a series of colossal government screwups alternating with colossal extensions of government power. At the end of 2009, we're faced with an escalating war in Afghanistan, a growing corporate state at home, and a renewed push for protectionism around the world. There has been little to cheer in the age of Bush and Obama, especially for those of us who think Washington should be shrinking rather than swelling.

Or so it might initially seem. But there have been countervailing currents as well, broad trends that began before the dawn of the decade and have continued, even accelerated, in the time since then. They haven't undone the awfulness oozing from the District of Columbia, and some of them may yet be reversed. But taken together they offer a more balanced image of the world, one with better prospects for peace, prosperity, and freedom than you'd expect if your only source of news was the Congressional Record.

1. A surge in nonviolence. In his 2005 book Unarmed Insurrections, Rutgers sociologist Kurt Schock made a strong case that the last 30 years have seen a substantial shift away from violent "people's war" and toward nonviolent people power. From 1979 to 2001, Schock notes, there were 31 predominantly peaceful rebellions in the Second and Third Worlds, 23 of which concluded with oppressive governments falling. His list ends with the EDSA II revolt in the Philippines, but the trend has not abated in the following decade: Since 2001, nonviolent civil resistance has brought down regimes in Argentina, East Timor, Bolivia, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Ecuador, Nepal, and the Maldives, while efforts to replicate those successes are active everywhere from Burma to Zimbabwe. There are still guerrillas out there, from FARC in Colombia to the Maoists in Nepal, but the general trend is toward Gandhi, not Guevara.

One difference between people's war and people power is that the latter is more likely to lead to a relatively free society. Nonviolent resistance relies not just on mass disobedience but on mutual support; rather than disrupting civil society, it depends on the strong social ties that are the building blocks of self-government. But even when a revolt's political payoff isn't especially admirable-as with, say, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, which replaced one obnoxious leader with another-the very fact that the transition was accomplished by peaceful protest rather than violence is something to celebrate.

That reflects not just a surge in civil resistance but a rise in another kind of nonviolence. In his 2004 book The Remnants of War, the Ohio State political scientist John Mueller notes that traditional state-on-state warfare is far rarer today than at any other point in modern history. Civil wars persist, but even they are not as common as they were two decades ago. Mueller may exaggerate when he writes that warfare "is moving toward obsolescence, rather in the manner of slavery and dueling before it." But he has spotted a real and laudable change. For the United States the aughts may have been a decade of war, with American soldiers bogged down in bloody conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On a global scale, though, we're seeing a strong if unsteady march toward peace.

2. The media revolution. In 1969, American TV was centralized in three television networks and a rudimentary public broadcasting system. In most other western countries, TV and even radio were controlled by the state, with varying degrees of independence and with little or no private competition. In the Soviet bloc, government broadcasters had no independence or competition at all. Cable TV existed only on the edges of the western systems, and the network we now know as the Internet was an obscure Pentagon project.

Over the following four decades, two things happened. One was the immense growth in one-to-many and many-to-many communications tools, most notably the Net. The other was a steady decline in the cost and difficulty of the tools of cultural production. In 2009 it is easier than ever before to shoot a movie in your neighborhood, edit it in your bedroom, and distribute it to anyone with access to the World Wide Web. It's even simpler to create a homebrewed webzine, game, or radio show. And none of these activities need be solo pursuits: Creative and critical communities have grown up around all this backyard entertainment and journalism.

We've already passed the point where DIY art is at least as interesting as the products of the big entertainment combines. (Which would you rather watch, a Hollywood remake or a YouTube remix?) Now those grassroots media are having a political impact as well, not just as a tool of conventional political campaigns but as an element of the civil resistance mentioned above. This connection goes back at least as far as the fax networks that helped fuel the revolt against communism two decades ago; today it stretches from Tehran tweeters to the human rights videos shot by grassroots activists and posted on sites such as The Hub. And then there are oddball movements like 4chan's chaotic crusade against Scientology, which might seem silly in itself but offers a compelling example of decentralized, leaderless organization-and of the ways ephemeral online fandom can evolve into something politically engaged.

3. The rise of voluntary governance. As of 2007, for the first time in human history, more people live in cities than in the countryside. Tens of millions more men and women move to urban centers every year; some come voluntarily, in search of opportunity, and some come involuntarily, because someone has seized their land. All of them construct new communities in those dense urban zones, often without bothering to ask permission from the authorities. In the words of Whole Earth Catalog creator Stewart Brand, the migrants "create their own opportunity once they're in town by creating their own cities," with "a seething informal economy in which everyone works."

These vast illicit neighborhoods are a social revolution in themselves: parallel cities governed from the ground up by a thicket of voluntary associations. El Alto in Bolivia, for example, was once little more than a collection of unofficial settlements. It now has a formal municipal government, but the real centers of power are independent, self-sustaining local groups: neighborhood councils, labor federations, parents' committees, and the syndicates that own and organize the public markets. Such communities are the low-end counterparts of the private neighborhoods that have taken over so much of the work of local governments in the United States. But the squatter towns are messier and jerry-rigged, improvised rather than master-planned; they are more decentralized, more democratic, more dangerous. Built as they were on unused, usually government-owned land, they frequently face the threat of being bulldozed. When they are allowed to stand and to thrive, they grow wealthier, eventually evolving into middle-class neighborhoods.

That process in itself is nothing new. What's different is the scale. A billion people live in these informal zones now; and as the planet continues to urbanize, the shadow cities only grow larger. They are filled with poverty, and thus with serious social problems, but thanks to the autonomy enjoyed by the people who build and dwell in them they tend to be more livable than the officially sanctioned slums. They are, in a way, another people power revolution. In the squatter sectors, erecting a house is itself an act of civil disobedience. Yet those builders have created not just homes and enterprises but a flourishing civil society, one that can resist the state when it attempts to crack down.

There's another sort of self-rule worth mentioning as well, one linked closely to the media revolution. Immigrants in the United States today do not merely stay in touch with the village back home. Many continue to take part in its political life, using communications technologies to forge a voluntary, deterritorialized system of governance. The leftist writer Mike Davis calls these communities "virtual villages," citing as an example the Mexican town of Ticuani, "now equally split between Puebla and Brooklyn."

4. An explosion of entrepreneurship and wealth. In those squatter cities you'll find a rich ecology of tiny businesses, from street vendors to jitneys to schools. Some of these are the same informal enterprises that have always flourished in the underground economy, but others might represent the next step of the DIY revolution that has already swept the media. The shanzhai of China, for example, may have begun as mere pirates manufacturing knockoffs of brand-name gear, but they've branched out into original designs. Shanzhai phones, writes the hacker/blogger Bunnie Huang, "integrate wacky features like 7.1 stereo sound, dual SIM cards, a functional cigarette holder, a high-zoom lens, or a built-in UV LED for counterfeit money detection. Their ability to not just copy, but to innovate and riff off of designs is very significant. They are doing to hardware what the web did for rip/mix/burn or mashup compilations." This doesn't just mean funky add-ons for niche markets. The shanzhai "could not only make an iPhone clone, they could improve it by giving the clone a user-replaceable battery."

Such entrepreneurship is one reason for the enormous growth of the world's middle class. (The other catalysts include the decline in warfare and the rise of the cities.) The comfort enjoyed by the western bourgeoisie still seems absurdly wealthy to most Third Worlders, though more of them have attained such a standard of living in recent years than ever before; The Economist estimates that about a tenth of the developing world now lives at that level. But "those who are middle-class by the standards of the developing world," the writer adds, are now "a majority of the developing world's population." Citing the New Delhi-based economist Surjit Bhalla, the magazine also reports that "the middle class's share of the whole world's population rose from one-third to over half (57%) between 1990 and 2006," with most of that growth taking place in poorer countries.

5. The breakdown of hegemony. Of the five trends described here, this one emerged most recently. A decade ago, it was possible to describe the United States as the sole superpower in a unipolar world. Neither Europe nor China could match America's economic or military might, and the rest of the world hardly seemed interested in trying. There were a few relatively autonomous spots aggravating Washington-tax havens on the high end of the social pyramid, "failed states" on the low end-but it was easy to assume that power would continue to be concentrated on the Potomac.

Today the U.S. has graphically demonstrated the limits of its military power, and it seems intent on demonstrating the limits of its financial power as well. China looms larger than ever before. Moscow has distanced itself from Washington, Latin America has taken a sharp turn to the left, and India and Brazil are establishing themselves as emerging powers. Some nations are attempting to forge their own trade agreements rather than take D.C.'s lead. And to judge from the chaos at the Copenhagen climate summit, the multilateral model beloved by European social democrats isn't in much better shape than the unilateral globalism supported by American neoconservatives.

Obviously, not all of those developments are welcome in themselves. There's not much to like about, say, the rise of Putinism in Russia. But taken together those changes represent something positive: a world where no single agenda inevitably takes precedence over all the others. Europe and America's maximalist ideas about intellectual property now have to contend with the more moderate views of India and Brazil, not to mention China's lackadaisical approach to the subject. The global south is pushing against the north's agricultural protectionism, and newly industrializing nations are not as eager as their wealthier cousins to adopt skewed schemes such as cap and trade. The emerging powers don't always have better ideas than Washington. But they have different ideas, and different interests; and this competition opens a space for experimentation and change.

Put those five currents together, and the prospects for prosperity and freedom start to look less grim. Nothing is inevitable, of course, and we face no shortage of reasons for pessimism. But if our grandchildren grow up in a world that is freer, wealthier, and more peaceful than ours, that won't be a repudiation of all the values embedded in the decade now ending. It will be a triumph for the trends that grew in the interstices while your attention was focused on the men who thought they were in charge.

Here are some words and phrases* currently censored or being considered for the MSM's censorship list

Democratic Party 2012 War Machine to be Headed by Long-time ACORN Operative. He presently holds the same position in the White House as Karl Rove did. We all know Karl’s name. Do you know this guy’s name?

Agenda 21 Part II: Globalist totalitarian dictatorship invading a town near you-with your permission. The key is to find the correct language and the means of implementation—and they have found both.

ACORN whistleblower co-founds 1^st black TEA Party movement in Sheila Jackson Lee's back yard

Chris Matthews fantasizes about someone jamming a pellet gun against Rush Limbaugh’s head:

RUSH: There is, or was yesterday, a fascinating post at a blog called "Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion." The headline of the post is: "We Just Witnessed The Media's Test Run To Re-Elect Barack Obama -- If Republicans want to know exactly what not to do to win in 2012, then follow advice similar to that offered by David Frum as to why Sarah Palin should 'stop talking now' about the false accusations that she was responsible for the Tucson shooting: 'There is no one left in America that would blame her.' [David Frum said.] Oh really? Two polls show otherwise. I previously posted about a CNN poll showing that 35% of all people (including 56% of Democrats and 34% of Independents) believe that Palin has a great deal or moderate amount of responsibility for the shooting.

"A [Public Policy Polling] poll reflects that 26% of all people (including 45% of Democrats and 22% of Independents) believe Palin bears 'at least some responsibility' for the shooting. These are big numbers, considering that there is no evidence as of this date that Jared Loughner ever even saw the Palin electoral target map which put Palin at the center of attacks over the shooting. The false connection of the Palin electoral target map to the shooting did not start in the mainstream media. As I have documented, that false connection started with bloggers at DailyKos and Think Progress using Twitter to push the issue into the mainstream media within hours of the shooting with the help of their followers.

"The ruthless efficiency with which the left-wing blogosphere tied Palin to the shooting, and the success of their efforts in equating Palin with mass murder, is a lesson we should not forget. The Democrats and their mainstream media supporters were put back on their heels in 2010, and are regrouping. And if regrouping requires falsely accusing a major Republican figure of complicity in mass murder, and then amplifying that false accusation for several days in the face of contrary evidence until a substantial portion of the population believes it, they will do it. But it did not stop with the accusation. When Palin tried to defend herself she was savaged again in the mainstream media.

"Palin supposedly didn't issue a statement soon enough or she issued it too soon; she was accused of using the term 'blood libel' improperly by people who had used the term themselves in less dire circumstances; she was making it all about her; her tone was not right; she didn't really feel what she was saying, and so on and so on. Having created a false narrative of Palin's responsibility for the shooting, the mainstream media tried to deprive Palin of the ability to defend herself against the charges. And unfortunately, some who supposedly are on our side have jumped on that bandwagon.

"And all the while, Barack Obama stood back for days and let his supporters in the media rip Palin apart, much as he left it to his supporters to go after the Clintons during the primary, only then to proclaim that we don't really know why Jared Loughner did what he did. And the media narrative was how wonderful Obama was, how he helped heal the nation. Any Republican... I want you to listen to this. This is from the Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion blog. "Any Republican or conservative or Tea Party supporter who dumps on Palin in any way over the Tucson shooting or her defense of herself should just stop talking now. ...

"This is not about Palin, it is about the mainstream media's desire to have Barack Obama re-elected at any cost and to take down any Republican candidate who stands in the way. ... [W]e have witnessed the test run for how the left-wing blogosphere will target [any and all] Republican candidates and propel false narratives into the mainstream media, and how the mainstream media will take those narratives and run with them. If Palin is taken down politically over the Tucson shooting, there is not a single Republican candidate who can survive the coming onslaught. ... If this is the standard by which we choose candidates, then the time has come to put thoughts of Republicans winning in 2012 to rest."

The left knows that she would wipe the floor with Obama. Our intelligentsia on the right wing know that she would wipe the floor with Obama. That's what all of this means. There are "smart people," quote, unquote, in both parties who want nothing to do with Palin, precisely because of the threat she poses to their claim and hold on power. So the point of this is: If Republicans are gonna sit by and watch Palin savaged, they'd better be prepared to sit by and watch the next one get savaged and the next one. Because that's what's coming. If the Republicans cannot defend themselves over this kind of scurrilous, baseless, libelous charge, they got no business running.

They'll not be able to elect anybody. If we shut up and be silent on this -- if we've got Republicans like Frum who will agree with the left-wing blogosphere and the mainstream media that Palin should shut up, that she should stop defending herself and it's a horrible travesty of just what Palin did; if we're gonna have Republicans sit around and give Obama credit for sitting by for four days while his allies try to take her out, then give a speech and get credit for the wonderful things he said about it -- then we got more idiots in our party than we would want to know. We have useful idiots who are being played like a Stradivarius by the left wing, from Obama on down to the mainstream media to the left-wing blogs.

We've got people on our side, typified by Frum, who are useful idiots, who are being incorporated into their effort to destroy any Republican's chance for victory in 2012. I think we played a sound bite by Frum yesterday who said, basically, "Forget the presidency. Let's go down for down-ballot success. Let's try to win back the Senate. Obama's gonna get reelected." (sigh) And I know a lot of people who think David Frum is the answer for the Republican Party. Not us, folks. Intelligentsia in the conservative movement so forth. It's preposterous, of course, but it's a good point. If all the others... Name names: Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty.

If all the others are gonna sit around and watch this happen to their party by virtue of it happening to Palin, then they're just the next ones in line. This is an excellent blog post, and it's exactly on the money. This call for "civility"? They don't want us to be civil. They want us to be cowed. They want all of us to become Frumized. They want all of us to see the wisdom in saying that the Republicans are silly and defensive and maybe a little guilty in their own minds for even deigning to defend themselves on this scurrilous charge. Yeah, they want us cowed -- and look what happens to cows.

RUSH: This is a French News Agency story published at YahooNews.com. Let me give you the headline first: Voters Credit Obonomy.... (chuckles) That may be a new word: Obonomy. "Voters Credit Obama for Economy Upswing." Except there's a problem, folks. That's not what the story says. Let me illustrate. "US voters are seeing signs of a brighter economy and are crediting President Barack Obama for the upturn, but by a narrow margin want Congress to repeal his health care overhaul, a poll showed Tuesday. The Quinnipiac University poll showed that 54 percent of respondents said they believed the US economy is beginning to recover, with 43 percent disagreeing.

"Nonetheless, the survey showed a 53 to 40 percent majority disapproved of Obama's economic management." Well, let's try to translate this. Here's the headline: "Voters Credit Obama for Economy Upswing -- US voters are seeing signs of a brighter economy and are crediting" Obama for it. "Nonetheless, the survey showed a 53 to 40 percent majority disapproved of Obama's economic management." Now, how stupid do they think readers are? Obviously quite stupid. The story does not say that. The story says just the exact opposite of the headline. This is media bias. This is not conservative or liberal. This is pro-regime propaganda. Pure and simple. This is how it works.

"Voters Credit Obama for Economy Upswing." That's the slug line. That's all people on the Internet see in a list of stories from the French News Agency at Yahoo, and if they dare click on it they have to read to the second paragraph to find out, "No, that's not what people are saying." In fact, they're saying the opposite. "[T]he survey showed a 53 to 40 percent majority disapproved of Obama's economic management." Now, how in the hell do you get out of "a majority disapproved of Obama's economic management," a headline that says, "Voters Credit Obama for Economy Upswing"? It's an out-and-out lie. It's an out-and-out misrepresentation.

And don't give me this business, "The headline writers are different people than write the story."

That doesn't matter. Whoever wrote the headline didn't read the story or didn't like the story and decided: I'm just gonna make the headline of the story and forget everything else. "'Voters aren't exactly jumping for joy about the economy, but they think it has turned the corner,' said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute." Fifty-three to 40% disapprove of Obama's economic management! "Brown added that the poll showed 'something of a disconnect between how people view the overall economy and their own finances when it comes to Obama's policies,' and added: 'Whether in the end that means they give him a thumbs up or down in November 2012 is an interesting question.'

"In what could be a significant challenge to the president, the survey showed voters wanted the repeal of the vast health care overall by a margin of 48 to 43 percent." So the health care poll stays the same, and voters do not credit Obama for the upswing in the economy. Yesterday USA Today had this story: "Poll: Most Want Obama, GOP to Work Together," and then if you read into the story, you come across a little passage that 57% in this poll (this is USA Today/Gallup) want Obamacare repealed or scaled back. "Eighty percent say the president should work to pass legislation Democrats and Republicans can agree on, even if it's not what most Democrats want."

Now, out of that we get a headline: "Most Want Obama, GOP to Work Together." Well, we all know what's going on here. The Republicans won big. It was a shellacking. It was a monsoon victory. So here comes the media with two stories. One today: "Voters Credit Obama for Economy Upswing," an out-and-out lie. USA Today yesterday: "Most Want Obama, GOP to Work Together." The details? "Eighty percent say the president should work to pass legislation Democrats and Republicans can agree on, even if it's not what most Democrats want." So 80% say: Ignore the Democrats.

Eighty percent say they want Obama to agree with the Republicans -- 80%! -- and from this we get a headline: "Most Want Obama, GOP to Work Together," and also in this story, 57% want Obamacare repealed. So USA Today/Gallup, 57% want it repealed; in Quinnipiac it's 48% who want it repealed. Now, these people are not journalists. They're not even writers. These are authors. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if some intern -- some zit-faced little intern from some junior college -- at Yahoo wrote the headline to do the story. It's a French News Agency story but it runs on Yahoo. Who knows? Yahoo probably did the headline.

This is what we're up against, what we've always been up against, and I guarantee you that nobody on the left -- nobody in the so-called State-Controlled Media, nobody in the Drive-Bys -- is analyzing this properly or explaining this to anybody. So, to a certain segment of population that reads this stuff, "Why, man, Obama's really on the ball! He's got the economy coming back, and Republicans had better work with him on this. They better understand that people want Obama and the Republicans work together on this, meaning agree with Obama," when it's just 80% -- 80%! -- want the president to work with Republicans, even if it means going against Democrat ideas. Remember, folks: Journalism is the first rewrite of history.

RUSH: "Low-income students may get smaller grants and the newly disabled might have to wait longer for their benefits. And just about every politician is going to get an earful from the local PTA if school aid gets whacked." This is an AP story under the slug line, "Republicans' Spending." "Republicans are finding it's one thing to issue a blanket promise to cut spending, an entirely different matter when you actually take the scissors to $1 of every $6 spent by agencies like the IRS, the FBI, NASA and the National Park Service. Federal layoffs would be unavoidable, the White House warns. That's the real-world impact of House Republicans' campaign promise to cut $100 billion from the budgets of domestic agencies. Next week, they plan to vote on a resolution setting appropriations for the rest of the year at 2008 pre-recession levels before President Barack Obama took office.

This story is all about terms such as "freeze the poor," whether people are going to eat less or see the doctor less over a hundred billion out of $1.3 trillion, whatever it is. It's frankly absurd. But this is how it goes. The Republicans are gonna whack low income students. The only thing not in this story -- and I'm sure it's yet to come -- is school lunch cuts and kids starving. But they've got the playbook out, they got the page from the 1995 budget battle and they're just replaying it all. One hundred billion dollars, freeze the poor, people have to decide whether or not to heat their homes or eat less or see the doctor less, all because of a hundred billion dollars in budget cuts. It's as though if the government ceased operating everybody would die. Nobody can take care of themselves.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the ChiCom Dictator Hu But Were Afraid to Ask

RUSH: As you know, ladies and gentlemen, Obama, president of our country, said this morning during a ceremony for Hu Jintao that the last 30 years of our relationship with China have been a time of estrangement. Now, am I wrong or haven't our relations with the ChiComs improved quite a lot since 1980? I mean we practically sold 'em our country. What more could we do? My gosh, the iPhone's made over there, the iPad, what more do they want? And that's not the only stuff made over there. Come to think of it the ChiComs might say we could pay 'em back and in dollars' worth a hundred cents. And in fact, folks, our microphones were there during a private meeting between Obama and the ChiCom leader Hu Jintao.

RUSH: And that's how it went. There's another meeting, a public meeting, a press conference, at one o'clock right in the middle of this program, Hu Jintao and President Obama. Hu Jintao has said he's going to take four questions.

RUSH: From Las Vegas: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid branded Chinese President Hu Jintao a 'dictator' on a local TV talk show on Tuesday night..." I'm not used to this kind of clarity and honesty from Dingy Harry. He called Hu Jintao a "dictator." "This is a remark likely to make the start of Hu's first state visit to Washington, D.C., awkward for President Obama at a moment when the U.S. is trying to ease tensions with the [ChiComs]. Reid ... was responding to a question from 'Face To Face' host Jon Ralston about the December compromise that extended the Bush-era tax cuts.

"The recently reelected Nevada senator veered off on a tangent intended to compare the American and Chinese systems of government to give a roundabout defense of the importance of legislative compromise." (laughing) So in calling Hu Jintao a dictator he's trying to compare the United States and the ChiComs! Then there's this story from the Associated Press about Hu Jintao's visit: "Feeling snubbed, slighted even, when he visited five years ago, Chinese President Hu Jintao is getting a do-over -- plus the White House state dinner he sought back then but was denied.

"Wednesday's opulent, black-tie affair with President Barack Obama -- the grandest of White House soirees -- will mark the first such event in China's honor in 13 years and could help smooth tensions between the world's two largest economies. Some big questions remain," and these are the big questions in the AP story: "Who will cook?" Hu is not gonna cook! Hu is a guest! Hu is coming to dinner. Yes, Hu is coming to dinner, but Hu is not cooking. "Can the White House avoid mistakes like the ones that marred the reception when a protocol-conscious Hu arrived for an April 2006 summit?"

I had forgotten this, but this is kind of funny. Back in 2006 Hu Jintao showed up for the official greeting ceremony at the White House. Bush didn't hold a lot of state dinners. Bush doesn't like eating in a tuxedo. He preferred working lunches. Bush, I don't know that he had five state dinners. Six? I don't know how many. It wasn't many. And, by the way, I don't blame him. How many of you really enjoy putting on a tuxedo to go eat? (interruption) You do, Snerdley? You enjoy it? You enjoy putting on a tuxedo to go eat?

Yeah, I used to, but I got over it. I got over it 30 years ago. (interruption) No, I used to have to do it a lot. I don't have to do it ever and I rarely do now. I hate it. What's the point? It's like, to me, going to bed in a tuxedo. Why do it? Anyway, I know: It's a page from the glory days of the past. That's just my personally. I know. Bush didn't like it, either. So Hu shows up on the South Lawn of the White House, and do you remember some woman protesting the Falun Gong began shouting during Hu's remarks?

Oh-ho-ho! We were watching this here at the EIB Network when this happened, and you could see Hu. He had hammers and sickles in those eyes. Hu was not happy, and Bush was not happy. Bush was gonna have to explain this because Hu, no doubt, thought that Bush allowed it to happen. Embarrass Hu this way, ChiCom leader? So Bush apologized after he and Hu went to the Oval Office.

"Compounding the insult, a White House announcer called China the 'Republic of China,'" which it's not. It's the People's Republic of China. All dictatorships are the People's Republic of Whatever. That's "the formal name for Taiwan," which is a tiny island the ChiComs want to nuke if they can't get it back. So Obama has a chance here to do it over again, and he's doing an official state dinner for Hu tonight at the White House.

RUSH: By the way, just to be clear, folks, still not certain here whether Harry Reid meant his comment about the ChiComs being a dictatorship in a derogatory or complimentary way. I mean China is an authoritarian collectivist dictatorship, but we don't know that Dingy Harry would necessarily find any fault with that. He seems to be in support of that kind of thing. We certainly know Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times loves the authoritarianism of the ChiComs. He says when the ruling elite are the right people, beats democracy hands down, it's the only way you're really gonna get things done. Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times. The real question about this state dinner tonight is whether everybody's gonna be hungry a half hour after they eat, but I don't know that we'll get any news on that.

RUSH: This dinner tonight better not be too opulent. They better not go too overboard on this because Hu Jintao's paying for this. And if the regime goes overboard here with all kinds of opulence and expense, you know, Hu Jintao's gonna say, "This is not why we gave you the money. I can get this at home."

RUSH: Now, I read this outta context. I'm watching Obama and Hu Jintao. By the way, the Chinese, they go with their last names first. So Hu's name is actually Jintao Hu, to Anglicize it. Xiaoping "Dung." Tse-tung Mao is actually the way. They always put their last names first out there. It's nothing (interruption) Criticism? No! Don't misunderstand it. It's just how it is. So I'm watching these two guys and I see a graphic on the screen that encapsulates something Obama has said at some point during the proceedings here. It said "Obama," quote, "We want to sell China planes, cars, and software," and I imagine when Hu Jintao listens to this and his translator gets to that point... You know, what does Hu Jintao think when he hears the president say, "We want to sell China planes, cars, and software"?

Hu says, "Why should we buy it when we can steal it?" (laughing) "Why should we buy it when we own it and are paying for it anyway? Why don't you give it to us?" Also, be prepared. At these things, at these kinda joint soirees with the United States and the ChiComs, just be aware. You have to learn how to listen to the ChiComs. When you hear Hu Jintao talk about "mutual respect," what that means is... You know what it means, Snerdley? (interruption) No. It does not mean, "We will bury you. We will conquer you." I'm sure they already think that. "Mutual respect" means, "Shut the hell up about our human rights abuses! Don't talk to me about the Falun Gong. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear about Tibet. Don't even bring up the Dalai Lama.

"We liked the fact you made him go out the back door next to the trash. Don't talk to me about human rights abuses," and in private, Hu Jintao is gonna say to Obama, "Come on, now! What's more important, human rights or cheap iPhones and iPads?" The ChiComs, they're not gonna... I mean, they'll go through the motions of letting us preach to them, but in private? (chuckles) Why am I the only what? (interruption) Pfft! I don't think I'm the only one that recognizes how evil communism is. I think there are a lot of people that recognize how evil it is. There just aren't many in the Democrat Party and there aren't many in the media, but there are a lot of people that still do. Obama just praised the ChiComs' progress in Africa.

Now, what are the Chinese doing in Africa? Do you happen to know, Snerdley? (interruption)

They are colonizing the place! (laughing) They are essentially colonizing. They are becoming the most vicious colonialists in history. They're buying up -- just as you say, they're buying up -- regional resources. They're letting the locals starve, essentially. And remember Obama's father hated colonialism. He despised it. So here's Obama, the big anti-colonialist praising the ChiComs for their progress in Africa. What's really convoluted before this -- and he praises, he praises ChiCom capitalism. He praises ChiCom free markets. They're bad in this country, but they're great over there in China. I'll tell you who else knows it: Former communists recognize how evil communism is. We had a story about the Russian immigrants in Staten Island just this week. They don't want any part of any of this going on. They don't. The Democrat Party today reminds them too much of what they fled in Moscow. Staten Island Republicans. We reported that.

RUSH: I have to admit I'm amused by this. Probably very few other people are, but I am. During our obscene profit time-out, I'm watching the news conference between President Obama and the Chinese ChiCom leader Hu Jintao, and I've not seen this before. Hu Jintao is speaking, and speaking, and speaking with no translator. They wait 'til he finishes, and then they read what he says in toto -- and of course we don't know. Translator could be making it all up. Hu Jintao could be telling us... Who knows what he could be saying to us? The translators is sitting there saying, "We want to work together, two countries in the world. China is developing country; America developed country...but not for long!"

But I'm fascinated. I listen to this and (laughing) I found myself trying to write down what Hu Jintao was saying in Chinese. Phonetically so I could repeat it to you. (interruption) Well, it looks like chicken scrawls! (laughing) I said, "I wonder what... I wonder, to the people that can't speak English, what does it sounds like to them?" Because when I hear Chinese or Japanese, it sounds like all the same word, and I can't comprehend of anybody understanding it. Of course that's silly. But he's sitting there, (speaking phonetic Chinese). I couldn't write down anymore. I was losing track of it, 'cause I'm looking up as he's saying all this, and they cut to Obama looking intently as though he understands every word of it (which, what would you expect from the Ruling Class?)

By the way, where's...? I printed it out. What do I do with it? Big news. Ah. Here it is. ABC News, The Note, has this, as does TheHill.com. Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.) on the House floor Tuesday night compared Republican claims about the healthcare reform law to lies perpetrated by the Nazis that led to the Holocaust." On the floor of the House, Democrat Steve Cohen of Tennessee said, "They don't like the truth so they summarily dismiss it. They say it's a government takeover of healthcare. A big lie just like Goebbels. You say it enough and you repeat the lie, repeat the lie, repeat the lie until eventually people believe it. Like blood libel, that's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it, and you have the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again."

Now, there was no audience. This was probably special orders last night. So nobody was listening. It was on C-SPAN so, effectively, nobody heard it. (interruption) I don't know. That's a good question: "Which Republican is gonna sit next to this guy during the State of the Union Show?" But how's all this "new civility" working out for you? And I'll bet you we don't have two days of hysterics about how horrible it is to use the term "blood libel." Of course not because Cohen is Jewish, so he has free rein to use it. So he just compared the Republicans to Nazis, to Joseph Goebbels. Not one comment! I mean, it's in The Hill and ABC's The Note, but there isn't any outrage over this.

RUSH: Hu Jintao gave Obama a lesson. And, by the way, what did I tell you? I told you mere moments ago that when you hear the whole subject of human rights brought up, I told you how to react. When they start talking about mutual respect and so forth, when Hu Jintao starts saying it, that just means shut up about our human rights abuses, just shut up about it. So this actually happened. During the Q&A, Bloomberg TV White House correspondent Hans Nichols said to Hu: "I was wondering if we could get an answer to that question on human rights. Also, on Capitol Hill, Harry Reid and John Boehner are not attending the state dinner. Many on Capitol Hill see China as a threat. What can you do to allay their fears?" This was the answer from Hu Jintao.

HU: I did not hear the question about the human rights. What I know was that he was asking a question directed at President Obama. Since you raised this question and I heard the question properly, certainly I am in the position to answer that question.

RUSH: But I'm not going to. I didn't hear the question on human rights. Besides, you asked that of Obama. I'm in a position to answer it, but I'm not going to. Now, here in the next answer Hu Jintao says that the ChiComs are committed to human rights and warns the US to stay out of their business.

HU: China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights, and at the same time we do believe that we also need to take into account the different and national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights. Though there are disagreements between China and United States on the issue of human rights, China is willing to engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs.

RUSH: He told us to go to hell. He told the media to go to hell. He told Obama to go to hell. We have a different version of human rights than you do. Our version is one child per family. If they try more they're dead. Our version of human rights is they get in the way of our tanks, we run 'em down. Our version of human rights is if they're the Falun Gong they go to a labor camp. Our version is if they're from Tibet we're gonna kick the crap out of them. What are you gonna do about it? You got your own problems. And this guy, Hu Jintao could say, "Look, we've had meetings with your people and they've told us you have your own human rights violations." That did happen. That's how the Obama regime does it. Finally, "What can you do to allay the fears of Republicans and others who are not coming to the state dinner tonight?"

HU: As for the latter question about the attendance of the state dinner by some congresspeople as to who will attend and who will not attend and for what reasons, I think President Obama is certainly in a better position to answer that question. (laughter)

RUSH: (laughing) So here's the ChiCom leader: I didn't hear the question on human rights, ask Obama. What, who's coming, who's not coming? I don't want to go, either, I'm happy for the honor, but ask Obama why they're not showing up. Not my problem, just more food for me.

RUSH: One thing for human rights activists, know this. The ChiComs have a Nobel Peace Prize winner. They had him locked up in jail. Imagine if we had Algore locked up in jail. I know, we can dream. But imagine. What's the human rights community around the world to think the way we're bowing down to the ChiComs? They're Nobel prize winner is in a gulag!

RUSH: I've been sitting on this story all week, purposely, just to see where it would go. And it has grown. This governor out in Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, a well-known socialist, by the way, longtime member of Congress, now the governor of Hawaii, really stepped in it earlier, well, I think it was not even this week, it was last week. The governor, Neil Abercrombie, some time ago said, (paraphrasing) "Look, I was there when Obama was born in Hawaii. That birth certificate, it exists. Everybody knows it. I was there when that kid was born." Turns out he wasn't there, and he admitted he wasn't there. He was there in spirit. He was trying to say he's that certain. See, he thinks that Obama ought to just get this off the table. Abercrombie is worried that this birth certificate thing is going to be a lingering problem heading into 2012. So Abercrombie, big friend of Obama, tried to step in there and head this off at the pass. It turns out he can't find the birth certificate, the governor of Hawaii cannot find it. It's just a notation that somebody wrote down.

This has now made its way to the UK Daily Mail: "Hawaii Governor Claims Record of Obama's Birth 'Exists in Archives' but Can't Produce the Vital Document." That's the headline. The story originated at World Net Daily in this country earlier, and of course if it originates anywhere outside the mainstream press, the mainstream press will not acknowledge it. "Pressure was mounting on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie today amid increasing confusion over whether President Obama was born there." This is the UK Daily Mail. "Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. He told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser: 'It actually exists in the archives, written down,' he said. But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama's birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate. And in the same interview Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health. He said efforts were still being made to track down definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii."

Remember, he started out, the whole reason for doing this was to firmly prove it and establish and get it off the table so it wasn't an election issue for 2012. And he's done the exact opposite now. I mean how many of us could get away with saying, "Yeah, there's a little notation somewhere there in the archives. We can't find the birth certificate. Oh, well, welcome to America, Mr. Limbaugh." Do you think if this was me and they were trying to prove that I wasn't an American and I insisted that I was, but I couldn't produce a birth certificate or wouldn't, and yet the governor of Missouri says, "Oh, yeah, there's a little notification, somebody wrote down Limbaugh was born here." Do you think that would fly? No, it wouldn't be, "Let him back in the country." It would be, "Get him out of the country. This guy's been an infiltrator since he was two," is what they would say about me, claiming that my original country of origin was China.

"Abercrombie was asked: 'You stirred up quite a controversy with your comments regarding birthers and your plan to release more information regarding President Barack Obama's birth certificate. How is that coming?'" Kind of like how is that hope and change working for you? "He acknowledged the birth certificate issue would have 'political implications' for the next presidential election 'that we simply cannot have.'" Now, what does this tell us? Neil Abercrombie is no fool. When it comes to electoral politics, Abercrombie knows the ins and outs, and if Abercrombie senses a problem here -- look, the big mistake was to announce in public what you were gonna do before you knew you had what you told everybody what you were gonna produce. This is kind of like a lawyer granting somebody immunity without knowing what the heck they're going to say. So Abercrombie's kinda caught now.

"He acknowledged the birth certificate issue would have 'political implications' for the next presidential election 'that we simply cannot have.' 'It's a matter of principle with me,' the 72-year-old said. 'I knew his mum and dad. I was here when he was born. Anybody who wants to ask a question honestly could have had their answer already.'" But nobody has come forward to definitively prove it. In fact, most government officials have apparently done their best to seal it all off, whatever there is, they've sealed it all off. And they've tried to pooh-pooh any interest in it. And they have attempted to impugn those who have interest in it. It's merely a presidential constitutional requirement. It's really no big deal as far as the libs are concerned, but the Constitution's an impediment to them.

"Some believe his Certification of Live Birth is fake and he was really born in Kenya. Others argue that Obama is a citizen of the United Kingdom or Indonesia. Most theories have been dismissed by many in public office and the media, and have been found to be misleading or generally untrue." But I don't read here, it doesn't say most theories have been dismissed by public records officials. It just says dismissed by many in public office and in the media. Well, big whoop. "However, the conspiracy theories still thrive, and according to Abercrombie, are likely to continue despite whatever evidence that shows him to be a proper U.S. citizen." Well, that's the thing. Abercrombie wanted to get this out of the way. I would think that if Abercrombie is gonna do this, he's not the Lone Ranger. He's gotta be calling the White House, "Okay, look, we have a potential problem here. I want to find this thing and I want to make it public." If that happened, somebody at the regime did not say, "No, don't do it," because Abercrombie is still alive. If they had said, "No, don't do it," and Abercrombie is still doing it, I don't even want to think of the consequences of that.

This is really not that hard. Look, if somebody wanted your birth certificate and you don't have it, what do you do? You go to the state where you were born, go to the vital records, you go down there and you make a copy of it, produce it, let it be seen. The original thought was, well, you know, Obama, he knows he was born here. This is just toying. He knows that the birthers are a bunch of Looney Tune kook right-wingers, and he wants them illustrated as such. So he'll toy with them, sort of like Charlie Brown and Lucy and the football. And the media went along with that, "Oh, that's Obama. He's really politically smart, really crafty here. He's got these birthers looking like the Birchers that they are. He's got 'em looking like the biggest kooks on the face of the earth," and it went on and on and on that way. We have had several people of decent reputations file lawsuits in various states and they were thrown out. So the popular opinion has been, the consensus has been, "Yeah, he was born in Hawaii, isn't any big deal." They still can't prove it. This is stunning to me. Still can't prove it.

Now, it's still entirely possible all this is a giant head fake. For me, ladies and gentlemen, the sophisticated political figure that I am, it's really hard for me to believe that Neil Abercrombie just one day woke up on his own and without consultation said, "This birth thing bugs me. I'm gonna call a press conference, and I'm gonna tell people I was there when he was born, and I knew his mom and dad, and he was born here and I'm gonna prove it." I said earlier, Abercrombie's no fool. Many Hawaiians would disagree with me on that, many have. But if this guy is acting on his own as I have just described, that's unbelievable. The alternative is he's not acting on his own, this is all part of a continuing head fake and that at some point after a lot of people have gotten revved up cause now, the UK Daily Mail Online is more mainstream than anywhere else in America this has. Okay, so it ratchets up and ratchets up and then a couple years down the road, year and a half down the road, guess what, the thing's found, and, oh, can you imagine the air that will be let out of people's sails then?

Now, you have to ask yourself, is this regime capable of that kind of trick? Yeah, they are. Are they capable of having the newly elected governor, a Democrat, replacing a Republican, Neil Abercrombie, start out this whole thing? Are they typical, capable of coming up with a program where Abercrombie embarrasses himself around the world on this and then all of a sudden after, what would it be, six and a half, seven years, voila, somebody finds the birth certificate right out in the open in some file in Hawaii. With this bunch the point is you just never know. "The Governor vowed when he took office in December that he would do his best to end the debate over Obama's birth, which began in 2008 during the presidential campaign." What's wrong with that sentence? "The Governor vowed when he took office in December that he would do his best to end the debate over Obama's birth." Where's the president on this? Where's the president's vow to end the debate over his birth? We're going on four years now of this. It keeps intensifying. (interruption) Yeah, well, if that's true, would that not be great? If they found it in a garage sale next to one of those shaved ice stations?

Here's what's gonna happen. That's exactly right. They're going to find it in a garage sale in Kahala, and it will be stapled to two things. It would be stapled to a pocket Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. (laughing) Anyway, "Hawaii Governor Claims Record of Obama's Birth 'Exists in Archives' but Can't Produce the Vital Document." Where's Obama? Where's the White House? Is this guy flying alone? Neil Abercrombie on his own on this? So much of this is difficult to fathom, to believe.

RUSH: I'll tell you why I think Abercrombie may just be toying around with everybody on this to pull a political trick later on down the line. Remember October 31st, 2008, there was a statement from the director of the Hawaii Department of Health. His name is Chiyome Fukino, and here is the statement. I mean, all Abercrombie would have to do is ask this guy because this guy in his statement says he's seen it. "There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate. State law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." So right here in his statement in 2008, he said he's seen it. Yet Abercrombie can't find it. Now, what gives here? Abercrombie is a Democrat. He's from the Pelosi, Jim Wright school. This guy was a Democrat for a long time. This guy knows every trick in the book. This guy voted with the Soviets over the Contras in Nicaragua.

This guy is every bit as far left as anybody in the House is today and he's running around saying he can't find the birth certificate and he's the governor. Yet the Department of Health director issued a statement on Halloween (I'm sure that's a coincidence) of 2008. He's seen it. "I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

"No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii." So the director of health for Hawaii says he personally saw it. I've got the PDF file of his statement. I could link to it. We could post it at RushLimbaugh.com. Now, out of the blue here comes the new governor, Abercrombie, saying he can't find it. Now (sigh), folks, I'm just warning you: Be very, very careful on this. Something here is just not right, and you... (interruption) Well, I... (interruption) Snerdley, look. Snerdley says he's already got a call saying that somebody in Kenya has a birth certificate. What, the Hawaii birth certificate's in Kenya? (interruption) The Kenyan Obama birth certificate is in Kenya? This guy on the phone has seen it? (interruption)

Oh, come on! Come on! Look, I know Open Line Friday is Open Line Friday, but not gonna take a call from somebody who says she has Obama's Kenyan birth certificate! (interruption) What are you trying to do to me? The ChiComs have already set the American media on me. Now you're trying to get the Kenyan media on me. (interruption) For crying out loud, Snerdley, don't put that call up! Oh, my gosh. I knew I shoulda taken the day off.

RUSH: John in Orlando, Florida, great to have you with us on the EIB Network, sir, hello.

CALLER: It's a pleasure to speak to you. The reason I was calling, I was listening to the program earlier, and I heard you say something about something doesn't smell right with this whole birth certificate business in Hawaii.

RUSH: Right, it doesn't, because the director of health out there says he's seen the birth certificate. The governor says he wants to release it but he can't find it. Now, something's not anywhere near right here.

CALLER: Well, I'm sure that Obama and the left would like nothing more than to get talk radio, you and Hannity and Beck and all the rest, talking about all this stuff going on in Hawaii, sounding like a bunch of birthers, and then come back and attempt to discredit you, as if they could, just before the election --

CALLER: -- and say you're just a bunch of nut bags out there complaining and whining and all the rest.

RUSH: Yeah, because I can't imagine Abercrombie being a free agent on this. Abercrombie gets inaugurated governor and out of the blue says, "Ah, you know what, I'm worried about this birther thing, they may have something there. I gotta find that birth certificate, and I'm gonna release it, I'm gonna prove it once and for all." Then he says, "I can't find it. Oh no, I'm in trouble. I'm really embarrassing myself here." And that's the hook and the bait, the unsuspecting and the beguiled are expected to chomp on that hook, line, and sinker and be reeled in. I agree with you, there is untruth throughout this. If the Department of Health guy in Hawaii has seen it, and Abercrombie can't find it, and the White House is not commenting, yeah, I think, John, you're on to something.

Statement by Speaker Boehner on Meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (he comes down hard on Hu for the forced abortions in China):

You have no doubt seen footage of the floods in Australia. Did you know that these floods are 10 ft below the record set in 1893 and a foot below recent floods in 1974? Global warming enthusiasts have been predicting great droughts in Australia, so flood preparation has fallen by the wayside.

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.

Stuff you probably did not know about greenhouse gases (this is a good link for friends):

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming (I am fairly certain that this is serious; but it is really hard to tell). It is saying goodbye to French Wines, glaciers, guacamole, mixed nuts, French fries, baseball and Christmas trees and saying hello to cannibalistic polar bears, jellyfish attacks, giant squid attacks, more stray kittens, suffocating lemmings, burning cow poop and acidic oceans.

Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare (this includes individual health insurance costing as much as $695/month by 2016—which is not the only cost):

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 #162	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	January 23, 2011