The cartoons come from:

www.townhall.com/funnies.

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).

Previous issues are listed and can be accessed here:

http://kukis.org/page20.html (their contents are described and each issue is linked to) or here:

http://kukis.org/blog/ (this is the online directory they are in)

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 5 or 6 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).

This Week’s Events

Osama bin Laden was killed during a SEAL raid of his compound in Pakistan.

When taking the compound, our soldiers brought a dog with them, who had titanium capped teeth, body armor and ear buds in order to hear commands. Apparently the titanium give this dog a deadly bite.

Here is the shocking aftermath of the bin Laden killing: many Muslims all over the world are outraged and protesting and burning American flags and Obama effigies! Michael Moore was also unhappy about it. This is another day of rage, which, I think numbers to about 100 days of rage so far this year?

Information gathered at the compound indicated that there would be an attempt to attack our trains this coming 9/11.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder continues to investigate Navy SEALS for slapping a terrorist.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder continues investigation of twice-cleared CIA agents for enhanced interrogation techniques.

President Obama has refused to speak to Holder on this matter.

A Hamburg judge has filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for "endorsing a crime" after she stated she was "glad" that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces. Meanwhile a new poll reveals that a majority of Germans do not see the terrorist's death as a reason to celebrate.

Militants loyal to Somalia's al Qaeda-linked group al Shabaab on Wednesday afternoon executed two young Somalis accused of being spies in a southern Somalia town. A large group of people, including children, were gathered in order to watch the execution.

Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been taken into custody and accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies, as a part of a bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

2 churches torched last night in Egypt.

Muslim extremists kill 17 Christians in Nigeria, including a pastor, his wife and three children.

The chief suspect in the cafe bombing in Morocco that killed 16 people is believed to have disguised himself as a hippie.

5 Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate in South Carolina: Tim Pawlenty, Gary Johnson, Herman Cain, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. This was a very mixed group, with Paul and Johnson making up the very substantial libertarian wing of the Republican party (if you think that libertarians ought to side with Democrats, then you ought to be disqualified from voting). The most interesting thing was, Frank Luntz had a focus group, one of whom walked into the debate supporting Herman Cain; and now, over half of them see Cain as the best choice (of the 5 debaters). Unlike Democrats, when giving their reasons, Cain’s race, dialect or personal history (apart from being a successful business man) were not issues. His beliefs, his ability to articulate them like a leader, and his record as a successful businessman were cited as reasons for supporting a Herman Cain candidacy.

AP refused to cover this debate.

They should have; Juan Williams pressed Pawlenty on evolution versus creationism, one of the more important issues of today.

Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (R) announced Thursday he's running for governor in 2012.

There was a landslide victory for Stephen Harper’s conservative government up in Canada this past week (I know it was all over the media, right?).

Speaking of conservative economic policies, there are lifeguards in Newport Beach, California, who have compensation packages that exceed $200,000. Some of these "civil servants" can retire with lucrative government pensions at age 50. Ain’t life grand?

Someone claimed www.gutsycall.com redirects users to Obama's campaign website, www.barackobama.com It didn’t work for me.

A comprehensive study of traditional children's book characters has determined that Pooh Corner may be rife with gender inequality.

Andrew Sullivan via Daily Beast demands that Sarah Palin prove that Trig is really her son.

Say What?

Liberals:

NY Times editorial: “The killing of Osama bin Laden provoked a host of reactions from Americans: celebration, triumph, relief, closure and renewed grief. One reaction, however, was both cynical and disturbing: crowing by the apologists and practitioners of torture that Bin Laden's death vindicated their immoral and illegal behavior after the Sept. 11 attacks. ”

Singer Sheryl Crow: "It's just fascinating that we have a black man, who has Muslim ties with his father, even though he's a Christian, it's amazing how far our country has come, that that's the man who took down Osama bin Laden. It makes you feel very patriotic. I do think that if it were any other president, I might feel different about it. But, he's one of the most conscious [conscientious?] people I've ever met, and I've met four presidents now. He walks the walk."

Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, of Osama bin Laden: "I think the viewpoint reflects more of a Neo-Nazi, white supremacist outlook on American whites than anything based in reality." I honestly don’t know if this guy is referring to Osama bin Laden or to the Navy SEALS who killed him (the headline suggested the former).

Pakistani opposition leader Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan on the killing of Osama bin Laden: "This is the biggest tragedy in the history of Pakistan after the fall of East Pakistan in 1971 (now Bangladesh). heads should roll.”

Al-Qaeda's statement confirming Osama bin Laden's death: “Even when the Americans managed to kill Osama, they managed to do ONLY that by disgrace and betrayal. Men and heroes only should be confronted in the battlefields but at the end, that's God's fate.”

Michael Moore on the killing of Osama: "You hate what we stand for, you hate what our constitution stands for [if you favored his being killed]....We should be standing up and saying 'listen, damn it, we're Americans. This is the way we do it. You commit a crime, we put you on trial.'"

60 Minutes news correspondent Lesley Stall: “When Jimmy Carter sat in the Oval Office, you got to think the gods had turned against him, with his double-digit inflation and gas lines. You knew he had lost his mantle of heaven when his helicopter mission to recue the American hostages in Iran failed tragically in a sandstorm.”

President Barack Obama on high gas prices: "We can't just drill our way out of the problem. If we're serious about addressing our energy problems, we're going to have to do more than drill." Elsewhere, the president has suggested that we remove oil subsidies from the tax code. Now, even the simplest of us recognize that means higher gas prices and not lower. Same for reducing drilling out in the gulf; higher Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider prices, not lower. No new refining plants? Higher gas prices, not lower.

Obama (joking): "You do not want to be between Michelle and a tamale."

Claudio Cordone, of Amnesty International: "Amnesty International believes that US forces should have attempted to capture Osama bin Laden alive in order to bring him to trial if he was unarmed and posing no immediate threat."

Muslim American Society’s Khalilah Sabra: "He [bin Laden] was a visionary who believed in the possibility of an Islamic state in Afghanistan and the possibility that this thing might someday be. There was nothing wrong with that dream, even if it differs from that one that all Americans have here for themselves."

Alan Colmes: “Celebration in the streets and [shouting] “woo hoo” and [chanting] “USA, USA” is kind of unseemly. I think it’s jingoism.”

Michael Moore: "No, no, they killed him but what I'm saying is they didn't kill him because there was some kind of firefight or something going on. They went there with the intention to kill him. That's an execution or an assassination, whatever you want to call it."

Liberals being civil:

Radio host Mike Malloy: "All the death in Iraq was not caused by bin Laden. The death in Iraqwas caused by George W. Bush. Five thousand Americans, tens of thousands permanently damaged and shot to pieces, a million Iraqis dead - that wasn't bin Laden. That was George Bush. So when does Seal Unit 6, or whatever it's called, drop in on George Bush? Bush was responsible for a lot more death, innocent death, than bin Laden. Wasn't he, or am I wrong here?" Emphasis mine.

Alan Grayson on why President Bush did not go to Ground Zero with President Obama: “I suspect that President Bush might have been passed out drunk the past 3 or 4 days, so I’m not sure if he made any conscious decisions.”

Nancy Peosi at a fundraiser: "House Republicans should be working to help put Americans back to work, not waging an outrageous war against millions of women and their private health decisions...We cannot sit silent in the face of this extremist agenda" This extremist agenda is H.R. 3, which seeks to cut off public funding for abortions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: "If you run out of the government voucher and then you run out of your own money, you're left to scrape together charity care, go without care, die sooner. There really aren't a lot of options." Emphasis mine.

Liberals making sense:

President Obama: "The terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again. Our strategy is working, and there is no greater evidence of that than justice finally being delivered to Osama bin Laden."

Crosstalk:

Moderates:

Glenn Greenwald from 2009: “The new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit. Almost all of the Obama changes have been at the level of packaging, argumentation, symbol, and rhetoric. . . .” (I am assuming Greenwald is a moderate)

Conservatives:

Mike Huckabee: “It is a good thing that the last thing to go through Osama bin Laden’s mind was an American bullet.”

John Yoo: "President Obama can take credit, rightfully, for the success today, but he owes it to the tough decisions taken by the Bush administration."

Ann Coulter on the dead bin Laden pictures: “We paid for it; we ought to be able to see it.”

Allen West: "This America is rooted in a Judeo-Christian faith tradition, which finds its cornerstone of communication, prayer."

Marc Thiessen: “We have not interrogated a single high value detainee since Obama came into office.” ]quoted from memory]

ConserValidity (tweet): “We have not captured, detained or interrogated a single high ranking terrorist since Obama took WH. Ended Enhanced Interrogation on his2nd day”

Dennis Miller: “I think the Arab world operates under the same realm of zealotry as the Japanese soldiers did. If you really tell me that you think if we don't show this picture, guys who are otherwise predisposed to blow up us and use their children to blow us up are going to come around to the table and say, "We're going to do you a square because we like you now?" That's dreamland. That's Alan Colmes land. That's not the real world.”

Dennis Miller on Osama’s burial at sea: “I think Al Jazeera is putting a new cartoon show on called "Spongebomb Squarepants," and that's why they put him down there. I hope they didn't shave the beard. It will make for a nice coral reef down there. But I don't think it had anything to do with ceremony. I just think I've watched Animal Planet enough to know that this is what seals do with their leftovers. They drop them to the bottom of the sea. And I hope he rots down there until Bob Ballard and Jimmy Cameron dive on him on an IMAX cam and do a PBS special about it on the RMS Satanic.”

Dennis Miller on enhanced interrogation techniques: “you've got Colmes and Juan coming on and saying, no, it had nothing to do with that. He broke the night Anna Quindlen came over with tea cakes and scones and then Maya Angelou read some Koranic passages while Enya sang in the background, and that's when KSM spilled his guts like John Hurt in Alien.”

Rush Limbaugh: "Here's the bottom line: Pawlenty seemed the most presidential, Santorum seemed hyper and wired up, and Herman Cain made me think I was listening to me."

Rush Limbaugh: "Have you noticed, by the way, that nobody is demanding any proof that Obama killed the job market and the economy? Now, they're just demanding proof that he killed Osama."

Rush Limbaugh: "We're told that there were three wives in that house in Abbottabad and that none of them left for six years -- and they're accusing us of torture? Come on!"

Rush: "Mr. President, you used President Bush and Cheney's methods to track and kill Bin Laden. Please use President Reagan's policies to rescue this country."

Rush: "Now, follow me on this. Obama ordered an assassination, but he can't say it. He put us on a path to socialized medicine, but he can't say it. Bill Ayers was his good friend, but can't say it. Obama has to hide who he is and what he's doing, and he is the most transparent president ever."

Rush: "Let me ask this: If the SEALs had put women's underwear on Osama's head, would Obama release those photos?"

Rush: "I cannot suppress a smile every time I read about the 'mansion' Bin Laden lived in. Living in the lap of luxury... come on! The place looks like a crackhouse!"

Conservatives not making any sense:

Sen. Lindsey Graham jokingly said that the GOP candidates "are going to come to this state and kiss every part of your body."

Joe Biden Prophecy Watch

Kaddafi is about to use mustard gas to dislodge rebels in Misrata. Now what should be do?

Must-Watch Media

Frank Luntz focus group for Republican debate; make sure you see this, if you haven’t already:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cain-and-able-breakout-star-of-inaugural-gop-president-debate-was-herman-cain/

SEIU drops mask, goes full commie (text, video and pictures you have to see; the SEIU union drops all pretense. You must see this.

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2011/05/06/seiu-drops-mask-goes-full-commie/

That total ass, Lawrence O’Donnell, interviews Condi Rice (she is quite good):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-bS5phWgs

Rumsfield on O’Reilly (includes intro and talking points, which are good):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL4ue6OwTZw

1 solid minute of Marc Thiessen on O’Reilly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S0eU-QUUE0

If he laid it out so well, to your thinking, try (24 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K78dIP2vr8

Reason TV on the opposition to Walmart (Reason TV does great work).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lMfoA5ZozE

Daily Show “interview” with Dennis Kucinich (it is the 2^nd video):

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/05/rep-dennis-kucinich-d-cockroach-hardy.html

9/11 family member Debra Burlingame asked the President to speak to Attorney General Eric Holder to call off his dogs from investigating former CIA interrogators (the same investigators that were probably in part helpful in getting Obama the Osama win). He said no.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Onmy2uUNq8

Obama warns that Paul Ryan budget means autistic kids with 24 hour needs would now have to fend for themselves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4tyuXQrL5o

Ed Schultz interviews former congressman Alan Grayson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_l9MAy-4dc

A Little Comedy Relief

Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin): “Well, first, I want to acknowledge that this week we finally vanquished one of the world's great villains, and I for one am thrilled to say good riddance to Katie Couric.”

Jodi Miller: “Many now will predict that high gas prices will hurt President Obama’s reelection chances—mostly because it will cost too much for Democrats to transport illegal aliens to the polls.”

Short Takes

1) Osama bin Laden was on the 3^rd floor of his compound, and it took quite awhile for Navy SEALS to break through the inner wall and get up to that third floor. There were guns on that third floor. Laden did not grab a gun and come out with his guns blazing; he did not grab a gun and take cover, and start shooting. Apparently he threw one of his wives at a Navy SEAL, and that seems to be the extent of his resistence. Where is the great terrorist who would like to take as many Americans down with him at his death?

2) I believe that Obama is not releasing the photographs of a dead bin Laden because he was asked not to by his military advisors. I have no problem with that. However, part of me thinks that many in the Middle East see us as weak and squeamish for not releasing these photos.

3) Although bin Laden lived in a fairly large house, photos I have seen make it look pretty pathetic (besides, he seemed to share this home with at least 2 other families?). Also, the television that he was watching—was that sad or what? I know welfare moms that would toss that piece of garbage to the curb. Apparently, he had no heat or air conditioning as well?

4) Can you imagine if Bush did this same thing? Obama acted under cover and unilaterally. He did not even inform the Pakistani government. These are all good choices. However, had Bush done this, do you think we might here the descriptor cowboy a few times?

5) American Indians are upset because Osama’s code name was Geronimo? Are you kidding me?

6) We have not seriously interrogated a single high-value detainee since Obama took office.

7) How many news people have used the phrase gutsy decision this past week? A few people have made the point that, Obama really had no other decision to make. He he passed on this, and it got out, he would have been ruined. It was certainly a good decision; it was certainly the right decision; but gutsy? That is the media probably taking its cues from the White House.

8) Glenn Beck made some outstanding observations on Tuesday’s show (if I recall correctly). We are in a war of philosophies and ideas. If our counter-argument to Islam is, we have a lot of stuff and we can do whatever we want, then we are not going to win many hearts or minds.

9) Although I do not go along with Gary Johnson’s legalizing nearly everything; he did make some smart comments about our immigration problem. We need a simple way to hand out work VISAS as needed to immigrants; and we need to set up a grace period during which illegal aliens in the United States can obtain work VISAS. Quite obviously, we ought never to allow immigrants to simply come to the U.S. in order to use welfare benefits. He emphasized that this is not citizenship, but work VISAS.

10) Periodically, you hear President Obama coming out and talking about fiscal responsibility and not robbing our children, and this may strike you as weird, for such things to come out of the mouth of the biggest spending president in American history. It works like this. The president has to provide sound bites for the Obama Media Complex, so that, now and again, those people who don’t pay much attention to politics, hear their president talking about fiscal responsibility. They think to themselves, “Sure, that makes sense.” The OMC is not going add, in paragraph two, “These are strange words to come out of the mouth of the least fiscally responsible president in United States history.” I have a college-educated friend who is reasonably conservative, but she pays little or no attention to politics. When she reads stories like this (as she did in 2008), she believes that she is getting a reasonable representation of the news, and so she votes for Obama. A significant number of voters base their vote on less information than that.

11)  One of the accusations concerning liberals is, they are developing an entrenched infrastructure of non-elected officials who can shape America according to their liberal views. The NLRB, for instance, is trying to block the opening of a new Boeing plant in South Carolina, something which President Obama says he is not going to interfere with. At least one person on the very liberal NLRB was appointed by President Obama; a far-left, pro-union type. No wonder he opposes Boeing opening up another plant in a right-to-work state.

12) I hope that you noted, about the closest thing we have seen to a recovery followed the extension of all the Bush tax cuts. Recovery summer wasn’t; but there has been a modicum of recovery since Obama agreed to the Bush tax cuts.

13) All the Stimulus package did was, borrow a huge amount of money, and give much of it to the states, so that they did not have to sweat their budget shortfalls for a year or two. It was a huge transfer payment, from those who will pay taxes over the next 20–60 years to states, who have mismanaged their budgets (partially due to collective bargaining with public employees).

By the Numbers

New job numbers were good (244,000 new jobs), but unemployment is up to 9%. I have heard a variety of reasons, but let me suggest this one: some people, believing that they paid into it, feel as if they are entitled to get some unemployment. So, I would not be shocked if some people just started collecting unemployment, rather then seriously looking for work, figuring that they can do that in 26 weeks or so.

Fannie Mae asked the government Friday for an additional $8.5 billion in aid. The company said it lost $8.7 billion in the first three months of the year. As long as the government runs it, there is not need to balance any sort of budget.

The Navy SEALS spent 40 minutes on the ground, after preparing 7 months for this mission.

$1.3 trillion has been spent on wars since 9/11

$1.5–1.7 trillion deficit each and every year of the Obama administration.

66% of Pakistanis think we faked the killing of Osama bin Laden.

25% of the 268,000 New Jobs Were at McDonald's. Do you recall how Democrats complained that most of the jobs available during the 5% unemployment days of the Bush administration were burger flipping jobs?

The national gas average is as $3.99, which is just about the point at which Americans begin to change their driving habits.

43,766,713 Americans are on food stamps

A Little Bias

AP and Reuters both refused to cover the Republican debate. The AP said “These are restrictions that violate basic demands of newsgathering and differ from other debates where more access was granted. Accordingly, the AP will not staff the event in any format nor will the AP disseminate any pool photos taken by another outlet. This is consistent with longstanding policy exercised in coverage of many events." Fox informed the AP and Reuters that it will only allow one still photographer into the debate at the start, when candidates shake hands, and that the photographer must leave when the debate begins. It also wants the single photographer to distribute the photos to all other media organizations. Similar restrictions have been placed upon AP for stories which they did cover. We have all seen the photo of Obama and everyone else in the situation room. The AP carried this photo, but it was taken by a White House photographer. When President Obama addressed the nation on the killing of Osama bin Laden, the picture which is carried with the AP story was a posed photo; taken after the fact (photos are not taken during the speech).

Just like the TEA parties were ignored by almost all media for nearly a year (as were the protests outside of the ground zero mosque for several months), so was the Republican debate ignored by a significant portion of the liberal press.

If you google AP on the Republican debate all of the top 21 links are all about AP skipping the debate.

It is also noteworthy that many of these stories do not mention events which AP and Reuters have covered in the past with similar restrictions.

Whether you are liberal, moderate or conservative, you have to recognize that, these are no longer news gathering services; most “news services” are arms of the Democratic party.

_______________________________________

NPR actually did a story on the Republican debate, but, even though most candidates got in several shots against Obama, none of these sound bites were played or alluded to.

Another story on NPR about the president going to NY city, has one person commenting that Obama is “the best president we have ever had.”

Saturday Night Live Misses

Of course, Obama could have gotten up 12 times and given a new story about what happened when bin Laden was killed. Very little original writing would have been required.

Yay Democrats!

Obama got Osama. Although he still takes too long to make a decision, he is making them more quickly than before. Personally, I had very few problems with any part of the actual execution of Osama, including his deep sea burial.

Political Chess

With the help of the media, the left has made it sound as if, the choice is, continue entitlements as they are, if we tax the rich more; or, if we do not tax the rich more, then everyone will be paying tons more money for medicare. That choice does not exist. Whether the rich are taxed more or not, there is not enough money to continue the system as is.

More Proof Obama is an Amateur

Much of the killing of Osama bin Laden went off like clockwork. The military prepared for this for 7 months, and this was kept as a SEAL operation (from what I understand, President Carter’s biggest problem in the Iran hostage rescue attempt was trying to let several different organizations get involved instead of letting just one handle the entire action). All of this is good. Although some can quibble with the killing of Osama and with the quick removing of his body, these were reasonable decisions. All of this was good. However, much of what happened afterward was a mess. How much should be revealed about the assault? One day, it is one story, the next day, it is another story. Do we release the photos, do we not? All of this should have been thought out and determined ahead of time. Limited information about the raid and what we did should have been released, and it should have been one coherent unchanging narrative. Obviously, the narrative must be consistent with what would be discovered at the compound after the fact. So much of this should have been thought out in advance, and much of it was not.

You Know You’re Being Brainwashed if...

You think taxing the rich more will solve the entitlement problem, even temporarily.

News Before it Happens

Although this has already begun, look for there to be many snubs and many attacks upon states which will probably vote against Obama in 2011: so far, this would be Texas, South Carolina and Arizona. Look for various agencies of the federal government to make their lives miserable in one way or another.

Prophecies Fulfilled

Al Gore blames twisters on global warming.

Looks Like I was Wrong

This is one place where I anted to be wrong. I was certain that Donald Trump would be the next Republican candidate and the next president. What I did not anticipate was, his running at the mouth, but with very little substance. On television, he comes off well, because he is edited down to a few intelligent comments and one “You’re fired” per week. Had he been able to project that same persona when talking off the cuff; had he presented a couple of semi-intelligent approaches to problems, he would have been unstoppable. Basically, what he needed was a Karl Rove type who would tell Trump what he could say and what he couldn’t say. He would focus Trump on something substantial rather than the birther issue or the 25% tax on Chinese goods. A little focus, a little discipline, a little guidance, and the presidency would have been Trump’s to take, because we are a celebrity-obsessed society. However, he has not gone on to other issues; he threw a swearing fit in public; and since then, he has been almost eerily quiet. He is still not out of the race, but he cannot run simply as Donald Trump, who says whatever he wants to say whenever he wants to say it. However, his ego may be too large to appreciate the focus, discipline and guidance that someone else could give him.

By the way, I am really glad to be wrong in this case.

My Most Paranoid Thoughts

Obama intentionally does want to destroy the economy of the United States.

Missing Headlines

Attorney General Eric Holder Still Investigating CIA Interrogators

AG Eric Holder still investigating Navy SEALS for slapping terrorist.

Muslims Continue Killing Christians and Burning Down Churches

Intelligence on Osama—credit Bush

Come, let us reason together....

The Osama Timeline

by Doug Ross

1. 2003: Enhanced Interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad Results in the Nom De Guerre of bin Ladin's Courier.

2. 2004: Enhanced Interrogation of al-Qahtani Confirms the Nom De Geure of bin Ladin's Courier.

3. 2006 (?): Enhanced Interrogation of an Al Qaeda Captured in Iraq, Ghul, Produces the Real Name of the Courier.

4. 2006-2009: NSA Begins Furiously Intercepting Any And All Communications Made By Anyone "al-Kuwaiti" Has Ever Known.

5. Late 2010 (?): al-Kuwaiti Places a Very Ill-Advised Phone Call. "[conversing] with someone who was being monitored by U.S. intelligence. the courier [then] unknowingly led authorities to a [bizarre] compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad."

6. 2011: Surveying Abbottabad, We Grow Confident We've Found Bin Ladin's Hideout.

7. April 29-May 1 2011: Obama's Team Tells Him They Have High Confidence Bin Ladin (or at Least His Most Trusted Courier) is In the Compound, and Obama Agrees, and Orders the Raid; On May 1 It's Executed By SEAL Team 6.

8. May 2011: Begin a Disinformation Campaign To Convince the Public That 2003-2008 Never Happened.

From:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/05/dems-worst-nightmare-terror-wiretaps.html

Top 10 Bush Terror Policies Continued by Obama

by Human Events

After campaigning vigorously against President Bush's terror policies, Barack Obama continued a good many of them after assuming the presidency. To those policies, along with the Navy SEALS who entered the Abbottabad compound, go the credit for the long-awaited, bullet-to-the-head takedown of Osama bin Laden. Here are the Top 10 Bush Terror Policies Continued by Obama.

1. Special Forces funded: Since 9/11, funding for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has tripled, even as its overseas deployments quadrupled. This Pentagon unit oversees all the military services' elite Special Forces units, including the Navy SEAL Team Six that was dispatched to Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideaway. Under Obama, the command continues to be well-funded even during times of economic problems and budget cutbacks. The Pentagon is seeking a 7% budget increase for SOCOM in fiscal 2012, and the command is fielding the first of its 72 new MH-60M helicopters, while upgrading other aging hardware.

2. Military tribunals: President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder were determined to end military tribunals and try terrorist detainees in criminal courts. Only when Congress rebelled and New Yorkers denounced the since-revoked decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Lower Manhattan, did the administration back down and accept the obvious-that deadly terrorists couldn't be allowed the full set of rights afforded in U.S. federal court. Do we really want a committed jihadist to be set free because a Navy SEAL didn't read him his Miranda rights when pulling him out of a cave in Tora Bora?

3. Iraq not abandoned: Obama won the presidency with the help of the anti-war Left by promising a quick end to the Iraq War. He has stayed the course long enough for the country to stabilize following the Bush surge, which Obama opposed. Now, with the Middle East pushing out longtime rulers, the new leaders can choose from two models: a democratic Iraq or a demonic Iran.

4. Gitmo still open: Obama's first act as President was signing an executive order to close the facility holding terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay within a year. More than two years later, he has finally concluded that there is nowhere else to house such murderous jihadists.

5. Renditions continued: Obama has continued a version of the Bush practice of renditions. No wonder. It was in a secret prison in Eastern Europe where a waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave intelligence to the CIA helping to identify Osama bin Laden's couriers, one of whom led U.S. Special Forces to his doorstep.

6. Afghanistan surge: Obama foolishly set a date for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, but he partially accepted his general's recommendation for more military personnel for the battle. Under Obama, the number of troops in Afghanistan has doubled since Bush left office. Let's hope the Commander-in-Chief ignores his own deadline and lets the military do its job.

7. Indefinite detention: Even while Obama and Holder wrung their hands over how to bring terrorists to justice, ultimately they came to the same conclusion that Bush reached: There are some detainees who are so dangerous that they can never be released. At one point, Holder even went so far as to say that he would try hard-core Gitmo detainees in criminal courts, but if an acquittal was reached, he would still keep them imprisoned.

8. Surveillance maintained: The Left went crazy over Bush's so-called assault on civil liberties when the Patriot Act allowed the surveillance of calls from suspected terrorists coming from overseas and permitted the FBI to obtain certain phone records without warrants. Obama's Justice Department has given legal authority for the continuation of the policy, with the anti-war crowd voicing only muted concern.

9. Record number of drones: Obama has greatly increased the number of unmanned drones used in Afghanistan, an effective weapon against the enemy in rough terrain. One abhors the persistent civilian casualties, but it also greatly reduces U.S. troop deaths.

10. Killing terrorists: Bush said, "Bring 'em on," when al-Qaeda flocked to Iraq, and he sent intelligence agents and Special Forces around the world to aggressively track down terrorists. American warriors have continued the long battle with continued success during the Obama administration. But because the targeting of an individual for assassination is legally murky, the shot into the head of Osama bin Laden would not have happened if the Obama-supporting American Civil Liberties Union had gotten its way.

From:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=43363

10 ways Barack Obama botched the aftermath of the masterful operation to kill Osama bin Laden

By Toby Harnden (of The Telegraph)

The past few days have seemed like an extended amateur hour in the White House as unforced error after unforced error has been made in the handling of the US Government's message about the killing of bin Laden.

We should not forget the bottom line in this: bin Laden was justifiably and legally killed by brave and skilled US Navy SEALs. The operation was audacious and meticulous in its planning and execution. President Barack Obama made the call to carry out the raid and his decision was vindicated in spades.

Having said that, the messiness since then has taken much of the sheen off this success, temporarily at least. Here's a summary of what went wrong once the most difficult bit had been achieved:

1. It took nearly three days to decide not to release the photographs. I think there was a case for not releasing the pictures, though on balance I think disclosure would have been best. But whichever way Obama went on this, the decision should have been made quickly, on Monday. By letting the world and his dog debate the issue for so long and then say no made the administration look indecisive and appear that it had something to hide. It will fuel the conspiracy theories. And the pictures will surely be leaked anyway.

2. To say that bin Laden was armed and hiding behind a wife being used as a human shield was an unforgiveable embellishment. The way it was expressed by John Brennan was to mock bin Laden as being unmanly and cowardly. It turned out to be incorrect and gave fuel, again, to conspiracy theories as well as accusations of cover-ups and illegality. Of all the mistakes of the week, this was by far the biggest.

3. It was a kill mission and no one should have been afraid to admit that. Bin Laden was a dead man as soon as the SEAL Team landed. There's nothing wrong with that but the Obama administration should have been honest about it rather than spinning tales about bin Laden having a gun, reaching for a gun (the latest) and resisting (without saying how he resisted).

4. Too much information was released, too quickly and a lot of it was wrong. When it made the administration look good, the information flowed freely. When the tide turned, Jay Carney, Obama's spokesman, clammed up completely. I'm a journalist; I like it when people talk about things. But from the administration's perspective, it would have been much better to have given a very sparse, accurate description of what happened without going into too much detail, especially about the intelligence that led to the compound (an account which is necessarily suspect).

5. Obama tried to claim too much credit. Don't get me wrong, he was entitled to a lot of credit. but sometimes less is more and it's better to let facts speak for themselves. We didn't need official after official to say how "gutsy" Obama was. Far better to have heaped praise on the CIA and SEALs (which, to be fair, was done most of the time) and talked less about Obama's decision-making. And a nod to President George W. Bush would have been classy - and good politics for Obama.

6. Proof of death was needed. The whole point of the SEAL operation, rather than a B2 bombing that levelled the compound, was to achieve certainty. The administration has DNA evidence, facial recognition evidence and photographic evidence. Some combination of that evidence should have been collated and released swiftly. It's not enough to say, effectively, "Trust me, I'm Obama" - especially given all the misinformation that was put out.

7. The mission should have been a `capture' one. Notwithstanding 3. above and the legitimacy of killing bin Laden, I think a capture of bin Laden was probably possible and, in the long term, would have been better - not least because of the intelligence that could have been gleaned from interrogating him and the couriers. My hunch is that Obama didn't want him alive because there would have been uncomfortable issues to address like whether he should be tried, where he should be held (it would have been Guantanamo - obviously) and the techniques for questioning him.

8. Obama's rhetoric lurched from jingoistic to moralistic. During the initial announcement, Obama said that by killing bin Laden "we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to". If Bush had said that, he would have been mocked and laughed at, with some justification. But by today Obama was all preachy and holier than thou saying: "It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool. That's not who we are. We don't trot out this stuff as trophies."

9. Triggering a torture debate was an avoidable own goal. Following on from 3. by discussing the intelligence, the administration walked into the issue of whether enhanced interrogation techniques yielded important information. That was certainly something they could have done without. Politically, it gave something for Republicans to use against Obama.

10. The muddle over Pakistan. Everyone I talk to with knowledge of these things tells me that Pakistan had to have given the green light for the raid in some form. But the Pakistanis, for good reasons, would not want this made public. Rather than say it would not comment on whether Pakistan had harboured bin Laden or was playing a double game, the White House poured petrol on the flames by encouraging criticism of Pakistan. That might have been deserved, but in terms of managing the region it was impolitic. The Pakistanis are clearly riled and the contradictions between the US and Pakistani accounts, again, fuel the conspiracy theories.

All this has meant that this week's media story has become one about Obama and the White House more than one about the SEALs, the CIA and what killing bin Laden means. That's exactly the wrong way round.

from:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100086478/10-ways-barack-obama-botched-the-aftermath-of-the-masterful-operation-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

I am in agreement with the first 5; the latter 5, I would quibble with and side with Obama, for the most part, on them.

The death of OBL: The perfect purple moment . . . almost

by Lanny Davis

The stunning news of the death of Osama bin Laden on Sunday night was quickly followed by spontaneous celebrations in front of the White House, Times Square and, most moving of all, at Ground Zero.

I sat with my 13-year-old son and wife, watching President Obama's moving announcement and telling my son, Josh, "This is a moment you will remember - just like I remember exactly when my dad and I watched together the night that Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon."

The young man and candidate to be U.S. senator from Illinois, who proclaimed at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we are not a Red States of America or a Blue States of America but a United States of America, had made that statement truer than ever. And now, just seven years later, we watched Barack Obama on TV making the announcement Sunday night and knew, more than ever, that we were watching the president of the United States.

Now we know that President Obama picked the riskiest of all the options - to take out the evil murderer bin Laden with a Navy SEAL commando strike, and not a massive bombing attack on his mansion, thus ensuring that innocent civilian deaths would be minimized and proof of his death could be 100 percent confirmed.

But Obama, with steady hand, doing exactly what so many have criticized him for doing regarding many of his foreign policy decisions - taking his time, weighing all the alternatives, thinking things through, listening carefully to people who know more than he does and then, finally, making a judgment - made The Decision. I don't think he'll be criticized again by Sarah Palin for being "the Professor."

But even now, even this one moment when red and blue America felt pride and unity, the strident voices on the left and the right - the usual suspects - couldn't resist, just couldn't resist, taking partisan cheap shots and shamefully trying to play politics.

Some evening TV commentators could not resist the temptation to refer snidely to comments made by then-President George W. Bush, including running TV clips of Bush apparently diminishing the importance of killing bin Laden, saying his death should not be the measurement of America's success or failure in its war against terror.

But this ignores the fact that his comment reflected a general-consensus strategy recommended by both the intelligence community and the Defense Department, i.e., that al Qaeda should not be allowed to declare victory because bin Laden had not yet been caught and/or killed. It also ignores that the successful operation completed courageously by President Obama was begun during the Bush years, such as determining the location of the courier that led to finding the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.

Moreover, a fair reading of Bush's record should grant him some credit for the Terrorist Surveillance Program and "enhanced interrogation techniques." I was one of many liberal Democratic critics who questioned the legal and constitutional bases of these programs. At the very least, we critics of these programs should now give Bush some credit, since according to reports from senior administration officials, these controversial tactics contributed significantly to catching bin Laden.

Bush was quick to congratulate President Obama publicly on his leadership in this operation, as did most Republican leaders. His decision not to go to Ground Zero with President Obama is classic George Bush - he has taken himself out of the limelight since his presidency, and he doesn't want to detract from this great moment of success for President Obama.

From:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/05/the-death-of-obl-the-perfect-purple-moment-almost/#ixzz1Lj23ShVL

Remember the Journalist?

Here are some of those on that list:

1.                                                                                                                Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect

2.                                                                                                                Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal

3.                                                                                                                Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO

4.                                                                                                                Mike Allen - POLITICO

5.                                                                                                                Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America

6.                                                                                                                Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic

7.                                                                                                                Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation

8.                                                                                                                Ryan Avent - Economist

9.                                                                                                                Dean Baker - The American Prospect

10.                                                                                                              Nick Baumann - Mother Jones

11.                                                                                                              Josh Bearman - LA Weekly

12.                                                                                                              Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report

13.                                                                                                              Ari Berman - The Nation

14.                                                                                                              Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute

15.                                                                                                              Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University

16.                                                                                                              Brian Beutler - The Media Consortium

17.                                                                                                              Lindsay Beyerstein - Freelance journalist

18.                                                                                                              Joel Bleifuss - In These Times

19.                                                                                                              John Blevins - South Texas College of Law

20.                                                                                                              Eric Boehlert - Media Matters

21.                                                                                                              Sam Boyd - The American Prospect

22.                                                                                                              Ben Brandzel - MoveOn.org, John Edwards Campaign

23.                                                                                                              Shannon Brownlee - Author, New America Foundation

24.                                                                                                              Rich Byrne - Playwright

25.                                                                                                              Kevin Carey - Education Sector

26.                                                                                                              Jonathan Chait - The New Republic

27.                                                                                                              Lakshmi Chaudry - In These Times

28.                                                                                                              Isaac Chotiner - The New Republic

29.                                                                                                              Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

30.                                                                                                              Michael Cohen - New America Foundation

31.                                                                                                              Jonathan Cohn - The New Republic

32.                                                                                                              Joe Conason - The New York Observer

33.                                                                                                              Lark Corbeil - Public News Service

34.David Corn - Mother Jones

35.Daniel Davies - The Guardian

36.David Dayen - FireDogLake

37.Brad DeLong - The Economists' Voice, University of California at Berkeley

38.Ryan Donmoyer - Bloomberg News

39.Adam Doster - In These Times

40.Kevin Drum - Washington Monthly

41.Matt Duss - Center for American Progress

42.Gerald Dworkin - UC Davis

43.Eve Fairbanks - The New Republic

44.James Fallows - The Atlantic

45.Henry Farrell - George Washington University

46.Tim Fernholz - American Prospect

47.Dan Froomkin - Huffington Post, Washington Post

48.Jason Furman - Brookings Institution

49.James Galbraith - University of Texas at Austin

50.Kathleen Geier - Talking Points Memo

51.Todd Gitlin - Columbia University

52.Ilan Goldenberg - National Security Network

53.Arthur Goldhammer - Harvard University

54.Dana Goldstein - The Daily Beast

55.Andrew Golis - Talking Points Memo

56.Jaana Goodrich - Blogger

57.Merrill Goozner - Chicago Tribune

58.David Greenberg - Slate

59.Robert Greenwald - Brave New Films

60.Chris Hayes - The Nation

61.Don Hazen - Alternet

62.Jeet Heer - Canadian Journalist

63.Jeff Hauser - Political Action Committee, Dennis Shulman Campaign

64.Michael Hirsh - Newsweek

65.James Johnson - University of Rochester

66.John Judis - The New Republic, The American Prospect

67.Michael Kazin - Georgetown University

68.Ed Kilgore - Democratic Strategist

69.Richard Kim - The Nation

70.Charlie Kireker - Air America Media

71.Mark Kleiman - UCLA The Reality Based Community

72.                                                                                                              Ezra Klein - Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect

73.                                                                                                              Joe Klein - TIME

74.                                                                                                              Robert Kuttner - American Prospect, Economic Policy Institute

75.                                                                                                              Paul Krugman - The New York Times, Princeton University

76.                                                                                                              Lisa Lerer - POLITICO

77.                                                                                                              Daniel Levy - Century Foundation

78.                                                                                                              Ralph Luker - Cliopatria

79.                                                                                                              Annie Lowrey - Washington Independent

80.                                                                                                              Robert Mackey - New York Times

81.                                                                                                              Mike Madden - Salon

82.                                                                                                              Maggie Mahar - The Century Foundation

83.                                                                                                              Amanda Marcotte - Pandagon.net

84.                                                                                                              Dylan Matthews - Harvard University

85.                                                                                                              Alec McGillis - Washington Post

86.                                                                                                              Scott McLemee - Inside Higher Ed

87.                                                                                                              Sara Mead - New America Foundation

88.                                                                                                              Ari Melber - The Nation

89.                                                                                                              David Meyer - University of California at Irvine

90.                                                                                                              Seth Michaels - MyDD.com

91.                                                                                                              Luke Mitchell - Harper's Magazine

92.                                                                                                              Gautham Nagesh - The Hill, Daily Caller

93.                                                                                                              Suzanne Nossel - Human Rights Watch

94.                                                                                                              Michael O'Hare - University of California at Berkeley

95.                                                                                                              Josh Orton - MyDD.com, Air America Media

96.                                                                                                              Rodger Payne - University of Louisville

97.                                                                                                              Rick Perlstein - Author, Campaign for America's Future

98.                                                                                                              Nico Pitney - Huffington Post

99.                                                                                                              Harold Pollack - University of Chicago

100.                                                                                                            Katha Pollitt - The Nation

101.                                                                                                            Ari Rabin-Havt - Media Matters

102.                                                                                                            Joy-Ann Reid - South Florida Times

103.                                                                                                            David Roberts - Grist

104.                                                                                                            Lamar Robertson - Partnership for Public Service

105.                                                                                                            Sara Robinson - Campaign For America's Future

106.                                                                                                            Alyssa Rosenberg - Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive

107.Alex Rossmiller - National Security Network

108.Michael Roston - News broke

109.Laura Rozen - POLITICO, Mother Jones

110.Felix Salmon - Reuters

111.Greg Sargent - Washington Post

112.Thomas Schaller - Baltimore Sun

113.Noam Scheiber - The New Republic

114.Michael Scherer - TIME

115.Mark Schmitt - American Prospect, The New America Foundation

116.Nancy Scola - Personal Democracy Forum

117.Rinku Sen - ColorLines Magazine

118.Julie Bergman Sender - Balcony Films

119.Adam Serwer - American Prospect

120.Walter Shapiro - PoliticsDaily.com

121.Kate Sheppard - Mother Jones

122.Matthew Shugart - UC San Diego

123.Micah Sifry - Sunlight Foundation, Personal Democracy Forum

124.Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight.com

125.Jesse Singal - The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly

126.Ann-Marie Slaughter - Princeton University

127.Ben Smith - POLITICO

128.Sarah Spitz - KCRW

129.Adele Stan - The Media Consortium

130.Paul Starr - The Atlantic

131.Kate Steadman - Kaiser Health News

132.Kay Steiger - Center for American Progress

133.Jonathan Stein - Mother Jones

134.Sam Stein - Huffington Post

135.Matt Steinglass - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

136.James Surowiecki - The New Yorker

137.Jesse Taylor - Pandagon.net

138.Steven Teles - Yale University

139.Mark Thoma - The Economists' View

140.Michael Tomasky - The Guardian

141.Jeffrey Toobin - CNN, The New Yorker

142.Rebecca Traister - Salon

143.Karen Tumulty - Washington Post, TIME

144.Tracy Van Slyke - The Media Consortium

145.                                                                                                            Paul Waldman - Author, American Prospect

146.                                                                                                            Dave Weigel - Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent

147.                                                                                                            Moira Whelan - National Security Network

148.                                                                                                            Scott Winship - Pew Economic Mobility Project

149.                                                                                                            J. Harry Wray - DePaul University

150.                                                                                                            D. Brad Wright - University of NC at Chapel Hill

151.                                                                                                            Kai Wright - The Root

152.                                                                                                            Holly Yeager - Columbia Journalism Review

153.                                                                                                            Rich Yeselson - Change to Win

154.                                                                                                            Matthew Yglesias - Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly

155.                                                                                                            Jonathan Zasloff - UCLA

156.                                                                                                            Julian Zelizer - Princeton University

157.                                                                                                            Avi Zenilman - POLITICO

In case you do not grasp the significance of all this, ask yourself, “How does this have anything at all to do with journalism?” This is nothing more than propaganda being sent out.

When every single magazine had a glowing story on Barack Obama and his lovely family in 2008 and 2007, do you really think that was journalism? When a story about an affair that never happened, from nearly a decade ago, from unnamed sources, between John McCain and a staffer, making the front page of the New York Times, do you think that was journalism?

Also, it does not matter if many of these are journalists who are unknown to you. How many of them are aides to better known newsmen? How many of them do research for better known newsmen, who then affix their own name to this or that “story”?

From:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2573077/posts

Here is the list with photographs of this mostly white group:

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858

The Journalist's Creed - A Code of Ethics

--------------

I believe in the profession of Journalism.

I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.

I believe that clear thinking, clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.

I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.

I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.

I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one's own pocket book is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends.

I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

I believe that the journalism which succeeds the best-and best deserves success-fears God and honors man; is stoutly independent; unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power; constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of the privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law, an honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship, is a journalism of humanity, of and for today's world.

=============================

The Journolist's Creed - Joe Klein's Code of Ethics?

-------------------

I believe that random Conservatives and the entire Tea Party movement should be branded as "racists" for the public good.

I believe that Rush Limbaugh should die a painful death, and I would help him die.

I believe that Sarah Palin must be slimed for giving birth to a Down's syndrome baby, in order to elect Barack Obama. I believe her selection on the basis of her gender hurts women.

I believe that the public is best served by suppressing the Jeremiah Wright story and other stories which cast Barack Obama in an unfavorable light.

I believe that Fox News, Limbaugh and Breitbart.com should by silenced by government officials under the pretense of the "Fairness" doctrine. I believe in the public funding of "journalism" in order to provide the public with fair and balanced analysis.

I believe that anyone who questions the policies of the almighty Barack Obama is guilty of "racism" and "sedition", a crime punishable by imprisonment or fine.

Also from:

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858

Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts

Published on January 29, 2007 by Brian Riedl

The Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives must decide whether to write a budget extending, expiring, or repealing the Bush tax cuts. These tax cuts have provided a convenient scapegoat for the nation's budget and economic challenges. Despite a 42 percent spending increase in 2001, critics charge that the tax cuts have starved popular programs. Despite surging economic growth and 5 million new jobs since 2003, critics also charge that the tax cuts have not helped the economy. Finally, despite making the income tax code more progressive, critics charge that the tax cuts have widened inequality.

Nearly all of the conventional wisdom about the Bush tax cuts is wrong. In reality:

•                                                                                                                 The tax cuts have not substantially reduced current tax revenues, which were in fact not far from the 2000 pre-tax cut baseline and over the 2003 pre-tax cut baseline in 2006;

•                                                                                                                 The increased child tax credit, 10 percent tax bracket, and fix of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) reduced tax revenues much more than most of the "tax cuts for the rich";

•                                                                                                                 Economic growth rates have more than doubled since the 2003 tax cuts; and

•                                                                                                                 The tax cuts shifted even more of the income tax burden toward the rich.

Setting optimal tax policy requires governing with facts rather than popular mythology, which is why it is important to set the record straight by debunking 10 myths about the Bush tax cuts.

Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts-and the Facts

Myth #1: Tax revenues remain low.

Fact: Tax revenues are above the historical average, even after the tax cuts.

Myth #2: The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the budget deficit.

Fact: Nearly all of the 2006 budget deficit resulted from additional spending above the baseline.

Myth #3: Supply-side economics assumes that all tax cuts immediately pay for themselves.

Fact: It assumes replenishment of some but not necessarily all lost revenues.

Myth #4: Capital gains tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

Fact: Capital gains tax revenues doubled following the 2003 tax cut.

Myth #5: The Bush tax cuts are to blame for the projected long-term budget deficits.

Fact: Projections show that entitlement costs will dwarf the projected large revenue increases.

Myth #6: Raising tax rates is the best way to raise revenue.

Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Myth #7: Reversing the upper-income tax cuts would raise substantial revenues.

Fact: The low-income tax cuts reduced revenues the most.

Myth #8: Tax cuts help the economy by "putting money in people's pockets."

Fact: Pro-growth tax cuts support incentives for productive behavior.

Myth #9: The Bush tax cuts have not helped the economy.

Fact: The economy responded strongly to the 2003 tax cuts.

Myth #10: The Bush tax cuts were tilted toward the rich.

Fact: The rich are now shouldering even more of the income tax burden.

Myth #1: Tax revenues remain low.

Fact: Tax revenues are above the historical average, even after the tax cuts.

Tax revenues in 2006 were 18.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which is actually above the 20-year, 40-year, and 60-year historical averages.[1] The inflation-adjusted 20 percent tax revenue increase between 2004 and 2006 represents the largest two-year revenue surge since 1965-1967.[2] Claims that Americans are undertaxed by historical standards are patently false.

Some critics of President George W. Bush's tax policies concede that tax revenues exceed the historical average yet assert that revenues are historically low for economies in the fourth year of an expansion. Setting aside that some of these tax policies are partly responsible for that economic expansion, the numbers simply do not support this claim. Comparing tax revenues in the fourth fiscal year after the end of each of the past three recessions shows nearly equal tax revenues of:

    * 18.4 percent of GDP in 1987,

    * 18.5 percent of GDP in 1995, and

    * 18.4 percent of GDP in 2006.[3]

While revenues as a percentage of GDP have not fully returned to pre-recession levels (20.9 percent in 2000), it is now clear that the pre-recession level was a major historical anomaly caused by a temporary stock market bubble.

Myth #2: The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the budget deficit.

Fact: Nearly all of the 2006 budget deficit resulted from additional spending above the baseline.

Critics tirelessly contend that America's swing from budget surpluses in 1998-2001 to a $247 billion budget deficit in 2006 resulted chiefly from the "irresponsible" Bush tax cuts. This argument ignores the historic spending increases that pushed federal spending up from 18.5 percent of GDP in 2001 to 20.2 percent in 2006.[4]

The best way to measure the swing from surplus to deficit is by comparing the pre-tax cut budget baseline of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with what actually happened. While the January 2000 baseline projected a 2006 budget surplus of $325 billion, the final 2006 numbers showed a $247 billion deficit-a net drop of $572 billion. This drop occurred because spending was $514 billion above projected levels, and revenues were $58 billion below (even after $188 billion in tax cuts). In other words, 90 percent of the swing from surplus to deficit resulted from higher-than-projected spending, and only 10 percent resulted from lower-than-projected revenues.[5] (See Chart 1.)

Why the 2006 Budget Surplus was 572 billion lower than projected in January 2000

Furthermore, tax revenues in 2006 were actually above the levels projected before the 2003 tax cuts. Immediately before the 2003 tax cuts, the CBO projected a 2006 budget deficit of $57 billion, yet the final 2006 budget deficit was $247 billion. The $190 billion deficit increase resulted from federal spending that was $237 billion more than projected. Revenues were actually $47 billion above the projection, even after $75 billion in tax cuts enacted after the baseline was calculated.[6] By that standard, new spending was responsible for 125 percent of the higher 2006 budget deficit, and expanding revenues actually offset 25 percent of the new spending.

The 2006 tax revenues were not substantially far from levels projected before the Bush tax cuts. Despite estimates that the tax cuts would reduce 2006 revenues by $188 billion, they came in just $58 billion below the pre-tax cut revenue level projected in January 2000.[7]

The difference is even more dramatic with the pro-growth 2003 tax cuts. The CBO calculated that the post-March 2003 tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion, yet 2006 revenues came in $47 billion above the pre-tax cut baseline released in March 2003. This is not a coincidence. Tax cuts clearly played a significant role in the economy's performing better than expected and recovering much of the lost revenue.

Myth #3: Supply-side economics assumes that all tax cuts immediately pay for themselves.

Fact: It assumes replenishment of some but not necessarily all lost revenues.

Attempts to debunk solid theories often involve first mischaracterizing them as straw men. Critics often erroneously define supply-side economics as the belief that all tax cuts pay for themselves. They then cite tax cuts that have not fully paid for themselves as conclusive proof that supply-side economics has failed.

However, supply-side economics never contended that all tax cuts pay for themselves. Rather the Laffer Curve[8] (upon which much of the supply-side theory is based) merely formalizes the common-sense observations that:

   1. Tax revenues depend on the tax base as well as the tax rate;

   2. Raising tax rates discourages the taxed behavior and therefore shrinks the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue gains; and

   3. Lowering tax rates encourages the taxed behavior and expands the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue loss.

If policymakers intend cigarette taxes to discourage smoking, they should also expect high investment taxes to discourage investment and income taxes to discourage work. Lowering taxes encourages people to engage in the given behavior, which expands the base and replenishes some of the lost revenue. This is the "feedback effect" of a tax cut.

Whether or not a tax cut recovers 100 percent of the lost revenue depends on the tax rate's location on the Laffer Curve. Each tax has a revenue-maximizing rate at which future tax increases will reduce revenue. (This is the peak of the Laffer Curve.) Only when tax rates are above that level will reducing the tax rate actually increase revenue. Otherwise, it will replenish only a portion of the lost revenue.

How much feedback revenue a given tax cut will generate depends on the degree to which taxpayers adjust their behavior. Cutting sales and property tax rates generally induces smaller feedback effects because taxpayers do not respond by substantially expanding their purchases or home-buying. Income taxes have a higher feedback effect. Nobel Prize-winning economist Ed Prescott has shown a strong cross-national link between lower income tax rates and higher work hours.[9] Investment taxes have the highest feedback effects because investors quickly move to avoid higher-taxed investments. Not surprisingly, history shows that higher investment taxes deeply curtail investment and consequently raise little (if any) new revenue.

Yet, using the standard set by some, even a hypothetical tax cut that provides real tax relief to millions of families and entrepreneurs and creates enough new income to recover 95 percent of the estimated revenue loss would be considered a "failure" of supply-side economics and thus merit a full repeal.

Myth #4: Capital gains tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

Fact: Capital gains tax revenues doubled following the 2003 tax cut.

As previously stated, whether a tax cut pays for itself depends on how much people alter their behavior in response to the policy. Investors have been shown to be the most sensitive to tax policy, because capital gains tax cuts encourage enough new investment to more than offset the lower tax rate.

In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced from 20 percent and 10 percent (depending on income) to 15 percent and 5 percent. Rather than expand by 36 percent from the current $50 billion level to $68 billion in 2006 as the CBO projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion.[10] (See Chart 2.) Past capital gains tax cuts have shown similar results.

Capital Gains Tax Revenues Doubled Following the 2003 Tax Cut

By encouraging investment, lower capital gains taxes increase funding for the technologies, businesses, ideas, and projects that make workers and the economy more productive. Such investment is vital for long-term economic growth.

Because investors are tax-sensitive, high capital gains tax rates are not only bad economic policy, but also bad budget policy.

Myth #5: The Bush tax cuts are to blame for the projected long-term budget deficits.

Fact: Projections show that entitlement costs will dwarf the projected large revenue increases.

The unsustainability of America's long-term budget path is well known. However, a common misperception blames the massive future budget deficits on the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. In reality, revenues will continue to increase above the historical average yet be dwarfed by historic entitlement spending increases. (See Chart 3.)

Runaway Spending Drives the Long-Term Budget Problems

For the past half-century, tax revenues have generally stayed within 1 percentage point of 18 percent of GDP. The CBO projects that, even if all 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent, revenues will stillincrease from 18.4 percent of GDP today to 22.8 percent by 2050, not counting any feedback revenues from their positive

economic impact. It is projected that repealing the Bush tax cuts would nudge 2050 revenues up to 23.7 percent of GDP, not counting any revenue losses from the negative economic impact of the tax hikes.[11] In effect, the Bush tax cut debate is whether revenues should increase by 4.4 percent or 5.3 percent of GDP.

Spending has remained around 20 percent of GDP for the past half-century. However, the coming retirement of the baby boomers will increase Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending by a combined 10.5 percent of GDP. Assuming that this causes large budget deficits and increased net spending on interest, federal spending could surge to 38 percent of GDP and possibly much higher.[12]

Overall, revenues are projected to increase from 18 percent of GDP to almost 23 percent. Spending is projected to increase from 20 percent of GDP to at least 38 percent. Even repealing all of the 2001 and 2003 cuts would merely shave the projected budget deficit of 15 percent of GDP by less than 1 percentage point, and that assumes no negative feedback from raising taxes. Clearly, the French-style spending increases, not tax policy, are the problem. Lawmakers should focus on getting entitlements under control.

Myth #6: Raising tax rates is the best way to raise revenue.

Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Many of those who desire additional tax revenues regularly call on Congress to raise tax rates, but tax revenues are a function of two variables: tax rates and the tax base. The tax base typically moves in the opposite direction of the tax rate, partially negating the revenue impact of tax rate changes. Accordingly, Chart 4 shows little correlation between tax rates and tax revenues. Since 1952, the highest marginal income tax rate has dropped from 92 percent to 35 percent, and tax revenues have grown in inflation-adjusted terms while remaining constant as a percent of GDP.

Chart 5 shows the nearly perfect correlation between GDP and tax revenues. Despite major fluctuations in income tax rates, long-term tax revenues have grown at almost exactly the same rate as GDP, remaining between 17 percent and 20 percent of GDP for 46 of the past 50 years. Table 1 shows that the top marginal income tax rate topped 90 percent during the 1950s and that revenues averaged 17.2 percent of GDP. By the 1990s, the top marginal income tax rate averaged just 36 percent, and tax revenues averaged 18.3 percent of GDP. Regardless of the tax rate, tax revenues have almost always come in at approximately 18 percent of GDP.[13]

Tax Revenues Do Not Correlate with Tax Rates

Tax Revenues Are Highly Correlated with GDP

Regardless of Tax Rates, Revenues Remain Around 18 Percent of GDP

Since revenues move with GDP, the common-sense way to increase tax revenues is to expand the GDP. This means that pro-growth policies such as low marginal tax rates (especially on work, savings, and investment), restrained federal spending, minimal regulation, and free trade would raise more tax revenues than would be raised by self-defeating tax increases. America cannot substantially increase tax revenue with policies that reduce national income.

Myth #7: Reversing the upper-income tax cuts would raise substantial revenues.

Fact: The low-income tax cuts reduced revenues the most.

Many critics of tax cuts nonetheless support extending the increased child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, and the 10 percent income tax bracket because these policies strongly benefit low-income tax families. They also support annually adjusting the alternative minimum tax exemption for inflation to prevent a massive broad-based tax increase. These critics assert that repealing the tax cuts for upper-income individuals and investors and bringing back the pre-2001 estate tax levels can raise substantial revenue. Once again, the numbers fail to support this claim.

In 2007, according to CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation data, the increased child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, 10 percent bracket, and AMT fix will have a combined budgetary effect of $114 billion.[14] (See Table 2.) These policies do not have strong supply-side effects to minimize that effect.

By comparison, the more maligned capital gains, dividends, and estate tax cuts are projected to reduce 2007 revenues by just $36 billion even

before the large and positive supply-side effects are incorporated. Thus, repealing these tax cuts would raise very little revenue and could possibly even reduce federal tax revenue. Such tax increases would certainly reduce the savings and investment vital to economic growth.

The individual income tax rate reductions come to $59 billion in 2007 and are not really a tax cut for the rich. All families with taxable incomes over $62,000 (and single filers over $31,000) benefit. Repealing this tax cut would reduce work incentives and raise taxes on millions of families and small businesses, thereby harming the economy and minimizing any new revenues.

Myth #8: Tax cuts help the economy by "putting money in people's pockets."

Fact: Pro-growth tax cuts support incentives for productive behavior.

Government spending does not "pump new money into the economy" because government must first tax or borrow that money out of the economy. Claims that tax cuts benefit the economy by "putting money in people's pockets" represent the flip side of the pump-priming fallacy. Instead, the right tax cuts help the economy by reducing government's influence on economic decisions and allowing people to respond more to market mechanisms, thereby encouraging more productive behavior.

Many of the Upper-Income and Investment Tax Cuts Are Among the Least Expensive

The Keynesian fallacy is that government spending injects new money into the economy, but the money that government spends must come from somewhere. Government must first tax or borrow that money out of the economy, so all the new spending just redistributes existing income. Similarly, the money for tax rebates-which are also touted as a way to inject money into the economy-must also come from somewhere, with government either spending less or borrowing more. In both cases, no new spending is added to the economy. Rather, the government has just transferred it from one group (e.g., investors) in the economy to another (e.g., consumers).

Some argue that certain tax cuts, such as tax rebates, can transfer money from savers to spenders and therefore increase demand. This argument assumes that the savers have been storing their savings in their mattresses, thereby removing it from the economy. In reality, nearly all Americans either invest their savings, thereby financing businesses investment, or deposit the money in banks, which quickly lend it to others to spend or invest. Therefore, the money is spent by someone whether it is initially consumed or saved. Thus, tax rebates create no additional economic activity and cannot "prime the pump."

This does not mean tax policy cannot affect economic growth. The right tax cuts can add substantially to the economy's supply side of productive resources: capital and labor. Economic growth requires that businesses efficiently produce increasing amounts of goods and services, and increased production requires consistent business investment and a motivated, productive workforce. Yet high marginal tax rates-defined as the tax on the next dollar earned-serve as a disincentive to engage in such activities. Reducing marginal tax rates on businesses and workers increases the return on working, saving, and investing, thereby creating more business investment and a more productive workforce, both of which add to the economy's long-term capacity for growth.

Yet some propose demand-side tax cuts to "put money in people's pockets" and "get people to spend money." The 2001 tax rebates serve as an example: Washington borrowed billions from investors and then mailed that money to families in the form of $600 checks. Predictably, this simple transfer of existing wealth caused a temporary increase in consumer spending and a corresponding decrease in investment but led to no new economic growth. No new wealth was created because the tax rebate was unrelated to productive behavior. No one had to work, save, or invest more to receive a rebate. Simply redistributing existing wealth does not create new wealth.

In contrast, marginal tax rates were reduced throughout the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s. In all three decades, investment increased, and higher economic growth followed. Real GDP increased by 59 percent from 1921 to 1929, by 42 percent from 1961 to 1968, and by 31 percent from 1982 to 1989.[15] More recently, the 2003 tax cuts helped to bring about strong economic growth for the past three years.

Policies which best support work, saving, and investment are much more effective at expanding the economy's long-term capacity for growth than those that aim to put money in consumers' pockets.

Myth #9: The Bush tax cuts have not helped the economy.

Fact: The economy responded strongly to the 2003 tax cuts.

The 2003 tax cuts lowered income, capital gains, and dividend tax rates. These policies were designed to increase market incentives to work, save, and invest, thus creating jobs and increasing economic growth. An analysis of the six quarters before and after the 2003 tax cuts (a short enough time frame to exclude the 2001 recession) shows that this is exactly what happened (see Table 3):

•            GDP grew at an annual rate of just 1.7 percent in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the six quarters following the tax cuts, the growth rate was 4.1 percent.

•            Non-residential fixed investment declined for 13 consecutive quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. Since then, it has expanded for 13 consecutive quarters.

•            The S&P 500 dropped 18 percent in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts but increased by 32 percent over the next six quarters. Dividend payouts increased as well.

•            The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.

•            The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.[16]

Critics contend that the economy was already recovering and that this strong expansion would have occurred even without the tax cuts. While some growth was naturally occurring, critics do not explain why such a sudden and dramatic turnaround began at the exact moment that these pro-growth policies were enacted. They do not explain why business investment, the stock market, and job numbers suddenly turned around in spring 2003. It is no coincidence that the expansion was powered by strong investment growth, exactly as the tax cuts intended.

The 2003 tax cuts succeeded because of the supply-side policies that critics most oppose: cuts in marginal income tax rates and tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. The 2001 tax cuts that were based more on demand-side tax rebates and redistribution did not significantly increase economic growth.

Myth #10: The Bush tax cuts were tilted toward the rich.

Fact: The rich are now shouldering even more of the income tax burden.

Popular mythology also suggests that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts shifted more of the tax burden toward the poor. While high-income households did save more in actual dollars than low-income households, they did so because low-income households pay so little in income taxes in the first place. The same 1 percent tax cut will save more dollars for a millionaire than it will for a middle-class worker simply because the millionaire paid more taxes before the tax cut.

The Bush Tax Cuts Shifted the Tax Burden Further Toward the Rich

In 2000, the top 60 percent of taxpayers paid 100 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 40 percent collectively paid no income taxes. Lawmakers writing the 2001 tax cuts faced quite a challenge in giving the bulk of the income tax savings to a population that was already paying no income taxes.

Rather than exclude these Americans, lawmakers used the tax code to subsidize them. (Some economists would say this made that group's collective tax burden negative.)First, lawmakers lowered the initial tax brackets from 15 percent to 10 percent and then expanded the refundable child tax credit, which, along with the refundable earned income tax credit (EITC), reduced the typical low-income tax burden to well below zero. As a result, the U.S. Treasury now mails tax "refunds" to a large proportion of these Americans that exceed the amounts of tax that they actually paid. All in all, the number of tax filers with zero or negative income tax liability rose from 30 million to 40 million, or about 30 percent of all tax filers.[17] The remaining 70 percent of tax filers received lower income tax rates, lower investment taxes, and lower estate taxes from the 2001 legislation.

Consequently, from 2000 to 2004, the share of all individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40 percent dropped from zero percent to -4 percent, meaning that the average family in those quintiles received a subsidy from the IRS. (See Chart 6.) By contrast, the share paid by the top quintile of households (by income) increased from 81 percent to 85 percent.

Expanding the data to include all federal taxes, the share paid by the top quintile edged up from 66.6 percent in 2000 to 67.1 percent in 2004, while the bottom 40 percent's share dipped from 5.9 percent to 5.4 percent. Clearly, the tax cuts have led to the rich shouldering more of the income tax burden and the poor shouldering less.[18]

Conclusion

The 110th Congress will be serving when the first of 77 million baby boomers receive their first Social Security checks in 2008. The subsequent avalanche of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs for these baby boomers will be the greatest economic challenge of this era.

This should be the budgetary focus of the 110th Congress rather than repealing Bush tax cuts or allowing them to expire. Repealing the tax cuts would not significantly increase revenues. It would, however, decrease investment, reduce work incentives, stifle entrepreneurialism, and reduce economic growth. Lawmakers should remember that America cannot tax itself to prosperity.

From:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/01/ten-myths-about-the-bush-tax-cuts

Cartoons, many from Saudi Arabia, depicting Osama bin Ladin’s death:

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5252.htm

The government gives away $50,000 checks to those who have never farmed a day in their lives, because the government discriminated against them and did not give them farm loans.

http://biggovernment.com/lstranahan/2011/05/06/the-obama-administrations-guide-to-farmer-settlement-fraud/

http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2011/05/06/my-chance-to-cross-examine-architect-of-pigford-multi-billion-dollar-fraud/

RINO’s on parade: 11 GOP Senators Allow Planned Parenthood Director to Become Federal Judge

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/05/07/rinos-on-parade-11-gop-senators-allow-planned-parenthood-director-to-become-federal-judge/

Delta pilot refuses to fly with 2 Muslim imams aboard:

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/05/07/pilot-refuses-to-fly-with-imams-onboard-islamic-outrage-follows/

The 20 cities most vulnerable to rising seas:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cities-rising-sea-level-2011-5#20-alexandria-egypt-1

Additional Sources

Holder investigations:

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/05/eric-holders-priorities-same-sex.html

Unemployment Rate Rises to 9%, State-Run Media Cheers Obama

RUSH: The news media today, gosh, the unemployment rate's up to 9%, and they're celebrating. They're talking about some of the strongest job growth, with 244,000 new jobs, 62,000 of them from Mickey D's, 62,000 from McDonald's. Now, remember in the past, those jobs have been impugned by the Democrats and the left as meaningless, futureless hamburger flipper jobs without health care. Folks, I'll tell you, if we had our news media of today back in the days of Herbert Hoover we would have never had a Depression, because it woulda never been reported as a depression. This isn't even reporting. This is stenography that we have from the Drive-Bys today. We woulda never had a Great Depression. Nobody would have ever heard anything to get depressed about. Now, you can talk about 244,000 new jobs and all of that, but no president's ever been reelected with the unemployment rate at 8% or over.

Did you watch the Republican debate last night? I did. Folks, I'm telling you something, it was inspiring. It actually was. It was good to finally see five or six guys, maybe five and a half guys, take it to Obama. It actually was comforting and reassuring. And there were some surprises along the way here. I'm sure those of you who watched it have your own take. I, of course, El Rushbo have the final take, which is why I will wait to tell you what I think about it 'til I hear a little bit -- 'cause once I say something about something then there's nothing left to be said. You didn't watch it, Snerdley? No, no, it was not a dud. I mean the people on there that were duds were even entertaining, and Herman Cain overwhelmingly won. Frank Luntz has his focus group that Hannity puts on Fox after the debate. Herman Cain, according to that focus group, was the clear winner. Santorum was hyper. He was filled with fire and brimstone. Pawlenty, I thought, appeared very presidential. It was an upper all the way around. It really was. We can nitpick some things, and of course we will nitpick some things as the program unfolds before your very eyes.

Have you noticed, by the way, nobody is demanding that anybody prove that Obama killed the job market and the economy? They're demanding proof that he killed Obama. It's self-evident he's killed the economy. Nobody's demanding proof of that. We already know it. But there's still doubt out there about the -- (interruption) what's this? There he goes again right here in the middle of this program, president of the United States speaking on job and energy initiatives, he's in Indianapolis. We're not going to JIP. We have too many important stories.

This next little blurb here, a woman in Oregon woke up from dental surgery with a foreign accent. Not kidding. They say she sounds European. Which makes me wonder, has Obama had dental surgery lately, 'cause he's sounding an awful lot like George W. Bush. Oh, you know that will tick 'em off. They won't like that. The news media, speaking of which, the Drive-Bys are ecstatic. As you know the gasoline price has fallen. Well, the oil price is plummeting. Commodities in general are plummeting, and here's a montage of the media rejoicing over this news.

COSTELLO: Gas prices are actually down. You can barely see the drop, but this could signal a bigger drop ahead.

MEADE: For the first time in a month and a half, gas prices did not go up this morning. The average price dipped fractions of a penny.

CHETRY: After 44 straight days of going up, gas prices are actually down.

GUTHRIE: Is this a trend? Will people start seeing cheaper gas?

RUSH: That's Savannah Guthrie wrapping it up from NBC. It was Carol Costello, that's my stalker at CNN, Robin Meade, Headline News, Kiran Chetry from CNN, just a microcosm of infobabes orgasmic over the falling price. And of course it's all looked at through the prism of how it will help Obama. For example, here's a story on unemployment, and this is from the MSNBC website. The headline: "Job Pickup May Not Be Enough to Aid Obama -- President riding high moving into election cycle, but economy lurks." He's not riding high. He is eminently beatable and that's one thing that became clear from the Republican debate last night. He is beatable. And, by the way, somebody I know ran into somebody you see on television all the time, a former Democrat pollster in a greenroom of a TV show who said to my friend that the internal polling in the White House is horrible on the Obama reelect, that the internal reelect number that they have in the White House, the internal number is bad, and that's why you see them doing all the reimaging, reimagining, all the things they're doing with Obama to try to build him back up, because their reelect numbers, contrary to what the Drive-Bys are saying in public, and contrary to what all the State-Controlled Media commentators are doing in cable TV, the White House internal reelect numbers are not good. Don't doubt me on this.

There is no way that somebody presiding over this mess is a shoo-in. There's no way that somebody that's the architect of this disaster is a lock. And yet people are coming along trying to convince everybody that that is the case because they're trying to dispirit you and they're trying to dispirit any would-be Republican presidential candidates into not taking it to Obama. I mean there's this ongoing, "He's got it wrapped up. You know what, we really can't win." In fact, one of the theories out there -- gotta share this with you -- one of the theories out there, and the theory includes the fact that the regime is trying to create this notion that things are so bad -- and this is gonna sound odd -- that things are so bad it would be risky to change horses in the middle of the stream, that doing that would only make it worse, that programs are in place to fix this. The last thing we need is somebody running in there and disrupting and tearing it all down. So one of the themes that they're trying to create from the White House on down, or up, depending on your perspective, is that no matter how bad things are, changing horses right now would be the absolute worst thing for the country. That's what they're trying to create. I know it doesn't sound logical, but that's what we're faced with, with this bunch. I mean that's the depths to which they have to plunge in order to come up with reason.

But anyway, back to the MSNBC story. Look at the headline: "Job Pickup May Not Be Enough to Aid Obama." It's written by a guy named John Schoen, who's the senior producer at MSNBC.com. It's not TV network, same bunch, but this is the website crew. "This week's stunning news of the death of Osama Bin Laden-- " who was killed by Obama, by the way, "-- gave President Barack Obama a much-needed bounce in voter opinion polls just as the 2012 president campaign grinds into gear. But the glow could fade if job growth doesn't accelerate."

Okay, so job pickup may not be enough to help Obama. Can I ask you people at MSNBC, have you had any thought, did it ever cross your mind to ask whether or not job growth is enough to help the unemployed? I mean after all, what are we talking about here? Do you realize how silly, childish, narcissistic, and immature it sounds to talk about the unemployment rate only within the context of how it helps or hurts Obama? What about the people who are unemployed, out of work? Is there any thought given to them and what economic news might mean to them? Well, there is here at this program, hosted by me, The Big Voice of the Right.

RUSH: "US companies added more jobs than expected in April, but the unemployment rate rose for the first time in five months and the economy's recent slowdown is likely to keep a lid on gains. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 244,000 last month as the private sector posted the strongest employment gain in five years," according to the Labor Department. Private sector employers, which account for about 70% of the workforce, but not for long, added 268,000 jobs in April. That's the biggest increase since February. The unemployment rate, obtained from a separate household survey, rose to 9% from 8.8% in March. Remember, now, how can you add jobs and the rate go up? It's the convoluted way that they are tabulating how many jobs are available to be had and a number of other tricky manipulations.

The Wall Street Journal says here that "the mixed data weren't what analysts expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswire had forecast payrolls would rise by 185,000 and that the jobless rate would remain unchanged at 8.8%." In other words, they had no clue what was coming and they were making wild guesses on all fronts. Sixty-two thousand of the jobs, 62,000 of the 244 were McDonald's, the previously impugned hamburger flipper jobs with no health care. When these jobs were being created during the Bush years the Democrats impugned and ridiculed these jobs. "Well, yeah, that's not much. You can't feed a family of four on a job at McDonald's, it's horrible, no health care." They just ran these jobs down, they were worthless.

One of the websites that I keep track of on matters of economics is a place called ZeroHedge.com, and there's a poster there by the name of Tyler Durden who occasionally posts some interesting stuff. For example, "Today's Bureau of Labor Statistics number 244,000 jobs is great until you exclude the 62,000 from McDonalds hirings, and 175,000 from the Birth Death Adjustment." The net new jobs in the private sector is 7,000. That's the net new jobs.

"A history of Birth Death adjustments which ultimately get washed out in the annual massive downward NFP revision which nobody really ever cares about though," but the birth-death model -- this is basically replacement job formula. And so what Mr. Durden is saying here is that only 7,000 actual jobs were created. The others were McDonald's and a special hiring program, and 175,000 birth-death model, fantasy jobs, that weren't really created. Those jobs don't really exist, the birth-death, it's an accounting gimmick, the simplest way that I'm gonna try to explain it. So a net increase of 7,000.

Let's go the audio sound bites. Austan Goolsbee, also known as Ichabod Crane, was on CNBC Squawk on the Street today, and talking to him was Erin Burnett on her last day. She broke down in tears, by the way. Yes, she did. She did a Patsy Schroeder today because she's going to CNN. Well, no, she's not crying 'cause of that, she wants to go to CNN. She wants to go to CNN 'cause she wants to branch out and cover more than just business news. She didn't get the Today gig. I don't even know if she was up for that. Savannah Guthrie got the Today gig.

You know where I read about that? (laughing) Page Six had a story about whether or not her boyfriend will follow her to New York. (laughing) Matt Lauer, his contract doesn't perspire 'til December, so Matt Lauer is still there. It's Meredith Vieira that's leaving. Meredith Vieira is leaving and thought maybe Ann Curry would go in there but they're gonna put Savannah Guthrie in there, which means F. Chuck Todd's gonna need a new TV wife for his morning show that he shares with her. Anyway, it was Erin Burnett talking to Ichabod Crane, Austan Goolsbee, about the jobs numbers. She said, "What was your first reaction? Were you surprised? Because a lot of the claims data for the past month has been worse and worse and worse."

GOOLSBEE: I was pleasantly surprised. It's a solid number. This is the strongest job creation in five years. More than five years. We've added more than a quarter million jobs a month over the last quarter, and we got more than two million over the last 14 months. We're moving the right way.

RUSH: There's no way. Two million jobs in the last 14 months? This is why people doubt 'em when they say they got Bin Laden. Well, it is. There's no way two million jobs in 14 months, there's no way. So Erin Burnett said, "If we kicked up from 8.8 to 9%, how much higher could we go on the unemployment rate even as the job market is strengthening? And I ask that, Austan, because obviously politically the unemployment rate is really the key headline."

GOOLSBEE: The thing is we have -- unemployment rate hasn't just been ticking down; it's been really plummeting down, biggest drop in 27 years. So of course they're gonna be some bumps up and bumps down as you either get changes in labor force participation or just the monthly survey that's used for the unemployment rate's got a lot of variability in it. If you look at the trend, it's clearly moving the right way, and if you're putting up jobs numbers like the ones we have been putting up for the last three months, quarter million a month, steadily that's gonna be bringing the unemployment rate down, regardless of what the short-term gyrations are.

RUSH: You have not been putting up a quarter of a million jobs a month. They're not a quarter of a million jobs this month. There are 7,000. At any rate, Erin Burnett's question to Ichabod here basically was, "So what? The unemployment rate went up to 9%, and that's what everybody sees." And I would say, no, that's not what everybody sees. The Drive-Bys are not reporting the unemployment rate. Have you noticed? If it were Bush they'd be reporting unemployment up to 9 percent. But with Obama -- I mean here, the Wall Street Journal headline: "The Economy Added 244,000 Jobs," AP: "The Economy Booming." You have to dig deep to find out the unemployment rate went up to 9%. No, no, no, they're not making the unemployment rate the focal point. Okay, that's Austan Goolsbee.

Mort Zuckerman was on MSNBC, Jansing & Company, they had a fill-in host in there today, Richard Lui. Zuckerman is the editor of US News & World Report, and Lui said,"What do you make of that, when you break it down, you look at manufacturing and retail and the rest, what do you make of the unemployment numbers today?"

ZUCKERMAN: The headline unemployment rate that you are referring to measures people who have applied for a job in the last four weeks. That's a misleading time span when you've had six million people who have been out of work for six months or longer. If you measure it with U6 rather than U3 measured by people who have applied for a job within the last six months who don't have work then you're looking at an employment rate with 15.7% and if you add to that the 2.3 million discouraged workers who have just given up then you're looking at a real unemployment rate of close to double the 9%, close to 18%. So we have not really made much headway in terms of reducing unemployment.

RUSH: Mort Zuckerman there of US News, and he's an Obamaite. He wants to report good economic news for the regime. But he's got his honest cap on. Now, Goolsbee (imitating Goolsbee) "And here we are, why, we created two million jobs in 14 months, we are creating jobs, a quarter of a million a month," who are we listening to, Charlie Sheen? No, more like Joe Biden. Let's go back, March 10th of 2010 on Hardball, MSNBC. They were in Jerusalem. Chris Matthews talking to Bite Me, said, "How come the Republicans bashed the brains into this President, saying he did the bail-out bill, when Bush did the bail-out? Why do they confuse the bail-out bill with the jobs stimulus bill and get away with it? They keep doing this conflation trick they did to get us into war with Iraq. They keep conflating the bail-out that Bush did with the jobs stimulus bill, and the Democrats get blamed for it." I just want to know, Mr. Vice President, why do they keep confusing this? Bush did the bailout. Bush did TARP. Why does Obama keep being blamed for it? And Biden finally had to go, "Let me answer." And he did.

BIDEN: What I keep saying in the White House: patience. Have a little patience here. Things are beginning to turn around, they're beginning to turn around, not only in fact in the economy, they're beginning to turn around and figuring out the Republicans are for nothing. What are they for? What have they offered? This is not a hard thing to sell until we start actually every month seeing 100,000 created, 200,000 jobs created, the economy moving, it's gonna move. Patience.

RUSH: March of 2010, yeah, thanks, Mr. Bite Me, you told the country to be patient, the economy is coming back, Republicans don't care, not for anything, what are they for? Just have patience. So now they've got this 244,000 number, and as far as they're concerned, that's been this way for 14 months. So basically here's what we have. And this is the way to look at this, ladies and gentlemen. What do we have here? We have unemployment at 9%, right? We have Ichabod Crane, Austan Goolsbee, and all these other people out of the regime on television happy as hell. Therefore what do we have? We have the Obama administration and the media happy with 9% unemployment. Happy with the unemployment rate at 9%, the gasoline price at four bucks a gallon. It's the right trend, you see. Yes. Unemployment rate, 9%. Regime happy. Don't forget that.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-06/u-s-payrolls-increased-244-000-in-april-unemployment-rate-climbs-to-9-.html

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42928731

http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/click.phdo?i=fa560e07631f0481874e44d936007e1f

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/23/usa-jobs-biden-idUSN2321155820100423

A Composite of All Versions of the Raid That Killed Osama Bin Laden

RUSH: Okay. With the aid of a lot of people too numerous to mention here, it's the composite here of having read everything, here are the various claims and versions of the story of the raid. There was a firefight. There wasn't a firefight. Osama was resisting. He wasn't armed. The SEALs thought he was reaching for an AK-47 at arm's length that remained at arm's length even after he heard the chopper land and after he heard the first shot. First shot took place on the first floor. Osama is up on the third floor. The AK-47. He's in his underwear or pajamas or some such thing. He used his wife as a human shield. He didn't use his wife as a human shield. His wife was killed. There were three wives in there for six months, along with him in there for six months. They accuse us of torture. He didn't use his wife as a shield.

She ran at a SEAL who shot her in the leg but she's okay. Some other woman was used as a shield by somebody downstairs, don't know who she was. She was killed but maybe she wasn't. But who was she anyway? Nobody knows. Bin Laden's son was killed, unless it was some other guy. Bin Laden's daughter saw him get killed. They were gonna capture Bin Laden until the problem with the helicopter, which was mechanical trouble, it did a hard soft landing, it crashed, it clipped a wall with the tail rotor, it had to be blown up. Parts of it were just carted off by the Pakistan military. They never were gonna capture him. It was a kill mission all the time. No, it wasn't, it was a kill mission from the get-go. No it wasn't. They were gonna capture him. The chopper blew up. No, the SEALs blew it up.

Panetta said the pictures would be released. Then Obama said they wouldn't be released. Panetta said there wasn't any video in the Situation Room. Hillary said, (paraphrasing) "No, I wasn't frightened about what I was seeing. Are you kidding? I just had an allergy problem." Yeah, Obama was in there, we got him off the golf course. He's wearing a golf shirt. We found him an Air Force windbreaker to put on in the Situation Room in the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft that's gonna be broadcast on Sunday. The pictures are not gonna be released, it would offend Muslim sensibilities, which he worries about a lot.

Now, the blogger here by the name of J. J., and I don't know his last name, asserts that Kroft, in the interview with Obama, pointed out that ever since Black Hawk Down, Muslims had been doing precisely that, filming American bodies being dragged through the streets, filming Daniel Pearl's head being cut off, filming anything and everything, and apparently Obama got really mad at Kroft when Kroft pointed that out, and so CBS cuts that from the interview and we won't see it. This is inside information. Can't vouch for it, but it is being asserted.

Of course we got a treasure trove of stuff from the hard drives but there was no Internet access, there were no phone lines and there was no television, but there was a giant satellite dish in the backyard. What was that for, if there was no phone and no television and no Internet access? And then yesterday, if he was naked, we were gonna capture him. And then if he was naked, that meant he wasn't armed, and so we could capture him. But if he had any kind of clothes on it meant we had to shoot him. This is what it has been. This is the degree to which this story has changed. And that's really just a brief outline.

From the Washington Times today: "Intelligence analysts are sifting through phone numbers and e-mail addresses found at Osama Bin Laden's compound to determine potential links to Pakistani government and military officials while US officials and analysts raise concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear materials. According to three US intelligence officials, the race is on to identify what President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has called Bin Laden's 'support system' inside Pakistan. These sources sought anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters." Right, but they are leaking this. We still don't know. They haven't shown us a picture of Bin Laden. So the stories here have just been all over the place and now they continue even today in the Washington Times.

You probably heard about this. This is from WNBC Eyeball News 4, New York: "An advisory has been sent to law enforcement officials asking them to be vigilant about train security based on information uncovered at Osama Bin Laden's compound after his death, officials said. Officials stressed the advisory is general in nature and the information apparently uncovered from the Bin Laden house in Pakistan dates back more than a year. According to NBC News, US officials say they have not found reference to specific plots. Instead, they say they've found what they call 'aspirational' items -- events al-Qaida operatives were interested in trying to make happen."

Now, I, ladies and gentlemen, am dubious that Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden wanted to blow up trains. And the story says one of the target dates was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. But why trains? We've been told, and Bin Laden himself in various taped messages that he has released, indicate he was a big believer in global warming. Bin Laden accused this country of destroying the climate, destroying the planet. And public transportation, that's green, that's very safe, that will protect -- why would Osama blow up a train when, as a global warming believer, he understands that trains help save the climate? I mean would your average liberal blow up a train? Bill Ayers didn't blow up trains. He blew up the Pentagon. So I'm not sure I buy this business that Osama would blow up trains, because to a global warming aficionado, you know, a train, that's something sacred. That would make him a hypocritical mass murderer, to blow up people on a train.

Saxby Chambliss. This is from the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation. "Moments before he died, Osama Bin Laden may have gotten a brief glimpse of what was headed his way -- as a bullet whizzed by his head. US commandos missed with their first shot at the world's most wanted man poked his head out of a third-floor room in his fortress --" oh, it's a fortress now, "-- according to US Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Bin Laden ducked back in, and the Navy SEALS quickly followed and finished the job," with the now famous double tap.

"The missed shot was a new detail in the emerging story of the 40-minute raid on the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan. Chambliss said, 'I hope they went in with the idea of killing him, not capturing him. We needed to take this guy out. And I know that's what the executive order said.'" The executive order? Folks, if that's true, this is newsworthy information, because those kinds of executive orders are illegal. Oh, yes, they are, Snerdley, ever since Geronimo Ford. "The other thing you have to remember is that this was pitch dark. When they got into the room with Bin Laden, they already had to go through some other folks downstairs, two of which they killed." One had a squirt gun. "And they were having to use explosives to blow doors open. By the time they got to him, they didn't know what they would find."

"They blew the door open, and they looked down the hallway and he stuck his head out of the room that he was in, and saw them, and ducked back in. They fired a shot, and missed him the first time -- and then went to the room. And that's when they killed him." This from Saxby Chambliss. Now, again, it says there was an executive order to take the guy out. Now, if what he claims in this story is true, let's review here, if what he claims is true, that means Bin Laden not only heard the SEALs coming, but he saw them. He heard them and saw them. So why was he still unarmed? Got that AK-47 within arm's reach but he never grabbed it, even though he heard 'em, even though he saw them. Now, Saxby Chambliss is one of the three senators who was shown a fake picture of the dead Bin Laden and I think initially believed it. One of the others was Scott Brown.

Reuters is not giving this up. It may be a better account than the one from Saxby Chambliss. "Only one of four principal targets shot dead by US commandos in the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden was involved in any hostile fire, a person familiar with the latest US government reporting on the raid told Reuters on Thursday. The account of Monday's daring 40-minute raid has new descriptions of the event, including that Navy SEALs shot an occupant of the compound who they thought was armed, but apparently was not. It confirms that Bin Laden was not armed when he was shot dead, nor are there indications that he directly threatened his attackers, according to the first source and a second US government source who is familiar with briefings on the raid." So is the man they killed, weapons nearby, the one photographed lying on a water pistol? Trying to figure out who this is. And this detailed account here from Reuters, it's kind of peculiar insofar as it skips over the most controversial part, the actual killing of Bin Laden. It says what he did as the SEALs approached him is unclear. Saxby Chambliss says it's very clear. Poked his head out, saw the bullet go by him, missed, ducked back in the room, SEALs followed him in, double tap, hello virgins.

But it's hard to believe that if Bin Laden had any weapons nearby he didn't pick one up. That's something extremely curious to me. At any rate, we still have lots to do. I have to take a brief time-out. Al-Qaeda's confirming Bin Laden's death, by the way. Now, how do they know? How do they know? How does Al-Qaeda know? How in the world do they know? Why would Al-Qaeda come out and say that Bin Laden is dead? How could they confirm it? Who does that help? It helps The One. It helps Obama, plus it gives them justification to attack us, if they needed any. The latest from Al-Qaeda is that this will result on a curse being placed on us here in America.

RUSH: I just have to topic here one more observation that I want to make. We have news from the New York Times. AP says (summarized), "By the way, you know what? There were two factions of Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden headed one, and Ayman al-Zawahiri headed up another." Ohhhhhh, really? That's the first time we've heard of that! Two warring factions inside Al-Qaeda? We thought Bin Laden was numero uno; we thought Zawahiri was number two. But from the New York Times, check this out:

"After reviewing computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed, American intelligence analysts have concluded that the chief of Al-Qaeda played a direct role for years in plotting terror attacks from his [mansion, getaway] hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, United States officials said Thursday." My friends, this is hilarious. When Obama couldn't find Osama, even though he promised he would, we were told that Bin Laden was no longer of any consequence whatsoever. This regime cannot keep their lies straight. They can't keep their stories straight. We were told for the last three or four years, "Hey, you know, dialysis? The guy's a shell of his former self. He's not even operationally in control."

We've heard this over and over again, from this bunch. But now the New York Times, in an effort to build up the smallest guy in the Situation Room, Barack Obama -- in an effort to build him up -- guess what, folks? "Oooosama Bin Laden has been at the helm this whole time!" Yes, Bin Laden has to be amplified, has to be blown up, has to be made the Big Kahuna in order to make it look like Obama has really pulled off a major coup here. I mean how big a deal is it to kill somebody who's operationally kaput? And that's what the regime said, that was their excuse.

"Ah, we're not really focusing on him that much. It was only important when Bush couldn't get him. Now that we can't get him, hell, he's not even a factor!" All of a sudden they get him and he was running the whole show! With no Internet and no television and no phones, he was running the whole show. He had a big satellite dish out there. That's right. Now that Obama has killed Bin Laden, he was the most dangerous man in the world. (singing) The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden... (pshew!) The Who Shot Osama Bin Laden...

RUSH: To Houston and Don. Hello, sir. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Dittos, Rush. In the president's address Sunday night he stated that after "a firefight," Bin Laden was killed and his body was taken into custody. "After a firefight."

RUSH: Right. That's a very important word, by the way. "After" the firefight.

CALLER: Not "during" the firefight.

RUSH: Right, that's exactly right. I'm very proud of you.

CALLER: All right. Thank you, sir.

RUSH: But what's the point?

CALLER: Well, the point is that it should be followed up on just like Bin Laden's daughter says that he was captured alive and then killed.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: It goes with the idea that the mission was to kill Bin Laden. Even if he was captured alive, the orders were to kill him.

RUSH: There's no question. Look, folks, let me just tell you, let me just tell you, there was no way, I'll repeat this over and over again. Snerdley, do you think there's...? Look, it's Open Line Friday, so if it's what people want to talk about, that's the rule. Are we getting into fatigue on this? (interruption) Not yet? Good. My empathy says we're not, but I just -- wanted to check. There's no way they're gonna take this guy alive -- ever, folks! They were never going to do it. I don't care if he was wearing a diaper, underwear, nude, they were never going to take him alive. They were never gonna bring him back and subject him to their own sissified system of dealing with these people that they have set up. They were never gonna give him an ACLU lawyer. They're not gonna put him on trial; they're not gonna do that. No way, shape, manner, or form. Well, the evidence clearly bears me out here. They're going back and forth on whether or not this was a kill mission. Don't doubt me out there. This was a kill mission.

Liberals Still Hate the US Military

RUSH: Chris in Laconia, New Hampshire. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hey. Greetings all knowing Maha Rushie.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Yes. My point was about releasing the photos of Bin Laden and the narrative that's being pushed is that that would get people to attack us more, and my view is exactly the opposite of the conventional wisdom on that. I think that that would be a good idea because our troops are prepared to be attacked. The big threat is not knowing who the attackers are until it's on their timing. So if we can, you know, get a situation where the people who are prone to attack us to begin with would attack us when we're most expecting them to, wouldn't that be good strategy.

RUSH: Perhaps. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but that whole argument's a smoke screen anyway. They already hate us. They can't hate us any more. They have sworn their hatred for us. There's another reason for not releasing the photos. It has nothing to do with what they're saying and I'm not pretending to know what it is. I'm just gonna tell you this. Remember we had this news for you yesterday. In 2009 President Obama authorized the release of 2,000 pictures that supposedly depicted abuse by American soldiers. You remember that? Two thousand. When it comes to pictures that are embarrassing to America, Obama will race to the nearest camera to have those pictures displayed.

The Abu Ghraib photos, all of those photos which were said to be embarrassing to the United States, photos which ostensibly showed abuse of innocent women and children, abuse of innocent prisoners by US interrogators and soldiers, oh, by all means release those pictures, but not this one? Because we don't spike the ball? That's not who we are? We spike the ball. We wouldn't be spiking the ball over Osama's death. We'd be spiking the ball in celebration of the SEALs and of mission accomplished. I know those 2,000 photos were not new, they were just more Abu Ghraib stuff, but still he authorized their release. Anything to embarrass. Let's not forget, we're talking about this man's great foreign policy, the Republicans say they're simply not up for it. Republicans: we're not yet ready to compete in foreign policy with President Obama. This is a guy that's been running around apologizing for America every chance he gets. He bungled Libya, bungled Egypt, bungles North Korea, bungles Iran, and we're unable to say that we can compete and debate on foreign policy? Some things are just mind-blowing.

RUSH: Sunday's New York Times Magazine, which actually hits on Saturday. The cover story is headlined: "A Beast Within the Heart of Every Fighting Man." It is a blood-red cover with a black silhouette of an American soldier. Now, I have been on the cover of this magazine. They work weeks in advance. The timing is exquisite here. Here is the tease for the New York Times Sunday magazine cover story: "The case against American soldiers accused of murdering Afghan civilians turns on the idea of a rogue unit. But what if the killings are a symptom of a deeper problem?" So the Sunday New York Times Magazine has a story exploring the murderous standards that make up the US fighting man, the average American military recruit and ask, is this what we have become?

Now, the New York Times is trashing the US military every week. The news media now pretend to be grateful to them for taking down Bin Laden -- see, folks, this is another thing. Do you realize -- and I mean this from the bottom of my sizable beating heart. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. You know as well as I do it's not just the New York Times. The left-wing media in this country despises the US military. The US military to all leftists is the focus of evil in the world. The agents of imperialism, if you will, and of domination. You know that deep down it just grates on them to have to write all of these stories this week praising the SEALs which is one of the reasons why they're not spending so much time on the SEALs and why they're so busy praising Obama. This just has to grate on these people.

They are much more at home reporting stories of Jack Murtha or John Kerry, the haughty John Kerry, who, by the way, once served in Vietnam, accusing our troops of being murderers and rapists and terrorists. That's the story they like. John Kerry built a career out of criticizing and ripping the American military. Jack Murtha, Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, practically the whole Democrat Party during the last four years of Bush-Cheney were seeking to secure defeat, impugning the character -- I mean going so far as to ridicule volunteers because of where they came from. They came from economically depressed areas of the country, the South, the deep South, the Southwest, where, of course, the economy is in the tank and there really is no other option. It's the only option they've got. They can't get an education. The only way they can have any chance to get out of the horrible places they live is to join the military. They don't do it because they have a love of country. They don't do it because they have a sense of mission. They don't do it because they want to defend and protect the Constitution and liberty. Oh, no. They do it because of this rotten country and this rotten economy and they've got no other way out. That's the standard story, that's what they love to write about the US military.

They love writing about the US military in defeat. "Mr. Limbaugh, that sounds as crazy as anything you've ever said." Yeah, well, look what the Sunday New York Times Magazine cover is before any of this Bin Laden stuff happened, look at what they were preparing to do. An entire cover story on how the average American military person is a murdering thug. Let me read it to you again. May 1st. It's last week's magazine. This came out the very day that the SEALs were attacking and killing Bin Laden. "A Beast Within the Heart of Every Fighting Man -- The case against American soldiers accused of murdering Afghan civilians turns on the idea of a rogue unit. But what if the killings are a symptom of a deeper problem?" All this week the New York Times and the rest of the media go bonkers praising the military. It's gotta grate on 'em.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/magazine/mag-01KillTeam-t.html?ref=magazine

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5215068/Barack-Obama-to-release-up-to-2000-photographs-of-prisoner-abuse.html

Home prices double-dip nationwide:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42904204

Brando, Jacko and Liz Taylor drove to Ohio after 9/11

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/244798/

No aid for Texas:

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/Perry-White-House-Denies-Disaster-Status-for-Wildfires-121226234.html

Nearly half of Detroit can’t read:

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/05/04/report-nearly-half-of-detroiters-cant-read/

Newsweek: 1975 twisters caused by global cooling.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/1974-climatologists-blamed-record-tornadoes-on-global-cooling/

Al Gore: 2011 twisters caused by global warming.

http://www.france24.com/en/20110428-tornadoes-whipped-wind-not-climate-officials

Obama Regime Floats Car Mileage Tax

http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/55771-federal-draft-bill-would-tax-drivers-by-the-mile

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.

Cool blog with a lot of excellent articles:

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/

Slimeball comics:

http://slimeball-comics.blogspot.com/

Anti-Fox, anti-conservative “news and opinion” site:

http://www.newscorpse.com/

Lots of current vids:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Men with Foil Hats (occasionally borders on conspiratorial without being completely nuts; mostly a repository of news stories from elsewhere):

http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/

iwatch news is a repository of interesting news items; there might be a slight left slant? It is hard to tell.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Calculated Risk Blog:

http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html

Calculated Risk Charts and Graphs:

http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html

This website, asks the eternal question...

http://www.isglennbeckright.com/

Renew America:

http://www.renewamerica.com/

The Party of 1776:

http://www.partyof1776.net/

Climate Realists:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php

In case I did not list it before, Iowa Hawk (insightful economic blogging):

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/

American Legislative Exchange Council (Limited government, free markets and federalism):

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home

Right Wing News Watch

http://www.rightwingnewswatch.com/

It is mostly libs who post here, but this way, you get their weird perspective on things political:

http://www.politico.com/arena/

The Right Scoop:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Pro-Life Unity:

http://www.prolifeunity.com/

Christian Healthcare Ministries (an alternative to health insurance)

http://chministries.org/

Daniel Mitchell’s blog:

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/

Capitalism Magazine

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

The truth wins (mostly commentary on economics).

http://thetruthwins.com/

Conservative 21 (blog)

http://www.conservative21.com/index.cfm

Translating Jihad. What is broadcast in the Arabic is one thing; and how it is said in English is something entirely different:

http://translating-jihad.blogspot.com/

The Center for Responsive Politics:

http://www.opensecrets.org/

What if George Bush did that?

http://whatifgeorgebushdidthat.wordpress.com/

The Lonely Conservative (news and conservative opinion):

http://lonelyconservative.com/

The right weather underground (blog, with some emphasis upon the phony green agenda).

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sebastianjer/

An article on the federal reserve:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fed_reserve.htm

The Economic Collapse Blog:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Albert Mohler’s blog, which is Christian and conservative:

http://www.albertmohler.com/

Readers begin a discussion, and other join in:

http://ricochet.com/

The Other Half of History (the history which is ignored in the modern classroom):

http://historyhalf.com/columns/

American History:

http://wallbuilders.com/

Citizen Tom (news and conservative commentary):

http://citizentom.com/

Pronk Palisades (recent news and editorial videos and links):

http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/

The Right brothers (sort of newsy and commentary):

http://therightbrothers.posterous.com/

Freedom Fighter’s Journal (news and opinion articles):

http://ronbosoldier.blogspot.com/

Liberty’s Army (mostly economic and middle eastern revolutionary news right now):

http://www.libertysarmy.com/

News and opinion articles:

http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/

STORM’s official Revolutionary document:

http://www.leftspot.com/blog/files/docs/STORMSummation.pdf

Climate Depot’s 321-page 'Consensus Buster' Report:

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore

The Iowahawk, which is a blog, at times, heavy with stats, and at other times, it is hard to tell:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/

Liberal collector of links and liberal news:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/

Good conservative news blog:

http://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/

The radio patriot; a news repository and right-wing blog:

http://radiopatriot.wordpress.com/

Glenn Beck’s news page; almost everything is a video:

http://www.theblaze.com/

Conservative Girls are Hot:

http://girlontheright.com/

The Food Liberation Army (I am still unsure whether this is a put-on or not):

http://www.freeronald.org/en/fla/

Good news site—Buck’s Right:

http://www.bucksright.com/

In case you want to refer others to this; statistical comparison between gays and straights:

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02

Palestinian Media Watch:

http://palwatch.org/

Right Bias:

http://rightbias.com/

Red, White and Blue news:

http://redwhitebluenews.com/

The Right Scoop (lots of videos):

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Excellent news source:

http://home.myway.com/

Union refund? Really?

http://www.unionrefund.org/

The Right Reasons (news and opinion):

http://www.therightreasons.net/index.php

Meadia Research Center where the bias of mainstream news is exposed again and again.

http://www.mrc.org

Pundit and Pundette:

http://www.punditandpundette.com/

News directly from people in Egypt (called Broadcasting from Tahrir Square):

http://eltahrir.org/

Stand with Us:

http://www.standwithus.com/

A George Soros funded site:

http://thinkprogress.org/

Progressive media matters action network:

http://politicalcorrection.org/

The Jawa Report (there is some moderate emphasis upon Islam):

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/

Kids Aren’t Cars:

http://www.kidsarentcars.com/blog/

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

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

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.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/climate_100.html

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):

http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-tax-hikes-obamacare-a5758#

Tammy Bruce

http://tammybruce.com/

[California’s] Public Speakers blog:

http://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/

Flashpoint—California’s most significant political news:

http://www.flashreport.org/

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

http://www.publiusforum.com/

Political Chips:

http://www.politicalchips.org/

Brits at their best:

http://www.britsattheirbest.com/

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.

http://politicalaffairs.net/

Headlines, short news stories:

http://www.thehotjoints.com/

Christmas is evil (Muslim website):

http://xmasisevil.com/index2.php

Conservative blogger:

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/

Verum Serum

http://www.verumserum.com/

The Tax Professor Blog

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/

Moonbattery:

http://www.moonbattery.com/

Arbitrary Vote:

http://arbitraryvote.com/home

The Party of Know:

http://thepartyofknow.com/

Slap Blog

http://slapblog.com/

The latest news from Prison Planet:

http://prisonplanet.tv/

http://prisonplanet.tv/latest-news.html

Right Wing News:

http://rightwingnews.com/

The Frugal Café:

http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/

The Left Coast Rebel:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/

The Freedomist:

http://freedomist.com/

Greg Gutfeld’s website:

http://freedomist.com/

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):

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

The U.K.’s number watch:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm

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:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/climate_100.html

If you are busy, and just want to read about the Top Ten things:

http://planetsave.com/2009/06/07/global-warming-effects-and-causes-a-top-10-list/

Observations of a blue state conservative:

http://lonelyconservative.com/

Thomas “Soul man” Sewell’s column archive:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp

Walter E. Williams column archive:

http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/

Israpundit:

http://www.israpundit.com/

The Prairie Pundit:

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/

Conservative Art:

http://secularstupidest.com/

Conservative Club of Houston:

http://www.cclub.org/welcome

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

http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/

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

http://thinkinboutstuff.com/thinkinboutstuff/nfblog/

Raging Elephants:

http://www.ragingelephants.org/

Gulag bound:

http://gulagbound.com/

Hyscience:

http://www.hyscience.com/

Politi Fi

http://politifi.com/

TEA Party Patriots:

http://teapartypatriots.org/

South Montgomery County Liberty Group:

http://sites.google.com/site/smclibertygroup/

Hole in the Hull:

http://www.holeinthehull.com/

National Council for Policy Analysis (ideas changing the world):

http://www.ncpa.org/

Ordering their pamphlets:

http://www.policypatriots.org/

Cartoon (Senator Meddler):

http://www.senatormedler.com/

Bear Witness:

http://bearwitness.info/default.aspx

http://bearwitness.info/BEARWITNESSMAIN.aspx (there are a million vids on this second page)

Right Change (facts presented in an entertaining manner):

http://www.rightchange.com/

Bias alert from the Media Research Center:

http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/archive.aspx

Excellent conservative blogger:

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/

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

http://ourtab.org/

Center for Responsive Politics:

http://www.opensecrets.org/

The Chamber Post (pro-business blog):

http://www.chamberpost.com/

Labor Pains (a pro-business, anti-union blog):

http://laborpains.org/

These people are after our children and after church goers as well:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Their opposition:

http://resistingthegreendragon.com/

The Doug Ross Journal (lots of pictures and cartoons):

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/

The WSJ Guide to Financial Reform

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703315404575250382363319878.html

The WSJ Guide to Obamacare:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574441193211542788.html

The WSJ Guide to Climate Change

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574574101605007432.html

Video-heavy news source:

http://www.mediaite.com/

Political News:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/

Planet Gore; blogs about the environment:

http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore

The Patriot Post:

http://patriotpost.us/

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

http://papundits.wordpress.com/

Index of (business) freedom, world rankings:

http://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2010/Index2010_ExecutiveHighlights.pdf

U.S. State economic freedom:

http://www.pacificresearch.org/docLib/20080909_Economic_Freedom_Index_2008.pdf

The All-American Blogger:

http://www.allamericanblogger.com/

The Right Scoop (with lots of vids):

http://www.therightscoop.com/

In case you have not seen it yet, Obsession:

http://www.therightscoop.com/saturday-cinema-obsession-radical-islams-war-against-the-west

Inside Islam; what a billion Muslims think:

http://vimeo.com/14121737

World Net Daily (News):

http://www.wnd.com/

Excellent blog with lots of cool vids:

http://benhoweblog.wordpress.com/

Black and Right:

http://www.black-and-right.com/

The Right Network:

http://rightnetwork.com/

Video on the Right Network:

http://rightnetwork.com/videos/860061517

The newly designed Democrat website:

http://www.democrats.org/

Composition of Congress 1855–2010:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774721.htm

Anti-American and pro-socialist, pro-Arabic:

http://www.zeropartypolitics.com/

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

http://www.antijihadresistance.com/

Seems to be fair and balanced with an international news approach:

http://ibnlive.in.com/

http://www.rawstory.com/

Black and Right dot com:

http://www.black-and-right.com/ (the future liberal of the day is quite humorous)

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.

http://www.osborneink.com/

Conservative news site (many of the stories include videos):

http://www.theblaze.com/

http://nakedemperornews.com/

http://pajamasmedia.com/

Muslim hope:

http://www.muslimhope.com/index.html

Anti-Obama sites:

http://howobamagotelected.com/

http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/

http://www.exposeobama.com/

International news, mostly about Israel and the Middle East:

http://www.haaretz.com/

http://www.jpost.com/

News headlines sites (with links):

http://drudgereport.com/

http://www.thedeadpelican.com/

Business blog and news:

http://www.bizzyblog.com/

And I have begun to sort out these links:

News and Opinions

Conservative News/Opinion Sites

The Daily Caller

http://dailycaller.com/

Sweetness and Light

http://sweetness-light.com/

Flopping Aces:

http://www.floppingaces.net/

News busters:

http://newsbusters.org/

Right wing news:

http://rightwingnews.com/

CNS News:

http://www.cnsnews.com/

Pajamas Media:

http://pajamasmedia.com/

Right Wing News:

http://rightwingnews.com/

Scared Monkeys (somewhat of a conservative newsy site):

http://scaredmonkeys.com/

Conservative News Source:

http://www.newsrealblog.com/

David’ Horowitz’s NewsReal:

http://www.newsrealblog.com/

Pamela Geller’s conservative website:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

The news sites and the alternative news media:

http://drudgereport.com/

http://www.hallindsey.com/

http://reason.com/

Andrew Breithbart’s websites:

http://biggovernment.breitbart.com/

Conservative Websites:

http://www.theodoresworld.net/

http://conservalinked.com/

http://www.moonbattery.com/

http://www.rockiesghostriders.com/

www.coalitionoftheswilling.net

http://shortforordinary.com/

A conservative worldview:

http://www.divineviewpoint.com/sane/

http://www.theamericanright.com/forums/index.php

http://politipage.com/

Liberal News Sites

Democrat/Liberal news site:

http://intoxination.net/

News

CNS News:

http://www.cnsnews.com/home

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

http://www.ocregister.com/

Business News/Economy News

Investors Business Daily:

http://www.investors.com/

IBD editorials:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/IBDEditorials.aspx

Great business and political news:

www.wsj.com

www.businessinsider.com

Quick News

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:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tpmtv

Republican

Back to the basics for the Republican party:

http://www.republicanbasics.com/

Republican Stop Obamacare site:

http://www.nrcc.org/codered/main.php

North Suburban Republican Forum:

http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.org/

Politics

You Decide Politics (it appears conservative to me):

http://www.youdecidepolitics.com/

The Left

From the left:

http://www.loonwatch.com/

Far left websites:

www.dailykos.com

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

http://www.archive.org/details/YouDontNeedAWeathermanToKnowWhichWayTheWindBlows_925 (PDF, Kindle and other formats)

http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/weather/weatherman_document.txt (Simple online text)

Insane, leftist blogs:

http://teabaggersrcoming.blogspot.com/

http://poorsquinky.com/politics/all.html

Media

Media Research Center

http://www.mrc.org/public/default.aspx

Conservative Blogs

Mike’s America

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/

Dick Morris:

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/

David Limbaugh (great columns this week)

http://davidlimbaugh.com/

Texas Fred (blog and news):

http://texasfred.net/

Conservative Blogs:

http://atimetochoose.wordpress.com/

http://americanelephant.com/

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

The top 100 conservative sites:

http://deathby1000papercuts.com/dbkpreport/2010/02/the-conservative-100-most-popular-conservative-sites-feb-14-2010/

Sensible blogger Burt Folsom:

http://www.burtfolsom.com/

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

http://constitutingamerica.org/

Conservative news/opinion site:

http://www.humanevents.com/

The Left Coast Rebel:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/

Good conservative blogs:

http://tammybruce.com/

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/

http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/

http://makenolaw.org/ (the Free Speech blog)

http://www.baltimorereporter.com/

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/

www.rightofanation.com

The Romantic Poet’s Webblog:

http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/

Brain Shavings (common sense from the Buckeye State):

http://brainshavings.com/

Green Hell blog:

http://greenhellblog.com/

Daniel Hannan’s blog:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/danielhannan/

Conservative blog:

http://wyblog.us/blog/

Richard O’Leary’s websites:

www.letfreedomwork.com

www.freedomtaskforce.com

http://www.eccentrix.com/members/beacon/

Freedom Works:

http://www.freedomworks.org/

Yankee Phil’s Blogspot:

http://yankeephil.blogspot.com/

Excellent list of Blogs on the bottom, right-hand side of this page:

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/

Babes

And simply because I like cute, intelligent babes:

http://alisonrosen.com/

Liberty Chick:

http://libertychick.com/

Dee Dee’s political blog:

http://somosrepublicans.com/author/deedee/

The Latina Freedom Fighter:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LatinaFreedomFighter

Ann Althouse ("Crusty conservative coating, creamy hippie love chick center.")

http://althouse.blogspot.com/

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

http://www.judithmiller.com/

http://ifbushhaddonethat.com/

A mixed bag of blogs and news sites

Left and right opinions with an international flair:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

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

http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/

More out-there blogs and sites

Angry White Dude (okay, maybe we conservatives are angry?):

http://angrywhitedude.com/

Mofo Politics (a very anti-Obama site):

http://www.mofopolitics.com/

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

http://www.infowars.com/

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

http://magicnegrowatch.blogspot.com/

Okay, maybe this guy is racist:

http://angrywhitedude.com/

Media

Glenn Beck’s shows online:

http://www.watchglennbeck.com/

News busted all shows:

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/search.aspx?q=newsbusted&t=videos

Joe Dan Media (great vids and music):

http://www.youtube.com/user/JoeDanMedia

The Patriot’s Network (important videos; the latest):

http://patriotsnetwork.com/

PolitiZoid on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/politizoid

Reason TV

http://reason.tv/

This guy posts some excellent vids:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PaulWilliamsWorld

HipHop Republicans:

http://www.hiphoprepublican.blogspot.com/

Topics

(alphabetical order)

Bailouts

Bailout recipients:

http://bailout.propublica.org/main/list/index

Eye on the bailout (this is fantastic!):

http://bailout.propublica.org/

The bailout map:

http://bailout.propublica.org/main/map/index

From:

http://www.propublica.org/

Border

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

http://secureborderintel.org/

http://borderinvasionpics.com/

Secure the Border:

http://securetheborder.org/

Capitalism

Liberty Works (conservative, economic site):

http://libertyworks.com/

Capitalism Magazine:

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

Communism

45 Goals of Communists in order to take over the United States (circa 1963):

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm

How this correlates to the goals of the ACLU:

http://dianedew.com/aclu.htm

Congress

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

http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm

http://www.cagw.org/government-affairs/ratings/2008/ratings-database.html

http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2009/pork-database.html

Corrupt Media

The Economy/Economics

Bush “Tax Cut” myths and fallacies:

http://libertyworks.com/category/obamanomics/bush-tax-cut-myths-fallacies/

A debt clock and a lot of articles on the debt:

http://defeatthedebt.com/

Recovery (dot) gov (where our money is being spent):

http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx

A collection of articles by Michelle Malkin about Obama’s war against jobs:

http://michellemalkin.com/category/politics/obama-jobs-death-toll/

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

http://www.youtube.com/user/ACDCLeadership#p/a

Economist and talk show host Walter E. Williams:

http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/

The conservative plan to get us out of this financial mess:

www.Americanroadmap.org

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

http://www.freedomproject.org/

Bankrupting America, with great videos and maps:

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/

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

http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=WashingtonWaste

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

http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/