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

Democrats and Republicans agree on a deal to raise the debt ceiling dramatically ($2.4 trillion; when Reagan left office, the entire national debt was $2.85 trillion; George W. Bush added $4 trillion to the national debt in total).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 513 points on Thursday alone. The stock market has declined by more than 10 percent in the past two weeks. This is both the anticipation of and the aftermath of the great debt-ceiling compromise.

Standard & Poor’s lowers our bond rating from a AAA rating to a AA+ rating. Prior to the compromise, they had told us we needed to have $4 trillion in cuts. This was ignored by our politicians.

A Standard & Poor's official says there is a 1 in 3 chance that the U.S. credit rating could be downgraded another notch if conditions erode over the next six to 24 months.

Tel Aviv stock market loses 7% Sunday.

Unemployment drops from 9.2% to 9.1%.

Percentage of Americans working is now at a 28 year low.

The U.S. Post office lost $3.1 billion in the 2^nd quarter and warns that it could default.

FNMA needs another $5.1 billion for the bad loans it made prior to 2009.

The University of Tennessee Bookstore pulled packages of a novelty breath mint off the shelves Tuesday after state Rep. Joe Armstrong (D-Knoxville) expressed his displeasure of the candy's packaging. Armstrong said he felt that the tin which contains the mints and depicts President Barack Obama with the words, "This is Change? Disappoint-MINTS," should not be sold among academic textbooks. "I think whatever a university bookstore sells in the way of product should be visually neutral," Armstrong told The Christian Post.

 

Others find the outrage over "Disappoint-mints" to be curiously strong - suggesting that removing the products is a form of censorship. "Let me make very clear, there is no candy exception to the First Amendment," Glenn Reynolds, a constitutional law professor, told the newspaper. "Free speech is free speech. If you make fun of the president in a mint, it is just as much free speech as it is if you make fun of the president in a political cartoon."

 

The bookstore manager said the shop previously carried breath mints satirizing former President George W. Bush - but no one ever complained.

 

The company that sells the mints, Unemployed Philosopher's Guild, sells more than 25 different varieties of mints on their website, including ones that poke fun of Sarah Palin and George W. Bush.

President Obama celebrated his 50^th birthday with Jay Z, Stevie Wonder, Chris Rock, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Herbie Hancock.

Even though governments continue to complain about lack of funds, free cell phones for the poor have been offered in Michigan, New York, and most recently in Pennsylvania. This reminds me of the couple I had on section 8 housing, who were able to buy several family members cell phones while being unable to pay for their portion of the rent. They explained to me that cell phones were a necessity.

Also, on the list of free stuff: Obamacare is providing women with free birth control pills, the morning after pill, etc. This was not in the healthcare bill, per se, but it is a part of the many new regulations which have begun to roll out.

San Francisco leaders Supervisor Malia Cohen and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, among others, are launching a coordinated attack against what they call "one of the most serious threats to reproductive rights today" - which are so-called crisis pregnancy centers that advertise as though they provide abortions, but counsel against them. Apparently, when you search on Google, using the words “abortions San Francisco” up pops First Resort, an organization which does not provide abortions or referrals for abortions.

Transportation Security Administration managers at Los Angeles International Airport are undergoing mandatory sensitivity training after a transgender employee alleged she was ordered to dress like a man, pat down male passengers and use the men's restroom.

Teen mob race riot breaks out at the Wisconsin state fair.

25 U.S. special forces killed early Saturday in Afghanistan when on route to a mission to rescue another team of military personnel pinned down by insurgents.

A mob of a hundred people attacked and set fire to two Protestant house churches in Logas Tanah Darat, in the Regency of Kuantan, Riau Province (Sumatra) on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer for Muslims

25 people were arrested in Pakistan and sent to jail for eating in public during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. 4 are arrested in Indonesia for the same offense.

Remember that democracy that was beginning in Egypt, and how so many pundits said, “The Muslim brotherhood, they are only a small faction in Egypt.” Egypt’s largest newspaper is publically supporting a Sharia-based state.

Say What?

Liberals:

President Obama: "It's been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much as good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we we were inheriting so many challenges, that we're not even halfway there yet. When I said `change we can believe in,' I didn't say `change we could believe in tomorrow.' Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy.”

President Barack Obama: "So, when Congress gets back in September I want to move quickly on things that will help the economy create jobs right now. Extending the payroll tax credit to put a thousand dollars in the pocket of the average American worker. Extending unemployment insurance to help people get back on their feet. Putting construction workers back to work rebuilding America."

WH press secretary Jay Carney: “The White House doesn’t create jobs.”

Obama: "My singular focus is the American people. Getting the unemployed back on the job."

Chris Matthews: “If Boeing doubled its contract with Air Force planes, that would be great news in Seattle and some other areas where they're operating. In Houston, it's space. In the southwest of Virginia, it's Bobby Byrd! Jack Murtha in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Why do people have this disconnect? They know that the government creates jobs. Every time in our life, we know that WWII saved us economically. All our experience locally and historically is the government creates jobs. And then you hear Eric Cantor, with this new cant of his, this religious notion of some kind, that somehow this belief in small business means that government shouldn't do anything. Small business is the area of the economy that does best when government spends money. What's he talking about? ...We studied this in school, we learn it from history.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney: "Over the past weeks and months the President repeatedly called for substantial deficit reduction through both long-term entitlement changes and revenues through tax reform, with additional measures to spark jobs and strengthen our recovery. That is why the President pushed for a grand bargain that would include all of these elements and require compromise and cooperation from all sides." The key word here is revenue; I don’t recall any specifics from Obama about entitlement reform, apart from him mentioning that he might look at means testing.

Christine Romer, President Obama's first chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, on the credit downgrading of the U.S.: “[The U.S. is] pretty darn f___ed."

Claire McCaskill: “There is a philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans and it is pretty simple: they have voted to keep giving tax check to billionairs while they voted to convert medicare to a voucher system. How can you be more willing topush money—public money—to the most profitable corporations and, at the same time, you are willing to dismantle medicare.”

Senate majority leader Harry Reid: "It`s been a pretty hard work period we've had. The last two weekends, working late. And I think the Senate deserves to be able to go home as soon as we can. If there was ever a time we need to work with our constituents, it's now. And for me personally, I've been here for a long time. I have a home in Nevada that I haven't seen in months. My pomegranate trees are, I'm told, are blossoming - there's pomegranates on them, I have some fig trees, roses and stuff that I just haven't seen. So I have constituents that I'm anxious to see, friends I'm eager to visit with, relatives I need to visit with. So as soon as we can complete our work, I would like to move as quick as I can to the summer recess period."

Joe Biden to Gabby Giffords: "Now we're both members of the `Cracked Head Club.'" Ms. Giffords had been shot in the head in Arizona and had come to the House to vote on the compromise bill.

Former presidential candidate John Kerry: “And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.

It doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what's real, of who's accountable, of who is not accountable, of who's real, who isn't, who's serious, who isn't?” So, it is the news’s job and moral duty to see that some viewpoints are not given much air time. You never hear a conservative say this. In fact, I feature more liberals than anyone else on this Say What? column.

Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org: "It's hard to see how we avoid a Tea-Party recession if the president who has the biggest megaphone in the country is not willing to speak clearly on the issue."

Actor Matt damon: “I really don’t mind paying more taxes.”

Hillary Clinton: "Like it or hate it, it is really effective. In fact, viewership of Al-Jazeera is going up in the United States because it is real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news that is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners."

Al Gore on those who do not believe in global warming: "They pay pseudo-scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: `This climate thing, it's nonsense. . .' Bullshit! `It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! `It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!"

California Gov. Jerry Brown: "I would say that the Republicans are gearing up to destroy the president, that the president will have to respond in a very powerful way, and the result for the country could be calamitous."

The Adoring Obama Press:

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman: “On one hand, there is a case to be made that the madness of the right has made America a fundamentally unsound nation. And yes, it is the madness of the right: if not for the extremism of anti-tax Republicans, we would have no trouble reaching an agreement that would ensure long-run solvency.”

Chris Matthews: "You know I'm pretty pro-Obama in many ways. I sort of like the spirit of his administration. I like the whole direction its taken in terms of responsibility and what it stands for in our country's history"

Good Morning America had on Mellody Hobson, a regular ABC "financial contributor" and former host of her own ABC financial-advice show: "Now they [Standard & Poor’s] come in, and they flex. As if they've been, you know, this bastion of, of correctness, when they've completely been wrong. So now, everything that they do is suspect, in my view." ABC never mentions that “financial expert” Hobston was an Obama fundraiser in 2008.

Yahoo Finance economics editor Daniel Gross: “In downgrading the U.S.'s credit rating, S&P points out what has long been obvious: Washington's inability to come to an agreement on how to close the large fiscal gaps that have emerged since the recession began is troubling. Recent events have sapped the agency's confidence that the government can and will do what is necessary to align revenues with spending commitments. And it's difficult to escape the conclusion that America's credit rating was intentionally sabotaged by Congressional Republicans. It has long been obvious to all observers -- to economists, to politicians, to anti-deficit groups, to the ratings agencies -- that closing fiscal gaps will require tax increases, or the closure of big tax loopholes, or significant tax reform that will raise significantly larger sums of tax revenue than the system does now. Today, taxes as a percentage of GDP are at historic lows. Marginal rates on income and investments are at historic lows. Corporate tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are at historic lows. Perhaps taxes don't need to rise this year or next, but they do need to go up in the future.”

Liberals from the past:

Barack Obama, In his State of the Union address on Jan. 25, 2011: "We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again."

Liberals being civil:

John Kerry on the TEA party types and those who want to balance the budget: "These people have been irresponsible, and reckless and absolutest. And what we need are people who are prepared to negotiate in good faith and protect certain interests of our country. We've got to invest in jobs."

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) at a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting, "We have negotiated with terrorists. This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Steven Rattner, "Morning Joe" economic analyst: “It's like a form of economic terrorism. I imagine these Tea Party guys are like strapped with dynamite standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying either you do it my way or we're going blow you up, ourselves up and the whole country up with us. So you tell me how those kinds of standoffs ends.”

Michael Eric Dyson, sociologist professor: “Once having been successful at blindfolding the American public, putting a gun to the president's head, forcing him to read into law or to sign into law this extraordinary act of, I think, unpatriotic and irrational frenzy, I think that now they are emboldened.”

Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean: "This is a tea party problem. They are totally unreasonable and doctrinaire and not founded in reality. I think they've been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it."

Van Jones, Center for American Progress: “Any faction in America that would put a gun to the head of 310 million people and say if you don't do it our way we will blow your dreams away, we will blow a hole in the American economy, that is un-American.”

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera: "The country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America's most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible."

Bernie Goldberg on the Obama media complex calling TEA party members terrorists: “These are people who won’t call real terrorists, terrorists.”

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver called the compromise legislation a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich."

Crazy Muslims:

Liberals making sense:

NYT Op-Ed Columnist, Joe Nocera: “I wrote a column comparing the Tea Party Republicans to terrorists. The words I chose were intemperate and offensive to many, and I've been roundly criticized. I was a hypocrite, the critics said, for using such language when on other occasions I've called for a more civil politics. In the cool light of day, I agree with them. I apologize.”

China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary: "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone. To cure its addiction to debts, the United States has to re-establish the common sense principle that one should live within its means."

Obama: “We’ve gotta make sure that Washington lives within its means, just like families do.”

Crosstalk:

George Will: All of the people comparing the Tea Party to suicide bombers, one of whom is Steve [Rattner] here.

 

Christiane Amanpour: I don't think he said that, did he?

 

Will: Yes.

 

Steve Rattner, MSNBC economic analyst and former obama administration car czar: No.

 

Roberts: Terrorists are suicide bombers.

 

Will: I can read you the transcript from the morning show.

 

Rattner: I was there. I was there.

 

Will: I understand, I was watching.

_________________________

 

What Rattner said on MSNBC: “You know, the problem with this is it's like a form of economic terrorism. I imagine these Tea Party guys are like strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, 'either you do it my way, or we're going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.' So you tell me how those kinds of standoffs end.”

Whatever:

Hitler: “Was the teleprompter guy out of town or something?”

Conservatives:

Congressman Allen West (Fl-22) released this statement: "Happy 50th Birthday Mr. President! While surprises are for birthdays, it is no surprise to the American people that your failed economic policies - from TARP to your health care bill - have resulted in disaster for our economy. Since taking office, unemployment has remained at or near 9 percent for 28 months, America has added $3.4 trillion in debt in 29 months - the equivalent of about $4 billion per day - we have an anemic housing market with record foreclosures, and an average price of nearly $4 for a gallon of gas. Even your budget did not receive one single vote in the United States Senate - and the icing on the cake - a stock market slide of nearly 800 points in the last 5 days. While it may be hard to hear the American people's frustration over the pop of the champagne corks and R&B bands at your $30,000/person birthday party, the citizens of this nation are suffering under your failed leadership. The best present you can give the American people will be for you and your failed economic policies to be defeated in November of 2012."

Charles Krauthammer on why President Obama won’t let overseas money travel back into the U.S.: “When he sees a trillion dollars over there untaxed, it gives him pain.”

Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty: “My goodness, it’s his [Obama’s] economy; he’s been president for 3 years. He’s inept.”

Neil Cavuto, when going to commercial, after explaining to a liberal Congressman the percentage the rich pay in taxes, and have him come back with “the rich need to pay their fair share”: “I beg you to stop.”

Nicolle Wallace: “Only in Washington is a lesser increase in spending called a cut.”

Michelle Malkin: “You can’t conduct a stealth, carefully -organized campaign the way you used to anymore; if you just go on twitter anytime of the day, Mitt Romney’s habit of issuing statements about the importance policy debates of the day, hours after these things have been decided—days, weeks, months—has become a running punch line. This is going to be a continuing chronic problem for him.”

Peggy Noonan: “[Obama] is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.”

Amilya Antonetti (small businesswoman): “He’s not going to be known as the first Black president; he’s going to be known as the president to have a downgrade.”

Mary Katherine Hamm (tongue-in-cheek): “That stimulus [law] was super-awesome.”

Texas Governor Rick Perry, at the prayer-fest: “He’s a wise, wise God, and He’s wise enough not to be affiliated with any political party.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: "It pays to be stubborn. The press is constantly urging compromise. They root for it like it is the highest possible virtue, the sign of true maturity and achievement in life."

Watch This!

Amilya Antonetti, a small businesswoman, is not shy about sharing her opinions with Neil Cavuto (you might copy this an email it to your friends):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkOExn3A62Q

Bankrupting America (this is a new one, which might even make you smile).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQh0tt7aL7A

Media Mash, TEA party-terrorist edition:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb-staff/2011/08/05/media-mash-tea-party-terrorists-edition

Dick Morris on school choice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXxdox0vvZM

Reason TV at Save our Schools (with Matt Damon):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ7icVvDK9I

Rick Santelli schools Ezra Klein on economics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwWa1h7Sd4

Competing visions of God; Rick Perry and Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright:

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/08/06/compare-and-contrast-rick-perry-and-barack-obamas-version-of-god/

Obama 2012 ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5dEUNnSvvA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0wkR9goqJ0

Serious Obama 2012 ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDa2jkY568Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Z_C0bNzOc

And I can’t tell here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW8ettCFZ8A

Hitler will run against Obama:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yO1KxZzpPE

Hitler will disguise himself and interrupt Obama’s speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsdk8sRCsg

Hitler finds out that Osama bin Laden is dead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsnRKP56oxg

A Little Comedy Relief

Jodi Miller: “The Black middle class is disappearing as the unemployment rate keeps going up. Even the first Black president is expected to be laid off next year.”

Jodi Miller: “It’s been reported that Michele Bachmann spends almost $5 grand a month on hair and makeup, which is about half of what Mitt Romney spends.”

Short Takes

1)   I was musing the other day at a website about where can the left go from here? They have called conservatives and TEA party members Nazis, racists, terrorists and suicide bombers, holding our economic stability hostage. Someone suggested, pedophiles. Well, they were beat to the punch. A conservative on a radio show suggested that, those on the left, who were spend huge amounts of money and then leave the bills to be paid by our children and their children, to be heretofore called economic pedophiles, because they harm children.

2) I think it was Rush who pointed out that, the rhetoric in the NY Times about financial conservatives and TEA party types as being terrorists and suicide bombers was much more harsh than anything the NY Times has written about actual terrorists and suicide bombers.

3) The patriotic millionaires club lists the following facts: During the Great Depression, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 68% In 1963, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 91%. In 1976, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 70%. Today, millionaires have a top marginal tax rate of 35%. Throughout most of our history, millionaires have paid about 25% in taxes. They have lobbyists, tax accountants and personal relationships with certain politicians which allow this to occur. This is why companies like GE can get away without paying any taxes. Furthermore, this “club” does not mention that most millionaires make a great deal of their money through investments, which are historically taxed at low rates. Why? Because we want them to take their money and invest it. It is good for the economy.

4) I have yet to hear anything more than slogans about corporate jet tax breaks. I have heard on several occasions that this was included in the Stimulus Bill; and a few times, I have heard this denied. I don’t know what these tax breaks are or how they are structured. I know for my business, I need transportation to go from point A to point B. It does not strike me as impossible that corporate executives need transportation as well, and perhaps on a larger scale than me. I write off the use of my automobile on my taxes; my guess is, they do as well with regards to their jets. Whatever the case, I am sure that what we are talking about here is simply a drop in the bucket when it comes to the budget shortfall of the United States.

By the Numbers

Since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, the deficit has grown tenfold from $160 billion to $1.6 trillion. Spending has increased $1.1 trillion or 41% as the debt exploded $5.9 trillion or 68%. Meanwhile, unemployment has gone from 4.4% to 9.1%.

One of the many “facts” from the patriotic millionaires website: Letting tax cuts for the top 2% expire as scheduled would pay down the debt by $700 billion over the next 10 years. This comes out to be $70 billion/year, which is approximately 4% of the deficit (assuming a $1.65 trillion deficit). That will cover about 15 days of federal deficit spending.

The rich—8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more—earned a total of $240 billion in 2009. Since about a quarter of that money already goes to the government, what remains, taxing them at 100%, would run the U.S. government for 18 days. Our government spends too much.

All individual tax collections totaled $1,175,422,000,000 in 2009, which is 15.4% of all income. If we doubled everyone’s taxes, we would be $400 billion or so shy of balancing the budget. Our government spends too much.

Nearly 15% of Americans (45.8 million) are on food stamps now, which is up 34% from 2 years ago.

In 2010 there were at least 714 executions as a result of the application of Sharia law, as against 658 in 2009 and about 585 in the previous year, in 13 countries with a Muslim majority, many of which ordered by religious tribunals. The method of execution can include hanging, decapitation and death by firing squad.

Fox News #1 cable news network for 115th consecutive month, beating MSNBC and CNN combined.

Polling by the Numbers

The CBS/NYT

What is your view of the Tea Party in April of 2010.

21% had a favorable view,

18% were unfavorable,

14% undecided, and

46% hadn't heard enough to make up their minds.

Similar poll, August of 2011,

20% view the TEA Party favorably,

40% vew the TEA party unfavorably

18% are undecided, and

21% have not heard enough to make up their minds.

KPIX-TV CBS 5 (San Francisco) poll:

49% of Californians felt the Tea Party movement was bad for America,

32% who viewed the Tea Party movement as good;

19% were unsure.

This poll is in stark contrast to the views of the TEA party movement, which supports Cap, Cut and Balance, a Balanced Budget Amendment and the Mack Penny Plan (for those who have heard of it). Those who agree with this are 65–75% of the American people.

The discrepancy—and I hate to admit this—is the media has just beat up on the TEA party, calling them terrorists and hostage takers (which was documented in the previous two issues of CR—you could not distinguish between what the press said and what Democrats were saying). So our informative press has been able to separate the philosophy of the TEA party from the TEA party itself and to demonize them. Well done, Obama media complex.

I wonder what would happen if the media accurately portrayed the members of the TEA party and their philosophies?

CBS NY Times poll:

27% of Americans supported raising the debt limit,

63% opposed raising it.

Rasmussen:

67% of American Adults say the state of the economy is causing more stress on their family.

27% say the economy isn't causing their family more stress.

Only 28% say the economy has negatively affected their personal relationship with any friend or family member.

43% of adults say they have gotten into an intense argument with a friend or family member about economic conditions in the country.

55% say they have not gotten into a heated argument with a friend or family member about who is to blame for the state of the economy and how it should be fixed.

Gallup:

22% of Americans self-identify as supporters of the Tea Party movement

21% call themselves liberals

41% of the population describe themselves as conservatives.

The Israel Project:

80% of Palestinians support Hamas. The desire to annihilate the Jewish people is one of the main goals of the Hamas organization.

A Little Bias

Do you think that is a little odd that poll after poll shows Americans with very similar opinions to those in the TEA party; and yet, have unfavorable opinions of the TEA party? I wonder how that happened?

By the way, here are the numbers behind the NY Times/CBS poll:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/22/cbs-poll-shows-americans-oppose-debt-ceiling-hike-2-1/ In reading through this, it ought to be quite clear that, our news sources have no interest in reporting the news, but a great deal of interest in shaping opinions.

________________________________

NBC News correspondent Harry Smith marks his first appearance on NBC with a fawning happy birthday message to President Obama.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2011/08/05/harry-smith-makes-his-nbc-news-debut-birthday-love-letter-obama

________________________________

The Early Show on the Weekend discusses the S&P downgrade of the U.S., and the host keeps talking about how we now have a credit rating below Liechtenstein, claiming that the downgrade is political. Liechtenstein is a business-and-banking-friendly government. It has low corporate and personal income tax rates. Also, in the most recent year that there is data available, Liechtenstein had a budget surplus. Logically, it ought to have a better credit rating than the $14-trillion-in-the-hole US. Of course, this “news” show did not point out any of these facts.

From:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2011/08/06/early-show-echoes-white-house-dismisses-debt-downgrade-political#ixzz1UMv2kWMY

News Before it Happens

Expect for Democratic pundits this week to blame the downgrading of our country’s credit on the TEA party.

If we fall into a recession, expect for it to be called the TEA party recession by Democratic pundits and expect this phrase to be heard on all of the media outlets (taking their cue from MoveOn.org).

Prophecies Fulfilled

I did mention last week that our problem was not the debt ceiling, but the debt itself. S&P, by down-rating us, showed that to be true.

My Most Paranoid Thoughts

Republicans will keep getting beat down in these negotiations.

Missing Headlines

Fannie Mae Needs More Money—the Housing Crisis Continues

Post Office is Broke

Politicians Ignore Standard & Poor Advice

Democratic Spring in Egypt Leaning toward Sharia

Come, let us reason together....

The Pathetic Compromise

This week, the Democrats and Republicans came to a pathetic compromise which will add $2.4 trillion to our debt ceiling (which will take us out about 1.5 years), and provide about that much by way of tax cuts over the next 10 years. The tax cut this year is equivalent to the deficit for 1.5 days.

Standard & Poor’s told us, we needed to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by $4 trillion. Our politicians ignored them.

At first, Republicans came up with two good plans: Cut, Cap and Balance, which was pronounced dead on arrival by Senate leader Harry Reid; and the Connie Mack Penny Plan, which received almost no publicity. CC&B was very popular with the public, and is a Balanced Budget Amendment.

The Connie Mack Penny Plan froze all spending at 2011 levels and dropped spending 1% per year for 6 years, resulting in a balanced budget. This was ignored by the media because, it is simple, it makes sense, and we have all been forced to do it in our own lives.

Nevertheless, a few words from the President, the media and the opposition party got the Republicans to back off and put out another plan.

Conservatives were completely routed here. Republican approaches were popular, and we should have taken one of those plans, passed it, and then spent the rest of the time running around selling the plans to the American people. Good approach, but not the approach that Republican leaders took. They put together a 3^rd plan, apparently in conjunction with Democratic leaders, crafter behind closed doors, never sold to the public by either party, and passed because, it was another crisis about to turn into a catastrophe (which crises seem to occur quite often in the past 2 or so years).

I don’t think the news made the results of such a compromise very clear. What Obama and democrats got was, a debt ceiling raised high enough to carry them through the next election—this is not an issue they want to talk about. It gave them a lot of spending money.

The implication was, this would save us financially, because we could now pay our bills.

As I discussed, hitting the debt ceiling simply meant that, we suddenly would have to live within our means. A lot of things would have shut down, and this would have been in Obama’s hands, who got paid and who didn’t. But, we would have had to live within our means.

Had Republicans taken it that far, and sold either Cap, Cut and Balance or the Penny Plan to the public, those plans would have passed. Obama wants to spend government money—it is in his genes. He sees a liberal cause and he wants to “invest” in it. No way would he spend the next 1.5 years of his administration figuring out what to cut. That is completely outside of his wheel house.

Result: we would have kept our previous credit rating and we might be on the way to actually balancing our budget.

Like many people, I am just as disappointed with Republicans here as I am with Democrats. The latter, I understand; the former simply forsook the principles that they stood for.

It does not matter that we only controlled one body of Congress. Obama is going to go along with whatever; and the key would have been selling the conservative approach.

Instead, Republicans negotiated with themselves, had no time to get behind this or that plan, and allowed the Democrats to simply demagogue whatever we proposed, without offering up their own plan. It is pretty easy, when you have the media on your side, to talk about how old people and going to lose their social security and medicare. After all, the Democrats had nothing else to do. They had no plan. They developed no real plan.

In demagoging every kind of cut offered up, the cuts which ended up on the final bill were minuscule, and not enough to retain our rating with Standard & Poor’s.

What Harry Reid was able to do—and I have to grudgingly give him credit for this—he got Boehner and McConnell to work with him behind closed doors and come up with a plan that the public would not be able to examine, and then pass this plan before the plan could be sold or discussed. After all, we are in a crisis, about to become a catastrophe. In short, Republicans were taken to a point where they sold out most of the ideals that they espoused. How well did this work out for George H. W. “Read my lips” Bush? No one remembers the political machinations of that time; they simply remember that Bush promised no new taxes and then upped the taxes. Republicans promised transparency and time to view the bills, and that did not happen. Conservatives got beat; in Washington, it was business as usual.

Standard & Poor’s warned us that we would be downgraded and told us what would keep us from being downgraded; we ignored them, and they lowered our bond rating.

Now, having our credit rating lowered is not the end of the world, nor does it mean that we will have higher interest rates as a result. It is the market which makes these determinations—not S&P. As many economists have commented, for safe money, how many people are going to take their investments in the U.S. and invest them elsewhere? Not very many at this point.

However, we are coming very near to a point where many foreign governments will simply not lend us any money—or lend us a lot less. That will be the real debt ceiling. I think we are fairly close to that debt ceiling. And we can raise our debt ceiling as high as we want, and that will not change the real debt ceiling.

The Road to a Downgrade

A short history of the entitlement state.

From the WSJ

A downgrade isn't catastrophic because global financial markets decide the creditworthiness of U.S. securities, not Moody's and Standard & Poor's. The good news is that investors still regard Treasury bonds, which carry the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, as a near zero-risk investment. But a downgrade will raise the cost of credit, especially for states and institutions whose debt is pegged to Treasurys. Above all a downgrade is a symbol of fiscal mismanagement and an omen of worse to come if we continue the same habits.

President Obama will deserve much of the blame for the spending blowout of his first two years (see the nearby chart). But the origins of this downgrade go back decades, and so this is a good time to review the policies that brought us to this sad chapter and $14.3 trillion of debt.

FDR began the entitlement era with the New Deal and Social Security, but for decades it remained relatively limited. Spending fell dramatically after the end of World War II and the U.S. debt burden fell rapidly from 100% of GDP. That changed in the mid-1960s with LBJ's Great Society and the dawn of the health-care state. Medicare and Medicaid were launched in 1965 with fairy tale estimates of future costs.

Medicare, the program for the elderly, was supposed to cost $12 billion by 1990 but instead spent $110 billion. The costs of Medicaid, the program for the poor, have exploded as politicians like California Democrat Henry Waxman expanded eligibility and coverage. In inflation-adjusted dollars, Medicaid cost $4 billion in 1966, $41 billion in 1986 and $243 billion last year. Rather than bending the cost curve down, the government as third-party payer led to a medical price spiral.

LBJ launched other welfare programs-public housing, food stamps and many more-that have also grown over time. Last year, the panoply of welfare programs spent about $20,000 for every man, woman and child in poverty, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation.

Social Security's fiscal trouble began in earnest in 1972 with bills that increased benefits immediately by 20%, added an annual cost of living adjustment, and created a benefit escalator requiring payments to rise with wages, not inflation. This and other tweaks by Democrat Wilbur Mills added trillions of dollars to the program's unfunded liabilities. Believe it or not, these 1972 amendments were added to a debt-ceiling bill.

None of these benefit expansions were subject to annual budget review and thus they grew by automatic pilot. They are sometimes called "mandatory spending" because Congress is required by law to make payments to those who meet eligibility standards, regardless of other spending needs or tax revenues.

According to the most recent government data, today some 50.5 million Americans are on Medicaid, 46.5 million are on Medicare, 52 million on Social Security, five million on SSI, 7.5 million on unemployment insurance, and 44.6 million on food stamps and other nutrition programs. Some 24 million get the earned-income tax credit, a cash income supplement.

By 2010 such payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1965. (See the second chart.) We now spend $2.1 trillion a year on these redistribution programs, and the 75 million baby boomers are only starting to retire.

We suspect that in the 1960s as now-with ObamaCare-liberals knew they had created fiscal time-bombs. They simply assumed that taxes would keep rising to pay for it all, as they have in Europe.

On Monday night Mr. Obama blamed President George W. Bush's "two wars" for the debt buildup. But national defense spending was 7.4% of GDP and 42.8% of outlays in 1965, and only 4.8% of GDP and 20.1% of federal outlays in 2010. Defense has not caused the debt crisis.

Many on the left still blame Ronald Reagan, but the debt increase in the 1980s financed a robust economic expansion and victory in the Cold War. Debt held by the public at the end of the Reagan years was much lower as a share of GDP (41% in 1988 and still only 40.3% in 2008) compared to the estimated 72% in fiscal 2011. That Cold War victory made possible the peace dividend that allowed Bill Clinton to balance the budget in the 1990s by cutting defense spending to 3% of GDP from nearly 6% in 1988.

Mr. Bush and Republicans did prove after 9/11 that the Washington urge to spend and borrow is bipartisan. Republicans launched a Medicare drug benefit, record outlays on education, the most expensive transportation bill in history, and home ownership aid that contributed to the housing bubble. The GOP's blunder was refusing to cut domestic spending to finance the war on terrorism. Guns and butter blowouts never last.

Then came Mr. Obama, arguably the most spendthrift president in history. He inherited a recession and responded by blowing up the U.S. balance sheet. Spending as a share of GDP in the last three years is higher than at any time since 1946. In three years the debt has increased by more than $4 trillion thanks to stimulus, cash for clunkers, mortgage modification programs, 99 weeks of jobless benefits, record expansions in Medicaid, and more.

The forecast is for $8 trillion to $10 trillion more in red ink through 2021. Mr. Obama hinted in a press conference earlier this month that if it weren't for Republicans, he'd want another stimulus. Scary thought: None of this includes the ObamaCare entitlement that will place 30 million more Americans on government health rolls.

This is the road to fiscal perdition. The looming debt downgrade only confirms what everyone knows: Congress has made so many promises to so many Americans that there is no conceivable way those promises can be kept. Tax rates might have to rise to 60%, 70%, even 80% to raise the revenues to finance these promises, but that would be economically ruinous.

Yet Mr. Obama and most Democrats still oppose any serious reform of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This insistence on no reform reinforces the notion that our entitlement state is too big to afford but also too big to change politically. This is how a AAA country becomes AA, the first step on the march to Greece.

From:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576470551476951590.html

Just Who are the Poor—Really?

By Thomas Sowell

If there were a contest for the most misleading words used in politics, "poverty" should be one of the leading contenders for that title.

Each of us may have his own idea of what poverty means - especially those of us who grew up in poverty. But what poverty means politically and in the media is whatever the people who collect statistics choose to define as poverty.

This is not just a question of semantics. The whole future of the welfare state depends on how poverty is defined. "The poor" are the human shields behind whom advocates of ever bigger spending for ever bigger government advance toward their goal.

If poverty meant what most people think of as poverty - people "ill-clad, ill-housed, and ill-nourished," in Franklin D. Roosevelt's phrase - there would not be nearly enough people in poverty today to justify the vastly expanded powers and runaway spending of the federal government.

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has for years examined what "the poor" of today actually have - and the economic facts completely undermine the political rhetoric.

Official data cited by Rector show that 80 percent of "poor" households have air-conditioning today, which less than half the population of America had in 1970. Nearly three-quarters of households in poverty own a motor vehicle, and nearly one-third own more than one motor vehicle.

Virtually everyone living in "poverty," as defined by the government, has color television, and most have cable TV or satellite TV. More than three-quarters have either a VCR or a DVD player, and nearly nine-tenths have a microwave oven.

As for being "ill-housed," the average poor American has more living space than the general population - not just the poor population - of London, Paris and other cities in Europe.

Various attempts have been made over the years to depict Americans in poverty as "ill-fed" but the "hunger in America" campaigns that have enjoyed such political and media popularity have usually used some pretty creative methods and definitions.

Actual studies of "the poor" have found their intake of the necessary nutrients to be no less than that of others. In fact, obesity is slightly more prevalent among low-income people.

The real triumph of words over reality, however, is in expensive government programs for "the elderly," including Medicare. The image often invoked is the person who is both ill and elderly, and who has to choose between food and medications.

It is great political theater. But, the most fundamental reality is that the average wealth of the elderly is some multiple of the average wealth owned by people in the other age brackets.

Why should the average taxpayer be subsidizing people who have much more wealth than they do?

If we are concerned about those particular elderly people who are in fact poor - as we are about other people who are genuinely poor, whatever their age might be - then we can simply confine our help to those who are poor by some reasonable means test. It would cost a fraction of what it costs to subsidize everybody who reaches a certain age.

But the political left hates means tests. If government programs were confined to people who were genuinely poor in some meaningful sense, that would shrink the welfare state to a fraction of its current size. The left would lose their human shields.

It is certainly true that the elderly are more likely to have more medical problems and larger medical expenses. But old age is not some unforeseeable misfortune. It is not only foreseeable but inevitable for those who do not die young.

It is one thing to keep people from suffering from unforeseeable things beyond their control. But it is something else to simply subsidize their necessities so that they can spend their money on other things and leave a larger estate to be passed on to their heirs.

People who say they want a government program because "I don't want to be a burden to my children" apparently think it is all right to be a burden to other people's children.

Among the runaway spending behind our current national debt problems is the extravagant luxury of buying political rhetoric.

From:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell080311.php3

A Small Business Dies

There will be no more wafer-thin pancakes served at Furin's restaurant.

By Karl Rove

This Sunday, while Congress will continue battling over the debt ceiling at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, across town where Georgetown begins, at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, Furin's restaurant will close after 27 years.

The family diner, a D.C. landmark, featured wafer-thin pancakes, great sandwiches, homemade soups and the capital's best cakes and cupcakes. It drew generations of students, social types, power brokers and travelers wealthy enough to stay at the Four Seasons across the street but savvy enough to know where to get a wonderful breakfast.

Bernard Furin came to Washington in 1960 after serving in the Army and graduating from Penn State on the GI Bill. For over two decades, he worked in catering, handling events from the State Department to the Smithsonian. In 1984 Mr. Furin went out on his own, creating a welcoming joint that won a loyal clientele. His wife, Wendy, would bring regulars decaf or regular without asking. But the last three years have been tough ones, and the business has bled enough.

A small business shutting down has become too frequent a sight in America. Such enterprises are always coming and going, but recently there have been many more going than coming. While the Commerce Department says 552,600 small businesses opened in 2009, more than 721,700 closed or went bankrupt. And 2010 looks like it was even worse.

No small business ends for just one reason. But with fewer conventions coming to Washington, a slow economy and people dining out less, it got gradually tougher to keep Furin's doors open.

Its fate is a reminder to Washington politicians all along Pennsylvania Avenue that their decisions affect real human beings. Statistics are important, but behind every number is a real person.

This is worth recalling during the debt-ceiling debate. This latest chapter of Obama-era high drama comes amid high unemployment, anemic growth, exploding deficits and collapsing public confidence. Americans deeply want a change. They've given the president time for his experiment in spending the country's way to prosperity, and they have concluded that his course has failed.

In the debt-ceiling debate, Mr. Obama had his best and last moment to restrain federal spending and thereby change the trajectory of his profligate presidency. But he let it pass.

He will come to regret his decision. Those who argue that the debt-ceiling controversy will resuscitate Mr. Obama's political fortunes are wrong, at least so far. According to Gallup, Mr. Obama averaged a 43% job-approval rating for the week of July 18-24, matching his lowest weekly average.

It is true that when compared to Congress, a president will always look better. In a July 17 CBS News survey, 43% approved of the president's handling of the debt crisis while 21% approved of how Republicans in Congress are handling the matter. And in a July 17 Washington Post/ABC news poll, 36% said they would blame the president and 42% said they would blame Republicans in Congress if the debt limit is not raised and bad things happen.

Still, Mr. Obama is not out of danger. The names of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not be matched with the president's on the 2012 ballot. Instead, he will be paired with a Republican unsullied by the debt-ceiling mess and able to link our struggling economy to the president's policies.

Which brings us back to Furin's restaurant. Bernie Furin's son, Chris, will try his hand at an Internet-based specialty cake business, a sideline at the restaurant that has developed a fanatical following. But when the restaurant closes Sunday, 14 people will lose their jobs. Its patrons will lose a favorite joint, and the neighborhood will lose some sense of community.

There are worse hardship cases in America, but this one is bad enough. It is in large part the result of the economy that Mr. Obama owns. The 2012 election will have many twists and turns, many story lines and subplots as candidates rise and fall. But in the end, a large part of the contest will be about Mr. Obama's stewardship of the economy-and what happened as a result to the Bernie Furins of America, their hard work, and the enterprises they built.

Reuters Obama-Halo photo taken this month

They've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Obama still has supporters, but theirs is a grim support.

By Peggy Noonan

The Republican establishment reasserted itself this week, and good thing, too, because the establishment was right. It said Republicans in the House should back and pass the Boehner bill on the debt ceiling because it goes in the right directions, contains spending cuts but not taxes, and is viable. So accept victory, avert crisis, and get it to the Senate.

The establishment was being conservative in the Burkean sense: acknowledge reality, respect it, and make the most progress possible within it. This has not always been true of them. They spent the first decade of this century backing things a truly conservative party would not have dreamed of-careless wars, huge spending and, most scandalously, a dreamy and unconservative assumption that it would all work out because life is sweet and the best thing always happens. They were mostly led by men and women who had never been foreclosed on and who assumed good luck, especially unearned good luck, would continue. They were fools, and they lost control of their party when the tea party rose up, rebuking and embarrassing them. Then the tea party saved them by not going third party in 2009-10. And now the establishment has come forward to save the tea party, by inching it away from the cliff and reminding it the true battles are in 2012, and after.

As this is written, the White House seems desperate to be seen as consequential. They're trotting out Press Secretary Jay Carney, who stands there looking like a ferret with flop sweat as he insists President Obama is still at the table, still manning the phones and calling shots. Much is uncertain, but the Republicans have made great strides on policy. If they emerge victorious, they had better not crow. The nation is in a continuing crisis, our credit rating is not secure, and no one's interested in he-man gangster dialogue from "The Town." What might thrill America would be a little modesty: "We know we helped get America into some of this trouble, and we hope we've made some progress today in getting us out of it."

But that actually is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics.

It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling-a wry smile, a shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has implications.

The past few weeks I've asked Democrats who supported him how they feel about him. I got back nothing that showed personal investment. Here are the words of a hard-line progressive and wise veteran of the political wars: "I never loved Barack Obama. That said, among my crowd who did 'love' him, I can't think of anyone who still does." Why is Mr. Obama different from Messrs. Clinton and Bush? "Clinton radiated personality. As angry as folks got with him about Nafta or Monica, there was always a sense of genuine, generous caring." With Bush, "if folks were upset with him, he still had this goofy kind of personality that folks could relate to. You might think he was totally misguided but he seemed genuinely so. . . . Maybe the most important word that described Clinton and Bush but not Obama is 'genuine.'" He "doesn't exude any feeling that what he says and does is genuine."

Maybe Mr. Obama is living proof of the political maxim that they don't care what you know unless they know that you care. But the idea that he is aloof and so inspires aloofness may be too pat. No one was colder than FDR, deep down. But he loved the game and did a wonderful daily impersonation of jut-jawed joy. And people loved him.

The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn't really very good at politics, and he isn't good at politics because he doesn't really get people. The other day a Republican political veteran forwarded me a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. It read like politics as done by Martians. The "Analytics Department" is looking for "predictive Modeling/Data Mining" specialists to join the campaign's "multi-disciplinary team of statisticians," which will use "predictive modeling" to anticipate the behavior of the electorate. "We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions."

This wasn't the passionate, take-no-prisoners Clinton War Room of '92, it was high-tech and bloodless. Is that what politics is now? Or does the Obama re-election effort reflect the candidate and his flaws?

Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly-really, perfectly. The nation and the Democratic Party were tired of the Clinton machine. He came from nowhere and dismantled it. It was breathtaking. He went into the 2008 general election with a miraculously unified party and took down another machine, bundling up all the accrued resentment of eight years with one message: "You know the two losing wars and the economic collapse we've been dealing with? I won't do that. I'm not Bush."

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd-and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue-no Social Security checks-until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces-the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

From:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474620336602248.html

How "Silent Cal" Coolidge Beat a Recession

By Charles C. Johnson and additional commentary from Ruth King

Eighty-eight years ago this week, Calvin Coolidge took office upon the sudden death of President Warren Harding. Like the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge administration faced a tough recession from 1919-1921. But unlike the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge and Coolidge-Dawes administrations cut taxes, balanced budgets and slashed government spending, reducing federal debt by over a third in a decade.

The economy grew, averaging just over 7% from 1924 to 1929, the years of his presidency. So did Coolidge's popularity. He was so popular that even during the Great Depression's height song-writer Cole Porter compared his lover to the "Coolidge dollar."

Ronald Reagan, who grew up during the Coolidge presidency, admired "Silent Cal," even going so far as to read a biography of the 30th president as he recovered from a surgery in 1985 and to praise him in letters to his constituents. To Reagan, Coolidge wasn't silent, but was silenced by New Deal supporters, whose intellectual heirs control much of Washington today.

In Coolidge's time, as now, the educated class harbored contempt for the philosophic underpinnings of our republic and for those who would defend them. Alice Roosevelt Longsworth, the daughter of Teddy, accused Coolidge of having been "weaned on a pickle." In language similar to attacks on conservatives today, Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Schlesinger castigated Coolidge for being too beholden to business. The narrative stuck. In 1995, another Pulitzer Prize winner, Irwin Unger, said Coolidge "slept away most of his five years in office. . . . The watchword of [his] government was do nothing."

But "nothing" seemed to work. With the tax cuts in place, luxuries of the rich quickly became middle-class, as affordable cars and radios rolled off the assembly line. Industrial titans (and Coolidge-backers) like Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford made unheard-of fortunes. Real annual per-capita income rose 37%, to $716 from $522.

The "Coolidge prosperity," denounced as ephemeral after the 1929 crash, was real for those who experienced it. Coolidge knew this well, telling reporters that "If you can base the economic conditions of the people on their appearance, the way they are dressed, [and] the general appearance of prosperity, I should say it was very good . . . I noticed most of the ladies had on silk dresses and I thought I saw a rather general display of silk stockings."

Unlike President Obama, President Coolidge didn't want to "spread the wealth around," but to grow it. He didn't call for "shared sacrifice"-Americans had sacrificed enough during the great war-but for good character.

There "is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character," he said in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania in 1921. And from the White House lawn in 1924 he said, "I want the people of America to be able to work less for the Government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. That is the chief meaning of freedom."

For Coolidge, then, fiscal matters were a moral question that tested the founding-era premise that free people can govern themselves. He encouraged Americans to "begin to work and save," in good and bad times. Only "our productive capacity," he told Depression-era readers in his autobiography, published in 1929, "is sufficient to maintain us all in a state of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift and industry."

That productive capacity, Coolidge knew, was sapped by the spendthrift-he called it "socialistic"-notions of government that sought to be all things to all people. Coolidge, making note of federal farm subsidies and flood insurance, criticized the thinking of "expect[ing] the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts," in a post-presidential column on Oct. 17, 1930. Americans, he wrote, "want the right to run our own business, fix our own wages and prices, and spend our own money, but if depression and unemployment result we look to government for a remedy."

As Coolidge saw things in 1924, "A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude." Coolidge helped Americans prosper by letting them be free.

From:

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/08/04/charles-c-johnson-how-silent-cal-coolidge-beat-a-recession-see-note/

Mr. Johnson is a Robert L. Bartley fellow at The Wall Street Journal. He is writing a book about Coolidge.

See also:

http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/silent-cal-speaks-why-calvin-coolidge Why Calvin Coolidge is the Model for Conservative Leadership Today By Cal Thomas

Tea Party's War on America

By Joe Nocera

[This is an editorial from the NY Times; although I know people who believe this, I am amazed at its inaccuracies and name-calling, and how much this mirrors the Democratic party talking points, and the Obama Media Complex. I bolded the most insane comments.]

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America's most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn't care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that's what it took.

Like ideologues everywhere, they scorned compromise. When John Boehner, the House speaker, tried to cut a deal with President Obama that included some modest revenue increases, they humiliated him. After this latest agreement was finally struck on Sunday night - amounting to a near-complete capitulation by Obama - Tea Party members went on Fox News to complain that it only called for $2.4 trillion in cuts, instead of $4 trillion. It was head-spinning.

All day Monday, the blogosphere and the talk shows mused about which party would come out ahead politically. Honestly, who cares? What ought to matter is not how these spending cuts will affect our politicians, but how they'll affect the country. And I'm not even talking about the terrible toll $2.4 trillion in cuts will take on the poor and the middle class. I am talking about their effect on America's still-ailing economy.

America's real crisis is not a debt crisis. It's an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn't address unemployment, it's guaranteed to make it worse. (Incredibly, the Democrats even abandoned their demand for extended unemployment benefits as part of the deal.) As Mohamed El-Erian, the chief executive of the bond investment firm Pimco, told me, fiscal policy includes both a numerator and a denominator. "The numerator is debt," he said. "But the denominator is growth." He added, "What we have done is accelerate forward, in a self-inflicted manner, the numerator. And, in the process, we have undermined the denominator." Economic growth could have gone a long way toward shrinking the deficit, while helping put people to work. The spending cuts will shrink growth and raise the likelihood of pushing the country back into recession.

[I have to comment; I am a mathematician and I know a reasonable amount of economics; and I have no clue as to this person’s point]

Inflicting more pain on their countrymen doesn't much bother the Tea Party Republicans, as they've repeatedly proved. What is astonishing is that both the president and House speaker are claiming that the deal will help the economy. Do they really expect us to buy that? We've all heard what happened in 1937 when Franklin Roosevelt, believing the Depression was over, tried to rein in federal spending. Cutting spending spiraled the country right back into the Great Depression, where it stayed until the arrival of the stimulus package known as World War II. That's the path we're now on. Our enemies could not have designed a better plan to weaken the American economy than this debt-ceiling deal.

One thing Roosevelt did right during the Depression was legislate into being a social safety net to soften the blows that a free-market economy can mete out in tough times. During this recession, it's as if the government is going out of its way to make sure the blows are even more severe than they have to be. The debt-ceiling debate reflects a harsher, less empathetic America. It's sad to see.

My own view is that Obama should have played the 14th Amendment card, using its language about "the validity of the public debt" to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Yes, he would have infuriated the Republicans, but so what? They already view him as the Antichrist. Legal scholars believe that Congress would not have been able to sue to overturn his decision. Inexplicably, he chose instead a course of action that maximized the leverage of the Republican extremists.

Assuming the Senate passes the bill on Tuesday, the debt ceiling will be a nonissue until after the next election. But the debilitating deficit battles are by no means over. Thanks to this deal, a newly formed supercommittee of Congress is supposed to target another $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in cuts by late November. If those cuts don't become law by Dec. 23, automatic across-the-board cuts will be imposed, including deep reductions in defense spending.

As has been explained ad nauseam, the threat of defense cuts is supposed to give the Republicans an incentive to play fair with the Democrats in the negotiations. But with our soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan, which side is going to blink if the proposed cuts threaten to damage national security? Just as they did with the much-loathed bank bailout, which most Republicans spurned even though financial calamity loomed, the Democrats will do the responsible thing. Apparently, that's their problem.

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They'll have them on again soon enough. After all, they've gotten so much encouragement.

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/opinion/the-tea-partys-war-on-america.html

S&P’s credit rating change has more to do with government spending than with revenues:

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/175755-sap-values-spending-cuts-more-than-tax-revenue-in-credit-rating-analysis

Liberals want Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie to get married:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bert-and-Ernie-Get-Married/231322733573832?sk=wall

Matt Damon has a lot to learn:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_0804damons_got_a_lot_to_learn/

Additional Sources

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/39534

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/04/us-usa-economy-incomes-idUSTRE77302W20110804

Reuters photo taken 3/1/2011; again, Obama with a halo.

There Aren't Enough "Rich" to Tax

RUSH: We're into statistics today and the unemployment statistics are just fascinating in the way that we're being spun. It's as bad as the way we were spun on this debt deal, and the more you look at this debt deal, what a disaster that is.

I'm gonna explain why as the program unfolds. This is from the UK Daily Mail. You're not gonna see this in the American media. Speaking of the American media, remember all of those years, the Bush years, the media apparatchiks on TV were trying to talk down the economy and trying to talk down the market. They did everything they could to talk down the economy. Why, it was almost as though they wanted Bush to fail. Shazam, it was almost as though they wanted Bush to fail. You remember.

For four years running at 4.7% unemployment, at 5% unemployment, at 5.6% unemployment, they were proclaiming we were either on the verge of a recession or were in one. They were out trying to find the worst sob stories. Now they're doing everything they can to talk it up. Do they really think we're such fools that we don't see this? When unemployment started spiraling upward, what did we get from 'em? We got stories on how wonderful that is. Families are finding one another again, friends have social time, the stress and strain of working is no longer a part of anybody's day. It really is a new perspective on life. All the wonderful aspects of not having a job, all the great things you could do if you didn't have any work you had to do. "Funemployment," they called it. And now they're doing everything they can, they're just incapable of telling us the truth, totally incapable.

The question here is who will tank first? Right now it looks like we're in a race to see whether the country or Obama will tank first. It looks like it's running neck and neck here. And the trick here is to make Obama tank first. Now, this UK Daily Mail story that you will not see in the US media. "Soak the rich, eh? They do not have the money. A report from the Internal Revenue Service found that the rich --" and the rich are defined this way: 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more. What do you think those 8,274 people earned combined in 2009? Snerdley, take a wild guess. All of you out there, take a wild guess in your mind. I'm not asking you to call and I'm gonna tell you what the number is here in just a second. But just think about this, 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more.

Now, you got Buffett in there and Gates at their $40 to 50 billion, but that's their net worth. What do they earn? It's a different number. But you take all of those people, just give me a number, what do you think, 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more, what was the combined total income earned of all those 8,274 people in 2009? One trillion, $250 billion. That's what you say, Brian? Snerdley says a trillion. The answer is $240 billion. Brian, you were $10 billion off. That's it. That's right. That's it. The 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more earned a total of $240 billion in 2009.

"Even of you confiscated every dime they earned, you would barely have enough money to cover government spending for 24 days." In fact, this $240 billion, I mean that's pretty close to the actual real number of budget cuts in the debt deal when you strip everything away. Now, about 25% of that money already goes to the federal government for federal income. So actually that $240 billion would run the government for 18 days.

"Another 227,000 people earned $1 million or more in 2009. Millionaires averaged taxes of 24.4% of their income -- up from 23.1% in 2008." Now, you might be asking, how did that happen? Well, the Bush tax cuts, folks. Obama's tax increases hadn't started, and Obama's not immaculated yet. "They, too, did not earn enough money to come anywhere close to covering the annual deficits that are $1.5 trillion a year." So 8,274 people who earn $10 million per year or more, earn a total of $240 billion in 2009. Another 227,000 people earned a million dollars or more in 2009. But it doesn't come anywhere close to covering the deficit of $1.5 trillion.

"Barack Obama was the first president to sign a budget with a $1 trillion deficit into law.

In fact, all the taxpayers -- including the ones who get a refund check bigger than the withholding taxes they paid -- have the money." The point of this is next time you hear Obama or a Democrat say we've got to raise taxes on the rich, it's not about getting revenue to run the government because they don't have the money. Now, I've been doing this show for 23 years, and I have been employing this data, whatever the accurate data was for the year I was disclosing it, it hasn't changed in terms of percentages. Confiscate every dollar earned by people who make $10 million a year or more and you run the country for barely over two weeks. That has not changed since I first heard of this statistic 23, 25 years ago. It hasn't changed. As it is, these people are already paying 70% of the total income tax burden! So there's no economic growth hidden away here in a tax increase on these people.

How does taking money out of the private sector grow it? And that's what tax increases do. How in the world does taking money out of the private sector cause it to grow? Mathematically impossible, folks. From Reuters: "Total adjusted gross income reported on tax returns, measured in 2009 dollars, was $7.626 trillion, down from $8.233 trillion in 2008 and $8.989 trillion in 2007. Total adjusted gross income was up only slightly from the $7.475 trillion reported in 2001, when there were 10 million fewer taxpayers."

Individual tax collections equaled 15.4% of all income. "Doubling federal income taxes for everyone would still leave us $400 billion or so shy of balancing the budget." That's the bottom line. Doubling federal income taxes for everybody would raise $1.1 trillion, $400 billion shy of the deficit. I know these numbers are hard to follow, but all this is gonna be on RushLimbaugh.com later today, and I suggest you go there, print it out, or e-mail it, make electronic copies, PDF, whatever you want, and spread this around. This needs to be seen by many people. It's not going to be in the US media.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/39534

Rubio on Compromise and Choice

RUSH: Marco Rubio makes a great point. He took to the Senate floor, gave an interesting ten-minute speech on the two competing economic visions that divide us. And rather than blaming politicians in Washington for the division, he said the problems run much deeper than just the politicians in Washington. He said, "Washington is divided because America is divided on this point." He's right.

John McCormack, writing in the Weekly Standard, says, "He was civil and fair-minded toward his opponents. But he didn't promise to bring us all together with a 'balanced approach' or by being a 'uniter, not a divider.' He didn't promise to turn our blue states and red states into one nation of purply goodness. He argued we may not find compromise between the two visions. We may have to choose one or the other," and therein lies the brilliance.

"The debate, Rubio continued, is between those who believe the government's job is to promote 'economic justice,'" i.e., the redistribution of wealth, that the government's job is to determine the equality of outcomes in people's lives, "and those who believe the government's job is to promote 'economic opportunity.' 'One is not more moral than the other,' Rubio said of the competing views. 'They are two very different visions of the role of government in America. But it lies at the heart of the debate that we're having as a nation.'" By the way, this is the only thing I will disagree with. I do think that one is more moral than the other. I do not think that there is any moral superiority in economic justice, 'cause that's not what the term means. Economic justice does not mean fairness and equality for everybody, it's not what it means.

Economic justice means socialism or communism or Marxism, and that is not moral. In fact, as Ronaldus Magnus said, "Even if we do nothing, the Soviet Union eventually will implode. It'll crush in on itself because of its own immorality." He said, "We can't wait for that to happen because they can do a whole lot of damage before that eventually happens to them." But I do think there is a moral superiority to economic opportunity, because where is the morality in the idea that the purpose of a government is to determine who ends up with what? That's not moral to me, so I respectfully disagree with Senator Rubio. I think one is more moral than the other.

But when he got to the point of discussing the solution to all this, he said, "Ultimately, we may find that between these two points there may not be a middle ground. And that, in fact, as a nation and as a people, we must decide what we want the role of government to be in America, moving forward." That there may not be any way to compromise, that we're going to have to choose one or the other. And he's dead-on right. That's why the silly notion of compromise, Obama and the Democrats demanding compromise, all that means is that we give up our core beliefs, and the differences are too striking.

How do you compromise with something that's wrong? How do you compromise, say, with evil, in the case of the Middle East peace process and the Israelis? Where is the compromise with people who want you exterminated? Where is the compromise with people who would just as soon run you into the Mediterranean Sea and drown you? Where is the compromise there? Peace will come in the Middle East when one of those two sides loses, or, put the other way, when one of those two sides wins, and it's the same thing here in the United States. The two competing visions are so different from one another, so strikingly different, so stark in their differences, that there is no compromise. I know a lot of American people get nervous hearing that. They want to compromise, especially women. "Oh, God, no, can we all just get along? I hate the fighting."

Somebody's gonna have to win and somebody's going to have to prevail, and that's what elections are about, and we elect people, we send them to Washington to defeat the ideas of our opponents because we think those ideas not only are destroying the country, we also think they're a little bit immoral. So there is no compromise. Whenever there's a compromise on something like this when the differences are this stark, it isn't helpful, and it isn't good. You know, the White House wanted the market to tank before there was a deal. CNBC had the story, Washington annoyed at Wall Street's failure to panic, before the deal was done.

Remember that? And so now Wall Street is panicking. He said, "Frankly a bit of panic would be very helpful for this right now." Where's the compromise with people who think that way? Where is the compromise with people like Obama and the Democrats who want Wall Street to panic? "Okay, we'll compromise: A little bit of panic. Okay, we'll agree to a little bit of panic." Well, this wasn't supposed to happen. The Wizards of Smart told us that if we got a deal and didn't default, that everything would be fine -- that if we defaulted the market would plunge and interest rates would go up and (choking sound). It's just the exact opposite of what the wizards of smart told us. Now, Zsa Zsa is right: Obama has had 37 fundraisers.

At this point in his first term, George W. Bush had held seven. Bill Clinton had held only five. You look at slavery. Where's the compromise there? I mean, the people in that debate who believed in slavery and those who didn't, nobody thought this could be settled by splitting the difference. This notion of "compromise" on the differences here that we're talking about are indeed stark. Economic justice. No matter how they try to dress it up, economic justice, or social justice really just boils down to Democrats taking the money of people who won't vote for 'em and giving it to people who will. That's what economic justice is and that's why I disagree with Rubio. I think it is less moral than my side.

Liberals Feed Lies to Students

RUSH: Steven in Holliston, Massachusetts, as we return to the phones. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Great to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Pleasure. Yeah, the reason I called is I just found it funny, the last 24 hours... Well, I got an e-mail from a good friend of mine who happens to be a liberal -- go figure here in Massachusetts -- but he was upset at me, a Tea Partier, because they're doing away with $2 billion of student aid for graduate students. So it's my fault because I'm a Tea Partier, and I just wonder: Where does that come from?

RUSH: Wait a second. Who is doing away with $2 billion worth of student aids for graduate students?

CALLER: He says this new budget that because of the Tea Party we were forced to cut spending --

RUSH: Wait.

CALLER: -- $2 billion is being cut from student loan for graduate students.

RUSH: Wait, wait. This most recent debt deal, or is this a Massachusetts state budget?

CALLER: No. Well, if it's a state budget. You might want to clip about the top 15 wage earners in the state because they're all making a half a million or more working for UMass. But he is claiming because of this federal budget, the cuts in spending from this budget cut -- or from this new vote -- that $2 billion is gonna be cut from graduate students' subsidies.

RUSH: Well, the new budget does cut Pell grants, but Obama vastly increased Pell grants in the stimulus. This is supposed to be temporary. Again, there's no cut!

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: There's no cut! It's a reduction in the rate of growth. They're still gonna be spending more on this student aid. It's just your typical liberal who doesn't understand. Students are being told these lies after lies after lies.

RUSH: Interesting story. Dawn, who transcribes phone calls here in the event that I am unable to understand what the callers are saying, has a college-age daughter who called her in a panic, "Mom! Mom! What are the Republicans doing? They're cutting all the money for our education!" So somewhere on college campi all across the fruited plain students are being told that as part of this debt deal, Republicans have cut funding for education. So that's why the guy who we just spoke to on the phone, his liberal buddy, said, "Yeah, yeah, the Republicans cut $2 billion from student aid!" (sigh)

This is how they work. Where is the morality in this? You see, I don't think that it can be said that one side in this debate we're having in this country is no more moral than the other. It is clear that our ideological opponents epitomize immorality. I mean these people lie. That barely scratches the surface in describing what they're capable of and what they do. "Mom! Mom! How come they're cutting education? How am I gonna stay in school?" So that's the kinda stuff that we're up against: Government must do everything. If the government cuts money for education, no child can be educated. It's amazing thing, isn't it?

RUSH: This makes it even worse. Congressman Louie Gohmert from Texas informs us that the debt deal actually raises the amount of money spent on Pell Grants from $3 billion to almost $13 billion. The amount of money spent on Pell grants in this stupid debt deal goes from $3 billion to almost $13 billion, and the Republicans are getting demonized for cutting when spending has actually increased by almost a factor of four! Where's the morality in that? So we're spending four times on Pell Grants what we were spending on them before this stupid debt deal was done, and yet the Democrats are running around telling everybody that the Republicans are cutting education!

Destruction of the American Family

RUSH: News from Reuters: "Service Sector Growth Slowest Since 2010 -- The pace of growth in the services sector ticked down unexpectedly in July to the lowest level since February 2010, while the number of jobs created by the private sector also slowed, separate reports showed on Wednesday." And get this from the Reuters piece. "Economists say the economy could face a further drag from the budget deficit cutting plan approved by Congress this week." This is the kind of stuff that ticks me off. The kind of stuff that makes me think that they think that we are all saps and that we are all fools. We had to go through three weeks of what turns out to be a meaningless Armageddon, where the Republicans were compromising with themselves, negotiating with themselves over a totally made-up crisis, and that is the default of the US government.

It was never going to happen. And yet that became the equivalent of the financial crisis of 2008 where we had to have TARP and we had to bail out the auto companies, we had to do this, and we had to do it now or else. And they keep getting away with this. And so now we did this deal, and this deal was supposed to be the salvation, this deal was supposed to buy us time, this deal was supposed to ward off Satan and his sandwich. This deal was supposed to buy us some time, at least 'til Christmas. This deal was supposed to bring us a little peace. This deal was supposed to bring us a little compromise.

When did Obama sign this stupid thing? Yesterday? Last night? So in one day we got a story from Reuters: "Economists say the economy could face a further drag from the budget deficit cutting plan approved by Congress this week." Wait a minute. I thought this bill was the salvation. Now they tell us one day later that the economy could face a further drag because we did this deal. And why? Because it's a deficit cutter, and it's not a deficit cutter. So my prediction comes true in one day. Phantom, nonexisting spending cuts are reported today by Reuters to be the reason for an economic slowdown, and you know what that means. Well, since we've done all this massive cutting, and that has resulted in this slowdown, why, we've got to have some stimulus. We gotta have some stimulus, and we gotta have some tax increases, in one day, folks. One day.

Now, there's a story out there from the Challenger, Gray & Christmas bunch, this isn't based on their report. This is another report. More from Reuters. "The Institute for Supply Management said its services sector index fell to 52.7 last month from 53.3 in June. The reading fell shy of economists' forecasts for 53.6, according to a Reuters survey, though it was still above the 50 figure that indicates expansion in the sector." So what spending cuts led to our first quarter GDP of 0.4%, huh? What spending cuts? Reuters is telling us that spending cuts, the budget deficit cutting plan, what spending cuts gave us a growth rate of .4%? What spending cuts led to our second quarter growth rate of 1.3%? What spending cuts?

We're being lied to by the news media, by the administration, by all of Washington. There aren't any spending cuts. There have not been any spending cuts. Today we're being told after this wonderful deal that the deal itself has resulted in an economic slowdown, in one day. Cuba's gross domestic product is one and a half percent, by the way. Cuba's economy is growing faster than ours. Our GDP is 1.3. Cuba, 1.5. Of course, they're communists, they lie. Of course, our people are communists, and they lie, so who the hell really knows? We're being lied to by everybody about everything. Another damned Armageddon. Everybody falls for it hook, line, and sinker. The people out there claiming Armageddon get exactly what they want and in one day tell us that the salvation is responsible for a further decline in our economy. Hubba hubba hubba.

"Planned Jobs Cuts Surge 60 Percent in July." This is the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation, by the way. "A wave of private-sector downsizing pushed the number of announced job cuts by U.S. employers to a 16-month high in July, according to a report released Wednesday. The 66,414 announced job cuts last month were up 60 percent from the previous month, according to the report by the Challenger, Gray & Christmas," and what I just told you about the service sector cuts is not this. They're two separate reports. "July's planned cuts represented the largest monthly total since March 2010." So two separate reports the day after we get utopia.

And here from CNNMoney.com: "Job Growth Stalls, Layoffs Surge -- The jobs recovery slowed for a third month in a row, according to two reports out Wednesday. Private sector employers added 114,000 workers in July, marking a decrease from the 145,000 jobs added in June, payroll processing firm ADP reported. ... Meanwhile, a separate report showed more firms are opting to downsize, rather than add to their payrolls." Now, we were supposed to be at 6.2% unemployment by this time after the stimulus.

We were supposed to have had two summers of recovery, all of the shovel-ready jobs that are now laughed at as a joke, all of the infrastructure stuff, all that spending was supposed to put everybody back to work. Just one lie after another, and the end result is the destruction of the United States economy. A better way to say it is, destruction of the American family, because that's really what is going on here, the destruction of the American family.

And from the Washington Post: "Stocks Plunge; S&P Turns Negative for 2011 -- Stocks posted their worst daily decline in nearly a year Tuesday, wiping out the year's gains and raising fresh questions about the strength of the economic recovery." Who in their right mind has any fresh questions about it? This is what I mean, I don't suffer fools well. Raising fresh questions? These questions are three years old, for crying out loud. Questions about the economic recovery. In fact we got the answers, just nobody wants to employ them. And shouldn't this raise some question about the economic reports we've gotten from the media over the last few weeks, especially since we were told that the only way to avoid an economic Armageddon was to raise the debt limit. So we raised the debt limit and now we've got three stories on economic decline the day after we raise the debt limit. This can only mean that the stock market is racist.

How is the stock market racist? Because it's not doing what Obama wants it to do. Any criticism or any failure to go along with Obama obviously is racist.

RUSH: This was this morning on Morning Joe, and the guest, chief White House correspondent F. Chuck Todd, and they were having a discussion about the economy, and the cohost, Willie Geist, said, "F. Chuck, the president yesterday in the Rose Garden said that he wants to turn the page to jobs and the economy." Now, how can these guys look at each other with a straight face? How many times has Obama turned the page to the economy? How many times has he focused like a laser on the economy? How many times have these guys reported that that's what Obama has done?

If these guys, Willie Geist and F. Chuck, if they had any journalistic credibility, they'd be talking about Obama's incompetence at dealing with jobs and the economy. Two and a half years, ladies and gentlemen, Obama's been laser-like focused on jobs. He's had all these job summits. He even had one with Thomas "Loopy" Friedman from the New York Times. These guys report this as though, "Wow, hey, guess what, we got news here, Obama's focusing on jobs." So they talk about this as though they've never talked about it before, and Willie Geist said, "You know, this is a perilous turning of the page for Obama. Obama wants to turn the page to jobs, this is a perilous thing for him to do, F. Chuck." Why do you care, Willie, that it's a perilous thing for him?

See, Willie Geist does not want Obama to turn to jobs because Obama can't win on jobs. Obama is a net job killer. And so Willie Geist says, "How we gonna protect him here, F. Chuck?" And then Willie Geist, talking to F. Chuck, quotes George Will, says, "George Will puts out the question that he thinks all Republican presidential candidates should be asking on the trail this morning, 'Is this really the best we can do?' We got bad GDP numbers, we got revised numbers, we're gonna have a July jobs number on Friday that probably won't be great. How does President Obama answer that question, 'Is this the best we can do' over the next year?'"

TODD: This economy has to contract for a little bit before it can expand again. We only talk about the tech bubble or the real estate bubble. It was bubbled up every wherever, whether it was people making too much money on Wall Street because salaries got out of whack and then that messed things up or just the whole country just needs to contract a little bit, and the only thing that can soften the blow is if somehow global demand goes up. I don't think there's any plan that any president or member of Congress could actually put into place that actually helps. They could just do plans that don't hurt.

RUSH: And that's what passes for news. There's nothing anybody can do. This is as good as it gets. All those salaries that the Wall Street guys made, just messed everything up. How about your salary, F. Chuck? All those salaries that Wall Street made, man, it just messed everything up. Poor old Obama, I mean there's no plan any member of Congress could come up with. Now, that's just downright -- folks, I am not comfortable speaking this way. These guys all hear about what I say, and F. Chuck, he's a nice guy, but this is just plain stupid. To not know that there are things to do that create growth scenarios for an economy? To not know that or to profess to not know that?

I know what to do to grow the economy. I can think of some things to announce today that would cause an immediate reversal in the stock market and in the employers of this country starting to think about hiring people. You could have a tax freeze. He said the economy's got to contract a little more before it can -- it's gotta contract some more? What is that? We have been contracting for three years and we're still not through contracting? We need more contraction? We gotta get smaller before we can start growing? That's the cure? That's what we get from NBC. Here's Labor Secretary Robert B. Reichhhh....hhhhh...hhhhh...hhhhh...sha on MSNBC. He was on last night with Lawrence O'Donnell. They were talking about the debt deal. O'Donnell says, "What have we done to the economy with this legislation?"

REICH: The president has essentially tied his hands and the hands of Congress with regard to boosting the economy. Right now I don't have to tell you, joblessness is huge, the economy is not growing. So you need a boost from the government. You need, in my view, a WPA, a Civilian Conservation Corps maybe exempting the first 10,000 or $20,000 of income from payroll taxes, but given this deal, it's gonna be terribly difficult, if not impossible, to muster the political will, the political courage, the votes necessary to get a jobs bill through.

RUSH: I just sit here in absolute (chuckling) stunned amazement. We are 3-1/2 years into failed job policy after failed job policy after failed job policy, and former labor secretary Robert B. Reichhhh proposes more of the same. WPA, a Civilian Conservation Corps? Yeah, let's get everybody in uniform sweeping the streets, like the ChiComs do in Beijing. The only thing that can be done is government. Government has to do it because this deal? Obama, poor Obama, his hands are tied with this deal -- and what Reich means by that is, "Poor old Obama, he can't spend anymore." (interruption) Young people don't know what the WPA is? They don't know what that is? (sigh) You don't want to know. If you don't know what the WPA is, you don't want to know. You don't want to know what the Tennessee Valley Authority is, you don't want to know what the TVA is.

You don't want to know. You don't want to know. The Civilian Conservation Corp? You don't want to know what those things are. They're Marx. You don't want to know what they are. They're from the thirties and forties. This is what's passing for thinking. Here's Krauthammer, Charles Krauthammer last night taking time-out from Krauthammer Review Online to appear on the All-Star Panel at Fox News. Bret Baier said, "While the economy's weak and fragile, now the talk, the focus again pivots to jobs, finding jobs, try..." See? Even Fox falls for this. The template is set. No matter where you go it's: Jobs! What's government going to do about jobs? "So the president mentioned it today. He's mentioned the job thing numerous times before. Can it happen, Charles? Can it happen? He's said it before."

KRAUTHAMMER: He's out of bullets; he's out of arrows. He's looking for stones on the seashore, and it shows that he may want to have a jobs agenda, he may want to do a pivot. There's nothing left in the cupboard. He did a huge Keynesian gamble, and it failed.

RUSH: Yeah. Well, he did do a Keynesian gamble, but it's worse than what happens with a Keynesian gamble. As I said at the beginning of the program, you know, John Maynard Keynes -- Keens, however you want to pronounce it. His whole theory of spending, government spending, was oriented in relatively good economic times to eliminate business cycles. John Maynard Keynes is really getting a bad name being associated with Obama 'cause he was not out to destroy capitalism. He was wrong, his policies were totally wrong and destructive, but he was not purposely trying to destroy the American family.

Obama is. I hate to disagree here with Dr. Krauthammer, but Obama's got plenty of Keynesian spending left. What do you think the debt limit deal was all about? He wants more spending! He made another push for more stimulus. That's exactly what he talks about. Balance, shared sacrifice? He's asking for more stimulus! He wants more money to spend, and he knows full well that it's going to result in exactly more of what we have. He knows it's not going to create jobs. He knows he's taking money out of the private sector, and he knows that taking money out of the private sector does not create jobs in the private sector. He knows this. That's why all of this is purposeful.

RUSH: Yeah, you know, if I keep talking Keynesian, I gotta be very careful. People are gonna keep accusing me of saying Obama wasn't born here in America. A lot of people hear "Keynesian" and they're gonna confuse it with Kenya. Well, you gotta be careful as a host of these shows, folks. You gotta be very, very careful. You know how many people don't know what Keynesian is. I was not saying he was born in Kenya, okay?

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.

Millionaires who think they should pay more taxes:

http://patrioticmillionaires.org/

Sunshine State News (almost the only news service which ran a story on Mack’s Penny Plan). They are not a conservative news source, by the way.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/

Bankrupting America:

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis (a number of fairly easy to understand article on economic matters):

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Start Thinking Right, a mostly conservative blog, but he does not support every single conservative in each and every case:

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/

The cut, cap and balance amendment:

http://www.cutcapandbalanceact.com/

Club for Growth:

http://clubforgrowth.org/

Social Network of the Revolution (they seem to be a conservative organization):

http://rtr.org/

Watts Up With That (a lot of recent scientific news is posted here—there were 9 stories for July 5^th alone):

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Corruption Chronicles (wtching things judicial):

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog

If you are a small business and you want to air out your problems with how government has hampered your business, here’s the place to go (enjoy the video):

http://jobs.majorityleader.gov/

Excellent economic news:

http://www.zerohedge.com/

Uncover age, sometimes a sensational right wing blog site:

http://www.uncoverage.net/

The Bare Knuckled Pundit, a right-wing blog site with in-depth articles.

http://www.bareknuckledpundit.com/

Front Page Mag; in-depth right-leaning stories:

http://frontpagemag.com/

Framing the Dialogue (mostly individually produced blog postings and interesting articles):

http://www.framingthedialogue.com/

Obamacare 411 (stories about what to expect from Obamacare):

http://obamacare411.wordpress.com/

The U.S. misery index, determined month-by-month:

http://www.miseryindex.us/customindexbymonth.asp

TEA Party . Org (conservative news and views):

http://www.teaparty.org/

Seems to be a middle-of-the-road news organization; iwatch news:

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Front Page magazine, which is conservative with Jewish emphasis:

http://frontpagemag.com/

The fake Obama Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002453027874&sk=info (the name "Harrison J. Bounel" - a suspected Obama alias, based on official records)

Our Dirty Spending Secrets:

http://www.dirtyspendingsecrets.com/

The Right Perspective (blog):

http://rightperspective.wordpress.com/

Conservative byte (conservative blog; news):

http://conservativebyte.com/

The Government is not God, a political action committee:

http://www.gingpac.org/

Obama’s autopen twitter account:

http://twitter.com/#!/ObamasAutopen

The Minority Report (conservative blogging and news):

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/

Shadow Government Statistic; excellent economics site (some information is free, but this is a subscription site):

http://www.shadowstats.com/

A George Soros funded site to go after specific Fox anchors through their advertisers (is there any parallel to this on the right?):

http://dropfox.com/

Cato Institute’s Downsizing Government

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/

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/

Global Warming/Climate Change

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

http://www.climatedebatedaily.com/

Global Warming headlines:

http://www.dericalorraine.com/

Dr. Roy Spencer on climate change:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

Not Evil, Just Wrong video on Global Warming

http://noteviljustwrong.com/

http://www.letfreedomwork.com/

http://www.taskforcefreedom.com/council.htm

Global Warming Hoax:

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php

Global Warming Site:

http://www.climatedepot.com/

Global Warming sites:

http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/

35 inconvenient truths about Al Gore’s film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5J7JNfLYco

http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/trailer

Wall Street Journal’s articles on Climate Change:

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

Michael Crichton on global warming as a religion:

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

This man questions global warming:

http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/

Healthcare

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

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

Republican healthcare plan:

http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare

Health Care:

http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/

Betsy McCaughey’s Health Care Site:

http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us/home.html

Obamacare Watch:

http://www.obamacarewatch.org/

This looks to be a good source of information on the health care bill (s):

http://joinpatientsfirst.com/

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

http://www.van4congress.org/contact/obamacare-class-action/

Islam

Islam:

www.thereligionofpeace.com

Jihad Watch

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Answering Muslims (a Christian site):

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/

Muslim demographics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZT73MrYvM

Muslim Demographics (this is outstanding):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Muslim deception:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNZQ5D8IwfI

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

http://www.faithfulamerica.org/

Celebrity Jihad (no, really).

http://www.celebjihad.com/

Legal

The Alliance Defense Fund:

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/

Liberty Counsel, which stands up against the A.C.L.U.

www.lc.org

ACLU founders:

http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/stokjok/Founders.html

Military

Here is an interesting military site:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/

This is the link which caught my eye from there:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=169400

The real story of the surge:

http://www.understandingthesurge.org/

National Security

Keep America Safe:

http://www.keepamericasafe.com/

Race Relations

A little history of Republicans and African-Americans:

http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/

Oil Spill

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

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-katrina-illustrated-timeline.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/bpdot/7816715/Gulf-of-Mexico-oil-spill-timeline.html

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/bp-gulf-oil-spill-timeline.php

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

http://www.esri.com/services/disaster-response/gulf-oil-spill-2010/timeline-advanced.html

Cool Sites

The 100 most hated conservatives:

http://media.glennbeck.com/docs/100americans-pg1.pdf

Still to Classify

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

http://defendmichael.wordpress.com/

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

http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-and-releases