If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

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

President Obama, after giving a rather stirring speech about his “American Jobs Act” finally put this into written form, which Harry Reid promised would be submitted to the Senate. Several Democrats have been reticent about supporting this bill, even publically criticizing the bill or aspects of it.

You may recall that President Obama promised this bill prior to going on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard (if memory serves), and then came out and gave the speech, and then, a week later, actually produced a bill, which he waves around in his hand, calling upon Congress to “Pass this bill.” #2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, said that they will get to this bill sometime in October. Apparently, Harry Reid has placed this bill on the calendar.

The president proposes the Buffet rule, whereby millionaires would be called upon to pay their fair share. This appears to be an alternative minimum tax laid upon rich investors.

The Obama campaign sets up AttackWatch on the internet, just in case there is anyone out there making unfair attacks on the president. Go to the site and tell them who is misbehaving and spreading false information.

FEMA constructed storm shelters in Alabama in April of this year, and now it appears as though they will be torn down. The policy is, if the schools are restored and the city or country does not purchase the shelters, then FEMA will return and demolish the shelters. Congressman Spencer Bachus, of Alabama, has written the president about this insane policy.

The FBI is investigating Solyndra, the solar panel company which took a half a billion dollars in loans from the government and then went bankrupt. There are 14 more “green” loans guaranteed by the government to be finalized by the end of this month.

An affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) received another $300,000 in taxpayer funding in early August.

The United Auto Workers union just got $5,000 signing bonuses and the possibility of sweeter profit-sharing checks as part of a new four-year contract with General Motors Co. GM had received a $49.5 billion government bailout two years ago and is still part-owned by the U.S. Treasury.

Protestors gathered on Wall Street Saturday for a Day of Rage. Although numbers were not clearly given, it sounds like perhaps a few hundred.

Republican Bob Turner won an unbelievable victory over Democrat Assemblyman David Weprin in New York's 9th Congressional District, a district held since 1923 by Democrats (the last being Anthony Weiner). No doubt that former NY mayor Ed Koch’s support for Turner played a big part in this election. The opponent’s support for same-sex marriage and for Obama’s policies on Israel certainly played a part as well.

One of the so-called moderate Muslims, who is rebelling against Assad in Syria, has threatened that supporters of Assad (and he includes Christians in this, as they have always been protected by the Assad regime) be "torn apart, chopped up and fed to the dogs."

Pakistan, which has issued a death sentence to a Christian mother of five for allegedly blaspheming the prophet Mohammed, and which regularly prosecutes Christians for allegedly blaspheming Islam.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the U.S. government's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom this week, Pakistan was not listed among the so-called "Countries of Particular Concern"

Hundreds of Muslims defied a French ban on outdoor prayer - which came into force Friday -and took to the streets and sidewalks of Paris to pray.

Mindanao in the Philippines has suffered from great unrest in the southern section. Women in the rural Dado village have recently warned their men, continued conflicts will result in no sex.

Mohamed H. Dawod shoots a man he apparently did not know in a bus station in Missouri on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. This story is ignored by the Obama Media Complex.

Joe McGinniss, the man who moved in next door to the Palins in order to write an expose, turns out a book that is so bad that even the `New York Times' comes to Sarah Palin's defense.

Ron Suskind has written a book about the dysfunctional Obama administration, alleging that there was no adult in charge at the White House and that it was a hostile environment for women. Suskind had previously written of the discord in the Bush White House, and had many public venues that welcomed him. This time, it ought to be interesting to see if these venues are still open to him.

President Obama to a high school audience: “Tell Congress, pass the American Jobs Act.”

President Obama: "It's estimated that the American Jobs Act would add two percentage points to the GDP, and add as many as 1.9 million jobs, and bring the unemployment rate down by a full percentage point."

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on the special election loss of NY–9, a district held by Democrats for 90 years: "It's a very difficult district for Democrats."

Nancy Pelosi on this election: “It’s one election; don’t read too much into it.”

Far left Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders on Solyndra: “This issue is, are we picking smart winners?”

Black Panther leader Shabazz: “Our message to the State Department, our message to the CIA, our message to Homeland Security, our message to the government today, is that your enemy is not our enemy. Our enemies are right here in the United States of America...We have to fight. Gird up your loins college students. Gird up your loins young black man and young black woman, for the hour of war is at hand.”

President Obama: "I know that, over the last couple of months, there have been Democrats who voiced concerns and nervousness about, well, in this kind of economy . . . aren't these just huge headwinds in terms of your re-election?"

NY Mayor Bloomberg: "We have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs. That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here."

Columnist Paul Krugman on the Obama White House: "Oh, they're good guys - and they're smart - they're just not as totalitarian forceful as I'd like."

Tavis Smiley: "That's not hating on the President, it's defending your own flanks. And whatever happened to that notion that to the victor goes the spoils? If anybody ought to be looked out for, it ought to be the persons who represent the most significant and the most loyal part of the base. That would be African-Americans."

President Jimmy Carter: "I'm not taking a position, but I would be very pleased to see [Mitt Romney] ...win the Republican nomination."

Chris Matthews : "This is going to rip the scab off with all the conservatives watching. Is there room in the modern Republican Party any longer for someone who's even slightly an intellectual? Or has the GOP become a party that celebrates ignorance? Look at how the presidential candidates in the field proudly oppose mainstream scientific thought like, well, global warming, evolution. Look at how they grow defensive when they get facts thrown about history."

James Carville: "This may be news to you [Obama] but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. There were enough deaths at Stalingrad to make the entire tea party collectively orgasm."

Al Stephanelli of the American Atheists website: “Bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated, and when any of these rear their ugly heads outside of the context of religion they are not....The fact is that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are not interested in coexisting or getting along. They have no desire for peace. ..They want us to die.”

Michael Moore: "They are so filled with hate for Obama, it has so blinded them -- their rage, their hate and for many of them, their racism -- let's just call it out for what it is. They can't see that they've all hopped on the Titanic, which I call the Tea-tanic."

Bill Maher: "Are you watching these debates? Yes, the politicians are bad, but the people who egg them on. There are these crowds cheering for executions. Cheering for letting people without health insurance die. In today's Republican party there's a term for people who hate charity and love killing: Christian."

James Carville: “As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.”

Taliban spokesman Siraj-ud Din: "Anyone who supports the U.S. and Pakistani military will face the same fate. We will target funeral processions and wedding ceremonies of those who support the U.S."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean. They will see what our decisions will be on this subject. Our navy attack ships can be there at any moment."

Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana on the president’s jobs bill: "I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute."

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin III: "I have serious questions about the level of spending that President Obama proposed."

Peter Lynch describing the poor business model of Solyndra: “The price was over $6 a watt to produce the product; um, they were selling it at about $3. But, when you looked at the numbers, it just didn’t work.”

Howard Rosen, from the Peterson Institute for International Economics: "This is not just a jobless recovery, it's a recovery-less recovery."

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: “Does that mean that the president has a plan for passage here? Has he met with the individual committee chairmen or is he planning to meet with the individual committee chairmen, is he planning on doing a full-court press to lobby for this passage?”

Valerie Jarrett: “The president plans to do a full-court press with the American people, so we’ll be in Virginia tomorrow, he’ll be in Ohio next week, as he said this evening, he intends to take this message all over the country. The reason why he wanted to do the speech this evening before Congress was not just to speak to the members of Congress—yes, it’s important that they hear the message—but it was also important that he have a chance to speak directly to the American people.”

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA): "My understanding is that Solyndra applied for this loan in 2006 when Bush was President."

Jonathan Silver of the Energy Department: "That's right." arguing that the groundwork for the Solyndra loan was vetted before President Obama took office.

Did they mention that Bush’s administration rejected giving Solyndra any money?

President Obama: “We still have a fiscal situation that arises not only from this most recent crisis, but also some long-term trends, where those of us in this room do very well, while folks who are struggling don't do quite as well. And there's, I think, an innate sense among the American people that things aren't fair, that the deck is stacked against them - that no matter how hard they work, their costs keep on going up, their hours are longer, they're struggling to make their mortgage, and somehow nobody's paying attention.”

President Jimmy Carter: “[We are undergoing] a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation . . . we are losing our confidence in the future [and] we are also beginning to close the door on our past.”

Joy Behar (liberal talk show host): “What about these politicians who use Christianity to make their point? That bothers me.”

Behar: “It doesn't have to be just Christianity. I mean, you can talk about these terrorists who used Islam to kill 3,000 people on 9/11, it's the same syndrome.”

Senator Rand Paul: “If you’re for job creation, don’t attack job creators.”

Rep. Timothy Murphy to a bureaucrat who would have probably had the say on whether or not the Solyndra loan was approved: “No one in the government is responsible for a half a trill—half a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money? This is phenomenal. What do you do for a living? If you don’t know what’s happened and everyone else is to blame, what do we go back and tell our constituents who have to work hard?”

David Webb, founder of the TEA Party 365: ‘This [Obama] is a president who said, ‘I’m going to fundamentally transform America. He has a set ideology of a centralized government control. He wants legislation by fiat—if I can’t get it through Congress, I will up the EPA’s budget by up to 89% in some areas and let them go to town [passing regulations].”

Charles Krauthammer: “In the last debate, Ron Paul argues against a [border] fence...on the grounds that it might be used to keep Americans in. Now that is simply weird.”

Republican candidate Rick Perry: "Look, when all the answers emanate from Washington, D.C., one size fits all, whether it's education policy or whether it's health care policy, that is, on its face, socialism."

Senator Mitch McConnell of Warren Buffett, who has complained that he is not taxed enough: "With regard to his tax rate, if he's feeling guilty about it, I think he should send in a check."

Greg Gutfeld about Columbia University having dinner for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “Every student should be gay and they would be hitting on him constantly.”

Jonah Goldberg, Fox commentator on Rick Perry’s debate performance: “Rick Perry was shockingly unprepared for the grief that he got. He doesn’t seem to have a presidential strategy other than to be really awesome at being Rick Perry.”

Rick Perry: “It was a mistake to agree to the Palestinians' demand for indirect negotiations conducted through the US, and it was an even greater mistake for President Obama to distance himself from Israel and seek engagement with the hostile regimes in Syria and Iran.”

Rush Limbaugh: "What Obama is doing is converting middle-class families into poor families."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama and the Democrats, aren't these the same people who want us to squander billions of taxpayer dollars on combating manmade global warming? If this bunch of clowns from Solyndra could dupe them, who the hell else has been duping them?"

Rush: "How do we think we can fix 153 bridges Obama says are at risk when after ten years we still haven't rebuilt the World Trade Center?"

Rush: "When I die, which is going to be a long time from now, I want my last check to be written to the IRS, and I want it to bounce."

Rush: "Obama does not know the first thing about turning a profit. He doesn't know the first thing about a balance and loss sheet."

Rush: "The idea that Barack Obama or the Democrat Party have any altruistic aims or interests in any of their legislation is something that can be disapproved by the results of any liberal program that's come to pass prior to today."

Rush: "Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul need to quit the Republican Party, join the Democrat Party, and run against Obama."

Rush: "The left doesn't want to be judged on the results of anything they do. They only want to be judged on their good intentions."

9/11 was 19 terrorists with some backup. There are 1 billion Muslims in this world, and 1–10% of them are radicalized. That is somewhere between 10 million and 100 million.

FoxNews Regulation Nation; farmers having to keep track, in a 3-ring notebook, the amount of manure hauled out of a pen (excellent 4 minute segment):

Bill O’Reilly interviews Liz Cheney (Dick Cheney won’t go on O’Reilly’s program). The first is the entire interview with a commercial; the second is a partial interview:

CBS does a cartoon on Rick Perry; it is not terrible, not flattering, However, would CBS do a cartoon like this on President Obama?

Even Jon Stewart did a little burn on Obama over Solyndra (Stewart went pretty hard on Obama):

If you need a smile, here is a guy describing an automobile accident that he was just in. Find the video and click on it.

Maybe we should take this with a grain of salt, but the document confirming Obama’s U.S. birth is apparently not what it purports to be—a simple scan of the official document which was then posted. Now, as you know, I have never emphasized or pushed this birther stuff, but, according to this one person, there are a number of embedded links in this document, which ought not to be there. Take it with a grain of salt.

Jodi Miller: “Economic experts are predicting another recession. Fortunately, it will run concurrently with the recession we are already enjoying.”

Jodi Miller: “Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is currently fighting the IRS over nearly a billion dollars in back taxes. When reached for comment, Buffet said he mean, other billionaires should pay more in taxes.”

1) It is hard to convince hard-core Democrats that Obama’s approach to the economy has failed. Each one tells me, “Bush left us in a bigger mess than we realized.” These are from the same people who spoke knowingly of the similarities of the Bush economy to the Great Depression. Worse than that, I guess? Now, what would have happened if, say, there was a roaring recovery beginning January 1, 2009, before Obama took office, and still going on today? Do you think these same people might have given President Obama a little credit for such a recovery?

2) The most recent apologists for the White House are asserting that, despite Solyndra, which only took 1.3% of the assets of the Stimulus Law, there are no problems of this sort with respect to the reset of the money that was spent. Except that it did not create any permanent jobs or turn the economy around.

3) For me, part of the issue here is, the possible corruption that was involved in this loan. However, more importantly is, why is the government able to just give out loans to whomever it chooses? I don’t really care if this is a good investment or a lousy investment; this is not the government’s job.

4) There is money out there to invest. A couple of months ago, an online crowd funding campaign raised enough money to purchase Past Blue Ribbon (5 million people put up $20 million). This reveals that people are willing to invest, but they no longer like the stock market. The SEC, of course, put the kibosh on this independent venture.

5) Along these same lines, one of the people on a FoxNews business program pointed out that, new startup companies often go to friends and relatives to raise money, and not to investment banks. Who knows better than friends and family if Charlie Brown can be trusted with their money and if he will repay them.

6) In order to get his jobs bill passed, the single most important person for Obama to speak to is Republican House leader John Boehner. As of 9/15, the president had not called, contacted or met with Boehner concerning this bill (often leaders of opposing parties meet to come to a consensus, like Clinton and Gingrich did). Boehner and Cantor have requested a meeting with the president, but that has not happened yet. In other words, this jobs bill for Obama is his campaign platform; it is not something he is willing to sit down and actually talk about with those people who could get it or some form of this bill passed.

The government has or will be making about $38 billion in loans to green companies, which will, in turn, create about 3500 jobs. That is approximately $10 million/job.

If Obama’s numbers on his jobs bill are accurate, then his $447 billion jobs bill will save or create 1.9 million American jobs at a cost of $235,263 per job.

We have waged war on poverty for 45 years since LBJ, spending $12 trillion, achieving a poverty level not unlike the poverty level during LBJ’s time in office. As Jesus said, “The poor, you will have with you always.”

The poverty cutoff is $22,000 for a family of 4; and we are at a 50 year high for those in poverty.

There are now 25,000 pages of government regulations (this is about 25x the size of the Bible) One estimate is, these regulations cost the small businessman about $11,000 per year per employee to comply with government regulations.

There are 7 regulations from the Obama administration, from the EPA and the DOT specifically, which will cost well over $1–$19 billion or more each.

A 1 second Google search uses more energy than an incandescent bulb burning for an hour.

39% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 42% view him unfavorably.

46% support Obama's overall performance as President, which is down 8 points, from 54% in June.

44% of Californian voters are also not inclined to re-elect Obama in 2012, up from 40% in June.

On the plus side, the news media in general is covering the Solyndra affair. However, if you will recall with Enron, there was such a big deal made out of that and the connections to the Bush White House, where there appears to be little or no connection, even after all this time. However, the same cannot be said for the Solyndra situation. Furthermore, this involves a great deal more money taken from taxpayers.

NPR ran a story on President Obama responding to the outburst “I love you” with “I love you back. (Applause.) But first - but if you love me - if you love me, you got to help me pass this bill. (Applause.) If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill.” Then NPR quotes John 21:15:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,"Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"

"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

How many times do you recall other presidents being compared to Jesus?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/09/14/140482703/obama-if-you-love-me-you-got-to-help-me-pass-this-bill

More importantly, after all of these years, there is almost no curiosity in the press about FNMA and FHLMC, even though the loss, fraud and corruption here was along the lines of 100 Solyndra loans.

Have you heard about the ACORN affiliate which got $300,000 from the government this past August?

Also a news blackout on the left-wing activist who attacked a Republican legislator in Wisconsin and the man with the Muslim name who killed a stranger on the even of 9/11.

NPR does a story on the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites. Racism and inheritance are noted as contributing factors. Ignored: marriage and living on the government dole. Ignored: what about 2^nd generation immigrants? The 1^st generation arrives, often with little or nothing, and the 2^nd generation, because of the hard work and guidance of their parents, are often very successful.

Congress must pass this bill right away = even though the bill had not yet been written

Congress needs to pass this bill now = even though no one has submitted it to be voted on.

How is your latest jobs bill substantively different from the Stimulus Bill of 2 years ago?

President Obama’s 200 page, $447 billion jobs bill was named the “American Jobs Act.” However, it never got submitted to Congress by any Democrat (I am uncertain whether it has been submitted to Congress as of yet). So, Rep. Louie Gohmert's (R-TX) submitted a bill to Congress, which proposes a tax cut, called the “American Jobs Act” (HR2911). This is a 2-page bill found here:

I told you how much the president’s jobs bill was going to cost, what was in it, and what its purpose was 3 weeks ago (2 weeks before he gave his jobs bill speech). I must admit, however, I had no idea that he would say, “Congress must pass this bill right now” 17 times in his Congressional address (and over 100 times since then).

It is also clear that, as was pointed out 2–3 weeks ago, that this Jobs Bill is what Obama will use to run on for 2012; he has no real interest in passing this bill.

It's been one week since President Barack Obama announced his latest "stimulus" plan, and despite a cross-country road show aimed at selling his proposals to the American people, the commander in chief is finding that his message of more taxes and spending isn't hitting home. Meanwhile, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has outlined a markedly different way to help the U.S. economy get back on track.

According to a new National Journal/United Technologies poll, only one in six Americans think that the President's plan will decrease unemployment "a lot," while one-quarter doubted that the plan would affect unemployment at all. Then there are the 39 percent who think that the President's policies have made unemployment even worse (twice as many as those who say he's made unemployment better). Now The New York Times is raining on the President's parade, too, reporting that Democrats are "balking at Obama's jobs bill" and "say there is little chance they will be able to support the bill as a single entity, citing an array of elements they cannot abide."

Though it might be surprising that the President is struggling even among his own party to garner support for the plan that he has demanded they pass, it's no wonder that the country doubts his plan for job growth. After all, with its $447 billion sticker price and reliance on big government spending, it looks much like what he has tried and failed for the duration of his presidency. In short, it calls for more borrowing, spending and higher taxes-none of which is going to help America create more jobs.

Rather than take a stab at making government bigger, Ryan says in a new video that there's a better path forward-pro-growth tax reform that makes the tax code fairer, competitive, and simpler, all of which will help unleash the creative power of America's private sector. In an exclusive interview with The Heritage Foundation, Ryan explained why the tax code is so desperately in need of reform:

[The tax code] penalizes all those qualities that make us great and make our economy grow-saving, investing, risk taking. It penalizes those things.

It's basically a crony capitalist creation, where Congress has decided to put itself in the role of picking and choosing winners and losers in the economy through the tax code.

When you carve out all these preferences to benefit one industry or business over others, you have to raise tax rates higher than you otherwise would have to, which makes it harder for the economy to grow, for businesses to become created.

Ryan says that the tax code has become "an economic incumbent protection plan" that ultimately leads to higher taxes across the board, leaving the United States less competitive in the global economy. His solution? Level the tax code playing field:

Don't confuse Ryan's call for fairness in the tax code with President Obama's calls for "shared sacrifice" - which for him means higher taxes on America's job creators. Ryan says there is an inherent difference in aspiration and philosophy about the role of government in the economy:

I aspire to achieve a culture, an economy, a society where we promote equal opportunity, so people can prosper and make the most of their lives. I would argue with the President's rhetoric and actions-he's aspiring to a society where the government sees its role as equalizing the results of our lives. It's a way of looking at the economy and the society as if the pie were fixed, and therefore the government has to have as its role redistributing the slices of the pie more equitably in the name of fairness or equality. That's not how the world works. That's not how the economy works.

Our goal is to grow the pie, not have the government figure out how to redistribute slices from some to others-which ends up putting a penalty or a hurdle on growth and innovation and prosperity-but grow the pie itself. I will grant the President that class warfare can make for really good politics, but it doesn't make for good economics.

Ryan is on the right track. Whereas President Obama wants to keep increasing spending and paying for it with higher taxes, Ryan is advocating a much-needed revamp of the tax code. Whereas the President's policies would permanently increase taxes, increase the size of government, and make America's unemployment picture even worse, Ryan looks to make government smarter and fairer, allowing businesses to grow, compete, and thrive. The former is a recipe for continued failure; the latter offers some much-needed hope to a country that has been struggling for too long.

First, a simple question: At retirement would you rather have a million dollars or social security benefits?

The answer to that one should be pretty simple. What boggles the mind, though, is that the former is not altogether impossible; in fact it may be more likely for those in Generation X or younger to save a million dollars than for social security to still be solvent when they retire.

Social Security has been a tremendous source of debate recently - an issue that becomes one of contention from time to time - particularly with the Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential election. Rick Perry has taken plenty of heat for referring to social security as a Ponzi scheme.

Since Social Security was created in the 1930s it has been a controversial issue; becoming only more contentious as the federal government borrowed against the trust to finance other government programs. The idea that it is a Ponzi scheme is certainly nothing new - Charles Ponzi having perpetrated his fraud that coined the term before the Social Security Act was ever passed.

The argument over whether Social Security is a fraud, heated though it is, is quite frankly overdone and irrelevant - not that it is near its end. No offence to Tea Partiers, but the odds of successfully seeking charges against the United States federal government for fraud seems somewhat low.

What can't be argued about the United States Social Security System is whether it is a good investment plan for Americans. It is absolutely apparent to anyone who does the math that, fraud or not, Social Security is a loser from an investment perspective.

Supporters of social security, due to their lack of investment knowledge and ignorance of time value of money, often argue that Social Security is a profitable system for its participants. They point out that under the current system, Americans are repaid all their contributions in just 5 or 6 years, and that everything paid out after that is a gain to the contributor. This completely ignores the time value of money; and how it grows over time. So let's do the math:

The average American salary is roughly $50,000 per year, with social security taxes equaling roughly 12.4% of that salary (between employee and employer contributions). With the average working career (over which social security contributions are made) totally roughly 30 years, that means that over the average American's working life, that American contributes a total of $186,000 to Social Security (12.4% of $50,000 times 30 years = $186,000).

If this American retired at 66, their monthly benefit from Social Security would, by our calculations, come out to $2,841 per month, or $34,095 per year. Going back to the argument made by social security advocates, this American would be repaid their total contributions ($186,000) in just fewer than five and a half years. Can the private sector do better?

Now let's assume that Social Security doesn't exist (wishful thinking, we know). To keep this comparison as fair as possible, let's assume that this same American saves the same portion of their same salary over the same period of time. This time it's just an in a private investment account.

So, this `heartless' American who is saving in a world without such a benevolent Social Security program saves $6200 every year (12.4% of $50,000) for 30 years, ending when they retire at 66 (just like the last example).

But remember, this savings is done in an investment account, which means that those savings are being put to work in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, or some combination of various securities. For a conservative estimate of average annual returns on stocks, let's use 9%. That's a good estimate considering the long term historical average returns on the S&P 500 Index, and certainly not impossible if an investor employees a good, competent money manager.

Over their 30-year working career, this second American would have contributed the same amount to their investment account as they would have to Social Security - approximately $186,000. However, this time their contributions would have been growing continually over that period at 9% per year, and compounding. Now it's time to look at the miracle of compound interest at work.

[For those to whom this term "compound interest" is foreign, the term describes the phenomenon whereby interest builds on itself. For example, consider an average annual return of 10% on a starting investment of $1. $1 plus 10% equals $1.10. $1.10 plus 10% equals $1.21. $1.21 plus 10% equals $1.33. The interest has risen from 10 cents to 12 in just three years. While this may seem negligible, it adds up considerably with larger amounts over longer periods of time.]

This second American, at the end of the 30-year contribution period, have earned an average annual return of 9% (reasonable for a good money manager) on their total contributions of $186,000, would have an investment account worth a total of $987,116.88. Almost a million dollars.

Now, here's where things get really interesting. This second American could, by extending this scenario, withdraw roughly 9% of their account value EVERY YEAR without depleting the principle, since they're replacing it with another 9% in earnings during that period. In other words, this investor could withdraw $88,840 every year, or $7,403 each month, and still have $987,116 in their account at the end of each year.

So, while our American on Social Security gets $2,841 every month, our private investor is getting more than two and a half times that amount. Plus that private investor has close to a million dollars in liquid cash if they ever have an emergency.

Before we drop our comparison, there's just one other point to consider. When American #1, with his or her Social Security benefits sadly but inevitably passes away, their heirs get roughly $0. They don't inherit a thin dime in residual social security benefits, no matter how much their ascendant received in benefits over the years.

When American #2 passes, on the other hand, their heirs inherit whatever is left unspent from the private investment account - which started at $987,116 at their predecessor's retirement.

The point is this: Why can't Americans opt out of social security? There is an argument, and perhaps a valid one, that not all people are sufficiently responsible to save on their own without Social Security. That's fine; those who want to use the system should certainly be able to do so. Those who don't want to should certainly be allowed to opt out if they are so inclined.

Granted, in order to institute some sort of opt-out program, there would need to be a transition period. Far too many people have built their retirements totally around social security. To immediately abandon social security would be irresponsible and, quite honestly, unfair. For people over the age of 50, social security was the system they were given, and they made the most of it. Most don't have enough time to accumulate any kind of significant savings, and pulling the plug on Social Security would leave them with nothing.

Assuming some out-out feature is created, there will certainly be some younger Americans who opt out and prove themselves unfit to govern their own financial future. This has been the argument that has been used for decades to justify the Social Security System. Unfortunately, few politicians have the gumption to state the obvious: Those who opt out of Social Security and don't save for their future. don't have one.

Dock David Treece is a discretionary money manager with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www.TreeceInvestments.com) and is licensed with FINRA through Treece Financial Services Corp. He has appeared on CNBC and numerous radio programs, and also serves as editor of financial news site Green Faucet (www.GreenFaucet.com). The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification.

Those who are impressed by words seem to think that President Barack Obama made a great speech to Congress last week. But, when you look beyond the rhetoric, what did he say that was fundamentally different from what he has been saying and doing all along?

Are we to continue doing the same kinds of things that have failed again and again, just because Obama delivers clever words with style and energy?

Once we get past the glowing rhetoric, what is the president proposing? More spending! Only the words have changed - from "stimulus" to "jobs" and from "shovel-ready projects" to "jobs for construction workers."

If government spending were the answer, we would by now have a booming economy with plenty of jobs, after all the record trillions of dollars that have been poured down a bottomless pit. Are we to keep on doing the same things, just because those things have been repackaged in different words?

Or just because Obama now assures us that "everything in this bill will be paid for"? This is the same man who told us that he could provide health insurance to millions more people without increasing the cost.

When it comes to specific proposals, President Obama repeats the same kinds of things that have marked his past policies - more government spending for the benefit of his political allies, the construction unions and the teachers' unions, and "thousands of transportation projects."

The fundamental fallacy in all of this is the notion that politicians can "grow the economy" by taking money out of the private sector and spending it wherever it is politically expedient to spend it - so long as they call spending "investment."

Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override? But he can talk glibly about growing the economy.

Arrogance is no substitute for experience. That is why the country is in the mess it is in now.

Obama says he wants "federal housing agencies" to "help more people refinance their mortgages." What does that amount to in practice, except having the taxpayers be forced to bail out people who bought homes they could not afford?

No doubt that is good politics, but it is lousy economics. When people pay the price of their own mistakes, that is when there is the greatest pressure to correct those mistakes. But when taxpayers who had nothing to do with those mistakes are forced to pay the costs, that is when those and other mistakes can continue to flourish - and to mess up the economy.

Whatever his deficiencies in economics, Barack Obama is a master of politics - including the great political game of "Heads I win and tails you lose."

Any policy that shows any sign of achieving its goals will of course be trumpeted across the land as a success. But, in the far more frequent cases where the policy fails or turns out to be counterproductive, the political response is: "Things would have been even worse without this policy."

Thus, when unemployment went up after the massive spending that was supposed to bring it down, we were told that unemployment would have been far worse if it had not been for that spending.

Are we really supposed to fall for ploys like this? The answer is clearly "yes," as far as Obama and his allies in the media are concerned.

Our intelligence was insulted even further in President Obama's speech to Congress, when he set up this straw man as what his critics believe - that "the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody's money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they're on their own."

Have you heard anybody in any part of the political spectrum advocate that? If not, then why was the President of the United States saying such things, unless he thought we were fools enough to buy it - and that the media would never call him on it?

Some people are hoping that President Obama's plan will get the economy out of the doldrums and start providing jobs for the unemployed. Others are hoping that the Republicans' plan will do the trick.

Those who are truly optimistic hope that Democrats and Republicans will both put aside their partisanship and do what is best for the country.

Almost nobody seems to be hoping that the government will leave the economy alone to recover on its own. Indeed, almost nobody seems at all interested in looking at the hard facts about what happens when the government leaves the economy alone, compared to what happens when politicians intervene.

The grand myth that has been taught to whole generations is that the government is "forced" to intervene in the economy when there is a downturn that leaves millions of people suffering. The classic example is the Great Depression of the 1930s.

What most people are unaware of is that there was no Great Depression until AFTER politicians started intervening in the economy.

There was a stock market crash in October 1929 and unemployment shot up to 9 percent - for one month. Then unemployment started drifting back down until it was 6.3 percent in June 1930, when the first major federal intervention took place.

That was the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, which more than a thousand economists across the country pleaded with Congress and President Hoover not to enact. But then, as now, politicians decided that they had to "do something."

Within 6 months, unemployment hit double digits. Then, as now, when "doing something" made things worse, many felt that the answer was to do something more.

Both President Hoover and President Roosevelt did more - and more, and more. Unemployment remained in double digits for the entire remainder of the decade. Indeed, unemployment topped 20 percent and remained there for 35 months, stretching from the Hoover administration into the Roosevelt administration.

That is how the government was "forced" to intervene during the Great Depression. Intervention in the economy is like eating potato chips: You can't stop with just one.

What about the track record of doing nothing? For more than the first century and a half of this nation, that was essentially what the federal government did - nothing. None of the downturns in all that time ever lasted as long as the Great Depression.

An economic downturn in 1920-21 sent unemployment up to 12 percent. President Warren Harding did nothing, except for cutting government spending. The economy quickly rebounded on its own.

In 1987, when the stock market declined more in one day than it had in any day in 1929, Ronald Reagan did nothing. There were outcries and outrage in the media. But Reagan still did nothing.

That downturn not only rebounded, it was followed by 20 years of economic growth, marked by low inflation and low unemployment.

The Obama administration's policies are very much like the policies of the Roosevelt administration during the 1930s. FDR not only smothered business with an unending stream of new regulations, he spent unprecedented sums of money, running up record deficits, despite raising taxes on high income earners to levels that confiscated well over half their earnings.

Like Obama today, FDR blamed the country's economic problems on his predecessor, making Hoover a pariah. Yet, 6 years after Hoover was gone, and nearly a decade after the stock market crash, unemployment hit 20 percent again in the spring of 1939.

Doing nothing may have a better track record in the economy but government intervention has a better political record in getting presidents re-elected.

People who say that Barack Obama cannot be re-elected with unemployment at its current level should take note that Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected a record four times, despite two consecutive terms in which unemployment was never as low as it is today.

Economic reality is one thing. But political impressions are something very different - and all too often it is the political impressions which determine the fate of an administration and the fate of a nation.

Ninety years ago - in 1921 - federal income tax policies reached an absurdity that many people today seem to want to repeat. Those who believe in high taxes on "the rich" got their way. The tax rate on people in the top income bracket was 73 percent in 1921. On the other hand, the rich also got their way: They didn't actually pay those taxes.

The number of people with taxable incomes of $300,000 a year and up - equivalent to far more than a million dollars in today's money - declined from more than a thousand people in 1916 to less than three hundred in 1921. Were the rich all going broke?

It might look that way. More than four-fifths of the total taxable income earned by people making $300,000 a year and up vanished into thin air. So did the tax revenues that the government hoped to collect with high tax rates on the top incomes.

What happened was no mystery to Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. He pointed out that vast amounts of money that might have been invested in the economy were instead being invested in tax-exempt securities, such as municipal bonds.

Secretary Mellon estimated that the amount of money invested in tax-exempt securities had nearly tripled in a decade. The amount of this money that the tax collector couldn't touch was larger than the federal government's annual budget and nearly half as large as the national debt. Big bucks went into hiding.

Mellon pointed out the absurdity of this situation: "It is incredible that a system of taxation which permits a man with an income of $1,000,000 a year to pay not one cent to the support of his Government should remain unaltered."

One of Mellon's first acts as Secretary of the Treasury was to ask Congress to end tax exemptions for municipal bonds and other securities. But Congress was not about to set off a political firestorm by doing that.

Mellon's Plan B was to cut the top income tax rate, in order to lure money out of tax-exempt securities and back into the economy, where increased economic activity would generate more tax revenue for the government. Congress also resisted this, using arguments that are virtually unchanged to this day, that these would just be "tax cuts for the rich."

What makes all this history so relevant today is that the same economic assumptions and political arguments which produced the absurdities of 1921 are still going strong in 2011.

If anything, "the rich" have far more options for putting their money beyond the reach of the tax collectors today than they had back in 1921. In addition to being able to put their money into tax-exempt securities, the rich today can easily send millions - or billions - of dollars to foreign countries, with the ease of electronic transfers in a globalized economy.

In other words, the genuinely rich are likely to be the least harmed by high tax rates in the top brackets. People who are looking for jobs are likely to be the most harmed, because they cannot equally easily transfer themselves overseas to take the jobs that are being created there by American investments that are fleeing from high tax rates at home.

Small businesses - hardware stores, gas stations or restaurants for example - are likewise unable to transfer themselves overseas. So they are far more likely to be unable to escape the higher tax rates that are supposedly being imposed on "millionaires and billionaires," as President Obama puts it. Moreover, small businesses are what create most of the new jobs.

Why then are so many politicians, journalists and others so gung-ho to raise tax rates in the upper brackets?

Aside from sheer ignorance of history and economics, class warfare politics pays off in votes for politicians who can depict their opponents as defenders of the rich and themselves as looking out for working people. It is a great political game that has paid off repeatedly in state, local and federal elections.

As for the 1920s, Mellon eventually got his way, getting Congress to bring the top tax rate down from 73 percent to 24 percent. Vast sums of money that had seemingly vanished into thin air suddenly reappeared in the economy, creating far more jobs and far more tax revenue for the government.

Before you ask for more tax money from me, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely.

Over the years, I have paid a significant portion of my income to the various federal, state and local jurisdictions in which I have lived, and I deeply resent that President Obama has decided that I don't need all the money I've not paid in taxes over the years, or that I should leave less for my children and grandchildren and give more to him to spend as he thinks fit. I also resent that Warren Buffett and others who have created massive wealth for themselves think I'm "coddled" because they believe they should pay more in taxes. I certainly don't feel "coddled" because these various governments have not imposed a higher income tax. After all, I did earn it.

Now that I'm 72 years old, I can look forward to paying a significant portion of my accumulated wealth in estate taxes to the federal government and, depending on the state I live in at the time, to that state government as well. Of my current income this year, I expect to pay 80%-90% in federal income taxes, state income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and federal and state estate taxes. Isn't that enough?

Others could pay higher taxes if they choose. They could voluntarily write a check or they could advocate that their gifts to foundations should be made with after-tax dollars and not be deductible. They could also pay higher taxes if they were not allowed to set up foundations to avoid capital gains and estate taxes.

What gets me most upset is two other things about this argument: the unfair way taxes are collected, and the violation of the implicit social contract between me and my government that my taxes will be spent-effectively and efficiently-on purposes that support the general needs of the country. Before you call me greedy, make sure you operate fairly on both fronts.

Today, top earners-the 250,000 people who earn $1 million or more-pay 20% of all income taxes, and the 3% who earn more than $200,000 pay almost half. Almost half of all filers pay no income taxes at all. Clearly they earn less and should pay less. But they should pay something and have a stake in our government spending their money too.

In addition, the extraordinarily complex tax code is replete with favors to various interest groups and industries, favors granted by politicians seeking to retain power. Mortgage interest deductions support the private housing industry at the expense of renters. Generous fringe benefits are not taxed at all, in order to support union and government workers at the expense of people who buy their own insurance with after-tax dollars. Gifts to charities are deductible but gifts to grandchildren are not. That's just a short list, and all of it is unfair.

Governments have an obligation to spend our tax money on programs that work. They fail at this fundamental task. Do we really need dozens of retraining programs with no measure of performance or results? Do we really need to spend money on solar panels, windmills and battery-operated cars when we have ample energy supplies in this country? Do we really need all the regulations that put an estimated $2 trillion burden on our economy by raising the price of things we buy? Do we really need subsidies for domestic sugar farmers and ethanol producers?

Why do we require that public projects pay above-market labor costs? Why do we spend billions on trains that no one will ride? Why do we keep post offices open in places no one lives? Why do we subsidize small airports in communities close to larger ones? Why do we pay government workers above-market rates and outlandish benefits? Do we really need an energy department or an education department at all?

Here's my message: Before you "ask" for more tax money from me and others, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely. Then you'll need less of my money.

Mr. Golub, a former chairman and CEO of American Express, currently serves on the executive committee of the American Enterprise Institute.

The Reelect Obama Team (ROT) has set up a website, http://AttackWatch.com so that we can report those who are telling lies about the president.

#AttackWatch My neighbors are driving larger vehicles than they need on under inflated tires.

#AttackWatch@ezradulis ringtone youtu.be/-XYKRokgX00 #AttackWatch Attaaaaccckkk Waaattttccchhhh!!!! @SarahPalinUSA @marcorubio @GovChristie

Guilty! >:) MT Guitartom47: follow these #AttackWatch suspects: @indigenous01 @chowstl @captainjdavis @rocksem @stevenball2 @flitalia0629

#attackwatch I want to report Chris Matthews, Al Sharpton and others for embarrassing the president by opening their mouths and speaking.

attack a white republican, youre a patriot; attack a black pres and youre a racist. free speech my backside #attackwatch

Mr. Prez, I think Justin Bieber stole your girl jeans. You want we should rough him up or just call #AttackWatch?

Dear #attackwatch. I think someone broke into Obama's teleprompter and replaced his new jobs plan speech with his old stimulus speech.

Some Dante guy has a book that includes the line "Abandon HOPE All Ye Who Enter Here"? Subversive anti-Obama message?

Scarlett Johansson calls FBI after nude photos leak from her cell phone. telegraph.co.uk/news/celebrity. FBI? This is a job for #AttackWatch!

Sen Jim Webb (D) of Virginia says the president's ideas for how to pay for (the Jobs Bill) are "terrible." Reported Senator to #AttackWatch

#AttackWatch Im a Jewish, Southern Conservative who proudly clings to his guns and Bible (Talmud in my case). Figured I'd save u the trouble

#attackwatch My wife left this morning with a flat tire, wasting fuel.... willing to testify, send limo.

This guy sitting at the table next to me at lunch today at McDonald's didn't say Obama was awesome. #attackwatch

Poll: Obama disapproval soars to 54 percent in Va yhoo.it/or1Mec Guess we need to report state of Virginia to #attackwatch

My computer is running very slow today. I just wanted to alert you to this; it seems suspicious @AttackWatch #AttackWatch

Bill Clinton's "bridge to the 21st century" is like, totally about to fall down. Please add it to your list. #attackwatch

Love it when douchebag ideas backfire... #attackwatch #thoughtpolice #really? #dumbass

Hey #AttackWatch, I overheard some co-workers saying they think Obama is a joke and no longer support him. If you want, I can name names!

People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic.

We are far past sending out talking points. Do not attempt to dumb it down. We cannot stand any more explanations. Have you talked to any Democratic senators lately? I have. It's pretty damn clear they are not happy campers.

This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed.

1. Fire somebody. No -- fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. There were enough deaths at Stalingrad to make the entire tea party collectively orgasm.

Mr. President, your hinge of fate must turn. Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich. Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For God's sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It's not working.

Furthermore, it's not going to work with the same team, the same strategy and the same excuses. I know economic analysts are smart -- some work 17-hour days. It's time to show them the exit. Wake up -- show us you are doing something.

2. Indict people. There are certain people in American finance who haven't been held responsible for utterly ruining the economic fabric of our country. Demand from the attorney general a clear status of the state of investigation concerning these extraordinary injustices imposed upon the American people. I know Attorney General Eric Holder is a close friend of yours, but if his explanations aren't good, fire him too. Demand answers to why no one has been indicted.

Mr. President, people are livid. Tell people that you, too, are angry and sickened by the irresponsible actions on Wall Street that caused so much suffering. Do not accept excuses. Demand action now.

3. Make a case like a Democrat. While we are going along with the Republican austerity garbage, who is making the case against it? It's not the Democrats!

We are allowing the over-educated, over-explanatory bureaucrat by the name of (Congresssional Budget Office director Douglas) Elmendorf do all the talking. Do not let him make your case. Let us make your case. Is it any wonder that we were doing better in the middle of the stimulus-spending period than we are doing with the austerity program?

4. Hold fast to an explanation. Stick to your rationale for what has happened and what is going to happen under your leadership. You must carry this through until the election (never say that things are improving because evidently they are not).

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.

The course we are on is not working. The hour is late, and the need is great. Fire. Indict. Fight.

[Although I do not agree with much that Carville has to say, he is a brilliant man, and he recognizes that Obama is in trouble as a president]

Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor

Today, the Census Bureau released its annual poverty report, which declared that a record 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. The numbers were up sharply from the previous year's total of 43.6 million. Although the current recession has increased the numbers of the poor, high levels of poverty predate the recession. In most years for the past two decades, the Census Bureau has declared that at least 35 million Americans lived in poverty.

However, understanding poverty in America requires looking behind these numbers at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor. For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one's family. However, only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports:

•80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

•Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

•More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

For decades, the living conditions of the poor have steadily improved. Consumer items that were luxuries or significant purchases for the middle class a few decades ago have become commonplace in poor households, partially because of the normal downward price trend that follows introduction of a new product.

Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to argue that it is no big deal that poor households have air conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide-screen TV. They contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food and housing. In reality, this is just not true.

Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:

• 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food.

• 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.

• Other government surveys show that the average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most cases.

Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:

• Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless.

• Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.

• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

• The average poor American has more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.

• The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are in good repair.

By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family members throughout the year whenever needed.

Of course, poor Americans do not live in the lap of luxury. The poor clearly struggle to make ends meet, but they are generally struggling to pay for cable TV, air conditioning, and a car, as well as for food on the table. The average poor person is far from affluent, but his lifestyle is far from the images of stark deprivation purveyed equally by advocacy groups and the media.

The fact that the average poor household has many modern conveniences and experiences no substantial hardships does not mean that no families face hardships. As noted, the overwhelming majority of the poor are well housed and not overcrowded, but one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year. While most of the poor have a sufficient and fairly steady supply of food, one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year.

The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and must be an important concern for policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.

Finally, welfare policy needs to address the causes of poverty, not merely the symptoms. Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and erosion of the work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty. When the recession ends, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. It should also strengthen marriage in low-income communities rather than ignore and penalize it.

A new report from the Census Bureau says 15 percent of American families now live below the poverty line. That is they bring in less than $22,300 a year. But that stat is misleading because most Americans are in debt.

According to the American Debt Advisor organization, 80 percent of us owe money to creditors. And while the median income is about $50,000 in the USA, the amount of money we owe can't be covered by our salaries, especially because of the tax situation.

The Obama administration says it will continue the payroll tax cut for working Americans, while it wants to increase the income tax rate on the affluent and corporations. But all Americans are being battered by a variety of hidden taxes.

Here's the grim news. In New York state, where I live, not only do we pay a federal income tax but also a state income tax, and in places like New York city, a local income tax as well.

Sales tax collections average about $1,700 per New Yorker. Seventeen hundred bucks for every man, woman and child living in the state.

The list goes on and on and on. So you can see if you are a working person in New York or California or New Jersey or Massachusetts or most other states, your take-home pay is being gutted by the rampant taxation. That is what's strangling the U.S. economy. Consumers can't buy stuff without incurring more debt. Punishing taxation is bleeding us.

And these taxes continue to go up because the states and cities are bankrupt. Why are they bankrupt? Because of pensions, health care costs, corruption and general irresponsibility with our tax dollars. The politicians have built a society dependent on government, and now our freedom is being eroded because of that.

I saw a sticker on a van that said: Taxation means civilization. Progressive values are American values. That philosophy, embraced by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party, is what America's economy is dealing with right now.

My bumper sticker would read this way: Rampant taxation erodes freedom. It makes you dependent on things you can't control, like banks, like politicians, like entitlement programs.

True freedom is being able to depend on yourself to support your family without being punished by an insatiable system demanding more and more and more take-home pay from the American worker. No spin.

[I insert this because it is always good to hear what the opposition has to say]

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back." - Jean Luc Picard

".first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, `I'm a HUMAN BEING, G__n it! My life has VALUE!' I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, `I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"- Howard Beale

The dictionary defines intolerance as lack of toleration, an unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect. Sometimes, though, it becomes quite necessary. Intolerance toward beliefs and doctrines that serve only to promote hatred, bigotry and discrimination should be lauded, as should extremist points of view toward the eradication of these beliefs and doctrines.

It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner. Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths. All of them are clearly delusional.

What should come as a surprise is just how many people stand in their court, offering support. There are frequent cries of "foul" when the more polemic amongst the atheist community make negative sweeping, generalized statements about fundamental Christianity and radical Islam. There are demands made for tolerance and respect for the religious beliefs of all people and that nobody has a right to condemn someone based solely on their religion. Those who spout these cries of foul and who call for tolerance toward these two very dangerous ideologies are speaking from ignorance.

Bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated, and when any of these rear their ugly heads outside of the context of religion they are not. There are laws in the United States and many other nations that protect people from these things because they have been proven detrimental to societies. Add God into the picture and all of a sudden the perpetrator becomes the victim because religion seems to change the context of everything.

Hold up a Westboro Baptist Church style sign without being connected to a religion and you will likely be arrested, tried and convicted of a hate crime. Add God and it becomes an issue of tolerating a religious belief. Hold up a sign calling for the beating, torture or death of someone and you will likely be charged with any one of several crimes. Add God and it again becomes an issue of tolerating a religious belief.

There are even atheists who state that everyone should be tolerant of all individuals right to believe or disbelieve as they see fit. That we should all coexist. Along with these statements come the accusation that many within the Atheist movement are "just as bad" as the fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims.

The fact is that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are not interested in coexisting or getting along. They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.

Their interpretation of the Bible and Koran are such that there is no other course of action but to kill the infidel, and if anyone believes otherwise they are only fooling themselves. It is not just in the best interests of atheists to be intolerant of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam, but it is also in the best interest of mainstream believers within these faiths, as well. Moderates and even Progressives who stand in support of extremists just because there is a claim to the same deity are not doing themselves any favors. Fundamental Christians make all Christians look bad and radical Muslims make all Muslims look bad.

The growing ranks of fundamental Christians and radical Muslims should be of concern to everyone who is not part of these two groups. Everyone. Again, bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated and anyone who agrees with this needs to adopt extremist points of view that includes the intolerance of their very existence. The only reason these groups exist is because they are allowed to, and we, as a society, are allowing them to.

The atheist community gets angry when we read about the antics of idiotic, ignorant and imbicillic politicians and celebrities like Palin, Bachmann, Beck, Limbaugh, Pawlenty and Santorum. We post our thoughts on our social networks and our blogs and try to expose these creeps for exactly what they are. Most of the GOP, just about all of the Tea Party movement and even some Democrats and Independents should be ashamed of themselves for going out in public wearing the equivalent of an intellectual diaper. We criticize them for their rejection of science in favor of their fairy tales and write our letters and support our advocate organizations when our legal rights are abrogated.

But the underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam does not operate in the legal system. They don't respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated. As long as they are allowed to exist, we will continue to be inundated with accounts of buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity and Radical Islam.

If we don't take a stand and, as a society, insist that these doctrines and beliefs are treated just the same as they would be if religion were not part of the equation, we will become extinct not due to natural selection, but at the hands of those who believe that the supernatural has made the selection.

PS: To those of you who are coming here from The Blaze, which has accused me of calling for the eradication of living people, take note that I called for the eradication of the doctrines that are espoused by the fundamentalists and radical extremists. Also note that your death threats are being forwarded to the FBI. - Al

Interactive unemployment for 27 weeks or more; graph from 1948 to 2011, with the recessions marked:

If you want to see analysis from the left of the 2012 Republican candidates; titled The GOP's Lame Presidential Candidates: Are They Crazy Enough for the Right-Wing Screamers?

RUSH: So I'm walking through the library last night, the television set's on, I had it on for other people. I don't watch it. I had it on. One thing there's no football on, so why have it on? Anyway, Damages hadn't started yet, so no reason to have it on. And I walked by and I hear Obama, I'm not even looking at the screen, I hear Obama say this and I stopped dead in my tracks and I almost started trying to pull my hair out. I said, "Who in the world is gonna believe this?"

OBAMA: There are 153 structurally deficient bridges that need to be repaired. Four of them are near here on or around the Beltline. Why would we wait to act until another bridge falls? (applause)

RUSH: When did the last one fall? What was the first stimulus for? What was the first trillion dollars for to fix all these bridges, 153 structurally deficient bridges. He's admitting that during his reign, he hasn't done anything about any of these deficient bridges. You've got this little bill he's waving around. He hasn't filed a bill. There is no jobs bill of Obama's that has been filed in Congress. Louie Gohmert filed his own two-page job bill, and it's called the American Jobs Act. They stole little Barry's title, stole his name, stole the name of his bill. Little Barry's out there waving this thing around as though there are millions of jobs in that 155-page thing he's waving around. And Gallup, I just saw this, Gallup's got a poll result apparently out there that a majority of Americans want the jobs bill passed. Sorry, majority of Americans, it isn't gonna be passed. There's no intention for this thing to pass in all or in part, there's no way.

How many Democrat senators are up for reelection in 2012? That's the main reason it's not gonna be passed. Well, it's over with 20. There are a lot of Democrat senators up for reelection in 2012. There's no way this jobs bill is even gonna get a vote in the Senate. There's no way Dingy Harry is gonna subject his people, not after what happened in New York 9, not after what happened in New Jersey and what happened in Virginia and Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts.

Hi, folks. How are you? Rush Limbaugh. I think, therefore I am here, behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Our telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Don't worry about looking up the exact number, Snerdley. It's not that big a deal. I just heard this, "Why wait 'til another bridge fails?" He's in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday with this, and Bite Me is in North Carolina today. So those people got two days of traffic tie-ups.

RUSH: So what we have here: Here we have a guy who said that we're gonna get rid of politics as usual, gonna be unified -- all of the utopian stuff. And what do we get? Nothing but a continuing of the usual politics of fear, crisis, and panic. So now Obama says there are 153 bridges out there on the verge of collapse. Once again, grab audio sound bite number seven. Listen to this one more time, folks.

OBAMA: There are 153 structurally deficient bridges that need to be repaired. Four of them are near here on or around the Beltline. Why would we wait to act until another bridge falls? (applause)

RUSH: People are cheering this! Why would we have to wait for another bridge to fall? The question is: Why didn't you fix these bridges with the first trillion dollars that you spent? But more importantly than that -- more importantly than that -- if there are bridges about to fall down, shouldn't the Secretary of Transportation shut them down? If there are 153 bridges...? Did he say here on the verge of collapse? No. Hundred fifty-three "structurally deficient bridges" need to be repaired. Where? We need to be told where these 153 bridges are, because if he doesn't tell us, then the regime -- Obama -- is holding drivers hostage. He's letting us drive over 153 bridges that could apparently fail and people could plummet to their deaths at any moment.

Name the bridges! You remember how they demanded specifics from Bush and Tom Ridge on terror threats 'cause they accused those two guys of politicizing terror threats? Well, here. The Bamster says he knows of 153 bridges that could fall down at any moment, and four of them are "near the Beltline in North Carolina," four of them. name 'em so that people can avoid them. It is his job to shut them down, not hold their repairs hostage to passing his little tax bill. Do you understand? If he's serious, 153 bridges are structurally deficient, and rather than fix 'em, he's holding the repair hostage and endangering the lives of people that drive on these bridges just so he can get his nonexistent bill passed?

RUSH: How do we think we can fix 153 bridges Obama says are at risk when after ten years we still haven't rebuilt the World Trade Center?

RUSH: Steve in Bozeman, Montana. I'm glad you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I was just gonna say, shouldn't the question that Obama asked be: Why should we let the economy collapse before we fixed it?

RUSH: Yeah, like the bridges. Why do the bridges have to collapse before we fix 'em?

RUSH: Exactly right. If anybody's being held hostage here, it's us. And, look, I know it sounds funny, but I'm not trying to be funny. I'm dead serious. Folks, yesterday in North Carolina the president of the United States said that there are 153 "structurally deficient bridges" in this country and that there are four of them nearby where he was speaking, North Carolina. Yet he allows people to continue to drive over those bridges. He doesn't tell his secretary of transportation to shut 'em down, he doesn't identify them. He waves that piece of paper around and says, "Only if this is passed will those bridges get fixed."

One hundred fifty-three bridges he says structurally deficient need to be repaired, and he wants us to believe it's gonna happen immediately if we pass that little piece of paper he's waving around -- and yet it's ten years after 9/11 we still haven't we built the World Trade Center. Did Obama arrive over any of those bridges? I mean, part of his route he had to be driven in The Beast, his Cadillac limo. He takes Air Force One to the closest airport, then drives to where he's going. Did he happen to cross one of those bridges? Did he have to go over one of those bridges that are structurally deficient? I doubt it if he knows they're structurally deficient. He's not gonna take a motorcade of that weight over a structurally deficient bridge. If he did, we need know about it. If the Secret Service let Obama drive over one of those deficient bridges then it must be safe for the rest of us. It must not be in that bad a shape.

RUSH: No, The Beast is Obama's limousine. It was a legitimate question, folks. You've got 153 bridges, structurally deficient, could fall down at any moment -- four of them in North Carolina near where Obama was. Did The Beast cross any of them? The Beast weighs eight tons -- without Michelle in it! Eight tons, 16,000 pounds. Did they drive that thing and the rest of the motorcade over one of those four bridges?

RUSH: Here's Denny in Dayton, Ohio. Denny, hi. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Welcome.

CALLER: I appreciate that. Hey, caught my ear when Obama used the term "structurally deficient" because that is a term in transportation parlance which means it has nothing to do with a bridge actually being ready to fall down necessarily. In most cases it has to do with a bridge that might be a two-lane bridge, but due to increased traffic and lack of breakdown lanes and stuff it needs to be a four-lane bridge or a four-lane bridge needs to be an eight lane bridge and so on.

RUSH: Is that right? That's what "structurally deficient" means? Structurally deficient means it is not big enough to handle the load?

CALLER: It could be if it is a structural weakness but just simply means no longer meets the design need; and one of the bridges he would be talking about in North Carolina -- I'm very familiar with -- is the Herbert Bonner Bridge to Hatteras Island. Here's why they don't get replaced. The funding has been fully in place before he was president, possibly before he was even in the Senate. The bridges has been blocked for almost 20 years by environmentalists.

CALLER: That's why the bridges don't get built. It's ranked I think a three out of 100, and the timeline is unbelievable. The state of North Carolina has been trying, and the environmentalists -- if you can believe this, it's a three-and-a-half-mile-long bridge, and the environmentalists would like to replace it with a 17-and-a-half-mile long bridge to go around the kelp beds.

RUSH: It's a three-and-a-half-mile-long bridge, and the wackos want to replace it with a 17-and-a-half-mile long bridge?

CALLER: Correct. I could give you a website if you want to nail 'em down but it has the information if anybody wants to look it up.

RUSH: Well, this is quite interesting. Still -- still -- it's all smoke and mirrors, because when you boil it all down you can talk about the environmentalist wackos, local officials, local politicians. As in the case of New Orleans, as in the case of New Orleans and the levees. They didn't use the money to shore up the levees and fix the levees. They use the money for "social justice" or other such nebulous terms, is what they mean.

RUSH: Folks, I'll tell you, Obama is going crazy with this bridge nonsense. Get this. Obama's next campaign swing, jobs pitch, is going to be at the Brent Spence Bridge linking Ohio and Kentucky, states represented by Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Has a going to be at the Brent Spence Bridge. That's his next campaign swing.

RUSH: This bill has nothing to do with jobs anyway. Folks, I'm trying to speak faster to keep up with my brain today, and it's not working. Look, this bill that he's waving around has no chance of being passed, and he knows it. By design. It has every tax increase that he's ever dreamed about -- every tax increase that the Democrat Congress voted down the first chance they had when he had supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. He wrote this and the bill has not even been introduced in the House or the Senate. It's not intended to even be voted on! All of this, "Pass-it-now!" stuff is nothing more than politically theatrics. It is the Greek columns of this year.

Obama is nothing but symbolism. That bill that he's waving around is today's Greek columns. There's no way. There are 20-some-odd Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2012 and they see what has happened since won election. The Democrats have been eating sand ever since at the polls. New York 9 being the most recent example. There were a couple of exceptions to it when the Republicans ran RINOs or liberal Republicans. But other than that, the Democrats are quaking in their boots -- and there is no way that Democrats up for reelection are gonna vote for this. Obama doesn't want a vote on it. Obama wants no action on it. He wants to be able to say that the Republicans want him to fail.

He wants to be able to say that the Republicans have no interest in letting him win and that they'll let the country fail first in order to prevent him winning. He's been saying that. He's tried to be Reagan, he's tried to be Lincoln, he's out there trying to be FDR and now he's trying to be Truman. Here, grab audio sound bite number 13. This last night on MSNBC auto MSNBC's Politics Nation. This is the show hosted by the Reverend Sharpton, who I really hope will march on the Cherokee Nation this weekend once he learns what's going on there. He had Barney Frank on as his guest. Sharpton said, "How we gonna get a jobs bill passed in this Congress?"

FRANK: They don't want Obama to succeed -- and because they don't want Obama to succeed, ehh, they're really not that interested in helping this economy succeed. So we do have this p'woblem. The average Repub'wican in Congress is catering to a fairly small number of people, the people who vote in the p'wimaries. The Tea Party people and the very conservative Repub'wican, they dominate Repub'wican p'wimaries.

RUSH: So Republicans now want Obama to fail. I'll tell you, New York 9 shows that Democrats don't want him to succeed, either. So Obama is not about fixing the problem. He's about attempting to fix the blame. So when you say that all these jobs he wants to create are union jobs, to the extent that he wants to create jobs, yeah, he wants to create jobs for his union supporter people, but that's not even what this is about. Not one job be created in this bill. This is nothing but a laundry list of tax increases and the creation of a couple new federal bureaucracies.

RUSH: Jeff, Hubbard, Ohio, hi. You're next, EIB Network, great to have you here.

CALLER: And maybe to make you feel a little better, sir, your listeners love you and what you do for this country.

CALLER: I just had a question, and maybe you could refresh my memory. We're talking about all this thing with this jobs bill, and I know that the president had his nice picture perfect group of people behind him of what he wants to support. Didn't we just last year or earlier this year have a $21 billion specific bill or part of a bill that went to the teachers to help fund them?

RUSH: Great, great, great question, Jeff. It was $26 billion. But remember we got reports out of the Los Angeles school district and others that they didn't use the money to hire teachers. They put the money in the pension fund. A lot of that $26 billion to hire teachers -- no teachers were hired -- went to the pension funds.

RUSH: We got Jan Schakowsky, who is from Illinois. She was on Don and Roma yesterday on The Big 89, WLS. They're probably not gonna like me calling it that, but that's what it was when I was growing up. It's always gonna be The Big 89 to me, WLS Chicago. She's out there saying, (paraphrasing) "Of course we have to take your money. Of course we have to take your money in the form of taxes, of course we have to take what you earn." Jan Schakowsky said that. Of course we have to take what you earn, we gotta do all these things with it. And then the things that she lists are firemen and cops. Since when did the federal government start paying for firemen and cops? It's all a scam.

Anyway, you poor people, if you really exist in the majority of this Gallup poll who want this jobs bill passed, you're being scammed. There is no jobs bill, and there's no jobs in that bill. All that is is tax increases.

By the way, Jan Schakowsky from Illinois? Remember this? "On March 11, 2004, Schakowsky's husband, lobbyist Robert Creamer, the executive director of the Illinois Public Action Fund, was indicted in federal court on 16 counts of bank fraud involving three alleged check-kiting schemes in the mid-1990s, leading several banks to experience shortfalls of at least $2.3 million." This is the same Jan Schakowsky who told Don and Roma on WLS Chicago yesterday that of course we need your money, of course we're gonna take your money. I'm paraphrasing the quote, but we've got the audio. It's all coming up. Here it is. "You don't deserve to keep all your money. I'll put it this way, you don't deserve to keep all of it. It's not a question of deserving because what government is is those things that we decide to do together," and then she starts talking about firemen and cops and so forth and teachers, which the federal government does not do!

RUSH: Jan Schakowsky, Illinois congressman, WLS, The Big 89 in Chicago yesterday with Don and Roma, Don Wade and Roma, she said that Americans don't deserve to keep all their money 'cause we need taxes to support our society. Don Wade said, "So Jan Schakowsky, out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?"

SCHAKOWSKY: And it's not a question of deserving because what government is is those things that we decide to do together.

RUSH: All right. "What government is is those things we decide to do together." Ms. Schakowsky, we haven't been deciding to do anything together the last two and a half years. You and your party have been governing against the will of the American people. The American people don't want 9.1% unemployment or actually 11.3% or actually 18% unemployment. The black community doesn't want 50% teen unemployment. The black community doesn't want 26% unemployment. The American people don't want to lose their homes, they don't want the values of their homes cut in half. The American people do not want, and election after election after election after election since the presidential race has shown us, Ms. Schakowsky that we do not want what you're getting us, we're not working together.

"What government is is those things we decide to do together." Ms. Schakowsky, we're not making decisions collectively on things like that $500 million to a solar panel company, and that's just one out of four solar power companies. The American people, that's not what they thought the stimulus was going to be for. And now there's a report out today that the meager number of green jobs that have been created, based on the number spent on them is around $250,000 a job. That's how much it's cost us, Ms. Schakowsky, to create the meager number of green jobs. The only thing that liberals ever point to funding or cutting is the stuff that we all do agree on, important use of tax dollars. But this little sound bite of hers is amazing, and quite telling. We do, as a nation, in our states and our cities decide how taxes should be used for the good of all.

It's at the state and city level that we decide on roads, police, and schools. It's not the federal government that does that. The federal government ought not be involved and is not involved in all of that. Ms. Schakowsky, it's all this other spending that's coming to light in the Obama regime that we are not collectively in agreement on. But nevertheless, you don't deserve to keep what you earn. She said that one reason the 2009 stimulus bill did not succeed was because it wasn't big enough. She also admitted there are questions about the regime's connection to the now bankrupt Solyndra. Well, somebody report her. I can't do it all, folks. Somebody get on Attack Watch and report Schakowsky.

RUSH: Now you've got the regime announcing yesterday this thing called Attack Watch. Obama has now...? The regime has a website? This is straight out of the... I saw a funny tweet. Some babe calls herself Virginia Gal has a tweet on this new Attack Watch website, the White House, "Are we gonna be able to read this in the original German?" This is a tattletale site. If you see anybody running around there "lying" about the unemployment rate being 9.1%, if you see or hear anybody "lying" about the fact that all these jobs have been destroyed, you're supposed to report to the regime at Attack Watch and they're gonna be monitoring this stuff.

It's breathtaking here what's happening right now. Normally, I wouldn't want to be a guy watching the White House press briefing today, but I wonder if they'll cancel it. Send Jay Carney out there to answer stuff about all of this. (interruption) They did cancel it. They canceled the press briefing once before. It's not unusual. And then continuing avalanche of bad news: "Retail Sales in the US Unexpected Stagnate on Lack of Jobs." What? This is Bloomberg. "Retail sales in the US unexpectedly stagnated in August as a lack of jobs restrained shoppers, highlighting the risk the economy will suffer..." This is just absurd. This continues to be the theater of the absurd. What in the world is "unexpected" about retail sales stagnating?

So, anyway, folks, we've got a whole lot to do today that's gonna be a whole lot of... Well, Attack Watch is a retread. Remember, they had Fight the Smears, and I guess people lost interest in Fight the Smears 'cause they couldn't find any smears. All there is is the truth about this guy!

RUSH: Now, this Attack Watch thing (sigh), they're very proud of this. They're very excited. They've got this new tattletale site. And imagine, if it only had gone online sooner, then Obama would have won back Weiner's seat! Yeah. Nobody was available to stop all the false attacks on the regime, like the "lies" about 9.1% unemployment, Depression-era unemployment for blacks and young people, Obama's tax increases during a recession. All those lies that we've been telling! His attempt to lessen the charitable donations deduction.

The lies about Fast and Furious, the attempt to undermine the Second Amendment in this country, the lies about Solyndra, the record levels of poverty and food stamp distribution, the home mortgage crisis. All those lies that have been told about Obama, if only Attack Watch had been up, all of those lies could have been stopped. It is impossible to overstate how devastating the loss of this Weiner seat is for Obama and the whole Democrat Party. One of their most vile attack dogs -- Weiner -- in the safest district imaginable is gone, lost his seat. There's no way to spin this. There is no Democrat who is safe. Henry Waxman last night, Henry "Nostrilitis" Waxman, you know what his reaction was? He said, "Well, this is just a bunch of Jews in New York trying to protect their wealth." That was his reaction.

RUSH: This is what you get when you go to AttackWatch.com: Get the facts. Fight the Smears. "Join Attack Wire -- and help stop the attacks on the President before they start. When another unfounded attack surfaces, we'll arm you with the truth so you can share the facts with your friends and family." Then you put in your e-mail address and your ZIP code, you click on "join," you continue to AttackWatch.com where you then report the libel, the slander, the unfair criticism of our dear man-child president. At the bottom it has "Paid for by Obama for America, copyright 2011." Then it's got the privacy policies and terms of service.

Now, who's running this thing for Barry? Propaganda czar? Black, red, just a hint of white, that's the color of it. You ought to look at it. It's black, red and just a hint of white on this website. Could it be more intimidating? As I say, if they'd-a had this up sooner we could have stopped all these lies about 9.1% unemployment and the destruction of the housing industry, all these lies that people have been telling about Obama for three years.

So I have put together here some gossips and some smears and attacks that I'm gonna submit to Attack Watch. I want to help the president out here. It's an attempt to criminalize any opposition. So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna report to Attack Watch what Bill Clinton said back in 2008 that Obama was playing the race card on him. I think that Obama needs to know what Clinton's been saying about him, and I'm also gonna report on this website that Bill Clinton believes that Obama has the political instincts of a Chicago thug, because Bill Clinton said that. So I'm gonna report that! I'm gonna fill this out on Attack Watch.

Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's former communications director, wrote in the New Republic recently, "Bill Clinton feels like the Obama campaign ran against and systematically dismissed his administration's accomplishments. He feels like he was painted as a racist during the primary process." So I'm gonna submit this by Howard Wolfson of the Clinton machine accused Obama of calling Clinton a racist. Bill Clinton also... You may have forgotten. Bill Clinton said to Ted Kennedy during the 2008 campaign, "You know, a few years ago this guy would have been getting us coffee." So I'm gonna report that to Attack Watch. I'm gonna tell the regime, I'm gonna remind 'em what Bill Clinton said to Ted Kennedy.

Harry Reid. Harry Reid said of the nation's highest ranking black Democrat, "Notably he's light-skinned and he has no Negro dialect unless he wants to have one." I'm gonna remind Obama that Dingy Harry said that, and I'm gonna send this. I'm gonna remind President Obama that the Reverend Jackson once was caught expressing a desire to remove Obama's "onions." I don't know if they know that at Attack Watch, but they need to hear about these kinds of things, all these smears and lies. And, of course, then the respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, "According to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate Sarkozy views the Democrat candidate's stance on Iran as utterly immature and compromised of formulations empty of all content." So I'm gonna report to Attack Watch that Sarkozy, the French president, thinks Obama is an empty suit.

RUSH: Cary, North Carolina, this is Kelly. Great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Rush, I have been uncivil, and I feel like I need to turn myself in so that you could forward what I did to the Attack Watch.

RUSH: Okay. Be happy to. In fact, I'll tell you what's happening with the Attack Watch, it's being overrun with conservatives turning themselves in.

RUSH: I think you should report yourself. Michelle Malkin sent in her whole column today, and Herman Cain responded to it, said, "Seriously?" So I think you should turn yourself in. But what do you want to turn yourself in for? What did you do?

CALLER: Yes, I did. I did. And I'm a retired teacher, high school teacher, I am a grandmother of 12, and I just behaved uncivilly.

RUSH: Why? Why would you do this? Why would you, a grandmother of 12, a retired school teacher, flip off the presidential motorcade?

CALLER: I've had enough. I've had enough. There is a simmering, smoldering anger.

RUSH: I understand that, but why were you anywhere near the presidential motorcade? What were you doing even going near it?

CALLER: I didn't know that he was going to be on I-40 today. I knew he was going to be in Cary and didn't think any more about it. I just dismiss him from my thoughts as much as I can.

CALLER: Yes. And my first thought when I saw the helicopters and the police on the bridge, I thought that there might be some terrorist activity, 'cause we have rounds of ammunition missing from a nearby base. Anyway, I saw the flag on the presidential car, and before I knew what happened, I jumped out and flipped him off in front of everybody else that was stranded --

RUSH: Before you even knew what were doing, your instincts to propel you out of your car and you flipped off, a retired school teacher, grandmother of 12, flipped off what you thought was the presidential limousine?

CALLER: Oh, it was. Well, it could have been a decoy, but, Rush, I'm going to own it as a good conservative, I own my actions. I'm not blaming Bush. I thought about blaming your tea because I really was drinking your iced tea right before I did it.

RUSH: Wait, there's no reported evidence of our tea causing irregular human behavior to happen. But I'll tell you something, include that when you report yourself. It's AttackWatch.com

RUSH: Tell them that it might not have been your fault, it might have been the fault of Two If By Tea, Rush Limbaugh's tea.

RUSH: All right, Kelly, thanks. Thanks very much. She was caught off guard. She could claim temporary insanity to the Secret Service, because that's what it sounds like what it was.

RUSH: It's a tough district for Democrats, folks, we all have to realize this. They've held that seat for 93 years. It's a tough place for 'em. New York 9, very, very tough place. That Debbie "Washerwoman" Schultz, head of the Democrat National Committee said that, a very tough district for the Democrats. Feeling sorry for 'em today. How are you, folks? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Oh, you talk about having an itch and unable to scratch it but today I can. Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. All during this New York 9 thing, I have been going back and forth. Should I say what I know? Should I divulge what I know? Because it would, one way or the other, have a huge impact on the outcome.

There's a lesson here, by the way. I did not mention the fact throughout all of this that the winner last night in New York 9, Mr. Bob Turner, is the man who gave me my television show in 1992. Bob Turner was the CEO of Multimedia. This is back in the days of Jerry Springer, Sally Jessy Raphael, Phil Donahue, and it was Bob Turner who took the risk, it was Bob Turner who took the flier. And it was then that Roger Ailes and I teamed up and then partnered with Bob Turner. He was the CEO of Multimedia, which at the time was a large television syndication outfit.

So all during this campaign I said, "Okay, do I mention this or not?" It's a New York district. You know that I am a lightning rod, I do not want to hurt the guy. And then all through the campaign -- folks, this is not about me, if you'll just stick with me here, there's a lesson here for all of us, that I need to learn myself. All during this race I kept waiting for Democrat opposition research to blow this up and try to defame Turner. Look, this is Queens and Brooklyn, and it is a New York district. Chuck Schumer's old district, Liz Holtzman when it was a different name. They've redistricted this district so many times, I mean Schumer's had it, Weiner had it, Liz Holtzman had it when it was a different number. It's been heavy Democrat. Bob Turner is Catholic, running against an orthodox Jewish guy. I figured all right, this is pretty much etched in stone. So I kept waiting for Democrat opposition research to discover this and start plastering it all over the place and I didn't see that.

All I saw was they were trying to associate Turner with Jerry Springer and to claim that Turner presided over cultural rot and that kind of thing. The thing about this was that it was all about Obama, make no mistake, this was all about Obama. Israel was a huge, huge issue. Anyway, we all fall prey -- this is the lesson -- all of us, I'm talking about us conservatives, but people in general, we all fall prey now and then to the caricatures that the left makes of all of us as conservatives. It even affects people in the talk radio business. There are talk radio consultants advising program directors, "You can't go that way, that's angry white man talk." Well, who created this notion, angry white men? The liberals did. And for what purpose? To discredit all of conservatism. And so you hear this, and there are other examples I could give you, but in this case the way it manifested itself, I made the assumption that were I to get in this and start talking up Bob Turner it would hurt.

It turned out it wouldn't have. It turned out the Democrats did polling -- I just learned this a couple days ago -- the Democrats did opposition research polling in the district and they found out to their shock that I'm very popular in this district. I have a very supportive audience in this district, which stunned them. It's Orthodox, it's Israel, blue-collar, it's made up of Democrats that are your father and grandfather's Democrats, not this current crop of leftist Marxist socialists or what have you. So that's why they tried to tar Turner with Jerry Springer. But it wasn't gonna work no matter what they tried because this was about Obama.

But the lesson here is that you gotta fight every day the caricatures and the templates of us that the left puts out there, 'cause one of the things it does is it puts everybody on defense. It's why the Republicans in Congress, it's why we have so many problems with them. We all know that what they're trying to do is prove to everybody they're not what is said about them. They're not racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes. They're not angry white men, whatever the charge is. And in most cases it's all bogus. There's no voting bloc of angry white men. Talk radio is not made up of angry white hosts. But that's what's been created out there, and of course all the other caricatures that have been made. So it was a great lesson to learn, to be reminded.

I know the left like nobody does. I know liberals like every square inch of my glorious naked body, and even I fall prey to the tendency to shut up based on the fact that I think people are going to think of me what the media has told them, and it's not always the case. This district is a good bit of evidence. Now, it was not a secret. It's all over Wikipedia that Turner was responsible for my being on television for four years. They never once used it, and believe me, the Democrats use me every time they think it's gonna help 'em, and they didn't in this case, and it was not something that Turner kept a secret. I mean he was asked about it and he answered the question when he was asked about it. The opposition research people did not use it. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because this was about Obama.

Folks, it was so satisfying to read the media today. I had a whole stack here today. They are shocked to the core at AP. They are shocked to the core at Politico. They are shocked to the core at all of the State-Run Media joints. It's another bitch slap, is what this is, and it continues. First you had Chris Christie in New Jersey, then you had the Kennedy seat, then you had the governor of Virginia, you had that flip, then you had the 2010 congressional elections. There is a trend, conservatism is in the ascendancy and it is being aided immensely by Obama, and the Democrats all know this.

There is an unnamed political consultant -- get this. This is in I think at TheHill.com or National Journal, one of the two. Yeah, McDonnell, the governor of Virginia's approval rating is at 61%. The Democrats can't believe any of this that's happening to them. They think it's all just a fluke. By the way, there's another point to be made about this race in New York 9. The Tea Party wasn't there. Talk radio wasn't there. I mean, this is pure and simple Bob Turner. This puts the lie to this another myth that all politics is local, because this race had a lot of issues in it that had nothing to do with anything local: Israel and Obama's abandonment -- well, Obama sidling up to Israel's enemies. And of course Obama's economic policies, which Turner, during the campaign, made it clear what he was going to do if he won.

He's gonna go to Washington and start trying to roll this back. The voters of this district knew exactly what they were voting for; they knew exactly what they were voting against. They knew exactly where the candidates were on this, and it cannot be said that there's an artificial aspect to this outcome in any way, shape, manner, or form. It was... (interruption) Well, some of the Democrat unions poured money, but others stayed out of it. Other unions stayed out. I got a story about how some of the unions in New York stayed out of it. They wanted to put their money elsewhere 'cause they long ago thought the seat was gonna be lost. Gay marriage was an issue here. Gay marriage.

RUSH: Something else here about this New York 9 race, and there's a lot about it. But look at all the conventional wisdom here that has to be thrown out, and I want to make a contrast on something. After Obama's speech last Thursday, the joint session of Congress speech -- the campaign speech where he announced his $457 billion in new tax increases -- what did Boehner do? Boehner put out a press release immediately, and featured prominently in the press release was Boehner assuring everybody how eager the Republicans were to work with Obama on this.

Now, Bob Turner, not one time -- in a New York district that has been Democrat for 90 years, not one time -- did Bob Turner say, "I am eager to go to Washington to work with President Obama." What Bob Turner said was, "Send me to Washington to stop this. Send me to Washington to roll this back." I don't know what Bob Turner did to go out and get precious independent votes, but I'll bet not a whole lot. My point is that the traditional campaign strategery and themes often used by consultants need to be thrown out. We're in a new era here. The numbers of people that want Republicans to work together with Obama is such a small number you would lose elections if you got every one of them. Bob Turner didn't say he wants to go to Washington to work with Barack Obama.

He said over and over again that he wanted to go to Washington to defeat Obama and to stop what's happening in practically every area of this administration.

RUSH: Drudge has a headline up there about this New York 9 election: "Revenge of the Jews." Revenge of America is what this is. This is revenge of America. And I tell you Mitt Romney and all the rest of you seeking the Republican presidential nomination, the voters don't want to hear how you want to go to Washington to work with the Democrats. The Democrats are destroying what people hold dear in this country. They don't want to work with them; they want to beat them. They want them rendered such a small minority that they can't screw things up. They have already put career people in all these bureaucracies. The Department of Justice has been polluted and corrupted for a generation with pure left-wing ideologues. It's true over at EPA, it's true at any number of places. It's called election insurance.

Even when they lose the White House, they have their people in career positions in federal government bureaucracies and in the judiciary. This has got to be dealt with, not worked with. Nobody that's gonna vote in the Republican primaries and nobody that's gonna vote in the general election wants Republicans to go to Washington to work with the Democrats. I remind you again that Bob Turner didn't say that's what he was gonna do. What did Bob Turner do not to tick off the independents? I mean they said you can't criticize Obama, no, no, no, don't criticize Obama, it's gonna send the independents running way back to the Democrats. What did Bob Turner do? Bob Turner stood every campaign axiom on its head, every bit of conventional wisdom on its head. That's why the Democrats are in a state of shocked paranoia today. There's no way they can spin this. Some of the ways they're trying are laughable.

No Democrat is safe, because you see, folks, the American people are sick and tired of Democrats lying and smearing and failing. It is the economy. It's the uncertainty, it is the fear that this is not how this kinda stuff is supposed to happen in this country. We're not supposed to lose jobs like this and never get them back. We're not supposed to have a president who presides, happily it seems at times, over the decline of this country. We are not a country which takes pride in punishing hard work and achievement and taking from those people to give to people who are not helping this country grow. We never have been that country, and we're not that country, and people don't want America to become that country. They're tired of the amateur hour that this regime is. They're tired of the deficit and the never-ending stimulus and spending and debt.

They don't want Obamacare. They don't want nationalized medicine, forced government-run health care. They don't want it. They don't want a president filling out NCAA brackets, going to play golf more than the host of this show does and attending all these parties. It's the partisan hack speech to a joint session of Congress. People were not fooled. It's the price of gasoline, it's the markets, it's the fact that we have put a moratorium on drilling for our own oil. People are not stupid. Their lives are affected by what this administration has done, and every chance the people of this country have had to show it at the ballot box, they have done so without doubt. They did some exit polling in New York 9. Only 29% of the independents in that district approve of Obama's policies. Twenty-nine percent of the independents.

Now, you and I know that every Republican campaign consultant convinces his client, the candidate, to do everything to get independents. "To hell with the base, you're gonna get the base automatic. We gotta find a way to get the independents, and I'm the guy to tell you how to do it," says the consultant, and the first thing you can't do is attack Obama, and the next thing you can't do is attack Obama, and then the next thing you can't do is criticize Obama 'cause those independents don't like that. You have to talk about how you want to work together, how you want to be unified as a country. Well, you know what Bob Turner said he would do to resolve the US debt? Bob Turner said he would cut federal spending by 35% by eliminating the US Department of Agriculture and the EPA and reducing the size of the Department of Education.

Bob Turner won in a near landslide in a New York district that's been Democrat for 90-plus years by saying he would cut federal spending by 35%, by eliminating the US Department of Agriculture and the EPA and reducing the size of the Department of Education. On immigration Turner has stated that an immigration system is already in place, there's no need to create a new one to address those in the US illegally. He opposes amnesty for illegal aliens, and he made no secret of this. Bob Turner's a Catholic, he's pro-life, and he personally supports the Defense of Marriage Act. He also opposes Obamacare, and all of this was essentially shouted by Turner in his campaign.

The people of New York 9 had no question what they were doing. There was no doubt. And none of those issues are local. You know, Tip O'Neill, "all politics is local," that's an old bromide that's another one of these tricks by the left to get Republicans not to try to contest certain elections. "No, no! Look, you can't win New York 9! All politics is local. You shouldn't even mess with it. You don't have a chance here." This election should nationalize every election. You make every election about Barack Obama. You make every election about him because when you do that you're making the election about America and where this country is being taken -- and it is clear, ladies and gentlemen, that you and I are in a vast, large majority of Americans that don't want to go any further down the road we're on.

Look at what's happening here. Another stimulus! The number of jobs created with the first stimulus: Negligible. And this is not even a jobs bill. We had this unrest in the Middle East. "The Arab Spring," we were all told. There's Obama trying to claim what happening in Egypt, "Yeah, these people just trying to replicate my own campaign 2008. Hope and change!" We have Sharia Spring happening in the Middle East. Union thugs throughout Wisconsin, Madison particularly. Union thugs at the port in Seattle. Union thugs beating up Tea Party people in St. Louis. There is a cumulative effect to all of this, and while the union thugs are engaging in goonry, goonionism and thuggery, Obama gives speeches about "civility," blaming Republicans and conservatives for all of these horrible acts of violence that are taking place when he has personally encouraged this kind of behavior.

It's all of this. And so what does he do? He puts up a commie tattletale site to shut down dissent from this mess: Attack Watch. So while the president has succeeded in his policy objectives, he is failing in his effort to get support for it, which means he is governing entirely against the will of a vast majority of people in this country. So what does he do? He has failed to garner support, so his solution is a tattletale website to bully and lie. It's pathetic. It's another admission that he's in over his head and wasn't qualified to be president. He proves it every time he responds to a self-made problem. Won't be long before Moochelle's packing her bags for another vacation, I guarantee you.

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. Bob Turner last night, Howard Beach in Queens at the victory party for winning New York 9. This is just a portion of what he said...

TURNER: This is an historic race. We've been asked by the people of this district to send a message to Washington, and I hope they'll hear it loud and clear.

TURNER: This is a referendum. Mr. President, we are on the wrong track. ... We have had it with the irresponsible fiscal policy which endangers the entire economy and every one of our social safety networks. We have had it with your treatment of Israel.

RUSH: There you have it. So he didn't say he wanted to go work with Obama, did he? He didn't say he's eager to go work with the Democrats and get things done. He didn't say all the stuff we Republicans are "supposed" to say. Only 29% of the independents in an exit poll in this race support Obama. Here is last night, Mayor Ed Koch also at the victory party.

KOCH: I said to myself, "We can turn this election into a referendum," and we did! You did!

RUSH: The regime is being rejected by the most liberal voters in America, New York 9! And here's Dov Hikind, Brooklyn state assemblyman also at the victory party.

HIKIND: There is no question that the people of this congressional district were speaking for the rest of America --

HIKIND: -- that they are sick and tired of the policies of the Obama administration, and they want real change!

RUSH: Cynthia Tucker is no longer with the Atlanta Urinal & Constipation. She's a syndicated columnist and they publish her column. She left in August of this year, I think, very recently. She is a visiting professor at the University of Georgia's journalism school and writing a syndicated column. She was on PMSNBC this morning with F. Chuck Todd on his show. They're talking about New York 9. F. Chuck said, "Today, Democrat Representative Javier Becerra said he actually didn't use the 'Oh, it's all local' excuse. He said, 'Hey, this is a message being sent.' Now, he tried to say it wasn't a message against President Obama; it's a message against Washington. What do you say?"

TUCKER: I say it's a message against Democrats. This is, I'm sorry, unabashed bad news for the Democratic Party and for President Obama in particular. Because he's identified not only with the economy, which played out large in the election to replace Anthony Weiner, but also he's identified with the policy on Israel which so many Orthodox Jews were pushing back against.

TUCKER: Rightly or wrongly, he is seen as not being as strong a supporter of Israel, they don't like the fact that he stood up and said they need to go back to the 1967 borders for peace negotiations.

RUSH: So I don't think there's any doubt this is gonna get ugly now. Cynthia Tucker here fingering the Orthodox Jews for Barry's defeat in New York. Yeah, we'll keep a sharp eye on this, but there's no question that it's gonna get ugly. Now, the Washington Post: "The New York Special Election: Will Democrats Panic?" is the headline. There are better questions to ask than, will the Democrats panic. How about, will the Democrats finally listen to the American people? Will the Democrats abandon Obamacare? Will the Democrats concede the Tea Party's an important organic middle class political movement? Will the Democrats ask Obama to step down? Will the Democrats admit collectivism fails every time it's tried?

No, no, no, none those questions, no, no. Will the Democrats panic? And here's a revealing sentence from the Washington Post story. "That perception, which national Democratic leaders will do everything they can to beat back today, is a dangerous one for already-skittish Democrats concerned about how the still-staggering economy and the president's unpopularity will impact them next fall." Well, there are two things we can agree on here, folks, first, the economy hasn't turned the corner, and, second, Obama is unpopular. And these are two huge admissions by the State-Run Media.

Folks, you don't know the depth of despair that is being felt to the very core, when there is one, of Democrats all across the country today. The propaganda no longer works, the spin isn't flying. Then there's this from the Washington Post story: "According to an attendee, Doyle warned that if Democrats lost the New York special election, all members of Congress 'could get sent home,'" at least those with a D after their names. And let's not forget AP, this is Beth Fouhy: "GOP Upset Win in New York Portends Challenge for Obama." They are shaken to the core.

This AP story's unlike any I've seen recently. They talk about the impact of this, how unlikely this was. They admit that it's voter frustration over the sour economy and Obama's policies, making the improbable a reality, that a political novice could win a Democrat district for 90 years. Yeah, they're shaken to the core out there. And then: "Republicans Easily Win Nevada House Election -- Nevada Republican Mark Amodei easily won a special election on Tuesday to fill a vacant House of Representatives seat in a largely rural district that has never sent a Democrat to Congress. With 95 percent of precincts counted, Amodei had collected over 57 percent of votes compared to 36 percent for Democratic state Treasurer Kate Marshall.

"A Republican win in such a traditionally conservative area that narrowly favored John McCain in 2008 had not been expected to send any strong signal for national politics or for how Nevada will vote in 2012." The district narrowly favored McCain and a 57-36% blowout isn't considered surprising? Doesn't send any strong signals? In their dreams.

In The Politico, Jonathan Martin, Ben Smith, and Jake Sherman, they assigned three people to it: "Twin Defeats Spark Democratic Fears." In this story Steny Hoyer lays the blame at Obama's feet. In this story Bloomberg poll shows that 51% don't think Obama's latest tax bill will work. A Bob Turner consultant Steve Goldberg said, "Our campaign was all Obama. Not even a thought of anything else." The original AP story last night, in the first paragraph: "Republicans had scored an upset victory in a House race that became a referendum on Obama's economic policies." There you have it. They had no choice. They didn't even try any propaganda.

RUSH: What? (interruption) No. I found him to be a total gentleman. He was honest. Bob Turner. Snerdley wants to know what kind of guy Bob Turner was. Bob Turner was as honest as anybody I have ever met in the broadcast business. (interruption) No, I did not play golf with him. I was not playing golf, period, when I met Bob Turner. I didn't start playing golf 'til I finished my TV show and eventually moved to Florida. I finished the TV show in '96 and moved to Florida in 1997. The TV show was from 1992 to 1996, and Turner was competent. He didn't try to enforce the Multimedia way on me. He knew what he had. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him, being with him. He was just as honest and straightforward as he could be.

There was no guile about the guy. He didn't play any psycho games with me. You know, every boss plays psycho games with people. He didn't. He was a straightforward, a straight shooter. I did not know at the time really what his politics were. I made a pretty safe assumption after I got to know him. But no, he's 70 years old now, and he looks the same today as he did when we started that TV show in 1992. He does not look like he's aged all. His health is obviously good. His wife is a special needs nurse, and she is a huge fan of talk radio. They're fine people. Let's grab some phone calls. People are patiently waiting. And, folks, I barely scratched the surface. I still gotta get to Solyndra, these four other solar firms that have been started up, despite Solyndra. They're blaming now Bush for Solyndra that happened.

Let's go to Westchester, New York. Rocco. You're up first. Great to have you on the program, sir.

CALLER: I'm here in New York state, and the Bob Turner Republican victory definitely shows a change in the sentiment of the American voter and reflects Obama's low approval rating, but I'm wondering if a Republican is gonna retain that seat because New York has to shed two representatives due to redistricting; and, remember, when the Weiner resigned, you know, they were saying it was gonna be inconsequential because that seat would probably be eliminated. So I'm asking you 'cause I don't know. Could they just as easily get rid of this guy?

RUSH: Well, yeah. The 2010 Census will cause redistricting, and the Democrats will be in charge of that in New York. So I can't tell you anything conclusive. You know, the House ultimately will decide what districts gets redistricted. The Democrats running New York will put in their requests and try to muscle their way and so forth. But even before the actual election, like you, I had read that -- and the New York statehouse is in the hands of Republicans, too. So the Democrats, if they do target this district to get rid of, they're gonna have trouble. But I don't know. I've read that, like you, that this district was going to be eliminated anyway regardless who won this.

CALLER: Either way, like you said, it's a referendum on how the people are feeling when it goes this way. I mean, it's that... You know, this is a bigger win. It...

RUSH: Let me tell you something about this district. Look, Anthony Weiner, this was Obama on steroids! They elected Anthony Weiner. Now, what this tells me here is that... Well, let me think about this 'cause I'm not entirely sure I'm right about this, in New York.

RUSH: By the way, folks, on this redistricting business in New York, don't start attaching any conspiracies here. This was going to happen. New York's gonna lose two seats simply because of demographics and population shift. There were talks that this district was gonna be eliminated. The voters are not gonna be eliminated, they're just gonna redraw the lines. The Republicans are in charge of this. New York state redistricting is up to the governor and the legislature. And in previous discussions of this, it was said that the most likely outcome is that there would be a deal where each party would lose one district. Now, I can't imagine the Republicans willingly giving this one up, given the symbolic nature of it, but who knows.

At some point New York is gonna lose two congressional seats, and this may be one of them.

RUSH: Democrats in this country... I'm looking at New York 9, I just remembered I wanted to mention this thought. Looking at New York 9, the Democrats in that district, I mean this is the district that elected Weiner seven times. Weiner was Obama on steroids. Weiner is today's Democrat Party. He is angry, enraged all the time. He is far, far to the left. He is not the Democrats of the sixties or seventies, and what I'm thinking about here is: What does this mean for the Democrats in this district?

I was thinking of saying that this election, New York 9, could well mean that even the most hardcore New York Democrats are not nearly as far gone as Obama is. But I caught myself, because, of course, Upper West Side they are -- and in the Village they are. Parts of the Village, Snerdley, no question. In fact, in a lot of parts of Manhattan and New York City, they are. But this district, look at what was on the ballot. There were two things: Obama and everything associated with him, and Israel. And these people wanted no more of what Obama is offering. They want no more job stimulus. They don't want any more of his agenda. It was not a landslide, but it wasn't close.

Turner ran in this race previously and got wiped out the last time he ran. So I don't want to go too far in analyzing this and trying to extrapolate what this means about Democrats nationwide -- voters, Democrats nationwide -- but I do feel comfortable in saying that this country, the vast majority of this country does not want any part of Obama and what he's doing and we he's taking the country. They don't want any more of it, they don't want it. None of it. He had his chance and people are fed up. We are in the vast majority here of people who oppose this. Which is a comforting thing, because people always wonder, "Gosh, have we lost the country?" meaning the people of the country; and the Democrats are thinking the same thing I'm thinking here, too, and they're asking themselves this, analyzing it in their own professional way.

You know, what does this really mean all across the country because of this particular sample of Democrats? Now, the 9th district, just to put this in perspective: New York 9 is supposed to be the most conservative district in New York City outside of Staten Island, and look how liberal it is. This is my point. It is considered the most conservative. So at the bare minimum -- at the bare minimum -- what this shows is that even on the left, even on the far left, on the Democrat side of things, there are deep pockets of resistance to this regime.

Now, what does that mean? It means for the Republicans, stop being mealymouthed. It means take advantage of this and stop acting in fear and stop acting defensive. You know, get rid of the playbook from 2008 that said you couldn't criticize and you wanted to work with and all the historical aspect. That's done! The country is being eternally harmed. People don't want any more of it, and they want it reversed -- and they're looking at you doing it. I think also Republicans ought not assume that just 'cause they've got an (R) beside their names that they're safe. They have to say the right things, and then do 'em. That's another lesson to take out of this New York 9.

RUSH: Bob Turner just appeared on Fox with Megyn Kelly, and she said to him, "Bob Turner, are you shocked?"

TURNER: I expected to win. (chuckling) I've lived in this district my whole life. I kind of have my ear to the ground. I sensed the mood of the people, and I'm not surprised.

KELLY: The Democrats are coming out right now in part and they're blaming this on a lot of things, but we're hearing a lot of, "It's all Anthony Weiner's fault."

TURNER: Anthony Weiner was history. I don't believe he was even a small factor in this campaign. This is the new spin.

RUSH: "President Obama, loud and clear," and somewhere in the Republican establishment they're cringing every time Turner opens his mouth. "Oh, no! Oh, God, don't say that! It's gonna hurt us with the independents! Oh, no, don't say that!" You know they're doing that. Some of our intelligentsia in the media, "Gosh, I wish Turner would shut up. Oh, my God you don't go out there and do this. You don't criticize Obama. Leave that to us." Mark my words.

RUSH: The Nevada guy ran against Obama, too, and this guy, his margin of victory was 22%. The Republican candidate in Nevada ran hard against Obama and everything he represents, and this is a district that almost went for Obama 2008. So you have New York 9 and this district in Nevada, and in neither case did the Republican winner express any desire to go to Washington and "work with the Democrats to solve our mutual problems" or any of that that horse manure. This is all about Obama, and I'm sure if I search the archives of this program... The Scott Brown election in Massachusetts was all about Obama.

All of these elections, November 2010, all about Obama -- and the Democrats know it, and they're flummoxed. But at the same time they know that they have been running against the will of the people. They knew they were gonna get shellacked in 2010 in the midterms. They knew it! Do you know why they didn't present a budget? I'll tell you the real reason they didn't present a budget: The conventional wisdom they didn't present a budget is because it would harm them at election time when people see how much they wanted to spend and the tax and all that. No, no. A Democrat budget is nothing more than which contributors are being paid off and how.

RUSH: Who's next to the program? This is Melissa in Newark, Delaware. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: I'm an American Israeli, and I'm very happy today; because in my mind, this is a great day for America, for Israel with Turner's win in New York. This is just a wonderful day. And I wanted to raise a related point to the subject about Obama's popularity that nobody's really talking about. I mean, there are always reports about how Obama compares to other presidents at specific intervals of his presidency.

CALLER: But the real tell here is that his poll numbers have been consistently dropping after only six months of being in the White House.

CALLER: Right -- and, you know, here's the thing. It shows how really unpopular he has been on a consistent basis. It was as if the novelty of his election wore off really quickly, like "hope and change" turned into "doom and gloom" only six months after becoming president.

RUSH: That's exactly right. The historical nature of his presidency and The Messiah characteristics, all that stuff, started evaporating pretty soon because a lot of people had those unrealistic fantasy utopian expectations and dreams. And Obama, nor anybody else, can deliver utopia because there is no such place. So, Melissa, I'm glad you called. I appreciate it.

RUSH: We said, I said months ago, "Any Republican who ran on the promise to undo everything Obama has done would win." I told a Heritage Foundation gathering that the reason Trump is resonating is because he's going right after Obama. That is exactly Bob Turner did. That's what the guy in Nevada did. It's what every one of us has to do and every Republican presidential candidate that wants to win has to go after Obama and what he's done.

RUSH: Newt Gingrich last night said, "I want to shrink government to fit income, not raise income to try to catch up with government." Newt was on his game last night. Just in terms of substance, nobody outdoes Newt. But Newt has, as you all know, the baggage of global warming commercials with Pelosi and health care commercials with Hillary and the unpredictability that that brings. Wolf Blitzer kept talking about Obama's jobs plan, as you will hear in mere moments. It's a tax plan, Wolf -- a big-spending, buck-passing, nonstimulating, tried-and-failed payoff to unions. What Obama has proposed is not a jobs plan. And, by the way, it is not designed to pass. It is not designed to pass.

It is designed for the Republicans to oppose this thing. I mean, every tax increase Obama's ever dreamt of, wet or dry, that he's been trying for three years to get passed, is there -- tax increases that even the Democrats, when they ran the whole House and Senate, when he had supermajority, couldn't get passed. It's the same tax increases. He wants to punish the people that create and produce energy for us in this country. He wants to punish them with higher taxes.

RUSH: You might be interested in knowing, as of 12:35 this afternoon, 15 minutes ago, not one Democrat has stepped forward to file Obama's bill in the House of Representatives. The bill, the American Jobs Act, is still not a bill. It has not been filed. Not one Democrat stepped forward to file it. It has not been introduced. So I don't know what's up with that. Actually, I do know what's up with it. I'll tell you exactly what's up with it. There's no intention for this thing to pass. Obama knows no way it's gonna pass. He's gonna have trouble getting a number of Democrat votes on this with all these tax increases.

This is to set up the fact, as we've said repeatedly, that the Republicans are obstructive, that the Republicans want a political victory over Obama at the expense of the country. That they are doing anything they can to defeat Obama and they don't care what happens to the country. The truth of the matter is they're trying to save the country, as we all are.

RUSH: Obama's jobs bill, Barry's bill, he shows up at the Rose Garden yesterday (impression), "They say I don't have a bill? Well, here's my bill!" He's waving his little bill around, "Here's my little bill!" No Democrat has filed it. As of a half hour ago, no Democrat had officially filed the bill in the House of Representatives where it's gotta start. So the fierce urgency of waiting for three weeks after his vacation to announce this plan, there's no bill the night he gives the speech; then he comes up with a bill yesterday but no Democrats walked it through the process. (interruption) Well, Debbie "Blabbermouth" Schultz, as head of DNC, should have walked up and introduced it.

This means, by the way, that it also can't be scored by the Congressional Budget Office. So as long as it hasn't been filed, then the Congressional Budget Office has nothing to look at and score it against all of its claims -- and every dime of spending in this new Porkulus comes from tax increases. The media is full of stories about how Obama plans to "pay" for his latest round of stimulus spending, and some in the media seem to be a little bit surprised here that he's calling for an increase in taxes on the rich. "The rich" are now defined as anybody making more than $200,000 a year. Now, if you qualify (and if you're a small businessperson, you do), here are the tax increases, changes, what have you, that we know about.

We know 'cause there's a PDF of a bill. In fact, I have a PDF copy of the thing there. It's 155 pages. There are 235 mentions of the word "tax" in the 155-page bill. At any rate, what Obama wants to do is limit mortgage deductions as well as the deductions for charitable contributions and state tax deductions. He's been trying to get these same exact tax increases passed for more than three years. He has included these tax increases in every one of his budgets. He even brought up these same tax increases during deficit-debt ceiling debates back in August. He trotted out these same tax increases back in 2009 as a way to pay for Obamacare.

Now, these tax increases of Obama's have been shot down every time he has pushed them, even when the Democrats had their supermajorities in both the House and Senate. But he is so obsessed with redistribution -- he is so obsessed with punishing the, quote, unquote, "rich" -- and doing away with loopholes like mortgage deductions, he can't help himself. As Newt pointed out (Newt had a great line): Every one of Obama's green energy proposals has a tax loophole. Solyndra was a tax loophole! Every one of Obama's green energy ideas is a tax loophole. Now, when you're talking about raising taxes on income of $200,000 or more, you are talking about most small businesses, and these are the people who do 70% of the hiring in this country.

Steve Moore at the Wall Street Journal says that Obama's tax increases, when you add 'em all up, amount to a $500 billion tax increase on small business. Now, Stephen Moore is right. I'm gonna tell you: Whatever tax breaks he's talking about giving small-business people to hire workers is peanuts, and it always has been. I don't care if he raises the $2500 tax credit for every worker hired. That's nothing! Even if he raised that to $10,000, it's nothing. It costs so much more than that to hire somebody. In addition to cutting tax deductions -- and the mortgage interest deduction is something he wants to get rid of (or really limit, let's put it that way) -- he also wants to limit the deductions of state income taxes that you pay.

He also plans to get rid of oil subsidies to the tune of about $40 billion. Now, never mind... They call these things "subsidies." They're really not subsidies; they're just slightly lower tax rates that a lot of other manufacturers get. They're not really subsidies. We're not subsidizing the oil companies. So in Obama's world, the people supply the fuels -- the people that supply the energy that power and fuel our economy -- have to be punished. They just have to be. There's something cruel about these people. There is something inherently eeeevil about these people who supply the energy that fuels our economy. These people epitomize something terribly wrong about America, and they've got to be punished. But, sure, go ahead! Go ahead and cut the mortgage deduction. Slap a higher tax on energy.

That's gonna really stimulate the housing market. That's gonna really boost the economy...right off the cliff.

RUSH: All you have to do is go to the Drudge Report, look at the headlines on the Drudge Report right now to know without doubt what Barack Obama's goals for this country are and how close he is to ruining this country as you and I know it and love it as it was founded, making as many people in this country poor as possible, obliterating what has been the defining greatness of this country through its history, the middle class.

Here the headlines: "Record 46.2 Million Below Poverty Line." "Twenty-two Percent of American Children Live in Poverty." "Dramatic Drop in Median Income." "Poverty Soars, Highest Since 1993." They got a picture here of Obama and Michelle at the soup -- that's not Michelle. It's Obama. It's a low res picture I'm looking at. He's at a soup kitchen. So here are some details, and again I would say to all of you Republicans that are gonna meet. The next debate's on Thursday the 22nd. You Republicans might want to focus entirely on Obama that night because the optics for this guy are unbelievably bad. His policies are destroying the economy and the lives of millions of people every day right in front of our eyes. He puts himself on 9/11 in a soup kitchen as a tribute to who, to what?

The hijackers of 9/11 were not just trying to take down a couple buildings. Where were those buildings? What were those buildings called? The World Trade Center. They were targeting the US economy. So on 9/11 our president shows up at a soup kitchen in tribute to what? Okay, so we've had the discussion now about vaccines, and we've had the discussion of Social Security, Ponzi scheme. Here's what the American people care about. They don't have any jobs, even the Congressional Budget Office, whatever they're worth, "CBO: Jobless Rate to Stay 9% through 2012." The new norm. Jobless rate to stay 9% through 2012. Twenty-two percent of American children lived in poverty last year. More than one-fifth of Americans under 18 lived in poverty last year. These are Census figures, by the way.

I saw this and said, "How can this be?" The economy turned the corner. We've come back from the brink. Obama saved us. Obama created or saved millions of jobs. He's redistributed the wealth. The woman in Tampa got her new kitchen, got her new house. We're on the right track. Obama's the world's greatest expert on jobs, jobs, jobs. He's focused, he won't rest, he's even got a bill, how can there be so many children living in poverty? "Poverty Rate Rises as Incomes Decline, Census Figures' -- Amid a still struggling economy, more people in America fell below the poverty line last year, according to new Census data released Tuesday. The nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, its highest level since 1993.

"About 46.2 million people are now considered in poverty, 2.6 million more than last year. The government defines the poverty line as income of $22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual." I remember in 1979 I started working for the Kansas City Royals at $12,000 a year. I'm gonna go to my inflation calculator, I'm gonna find out what $12,000 in 1979 is today. Okay, $12,000 in 1979, today that's $37,000. So $12,000 a year in 1979's the equivalent of $37,342 a year today. Just to put in perspective what the poverty numbers are. You're in poverty if you're an individual making $11,139 a year. The OMB updates the poverty line each year to account for inflation. "For middle-class families, income fell in 2010. The median household income was $49,445, down slightly from $49,777 the year before."

And now get this. This is the last line in this story from CNNMoney.com: "The figures weren't very surprising, given the unemployment rate remained above 9% in 2010 and the number of Americans who have been unemployed for six months or more surged to an all-time high during the year." Well, this wasn't unexpected? For the first time we get an economic story of utter disaster, and it wasn't unexpected? CNNMoney.com is telling us that the poverty numbers and the plunge in median income, all this, were expected? That means tolerated? Expected? Who knew? Why did they know? Well, whoever knew could only have known if they understood what Obama's policies have done. Now what, are they gonna blame this on Bush?

The economy turned the corner! It turned the corner! It turned the corner going back to the Great Depression, and on the way it passed Misery Avenue. That's the corner Jimmy Carter led the nation to when he was in office. They're headed right back there. Yep, that's the corner we've turned, folks: Back to Misery Avenue, Malaise Place (which is a cul-de-sac). You just drive around in circles in there, Bloomberg's version of the story: "US Poverty Climbs to a 17-year High in 2010." By the way, all those people in poverty are not gonna be paying taxes or even paying into Social Security and Medicare. But they're gonna get it. Can we call it a Ponzi scheme? However, however there's another side to this, ladies and gentlemen.

Over at the Heritage Foundation there is a guy by the name of Robert Rector, and I have been citing Robert Rector's work since the late eighties. He has a partner, Rachel Sheffield. Rector studies poverty, not just in the United States but around the world -- and from the first days in the late eighties/early nineties when I began citing Robert Rector's work, left-wing media watchdogs have been harping on me for making things up! What Rector and Rachel Sheffield do is learn facts about the poor. Just who are they? Just what is poverty in America? What do the poor in this country not have, and what do they have? And you'll be surprised if you've not heard this before. The updated list is coming right after this.

RUSH: "In his address to the joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama called for $477 billion in new federal" taxes. He says "spending," but it's $477 billion in taxes "which he said would give hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people hope and dignity while giving their low-income parents 'ladders out of poverty.' And today, the U.S. Census released its annual poverty report, which declared that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. What President Obama didn't tell America as he was pleading for more spending ... is what it really means to be poor in America. In a new report, Heritage's Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield lay out what the U.S. government's own facts and figures really say about poverty in the United States.

"The results might surprise you, especially if your view of poverty is the conventional one, perpetuated by the media -- namely, destitute conditions of homelessness and hunger. In reality, though, the living conditions of those defined as poor by the government are much different than that popular image. The following are facts about persons defined as 'poor' by the Census Bureau." Are you ready? "80% of poor households have air conditioning. Nearly [75%] three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31% have two or more cars or trucks. Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television," which means they have TV sets, too. "Two-thirds of people [defined as poor by the Census Bureau] have at least one DVD player and 70% have a VCR." (interruption)

Well, what are with you gonna do, Snerdley, some places that's all they have. It would figure. Blu-ray, I doubt the Census has even heard of Blu-ray yet. They're just including that in DVD. Half of the people defined as poor by the Census Bureau "have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers. More than half of poor families with children" defined as poor by our government "have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation." More than half! I don't even have an Xbox or a PlayStation! The poor have something that I don't have. Well, more than half of the poor. "43% have Internet access. One-third" of the people our government considers poor "have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television." (interruption)

How are you gonna watch Jerry Springer? That's right. Or Jersey Shore or Glee. One-fourth, 25% of the people our country defines as poor have a "digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo. As for hunger and homelessness, Rector and Sheffield point to 2009 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that 96% of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food, 83% of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4% of poor persons become temporarily homeless, with 42% of poor households actually owning their own homes." Forty-two percent of households our government categorize as poor own their own homes. Ever heard of subprime? "The average poor American has more living space than the average Swede or German," and there's even more of all these facts in their report: "Understanding Poverty in the US." This is not to say the poor have it easy, don't misunderstand this. It's all about how poor and poverty is categorized in this country versus anywhere else.

RUSH: By the way, what percentage of poor children in America get two free meals a day at school even in the summertime? Yeah. It's an amazing thing, poverty in this country.

RUSH: Now, interesting thing about this business with the poor, and I know that some of you are waiting out there, you're probably dialing the phone trying to call in and catch me in something you think that I haven't caught on to, you think I've missed. I know that some of you, you're waiting out there, you're thinking I'm purposely forgetting something or purposely not mentioning it to you in order to mislead people to make my point. With most other hosts, you would be correct. It is this. We got the poor. We got all these numbers on the new poor. All these people living in poverty. Numbers are way up, and yet I just told you all the stuff the poor have.

So if we say that more poor people have been created under Obama and then we say but the poor really aren't poor, then we have an interesting conflict there. Very, very, very carefully is how we must navigate this. I mean you can't complain about all the poor Obama's creating with his policies and then downplay what it is to be poor. So the way to hit this is to simply say that Obama is creating more and more people who are defined as poor in this country. The point is that Obama is creating more and more food stamp recipients, more and more unemployed, more and more homeless, and let's be honest: Why do the poor have all of this stuff? Well, yeah, government stash, but where does the government get it?

The point is that they have it because of redistribution. Many of them do not work. We could have some fun with this because you could define poor today as simply saying somebody who is dependent on the government. And if you are dependent on the government, look at all you get and look at why you're likely to vote Democrat. It is a problem. If somebody loses their job and their home, but their kids have two meals a day, the point is that Obama's policies have severely harmed that family. What Obama is doing is converting middle-class families into poor families. Now, I know some of you been waiting out there, I know, I just know you've been waiting to call me on this, "Hey wait, Limbaugh, you can't do this, you can't sit there and start claiming all these poor people and all this poverty and Obama created it and then follow it up about how it isn't so bad." And you have a point.

The point is that as our government defines poverty, Obama and his policies are putting more and more people into it. So the question then becomes, did Obama save or create more poor people? Just as we debate did Obama save or create X numbers of jobs, how many poor people did Obama save versus how many poor people did he create? Because what's happening in America is that Obama is turning middle-class families into poor families by destroying the economy. There aren't enough jobs. It's just a shame, folks, it's depressing to see what's happening to the country.

And again I stress, this is nothing compared to what our country's going to look like once Obamacare begins full implementation in 2014. Being poor today simply means being dependent on the government, which is exactly what Obama and the Democrat Party want. The more dependent people are on the government, the more dependent they are on the Democrat Party. That's the theory. The way it shapes up here, only the very rich and the very poor can afford to be Democrat.

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.

In case someone tells a fib about Obama, we need to turn that person in. Luckily, the President has provided for us such a website:

The Obama Diary. This appears to be a pretty serious site, dedicated to telling you what the president is doing right:

Workforce Fairness Institute (it sounds like a liberal group, but it looks like a conservative group):

Wrote Left Turn and measures media bias as well as individuals. There is a 40 question test to measure your political quotient and the quotient of various media outlets are given.

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.

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

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

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

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):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liberal filter for FoxNews: News Hounds (motto: We watch FOX so you don't have to). Be clear on this; they do not want you to watch FoxNews.

Conservative Review
Issue #195	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	September 18, 2011