The cartoons come from:

www.townhall.com/funnies.

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

Previous issues are listed and can be accessed here:

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

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

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 5 or 6 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

This Week’s Events

The Dow suffered a 738 point drop this week, which is the 6^th largest ever week point drop; and that reflects a 6.4% loss.

Unemployment and housing numbers all look bad this week (no surprised here).

President Obama, beginning Sunday, will spend 3 days in Washington, Oregon and California doing 7 fund-raising events.

Herman Cain, in a surprising upset, won the Florida Straw Poll. For the past month, the media has been repeating the mantra that this is a two-man race (this includes Bill O’Reilly). Part of the reason for this is, Rick Perry, thought by some to be the Republican savior, has turned in 3 lackluster debate appearances.

Chris Christie, after saying dozens of times that he is not running for president, is considering running for president, according to Politico.

Looks like we may be heading for a government shutdown. The TEA party types think that, if money is given to FEMA for emergencies, then it needs to come from somewhere. Republicans want to take it out of these various green projects and loans. Democrats don’t think enough money is being spent; so the most recent continuing resolution has failed to pass. The House has passed it, but it appears as though the Senate will not.

Solyndra took about $500 million in loans guaranteed by the government and then went bankrupt. Solyndra Executives plead the fifth before Congress.

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state. Tom Carnahan is listed on Obama's campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.

After hearing about the government paying $16 for muffins, the White House said they would investigate.

President Obama’s Uncle Omar, living illegally in the United States, was stopped a 3^rd time for drunken driving. It does not appear that he will be deported.

LightSquared, a Virginia-based broadband satellite company, has been vying for permission to operate in a frequency band in the vicinity of our nation's GPS system. General William Shelton was going to warn Congress of the dangers that the LightSqaured project would pose to our GPS integrity. He has claimed that the White House attempted to pressure him into altering the substance of his testimony. LightSquared has given substantial contributions to Obama and to the Democratic party (at least $90,000) and the President invested $90,000 in this company when it was known as SkyTerra. A government contract for LightSquared would likely be a sweet deal for any investors in this company.

President Obama and Bill Clinton played a little golf this week (Obama’s 82^nd round since taking office).

This one is a little confusing. CEO Peter Schiff was fined $15000 for hiring too many employees. The organization which fined him is not a governmental regulatory agency per se, but he is required by the government to be subject to this private agency.

U.C. Berkeley Republicans are attempting to have a diversity bake sale where minorities are charged less for baked goods than white students. The bake sale is in protest of SB 185, which, if signed by Brown, would allow California public universities to consider a number of non-academic factors such as race, gender and nationality in the admissions process in order to increase campus diversity. The sale will be Sept. 27^th, if allowed.

Dakota Ary, a Fort Worth, TX teen, was recently suspended from school for telling a classmate in a classroom discussion that he believes homosexuality is sinful.

Space junk, originally the size of a bus, fell to earth, but we don’t know where for certain—we think it’s in the Pacific Ocean.

Palestine head made a bid for Palestinian statehood to the U.N. this week.

A mother who confronted two boys who bullied her 10-year-old son has been banned from her son's Minneapolis school and even her son's bus stop for the rest of the year. She got on the bus and yelled at the 2 boys who were bullying her son.

At Westmoreland, TN, high school coaches have been warned not to bow their heads during a student-led prayer, in order to maintain the proper separation of church and state.

In Uganda, armed troops are burning down homes, killing children, and evicting over 20K people from their land in the name of global warming.

A suicide bomber attacked an Indonesian church packed with hundreds of worshippers Sunday, killing himself and wounding at least 20 other people.

There is a credible threat that Egyptian youths will both hold demonstrations in front of the US Embassy in Cairo and take over the US compound if Washington vetoes the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Remember, Egypt will not allow Palestinians to relocate in Egypt.

Terrorism is currently sanctified throughout all the Palestine areas. The streets are plastered with posters glorifying the suicide bombers. Children trade "martyr cards" instead of Pokemon cards. The Palestine Authority also gives a cash payment to parents: $2,000 per child killed and $300 per child wounded.

A US drone strike killed five people when it fired missiles on to a house in Mir Ali, North Waziristan Friday evening.

Say What?

Liberals:

Barack Obama: "We're the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad."

President Obama to a Black audience: "Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Obama on Black unemployment being nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent: "It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all,”

President Barack Obama: "The Republicans in Congress call this class warfare. Well you know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as plumber or teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I'll wear that charge as a badge of honor. Because the only class warfare I've seen is the battle that's been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade."

President Obama: "I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable."

Obama on his taxing philosophy: "This is not class warfare. It's math."

White House press secretary Jay Carney, off-camera, about the TEA party: "The tail is wagging the dog here. 30 or so members of the tea party are dictating the way the House behaves and handles its responsibilities for 300 million Americans."

Michael Moore: "The smart rich know they can only build the gate so high. And, and, sooner or later history proves that people when they've had enough aren't going to take it anymore. And much better to deal with it nonviolently now, through the political system, than what could possibly happen in the future, which nobody wants to see."

Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren: "You [rich people] were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for... You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory."

Michael Moore on longer waits for medical care where there is socialized medicine: "The reason why you have to wait sometimes in those countries is they let everybody in the line. We make 50 million people out of the line so the line is shorter, so sometimes you have to wait as long. If you are a patriotic American, you want every American to be covered the same as you. No, not `I'm going to get ahead because I have health insurance and they don't.' "

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "President Obama has appealed to the Congressional Black Caucus and the attendees last night to close ranks, stand behind him, press on to make sure that we can continue to push for things like passage of the American Jobs Act. The crowd at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Gala understands that the president has brought us from the brink of disaster where Republicans, under George W. Bush, had brought us to the precipice of economic disaster."

The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

ABC’s Good Morning America:

John Hendren: “Perry's implosion is just the latest sign of chaos in the Republican presidential field. A disarray so complete that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is now being heavily pressured to run . . . Christie supporters are arguing that the job may be big but the declared candidates are too small.”

Christiane Amanpour: “Really, what's obviously happening is that people are looking at the current crop [extended less-than-flattering footage begins to roll of Christie walking across an airport tarmac] and there still are people who are dissatisfied. And there are others who are saying it's not too late for others to get in. And even on this program not so long ago we had panelists saying that they were hearing that Chris Christie is being heavily implored to jump in.”

MSNBC’s Larry O'Donnell: “Only in the Twilight Zone of this Republican presidential politics, 2011-style, could we see a man [Rick Perry] be cheered for proudly presiding over the execution of 234 people and then see that same man booed by the same crowd, booed because that champion of death by execution called his worshippers heartless [for opposing his support of giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens]. Campaigns for presidential nominations are sometimes called fights for the soul of the Republican party, fights for the soul of the Democratic party. No one has used that phrase this time around for two reasons. First, because no candidate fits perfectly into the current shape of Republican orthodoxy. And secondly, the Republican party of the 21st century, if we are to judge by the debate audiences, has obviously lost its soul . . . This Twilight Zone: how can this happen? Here's their favorite killer, state-sanctioned killer up there. They boo him after he calls them heartless.”

CNN’s John King: “George H.W. Bush had the courage, knowing it might cost him re-election, knowing for sure it would cost him support with his conservative base, to violate the central domestic policy pledge of his campaign, "read my lips, no new taxes." And he called everybody out to Camp David at Andrews Air Force Base and he agreed to a package that caused him to violate that promise.”

MSNBC new host Chris Hayes: “[Obama] is an extremely able, deft, confident, exceptional politician...that is a very able, good, amazingly powerful politician and I think, in some ways, he has not been using his super powers for a lot of his time in office, I think is, I don’t know why, frankly, I’m not inside the president’s head. ” What this quotation fails to include is the gushing way in which this was said. This guy has a total man-crush on Obama which rivals that of Chris Matthews.

MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts: “And the [Santorum] phrase of "social experimentation." I get out of all of these things that many of these [Republican] candidates would rather take legislation to build a time machine and go back in time to where, uh, we had, you know, no women voting, slavery was cool. I mean, it's just kind of ridiculous.”

Liberals from the past:

President Obama: “All I'm saying is let's take the example of something like diabetes, one of - a disease that's skyrocketing, partly because of obesity, partly because it's not treated as effectively as it could be. Right now if we paid a family - if a family care physician works with his or her patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they're taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 - immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we're also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation, right? That will save us money.”

Liberal civility:

Michael Moore has called for an economic boycott of the state of Georgia to protest Wednesday's execution of Troy Davis, the Savannah man convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer in 1989: "I encourage everyone I know to never travel to Georgia, never buy anything made in Georgia, to never do business in Georgia."

John F. Kennedy government teacher to TEA party head: "You can just say what you are - a Nazi."

Bill Maher: "[Rick Perry at the Republican debate] sounded like a sixth grader who didn't do the reading - garbled syntax, messing up simple facts, sentences that went nowhere. Sarah Palin was watching and she said, `If only he was black, I'd f__ him.' "

Bystander yells to Bristol Palin when she is riding a mechanical bull: "Your mother's a whore!"

Another bystander to Bristol: “You’re f___ white trash from Wasilla.”

Joe McGinniss in his about Sarah Palin called The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, claims that Sarah Palin had sex with Michigan hoop star Glenn Rice. Sports writer Larry Brown writes: “This is a story so wacky, so unbelievable, so incredible, and so improbable, that it can only be true.”

Mike Tyson, during a recent interview, made numerous comments on this assertion, none of which are printable.

Crazy Muslims:

Sign held by Palestinian boy while he waits for his father at Friday prayers: “Obama, go to hill.”

Signs on the walls of Palestinian kindergartens: "[you students are] the shaheeds (martyrs) of tomorrow".

Elementary school principals commend their students for wanting to "tear their (Zionists') bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know".

Palestinian leader Abbas: "They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state."

Abbas: "We are saying once again that without Netanyahu's declaration that he recognizes the state of Palestine within the 1967, as well as a declaration on and implementation of a settlement freeze, we shall not return to negotiations and we shall not allow the presence of settlers and an occupation army in Palestine."

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh: "Our Palestinian people do not beg for a state. ...States are not built upon UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities."

Liberals making sense:

Bill Clinton: “We don't have a lot of resentment against people who are successful. We kind of like it, Americans. It's one of our best characteristics. If we think someone earned their money fairly, we do not resent their success. I personally don't believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending, either one until we get this economy off the ground...I'll pay more [taxes]. But it won't solve the problem.”

Barack Obama in 2009: “The last thing that we want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession, because that would just suck up, take more demand out of the economy and put business in a further hole.”

Moderates/Affiliation Unknown:

David Brooks (moderate) in how he was taken in by the Obama hype: “I'm a sap, a specific kind of sap. I'm an Obama Sap.”

Crosstalk:

President Obama in January of this year: “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized--at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do--it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr. at a Labor Day rally in Detroit, Hoffa, referring to the TEA party, "take these son-of-a-bitches out." The President stood up to speak next.

When asked about this, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the Obama administration is not going to "serve as the speech police for the Democratic party."

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Politico: “Will branding the tea party 'racist' work as a political strategy?”

Longtime liberal activist and former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Mary Frances Berry: "Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness."

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Piers Morgan, Host: “Has Obama helped the process of eradicating racism, or has it in a strange way made it worse.”

Actor Morgan Freeman: “Made it worse. Made it worse. Look at, look, the Tea Partiers, who are controlling the Republican Party, stated, and what's this guy's name, Mitch O'Connell. Is that his, O'Connell?”

Morgan: “Yeah, Mitch McConnell, yeah.”

Freeman: “Mitch McConnell. Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What's, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We're going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we're going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.’ "

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Neil Cavuto: “Morgan Freeman, the actor, has been very critical of Tea Parties, and said that what they're doing is racist based, and going after and unseating Obama has at its underpinnings racism. I'm paraphrasing here, but what do you make of that argument?”

Herman Cain: “Well, first of all, I doubt if Morgan Freeman, with all due respect, who is a great actor, has he ever been to a Tea Party? Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Parties, Neil, about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party.”

Cavuto: “But wait a minute, wait a minute. He has played, wait, wait, wait. He has played a President of the United States.”

Cain: “Oh. Great, yeah, in a movie. This is real life out here on the campaign trail, man. This is not a movie.”

Cavuto: “So, are you offended by that?”

Cain: “No, I'm not offended by it. I just, I just think that it is sad that they're so short-sighted in really understanding what the whole Tea Party citizen movement is all about. I'm not offended by it, because it doesn't slow down my momentum. It doesn't slow down the reaction that I get from people. They know that I bring my message from the heart and the head, and they're responding to it. So, name calling is something that's going to continue in this because they don't know how to stop this movement. And this movement is making a big difference in politics, because a lot of the traditional Democrats are moving to the center or moving over to vote for conservatives. They're taking another look at a Herman Cain.”

Conservatives:

Republican candidate Newt Gingrich on foreign aid: "Our bureaucrats giving their bureaucrats money is a formula for corruption."

Robin Elmore, Chattanooga, TN, email to Bill O’Reilly: "To ask the rich to pay more taxes is like me asking my boss for a raise because I blew last week's paycheck at the bar."

Senator Orin Hatch: “There's not a person in the White House who's had much to do with creating private sector jobs. And if you look at even the reason addition to the council of economic advisers, a Princeton professor, not a lot of experience in the private sector. They are great at academics. They are great they are brilliant people they have no clue on who makes jobs. And they think the government is the one that makes jobs.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner: "Giving the federal government more money would be like giving a cocaine addict more cocaine."

Senator Orin Hatch: Do you realize that Solyndra got more money with that $535 million than 35 states got for their highways, roads, and bridges? When you stop and think about it - this is insane."

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels: "If it's in the [phone book's] yellow pages, then maybe government shouldn't try to do it."

Republican candidate Gary Johnson: “My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.”

Rush Limbaugh: "My dogs have created more shovel-ready work than Obama has this week alone. The new puppy. Honest to God. More shovel-ready work for me this week than Obama has created in all two-and-a-half years." This was a day before Gary Johnson’s line.

After, by all accounts, losing the Florida debate, Rick Perry said: "It's not who is the slickest candidate or the smoothest debater that we need to elect"

After the Florida debate, Romney aide, speaking on condition of anonymity: "It's over. Perry is toast."

Herman Cain, after the Florida straw poll: “The Herman Cain train is picking up steam.”

Rick Perry, on Chris Christie getting into the race: "I see anybody that gets in the race that believes in America and is a small government but efficient government individual, I would welcome into the race. It just strengthens the point that the Republican Party's all about getting our country working again. Whoever that is. And I'm also a big believer in these governors being freed up to be able to compete against each other. Chris Christie is a great competitor - and I'll be up there, you know, in Jersey, looking for some businesses to move to Texas."

Republican candidate Herman Cain: "By the way, it's okay to call me black. I am an American, black, conservative, an A-B-C. It's okay, I'm not hyphenated."

Jack Bauer's Dad, a voter, after hearing that Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Pool: “I don't know if Cain can go all the way or not, but it feels kinda like getting out of prison, being liberated from having to choose between Perry/Romney. Cain certainly needs some polishing, but he's a self-made man and that embodies the American dream and the American spirit. He's exactly the breath of fresh air that the Republican race needed. For the first time ever, I'm going to donate my hard earned money to a candidate. Go Herman.”

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said of President Obama and the media: "This guy pushed every one of the media's buttons. He was liberal, he was different, he was new, he was black. Oh my God, it was the potpourri of everything. They [the media] are so vested in our first black president not being a failure that it's going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to to protect him. They, I believe, will spout this racist line if some of their colleagues up here aren't doing it aggressively enough. There is going to be a real desperation."

Neil Cavuto, commenting on a recent ATM transaction at Bank of America and the solvency of BofA: “I was asked, ‘Do you really need this money today?’ ” [quoted from memory]

FoxNews commentator Degan McDowell on Obama’s proposed tax hikes and job policies: “He’s got it backwards, upside down and wrong.”

Brent Bozell on newsman John King’s statement about Bush the elder having the courage to raise taxes: “Will they ever say it takes courage to cut planned parenthood?” [quoted from memory]

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Israel is prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. The Palestinians must first make peace with Israel, and only then get their state."

Rush Limbaugh: "It is simply not possible for the private sector to grow and for jobs in the private sector to be created and Obama's tax plan to happen at the same time."

Rush Limbaugh: "It's tough to get back liberty that you've lost. The people who have taken it are just not gonna give it back to you."

Rush: "The Democrat Party, particularly as it's constituted today, is the biggest collection of extreme, mean-spirited, violent rhetoric that you'll find in politics today."

Rush: "Do you realize the power that members of Congress hold with the tax code? It is the greatest single power for social architecture that exists in Washington today."

Rush: "The Tea Party in a metaphoric sense is a giant wake-up. It's exactly why they exist. And the primary reason they are feared is because there isn't a leader and they're really not a party. There's no apparatus to go after."

Watch This!

“I blamed everyone, man

I blamed everyone;

the pope, the Father and Son, man,

I blamed everyone

I thought bein’ the president would be a lot more fun,

I blame the economy, the policy, those who don’t agree with me,

GOP, can’t you see, this is a catastrophe,

Hannity, humanity, this is insanity, unemployment, no enjoyment, let me just take a moment to blame more things, not just my fault, I blame everyone

I blame everyone, man; I blamed everyone...”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tXSor1Y7AA

Greta interviews Tom Coburn on Obama’s jobs bill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcgWcn3UljU

Democrat ad for the Obama jobs plan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmQuGW5_7To

Bristol Palin’s life; about halfway through this vid, she confronts some of these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S18gsZ37QXY

Obamacare is a part of a strategy leading toward a single-payer system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_mUwzoYcc

I just swipe my EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card; it is used now instead of food stamps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IGfe2tAUbM

In the West Bank city of Hebron, several spectators threw shoes at an outdoor screen during Netanyahu's speech in a show of contempt (40 seconds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw1F5Kev9p4

MSNBC gets George Bush involved in the Solyndra scandal:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/09/24/msnbc-uses-liberal-green-jobs-activist-blame-solyndra-george-w-bush

Obama speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cke_UNNy62Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k8PHiY35VE

Not sure if it is posted yet, but Chris Wallace really took David Plouffe to task this morning.

A Little Comedy Relief

Jodi Miller: “Summer is now over and Fall has begun. So let’s check the score: Summer 2, Recovery 0.”

Jodi Miller: “Economists found a spot of good news; an increase in recent retail sales. Unfortunately, most of the sales were for canned goods, firearms and gold.”

Short Takes

1) If you think that taxing the rich a little more will help to balance the budget, that means you have no idea what is going on. The taxes that President Obama is all about leveling outcomes. The rich have too much, the poor have to little; so let’s take a little bit more from Peter to pay Paul. It is nothing more than that. Obamacare, taxing the rich, removal of the payroll tax for some people is all about the redistribution of wealth and codifying this redistribution. The more people who collect monies from the government and do not pay taxes means a greater base of Democrats. Instead of working, they vote; instead of working hard, they vote for people who will promise to take from the rich and give to the poor. One of the articles in this week’s edition shows you clearly what a minuscule amount of money President Obama would be taking from the rich.

2) Obama either understands this, in which case, he is lying to the public by implying that taxing the rich a little more will pay for social security and medicare; or he doesn’t have any idea, which is quite scary.

3) This also explains why most Democrats cannot tell you how much is too much by way of taxes. Most conservatives can think for a minute and give you an answer (for me, the maximum tax rate for all people, rich or poor, of all taxes combined, including all government fees, should be around 20–25%).

4) Solving the $16 muffin problem is not the key to our economy. The government paying $16 for a muffin is symptomatic of government spending. There are very few politicians who give a rip how much is spent for this or that. Many politicians have spoken about the waste and fraud in Washington, and little has been done about it, despite there being dozens of organization who point out one wasteful project after another. Liberals, at some point, have to realize that the government is limited in what it can actually do well, and is unable to police itself. Putting more and more of the economy into their bureaucratic hands is not the answer.

5) In any large organization, there will be some waste, fraud, theft, etc. However, a private organization, like Walmart, for instance, has to keep this under control in order to stay in business. Even private companies who receive subsidies from the government have little incentive to be responsible, because it is no longer their money. With a publically traded company, even though this is not their money, they are at least responsible to their stockholders for what they do. If they screw up too much, their stock prices tank, and they die. This is not what happens in government. If a government agency does a lousy job and cannot manage its responsibilities, government just gives them more money (like our public schools).

6) Let me explain Rick Perry’s squishiness on immigration (and I am not giving him a pass here). There are a lot of Hispanics in Texas, and Rick Perry cannot be seen to come down too hard on Hispanic immigrants without losing some of that vote. I know one Hispanic conservative who literally cut off our relationship because I believed in enforcement first, and then we decide what to do about the illegal immigrants who are here. Now, if a conservative Hispanic feels so strongly about this issue, how do you think non-political Hispanics feel? So, approve of it or not, Rick Perry panders to some degree to the Hispanics who live here in Texas.

7) I watched these Palestinians on the West Bank throwing their shoes at Netanyahu’s image, where he is giving a speech at the UN, calling for peace between Israel and the Palestinians as a condition of Palestinian statehood, and I can only think, what a bunch of idiots.

8) Black unemployment of 16.7% is not difficult to understand. People with a B.A. or similar degree are employed, at around 4–5% throughout the United States. The same is roughly true for skilled workers (apart from home builders who are suffering). However, Black children come from disproportionately single-mother families (if memory serves, around 60–70%), and single-parent families had a disproportionate number of children who are drug users, law-breakers, who are involved in early sex experimentation, who also have children early and out-of-wedlock; and, not unsurprisingly, do not go to college or develop a legal marketable trade skill. Government programs cannot solve this apart from simply hiring people specifically who are without many skills. How does this get fixed? You fix the Black family. How is that fixed by the government? You stop subsidizing single Black mothers (or, single mothers of any color). It all falls under the simple axiom, subsidize something, and you get more of it; tax something, and you get less of it.

By the Numbers

According to Tom Coburn, there is $350 billion each year that is easy waste to remove; but attacked to this waste are interest groups.

The U.S. government has paid more than $601 million in benefits to dead federal government retirees in the past five years.

Solyndra received more money than 35 states did for highways, roads and bridges.

Polling by the Numbers

McClatchy-Marist poll:

If the 2012 election were held today,

49% would vote for Barack Obama

44% would vote for Sarah Palin

A few months ago, this was 56–33

According to some, Marist over-sampled democrats for this poll. Several critics of this poll put them at 47–47.

Gallup:

Asked to compare Barack Obama with George W. Bush, Americans are more inclined to say Obama has been a better (43%) rather than a worse (34%) president, with 22% seeing no difference between the two.

Pew Research Center

42% of those surveyed think "the press is immoral" and "hurt democracy"

25% say that in general news organizations get the facts straight

66% say stories are often inaccurate

Florida Straw Poll:

Herman Cain, 37.1%

Rick Perry, 15.4%

Mitt Romney, 14.0%

Rick Santorum, 10.9%

Ron Paul, 10.4%

Newt Gingrich, 8.4%

Jon Huntsman, 2.3%

Michele Bachmann, 1.5%

A Little Bias

Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll; would not the Sunday shows be begging to get him for an interview? Of course not; David Plouffe, who presents Romney and Perry as the only real candidates, is all over the place.

Over and over again, the press has sold us on this being a 2-man race. Only FoxNews has pointed out, from time to time, that the top 2 Democrat and top 2 Republican candidates at this time prior to the 2008 election would not be elected.

In case you have not noticed, Herman Cain has been virtually ignored by the media. He shows up here and there (most often on FoxNews), and about as often as John Huntsman or Newt Gingrich.

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There was a little political scandal in Maryland about a politician stealing campaign funds in order to finance her wedding. The Washington Post reported this story, but, failed to mention the party of the individual involved. Hmm, when the party is left out of a scandal story, or buried in paragraph 16, which party do you think she belonged to?

_______________________________________

When the Solyndra executives took the 5^th, ABC and NBC did not feel this was worth covering. CBS gave the story 25 seconds. What if this had been an oil company to whom Bush and Cheney funneled a half-billion dollars; a company which had been heavily invested in the Bush/Cheney ticket. I wonder if the news might mention this development?

_______________________________________

MSNBC tries to lay the Solyndra scandal squarely on the shoulders of George W. Bush:

Thomas Roberts, MSNBC: Dr. Mijin Cha is a senior analyst for Demos Sustainable Progress Initiative and a blogger at Policyshop.net. Dr. Cha, it's nice to see you this morning. And you point out on your blog that the green is under attack, basically. Take a listen, though to what one Republican lawmaker said just last night.

Congressman Mario Diaz-balart (R-FLORIDA): What the previous gentleman did not say is that Solyndra received $500 million because they have friends in high places. Despite even people in this administration that said, "Don't do it," they received $500 million. If that was in a different country, we wouldn't call it waste. We would call it corruption.

Roberts: So how much damage has Solyndra done, Dr. Cha, when it comes to the greens job movement? Is this something that can't be turned around?

J. Mijin Cha, Green Jobs Activist: No. I definitely don't think it can't be turned around. I think what you find the hearings will show are two things. One is that the administration actually didn't do any wrongdoing, right? This loan was begun under the Bush administration. Solyndra had raised a billion dollars in private capital and then was invited by the Bush administration to apply for this loan program.

________________________________________

Don’t fall out of your chair, but the Media Research Center has found that ABC, CBS, and NBC shows give Democrats easy, liberal-slanted questions, but they grill Republican candidates.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/realitycheck/2011/20110921082020.aspx

Saturday Night Live Misses

Obama’s remarks about wearing the badge of socialism proudly; or his praise for the United States building the intercontinental railroad.

Or, any chance they will do a bit on LightSquared?

Surely they could give a little love to the U.C. Berkeley diversity bake sale.

However, their cold open was of the Republican debate in which they reaffirmed, there are only 2 frontrunners, and the others at the debate will not be elected; and, oh what a shocker, how is Rick Perry portrayed? As stupid. Like Ford, Reagan, Bush and Palin. For 25+ years, their standard parody of a Republican on SNL is stupid.

Yay Democrats!

More and more Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama’s jobs bill; however, this is politics, not conscience. Note the Senators speaking against it have an election coming up.

Obama-Speak

"I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable." = I will only support bills which tax the rich some more, even though this will be insignificant.

Debt-reduction plan = a set of ideas that will not decrease the debt and whose effect upon the deficit is questionable.

Political Chess

Obama believes that he has a reasonable chance against Perry (because of his weak debating skills) and against Romney (Obamacare is not radically different from Romneycare). So, the push has been, with most of Obama’s mouthpieces and the press, to declare this a two-man race, Perry and Romney.

More Proof Obama is an Amateur

He should have never said, he’d raise a billion dollars for his campaign.

_______________________________________

Rush Limbaugh: "I think it's a little ironic and typical of the floundering position Obama finds himself in to name a tax plan after a guy whose company hasn't paid their taxes for about half of the last ten years."

You Know You’re Being Brainwashed if...

If you think government creates jobs by spending taxpayer money.

News Before it Happens

Although the news is not quite as solidly behind Obama as they were before, they will still be strong cheerleaders for him, and there will be very little said about his fund-raisers, the stupid things he says at them (Obama is very gaff-prone, something most casual observers would not know). The attacks against his opponents will become much more vociferous, and the negatives of his economy or the mistakes he continues to make will not be found on the Obama Media Complex (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc.). There will be the occasional negative story, but there will always be the pro-Obama slant found early on in the story.

Expect Herman Cain to be portrayed as a not-very-bright Republican Obama.

Prophecies un-Fulfilled

I predicted early on, even before he got into the race, that Rick Perry would be the Republican candidate and then the president of the U.S. I did not pick him because he was my favorite or because he is the governor of my state. He heads all of the states in job creation, and, in this way, was the only person with proven results, which is why I had that opinion. This does not take into account that taxes are far too high in Texas and we give away huge sums of money to people who do not work (and without reason, because, if you cannot find a job in Texas, then you are not looking for one). So, even though the Florida straw poll is not the be-all, end-all, it was good to see that Herman Cain won that poll.

Missing Headlines

Solyndra Received More Money than 35 States Got for Roads, Bridges and Highways.

Obama and LightSquared—Another Scandal?

Obama “Intercontinental railroad” Another Gaff

Homes Burned, Children Killed, in the Name of Global Warming

Washington Enjoys $16 Muffins

Herman Cain Wins FL Straw Poll

Interview with Herman Cain

Come, let us reason together....

The President's "Debt Reduction": $1.6 Trillion in Tax Hikes, Almost No Net Spending Reductions

by Patrick Louis Knudsen and Emily Goff

During his Rose Garden speech Monday, the President claimed that his new "debt reduction" plan would provide $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. A closer look at the administration's own numbers, however, suggests the President, well, exaggerated.

A realistic assessment-based mainly on table S-6 of the Administration's plan-shows that his $1.57 trillion in tax increases are accompanied by just $130 billion in net new, policy-based spending reductions.

The President's "plan" claims credit for the following:

Policies Already Enacted. The debt reduction proposal starts with two items already in place: reductions from the full-year continuing resolution for fiscal year 2011 ($357 billion over 10 years) and savings from the discretionary spending caps in the Budget Control Act ($992 billion).

The Administration does concede that these reductions already have been enacted-sort of. Except when the President contends that his "plan" would reduce deficits by more than $4 trillion, as he did Monday; he includes these existing reductions, in effect double-counting them (as he did with the $500 billion in Medicare savings for Obamacare).

It should also be noted that these policies yield "savings" only because they are measured against an illusory "baseline" that assumes that all discretionary spending programs will continue into the future intact, with increases to account for inflation. As long as spending does not increase as much as the baseline, it is considered a reduction.

For instance, if the baseline projects spending to rise by $1.5 trillion in the next 10 years and Congress increases it "only" $1.25 trillion, it's considered a $250 billion "reduction," even though spending has increased by more than $1 trillion. This baseline measurement is a Washington practice so entrenched it is usually taken for granted. Bottom line: These savings should not be counted as new spending cuts.

Bogus War Savings. The President then plays an even bolder baseline game, claiming $1.084 trillion in spending reductions from winding down military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once again, these "savings" occur only because the Administration baseline for war spending (termed "overseas contingency operations") starts with the 2010 "surge" level spending and then rises with inflation over the next 10 years-a policy that no one really assumes will happen.

Compared with this unreal baseline, the President's proposed war spending-$126.5 billion for fiscal year 2012, and then placeholders of $50 billion a year through 2021-results in more than $1 trillion in "savings." Hardly anyone in the federal budget game accepts these as legitimate spending reductions-except, of course, the President.

Debt Service. Curiously, the second-largest new spending reduction in the President's plan-and the largest mandatory spending reduction-is a reduction in interest payments ($715 billion). This is not a policy change; it is simply the result of the assumed deficit reduction. Deficit reduction plans should be evaluated on the basis of real policy choices and should not take credit for such secondary effects.

Mandatory and Health Savings. The plan does list a number of entitlement policies that, if enacted, might actually reduce spending. The value and likelihood of these proposals are discussed in yesterday's Heritage blog. The estimated savings are about $577 billion over 10 years.

New Stimulus Proposals. Ironically, the net new spending reductions in the President's plan almost equal the amount of deficit increases from his "jobs" proposal introduced last week: All but $130 billion of the President's net new policy-based spending reductions are swallowed up by the stimulus.

One of the best measures of the size and scope of government is spending, because every dollar of government spending is financed through taxes, borrowing, fees, premiums, etc., and all drain resources from the economy. Ultimately, the President's "debt reduction" proposals do nothing to reduce net spending. It simply reflects the audacity of big government: keep spending high and drive taxes higher.

From:

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/20/the-president%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cdebt-reduction%E2%80%9D-1-6-trillion-in-tax-hikes-almost-no-net-spending-reductions/

More Social Security & Ponzi Schemes

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Nicole, c'mon. You've "never heard of the authorities trying to `reform' a Ponzi scheme"? How long do you figure I'd have kept my job as a young government lawyer if I'd knocked on Rudy Giuliani's door and said, "Boss, I know this Ponzi thing looks bad. But it's been a good deal for a lot of people for a long time. Maybe, instead of enforcing the fraud laws, we should just persuade him to reform it!"

The reasons private Ponzi schemes get prosecuted have nothing to do with whether they are beyond salvaging. The fraudster cannot reform without confessing to having committed a crime to that point; his sudden desire to go straight would not be a legal defense against the fraud he has already perpetrated. And the government has no obligation to reform a fraud scheme it had no responsibility for designing in the first place. No one asks whether the private Ponzi scheme should be reformed. We prosecute in order to signal to other would-be Bernie Madoffs that society is not going to tolerate deceptions of this kind.

The difference between a fraudulent government program and a fraudulent private scheme is that the former cannot be prosecuted. As you know far better than I do, the government exempts itself from the regulations, bookkeeping requirements, and criminal laws it imposes on private businesses (and the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause broadly immunizes members of Congress from prosecution for legislative activity). But the fact that officialdom holds itself above the law does not make its deceptive schemes any less fraudulent.

As a great admirer of your work, I'm very surprised by your claim that Social Security's designers and perpetuators have not attempted to perpetrate a fraud. The program was hatched in fraud. As I pointed out yesterday, FDR pretended it was an insurance program in order to sell it to the public; once Congress enacted it, he then told the courts it was not an insurance program but a tax in order to get it upheld (by justices he had successfully intimidated with a court-packing plan). He later admitted that disingenuously portraying the tax as a contribution for earned insurance benefits was "politics all the way through." The goal was never to make the economics work. As you correctly point out, they don't work, and FDR was well aware of that fact. The goal was to make sure, as he put it, that "no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program." Fostering a sense of public entitlement, he presciently reasoned, would induce politicians to position themselves as defenders of this entitlement - and never you mind the math.

Furthermore, the real objective of Social Security was not to set up a retirement insurance program. It was to lay the foundation for a full-blown entitlement state, complete with socialized healthcare. The original plan included a Medicare component, which was abandoned because FDR realized it would jeopardize passage of social security. (The push on Medicare, as I've recounted before, was renewed immediately after passage - although it took 30 years, due to deep opposition from the public and the medical profession.) As Gov. Perry points out in his book, while feigning to address a "crisis," Social Security (like Obamacare) collected the taxes ("contributions") for several years (from 1935 to 1942) before any benefits were paid out; and the eligibility age was pegged at 62 even though life expectancy was then 60. The goal was not to ensure a decent retirement for "beneficiaries"; it was to erect - in incremental stealth - an entitlement state that the public would never have supported if Progressives had been forthright about their ambitions. Social security was the foot in the door.

Your resort to "or should know" gives the game away. Yes, you admit, Social Security "has a long-run mismatch between revenue and expenses." And yes, it commingles the contributors' funds, just like a Ponzi scheme. But by your lights, this is not "outright fraud" (non-outright fraud is OK?) because, by now, "everyone knows, or should know" that this is how the system works.

But why should we know? Is it because the pols have honestly disclosed it to us as they require private businesses to do? Emphatically, no: They've been jiving us for 80 years about an "insurance program" (i.e., a redistribution scheme) in which eventual "beneficiaries" (welfare recipients) make "contributions" (pay taxes) into a "trust fund"/"lock-box" (a pot that Congress raids at will) which protects our "accounts" (the IOUs with which Big Government replaces the funds it swipes - paper promises that will have to be satisfied by crushing taxes imposed on future taxpayers). As you quite correctly say, the goal of a Ponzi scheme is "to perpetuate the fraud to enrich its designers." Big Government is duly enriched, probably beyond FDR's wildest dreams.

Your argument boils down to this: Social security can't be fraud because, after eight decades, the nature of the scheme is so palpable that we should be deemed to have consented to it even if it is not quite what it was advertised to be. This is reminiscent of Bernie Madoff's "net winners," to whom you referred in your first post. Upon

inspection, a lot of the potential investors Madoff attempted to recruit told the early investors (a/k/a, the net winners) that the scheme seemed too good to be true. But the early investors didn't want to hear it. They rationalized: Sure something seems fishy, but it's been going on for years without interference from the regulators and prosecutors, and as long as I'm getting good returns, why should I ask questions about whether it's all on the up and up?

"Social Security is a government program," you say, "and a popular one[.]" Yep, Ponzi schemes are always popular . until they collapse. And after they collapse, the fact that the early investors "should have known" that the scheme was a fraud is held against them. The neon clarity of the fraud, and their conscious avoidance of it, does not change the unpleasant fact that fraud it was.

From:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/278016/more-social-security-ponzi-schemes-andrew-c-mccarthy

'Buffett Rule' Wouldn't Bring In Much Revenue

By Daniel Indiviglio

This week, President Obama announced a new way for the government to make more money: put a floor on the tax rates that millionaires face. He coined the idea the "Buffett Rule," after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who recently complained that he didn't pay enough taxes. Even though incomes are taxed progressively, so those making more money are supposed to pay more, capital gains -- like income from stock gains -- can escape those marginal rates. That's one way in which wealthier Americans enjoy lower tax rates than marginal rates would imply.

So how much would the so-called Buffett Rule bring in? It's hard to say, because Obama didn't define precisely how it would work. But he did say it would create a tax rate floor for those who make more than $1 million per year. So let's use 2009 tax return data from the IRS to imagine some possible scenarios for how much additional tax revenue the new tax could bring in. Here's a chart:

Let me explain what's going on here. I used IRS data for 2009* adjusted gross income (which I know isn't perfect, but it was the best they had). I then calculated the effective tax rate based on its data to be 29.1% for all Americans who earned more than $1 million. I consequently took the total income of the group and multiplied by different tax rates (as shown). I subtracted the taxes already paid (at the 29.1% effective rate) to figure out how much additional revenue they'd provide to the U.S. government at those new tax floors.

As you can see, the short answer is: some, but not enough to make a dent in the deficit. If you put a floor at their current marginal tax rate of 35%, the government would obtain $37 billion more dollars. That might sound like a lot, but it amounts to just 2.5% of the 2009 $1.5 trillion deficit (which is the red line shown). If you increase the floor to the pre-Bush-tax-cut marginal rate of 39.6%, the additional revenue grows a bit -- to $66 billion, or 4.5% of the year's deficit.

Even if you get really aggressive, it doesn't help much. Even a tax floor for these individuals at 75% would cover less than 20% of the year's deficit. And, of course, even most populist among us probably worries that a tax rate that high could do more harm to the U.S. economy than good. All of these calculations also assume that these wealthy individuals wouldn't find new and creative ways to ensure that their income was shielded from very high tax rates. (They would.)

So this Buffet Rule is a great populist proposal if the president wants to score some political points, but it has little practical value. It might provide the government a little bit of additional revenue, but unless extremely aggressive, it wouldn't make a dent in the nation's deficit problem. To do that, you'll need to cut entitlements and/or raise taxes much more broadly.

---

* A quick note: 2009 is actually a pretty generous year to consider for the potential impact of a Buffett Rule. The S&P 500 stock index increased by 24% during the course of the year, which implies that capital gains would have played a relatively significant role in boosting the incomes shown. So the effective tax rates actually paid were likely lower than they would have been during a year when stocks didn't perform as well.

From:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/chart-of-the-day-buffett-rule-wouldnt-bring-in-much-revenue/245404/

Muffin-gate

by Bill O'Reilly

As you may have heard, an audit by the Department of Justice shows the federal government is guilty of wasteful and extravagant spending at a number of law enforcement conferences. Between October 2007 and September 2009, 10 conferences cost the American taxpayer $4.4 million.

A couple of examples of craziness: At a training conference in August 2009, $4,200 was spent on 250 muffins. That adds up to $16 per muffin. I'm sure they were delicious muffins. I'm sure they were presented in a pleasing way. But the $16 muffin now becomes a symbol of how wasteful the feds are with our tax dollars.

A few more examples: July 2008, two coffee breaks cost the American taxpayer $15,600; $52 per person was spent on coffee breaks by a drug enforcement task force. February 2008, the U.S. Attorneys conference food and beverage cost $54,000. December 2007, an emergency response conference in Denver: $90,000 spent on food and beverages.

The hits just keep on coming.

Now, I have stayed in some of the swankiest hotels on Earth. I have never seen a $16 muffin. I want to see that muffin. I want to taste that muffin. Know why? Because I bought the muffin, and so did you.

It's not about taxing the rich anymore. It's about a federal government that doesn't give a hoot about how much money it spends.

Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration looked the other way while trillions of dollars were wasted. And now President Obama wants more tax money to buy more muffins.

People like me who pay a lot of federal tax are annoyed. We don't believe there is anyone looking out for our tax money. It's not about greed. It's about efficiency and fairness. Why should I, or you, work hard every day so some guy in a suit can have a $16 muffin? I'd like President Obama to address that.

The truth is America is in desperate financial trouble, and I want to help. I've already told you I'm not taking any Social Security. I'm going to send the checks back to the feds even though I paid into the fund. I love my country. I don't want it to go bankrupt. But I'm not going to endorse a huge tax increase on anybody until the spending madness stops.

And I'm not buying "pay my fair share." I've paid my fair share for 35 years, Mr. President. And you and other politicians have squandered my labor. Squandered it. So until the feds and the states demand efficiency and cut the crap, I will oppose targeted tax increases.

You want revenue, Mr. President? Pass a fair and flat tax, close up the loopholes, knock out the $16 muffins.

And that's "The Memo."

From:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2011/09/22/bill-oreilly-muffin-gate

Obama's jobs plan paid for? Seems not

AP fact checks Obama’s job speech

By Calvin Woodward

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.

It will only be paid for if a committee he can't control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future - the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals - don't roll it back.

Underscoring the gravity of the nation's high employment rate, Obama chose a joint session of Congress, normally reserved for a State of the Union speech, to lay out his proposals. But if the moment was extraordinary, the plan he presented was conventional Washington rhetoric in one respect: It employs sleight-of-hand accounting.

A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything."

THE FACTS: Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional supercommittee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near-term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future - the "out years," in legislative jargon - but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use.

Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.

Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.

So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

___

OBAMA: "Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight."

THE FACTS: Obama's proposed cut in the Social Security payroll tax does seem likely to garner significant GOP support. But Obama proposes paying for the plan in part with tax increases that have already generated stiff Republican opposition.

For instance, Obama makes a pitch anew to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which he has defined as couples earning over $250,000 a year or individuals earning over $200,000 a year. Republicans have adamantly blocked what they view as new taxes. As recently as last month, House Republicans refused to go along with any deal to raise the government's borrowing authority that included new revenues, or taxes.

___

OBAMA: "It will not add to the deficit."

THE FACTS: It's hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits.

___

OBAMA: "The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away."

THE FACTS: Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They'd rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks.

From:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jeExfDHRyCNo9DQoEwmBikcOhwpA?docId=8b7386d5e5954d188210fdb2bb54efa6

Obama Rejects Obamaism

By David Brooks

I'm a sap, a specific kind of sap. I'm an Obama Sap.

When the president said the unemployed couldn't wait 14 more months for help and we had to do something right away, I believed him. When administration officials called around saying that the possibility of a double-dip recession was horrifyingly real and that it would be irresponsible not to come up with a package that could pass right away, I believed them.

I liked Obama's payroll tax cut ideas and urged Republicans to play along. But of course I'm a sap. When the president unveiled the second half of his stimulus it became clear that this package has nothing to do with helping people right away or averting a double dip. This is a campaign marker, not a jobs bill.

It recycles ideas that couldn't get passed even when Democrats controlled Congress. In his remarks Monday the president didn't try to win Republicans to even some parts of his measures. He repeated the populist cries that fire up liberals but are designed to enrage moderates and conservatives.

He claimed we can afford future Medicare costs if we raise taxes on the rich. He repeated the old half-truth about millionaires not paying as much in taxes as their secretaries. (In reality, the top 10 percent of earners pay nearly 70 percent of all income taxes, according to the I.R.S. People in the richest 1 percent pay 31 percent of their income to the federal government while the average worker pays less than 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.)

This wasn't a speech to get something done. This was the sort of speech that sounded better when Ted Kennedy was delivering it. The result is that we will get neither short-term stimulus nor long-term debt reduction anytime soon, and I'm a sap for thinking it was possible.

Yes, I'm a sap. I believed Obama when he said he wanted to move beyond the stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country. I always believe that Obama is on the verge of breaking out of the conventional categories and embracing one of the many bipartisan reform packages that are floating around.

But remember, I'm a sap. The White House has clearly decided that in a town of intransigent Republicans and mean ideologues, it has to be mean and intransigent too. The president was stung by the liberal charge that he was outmaneuvered during the debt-ceiling fight. So the White House has moved away from the Reasonable Man approach or the centrist Clinton approach.

It has gone back, as an appreciative Ezra Klein of The Washington Post conceded, to politics as usual. The president is sounding like the Al Gore for President campaign, but without the earth tones. Tax increases for the rich! Protect entitlements! People versus the powerful! I was hoping the president would give a cynical nation something unconventional, but, as you know, I'm a sap.

Being a sap, I still believe that the president's soul would like to do something about the country's structural problems. I keep thinking he's a few weeks away from proposing serious tax reform and entitlement reform. But each time he gets close, he rips the football away. He whispered about seriously reforming Medicare but then opted for changes that are worthy but small. He talks about fundamental tax reform, but I keep forgetting that he has promised never to raise taxes on people in the bottom 98 percent of the income scale.

That means when he talks about raising revenue, which he is right to do, he can't really talk about anything substantive. He can't tax gasoline. He can't tax consumption. He can't do a comprehensive tax reform. He has to restrict his tax policy changes to the top 2 percent, and to get any real revenue he's got to hit them in every which way. We're not going to simplify the tax code, but by God Obama's going to raise taxes on rich people who give to charity! We've got to do something to reduce the awful philanthropy surplus plaguing this country!

The president believes the press corps imposes a false equivalency on American politics. We assign equal blame to both parties for the dysfunctional politics when in reality the Republicans are more rigid and extreme. There's a lot of truth to that, but at least Republicans respect Americans enough to tell us what they really think. The White House gives moderates little morsels of hope, and then rips them from our mouths. To be an Obama admirer is to toggle from being uplifted to feeling used.

The White House has decided to wage the campaign as fighting liberals. I guess I understand the choice, but I still believe in the governing style Obama talked about in 2008. I may be the last one. I'm a sap.

David Brooks is often touted as a conservative, but he was an early Obama supporter, citing the crease in his pants as one of the reasons for supporting him. He is the lone voice of conservatism on NPR, even though he is not a conservatives.

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/opinion/brooks-obama-rejects-obamaism.html

Why I doubt Romney would repeal Obamacare

by Philip Klein

Conservative defenders of Mitt Romney argue that however similar his Massachusetts health care plan may have been to President Obama's national health care law, he's an acceptable candidate because he's called for the repeal of the national law. The problem is, based on what we know about him, there's no reason to accept Romney's reassurances that he'd actually follow through as president.

Here's what we know. During his one time as an elected politician, Romney's signature achievement was the passage of a health care law that was the forerunner to Obamacare. Both plans: expand Medicaid, force individuals to obtain government-approved insurance coverage or pay a penalty, and provide government subsidies to individuals to purchase government-designed insurance policies on government-run exchanges.

During his presidential campaign, Romney has said he supports the repeal of the law and would issue an executive order to waive Obamacare for 50 states. That's a fine talking point for a debate answer, but it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. As president, Romney could direct his administration not to implement some regulatory aspects of the law, but a future Democratic president could quickly reinstate them. Furthermore, he couldn't, through executive order, eliminate most of the major spending provisions in the law. For that to happen, we'd need to see a repeal bill passed through both chambers of Congress. Given the unlikelihood that Republicans would gain a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, this would have to be done through the reconciliation process. Though some people have argued to me that a GOP Congress would obviously pass a repeal of Obamacare and Romney would be forced to sign it, there's no reason to believe that Congressional leaders would pursue a sure to be acrimonious reconciliation process unless the president were willing to stake political capital on it. So a President Romney couldn't passively sit back and wait for a repeal bill to appear on his desk, he'd have to show courageous presidential leadership, pounding the table on the issue for months. And it won't be just any months, but he'll have to stake the crucial early months of his presidency on it after taking office in January 2013, because the major provisions start in 2014, and it will be harder to unwind by then. So this raises the question of whether I think Romney has the resolve to see something like this through, to which I'd respond: are you kidding me?

Some of Romney's many policy reversals have been overlooked in this campaign as old news, so I'll just provide a brief refresher. Romney ran for statewide office in the Massachusetts twice, in 1994 and 2002, as a pro-choice candidate, only to become publicly pro-life in 2005, just as he was gearing up to seek the GOP presidential nomination instead of seeking a second term as governor of the liberal state. During the 2008 campaign he attacked various opponents for being for gun control, amnesty and campaign finance reform. Yet at earlier points in his career, Romney supported the federal "assault weapons" ban (and signed a state ban as governor in 2004), called the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform "reasonable" and "quite different from amnesty" and supported campaign finance reform measures far more draconian than anything in McCain-Feingold. During this campaign, he's spent the last few weeks attacking his opponent Texas Gov. Rick Perry for criticizing Social Security too harshly, because he says it's politically damaging to do so.

Romney, in short, has displayed zero political courage during his career. He has held opposite positions on nearly every issue, with one obvious exception. He still hasn't disavowed the health care law he designed, campaigned for, and signed with a smiling Ted Kennedy at his side. And it happens to be the forerunner to Obamacare. There's no reason to believe as cautious and calculating of a figure as Mitt Romney would stake the crucial first months of his presidency getting into a bruising political battle to repeal a law, when he still clings to its underlying policy ideas.

And remember, New Deal era programs weren't firmly enshrined in this country by Democrats, but becuase Republicans, once in power, stopped making the case against them and their leader, President Eisenhower, did nothing to unravel them. Thus, the damage that a President Romney could do to the cause of limited government simply by inaction on Obamacare is incalculable.

From:

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/why-i-doubt-romney-would-repeal-obamacare

Why Obama should withdraw

by Steve Chapman

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, his slogan was "Morning in America." For Barack Obama, it's more like midnight in a coal mine.

The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can't even sneak a cigarette.

His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections - one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He's staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don't think would work.

The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, "it's going to be impossible for the president to win." Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: "Panic."

But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he's willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

That might be the sensible thing to do. It's hard for a president to win a second term when unemployment is painfully high. If the economy were in full rebound mode, Obama might win anyway. But it isn't, and it may fall into a second recession - in which case voters will decide his middle name is Hoover, not Hussein. Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?

It's not as though there is much enticement to stick around. Presidents who win re-election have generally found, wrote John Fortier and Norman Ornstein in their 2007 book, "Second-Term Blues," that "their second terms did not measure up to their first."

Presidential encores are generally a bog of frustration, exhaustion and embarrassment. They are famous for lowest moments rather than finest hours. Richard Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace, Reagan had the Iran-Contra scandal, and Bill Clinton made the unfortunate acquaintance of Monica Lewinsky.

Administration officials get weary after four years and leave in droves. The junior varsity has to be put into service. New ideas are hard to come by.

Someone said that when a man is smitten with a beautiful woman, he should remember that somebody somewhere is tired of her. Likewise, the most inspiring presidents get stale after years of constant overexposure.

In the event he wins, Obama could find himself with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Then he will long for the good old days of 2011. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner will bound out of bed each day eager to make his life miserable.

Besides avoiding this indignity, Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.

The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can't be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president's.

It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama's reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton. Her husband presided over a boom, she's been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she's never been accused of being a pushover.

Not only that, Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely "the most popular national political figure in America today."

If he runs for re-election, Obama may find that the only fate worse than losing is winning. But he might arrange things so it will be Clinton who has the unenviable job of reviving the economy, balancing the budget, getting out of Afghanistan and grappling with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Obama, meanwhile, will be on a Hawaiian beach, wrestling the cap off a Corona.

From:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/chi-chapman-obama-reelection,0,6549322.column

Steve Chapman is a liberal columnist and a member of the Tribune's editorial board. The Chicago Tribute was quick to point out that this was not the opinion of the paper.

U.C. Berkeley’s Diversity Bake Sale

Most students feel that their voices aren't heard in the baked goods distribution process controversy. They also believe that our UCs and CSUs need to be more diverse. YOU have the OPPORTUNITY to increase DIVERSITY and student VOICES by buying some PASTRIES and helping redistribute wealth for SOCIAL JUSTICE through BAKED GOODS on Sproul Plaza (9/27/11).

Berkeley College Republicans will be SELLING BAKED GOODS from 10 AM - 2PM across from the Affirmative Action Phonebank on Upper Sproul, and just like the CA Senate Bills 185 and 387 the phonebank supports, we will be considering RACE, GENDER, ETHNICITY, NATIONAL/GEOGRAPHIC ORIGIN and other relevant factors to ensure the EQUITABLE distribution of BAKED GOODS to our DIVERSE! student body.To ensure the fairest distribution, and make sure that there are a DIVERSE population of RACES of students getting BCR's delicious baked goods, the pricing structure will be as follows:

White/Caucasian: $2.00

Asian/Asian American: $1.50

Latino/Hispanic: $1.00

Black/ African American: $0.75

Native American: $0.25

$0.25 OFF FOR ALL WOMEN!

Hope to see you all there! If you don't come, you're a racist!

From:

http://www.dailycal.org/2011/09/23/uc-berkeley-college-republican-bake-sale-elicits-cries-of-racism/

Unscientific Weasel Zipper Presidential poll; vote and then see how everyone else voted (when I voted Sunday afternoon, Cain was barely ahead of Perry):

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/09/23/wz-poll-whos-you-choice-for-gop-nominee/

Special issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; several articles on Obama care and political reform. This is quite extensive.

http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/36/3.toc

Getty’s photo of Obama waving, obscuring a world leader:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/125682969/Getty-Images-News

Who Wants Obama to be Reelected? Raise your hand...

Additional Sources

Greta’s interview with Peter Schiff:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/2011/09/21/how-one-ceo-was-punished-hiring-too-many-employees

Solyndra got more money than 35 states received for highways, bridges and roads:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/solyndra-got-more-stimulus-than-35-states-got-for-useful-stuff

Where’s the satellite?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_FALLING_SATELLITE?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-24-04-42-59

We Must End Baseline Budgeting

RUSH: Steve in Omaha. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Thank you for waiting.

CALLER: Yes, Rush. Tea Party and freedom lovin' dittos from the Heartland.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: It's an honor to speak with you.

RUSH: I appreciate that.

CALLER: Hey, you said something earlier in the show, Rush, that really gave me an idea. You said, "Whoever controls the language controls the argument," and that is so true. That brings up something you talked about a couple three, four weeks ago. You were talking about baseline budgeting and how they have a three, four, five percent increase cooked into the budget so the CBO has to score it. If they got a 4% increase cooked in the budget then the CBO has to "cut" 1% -- if they have it increase by 3% -- they gotta score that as a 1% cut.

RUSH: That's right.

CALLER: My proposal is: Hey, if the Republicans get control, which they probably will, one of the first things they gotta do is change this baseline budgeting thing so a 1%

increase is a 1% increase --

RUSH: Boy, that would be --

CALLER: -- over last year's baseline. If we increase it that's an increase --

RUSH: (trying to talk)

CALLER: -- if we go lower that's an increase and then we got real honesty about a budget.

RUSH: Yeah. Are you on a cell phone?

CALLER: Yeah, I am. Is that a problem?

RUSH: Yeah, I thought so. That would be wonderful if that would happen. I put this in the category similar to, "Gosh, wouldn't it be great if we could just have a flat tax." It sounds wonderful, and always gonna be some Republicans who are for it. But at the end of the day they're never gonna write themselves out of that much power. Do you realize the power that members of Congress hold with the tax code? It is the greatest single power for social architecture that exists in Washington today, the tax code; and to simply write that off, say, "Okay, guess what? A 15%, 20% flat tax, whatever, FairTax, whatever you want to call it be with great idea."

It makes total, perfect sense. But people who think that their job requirement number one is spending money are somehow going to limit their ability to do so? It is achievable I think on the baseline budgeting side. We have to get to the point where a cut is actually a cut. Remember this statistic: Because of baseline budgeting: The Republicans could propose, as a fix, a budget freeze. Just not spend anything additional for two years. Go ahead and factor in inflation, and you increase the budget by the inflation rate every year, but no more, not a dime more.

If they did that, because of the baseline, the CBO would score that as a $9 trillion "cut" over ten years. You say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute! Nothing's been cut." That's right. But the baseline suggests the budget's gonna grow by $9 trillion over ten years or whatever it is. It's built in. And if the money isn't spent, it gets scored as a cut. That's the law. The law would demand the CBO score that as a cut. As long as that system exists, we can't win. We can't win a budget battle. Because as long as the word "cut" doesn't mean cut... This is how the school lunch program can grow by 3.5% and yet a major issue evolves: "Republicans want to starve kids!"

"Wait a minute. The school lunch budget's growing by 3.5%."

"No, no. It was supposed to grow by 7%. You're gutting the program!"

This was what happened back in 1995. So it's true. Whoever controls the language controls the debate. You may not have heard what the caller heard. Establishment Republicans in Washington do not like being called establishment. They run from it. They are trying to redefine conservatism so that they are conservatives, not us; that people like David Brooks would become the new conservative. The Republican establishment in Washington, the Republicans want to replace the word "Republican" with "conservative."

Because the term " Republican establishment" is not sitting well with them because it simply means, accurately, part of the Washington elite. The Democrat establishment and the Republican establishment are one and the same, in terms of their overall objectives and goals. So this is something the Republicans want, plus their undeniable lack of affection for conservatives in general coupled together. So there is an ongoing effort. You will not see this. There aren't any stories written about it; it's not a discussion item on cable news. You wouldn't even know that this internecine fight's going on if I hadn't mentioned it to you, but it is. Don't doubt me.

Brief time-out. Thanks much for the call, Steve.

Howard Dean Admits: Obamacare Will Kill Private Health Insurance

RUSH: Mike, do you have a Howard Dean sound bite recently delivered? Play it. I had it here but I don't have the transcript in front of me. All I know is that he said something about Obamacare guaranteeing that no more private health insurance would be available at some point. Play the sound bite.

DEAN: The fact is, it is very good for small business. There was a McKinsey study, which the Democrats don't like, but I do, and I think it's true. Most small businesses are not going to be in the health insurance business anymore after this thing goes into effect. I think Obamacare is a huge help to small business.

PATAKI: The only way it's a help is if they dump coverage.

DEAN: That's right. That's what they should do.

PATAKI: And employees all of a sudden have to go on the government exchanges. Which is what, of course the president promised wouldn't happen.

DEAN: It is going to happen.

RUSH: Yeah. So everything that we predicted about this is starting to come true now. President said it wouldn't happen, it's gonna happen. You're not gonna be able to get health insurance. Even if you like your current doctor and plan, you're not gonna be able to keep it once this is implemented, and Howard Dean thinks that's good, it's gonna really help small business to off-load that burden. Obama said it wasn't gonna happen, but it's gonna happen.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/dean-employers-will-drop-coverage-under-obamacare

The Left's Math Makes No Sense

RUSH: I was watching a commercial...I'm perhaps not the guy to talk about this, in all candor, 'cause I think I am on this probably a lone wolf. But I was watching a TV commercial moments ago. Some bank is trying to attract customers by telling them there are not gonna be any fees when they use the ATM at this bank, and the commercial is a guy standing in front of the ATM; he's got two options. One button says, "To complete this transaction we're gonna charge you a $3 fee." The other button says, "Skip the transaction." There's a long line of people standing behind him, urging him, "Come on! Would you make up your mind? Do something here. I want to get to the machine and get on with my life."

RUSH: Okay. The reason I might not be the guy to talk about such things as (sigh) who pays for what is this commercial reminded me of the whole controversy over ATM fees. When they first hit big, there was a resounding call throughout the country for the government to do something about it. So now we got a new bank out there and they're running commercials to attract customers by saying there will not be any fees for use of their ATM, and that there is a #3 charge at some other bank's ATM. The other bank's not named here. This guy sitting there trying to figure out what to do, what to do, what to do. And I put myself in the position of the guy at the ATM, and I say, "Okay, if that what it costs, fine. I signed up with this bank, that's what it is; I'll hit the button, get my money, and go on."

The last thing that would ever occur to me is to call my congressman to complain about an ATM fee! I would either not pay it or pay it if I knew it existed when I signed up at the bank. If it didn't exist when I signed up at the bank and it's something that really, really bothered me I'd change banks. But it would never occur to me to complain to the government about it. Yet that's what a lot of people do, not just ATM fees. But this guy that called, not enough taxation because military pensions are not being properly funded. What...? We have got a problem here of total mismanagement of government, and raising taxes is not going to fix the mismanagement of government!

The mismanagement of government has been going on all of your life and all of my life by liberals, whether they had won elections or not. They populate the bureaucracy. They have career appointments in every bureaucracy, from the EPA to the FCC to the Department of Justice. You name it, they're there. Whether there's got a Democrat in the White House or not. The whole government's been corrupted and perverted. So it's not the fact that people aren't paying or are paying taxes that the government's mismanaged. Mismanagement of the government, if you define that as military pensions are being underfunded, raising taxes on somebody's not gonna fix that. Something else, too. If you want to try to tell me that the government's money and revenue problems reside in the taxes made by 1% of the population, is that really what people want to try to convince me of?

When 47% of the people aren't paying diddly-squat, people want to try to tell me that the problem exists in the 1% who are paying 40% of all taxes and the 5% who are paying 70%? That's the problem? Sorry. I'm just not going to see it that way. I don't know how anybody can believe the top 1% paying 40% of all taxes are not paying enough, are not paying their "fair share," when 47% of people aren't paying any federal income tax. But even if you raise taxes, if you go back to April Fool's Day 20 years ago when I did a whole bit on taxing the poor... "Raise taxes on the poor. It's about time they started paying for what they get," and it outraged people. Now that view actually has a wide berth of support. What I mean by being on the cutting edge. So I just don't see government as the solution to anything so I look at myself as the solution to what my problems are. The last place I even ponder going is any government -- state, city, local, federal.

RUSH: The top 5% are paying 70% of all taxes, and they want us to believe that the revenue shortfall is because the rich are not paying their fair share -- and we have 47% of Americans aren't paying anything? Again, the math just escapes me.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/20/irs-data-show-most-millionaires-pay-taxes-at-higher-rate-than-middle-class/.com/politics/2011/09/19/obama-yields-to-liberal-outcry-on-entitlement-reform/

Higher Taxes Do Not Raise Revenue in a Sustainable Way

RUSH: Here is that sound bite that I heard last night. This is Obama August 5th, 2009, on NBC News. Then White House correspondent F. Chuck Todd interviewing Obama during a visit to a factory in Indiana. F. Chuck said, "Elkhart resident, Scott Ferguson, he's upset about taxes. He says, 'Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.' And he actually wants you look at historical markers where this has been a helpful thing to come out of a recession."

OBAMA: Well, first of all, he's right. Normally you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't. We don't have a --

TODD: But you might -- you might for the highest percent of the wealthy.

OBAMA: We have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect in the middle of a recession. Even the proposals that have come out of Congress which, by the way, were different from the proposals I put forward, still wouldn't kick in until after the recession was over. The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up -- take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

RUSH: Okay, two years ago, basically August 5th of 2009, you just don't raise taxes during a recession, it would just suck up money out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole. Two years later, what's he propose? Sucking more demand out of the economy -- i.e., money -- and putting businesses in a further hole. (interruption) Who cares why? Yeah, I know it's to shore up his base. Well, what sense does that make and what does it say about his base? They're a bunch of crazed, anti-American lunatics and that's who he's gotta speak to, that's who he's gotta shore up. My God, I'll tell you, I'd be depressed, too, if my job was to make Michael Moore and Robert Reich happy every day. I don't know if it's possible.

Mike in San Diego, California, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, sir, very honored to be on your program.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: Listen, I've been a Republican since I enlisted in the early seventies in the military. I'm actually still in the military, the Reservists, mobilized several years during the latest conflict. And the one thing that I have agreed with our commander-in-chief on and I know this is gonna sound like I'm a RINO to you, is raising taxes on the rich. And let me tell you why. And, by the way, let me preface it one more time, I agree with you that none of our tax money should go for illegal aliens or somebody's elective abortion or somebody's opinion of which way the climate may be going, all of that is not where our tax money should be going, but it should be going to the military. It should be going for police, fire, everything that protects our life and safety, and right now those exact areas are being underfunded. You're talking about actually getting rid of pensions not just for police officers and firefighters, but for the military.

RUSH: Well, but that's all local. Firefighters and police have nothing to do with federal taxes.

CALLER: Well, the military does and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are looking at getting rid of pensions for the military. And it's not just that. They're actually cutting back on things that protect us.

RUSH: Here's the problem, though. I mean you could take everything above $10 million in income, just confiscate it, and you couldn't pay for what you want paid for.

CALLER: Well, not this year, and I agree with you, I mean I wouldn't want to do anything that would actually hurt a rich person. I think rich people -- I mean, you know, Rush, you're probably a rich person yourself, the rich are richer than they've ever been, they've got more money than they ever had, if we increase our taxes to a reasonable tax rate like it was before George Bush, then over time, you know, that revenue would have to make a difference.

RUSH: You know, here's the problem. You're not talking about enough money to accomplish what you want to accomplish. The only way to accomplish what you want to accomplish is the federal government has got to stop spending.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: The rich are not richer than they've ever been. This country, the percentage of millionaires in this country is down 39% the last two years. The rich are not richer. There's so many myths that are associated with this.

CALLER: Yeah, I (unintelligible) because different articles say the complete opposite of that. But in any case --

RUSH: Well, who's writing them?

CALLER: Probably liberal idiots, but the 35% tax bracket, Rush, you gotta admit is radically lower than it's been, like after World War II, they raised it to 91% on the rich all the way up until John F. Kennedy lowered it and Reagan lowered it back to 50%.

RUSH: Yeah, but nobody ever paid that, nobody ever paid that. When Reagan took office and, by the way, John Kennedy had to cut those rates --

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: -- in order to spur economic growth and they got the top marginal rate down to 70% --

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: -- and that's what it was when Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal rate in this country was 70%.

CALLER: I know. So why can't we raise it back up to what Reagan lowered it to --

RUSH: Well, because when Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 28%, revenue to the Treasury doubled, went from $500 billion to almost a trillion dollars by cutting rates. The point, we don't need more taxes on anybody. There isn't enough revenue in the, quote, unquote, rich to fund pensions for military people or firemen or cops which is a local and state issue anyway. The feds have no business meddling with cops and firemen. They have nothing to do with it, it's a local issue in most places and some cases a state issue, but that's where it ends. What needs to happen here is more jobs. More jobs equals more taxpayers.

Now, the way you get to more jobs is to free up capital, i.e., money in the private sector and have less of it going to government. Government doesn't create jobs. There can't be a pension for anybody if there's no revenue to support it, and the government can only get revenue by taking it from somebody, or printing it, or borrowing it, and none of the three produce a single job that creates or produces anything. So what has to happen here, the government has got to stop spending what it's spending. You want money spent and allocated to pensions, then it's gotta be stopped, the spending has to be redirected from something else. There isn't the revenue in the private sector to tax and make this spending possible. We're already $16 trillion in debt. There's not enough revenue to get us out of debt by raising taxes on anybody.

This is purely an irresponsible spending problem, and the way to get started on reversing this is to reduce whatever pressure there is on job creation, reduce pressure on job advancement. The government needs to get out of the way. People that know how to create jobs must be freed and allowed to do so. Get the regulations off their backs, get the government out of their lives, and let them go to town. Then when you have more people working by definition you're gonna have more people paying taxes, and that equals more revenue to the government. If that's what you're interested in. Raising taxes has never increased revenue in a way that is sustainable and lasting and productive. Money only comes from one place. I'm talking about real money, not printed or borrowed or what have you, but money that results from productivity, creation of jobs, creation of products, performance of services or what have you.

It happens in the private sector. That is being shrunk. And Obama just said it in the sound bite that I just played. He knows. You suck capital out of the private sector, and you're sucking lifeblood out of the private sector. There isn't the money raising taxes on the rich. It's not there. And if you do it, you're just gonna slow down the economy even further. (interruption) When you say "only one solution," the one thing that is not tried and the one thing that we have not tried in all my life is to reduce the size of the government. Reagan tried and gave it his best shot. Budgets don't get smaller every year, they get bigger. Federal budget does nothing but expand. It's bloated. We all know why. Democrats want that to be the case. They want more and more people dependent on the federal government for their daily whatever so they keep voting Democrat.

March 2009, Reuters: "Number US Millionaires Falls by 25%." Churchill, a quote: "I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." You. Can't. Do. It. Every bucket has a handle. You stand in the bucket then try to lift yourself by lifting up the handle and yourself. It's not possible. I don't think you're a RINO. I think you've been corrupted by two things: Your passionate devotion to the military and all the years of your life that you've been subjected to the disinformation campaign and propaganda of the left-wing media; and those are the two things that are probably animating your belief system in this.

But the math doesn't work, the numbers aren't there, and it ought to be clear as day for everybody to see. We're losing jobs. We're losing revenue. Spending is sky-high. We can't afford these obligations that we've assumed. This whole pension thing is a big bugaboo with me anyway. The military I have a little bit more patience and understanding for that, but still this notion that you're gonna be paid for life for something you quit doing 30 years ago? I just never was raised that way. That just still is a foreign concept to me because somebody has to pay that, and under what obligation? Where is it written? Now, for the military, I can make a far more convincing case.

The military, I can see where there's a justification for that, give an what these people put on the line, but I don't know why citizens ought to be paying the pensions of union members and teachers and firemen, all that stuff when they don't have these things themselves. I don't have a freaking pension! I've had to create my own! Now, where is it written that other Americans should have one paid for by their neighbors? "But, Rush! But, Rush! Those deals were made. Those deals have to be honored." What if the money isn't there? "Well, I don't know." When the money isn't there for me, I just do without whatever it is I need or want.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/20/irs-data-show-most-millionaires-pay-taxes-at-higher-rate-than-middle-class/.com/politics/2011/09/19/obama-yields-to-liberal-outcry-on-entitlement-reform/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/4975922/Number-of-US-millionaires-falls-by-more-than-25pc.html

We're No Longer Alone: Obama's Tax Lies Refuted Throughout Media

RUSH: I no longer feel alone! For 20, 21 years I was it. We would get a speech by a Democrat like we got from Obama yesterday, I'd be the only guy refuting it. But now everybody's up to speed. Even the Associated Press is fact-checking Obama and finding that he's dead wrong about all of his assertions yesterday about taxes and who pays them.

I did something last night that I seldom do anymore. I watched cable news. I got bored with the football game after a while, it was not a good game to watch, and I knew that going in, and I watched a lot of the pregame, which kind of told me all I needed to know about the game anyway, so I'm channel surfing around and I could not have been happier. I don't know how to describe this. Let me try it this way.

One of my pet peeves for the 23 years I've been hosting this program is the liberal class envy lies on who pays taxes and who doesn't and this whole class envy rhetoric that the rich aren't paying their fair share and that we need to extract even more from them, with "fair share" never being really defined, just the whole class envy rhetoric. And for all of these years I was pretty -- don't misunderstand this, I'm ecstatic -- for all these years I pretty much felt like a lone voice. In fact, even at the end of the program yesterday we got an e-mail from somebody who said the rich should fight back and I talked about how that has never happened. That's even starting to happen now.

The, quote, unquote, rich are starting to fight back and defend themselves. I have to be honest with you. Last night Ted Baxter was superb on this. Ted Baxter had one of the best shows that he's ever had. And then Hannity came on, and then Greta, and everybody I watched, other than, of course, MSNBC, even CNN was getting this right. It's like when I say, show prep for the rest of the media. Folks, this doesn't have a prayer anymore. It used to be that a liberal Democrat would come out with this kind of nonsense, and we would have to sit and honestly worry about what are the chances, A, enough people are gonna buy this to see to it that it passes. We don't have that concern.

Everybody now knows this doesn't stand a prayer, everybody now knows that this wasn't even really a policy speech nor was this debacle of a thing, the joint session last Thursday night. Everybody sees Obama for what he is now, an abject failure who is simply launching a reelection campaign and polluting and degrading great institutions in the process, the Oval Office, joint session of Congress speech, you name it, whatever he is touching, whatever he's doing, wherever he goes, he is perverting a great institution, series of great institutions. The joint session of Congress speech is an institution that he perverted by turning it into a campaign appearance using the Rose Garden and the Oval Office for just shameless, pure political purposes. I know all presidents do it, but not in this brazen a way.

After he delivered this debacle of a speech yesterday, he then went to a fundraiser in New York where the price for admission was $38,500. Five thousand of that to Obama, the rest to the Democrat National Committee. And some people who were invited to this, rich liberals, were caught outside going, "What do you think of all this?" They started laughing, everybody knows that's not gonna pass, that's just a bumper sticker yesterday. Even the people walking into the fundraiser to ostensibly support the guy are laughing at him and not taking what he's saying seriously. And, folks, I think it's an important thing that Bill O'Reilly got it right, because as everybody knows, he has more power than anybody other than the president, and he was great on this last night. And, frankly, it's heartwarming to see.

I don't feel like a lone wolf anymore. I don't feel like a lone voice because the whole point of all this is to defeat it, the whole point is to see to it that people are educated and informed and understand exactly what a total joke Obama has become, how meaningless his remarks yesterday were, how destructive, if implemented, they are. And more and more people are seeing it, and more and more people are willing to say so. I mean even O'Reilly last night was admitting that he was rich. When I said it's a shame the rich aren't fighting back, the rich were fighting back. O'Reilly was admitting being rich and he was putting in context of what all he pays and how much it's gonna cost him and what's fair and everything, and I was clapping.

I've been doing this for 23 years. For 20 of those years -- and don't misunderstand this. When I say I felt like a lone wolf, all I mean is that this is something a lot of people either didn't understand, didn't take the time to understand, or felt fear in refuting it for whatever reason, because who wants to defend two-tenths of the population? Nobody has ever thought there was any of future in defending two-tenths of the population, which is what happens when you speak up for the rich. Well, now, the rich have not just become the rich, everybody now refers to the rich as the job creators. Everybody refers to them as the achievers. Everybody refers to them now, or most people on the right side of this issue, refer to them as people that we aspire to be. They no longer run around with this, at least universal, negative stereotype, and that is a fundamental, substantive change, and I must tell you that I was gratified and I was happy and I was ecstatic 'cause it's no fun being lone voice.

It really isn't fun being a lone voice, and now the level of education that's taken place, the level of understanding, and the ease with which people can now ease into this discussion to refute everything Obama said. Folks, it's all over the place. AP has done a fact check of Obama and basically destroyed everything fundamental to his speech yesterday. "Fact Check: Are Rich Taxed Less Than Secretaries? -- On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data." Now, we've had all this at RushLimbaugh.com. I'd have to ask Koko, but I told him when we put this up ten years ago, "It stays up every day. I don't care what happens, this is there every day," and it has been there every day. And now the response to a speech like Obama's that was always heard on this program is becoming standard everywhere else, including, unbelievably, the Associated Press.

I think there's a reason that the AP and the New York Times are lining up against Obama. I think it's nothing to do with taxes and who pays and who doesn't. I think there's a whole other reason why that's happening, which we discussed last week. And that is, they see their ideology on the line here. This guy is going to sink liberalism if he is not propelled to victory or if somebody doesn't take his place. They have figured out on the left that Obama's not worth saving if it means bye-bye liberalism. Their ideology is everything to them. They are liberals first before they're anything else. Whatever their religion is, liberalism comes first. Whatever their sexual identity is, liberalism comes first. Whatever their profession, liberalism comes first. And they were ecstatic, finally got somebody in office that they thought was gonna be the standard-bearer to take 'em to utopia and, instead, we have a country on the prospect of ruin. And they cannot allow for people to associate the ruination of this country with liberalism, and that's what Obama is, or worse, socialism.

So there are two stories by AP today rebelling against Obama. You had the New York Times last week giving voice to all of the Democrat-by-name critics of Obama's speech on Thursday night and again of his speech yesterday. Back to the AP fact check. "The wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government."

Somebody tell me when was the last time we saw this in the state-controlled or Drive-By Media? We have never seen it. This is the first time that we have seen liberal class envy assaulted with fact from the liberal media.

I'm telling you, this is fabulous. There's something going on and I know what it is. We'll discuss it in detail as the program unfolds. "The rich pay at a higher rate and as a group they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government." Now, you all know this, you've been here 23 years, 21 years, 20, 15. You know this; you've heard this every time the subject comes up, but it's now I guess commonplace or soon will be. "There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle income workers. In 2009 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above a million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the IRS; but that was less than 1% of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above a million dollars."

Now, normally the AP would be harping on that 1% demanding that they get soaked, maybe hung, and then new policies written to make sure it never happened again. Today, AP is defending them! And so are they being defended everywhere in the media. At the expense of who? The One! The Messiah! My gosh, folks, even David Brooks, in the New York Times, has a piece today admitting that he was a sap to buy into the false premise and promise that was Obama. Yep. He admits that he was a sap. I'll get to that as the program unfolds, but back to this AP fact-check because it gets better. "This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15% of their income in federal taxes."

Well, hey, they have just shot Barry Obama out of the water here. They have just taken every point that he made and they've blown it to smithereens -- and in the process, they've done the same thing to Warren "Buh-fay." "Lower income households will pay less. For example, households making between 40 and 50,000 will pay an average of 12 and a half percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between 20,000 and 30,000 will only pay 5.7%. Obama's claim things on the fact that for high income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46% of households mostly low and median income households will take no federal income taxes this year."

When's the last time you heard them admit that? There is even, folks... There is even... You can find it and I heard it explained on television last night exactly as happened here yesterday and as has happened every day that this subject has come up for the last 23 years. There was an explanation of the difference between capital gains income and earned income and the tax rates on both, and the fact that capital gains income has already been taxed once before as income. You have to earn the money before you invest it -- and then after you invest it, you have to keep it invested for a year if you want to claim a profit. I'm watching and reading all of this stuff and going, "Hallelujah! (clapping) Hallelujah." This is how it's supposed to happen. The broad mass education of people throughout the spectrum including the Drive-By Media.

Now, I don't want you to misunderstand me on something. I'm not saying the media's become one of us and I'm not saying this AP story means that they have forever soured on liberalism. No, no, no. This is separate and apart from that. This has to do with the fact that Obama is taking these people down and they don't want to go where he's leading them. Underneath the surface here, there is an effervescence of a movement (it has yet to reach the surface) to do something about this guy. The New York Times is leading it; the others have caught onto it. Even the Chicago Tribune had a column yesterday -- the Chicago Tribune! (I had it in the stack, just didn't get to it) -- on the best thing Obama could do is not run. The best thing he could do for the party and the country, just not run. The only way the party is gonna stand a chance of winning under current circumstances is if Obama's not on the ticket. Chicago Tribune.

RUSH: Do you remember (it wasn't that long ago) when Barack Obama told the "rich fat cats" on Wall Street...? This is back during the days of the AIG and other Wall Street bonus scandal, and you had all of Obama's ACORN-type people showing up on the front yards of AIG homes to protest their bonuses. Remember Obama telling the AIG people and all the other, quote, unquote, "rich fat cats" on Wall Street that he was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks? Well, guess what? Now it is only Obama's skin color that is standing between him and the pitchforks of the Congressional Black Caucus. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are openly admitting: If this were a white president who had done this economically to their constituents, they would be marching on the White House.

The only reason they're not is because of the color of his skin. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have said this. Now, the columnist in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune, is a guy named Steve Chapman, Steven Chapman, and the last column that he wrote about Obama was back in August. Back in August he said that Obama had accomplished undeniably historic, even great things. He killed Osama, he's getting us out of Iraq, he passed Obamacare. The only problem was the economy made him look bad. He said the economy even made Ronald Reagan look bad. Suddenly Chapman's changed his tune. He thinks Obama has to go, in just a month's time. Steven Chapman has changed his tune. Obama has to go for the good of the party, for the good of liberalism. That is what is at stake.

This is what all these people in the media now understand. That he alone is not worth saving; Liberalism is. So he is now cast-asidable, and Chapman joins an ever-growing chorus of people who do not think the economy is gonna turn around before November of 2012, and why would it? And if Obama were to get this package of proposals passed, you can forget about the economy ever turning around. I think yesterday proved that Barack Obama cannot handle the office of the presidency. He's perverted it; he's made it a laughingstock. I really think he's just not smart enough, folks. He doesn't have the temperament, and he doesn't understand how the country and its people function.

He thinks memorizing a bunch of catchphrase and bumper stick slogans and repeating them endlessly makes for a great vision. He's out there this morning (we've got the audio coming up) taking credit for this great victory over Khadafy and Libya. Taking credit for it! (impression) He talks about how, "In times in the past where we didn't save lives and we shouldn't have but this time we did." So he's comparing himself favorably to what didn't happen to the Third Reich during World War II but he stopped a modern-day Hitler with the UN; except he didn't use the UN, he used NATO, but that's a minor point. He thinks that by trashing one industry after another and targeting certain successful groups of people, the American people will confuse his tactics with leadership. This stuff isn't working anymore. Twenty years ago -- twenty-five years ago-- it was a slam dunk; it was going to work.

RUSH: I just got an e-mail. What did I do with it? "Dear Rush: I'm confused. You say that finally people recognize that the sixties version of America is over, that we finally, as a country, see it for what it is. Well, I contend that we've always agreed with you, for 23 years, which is one of the many reasons that you are still there despite efforts to unseat you. We are the majority. Liberals and moderates are leaning this way because they have no core values..." Uh, the fact that I might have been misunderstood over what I said in the first hour of the program troubles me. I didn't mean to imply that you people didn't get it. I was talking about media, talking about conservative media people spreading it. "Lone wolf" did not mean lone wolf citizen. I meant lone wolf media guy.

Anyway, I want to grab a phone call here. People have been waiting for an hour and a half. This is Stacy in Granger, Indiana. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here, Stacy.

CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh. It's an honor and pleasure to speak with you.

RUSH: I appreciate that.

CALLER: And I agree that you are spot-on with taxes. As a middle class citizen who pays taxes, I'm afforded the same privileges and freedoms of the so-called rich but I do not expect the so-called rich to pay any more for those same freedoms and privileges any more than I would expect a millionaire or millionaire standing in line next to me at a McDonald's to pay more for an Extra Value Meal.

RUSH: That's an excellent point.

CALLER: It irritates me to see the rich vilified. I admire success and wealth, and I want to earn. You know, I want to earn success and be wealthy someday. And regarding Mr. Buffett's story, some of the questions I would like to ask Mr. Obama, you know, I mean how is...? How would making Mr. Buffett pay more in taxes or make the so-called rich pay more in taxes help his secretary? I mean, seriously. How? How would it actually help her? How would it help me?

RUSH: It wouldn't. Exactly right.

CALLER: Yeah, exactly. Also I would ask him to specifically define what a "fair share" is, what a fair share is for the rich versus a fair share for the non-rich. I mean, where's the fairness in someone who pays no federal income tax for the same privileges and freedoms as the rich? To me it's not fair at all. I mean, those are the people that are actually getting the tax breaks.

RUSH: So then you understand this for what it is. All of this is a pack of lies to achieve what? What do you think the purpose Obama has is?

CALLER: Keeping his voting base. I mean, you have to keep these people down. You have to --

RUSH: No, understand. If he --

CALLER: -- have to make the rich an enemy --

RUSH: Stacy, if he could, he would implement this stuff. This is not just a speech. This is dreams. I mean this is stuff that if he could do this -- if he could do it by executive order -- he would do it.

CALLER: Yeah, and that's sad and unfortunate, and just like you said, it just irritates me to see the rich vilified and to see so many people who are duped by this guy and who believe it, who believe this, who have these beliefs.

RUSH: Well, there are those who do, obviously. They're the people who have been continued to be happy when they've been told or are told that other people are suffering. It doesn't change their life at all, as you pointed out. If anything, it might harm it. There might be fewer jobs for them. There might be less money for people to get raises if Obama gets what he wants. Anyway, you are right on the money. It's great to have you in the audience and I'm glad you called.

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-070642868.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/20/irs-data-show-most-millionaires-pay-taxes-at-higher-rate-than-middle-class/.com/politics/2011/09/19/obama-yields-to-liberal-outcry-on-entitlement-reform/

World atlas exaggerates Greenland’s ice loss claims:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-atlas-ice-idUSTRE78I4UG20110919

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

The Obama Diary (this is a very pro-Obama diary with lots of videos):

http://theobamadiary.com/

I Hate the Media:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/

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:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/signup/o2012-attackwatch-report-an-attack or after they have your email address, then use:

http://AttackWatch.com

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

http://theobamadiary.com/

Tomorrow’s Economy Today (lots of graphs).

http://www.economy-tomorrow.com/

We the people; online petitions from the people to the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WeThePeople

Conservative blogging and news:

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/

Political news site; looks comprehensive and possibly non-partisan:

http://electzu.com/

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

http://www.workforcefairness.com/

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.

http://www.timgroseclose.com/

Conservative Refocus (conservative opinion and a little news):

http://www.conservativerefocus.com/index.php

News and right-leaning commentary

http://www.frumforum.com/

Big Hairy News (right-leaning tongue-in-cheek and some actual news, sort of):

http://peacemoonbeam.typepad.com/bighairynews/

National Taxpayers Union:

http://www.ntu.org/

Millionaires who think they should pay more taxes:

http://patrioticmillionaires.org/

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

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/

Bankrupting America:

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/

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

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

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

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/

The cut, cap and balance amendment:

http://www.cutcapandbalanceact.com/

Club for Growth:

http://clubforgrowth.org/

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

http://rtr.org/

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

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Corruption Chronicles (wtching things judicial):

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog

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

http://jobs.majorityleader.gov/

Excellent economic news:

http://www.zerohedge.com/

Uncover age, sometimes a sensational right wing blog site:

http://www.uncoverage.net/

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

http://www.bareknuckledpundit.com/

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

http://frontpagemag.com/

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

http://www.framingthedialogue.com/

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

http://obamacare411.wordpress.com/

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

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

TEA Party . Org (conservative news and views):

http://www.teaparty.org/

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

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Front Page magazine, which is conservative with Jewish emphasis:

http://frontpagemag.com/

The fake Obama Facebook page:

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

Our Dirty Spending Secrets:

http://www.dirtyspendingsecrets.com/

The Right Perspective (blog):

http://rightperspective.wordpress.com/

Conservative byte (conservative blog; news):

http://conservativebyte.com/

The Government is not God, a political action committee:

http://www.gingpac.org/

Obama’s autopen twitter account:

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

The Minority Report (conservative blogging and news):

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/

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

http://www.shadowstats.com/

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

http://dropfox.com/

Cato Institute’s Downsizing Government

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/

Cool blog with a lot of excellent articles:

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/

Slimeball comics:

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

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

http://www.newscorpse.com/

Lots of current vids:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

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

http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/

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

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Calculated Risk Blog:

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

Calculated Risk Charts and Graphs:

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

This website, asks the eternal question...

http://www.isglennbeckright.com/

Renew America:

http://www.renewamerica.com/

The Party of 1776:

http://www.partyof1776.net/

Climate Realists:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php

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

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/

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

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

Right Wing News Watch

http://www.rightwingnewswatch.com/

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

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

The Right Scoop:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Pro-Life Unity:

http://www.prolifeunity.com/

Christian Healthcare Ministries (an alternative to health insurance)

http://chministries.org/

Daniel Mitchell’s blog:

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/

Capitalism Magazine

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

The truth wins (mostly commentary on economics).

http://thetruthwins.com/

Conservative 21 (blog)

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

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

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

The Center for Responsive Politics:

http://www.opensecrets.org/

What if George Bush did that?

http://whatifgeorgebushdidthat.wordpress.com/

The Lonely Conservative (news and conservative opinion):

http://lonelyconservative.com/

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

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

An article on the federal reserve:

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

The Economic Collapse Blog:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

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

http://www.albertmohler.com/

Readers begin a discussion, and other join in:

http://ricochet.com/

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

http://historyhalf.com/columns/

American History:

http://wallbuilders.com/

Citizen Tom (news and conservative commentary):

http://citizentom.com/

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

http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/

The Right brothers (sort of newsy and commentary):

http://therightbrothers.posterous.com/

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

http://ronbosoldier.blogspot.com/

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

http://www.libertysarmy.com/

News and opinion articles:

http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/

STORM’s official Revolutionary document:

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

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

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

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

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

Liberal collector of links and liberal news:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/

Good conservative news blog:

http://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/

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

http://radiopatriot.wordpress.com/

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

http://www.theblaze.com/

Conservative Girls are Hot:

http://girlontheright.com/

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

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

Good news site—Buck’s Right:

http://www.bucksright.com/

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

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

Palestinian Media Watch:

http://palwatch.org/

Right Bias:

http://rightbias.com/

Red, White and Blue news:

http://redwhitebluenews.com/

The Right Scoop (lots of videos):

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Excellent news source:

http://home.myway.com/

Union refund? Really?

http://www.unionrefund.org/

The Right Reasons (news and opinion):

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

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

http://www.mrc.org

Pundit and Pundette:

http://www.punditandpundette.com/

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

http://eltahrir.org/

Stand with Us:

http://www.standwithus.com/

A George Soros funded site:

http://thinkprogress.org/

Progressive media matters action network:

http://politicalcorrection.org/

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

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/

Kids Aren’t Cars:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tammy Bruce

http://tammybruce.com/

[California’s] Public Speakers blog:

http://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/

Flashpoint—California’s most significant political news:

http://www.flashreport.org/

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

http://www.publiusforum.com/

Political Chips:

http://www.politicalchips.org/

Brits at their best:

http://www.britsattheirbest.com/

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

http://politicalaffairs.net/

Headlines, short news stories:

http://www.thehotjoints.com/

Christmas is evil (Muslim website):

http://xmasisevil.com/index2.php

Conservative blogger:

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/

Verum Serum

http://www.verumserum.com/

The Tax Professor Blog

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

Moonbattery:

http://www.moonbattery.com/

Arbitrary Vote:

http://arbitraryvote.com/home

The Party of Know:

http://thepartyofknow.com/

Slap Blog

http://slapblog.com/

The latest news from Prison Planet:

http://prisonplanet.tv/

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

Right Wing News:

http://rightwingnews.com/

The Frugal Café:

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

The Left Coast Rebel:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/

The Freedomist:

http://freedomist.com/

Greg Gutfeld’s website:

http://freedomist.com/

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

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

The U.K.’s number watch:

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

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

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

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

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

Observations of a blue state conservative:

http://lonelyconservative.com/

Thomas “Soul man” Sewell’s column archive:

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

Walter E. Williams column archive:

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

Israpundit:

http://www.israpundit.com/

The Prairie Pundit:

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/

Conservative Art:

http://secularstupidest.com/

Conservative Club of Houston:

http://www.cclub.org/welcome

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

http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/

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

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

Raging Elephants:

http://www.ragingelephants.org/

Gulag bound:

http://gulagbound.com/

Hyscience:

http://www.hyscience.com/

Politi Fi

http://politifi.com/

TEA Party Patriots:

http://teapartypatriots.org/

South Montgomery County Liberty Group:

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

Hole in the Hull:

http://www.holeinthehull.com/

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

http://www.ncpa.org/

Ordering their pamphlets:

http://www.policypatriots.org/

Cartoon (Senator Meddler):

http://www.senatormedler.com/

Bear Witness:

http://bearwitness.info/default.aspx

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

Right Change (facts presented in an entertaining manner):

http://www.rightchange.com/

Bias alert from the Media Research Center:

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

Excellent conservative blogger:

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/

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

http://ourtab.org/

Center for Responsive Politics:

http://www.opensecrets.org/

The Chamber Post (pro-business blog):

http://www.chamberpost.com/

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

http://laborpains.org/

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

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Their opposition:

http://resistingthegreendragon.com/

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

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/

The WSJ Guide to Financial Reform

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

The WSJ Guide to Obamacare:

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

The WSJ Guide to Climate Change

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

Video-heavy news source:

http://www.mediaite.com/

Political News:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/

Planet Gore; blogs about the environment:

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

The Patriot Post:

http://patriotpost.us/

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

http://papundits.wordpress.com/

Index of (business) freedom, world rankings:

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

U.S. State economic freedom:

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

The All-American Blogger:

http://www.allamericanblogger.com/

The Right Scoop (with lots of vids):

http://www.therightscoop.com/

In case you have not seen it yet, Obsession:

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

Inside Islam; what a billion Muslims think:

http://vimeo.com/14121737

World Net Daily (News):

http://www.wnd.com/

Excellent blog with lots of cool vids:

http://benhoweblog.wordpress.com/

Black and Right:

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

The Right Network:

http://rightnetwork.com/

Video on the Right Network:

http://rightnetwork.com/videos/860061517

The newly designed Democrat website:

http://www.democrats.org/

Composition of Congress 1855–2010:

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

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

http://www.zeropartypolitics.com/

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

http://www.antijihadresistance.com/

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

http://ibnlive.in.com/

http://www.rawstory.com/

Black and Right dot com:

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

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

http://www.osborneink.com/

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

http://www.theblaze.com/

http://nakedemperornews.com/

http://pajamasmedia.com/

Muslim hope:

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

Anti-Obama sites:

http://howobamagotelected.com/

http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/

http://www.exposeobama.com/

International news, mostly about Israel and the Middle East:

http://www.haaretz.com/

http://www.jpost.com/

News headlines sites (with links):

http://drudgereport.com/

http://www.thedeadpelican.com/

Business blog and news:

http://www.bizzyblog.com/

And I have begun to sort out these links:

News and Opinions

Conservative News/Opinion Sites

The Daily Caller

http://dailycaller.com/

Sweetness and Light

http://sweetness-light.com/

Flopping Aces:

http://www.floppingaces.net/

News busters:

http://newsbusters.org/

Right wing news:

http://rightwingnews.com/

CNS News:

http://www.cnsnews.com/

Pajamas Media:

http://pajamasmedia.com/

Right Wing News:

http://rightwingnews.com/

Scared Monkeys (somewhat of a conservative newsy site):

http://scaredmonkeys.com/

Conservative News Source:

http://www.newsrealblog.com/

David’ Horowitz’s NewsReal:

http://www.newsrealblog.com/

Pamela Geller’s conservative website:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

The news sites and the alternative news media:

http://drudgereport.com/

http://www.hallindsey.com/

http://reason.com/

Andrew Breithbart’s websites:

http://biggovernment.breitbart.com/

Conservative Websites:

http://www.theodoresworld.net/

http://conservalinked.com/

http://www.moonbattery.com/

http://www.rockiesghostriders.com/

www.coalitionoftheswilling.net

http://shortforordinary.com/

A conservative worldview:

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

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

http://politipage.com/

Liberal News Sites

Democrat/Liberal news site:

http://intoxination.net/

News

CNS News:

http://www.cnsnews.com/home

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

http://www.ocregister.com/

Business News/Economy News

Investors Business Daily:

http://www.investors.com/

IBD editorials:

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

Great business and political news:

www.wsj.com

www.businessinsider.com

Quick News

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

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

Republican

Back to the basics for the Republican party:

http://www.republicanbasics.com/

Republican Stop Obamacare site:

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

North Suburban Republican Forum:

http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.org/

Politics

You Decide Politics (it appears conservative to me):

http://www.youdecidepolitics.com/

The Left

From the left:

http://www.loonwatch.com/

Far left websites:

www.dailykos.com

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

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

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

Insane, leftist blogs:

http://teabaggersrcoming.blogspot.com/

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

Media

Media Research Center

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

Conservative Blogs

Mike’s America

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/

Dick Morris:

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

David Limbaugh (great columns this week)

http://davidlimbaugh.com/

Texas Fred (blog and news):

http://texasfred.net/

Conservative Blogs:

http://atimetochoose.wordpress.com/

http://americanelephant.com/

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

The top 100 conservative sites:

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

Sensible blogger Burt Folsom:

http://www.burtfolsom.com/

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

http://constitutingamerica.org/

Conservative news/opinion site:

http://www.humanevents.com/

The Left Coast Rebel:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/

Good conservative blogs:

http://tammybruce.com/

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/

http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/

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

http://www.baltimorereporter.com/

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/

www.rightofanation.com

The Romantic Poet’s Webblog:

http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/

Brain Shavings (common sense from the Buckeye State):

http://brainshavings.com/

Green Hell blog:

http://greenhellblog.com/

Daniel Hannan’s blog:

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

Conservative blog:

http://wyblog.us/blog/

Richard O’Leary’s websites:

www.letfreedomwork.com

www.freedomtaskforce.com

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

Freedom Works:

http://www.freedomworks.org/

Yankee Phil’s Blogspot:

http://yankeephil.blogspot.com/

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

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/

Babes

And simply because I like cute, intelligent babes:

http://alisonrosen.com/

Liberty Chick:

http://libertychick.com/

Dee Dee’s political blog:

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

The Latina Freedom Fighter:

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

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

http://althouse.blogspot.com/

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

http://www.judithmiller.com/

http://ifbushhaddonethat.com/

A mixed bag of blogs and news sites

Left and right opinions with an international flair:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

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

http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/

More out-there blogs and sites

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

http://angrywhitedude.com/

Mofo Politics (a very anti-Obama site):

http://www.mofopolitics.com/

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

http://www.infowars.com/

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

http://magicnegrowatch.blogspot.com/

Okay, maybe this guy is racist:

http://angrywhitedude.com/

Media

Glenn Beck’s shows online:

http://www.watchglennbeck.com/

News busted all shows:

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

Joe Dan Media (great vids and music):

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

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

http://patriotsnetwork.com/

PolitiZoid on YouTube:

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

Reason TV

http://reason.tv/

This guy posts some excellent vids:

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

HipHop Republicans:

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

Topics

(alphabetical order)

Bailouts

Bailout recipients:

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

Eye on the bailout (this is fantastic!):

http://bailout.propublica.org/

The bailout map:

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

From:

http://www.propublica.org/

Border

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

http://secureborderintel.org/

http://borderinvasionpics.com/

Secure the Border:

http://securetheborder.org/

Capitalism

Liberty Works (conservative, economic site):

http://libertyworks.com/

Capitalism Magazine:

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

Communism

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

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

How this correlates to the goals of the ACLU:

http://dianedew.com/aclu.htm

Congress

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

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

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

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

Corrupt Media

The Economy/Economics

Bush “Tax Cut” myths and fallacies:

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

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

http://defeatthedebt.com/

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

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

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

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