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

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

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

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

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

Apple guru and CEO Steve Jobs died this week; and many people found this out on a device invented by him.

The Obama campaign sent out an email asking supporters to urge Congress to at least vote on the president's jobs bill right after Democratic majority leader Harry Reid blocked a vote on the bill in the Senate. The bill was brought to the floor by Republican Mitch McConnell.

Obama White House is still sending taxpayer money to Google in order to sell Obamacare.

We now know that now-dead radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was directly involved in the failed Christmas 2009 plot on a commercial jet and failed October 2010 plot on cargo planes. Awlaki actually showed the suspected Christmas Day bomber how to detonate the bomb he is accused of hiding in his underwear.

The Congressional Budget Office said Friday the Senate Democrats' proposed surtax on millionaires would raise $452.7 billion over 10 years, more than enough to pay for the $447 billion in spending and tax cuts included in President Barack Obama's jobs bill. Obama’s jobs bill is going to bail out state employees and unions for one year.

Some of the Wall Street protester-types also walked past the White House and protested the

Chamber of Commerce, which primarily represents small businesses who receive few if any under the table breaks from our government. This group did have a permit, which had been obtained months ago. Their website and organization goes back at least to early June of this year.

So far, none of these “spontaneous groups” have marched on the White House, and the president has indicated his support for these people.

You will notice, that, as time goes on, there are more and more pre-printed signs showing up at these “spontaneous” protests. Union people, of course, are wearing matching shirts.

CBS reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, while contacting the White House, asking questions about Operation Fast and Furious, was yelled at by Associate White House Communications Director Eric Schultz and screamed at by Department of Justice official Tracy Schmalerover. As has been mentioned in a previous issue, Holder has spoken about the precursor to Fast and Furious in Mexico and emails sent to him indicate, at the very least, he should have known what was happening with the program. At the most, Holder allowed a program that took over 2000 assault weapons into Mexico.

Billionaire Obama fundraiser George Kaiser visited the White House 16 times over the past 3 years, and is caught in the middle of the Solyndra scandal as the company's chief investor and prime beneficiary of the debt restructuring approved by the Obama Administration earlier this year.

Solyndra lists California Democratic Party as one of its creditors, which is quite unusual. The California Democratic Party's communications director, Tenoch Flores, said the organization was not owed "any funds in any form" by the California-based company. He said he was unclear why the party would be listed as a creditor in Solyndra's bankruptcy filing.

Woman sues Harris County Police Department (this is Houston, TX) because, after she was arrested, she was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh while she was taken to jail.

Two possible heavy hitters, Sarah Palin and Chris Christy, chose not to become Republican candidates for 2012.

The federal government has decided to challenge Alabama’s immigration law in court.

Florida moves up its place in the primary, which moves the first Republican primaries and caucuses in early and middle January, making many candidate events to occur in late December.

UK intelligence warns that there are 200 suicide bombers in the UK ready to strike. I wonder how many of these are Christian fundamentalists and how many are Islamic fundamentalists? My guess would be about 0% versus 100%.

An official from the U.S. State Department has called the Charlotte family of al-Qaida propagandist Samir Khan to offer the government's condolences on his death in a U.S. drone attack last week in Yemen, according to a family spokesman.

Prominent Salafi leaders on Thursday reiterated calls for applying Islamic Sharia law in Egypt in place of the man-made laws currently governing the country.

Venezuela president Hugo Chavez has announced that his government will expropriate hotels and holiday homes at an upmarket Caribbean resort. The president plans to turn Los Roques, an idyllic archipelago of deserted beaches of perfect white sand with swaying palms and dazzling coral reefs, into a state-run getaway for his country's urban poor.

Shocking news! Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprise find of ancient artifacts on his 3^rd diving attempt (they were 6' down), as reported in this paper about a month ago, turns out to have been staged. I can’t hardly believe it.

President Barrack Obama: “We’ve made steady progress to stabilize the economy.”

President Obama on the Solyndra loan guarantees: "It went through the regular review process and people felt that it was a good bet...If you look at the overall portfolio . overall it's doing well."

Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: "I don't remember being ever disappointed in the president."

President Obama: “I don't think they're [the American people] better off than they were four years ago. They're not better off than they were before Lehman's collapse, before the financial crisis-- before this extraordinary recession we're going through. I think that-- what we've seen is that we've been able to make steady progress to stabilize the economy. But the unemployment rate is still way too high. ”

President Barack Obama: "The question, then, is, will Congress do something? If Congress does something, then I can't run against a do-nothing Congress. If Congress does nothing, then it's not a matter of me running against them. I think the American people will run them out of town, because they are frustrated."

President Obama: “I think most wealthy Americans would agree with that if it helps us grow the economy and it helps to bring down our deficits. Now, this notion that folks are inherently selfish, that's just not true. But you've got to ask them, right? (Laughter.) People don't voluntarily pay taxes. But if you ask, most wealthy folks here in Dallas or around the country, they'll tell you, you know what, I want to make sure that I'm doing my share for America to succeed. But somebody has got to ask. Now, some Republicans in Congress, they're already dusting off the old -- their old records. "That's class warfare." Let me tell you something, 26 years ago -- some of you may have seen this on television, clips have been circulating -- 26 years ago, another President said that some of these tax loopholes, and I quote, "made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that's crazy. It's time we stopped it." That was 26 years ago. You know the name of that President? Ronald Reagan. (Laughter.) So was that class warfare? By the way, taxes are much lower now than they ever were when Ronald Reagan was President. I know a lot of folks have short memories, but I don't remember Republicans accusing Ronald Reagan of being a socialist -- (laughter) -- or engaging in class warfare, because he thought that everybody should do their fair share. (Applause.) Things have just gotten out of whack. (Laughter.) I'll tell you what, if asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher or a bus driver makes me a warrior for the middle class, I will wear that charge with honor. (Applause.) Because the only warfare I've seen is the battle waged against middle-class Americans for a decade now. And they're hurting and they need some help.”

Senator Chuck Schumer on Obama’s 5% tax on millionaires: “Drawing the line at a million dollars is the right thing to do."

Vice President Joe Biden: "There's a lot of people in Florida that have good reason to be upset because they've lost jobs, even though 50 some percent of the American people think the economy tanked because of the last administration, that's not relevant. What's relevant is, we're in charge. And right now, we are the ones in charge, and it's gotten better but it hasn't gotten good enough. And in states like Florida it's even been more stagnant because of the real estate market. And so I don't blame them for being mad. We're in charge, so they're angry."

Joe Biden, answering a question to a class of 5^th graders: "Because things got really bad before we came into office and an awful lot of companies said `there's no more jobs for you here.'"

Joe Biden: "I don't disrespect the Tea Party. I think the Tea Party and the Van Jones folks are different hats of the same concern. There's an overwhelming frustration. There's a great frustration here in America that the two parties haven't been able to get very much moving. We have been in this period where there's just nothing but fighting. So, you have, on the one hand, Van Jones' guys - whoever he is - the point is, talking about the excesses of Wall Street and there's some truth in what he says and there's truth in what the Tea Party says."

Obama: “I had a chance to meet a young man named Robert Baroz. He's an English teacher in Boston[.] ... In the last few years, he's received three pink slips because of budget cuts. Why wouldn't we want to pass a bill that puts somebody like Robert back in the classroom teaching our kids?” Except, the president never met this man; and, even though he got a pink slip, he is presently teaching.

Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, emailed this message to supporters: “President Obama is in Dallas today urging Americans who support the American Jobs Act to demand that Congress pass it already...But here's something you can do: Find Republican members of Congress on Twitter, call them out, and demand they pass this bill.” This was sent out shortly after Republican Mitch McConnell introduced the bill in the Senate and Senate leader, Harry Reid, blocked the vote. Although the context of this email was House Republicans, a similar email will not be sent out to urge Senate Democrats to pass the bill.

Representative Keith Ellison, when asked if regulations kill jobs: "I think the answer is no, and here is why: When we talked about increasing fuel efficiency standards, the industry responded, and they need engineers and designers and manufacturers, and they need actually more people to help respond to the new requirement."

Senator Dick Durbin on Bank of America: “Vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank," Durbin specifically limited one set of fees that banks could charge, so that Bank of America is instituting a new charge.

Al Sharpton, MSNBC: “[Herman Cain] had the right not to be involved [in the civil rights movement]. What he does not have the right is to rewrite history by saying that blacks were brainwashed by becoming Democrats, because when blacks became Democrats, my parents were Republicans. As I said, Dr. King's family was. I'm nine or ten years younger than Mr. Cain, and I joined the movement later on in the '60s when I was still a teenager. I don't begrudge him for not making my choice, but I do begrudge him for acting like we're brainwashed because we went with a Party that stood up for the Civil Rights Act of '64 and Voting Rights Act of '65. There's a reason blacks did not stay with the Republican Party. So I think when he stepped in to calling people brainwashed and totally discarded the fact that it was based on public policy that people made their political choices, and, in fact, changed their choices from the Party of Lincoln.” See By the Numbers.

Bill Maher: "And what is the Republican solution to these outrageous [racial] inequalities? There isn't one. And that's the point. Denying racism is the new racism...And that is the unwritten rule about being a black Republican. You're welcome in the party as long as you never, ever, ever mention race."

Wall Street Protesters chanting: “What do we want? We're not really sure! When do we want it? Now!” I think this was real.

Occupy Wall Street organizer Malini (?): “[We’re] trying to change the capitalist system that we have today because it’s not working for any of us...how do we really reform and bring revolutionary change to the United States”

“Wall Street” protestor in Houston: “My brother has $25,000 in student debt; why is this allowed to happen?”

White protest organizer about the Hispanics who are with him: "Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren't. I can't identify them. I'm not going to get into an identification game."

Nancy Pelosi: "God bless [corporations] for their success, God bless the shareholders who participate in that success. But let's not forget the workers who contributed to that success. And as long as productivity and wages continue to go like that - productivity up, wages not rising in any relation to productivity - we're going to have an erosion of the middle class. We're going to have people slipping down from it. Most people in the country, no matter how poor they are, believe they are in the middle class, and that's where they want to be, and we have to honor that aspiration. So we think they can say all they want to say about class warfare. Am I missing something here? Perhaps you will tell me in the Q & A as to why that is an illegitimate charge in a country that has life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in its founding documents. "

Jim Wallis on the Wall Street Protesters:

Here are a few things I do know about the Occupy Wall Street protesters:

When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand with the hungry, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand for those without a job or a home, they stand with Jesus.

When they are peaceful, non-violent, and love their neighbors (even the ones they don't agree with and who don't agree with them), they are walking as Jesus walked.

When they talk about holding banks and corporations accountable, they sound like Jesus and the biblical prophets before him who all spoke about holding the wealthy and powerful accountable.

Pray for those out on the streets.

Think of ways that you or your church can be Jesus to them.

Dan Rather: "The real moving force behind this, what's happening in the Wall Street protesters and the efforts to spread it around the country, is a woman operating out of her apartment in New York"

Jake Tapper: “You can hear them [Republican voters] make their peace with Romney.”

Senator Barack Obama: “Sub-prime lending started out as a good idea, helping Americans buy homes that they previously could not afford to.

NPR host Michelle Martin cued up Cain's remarks suggesting the Occupy Wall Street protests are

"planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration."

Then sports columnist and ESPN regular Kevin Blackistone said to Martin: "It sounds like to me what people who used to run the White Citizens Councils used to say in the South during the civil rights movement, that it was outside agitators who were coming in and stirring up black folks down there." Sure nuff; that old Cain is just like some southern racist. Don’t forget, we, as taxpayers help to pay for this “analysis.”

What should have followed would be the opinion of almost any person who would say, “That has to be about the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” Or words to that effect. Not on NPR.

MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Steve Jobs and Sarah Palin: “We've marked two important stories: the tragic and sad passing of a true creative genius at the age of just 56 and hopefully the end of a charade that's been going on for three years. One individual represents the very best of American exceptionalism- brilliant, determined, creative. The other represents the very worst form of American opportunism- vacuous, crass, and according to almost every biographer, vindictive, too.”

Occupy Portland protester: “Today’s TEA party...they’re a bunch of losers; they’re crazy people.”

GE CEO and Obama Jobs Czar Jeffrey Immelt wanders off the reservation on 60 Minutes tonite: “I think we should have basically the same tax policy that Germany, Japan, the UK - everybody else has, which is a tax rate in the mid-20s and no loopholes. Zero," he tells Stahl. "The U.S. has the most antiquated tax system. And that means some people are going to pay more taxes, and some people are going to pay less...Personally, I think [lowering taxes] will create jobs."

Michelle Williams, concerning Democrat John Lewis who was not allowed to speak at the Atlanta “Occupy Wall Street” gathering: "I am angry because this is not what democracy is all about. This is Marxist more Stalin like. Your movement, you're just riff-raff. You're an organized mob."

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson telling what happend when she was trying to get some information on Operation Fast and Furious: "In between the yelling that I received from the Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman - who would not put anything in writing - I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said. She wouldn't put anything in writing."

Stefan on Bulls and Bears: “Walmart is not going to expand its hiring practices next year because they feel bad over these [Wall Street] protestors.” [quoted from memory]

Mike Murphy: “On every defeated president, the political tombstone reads, ‘I screwed up the economy.’ ”

Scott Brown, after finding out that his opponent, Elizabeth Warren did not take off her clothes to get through school: “Thank God.”

President Richard Nixon: “In any organization, the man at the top must accept the responsibility.”

President Obama October 2011: “The reason I keep going around the country talkin’ about this jobs bill is because people really need help right now. Our economy really needs a jolt right now.”

President Obama Feb. 2009, selling the Stimulus Bill: “At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy into life.”

Newsman Jake Tapper: “Can he [Obama] get reelected if the economy is not significantly improved and does he deserve to?”

WH Spokesman Jay Carney: “Yes, and here's why: because what the election will be about is whose vision for America's future is best, whose ideas for moving America forward are best. And what we confidently believe is that the American people will see in President Obama's view for the future the right answers. What we also believe is that if the Republican nominee, once he or she emerges, runs on the proposals that have been generated so far, which are essentially mirror images - not mirror images but exact replications of the policies that got us into this mess, the American people won't think that is the right answer.”

Herman Cain about the Wall Street protesters: "It's coordinated to create a distraction so people won't focus on the failed policies of this administration...I don't have a lot of patience for people who want to protest the success of somebody else."

George Will about gridlock in Washington: "What debacle? We raised the debt ceiling, we set up the supercommittee, we avoided doing what the president wanted, which was pass the debt ceiling increase cleanly without any cuts in spending. Washington is in gridlock? Washington, in recent years, has passed TARP, the stimulus, Obamacare - big things. Now the country doesn't like a lot of what they did, but you can't say Washington has been gridlocked."

George Will: “In 1916, before we entered World War I and federal spending exploded, the richest man in America, John D Rockefeller could have written a personal check and retired our national debt. Today, the richest man in America, Bill Gates, could write a personal check of his entire net worth and not pay two months interest on the national debt.”

Peggy Noonan [of Obama]: “What is it you want me to give him credit for? I’m not being sarcastic.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner: "Nothing has disappointed me more than what's happened over the last five weeks - to watch the president of the United States give up on governing, give up on leading and spend full-time campaigning. We're legislating, he's campaigning. It's very disappointing."

Columnist Peggy Noonan: “A leader leads. Part of the president's problem is that he has never, from day one, been able to really pull in bipartisan support, either make Republicans afraid of him or want to follow him. He's never been able to do it. Part of the reason people are talking about Chris Christie is that he's in a Democratic state, he's a Republican governor, but he has made progress on deficits, spending, pensions, property taxes with a Democratic legislature. It's never an excuse that washes to say, "Oh, the other team, the other party are bad guys. They wouldn't follow me." If you're a leader, you make them...”

Noelle Nikpour about Obama and leader of the New Black Panthers together in a picture: “The media is pretty much left-wing this is their baby. Barack Obama was no more than a brand. The left-wing media made him popular, like BMW cars, Gucci. Anyone who is negative, anyone who is in the background of a photo [with Obama], they’re going to push it out of the way, as they are doing now.”

Darrell Issa to assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch about Operation Fast and Furious, on the pages and pages of emails, each of which is about 95% blacked out: “The pages go on like this forever. How dare you make an opening statement of cooperation. We had to subpoena again and again. Your representatives of the executive branch have discouraged witnesses from coming forward.”

Darrell Issa on Holder’s answers to Fast and Furious questions: “We certainly know he failed to meet the duty of candor.”

Mark Steyn: "Iran-Contra didn't rack of that kind of body count. Watergate didn't rack up that kind of body count. Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother, or whatever stupid story they were chasing around Wasilla for months, that didn't rack up a body count. There were hundreds of dead Mexicans from a gun running program run by the United States."

Newt Gingrich: “The elite media tried to pick the candidates. The elite media, they spent weeks, I mean, there were something like 115 articles that said, this is now a two-man race. And the country looked up and said, you don't have the right to tell us who is in the race.”

Bill Bennett Suggests the Bumper Sticker: "If you voted for him the last time to prove you are not a racist, you must vote against him this time to prove you are not an idiot."

Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin speaking about Obama’s political strengths: “He’s going to have a billion dollars up against the Republican candidate and he is going to have about 90% of the media in his back pocket.”

Noelle Nikpour: “This is going to be the year of endorsements: Palin’s endorsement, Christy’s, Rubio’s, DeMint’s and Trump’s.”

Tracey Byrnes, after seeing a particularly pathetic young Wall Street protestor: “If that was my child, I’d smack her 6 weeks to Sunday.”

Commentator and radio host Neil Bortz: “If you took fair share, millionaires and billionaires and pass this bill out of his [Obama’s] vocabulary, he’d be unable to deliver a speech.”

Dick Morris: “My head is for Romney, my heart is with Cain, my brain is with Gingrich and my feet have not voted yet.” (Quoted from memory).

Greg Gutfeld, about some Wall Street protestors were paid to be there: “How ironic is this, you have to pay someone to protest capitalism?”

Herman Cain: "I would make it a priority to upgrade all of our Aegis surface-to-air ballistic missile defense capabilities of all of our warships, all the way around the world. Make that a priority, and then say to Ahmadinejad, `Make my Day.'"

Rush Limbaugh: "Liberals want to talk about corporations and profits. Well, how about rich unions that don't pay one penny in federal income tax? And they make lots of profit. They shouldn't be tax exempt."

Rush Limbaugh: "Sharyl Attkisson once invited me to be her guest at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which I graciously turned down. She thought it would raise the roof off the place, which it would have. I didn't want to sit at the CBS table."

Rush Limbaugh: "Here you have Barack Obama who wants to raise taxes and he's going out and he's quoting Ronald Reagan, who everybody knows is famous for what? Cutting taxes."

Rush Limbaugh: "Bernanke's out there saying that the economic recovery is close to faltering. There is no recovery. They want to pretend that there is. How's that recovery working for you?"

Rush Limbaugh: "The Durbin amendment was tacked onto the already stupid Dodd-Frank bill at the last minute and that's what caused these debit card fees to increase at Bank of America in the first place. So if you object to this new $5 fee, your real target should be to send Dick Durbin home."

Rush Limbaugh: "Government doesn't have any money until it goes and gets it from other people."

Rush: "No liberal will ever win a national election being honest about who they are."

Rush: "If a conservative black's ever elected president, folks, you're gonna see genuine racism every day from the highest institutions of the media and the Democrat Party."

Rush: "Ronald Reagan created more jobs, including in the black community, than Obama ever has or ever will."

Rush: "Obama's jobs bill was never intended to be signed, the bill was never intended to be passed. It's there for the express purpose of allowing Obama and the Democrats to say the Republicans are the obstructionists. "

This is an interview that surprised me. Herman Cain, up the street from me, after signing books in the Woodlands, being interviewed by Lawrence O’Donnell. Cain more than held his own.

Herman Cain speaking at the Value Voters (other speakers can be easily searched out):

New FoxNews segment; Center Seat, where 4 people spend an entire segment quizzing one presidential candidate. Michele Bachmann does a very competent job with some good questions. This is enough to make me re-think Bachmann; there is a commercial first:

Laura Ingraham interviewing CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson sounds like a genuine reporter who recognizes that the White House is trying stonewall this investigation.

Mitt Romney’s inconvenient remarks (Democrats can hardly wait to use these various clips if Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate):

Hannity interviews J. Christian Adams about his new book on how radical the Holder justice department is:

Nancy Pelosi expressing sincere concern over the rhetoric of the TEA party participants:

Bad Lip Reading (these are hilarious—check these out, if you have not seen them yet):

1) I will admit that I still have misgivings about the banks being bailed out; however, they have, for the most part, paid back this debt.

2) CNN Money story has the headline “Home Ownership Sinks To 1930s Levels.” That is wrong! What happened is, Home ownership had a 1.1% drop over about a 10 year period, which was the largest drop since the 1930's, when there was a 4.2% drop in home ownership over a 5 year period. That is really slopping reporting. This is not as if Ladies Home Journal got this story from the AP and misinterpreted it. It is CNN Money!

3) Of course, no one has gone to jail over the home loan debacle; look who is in charge—Eric Holder is the Attorney General. Democrats, over the past decade or more have been protecting FNMA and FHLMC. Any investigation of the home loan crisis is going to implicate a lot of Democrats and these 2 institutions.

4) It is my understanding the Steve Jobs was born to a single mother who gave him up for adoption. Isn’t it marvelous that she chose to let this child live?

5) Steve jobs created about 50,000 jobs, made great technological products, all without taking a dime from the government.

6) Perry and Romney both look small in their tit-for-tat fights during the Republican debates.

7) O’Reilly and Krauthammer, who are great and perceptive commentators and newsmen, still think Cain will not be elected president.

8) Have you noticed the difference between the TEA party gatherings and the Wall Street protesters? TEA party people are never arrested and they pick up after themselves. Almost all of them hod up a sign they made themselves. The Wall Street protesters are getting arrested, clashing with the police and making a mess. More than half of them carry their own signs.

9) Jake Tapper said that you could hear various groups of conservatives make their peace with Mitt Romney (meaning, they were willing to accept him as their candidate). The problem here is, Romney carries about 25% of the vote at the max, which is how he did in 2008. He looks presidential, he’s a nice guy, but his sissy-boy slap fights with Rick Perry have not helped him (or Perry). I cannot see him as getting the Republican nomination.

10) It is not difficult for me to understand why large corporations and businesses have lots of cash and they are letting it sit on the sidelines and not investing it. I have a tiny amount of investment capital; and it is sitting on the sidelines, not being invested.

11) Far-left radicals discovered the primary system and began to elect really nutty people over the past 5–10 years. I think in just the past 2 or 3 years, we conservatives are discovering the primary system. If you want to make a change, your vote counts a lot more in the primaries.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that the "American Jobs Act" would make the federal deficit jump $288 billion in 2012. In other words, the 2012 deficit would rise by about twenty-five percent - from $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The most recent budget fight between Republicans and Democrats resulted in just a $22 billion cut to the 2012 deficit.

A $500 million green jobs program created in 2009 placed only 8,035 people in new jobs through June 30 instead of the 79,654 that they expected to train and place.

9.1% unemployment (because 100,000 new jobs is not enough to keep pace with population growth).

29–32 Wall Street Protests going on around the United States and about 57 going on around the world (according to an Occupy Wall Street organizer).

Obama plays his 83^rd round of golf, which is a presidential record-breaker. Personally, I am fine with this. I want him out there playing golf.

The House version of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supported by only 61 percent of that Chamber's Democrats versus 80 percent of the Republicans.

More importantly, it was Republicans that ended a Democrat filibuster preventing a vote on this bill in the Senate. 82 percent of Republicans voted for cloture versus 66 percent of Democrats.

In the final Senate vote on the Act, 82 percent of Republicans voted "Aye" versus 69 percent of Democrats.

Quite contrary to what Sharpton and most liberals think, a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported this Civil Rights Act.

The same is true for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when 94 percent of Senate Republicans voted in favor of the bill versus 73 percent of Democrats. The final vote on the House's version was even more stark as only one Senate Republican voted against it compared to seventeen Democrats.

In the House, 82 percent of Republicans supported the bill versus 78 percent of Democrats.

No matter how you slice it, both of these landmark pieces of civil rights legislation had greater support from Republicans than Democrats.

From:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/10/08/sharpton-doesnt-know-higher-percentage-republicans-democrats-voted-ci#ixzz1aJkSNJAP

The National Federation of Republican Women (a straw poll; not a scientific poll):

Sacramento news completely ignored the first TEA party demonstrations in downtown Sacramento. It was as if this movement did not exist, even though there were thousands of people who gathered for the first TEA party movement. However, there are Wall Street demonstrations going on right now, and the local press is there, asking them questions and taking photos and video.

Media is almost completely ignoring the violent and provocative language of the Wall Street Protesters. Do you recall when the media was all over the TEA party for their violent rhetoric which led to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords (except that it didn’t). Tons of articles on this false assertion, along with a presidential speech.

On several “news” shows, there has been talk about the gay soldier who was booed at a Republican debate. However, the soldier himself was not booed, but his question was booed; and that was by 2 or 3 people out of nearly 5000. I am not certain whether the media centers or Obama misrepresented this situation first, but they presented the exact same false story.

Google “5% millionaire tax.” You will get all kinds of stories on this, and they will tell you about how the rich can afford it and how the public is in favor of such a tax. But, do you know what they ignore? How much money this will bring in. They ignore that this will not come even close to paying for the Obama so-called Jobs Bill.

President lies about his laid off teacher story; the Obama Media Complex ignores this story.

Thursday, Zogby released a poll finding Herman Cain 20 points ahead of Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential nominee race. Despite the poll, Chris Matthews on his syndicated television show this weekend did a ten minute segment about this race without mentioning Cain's name once.

I thought certain that Sarah Palin would be given her last send-off on SNL’s cold open, but the cold open was all about Republican candidates. Still nothing about Solandra, Fast and Furious, or LightSquared.

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid blocked the vote to your jobs bill in the Senate. When will you talk with him and encourage him to put this bill up for a vote?

If you think a 5% additional tax on millionaires pays for Obama’s so-called jobs bill. It will not come anywhere close. His jobs bill is about a half a trillion dollars. This millionaire’s tax might bring in $10 or 20 billion (the CBO claims $40–50 billion over a year’s time, but they are wrong). These additional taxes won’t even touch Obama’s stimulus bill, which essentially is going to give a lot of states more money to pay for workers they already have...for one more year.

If Perry drops out of the Presidential race, where he throws his support is going to be quite meaningful. However, Palin and Rubio’s endorsements even more so.

Okay, I was wrong about Perry and Trump; and I am glad that I was wrong about them. I have been a fan of Herman Cain early on; but, I will admit, I just didn’t think he could get it. Now I am thinking he can. As for Romney, I cannot see him winning the Republican nomination.

So far, one other person has picked up on calling Herman Cain “Citizen Cain.” By next summer, look for this to be a lot more widespread. Expect some signs as well.

5% Additional Tax on Millionaires will not Cover Obama’s Jobs Bill—Not even close

Socialism: The mob assaults against our banking system by unemployed leftists and their political allies are part of a larger strategy to control the commanding heights of our economy. And we'll all be much poorer for it.

The White House has thrown in with the anticapitalism crowd, and banks had better watch out. You only had to hear President Obama's cynical, politicized expressions of sympathy for the unwashed legions "occupying" Wall Street this week to be worried.

"Not only did the financial sector, with the Republican Party in Congress, fight us every step of the way," Obama said at his news conference Thursday. "But now you've got these same folks arguing we should roll back all those reforms and go back to the way it was."

In fact, added Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, "We are going to push back harder," making what sounds like a fairly explicit threat against the banks.

Welcome to class warfare, 2011-style. Obama's ratings have never been lower, and administration policies leading to a dead-in-the-water economy with 9%-plus unemployment are incredibly unpopular.

So he must think his only hope for re-election is to somehow tie the GOP to fat-cat bankers on Wall Street and then convince voters that the banks are to blame for all their ills.

Sound cynical? It is. But this is what Obama and the Democrats are doing. They've even put out a video: "Republicans: On the Side of Wall Street, not Consumers."

Too bad for them it's all false. Obama and his party repeatedly opposed meaningful financial reforms in the 1990s and 2000s until it was too late. This, and not bank "greed," is what caused the system to melt down.

And for the record, Obama received three times as much cash from Goldman Sachs - now the whipping boy for the anti-Wall Street protestors - as John McCain.

Obama was also the No. 2 recipient of campaign largesse from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the government-run mortgage companies that are the main reasons for the meltdown and current ills. Yet, they remain untouched under financial "reform."

The ignorant children of privilege now throwing a leftist hissy fit on Wall Street apparently don't know this.

But we see something more than just campaign strategy here. So-called progressives like Obama have always sought to control the economy - to make it impossible for entrepreneurs and businesspeople to operate without government permission or guidance.

Banks are key to this. Not surprisingly, it's an idea progressives seem to have cribbed from Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto," a central tenet of which is "centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."

Sound familiar? Fannie and Freddie together control nearly half of U.S. mortgages. Now Democrats want a U.S. "infrastructure bank" to do for our roads, bridges and ports what Fannie and Freddie did for housing.

Create a crisis, then blame your foe: It's the oldest trick in the book. Yet this is what Democrats, with their anti-Wall Street dupes in the lead, are trying to pull.

For America to remain a capitalist nation, America's banks must remain free. Keep this in mind as you listen to anti-bank slanders from the White House and the anarchists.

Democrats may think this is just politics, but they do the nation a grave disservice when they scapegoat bankers for the problems politicians create.

If you ask any five of the many "Occupy Wall Street" camper-protesters why they've been sleeping, eating, partying and protesting in the Financial District day after day, braving rainstorms and increasingly chilly nights, you're likely to get five different answers.

Since I live near the encampment in the shadow of Ground Zero, I decided to visit Zuccotti Park early Monday morning to pose that question. Here's what I was told:

"I want to overthrow the U.S. government," said Brian Phillips, a 25 year-old former Marine who now heads the protesters' communications and security group.

"We want transparency, education and empowerment," said Will Roper, a disabled electrician who usually lives in Connecticut with his wife and two kids.

"We're building an alternative community," said Amy, 29, a former substitute school teacher who came here on "day one" to see what was going on and now largely through donations helps feed 200 to 1,000 people a day.

"We want to end the war," said a woman who refused to tell me her give her name or age, but acknowledged being old enough to have been at Woodstock.

"We want to stop companies with government help from polluting our water and land," said Thomas, a 28-year-old self-described "jack of all trades" who came here from Tampa to protest.

There is a common theme to these answers: the mostly young people in the park are the 99% of the country that is suffering while 1% thrives.

Some are troubled by the demonstrators' lack of focus, by their absence of constructive policy prescriptions. This, writes my friend John Avlon, among the first to recognize the importance of the Tea Party, is a "lost opportunity."

I disagree. The refreshing thing about this modern-day "be-in" is its lack of predictable demands - its disdain for ostensible solutions to intractable problems. Their response is a primal scream against our high finance-bailout culture. It is not that dissimilar from the frustration that ignited the Tea Party in its early incarnation, before it got "organized," which is to say, hijacked by right-wing billionaires.

Every day provides reason for fresh outrage - be it the $20 million bonuses for men rewarded for driving their companies into near-bankruptcy and new taxpayer bailouts, our stubbornly high unemployment rate, the continuing expulsion of middle-class Americans from the homes that were supposed to be their castles, or health insurance premiums that have recently soared by 9%, only 1.5% of which is attributable to the 2,000-page mess of a bill that Obama promoted and Congress passed.

It's a scream about corruption between government and corporations. On Tuesday, Elisabeth Rosenthal at The New York Times obtained hundreds of emails showing how the State Department has cozied up to a Canadian pipeline company, TransCanada, becoming its facilitator at the potential expense of the nation's environmental laws. In the emails, environmentalists plead futilely for meetings while company reps waltz in and out of the State Department.

And who is TransCanada's lobbyist? Paul Elliott, a top official in now-Secretary of State Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Many of the protesters are among the younger Americans who turned out in flocks in 2008 to help a young, inexperienced black senator with a silver tongue astonish the world by becoming President. But after capturing their yearning for "hope and change," Obama has lost them. Ronald Suskind's disheartening new book, "Confidence Men," portrays a weak President who surrounds himself with officials whose "solutions" have helped perpetuate America's economic misery. A sample: Though Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ignores an Obama decision on Citibank, he retains his job as treasury secretary, thanks to a President too much in the thrall of Wall Street to fire him.

The protesters may not have the answers to America's economic decline and political malaise, but at least they are no longer ignoring the stench of political cronyism and corruption emanating from Wall Street and Washington. Like the early Tea Party activists, they have articulated the helplessness and fear of so many Americans. The question we should be asking is not what is their program, but what took them so long?

Although Judith Miller is a moderate, she did manage to find some coherence among many of these Wall Street Protesters

Since it has been almost 900 days since the Senate passed a budget, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) decided it was time for Senate Democrats to break their budget-less streak, stream-line the budget process, and do something about Obama's federal pay freeze that wasn't actually a pay freeze. They did this by introducing the Honest Budget Act.

The bill summary says it will provide more transparency and honesty in the Federal budget process and would require compliance from both the House and the Senate. There are 9 sections of this bill that seek to eliminate the budget gimmicks, double counting, and irresponsible appropriations.

No Budget- No Appropriations: The government is funded through omnibus appropriation bills and short-term resolutions as a result of not passing a budget. This provision would require Congress to pass a budget or they would not receive appropriated funds.

No Phony Emergency Designations: There are programs that need emergency spending like September 11th, but there are programs that do not. Unfortunately, they are programs that get passed as emergency spending when they are not dire emergencies. For example, between 2008 and 2010, the extension of unemployment benefits were considered emergency spending but added $177 billion to the deficit. Under current legislation, a Senator has the ability to raise an issue against unnecessary spending but it can be waived with a 60-vote majority. The bill would require emergency spending to be considered as a separate amendment instead of the entire omnibus bill.

Credit Reform: When government hands out a loan, they are required by the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 to come up with a budget for the cost of the loan. However, they are not required to consider "market risk" like the fact that we are on the brink of another recession when calculating the risk of that loan. For example, when the Obama administration granted Solar Energy Company Solyndra a $535 million taxpayer funded loan - they were not required to consider the market risk for that loan or that we were in a recession and Americans cannot afford expensive solar panels. Solyndra recently went bankrupt and taxpayers are in the hole for that $535 million loan. This provision would require government to consider market risk before they committed taxpayer money to a pricey project.

No CHIMPS (Changes in Mandatory Spending Programs) in Appropriations Bills: Throughout the debt ceiling and government shutdown debates, many Congressmen and women used money that had not yet been spent in the mandatory section of the budget to count as savings in the discretionary budget. So if Medicare payments totaling $100 billion are to be spread out over the course of 10 years ($10 billion per year), a Congressman could not claim that the budget for that current year contains $90 billion in savings. It would be like putting a $100 jacket on a 10-month layaway plan with a $10 payment each month and claiming that you saved $90 - you eventually have to pay the remaining $90. This provision extends the existing resolution that establishes a 60-vote point of order against a consideration of appropriations that contain CHIMPS and does away with the exceptions of CHIMPS that have been grandfathered into the system three years prior to the FY 2009 existing resolution.

Budget Accounting: During the debt ceiling debates, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) offered a proposal that raised the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion and cut $2.2 trillion from future spending. The problem is he when he counted the savings; he used the spending that was going to drop anyway from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This provision in the bill stops double counting and requires that a new budget would count savings from the same fiscal year as the budget. In other words, if it does not produce cash savings, it shouldn't be counted as savings.

Make Obama's Pay Freeze Real: Obama's claim in November 2010 that he froze pay for federal workers is one of the most misleading claims of his administration. The federal pay grade system is quite different from that of the private sector. Private sector workers tend to receive an increase in pay only when their performance is considered above average or exceptional. On the other hand, federal workers designated as "General Schedule" (GS) receive automatic step increases, or raises, within their pay grade each year. Obama's pay freeze did not freeze the automatic step increases, just the cost-of-living increases. This section of the bill would suspend the "step" increases and the cost of living increases making it a real pay freeze.

Prevent Abuse of Advanced Appropriations: Appropriations are generally counted in the fiscal year the funds first become available. But some appropriations for programs are needed years in advance like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) because they need to plan out their programming for years in advance. Congress will not count those planned funds until they become available that year. They use deferred appropriations to count for immediate spending and then when it is time for the money to be spent, they request more money. Since 2000, the Senate limited advanced appropriations but this limit was not extended for the FY 2012 budget resolution and now there are no limits on advance appropriations. This section in the bill would reinstate the 2000 provision that limited advanced appropriations but would extend the traditional exceptions for CPB and other programs like Veterans medical accounts.

Prohibit Timing Shifts: There are existing rules in the budget that enforce spending, revenue, and deficit levels over certain time frames. Many times legislation will include provisions in it that exempt the bill from abiding by the rules. Legislators will simply introduce bills that move the date in which payments need to be made to an old program to make it look like the new program they are advocating is "paid for." Essentially, they delay payments to older programs where money is committed. This provision would prohibit spending and revenue timing shifts or delayed payments.

Score General Fund Transfers for Highways: We currently pay a gasoline tax that goes towards highway and road projects. Since revenue from this tax has significantly dropped since 2005, Congress has transferred general tax revenue to the Highway trust fund to cover this shortfall. Under current rules for the CBO to score a piece of legislation, transfers from general tax revenue to the HTF are considered neutral and the CBO is required to only score the amount paid out by the HTF. They are not required to score the actual transfer of general funds into the HTF. For example, let's say you have $500 in your savings and your checking account and you decide to transfer $100 from your savings into your checking, you wouldn't claim that you had $600 in your checking and $500 in your savings. You would say you had $600 in your checking and $400 in your savings. This requires that general transfers or loans between the General tax revenue fund and HTF to be counted as new spending.

The National Review points out that the Senate Budget Committee reports that the gimmicks targeted in this budget have added more than $350 billion to the deficit since 2005. If President Obama really wanted to reduce our deficits, he would start demanding Congress pass the Honest Budget Act.

You wouldn't spend money without seeing if you had the funds in your budget first. You wouldn't charge something to your credit card unless it was a true emergency. You wouldn't invest your money into something without evaluating the risk. You wouldn't claim you saved money on an item that you put on layaway. You wouldn't write a check for more than you have in your checking account. And if you are lucky enough to have a job right now, you definitely wouldn't get a raise without doing something to deserve it in the first place. We elect lawmakers to represent us in Washington and we should expect them to budget the same way we do.

Here's a refreshing idea: Congress should fairly, accurately and transparently report spending and savings figures. The Honest Budget Act of 2011, introduced by Senators Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), would force lawmakers to do just that.

Budget gimmicks have unfortunately become the norm in Congress. At a time when the national debt tops $14.8 trillion, lawmakers cannot and should not dupe Americans into believing they are voting for a bill that shrinks the size and scope of the federal government when, more often than not, it does exactly the opposite.

The Honest Budget Act would close accounting loopholes and end the budget subterfuge employed by lawmakers. The legislation would make it more difficult to pass an appropriations bill without a budget resolution in place. It would also tighten the process for adding "emergency" designations; force members to use a market default risk rate that reflects loans' fair value; prevent scoring rescissions of budget authority as savings if they do not produce actual cash savings; eliminate automatic within-grade step increases, thereby making President Obama's two-year federal pay freeze genuine; require that transfers from the General Fund to bail out the Highway Trust Fund be scored as new spending; and reinstate a budget point of order to limit Congress's ability to defer increased spending to future years.

Sometimes, legislation includes provisions that serve no purpose other than to move outlays and revenues between fiscal years in order to skirt budget rules. The Honest Budget Act would institute a scoring rule to prohibit spending and revenue impacts of time shifts from counting for budget enforcement purposes. Additionally, the legislation would extend an existing Senate point of order against all changes in mandatory spending programs (ChiMPs) that increase the deficit. Currently, appropriations bills can claim phony discretionary savings from ChiMPs. Appropriations bills typically include at least $8 billion in ChiMPs to offset increased spending on discretionary appropriations.

Many current budget practices are dishonest, deceitful and unacceptable to taxpayers. The Honest Budget Act of 2011 will force Congress to adhere to fair and transparent budgeting and accounting procedures. Senator Sessions pointed out:

It's time to wake up and smell the deficit. Continuing to find loopholes and employ budget gimmicks will only exacerbate our nation's fiscal issues.

At a symposium in Colorado at which thoughtful people from many professions spoke, and later in conversation with people who care about books in California, two things we all know to be true became more vivid to me.

The first is that nobody is optimistic about the world economy. No one sees the Western nations righting themselves any time soon, no one sees lower unemployment coming down the pike, or fewer foreclosures. No one was burly: "Everything will be fine, snap out of it!" Everyone admitted tough times lie ahead.

The second is that everyone hungers for leadership. Really, everyone. And really, it is a hunger. They want so much to be able to respect and feel trust in their political leaders. Everyone hungers for someone strong, honest and capable -- as big as the moment. But the presidential contest, the default topic when Americans gather, tended to become somewhat secondary. Underlying everything was a widespread sense among Democrats and Republicans, lefties and righties, that President Obama isn't big enough, and that we don't have to argue about this anymore. There was also a broad sense that there is no particular reason to believe any one of the Republicans is big enough, either.

Actually, I saw a third thing. There is, I think, a kind of new patriotism among our professional classes. They talk about America now and their eyes fill up. With business people and doctors and scientists, there used to be a kind of detachment, an ironic distance they held between themselves and Washington, themselves and national problems. "The future of our country" was the kind of earnest topic they wouldn't or couldn't survey without a wry smile. But now I believe I see a deep yearning to help, to do the right thing, to be part of a rebuilding, and it is a yearning based in true and absolute anxiety that we may lose this wonderful thing we were born into, this America, this brilliant golden gift.

At the end of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie," Tom, the narrator, tells us he never stopped thinking of his sister and his mother and their sadness, for "I was more faithful than I intended to be." That, I think, is the mood taking hold among members of what used to be called the American leadership class -- slightly taken aback by their love for America, by their protectiveness toward her.

The untapped patriotism out there -- if it were electricity, it would remake the grid and light up the world. And it's among all professions, classes and groups, from the boardroom to the Tea Party meeting to the pediatric ICU.

We think patriotism reached its height after 9/11, but I think it is reaching some new height now, and we're only beginning to notice.

And here we turn to politics. Are those running for president aware of the fix we're in? I'm not sure they are. For one thing, if they knew, they wouldn't look so dementedly chipper. And they wouldn't all be talking about The Narrative. Which is all I heard once I came back East.

The Narrative has nothing to do with what is actually happening in the country. That would make too much sense. The Narrative is the story of a candidate or a candidacy, or the story of a presidency. Everyone in politics is supposed to have one. They're supposedly powerful. Voters believe them.

Everyone in politics should stop this. For one thing, a narrative is not something that can be imposed, it is something that bubbles up. It's something people perceive on their own and then talk about, and if it's true, the talk spreads.

Here I return to Ron Suskind's book, "Confidence Men." As noted last week, Mr. Suskind has been criticized for getting quotes and facts wrong. But the White House hasn't disputed his interview with Mr. Obama, who had some remarkable things to say.

It turns out he too is obsessed with The Narrative. Mr. Suskind asked him why his team had difficulty creating a policy to deal with unemployment. Mr. Obama said some of it was due to circumstances, some to the complexity of the problem. Then he added: "We didn't have a clean story that we wanted to tell against which we would measure various actions." Huh? It wasn't "clean," he explained, because "what was required to save the economy might not always match up with what would make for a good story."

Throughout the interview the president seems preoccupied with "shaping a story for the American people." He says: "The irony is, the reason I was in this office is because I told a story to the American people." But, he confesses, "that narrative thread we just lost" in his first years.

Then he asks, "What's the particular requirement of the president that no one else can do?" He answers: "What the president can do, that nobody else can do, is tell a story to the American people" about where we are as a nation and should be.

Tell a story to the American people? That's your job? Not adopting good policies? Not defending the nation? Storytelling?

The interview reflects the weird inability of so many in political leadership now to acknowledge the role in life of . . . reality.

Overthinking the obvious and focusing on the artifice and myth of politics is a problem for all political professionals, including Republicans. Sarah Palin was out there this week trying to impose her own narrative: that she's all roguey and mavericky and she'd win if she ran, but she's not sure the presidency -- "the title" -- wouldn't dull her special magic. It was like Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard." She's still big, it's the presidency that got small.

But this is mostly a problem for the Democratic Party at the national level, and has been since the 1980s. It reflects a disdain for the American people -- they need their little stories -- and it springs from an inability to understand the Reagan era. Democrats looked at him and the speeches and the crowds and balloons and thought: "I get it, politics is now all show biz." Because they couldn't take Reagan's views and philosophy seriously, they couldn't believe anyone else could, either. So they explained him through a story. The story was that Reagan's success was due not to decisions and their outcomes but to a narrative. The narrative was "Morning in America": Everything's good, everyone's happy.

Here's the problem: There is no story. At the end of the day, there is only reality. Things work or they don't. When they work, people notice, and say it.

Would the next president like a story? Here's one. America was anxious, and feared it was losing the air of opportunity that had allowed it to be what it was -- expansive, generous, future-trusting. It was losing faith in its establishments and institutions. And someone came out of that need who led -- who was wise and courageous and began to turn the ship around. And we saved our country, and that way saved the world.

There's a narrative for you, the only one that matters. Go be a hero of that story. It will get around. It will bubble up.

George Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist, a Newsweek columnist, a regular panelist on ABC's This Week, and the author of numerous books on politics and baseball. He delivered these remarks at the Cato Institute's biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty Dinner on May 13.

I want to thank all of the people in this room for making Cato and its work possible. I also want to thank a few million more people who, in recent weeks, have toiled to demonstrate in a timely manner why Cato is necessary. I refer, of course, to the people of Greece.

Milton Friedman, whose name we honor tonight, was honored often for his recondite and subtle scholarship. But it was complemented by a sturdy common sense much in fashion nowhere now. About 40 years ago he found himself in an Asian country where the government was extremely eager to show off a public works project of which it was inordinately and excessively fond. It was digging a canal. They took Milton out to see this, and he was astonished because there were hordes of workers but no heavy equipment. He remarked on this to his government guide, who replied, "You don't understand, Mr. Friedman. This is a jobs program. That's why we only have men with shovels." To which Friedman said, "Well, if it's a jobs program, why don't they have spoons instead of shovels?"

The attempt to educate the world to the principles of rationality and liberty never ends. For a lot of us, it began in earnest in 1962 with the publication of Capitalism and Freedom. In 1964, two years later, we got a demonstration of how urgent it was to have that book, when Lyndon Johnson, campaigning for president, said, "We're in favor of a lot of things, and we're against mighty few."

In 1964, the man running against Johnson was Barry Goldwater who, to the superficial observer, appeared to lose because he carried only six states. When the final votes were tabulated, 16 years later, it was clear he had won. It was, however, a contingent victory.

In 2007, per capita welfare state spending, adjusted for inflation, was 77 percent higher than it had been when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated 27 years earlier. The trend continues and the trend is ominous. Fifty-one days ago the president signed into law health care reform, that great lunge to complete the New Deal project and the Great Society, that great lunge to make us more European. At exactly the moment that this is done the European Ponzi scheme of the social welfare state is being revealed for what it is.

There is a difference. We are not Europeans. We are not, in Orwell's phrase, a "state-broken people." We do not have a feudal background of subservience to the state. No, that is the project of the current administration - it can be boiled down to learned feudalism. It is a dependency agenda that I have been talking about ad nauseam.

Two recent examples. First, when the government took over student loans, making it the case that the two most important financial transactions of the average family - a housing mortgage and a loan for college - will now be transactions with the government, they included a provision that said there will be special forgiveness of student loans for those who go to work for the government or for nonprofits. Second, one third of the recent stimulus was devoted to preserving unionized public employees' jobs in states and local municipalities. And so it goes. The agenda is constant.

In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the final dissolution, in some ways, of the federal government's sense of restraint) was advertised as aid for the poorest of the poor. Eighteen years later, in 1983, 90 percent of all school districts were participating in this. It is a principle of liberal social legislation that a program for the poor is a poor program. The assumption is that middle class Americans will not support a program aimed only at the poor. That is a theory refuted by the fact that the Earned Income Tax Credit - a policy supported and extended by Ronald Reagan - is extremely popular in this country. But it does reveal the fact that dependency is the agenda of the other side. Their agenda is to make more and more people dependent on the government for more and more things.

We can see today, in the headlines from Europe, where that leads. It leads to the streets of Athens, where we had what the media described as "anti-government mobs." Anti-government mobs composed almost entirely of government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements!

The Greeks and the Europeans have said all along, as they increase the weight of the state, "So far, so good." It reminds me, as everything eventually does, of a baseball story. In 1951 Warren Spahn, on the way to becoming the winningest left-handed pitcher in the history of baseball, was pitching for the then-Boston Braves against the then-New York Giants in the then-Polo Grounds. The Giants sent up to the plate a rookie who was zero for twelve. It was clear this kid, name of Willie Mays, could never handle big league pitching. Spahn stood out on the mound 60 feet and six inches away, threw the ball to Willie Mays, who crushed it - first hit, first home run. After the game the sports writers came up to Spahn in the Club House and asked, "Spahnie, what happened?" Spahn said, "Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet that was a hell of a pitch!"

It's not good enough in baseball and it's not good enough in governance, either. Let me give you a framework to understand this extraordinarily interesting moment in which we live. I believe that today, as has been the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable future, the American political argument is an argument between two Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton's president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located, where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics, and ruined the 20th century.

I'm simplifying a bit. Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from human nature and from the natural rights with which we are endowed, and which preexist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the 19th century discovery that history is a proper noun - History - with a mind and a life of its own, argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it's the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that - in his view - dispenses rights.

Heraclitus famously said that you "cannot step into the same river twice," meaning the river would change. The modern Progressive believes you can't step into the same river twice because you change constantly.

Those of us of the Madisonian persuasion believe that we take our bearings from a certain constancy. Not from - to coin a phrase - "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." That phrase, from Justice Warren, has become the standard by which the Constitution is turned into a living document - a Constitution that no longer can constitute. A constitution has, as Justice Scalia has said, an anti-evolutionary purpose. The very virtue of a constitution is that it's not changeable. It exists to prevent change, to embed certain rights so that they cannot easily be taken away.

Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate, attenuate, or dilute others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the Progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you, and spare you the strain and terror of striving.

The result of this is now clear. We see, in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries, what Yuval Levin has called a "gluttonous feast upon the flesh of the future." We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them. One statistic: 50 percent of all Americans 55 years old or older have less than $50,000 in savings and investment. The feast on the flesh of the future is what debt is.

Let's get a sense of the size of our debt. In 1916, in Woodrow Wilson's first term, the richest man in America, John D. Rockefeller, could have written a personal check and retired the national debt. Today, the richest man in America, Bill Gates, could write a personal check for all his worth and not pay two months interest on the national debt. By 2015, debt service will consume about one-quarter of individual income taxes. Ten years from now the three main entitlements - Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - plus interest will consume 93 percent of all federal revenues. Twenty years from now debt service will be the largest item in the federal budget.

Calvin Coolidge, the last president with whom I fully agreed, once said that when you see a problem coming down the road at you, relax - nine times out of ten it will go into the ditch before it gets to you. He was wrong about the one we now face. We are facing the most predictable financial crisis - the most predictable social and political crisis - of our time. And all the political class can do is practice what I call "the politics of assuming a ladder."

There's an old story where two people are walking down the road, one an economist, the other a normal American, and they fall into a pit with very steep sides. The normal American says, "Good Lord, we can't get out." The economist says, "Not to worry; we'll just assume a ladder." This seems to me to be the only approach politicians have to the Ponzi nature of our own welfare state.

It is time for us to understand that the model we share - so far in attenuated form - with Europe simply cannot work. It states that we should tax the rich (a.k.a. the investing and job-creating class), while counting on spending the revenues of investment and job creation. No one has explained to the political class that it is very dangerous to try to leap a chasm in two bounds.

We are now being told that a Value Added Tax is going to be required. A VAT would help the political class to shower benefits on those who can vote for them while taxing people who can't vote for them. The beauty of the VAT is that it taxes everybody, but nobody quite notices it.

We are going to come to a time when America is going to have to revisit Madison's Federalist Paper no. 45, and his statement, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." The cost of not facing this fact, of not enforcing the doctrine, in some sense, of enumerated powers, is that big government inevitably breeds bigger government. James Q. Wilson, one of the great social scientists in American history, put it this way. "Once, politics was about only a few things. Today, it is about nearly everything."

Once the legitimacy barrier has fallen, political conflict takes a very different form. New programs need not await the advent of a crisis of extraordinary majority, because no program is any longer new. It is seen, rather, as an extension, modification or enlargement of something the government is already doing. Since there is virtually nothing the government has not already tried to do, there is little it cannot be asked to do. And so we have today's death spiral of the welfare state; an ever-larger government resting on an ever-smaller tax base - government impeding the creation of wealth in order to enforce the redistribution of it. They are not, however, fooling the American people.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal announced, with a sort of breathless surprise, that 80 percent of the American people disapprove of Congress - raising a fascinating question: who are the 20 percent!? It is a sign of national health that Americans still think about Washington the way they used to talk about the old Washington Senators baseball team, when the saying was, "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." Back then they were run by a man named Clark Griffith who said, "The fans like home runs, and we have assembled a pitching staff to please our fans."

That is why the American people do not mind what they are instructed by their supposed betters to mind, the supposed problem of legislative gridlock. Gridlock is not an American problem, it is an American achievement! When James Madison and 54 other geniuses went to Philadelphia in the sweltering summer of 1787, they did not go there to design an efficient government. That idea would have horrified them. They wanted a safe government, to which end they filled it with blocking mechanisms: three branches of government, two branches of the legislative branch, veto, veto override, supermajorities, and judicial review. And yet, I can think of nothing the American people have wanted intensely and protractedly that they did not eventually get. The world understands, a world most of whose people live under governments they wish were capable of gridlock, that we always have more to fear from government speed than government tardiness.

We are told that one must not be a "Party of No." To "No," I say an emphatic "Yes!" For two reasons. The reason that almost all improvements make matters worse is that most new ideas are false. Second, the most beautiful five words in the English language are the first five words of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law." That is: no law abridging Freedom of Speech, no law establishing religion, no law abridging the right to assemble and petition in redress of grievance. The Bill of Rights is a litany of "No's" - no unreasonable search and seizure, no cruel and unusual punishments, no taking of property without just compensation, and so it goes.

The American people are, I think, healthier than they are given credit for. They have only one defect. They have nothing to fear, right now, but an insufficiency of their fear itself. It is time for a wholesome fear of what people with a dependency agenda are trying to do. We have few allies. We don't have Hollywood, we don't have academia, and we don't have the mainstream media. But we have two things. First, we have arithmetic. The numbers do not add up, and cannot be made to do so. Second, we have the Cato Institute. The people in this room are what the Keynesians call "a multiplier." And, for once, they are right!

In Athens, the so-called "cradle of democracy," the demos (a Greek word for "the people") have been demonstrating, in recent days, the degradation that attends people who become state-broken to a fault - who become crippled by dependency and the infantilization that comes with it. We shall see. I think America is organized around the very principle of individualism, which I can illustrate with what is, I promise you, the last baseball story.

Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right-handed hitter in the history of baseball, was at the plate, and a rookie was on the mound. He was, quite reasonably, petrified. The rookie threw three pitches that he thought were on the edge of the plate, but the umpire called, "Ball one! Ball two! Ball three!" The rookie got flustered, and shouted at the umpire, "Those were strikes!" The umpire took off his mask, looked out at the rookie, and said, "Young man, when you throw a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know."

Hornsby had become the standard of excellence. If he didn't swing, it wasn't a strike. We want a country in which everyone is encouraged to strive to be his own standard of excellence and have the freedom to pursue it. There are reasons to be downcast at the moment. Certain recent elections have not gone so well. Let me remind you, however, of something, again going back to 1964. In 1964 the liberal candidate got 90 percent of the electoral votes. Eight years later the liberal candidate got 3 percent of the electoral votes. This is a very changeable country.

Recall the words of the first Republican president who, two years before he became president, spoke at the Wisconsin State Fair, with terrible clouds of civil strife lowering over the country. Lincoln told his audience the story of the Oriental despot who summoned his wise men, and assigned them to devise a statement to be carved in stone, to be forever in view and forever true. They came back ere long, and the statement they had carved in stone was, "This, too, shall pass away."

"How consoling in times of grief," said Lincoln, "How chastening in times of pride." And yet, said Lincoln, if we cultivate the moral world within us as prodigiously as we Americans cultivate the physical world around us it need not be true. Lincoln understood that freedom is the basis of values, not the alternative to a values approach to politics. Freedom is the prerequisite for the moral dimension to flower. Given freedom, the American people will flower. Given the Cato Institute, the American people will, in time, secure freedom.

President Obama got nearly $106,000 from FNMA and FHLMC. Where was the press on this?

Wall Street occupiers go ballistic when they think their bank is withholding funds from then. Then it turns out, it was their fault:

RUSH: Over all of the years that I've been hosting this program -- 23 -- I have been an evangel for Apple Inc. products. I love them, and one of the things that I have always done on this

program is talk about my passions and share my passions with all of you. I think a large part of life is passion. When you find it, when you have it, it's fabulous. It's a magnet for other people, and it's self-invigorating, and sharing those passions is something that I thoroughly enjoy. Over these 23 years, each time I would discuss Apple products -- a new one that I couldn't wait to get or one that I was having problems with or frustrated with -- I'd always get e-mails from people, "Would you stop talking about Apple? They're nothing but a bunch of liberals! I don't want to hear about Apple. Why do you talk about Jobs? It's nothing but a bunch of liberals."

I talk about Apple and Jobs because I love greatness. I just love greatness. I am fascinated by it. I am intrigued by how it happens. I'm intrigued about every aspect of greatness and excellence, because it's so genuinely rare. It is genuinely rare and exciting, and I am mesmerized by it. I'm inspired by it. I've many times told people (and you, too) that one of the greatest perks of the good fortune that I've had has been to meet people. I have had the opportunity to meet people who are the best at what they do, and that is exhilarating and fun and inspiring to me. So I attach myself to these things that create childlike wonderment in me. It's difficult as an adult to have childlike wonderment. How soon do we all outgrow the excitement that as children we all felt on Christmas Eve, and how many of us wish by magic that we could recapture it?

To find out -- to rediscover that total, unbounded passion of childlike exuberance, excitement, innocence, uncluttered by the rigors of life lived as an adult. And for me, speaking honestly, the introduction of every new Apple product ignited that in me. That's just me. I am fascinated by what Apple products do; how they do it, the invention process, the whole way. I would have loved -- and I would never get this opportunity; it would never happen, but I would have loved -- to be the guy to write Jobs' biography. I would have loved to have had the chance to just pick his brain and find out what it was about him. Because he wasn't very self-revealing. I guess the most he revealed about himself was that Stanford commencement speech in 2005. It didn't matter to me that Steve Jobs was a liberal. It disappointed me for his sake, but that is not who he was to me.

Steve Jobs epitomized American exceptionalism. His life epitomized it. His philosophies epitomized American exceptionalism. The fact that he was a liberal, to me, was one of the greatest contradictions. But that is of no matter and no concern now. This past Tuesday they introduced the iPhone 4S, and I told you that on Monday I felt like it was Christmas Eve -- and it was for me -- and at age 60 I was able to feel like I did as a kid on Christmas Eve when I was eight or nine. There hasn't been, in the last ten years, an Apple product that has not created wonderment in me, that has not exceeded my expectations. Using Apple products is genuine fun for me; and at the same time, they have increased my productivity. I know I'm making this sound like it's a lot about me but it's the best way to explain all this to you. What Jobs did literally changed the way human beings receive-transmit-enjoy all media. One guy did this. He had a lot of great people around him, but one guy did it. One guy's vision. To me, it's mind-boggling.

RUSH: I remember the rant that we aired from Elizabeth Warren running for the Senate in Massachusetts where she said, (imitation) "Hey, you're a successful CEO, you have a successful factory, successful company, hey, hey, you didn't do it on your own. Nobody does it on their own. You couldn't-a done it without us, without our roads and our bridges and magical infrastructure. Nobody does it on their own." If there was one person who stands as an almost total contradiction to Elizabeth Warren's ignorant anti-capitalist rant, it's Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs and his life prove just how wrong Elizabeth Warren and the people who think like her, including Obama, really are. Steve Jobs' life contradicts their every belief about capitalism and capitalists.

You know, I laugh, the irony, we have all of these idiot kids, Occupy Wall Street, being paid for in part by George Soros money. Where did he get it? They are the victims of terrible educations. Good Lord, think of what those poor people have not been taught and instead think of how they have been propagandized in the name of education. And they're out there, and they are occupying and protesting and demonstrating against capitalism, free markets, that have provided all of them with their iPhones and their iTunes and their iPads and whatever other devices that they're using, the means of transportation to get where they go. All of these things the capitalist system provided. They are protesting the very thing that makes it possible for them to do what they do, live and feed off of other people. And Steve Jobs stands in a stark contrast.

Steve Jobs, what he did with his life and his business -- and there are many others, too, he's not alone in this -- illustrates the entire concept of American exceptionalism, illustrates the truth and the wisdom of so much that we are all taught at one time in our lives. Love what you do, and it's not work. Have passion for what you do, don't live somebody else's life, live your own. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Limbaugh? What do you mean don't live someone else's life?" That simply means don't try to meet the expectations of others. Who are they? Why you always gonna assume everybody knows more than you do? Why do we always assume that everybody's smarter than we are? Why do we always assume that we're inferior to everybody else and, well, whatever they do is what we ought to do because they're better than we are. Don't live somebody else's life. And don't listen to the people who failed at something. All they're gonna be is bitter.

I know Jobs is a liberal and it's contradictory, but I have to look past it in this sense because that was never a factor for me in my total immersion into Apple. I really can't explain it to you other than to say I'll give you an example. The new operating system for the iPhone and the iPad, iOS 5 it's called, is going to be released October 12th. I can't wait. It's like when I was ten years old and Christmas was five days away. I can't wait. And then a couple days after that the new phone is gonna be available. I can't wait for that. And I'm wondering how hard's it gonna be for me to get one. Well, the last time when the iPhone 4 came out I spent all day trying to buy one at their online store. It rejected my phone number. They were having problems on their website.

I spent 18 hours, not straight, but I spent 18 hours of effort trying to get a new iPhone 4.

There's nothing else. There's no other product. There's no other device. There's no other inanimate object in life that I do that for. And then there's gonna be a new iPad coming next year, iPad 3. And it's supposedly gonna be just over the top. I can't wait for that. To me that's Steve Jobs, and everybody else at Apple. The whole company fascinates me. The whole company ought to be a textbook example for others. I don't know where you go in Cuba to buy a phone made in Cuba. I don't know that anybody would want one or any other pure communist or socialist country. Much less a car or anything else made in one of those countries. Where's the Russian iPad?

You have to admire Jobs for a whole lot of reasons, but one of them, he obviously did not let his liberalism get in the way of his work. How liberal could he have been to become this classic capitalist, this classic salesman? Because after all, what is at the end of every Apple project? I'm not talking about what made it, what went into it, created it, that process. What is the end result? Separating people from their money. "No, Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Jobs was following in idealistic fashion. He had a dream to make the best products." That's exactly right. He didn't give them away, did he? And his products were not the cheapest that you could find. It wasn't until recently that he went mass market. He didn't care about market share with the Macintosh. Cared about profit. The Macintosh, with a 6 to 8% market share, was a more profitable machine than any of the other PCs, the IBMs, the Dells, the Gateways, whatever the other manufacturers are.

He was openly, purposely in pursuit of profit. He was a billionaire multi times over. But he said he didn't care about that. Well, I don't know how he couldn't have cared about it. He had to care about it in order to do what he did. I've read a lot of the obits. They say he's a great salesman. Yep. Yep. What's the objective of a salesman? Separate people from their money. Now, a lot of people think that's awfully crass. No. It's what makes the world go round. He did it entirely legitimately. He created things people craved. He created things people had to have, in part because of his own personality, his own uniqueness, but because of the products themselves. People had to have them, and they still can't get enough of them.

The iPad 2 was released. They couldn't make them fast enough meet the worldwide demand, and I think the figure I saw was 200,000 a day that they were making. Steve Jobs never let his liberalism get in the way of his work. He was practically the epitome of a capitalist. He risked everything to start and build a company. He was fired by that company and then brought back. When he was brought back, he took it over -- and now Apple Inc. is considered to be the most valuable share-for-share company on Wall Street. It has a larger market cap than Microsoft or Exxon. It makes money hand over fist, and it does so by providing people things that are of the finest quality and workmanship -- products that people think they have to have, much less crave and desire to have.

To me, folks, all of it is just fascinating. It's just the epitome of excellence, the epitome of greatness -- and, for whatever reason, all of that excellence and all of that greatness is said to have resided in one man. Now, we all know he couldn't have done this himself. There are 30,000 or 40,000 Apple employees, including the retail stores. Jobs was hit with everything everybody else. "What do you mean? Steve, you can't sell your products in a retail store! You don't have a wide enough variety. Don't go retail, Steve. You don't know about retail. You can't. Don't even mess with it. You've got a great model going here." My point is that even Steve Jobs after all of these countless years of over-the-top success had people telling him, "You'll fail if you do it."

Today there are 327 Apple stores, retail stores around the world, and starting Thursday night, people are gonna be lined up for blocks around a lot of them trying to get this new iPhone. There are people that go into Apple stores like kids go into toy stores; and I think that's one of the unspoken answers to what is considered the magic of Apple and the whole aura of the place. It's tough to get into an Apple store on a Saturday afternoon. I've only been into one (it was in Boston) 'cause I don't shop. I don't do retail. But

I was walking and I said, "There's gotta be one near here." It was on Boylston Street when I was staying in a hotel. I said, "There's gotta be an Apple store nearby here, just has to be." So I got out my iPhone and went to maps: "Tell me where the nearest Apple store is?" It was two blocks away, three blocks away. Pfft! I took the Hoof Express, went down there, and there were -- yep, three blocks, wasn't far -- and there were people there. (interruption) I will walk to an Apple store. Yeah! That's my point. (chuckles) I barely will walk to the bathroom, but I will walk to an Apple store.

RUSH: Not only was Steve Jobs a capitalist, he was an entrepreneur. I mean, that's about as dirty as it gets to a Wall Street protestor -- and yet even they idolize him. Except I should tell you: They've got a flag. The Occupy Wall Street gang has a flag that they burn. It looks like the American flag, but in the blue rectangle in the upper left-hand corner, instead of stars, they have corporate logos. They burn that flag, and Apple is one of them, as is MTV. Figure that. Now, Mr. Snerdley just said something to me, and he doesn't know how important the point he made to me is. He said he's a little offended at the comparisons of Steve Jobs to Thomas Edison, and that is absolutely correct, but I'm gonna turn it into a positive: Thomas Edison invented things that did not exist. There wasn't a lightbulb to build on. There wasn't a phonograph record to build on.

Steve Jobs got 200 patents to his name. Steve Jobs built on already existing platforms. We already had Walkmans. Do you know...? I saw this the other day. Remember the Sony Walkman, the portable cassette player? This has to have been a misprint. There's a comparison of the number of iPods sold compared to the Sony Walkman, and this article said only 300,000 Sony Walkmans were sold. Now, I can't believe that, and maybe there was a time frame that they did not include in the article. It was millions versus 300,000. Regardless, the Walkman existed before the iPod. There were computers before the Mac and the Apple (Apple I, Apple II). So Jobs as an inventor is a bit of a stretch. But I don't think that's a take away. He took existing platforms, built on them, personalized them, and left people in the dust. Now, Thomas Edison had 1,093 patents; Steve Jobs had 200. This is not to take anything away from Steve Jobs, because I think in its own sense it's his own different kind of greatness, which still can't be denied.

RUSH: The story is from the Houston Chronicle. "Talk about your Monday from hell. Not only did Bridgett Nickerson Boyd's car break down on her way to work, but when she pulled over to the side of the freeway, a sheriff's deputy named Mark Goad pulled behind her, wrote her a ticket for driving on the shoulder, decided to arrest her, followed her to the hospital when her suddenly racing heart prompted a call to paramedics, then took her into custody again after she was treated by doctors and finally drove her to jail."

"To make matters worse, Boyd claims in a lawsuit that the handcuffs were put on her wrists painfully tight and that she was forced to listen to conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh "make derogatory comments about black people" all the way to the jail. Boyd is African-American. Because of the incident, which occurred on Oct. 4, 2010," and we're just now learning of this, "Boyd filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Goad and Harris County alleging defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress." That's where I come in.

"'Deputy Goad was aware that Boyd had not committed a crime and her arrest was without probable cause,' according to the lawsuit filed in Houston. The magistrate who saw her while jailed apparently agreed and dismissed all charges. A spokesman for Sheriff Adrian Garcia declined to comment on the lawsuit." We have an audio sound bite on this. This is a montage of Houston television stations and anchors talking about the woman suing Houston police because they forced her to listen to

HURST: We haven't heard this one before. She complains a deputy forced her to listen to Rush Limbaugh. She's suing for mental anguish.

SACHSE: She was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh, quote, "make derogatory remarks about black people through the deputy's radio on the way to jail."

CAREY: To torment her, he made her sit in the back of his patrol car listening to Rush Limbaugh.

RUSH: Now, it sounds like the way this thing got reported down there, that that was the number one offense. (laughing) Not the handcuffs. This woman doesn't know how lucky she is. What a great opportunity she had, forced to listen. Derogatory comments about black people? We don't make derogatory comments about black people. We make derogatory comments about liberals. According to her Facebook page, Bridgett Nickerson Boyd's favorite TV shows are Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow. No surprise there. (laughing) I don't know about Jerry Springer. He's not mentioned. Wouldn't doubt it, though. Forced to listen. Emotional distress.

RUSH: This Diana in Stockton, California. It's great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. I just want to defend Cain. You know, he had a father that was working, working three jobs --

CALLER: And he was trying to help his dad support his family. He had responsibilities to his family, and they insult him because he's not out on the protesting line?

RUSH: He's not allowed to be his own man. He's got to toe the liberal line as a black. He has to have marched, he has to have been down for the struggle, he has to be part of the civil rights movement, he has to be liberal. He's not allowed to be his own man.

CALLER: That's not fair! That's not fair to him! He had a family. He had responsibility, which more children today should have.

CALLER: And he had respect for his father! He wanted to accomplish in life, he wanted to be something in life, and he accomplished it -- and they're gonna throw him into the mud hole because he didn't go out and fight back then?

CALLER: I mean, sure, maybe... You know, not everybody goes out and protests, doesn't mean that they don't back their people. I mean, he loves this country! His father loved this country.

RUSH: I agree with you, don't misunderstand. I'm just telling you. I'm answering you as though you were talking to any liberal.

RUSH: "He wants to be approved by rich white guys. He wants to be in their club, and he knows he has to act and talk and sound like them. Herman Cain would be horrible for black people. He doesn't care about black people."

CALLER: He loves his people as much as anybody else. He just wants his family and his people taken care of just like anybody else.

RUSH: "That's not up to him. That's up to us! We will take care of your family and his family. The government will do that. He's supposed to be on the protest march enabling government to get bigger."

CALLER: But the government doesn't do anything but take our money, and then they get the money, and then they dish it out to their interests that they want --

RUSH: "The government is the only group that cares about black people. The government's the only group that has any compassion for black people!. The government's the only people that care about the black family," tearing it apart.

CALLER: But if you think about it, the welfare wouldn't have any money if there was for the rich and the people that work for the rich and the small businesses. Because they're the ones that put the money into the government so the government can pay the welfare, the Social Security, the benefits.

RUSH: "You have it exactly backwards. The money is all government's, and what people end up with is what government decides they deserve, and you keep talking like this you're gonna be on welfare. We're gonna send people to your house."

CALLER: Do you know what? When I was young, I was on welfare because I got left with my five children.

CALLER: But I taught my children that if you work for a living and you try, you can make it better --

CALLER: "No, I'm not! I'm just somebody that believes in the United States and believes if you work hard enough you can have more for yourself."

RUSH: You know, I don't remember Larry O'Donnell complaining about Bill Clinton not marching for civil rights in the South. Bill Clinton's mentor, J. William Fulbright, was a noted segregationist. The heck with these people. For the rich? We're for allowing people to become rich if they want to. Become whatever they want.

RUSH: So who knew the Godfather pizza man is an Uncle Tom? Well, that's what Larry O'Donnell wants us to believe.

RUSH: I said right before the break, "I don't remember Larry O'Donnell complaining about Bill Clinton not marching for civil rights," and of course Bill Clinton was famous for telling stories about seeing all these black churches burn. The stories turned out to be untrue. Bill Clinton's mentor was a segregationist during the civil rights days. That's J. William Fulbright, Senator from Arkansas. Algore's dad was a segregationist, too, Algore, Sr. A lot of those Democrats back then were segregationists. But here's Obama with his class warfare business, getting after Herman Cain because his father chose to work rather than march, and so forth. We often find ourselves in the position of having to defend the rich, and a lot of people are reluctant to do it.

But we're not for the rich, and none of you ought to feel the need to have to defend the rich if you get nervous, although I don't have any problem with it. Some people get nervous having to do it. But what we are for is allowing people to become rich if they want to. We want a country that permits it. We want a country where it's possible, we want a country where there's all kinds of Steve Jobses running around. We want a country where you're free to become whatever you want, or to be as little as you want. It's your life! We don't believe a bunch of central planners ought to live it for you. We don't believe that wealth is only permissible in certain places like Hollywood or with trial lawyers or union bosses or crony capitalists.

You know the left doesn't have a problem with wealth in certain places. They love Hollywood riches, and they love their union bosses having wealth and interminable pension plans and so forth. But we don't believe that wealth is only permissible in certain sectors. I mean, you get down and you look at the presidential campaign. The truth of the matter is, Barack Obama can't hold a candle to any of the Republican candidates. This is not about who marched when and where or for what. It's about who should be president! Obama has no credentials. He's got none. There was nothing in Obama's past to recommend him for this job. There was no qualifications. It was two books, and he was acceptable because of the way he spoke and the color of his skin.

To the left, all that stuff mattered to the left. His record, there wasn't one. All the votes for "present" when he was a senator in the Illinois state Senate. As United States Senator he showed up for less than 150 days. Herman Cain on the other hand has tons of credentials, and that goes for all of the GOP candidates. Ronald Reagan created more jobs, including in the black community, than Obama ever has or ever will. But liberals never liked Reagan, and they love Obama. Go figure.

RUSH: Let me set the table for you. You have Obama for the last four weeks: He's had this miniature book. He's been waving it around at every campaign stop. He's been saying, (imitating Obama) "Pass this bill now. Pass it now, my jobs bill. Pass it now." Demanding that Congress pass his jobs bill, the $450 billion worth of tax increases. The bill never intended to be signed, the bill never intended to be passed. It's there for the express purpose of allowing Obama and the Democrats to say the Republicans are the obstructionists. Okay, cut to the Republicans. The Republicans still quake in their boots over what's said about them by the mainstream media. So Obama says Republicans are standing in the way of you getting a job. Republicans are standing in the way of new roads and bridges and schools and all the infrastructure crap that's supposedly contained in the bill.

Republicans hear that, they cringe. Mainstream media shows up at their press conferences, "What do you think of that? Are you actually standing in the way of new schools and roads and bridges? Do you really not want people to get jobs?" That's how it works. So the Republicans don't want to get questions like that and they don't want to sit there and tell the press what is really going on because they're still intimidated by the press. Yet Eric Cantor says, "Sorry, this thing's dead, it's not going anywhere." That ratchets the media up and ratchets Obama up even more. (imitating Obama) "See? See? Republicans don't care about you, they don't care about your house, they don't care about roads, bridges, schools, they don't care about you working. I do. I want you to have a job. See this? Pass this bill now."

Dingy Harry, over in the Senate, is the only Democrat who's put his name to the bill. And he said publicly, (imitating Dingy Harry) "Nope, we're gonna get to this in a month or so, maybe the end of October. Got other priorities. Besides that, I have a bunch of senators up for reelection in 2012, and I don't want to have them have to vote on this. Not gonna help 'em to have voted for tax increases," letting the cat out of the bag that the jobs bill is nothing but tax increases. So Dingy Harry shelves the bill. While Dingy Harry shelves the bill and says it's really nothing but tax increases and I don't want my guys voting on it, Obama's still out there blaming the Republicans for no action on the bill. And the media still goes to the Republicans: "Why don't you want jobs for people? Why don't you want new roads bridges and schools?" Republicans say, "Gee, not us. Have you not heard what Reid's doing?"

So Mitch McConnell decides, you know what, let's have a vote on this. The president's entitled to a vote. He has every right to get a vote on his jobs bill, that's what our country's all about, president proposes a piece of legislation, he wants new jobs, he ought to get a vote on that. Dingy Harry said, "No, no, this is nothing more than a political trick." Jay Carney at the White House, much the same thing, says this is nothing more than gamesmanship and disingenuous. Which it is. I mean it is gamesmanship. McConnell is saying, "Look, we're not the ones standing in the way, and we're gonna illustrate here how it's the Democrats who don't want any part of this. So go ahead, we're gonna arrange for a vote on this in the Senate." And Dingy Harry said, "Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, nope, not gonna play those political games, ain't happening."

OBAMA: Yesterday the Republican majority leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said thaaaat right now he won't even let this jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives.

OBAMA: Won't even give it a chance to be debated on the floor of the House of Representatives. Think about that. I mean, what's the problem? (stammering) Did they not have the time?

RUSH: All right. So, see? The table's set: "I got a bill that's gonna put everybody back to work -- new schools, new roads and bridges -- and the Republicans don't want any part of it. They don't want you to have a job." Obama goes out and makes a speech. Here's Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor yesterday.

MCCONNELL: Yesterday I tested the president's rhetoric. I proposed that we do exactly what he wants and vote right away on the second stimulus bill he's proposed as the supposed solution to our jobs crisis, and the Democrats blocked it. The president's own party is the only obstacle to having a vote on his so-called jobs bill. So my suggestion to the White House is that if the president wants to keep traveling around the country demanding a vote on this second stimulus, that he focus his criticism on Democrats, not Republicans, because they're the ones who are now standing in the way of an immediate vote on this legislation.

RUSH: And that's absolutely true! Absolutely true. But you will not see the media report on this. In fact, AP story: "Senate Democrats intend to jettison provisions that Obama recommended to pay for his jobs bill and substitute a tax surcharge on millionaires. [Dingy Harry] outlined plans for a 5% surcharge in a closed-door meeting with the rank-and-file, according to participants, as Obama traveled to Texas to deliver his most caustic challenge yet to House Republicans who have not allowed a vote..." See? At the end of the day the Republicans are the problem. You just heard Mitch McConnell: "Let's vote on it. Here's Dingy Harry after the Republicans want an immediate vote on Obama's so-called jobs bill that he is demanding. Dingy Harry says: Not so fast.

REID: (whispering) I was so disappointed yesterday when my friend, Republican leader, attempted to snuff out debate and prevent a bipartisan discussion about how to move the American Jobs Act forward.

REID: Rather than debating this bill on the floor as we usually do, he wants to tack this important job creator --

RUSH: Stop the tape! Where was the debate on Obamacare? Where were all the committee hearings on Obamacare? No! Remember we had to pass that bill before we could know what was in it? Here's the rest of the bite...

REID: -- onto an unrelated measure. Again and again during the last few weeks Republicans have rejected an all-or-nothing approach to the legislation. So imagine my surprise when they were unwilling to engage in the thoughtful debate that this bill deserves.

RUSH: So Dingy Harry tries to turn it around, "No, no, no, no! We want to debate the bill. McConnell just wants a vote." Well, that's what the president says. The president says, "Give me a vote! Vote on it now! Pass this now." Now, the problem in the House is (I hate to tell you, folks) that there still isn't a bill in the House to vote on or debate. Nobody has put their name to it. I mean, it's there, but it doesn't have a sponsor. The only place where anybody can vote for or against Obama's so-called jobs bill is in the Senate. It has not been introduced in the House of Representatives. So, this is classic. McConnell comes up with a solution: "Okay, president deserves a vote." Dingy Harry says, "This is a trick! This is a trick, this is disingenuous, this is gamesmanship. We normally debate this around here, and my Republican friend is trying to forestall debates." This morning, Dingy Harry tried a new tack.

REID: (whispering) Democrats have listened to the American people and they have been very, very clear. The American people believe it's time for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share to help this country thrive.

RUSH: Believe it's time for millionaires and billionaires...? When have they not been paying their fair share? They're the only ones paying their fair share, if the truth be known. So the Democrats are now saying -- just as I told you -- Republicans want your bridges to fall down so Obama won't get reelected. This is Maxine Waters last night on PMSNBC.

WATERS: Are you kidding? These are job killers, these guys! They would rather try and undermine the president and not allow this jobs bill to come up for a vote than create jobs for their own constituents -- or make sure that the highways and the byways are safe. In Eric Cantor's district, 26% -- well, in his state, 26% -- of all the bridges are in structural disrepair or functionally not able to work very well.

WATERS: He does not care about the safety of his district or his state or repairing this crumbling infrastructure. He would rather undermine the president; stop this jobs bill. But we're up to the fight now.

RUSH: Yeah, see? Republicans want those bridges in North Carolina to fall down. And in South Carolina, Republicans want the bridges to fall down! Republicans want your senior citizen grandparents eating dog food! Republicans want your old folks kicked out of their houses and have their Social Security taken away, and now Republicans want the bridges to fall down, so Obama won't get reelected, or things like that. Bridges are in structural disrepair or functionally unable to work very well. (interruption) Is there that money? Grooming money? Oh, I'm sure she could get it if she wanted. Grooming money. Yeah, I remember what you're talking about.

RUSH: And moving right along, Maxine Waters. I want you to try to figure it out here. Again, this is from last night on MSNBC, and the question she was asked is (paraphrased): Congresswoman Waters, besides telling everybody that the Republicans want bridges to collapse and seniors to have no Social Security, what else can the Democrats do?

WATERS: These Republicans, the Tea Party people, who are opposed to creating jobs -- opposed to making their states safe by repairing the infrastructure -- they have got to be contacted! Their representatives keep them uncertain about what's going on and they talk about, "Oh, those are the people who burn the American flag," but they don't talk about their economic condition! They don't talk about the fact that they don't have jobs, they don't have health care clinics -- and so Democrats have got to take that message right into their districts.

RUSH: Uhhh... Ehhhh... "Their representatives keep them uncertain about what's going on and they talk about, 'Those are the people who burn the American flag.' They don't talk about their economic condition." They don't? We don't talk about our economic condition? "Baghdad" Jim McDermott got in on this. The question he got was, "Congressman McDermott," aside from saying the Republicans want bridges to collapse and people to die in their cars going across the bridges and the senior citizens are gonna be eating dog food because they're gonna have no Social Security, "what else can the president do? Is he doing all that he can do in your opinion?"

MCDERMOTT: John Boehner has 171 bridges in his own district that he doesn't care about! He'd rather help Mitch McConnell sink the president, when that's the highest priority. Those bridges you're driving over are not safe, and John Boehner doesn't care! I think sometimes about that bridge that fell down in Minneapolis, and you say to yourself, "How would you like that to be your legacy in your district, that you didn't push to get those bridges repaired?"

RUSH: You would think I'm making this up, or just trying to be funny. This is what they're saying: "Republicans want the bridges to collapse just so Obama will fail. Republicans want you to die. They don't want you to have a house, they don't want you to have a job. They don't want to do anything." That bridge in Minnesota wasn't a repair problem, by the way. You know, these Wall Street clowns, they walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Did anybody warn them?

RUSH: Just to remind you: The Minnesota bridge, there was a design flaw in that bridge. It was not a repair problem. It was in excellent repair, in fact. It was design flaw. That was the regime's own ruling, NTSB's official ruling. Okay, the rats are now scrambling below deck. Dingy Harry just held a press conference to announce a vote in a few days on Obama's tax bill.

REID: (whispering) The American Jobs Act, President Obama's program that we've talked about the for the last several weeks. We hope to set up that first vote on that very, very soon within the next few days.

REID: We're gonna propose to pay for this important jobs legislation by asking people who make more than a million dollars a year to pay 5% more to fund job creation and ensure this country's economic success. It's time for Republicans to stop their partisan games.

REID: Yesterday what the Republican leader did on the floor is really disingenuous.

RUSH: Yeah, well, why are you reacting to it, slimeball? What a snake. You know, the piece of paper that this transcript is printed on is greasy. I can barely hold onto the piece of paper. What a slickster! Okay, so they're now gonna have a vote. The rats are scrambling below decks. They're gonna have a vote and they're gonna set up a 5% tax increase to fund job creation. This is as idiotic as the Starbucks guy asking people to contribute $5 to a job creation fund when they buy a latte or whatever they buy at Starbucks. (interruption) You missed that yesterday? I thought you might-a missed that when you're out there screening. Is this how we create jobs? We have a job fund at Starbucks? And, oh, by the way! Let me find it.

Obama's getting on a "Tweet for Jobs." Let me find that. I got that here in the stack. Yes. Why haven't we thought of this before? "Tweet for Jobs." Yep. "President Obama's campaign is adding another social media tool to pressure Congress to act on his jobs bill. On Tuesday, the campaign is launching 'Tweet for Jobs,' a tool that allows users to find their legislators and tweet directly to lawmakers their support for Obama's' so-called jobs bill. "'President Obama is calling on members of Congress to pass his plan to create jobs and strengthen the economy, the American Jobs Act -- and you can help him urge your legislators to pass it, the new site reads. Use our tool to tweet your Republican lawmakers about why you support the President's plan and why they should, too.'"

Meanwhile, the Republicans are not stopping it! This thing has no Democrat votes. So here's Dingy Harry. McConnell's move worked, 'cause people can logically figure this out. I mean, this is pathetic. The Democrats used to be much slicker and better at this, but this? This is embarrassing. McConnell calls for a vote, simply says, "That's what the president wants. The president deserves a vote." Dingy Harry says, "That's gamesmanship. That's disingenuous! Why, we always have debate around here." Then the next day Dingy Harry says, "Okay, we're gonna have a vote. We're gonna add a 5% tax on people making more than a million dollars to fund job creation to ensure this country's economic success." (sigh)

You know, in the old days of this program, back when life was a little bit more carefree, every day after prepping the show I had a stack called the Silly Stack. The Silly Stack of Stuff: Lighthearted, goofball, oddball stuff going on that had nothing to do, in many ways, with politics. This would qualify for it. These people are just getting more and more transparently ridiculous every day. We're gonna propose to pay for this jobs legislation by asking people making more than a million dollars a year to pay 5% more to fund job creation. As though Washington has anything to do with job creation! Washington has nothing to do with job creation. As we've seen the last two and a half years, what Washington does is destroy jobs. What Washington does is put obstacles in the way of economic growth that would lead to job creation. Particularly Washington when run by Democrats and liberals. Aren't millionaires the ones that hire employees? Is this a good time to start punishing them? Chuck-U Schumer got in on the act. After Dingy Harry finished, Chuck-U Schumer strode to the microphone.

SCHUMER: We have spent the last several weeks planning how it can win the most votes on the Senate floor as one package. We believe we have found the best answer available. These tough economic times call for sacrifice -- SHARED sacrifice -- so we believe the best way to ensure this worthy package does not add to the deficit is to get rid of unneeded tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

SCHUMER: This is a change from the original proposal, but we've consulted with the White House on this, and they're fine with the idea.

RUSH: Oh, really? The White House plan had no tax increases on the millionaires and billionaires? (laughing) I can't keep a straight face. You know the scary thing (and at the same time the funny thing) is that there are dunderheads who believe this! There are knuckleheads -- there are plain just dumb people -- who believe all of this. And they're there, and you've gotta deal with it and put you people with 'em. But this is just over the top ridiculous. Now, "Tweet for Jobs," a tax increase to fund job creation, Starbucks collecting $5 to create jobs -- and I'll bet you, you walk into your average public school, high school, middle school, grade school; pop your head into any class with some stupid teachers -- and believe me, by "stupid," I mean ill-educated, misinformed, don't know what's right; they've been taught a bunch of lies when they went to college or learned to be teachers -- are filling their kids' heads with the biggest bunch of economic junk.

I'll bet we could pop our heads in one of those classrooms, pick one at random, and we would be shocked what we hear. Nah, probably not. It's been going on long enough now that we're familiar with it. So, anyway, there you have it: "Tweet for Jobs, a new tax increase, Dingy Harry. Obviously the pressure, the pressure to vote on this bill is intense -- and what this means is that Dingy Harry's effort yesterday was a total bomb. It means that McConnell won this one. Why wouldn't he? Obama is waving it around, "Pass this bill now!" McConnell says, "The president deserves a vote on his bill." Dingy Harry says, "This is gamesmanship, we always have debate around here. We're not gonna vote on this! We're not gonna give the Republicans what they want. They just want to make sure our bridges fall down and our senior citizens die from eating poisoned dog food, and we're not gonna let that happen."

And then the next day, today, Dingy Harry comes, "Okay we're gonna have a vote on it real soon and we're gonna add something to it: We're gonna raise taxes even again, and the White House is all for it." Why wouldn't they be? You want to take a bet that there won't be a vote on this? These Democrats in the Senate who are up for reelection, the last thing they want to do is go on record voting for this thing with all these tax increases in it. I don't think Dingy Harry has enough votes to give all those guys a pass. He's got too many senators up for reelection. I don't think he can give them a pass to let them all vote "no" because then the bill won't pass, and I can't believe that they're gonna have a vote on this when the bill fails. You don't do that. The president's out there waving it around; the Democrats run the Senate, they have a vote, and it's defeated. I mean, that blows up the whole purpose of this.

RUSH: We got more details here on the millionaires tax for ten years that Schumer and Dingy Harry are proposing. Senator Schumer said the surtax would impact any income earned by people above a million dollars annually, would also impact dividends and capital gains, and Schumer said that it would be in place for ten years. So presumably this 5% tax would be piggybacked on the tax increase when the Bush tax cuts end in 2013. Major tax increase, Dingy Harry is adding to Obama's bill.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, and Monday, too, I spent some time talking about Bank of America and a new $5 charge to use your debit card. I went to great lengths to explain to you why the charge popped up. Two reasons, just to review. The Dodd-Frank -- Chris Dodd, Barney Frank -- financial regulatory reform bill, which ostensibly (the way it was pitched and sold) was a consumer protection bill, to make sure that these Wall Street titans and these big banks weren't able to continue screwing everybody. So they pass the Financial Regulatory Reform Act, which imposes all kinds of new charges and taxes, if you will, on banks; and at the same time forces them to reduce other charges. They're basically trying -- they're not "trying," they did -- running elements of the banking business. One of the things that they mandated in Dodd-Frank was a reduction in transaction fees and 44¢ to 24¢ every time a credit card's swiped.

Well, the banks simply said, "Okay, well, fine. We're gonna make that money back elsewhere. We've got shareholders, and we have a profit motive, and we're doing it now. This is the time for profit, it's always the time for profit. We have to show a profit, that's why we have to try for a profit. That's why we're in business." So to make up what they were forced to lose, they started charging $5 for debit card usage. This then created what has become standard operating procedure. Here you have the Colonel Sanderses of the chicken house -- the Democrats in the Senate, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank -- passing legislation that is detrimental and harmful to the banks and consumers ultimately. This is always the result whenever the Democrats tell you that they're engaging in legislation to make things more affordable for you, without fail, things are going to become more expensive, as this case and story demonstrates.

But the real culprit is Senator Durbin. And Senator Durbin had an amendment. And his amendment, without reading the word, without working you with all the details of it, is specifically is why Bank of America instituted the $5 charge for debit card use. So when that happens Durbin goes to the floor of the US Senate on Monday and urges Bank of America customers to stop doing business! "Get outta that bank! Go to a smaller community bank where they're not charging you these fees and ripping you off," and that's not his job and that is irresponsibility and could be tortious interference. It could be illegal if done by anybody else.

He goes to the floor of the US Senate and is urging people to leave Bank of America. Now, again, I'm gonna tell you, I got no brief for Bank of America. I don't use Bank of America, I don't know anybody at Bank of America. My point is that the federal government has got no business running day-to-day operations, nor do they have any business setting fees or prices at banks. The market does that, and now they have interfered. So now that the new fees have been charged because of his amendment, Durbin now acts outraged. How dare these people, when all that's happened is the banks have reacted to Durbin's law. Durbin just expects -- like every other Democrat -- they are gonna pass a law mandating that this industry pay more in taxes or that a group of individuals pay more taxes.

And what happens is the targets end up finding ways around it because the Democrats fail to score all this stuff dynamically. They just think that their targets are gonna bend over, grab the ankles, and take it -- and of course their targets are far more creative than these dunderheads in the Senate who haven't the slightest clue what goes on in a free market. So then Durbin goes to the floor of the Senate and he wants to be the hero, and he wants to tell you these banks are screwing you and they're trying to defy our consumer protection efforts and our wonderful financial regulatory reform bill, and his solution is to actually tell you to leave Bank of America, which could cause a run on that bank -- and if you doubt me check Chuck Schumer and the IndyMac bank out in California.

He did start a run on that bank and that was one of the things that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. It was part of it. So yesterday the Washington Post -- and we did this story yesterday but we didn't get the Post version of it: "Banks Defend Debit-Card Fees Amid Pressure from Washington -- The banking industry on Tuesday defended a controversial new fee on debit cards as some Democrats called on consumers to abandon financial institutions that impose the charge. Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) introduced a bill that would make it easier for customers to close their accounts and prohibit banks from assessing fees for the process. Meanwhile, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) sent a letter to community banks and credit unions in his home state urging them to 'seize this competitive opportunity' to woo consumers away from larger institutions."

Well, this is piling one outrage on top of another. First Durbin tells everybody from the Senate floor to leave Bank of America, and then he sends a letter to smaller banks in Illinois and tells them to "seize the opportunity" that he has given them by forcing people out of Bank of America to go get them as new customers! "'Politicians may not have the highest approval ratings, but I don't think Wall Street banks and credit cards do either,' Durbin said. The debate centers on a $5 monthly fee that Bank of America plans to begin charging next year to customers with the most basic checking accounts who use their debit cards to shop." Now, to me, is unacceptable and outrageous. Even with my vast vocabulary, I'm having trouble coming up with words that adequately express my anger about this.

Because the reason all this is happening is Dick Durbin, yet Dick Durban gets to sit here and make it look like he's riding to everybody's rescue when what he's trying to do is destroy Bank of America. It's not his job to destroy Bank of America. He and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd took aim at banks with their legislation. What are the banks supposed to do just sit there and (as I say) bend over, grab the ankles, and take it? And now "Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) introduced a bill that would make it easier for customers to close their accounts... Banks say the fees are the consequence of a new federal rule ..." Everybody would have been fine. There wouldn't have been a debit card charge if there hadn't been a financial regulatory reform bill, folks.

Now, I realize (sigh) that I'm probably on the losing end of this. I understand the emotion. I remember when ATM fees went up 25¢. People just had a cow, and I didn't understand it on the basis that other things in life are far more expensive than that. This really ticked people off, and it wasn't a large increase at all. So it's a cumulative effect of the Democrat Party demonizing banks and financial institutions -- and all the while, at the end of the day behind closed doors when it's time to donate and fund-raise, guess who the Democrats call on? This cockeyed group of protestors protesting all this capitalism, who do they think Obama's in bed with? The very people they're protesting!

They are urging the reelection of a guy who's doing exactly what they say they detest. They're just dumb. They're just stupid. And that's what Durbin's counting on is that everybody in the country is going to be stupid and not realize that he's the reason all this happened, and Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd. And Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and whoever knows who, are behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the housing crisis. The reason your home is underwater is the Democrat Party. Business Insider, story published yesterday. "This morning we touched on Obama's comments with regard to Bank of America's controversial, $5/month debit card fee.

"When asked about it by George Stephonopolous (sic), Obama said that it was stuff like this called for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." So, see? You use Dodd-Frank to create chaos in the banking business, and that chaos then you use as a reason to create a new bureaucracy to regulate, control, and do damage to the banking business. Use Dodd-Frank to cause an increase in fees and then punish the fee increase. It's what's known as a "double bind," and only authoritarians who hate the private sector would do something like this. So you cause the fees to go up and when that happens then you create a new bureaucracy to deal with it. It's the way of the world for these people.

RUSH: You know, these student protestors, Bank of America and all these things, they remind me, remember the irony, the Wall Street protesters complaining about their student loans? Everybody always complains about their student loans. Yeah. Some quit college to go to the protest. Everybody's always complaining about their student loans. Well, who is in charge of handling student loans these days? If I'm not mistaken, Obama took that over shortly after he took over General Motors and Chrysler.

That's right, the White House, they put themselves in charge of student loan program, and now look at the mess that student loans are in. There is said to be more than a trillion dollars outstanding debt in student loans. (interruption) You think so, you think they're gouging? What about profit? What about tuition? How come nobody at the regime ever talks about trying to bring the cost of education down? It's 'cause their buddies work there and that's their standard of living.

RUSH: Joe Bite Me was on our affiliate on the radio in Tampa and somehow the subject of Van Jones came up and Biden said, "Who is that?" Biden said he had no idea who Van Jones is. Van Jones, who is he? He was just the "green jobs czar" for your administration; and Biden said, "Oh, really?" Biden didn't know. Still doesn't know who Van Jones was.

You know, who's gonna break the news to these college kids that are protesting Wall Street? They're down on Wall Street for two weeks; they're all over the country. They're protesting, all these students. You know, I've got a list of the demands of these lunatics. (chuckling) It's just amazing. I just want to know who is going to tell them that Obama is going to ramp up collections on them. They're down there saying that we ought to forgive every dollar of debt in the world. Just retire it, just pretend that it doesn't exist. We're not gonna do that, obviously, but Obama has asked Congress for more power for debt collection agencies to go after deadbeats like these kids hanging around Wall Street on their student loans, by calling their cell phones.

"Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending 'Freetrade' by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market ... Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals ... Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment." Why even go to school? Why care about education and why worry about employment if you're demanding "a guaranteed living wage"? "Demand number four: Free college education." Why? Why do you need free college education? If you're gonna get a living wage and you don't have to work, why go to college? Let's just ban college.

In fact, let's just ban colleges, let's put 'em out of business. "Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end..."Hey, dodo heads? That's happening. You young skulls full of mush down there making absolute jokes of yourselves, that's already happening. This regime is doing everything it can to put the fossil fuel industry out of business! "Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now. Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

"Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system. Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the 'Books.' World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the 'Books.'

"And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period." You like that one? (laughing) All right, let's do that. Let's just forgive all debt. Just wipe all debt out! Nobody owes anybody anything anymore. Get rid of it. Okay. "Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies. Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union." Why does this matter when nobody's gonna have to work? Because earlier it said that demand three is "a guaranteed living wage regardless of employment."

So why do you even need unions? Why do you need anything? If you're gonna get rid of debt, you don't need to worry about all rest of this. "These demands..." (chuckling) This is how it ends up. These are the proposed list of demands for the Occupy Wall Street movement posted by a guy named Lloyd J Hart at OccupyWallStreet.org -- and what do you bet this thing links back to Move America Forward or some other White House related place? Anyway, the last line after all the demands: "These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy." (laughing)

Look, we laugh. Let me tell you something, folks: They believe this. Let me tell you something. They are being taught this. There are adult college professors who teach this crap. Now, where do you think these lunkheads get this stuff? They didn't come out of the womb thinking this. I kid you not. They are being taught this in the deep, dark crevices of academe and peer pressure and everything else. But this is so nonsensical. What does it matter how many jobs are "created" when everybody gets "a living wage regardless of employment"? Where does the money coming from to give everybody a living wage? (laughing) They don't care. Who cares? If you just make the law that everybody gets a living wage, it's just gonna happen!

RUSH: We got a couple stories on this Fast and Furious business, one from CBS and the other is the Los Angeles Times. I think I put 'em in two different stacks. Probably did, in which case I'm gonna have trouble finding the LA Times version of the story. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Well, Sharyl Attkisson, CBS: "New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress. On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, 'I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.'" Yet new documents obtained by CBS News show Eric Holder was sent briefings on Fast and Furious as far back at July 2010, a year ago. "Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least

ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious."

So this is big, if you ask me. This is potential perjury, plain and simple. "Representative Darrell Issa who is the chair of the committee investigating Fast and Furious suggested on Fox & Friends this morning that Holder in fact may have perjured himself. The documents came from the head of the National Drug Intelligence Center and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Justice Department has publicly tried to distance itself from Fast and Furious but the new documents --" this is the CBS report "-- the new documents leave no doubt that high level Justice officials knew guns were being 'walked,'" into Mexico. "Two Justice Department officials mulled it over in an email exchange Oct. 18, 2010. 'It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions,' says Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit James Trusty replies 'I'm not sure how much grief we get for "guns walking." It may be more like, "Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there."'" Except the ATF are the people that sent the guns down there.

But this, once again, shows exactly why they were doing this, folks. This whole plan was a way to try to fix the blame for the violence in Mexico on American gun dealers. It was a backdoor way to curtail the Second Amendment. There is no question in my mind that that's what Fast and Furious was all about again. Get American guns, guns from American gun stores in the hands of Mexican drug cartels who would then use them in marauders and massacres and murders, other acts of violence. The regime could act outraged and shocked when this was learned, "Oh, my God who are these vicious gun dealers? How did this happen? This proves that we have got to have more gun control," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the purpose, but the whole story has been blown now. And what do you think about CBS and the Los Angeles Times both running stories today on Holder apparently not telling the truth.

The LA Times story is more detailed than this, but I focus on the CBS story here for you because the CBS story actually points out that these e-mails show that Holder misrepresented the facts in his testimony to Congress. And also the e-mail that they cite is more telling about the regime's reason for doing Fast and Furious in the first place. So the CBS story is not quite as long, it's not as detailed, but it does get to the heart of the matter on two really important points. I have to think, if there were George W. Bush and this were a plan to sabotage some liberal issue, we'd be talking impeachment. If everything else had happened, if the Bush attorney general had apparently committed perjury about what he knew when, this would be all over the place.

I'm stunned. We have two random acts of journalism here on the same day. This is the third random act of journalism I can recall by the Drive-By Media in five days. We had a random act of journalism last Thursday. We had two random acts of journalism today by the LA Times and CBS. Now, why do you think that's happening, ladies and gentlemen? I'll tell you why it's happening. Because these people in the media see Obama destroying them, their ideology. They see Obama destroying liberalism. They're mad, it's really quite simple. They are just ticked off. Obama has done all this great stuff but he isn't popular. They had dreams that Obama would be able to implement all of this socialist agenda and be loved and adored just as he was in 2008. Instead, a majority of Americans don't think he'll be reelected. Now 55% don't think he'll be reelected, and close to that same number say that they won't vote for him. Liberalism is in deep doo-doo, that's why all of a sudden now some of these stories about Fast and Furious and other things. And if I'm right we're gonna be seeing even more.

RUSH: This is Mike in Washington, DC, in the area there. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Well, we conservatives don't have to worry about you be attractive women because obviously Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are both very attractive. So we're blessed in that regard, aren't we?

RUSH: Yeah. I think if you... dare I say this? I probably shouldn't say it, but I'm just gonna give voice to what everybody recognizes. You watch any cable news network and you take a look at female roster of Democrat analysts and strategists on the Republican side and the conclusion is obvious.

RUSH: I mean, I could name names but I don't want to embarrass anybody here but we all know that this is true. Now, what was it that you called about? I know this wasn't it.

CALLER: No, it wasn't it. Today your show is the epitome of the reasons I started listening many years ago.

CALLER: And that is you bring some accountability to our government and taxpayers and the institutions and the processes therein, but you've introduced a couple areas that concern me, and one is the Fast and Furious and gun control.

CALLER: I recall under the Clinton administration, you pointed out that the Clinton administration was emasculating the military while arming civil agencies, civilian agencies to the teeth.

CALLER: Yeah, you said that -- and I firmly believe that the Second Amendment is probably one of the reasons we've kept our freedoms as long as we have. I wouldn't consider myself pro-gun. Guns scare me.

CALLER: I don't own a gun and I recognize the dangers in having one around, however I fully support the Second Amendment in every regard.

CALLER: I think it's the baseline, the foundation of why we've kept our freedoms as long as we can here.

RUSH: People do not understand the importance of the right to property. They focus on free speech, which is important, too. But, you know, the thing about gun control is even the libs now... I'll tell you when it first hit me -- when I knew a tidal wave had happened that nobody had seen -- was the 2000 presidential campaign. It's George W. Bush versus Algore, and in one of the debates, Algore -- out of the blue -- starts talking up the right to bear arms, supporting the right to own guns. I'm saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What has happened here? What have I missed?" 'Cause up 'til that moment in time the Democrats have been trying to say the Second Amendment doesn't mean you can have a gun, they're trying to ultimately interpret it that way or just get it ignored or written out of the Constitution.

Well, what changed it was polling data. The Democrats have to govern against the will of the people but in order to get elected they have to pander. So they pandered. I know for a fact that Gore did not believe in the Second Amendment, and John Kerry didn't either. John Kerry shows up in Indiana or Iowa dressed up like Johnny Carson making fun of a hunter and he walks into some tackle shop or some, says, "Hey, is this where I can get ME a huntin' license?" 'cause everybody knew that Lurch doesn't know anything about guns, doesn't support anybody having them, but the polling data was clear: You lose if you are of the mind-set that you want to take guns out of people's hands, legally; you take guns out of the lives of innocent people, you are in trouble.

So these Democrats have to publicly acknowledge it, but look what they do when they get elected. Hello, Fast and Furious! This is what they're capable of. So they arrange a program that is designed to put guns purchased in Arizona in American gun stores in the hands of drug cartel thugs in Mexico. They figure that those guns are gonna be used in the commission of crimes, murders, mayhem, and what have you. The plan was to have that happen, and then to have outrage and shock and dismay when we learn that those guns originated in the Phoenix! "You mean the Mexican drug cartel was killing people, in some cases Americans and drug agents, with guns purchased at a Phoenix gun store? Why..." They wanted a national outcry of opposition to this, shut down the availability of guns. That was the whole point of Fast and Furious: Go behind the scenes try to create a phony situation to toy with public opinion, because (never forget this) when the public expresses an opinion at variance with liberalism or the Democrats, they never respect the public's opinion. They never see the need to subvert it, corrupt it, and get around. That's what Fast and Furious was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservative Review
Issue #198	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	October 8, 2011