A Cacophony of Whining

For several days on both the Rush Limbaugh show and on Michael Medved, people have been calling up and whining about their lives and the terrible economic crisis that they and the United States is in. I have never heard such pathetic whining in all of my life. One guy told Rush how he works so hard and how it does not seem like he can ever get ahead (of course, he has a family) and he just thinks that it is wrong and unfair. I find myself embarrassed to be an American when a fellow American starts whining like that about his life. Now, he did not go into any detail, but I am sure that this guy (1) was buying the house that he lived in; (2) had a car in the driveway for every person over 18 living in his house; (3) they probably eat out more often or bring fast food home more often in a month than I did in all of my teen years at home; and (4) probably both he and his wife have something which they spend over $100/month on which is not a necessity for their lives (like coffee at Starbucks). Now, this is pure conjecture on my part, as I don’t know this man from Adam, but we as a people have become so spoiled and so whiny that we embarrass ourselves every time we open our mouths and moan and whine about just how fretful our lives are.

I have an apartment in one of the poorer sections of town, and I have been rehabilitating the apartment since evicting the animals who lived there, and, in doing this work, I have to drive back and forth between the apartment and Home Depot once or twice a day. So, as I drive through this poorer part of town (this is not dirt poor, but this is an area of town where one can rent an apartment for $500–700/month) and you know what I notice about the people in the streets? They are fat. Not overweight; fat; and some of them really fat. The people in this poor part of town eat too much food and probably too much processed food (which means it costs more).

I’ve been to Thailand and I have been to Mexico, and I have seen what real poor people actually look like and I know how they live and how much they struggle and I know how hard they work. They live in houses that most of us would never dream of living in; those with refrigerators generally have an old, beat up dorm-room type refrigerator. They don’t have air conditioning; they don’t have a car; they don’t just drive over to Starbuck’s whenever they feel like it and spent $5 on coffee. And these aren’t the worst off people on this planet—they are actually about average.

And there are those among us who whine as to how hard our lives are. This seems to be particularly a problem for Democrats, who seem to believe that George Bush has single-handedly destroyed our economy and has brought us to the brink of the worst economic crisis we have ever known, and has somehow just ruined their lives, their goals and (oh dear!) their hope.

Once politics is out of the equation, a few decades from now, Bush will be known as the president who had the lowest unemployment rate throughout his presidency of all presidents ever; he will be known for having one of the lowest inflation rates over the term of his presidency. The blips of the so-called housing crisis and the high oil prices will probably not even be noted, and if noted, it will be clear that they were a result of a number of market forces,

and not Bush calling up his friends at big oil and saying, “You oughtta start raising the price of gas while I’m still in control.” And, to be fair, he will be known as a Republican president who did not exercise fiscal responsibility on the homefront (he will also be known also as presiding over a period of time when one of the lowest percentages ever of the federal budgets went to the military).

What has happened is, our newspapers and television reporters (and personalities) have convinced us that our life is crap, that we are struggling and working too hard, and that, no matter what we do, we cannot ever seem to get ahead in life.

Personally, I have a sense of history. I know how life was for my family (when I was a child) growing up. I know how my brothers and their families live right now. There is no comparison. We live so much better now, with respect to material wealth, than my parents had when they raised us. Their lives were better than those of their parents.

Now, are there economic blips? Under every presidency, there are economic blips. Sometimes these are disastrous, as under the Carter administration, but, for the most part, our general economy has been quite prosperous overall from Reagan through Bush. Every person I know who has been a grown up over this period of time has significantly increased their wealth and material possessions over these past 30 or so years. The discretionary spending of these people has increased to a point to where they do not even recognize this it is discretionary spending. Furthermore, the people I know who live primarily on welfare have a nice houses stocked with at least one big screen tv, a DVD player, several dozen DVD’s, and a stereo system.

If you think your life is crap and that you are working too hard and just getting too little out of the bargain, and if you somehow want to blame Bush for it, then you are just a sad, pathetic whiner, with no sense of history and absolutely no appreciation for the prosperity which God has given you. Your problem is not really an economic one, but a spiritual one.

Morph to Barack

There are several reasons for Obama’s success thus far—one is white guilt, to be sure; but what I think what he does is, he speaks to a spiritually corrupt America and offers a substitute for a spiritual life—he offers up himself as our political savior, as the one who cares, as the one who understands the yearnings of our souls, and can speak to our souls.

When Obama first began his campaign, the response was quite phenomenal: huge crowds showed up to his rallies, unlike at anytime before. Young people flocked to him, seeing him as far more than a politician. in fact, what so many people saw in him was a savior; a messiah. He spoke like a preacher in many of his rallies; he spoke in general terms, but he spoke to the hearts of those there. Even a newscaster admitted that he had chills run up and down his legs when listening to Obama. People fainted; Barack threw them bottled water to help revive them, which I guess could be seen as spiritual on some level. He stopped calling for doctors; he healed them himself. In any case, he was not like a politician gathering those of like-mind, but he was more like an evangelist, speaking humanism and goodwill and government solutions.

I have heard a lot of Obama supporters speak, and I have heard them give their opinions after there is a problem or a misstep in his campaign. Many seem to think that it is unfair that Reverend Jeremy Wright is any kind of an issue (Obama’s pastor and spiritual leader for 20 years), and they dredge up the fact the Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, where, for a long time, interracial dating was not allowed; and wasn’t this exactly the same thing?

News reporters, for the most part, will not investigate Obama’s actual political history; his interrelationships with very shady people on his meteoric rise in politics, and they rarely publicize his actual positions (he does have them). They will do an investigative hit piece on John McCain for a supposed affair and a supposed favoritism given to a lobbyist (both of which are patently false) based on facts which are about a decade old. But, most Obama supporters know very little substance about their own candidate, because our news services, for the most part, will not do any digging. They do not want to burst the bubble or reveal what is actually behind the magic. They don’t want to know what is behind the curtain of the wizard of Oz.

For those whose lives are hard and they have experienced unfairness in their lives more than once, Obama presents to them hope and promise and fairness. He cannot and will not ever deliver on these general promises; no one could do that. What he will do, insofar as Congress will allow, is to expand government to do more and more; and he will depend upon the press to run interference for him, as they have done so far (as they did during most of the Clinton years). What I mean is, the press has been talking about an economic downturn and economic problems and using the r-word (recession) for about 6 months now. Every time that there are good economic indicators, experts are taken by surprise. In an Obama administration, which seems to be the hope and prayer of most news organizations, you are suddenly going to hear a lot less about the difficult, hard lives of sad, whiny Americans.

For many Americans, Obama is a religious figure more than a politician, and if he loses, either the nomination or the presidency, look for these people to become more disenchanted and more angry than Democrats in general have been over the past 7 years.

Obama’s Foot in Mouth

At a recent fundraiser in SF, Obama had the following ot say about small-town America:

"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

He later said that, he may have been able to word his thoughts in a better way, but that what he said was fundamentally true.

I live in a small town and I have lost several jobs for unjust reasons. I also own guns and believe in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, I think that Latinas are hot, but I would rather they checked in at the front door first. However, the jobs I have lost, my ownership of guns, and my faith in God have very little to do with one another. Furthermore, I am not really sure exactly what Obama is going to do about this? Will he make it impossible for me to be fired? Will he take away my gun? Will he re-educate me so that I cling to his beliefs instead of my religion?

I don’t care how little or how much Clinton and Bush think about me. Generally speaking, the less government in my life, the better.

However, the idea that, because I have lost a job, that I am at home, hating immigrants, carrying a gun and praying fiercely to God, is both condescending and nonsensical.

These are the things which Obama believes and they seem to be quite detached from reality. There are some liberals (not all) who try to group us gun-owning, small-town religious types into some sort of a group, which apparently, with a little education and compassion from the government, we might be willing to give up our guns and religion?

In any case, I don’t want a man like this to be the most powerful man in the world; I want someone who has a clue; I don’t want a man who needs to file me away into some group in order to be dismissive of my views and my thinking.

Here’s one article on this:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/04/republicans_quickly_pounce_on.html?nav=rss_blog

The Affirmative Action Candidate

Obama appears to be our affirmative action candidate. Very few people expect him to answer questions at a news conference (remember in Austin, how Obama ran from the reporters, saying, "Come on, guys, I have answered like 8 questions already."

He will talk to any world dictator, no matter how heinous; but he won't talk to Chris Wallace (after agreeing to come on his show), Britt Hume or Bill O'Reilly.

His devoted minions give him a pass. He's Obama.

Obama is gutless and he is afraid of tough questions. Do we really want him as our president, if he is afraid of serious scrutiny?

McCain, for all his faults, will talk to anyone at anytime, whether they have an agenda or not, whether the reporter slants left, right or in the middle. He does not run away when asked tough questions; and he does not avoid any forum.

We expect very little out of Obama. When his association of 20 years with Reverend Wright was examined, his faithful minions were offended and miffed. Obama did not like it much either. He gave the speech, but did he take any tough questions? So far, only Anderson Cooper has asked him a few moderately difficult questions on that topic (I must admit to being surprised); and this was after Anderson, at first, scoffed at this being a real issue to be dealt with.

There are post-primary election polls about race being a serious issue to the voters. If memory serves, about 20% of the voters cast their vote based upon race. That means for and against. I am sure in some places, like South Carolina, there percentage was far higher than that.

If we elect Obama, then we will get what we deserve. An affirmative action candidate who is afraid of FoxNews. How pathetic is that!

Global Warming will make us Cannibals

Ted Turner warned us on Tuesday night that the temperature of the earth will rise by 8 degrees within 30 years and that those of us who survive will be cannibals. I am glad to hear that at least all of global warming alarmists are not unreasonable or crazy.

CHARLIE ROSE: What will happen if global warming is not addressed immediately?

TED TURNER: Not doing it will be catastrophic. We’ll be 8 degrees hotter in 10—not 10, but 30 or 40 years, and basically none of the crops will grow, most of the people will have died, and the rest of us will be cannibals, civilization will have broken down. What the—few people left will be living in a—in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and—and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad, there will be no more corn growing. Not doing it is suicide. ...

CHARLIE ROSE: What’s wrong with the population, Ted?

TED TURNER: There’s too many people. That’s why we have global warming. We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff. If there were less people they’d be using less stuff.

This is public television, the one network which is not afraid to inform the public.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54

Best Poly Coverage, says Dem, is FoxNews

FoxNews provide the best election coverage. Governor Ed Rendell (D) of Pennsylvania has openly praised their coverage, saying that they have been very fair with the coverage of the candidates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64PRLw9nW2U

Liberal bloggers are furious.

We Are Under Attack—Right Now

We have had numerous attacks on our soil by Jihadists, over the past 7 years. They are never called Jihad attacks, but if you watch this video and begin to connect the dots, you will see that we have been attacked on many occasions.

Again, Fox News tells you what no one else will.

Here are some examples from the FoxNews website.

This article came from a show put out last week by FoxNews and available to watch on the Internet:

Jihad Homegrown Terror:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/192031.php

Several terror-related cases now in the courts highlight this need for continued vigilance, experts say.

— In Florida, the retrial of six of the "Liberty City Seven" is coming to a close. The group members, who allegedly plotted to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and swore allegiance to Al Qaeda on a secret FBI surveillance tape, were arrested in June 2006. Their first trial ended in a not-guilty verdict for one defendant and a mistrial for the other six.

— In Washington state, the murder trial has begun for Pakistani-American Naveed Haq, who is accused of opening fire in Seattle's Jewish Federation Building in July 2006, killing one woman and wounding five others. Haq allegedly said he was mad at the Jews and how they are running the country.

Two other cases are to enter court next month.

— In Michigan, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Houssein Zorkot, a Lebanese-born medical student at Wayne State University in Detroit who posted on his Web site in September 2007 that he was launching a personal jihad. He was arrested that same day in a nearby park, wearing camouflage paint and holding a loaded AK-47.

— In South Carolina a trial is set for Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, two University of South Florida students who officials say had pipe bombs in their car when they were caught speeding near the Goose Creek weapons base.

Terror experts say these and other cases since Sept. 11 illustrate an emerging threat from homegrown terrorists, people who have been radicalized by extreme Muslim doctrine within the U.S.

"Al Qaeda is depending today upon the spontaneous emergence of these jihadist cells that are not tethered to the leadership of Al Qaeda by either telephone or e-mail," terror investigator and author Steve Emerson told FOX News.

But others say the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism is overstated.

In "none of these cases brought in the United States did the government ever produce any evidence suggesting that someone had prepared a bomb," says Jim Wedick, a former FBI agent. "Someone's actual ability to do harm needs to be taken into the equation."

Wedick consulted with the defense on the Liberty City Seven case.

"The solution is not to treat the whole Muslim community as a suspect community," says Hussam Ayloush, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This is not about ignoring a threat, but this ... should not be about exaggerating any threat in a way that promotes certain political agendas."

Kelly says the threat is real and the only way to combat it is through prevention.

"Just imagine if the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were arrested on Sept. 10," he says. "How would that have been characterized?"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342248,00.html

My comments: Why don't we hear about these attacks as a result of Jihad? This is what I think: Bush certainly does not want to alarm the public nor does he want to give any publicity to these Jihad attacks, which would only result in more attacks. Our liberal press does not want to present these attacks as Jihad attacks because they do not want us to elect John McCain as president (Obama and Clinton are correctly seen as very soft on terrorism, both here and abroad, so terrorist attacks receive little publicity; and the publicity which they receive always downplay the Jihad element).

Let’s Put Food in our Cars’ Gas Tanks

Lately, I have heard the rallying cry, "We've got to do something, anything, to solve our energy problem." Mostly, this is from liberals, and it has to do with global warming, energy independence, and once and awhile, because of gas prices or oil company profits.

Ethanol is why we do not have to do something, anything, to solve whatever real or imagined problems we face in the realm of energy. One of the big crises for liberals is global warming, which is caused by (according to them) too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Until the past couple decades, no one has been concerned about carbon dioxide--we exhale it and plants inhale it. Obviously, the more plants and trees that we have, the more CO₂ will be absorbed. Ethanol has caused millions of forested acres to be razed in order to plant corn. The end result: more CO₂ in our atmosphere. That was not the intention of ethanol. Furthermore, studies suggest that we use far more energy to produce and to transport ethanol than we do with oil. Furthermore, it has been shown that, if we reach a reasonable maximum in ethanol production, the effect it will have upon energy independence will be practically nil.

Two more unintended consequences: our government is spending millions of tax dollars to subsidize ethanol producers and this demand for ethanol has taken a once cheap staple for poor people all around the world and has doubled or tripled its price.

This is why we do not need government doing something--anything--in order to solve these real and imagined problems. Ethanol is a mistake--a huge mistake--and the world's poor has to pay the price for this boondoggle.

George Soros’ New Plan

These are talking points by Bill O’Reilly from this past week, and this is what may get Obama elected:

The American axis of evil. That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

According to some excellent reporting by Politico.com, a rather frightening meeting took place here in New York City two nights ago. Billionaire far-left zealot George Soros had a dinner in his Manhattan home that included Clinton confidante Paul Begala and the vicious character assassin David Brock, who runs Media Matters. Apparently, these three are starting an organization called Progressive Media USA.

Now as we reported last week, a number of organizations are set up to attack John McCain, including this new Progressive Media deal. As much as $350 million could be spent vilifying McCain. I believe this is evil.

There are two ironies here. First, the Swift Boat deal back in 2004 where some conservatives hammered John Kerry is the model for the Soros smear machine. And second, if not for the McCain-Feingold law, which led to the creation of these vile MoveOn type organizations, McCain might not have to deal with this garbage.

Memo to everybody: Be careful what you wish for.

Video:

Watch Talking Points Watch Pinheads & Patriots

As I wrote extensively in my book "Culture Warrior," George Soros wants to buy America, and he is close. Years ago, Soros helped create MoveOn, and now it is a major fundraiser for Barack Obama.

Hired character assassin Brock makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Who pays his salary? We'll look at this flow chart.

Soros distributed big money to a variety of far-left outfits. And then the cash, some of it anyway, flows into Brock's organization Media Matters. Things are set up this way so Soros can say he does not directly fund the vicious media site.

Same thing with the new Progressive Media USA outfit. Because it's a 501(c)(4) for non-profit group, donors can be kept secret. Thus, Soros can spend as much cash as he wants to smear McCain, and nobody will know about it.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is ultra dangerous. Most Americans have no idea who Soros or Brock are. They will only know what they see on TV, smear stuff against McCain. And the pipeline extends directly to NBC News, which will publicize every piece of slime Brock can create. Only one word describes this: despicable.

Barack Obama and John McCain have both said they don't want a dirty campaign, but they can do nothing to stop Soros. He has the power here. It'd be nice if Senators Obama and McCain denounce Soros and Brock, but I'm not counting on that.

Also, Politico and others are reporting that Obama has an association with two former far-left radicals, William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn. They are members of the Weather Underground, a violent 1960s protest group. They now teach college in Chicago, and apparently the senator has socialized with them.

So all in all, the radical left is playing a role in the next presidential election. And we will keep a close eye on this situation for you.

What’s Up with American Airlines?

The virtual shut down of American Airlines was because of government regulation. There was no serious safety factor involved. There is a story in the Washington Post where the 3 objections by government inspectors were enumerated. Not one would have been a peril to the passengers.

Remember that the free market and the insurance corporations keep our airlines safe. Insurance companies do not want to insure unsafe airlines; and airlines which crash due to insufficient maintainance do not tend to stay in business. Remember, more US passenger aircraft have crashed over the past 10 years due to terrorists than for all other reasons combined.

The government simply likes to regulate. Regulations are put forth by 3rd parties, signed into law by politicians who rarely read what they are signing, and then enforced by bureaucrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101246.html

Inspired partially from the comments of Jason Lewis 4/11/08

Obama and Unity

Personally, I do not think that Obama will be our next president; and I still think there is a good chance that Clinton will even take the nomination from him. His rallies still draw crowds, but watch their faces—they aren’t quite as enthusiastic as they were 3 months ago; they aren’t fainting. Obama no longer carries a water bottle in his holster.

His wife, Michelle Obama, is only recently proud of her country. She has gone to the finest educational institutions in this country—ones which I could have never gone to—and makes nearly $400,000 a year on her own, while warning her minions not to take corporate jobs. She is married to a man who potentially could be the most powerful man in the world, and yet she tells us that America is a mean country, and that she faced ostracism and racism throughout her college years.

N Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Obama met with 50 working women who filled a room at a Harrisburg preschool. One of the things that she ad was: “If we don't wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership...for how we want this country to work, then we won't get universal health care. The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie.” That is called socialism, in case you didn’t know.

Barack’s pastor lives in an American run by rich white people who apparently spend most of their time keeping the Black man down, never really coming to grips with the fact that one of his parishioners of 20 years, a Black man, is a serious candidate for the presidency. He sees America as a mean a vicious country and has more in common with Muslim leaders than he does with Christian leaders. By the way, I have listened to a complete sermon of his, from which snippets have been taken; and his anti-American remarks are not being taken out of context. They may be the most outrageous part of his sermon, but what he said, he meant. He’ll retire, by the way, to a mostly white neighborhood, in a gated community, in a house larger than most of us will ever live in.

For these reasons, and for the words which come right out of Obama’s own mouth, he may lose the Democratic nomination or the general election.

If either is the case, then watch Obama, and watch how he loses; and then we will see if can he bring unity to our country with the right words spoken at the right time; or will he continue to sow discord in our land.

If he loses to Clinton, I can see him still rallying the troops behind her; but if he loses to McCain, I think that he will continue to trash talk McCain for the subsequent 4 years, just as he has George Bush.

If he has a real chance to be gracious and unifying, will he?

Proof of God’s Existence

I would like for you to walk around your house and find a very simple object to examine. Now, I don’t mean a pencil or a coffee cup, because these are examples of things which are too complex for this proof. I want you to find something like a grain of sand which is lodged into your carpet, a piece of lint, or a spec of dust. Then I would like you to take this small, simple object and spend the rest of your life studying that object, assuming that you have every means at your disposal to study it.

Let’s begin with is molecular structure: how many molecules make up this grain of sand? Are they homogenous or heterogenous? How does each molecule fit together with every other molecule? Assuming that you have the means, chart the relationship of each and every molecule in this grain of sand.

Explain all of the scientific forces acting upon this grain of sand: its molecular cohesion (why doesn’t it just fall apart; what kind of force could be applied and what kinds of objects could break this sand into smaller pieces, and what scientific laws would explain why this section separated from that section; what would be the physical reaction of taking an unbelievably small drill and drilling into this piece of sand?). There are other forces which act upon this grain of sand: gravity, air pressure, temperature, humidity—what effect is each of these forces having upon this grain of sand? Let’s say that these forces are changed in tandem and/or individually—how would these potential changes affect this grain of sand? Could this grain of sand be melted? What would be the effect upon its chemical composition and the interrelationship of molecules if this grain of sand were melted? Assuming unlimited resources, chart the exact interrelationship of each and every molecule in this grain of sand as various forces are brought to bear upon it. Explain how the temperature change has brought about these changes. Can this gain of sand be subjected to further temperatures so warm as to turn this grain of sand into vapor? How does air pressure come into play at this point and gravity; and how would these variables act upon this grain of sand as more heat were applied? Let’s say air pressure were increased a hundredfold and gravity reduced by a factor of ten, what would be the result? At what various points could air pressure and gravity be changed on this grain of sand to alter its cohesive properties, even if temperature is held as a constant. Take these various forces acting upon this grain of sand and change them by factors of 10 in both directions and describe the sort of changes which take place in this grain of sand.

Again, assuming unlimited resources, describe exactly the path that this grain of sand has taken to come to be under your examination. If our earth is many billions of years old, then quite obviously, that grain of sand has not been lodged in your carpet for all of that time. How did it get there? Where did it come from? How was it formed? Plot a path in relationship to this earth of where this grain of sand has been, and how it was formed, and how every force of nature has acted upon it and its position over the past several billion years. If its composition has changed in any way, whether it has picked up a few molecules here or there or lost a few, or has been in a different form throughout these billions of years, describe each an every change and each and every location and how the forces of the earth, man and animal have had on this grain of sand.

If you were to describe everything which can be known about this grain of sand, charts included, there is far more here than could be held in a scientific paper; there is far more here than you could put together in a doctoral dissertation. This is far more than you could write and chart given your entire lifetime, on this tiny, insignificant grain of sand.

Anything in your periphery is just as complex. Its exact molecular structure, the actions of the various forces of nature upon that thing, the interaction of the molecules under a battery of scientific tests, along with the history of that thing, is complex beyond your ability to understand it. All that can be known about this or that insignificant spec of whatever (dust, lint) is beyond the capability of all of the scientists in this world, using all of the scientific equipment that they have assembled.

Your immediate periphery consists of billions of things, both simple and complex, which are beyond your ability to fully understand or appreciate. In fact, they are beyond the ability of the most brilliant team of scientists to fully understand or appreciate.

How can you say, God does not exist? If the simplest things in our life are far beyond our compression in so many ways, and yet, somehow, all of these things seem to fit together in some organized form or fashion, obeying a battery of scientific laws which are beyond our complete understanding, having an incredible and interrelated history of perhaps billions of years, can you really say this is purposeless, random, totally lacking in meaning? The fool has said in his thinking, there is no God (Psalm 14:a 53:1a); and at some point in your life, this same God whose very being you question, will say to you, “Fool, this night, your soul is required of you.” (Luke 12:20). For God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely-born Son, so that, whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Gas Prices can be Reduced!

In the past week or so, one of the largest oil deposits in the world was discovered in North Dakota, Montana and Canada. Do you really care about low gas prices? Do you think we will drill for this oil?

The oil in Alaska which apparently may never be drilled is in a place that you will never visit and a place that no one that you know will ever visit. If memory serves, it is dark there 68 days a year. There could not be a more perfect place to drill. And, by the way, Alaskans overwhelmingly want to drill there. It is people who do not live there and who will never go there who do not think we ought to drill in ANWR.

I’m a Bad American (an email forward)

YES, I'M A BAD AMERICAN

I Am the Liberal-Progressives’ Worst Nightmare. I am an American.

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some Liberal governmental functionary be it Democratic or Republican!

I'm in touch with my feelings and I like it that way!

I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer, it makes you a smart American.

I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized, and does not entitle you to anything.

I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, do it in English.

I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to.

My heroes are John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and whoever canceled Jerry Springer.

I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time watching or arguing about it.

I've never owned a slave, or was a slave, I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks and neither have you! So, shut up already.

I believe if you don't like the way things are here, go back to where you came from and change your own country! This is AMERICA .

If you were born here and don't like it you are free to move to any Socialist country that will have you.

I want to know which church is it exactly where the Reverend Jesse Jackson preaches, where he gets his money, and why he is always part of the problem and not the solution. Can I get an AMEN on that one?

I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry rear if you're running from them. I also think they have the right to pull you over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what color you are.

And, no, I don't mind having my face shown on my drivers license. I think it's good. And I'm proud that "In God we trust" is written on my money. It is the motto of the United States.

I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.

I dislike those people standing in the intersections trying to sell me stuff or trying to guilt me into making "donations" to their cause.

I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.

I believe "illegal" is illegal no matter what the lawyers think.

I believe the American flag should be the only one allowed in AMERICA !

If this makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American.

Rush on Democratic Socialism

Rush: Michelle Obama was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and she was meeting with 50 working women who filled a room at a Harrisburg preschool. She swept into the classroom of children ages two to six to read to them and so forth. After all of that, she said "Should she become first lady, she said she'd focus on family issues. 'If we don't wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership...for how we want this country to work, then we won't get universal health care. The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.'" This is no different than Mrs. Clinton saying she wants to take ExxonMobil profits, rein in all those all these profits. Doesn't matter, Hillary or Obama, pure 100% liberal, slash, socialists. To them, everything is a zero-sum game. If somebody gets a dollar more than they had, somebody had to lose a dollar. This is an attack on capitalism. It is a conscious attack on capitalism. It is not that Obama and Hillary don't understand it. They clearly do. They don't like it, and they clearly don't think it's the way to get elected. They know their constituents and they know that they have created an entitlement mentality among as many people as possible. They know that part of this entitlement mentality is class envy.

They know that there are seething Americans enraged at anybody who has anything more than they have. So the Democrats come along and promise to get even with those people. In the process of that happening, getting even with the job providers, ends up killing jobs, it hurts the little guy, the very constituent the Democrats claim to help by raising everybody's taxes. So here is Michelle Obama saying if we're going to get universal health care and a revamped education system, somebody is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that somebody else can have more. And who's going to be in charge of that? Barack Obama and Michelle and the Democrats in Congress.

Michelle Obama: We need more white people

RUSH: From an account in the Carnegie Mellon University newspaper, the Tartan, of a Michelle Obama event in Pittsburgh: "While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama's event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan's correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, 'Get me more white people, we need more white people.' To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, 'We're moving you, sorry. It's going to look so pretty, though.' 'I didn't know they would say, "We need a white person here,"' said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. 'I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn't know it would be so outright.'" I'm not sure there's any real reason here for this, but still, "We need more white people"? We need more white people. Does that jibe with anything the Reverend Jeremiah Wright said? By the way, speaking of that, this is from the Chicago Sun-Times. I gotta tell you something. If it weren't for newspapers like the Carnegie Mellon Tartan and the Chicago Sun-Times and local newspapers, we wouldn't know half of what we are learning about Barack Obama, his politics, and his intentions.

RUSH: I want to go back to something in the first hour. We had the story, at a Michelle Obama event in Pennsylvania there weren't enough white people sitting in the audience behind her in camera view, and so the organizers are putting out a call for, "We need more white people." And they were moving people of color to get them out of there and replacing them with more white people. Now, most people have a knee-jerk reaction to that, laugh about it and so forth and so on, but you need to stop and think of something. Why? Why do they need more white people? Hmm? Why should that matter? We're all colorblind here. I mean, Obama's a great unifier. Obama is going to bring people together. Why? Why do they need more white people? Hmm? No, I'm just asking. I'm sure somebody's got the answer. Why do they need more white people? And did they clear this with Reverend Wright? I know they've been running ads for Republicans all over the place. What do they tell? Here you've got the first black candidate for president, probably the likely nominee, and black people came out, are excited as hell to show up at these Obama rallies, and here comes some organizer, "Okay, pal, back to the back of the bus for you." "What do you mean?" "We need more white people where you're sitting." "What? You telling me I got here first and you gonna move me?" "That's right, we're going to move you out of camera view so that you can't even be seen. We need white people where you are."

Now, what do these enthusiastic, invigorated, all hyped-up black people, Obama supporters, think when Michelle's organizers show up and say, "Back to the end of the line for you, or, you can't sit here at our lunch counter. You gotta find your own. We need white people here." Why? Why? Well, they might be getting white people, but they're not ending up in the camera shot, so nobody knows there are white people there. They need more white people. I got an idea. If they need more white people, just ask Reverend Wright to go through his new neighborhood in Chicago in Tinley Park and say, "Hey, I got a bus coming through here, going to take you to an Obama rally, just get on the bus when we stop at your house." (laughing) Right. Why? Why do you need more white people? There is an answer to this.

Rush: How Liberals Think

RUSH: Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has once again done everybody a favor, opening his mouth and revealing for one and all exactly who and what liberal Democrats are. Thank you, Operation Chaos. The Charleston Gazette -- that's in West Virginia -- reports this: "Rockefeller believes McCain has become insensitive to many human issues. 'McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] got to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." Uh, this, my friends, is striking. In the first place, it's factually wrong. What did McCain fly, an A-4 Skyhawk or some such thing? There were no laser-guided missiles. They didn't hit I think 'til 1968 or '69. There were no laser-guided missiles. And McCain was shot down at 4,500 feet or 5,400 feet. He wasn't flying at 35,000 feet. He was shot down at around 5,000 feet. Laser-guided bombs were used in Vietnam, but they weren't used at the time McCain was flying his mission.

Now, after this insult, Rockefeller went out and personally apologized to McCain on the Senate floor for suggesting that McCain doesn't care about the lives -- McCain was defending the United States of America, for crying out loud! (interruption) Yes, Mr. Snerdley? Question from the program observer. Yes? Yes? Hm-hm. Hm-hm. Snerdley's question is, "How is what Rockefeller said any different than what Reverend Wright said about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all these other places." There isn't any difference. What's the difference between what Rockefeller said about McCain and what Democrats have been saying about the troops in Iraq, about the people at camp Gitmo, about the people at Abu Ghraib?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So Rockefeller went to the Senate floor to apologize personally for suggesting that McCain doesn't care about the lives of people caught in the wars that he champions, dating back to his Navy service days in Vietnam.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CALLER: Hey, Rush, the Rockefeller comments about McCain, are those also an indirect attack on the Clintons, since that's the type of war they fought in Bosnia where precision-guided missiles were fired by pilots ordered to stay above a certain altitude?

RUSH: No, because, see, that was NATO, and the Clintons weren't in the airplanes. (pause) I mean, I get your point. I get your point. The Clintons fought a war at 15,000 feet by bombing people, and it's a great way to point out the hypocrisy of Rockefeller. But again, see, you have to understand, it's easy to explain -- and when you hear it, it sounds very plausible, very simple, but it's a tough thing to remember. Liberals believe that the world can be perfected. Obama, if you listen carefully to some of his sound bites, he will even say that: We are out to perfect the world; we want a more perfect world. They think perfection is achievable. They know that realists, such as us, don't get caught up in New Age garbage like perfection because we're too reality based. Perfection is just not possible, particularly among nations and human beings, it just isn't. There are too many factors, too many variables: education, intelligence, desire, ambition, a whole bunch of reasons. It's not possible, but they think it is, and so since they think it is, and since their intentions -- I mean, who could oppose a perfect world?

Why, it would be wonderful! But there are people in there view who oppose a perfect world: us. Therefore we are evil. We are pure eeeeevil. And we don't believe in a perfect world that can be perfected. As such, anything they do -- with the motive being to achieve a perfect world -- is entirely justified, destroying us or anybody else in their way. So how does this apply to McCain, Rockefeller, and the Clintons in Bosnia? Well, in Bosnia, the liberals simply had their good intentions. They were wearing them on the sleeve: trying to achieve a perfect world by getting rid of bad people. Trying to get rid of bad people. And so, dropping bombs on bad people, good intentions, trying to perfect the world? Fine! But McCain was Republican. McCain was part of the military, which is part of the problem, because the military stands in the way of a perfect world. In a perfect world there would be no need for a military because there would never be any hostilities. There wouldn't be any hate. There wouldn't be any discrimination. There wouldn't be any prejudice. There wouldn't be any bigotry. There wouldn't be any racism, sexism, homophobia, in a perfect world. But the Republicans oppose this, because Republicans are racists, sexists, bigots and homophobes in the liberal worldview, and, as such, when a McCain-piloted jet drops bombs on (sobbing) innocent little children and people of color, it is not an attempt to perfect the world. It is killing babies, women, and children. So it is thoroughly condemnable. There's no question. You just condemn it

Then you say, "Well, wait a minute! You guys ordered the same thing in Bosnia."

"Oh, no, no, no. That was not the same. We were trying to rid the world of bad people. You were trying to rid the world of innocent women and children and babies and you didn't care, and you were dropping Agent Orange and those people were innocent. That war was our fault. We had no business being there. We deserved to lose."

But, see, NATO was not even the US military. That was an international force, or a North Atlantic Treaty Organization force, and therefore it was an alliance of nations. It was not the eeevil United States. In fact, the only representative of the United States was Wesley Clark, Ashley Wilkes, the commanding general. He's a good liberal. He had good intentions. He wanted to perfect the world. The spokesman for NATO who came out and announced the success of the war in Bosnia -- Jamie something or other, had proper British accent? Not an American. A European! A citizen of the world. (doing impression) "Our forces there, under the command of General Hornblower Windfogger..." We got the daily report of casualties, but that was all for a perfect world. We're not for that, and so anything done to destroy us is entirely possible.

Rush: How the Economy Works in the US

This is excellent! Rush was talking with one of those whining about the economy:

RUSH: The country needs people like you to get active and busy and react, "Okay, the economy is having a little blip here. Fine. What can we do about it?" Go out and engage in it. Be more productive, work harder, instead of sitting around and whining and moaning about George Bush or any other politician and wishing that another Democrat were in office because you can't do anything about that until November.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: If people like you who make the country work, would simply turn off the news -- don't let your mood be affected by what you think is happening to other people, because you're being lied to about that -- we wouldn't be in the economic circumstances that we're in. You have more power to alter your life and the lives of your family than you know. But if people come around and tell you it will be pointless because George Bush is an idiot, or because we're losing jobs, manufacturing jobs, all this sort of stuff, you're going to say, "Okay, what's the point?" and you're going to sit around and wait for a new president to fix this?

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Well, you shouldn't, because the president doesn't fix anything. People do.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: The president doesn't make the country work, the American people do. What presidents can do is make it harder or easier for people to make the country work.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: The president can't do it. The president can raise your taxes; make it harder for you to succeed. He can cut your taxes and get rid of regulation; make it easier for you to succeed.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But he can't rejuvenate and revive an economy. If he could, there would never be any recessions. FDR would have gotten us out of a recession with a snap of his fingers. It took 12 years. No president has that kind of power. No political party does, either. The American people make the country work. Join us, Lynn.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That last caller, Lynn from Ohio, bless her heart, is exactly what happens to people with years and years of exposure to liberalism. She's depressed; she believes government holds all of her answers. Most importantly, she's lost her free will as a person. She doesn't think she has any control over her life, her economic circumstances. She has bought fully into the notion that what government does determines her happiness, or her misery. She's bought the notion that when Republicans run the government, she's miserable. When Democrats run the country, she's probably just as miserable but doesn't think so because Democrats are in office. It really is tragic what liberalism does to people. It destroys their free will, destroys their concept of self, destroys the concept of their own ability to be better than they think they are, makes them sit around and wait. This is one of the most infuriating things about liberalism to me, and I swear, folks, there's nothing about that that I want to compromise with. It's just hideous, what liberalism does to its own supporters, to its own advocates. It's just a plain old American tragedy.

How Carter Fixed Things in Rhodesia

CALLER: Rush, it's such an honor to speak to you, sir, and I wanted to say: I'm so proud to be an American, to live in the best country in the world. My question for you is, I don't understand the audacity that Hillary Clinton has and the liberal Democrats to want Bush to protest China through the Olympic games, but at the same time they want him to allow Robert Mugabe -- in Zimbabwe, where I was born; I was born in Rhodesia -- and be silent on that. What I wanted to say with that, Rush, is when Rhodesia copied the United States, even with our unilateral Declaration of Independence from England, we copied the United States -- and when we copied the United States, we were the most prosperous country in southern Africa. President Carter forced us to put Robert Mugabe as president and a terrorist.

RUSH: I remember.

CALLER: And why is it, Rush, that they are silent on it? He's taken the country that was the best country in southern Africa to a country that's got over a hundred thousand percent inflation rate with an 80% unemployment rate, and he is stealing the election a third time!

RUSH: We have been following the events in Zimbabwe for quite a while on this program, years in fact. Before I get to that and answer your question, you should know that Jimmy Carter has come out and said we need to start talking to Hamas. I can't explain Jimmy Carter. I don't know what's happened to his mind. I don't know if he ever had one. You know, Jimmy Carter, not only did he give us Mugabe, he gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.

CALLER: But so did the black caucus, Rush. It's the liberals, even Clinton, because there's a picture of Clinton with Robert Mugabe smiling. The liberal Democrats are in the same cahoots with Nelson Mandela, all the terrorists.

RUSH: Right. Let me cut to the chase, Quinton, as to why the Democrats are going nuts about China and Tibet. It's in the news, because the Olympics are in China, and the Democrats can make great hay by demanding freedom for the oppressed. Now, in the case of Robert Mugabe, here is a man who -- you just scratched the surface. He just literally destroyed a country and has literally appropriated the property of successful white farmers, nationalized it, and now that stuff's gone belly up. Nothing is working in Zimbabwe. There are international calls for him to... He had an election but he won't release the results.

CALLER: But, Rush, you are so right. The Rhodesian example of what you say regularly on the station: If you implement liberal philosophy, it's failed. Hillary Clinton wants to take the profits away from Exxon? Robert Mugabe doesn't talk about it, he does it, and he forces countries there who are international companies to give half, 51%, to the nationals!

RUSH: And you're wondering why Mugabe is not condemned by Democrats?

CALLER: Yes!

RUSH: Well, when's the last time you heard them condemn Fidel Castro?

CALLER: They don't!

RUSH: Right. Now, why is that? You have an answer? I'll give you one, but I want to know if you have an answer.

CALLER: My philosophy is this. Because what you said on your station for years and years, is if you export liberalism, it's the best way to get rid of all the other countries, and that's why they want it. They want to be silent, because it's their philosophy, they want it throughout the world.

RUSH: Exactly right. But there's another aspect to it, too. Mugabe is black. You're not going to have the Congressional Black Caucus criticize anybody black. They won't even criticize Congressman William Jefferson (Democrat-Louisiana). Hillary Clinton is not going to criticize Mugabe because he's black. This is a presidential year. It isn't going to happen, and he's not even in the news, not widely so. They're given cover on this. But at the same time, I don't think they look at what Mugabe has done. The average American leftist will not look at Mugabe and find anything wrong with it. He just hasn't succeeded yet. He just hasn't turned it into a paradise. But American liberals love Castro, love Chavez, love Mugabe, all these dictators, because they envy the power they have.

The UK Telegraph in Mugabe:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/26/wzim26.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/26/ixworld.html

Hillary and Obama will Leave us in Iraq

RUSH: It was rather obvious yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, at the Petraeus hearings that the... (sigh) Well, it was like a mature adult being bullied by a bunch of zit-faced, self-absorbed, yapping teenagers in the sandbox. Of course, Petraeus is just so far above that. Remember, it was just seven months ago in September that the Democrats were literally foaming at the mouth. They ran the General Betray Us ad in the New York Times, as they frantically searched to find anything -- anything at all! -- that would prove to the world (especially our enemies) that the United States, the United States military, the surge, and General Petraeus; were horrible, stupid failures. For the treasonous Code Pink, the MoveOn.org Democrats, General Petraeus proved to be intellectually assured, honest, factual, powerful, and calm; authoritative, lyrical in fact, in his presentation. The best part is that by training and temperament, he's incapable of being aggravated by a bunch of little ankle biter Chihuahuas called US senators. You just have to know for the last month, the staffs of these idiot senators were having a contest to see who could come up with the one zinger question that would embarrass Petraeus and force him to reveal the truth: that he's all lies, that Bush is all lies, and that Iraq is an ultimate decimal failure! You just know the Senate staff were having a contest: Who could come up with the one question? But the free commercials that these senators got yesterday only proved to the world that they are ill-prepared, self-promoting gum flappers. They make people's hair hurt. I mean, the contrast was that striking. Here, listen to David "Rodham" Gergen, who was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night on CNN. He said this about the Senate Armed Services hearing in Iraq. Number five. We're staying in order here. Five follows four.

GERGEN: What I found really interesting, though, on the Democratic side, there's no push for timetables in this hearing, and both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were talking about Barack saying a "measured" withdrawal. And Hillary Clinton was saying an "orderly "withdrawal. Both of them I think are now setting themselves up to be the president and commander-in-chief who had pushed want to go us out. Not to be irresponsible, but clearly the Democrats want to push, push, push to get out, but they're no longer saying we gotta do it in six months, we got enough -- don't have to do it like that. I think -- I think they're being more sensible in that sense, and I think voters will find that more appealing.

RUSH: Whoa ho-ho! Be still, my beating heart! "Voters will find it more..." Does this mean that every sentiment that these Democrats have expressed for the last four years -- "Out now! Get out now! Bring them home!" -- all of these rank ads, all of these rank websites, all of the waving the white flag of surrender by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, does David "Rodham" Gergen mean to tell us -- that that was unreasonable? Damn straight he does. The only thing is, why didn't he say it while they were doing it? Because of course David "Rodham" Gergen only wants to focus on their positives. "What I found really interesting on the Democrat side, there's no push for timetables this hearing, no push to get us out now." Right! I told you. I hope you remember. I was the first in your life to articulate to you that no matter what happens in Iraq, if the Democrats are elected president, they aren't pulling out. They are not going to saddle themselves with the collar of defeat. They're not going to do it. So he has a little pan here. He says, "Well, clearly the Democrats want to push, push, push to get out, but they're not saying we have to do it in six months. We don't have to do it like that. I think they're being more sensible than that. I think voters will find that more appealing."

Wait a minute, David! I thought the polls all showed: Get us out! I thought the polls all showed the American people were fed up with 4,000 soldier deaths? I thought the American people wanted us home. They never have. The polls have never said it. It's shaping up exactly as I told you it would. It's not even the number-one campaign issue, and the Democrats didn't want to make it a campaign issue yesterday. They had a chance to bring it back front and center as a campaign issue, and they didn't. That was one of the most boring hearings, other than listening to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and they could have taken care of business there in one-tenth the time that they took.

Levin’s Advice to Iraq Should be Given to Democrats

RUSH: I watched a little bit of the Petraeus hearings this morning, and a couple things stood out. Of course, somebody let a Code Pink protester in there, took about a minute to get the idiot out of there. But here's the thing that really amazed me. I'm watching Carl Levin give his speech, his opening statement, he's talking to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and he's going on and on and on about how the Maliki government in Iraq has not met its benchmarks and has not found a way to pay its own way on anything, and they better do that or we're going to get outta there, they're free to do what they had until November, and after that all bets are off, is what the Democrats are saying. And I find this fascinating. Here is a liberal Democrat senator from Michigan, Carl Levin, telling another nation's government, fess up, shape up, make sure that you can pay your own way and meet the benchmarks that we have given for you. In other words, they're telling the Iraqi government to become self-sufficient.

Wouldn't it be great if liberal Democrats told their own voters the same thing? In this country, liberal Democrats look at their own voters, and they see permanent dependents, and they smile. They do everything they can to generate permanent dependents: undereducating kids in school, ongoing entitlement programs, advertising for peopling to get on the food stamp program, and yet, when it comes to the Iraqi government, why, they sound very conservative, you guys need to shape up, you guys need to become self-sufficient, you guys need to be able to pay your own way, you guys need to meet the benchmarks that we are saying. And yet they will not say that about the American people, particularly their own voters. It is just the opposite. We have a few sound bites from General Petraeus' appearance today. The upshot is that he says it's going pretty well, but "I want to suspend any troop withdrawals." Now, what everybody is waiting for is Senator Obama. All three presidential candidates are on this Senate committee that will be questioning General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. McCain has had his turn, Hillary will get hers, and Obama will get his, and everybody is waiting to see what Obama does with his time, whether he speechifies, whether he asks questions, and in either case, what does he say. We are keeping a sharp eye on this, ladies and gentlemen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mrs. Clinton is now questioning General Petraeus. We are not going to JIP this, i.e, join it in progress. Our technicians and engineers are at this moment, rolling videotape for the express purposes of culling relevant audio sound bites, if any, from Mrs. Clinton's questioning of General Petraeus.

By the way, speaking of Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, she just announced that she wants a poverty czar. What does that mean? We need a poverty czar. It means that she and those like her are admitting defeat in the war on poverty, are they not? They are admitting the failure of the welfare state. They are admitting in their own programs haven't worked, if we need a poverty czar. You gotta know how to translate this stuff. You gotta know how to relay this stuff to other people for what it really means. Most people would hear Mrs. Clinton say, "We need a poverty czar," and go, "That's right! That's right, Mr. Limbaugh. So many people are losing ground in this country, there's abject poverty everywhere. People are starving. They can't afford gasoline or food in the grocery store. We need somebody on the case." Well, we've had a war on poverty since when? 1964. Guess it's not working. Maybe we should surrender! Maybe we should pull out of the war on poverty. You talk about a bottomless pit? Maybe the war on poverty ought to be given some benchmarks to meet and be able to survive on its own.

But, see, this is my point. While Carl Levin can sit here and lecture the Iraqi government on meeting benchmarks and learn to pay its own way, become self-sufficient, he would nowhere near say that to Jennifer Granholm, the governor of his own state nor of Democrat voters and constituents all over the country.

McCain to Reign in CEO Salaries?

RUSH: It's an uh-oh, moment: a Reuters story. "Republican presidential candidate John McCain has spoken out about lavish pay packages for corporate [CEOs], but his top adviser said on Monday the senator wants to shine a light on the issue and is not offering specific new proposals to rein it in. 'Job No. 1 of the president is to use the bully pulpit to shine a light on behavior that is less-than-exemplary,' McCain's top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told Reuters in a telephone interview. 'That's certainly the case here,' ... referring to the issue of huge chief executive officer pay packages. Holtz-Eakin said McCain would like to see shareholders and boards of directors take the initiative to ensure that pay packages for CEOs are reasonable and in line with performance. 'We'll see what the response is,' he said." Senator McCain, it's none of your business. This is just none... (interruption) I know. It's exactly what we hear from the left. It's exactly: "Corporate pay is way out of line. We gotta do something about it. We need to shine a light on it. We need to rein it in." This is Senator McCain and his... Well, this is just who he is.

This is one of the problems that you have when numbers -- pay packages, golden parachutes, this kind of thing -- get released, and people have no concept, no way of understanding why the pay was made, what it constitutes, what the value of the work done of the CEO was. So when it's done that way with lousy PR, it just invites people in government who like to meddle in the private sector to jump in under the rubric of class envy. I mean, what is the point? What really is the point? Is he going to call his wife in? Is he going to shine the light on his wife's CEO pay or his wife's family's pay at the beer distributorship out in Arizona? This is none of government's business. I don't know. It's troubling, because there's no reason to do this, other than the typical liberal philosophy of class envy. What's the point of CEO pay come in line with what somebody in the government thinks, if it's not to pander to voters who aren't anywhere near that level of compensation? It's just like tax increases for the rich. It doesn't do anything for the people in the middle class, lower class. In fact, it hurts them. But they're supposed to feel good about it because somebody else is getting soaked.

"Somebody else is hurting, and I want them to hurt like I hurt. So, yeah! Raise their taxes! Yeah! Lower their pay. I want them to find out what it's like to suffer like we're all suffering out here." It doesn't accomplish anything -- and, last I looked, boards of directors did not have to include a member of the government in order to get business deals and other corporate functions approved. But see, this is the kind of thing... This is another example of how there's no difference here to what Senator McCain's economic adviser has said and what you would hear from the Obama or the Hillary campaign. Now, we talked last week about the one area that Senator McCain has said that he's rock solid conservative on (if he holds to it), and that is he's going to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and he is not going to raise taxes. He's not going to mess around with the capital gains tax. All that is important, particularly in an economic climate that we face now, because what happens when you...? See, I believe it's the little guy who makes the country work. I think it's middle-class people, business owners, small business owners hiring others that employ most of the people in this country, and they are the engine of this country.

They're the ones that make it work. If you raise taxes on these small business people, a lot of them file Subchapter S on their personal income tax returns. So you raise their income tax rates along with the so-called rich, for the express purpose of "fairness," and "getting even with them," and "making sure that the little guy knows that somebody in the government is on his side," what you're going to end up doing is getting the little guy canned. The little guy is going to get laid off. The very supposed beneficiary of all these increases in taxes -- and it's not about raising revenue, folks. If it were about raising revenue, the Democrats would make the Bush tax cuts permanent; the capital gains rate would be lowered, as would the corporate income tax rate. It's not about revenue. It's about control. It's about reducing people's individual liberty and economic independence, so that more and more people have to depend on government. That's totally, totally what this is. It just isn't useful or helpful when the Republican nominee, who said one thing about taxes and so forth, starts talking class envy lingo about CEOs.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now back to Senator McCain and his attempt to rein in CEO pay. I don't mean to take the smiles off your face by bringing this up again. But a little lesson for everybody, including Senator McCain. It is up to the shareholders to determine what the CEO gets paid. Shareholders voluntarily invest in a company. They decide if the CEO should be booted or paid or whatever. The board of directors represents the investors, oftentimes the CEO as well. But let me suggest to Senator McCain and all the rest of you who think that the government ought to somehow have some oversight over what anybody in the private sector makes, let me suggest that the government that Senator McCain seeks to lead has enough problems with management and finance and fairness than to be extending its power to every boardroom. In other words, I don't know who in government I would hire to do anything if I ran a major corporation. I don't know who I would hire to fix it, streamline it, and run it. Senator McCain hasn't run a business like this, yet he's saying, "I'm going to rein in CEO pay." This is all just liberal lingo. It's all pandering on the basis of class envy.

How well have the feds done fixing Social Security? When they fix that, when the federal government fixes FEMA, when the federal government fixes the public housing mess that they created, when they fix the massive bureaucracy and downsize it, make it functional, when they fix an endless list of programs they have created, then maybe Senator McCain, who's been in Washington for 24 years, can start lecturing other people about how to run their businesses. But the last I looked, the way government is being run and all of its ancillary programs, does not recommend anybody in charge in government to be put in charge of anybody's business, or any industry, like health care -- hello, Mrs. Clinton, hello Senator Obama. Now, if somebody wants to be CEO of some company, like Senator McCain, then go seek that job. But he's running for the presidency, and as such, he is the CEO of no company. He doesn't get to run the private sector as president. He's running to be chief executive of the federal government. This brings me to a point that I have wanted to make for a while.

Maybe Senator McCain or somebody on his staff could start explaining to us in some coherent way, because this is gonna matter when we get down to the general, start explaining to us in some coherent way exactly what his views of federal power and economic activity are, because so far, Senator McCain has gotten away with an incoherent mix of both. But maybe he should start spelling out exactly what his principles are regarding governance and economics, because it matters. Particularly since this is the one striking difference between Senator McCain and the Democrats, and that is his views on tax cuts and economic growth and reining in pork barrel spending, earmarks, and that kind of thing. But when he comes out with this kind of thing, (doing McCain impression) "CEOs are making so much money. We have to look into it, we have to shine the light," well, when you start saying things like that, it makes those of us who support Senator McCain on taxes start to wonder... well, just start to wonder. I'll just leave it at that.