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).

Coming seemingly out of nowhere, Presidential candidate Rick Santorum came within 8 votes of winning the Iowa caucuses. Mitt Romney won, but there is an objection out there, that Romney’s win is based upon a typo of 20 votes that he should not have been awarded.

The Obama administration on Thursday launched a new free hotline for people arrested for immigration violations. The hotline is run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and is available 24/7 for detained individuals to phone if they think they "may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime."

While cutting hundreds of thousands of men (and women) from the military, the White House is also proposing a 0.5% pay increase for civilian federal employees as part of its 2013 budget proposal.

The Obama administration will propose a new rule Friday that will allow certain illegal immigrants to remain in the United States while applying for legal residency, according to reports. In other words, amnesty.

General Motors agreed in Shanghai today to develop an electric vehicle platform with longtime Chinese partner SAIC, which effectively moves GM's future electric vehicle development to China. It is unclear is whether this would also lead to assembly of future electric vehicles for the U.S. market in China.

China's satellite broadcasters have cut the number of prime time entertainment shows they air by more than two-thirds, in order to stem Western influences

Eighty-five Illinois Lottery winners found out that their checks, totaling $159,000 in lottery winnings, were no good. Maybe next week?

President Obama recently appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which appointment is

supposed to have Senate approve, which appointment was made while the Senate was in pro-forma session (which means barely a handful of Senators are in session). These sorts of sessions were used several years ago to block President Bush from appointing nominees; and these sessions are used to pass legislation (e.g., the 2-month payroll deduction holiday passed 2 weeks ago). Interestingly enough, President Obama announced this appointment to the 1274 people who gathered at a high school gym to hear him in Ohio.

Union President, realizing that charter schools cannot be stopped, has decided that it is time to unionize the charter schools.

Former Presidential candidate Al Gore, famous for inventing the Internet and alerting the world to the harsh realities of global warming, is now collaborating on developing a global warming video game.

More than 500 people associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement tried to retake Zuccotti Park on New Year’s eve. This time, the police apparently had the orders to say, “No, you don’t.”

Occupy Portland leader exposes himself at "Oregon’s OccuFest;" children were present.

Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester - sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit. It is unlikely that they will have to provide proof of defecating on cop cars.

Ugandan pastor, Umar Mulinde, a Protestant leader and former sheik who converted to Christianity from Islam, suffered severe burns following a Christmas Eve acid attack from Islamic nutjobs, who poured the acid on him, and then ran away, shouting, `Allahu akbar.'

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 36.3% of the vote (remember when all of the talking heads told us that they made up only 10%, so there was no reason to worry?). the party's deputy leader Dr Rashad Bayoumi said that they will not recognize Israel "under any circumstance"

From the NY Times: With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt's new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.

The ultra-conservative Salafi al-Nour Party took 28.8% of the vote in Egypt (conservative for them means, they are hardcore Islamists). These are the ones who said Muslims should not send Christmas greetings to Christians.

Dozens of residents of the village of Baheeg in Assiut, Upper Egypt, burnt three houses owned by a Christian family after a Christian villager allegedly published cartoons mocking Islam on his Facebook account.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is worth some $250 million, a Saudi newspaper reported recently, quoting American intelligence officials.

A fatwa was issued against Pakistani actress Veena Malik for "Revolting against the tenets of Islam and prophet Mohammed." She was nude on a magazine cover.

In Tajikastan, a young man, dressed as Santa Claus, was killed by a mob of young people, shouting accusations of "infidel."

Over the past few days Algerian police forces have confiscated Israeli-made women's clothing items from a number of stores in a shopping center in the Al-Wadi district. Nothing worse than buying clothes made by Jews.

Saudi Arabia has ended the evil practice of men selling panties, bras and negligees. Now, only saleswomen will be able to sell such items.

Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide says group close to achieving "Ultimate Goal" of establishing the caliphate. When Glenn Beck, a year ago, said that was the end game, he was ridiculed for thinking such a silly thing.

The United States transferred $40 million in foreign assistance to the Palestinians.

Prominent al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban fighters [who are not our enemies, according to the Vice President] asked Pakistani militants in a pair of rare meetings to set aside their differences and step up support for the battle against U.S.

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar.

Iran's parliament is preparing a bill that would prohibit all foreign warships from entering the Persian Gulf unless they received permission from the Iranian navy. No word yet on whether Obama can rally our Congress to pass a bill saying that it is okay for foreign warships to be in the gulf. I’ll keep you posted on that.

The pro-abortion blog Jezebel has named as its woman of the year for 2011 a circuit riding abortion practitioner, identified as Dr. X, who works for Planned Parenthood and, last month, sent a woman to the hospital after nearly killing her in a failed abortion:

President Barack Obama: "We've already seen change take pace. 2012 is about reminding the American people how far we've traveled."

Barack Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on a video for the Barack Obama YouTube channel: "People have speculated this is a billion dollar campaign, that's bullsh*t."

President Barack Obama: "I just called Reggie [Love, the former Duke University basketball player who had been his constant companion and presidential "body man"]; I miss him."

Obama: “One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get out of Washington and spend time with folks like you.”

Obama: "Part of what 2012 is about is both reminding the American people of how far we've traveled and the concrete effects that some of our work. . . but part of it is also framing this larger debate about what kind of country are we going to leave for our children and our grandchildren."

White House press secretary Jay Carney: "There are more things that need to be done. There are elements of the jobs act that we believe, as we did from the beginning, merit bipartisan consideration and support. This country is in crying need of work on its infrastructure."

Obama: "When Congress refuses to act, and, as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them. I’ve got an obligation to act on the behalf of the American people and I'm not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve—not with so much at stake, not at this make-or-break moment for middle class Americans—we’re not gonna let that happen."

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson: “It’s a new year; we’re going to give our colleagues the benefit of the doubt. That’s why we’re here, sleeves rolled up and ready to work. It has been suggested to my by the New York Times that, last week, in the science section, that what may, in fact, be impacting our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is that they have prosopagnosia. Now that, for you out there in the audience, means this: It's a blindness that they have. It is a blindness that also works in a way that you don't recognize people's voices. How else can you not hear the plea of 14 million Americans that are out of work who need to be put back to work?"

Released statement from Nancy Pelosi: “Republicans have held the House majority for more than 230 days and here is their record:

Have failed to pass a single piece of legislation to create jobs.

Have actually voted to pass legislation that would destroy nearly 2 million jobs, including:

• Passed the "So Be It" spending bill to slash investments in our economic future like education, college aid, life-saving medical research, infrastructure, and clean energy, and cut 700,000 jobs.

• Passed a budget that would cost Americans 1.7 million jobs by 2014, with 900,000 jobs lost next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

• Passed GOP Patients' Rights Repeal bill puts insurance companies back in charge of health care and repeals the Affordable Care Act, thereby destroying more than 300,000 jobs.”

House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi: "I simply will not have us engage in a this that last August, ten years ago. This is about the here and now and the highly unusual circumstances that we are in because of the of the Republican failed economic policies of President George Bush took us to a financial meltdown, took us into near depression, took us into deep deficits that we still have to deal with! Are they just too tired to come to work? I hope not!"

Joe Biden on op-ed: “[Presidential candidate Mitt] Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind. His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class.”

Obama recess appointee Richard Cordray: “The court has held that, any legislation that affects the national economy, even if it affects matters that are not economic themselves but have incidental effects on the economy—and healthcare insurance clearly does—is [a] valid exercise of Congressional authority.” In other words, this means that, in his opinion, Congress should be able to legislate anything they want.

DNC Chief Wasserman Schultz: "Frankly, the collection of Republicans that are running for president really are pretty unremarkable. They all embrace extremism and embrace the Tea Party."

DCCC fund-raising letter from Steve Israel: “[Give me $3 and] I'll be able to tell Leader Pelosi, the Republicans, the media, and anyone else who'll listen that half-a-million Americans are fed up with these Tea Party extremists “

Representative Joe Crowley, in a DCCC fund-raising letter “Democrats are fighting for jobs, for the middle class, for women's rights. Republicans are busy groveling to the Koch Brothers and Grover Norquist's wealthy buddies.”

Email from Jim Messina, campaign manager for Obama for America: “The path ahead for Romney - or whichever of the Republican candidates is going to emerge from this process - is sadly and starkly very clear: to run even further to the extreme right, and make even more dangerous promises that threaten not only the progress we've made but the fundamental fabric of American society.”

Email from James Kraal, the National Policy Director of Obama for America: “So today the President appointed former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For months, Senate Republicans - with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum right behind them - have fought this bureau every step of the way, and their latest strategy is to refuse to allow even an up-or-down vote on this nomination.”

Email from Jim Messina, of BarackObama.com (subject line: This is not a joke: “The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory [in Iowa].” Interesting, simply because the establishment (read, non-TEA party) candidate, Mitt Romney, won the Iowa caucus.

Email from Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com: “I know you've been pretty bombarded with messages from us lately.”

Former Vice President Al Gore on the Iowa caucus: “I think this was a good night for Barack Obama."

DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "You know, I'm a hundred percent confident that the people of Iowa and the American people will win the day on November 6th of this year when President Obama is re-elected because of his policies, because of the fact that he has brought this country out of the worst economic disaster that we faced since the Great Depression and the people of America know."

Attorney General Eric Holder: "Too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them." He was not talking about Operation Fast & Furious.

Rep. Barney Frank quipped a slogan suggestion for 2012 Democratic candidates: "We're not perfect, but they're nuts."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who previously held pro forma sessions to block recess appointments by President George W. Bush, said Wednesday of President Obama's decision to ignore those sessions to push through one of his key nominees: "I support President Obama's decision."

Columnist Eugene Robinson on how Rick Santorum and his wife mourned their stillborn child: "He's not a little weird, he's really weird. And some of his positions that he has taken are just so weird that I think that some Republicans are off-put. Not everybody is not going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child. It was a body that they took home to kind of sleep with it, introduce it to the rest of the family. It's a very weird story." However, it should be noted that Boston Herald columnist takes up for Santorum.

Kalle Lasn editor-in-chief of Adbusters magazine and senior editor Micah White: "[The Occupy movement in 2012 will be] marked [by an] escalation of surprise, playful, precision disruptions, rush-hour flash mobs, bank occupations, `occupy squads' and edgy theatrics...this means escalation, pushing us one step closer to a revolution."

Al “Resist we much” Sharpton: "The Republican party has been in a mad rush to its extreme white wing."

Haim Saban is an Egyptian born Israeli-American and Chairman of Univision, the Hispanic television station "The fact that Rubio and some Republican Presidential candidates have an anti-Hispanic stand that they don't want to share with our community is understandable but despicable." That’s right; Marco Rubio is anti-Hispanic.

George Clooney: "I'm disillusioned by the people who are disillusioned by Obama."

Actor Don Cheadle: "I think he inherited an impossible situation. I wish he had not been so much of a consensus-seeker. I just wanted to see a more `gangsta' president.”

Republican Senator Scott Brown: “I’m the most bipartisan senator in the entire delegation if not the most bipartisan senator in the entire Senate.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is suffering from cancer, in a nationally televised speech to the military: "It's very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America. Would it be so strange that they've invented technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?"

Hugo Chavez: “Obama, mind your own business and devote yourself to rule your country which you have turned into a disaster...I am sorry for you, Obama. Ask the black communities and the porr of your country what you mean to them—the biggest frustration.”

Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro: "Many dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear war and climate change, are decisive and are drifting further away from a solution."

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on President Obama’s shirtless photos from his Hawaiian vacation: "The photos that come out today may make it tougher for men of a certain age who go to the beach for summer vacation this year because a lot of guys are now going to be expected to dive for every football that comes remotely close to them. This is the 50-year-old President of the United States on New Year's Day in what appears to be a hardcore beach football game."

ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer on Obama’s controversial nominee: "Consumer champion. Can this brand new man in town help you with your mortgage, your car loan, your credit cards?" By the way, if you are a liberal reading this, and you do not see the biased reporting here...

CBS’s Leslie Stahl, setting the table for a 60 minutes segment with Eric Cantor: “2011 will be remembered as a year of perpetual gridlock in Washington and open combat between the President and the Republicans in Congress. There was a litany of standoffs: from three near government shutdowns, to a stalemate over raising the debt ceiling, to the latest skirmish over extending the payroll tax cut. There seems to be more finger-pointing than governing and the public is fed up. President Obama's nemesis throughout the year was 48-year-old Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Majority Leader of the House, who played a major role in the Republican strategy. The White House blames Eric Cantor, more than anyone else, for disrupting the President's first term. Especially for scuttling one set of deficit reduction talks after another.”

"Good Morning America's" John Berman (on ABC) asks this question, looking forward to their Republican debate: "How mean for Mitt Romney? Will Romney go after his new chief rival, Rick Santorum, or leave that to his new friend John McCain?"

Huge ABC graphic showing a picture of Romney next to bold lettering: "How mean will he get?"

Newsweek's Andrew Romano: headline "Team Obama has quietly built a juggernaut re-election machine in Chicago."

New York Times’ Opinion writer Andrew Rosenthal: “There has been a racist undertone to many of the Republican attacks leveled against President Obama for the last three years, and in this dawning presidential campaign.”

Washington Post Opinion writer Courtland Milloy: “Watching television coverage of the Republican caucuses in Iowa, I noticed that nearly everybody was white: white people smiling over coffee, white people applauding at candidate forums, white people singing praise songs at church. True, Iowa has so few blacks that it would probably take a hawk's eye to spot one. But the GOP caucuses could have been held in any state, and the crowd would look the same...Which made me wonder: In a country as large and diverse as ours, how is it that one of the two major political parties has become, in essence, a white people's party?”

Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson: “Maybe, I understand Chris Christie's really popular in Iowa, he plays well out there, it just, the optics, to see it from a distance, to watch him essentially threaten the good folks of Iowa with some sort of Jersey-ness if they don't do what he says.”

Time’s Joe Klein: “...we're probably not going to be able to stop Iran from getting a bomb...Those guys don't want to go to war again. If they got a bomb it would just be to deter Israel and Pakistan.”

Donna Brazil, who is a commentator for CNN, NPR and ABC, in a fund-raising letter for the DCCC (Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee): “I'd like to know what middle class Americans did to the Republican Party. For that matter, what did seniors, women, students, folks that breathe air and drink water, and anyone who puts in an honest day's work do to make Tea Party Republicans so angry and determined to attack us?”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman: "And I think Newt's rise is speaking to us. And what it says to me is, is that I think there's a lot of Republicans who are starved for a candidate for their party who would be able to debate Obama head-to-head, they think is as smart and mellifluous as the president."

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: "I think Newt is like Freddy Krueger. He keeps coming back. You know? The guy does not die, there's always going to be a sequel."

MSNBC’s Christ Matthews: “Well, I think the Republican Party has, unfortunately for it, built itself over the droppings of the Democratic Party for about 50 years. First of all, they picked up all the Dixiecrats, all the segregationists who went from the Democratic Party after the civil rights bill of '64 and the Voting Rights Act. Their mind is closed because of these droppings they've picked up from the Democratic Party. The neocons have closed down their mind just like the segregationists closed down their mind about civil rights and the moral majority closed down their minds about social issues. The party is dying of this intake, effluent from the Democratic Party. That's my thought.”

Former Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter on MSNBC about Michele Bachmann: "It doesn't matter whether she does. You know, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she not standing for re-election to the House? Is it possible that finally we will be rid of this woman for good?"

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “There's nothing subtle about Newt Gingrich or Mr. Santorum. Their comments are clearly targeted at the President, who's black, and at other members of society, who haven't made millions of dollars from lobbying. But while sticks and stones may break your bones, the public inquiry into the life and death of Stephen Lawrence shows that words can and do cause irreparable damage to a culture and a society. Newt Gingrich is never going to win the Republican nomination, but he could badly damage race relations in the process. So here is a simple plea: Let's cut out the food stamps rhetoric right now before things get any worse.” In other words, Gingrich and Santorum are to blame for racists murdering black people.

Daily Kos’s Troubadour article title: “Barack Obama: Best President Ever.”

Oprah Winfrey, from 2008: "I'm in his [Obama’s] corner for whatever he needs me to do."

NY Times reporter Shaila Dewan when jobs were being lost in 2009, wrote a story entitled: "Weren't we working too much, anyway?"

Statement from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in 2005: “The President's decision to circumvent the Senate and use a recess appointment naming John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations is a mistake. John Bolton's record provides no evidence of the kind of diplomatic skill, temperament and judgment that ought to be prerequisites for this critical position. There are serious unanswered questions about whether Mr. Bolton improperly used sensitive intelligence information for political purposes, which contributed to the lack of support he had in the Senate. For President Bush to use a recess appointment for such a controversial nominee not because there was a compelling case that Mr. Bolton was the best person for the job, but merely because the President had the power to do it subverts the confirmation process in ways that will further harm the United States reputation in the eyes of the international community. The American people deserve better.”

Barack Obama in 2008: "The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. It's irresponsible. IT'S UNPATRIOTIC!"

Senator Obama on the stump in 2008: "[the president should not attach] a letter [to legislation that he signs] saying `I don't agree with this part' or `I don't agree with that part.' Congress's job is to pass legislation. The president can veto it or he can sign it." So far, President Obama used 20 signing statements.

Former CNN reporter Bob Franken on MSNBC talking on Republican candidates who talk about blacks and government dependency: "I think this is very intentional. I think it is part of a hateful campaign that is being very methodically run in the hope it`s going to appeal to voters who would love to see us return to the good old days of Jim Crow."

Rally organizer on Al-Aqsa TV : “Praise be to you, our Lord. You have made our killing of the Jews an act of worship, through which we come closer to you. Allah's prayers upon you, our beloved Prophet [Muhammad]. You have made your teachings into constitutions for us - the light with which we dissipate the darkness of the occupation, and the fire with which we harvest the skulls of the Jews. Yes, our beloved brothers, even though the entire world moves closer to Allah through fasting, through hunger, and through tears, we are a people that moves closer to Allah through blood, through body parts, and through martyrs.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israeli attempts to "Judaize" Jerusalem: "This ridiculous move is in fact the continuation of the colonialist polices of oppressors, which will not save the Zionist regime, but also take the regime closer to the endpoint of its existence."

Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi-Golpaygani, a senior cleric in Iran: "Basically, going to any website which propagates immoralities and could weaken the religious belief is un-Islamic and not allowed, and membership in it [facebook] is therefore haram (a sin),"

Habibulah Sayari, Iranian Navy Commander: "We are able to announce that our shore-to-sea missile systems are so powerful that we can hit any target, any time, if it's necessary." Their range is 124 miles, which puts U.S. Naval vessels outside of their capabilities.

The Mauritanian Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou, presumed leader of an armed Islamist group active in west Africa: "We again declare war on France, which is hostile to the interests of Islam."

Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh: "The armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel]. . . We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai: "I am very happy that the American government has announced that the Taliban are not their enemies. We hope that this message will help the Afghans reach peace and stability."

Turkish Imam Suleiman Eniceri of Santa Clause: "If he was an honest person he would come through the door as we do."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz "When is a win a loss? It's a loss when you're Mitt Romney, and you spent the most and only beat the guy who spent the least in the state by 8 votes."

Talking car on The Simpson: “Hello, I’m an electric car—I can’t go very fast or very far.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks on President Obama (Brooks voted for Obama, in part, because he like the crease in his pants): "I still like him and admire him personally, but he's certainly more liberal than I thought he was...He's more liberal than he thinks he is. He thinks he's just slightly center-left, but when you get down to his instincts, they're pretty left. And his problem is that he can't really act on them, because it would be political disaster. And so that means, I think right now he's doing very little, proposing very little."

In a random act of journalism, the Washington Post (writers Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig): “Obama's green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal -e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials. The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.”

Washington Post writer Charles Lane: "I think one of the amazing thing that this all shows is that Republican Party might be about to crown winner of the Iowa caucuses someone (Ron Paul) with the foreign policy views of Jeremiah Wright. remember that?"

Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke: "Again, I go back to that, you know, traditional topic that I always talk about, you know, the powers of international Zionism - a power in banking, a power in media, a power in government influence, in campaign finance - a power that's, you know, hurting the values of this country on behalf of Israel. So, I would vote for Ron Paul at this moment because he's one of the few candidates who have policies in this regard and this realm that I wholeheartedly support, and that's why I'd vote for him." Should I have put this quote with the crazy Muslims?

Megyn McCain: “If Rick Santorum becomes the nominee of this party, I mean, it is going to be bedlam and hysteria like you have never seen.”

Megyn McCain: "If he [John McCain, her father] had endorsed Santorum, I mean, I would be like slitting my wrists on the table right now.”

Steve Kolesczar, school board chairman for school where 3^rd graders supposedly wrote lyrics about the 99% movement as a part of being taught to be imaginative and artsy fartsy by the Kid Pan Alley group: “They don’t censor what the kids write, they [Kid Pan Alley] don’t shape what the kids write, it all comes out of the kids’ own mouths and the kids’ own words...the kids choose the topic...and those are their words.” The lyrics are featured below.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney: “Do you have a question, or should I just—?”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Let me tell you what he [Rick Santorum] said. He's said `My religion should dominate, should trump issues of the Constitution.' He was saying, `Bill O'Reilly, you and I are of the same religion, therefore we should deny a woman's constitutional right to buy birth control or a male to buy birth control.' Isn't that what he said? We just showed the tape.”

Matthews: “He just did. Okay? He just did. And that's what scares me. He thinks we should have a theocracy.”

Piers Morgan: “Have you been happy with the way that Obama has been runnin’ the country?”

Actor Matt Damon: “Uhhh, no; no; I really think he misinterpreted his mandate.”

Michele Bachmann, bowing out of the Republican race: “Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so, I have decided to stand aside.”

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich: “The American people create jobs, not government.”

Presidential candidate Rick Perry: “We have a president that’s a socialist. I don’t think that our founding fathers wanted American to be a socialist country.”

Walter E. Williams: “The big problems of the United States are Congress exceeding its authority.”

Sarah Palin: "The GOP would be so remiss to marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters as we come out of Iowa tonight and move down the road to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, et cetera. If we marginalize these supporters who have been touched by Ron Paul and what he believed in over these years, well, then, through a third party run of Ron Paul's or the Democrats capturing those independents and these libertarians who supported what Ron Paul's been talking about, well, then the GOP is going to lose. And then there will be no light at the end of the tunnel...So, the worst thing that the GOP machine can do is marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters."

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray during a Senate pro forma session: "What the president did was wrong - pretty scary stuff. I hope that the United States Senate does what they're supposed to do, and they should go and even take the president to court. This is not something that the president should get away with."

Rick Santorum: "We will degrade those facilities [in Iran] through airstrikes, and make it very public that we are doing that."

Santorum: "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly."

Dick Morris, former advisor to Bill Clinton: “Conservatives like the conservatism of Newt but know that Romney can win.” [quoted from memory]

Brent Bozell: “How's this for a number: 1,289 network news stories on Barack Obama in 2008, only six ever mentioned his position on the Born Alive Bill, which is a bill to save the life of a baby that survives a partial-birth abortion and he stopped even that.... No one ever called that extreme. "

Bill Kristol, Editor, the Weekly Standard, on Obama’s proposed military cuts: “Look at how much trouble we had doing the surge in Iraq. Look at how much of a strain that put on our military. What? Five years ago or so, we had to have 15-month tours for the army, we're now going to have a much smaller Army and Marine Corps. But luckily, nothing's ever going to happen anymore. You know what, there's never gonna be a case we're gonna have to intervene, we're never gonna be attacked. Al Qaeda is never going to set up safe havens, there's never gonna be a surprise like Korea. And so we can go ahead and blindly do this.”

Iowa voter on Rick Perry’s plan to cut the salary and time in session for Congress: “I don’t know they need a full year to make that many mistakes.” [quoted from memory]

Charles Krauthammer on the same topic: “Under John Kennedy, whom I don't remember liberals ever attacking as a man who overspent on defense, half of the budget of the federal budget was on defense. Today it's a fifth. Under Kennedy, we spent 9.5 percent of our economy on the military. Today it's headed to four percent and shrinking. As a percentage of our economy it's going to get a lot smaller.”

Ed Rollins on Obama: “This is a tired president who doesn’t like his job.”

FoxNews commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle on Obama: “Here’s the problem: he’s got a record now. He’s got actually something which is like an albatross around him that he can’t escape: the reckless spending, our deficit, the unemployment numbers, the lack of jobs.”

Kimberly Guilfoyle on Obama’s appearance on his video to Iowa: “Somebody give him some geritol, vitamins and an I.V.”

Andy Levy, comedian/commentator for FoxNews: “There’s a big difference between Jon Stewart and Bill Maher—one is that, he’s [Stewart] funny.”

Weasel Zippers headline: “Obama Photographed Shirtless In Hawaii, Tingles [Chris Matthews] Seen Hyperventilating Into a Paper Bag.”

Rush Limbaugh: "Mitt Romney never laid off half a million people at Bain Capital. How come there's no outrage at Obama laying off all these military people? We want to talk about the electability of these Republicans, how about the unelectability of Barack Obama?"

Rush Limbaugh: "Perception is reality in politics. It frustrates me, too. Really does."

Rush Limbaugh: "I may get to the point where I will pay somebody to write a story in the mainstream media suggesting the Democrats better tone it down or else they're gonna tick off the independents. I just want to see that story one time."

Rush Limbaugh: "We do not have a media that is in any way focused on news, truth, anything of the sort. They are totally focused on how much fun it is to flummox the opposition and how when the White House does it how wonderful that is and how the media will help do that."

Rush Limbaugh: "There is no economic growth taking place and that's the truth that's not being reported and that's what underlies the myth and the fraud that's being reported today."

Rush Limbaugh: "I could sit here all day and tell you how these jobs numbers are not accurate. It's not gonna matter. The news is Obama's policies are working. The news is it's finally kicking in. The news is the economy is growing. The news is jobs are being created."

Rush Limbaugh: "Capitalism was not in play during the TARP bailout, during Obama stimulus, and it's not at play here with this potential mortgage bailout, either. If capitalism were really in play, none of this would be going on. Capitalism's getting a bad rap."

Rush Limbaugh: "I wanted to remind you, this is an election year and there is no news. The fact that the media does news is a misnomer. The media is an arm of the Democrat Party of the Obama administration. They have an agenda and the whole point here is to spread propaganda."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama is not confronting the Republicans. He's confronting the Constitution. The Republicans are not Obama's obstacle. The Constitution is Obama's obstacle."

Rush Limbaugh: "If big government anything was a winner, then they'd be running around calling Obama a big government guy, not Santorum."

Rush Limbaugh: "Now the media is telling us they're afraid of Romney. That's strategic so that we think we should support Romney. But the left is never gonna tell us what they really want us to do, and the left is never looking out for our best interests."

Rush Limbaugh: "'Big government' has a specific meaning today, and it means welfare state. It means redistribution. It means high taxes. It means command-and-control of the economy."

Rick Santorum, from March of last year: "Jihadism is evil and we need to say what it is. We need to define it and say what it is. And it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our Constitution."

Rick Santorum on Ron Paul: "I mean he's out in the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party.”

Michael Krull, campaign director for New Gingrich: "Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941 [Pearl Harbor]. We have experienced an unexpected setback, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action"

Very moderate Republican Senator Scott Brown of Newt Gingrich’s desire to reign in rogue judges and rogue courts: "[Speaker Gingrich is] blissfully unaware that the Founding Fathers deliberately established our government with three co-equal branches of government, or he is fully aware of that elementary fact and yet is pandering to the right-wing extreme element in our own party."

Presidential candidate Ron Paul: "Last week, I believe, we had a rally and people on the staff were worried. You know: Occupiers are there, occupiers are there. They're in the front row. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Should we call the police? I said no: Just relax a little bit. And there was no ruckus, and afterwards I shook a lot of hands. They come up to me and they say: We are from the Occupy movement but we support you. So, I figure that, you know, an open viewpoint about the Constitution and freedom and attacking some of the things that they don't like - they don't like the bailouts, and I don't like the bailouts. So, there are some things that we can agree on. I think the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement are motivated for different reasons, but they come together because they don't trust government anymore and that's why I think I can connect with both groups."

Ron Paul on Obama’s enemy combatant doctrine: "As bad as they were, you know even Adolf Eichmann finally when he was captured he was taken to Israel. Israel gave him a trial. What did we do with the Nazis - war criminals - after World War II? They got trials. Yeah, and they got what was deserving: they got hung," Paul told more than 700 voters during a campaign speech at a convention center in western Iowa. This year has not been good for the cause of personal liberty because about a year ago the president announced there are so many bad people around that he has to really go after them to protect us. There are some dangerous people out there. There's a lot of 'em. Most of them get a trial, but he changed the rules. He [Obama] says now it is proper for the president to decide to assassinate an American citizen without a trial, without charges, because he thinks they're that dangerous."

Ron Paul: “There's a lot of people unhappy, and they're not so happy with the two-party system because we have had people go in and out of office, congress changes, the presidency changes, they run on one thing, they do something else. Nothing ever changes.”

Jon Huntsman: "They pick corn in Iowa, they actually pick Presidents here in New Hampshire."

However, unfortunately, Gingrich PAC runs an anti-Romney ad which sounds like it came from the democrats.

How much is the federal government tracking your kid? Information that they are tracking, most of which we are not aware of:

Obama to Iowa, then (15 min.) and now (1.5 min.). It is like watching a different guy.

1) Throughout this primary campaign, I will admit to being quite enamored of Herman Cain, for his personality, is 9-9-9 plan, and his refusal to sign bills that are longer than 3 or 4 pages. Since he stepped out of the race, looking over the candidates is a more intellectual consideration for me rather than emotional, which is probably better.

2) The great Art Laffer, economic advisor to President Reagan, and author of the great Laffer curve, came out in favor of New Gingrich. So far, this is the only endorsement that moves me.

3) I saw an lawyer on FoxNews who argued against allowing the Bible in the classroom because it “stomped all over the first amendment.”

4) When looking at Obama’s economic policies, always realize that he is looking to take the money out of one set of pockets and put it into another set of pockets (the poor or his supporters). Almost every big of legislation that he has supported and passed falls neatly into the maxim.

5) I wrote an article last month about investors being key to clearing out the glut of houses on the market. FHA has recently provided some guidelines to make it easier for “house fippers” to get loans to buy houses, restore them and sell them. A flipper buys a house, fixes it up, and sells it on the market 1–3 months later. This is a much more efficient way of getting houses off the market.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) received $487.4 million in tax dollars over a twelve-month period and performed 329,455 abortions.

The United States funded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations' authority on alleged man-made global warming, with $31.1 million since 2001, nearly half of the panel's annual budget.

Median net worth of member of Congress rose from $280,000 to $725,000 between 1984 and 2009

Over same 25 years the wealth of the average U.S. family slipped from $20,500 from $20,600.

According to Sentier's report, the median American household income has actually fallen during the "recovery." "Real income fell by 3.2 percent during [the recession]. And during the recovery it went down by 6.7 percent." So "income [has] declined twice as much in the recovery as in the recession itself."

America has closed the books on 2011 with debt of $15,222,940,045,451.09, which is a debt to GDP ratio of 100.3%

Restore Our Future, the super PAC founded by three former Romney political aides, spent $2.8 million on ads in Iowa and Romney’s own campaign spent $1.5 million. Rick Santorum’s campaign spent $21,980. Rick Perry spent $4.5 million in advertising. In the end, Romney won the race with 30,015 to 30,007 votes for Santorum, a margin of 8 votes. Perry came in 5^th place with 12,442 votes. Perry spent $364/vote in Iowa and Santorum spent 73¢ per vote. Apart from Romney’s super PAC, he spend $49/vote.

7,671 Chevy Volts were sold In 2011. 8000 have been recalled for fear they might burst into flames. As an aside, Yahoo Finance named the

Chevy Volt the 3^rd worst product of 2011. The figure I have heard, is that the actual cost of each Chevy Volt is a cool quarter million. However, it is claimed that is based on a faulty study and another source claims that they really on cost $81,000 each. No idea; but my guess is, their actual cost, at least over the next 3 or 4 years, is somewhere between $50,000 and $150,000. Remember that GM is running at a serious loss, paid for by us taxpayers.

Interestingly enough, unions, that spent $10's of millions in support of Obamacare, also were given waivers from Obamacare at the rate of a bout 8 to 1.

It has just come out that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has overstated the number of immigration law violators apprehended by a 5:1 ratio. Deportations were overstated by 24:1 and detentions by 34:1. This is in 2005 under George W. Bush; the organization which discovered this are still waiting for the documents to check the Obama stated record versus what really happened.

47% of Likely U.S. Voters think the Republican candidate is most likely to beat President Obama

39% see them as a valid protest movement representing the frustrations of most Americans.

The Associated Press surveyed 36 top experts on money and markets from across the political spectrum last week. They rendered a familiar verdict on President Obama's approach to restoring America to prosperity. Just half of the 36 rated the President's policies as "fair"; more than a third called them "poor." Only five described Obamanomics as "good," and none dared call it "excellent."

In mid-December, ABC, CBS, and NBC did little or no reporting interest in citing Gallup polls, where the Democrats and Obama looked like they weren’t doing too well. However, when there was an uptick to 47% approval for Obama, that information was NBC’s Today show. When it dropped back down to 41%, do you think the networks reported that?

ABC’s debate spends nearly 30 minutes on contraception and gay marriage, two burning issues of the day, with a national debt of $15 trillion and a jobless rate of 8.5%.

One of the Herman Cain online videos caught a lot of heat because his campaign manager smoked a cigarette at the end. This had to have been on 10 news channels. Will we see the same with the Obama YouTube channel video with his campaign manager? The quote is at 2:47 and following of the video.

AP's Wiseman spins 'jobless trend' and not jobless rate as predicting the presidential election results. If Obama were a Republican, we would be hearing how long the unemployment rate has been above 8%.

It’s a simple rule: if there is a story about a Democrat who is corrupt, you will have to look long and hard to find the word Democrat, as we see with the NPR story. Any story that makes a democrat look bad often leaves out that word Democrat, as Reuters recently did. Criminal D.C. councilman resigns. Hmm, I wonder what his party affiliation is? However, if it is a Republican, you will find that word Republican in the title, the first line, or, at the very least, in the first paragraph.

Has there been a single question about the $1 trillion spend before Congress went on vacation? How many questions have you heard about the impending debt limit increase? I think zero.

Let’s say that this was Bush’s record; can you imagine the press would all but ignore it?

So many questions about states banning birth control and abortion cannot be made fun of. “Okay, let’s say a state decides to ban milk. Do they have a right to do this? Mitt Romney—“ ”Can a state ban red-headed people? Your thoughts, Speaker Gingrich.”

“Dog-whistle” racism = when a statement is made by a conservative that can be twisted into suggesting something racist, e.g., calling Obama the greatest food stamp president in our lifetime.

You are laying off maybe 100,000 military men; how is that different from Mitt Romney and Bain Capital laying off excess workers?

Why do you think it is right for civil service workers to make 130% of their counterparts in the private sector, but military men do not deserve the same?

Glenn Beck, for years, has been promising an attempted revolution that starts at the bottom up, and the top (the government) comes down, and turns is all inside-out. The idea is, the people on the streets create the revolution, the confusion, and the issues; the government comes down with their solution on top of this, and the end result is to turn the society inside-out, making changes to the society that heretofore would seem impossibly revolutionary. If you read through the OWS quotations and articles, it sounds as thought the ground up part of this is gearing up. You notice, there is almost no mention of Barack Obama in their protests. They do not sem to have a problem with him, except that he might be not radical enough.

Despite Obama’s remark "We've already seen change take pace. 2012 is about reminding the American people how far we've traveled;" 2012 for Democrats (and their right arm, the media) will be continually tearing down whoever their opponents are (President and VP). Expect very few ads about Obamacare, the federalizing of all school loans, the Dodd-Frank bill, or the Stimulus bill, even these items were all about dramatic change.

Just as the words Great Depression showed up more and more in connection with George Bush’s economy in 2007–2008, way before there was any hint of a serious economic problem; so there will be hundreds of stories on the Obama Recovery. You will read or here things like: It seems slow, but Reagan didn’t turn the economy around right away; or, all of the trend lines are in the right direction; or, the president is careful so that he gets this economy right. Expect personal stories from people who had it tough, but now, are coming out of it. Their businesses are improving or they have finally found a job; and things are really looking better for them.

We will find out the hard way that Islamic countries who pretend to be democracies are no different in their attitude toward us than autocratic Islamic societies. In fact, we may find out that they are even a bit less restrained when it comes to their hatred of us.

Glen Beck’s prediction of the caliphate is now a stated objective of the Arab Spring by some Muslims.

One of the things which I predicted, that Mrs. Obama was being groomed for a presidential run. It turns out that she has been intimately involved behind the scenes with pushing her husband to push Obamacare and immigration reform. This is according to a new book just out, which also claims that she lit into the President when Scott Brown was elected the Republican Senator of Massachusetts.

Congress spends $1 trillion and Leaves Town; and will Return in Time to Raise Debt Ceiling

President Obama has fulfilled a second Tom Friedman fantasy - the first being that he is, in fact, President Obama. "I have fantasized . . . that, what if we could just be China for a day," the New York Times star columnist gushed for his ponderous fellow travelers on Meet the Press. "I mean where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions."

It was May 2010, not long after Obama and a Congress dominated by Democrats had rammed through Obamacare, the most sweeping government usurpation of private industry and individual liberty in American history. Soon they'd be adding Dodd-Frank's paralyzing intrusion into the financial sector. Yet, despite the shock and awe of hope and change, here was the Progressive Poobah, grousing that "my democracy" was failing "to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness" as a totalitarian Communist dictatorship. After all, unburdened by our remnants of free-market competition, by the gridlock and sausage-making of two-party politics, the Chicoms produce trade and budget surpluses, state-of-the-art airports, and enviro-friendly high-speed rail. All we can manage, "on everything from the economy to environment," Friedman complained, are "suboptimal solutions" - apparently not to be confused with the optimal Chinese menu of forced abortions, religious repression, secret police, kangaroo courts, and air you could cut with a chopstick.

Friedman is surely smiling today. So, we can assume, are other leftists, such as Peter Orszag, Obama's former budget-overrun director, and Bev Perdue, the governor of North Carolina. Right after the midterm shellacking that swept Republicans into control of the House - a roadblock that has stymied some, but by no means all, of Obama's transformational agenda - they said aloud what other Democrats were thinking: America's problem is too much democracy. This week, the president solved that problem, shoving another page of the suboptimal Constitution through his made-in-China shredder.

In sum, Obama dissolved the separation of powers, the framers' ingenious bulwark against any government branch's seizure of supreme power - and thus the Constitution's bulwark against tyranny. The president claims the power to appoint federal officers without the Senate's constitutionally mandated advice and consent. He does so by claiming unilateral powers to dictate when the Senate is in session, a power the Constitution assigns to Congress, and to decree that an ongoing session is actually a recess. This sheer ukase, he says, triggers the part of the Constitution we're keeping because he likes it - viz., the executive power to fill vacancies without any vetting by the people's representatives.

Mind you, a president is the only government official constitutionally required to swear that he will "preserve, protect and defend" that Constitution. We are talking here not just about Obama's characteristically breathtaking arrogance. These are profound violations of his oath and of our fundamental law. But rest assured he will get away with them. For that, Republicans can thank themselves and their surrender to statism.

Obama is hot to move forward on two fronts. The first is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB is the monstrous Dodd-Frank's crown jewel. Congress unconstitutionally delegated to it virtually unreviewable power to "dictate credit allocation in the U.S. economy," as C. Boyden Gray put it. Not just bank lending - the law invests dictatorial power in a single CFPB director over thousands of American businesses. The CFPB is not just part of Obama's design to splay the government's tentacles throughout the private economy; it is also key to his reelection narrative: Leviathan, no longer shyly creeping but heroically swashbuckling through predatory capitalists to rescue the noble "99 percent."

By law, however, the CFPB cannot operate until its director has been confirmed. Before the midterms, Senate Republicans lacked the votes necessary to stop the CFPB from being enacted, but they now have the numbers needed to block confirmations - or, in this instance, to extract concessions in exchange for confirmations. In our constitutional republic, this is what is known as politics. That is not a dirty word. Indeed, it is the very horse-trading that leftists and their media cheerleaders indignantly demand to be afforded even when they don't have the numbers to force their opposition's hand.

So Republicans have declined to confirm Obama's nominee, Richard Cordray (Ohio's former attorney general, beloved of the trial lawyers). But being Republicans, they are not, of course, demanding repeal of this despotic CFPB coup - just as they have no real desire to slash any of the bulging administrative behemoth. Yes, they talk about slashing it, but what they actually want is to control it. So their bold pitch is to make the CFPB marginally more accountable and, as night follows day, bigger: to subject it to Congress's appropriations process (as if that will give the public a real say in how it operates); to have bank regulators check its likely excesses (playing into Obama's narrative about protecting Wall Street at the expense of Main Street); and to expand its leadership to several board members rather than a single unelected technocrat (because creating more patronage slots has been so effective in reining in the EPA and the rest of the bureaucratic maze).

Because the GOP establishment is statist lite, they play into the president's hands. Removing the Dodd-Frank deadweight from a crippled economy, killing an authoritarian bureaucracy in the cradle - that is the kind of campaign that would have stoked passion, highlighting a very different vision of a country breaking free of its regulatory chains. But no one is going to get whipped up over a few technical tweaks on the one-way road to bigger Big Government. Obama has a simple story to tell: "Obstructionist Republicans are trying to stop me from saving you." By comparison, the Republican story - "We're all for statist cures, just with a Washington-style nip here and tuck there" - makes your eyes glaze over.

The president thus saw his opening to ride roughshod over the Constitution's requirements that the Senate give its assent before top appointees wield power, and that this approval can be dispensed with only when the Senate is in a recess. Far from shaping the battlefield for a fight over first principles, Republicans have fallen all over themselves to praise Cordray's qualifications. They've made certain everyone knows they have no problem with the concept of a CFPB. Congress, moreover, has been in a de facto adjournment for weeks. To be sure, the gimmick by which the session has been kept technically alive - a senator opening the record for a few seconds every couple of days but not doing any real business - is not only constitutionally viable (indeed, Obama's own Justice Department endorsed it before the Supreme Court a year ago). The ruse was actually designed by Democrats and endorsed by then-senator Barack Obama for the specific purpose of barring recess appointments - by a Republican president.

Our community-organizer-in-chief understands the uses of lawlessness (known in the biz as "direct action"). Republicans have implicitly endorsed his CFPB and his nominee. With that, and with the media spinning the story his way, Obama is not a law-breaker but the courageous crusader for the little guy; Republicans are not liberty's vanguard but the petty obstructers of progress.

The president's second front is, as ever, Big Labor. He also used his supposed recess power to appoint three members to the National Labor Relations Board. This will ensure that the NLRB will not lack for the necessary quorum to do the bidding of union bosses who, in turn, keep the campaign cash and direct-action services churning for the Democratic party. Obama was even more audacious on the NLRB appointees than on Cordray: He submitted two of the three names to the Senate on December 15, right on the eve of the recess that wasn't a recess. There is not even a fig leaf of GOP obstructionism to complain about - the Senate was given no realistic opportunity to do background checks or hold committee hearings, much less hold an informed confirmation vote.

Again, however, Republicans have not even attempted to sound the alarm for folding up the NLRB, even after its unelected bureaucrats outrageously presumed to begin telling private businesses, like Boeing, where they would and would not be permitted to operate. The GOP is not making the overarching case for getting Americans out from under the statist thumb; they are saying they would apply the same thumb more benignly - by slow-walking enough confirmations, they figure the 2012 election will mean vacancies filled by Republican-preferred bureaucrats.

That is to say, the GOP has already surrendered on the greater constitutional transgression: the transfer of power from the people to the administrative state. To take another example, remember the Independent Payment Advisory Board? Like CFPB birthed by Dodd-Frank, the IPAB is an unaccountable, authoritarian panel created by Obamacare. It will ration health care through price controls. As Stanley Kurtz recounted in National Review, when the democracy-dissing Orszag was still working for Obama, he crowed that the IPAB is "the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve." That is supposed to cheer us, since Congress has lower ratings than Keith Olbermann. But Orszag was wrong: Congress is not the sovereign; you are. It's your control over your life that your representatives are yielding to cadres of "expert" technocrats at the IPAB, the CFPB, the NLRB, and the rest of the faceless bureaucracy that bends inevitably to the statists who create and sustain them - a bureaucracy that coerces our besieged private sector to shift trillions of dollars from the production of value to compliance costs.

Republicans have accommodated themselves to that gross distortion of constitutional governance. Realizing this, President Obama calculates that the GOP will have little difficulty swallowing this latest, lesser indignity: He no longer deigns to consult them on the staffing of a sprawling, suffocating bureaucracy over whose control they've already abdicated. He has taken their measure. He knows that, after a few days of huffing, puffing, and reading the editorial pages, they'll shrug their shoulders and move on - mumbling some drivel about how they only control one-half of one-third of the government (that would be the one-half of one-third without whose approval the beast could not be funded).

GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney's biggest applause line is his promise to reverse Obamacare by executive proclamation: He'd unilaterally issue "waivers," purportedly relieving states from compliance with congressional statutes - just as Obama has assumed the power to decide which businesses have to comply. That this is implausible - that it does nothing to repeal the law or stem the legally mandated flow of funds to Obamacare's gigantic bureaucratic infrastructure - is a point for another day. For now, the point is that Congress is increasingly irrelevant; the Constitution for a self-determining people is increasingly irrelevant. Neither party seems to have much of a problem with that. All that matters is who gets to wield executive power and staff the administrative state. We're becoming Tom Friedman's fantasy - and we're apt to find it suboptimal.

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) - Warning to America's Super Rich: Think Occupy Wall Street disappeared in winter's cold? Wrong: The 99% just declared a new aggressive, covert special-ops war strategy to take back our democracy in 2012.

No more peaceful tent encampments in parks. No more Mahatma Gandhi nice-guy stuff. Not enough. Escalation time. Wall Street, the Super Rich and their Washington lobbyists are tone deaf, blinded by greed, trapped in their post-2008 business-as-usual bubble.

Warning, OWS tells us America's going to be shocked by not one but hundreds of wake-up calls in 2012.

How? In a recent Washington Post op-ed column, OWS leaders are clearly accelerating their battle strategy in 2012. In what amounts to a new declaration of war that promises to electrify the 2012 elections, OWS will be using new asymmetrical warfare strategies, write the two men who've been the driving force behind the movement since early this year, Kalle Lasn editor-in-chief of Adbusters magazine and senior editor Micah White.

Listen to some of the specific guerilla tactics they warn will be used in their coming 2012 "American Spring" assault: A "marked escalation of surprise, playful, precision disruptions, rush-hour flash mobs, bank occupations, `occupy squads' and edgy theatrics." And in a New Yorker magazine interview shortly after New York Mayor Bloomberg's "military-style operation," Lasn warned: "this means escalation, pushing us one step closer to a revolution."

So get ready: 2012 promises to be a relentless succession of hit-and-run attacks during what already promises to be a hotly-contested presidential campaign. So forget Zuccotti Park. No long camp-outs and sit-ins. That's so `60s. So last fall. Instead, be prepared for endless surprise attacks, albeit non-violent amateur versions of Seal Team Six, in-and-out fast.

Kalle and White also noted in the Post that their 1,000 plus global allies are governed as separate democracies: Each picks their own targets, tactics, the timing and goals. So there may not be a coordinated D-Day re-launch attack date, like there was last Sept. 17. But lots of surprise attacks making the local and regional as well as national news throughout 2012.

As Kalle and White warned: "In this visceral, canny, militantly nonviolent phase of our march to real democracy, we will `float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.' We will regroup, lick our wounds, brainstorm and network all winter. We will build momentum for a full-spectrum counterattack when the crocuses bloom next spring."

One big target are events related to the proposed constitutional amendment to get money out of voting and reverse corporate personhood . presidential debates venues are high-profile . Supreme Court rulings on health care, immigration, voter redistricting . any events tied to "voting out incumbents" . supporting "Occupy Colleges" anger at oppressive student loans and no jobs . Federal Reserve System money and credit to Wall Street . special interest K-Street lobbyists . state recall campaigns . Keystone XL pipeline . Congressional hearings on jobs . taxes benefits for the rich . and the too-greedy-to-fail banks . corporations who pay less in taxes than CEO salaries . occupy state and local campaign headquarters . support young Millennials rejecting America's failed two-party system . occupy lawns of elderly citizens being evicted . protesting states who repealed voting and union rights . and many more.

Taxing the Super Rich 1% is a given. Kalle and White's counterattack also other specific, demands for game-changing reforms that would rival anything America saw back in the Great Depression years:

"Robin Hood tax on all financial transactions and currency trades; a ban on high-frequency `flash' trading; the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act to again separate investment banking from commercial banking; a constitutional amendment to revoke corporate personhood and overrule Citizens United; a move toward a true cost market regime in which the price of every product reflects the ecological cost of its production, distribution and use;" and they are in favor of "the birth of a new, left-right hybrid political party that moves America beyond the Coke vs. Pepsi choices of the past."

There are already several proposed amendments, like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 28th Amendment overturning Citizens United. That's tough. But taxes on Wall Street trading? Remember, Goldman's traders made over $100 million net profits a day for 23 days one month a couple years ago. They'll spend billions to fight any such tax reform.

My prediction: Wall Street will never change, never, until they suffer another catastrophic meltdown, with no bank bailouts. We haven't completed the natural economic cycle Paulson's team aborted in 2008. Only then can we restore Glass-Steagall and reverse that totally irrational Citizens United ruling that corporations-whose sole allegiance is merely to their stockholders, not to all Americans-have the same rights as a living human. That ruling's not only bad law, it is bad logic, bad morals, bad economics, and ultimately, it's bad for capitalism.

Listen to Kalle and White describing the energy driving OWS movement. It comes from deep within the collective soul of a new generation of young Americans who have been disenfranchised by clueless politicians who are trapped deep inside a corrupt two-party political system no longer capable of changing. And our youth are enraged. Listen:

"This primal cry for democracy sprang from young people who could no longer ignore the angst in their gut - the premonition that their future does not compute, that their entire lives will be lived in the apocalyptic shadow of climate-change tipping points, species die-offs, a deadening commercialized culture, a political system perverted by money, precarious employment, a struggle to pay off crippling student loans, and no chance of ever owning a home or living in comfort like their parents. Glimpsing this black hole of ecological, political, financial and spiritual crisis, the youth and the millions of Americans who joined them instinctively knew that unless they stood up and fought nonviolently for a different kind of future, they would have no future at all."

Yes, America's youth are the voice of the 99%, Americans inspired by the Arab Spring revolutions. American youth are fueling "the greatest social-justice movement to emerge in the United States since the civil rights era."

But never lose sight of the real war here. Yes, there's a war between the richest 1% of Americans who have seen their income grow 265% the past generation while the incomes of the other 99% have stagnated or fallen. Yes, the wealth gap is bigger now than it was in 1929 just before the market crashed.

But to truly understand how this class war is predicting what lies ahead, know that class war is not just between the Super Rich and the 99%. It is more a generational war between America's youth and a wealthy entrenched establishment. The young helped elect the president. Expected "change we can believe in." Unfortunately it got worse, and they're mad as hell.

Investors especially better watch out: This pent-up energy in America's youth is building to a critical mass (as happened in Europe and the Arab world, and now in China and Russia), and it will explode across the economic and political landscape in 2012.

In the final analysis, however, you sense that in spite of their accelerating rage against the establishment, America's youth, our next great generation, also had a sudden epiphany and learned a crucial lesson. Oh yes. Because their enemies didn't just give them a great gift, but also inadvertently trained them in using a more aggressive special-ops, guerilla, quick-strike strategy. Listen and you'll see what they learned in one night raid against them:

"Why can't the American power elite engage with the nation's young? Instead, they stayed aloof, ignored us and wished us away," then "attacked us in Zuccotti Park in the dead of the night. Bloomberg's raid was carried out with military precision. The surprise attack began at 1 a.m. with a media blackout. The encampment was surrounded by riot police, credentialed mainstream journalists who tried to enter were pushed back or arrested, and the airspace was closed to news helicopters. What happened next was a blur of tear gas; a bulldozer; confiscation or destruction of everything in the park, including 5,000 books; upward of 150 arrests; and the deployment of a Long Range Acoustic Device, the infamous `sound cannon' best known for its military use in Iraq. . This kind of military mind-set and violent response to nonviolent protesters makes no sense. It did not work in the Middle East, and it's not going to work in America either. This is the bottom line: You cannot attack your young and get away with it."

Repeat that "bottom line: You cannot attack your young and get away with it" And yet, that's exactly what Wall Street, America's Super Rich, their lobbyists, and all their bought politicians are doing: "Attacking our young." Attacking our next generation. Attacking America's future.

Our leaders are ideologically blind to the need to invest and invest big in jobs before this accelerating rage reaches a critical mass and ignites, triggering another American Revolution and the Second Great Depression.

If leadership is the capacity to take people where they need to go - whether or not they realize it or want it - then we've had almost no leadership in these weeks of frustrating and maddening debate over the budget and debt ceiling. There's been an unspoken consensus among President Obama, congressional Democrats and Republicans not to discuss the central issue underlying the standoff. We've heard lots about "compromise" or its absence. We've had dueling budgets with differing mixes of spending cuts and tax increases. But we've heard almost nothing of the main problem that makes the budget so intractable.

By now, it's obvious that we need to rewrite the social contract that, over the past half-century, has transformed the federal government's main task into transferring income from workers to retirees. In 1960, national defense was the government's main job; it constituted 52 percent of federal outlays. In 2011 - even with two wars - it is 20 percent and falling. Meanwhile, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other retiree programs constitute roughly half of non-interest federal spending.

These transfers have become so huge that, unless checked, they will sabotage America's future. The facts are known: By 2035, the 65-and-over population will nearly double, and health costs remain uncontrolled; the combination automatically expands federal spending (as a share of the economy) by about one-third from 2005 levels. This tidal wave of spending means one or all of the following: (a) much higher taxes; (b) the gutting of other government services, from the Weather Service to medical research; (c) a partial and dangerous disarmament; (d) large and unstable deficits.

Older Americans do not intend to ruin America, but as a group, that's what they're about. On average, the federal government supports each American 65 and over by about $26,000 a year (about $14,000 through Social Security, $12,000 through Medicare). At 65, the average American will live almost 20 more years. Should these sizable annual subsidies begin later and be less for some? It's hard to discuss the budget realistically if you ignore most of what the budget does.

That's been our course. Obama poses as one brave guy for even broaching "entitlement reform" with fellow Democrats. What he hasn't done is to ask - in language that is clear and comprehensible to ordinary people - whether many healthy, reasonably well-off seniors deserve all the subsidies they receive. That would be leadership. Obama is having none of it. But the shunning is bipartisan. Tea Party advocates broadly deplore government spending without acknowledging that most of it goes for popular Social Security and Medicare.

I have written about these issues for years. But facts are no match for the self-interest of about 50 million Social Security and Medicare recipients and a natural sympathy for older people and for people who eagerly look forward to retirement. Public opinion becomes contradictory. While 70 percent of respondents in a Pew Research Center poll judged budget deficits a "major problem," 64 percent rejected higher Medicare premiums and 58 percent opposed gradual increases in Social Security's retirement age.

What sustains these contradictions is a mythology holding that, once people hit 65, most become poor. This justifies political dogma among Democrats that resists Social Security or Medicare cuts of even one dollar.

But the premise is wrong. True, some elderly live hand-to-mouth; many more are comfortable, and some are wealthy. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports the following for Medicare beneficiaries in 2010: 25 percent had savings and retirement accounts averaging $207,000 or more; among homeowners (four-fifths of those 65 and older), three-quarters had equity in their houses averaging $132,000; about 25 percent had incomes exceeding $47,000 (that's for individuals, and couples would be higher).

The essential budget question is how much we allow federal spending on the elderly to crowd out other national priorities. All else is subordinate. Yet, our "leaders" don't debate this question with candor or intelligence. We have a generation of politicians cowed and controlled by AARP. We need to ask how much today's programs constitute a genuine "safety net" to protect the vulnerable (which is good) and how much they simply subsidize retirees' private pleasures.

Our politicians make perfunctory bows to entitlement reform and consider that they've discharged their duty, even if nothing changes. We need to recognize that federal retiree programs often represent middle-class welfare. Past taxes were never "saved" to pay future benefits. We need to ask the hard questions: Who deserves help and who doesn't? Because Social Security and Medicare are so intertwined in our social fabric, changing them could never be easy. But the fact that we've evaded the choices for so long is why the present budget impasse has been so tortuous and why, if we continue our avoidance, there will be others.

Rush Limbaugh caused a bit of a stir recently when he asked the question: "What do you think has fed more mouths, greed or charity?" The question seemed particularly untoward given that Christmas was right around the corner. Who besides Gordon Gekko might ask such a ludicrous question? Rush, obviously. and it turns out that it's not such a ludicrous question after all.

Of course when he says greed, what he is really referring to - and he says as much - is self interest. Basically what he is arguing is that while giving charity to someone may make the donor feel good and sometimes has a positive effect on the recipient, the real way to improve the lot of people is to act in your own self interest - within the rule of law of course - and the benefits will flow to others, either directly or via giving. You might call this trickle down charity.

Not long ago I wrote a piece about Steve Jobs stating that despite giving Jack to charity, he did more to improve the lives of people around the world over the last 35 years than possibly anyone other than Bill Gates. Of course Gates has given away tens of billions of dollars, but in reality he has benefited the world far more by founding and growing Microsoft than anything he has done or likely will ever do with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

To understand the level of failure that charity & giving can accomplish one need only look at Africa. In her brilliant book: Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa", Dambisa Moyo writes: "Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population - over 350 million people - live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades." Moyo argues that not only does aid actually destroy much of the potential economic development of African nations and enables corrupt leaders to maintain their power, at the same time it encourages would-be dictators to attempt to overthrow existing regimes, which in turn creates more war and poverty.

Food is one of the most brutal forms of aid. Many countries receive aid in the form of American agricultural products. The result of these gifts is that, as local farmers cannot compete with free food, their farms fail, and any chance of self sustainability vanishes. It's the whole notion of "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." In the case of Africa the world's aid (and food is only part of that problem) is destroying the capacity of the recipients to become self sustaining, resulting in a vicious circle of aid, corruption and poverty.

Here in the United States the record of success via "giving" is largely the same. After six decades and trillions of dollars of government "aid" in the form of welfare and government education, the poverty problem is not only not getting any better, but it's actually getting worse! We have record levels of people with no discernable skills, little ability to support themselves and most seeking support at the public trough. A smashing success of compassion!

None of this should be taken to suggest that giving is a bad thing. It's not. Particularly when it's done to ameliorate incidental or disaster induced problems, big or small. Giving however should not be seen as a long term solution to improving the condition of man. The problem is that giving typically comes with few, or poorly enforced, requirements on the part recipient, particularly when those "gifts" come from the government or international organizations like the UN or the IMF. Compare the different outcomes between 1960 and today of the Asian tigers and

sub-Saharan Africa. In 1960 South Korea's GDP per capita was twice that of sub-Saharan Africa's, but in 2005 it was almost 24 times as much. The story is similar for countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, who went from half the per capital GDP of sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 to five times it today. While all of these tigers received aid at some point, in Africa the aid became an end in and of itself while in Asia it was used as a step to economic growth and development.

Andrew Carnegie provides a perfect example of how both greed and giving can work together. In the late 19th century he was the richest man in the world, and in 1889 he wrote a piece called "Wealth" where he argued that the adult life of an industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the accumulation of wealth. The second part was the distribution of that accumulated wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy, Carnegie argued, was key to making the life worthwhile.

And Carnegie was no piker when it came to giving. By the time he died, he had given away 90% of his wealth (equivalent to $4.5 billion today) with the remainder to be distributed by others.

In Rush's parlance, Carnegie fed many people via both greed and charity. By creating the heart of what became the most valuable company in the world, Carnegie provided food and shelter to tens of thousands of workers around the world and hundreds of thousands of family members. Whether you call it greed or self interest is immaterial. It supported hundreds of thousands of people and it gave Carnegie the resources to give to charity. Carnegie's giving did not simply feed a man for a day. On the contrary. He wanted to prepare recipients to feed themselves for a lifetime. The majority of Carnegie's giving came in the form of financing universities and libraries around the world where men could improve their lot in life through education. His was a gift, but he required something from the recipient in order to take advantage of it. Be it studying or reading, the recipient of Carnegie's largesse was involved in the improvement of his own condition.

At the end of the day, as usual, Rush was right. The good Carnegie was able to do was driven by his pursuit of his own self interest. Same deal with Gates, Rockefeller, Ford and even Mark Zuckerberg. The result was that they improved the lives of their workers, their customers and the recipients of their gifts. but it all started with a profit motive. And it's true on a national scale as well. America became the breadbasket and economic engine of the world through the pursuit of profit. That profit motive and the success it created allowed the United States to become by far the most generous nation in the world. But the same thing holds true here, people around the world have benefited far more from Cyrus McCormick's invention of the mechanical reaper, the American innovation in the early auto, energy and transportation industries and Silicon Valley's silicon and cyber advances than they have from any charity that was ever given by anyone anywhere.

While charity has its place in the world, free markets and capitalism are the keys to true improvement in the condition of man. They provide the opportunity for investment and innovation to ameliorate most problems on the planet. Not all, but many. If one's goal is to help a neighbor, a friend or someone across the planet survive a disaster or get through a difficult moment in their lives, charitable giving is the perfect solution. If however one's goal is to lift a family or a community or a country out of poverty, do what you can to help them participate in capitalism and a free market economy. That's where long term, sustainable economic advances come from. Now that's a gift that will pay dividends for everyone involved.

One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."

" 'Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.

.But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'

" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.'

" `No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?'

" `Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'

" `It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.' "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'

" 'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

" `Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'

"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'

" `If I don't', said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'

" `No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.'

" 'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.'

" 'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the word - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me.

"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

" `Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.'"

"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

" `And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'

" `Fellow-citizens - It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'

"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'

"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.'

"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

I can pretty much guarantee you that this public school in Virginia would never sing Christmas carols, but they did teach this song to 3^rd graders.

The school board claims that these are lyrics written by the 3^rd graders themselves, because, as we all know, what 3^rd graders are not obsessed with class warfare.

There is no question that this program will play a major role in a presidential race this year. We are by far the most watched news show in prime time, tripling our opposition and many "Factor" viewers watch us because they want straight talk.

We're not rooting for anybody. We're not in the business of promoting any candidate. And we are tough on everybody.

Now, that alienates some Americans who want their candidate to be coddled. Let's take Rick Santorum who was on the program last night. The central point of the interview with the former senator was that he will now become a target because the media will portray him as a right-wing extremist. There is no doubt that will happen.

So I asked Mr. Santorum about his positions and he did answer the questions. But some Santorum supporters didn't like those questions. Laura Luke who lives in Milford, Michigan, "Bill, I was stunned by the hit- and-run interview you did with Santorum. You finally gave him five minutes and spent the time on issues most Americans don't care about. You owe him an apology".

Well, here are the facts Laura. The interview with Senator Santorum lasted seven minutes, 45 seconds. He ran as a social conservative and did well in Iowa based on that. We framed the interview that way and it was fair.

Mary Syren in St. Louis, "Bill, I am furious with you. You interrupted Rick Santorum big time".

Mr. Santorum spoke for 60 percent... 60 percent of the nearly eight minute interview. It's my job to ask as many questions as possible and keep the conversation pithy. No campaign speeches are allowed on "The Factor." You know that.

Doris, I'm withholding her last name, Lewiston, Idaho. "Bill, why is it that you bully all the conservatives and lavish praise on all your liberal friends?"

Doris, that's just lunacy, as Dick Morris said last night, Kool-Aid drinking cuts both ways. The point here is that we have been remarkably consistent for more than 15 years about asking tough questions. But we have also sharpened our focus recently.

All Americans seeking power will be scrutinized on the program, which is why some of them are too frightened to come on. We don't care much about party politics here. We care a lot about looking out for you.

One more letter about Santorum and we'll have more mail later on. This one from Deborah Mullins, Manakin-Sabot, Virginia. "O'Reilly you were a little soft on Mr. Santorum. You let him off on questions about birth control and gay marriage. It was obvious he did not anticipate those questions."

The Senator answered my questions pretty directly, Deborah. I told you that the interview was not a debate over his social positions. It was to allow Rick Santorum to further define what he has said during the campaign in Iowa. He did that. So I did my job.

And isn't it interesting that one viewer thinks I gave Santorum a pass, while another thinks I hammered him. When analyzing this very important presidential race, you have to put emotion aside. I mean I have to put it aside. You can be as emotional as you want. Just don't go crazy like Doris in Idaho.

Let's take President Obama, for example. As you know, I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he first took office and began trying to federalize the economy. I didn't think that was going to work, but I watched the scenario play out because I'm not an economist. Over the past three years, the economy has remained pretty much stagnant, while the national debt at $15 trillion, is now near the bankruptcy level.

So it is fair to say that Mr. Obama's economic strategy has not worked. That's not a personal shot at him. That's just the fact of the matter. Alan Colmes and other devoted liberals will tell you the President needs more time and incredibly should spend even more money to stimulate the economy.

Well, recently the coaches of the St. Louis Rams and the Tampa Bay Bucks were fired because they could not produce winners after three years. Politics is like sports. You have to produce. But Democrat partisans don't care about performance. If you have a "D" after your name, they like you, period. They don't care. Of course, the same holds true for Republican partisans and I'm fine with that on both fronts.

If your political philosophy trumps performance, that's on you. But I live in an entirely different world. The mandate of "The Factor" means we have to be skeptical about all of those seeking power. We have to challenge them and I hope that's why you watch.

Much of our political analysis is based on facts, such as polling we trust from folks like Rasmussen and Gallup. Rasmussen now has Romney at 29 percent among likely Republican voters nationwide; Santorum 21; Gingrich 16, Ron Paul 12.

In the head-to-head matchup, Romney versus Obama, it's tied at 42 percent each. In New Hampshire a Suffolk University tracking poll of likely GOP voters has Romney at 41; Paul 18; Santorum, 8; Gingrich, 7; Huntsman, 7.

Now, there are two debates this weekend, but Saturday is up against an NFL playoff game, so that will be muted and then Sunday's morning is in a debate... Sunday's debate is in the morning I should say. On Monday's "Factor", we'll have the most important parts of those expositions, again, without any favoritism or spin.

Finally let's talk about what this election really means. Let's cut through it. President Obama is no hypocrite. He wants to fundamentally change the country, putting social justice as a top priority. In 2008, he told us he'd do that.

Mr. Obama has been tougher on the terrorists than I thought he'd be. He has largely kept the Bush-Cheney policies in place and the brutally effective drone attacks have angered the ACLU and other far left people. So the President is no phony. He does what he believes is right.

The problem is, the problem, though, is federal spending. Mr. Obama doesn't seem to understand the danger he is courting. He simply does not want to stop the madness despite the massive debt. I mean, these pinheads in Washington are set to approve another $1.5 trillion in debt. That's simply insane.

The truth is, America can't afford national health care right now. We can increase health insurance competition, but we can't pick up the tab for 30 million Americans. No matter what the left believes, no matter how high you raise taxes. And we can no longer afford Medicare and Social Security in the way the programs are set up. They must be modified somewhat for Americans under the age of 40.

The social and financial contract between Washington and we the people has to be changed or the United States will go the way of Greece. As a citizen, I don't understand why President Obama doesn't understand. And that dilemma will be spotlighted on "The Factor" until we do understand.

On the Republican front here is the reality, even though the economy is shaky, 42 percent of Americans would still vote for the President as it stands today. Even with the dangerous debt, even with Solyndra, cap and trade, health care mandate, even with all of that, Mr. Obama remains competitive. He's not Jimmy Carter. The GOP better understand that and the party had better put together a cogent message based upon spending limitations, along with entitlement and tax reform.

Ideology will not... I repeat... will not defeat Barack Obama. His left-wing ideologues match the right-wing folks. If Washington continues to spend more than it takes in, doesn't reform the tax code and entitlements, this nation will go into steep decline. That's what's in play this year 2012. And that's what "The Factor" will be covering in a tough, blunt, no spin way, guaranteed to tee off a lot of folks.

Apparently, there are people like me out there who are involved in morally unacceptable disinformation campaigns against global warming science. Such people use tactics that often constitute malicious, morally reprehensible disinformation. As a result, there is a series, somehow connected to Penn State University, called the Ethical Analysis of the Climate Change Disinformation Campaign. From what I can gather, this is not a series of classes, but a series of articles. This appears to be serious and not tongue-in-cheek. I did post a comment, but these comments must be approved, so it is possible that my comment did not make the cut.

RUSH: I've been crunching some of the jobs numbers during the program today. Well, I've had the jobs numbers being crunched. I can't do everything here. I had to deal with my New York state tax audit during the program today. You wouldn't believe -- and I'm not gonna bleed on you by telling you -- you just wouldn't believe it. Everybody says, "Boy, Rush, I love it when you get fired up." Yeah, but you don't know what about. (laughing)

Anyway, some details that we will never hear from the news media. The unemployment rate has averaged 9.4% since the stimulus was enacted. That's the average unemployment -- forget this 8.5 thing today, 9.4%'s the average unemployment rate since the stimulus was enacted, 600,000 jobs lost. The economy has lost more than 600,000 jobs since the stimulus became law. Frankly, I thought it was more than that. I thought it was two million. I thought it was down by two million, which accounts for the low percentage of unemployment.

RUSH: Okay, that's what I thought, the workforce has lost two million people. There's 600,000 jobs.

RUSH: Time to party down, gang. Time to party. Well, 'cause of what I'm saying about Romney. Sununu and the Huckster are not happy with me over what they think I'm saying about Romney. Anyway, we'll get to all that. Don't get me distracted. It's party time. It's time to party down, folks, it's never been better. Eight and a half percent unemployment, the economy is back, Obama's policies are working. The media is having orgasm after orgasm after orgasm. I kid you not, 8.5%. It's time to throw a party. They have so dumbed down our expectations. And all of this, every syllable of it I predicted. Get into the eights and it doesn't matter, it is going to be mediagasm after mediagasm after mediagasm.

And, by the way, I've got a question. Here's Obama out there. Could somebody explain to me something very quickly? What is the difference in laying off soldiers and laying off cops? On the one hand, Obama cannot wait to cut soldiers. He cannot wait to lay off soldiers. On the other hand, we cannot allow budget cuts to touch firemen or cops or teachers. What's the difference? Look how eager Obama is to cut soldiers. Look how eager Obama is to cut uniformed personnel that protect us in the US military, but he will not even entertain one cut of uniformed personnel that protect us in our cities. What's the difference? Seriously, folks, what is the difference? Exactly right. The military doesn't have a union, and it doesn't kick anything back to Obama.

But it's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. Obama considers the military to be the focus of evil in the world. The US military is responsible for the misery in the world and all the imperialism. But I don't get the difference, I mean in a strictly intellectual sense. So the next time you have some leftist talking to you, either celebrating, angry, what have you, about the need to cut the military you ask 'em, "Well, how come we can't cut firemen then? How come we can't cut cops?" No difference, they're first responders. Cops and firemen, sacrosanct, we can't cut one of them? Why, our country will fall apart; our communities will fall apart; our children will be hurt; our children will be unsafe. Soldiers, get the hell rid of 'em. Cut 'em, cut the military, pare it back. Thanks to Barack Obama, the visceral hate for the military, most leftists have it; Obama has it.

He takes his anti-war mentality, applies it as president, loves securing military defeat and humiliation, but when it comes to the cops, oh, no, no, no. Not one police officer will lose his job. We will not have a press conference, we'll not go anywhere explaining why that police department had to be cut back, why that police department had to be cut back. No, no, no, no, no. No excuse will ever be offered, no justification. In fact, every effort will be made to make sure that we don't cut a single cop. In fact, it's even worse than that. Obama and the Democrats will tell you that that's what the Republicans want to do is cut cops and firemen and make your kids less safe. Whenever we have to get serious about austerity, bringing budgets back into line, as you know, the Democrats "Well, the first thing we have to do is cut cops and firemen and teachers." No. But when it comes to cutting the military, why, that's a snap, why, we don't even think about it.

But now back to this 8.5%, folks. They are celebrating, even this as fraudulent as it is, this 8.5% is fraudulent. The news is out there something like 200,000 jobs created, surging in December. However, 42,000 of them are seasonally adjusted couriers and messengers. In December, a category called couriers and messengers, they're hired during the holiday season, they're temps. Forty-two thousand of them. They will not be counted in January and February 'cause they're let go. But, look, we could nitpick here on the numbers. That misses the point. The point here is what we were talking about yesterday. The truth is not what is important here; it's what's being reported. I could sit here all day and tell you how these jobs numbers are not accurate. It's not gonna matter. The news is Obama's policies are working. The news is it's finally kicking in. The news is the economy is growing. The news is jobs are being created.

Those of us who have the truth and the facts on our side are seen as nitpickers, just can't get with the program, don't want America to do well. Every bit of this, every bit of this was entirely predicted. So here we are at 8.5% unemployment and we're being told we need to celebrate this. As fraudulent as that number is, it's party time. The black unemployment rate's still 16%. The number of jobs that have been destroyed in the country is over two million. The universe of available jobs is way down. There's nothing worth celebrating in this, is my point. And yet we are being told that it's party time, time to celebrate. Since when do we celebrate millions of unemployed people, millions on government benefits because they can't find jobs, and then claim this is progress or claim that this is a recovery? This is offensive to me. But it's where we are today.

Ladies and gentlemen, this assumes that we accept the notion of a systemically high unemployment level, the new normal. This is it. This is great news. This is the Obama recovery working. Millions of unemployed, we celebrate it. Millions on government benefits 'cause they can't find jobs, we celebrate it. And then we claim this is progress. So we accept the notion of a systemically high unemployment level when in fact we know this isn't necessary. We know how to break through the roadblocks that Obama has constructed to get to real economic growth. There is no economic growth taking place and that's the truth that's not being reported and that's what underlies the myth and the fraud that's being reported today.

There is no economic recovery taking place and yet we're being told that there is and furthermore we're being told to celebrate it and we're being told that Obama has made it possible. Fraud after fraud after fraud after fraud. Yeah, that's right, it wasn't but a few short months ago the black caucus was ticked off. The Congressional Black Caucasians, they're all ticked off because there wasn't significant job creation in their community, and there still isn't. Unemployment in the black community is still at 16%.

Our buddy James Pethokoukis: If the same number of jobs existed in the country today as existed when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 10.9% today, not 8.5%. It'd be 10.9, 11%. So all this money... Let's take a look at what got us here, folks. I know sometimes people ask, "Rush, do you ever feel like you're beating your head against the wall?" Yeah, I do. Of course I do. Don't you? Don't you feel like you're beating your head against the wall when you know you're up against a bunch of fraud and all you've got is the truth on your side and you're banging your head up against the wall and you can't convince people of it?

Well, people are being convinced. I guarantee you, though, there are a lot of people today who are buying into this: The ill-informed, the uninformed. If the election were held today, even with this news, Obama loses. But this is January. We've got 11 more months of this kind of stuff. (interruption) No, I'm not going anywhere. (laughing) I'm not going anywhere, and you're not worried. Okay, well, then so be it. But let's take a look. We got 8.5% unemployment, and it's time to party down! How did we get here? All of the money that's been spent, all of the debt that's been created, all of the deficits. Marco Rubio has sent a letter to Obama: "You are about to make this a deadbeat nation."

Our national debt is trickling ever closer to $16 trillion. When Obama took office, the national debt was barely over ten! We've added that much to the national debt with annual deficits, and we are told to celebrate today. So it cost that much money to get us to this wonderful unemployment rate of 8.5%. Mind you, no president since FDR has been reelected with an unemployment rate over 7.2% -- and the media is reporting that today, but you know what else they're doing? They're saying, "This time it's different because the trend line is what's going to be important." By the time we get to the November elections, the "trend line" is what's going to matter; and they're telling us they're gonna take care of that. They're gonna be reporting the trend is continually down.

So 8.5% unemployment, millions of unemployed people, millions of jobs lost, millions of people on government benefits because they can't find jobs -- and this is the progress we have, this is what we have to show for trillions of dollars in deficit spending. Trillions of dollars! The unemployment rate is still higher than when Obama took office. The media is reporting, "The unemployment rate lower than it's been in three years!" They don't

tell you lower than since Obama was inaugurated, but that's the truth: $5 trillion in deficit later, we have an 8.5% unemployment rate. That's it? This is what we're supposed to party down over? And of course we have to provide the perspective here because few others will.

So we've got $6 trillion in new deficits. We ignore the millions who have dropped out of the workforce, we ignore all those who are holding part time rather than full-time jobs, and the best Obama can come with -- the best the Democrats can come up with, the best the media can come up with -- is 8.5%, and we're supposed to celebrate today. How much have these jobs cost? Morning news reports this is a good picture. There are six million fewer jobs today than there were in 2008, folks! There are six million fewer jobs available in this country than there were three years ago. The unemployment rate is 15.2% when you include those who have dropped out and those who want full-time jobs but have to take part-time jobs. That's the latest figure. So the Obama plan: Shrink the workforce, expand the welfare state, and then claim economic progress. Then slash the military, take that money and subsidize public sector employees who vote reliably Democrat, like NEA members.

RUSH: The Associated Press has given away the game, as far as reporting on the economy and how it will be this year. In their article today on the jobless rate in December with this really exciting party down 8.5% unemployment rate. AP claims, "The unemployment level may matter less to Obama's reelection chances if the rate continues to fall. History suggests that presidents' reelection prospects hinge less on the unemployment rate itself than on the rate's direction during the year or two before Election Day." Isn't that convenient? And, of course, regardless what the unemployment rate is, what direction do you think it will be reported to be going? (interruption)

That's, of course, correct. They will be reporting the unemployment rate as falling. All predictable.

RUSH: The Washington Post on the unemployment news (this is Michael Fletcher): "Unemployment Outlook Remains Mixed -- Indications are that the nation's gloomy jobs picture continues to brighten, but experts disagree on two crucial points: The pace of improvement and whether the recent gain in momentum will continue through 2012." It's actually not "mixed;" it's quite clear. Some people are trying to mix up the unemployment outlook, is what's going on here. The game being played is to massage and make up and falsely report the outlook here. But throughout this Washington Post piece, the "experts" agree: It still remains gloomy. How could it not? Look at all of the millions of people who have given up looking for work!

Look at the millions of jobs that we used to have that we don't have, the millions of people on government support programs who otherwise would not be on them because they can't find jobs -- and yet we're told today that we shall celebrating. It's time to party hardy, time to party down. From... What is this? I don't know what this website is. CrewOf42.com: 15.8% is the black unemployment level, and it is up in December, despite 200,000 jobs being created. I guess none of them were for African-Americans. It's 15.8% for black unemployment. Overall unemployment rate lowest in three years, and that's great news, but the black unemployment rate is worse than ever at 15.8%. So where will be the Congressional Black Caucasians on this? Certainly they're not going to be happy.

RUSH: I'm also doing some research. I just got a note that I've got to research. If you look at the raw numbers of unemployed people, the number actually went up by more than 70,000, is the claim here that I just received. I'm checking this because the number, 200,000 jobs created, but then the experts were expecting a loss of jobs, so there's a lot of massaging of the numbers going on here. Most of the predictions I saw expected an increase of 150,000 jobs. I never saw anybody expecting to lose 400,000. So all these numbers are flying around and I've gotta double-check this, but I really want to check this number that if you look at the number of unemployed it actually went up by more than 70,000, more unemployed, raw numbers than last month, than November. I gotta double-check.

Regardless, whatever's going on, the number's being massaged, and actually the number is secondary, as AP has given away. It's the direction, it's the momentum, it's the initiative. It's sort of like the media on this recess appointment. There's a story here from TheDailyCaller.com, and this story is about how the media and the White House are having the biggest time frustrating the Republicans. The White House and the media know that this was an illegal appointment, but they're having the most wonderful time seeing how frustrated the Republicans are over it. And so this is the next nine months in a nutshell. The media will be in unquestioned adulation of the president, of the Democrats, like they were with Clinton.

The fact that Clinton got away with all that stuff is what impressed them. They knew Clinton was lying; they knew Clinton was doing Lewinsky; they knew Clinton was doing all this. The fact he was able to get away with it with their help, that was the thrill. And it's the same thing here with Obama. So we do not have a media that is in any way focused on news, truth, anything of the sort. They are totally focused on how much fun it is to flummox the opposition and how when the White House does it how wonderful that is and how the media will help do that.

RUSH: Oh, jeez. I just heard something. You know, I really like Dana Perino. Maybe I ought to stop there.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. It's Rush Limbaugh from high atop the EIB Building at the EIB Southern Command in a hidden location heavily fortified here in South Florida. The telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Well, she said she was listening to Huntsman yesterday, heard Huntsman say that the country is screwed. She said, (paraphrasing) "That's not presidential. That's not the way we want to talk, to say the country's screwed. It's live TV, you can screw up, and you can say the wrong thing, but it really is not the kind of discourse," blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she said, "I was watching TV today and I saw a Jon Huntsman ad and he says right in the ad that the country's screwed with Obama. That's just not the way we want to talk." Folks, we ARE screwed!

This recess appointment stuff, it's extra-constitutional. It is lawless. The Senate is not in recess. Who's gonna stop the guy? That's the question. If we're gonna sit around and say, "You can't say 'screwed,'" you got McCain out there, McCain ripping Newt for saying that Romney's a liar. John McCain slammed Newt Gingrich today. I can't believe it's already Thursday. "John McCain slammed Newt Gingrich Thursday for calling Mitt Romney 'a liar,' accusing him of crossing the line of 'something that we don't do in politics. I don't think it's appropriate to call your opponent a liar. That's just something we don't do in politics unless you certainly have some overwhelming proof,' said McCain on CBS's The Early Show." Really? Now they tell us. Who knew that's something we don't do in politics is call our opponents liars, unless we have overwhelming proof, which we do, if we're talking about Obama.

Anyway, McCain, here's the guy who says, (imitating McCain) "We're not gonna pronounce Obama's middle name. That's just not how we do things in politics, it's not gonna happen. If you say it, you're outta here, you understand?" As I say, I like Dana Perino, but folks, you haven't heard anything. I have been waiting to see if this gets reported. It has not been reported. It's not gone beyond where I first saw it. Well, I take it back. It has appeared in one other place. Our old buddy James Pethokoukis, who writes at Reuters and some other places, has discovered that one of the objectives Obama has with all these recess appointments is to -- brace yourself here -- essentially, when you strip it all away, if this happens, what Obama is planning on doing is essentially forgiving all mortgages.

There are some requirements. You have to be paying on your mortgage, you have to be three months current, but Obama is going to just wave a magic wand and allow people to refinance their mortgages, essentially cutting hundreds of dollars off of the monthly payment. This will cost $1.2 trillion and, as always, it is those of you who don't have a mortgage or who will not qualify for this plan who will be paying for it. This is buying an election in one fell swoop. (interruption) What? What quote from yesterday? Oh. Well, everybody's saying, even Rove is out there saying it's not a smart move to spend 20 minutes on stage with McCain if you are Romney having McCain endorse you. It's really not a smart move. That 20 minutes on Hannity last night. I don't know who they think are, I just don't know. I don't know how they think they're helping themselves. But don't get sidetracked here.

Folks, it may not matter who the nominee is. It may not matter about the primaries. It may not matter about any polling data. We have a president who's cutting the defense budget now. His priorities are winning the future, paying off his wacko donors and weakening national security in the process, proudly saying that it's about time we pared down to the point where we can only fight one ground war at a time. The idea that we should be able to fight two ground wars at a time is excessive and unnecessary, so we're cutting the defense budget. All of this is predictable, by the way. There is a plan afoot by virtue of these recess appointments, it's a little bit more complicated, but the bottom line is, in terms of perception, the perception is going to be on the part of people that Obama is forgiving their mortgages.

The perception and the way it's gonna be reported -- this is not really what's gonna happen -- but the way it's gonna be reported and the way people are gonna be made to feel is that Obama is fixing their mortgage. He's fixing the fact that their house is underwater. He is going to lower their monthly payment, the banks, the rich guys are gonna take the hit on it, millionaires and so forth. Your house is going to have value again. In one fell swoop with an executive order, we're gonna fix the housing problem. We're gonna bring value back to everybody's number one asset. Now, if that happens, and if it's reported that way, then all the rest of this is irrelevant. You go out and basically, as president, make it possible for people's mortgages to be paid much cheaper, the value of their home restored just with a wave of your magic wand, who's going to vote against that, who is going to vote against the guy that makes that happen? That's the plan.

Now, it's not guaranteed that it's going to happen. If it does, the monthly mortgage payment of people affected would fall by an average of $355 a month for Obama's constituents. That is not insignificant. For a lot of people, that's close to the payment we're talking about here. For a lot of people it's half the payment. It's not insignificant. You reduce people's monthly payment by 400 bucks, just by waving the magic wand, and there's one guy who did it. Obama. I want to take you back to some of the early town halls after the guy was elected over in Tampa, there's this woman saying, "Where's my new kitchen? Where's my new car?" Well, here it comes. Election year 2012. But instead of a new kitchen and a new car, hey, guess what? Here's your mortgage, refinanced, totally affordable as it should have been in the first place. The banks were ripping you off. The banks were overcharging you, but I am making your mortgage affordable and the value of your home is now worth something.

And who's gonna stop it? Who? Nobody! (interruption) Of course, they're gonna have to. What do you mean, "The banks are gonna grab the ankles on this"? The banks have been grabbing the ankles ever since the Community Redevelopment Act! The military is grabbing the ankles on cutting themselves. McCain's grabbing the ankles. (impression) "We don't call anybody 'liars' in politics! It's not how we do it, unless you have incontrovertible proof," and we don't really want to say the country's "screwed." That's just not presidential. So while we're sitting here worried about semantics and "sounding presidential," we've got a guy who is living and behaving outside the Constitution! We have a lawless regime, here.

We have a banana republic taking place! We have a dictatorship unfolding here. This mortgage thing -- and I'll give you the details here as the program unfolds. But remember, folks, it's not the details here that are going to matter. It's the perception and how this is reported; and when it's all over the beneficiaries of this program are going to be told that Obama is basically forgiving their mortgage, forgiving the loan. Obama is basically giving them a house, giving them their house; and that they deserve that because the rich banks have screwed them all these years by overcharging them and so forth; and Obama finally cut these people a break. This is how it's gonna be reported.

It's the same thing with the jobless numbers. I warned you. I warned you back in December, "Get ready," and, lo and behold, all it's taken is one month for it to come true. The new jobless numbers are out and, "Look! Ho, gee! Are we in Fat City? Why, everybody is going back to work. The economy, it's rebounded!" So it's a lot to deal with here, and I'll put all this in a semblance of order and give you the details of this. The mortgage thing is not guaranteed to happen. I don't want to say it's a fait accompli. I just want to tell you it's what's planned. This would be the mother of all stimulus bills. They're calling this the Home Assistance Refinancing Program 2.0.

The Home Assistance Refinancing Program, HARP (HARP 1.0) failed! It didn't work. They're going back and they're gonna do it again. They're calling it HARP 2.0. So we have a president who has gone rogue. Even yesterday in Ohio to set this up, Obama at his town hall meeting repeated his lie that the banks tricked people into getting bad mortgages. The banks tricked people, lured them in, and that's not at all what happened. The government is responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis as you well know because you're a devoted and regular listener to the program. But this is all set up yesterday with Obama in Ohio.

RUSH: Why don't the Republicans do something? I don't know. You've been asking me this for 23 years. Why don't the Republicans do something here about, you know, we got a guy, recess appointments when there's no recess. The Senate is not in recess. We've actually got Republicans saying, "It's not that big a deal. We don't want to make a big deal. It's not really that big a deal." Oh, it isn't, behaving outside the Constitution is not that big a deal? When's it gonna become a big enough deal to do something about? When's it gonna become a big enough deal to try to stop? That's the question that we all have.

January surprise, here it is, folks. James Pethokoukis at a blog, TheAmerican.com. "This could be just the beginning. If President Barack Obama's legally dodgy appointment of Richard Cordray to head the consumer finance agency should stick, it may open the door to more such actions. Here's Jaret Seiberg of the Washington Research Group:" a think tank bunch "To us, the most important takeaway from a recess appointment of Cordray is that the President could use this same maneuver to put a housing advocate in charge of FHFA." Federal Housing Finance Agency.

"And why is that important? The Federal Housing Finance Agency is the regulator and conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the FHFA currently has an acting director, Edward DeMarco. If Obama replaces him with a 'housing advocate' via the same recess appointment process, here's what might happen next, according to Seiberg:

That could lead to a mass refinancing program for agency-backed mortgages that would go well beyond the existing HARP program. That could hurt agency MBS pricing and result in higher financing costs [mortgage backed security pricing] going forward. Yet it also could be a big boost for the economy and housing going into the election." Well, hell, yes, it could. You let people refinance their mortgages, effectively cut 'em in half, lop almost $400 off the monthly payment, have one guy said to be responsible for it, Barack Obama getting even with the banks for overcharging everybody, restoring value to people's homes.

Mr. Pethokoukis writes, "Indeed, my sources tell me the Obama administration has been eager to implement just such a plan, but needs to have its own man heading the FHFA to make it happen. The plan would be modeled after one originally devised by Columbia University economists Glenn Hubbard (a campaign adviser to Mitt Romney.)" Yes, let me read this to you again. The plan that Obama wants to implement "would be modeled after one originally devised by Columbia University economists Glenn Hubbard (a campaign adviser to Mitt Romney and AEI visiting scholar) and Christopher Mayer." These are the two guys that have come up with this refinancing program. You think they don't want to run against Romney?

So you've got Romney advisers that were hijacked to help put together Obamacare, and now you've got Obama who's about to institute a mortgage refinance plan that is the idea of a Romney advisor. And yet we're being told they're scared of running against Romney. They really don't want to run against Romney. I don't see it that way. "In recent congressional testimony, Mayer described how the mass refinancing plan would work: Under our plan, every homeowner with a GSE mortgage can refinance his or her mortgage with a new mortgage at a current fixed of 4.20 percent or less. . To qualify, the homeowner must be current on his or her mortgage or become so for at least three months. . Other than being current, we would impose no other qualification or application, except for the intention to accept the new rate (that is, no appraisal, no income verification, no tax returns, etc.)." No nothing.

You heard right. You heard right. All you have to do to qualify is have a GSE mortgage and be current for three months on your payment. GSE mortgage is a Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac mortgage; a government sponsored enterprise. You gotta show up, you gotta be three months current, you have to have a mortgage that's approved by this thing governed by Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. The GSE is a government-sponsored enterprise. That's Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac -- and other than being current, the two guys that came up with the plan (one of whom's a Romney adviser) said, "We would impose no other qualification or application except the intention to accept the new rate of 4.2%."

There would be no appraisal of your house. There would be no verification of your income. There would be no tax returns looked at. They'd simply say, "If you're current for three months..." Basically, GSE means everybody, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pretty much have purview over practically every mortgage that's out there. If yours isn't yet under Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, it will eventually be packaged and sold to them so it eventually will be a GSE or if you have an FHA loan. "Mayer estimates that some $3.7 trillion of mortgages would be refinanced. That's right, this would be the Mother of All Mortgage Refinancing Plans. It would help roughly 30 million borrowers save $75 billion to $80 billion a year.

"As Mayer puts it: 'This plan would function like a long-lasting tax cut for these 25 or 30 million American families,'" which is essentially Obama cutting your taxes by 400 bucks a month on your mortgage. (interruption) Snerdley keeps yelling at me, "The banks are just gonna roll over for this?" The banks have nothing to do with it! (interruption) No! It's Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. These are GSE mortgages. They're already in debt. These are taxpayers paying this, not the banks! It's the taxpayers. The banks are not in on this. This is everybody else. Renters are paying for this! People that don't have mortgages are paying for this. People that own their properties outright will be paying for this, not the banks.

"On his website, Hubbard," who is the Romney adviser, "says the plan would have an immediate fixed cost to the government of $121 billion. And he calculates the economic impact as follows," There are four points here, a lot of numbers, and it just gets confusing on the radio, but point number one is: ""We estimate that 72 percent of owner occupant homeowners would be eligible to refinance at no cost to them. Their monthly mortgage payments would fall by an average of $355, for a total national fiscal injection $7.1 billion each month," paid for by the taxpayers, not the banks. Now, if this happens it'll be one man doing it, Obama, as a result of getting his guy in at the Federal Housing Services Administration, and one guy will get the credit.

As I told you earlier: Those people that went to the town hall meeting shortly after Obama was elected, inaugurated, saying, "Where's my car? Where's my new kitchen?" Obama is gonna say, "Here is your house! I have made it possible for you to stay in and afford your house." So it won't matter who the Republican nominee is. It won't matter whether our nominee says the government is screwed or not or we're screwed. None of that stuff will matter. The polling data won't matter. This will be the single largest election purchase in our lifetimes, and it coincidences with defense department cuts and so forth. So the bottom line is: It's a political and economic gaining changer in a presidential election year. Obama could offer a trillion-dollar stimulus as measured over a decade that would directly and immediately impact millions of Americans suffering from the housing depression and just wipe it out.

RUSH: Now, let me sum it up for you in real language, not journalism language. The plan that I just described (formulated by an adviser to Mitt Romney, in part) would turn the conventional banking standards that we have upside down. The government would force banks to give lower rates to risky borrowers with bad mortgages. This is after, folks, the plan. Once you institute the program, you have to carry it forward with new lenders as well, otherwise the whole thing goes out the window. So, at that point, it does impact the banks. So the government would force the banks to give lower rates to risky borrowers with bad mortgages. Now, how do the banks make that up? They go to people like Snerdley who are responsible borrowers, who pay their mortgages, and you will have a higher rate because these people will be "the poor."

The people who are having their mortgages refinanced are "the poor," the disadvantaged, the victims of the predators who charged them more than they could ever afford. So responsible mortgage holders will have to pay higher rates in order to make up the difference for this reduction that the poor are getting. This is a massive redistribution scheme. It may be the single largest income redistribution scheme we've seen, if it happens -- and I hate to tell you this: This is the second mortgage-adjustment program that's being talked about. The first one is HARP 1. HARP 1 didn't work! A whole lot of people didn't apply for it because there is a lot of red tape.

There are still gonna be a lot of bureaucracy and hoops that people are gonna have to jump through. It's not guaranteed to work, but, even if it doesn't, you may never know. It's an election year and all that's going to be reported is the intention. The compassionate intention of Obama to help people who have been screwed by predatory lenders to make their mortgages affordable. Whether it ever happens or not will be irrelevant in terms of the impact on the campaign. The way it will be reported is, "Obama cares!" His intentions. His big-heartedness. "He wants to help." And, if it doesn't happen, you go to the old reliable: You blame the Republicans for standing in the way of it.

RUSH: I'm just watching McCain here. Hang on a minute. Oh, McCain's very concerned about the recess appointment. Well, that and a quarter will get you a latte.

Greetings, folks, and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, great to have you here. I am America's real and only anchorman. America's truth detector. And, of course, the Doctor of Democracy all combined as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball bundle. The telephone number you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.

Folks, this mortgage refinance business, if Obama will do this in an election year, what will he be capable of in a second term when there's no accountability, when he's basically a lame duck throughout the second term. Why not just write off half the student loan debt? In fact, why wait 'til the second term to do that? Why not do that on the heels of wiping out half of people's mortgage debt? That's what the Occupy Wall Street crowd wants. No student loans, just wipe it out. As I say, where's this gonna stop?

Now, there are people who think this won't work. In all honesty, there are people who say that the mortgage refinance plan, which is a giant redistribution of wealth plan, it's also a takeover of private property plan, by the way, when you get right down to it. But some people think it won't work. The difference here in HARP 1, HARP 1 you had to qualify. Obama's first mortgage assistance program, you had to go qualify. This you don't. There's no qualifying. All you have to do is be three months current on your mortgage. That's it. And you qualify. So if Obama's running roughshod over the Constitution less than a year out from the election, imagine what a second term will look like.

But remember, my friends, as Republicans we're not supposed to complain about Obama, we're not supposed to make it anything personal. No. We're not supposed to attack Obama. We're not supposed to attack him personally. We're not supposed to criticize Obama. That will send the independents running wherever they're gonna go. It would be in bad taste. It would be in terribly poor taste. So if Obama wants all these recess appointments, yes, we should lodge our objections and then shut up. And if he wants to refinance everybody's mortgage, we should lodge our objections and then shut up. Because to go any further would be unseemly, in bad taste, and would risk angering the independents, who will not tolerate the first black president being criticized. That's what our political consultants are telling our candidates.

So keep it respectful, let Obama do to Republicans what Romney did to Newt. That's what we should do here. Don't respond in kind. That might ruffle some feathers of the independents. In other words, let the bully bully you. Let the bully bully us. Because if we react to the bully, the kids in the school yard are gonna go right to the bully and love him. The bully is supposed to get away with being a bully when he's a Democrat president. There is no other way around it.

Reuters is cheering Obama's takeover of the bureaucracy here, the National Labor Relations Board. "Stymied by Congress, Obama to Boldly Seat Nominees -- A defiant President Barack Obama on Wednesday took his boldest action yet to show voters he will confront Republicans --" Obama is not confronting the Republicans. He's confronting the Constitution. The Republicans are not Obama's obstacle. The Constitution is Obama's obstacle. The Senate is controlled by Democrats. The Republicans don't control the Senate. The Republicans don't control whether these people are confirmed or not. The Democrats do. The Republicans are not standing in Obama's way. The Republicans are getting out of his way. They're afraid to be in his way.

Obama is bucking his own party on this. Obama is appointing people when there is no recess. Obama is acting outside the Constitution, and it is not the Republicans making him do it. As though he's justified anyway. But that's the tone of the reporting from Reuters. The Republicans are so bad, they're so obstinate, poor old Obama, he's got no choice but than to take a pee on the Constitution. Got no choice. Republicans are making him do it. That's what the message is. I know Dana Perino won't appreciate that language, but that's the message in the reporting. Right, here it is. "A defiant President Barack Obama on Wednesday took his boldest action yet to show voters he will confront Republicans." He's not confronting Republicans. He is confronting the Constitution. He's defying the Constitution with this power grab, not Republicans.

All right, let's go to the audio sound bites. I gotta calm down here. Here is the Dana Perino sound bite. Now, she was press secretary after Tony Snow in the White House. And I know where she's coming from. I know what the mind-set of the Bush team was, and you gotta admire 'em. They had a great reverence for the office. President Bush told me on numerous occasions why he did not respond to the political attacks on him, because he did not want to bring the office of the presidency down to that level. So the Bush people had and have a reverence for the office. I totally understand it. But I think it's being taken a bit far here to the point we are handcuffing ourselves in the process.

I understand where Dana Perino's coming from, I really do. But this goes to what we've always said. There's a group of people on our side who do not view the country to be as imperiled as you and I do, folks. The $15 trillion national debt, it's no different than when was it four trillion. It's just a number, Rush. The country's not imperiled. Obama can't destroy this country. Better people than Obama have tried, we're not gonna lose the country. It's not about that. You know, you win some elections and you lose some. What really is the objective of those who do not believe the country's imperiled, who do not think your kids' future is imperiled, who do not worry the debt is going to cause massive tax increases and loss of freedom. There's a sizable chunk of the Republican Party that does not think that. They just want to get back in charge of the money.

They want to run the Senate. They think that that's gonna be the best way to stop Obama. Well, what would they do if they ran Senate now and he's doing these recess appointments, what would they do? What evidence do we have to cite that they would do anything to stop it, reverse it, what would they do? But we do know they want the committee chairmanships. That's why they didn't like Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. They thought, take Castle, he's a good moderate, he can win. We want our committee chairmen. Washington is all about who's in charge of the money, folks. You know, ideas are touted. They'll tell you they care about ideas. Ideas are secondary. The money in that town is the attraction, being in charge of it, what you can do with it is the great attraction.

So, anyway, Dana Perino was on Fox shortly after noon, and she got a question, "Why haven't we seen a big picture inspiring speech from these candidates? Do you think they really know what their plan is for the country?"

PERINO: One of the things that happened in one of the debates, I thought it was just a slip-up, when Governor Huntsman said America is screwed. Okay, that is not presidential language, but on live TV you can sometimes say something you wish you didn't say, but today in New Hampshire releasing an ad that actually says that, and I think that just strikes the wrong note with people. If you want to be the leader of the United States of America, you should act like it.

RUSH: This is Dana Perino commenting on Huntsman, has high hopes for Huntsman, a lot of people on the Republican side hope that Huntsman is the dark horse, and she was telling everybody here that she was shocked. It had to be a slip of the tongue yesterday when Huntsman said that America is screwed, but then when he put it in an ad that she saw today she realized he meant to say it yesterday and, in the ad, and that's not presidential. And that's disappointing. And that's sad. (interruption) Snerdley, do not ask me that question. I'm not gonna repeat that question. I don't know -- you know, folks, it's at least three times a week I see a complaint or even hear one in person, e-mail complaint about why these conversations I have with the staff are one way.

"We don't even know if you're really talking to anybody. You could be making it all up. You could be faking these conversations. How do we know you're talking to somebody? Do you realize how frustrating it is to listen to a one-way conversation?" Trust me, there's a reason for this. There is a reason why these are one-way conversations and the question Snerdley wants me to ask in a rhetorical fashion... (laughing) it would be suitable for an FM morning show but not here. And Dana Perino ought to appreciate that of me. Standing up for high standards here.

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.

Doug Ross blog; mostly a collection of articles, news links, photos and cartoons; some actual blogging.

The Congressmen spending huge amounts of money and those who attempt to curb this spending:

The Times Watch, which gives example after example of the latest bias on mainstream news sources:

Stolen History. This is a Black historian who seeks to teach the actual history of the Black man in America:

The Right Scoop, where there are a number of videos, mostly of recent speeches of presidential candidates.

Stop the Machine under October 2011, which apparently had permits for months for October. This is very organized; these are not people who just showed up suddenly. Their issues: protect the planet, healthcare for all, end wars, tax the rich and end corporate welfare.

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 #210	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	January 8, 2012