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.

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). If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, let me encourage you to do so: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but through Me.” “Believe in Me and you will have eternal life. Believe not, and the wrath of God will abide on you.” (John 14:6 3:16).

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney welcomed President Barack Obama to the Buckeye State on Saturday by parking his campaign bus outside of the site where Obama will hold his first campaign rally of the 2012 campaign.

President Obama officially began his campaign May 5^th, which, coincidentally, is the birthday of Karl Marx. Interestingly enough, the Obama campaign selected "Forward" as its new campaign slogan, a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

A new group, RTSV United (RTSV = Rock The Slut Vote), has approached what some have called the Republican war on women by embracing the "slut" label - and attaching their perceptions of GOP stereotypes about women to the word "slut."

The top EPA official who said he liked to crucify a few people like the Roman’s did to get everyone’s cooperation, has resigned his post.

A report from the House Ways and Means Committee finds that 71 of the nation's top 100 companies would find it far more economical to drop their health care plans and simply pay the penalty for not complying with the Obamacare employer insurance mandate. You will recall Obama as the fellow telling us that, if we like our healthcare insurance, that we can keep it.

Medicare's payment system, the unseen but vital network that handles 100 million monthly claims, could freeze if President Barack Obama's health care law is summarily overturned, the administration quietly informed the courts.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will host a concert next week honoring songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hall David. The concert will performances by Sheryl Crow, Michael Feinstein, Diana Krall, Lyle Lovett, Mike Myers, Rumer, Arturo Sandoval, Sheléa and Stevie Wonder.

Attorney General Eric Holder is still refusing to hand over many of the Fast & Furious documents; and some which he has handed over have been blank.

The Obama campaign accuses the GOP of outsourcing jobs to manila by using Verizon. But, Obama uses Manila-based telemarketing firm to contact donors. Obama also appoints Verizon CEO To WH Council.

A pro-Obama ad accuses Mitt Romney of shipping jobs overseas, and then, in the same ad, touts his green energy program. His "clean energy initiatives," as highlighted in the ad, include three taxpayer-guaranteed loans to Spanish clean energy conglomerate Abengoa worth $2.78 billion to create 195 permanent jobs (a rate of more than $14 million per job), as well as a $529 million loan guarantee to Fisker Automotive, a fledgling electric car company that manufactures its products in Finland and recently announced another round of layoffs in the hope of securing more taxpayer funding.

President Obama's reelection team released a campaign ad this morning that features this graphic, touting the supposed "jobs created by President Obama's clean energy initiatives." The graphic features dots where all of these green projects are going on; Solyndra has been removed from this graphic.

The president has admitted that there is some fictionalization in one of his autobiographies; that he compressed several girlfriends into one, when that particular one did not recall many of the events in this book.

I have lost track on Nancy Pelosi. She first has said that the CIA never briefed her on

waterboarding. Jose Rodriguez, who was head of the interrogation program says that he did. Her spokesman is saying “This is once again totally false.”

Large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate, research in the United States showed on Sunday, casting a shadow over the long-term sustainability of wind power.

For the first time, California would ask its contractors if they are gay under legislation passed this week by the Assembly.

Five self-proclaimed anarchists were arrested after allegedly conspiring to blow up a bridge about 15 miles south of Cleveland. Based on statements in the affidavit, not only are the suspects linked to the Occupy movement, but one of them mentioned the Republican National Convention in Tampa as another possible target.

May Day in Seattle: Occupiers set fire at federal courthouse, smash store and car windows.

On May 1st, at Union Sqare in New York, the organizers of Occupy had set up a stage for their invited speakers. There were flags of Red China, Venezuela, Cuba and others - but no American flags). At one point a group took to the stage, started screaming in spanish and displayed a red and black flag with white letters spelling "MIR." The MIR is the Revolutionary Left Movement, a Chilean terrorist group. A number of malcontents got together to form MIR - which they planned "to be the Marxist-Leninist vanguard of the working class and the oppressed and exploited masses of Chile, who were looking to break their chains for more than 150 years, fighting for the national and social emancipation which would lead them to Socialism and Communism."

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Tuesday, arguing that U.S. law states that broadcast airwaves shall only be licensed to people of "good character" and used "in the public interest." They want FoxNews taken off the air.

Media Matters for America and the National Organization for Women appear to be working together in a secret, narrowly focused strategy session to get Rush Limbaugh off the air.

In many states, pro-life groups have successfully enacted laws requiring women to receive an ultrasound before an abortion procedure. Texas law goes one step farther, requiring women seeking abortion to hear their children's heartbeats and a medical explanation of the sonogram. Denise Paolucci, 35, has decided to combat the new law by providing iPods to women seeking abortion - enabling them to tune out the required information.

Islamic insurgents kill 13 and wound 130 in a suicide bomb attack in Russia's Dagestan Republic.

A motorcycle-riding suicide bomber drove into a convoy carrying a top police official in northeast Nigeria this week, detonating his explosives and killing at least 10 people.

The head of the Nigerian Christian community has issued a final warning call to the government urging the country's leadership to use all necessary means to halt protracted violence against Christians in the country.

The two men who launched al Qaeda's English-language magazine may have died in a U.S. missile strike last fall, but "Inspire" magazine lives on without them - and continues to promote jihadi attacks on Western targets, offering detailed advice on how to start huge forest fires in America with timed explosives and how to build remote-controlled bombs.

An attorney for bin Attash, one of the five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks, Cheryl Borman, who wore a black hijab and long black robe, told the court that mistreatment of her client at Guantanamo had interfered with his ability to take part in the proceedings. She asked that female paralegals and FBI agents sitting with the prosecution team dress with cultural sensitivity so that the defendants would not be forced to look away as their religion requires. The women in question were wearing pantsuits and knee-length skirts and blazers.

One of China's main official newspapers accused blind dissident Chen Guangcheng on Friday of serving as a "tool" for American subversion of Communist Party power and called the U.S. ambassador a backpack-wearing, Starbucks-sipping troublemaker. Chen Guangcheng was under house arrest when he managed to get to the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

The United States will commit $105 million to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves with China. This was decided after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had toured a cookstove exhibit in Beijing. This is one of several new U.S.-China "eco-partnerships" announced during Clinton's visit. China will be “investing” how much?

Former President Bill Clinton: “...the President is the Decider-in-Chief. Nobody can make that decision for you. Look, he knew what would happen. Suppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there and it hadn't been bin Laden? Suppose they'd been captured or killed? The downside would have been horrible for him.” Interestingly enough, Time magazine article by true believer Jon Meacham edited out those last two words, because, quite frankly, that is so damaging to the President.

President Obama: "If people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them 'it's still about hope.' You tell them 'it's still about change.' I still believe in you. And I'm asking you to keep believing in me."

President Obama: “Recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is a work in progress - but if we follow their example [the example of the troops], then I have no doubt we will preserve the promise of this country, protect the freedoms we cherish, and leave for our children an America that's built to last.” Ask yourself—at what point did Obama become brilliant enough to design a utopian society for America? Everyone knows, there is no greater foundation for a great America than $1 trillion+ deficits year after year after year after year.

President Obama on his ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden: "I did choose the risk."

CA Senator Barbara Boxer on President Obama taking too much credit for killing Osama bin Laden: "I hope he [Obama] reminds people all the time. They are coming after him with everything that they have and he has to tell the truth. He inherited the worse recession since the Great Depression. He turned it around. It's tough going, but he's doing it. He saved the auto industry, he got Osama bin Laden and fairness - paycheck fairness. He has done so much and I hope that he just keeps on telling the truth to the people. That's what this election is about: `Do you want to trust this man again?' and I say the answer is `yes.'"

President Obama: "I hardly think that you've seen any excessive celebration [of the bin Laden killing]."

President Obama: “I want to sign the DREAM Act into law! I've got the pens all ready, I'm willing to work with anybody who's serious to get this done, and to achieve bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform that solves this challenge once and for all." Although the candidate Obama promises comprehensive immigration legislation in the first year of his presidency and even though he had strong enough majorities in Congress to pass anything, he chose not to. He could have passed immigration reform, the DREAM act or anything he desired.

Michelle Obama: “The vision that we have for this country is the right vision, we all know that.”

Michelle Obama: "So believe me, Barack knows what it means when a family struggles. He knows what it means when someone doesn't have the chance to fulfill their potential. Because those are the experiences that have made him not just the man, but the President he is today. And we are blessed to have him."

Obama pal and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers: "I don't think there is any question the American empire is in decline . . . and yet the United States remains the most powerful and weaponized military system the Earth has ever known, and that's a treacherous combination."

Bill Ayers, reviews a children’s book on anarchy: "[This book is] A delight to read! A children's book on anarchy seems somehow just right: an instinctive, intuitive sense of fairness, community, and interdependence sits naturally enough with a desire for participatory democracy, feminism, queer-rights, environmental balance, self-determination, and peace and global justice."

HBO comedian Bill Maher: "If the first black president only has one term, America reads that as a failure. This is what the right wing hopes and prays for more than anything else. America looks at this one-term president and goes, `We tried a black guy, but it just didn't work.'"

Michelle Obama at a fund-raiser: "My family, we lived in a little bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago over my aunt's house [and] my mom still lives in that house to this day." Her mother lives in the White house.

Vice President Joe Biden: "The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual - men and women marrying - are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that...That's why we stopped defending the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act " Although the President has sent out a myriad of indications that he believes the same thing, he will not come out and state this.

Shirtless Wall Street Occupier: "I feel that Obama, especially on the civil liberties perspective, has raped me in the a___. I'm not very happy with his job in the slightest."

Nancy Pelosi on the federal drug raids in California: "I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California."

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz : "I think the agenda of the Republican Party and of Mitt Romney has clearly been - and can be interpreted as - an attack on the issues that matter to women. From the very beginning of this Congress, the first priorities in the first bills the Republicans introduced repealing the Affordable Care Act which would dramatically impact women in a negative way [by] making sure that insurance companies could drop us or deny us coverage for preexisting conditions, making sure that we could once again be charged more simply because of our gender for insurance coverage, making sure that we would redefine rape as only being forcible rape - that was H.R. 3."

Climategate’s Michael Mann, of the hockey stick graph: “I am saddened to see one major political party [Republican] and some energy industry interests openly attacking science. These attacks are un-American and are threatening the future of this country" There seems to be a persistent typo in the source material, which has been repeated several times. I am 90% certain this is all attributable to Mann.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, chief of the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "I think global society has to realize that we are affecting the climate of this planet and this is the only planet that we have...some facts, which are incontrovertible need to be accepted by the public."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: "In the 21^st Century, the reality is that there are environmental threats which constitute threats to our national security. For example, the area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security: rising sea levels, to severe droughts, to the melting of the polar caps, to more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief." Most of the time I like Panetta. This is just silly, however.

Former Vice President Al Gore: "We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen

them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country's challenges." What I have seen over and over again, is liberals accusing conservatives of exactly what liberals are doing.

Hours after Russia's top general threatened pre-emptive strikes on proposed NATO missile defense facilities in Europe, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, "I think we're just going to redouble our efforts to seek common ground on this and to seek understanding."

the Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan: "Hardcore racists, the Tea Party zealots and the Republicans" are planning Obama's assassination; Republicans "want a Muslim to kill President Obama". . . and they "already have somebody in mind that they working on."

CNN’s Candy Crowley to Newt Gingrich: "Do you have a problem with being inclusive, because most people do look at Republicans going `They're a conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect Big Oil.'?” The press has done its best to destroy in non-white, non-male who is too far up the ladder in the Republican party (Sarah Palin, Alberto Gonzales, Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, etc.).

The Washington Post headline on our economic growth: "Economy Continues On Path Of Growth." {based on the same information, the headline in the NY Times was "Economic Growth Slows Unexpectedly to 2.2%."]

MSNBC’s Karen Finney on Life of Julia: "I would love to see the DNC or somebody follow up with a `Here's what life under the Romney-Ryan plan would be like for Julia'. She'd be in the grave by her mid-30s I can almost assure you."

New York Times blogger: Luisita Lopez Torregrosa: “Cuba may just be the most feminist country in Latin America.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: "It was right out of Henry V actually, a touch of Barry, in this case, in the night for those soldiers risking their lives over there. Well that's great stuff. I was so proud of the President there, I must say. This has nothing to do with partisanship; this is the Commander-in-Chief meeting with the troops."

CBS anchor Gayle King to The Daily Caller: "President Obama has done everything that he said he was going to do and I think people keep forgetting that. People keep forgetting. He talked about health care, he talked about Osama bin Laden, he talked about `don't ask, don't tell,' he's done everything that he said he was going to do,"

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: "Today's jobs report was a mixed bag of course. 115,000 jobs were added to payrolls in April. The unemployment rate did drop to 8.1 percent, the lowest rate since President Obama took office." Unemployment was 7.8% when Obama took office.

Cable mogul Ted Turner on how to achieve peace in the Middle East: “Well, first of all, I believe in total nuclear disarmament. That's the only way we're ever going to get there. We all got to play by the same set of rules. We have 2,000 or several thousand nuclear weapons. Iran has none at the current time. It's okay for Israel to have 100, but it's not okay for Iran to have two. That's, that's, you're not treating everybody equally. I think we've already voted at the U.N. and the Security Council to get rid of nuclear weapons. Let's get rid of them. Let's get rid of ours, and then Iran will stop, I believe, and everybody else will because if everybody doesn't have them, then we're safe - at least safe from a nuclear attack.”

Saturday Night Live cast member and Obama impersonator Fred Armisen regarding Obama: "I've grown to like him more and more. You know, I was always - I've just been a fan of his, if you could say that about a president. So that's the other kind of good part of it, is you know, getting to like him more and more."

Actor Robert De Niro: "It's very easy to criticize people. I think he's [Obama’s] done a good job. He's done other things that maybe he should have been a little stronger about, people will complain. But it's not easy to be President of the United States...I know he'll do better in the next four years, when he won't have to worry whether he's gonna be elected or not."

Senator Obama in 2006: "And let me tell you something else I've had enough of: I've had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue in our politics."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in 2002, when unemployment was at 6.0%: "This is a crisis."

Nancy Pelosi in 2003: "The good news that economic growth leaped from June through September runs smack up against the miserable realities of a 6.1% U.S. unemployment rate and a state jobless rate of 8.8%. Until those figures drop, there is no cause for celebration in the streets. Count reviving the national economy as one mission that President Bush hasn't accomplished."

Nancy Pelosi in 2006 when unemployment was at 4.4%: "[President Bush has] the worst jobs record since the Great Depression."

Sex advice columnist and anti-bullying crusader Dan Savage (mentioned in the previous issue): "I wish they [Republicans] were all f__g dead".

There is just tons of good cheer abounding in the hearts of the Occupy Crowd. Here more of the same.

Ron Reagan: “Yeah, it has, but this isn't entirely new, and it goes back farther than the '80s or '90s. Since the civil rights era, the Republican Party has been a haven for bigots. That is not to say that all Republicans are bigots, far from it. But, it has provided a refuge for bigots and it has exploited their fear and anger. It could be communists, of course. It could be African-Americans, Mexicans, women who want to stand up for their rights, but the most reliable "they" that the Republican Party has had, and there's always a they in the Republican Party, it's out there to undo family values and somehow drag down the America of their dreams, the most reliable they are gay people. Gay people will always, and are still to this day, are people who under certain circumstances can be demonized and they are demonized on the right.”

Osama bin Laden on American news stations: “[A]s far as the American channel that could be used to deliver our messages, whether on the tenth anniversary or before or after, in my personal opinion there are no distinct differences between the channels from the standpoint of professionalism and neutrality...From the professional point of view, they are all on one level- except (Fox News) channel which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too...let her die in her anger”

Osama bin Laden: “[I] used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit, but is has lately fired two of the most famous journalists Keith Olberman and Octavia Nasser the Lebanese because they released some statements that were open for argument [The Lebanese had praised a Shia Imam Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah after his death and called him "One of the marvels of Hizballah" it seems she is a Shia.]...ABC channel is all right; actually it could be one of the best channels, as far as we are concerned.”

The New York Times: “Job growth isn’t nearly fast enough to recover the losses from the Great Recession.”

The NY Times on the kickoff rallies by President Obama: "At times, the rallies had the feeling of a concert by an aging rock star: a few supporters were wearing faded ‘Hope’ and Obama 2008 T-shirts, and cheers went up when the president told people to tell their friends that this campaign was ‘still about hope’ and ‘still about change.’ ”

Cable mogul Ted Turner: “I can say about Mitt Romney I think he's a real gentleman. I think he's been very successful. I think he's really smart. I don't agree with everything that he believes, but I agree with a lot of it. And I think that he'd probably make a good president.”

Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, regarding the Obama campaign's decision to tout the assassination of Osama bin Laden in a campaign advertisement: "I don't think there should be an ad about that. I think it's one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job (with television specials). All that is perfectly legitimate. But to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do."

Dania Londono Suarez, that Columbia prostitute who landed the U.S. Secret Service into hot water: "If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase...[these men are] fools for being from Obama's security and letting all this happen...When I said, `I'm going to call the police so they pay me my money,' and it didn't bother them, didn't they see the magnitude of the problem?"

Genevieve Cook, an ex-girlfriend of Obama’s, describes his space in her journal: “I open the door, that Barack keeps closed, to his room, and enter into a warm, private space pervaded by a mixture of smells that so strongly speak of his presence, his liveliness, his habits - running sweat, Brut spray deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing.”

Politico's Mike Allen: "One of the things that those hundreds of young people in the Chicago headquarters do is create viral pieces of content for the web. Things that people will share. This is one that I think may be viral in the wrong way, that I think is a lot bigger on the Republican side, than it is on the Democratic side. The Life of Julia takes her from age 3 to age 67 and at every point along the way the government is giving her a hand."

MSNBC's Willie Geist: "They did lob this up as a softball for Republicans, one conservative saying, 'Who the hell is Julia and why am i paying for her whole life?'"

Mika Brzezinski: "I don't think it helps. ... I think we are at a state, time in this country where people feel that there is no hope, that they need help so desperately, but at some point we do have to inspire innovation and hope and get people on their way. ... They do need a leg up but then at some point... but their whole life, funded?"

Donnie Deutsch: "Our character is John Wayne, rugged individualism. ... Yes the government is there, but we feel weak in that. You don't feel proud in that. ... In reality, nobody, even a progressive guy like myself, wants to see America portrayed that way."

Geist: "No one wants to think that from the age of three they are going to need the government to take care of them."

Fox News' Ed Henry: "Because when you say, if there are concerns to be raised, Mr. Chen told the Daily Beast, I believe, that his wife tells him that she was tied to a chair, beaten, and interrogated by Chinese guards after they found out that he had turned up at the U.S. Embassy. So how can you possibly believe that the Chinese government can be trusted to really let him reunify with his family, if his wife was beaten?"

WH Spokesman Jay Carney: "Ed, let me just again, first of all, refer you to the State Department for, because this is an issue that they handle, for details, hold on -"

Henry: "About human rights, that really matters to him. You can't just keep saying the State Department, the President said -"

Gowdy: When you say you balance things, can you understand why I might be seeking a constitutional balancing instead of any other kind?

HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius: I do, sir, and I defer to our lawyers to give me good advice on the Constitution. I do not pretend to be a constitutional lawyer.

Gowdy: At least when Attorney General Holder made his recess appointments, there was a legal memo that he relied on. Is there one you can share with us?

Sebelius: Attorney General Holder clearly runs the Justice Department and lives in a world of legal memos.

SF Chronicle: “What specifically are you going to do in the next term to work with the tech sector?”

Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA): “I wish I had big enough expense allowance to get one of those new "S's" that Solyndra's going to make down there, the electric car. My 10 year old is after me. He no longer wants a Porsche. He wants dad to have an "S" sedan. They sound wild. I guess they run $60,000-$90,000."

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren: "My papa had high cheekbones like all of the Indians do.”

Tucker Carlson (on Elizabeth Warren being part Indian]: "Having a great grandparent who may or may not have been Native American is not a qualification. Being 1/32nd some racial group is not a qualification, okay, it's an accident of history. It's something over which you had no control and for which in a just society you would not be rewarded."

Jehmu Greene: "To question this woman on her qualifications is going to be something that does appeal to folks like, voters like you, bow tie and white boys."

Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots: "I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off."

Occupy Wall Street Protester: “Sign? Uh, it says, ‘Throw me a bone, pay my tuition.’ ”

Protester: “Why, because I think these billionaires are getting a lot of money just out of greed. Uh, um, they’re exploiting people, the underclass, like lower-class people, middle-class people.”

Protester: “How do they do that—just through, well, I guess it has to do with the government as well, for example, we get taxed more than they do.”

Journalist: “You know this country has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.”

Journalist: “25%—that’s pretty high. 1% of the population pays 40% of all the taxes.”

Protester: “Well, that’s really like statistics, from what I’ve seen, for every dollar that we’re taxed, corporations are taxed like 25 cents. And that just doesn’t seem fair to me.” As an aside, this could very likely be true; and what are there, 1000 people for every corporation?

Journalist: “Okay, let’s just suppose that there was lots of money and there was no economic crisis, why should anyone pay for your college tuition?”

Journalist: “Give me the reason for it, like...your car, should that be paid for?”

Journalist: “Of course you can say what you want, but I’m asking why that in particular?”

Journalist: “Yeah, but you can’t just have everything you want paid for...?”

Protester: “No, but I can put it out there. I can say what I want, so, that’s what I think.”

Journalist: “That’s fine, but from my perspective, you’ve basically written stuff that you want on a sign, like a Christmas list, and then you’re holding it in the air.”

Schultz: Where I work, I'm not allowed to give money. I can't give political money to anybody.

Schultz: Not even to the Super PAC. I can't give money. It's the standards of practice of where I work. If I could, I would. Damn right I would.

Senator Marco Rubio and possible VEEP: "When this president ran for office in 2008, he said he was going to be different, he said he was going to be a post-partisan uniter that brings everyone together and three and a half years later the president, quite frankly, has become like everyone else in Washington D.C. This obsessive effort to win his reelection - he has lost himself and he has lost what makes him different...the president has become, divisive, cynical, given to hyperbole on these issues, always looking to pit Americans against each other in some sort of political calculation.”

Rep. Allen West: “As a Member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Small Business Committee, I am seriously concerned with the 13 percent unemployment number for Black Americans. The failed economic policies of President Obama are destroying the black community and lessening the chances for economic freedom while promoting economic dependence.”

Rep. Chris Smith: "The war on women is very real, and it's being employed by the Chinese government every day of the week against Chinese women, including mothers, but also against unborn baby girls who are killed simply because they happen to be female."

Mitt Romney on if he would have given the order to kill bin Laden: "Of course, even Jimmy Carter would have given that order."

Senator James Ihofe: "DoD [the Department of Defense] is already drastically cutting its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft. It is cutting or postponing programs such as the C-27, Global Hawk Block 30, C-130 avionics modernization, the F-35, the littoral combat ship, the next generation ballistic missile submarine, and ground combat vehicles. Forcing DoD to expend more money on expensive alternative fuels further exacerbates its budget issues. The far-left green energy agenda being carried out at the Pentagon by the Obama administration is clearly in need of Congressional oversight. In the coming days and weeks, I will be working to put the spotlight on this radical agenda, which further drains our defense budget and puts our military at risk. I don't mind President Obama writing press releases for the rest of his lackeys but Secretary Panetta has an important job and doesn't need to waste his time trying to perpetrate President Obama's global warming fantasies or his ongoing war on affordable energy. He has a real war to win."

A Republican official quickly noted that Obama, at a 2008 rally in Florida, had told voters: "The question in this election is not `Are you better off than you were four years ago?' We know the answer to that. The real question is, `Will this country be better off four years from now?'"

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus of Obama: "He failed to change Washington as he promised and unlike 2008, he will have to answer for his record.”

Rush Limbaugh: "We don't have the money to support people not working! We are $16 trillion in debt. We don't have the money. We are borrowing it from the ChiComs, enabling them to ramp up their military complex. This is a horrible, horrible situation."

Rush Limbaugh: "The ideal citizen to Barack Obama is someone who is totally dependent on government, has no independent thought, and no independent life. Whatever is needed, there's something in Washington where you can go to get it."

Rush Limbaugh: "The unemployment rate has not been this high for this long since the Great Depression. This is life in Obama's America. It's reality. This is not a cartoon; this is not a slideshow; this is not a socialist utopian slideshow with a woman named Julia."

Rush Limbaugh: "I saw a great little poster: 'Reaganomics: Start a business, become a gazillionaire in your garage. Obamanomics: Live in your parents' garage.'"

Rush Limbaugh: "Barack Obama has decided that the only way to lower the unemployment rate is to kill off jobs. The unemployment rate went down one-tenth of a percent from 8.2% to 8.1%, but the number of people who left the labor force is at an all-time high."

Rush Limbaugh: "Food stamps are at a record high. Social Security disability is at a record high. So the transformation from a capitalist market system to authoritarian centralized welfare state continues, while Obama claims an improving job market."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama and the Democrats know they can't jump-start the economy. Look at what we've tried here. How many trillions have been spent on 'stimulus' that has not worked? Even if they still believed in that, they know that there's not stimulus out there. There's nothing they can do to create private sector job growth."

Rush Limbaugh: "The media, as fractured as they are, still has the ability to make a whole bunch of people believe things which are not true."

Rush Limbaugh: "Every report on jobless numbers, the AP has the word 'surprised' or 'unexpected,' meaning: Whatever the number is, everybody that they talked to prior is shocked that the number is what it is. So the experts they're talking to are always wrong."

Rush Limbaugh: "Why are we just learning about it now? Why are we just learning about the fact that Obama 'composited' a bunch of girlfriends into one? I mean, he's been president for almost four years, 3-1/2 years, and we're just now hearing about this?"

Rush Limbaugh: "After five years with Democrats in control of two-thirds or more of the government, only somebody genuinely ignorant, or a liar, would think Republicans or conservatives have any responsibility for the current state of affairs. The Republicans haven't had the power to implement their own ideas."

Rush Limbaugh: "Whenever the Republicans present a budget that has some reductions in spending, the Democrats start talking about potential government shutdowns, and that's when Republicans cave. Oh, no, they don't want to be blamed for that. Not after what happened in 1995."

Rush Limbaugh: "Democrats claim that that's what they care most about is funding government. Tax receipts always plummet when Democrats run things because they destroy economic output. They transfer wealth from the private sector to the government. They make the private sector smaller. Obama's done that better and more intensively than any Democrat since FDR."

Rush Limbaugh: “Okay, like the lower third of the screen, lower one-fourth of the screen, a static chyron: "Breaking News! Bin Laden killed one year ago today!" That was just on MSNBC. We're not lying. Breaking News! What is "Breaking News" to you? Stuff that just happened, right? A second ago, you didn't know it, until some network news guy found out about it and put a Breaking News bulletin up, right?”

Rush Limbaugh: "So Obama's out there trying, folks, to call himself or have us think of him as a hero. For doing something that if Bush or Cheney had done, Obama probably woulda called 'em war criminals. That's another real irony."

Rush Limbaugh: "A decade of courage, sacrifice, cooperation, coordination, investigation, brains, and discipline on the part of the US military, the Special Ops, the CIA interrogators, the entire intelligence community, has been exploited now for the personal gain of one small man who had the easiest job in this long chain of command."

Rush Limbaugh: "If you don't work, Washington matters. If you do work, Washington's in your way, when run by liberals."

Rush Limbaugh: "Washington can only do a few things: tax, spend, and regulate. And none of that helps anybody in a tangible way for long term."

In case you haven’t seen it, Politics versus Heroism. Put out by Veterans for a Strong America.

Team Obama is so proud of this, that they do not have even have a first screen money request: The Life of Julia

Another interview with former director of CIA National Clandestine Services, Jose Rodriguez being interviewed by Sean Hannity.

Elizabeth Warren is running for Scott Brown’s Senate seat. Apparently, germaine to her credentials is being part Indian.

5 minutes of Occupy Seattle Washington; destruction and violence. Where are the police sharpshooters on top of the buildings? How about at least something that knocks these goons off of their feet?

The Oakland Police run over an occupier's bike; protesters no longer down with property destruction.

Obama not delivering a campaign speech (this was May 4^th). Here’s how you tweet, kids.

Jimmy Kimmel: "Limo wouldn't pick him up? The thing about Keith Olbermann is he's so likable."

Kimmel: "Al Gore launched Current TV in 2005 and it took off like a North Korean rocket," Kimmel continued. "To be honest, I didn't even know Current TV was still on the air, but then I don't get channel a million."

1) I don’t know anyone who is a conservative who wants to shut down Media Matters, Current TV, Bill Maher, Ed Schultz, MSNBC, Randi Rhodes or any other left-wing organization. However, there have been many concerted efforts to get Rush Limbaugh off the air. Just google “get Rush Limbaugh off the air.” Those on the left do not like people who are intelligence, persuasive, and believe differently than they do. The idea of simply not listening to Rush is not a viable option for some people. Personally, I like having Bill Maher, Randi Rhodes and Ed Schultz on the air; I quote from them every single week. They always say something I find to be unbelievably dumb and I like to quote them. However, a left-leaning site will never gather quotations from Rush each and every day and post them. He is too persuasive. He makes too much sense.

2) I guess I am not too bright about some things. I just understood why Obama’s dog is named Bo.

U.S. adds 115,000 jobs In April, Unemployment Rate dips slightly to 8.1% because the labor participation rate is at its lowest in three decades. What this means is, in April, 522,000 people dropped out of the job market, 522,000 people are no longer looking for work now (this number is in several places on the internet, including CNN contributor Erick Erickson).

The number I have heard from Mitt Romney is 340,000 have dropped out of the workforce, which number is found elsewhere (ABC).

In any case, the workforce participation rate is 63.6%, which is the lowest it has been in over 30 years.

From CNN: In April 1984, the economy added 363,000 jobs. In the first four months of 1984, employment growth hit 1,564,000. This year, the first four months have brought about half that amount. The Reagan recovery sustained its momentum through the election, averaging 300,000 new jobs a month from May to October.

From CNN: Last year there were 86 million people who didn't have a job and weren't consistently looking for one, according to Labor Department data.

More than 40% of the unemployed who are still looking for jobs have been unemployed for 6 months or more.

The median salary under George W. Bush dropped $2000 (over a period of 8 years). The median salary under Obama has dropped $4300, over a period of 3.5 years.

CNS headline: “71 Percent of Top Companies Could Drop Insurance Under Obamacare” the President, in selling Obamacare, has told us over and over again that “If you like your healthcare insurance, then you can keep it.”

General Motors made $1 billion in the first quarter and pays no taxes? What do they still owe the United States? $20 billion? $40 billion?

Several studies have been done to determine how many people will lose their healthcare coverage if Obamacare is ruled constitutional. The CBO estimates 11 million; American Action Forum estimates 35 million.

26% of likely Democrat voters support the repeal of Obamacare, President Obama's centerpiece legislation, which endeavor passed without a single Republican vote. Moreover, the poll shows that most of these repeal-supporting Democrats are "strongly" supportive of repeal.

Republicans rate their well-being higher than Democrats, but it is all pretty close.

ABC News, CBS “This Morning” and Politico and others have all shown great concern over Ann Romney’s $990 sweater (this way they could ignore the points that Romney made at the time of the interview). No such interest in Mrs. Obama’s $2720 L’Wren Scott sweater.

President Obama has held just one full length, multi-topic, solo press conference in the last six months, effectively abolishing the most accessible venue for American citizens to observe the thinking and learn the views of their leader. Suppose that any Republican president, like George W. Bush, decided to give 1 or 2 press conferences each year. Do you think that the press might do a few stories on this?

Here is an interesting take; ABC news spoke disparagingly about the number of people who showed up for an Obama rally in Columbus, OH. This is because there were empty stadium seats. He spoke in a stadium that holds 18,300 and only 14,000 showed up, so the ushers had to tell people to move together for the camera. Still, 14,000 is a very respectable number of people.

Chris Matthews put forth the question would Romney or Obama drive the debate, and 11 of their 12 experts agreed that Obama would drive the debate. This includes: David Brooks, New York Times: Gloria Borger, CNN; Helene Cooper, New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ Kelly O'Donnell, NBC News; Howard Fineman, Huffington Post; Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune; Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic; Katty Kay, BBC; and John Heilemann, New York magazine. That’s a nice balance, don’t you think? Even Sean Hannity is more balanced than that.

Bloomberg, Reuters and AP all talk about Obama’s reelection problems after presenting a weak jobs report

5 quick examples of how the media is trying to paint the 2012 election is a racial thing.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper shows that there is no easy line to go from the Romney-Ryan budget to the “War on Women.” No network covers this same information.

I want you to understand this story in the light of President Obama’s foreign policy credentials. The President is being put forth as a tough Democrat on foreign policy. So, Russia warns it could launch preemptive strike On U.S. missile defense; the Washington Post buries this AP story on A6. That Russian would say such a thing is remarkable.

Sometimes the bias is subtle, and a matter of emphasis. There is the blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. How is this story presented? Does it revolve around this brave man or should the story revolve around Hillary Clinton being put into a difficult position?

'Unfit' Murdoch tops NYT page one; conviction of terror suspect in subway bombing plot, page A-19

The mainstream media (the Obama media complex) loved the occupy movement, doing 81 mostly favorable stores on them in the first month of October 2011. However, their reappearance on May day, with violence, property destruction, and many arrests, with communist and socialist support, was all but ignored by the media.

For once, SNL did not lead off with a hit skit on Mitt. They skewered the FoxNews morning show, and the key to their humor: everyone on the Fox show is really, really stupid and conservative.

How easy it would be to replay the 50 times President Obama used the word I when talking about the killing of Osama bin Laden. “The Navy SEALS? Well, sure, they helped; but I’m the real reason Osama is dead.”

I’ve got to give Mitt Romney some credit here. Obama comes to Cleveland, and waiting for him is a letter to the editor, a guest column, from Mitt Romney. Despite its liberal leanings, most liberal papers have to pretend to be even-handed; so, Romney’s letter is published. It would not matter whether they did or not; it would have been all over the internet under the heading, “What the Cleveland Plain Dealer Does Not Want You to Hear.” So, they had to print it.

Gingrich had said, he would follow Obama around and give speeches on whatever speech Obama has just given, until Obama agrees to a debate. Romney is setting the groundwork in advance.

The Washington Post examines Nancy Pelosi’s references to the GOP’s “War on Women.” From Pelosi's statement, one could imagine a wholesale "assault" to strip funding for women's health programs. But in fact, there are virtually no specific programs aimed at women currently in the fund. In the future, the administration hopes to add such programs, but that is not the reality today, as evidenced by the fact the administration never raised this concern last year when the GOP-led House also voted to kill the preventive health care fund. 2 Pinocchio’s. It should have been more.

Washington Post’s Dana Mibank writes President Obama, campaigner in chief about how perhaps the President is spiking the bin Laden football a bit too much.

I think that most news sources, apart from MSNBC, will be more fair in their election coverage this year than they were in 2008, at which time, it was an Obama love-fest. There are several reasons for this: the Obama economy sucks, and this affects the media sources as well. Mitt Romney, even though he is portrayed by the Democratic party simultaneously as a flip-flopper and a far-right tool of the TEA party, he is right of center and probably not an ideologue. Thirdly, with FoxNews’ Bill O’Reilly nipping at the heels of the 3 networks, and provided better, more balanced and more entertaining coverage, network media realizes that if they are viewed as simply an arm of the Democratic party, they may lose more centrist and conservative viewers. Don’t misunderstand me, they will still tilt left, but more subtly than they did in 2008.

As we enter the fourth year of your term, unemployment is over 8 percent and has been for your entire term. Nearly 23 million men and women are unemployed, underemployed or are no longer even looking for work. In the face of such challenges, many Americans have simply given up hope.

I recognize, of course, as do all Americans, that you inherited an economic crisis. But you've now had three years to turn things around. The record of those three years is clear. Your policies have failed, not only in Ohio, but across the nation.

The results are a continuing tragedy for millions upon millions of people. Everywhere I go, I meet Americans who are tired of being tired, and many of those who are fortunate enough to have a job are working harder for less. This is not the way it is supposed to be in America. This is not the way it needs to be.

Mr. President, forgive me for being blunt, but when it comes to economic affairs, you're out of your depth. Unlike you, I am not a career politician. Unlike you, I've spent more than two decades working in the private sector, starting new businesses and turning around failing ones. Undoing the damage you've done will be a daunting challenge. But I've learned a thing or two about how government policies can kill private investment and stifle job creation and I have a plan to get government out of the way.

Mr. President, while campaigning for the presidency nearly four years ago, you declared that you were "absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

Mr. President, the American people are tired of the grandiose promises. And they are even more tired of the paltry results.

Mr. President, your promises now ring hollow. If you have brought new ideas to Ohio for creating jobs, why have you waited three years to unveil them? Have you suddenly had a revelation, or is it because 2012 is an election year? Whatever the case, what you are offering Ohio now is too little, too late.

What Ohio needs -- what the country needs -- is not four more years of economic mismanagement and failed leadership. It needs a fundamental change in direction that, by returning the country to the principles of limited government and free enterprise, would unleash the potential of the American people.

I have a path forward to accomplish that. I have spent much of my life in business, turning around troubled enterprises. I can do the same for the most troubled of all enterprises: our federal government.

Our taxes are too high, and our government is too big. I will cut individual tax rates by 20 percent across the board to jump-start job creation, grow the economy and help Americans keep more of their hard-earned dollars. I will reform a corporate tax system that drives American jobs overseas. I will slash the needless regulations that crimp our energy supply and inhibit so many different kinds of businesses. In the year I was born, unemployment was 3.9 percent. When I turned 21, it was 3.6 percent. We can do so much better than we have been doing.

So once again, Mr. President, welcome to Ohio, and welcome to the campaign. We need a great debate about how best to get our country working again. We can't afford four more years of failure. I believe in unleashing America's potential. That is what my own campaign for the presidency is all about.

More than 1,000 Americans over the age of 18 were asked 10 random questions from the civics test, which asks about US history and government topics.

Of those questioned, 35% were unable to answer the pass mark of five correctly. Typically, 97% of immigrants pass this test.

She lives in a swing state that Obama repeatedly visits on "official" taxpayer-funded campaign trips.

At age 41 she is knocked up by a Democrat running for president who then uses campaign funds to try and hide her existence.

At age 79 she falls victim to an Obamacare death panel after being diagnosed with cancer.

It's hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others.

The first anniversary of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed Osama bin Laden brings the news that President Obama plans during the coming campaign to exploit the bragging rights to the achievement. That plan invites scrutiny that is unlikely to benefit him.

Consider the events surrounding the operation. A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: "The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven's hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out."

Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven's, not the president's. Moreover, the president does not seem to have addressed at all the possibility of seizing material with intelligence value-which may explain his disclosure immediately following the event not only that bin Laden was killed, but also that a valuable trove of intelligence had been seized, including even the location of al Qaeda safe-houses. That disclosure infuriated the intelligence community because it squandered the opportunity to exploit the intelligence that was the subject of the boast.

The only reliable weapon that any administration has against the current threat to this country is intelligence. Every operation like the one against bin Laden (or the one that ended the career of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen and al Qaeda propagandist killed in a drone attack last September) dips into the reservoir of available intelligence. Refilling that reservoir apparently is of no importance to an administration that, after an order signed by the president on his second day in office, has no classified interrogation program-and whose priorities are apparent from its swift decision to reopen investigations of CIA operators for alleged abuses in connection with the classified interrogation program that once did exist.

While contemplating how the killing of bin Laden reflects on the president, consider the way he emphasized his own role in the hazardous mission accomplished by SEAL Team 6:

"I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as I continued our broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community I was briefed . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . And finally last week I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . ."

That seems a jarring formulation coming from a man who, when first elected, was asked which president he would model himself on and replied, Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln, on the night after Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender ended the Civil War, delivered from the window of the White House a speech that mentioned his own achievements not at all, but instead looked forward to the difficulties of reconstruction and called for black suffrage-a call that would doom him because the audience outside the White House included a man who muttered that Lincoln had just delivered his last speech. It was John Wilkes Booth.

The man from whom President Obama has sought incessantly to distance himself, George W. Bush, also had occasion during his presidency to announce to the nation a triumph of intelligence: the capture of Saddam Hussein. He called that success "a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq." He attributed it to "the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers. . . . Their work continues, and so do the risks."

He did mention himself at the end: "Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them."

That is not to say that great leaders, including presidents, have not placed themselves at the center of great events. But generally it has been to accept responsibility for failure.

Lincoln took responsibility in August 1862 for failures that had been attributed to General George McClellan-eventually sacked for incompetence-and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Lincoln told a crowd that McClellan was not at fault for seeking more than Stanton could give, and "I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged upon the Secretary of War."

This picture is fascinating. It does not appear to be especially cold in this room, but the President is wearing a jacket. Perhaps this is to hide his golf shirt?

Dwight Eisenhower is famous for having penned a statement to be issued in anticipation of the failure of the Normandy invasion that reads in relevant part: "My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

A week later, when the success of the invasion was apparent, Eisenhower saluted the Allied Expeditionary Forces: "One week ago this morning there was established through your coordinated efforts our first foothold in northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill and effectiveness . . . your accomplishments . . . have exceeded my brightest hopes.

Eisenhower did mention himself at the end: "I truly congratulate you upon a brilliantly successful beginning. . . . Liberty loving people everywhere would today like to join me in saying to you, 'I am proud of you.'"

Such examples are worth remembering every time President Obama claims bin Laden bragging rights.

In the end, it was the prospect of a nap that made 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed sing like a canary.

"Even with waterboarding, he was counting on his fingers, because he knew we would stop at 10, so he wasn't terribly intimidated by that," ex-CIA official José Rodriguez Jr., told The Post.

Still, the man described as the Hannibal Lecter of al Qaeda wasn't easy to crack.

It took two weeks to break him after he was nabbed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003 and quickly squirreled away to a secret CIA prison called a "black site."

CIA officers started on him slowly, asking the Kuwaiti-born terrorist if he planned to cooperate.

`We couldn't idly sit by and wait for a chance to bond with our detainee or for him to see the error of his ways and open up to us," Rodriguez, 64, writes in his new book, "Hard Measures."

Rodriguez, who oversaw the CIA's interrogation and detention program, stridently defends the techniques used to extract information from detainees, saying the methods were all legally sanctioned by the Bush administration - and thwarted terror plots.

"No one enjoyed doing it, but we were absolutely convinced that [high-level detainees] had information in their heads that would save countless American lives. We were right."

He says there were no similarities between the interrogation techniques his officers used and the Army troops exposed for illegally abusing Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. Each CIA method was fully cleared by an array of lawyers, who were ubiquitous, Rodriguez explains.

When Mohammed refused to cooperate, the agency's "enhanced interrogation techniques" kicked in, Rodriguez writes.

Mohammed, 48, was subjected to a range of methods. They may have included dietary restrictions, where prisoners wore diapers and were fed only the dietary shake Ensure. Leaving detainees naked in their cells was also used.

And there was "walling," in which interrogators pushed him backwards in a small plywood-walled room so that his shoulder blades bounced off the wall with a "boom."

Other "corrective techniques" included the "attention grasp," where a detainee is grabbed on both side of the collar and yanked towards the interrogator; the "facial hold" where an interrogator places a hand on each side of the detainee's face and holds it immobile; and the "insult slap," where the person is slapped between the chin and the bottom of his earlobe.

"More than one detainee expressed surprise when slapped, and told the interrogator, `Hey, you aren't supposed to do that!' The al Qaeda training manual told them that Americans would treat them with kid gloves!" Rodriguez writes.

INTEL GATHERING: Al Qaeda's 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed was held at secret CIA interrogation jails - or "black sites" - like this one in Lithuania (pictured), where he was waterboarded 183 times but did not crack, according to a new book by CIA interrogation boss José Rodriguez Jr. What finally broke the terror chief was being kept awake for 180 straight hours - more than a week - and subjected to loud noises, slaps to the face and stressful positions, such as standing for long periods of time.

But KSM was unlike any of the 30 other CIA detainees subject to such techniques: He was "scary smart" and evil, Rodriguez says. He was one of only three prisoners waterboarded by the United States. But Mohammed knew his interrogators would never kill him, so he coolly remained impassive as he was waterboarded 183 times, Rodriguez says.

"He seemed to have figured out that we weren't going to push things too far," Rodriguez says.

The first day he was in custody, Mohammed - who attended college in Greensboro, NC - initially pretended to only speak Urdu, fooling no one. Officers forced him to stand, and after hours of questioning, his weakness for shut-eye began to show.

"Here's the deal," an interrogator said. "I know you speak English. I want you to politely ask me to let you go to sleep."

The idea was to demonstrate to Mohammed "that he was no longer in control," Rodriguez says. Officers would later keep him awake for 180 hours straight - 7 1/2 days. Loud noises and stress positions - where a detainee is shackled and forced to stand, putting intense pressure on the leg muscles - were used.

"It was much kinder than anything he would have done to an American captive, like Danny Pearl," said Rodriguez, referring to the Wall Street Journal reporter Mohammed admitted to personally beheading in 2002.

"Once they understand that they've come to the limits of their strength that their god will give them, they cooperate because they cannot resist beyond their strength," explains Rodriguez, who said information extracted from Mohammed helped foil a range of terror schemes, including 9/11-style attacks on the West Coast in 2003.

Rodriguez contends information obtained from Mohammed and fellow terrorist Abu Zubaydah accounts for more than 50 percent of the terror-plot section of the 9/11 Commission report.

Mohammed was arraigned yesterday at Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism and murder in the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,976 innocent people. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Although he acted defiantly in court, Rodriguez said KSM would like nothing more than a forum to preach radical Islam.

"This is a process that will continue for a long time," Rodriguez said. "I have heard he may plead not guilty, and if he does, he'll use the [legal] process as his platform . . . to talk about his jihadist beliefs."

One of Mohammed's frequently stated goals was to be put on trial in civilian court in New York - which nearly happened until Congress last year blocked the Justice Department from transferring any Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States.

"It seemed to us that he was looking for a platform from which he could spout his hatred for all things American, and a trial would certainly present that opportunity," Rodriguez writes. "It strikes me as more than a little ironic that several years later, Attorney General Eric Holder almost granted KSM his wish."

Once he became compliant, Mohammed developed a rapport with his interrogators, watching PG-rated movies with them in his cell, and offering a religion-themed overview of the "history of the world."

"A few months later, he reported that he was ready to continue and build on his earlier presentation. He had one requirement, however. Only those officers who sat through the prerequisite first session should be invited to the [second] session," Rodriguez recalls.

He even penned "playful" notes to them, Rodriguez says. "Unless you are trying to manipulate me, could you turn up the heat a bit?" the terrorist asked in one missive.

After telling an officer to have a "safe trip" before he left for home, Mohammed continued, "It is not that I wish you well. But if I ever get out of here, I want to personally be the one to kill you."

"In a confession he later submitted for a potential tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, KSM wrote: `I decapitated with blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,' adding, `For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.'"

Washington analysts had Mohammed pose holding a sack with a bowling ball in it, so they could compare his arm to those in the video cutting Pearl's throat.

"Those photos compared to the actual video showed that KSM was not lying to us," Rodriguez writes. "Just when you thought he had a human face, he would disappoint you."

The former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service told The Post that any claims that Mohammed was illegally tortured are "bulls--t," and that the reputed terror goon had a master plan all along.

In his book, Rodriguez recalls an unsettling prediction: "At least two of our people at the black site told me that KSM made an observation that would later prove eerily accurate. Talking about his interrogation and that of his colleagues, he said: "You know, some day your government is going to turn on you."

Rodriguez, the Puerto Rican-born son of two teachers has admitted to destroying 92 tapes showing the agency's interrogations and was cleared of any criminal charges after a three-year investigation. He says he did it to thwart a propaganda campaign against the United States, but mostly to protect the safety of his officers.

"This is America. We have a right to disagree. That doesn't bother me," says Rodriguez, who retired from the CIA in 2007 after 31 years. "I would do it all over again."

Production of Oil, Gas and Coal on Federal Lands Sinks to Nine-Year Low from Heritage.

Shovel-Ready in Europe: Obama campaign ad touts record of giving billions to firms to create jobs overseas

Huffington Post Writers Declare That 'CNN Is Terrible' But Avoid the Real Reason Why

This is the GOP site, but there are several Republicans who have not been willing to come out in support of Obama’s second term.

RUSH: Well, here we are again, ladies and gentlemen: The unemployment rate has gone down. And I have finally figured it out. While you might think I'm saying this to be funny -- 'cause I'm a naturally funny person, I know this, one of the most naturally funny people you've run into. I'm not trying to be funny here. Barack Obama has decided that the only way to lower the unemployment rate is to kill off jobs. The unemployment rate went down one-tenth of a percent from 8.2% to 8.1%, but the number of people who left the labor force is at an all-time high.

It's over 88 million Americans not working. The labor force participation rate -- that is, the universe of all jobs available -- is skyrocketing upward. And that means fewer people are counted in the whole equation, which means the unemployment rate is plummeting. And I have to tell you something. Maybe I'm taking too much credit here, but I've got the Reuters story, and they've got it right. They're not out there highlighting this "big jobs increase."

They fell for the unemployment rate going down from 8.2% to 8.1%. "Oh, yay! Hey, we're moving in the right direction." We're not moving in the right direction. It is sick, folks -- it's just unacceptable -- what is happening to this country and what's happening to the jobs and the entire private sector. I'll get to the details here in just a second. It looks like -- and I don't want to assume too much here. But it looks like we may have finally shamed some of the Drive-By Media, like Reuters, into presenting a slightly more accurate report on these jobs numbers.

A few months ago... The headline here: "April Hiring Slows, Jobless Rate Falls to 8.1%." I maintain to you that a few short months ago, if all the news was that the rate went from 8.2% to 8.1%, the headline would not be "April Hiring Slows." It would be "Obama Policies Finally Taking Hold," or something like that. "Job Creation Final Turning Around! Is Economy Next?" Something like that. But because of the constant pressure, the constant mockery, the constant humiliation of these people in the Drive-By Media I don't think that they can do it.

Well, like I said: I don't want to take too much credit. I've gotta rein this in. I just know that in recent months past we would not have had an accurate headline, nor would we have had an accurate story as we mostly do from Reuters today. Like a couple of months ago this headline would probably have said: "Jobless Rate Falls to 8.1%, Lowest in Three Years." Instead, Reuters admits that hiring has decreased for the second straight month. In fact, only a measly 115,000 jobs were added last month.

Do you realize that to begin job creation at a replacement level, we would have to be in the neighborhood of 500,000 jobs a month and getting close to 600,000 to 700,000 a month to gain ground? This is pathetic: 115,000 jobs. And when you demographic this, when you get to the younger demographics, it's worse. It's nowhere near 8.1%. We're looking 15% to 20%, among the young idealists who expected (well, whatever they expected) their utopia, back in 2008, when voting for Obama.

Here's the comparison: In February, 259,000 jobs were added. In April, 115,000 jobs were added and 154,000 were added in March. And that number, in March, was universally hailed as bad news, because I think in that month the unemployment rate didn't move. But now we're supposed to believe the unemployment rate went down when hiring is slowing down, not speeding up. But even Reuters is forced to admit, quote: "The unemployment rate ticked a tenth of a point lower to a three-year low as a people left the workforce."

People are leaving the workforce and that's why the rate's going down! Jobs are not being created. And that's the Obama magic. All Obama is about is that 8.1%. He doesn't care about the number of jobs created. Obama and the Democrats know they can't jump-start the economy. Look at what we've tried here. How many trillions have been spent on "stimulus" that has not worked? Even if they still believed in that, they know that there's not stimulus out there. There's nothing they can do to create private sector job growth.

So all they can do to get that number down -- and like AP said yesterday, they predicted they're gonna have it below 8% by Election Day. The only way they can do that is force people out of the job market, and that is exactly what is happening. But only in the Orwellian world of government statics could the fact that more people gave up looking for work, make the unemployment rate go down. That claim would embarrass a Soviet. If an adviser to Lenin or Stalin came in and said, "Comrade, we want to kick people out of the job market, give them no hope of getting a job.

"That's how we'll lower the unemployment rate!" That person would have been sent to a gulag somewhere next to Solzhenitsyn. But instead of 115,000 jobs being added each month, we ought to be seeing job numbers in the 500,000 to 600,000 level, if there were a real economic recovery going on. Just a little more than two years ago, April 23rd, 2010, the vice president, Joe Biden, predicted that the American economy would be adding up to half a million jobs every month. Now, neither Reuters nor the rest of the media will report the U-6 unemployment number.

See, this 8.1% is the U-3 number. That does not count the people who've left the job market. That does not count people who have stopped looking. The U-6 number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- which is not reported -- which does count the people who have stopped looking, was unchanged at 14.5%. The U-3, the reported unemployment number of 8.1%, breaks down this way: Men, 7.5% unemployed. Women, 7.4% unemployed. Teenagers, 24.9% unemployment. Whites, 7.4%. Blacks, 13.0%. Hispanics, 10.3%. Asians, 5.2%.

There's no category reported for "white Hispanics" or "one-thirty-second Cherokee Indian females." But the highest rate: Unemployment is 13.0% for African-Americans. Okay, that's the Reuters story. So, I think we can now say -- and, again, this is gonna sound to you like I'm trying to be funny and sarcastic. I'm not. This is really sad stuff. I think we can safely say that Obama's election strategy for getting the unemployment rate down is to kill jobs. As I have said for the longest time now: Pushing people out of the workforce drives down the unemployment rate.

When that happens, Obama claims the "recovery" is slow but steady. So, as you see, the unemployment rate fall, what you must understand is the need to do a 180 on your thinking. You must understand it means the job situation is worsening. Under Obama, when the unemployment rate falls, the jobs situation is getting worse. The more people who drop out of the workforce, the more those people rely on government subsidies. And, by the way, there's a relatively new phenomena going on.

That is people applying for disability under Social Security. People whose unemployment benefits have expired are now seeking assistance via SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance. That number is skyrocketing. Food stamps are at a record high. Social Security disability is at a record high. So the transformation from a capitalist market system to authoritarian centralized welfare state continues, while Obama claims an improving job market. But there is no recovery. And it's clear, again: The election strategy for getting the unemployment rate down is to kill jobs.

Now, normally when I find useful charts and graphs, I don't use 'em. (I mean, it's a radio show.) But I have that Dittocam there, and I have a couple of charts here. I have the Labor Force Participation Rate Chart (which, when you see this, it's a help) and the Persons Not in the Labor Force Chart. That number is now over 88 million. What's the adult population? We have 311 million people total, but the adult population? I don't know what it is, but 88 million people not in the labor force!

That's called "the labor force participation rate." That's another way of describing the overall number of available jobs to be had in the country. Eighty-eight million Americans are not in the labor force! They are being subsidized. They're being paid for. They're eating. They're driving their cars. They are getting around. They're going to movies. They're making cell phone calls. They're watching the E! Entertainment Network. I saw a great little poster: "Reaganomics: Start a business, become a gazillionaire in your garage. Obamanomics: Live in your parents' garage."

RUSH: Some people say the adult population in the country is 190 million. Let's say it's 200 million, and over 88 million of them are not working, not in the labor force. The reason I can't claim total credit for a shift in the media is AP. Reuters gets it as close to accurate as they are capable. But here's AP: "A Modest Economy Seems to be Keeping a Lid on Hiring." You usually don't "keep a lid on" good things. "US job growth slumped in April for a second straight month," but a "modest economy" is to blame. "A Modest Economy Seems to be Keeping a Lid on Hiring."

Some of the other numbers here (and this is from CNBC): "Though the headline number indicated job creation," 8.2% to 8.1%, to some -- and you really can't blame 'em, folks. I mean, people that don't listen to this program or read much outside what they see on television are not gonna know any of what you know and what you were just told. So, the headline number: "Oh, looky, it's 8.2% to 8.1%!" It's a natural thing to conclude that the job market's improving. You can't blame anybody for thinking that. They don't know the truth.

But CNBC reported: "Though the headline number indicated job creation, the total employment level for the month actually fell 169,000." Total employment, meaning more people lost jobs than got them, and yet the unemployment rate went down. The only way that can happen is for people to be leaving the job force, the labor force, the job market. And as CNBC says: "The disparity likely emanates from a drop in the labor force participation rate -- or the level of Americans actively looking for jobs or otherwise employed ... 'In the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, more than four-fifths of the reduction in unemployment has been accomplished by a dropping [or falling] adult labor force participation rate," said University of Maryland economist Peter Morici.

Let me read that to you, again. This is profound. "[M]ore than four-fifths of the reduction in unemployment has been accomplished by a dropping adult labor force participation rate." It's exactly what I said. Obama is lowering the rate by destroying the job market, and even this economist at the University of Maryland has figured it out. It's "essentially persuading adults they don't need a job, or the job they could find is not worth having." There has been, by the way, a near viral response to this slideshow I told you about yesterday about "Julia."

She's the cradle-to-crave, typical Obama voter, a woman from age three to age 67. Everybody has taken their turn at turning that around and making it funny and so forth. But the fact of the matter is, that's the dream citizen as far as the Obama administration is concerned. That's the dream citizen: Constant care, cradle-to-grave, taken care of, everything in life provided by the government. Everything, except a husband. This woman had a child but there was no mention of a man in her life at any point.

There was no mention of a husband, no mention of a boyfriend, no mention of a sperm bank. No mention of a gay fashion designer. I mean, no mention of a man anywhere in that slideshow. So this economist has it right: "essentially persuading adults they don't need a job." That is what Obama has done! Oh, he's out there talking it up real good, and he talks about what theoretically happens in the private sector. You go to the school, you work, you get paid, and you start a business. You take some risks.

What he's actually done is promised to pay the freight for people who don't want to work anymore.

The only way 88 million Americans can be out of the job market is either for there to be a depression or for the government (or somebody) to be taking care of them so that they don't have to work.

RUSH: I do have a little bit more data here on the unemployment information, and I want to stick with it because it's a passion of mine that you know the truth, particularly when everybody's being bombarded with the lies that the administration wants to settle in. Here is what Obama will not be telling college kids as he runs around and warns them of the pitfalls awaiting them if Mitt Romney's elected.

The unemployment rate among jobseekers between the ages of 16 and 19 was 25% in April, up from 23% in February. Youth unemployment has been above 23% for 34 months. The Obama administration promised us that with the passage of the stimulus bill in 2009, the unemployment rate would never reach 8%. It has been above 8% for a period of time so long that it can accurately and truthfully be said that the unemployment rate has not been this high for this long since the Great Depression.

Not one promise, not one theory, not one assurance has come close to being true as told us by this administration. The unemployment rate has not been this high for this long since the Great Depression. This is life in Obama's America. It's reality. This is not a cartoon; this is not a slideshow; this is not a socialist utopian slideshow with a woman named Julia. And they shoulda named her Ludmilla or Svetlana or Maureena, not Julia. This is why Obama creates fictional stories about fictional people.

So Obama's job is to paint a nonexistent picture of Never Land in the years ahead, and that's what that slideshow is. By now Obama should be able to proudly report on robust, mind-boggling growth as Reagan did this far into his first term. But it's going the other way. The only way Barack Obama can get the unemployment rate down is to kill jobs. That's the only way, and that's how he's doing it. There aren't any being created, folks. That 113,000 or 115,000 is a rounding error. With O... (interruption)

Well, that's the good question. I don't know. You have 88 million Americans not in the job force, but they're eating. Eighty-eight million Americans not in the job force are using their cell phones. Eighty-eight million people not working are driving their cars. There is no pain to not having a job. That's not true for every one of them, but it's true for a number of 'em, and we don't know how many. There are some people for whom unemployment (or if you run out of that, turn on your Social Security disability payments) pays more than some of the jobs that are being created in this administration.

Unemployment compensation plus food stamps adds up to more than two-thirds of the jobs and the kind of jobs being created. See, during the Great Depression, when whatever the numbers were who were unemployed, they weren't comfortable. There was a sense of urgency. They would dig ditches if they had to. They will pick cotton if they had to. But now, it isn't necessary. And, by the way, we don't have the money to support people not working!

We are borrowing it from the ChiComs, enabling them to ramp up their military complex. This is a horrible, horrible situation. You want some more numbers? I have numbers. Just like Bill Burkett had numbers tying George Bush to the National Guard, I have numbers. Since President Obama took office, the unemployment rate has increased from 7.8% to 8.1%. And as we know, it's been in the nines. There are currently a million unemployed workers that have given up looking for work since the last report.

Therefore they're not in the labor force. Therefore they're not counted. There are currently 7.8 million workers working part-time for economic reasons. Only 115,000 jobs were added. The labor force participation rate is 63.6%, a 30-year low. We are at a 30-year low in the number of Americans working. With 8.1% unemployment, Obama has extended his record of 8%-plus unemployment now to 39 consecutive months. It has not been this high, this long, since the Great Depression.

If the labor force participation rate had stayed the same as in March, the unemployment rate would have risen to 8.4%. In other words, if they hadn't just said that a million people left the job market, the unemployment rate would be 8.4%. It woulda gone up. This is precisely why I'm saying to you that to get the rate down, Obama is killing jobs. Our buddy Jim Pethokoukis points out: "If the size of the US labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office ... the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0%," not 8.1%.

And if the unemployment rate were 11% today, what do you think the prospects of Obama's reelection would be? They would be over. I repeat this again: The unemployment rate would be 11% today if the labor force was the same size as when Obama took office. Now, you're asking, "Well, how can they just eliminate the jobs?" Well, for one thing, they have eliminated 'em. (chuckles) Have you gone and tried to find one lately? Number two, they run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor. If they want to say a million people left the job market last month, they can say it.

Because if 88 million people are not working but they're still eating and driving and using their cell phones and able to watch the E! Entertainment Network after Entertainment Tonight while they're TiVoing Two and a Half Men -- all to watch Obama later that night slow-jam the news with Jimmy Fallon -- what does it matter whether they have a job or not? The unemployment rate, if the US labor force was the same size today as when Obama took office, would be 11%, folks, instead of 8.1%.

In April of 1984, coming out of similar Jimmy Carter-type economics and circumstances, Ronaldus Magnus was approaching the end of his first term. In April of 1984, the US economy added a population-adjusted 480,000 jobs. That was at the beginning of the Reagan boom. That was the beginning of the boom with Reaganomics, which Obama and the Democrats tell us didn't work! They told us it never worked. It's as simple as this: The number of people in the job market is based on something called the Household Survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

They call people and ask, "Have you looked for to a job in the last four weeks?" And whatever the answer is gets tabulated. That's how scientific it is. That's where we are. And, finally: "US worker productivity fell from January through March by the most in a year." I thought we had a "moderate recovery" happening here, and I thought we had "turned a corner." I thought we'd been around the bend and back. I thought we were back from up against the wall! So not only are fewer people working; their output fell by the most in a year.

"While worker output rose, the number of hours worked increased by an even larger amount." Therefore the overall output was down. You see how they're monkeying these numbers?

ZeroHedge: People Not In Labor Force Soar By 522,000, Labor Force Participation Rate Lowest Since 1981

AEI: The Awful April Jobs Report: Is the `Real' Unemployment Rate 11.1%? - James Pethokoukis

Washington Post: Biden Predicts Economy Will Create Up to 500,000 Jobs a Month Soon - 04.23.10

RUSH: I mentioned in the previous hour that I'm reading this book on LBJ, fourth in a series. It's a biography by Robert Caro. Now, to Doris Kearns Goodwin and a bunch of Democrat biographers, LBJ was the absolute greatest. He was the most wonderful Senate majority leader, absolutely the most wonderful, greatest president -- even rivaling JFK. They just marvel at him, and one of the reasons why is, from what I can gather... Great Society, of course. War on Poverty, of course. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, of course. All this transformative legislation that built on the New Deal.

But they also love LBJ because he was mean. LBJ, you remember the pictures... Well, you may not. He had a couple of beagles, and there were pictures of LBJ picking these dogs up by their ears when they were misbehaving or some such thing. He took a little grief for that, and that was before PETA even existed. But he was admired because, "He was so mean, so forceful. He didn't take any guff from anybody! He told people what was gonna happen and he made it happen!"

Anybody like that today, even a Democrat... Well, I take it back. A Democrat like that today would be fawned over. That's true. So I thought what we would do is go back to our archives and give you a side-by-side illustration of LBJ talking about his War on Poverty/Great Society and Ronald Reagan at the same time, 1964, reacting to it. We'll start out with LBJ first. January 8, 1964. This is his State of the Union Address. This is a period of time that's covered extensively, by the way, in Robert Caro's latest book on LBJ.

It's basically the seven weeks, the 49 days from the assassination of Kennedy through the State of the Union Address, which was January 8 that year. Johnson's reelection was his first election as president after the Kennedy assassination. It was a profound period. This is where Johnson did everything. In these 49 days, he settled all the scores. He got even with all the people that told him he was never gonna matter a hill of beans. He got even with Robert Kennedy, who hated him (and he hated Robert Kennedy), and so forth.

But that's not really relevant here to the sound bites. The sound bites start off with LBJ and his War on Poverty...

LBJ: This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional War on Poverty in America.

LBJ: It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it. One thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return $40,000 or more in his lifetime.

RUSH: Now, that War on Poverty is still being waged. We haven't made a dent. There has been easily $4 trillion transferred. It may be higher now. Oh, gosh, it's gotta be higher than that what with Obama. My gosh, it may be double that. Eh, we'll stick with $5 trillion. It's a good number. It's gotta be close. We've spent $5 trillion of redistribution of wealth from producers to the poor to eradicate poverty, and the percentages are still the same. Now, we have a very different definition of "poverty" here than, say, in the Third World or even in Europe.

People in "poverty" here have a car, a couple TV sets, but everything's relative and so we stick with it. But that's big government building on the New Deal to wipe out poverty. And how about this number: $1,000 "invested"? That means taxes. "One thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return $40,000 or more in his lifetime," except what's happened? Now people are on unemployment for 99 weeks! They don't go to work, and then with the Obama administration there aren't any new jobs being created for them to go to work or to even apply to.

Here's the next sound bite from LBJ from his State of the Union Address, January 8, 1964.

LBJ: Lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities. In a lack of education and training. In a lack of medical care and housing. In a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children. Our joint federal-local effort must pursue poverty. Pursue it wherever it exists: In city slums and small towns, in sharecropper shacks or in migrant worker camps, on Indian reservations -- among whites as well as Negroes, among the young as well as the aged, in the boomtowns and in the depressed areas.

RUSH: Yeah, it was "Negroes" back then. (interruption) It didn't sound like "Negroes" to you? Let's play it again. I knew this was gonna grab Snerdley's attention. I knew this was gonna get you. I knew this sound bite would because it doesn't sound like he says "Negroes." That's what's in the transcript. Before we play it again, let me just ask you: Does it all sound familiar to you, folks? This is 1964! This is 50-plus years ago! And it's the same rhetoric, the same complaints, the same excuses, and the same "solutions."

Of course, what causes poverty? What's the point of his statement here? America's unfairness, fundamental unfairness. "Lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities." Our failure! We are discriminating against our fellow citizens. It's the same rhetoric! It's the same class warfare rhetoric, and it's the same "solution." Obama is talking the identical thing today, just on an even grander scale.

But note: It's 50 years that we've had the War on Poverty (LBJ's signature program) and the Great Society, and the problem is as bad as ever expressed as a percentage. Liberalism doesn't work! The War on Poverty didn't work! The Great Society didn't work! We're not allowed to say that. No, no, no, no! Can't say that! We're supposed to credit LBJ's big heart. We're supposed to credit his big, wonderful good intentions. But if he'd been CEO of a company, and it instituted this plan to grow the company and make it profitable and so forth?

Okay here, play the sound bite again. Snerdley in particular here is very interested in it. (replaying of sound bite) Okay, Snerdley. (interruption) What? What did he say? (interruption) He did. You're right. He did. Snerdley is right. He didn't say "Negroes." (interruption) He did. He did say it as Snerdley is saying it to me. He did not say "Negroes." He did not say the N-word. We're not saying he said the N-word. He had a very relaxed, almost lazy pronunciation of the word "Negroes." In the place of an "E" there was an "I." I'll spell it the way he pronounced it: n-i-g-g-r-a-h-s. That's how he pronounced it.

Now we move on, ladies and gentlemen, to Ronaldus Magnus some months later. This is October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan's televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater, a speech entitled: "A Time for Choosing."

REAGAN: We have so many people that can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're gonna solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer -- and they've had almost 30 years of it -- shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help, the reduction in the need for public housing? But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater.

RUSH: Right. And a new program is needed to fix what didn't work in the first program! Government breaks it; government fixes it. Breaks it, fixes it, and the cycle never ends. And here we are 50 years later, and we are still "fixing" it. It will never work! The New York Times. Listen to this, September 13th of last year. Quote: "The number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the Bureau has been publishing figures on it." The War on Poverty was begun 48 years ago.

The New York Times says that last year was the highest ever since they've been keeping records (52 years) of number of Americans living below the poverty line. LBJ's War on Poverty made it worse. The New York Times admits it. The evidence is in the War on Poverty! Taking from producers and sending to government for redistribution never works. It isn't fair. It doesn't solve anything. It doesn't grow the economy. It doesn't create jobs. It doesn't get people out of poverty. It never has. And for those of you who are new to this program who may be young and never heard of LBJ or have never heard LBJ -- or have heard of him and never heard him speak -- this is 1964. It's 48, 50 years ago.

REAGAN: We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.

REAGAN: But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is ten times greater than it was in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending $45 billion on welfare. Now, do a little arithmetic and you'll find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those nine million poor families, we'd be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty.

REAGAN: Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.

RUSH: Back in the eighties, the administrative cost on $1 of welfare was 28¢. Meaning for every $1 of welfare, 72¢ got to the recipient and 28¢ ended up funding government. It's probably worse now. That's what Reagan was talking about. It's further evidence it doesn't work! It never has worked. One final bite from Reagan...

REAGAN: So now we declare "war" on poverty. Do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add $1 billion to the $45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have -- and, remember, this new program doesn't replace any; it just duplicates existing programs. Do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always against things, we're never for anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so.

CALLER: If you go back to the original leftists -- you know, a hundred-plus years ago -- they're always talking about how profit is evil and it's actually an economic cost that needs to be recaptured and spread out, so to speak. Well, if you take a look at the Great Society -- and you mentioned some data in the past hour about how 72¢ of every $1 comes out of the federal bureaucracy and 28¢ stays in.

RUSH: No, it's the other way around. That was in the eighties when 28¢ stayed with the government and 72¢ went to the recipient, but I'll bet you it's much worse today.

CALLER: I will bet it is as well. I'd like to point out that the 28¢ on every $1 staying with the, quote, unquote, "bureaucracy" in Washington is a whole lot more inefficient than the 1¢ or 2¢ that ExxonMobil is getting right now.

RUSH: They don't have to do anything well. All they gotta do is take the money. All they've gotta do is collect the deductions. By the way, an interesting thing you mentioned. You talk about going back to "the original leftists." Who is that?

CALLER: Well, it depends on how far you want to go. But if you talk about Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, you can go back to the 1900s.

CALLER: Yeah, you go back to the Fabian Society. Actually you can probably go back as far as the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel. Cain didn't like the profits that Abel was getting, even though they probably weren't registered in monetary value. He wanted that spread around as well.

RUSH: Well, that's interesting: The Original Leftist. Find out who this guy is and string him up. The Original Leftist. There has to be one. (interruption) Yeah, Leftist One. Not Leftist Two, not Leftist Three. Leftist One. It would be great to ID him. Now, you know that the wackos try to say it's Jesus. (interruption) Well, they do! They try to claim it. (interruption) Snerdley, what do you mean? Every Christmas, homelessness is said to contain perhaps the next Mary and Joseph.

They say that Mary and Joseph are just like the homeless. They were wandering around and they couldn't find an inn. They didn't have any money, and they didn't guarantee their reservation with their American Express Card. They had no place to stay. (interruption) They do. They invoke Jesus when they need it. But I wouldn't say Jesus is Leftist One. But there is one. The caller said, "Go back to the original leftists," and it just inspired a thought as to who is The Original Leftist?

RUSH: The regime campaign effort, the reelection effort has this slideshow. They've put up a website with a slideshow that covers an imaginary American named "Julia" from age three up until age 67. All the benefits, all the wonderful things that will happen to Julia in her life if Obama is reelected! What it is (whether it's intended or not) is a perfect illustration of liberal cradle-to-grave care for every citizen with the government making every decision, making everything possible, and leaving nothing to chance. And, of course, a life of utopian paradise.

Now, we can't show you the actual slideshow (on radio), the artist renderings for each panel as Julia goes from age three to 67. But I can share with you the text. For example: "Take a look at how President Obama's policies help one woman over her lifetime -- and how Mitt Romney would change her story." That's the headline. Age three. "Under President Obama: Julia is enrolled in a Head Start program to help get her ready for school. Because of steps President Obama has taken to improve programs like this one, Julia joins thousands of students across the country who will start kindergarten ready to learn and succeed.

"Under Mitt Romney: The Romney/Ryan budget could cut programs like Head Start by 20%, meaning the program would offer 200,000 fewer slots per year." Now, there are responses to this. Julie at age three is bummed. Her share of the national debt just went up $16,345 under Obama! Age 17. "Under President Obama: Julia takes the SAT and is on track to start her college applications. Her high school is part of the Race to the Top program, implemented by President Obama. Their new college- and career-ready standards mean Julia can take the classes she needs to do well.

"Under Mitt Romney: The Romney/Ryan budget would cut funding for public education to pay for tax cuts for millionaires." That Julia, the college student, is paying record-high tuition to attend college, by the way, is not stated in the Obama slideshow. Age 18. "Under President Obama: As she prepares for her first semester of college, Julia and her family qualify for President Obama's American Opportunity Tax Credit -- worth up to $10,000 over four years. Julia is also one of millions of students who receive a Pell Grant to help put a college education within reach.

"Under Mitt Romney: The American Opportunity Tax Credit would be allowed to expire, and Pell Grant funding would be slashed for 10 million students." Julia, about to graduate, can't find a job (despite all this "assistance" in the Obama economy) because there aren't any! Age 22. "Under President Obama: During college, Julia undergoes surgery. It is thankfully covered by her insurance due to a provision in health care reform that lets her stay on her parents' coverage until she turns 26.

"Under Mitt Romney: Health care reform would be repealed -- Romney says he'd 'kill it dead.'" Julia could not have had the surgery! Julia wouldn't have any health insurance because of Mitt Romney. Julia also can't find a job because of the Obama economy. Age 23. "Under President Obama: Because of steps like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Julia is one of millions of women across the country who knows she'll always be able to stand up for her right to equal pay. She starts her career as a web designer.

"Under Mitt Romney: He has refused to say whether he would have vetoed or signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act." As a recent college grad, Julia has $25,000 in student loan debt, the highest in history, and it has kept going up under Obama. Age 25. "Under President Obama: After graduation, Julia's federal student loans are more manageable since President Obama capped income-based federal student loan payments and kept interest rates low. She makes her payments on time every month, keeping her on track to repay her student loans.

"Under Mitt Romney: Under the Romney/Ryan budget, interest rates on federal student loans would be allowed to double, affecting Julia and 7.4 million other students." Again, Julia has $25,000 in student loan debt. That's the highest in history, with no hope of paying it off. Julia, the 23-year-old, is living with her parents by this time, having gone back home after graduation because there aren't any jobs in the Obama economy!

Julia age 27. "Under President Obama: For the past four years, Julia has worked full-time as a web designer. Thanks to Obamacare, her health insurance is required to cover birth control and preventive care, letting Julia focus on her work rather than worry about," getting pregnant. Uh, "her health." "Under Mitt Romney: Romney supports the Blunt Amendment -- which would place Julia's health care decisions in the hands of her employer -- and repealing health care reform so insurance companies could go back to charging women 50% more than men."

This is what it says on the Obama website. Julia the mom has to pay more for health insurance despite Obama's promise to reduce premiums by $2,500! All of this is a bunch of lies, but for young and ignorant -- and I mean that not in an insulting way. They simply don't know. Young, ignorant, idealistic young people are gonna read this and say, "Wow, Obama is doing all that for me? Romney wants to take all that away?" They've been doing this for 50 years! This is the same thing. It's LBJ redone.

Age 31. "Under President Obama: Julia decides to have a child. Throughout her pregnancy, she benefits from maternal checkups, prenatal care, and free screenings under" Obamacare. "Under Mitt Romney: Health care reform would be repealed." The implication is that Julia would have no checkups, no prenatal care, no free screenings. Julia would have no health care, 'cause Obamacare will be cut by Romney. In other words, what Obama is saying in his website here is that Mitt Romney wants to take health care away from everybody!

There isn't gonna be any health care! There aren't gonna be any hospitals! There aren't gonna be any doctors! Romney's not gonna pay for it. That's what they want people to believe. There won't be any treatment, there won't be any emergency rooms, there do any screenings, there won't be any mammograms. There won't be anything. There might not even be any abortions! Age 37. "Under President Obama: Julia's son Zachary starts kindergarten. The public schools in their neighborhood have better facilities and great teachers because of President Obama's investments in education and programs like Race to the Top.

"Under Mitt Romney: The Romney/Ryan budget could force steep cuts in federal funding for schools in all 50 states." Now, meanwhile, Obama -- by the time this woman is 30 -- hasn't been president for 30 years. Age 42. "Under President Obama: Julia starts her own web business." (laughing) Folks, that won't be possible. Julia's gonna be in so much student loan debt and still living with her parents (if they're still alive). There won't be any jobs! She will not be a web designer because there won't be any web designer jobs because Obama has destroyed the economy!

Anyway, "Under President Obama: Julia starts her own web business. She qualifies for a Small Business Administration loan," because she doesn't have any of her own money, "giving her the money she needs to invest in her business," and, of course, Julia -- as a typical lazy Democrat bum -- wouldn't think of using her own money to start a business. No! Like every other lunatic, she would be thinking of going straight to the government for "funding."

The government is where "funding" takes place, and that's write where Julia will go thanks to Obama. President Obama's tax cuts for small businesses," there haven't been any, "like Julia's," and she won't have a business, "help her to get started. She's able to hire employees," no, she won't even be one herself, "creating new jobs in her town and helping to grow the local economy" and spreading health care! "Under Mitt Romney: The Romney/Ryan budget could cut programs like the Small Business Administration by 20%."

Even if it did it would still be 80% too big! Age 65. "Under President Obama: Julia enrolls in Medicare..." Sorry, there won't be any Medicare. It's broke. "Julia enrolls in Medicare helping her to afford preventive care and the prescription drugs she needs." So Obama is gonna live forever, and he's going to set this up so that Julia at age three is set for life. Everything that she needs, Obama is going to have taken care of by 2016. That's right, Snerdley!

Everything she needs. She's gonna have double access to preventive care, first for herself and then for herself later when she's elderly and decrepit and eating dog food. She will need prescription drugs. She's gonna be forced to buy those on the corner, by the way, if nothing changes here. 'Cause Medicare's gonna be broke. "Under Mitt Romney: Medicare could end as we know it, leaving Julia with nothing but a voucher to buy insurance coverage, which means $6,350 extra per year for a similar plan."

So Obama is gonna set Julia up from cradle to grave. Every is need handled! Every need she has, there's a government program for it that's practically free, including starting her own business. Everything is practically free! Age 67. "Under President Obama: Julia retires. After years of contributing to Social Security," she discovers there isn't any left for her. The program has long been bankrupt. But Julia, blithering idiot that she is, being taken care of by the state for the previous 66 years, has no clue that Social Security is broke. Despite the fact that she's been contributing to it. "[S]he receives monthly benefits that help her retire comfortably, without worrying that she'll run out of savings."

How many of you on Social Security now live this way? Julia retires at age 67. What is this, about 2070? No. This is 2012, so after 67, yeah, it's 2077 or 2078, whatever. "Julia retires. After years of contributing to Social Security, she receives monthly benefits that help her retire comfortably, without worrying that she'll run out of savings." Does that describe you today who are on Social Security? Julia, in the future, isn't going to have Social Security, thanks to Obama. And she isn't going to have Medicare. And by the time Julia gets to 67, the only question she's going to have is: "Which reeducation camp does she have to go to next?"

RUSH: Age 75. Julia discovers that she has cancer. But Julia is determined by an Obamacare death panel to be too old for treatments, and is given a pain pill for which she must pay and told to go visit the garden. Now, this is interesting. I checked the e-mail, and there were people that tuned in in the middle of that who want to know: "Who the hell is Julia?" They didn't hear the setup. They didn't hear me say this is an Obama website slideshow. This is great.

There are people asking, "Who the hell is Julia? Why should I pay for her whole life? Who the hell is she? Who are you talking about and why do I have to pay for her from birth 'til the day she dies? Why is it my responsibility?" Folks, I couldn't be prouder. You folks that caught the middle of that and did not know what was going on: It's an Obama website slideshow, and every slide is accompanied by the text that I read. And your instinctive reaction to it is exactly what's required, because that's exactly what Obama is trying to do.

He's trying to tell every young person that they are going to be cared for and taken care of and provided for -- their education, their business, their health care -- by his government, from the time they're three until they die. That's what he's promising! No mention of the fact that, "Well, who's gonna pay for this? Why should other people pay for Julia?" And, by the way, with a $16 trillion national debt, where is the money gonna coming from in the first place to pay for this? "Wait, I'm confused. Who is Julia? Am I supposed to pay for her? Am I related to her? Is she my sister or something?"

Rodriguez: Pelosi is Confused or Lying; Enhanced Interrogations Led to Bin Laden

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.

Conservative Review
Issue #226	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	May 6, 2012