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).

There is a big election in Wisconsin this coming Tuesday: Republican Scott Walker is facing a recall election, the 3^rd U.S. governor to face such an election. Such recalls are usually reserved for colossal failures or blatant criminality, but Walker essentially did what he said he was going to do—balance the budget without raising taxes, and reign in spending on public sector unions. He did this, which has caused probably the greatest local brouhaha in recent memory. If he is reelected, he will inspire governors all over the United States to do the same thing. If he is defeated, such an approach will send a chill to governors throughout our nation. A turnout rivaling a presidential election is expected.

One of the big changes is, the government of Wisconsin is no longer taking the dues out of union member salaries and giving this money directly to the unions. As a result, public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership - by more than half for the second-biggest union.

The president is privately telling some of his donors that he needs a second term to redo healthcare, suggesting that he expects part or all of the healthcare bill to be overturned by the Supreme Court. Big donors at rallies where such things are being said are being required to check their cellphones at the door.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has authorized new posters featuring first lady Michelle Obama to be placed in elevators throughout the Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C. These new posters feature a large photo of Michelle Obama and a picture of Solis, along with a few choice quotes about Memorial Day.

The President awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote a Supreme Court opinion arguing that a woman was exercising her right to "liberty" when she hired a doctor to kill her child through the procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

Suggested for this medal was Lech Walesa, who was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education, led one of the most profound freedom movements of the 20th century - Solidarity. He became president of Poland and swept in reforms, pushing the Soviet Union out of his homeland and moving the country toward a free-market economy and individual liberty. Administration officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Walesa pick is too "political."

The day after Mayor Bloomberg banned large sugary sodas in New York City, he celebrated national donut day. I know, you think I’m kidding. Bloomberg will share the stage with "the largest box of Entenmann's Donuts ever created."

The Justice Department ordered Florida's elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state's voter rolls of noncitizen voters. However, Florida state officials have indicated that they will continue their quest to purge purportedly ineligible people from voter-registration rolls.

Massachusetts delegates will meet in their state's Democrat party convention. The votes of these delegates will determine whether there are primary elections for their party nominations. With so much at state, Democrats have decided to implement Voter ID requirements. They will have to prove who they are with a picture ID.

A Florida judge revoked bond for George Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin.

The House on Thursday rejected a Republican bill that would impose fines and prison terms on doctors who perform abortions for the sole purpose of controlling the gender of the child, a practice known as sex-selective abortion. About a week ago, a woman pretending that she would be willing to abort her baby if it was a girl, received guidance from Planned Parenthood as to how to do that. Broadcast networks all but ignored these stories. CBS and NBC did not report on it; and ABC buried it in the 3 am news.

The pro-life investigative group Live Action has released a second video today showing staff at a Planned Parenthood abortion business helping a woman determine if her unborn child was female so she could have a sex-selection abortion. Planned Parenthood has both claimed that the first released tape was edited to make them look bad, but then, at the same time, they fired the counselor and held meetings on how to deal with these things.

The Louisiana state House of Representatives on Friday unanimously approved a bill that would prohibit abortion beyond 20 weeks after fertilization unless the mother's life is in danger. Georgia a month ago became the seventh state to ban most or all abortions after 20 weeks. Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and North Carolina also have such restrictions. The bill passed the House by a vote of 96-0, and 72 House members signed on as co-authors.

The heckling of GOP candidates when they speak has become commonplac e. So, supporters of Mitt Romney turned this around on Obama mouthpiece David Axelrod this past week, chanting “Where are the jobs?” and “Solyndra” while he was trying to speak. Video.

On Memorial Day, the President said a few nice and long overdue comments about Vietnam vets. However, almost immediately, he began to speak about himself. Is there no one on his campaign staff who can convince Obama to stop using “I me mine” over and over and over again in every speech.

Several Democrat officials in Mississippi have gone over to the Republican side, based upon Obama’s far-far-left positions. These are not the only ones. However, it should be taken into consideration that, some may think they will have a better chance being elected as a Republican.

The MTV Movie Awards traditionally feature many leaders from the world of pop culture. This year, the leader of the United States has chosen the Movie Awards to debut his first official re-election campaign commercial.

The Twitter account for "Attack Watch," the combative in-house spin machine for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, has gone dark as of Tuesday morning. According to Twitter, the account is now private.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the IRS, and the liberal lawyers at the ACLU briefed several hundred pastors in the African American community on how to participate in the presidential election - which the Congressional Black Caucus chair expects will help President Obama's campaign, in such a way that will protect their tax-exempt status.

President Obama has overseen more federal spending than the five presidents put together.

Despite massive debt and a mushrooming deficit, Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, along with the Democrat legislature, will convene the State Bond Commission on June 4th and push through a $300,000 "grant-in-aid to Progressive Education and Research Associates to finance renovations to the New Haven Peoples Center at 37 Howe Street." This is the headquarters for the Connecticut Communist Party.

The luxury carmaker Fisker Automotive continues to signal it could ditch plans to build its next generation hybrid electric vehicle in the United States, despite the nearly $200 million in Obama administration loan money it has already received.

Workers' Voices, a front group for the AFL-CIO, has been billed as the "largest union super-PAC," even though its own website declares it is not an exclusively union-oriented organization. "Workers' Voice represents and fights for all working families, union and non-union," the site proclaims. Their name, however, may not be the best-conceived political label for a group seeking to sway voter opinion in an election. As it turns out, Workers' Voices is a fairly routine and common name for propaganda newspapers and broadsides affiliated with the Communist Party.

This week, President Obama gave the Medal of Freedom to Democratic Socialists of America chairwoman, Dolores Huerta.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pays the women on her staff $26,606 less per year on average than the males.

The Coalition of African American Pastors has demanded a meeting with President Obama to try to change his mind on his personal embrace of same-sex marriage.

Old D.C. comics superhero, the Green Lantern, will be relaunched as a gay superhero.

One Marvel’s X-Men will propose to his boyfriend this month as well, as a part of their storyline.

In 1959, Middleboro Kiwanis Club erected a 12-foot brick cross bearing the word "worship" on a traffic island on Route 28. Today, that statue which has stood in the same spot for 53 years, has become the center of a Constitutional debate.

Liberal groups like Media Matters for America and its close associate, the Van Jones-run Color of Change, have been working in coordination with friends of the Obama Administration, launching secondary boycotts against members in ALEC, which supports voter ID laws and “stand your ground” laws. Walmart suspended its membership in ALEC this past week.

The Occupy crowd seems to believe that many of their members may be suffering from PTSD and have a list by which one might be able to recognize whether or not he is suffering from this disease.

Two of President Barack Obama's closest allies, former senior advisor David Axelrod and Attorney General Eric Holder came close to blows immediately after a Cabinet meeting, according to a new book to be released next week.

Drugmakers led by Pfizer Inc. agreed to run a "very significant public campaign" bankrolling political support for the 2010 health-care law, including TV ads, while the Obama administration promised to block provisions opposed by drugmakers.

From the NY Times: David Axelrod, the president's closest political adviser, began showing up at the "Terror Tuesday" meetings, his unspeaking presence a visible reminder of what everyone understood: a successful attack would overwhelm the president's other aspirations and achievements.

The People's Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations

Saudi Arabians are angry at a McDonald's toy which they say mocks their prophet Muhammad. The McDonald's fast food restaurant "abused the Prophet Muhammad by placing his name at the base of a toy that is being distributed as part of the Happy Meal, a toy which steps on the name 'Muhammad.'"

Security services in Azerbaijan say they arrested 40 suspects and seized weapons as they thwarted a series of planned terror attacks against the Eurovision Song Contest.

The longtime Muslim Brotherhood leader who is favored to become Egypt's next president has long cast doubt on al Qaeda's involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attack and even has called for a "scientific conference" to determine the real culprits.

Once again radicals opposing girls' education on Sunday poisoned more than three dozen schoolgirls in northern Takhar province, the third incident of its kind over the past two months.

In Nigeria, at least 15 people were killed and dozens wounded when a suicide car bomber drove into a church compound and detonated his explosives as worshipers left an early morning service.

President Barack Obama has personally overseen a top-secret process for determining which Al-Qaeda suspects should be placed on a "kill list," the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Report from the People’s Republic of China on their New York website: "The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership. The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world's civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns [and] 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun."

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison tweet: "ALEC movement to push gov't issued ID bills was done w/ malice aforethought.” ALEC supports voter ID laws.

President Obama blames gas prices, Europe and Congress for dismal jobs report: "As we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want. We had high gas prices, a month two months ago, and then, most prominently, most recently, we've had a crisis in Europe's economy that is having an impact worldwide; and it's starting to cast a shadow on our own [economy] as well. We can't fully control what happens in other parts of the world...[for instance] what's going on in Europe."

He then blamed Congress for failing to pass his jobs bill. "Congress should've passed a bill a long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back on the job,"

Vice President Biden: "I'm here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "So we've got the growth part of it figured out - if we can get the green part of it actually figured out as well."

President Obama: “If you got $3000 a year extra...maybe someone will be replacing some thingamajig for their furnace.”

Alan B. Krueger, chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors: "It is critical that we continue the President's economic policies that are helping us dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession."

Representative Barney Frank: "The American economy today, of all the economies in the advanced nations in the world. . . we're doing the best and we're doing the best because we're mixing policies. Now, we've been retarded by conservative opposition."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "If Republicans worked with us, we could pass legislation immediately to cut taxes for small businesses, prevent student loan rates from doubling and ensure women get paid the same amount as men for performing the same work. We could provide incentives to companies to create manufacturing jobs here at home, instead of overseas.” Although “cutting taxes for small businesses” sounds good, what Reid means is, if a small business jumps through this or that hoop, then the government will give them some money. Student loans are not doubling; but the interest might. Ensuring women get paid the same money as men is a job for lawyers, but will end up reducing jobs that women have.

First lady Michelle Obama on her support of gay marriage: "In a country where we teach our children that everyone is equal under the law, discriminating against same-sex couples just isn't right. It's as simple as that...For Barack and me it really comes down to the values of fairness and equality that we want to pass down to our girls. I mean, these are basic values that kids learn at a very young age and that we encourage them to apply in all areas of their lives."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: "We may not know exactly what Mother Nature will bring this year, but we are leaning forward in our preparations, utilizing the `Whole Community Approach. As part of this approach, we are engaging the broadest possible set of partners in our preparedness efforts - integrating planning across federal, state, local, tribal and territorial governments as well as with private sector, community, non-governmental, and faith-based partners." Notice again who said this.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, explaining the rationale behind banning large soft drinks: "We're not taking away anybody's right to do things, we're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup."

Bloomberg, defending his ban of extra-large sodas: "I look across this country, and people are obese, and everybody wrings their hands, and nobody's willing to do something about it. I would criticize the federal government for not doing anything."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, defending his controversial proposal to limit the soda size in restaurants: "We're not banning you from getting the stuff. It's just if you want 32 ounces, the restaurant has to serve it in two glasses. That is not exactly taking away your freedoms. It is not something the Founding Fathers fought for."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Republicans who criticize President Obama's support for the failed solar firm Solyndra: “[Republicans are] the ones who say they're risk takers. Now, all of a sudden, they're saying, `Don't take risks.' "

President Obama, at the unveiling of the Bush portrait at the White House: "The months before I took the oath of office were a chaotic time. We knew our economy was in trouble, our fellow Americans were in pain, but we wouldn't know until later just how breathtaking the financial crisis had been." He later thanked Bush for making his transition seamless. But he needed to point out one more time that all this bad stuff happened in the previous administration.

Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter defended President Obama's investment in green energy companies like Solyndra: "The president was making investments for the country, because he's not going to cede an entire industry to China and India. And as a result the company - country is prospering."

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt in an email: "Mitt Romney has made his tenure as a corporate buyout specialist the central premise of his candidacy and claimed it is what credentials him to be a job creator as President. But Governor Romney's goal wasn't job creation, as he claims, it was profit maximization for himself and his partners - he profited off of bankrupting companies and outsourcing jobs." Which is true of pretty much every business that has ever been created. No one starts a business with the idea of, “I am going to do this to create jobs.”

Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod: "There was a report this morning that the Republican Super PACs, apart from Romney and apart from his own super PAC, intend to spend a billion dollars in this campaign setting up shadow state organizations-district-wide organizations-as well as running media. So a handful of plutocrats of billionaires with a special interest agenda are going to try and buy this government in this election, and the stakes of that are pretty profound."

White House press secretary Jay Carney: "We're not focused on any politician's job or any politician who is trying to win a job in November."

From President Obama’s Saturday message, after 6 fund-raising events the day before: “So my message to Congress is, get to work. ”

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "Marco Rubio is a nice guy, but not someone who, I think, belongs on a national ticket - for a lot of reasons."

Nancy Pelosi: "Let me say about President Obama, he was a job creator from Day One." Yes, she has said this many times before. It is like there is this little string at the back of her neck...

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, when being shouted down by hecklers: "You can't handle the truth my friends. If you could handle the truth then quiet down."

Supporter in a crowd of hundreds for speaker Bill Clinton: "This guy is 65-years old and he's getting hit on by porn stars."

Another rally goer, anticipating Clinton’s arrival: "This guy is a god." This rally is in support of Tom Barrett, who is running against Scott Walker in Wisconsin in a recall election.

Elizabeth Warren, running against Scott Brown in Massachusetts: "In the 1930s, when my parents got married, these were hard issues [interracial marriage]. My father's family so objected to my mother's Native American heritage that my mother told me they had to elope.” Her mother would have been 1/16th Cherokee, something which is apparently a part of Warren family lore. It appears that this so-called elopement was a big church wedding?

Elizabeth Warren, answering a question: “I would be their first senator insofar as I know who has native American heritage.”

James Carville, in an email asking for money: “We've gotta wake up...We're being attacked by Republicans from every which way. Americans see the President out there fighting for the middle class, but they've got the Koch Brothers' Super PAC hollerin' in one ear and Karl Rove's Super PAC squawkin' in the other.” It’s good he can include his accent in an email.

Email from the prezy for money: “It appears that my opponent has no problem hosting campaign events with someone who is questioning whether I was born in America. They know it's nonsense. But they've decided that the radical fringe of their party will do more to elect Mitt Romney than the truth will...Aloha, Barack.”

Letter from the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund: “Dear Registered Voter:

Who votes is public record!

Why do so many people fail to vote? We've been talking about the problem for years, but it only seems to get worse. This year, we're taking a new approach. We're sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and doesn't vote.

We need to pull together. The chart shows the names of some of your neighbors, showing which voted in the past.

After the June 5th election, public records will tell everyone who voted and who didn't.

Do your civic duty - vote.”

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban head of state Raul Castro: "I believe that Obama is a fair man and Obama needs greater support to be able to take this decision. If Obama counted on the full support of the American people, then we can normalize the relationships; we can have better relations than what we had under President Carter...As a citizen of the world, I would like him to win."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, on how the Supreme Court will rule on Obamacare: "6-3. That's it. 6-3."

When asked why she was so confident about her prediction: "Because I know the Constitution. This bill is ironclad. It is ironclad."

Attorney General Eric Holder: "I've heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens, who - often for the first time in their lives - now have reason to believe that . . . some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement could now hang in the balance."

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus: "There is a right-wing conspiracy that is alive and well in this country that is trying to take us back to 1900, and even before...Trust us: when the Congressional Black Caucus tells you that a voter ID law will be detrimental to black empowerment - black political empowerment - we know what we are talking about and it is for real. What they want to do is not take away the right to vote, but if black voter participation can be diminished even by ten percent it will make that critical difference all across the country. President Obama won my state, in the last election, by 14,000 votes. Had we had a voter ID law in North Carolina he would not have won the state of NC and probably could not have won the presidency."

First Lady Michelle Obama: "You know, racism is still an issue in this country. But I'll tell you right now, Barack Obama is president of the United States. And he's done a phenomenal job. And this country put him in office." The correct answer, by the way, is, “My husband, who is a Black man, was elected as the President of the United States. I think that speaks well of the people of the United States, and suggests that race was not an issue to them. And in this next election, my husband will run for reelection on the basis of his record and not on some false notion of racism.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, of Republican bill to ban gender abortive selection: “I think the next act be dragging women out of patient rooms into the streets and screaming over their bodies as they get dragged out of getting access to women's health care. That's what I feel like is occurring today with the legislation that is on the floor."

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton: "Republicans have been unrelenting on their attacks on the District of Columbia. The attacks have tended to be in

mainly four areas: reproductive choices, gun safety, marriage equality, and HIV/AID prevention. We will never stop fighting the unequal treatment of the low-income women of the District of Columbia."

NY Times political editor Richard Stevenson: “Since the very first stirrings of the 2008 campaign, The Times has exhaustively and aggressively covered nearly every aspect of Barack Obama's story. To suggest that we've pulled our punches or tilted coverage in his favor or against his opponents just is not supported by the facts.”

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “Majority Leader Eric Cantor...who's opposed everything that the president has tried to do from raising the debt ceiling to pass the American Jobs Act, is rarely seen these days apart from when he stands up to celebrate his latest achievement...Mr. Cantor is part of the leadership of this country. He's the Majority Leader in the House. I'm certain the word "leader" is on his business card. But Leader Cantor has done absolutely everything in his power to ensure that not one of the President's policies on job creation has ever seen the light of day. Even when an independent analytics firm like Moody's estimates that the American Jobs Act would create almost two million new jobs and raise GDP by a full two percentage points, Mr. Cantor prefers his own form of leadership which is designed to crush job creation.” I guess that 2 years when Democrats could pass any bill that they wanted does not factor into today’s jobs situation?

New York magazine's national affairs editor John Heileman: "Mitt Romney is never going to be likable"

CBS This Morning’s Gayle King on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed ban of soft drinks over 16 ounces in size: "I'm all for anything that's going to make us healthy."

NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman, on the Bloomberg ban: "A very famous doctor, Dr. David Lustig at UC San Francisco says that sugar is toxic and should be regulated like tobacco. It's rewiring the brain. It is not necessary for anything in the human diet. I think it's a very bold, big move, but I have no problem with it."

Guest Jonathan Waxman, a chef in the Big Apple, also endorsed the Bloomberg plan: "I'm kind of happy that someone's making a stand here, because I think that it's empty calories."

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to boxer Manny Pacquiao: “You know, there are reports, your Forbes magazine, other places say you make tens maybe more millions of dollars, $40 million one year. Philippines is a very poor country. Do you think that there is some, there is something wrong with somebody, with somebody in the Philippines making that much money when people are starving in your country?”

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “Why is the Sunshine State in the midst of a purge that even Joseph Stalin would admire?” He is speaking of the attempt to rid the Florida voter rolls of those thought to be noncitizens (2600 notices were sent out by Florida, which amounts to 0.023% of the Florida voters).

CNN’s Candy Crowley to Governor Bob McDonnell: "Don't you credit President Obama at all for the good fortune that Virginia has?"

MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski defending New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban sugary drinks larger than 16 oz. from restaurants: "I think it's a great idea. Does anyone want to challenge me on that?" She said this as sipping from a huge Starbuck’s cup of coffee.

Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, on why conservatives are making a mistake to oppose gender-selection abortions: “Republicans long ago lost African American voters. They are well on their way to losing Latinos. And if Trent Franks prevails, they may lose Asian Americans, too.”

MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter of Mitt Romney ad: "Did he say, `This time we'll get it white'?" This was a joke, referring to Romney saying that "this time, we'll get it right."

MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter of Mitt Romney ad: "Maybe he's not running for the presidency of the United States, maybe he's running for the presidency of `Caucasia-stan' or some place that doesn't have anyone of color in it."

Former newsman Dan Rather, off his meds and, apparently, with breaking news: "I know what - it's widely believed that CBS, NBC, ABC - chocked full of liberals. Not true. What it is chock full of is people who wanted to give honest news, straightforward news and voted both ways in many elections. I'm not saying that nobody in the newsroom was liberal any more than I would say nobody was conservative. Frequently what has happened is people who described as conservatives want to say, `I work at CBS News, and almost everybody there was liberal.' What they really mean is not everybody there agreed with him all the time. This is a sham. It's a camouflage."

Lesbian leftist comedian Margaret Cho, apparently a routine: "My period comes like twice a month. My eggs are jumping ship. Seriously, they're like, `the last one out's a retard...I get worried about that, as an older woman, I don't necessarily want to have a retard."

The New York Times declared that "the electric car "has long been recognized as the ideal solution" because it "is cleaner and quieter" and "much more economical." (Nov. 2, 1911)

Here are a few comments by liberals about soldiers on Memorial Day. Language warning.

From a month ago (I missed this one). Oklahoma Democrat Party Chairman Wallace Collins: "Is he (OKGOP Chairman Pinnell) forgetting the fact that the bombing was done by somebody of his bent - in other words a right-winger? If Timothy McVeigh were alive today, he most likely would be a Tea Partier."

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast: "Any crime committed (in Syria) can be traced back to the (Israeli) regime's hirelings."

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan: "I'm warning you, America, if you bomb Iran, I'm looking at San Diego, I'm looking at your beautiful cities - the God that I represent is going to take out some of your cities with earthquakes. You live in the city, I live in the city, but some of us are going to die, because we agree with them, agree with evil. So the God of judgement and justice, he's going to kill a lot."

NBC Today’s co-host Matt Lauer to Mayor Bloomberg: "You announced this on a Thursday. Today is Friday and it's....National Donut Day - and your administration has come out in support of National Donut Day....It sounds ridiculous."

The NY Times’ Maureen Doud: “But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama's caution - ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, "caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me" - has restrained him at times. In some ways, he's still finding himself, too absorbed to see what's not working.”

President Bill Clinton about Mitt Romney's business record at Bain Capital: "I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say `This is bad work. This is good work.' The man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold."

Clinton clarification: "So today, because I didn't attack him personally and bash him, I wake up to read all these stories taking it out of context as if I had virtually endorsed him.”

Willie Brown: “The president's trip to the Bay Area last week made it painfully clear that the Barack Obama re-election campaign has lost its mojo.”

Former Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards: “I'm responsible for my sins.” That stuff sounded fine; but when he started talking about how much he loved his love child, I just did not buy it.

The Haaretz reports: "Obama . . . stressed he probably knows about Judaism more than any other president, because he read about it...[He] wondered how come no one asks Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner or Senate minority leader Mitch McConnel [sic] about their support to Israel."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusks, regarding Obama’s reference to “Polish death camps”: "We always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in

Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II. The words uttered yesterday by the President of the United States Barack Obama concerning `Polish death camps' touched all Poles."

Former Democrat Sheriff Waggoner, of Mississippi: "I'm a Christian, and my first allegiance is to Jesus Christ. God established marriage, and He established it between a man and a woman. Those are my beliefs. The Republican Party reflects my beliefs."

Christopher Cerf, the award-winning composer of Sesame Street, was stunned to learn how his music was being exploited. Here, he speaks to Al Jazeera: "My first reaction was this just can't possibly be true...Of course I didn't really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk."

Reporter, asking to hear the difference between Obama investing in Solyndra and Romney investing in private companies: “How’s that different from the Romney argument of Bain Capital, which is that many succeeded and a few failed?”

Wh press secretary Jay Carney: “Look, there, there, there is the, the difference in that your overall view of what, uh, your responsibilities are as president, and what your view of the economic future is. And, and the president believes, as he's made clear, that a president's responsibility is not just to, uh, those who win, but those who, in- for an example, in a company where, uh, there have been layoffs or a company that has gone bankrupt, that that, you know, we have to, uh, make sure that, uh, those folks have, uh, the means to find other employment, that they have, uh, the ability to train for, uh, other kinds of, uh, work, and that's part of the overall responsibility the president has.”

MSNBC host Chris Hayes said he felt "uncomfortable" calling fallen soldiers "heroes" - remarks for which he later apologized.

Rep. Allen West, who's served more than 20 years in the military: "The insidious words of MSNBC's Chris Hayes this past weekend evidences why NBC Management should force him to stand outside for 12 hours, 0600 - 1800, and greet each of these exceptional Men and Women, and address them as 'American Hero.' His apology statement is worthless."

Think Progress headline: “Disappointing Jobs Report Calls GOP’s Austerity policies into Question”

Weasel Zippers: “The fact that none of the GOP's policies are being implemented apparently hasn't dawned on them yet.”

Andrea Leadsom, Conservative Member of British Parliament, Treasury Select Committee, to Paul Krugman’s idea that austerity doesn’t work and stimulus does: “I find his view reckless, frankly. I can't believe that somebody as, you know, incredibly highly regarded could honestly think that the answer is to go and borrow more money. I mean, it is very simple mathematics, isn't it? If you are in a hole, if you've overspent and overspent, spending more is simply not going to help.”

Mitt Romney: "If the President is going to have his people come into my rallies and heckling, why, we'll show them that we conservatives have the same kind of capacity he does."

Mia Love’s parents to Mia: "Mia, your mother and I never took a handout. You will not be a burden to society. You will give back."

Paula Priesse: “What recession? Here at American University Corporation things are booming! Tuitions are skyrocketing, but with govt.-backed student loans going deep in hock has never been easier! AUC can't promise a job or marketable skills, but we can promise this: A 43% CHANCE OF GETTING AN A! That's right, 43% of all college grades now are As. In 1960 that figure was 15%. (below) Strange though that average SAT scores in 1960 and today are about the same. Oh well, as proud liberals AUC knows what's important. Your self-esteem (and of course your money). Ask about our Graduate Humanities programs. At AUC, your parents' basement is just a phone call away!”

Mia Love: “It was supposed to be hope and change, but it’s been fear and blame.” [from memory]

House Speaker John Boehner, behind closed doors, about one of President Obama's recent policy pushes: "Let's call bulls___ bulls___. This election is about jobs, jobs, jobs."

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney answering, “What grade would you give Obama: "Oh an 'F', there's no question about that...across the board."

Jodi Miller: “The city of Los Angeles just pass a new law banning stores from using plastic grocery bags. We here in LA call it the, ‘Hey, let’s go shopping in Burbank instead’ law.”

Allen West, in response to questions about his past during a townhall meeting: "If you guys want to go back and talk about what happened nine years ago to me, lets talk about the President doing blow."

Jodi Miller: “The number of Americans identifying as Pro-life has jumped to 50%—or, as the liberal media calls them, a small, radical minority.

Newt Gingrich: “This is the administration that went from ‘yes we can’ to ‘here’s why we couldn’t’.”

Dennis Miller: “Joe Biden’s secret service name is the unmanned drone.” [quoted from memory]

Email to O’Reilly: “Dan Rather’s appearance on Comedy Central was appropriate.” [quoted from memory]

John Stossel: “If government produced gas, it would cost $50/gallon and there would be shortages.”

Rush Limbaugh: "We're three-and-a-half years now into the Obama administration, and the idea that any of this is lingering from George W. Bush is absurd."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama...said, 'We can't come out of this overnight.' Overnight? For crying out loud, you've told us for the past two years that we have come out of it. For the past two years, Mr. President, you've told us we are on the rebound. Now it's Congress' fault?"

Rush Limbaugh: "If the labor force participation rate was the same today as it was when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would have been reported today as 10.9%. It would be 10.9% if the same number of people were in the job market today as when Obama was inaugurated."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama's already-passed legislation will begin to take even more out of the private sector. When you raise taxes, when you increase regulations, you take money out of the private sector. And more of that is on tap. This is as good as it gets with Obama."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama is a dinosaur. Obama is 50 years ago. Obama's still living in this mythical world where FDR almost had it right but he just didn't spend enough money."

Rush Limbaugh: "Look at all the new taxes. Look at the further shrinkage of the employment base. Look at the slowdown of the economy that is, without question, coming. What part of that do the Democrats not want? It's all happening because of them."

Rush Limbaugh: "People are living the reality of the job market. And AP and Reuters and the rest can do everything they want to try to convince people that everybody else is doing well. There's no evidence. You don't see it. Nobody's living it. So they're now becoming jokes."

Rush Limbaugh: "The lesson in Wisconsin is that conservatism works. Scott Walker has done everything that Obama says is impossible to do. He cut spending and expanded the economy while lowering taxes and laying off no one. It's amazing."

Rush Limbaugh: "Government can't protect losers. All it does is makes more losers, under the guise of assistance, help and protection."

Rush Limbaugh: "There hasn't been a success story in green energy. There isn't a business there. It's an absolute joke. It's nothing more than a money laundering scheme using green energy as the emotional connection to people, have them support it, while money just travels a circuitous route from donor to Obama, back to donor and finally back to Obama."

Send this to your friends who are on the fence; this is mostly Obama speaking, with a little news thrown in. It is damning.

The money that Obama has thrown at his donors, posing as green companies. Great vid.

Good question and WH press secretary Jay Carney searches in vain for a sensible response. This is what Rush calls a random act of journalism.

I think that this is Japanese, a short news report on Obama’s dope smoking days. Why are foreign sources of news more accurate?

Bob Schieffer laughs out loud after playing clip of Obama bragging about his accomplishments

Black church leaders meeting with congressional Black caucus, say that gay marriage is "not a civil rights issue."

George W. Bush, Former President of the United States, at his portrait unveiling at the White House: “I am pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the White House collection. It now starts and ends with a George W.” The video.

Bush: “When the British burned the White House, as Fred mentioned, in 1814, Dolley Madison famously saved this portrait of the first George W. Now, Michelle, if anything happens there's your man.”

Bush: “I am also pleased, Mr. President, that when you are wandering these halls as you wrestle with tough decisions, you will now be able to gaze at this portrait and ask, what would George do?”

Laura Bush: “And you know that nothing makes a house a home like having portraits of the former occupants staring down at you from the wall.”

1) John Stossel had an excellent show on oil. One guest made the point, do we really need to be energy independent? That is, should we be vehicle independent? Should we be toy independent. Our financial ties to other countries benefits them as much as it benefits us.

The CBO has released figures which suggest that Stimulus jobs were created at a cost possibly as high as $4.1 million each.

Although the expectation was for 150,000 jobs to be created this past month, only 69,000 were created, and unemployment ticked up to 8.2%.

In January 2009, there were approximately 5,005,000 unemployed women in the United States. As of May 2012, there were 5,771,000. 766,000 women are out of work since Obama has come to office. This is the real war on women.

Evil rich oil companies make 6¢ on each gallon of gas. The wonderful, benevolent government (which does nothing but hold its hand out to collect money) makes, on average, 48¢ per gallon (and 65¢/gal. in California).

The GOP is trusted more than Democrats on six of 10 major issues: economy (50–39), national security, the war in Afghanistan, immigration, taxes and health care.

Three in ten women (31 percent) overall believe that there is currently a "wide-scale effort to limit women's reproductive health choices and services, such as abortion, family planning, and contraception"

45% say there are some groups that would like to limit women's reproductive health choices and services but it is not a wide-scale effort,

Here’s the key, if something hurts Obama, don’t expect to see much of it on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC; or in the NY Times or the Washington Post.

Good Morning America's Josh Elliott on Friday reported incorrect jobs numbers, touting stats more favorable to Barack Obama and less reflective of the dismal facts. In the 8am hour, news reader Elliott insisted that "new figures show" an unemployment rate "sitting" at 8.1 percent for May with 158,000 new jobs created. In fact, unemployment rose to 8.2 percent and only 69,000 jobs were created.

An unflattering portrait of President Obama is painted in the new book The Amateur by Edward Klein. Klein is not some far right, TEA party type. Klein is the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. He frequently contributes to Vanity Fair and Parade. He interviewed 200 people for this book, has sourced it far more than most biographers, and the liberal media has virtually blacked out this book. Although ignored by traditional media sources, this has topped the NY Times bestseller list.

On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady.

Only days earlier, news surfaced that author David Maraniss had unearthed new details about Barack Obama's prolific, college-age dope-smoking for his new book, "Barack Obama: The Story" -- and the Times made it a brief on A15.

No wonder Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign. To them, reporters are scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of Mitt Romney to the general election audience - and once again downplaying ones that could hurt the president.

"The New York Times has given Obama the longest wet kiss in political history, and they have done him a favor again," former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said. "The New York Times does a huge expose that Ann Romney rides horses. Well, so does my wife, and a few million other people. Watch out for equine performers!"

When Jackie Kennedy rode horses, she received very favorable media attention. When Ann Romney rides horses, it is elitism.

When jobs are “shipped overseas” during Obama’s time in office, it is a decades long reality; when it occurs while Bush is in office, it is evidence of the poor job he is doing as a president.

Slanted news is slanted, in part, because of what is not reported. African-American former congressman Arthur Davis's switch from Democrat to Republican is not news at the NY Times nor on AP's National Site.

Networks Bury Obama's 'Polish Death Camp' Gaffe, But ABC and NBC Find Time to Mock a Romney Misspelling.

Fox News is taking a lot of heat for broadcasting a four-minute video attacking President Obama on Wednesday's Fox & Friends. However, NBC and MSNBC Created and Aired Anti-Romney Video in February With No Media Outrage.

We have heard almost obsessively on the Republican “war on women.” Liberal Hustler Magazine prints lewd photoshopped photograph of conservative commentator S. E. Cupp, with an offensive remark. Will any network news organization report on this story? Will they condemn it; will they call it a “war on women”? A few women and women’s groups have condemned it?

Big and/or bold = describing more nanny-state government, like Bloomberg criminalizing 32 oz. sodas.

Far-right, radical, out-of-the-mainstream = describes crazy ideas like having a balanced budget for the federal government.

In the President’s weekly address, he said, “Congress should pass a bill to help states prevent more layoffs, so we can put thousands of teachers and firefighters and police officers back on the job.” This is a typical liberal threat, and also a problem for those who know anything about how the political world works. First of all, for anyone who has done some adding on to their house, and then had to have 5 inspectors come by and give their opinion before you could proceed—no one will ever threaten “Congress needs to bring a bill to save the jobs of these inspectors; otherwise, we may need to reduce the number of regulations and lay off some regulators.” Nope—they always threaten to lay of teachers, fire fighter and policemen. Secondly, it is not up to Obama to pay for these people’s jobs. These are funded by mostly city, county, and, in some cases, state governments. The federal government might send money their way (1) a s a political favor and (2) to make sure that the city (county or state) officials don’t have to make any tough choices. However, if a person does not know these things, then what Obama is saying here sounds pretty good.

8 years from now: Scott Walker and Mia Love running for President and Vice President, respectively.

Despite her denials, 4 years from now, Michelle Obama will be testing the waters for a political run. 8 years from now, possibly as president.

A near miss. I was sure Hillary Clinton would run against Obama in 2012; and obviously, she isn’t. However, she and Bill did discuss it seriously.

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney's record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama's record in public equity - and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters - leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. Consider just a few examples of Obama's public equity failures:

● Raser Technologies. In 2010, the Obama administration gave Raser a $33 million taxpayer-funded grant to build a power plant in Beaver Creek, Utah. According to the Wall Street Journal, after burning through our tax dollars, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. The plant now has fewer than 10 employees, and Raser owes $1.5 million in back taxes.

● ECOtality. The Obama administration gave ECOtality $126.2 million in taxpayer money in 2009 for, among other things, the installation of 14,000 electric car chargers in five states. Obama even hosted the company's president, Don Karner, in the first lady's box during the 2010 State of the Union address as an example of a stimulus success story. According to ECOtality's own SEC filings, the company has since incurred more than $45 million in losses and has told the federal government, "We may not achieve or sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future."

Worse, according to CBS News the company is "under investigation for insider trading," and Karner has been subpoenaed "for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company."

● Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP). The Obama administration gave NGP a $98.5 million taxpayer loan guarantee in 2010. The New York Times reported last October that the company is in "financial turmoil" and that "[a]fter a series of technical missteps that are draining Nevada Geothermal's cash reserves, its own auditor concluded in a filing released last week that there was `significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.'?"

● First Solar. The Obama administration provided First Solar with more than $3 billion in loan guarantees for power plants in Arizona and California. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek report last week, the company "fell to a record low in Nasdaq Stock Market trading May 4 after reporting $401 million in restructuring costs tied to firing 30 percent of its workforce."

● Abound Solar, Inc. The Obama administration gave Abound Solar a $400 million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories. According to Forbes, in February the company halted production and laid off 180 employees.

● Beacon Power. The Obama administration gave Beacon - a green-energy storage company - a $43 million loan guarantee. According to CBS News, at the time of the loan, "Standard and Poor's had confidentially given the project a dismal outlook of `CCC-plus.' " In the fall of 2011, Beacon received a delisting notice from Nasdaq and filed for bankruptcy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. A company called SunPower got a $1.2 billion loan guarantee from the Obama administration, and as of January, the company owed more than it was worth. Brightsource got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee and posted a string of net losses totaling $177 million. And, of course, let's not forget Solyndra - the solar panel manufacturer that received $535 million in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees and went bankrupt, leaving taxpayers on the hook.

Amazingly, Obama has declared that all the projects received funding "based solely on their merits." But as Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer reported in his book, "Throw Them All Out," fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department's grants and loans went to "individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama's National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party." Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it's not the president's job "to make a lot of money for investors." Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine.

All that cronyism and corruption is catching up with the administration. According to Politico, "The Energy Department's inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations" related to the department's green-energy programs.

Now the man who made Solyndra a household name says Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital "is what this campaign is going to be about." Good luck with that, Mr. President. If Obama wants to attack Romney's alleged private equity failures as chief executive of Bain, he'd better be ready to defend his own massive public equity failures as chief executive of the United States.

Amid the crowded field of House candidates across the country in 2012, expect to hear a lot about Mia Love, a Republican who is an African American and a Mormon and who on Saturday defeated a handful of rivals to clinch the party nomination in the campaign for Utah's fourth congressional district. Love is preparing to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson. Victory in November would make her the first black Republican congresswoman in history.

A Brooklyn-born Mormon convert, Love is a marathon-running mother of three and the daughter of Haitian immigrants who came to the United States with $10 in their pockets, she says. Her mother cleaned houses and worked as a nurse at a retirement home while her father worked for a painting company, toiled as a janitor at a Catholic school and drove a school bus to support their growing family.

"I am a product of that hard work," she said in an interview with Yahoo News, "a product of the American dream."

Love's political career began when she was elected to the city council in the small town of Saratoga Springs, Utah, in 2004. She became mayor six years later and her House candidacy has received cash from an impressive list of Republican big wigs like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.

Well aware that she is unique when lined up next to most Republicans in the caucus, Love doesn't shy away from being a poster child for her party.

"We have an opportunity to reach some of our fellow Americans that we haven't been able to reach, ever, on the conservative side," she told Yahoo News. "And if I can reach our fellow Americans and get them to believe what we believe--that the way that they're going to realize the American dream is through hard work and that they can do it, then I'm happy to play that role. I'm happy to be the example."

While talking policy, she comes across as a tax- and regulation-slashing, tea party conservative infused with a leave-us-alone libertarian streak, a hallmark of western Republicans.

"I know what the proper role of government is," she said. "I don't really want to know what's going on in somebody's backyard. It's not my job to know what's going on in their backyard and I try to stay out of everyone's personal lives and their property."

During the Republican primary, Love raised less than $120,00, falling short of three other candidates vying for the nomination. On primary day, however, she received 70 percent of the vote, walloping state legislator (and lead fundraiser) Carl Wimmer, who had the backing of tea Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a tea party favorite.

Matheson, her new Democratic opponent with a $1.2 million war chest, could be her greatest challenger yet.

If she makes it to Washington, Love said she plans focus on opposing federal regulations--particularly those set by the Environmental Protection Agency--and will immediately join the Democrat-led Congressional Black Caucus with Florida Rep. Allen West, currently the only Republican member of the group, with hopes to "change it from the inside out."

"I told Congressman West to hang in there, reinforcements are coming, and while I respect the ideas of some of these representatives to care for the poor in their community, I reject the notion that government dependency is the way to do it," Love said. "I am ready to go in and change it from the inside out."

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, joining us this morning, Mitt Romney's surrogate, former governor of New Hampshire, John Sununu.

JOHN SUNUNU (R), FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: Thank you very much. It's good to be here.

SUNUNU: I don't know. Why is CNN -- why is CNN so fixated on this? Why don't we talk about the jobs issue in this country?

SUNUNU: And disastrous -- and it's CNN that wants to bring it up. I don't want to bring it up. Mitt Romney has made it clear -- Mitt Romney has made has clear that he believes that President Obama was born in the U.S. You had Donald Trump on last night. And now you are asking the question this morning. It's CNN's fixation.

O'BRIEN: Sir, you don't think it's a valid question of someone posing as a supporter/surrogate at a high level? Donald Trump isn't your random supporter. He's a high level big funder. He's talking about millions of dollars he's thinking about donating.

You don't think that that's a big deal that person consistently talks about the fact that the president of the United States is not a citizen of the country?

SUNUNU: I think it's as equivalent an issue as Bill Maher who gave a million dollars to President Obama talking with such a foul mouth about women. But that's -- you can't pick your supporters in this country. The fact is that this country has a jobs problem and supporters of the president, like CNN, keep wanting to talk about other issues.

O'BRIEN: What's interesting, every time you ask anyone a hard question they say you must be supporting?

SUNUNU: This isn't a hard question. This is an easy question. Mitt Romney has made it clear he believes the president of the United States was born in the United States. Now we can talk about the big issues in this country.

Before we get to that, I want to ask you why does Mitt Romney not go further? For example, as I'm sure you have seen many times, when John McCain was posed a question by a woman who asked him a question, not only did he say here's my position. He said to her, let me correct you. So, I'll play that clip for you.

SUNUNU: Aren't you embarrassed to be speaking directly from the Obama speaking points that they distributed yesterday? Aren't you embarrassed to sound exactly like the Obama spokesman talking about John McCain? This is ridiculous.

O'BRIEN: Is that because you don't want to talk about the fact that a major fund-raiser is a birther?

SUNUNU: It's not an issue. There is nobody in the Romney campaign that believes that the president was not born in the United States.

O'BRIEN: So then how come someone doesn't say, Donald Trump is wrong? We're going to tell Donald Trump he is wrong.

SUNUNU: No, it isn't, ma'am. It's just because you don't read enough that you don't understand. Let's go to the issues.

SUNUNU: I'm not getting into personal attacks. I'm talking about the fact that you have a fixation.

O'BRIEN: Of asking questions when someone who is clearly a birther is a representative --

O'BRIEN: That's what I was doing last night. I didn't do anything but sleeping last night because I go to bed early. Let's move on and talk about the economy.

Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of black clergymen that the right to vote was being threatened by people who are seeking to block access to the ballot box by blacks and other minorities.

This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.

This may have seemed like a small episode to some at the time, but it was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting that case - J. Christian Adams - resigned from the Department of Justice in protest, and wrote a book about a whole array of similar race-based decisions on voting rights by Eric Holder and his subordinates at the Department of Justice.

The book is titled "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department." It names names, dates and places around the country where the Department of Justice stopped its own attorneys from pursuing cases of voter fraud and intimidation, when it was blacks who were accused of these crimes.

If Mr. Adams is lying, he has taken a huge risk in citing individuals by name and quoting them directly. Yet, despite the fact that most of those he accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him. Moreover, Adams has also testified under oath before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on the racial double standard at the Department of Justice, when it comes to voting rights.

What Attorney General Holder has been complaining loudly about, and launching federal lawsuits about, are states that require photo identification to vote. Holder calls this blocking minority "access" to the voting booths.

Since millions of black Americans - like millions of white Americans - are confronted with demands for photo identification at airports, banks and innumerable other institutions, it is a little much to claim that requiring the same thing to vote is denying the right to vote. But Holder's chutzpah is up to the task.

Attorney General Holder claims that the states' requirement of photo identification for voting, in order to prevent voter fraud, is just a pretext for discriminating against blacks and other minorities. He apparently sees no voter fraud, hears no voter fraud and speaks no voter fraud.

Despite Holder's claim, a little experiment in his own home voting district showed how easy it is to commit voter fraud. An actor - a white actor, at that - went to a voting place where Eric Holder is registered to vote, and told them that he was Eric Holder.

The actor had no identification at all with him, either with or without a photo. He told the voting official that he had forgotten and left his identification in his car. Instead of telling him to go back to the car and get some identification, the official said that that was all right, and offered him the ballot.

The actor had the good sense not to actually take the ballot, which would have made him guilty of voter fraud - and, being white, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted by Eric Holder's Department of Justice.

But the actor had made his point. When a white man with no identification can go to a voting site, impersonate a black man who lives in that district, and get his ballot offered to him, then it is far too easy to commit voter fraud.

Does not Attorney General Eric Holder understand that? Of course he understands it! The man is not stupid, despite his other failings.

Holder's pooh-poohing of voter fraud dangers, and hyping the "threat" of denying minorities "access" to the voting booth, are completely consistent with his drive to (1) maximize the number of votes by black Democrats and (2) spread as much fear as possible among minorities that they are under siege, and that the Democrats are their only protection and salvation.

Nor can Holder's boss, Barack Obama, be unaware of voter fraud. After all, he comes from Chicago, where voting officials refuse to discriminate against dead people.

"Education" is a word that covers a lot of very different things, from vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses to absolutely counterproductive courses that fill people with a sense of grievance and entitlement, without giving them either the skills to earn a living or a realistic understanding of the world required for a citizen in a free society.

The lack of realism among many highly educated people has been demonstrated in many ways.

When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors not to get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a warning that no illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have needed. No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge animal that literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30 miles an hour.

No one would have had to tell that illiterate farmer's daughter not to stand by the side of a highway, trying to hitch a ride with strangers, as too many college girls have done, sometimes with results that ranged all the way up to their death.

The dangers that a lack of realism can bring to many educated people are completely overshadowed by the dangers to a whole society created by the unrealistic views of the world promoted in many educational institutions.

It was painful, for example, to see an internationally renowned scholar say that what low-income young people needed was "meaningful work." But this is a notion common among educated elites, regardless of how counterproductive its consequences may be for society at large, and for low-income youngsters especially.

The underlying notion seems to be that it is work whose performance is satisfying or enjoyable in itself. But if that is the only kind of work that people should have to do, how is garbage to be collected, bed pans emptied in hospitals or jobs with life-threatening dangers to be performed?

Does anyone imagine that firemen enjoy going into burning homes and buildings to rescue people trapped by the flames? That soldiers going into combat think it is fun?

In the real world, many things are done simply because they have to be done, not because doing them brings immediate pleasure to those who do them. Some people take justifiable pride in working to take care of their families, whether or not the work itself is great.

Some of our more Utopian intellectuals lament that many people work "just for the money." They do not like a society where A produces what B wants, simply in order that B will produce what A wants, with money being an intermediary device facilitating such exchanges.

Some would apparently prefer a society where all-wise elites would decide what each of us "needs" or "deserves." The actual history of societies formed on that principle - histories often stained, or even drenched, in blood - is of little interest to those who mistake wishful thinking for idealism.

At the very least, many intellectuals do not want the poor or the young to have to take "menial" jobs. But people who are paying their own money, as distinguished from the taxpayers' money, for someone to do a job are unlikely to part with hard cash unless that job actually needs doing, whether or not that job is called "menial" by others.

People who lack the skills to take on more prestigious jobs can either remain idle and live as parasites on others or take the jobs for which they are currently qualified, and then move up the ladder as they acquire more experience. People who are flipping hamburgers at McDonald's on New Year's Day are seldom flipping hamburgers there when Christmas time comes.

Those relatively few statistics that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time show them moving massively from one income bracket to another over time, starting at the bottom and moving up as they acquire skills and experience.

Telling young people that some jobs are "menial" is a huge disservice to them and to the whole society. Subsidizing them in idleness while they wait for "meaningful work" is just asking for trouble, both for them and for all those around them.

Wednesday night, Dan Rather, who canceled his appearance on "The Factor", talked with Jon Stewart about liberalism in the national media.

DAN RATHER: I know it's widely believed that CBS, NBC, ABC is chocked full of liberals... not true.

What's chocked full of people who want to give honest news, straightforward news and voted both ways in many elections. I'm not saying that nobody in the newsroom was liberal any more than I saying anybody is conservative. Frequently what happened, people who were described as conservatives want to say I worked at CBS News and, you know, almost everybody there was liberal. What they really mean is not everybody there agreed with him all the time. This is a sham.

O'REILLY: With all right with all due respect to Mr. Rather his statement is a sham. He is not telling the truth.

Here are the facts. After the presidential race between George Bush and John Kerry, the University of Connecticut surveyed 300 journalists nationwide. The study found that 52 percent of the journalists voted for Kerry. Just 19 percent went for Bush. The rest would not answer the question.

In 2008, NBC News identified 143 journalists who made political contributions. 125 of them gave to the Democratic Party; just 16, 16 out of 143 donate to the Republican Party. Two gave to both parties.

Also in 2008, the Pew Research Center studied 43 news outlets in America in the run-up to the Obama/McCain election. About 35 percent of the stories done on Barack Obama by those organizations were positive. Less than 20 percent were positive when it came to John McCain.

Those are the facts, Mr. Rather and they are grim if you believe the media should be fair and balanced. Just today the website Politico ran a story about how the "The Washington Post" is covering Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

"Post" reporter David Maraniss has a new book out called "Barack Obama the Story". In that book Maraniss documents the president's drug use as a young man. It was extensive. The "The Washington Post" ran that story on page six but earlier this month "The Post" ran a 5,500 word story on page one detailing Mitt Romney's high school hazing resume.

I mean, come on. Fair-minded people know that much of the media is actively working to see that Barack Obama is reelected. Dan Rather would never admit that but it's absolutely true. So the question becomes how much will the liberal press influence the election?

And by the way, there was a press blackout of the gender abortion Planned Parenthood scandal this week. Total blackout. We'll deal with that in just a few moments.

"Talking Points" believes the media will deliver some votes to Barack Obama next November and in a tight race that could be enough. And that's "The Memo."

As the campaign heats up, one problem is that we continue to meet lots of different Barack Obamas - to such a degree that we don't know which, if any, is really president.

I think the president believes that private-equity firms harm the economy and that their CEOs are at best indifferent and sometimes unsympathetic to the struggle of average Americans. I say "I think" because Obama has himself collected millions of dollars from such profit-driven firms, and uses their grandees to raise cash for his reelection. Cynical, hypocritical, or unaware? You decide.

I think the president is in favor of publicly funded campaign financing but against super PACs; but again I say "I think" because Obama renounced the former and embraced the latter. Are Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, and preventive detention constitutional necessities or threats to our security? Some of Obama's personalities have said they are bad; others apparently believe them to be good.

One Barack Obama crisscrosses the country warning us that a sinister elite has robbed from the common good and must atone for destroying the economy. Another Barry Obama hits the golf links in unapologetically aristocratic fashion and prefers Martha's Vineyard for his vacation. So I am confused about the evil 1 percent. Obama 1 feels they have shorted the country and must now pay their fair share, while Obama 2 feels they are vital allies in helping the poor by attending his $40,000-a-plate campaign dinners.

Barry Obama respects those who make billions from Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook, but Barack Obama does not respect those who make billions from oil, farming, and construction. Is Wall Street the source of our national problems or the source of the president's political salvation? There is an Obama who runs against a prep-schooled mansion-living member of the elite; there is another Obama who was a prep-schooled mansion-living member of the elite.

I thought one Obama swore to us that borrowing $5 trillion was vital - Keynesian pump priming, stimulus, averting 8 percent-plus unemployment, and all that. But now another Obama claims that his serial $1 trillion deficits are proof not of "growth" of the sort that improved GDP and reduced unemployment, but rather of fiscal discipline that stopped reckless Republican spending. So Obama over the last four years brought both austerity that checked wild Bush spending, and also Keynesian growth that snapped us out of the Bush lethargy? Spending is saving? Record deficits are record fiscal restraint?

Lots of Obamas keep talking about civility and bringing us together; but lots more Obamas talk about punishing our enemies, emphasizing racial differences, and formally organizing supporters by racial groupings. An angelic Obama lectures about the end of red-state/blue-state divides; a less saintly Obama refers to xenophobic clingers, typical white persons, stereotypers, and arresters of children on their way to ice-cream parlors.

I recall that once upon a time Obama derided fossil fuels, bragging that "millions of new green jobs" would accrue from subsidizing wind and solar power and "bankrupting" coal companies, as energy prices would accordingly "skyrocket." But then once upon another time, Obama bragged that on his watch we are pumping more oil than ever before, apparently because private firms ignored his pleas and drilled despite his efforts to shut down leasing on public lands. So we are to credit Obama for stopping oil leasing on public lands, which forced greater production on private lands, while being impressed that he lost billions subsidizing doomed solar and wind companies? When the government fails to promote new energy, that constitutes success because those outside the government then must do more? Do the various Obamas represent both the good but failed intention and the bad successful one?

Unfortunately, the paradoxes involve more than just the usual flipflopping of all politicians. They strike to the heart of who is, and is not, Barack Hussein Obama.

The fringe Birthers made outlandish claims for years that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore was not eligible to be president. But suddenly, after nearly four years of his presidency, we discover that for over a decade and a half Obama's own publicity bio listed him as Kenyan-born. Why and how did this happen - given that authors customarily write their own autobiographies and have annual opportunities to edit them? Did Obama think that to fudge an identity might make his book on a mixed-race heritage more saleable in 1991, and then himself more exotic as a state legislator and senator in the ensuing 16 years - but for some reason not as a presidential candidate?

What is real and what is not? The Obama "composite" girlfriend who sort of existed and sort of did not? Was there one Obama named Barry and another who became Barack, one with the middle name Hussein that was taboo to utter in the campaign of 2008 and another with the middle name Hussein that after January 20, 2009, was supposed to resonate in the Muslim world?

One Obama was the constitutional-law professor at the prestigious University of Chicago; another was a part-time lecturer who never published and was rarely seen or heard at the law school. One Obama was a brilliant Harvard Law Review editor; another never wrote an article. One Obama had the highest IQ of any entering president and was indeed the smartest man we ever elected commander-in-chief; another Obama proved it by not releasing his college transcripts. One Obama is the fittest and most energetic of recent presidents; another Obama is the most secretive and reluctant about proving it through the customary releasing of medical records.

To be fair, Barack Obama wrote a memoir explaining how he had no identity, given the absence of his father, the serial trips of his mother, and his need not to be biracial, but sometimes black, sometimes white, in the manner that he had to be and not to be part of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Chicago community, and to vote present in the Illinois state legislature in order to be for and against what you must be for and against. Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama can both dutifully attend worship services "every Sunday" at Trinity United Church of Christ and emulate the pastor's writing and speaking - and yet only occasionally drop in, to get married and to hear sonorous platitudes about self-help and healing.

Is Obama just the usual chameleon politician? Or is Obama emblematic of postmodern America, where there is no truth, but, like an Elizabeth Warren or a Ward Churchill, we legitimately are who we declare we are - and then again are not what we are when we choose not to be? Or is Barack Obama not a metaphor for much of anything other than the fact that it is harder to be president of the United States than to be at Harvard or Chicago Law School, the Illinois legislature or the U.S. Senate, where everyone declared that you did everything by doing not much at all?

Since the financial crisis and throughout the sluggish economic recovery, working families and small-business owners have watched as the federal government has engaged in a grand experiment in government-led economic engineering. That experiment has failed.

The latest jobs report underscores the need to change our country's direction. April's unemployment rate was 8.1%, but if you include those who are underemployed, that rate shoots to 14.5%.

The unemployment rate has now persisted at over 8% for three years, longer than any period in modern history. Not to mention that there are nearly 4 million "missing workers" who have disappeared from the work force altogether.

It's probably not too difficult to convince most Americans that things are not going well.

Small businesses create two out of every three new jobs in America. When small businesses struggle, the entire economy suffers. Rather than encouraging economic growth, policies from Washington are making it difficult for small businesses to grow into bigger businesses. Massive government expansion into health care, banking and a wide variety of other areas has become a major hurdle to job creation - and small businesses are being hit the hardest.

The Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in American history, but it wasn't always big. When we started in 1978, we began with two stores. Going from two to more than 2,000 was not easy. In today's environment, I'm not sure we could have started The Home Depot and survived, much less thrived.

The time, energy and manpower it takes for small businesses to comply with new and often duplicative rules takes away from their efforts to serve their customers and grow their businesses. Over the past three years, Washington has issued more than 10,000 rules that impose an estimated $16 billion in new costs. Small businesses, who often lack the teams of lawyers and compliance officers to sort through everything they're now required to do, are suffering disproportionately.

This is exactly why I partnered with other entrepreneurs to form the Job Creators Alliance, an organization that advocates on behalf of the small business owners who are struggling to survive amid an unprecedented regulatory onslaught.

At the root of this government intrusion is a fundamental distrust of the private sector. President Obama said that the idea that market forces should solve economic problems "fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked."

Although I retired from The Home Depot several years ago, I'm sure that the more than 300,000 Home Depot Associates would beg to differ. The reality is that the free enterprise system has worked for over 200 years in this country and is the bedrock of the American Dream.

This isn't about partisan politics. Although it's no secret that I support the Republican Party, I've worked with, and admire, many Democrats. Former President Bill Clinton found ways to work across the political aisle during his eight years as president and built a reputation as a "New Democrat," willing to come together on things like welfare reform, reducing the federal deficit, reining in federal spending and even declaring that "the era of big government is over."

To be sure, President Clinton's record was far from perfect. His health care proposal, for example, would have been disastrous if it had become law. However, on balance, he adopted a more accommodative approach towards business than the current president.

President Clinton required government agencies to better account for the cost of regulations, worked with Congress to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on banks, championed free trade agreements and liberalized regulations on airlines. The result? Over 22 million jobs created, a budget surplus and a slowdown in the rate of growth of the federal debt.

One of the key points President Clinton makes about his tenure in office is that he was able to engender support among the business community because he didn't attack them for their success. President Obama should take some lessons from this approach.

Today, we find ourselves at a critical juncture - and the future of the free enterprise system that has defined the American Dream hangs in the balance. As control of our economy increasingly shifts from the private sector to the federal sector, I fear that the American Dream that I've been blessed to live is slipping away from our children and grandchildren. It is our greatest national treasure.

Let us remember that free enterprise is what makes America great and unique. An economy that makes it hard for the next Home Depot to emerge is not what anyone should want. If we are to get the economy moving again, the first task of government should be to create an environment that allows the private sector to grow and thrive.

From the Washington Times: When President Obama hosts former President George W. Bush at the White House on Thursday to unveil his predecessor's official portrait, he'll pay tribute to the man he has blamed lately for everything short of an outbreak of the flesh-eating virus.

The war in Iraq? An unnecessary and costly diversion that was Mr. Bush's fault, according to Mr. Obama.

The worst recession since World War II? The president says Mr. Bush and the GOP are to blame.

Soaring deficits? Mr. Obama's mantra is that he inherited the red ink from the Republican.

The Wall Street collapse? See "Bush, George W."

Loss of America's prestige in the eyes of the world? Mr. Obama has laid that accusation on Mr. Bush's doorstep, too.

For those who want a more equal society, life is apparently getting much better. The number of millionaires has decreased in America.

A Tale of Two Presidents: Obama Hitting 6 Fundraisers, Reagan Promoted Democracy, what did both presidents do on June 1, the year of their reelection campaign?

Pew, That Stinks: Liberals Use Rotten Charts to Claim 'You Can't Sanely Argue' Pro-Obama Bias

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. They are in panic mode at MSNBC. They are in panic mode at CNN. They're in panic mode at the Daily Kos. They're in panic mode at the New York Times and the Washington Post. They are in panic. I don't know where they thought this was headed. I don't know what in the world they thought was going to happen. Could somebody tell me, what has happened in the last six months to suggest that anything other than this was on tap? We've had three-and-a-half years of Obamaism. We haven't had any real growth in anything, other than bad news. Why is in unemployment report so shocking to people? Where's the evidence that it was going to be anything other than what it is? Where is the job growth? Where is the gross domestic product increasing? Where is there any good economic news? Why in the world would anybody expect today to be any different than it is?

Now, I'm the mayor of Realville, and that's a place where things are so simple sometimes they're hard to understand. I have this story here, all these experts were expecting the consensus, 150,000 new jobs. By the way, why does that number keep popping up? Why every month is the consensus -- and it is, if you read like I do -- the experts every month are predicting that the job growth rate's gonna be 150,000. That number is not accidental. One-hundred-and-fifty thousand jobs created in a month in our current circumstances is the number of jobs you need to keep the unemployment rate from going up. That's all they care about. And they know what to report because the regime's told 'em what to report. It's the same thing, the old Soviet Union with their wheat forecasts.

Even those who were alive back in the seventies and eighties, you may not remember this, but I was a Sovietologist because Mr. Buckley was, and I absorbed everything that National Review and the leaders back then were talking about. The Soviet Union every year, month, whatever, would come out with the most ridiculous forecasts on their wheat crop and everything else, and they were never, ever, right. We were bailing them out. We were selling them wheat, giving them wheat, what have you. Don't ask me to explain it now. That's a whole show in and of itself. But the point is, the Soviet media, state-controlled media, reported it anyway, because they knew the trouble they would get into if they told the truth.

That's almost the same situation here. There's no consensus expert analysis that says 150,000 jobs are gonna be created. Where's the evidence for that? No, no. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse. I'm just trying to use my profound and abundant logic. Where is the evidence last week, last month, two months ago, where's the evidence that would give an expert any indication that we're gonna have massive job growth in the month of May? In other words, why did people have these expectations? I haven't. The sad thing is I am not surprised. There could be no other result than this the past three years. This is what liberalism does. This is what the Democrat Party is all about. This is what their ideology accomplishes. None of this is a surprise. That's part of the reason I'm depressed. Why don't other people see it?

I checked an e-mail during the break. "Why do you care? You're doing okay." Oh, come on. Don't make me explain that in great detail. I'm insulted by the question. It's not just love-of-country. There's some personal reasons here. But who wants this? Sadly there are some who do. That's the real depressing thing is that some people are happy with this because of what they think it's going to offer them as an opportunity to coalesce even more power, oriented around fixing it. Some people believe that this is all purposeful. I'm one of 'em. I don't know why anybody would expect anything other than what happened today. There is no evidence out there anywhere that anything other than this jobs number could be true.

So I just want to have it on record, I, El Rushbo, am not surprised, but it does depress me. Now, CNN. It's a close number. The number of people who found jobs, 69,000 is actually larger than the number who watch CNN now. Did you know that? Sixty-nine thousand people found jobs. That's more people than watch CNN. They hit another 20-year low in May. They had a 20-year low in April, had another 20-year low in May. Just yesterday, the end of the month, another 20-year low in ratings. Hasn't been this bad since 1981, and there wasn't any competition in 1981. That was their start-up, pretty close to it. So here's Christine Romans talking to Soledad O'Brien, named after a prison, as Roger Ailes pointed out, talking about the job numbers.

ROMANS: -- so you had -- you know, you do not -- not -- not good. You know, 8.2% unemployment. So the unemployment rate went up, and you had 69,000 jobs created. You lost 13,000 jobs in government, so that means the private sector created 82,000 jobs. It confirms this slowdown that we've seen over the past couple of months. What's worse is April, we thought it was 115,000 jobs; it was really 77,000. So April was worse than expected. And March, 11,000 fewer jobs in March created; only 143,000 there. So you've got three months of less job creation than you thought.

RUSH: Not us. We weren't fooled. We know these numbers get revised down every week. Why don't you? You're the journalist. Here they are reporting this shocking news of the downward revision of the jobs news in March and April. Again, we're not surprised here. They're revised downward every week. Four weeks equals a month. You're gonna get a big number by the time you tabulate the revisions monthly.

Charlie Rose and John Heilemann Wonder Why Republicans Want to Beat Obama, Conclude That It Must be Racism

RUSH: Here is Charlie Rose last night on his PBS show. His guest is New York Magazine National Editor John Heilemann, and they're talking about the presidential race. This is the question that I told you about right before the top of the hour. Basically Charlie Rose says: Why do Republicans want to beat Obama so bad?

ROSE: What is it about the President that seems to make them so passionate to defeat him?

HEILEMANN: There is a part of the Republican Party, the conservative -- far conservative -- aspect of it that have hated the President with a really raw intensity since the day he walked into the office. Certainly the birther thing seems to be, at least to me, partly driven by racial animus. This notion of Obama as a socialist, that he is Chicago school, Saul Alinsky. There's all these associations that a lot of the right have with various kinds of left-wing bogeys. You know, if you look at the way the president's governed -- in my opinion, you know -- he's clearly been left of center.

RUSH: Oh, no, no! Of course not. Not socialist. He's just taking over one-sixth of the economy with government-run health care. No way! How could anybody think the guy's a socialist!

Why do conservatives want to beat Hillary as badly as they want to beat Obama? Is it 'cause she's black? Well, she's not black. Her husband was the first black president, but she was not the first black first lady. No, it's 'cause she's a woman, right? It can't possibly be because of the politics. What kind of question is this? Charlie, would you ever ask Heilemann, "Why do Democrats want to beat George Bush so bad?" The question would never even occur to you.

These guys are still so enamored of Obama. They feel sorry for the guy now. I'm convinced the Drive-Bys feel total sympathy, feel so sorry for the guy. "You know, it's bad enough to be born black in this country, and then to be elected president and have everybody gunning for you. It's so bad, it's like slavery's still out there." Mr. Heilemann, it really isn't complicated. We simply reject the man's ideas. And after 3-1/2 years, our question is: Why don't you? What in the world is it about what's going on that you want more of? And I could ask that of any Drive-By journalist.

I know, I know, all the people on food stamps. I'm not talking about them. It's obvious what they want: More food stamps. Yeah, but somebody has to pay for that, somebody has to produce for that, and that's all being wiped out. Bill Plante, CBS This Morning, during a discussion on the economy with Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose turns to Bill Plante and says, "Let's turn to the Obama campaign. How do they see it? How do they see these job numbers, Bill? Are they confident at the White House?"

PLANTE: I don't think that they're ever gonna say that they can win by four to five points. They think they can win, but they have said all along: It is razor close. And they know that they have to win over a very small percentage of independents. They know that the economy is their enemy and it's Romney's campaign issue. So they have to appeal to their base and get them out.

The Obama White House knows "the economy is their enemy." Now, you can interpret that any number of ways. One way I would interpret it is: Yeah, Obama has been waging war on the economy for 3-1/2 years. You're damn right, it's his enemy. But I don't think that's how Bill Plante means it 'cause I don't think Bill Plante has any concept of Obama's economic policies being destructive. These guys are deluding themselves. They think Obama's still trying to work and get the deficit down. They really do.

Don't laugh at me. They think Obama's working hard to reduce the deficit, even though there hasn't been one shred of entitlement reform proposed; there hasn't been one responsible budget submitted; there hasn't been one piece of legislation aimed at reducing debt. That's what they think he's doing. They think he's working hard and is gonna work even harder to get that debt down in the second term. And he's working to create jobs. They are deluding themselves, 'cause they think that's what all politicians do.

Yea, they try to make the economy better and get reelected. I've never seen a bunch of blinder bats than the current national White House Washington press corps. You could argue what it is that's blinding them, but nevertheless, they are. But this... He says here, "Well, you know, they have to win over a very small percentage of independents." Would somebody explain to me what Obama is doing to appeal to independents? Just one thing. What is it? What's he doing to appeal on independents?

What is it? Is it bankrupting solar and wind energy companies? Is it investing in a nonexistent business? Is it crony capitalism? What is it that Obama's doing that is appealing to the independents? The only war that Obama's winning is the war on the economy. It's probably the only war that he feels strongly about. Obama's not a politician. He's an activist. We have an agenda-oriented activist and a celebrity. He's a celebrity of the United States, and he's an activist. He is not even a politician. Politicians do not simply blow off members of their own party this way, causing other members to blow him off.

RUSH: Washington Post with a story today. And here's the headline: "Job Recovery Is Scant for Americans in Prime Working Years." The guy who writes the story is Peter Whoriskey. "The proportion of Americans in their prime working years who have jobs is smaller than it has been at any time in the 23 years before the recession, according to federal statistics, reflecting the profound and lasting effects that the downturn has had on the nation's economic prospects. By this measure, the jobs situation has improved little in recent years." That's not news to you and me. "The percentage of workers between the ages of 25 and 54 who have jobs now stands at 75.7 percent, just a percentage point over what it was at the downturn's worst, according to federal statistics. Before the recession the proportion hovered at 80 percent.

"During their prime years, Americans are supposed to be building careers and wealth to prepare for their retirement. Instead, as the indicator reveals, huge numbers are on the sidelines." And that is an important point. You don't get the years back. You don't get your prime years back. I remember, ladies and gentlemen, back in my day, before I had reached the age of 40, by the time you started high school, college, it was just a rule of thumb that you wouldn't know until you were 40 whether you'd really made it or not. As a general rule. There are always exceptions. The Ray Krocs, the entrepreneurs, the Zuckerberg types. There are always gonna be exceptions. But if you hadn't made it by 40, you were toast. That's the way it was.

I remember when I was in Sacramento, California, just to illustrate this, and I was buying what I considered my first house. It was actually the second. But the first one was just a dump and a shack. I didn't even want to buy it when I bought it. It was a dumb move but I got talked into it by a bunch of people I shouldn't have listened to, so I don't count that. My first house. I'm at the now closed Mesa's, which is a great restaurant and bar, and I'm talking to the developer of the real estate, "I'm gonna buy a house." And this is 1985, maybe '86. And he said to me, "You know, they don't let you make any money until you're 40." Now, what he meant was that's the way our society is. People under 40 just aren't invested in with huge salaries or compensation because you haven't proved yourself until you're 40. You haven't done enough. It's just the way it was when I was growing up. I don't think it's the case now, but every generation changes. But it was that way for many generations prior to mine, and it was mine.

I'm telling you this because if you blew off the years you were 30 to 35, you couldn't get 'em back. They were wasted and you could not get them back. An athlete, football player, National Football League, you hit 30, nine out of ten players and the team starts looking for your replacement. It's not personal. It's you lose speed skills, hand-eye coordination. Some positions can last a little longer like quarterback, but running back especially, 30, the wheels are gone. And if you have an injury and you miss a season or two, you can't get those years back. Here we have the proportion of Americans in their prime working years who have jobs is smaller than it has been in 23 years. Thank you, Mr. President. It's Obama's America.

During their prime years, Americans are supposed to be building careers and wealth to prepare for their retirement. Instead, huge numbers of people are on the sidelines, and they're not gonna get these years back. How does it manifest itself? Well, "the falloff has been sharpest for men." I can't believe this is in the Washington Post. But it is by a guy named Peter Whoriskey. "The falloff has been sharpest for men, for whom the proportion had been on a slow decline before the recession. The percentage of prime-age men who are working is smaller now than it has been in any time before the recession, going all the way back to 1948." Can I tell you that again?

"The percentage of prime-age men who are working is smaller now than it has been in any time before the recession, going all the way back to 1948." This is according to federal statistics. "The proportion of prime-age women is at a low not seen since 1988." Now, what happens when these people hit retirement age? They're not gonna have contributed much of anything because they'll not have worked in key earning years where their earning potential is at its highest. I'm not trying to be a downer. I live in Realville, and I'm hell-bent here on people understanding exactly who Barack Obama is.

I don't think this guy ought to get 10% of the vote if there were an election today. It is an utter disaster, what's happened, and what is happening.

Conservative Review
Issue #229	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	June 3, 2012