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).

Team Mitt creates a bogus Bill Clinton Twitter account, and uses it to taunt Obama. Unfortunately, the account has been suspended.

The ACLU sues Florida to stop them from purging ineligible voters from rolls. They claim too many legitimate voters are being removed. Attorney General Eric Holder is also making legal attempts to shut down state voter ID laws. However, if you want a signed copy of Michelle Obama’s book, you had better show up with a passport or a legitimate photo ID.

President Barack Obama is previewing his next strategy in the 2012 campaign - an audacious effort to paint former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and the majority GOP as radical libertarians that have abandoned mainstream American politics. My guess is that this strategy will be employed for about 10 minutes.

Almost two dozen liberal Democrats endorsed legislation this week to raise the federal minimum wage immediately from $7.25 to $10 per hour, the first such increase in three years.

George Soros has given more than $400 million to colleges and universities, including money to most prominent institutions in the United States. He also helped establish Central European University (CEU) which, in turn, uses its resources to promote his personal goal of an "open society."

Even Jon Stewart turned against Mayor Bloomberg’s big soda ban, but first lady Michelle Obama "applauds" his controversial ban.

Media mogul Ted Turner thinks that the world is vastly over-populated (our 7 billion person population should be around 2 billion, according to Turner); and he recommends a one-child policy similar to that in China, imposed for the next 100 years.

Planned Parenthood is moving onto a high school campus in Los Angeles. The teen pregnancy rate is actually going down at the school.

The Obama Administration has given a former director at the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) nearly half a billion dollars to offer "struggling" Illinois homeowners mortgage assistance.

Even though the President “shut down” the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, it is in the process of getting quite a makeover, so that it will remain operational for years to come. This will include a $750,000 soccer field. However, what does not appear to be a part of this makeover is the teaching of Christianity to the prisoners there.

Obama has responded forcefully to a mounting controversy over two blockbuster stories in the New York Times, both of which divulged highly sensitive details about his national security policies. One story focused on Obama's so-called "kill list." Another looked at his ordering of cyberattacks against Iran. Both stories, along with one from a few weeks ago, portray the president as a strong anti-terrorist leader. Two attorneys have been appointed to investigate these leaks, one a U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the other a U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

People are calling in fake crime observances which call for a SWAT team. So far, several conservative bloggers have fallen prey to these hoax SWAT calls, including Erick Erickson, RedState founder and CNN contributor.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker wins his recall election by a greater percent than he won the first election in 2010. For some reason, the seance Democrats performed on the Wisconsin capitol building the night before did not work.

The House Ethics Committee announced on Wednesday that Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-Calif.) rights were not violated in its investigation of her and its case will proceed.

The FHA is selling both homes and mortgages on the open market to bring in private monies and to get these losses off the books of the U.S. government. I have been suggesting both of these solutions for over a year now.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell breaks the news that Mitt Romney may have owned and worn a police uniform while in college.

Dozens of members of Occupy Providence demonstrated Saturday afternoon outside the Rhode Island Convention Center, site of Netroots Nation, a three-day gathering of progressive activists, bloggers and politicians that has drawn more than 1,000 from around the country. WZ comments: Isn't this like Greenpeace protesting the Sierra Club?

Ultra-wealthy Obama supporter Whitney Tilson posted a 13.6% percent loss in May. However, one of the few "winners" in Tilson's portfolio was his short position in First Solar, a company on the brink of collapse despite receiving more than $3 billion in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.

For the fifth time this year, as reported by White House transcripts, President Barack Obama has given a speech in which he mentions "my sons" - despite the fact that he is the father of two girls and no boys.

Sgt. Joel Morgan, 29, a Massachusetts veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has filed a civil rights lawsuit against 63-year-old Janice Roberts, an anti-war activist who declined to rent him an apartment.

For the second time, controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright has said the people closed to Obama bribed him to keep him quiet during the 2008 campaign.

BrightSource Energy, which received the largest federal loan for a solar energy project under President Obama's stimulus package, recently hired Bernie Toon, former chief of staff for then-Senator Joe Biden, to lobby on the company’s behalf for more money.

Attorney General Eric Holder claimed during congressional testimony that internal Justice Department emails that use the phrase "Fast and Furious" do not refer to the controversial gun-walking operation Fast and Furious.

Obama’s chief campaign officer, David Axelrod, has been in contact with Eric Holder, ostensibly to determine the best way to answer these Fast and Furious questions. This is quite unusual for the political arm of the White House to try to get the Attorney General to craft the “correct answers” for the public.

Eight Muslims filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in New Jersey to force the New York Police Department to end its surveillance and other intelligence-gathering practices targeting Muslims in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

A military judge delayed a pretrial hearing Friday after Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, appeared in a military courtroom sporting a full beard that his attorneys said he grew for religious reasons.

Shops in Indonesia's Aceh province, where Islamic law is in force, will soon be banned from selling tight-fitting clothes. Indonesians are known as the moderate Muslims.

Egypt has ceased the production of a film for allegedly promoting the normalization of relations with Israel.

An exodus of Christians is taking place in Western Syria: the Christian population has fled the city of Qusayr, near Homs, following an ultimatum issued by the military chief of the armed opposition, Abdel Salam Harba.

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at an evangelical church in northern Nigeria.

The United States has cancelled funding for a $20 million project that brought Sesame Street to Pakistan after allegations that funds were being misused by a Pakistani puppet theater.

President Obama, delivered as a humor at an LGBT fundraiser: “I want to thank my wonderful friend who accepts a little bit of teasing about Michelle beating her in pushups -- (laughter) -- but I think she claims Michelle didn't go all the way down. (Laughter.) That's what I heard. I just want to set the record straight -- Michelle outdoes me in pushups as well. (Laughter.) So she shouldn't feel bad.”

Liberal talk show host Bill Press: "It is a major crusade of mine and that is to get rid of the Star-Spangled Banner. Now I know you're going to say I am not a true American I'm not patriotic. I don't think patriotism has anything to do with it. The National Anthem is just absolutely monumentally un-singable. I mean there's so much wrong with it. I don't know where to start. It's an abomination. First it ranges two octaves most people can only do kind of one octave. I mean when you think about it, it's bombs bursting in air rocket's red glare it all kinds of, you know a lot of national anthems are that way, all kinds of military jargon and the land there's only one phrase `the land of the free' which is kind of nice and `the home of the brave?' I don't know," he said. "Are we [Americans] the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean all the brave people live here. I mean it's just stupid I think. I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed every time I hear it."

Former Obama environmental adviser Van Jones: "He [Obama] stands up for Trayvon; he stands up for gay marriage; we like him, but we're not in love with him. We went from having a crush to feeling crushed."

Bill Clinton: "This is not the 1950s! At least Joe McCarthy could skate on the premise that there were still one or two living communists walking around. Nobody's seen a communist in over a decade!"

Bob Peterson, Wisconsin Teachers Union president: “I tell my teacher-members...to act as if we live in a democracy...because if we act in that we, we can make it into a democracy.”

Press secretary Jay Carney: "I know the president is aware of the election. I think he's got some other responsibilities. I know that he's not following it minute by minute. . . You know that he tweeted about it earlier. He stands with the Democratic candidate, Mayor Barrett, in this race."

When MSNBC host Ed Schultz realized that Walker had won the election: “This is not going to be an easy night for many broadcasters who are liberal. This is not going to be an easy night for this broadcaster. To say that I'm shocked and stunned is pretty much an understatement.”

Ed Schultz had to keep talking: "In many respects it's to be expected, considering how much money was thrown at this race. You know, NBC is calling it for Walker. Okay, I think it's awful close and there's a lot of absentee ballots yet that are still out and it's going to be very, very close down to the wire. Certainly it is not the end and it's going to be an opportunity for the progressive movement to regroup nationally and understand exactly what they are up against...Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days." For...?

Former DNC chairman Gov. Howard Dean: "I think the sad story of the night was the money because this is the beginning of the undermining of American democracy, and this is what you see tonight when you see a guy outspend somebody seven to one with money that nobody knows where it came from."

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “How does he [Scott Walker] take a mandate from this? He just squeaks by.” O’Donnell made this observation when, below him on the screen, the vote tally was 59–40 for Walker.

O’Donnell also said (with many others): “President Obama is the big winner today.” This was based upon an exit poll which indicated that Obama would win over Mitt Romney in Wisconsin (the same poll showed the governor’s race as a dead heat).

A top Wisconsin Democratic Party official: "We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association. Scott Walker has the full support and backing of the Republican Party and all its tentacles. We are not getting similar support."

Disheartened Wisconsin liberal, to CNN: “Everyone in America, if you’re watching, democracy died tonight...we all had a lot invested in this; this was it; if we didn’t win tonight, the end of the USA as we know it just happened.”

Michael Dickman, folksinger and supporter of Scott Walker’s democratic foe, after Walker won the election: “We couldn’t lose last night; we didn’t lose. We did not lose. Now we go to the next chapter...this isn’t over.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: "I certainly wouldn't read much into yesterday's result beyond its effect on who's occupying the governor's seat in Wisconsin."

Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson: “Of course, as historian Fred Siegel, a leading opponent of public-sector unions, remarked to me many years ago (when he was still on the left), before unions, the common form of protest for workers seeking a better life was rioting. That may eventually prove to be the common form of protest after unions, too.”

President Obama, Friday, early afternoon, when asked if he was blaming Europe for the failure of his own economic policies: “The truth of the matter is, as I’ve said, we’ve created 4.3 million jobs the last 27 months...The private sector is doing fine.”

President Obama, Friday, later in the afternoon: "It is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine, that's why I had a press conference.”

President Obama: "Folks out there are still anxious, they're still scared about the future. And so what the other side is counting on is fear and frustration, that in and of itself is going to be enough because they sure aren't offering any new ideas. All they're offering is the same old ideas that didn't work then, and won't work now."

President Obama: "The big challenge we have in our economy right now is state and local government hiring has been going in the wrong direction." I.e., state and local governments need to hire more people.

President Obama: "People ask me sometimes, well, how does this campaign compare to 2008? I say, `If somebody asks you, you tell them it's still about hope and change.' And if you want to know what change is, change is the first bill that I signed into law that said - the Lilly Ledbetter law that says an equal day's work deserves an equal day's pay, and that our daughters should be treated the same way as our sons." As an aside, the Lilly Ledbetter law would result in fewer women being hired and thousands of lawsuits filed (as did the Americans with Disabilities Act).

Attorney General Eric Holder in his fight to overturn state voter-I.D. laws: "It is the position of this Department of Justice and certainly this Attorney General that we will vigorously defend and vigorously use Section 5 [Jim Crow laws]. The need for it is still there."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: “[many Americans oppose Obamacare is because] the understanding of it has been jeopardized by misrepresentations."

Nancy Pelosi: “[The Affordable Care Act is] about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the American people."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: "I do my religion on Sundays, in church, and I try to go other days of the week; I don't do it at this press conference."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: "Here's the thing: the American Affordable Care Act stands there with Social Security, Medicare, health care for all Americans as a right, not a privilege."

Alan Grayson: “The Bush tax cuts were enacted 11 years ago ...and in those 11 years, the private employment has increased by zero; zero; not a single job has been created by the private sector since the Bush tax cuts went into effect.”

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate under fire recently for claiming to be Native American, complaining that the academic world lacked diversity in the workplace: "Let me put it politely: there was never a line in the ladies' room."

Justin Gillis, the New York Times' s alarmist environmental reporter: “The earth could be nearing a point at which sweeping environmental changes, possibly including mass extinctions, would undermine human welfare, 22 prominent biologists and ecologists warned on Wednesday.”

Campaigner-in-chief Barack Obama: "And because they [the Republicans] don't have any new ideas, what they will do is spend 500, 700, a billion dollars in negative ads and their simple message will be: This is someone else's fault and that's enough reason for you to vote for us."

Obama advisor David Axelrod to Univision: “{putting Marco Rubio on the ticket as Vice President would be] an insult to the Hispanic community ... if Gov. [Mitt] Romney thinks that's sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the things and the positions that he's taken."

The Vice President’s wife Jill Biden: "I think Joe would be a great president. I supported him twice. In 1987, I was out there campaigning. The last election I was out there campaigning. Of course, Barack must have thought he would be a good president, too, or he wouldn't have chosen him as vice president." There’s two votes.

Sen. Barbara Boxer said the Paycheck Fairness Act would be implemented through the court system if passed: "You have to obey the law and you cannot discriminate against a woman, if this were to be the law. You cannot fire her and if you fire her then you're going to get sanctions by a fair court and a fair jury."

Michelle Obama to a group which included kids: "I could go on and on and on [about President Obama], but we've got four little people who need to get outside and play I see right here. They need some ice cream or something."

CNN’s Candy Crowley: "Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff."

Newsman Wolf Blitzer to Romney spokesman: “Mitt Romney and other top Republicans have not condemned Congressman Allen West for saying flatly that there are 78 to 81 members of the communist party among the House Democrats.”

Wolfe Blitzer, not liking that the Romney spokesman started talking about the economy instead: “Bill Clinton said that what Allen West is saying about these Democrats that they’re communists —these ar echos of Joe McCarthy from the 50's and he would hope that Mitt Romney would flatly condemn these comments. Do you think that the Republican presidential nominee is ready to do so?”

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz: “President Obama brought this up years ago on the campaign trail when he said folks in rural areas cling to their guns and their religion. And he was criticized for it.”

NY Times opinion piece headline: “Reagan Was a Keynesian” Paul Krugman wrote this article, which included the statement: “Reagan, not Obama, was the big spender.” Isn’t that weird how the left just hated Reagan, but now, all of a sudden, he is a hero, from time to time, to those on the left? And Obama is just like Reagan, except he doesn’t spend as much money. In truth, Keynesian types hated Reagan in his day. Krugman also believe the Stimulus bill was too small.

Mike Lupica, of the NY Daily News: “There will be so many things to talk about with Obama vs. Romney from here to November, but the one that nobody will want to talk about very much in polite society, even in what has a chance to be the meanest presidential campaign for all times, is race. It works against the President this time, in a big way...And please don't believe a single poll on this issue. If there is one great truth about polling in this country, at least when it comes to race, is that people lie through their teeth. Mostly because they don't want to look like some lousy, scummy bigot - even talking to an anonymous voice on the telephone....Race won't be the only issue, not in a world of these gas prices, not in an America with this kind of unemployment. But you better believe it will be a huge issue....But race wins that one every time, first-round knockout, just because race is always the main event in America, no matter how enlightened we like to think we are.” Nope, it can’t be that Obama has, because of his inexperience and rigid ideology has done a lousy job. It’s about race. That’s the story. If Obama loses, it is because there are too many racists in the United States.

Washington Post headline when Governor Scott Walker wins recall election by 7 points: “Wis. governor Walker survives recall election.”

Washington Post headline when President Obama wins election by 7 points: “Obama Makes History; U.S. Decisively Elects First Black President.”

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, introducing Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "TARP, the stimulus, health reform, Wall Street reform, student loan reform, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the new GI bill, the number of major pieces of legislation that you not only saw passed in the House - but we can also include cap-and-trade, we can include the DREAM Act there - but beyond those, the ones that also became law is, and I don't just mean to flatter you, but is [the] kind of list of legislation we associate with people whom we name large buildings after in Washington."

Comedian Bill Maher, being serious: "How could it get much worse [in the United States]? I mean, right now we're fifth in the world, fifth worst in income inequality." We’re actually 43^rd.

Bill Maher tweet: “Obama's joke about Michele not going down all the way - hey, who's the pottymouth here? Barry, take my million, but not my act!!”

Comedian Chris Rock, when asked what animal would he want to be: "I'll take the zebra, you

know, in honor of our zebra president, you know, black and white, white and black. I love our president, but he's, you know, he's black and white, he appeals to all and that`s what I'm going for..we ignore the president's whiteness, but it's there, it's there."

Comedian Martin Short: “Rick Santorum is a crazy Catholic, don’t you think? Even Mel Gibson’s father thinks he’s nuts.”

Senate leader Harry Reid in 2010: "It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine."

Candidate Obama, in 2007: “And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.” Or send out a tweet of support the night before. One or the other.

Minutes of New Party's Chicago chapter meeting January 11, 1996: “Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party "Candidate Contract" and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.” The New Party is a far-left, even socialistic party. The President’s campaign strongly denied his being a member.

A ranking administration official of Newark mayor Cory Booker: "He's dead to us." Cory accidentally said that equity funds were not evil.

Gilbert Johnson, the president of AFSCME Local 82: "You never see this at a tea bag, man. What you have is a bunch of haters, people that tell lies, people that want to go back to the '50s. White man rule. White man only. Here in the state of Wisconsin we have people that lie. They want money and they care only about themselves. You know the statistic came out that the minority population would soon be exceeding the white population and all of the sudden we start having fear. And they started, `Let's get guns!'"

Scott Walker won his recall election and immediately, hundreds of twitters calling for his death were posted. Language warning.

Bill Maher tweet: “Is it treason to purposefully block any help for the economy so voters blame the president and turn to the other party? Just asking.”

The wife of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri: "I congratulate all Muslim women for these blessed revolutions. I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihad and martyrdom and to instil in them a love for religion and death."

Comedian Jon Stewart: “Mayor Bloomberg's large soda ban would combine the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect.”

Vice President Joe Biden: "I know, literally, Barack and I talk about it. Neither one of us would have had any shot [without government help]. The same with our wives. Both wives are smarter than both of us. Literally, these very accomplished women would not have any chance without some help."

President Obama on Republicans using the economy in order to win the election: "It's very easy to put on a bumper sticker: `It's Obama's fault.'" Whoops.

Rep. Barney Frank: "I think the people on the Democratic side made a big mistake and the funding thing was a big deal. My side picked a fight they shouldn't have picked. The recall was upsetting to people, the rerun of the election with [Democratic Milwaukee Mayor] Tom Barrett - it's not a fight I would have picked." I must admit to being shocked when I agree with anyone like Barney Frank; but, as I said months ago, the liberals declaring war on Scott Walker when he began to institute reforms was a mistake. Conservative and liberal governors come and go. You just wait until it is your time around, and undo what he did in the first place. However, their massive offensive against Scott Walker made this issue come to the forefront when even San Diego and San Jose voted to reduce the public pensions that are destroying those cities. Had this issue not been made so public, I am convinced that a lot of people would have remained ignorant of it.

Gov. Jerry Brown of California: “[the vote in San Jose sent] "a very powerful signal that pension reform is imperative."

Ed Rendell, complaining that Obama simply let the Congress craft his major bills: “Hilary Clinton would have said, ‘Here’s my bill; here’s what I want.’”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “He's got to be aggressive. He's got to be big time. Stop this nickel and dime, a couple of bucks for the teachers, a couple of bucks for the firefighters. ‘I'm going to reduce the payroll tax.’ This is pissant. You can't get reelected with tactics.”

Ann Marie Habershaw, chief operating officer for the campaign, in a fundraising email: "We are not guaranteed to win this election. If there's anyone still out there acting like we have this thing in the bag, do me a favor and tell them they're dead wrong."

CNN’s Howard Kurtz: “I would just make the closing point that I think the reason that Romney is getting so much scrutiny right now is because the press belatedly, in my view, has finally come around to the view that he may win this election.”

Callers to Junior Alexander Guy’s phone, who ended up with George Zimmerman’s old phone number: "You murderer!" "You deserve to die!" He estimated about 70 threatening calls.

Geoffrey Dickens: “In the media's coverage of the Wall Street occupiers and Tea Partiers, a clear tale of two different protests is seen. One that grew out of concern for out-of-control government spending was initially ignored and treated to catcalls of racism and thuggery by ABC, CBS and NBC. The other, a leftist movement screaming for an even more expansive government, that actually resulted in hundreds of arrests, was greeted by the Big Three networks with a tidal wave of coverage full of friendly talking heads.”

Liberal woman in Wisconsin to CNN bus (Thistle Peterson): “Why are you leaving?”

Rep. Darrell Issa: “Well, let me - let me run you through some questions here because you're here because we're having a green jobs counting discussion. Does someone who assembles turbines - is that a green job?”

Rep. Issa: “Does someone who sweeps - does someone who sweeps the floor in a facility that makes solar panels, is that a green job?”

Rep. Issa: “We already had the briefing on that. So just answer the question. If you're sweeping the floor in a solar panel production facility, is that a green job?”

Mr. Galvin: “If you ask me for the number of health care jobs in the United States, I'll give you the employment from the health care industry.”

Rep. Issa: “You did not want to come here as a witness. You are not a delighted witness. So let's go through this. I asked you a question. You know the answer. Would you please answer it. If you sweep the floor in a solar panel facility, is that a green job?”

Rep. Issa: “Thank you. If you drive a hybrid bus -public transportation - is that a green job?”

Rep. Issa: “Thank you. What if you're a college professor teaching classes about environmental studies?”

Rep. Issa: “The answer is yes, according to your definition. And you've got a lot of them. What about “a clerk at the bicycle repair shop?”

Rep. Issa: “The answer is yes. Those are - those are recycled goods. They're antiques; they're used.” What about someone who works at the Salvation Army in their clothing recycling and furniture?”

Rep. Issa: “OK. What about somebody who opened a store to sell rare manuscripts?”

Rep. Issa: “People sell rare books and manuscripts - but they're rare because they're old so they're used.”

Rep. Issa: “Does the teenage kid who works full time at a used record shop count?”

Rep. Issa: “How about somebody who manufacturers railroads rolling stock - basically, train cars?”

Rep. Issa: “48.8% of jobs in manufacturing, rail cars counted, according to your statistics. About half of the jobs that are being used to build trains. Ok. how about - just one more here. What about people who work in a trash disposal yard? Do garbage men have green jobs?”

Rep. Issa: “OK. I apologize. The real last last is, how about an oil lobbyist? Wouldn't an oil lobbyist count as having a green job if they are engaged in advocacy related to environmental issues?”

Ben Stein on the definition of a green job: “George Orwell said in 1984 that government would seize control; that government would...change the definitions to mean anything they wanted. ‘War is peace, freedom is slavery.’ That is what the government is doing now; they’re using definitions to try to control the thought processes of America. These definitions are meaningless. It’s extremely frightening to see such dishonesty even in politics. To see this level of dishonesty is extremely discouraging.”

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: "If I were to go to the federal courthouse here in D.C., either as a party or as an attorney, wouldn't I have to show a government-issued photo ID?"

Lungen: "Some federal courts-are you aware that's required in some federal courts in this land?"

Lungen: "Is your Justice Department investigating the discriminatory effect of those laws?" Lungren asked this after citing other places where one is told to show ID, like the airport and even when visiting the Justice Department itself.

Attorney General Holder is suing states over their voter ID laws, calling the practice of showing a photo ID to vote discriminatory.

Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn: "If you look at this, I think, particularly, southern, white, older men, they're probably out of reach...[Obama should pursue the] suburban better-educated men who can appreciate a president like President Obama."

Chris Matthews: "So you go after the more sensitive males, the less macho males, is that what you're saying?"

CNSNews.com: "What about the 43 Catholic institutions [that] have now sued the administration over the regulation that requires them to provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacients in their health care plans? They say that violates their religious freedom. Do you support the Catholic Church in their lawsuits against the administration?"

Nancy Pelosi: "Well, I don't think that's the entire Catholic Church. Those people have a right to sue, but I don't think they're speaking ex cathedra for the Catholic Church.” "Ex cathedra" refers to the infallible authority that Catholics believe the pope exerts when he makes a formal and solemn declaration on matters of faith and morals. It is not a term to describe lawsuits the church files in civilian courts.

Senator John McCain on the security leaks: "Such disclosures can only undermine similar ongoing or future operations and, in this sense, compromise national security. For this reason, regardless of how politically useful these leaks may be to the president, they have to stop."

White House spokesman Jay Carney:”[the White House] takes all appropriate and necessary steps to prevent leaks [of classified or sensitive information that could risk ongoing operations]. Any suggestion that this administration has authorized intentional leaks of classified information for political gain is grossly irresponsible."

McCain: "No, what is grossly irresponsible is US officials divulging some of the most highly classified programs involving the most important national security priorities facing our nation today."

Sen. Lindsey Graham: "I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what is going on here. You've had three leaks of intelligence that paint the president as a strong leader. I don't think it's an accident that you have three stories within about 45 days that paint the Obama administration as being effective in the war on terror at our national security detriment."

Robert Gates, the former defense secretary, reportedly blasted the national security team in the Obama White House for blabbing about the raid to kill Osama bin Laden: "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend.”

Judge Marilu Henner to Miss Ohio: "Do you think women are depicted in movies and on television in an accurate and positive way? And please give us an example," asked her.

Audrey Bolte, Miss Ohio: "I think there are some movies that depict women in a very positive role, and then some movies that put them in a little bit more of negative role," she said. "But by the end of the movie, they show that woman power that I know we all have. Such as movie Pretty Woman. We had a wonderful, beautiful woman, Julia Roberts, and she was having a rough time, but, you know what, she came out on top and she didn't let anybody stand in her path."

Bill O’Reilly: “The phrase ‘come out on top’ may have been an unfortunate choice of words.” [quoted from memory]

NBC’s chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman: “Well, you might learn that a child has a severe genetic problem. It gives parents a chance to decide whether they're going to continue that pregnancy or not. This is the science of today. It is running fast into the future. And I think the future will be such that you'll find out that your child may have a genetic hit. You can fix that genetic problem, and improve your chance, a child's chance of having a healthier-“

Savannah Guthrie: “Do you think it raises ethical issues? I mean a what point, if you have information that your child is going to have a genetic problem, and then you're posed with the question of whether to go forward with the pregnancy?”

Snyderman: “Well, I'm pro-science, so I believe that this is a great way to prevent diseases.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Diane Feinstein: "This has to stop. When people say they don't want to work with the United States because they can't trust us to keep a secret, that's serious."

President Obama: "The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It's wrong. People I think need to have a better sense of how I approach this office and how the people around me approach this office."

WZ: “Total bull___, all the leaks have come from his White House (that's a fact) and all portray Obama as being strong on national security.”

Bill Maher, after a clip of Sean Hannity and Herman Cain discussing Obama destroying capitalism: "This is where the Republican Party is. And, you know what? Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are higher than ever. How can he be destroying capitalism? They're eleven percent. This is the highest since World War II."

Dambisa Moyo, an African-born international economist: "But there's two ways to make profit, right? The problem's that there's two ways to make profit. Profit equals revenue minus costs. You can either reduce costs or raise revenues. And in this case, the reason why everybody is up in a tiz correctly is that companies have been cutting costs quite aggressively, amongst them labor costs, and amongst them higher unemployment. And that's why I think there's a schism between that kind of discourse between the Republicans."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC chair: “We came up short, but at the same - of the ultimate goal, which was to make sure that Governor Walker couldn't adopt his extremist policies and continue to hurt middle class and working families...And so we're going to be able to stop Governor Walker from being able to really continue to pursue those extremist policies. So ultimately we were at least in part successful [as the Senate is now controled by the Democrats].”

Piers Morgan: “You keep calling him this great extremist who everyone apparently, is terrified of and everything else, but the reality is he won. And he won pretty convincingly. So the only people laying down, it would seem to everybody else, are the Democrats on this. So how are you claiming some kind of weird victory out of all this?”

Conservative columnist George Will: "That's modern liberalism: They delight in bossing people around. What Bloomberg is saying [is] the government helps with your health care, the government's implicated in your health. Therefore, we own you. Therefore, the government can fine tune all the decisions you make pertinent to your health. This is one of the reasons liberals are so enamored over the issue of climate change. They say all our behaviors in some way effect the climate, therefore, the government -- meaning, we liberals, the party of government -- can fine tune all your behavior right down to the light bulbs you use."

Scott Walker, first line in his victory speech: “First of all, I want to thank God for His abundant grace.”

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney: "Sadly, it has become clear that this president simply doesn't understand or appreciate these fundamental truths of our system. Over the last three and a half years, record numbers of Americans have lost their jobs or just disappeared from the workforce or can only find part time jobs. This is not just a failure of policy; it is a moral failure of tragic proportions.

Paula Priesse: “La La Land comes to DC! Days after saying federal spending has ‘risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years,’ President Obama outdoes himself yesterday with his "private sector is doing fine" statement. Speaking of fantasy, O's been the ‘star’ at a mind-blowing 28 celebrity fundraisers in just this past year. Narcissism on steroids! Makes sense though, actors (like O) still believe a "special talent" is required to mouth words written by others. Here's a message for all these self-absorbed twits who feel gay marriage is more important than trillion dollar deficits. ‘Barack the Movie’ opened to rave reviews in 2009. It's been tanking ever since, and each passing day lessens the chance for a sequel!”

Kevin Madden, Senior adviser to Governor Romney of Obama: “He's always mastered the pageantry of bipartisanship, the pageantry of centrism...but he’s never executed it.”

Jodi Miller: “More bad news for the economy; in May, unemployment rate actually increased to 8.2%. But the White House is not giving up on the spin. They’re now referring to jobs saved or imagined.”

Jodi Miller: “African American Democratic congressman Artur Davis is switching parties to become a Republican. Or, as the network news reported—oh, wait, they didn’t.”

Jodi Miller: “MoveOn.org says they may have to pull the plug on their campaign to reelect Obama if their donors don’t give them more money. So, wait, they need money to reelect the guy who made the economy so bad that they’re not getting any money? Huh?”

Jodi Miller: “A Miami man known as the zombi killer was shot and killed after eating another man’s face. Democrats are called the shooting part of the Republican war on zombis.”

Economist Gary B. Smith: “If the government created companies like Apple, I’d say we need more government spending.”

Mitt Romney, on the president saying that the private sector is doing fine: "It's an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a president who is out of touch, and we're going to take back this country and get America working again.”

Mitt Romney: "The president is delaying the sale of the shares [of GM stock] to try and avoid the story that the taxpayer took another loss. I would get the company independent from government and run for the interests of the consumer and the enterprise and its workers - not for the political considerations of government officials."

Mitt Romney, when asked who should host the CMT awards, Toby Keith or Kristen Bell: "I think I have a solution. I propose that Toby and Kristen co-host the show. See, I just put two people back to work. You're welcome, America."

Republican House Speaker John Boehner on a story with several mistakes on the Congressional investigation of Operation Fast & Furious: “This story shows how the mainstream media is ignoring this scandal and covering up for the Department of Justice. Staff for the Speaker, other leadership offices, and Chairman Issa have been encouraging Attorney General Holder's staff to comply for weeks or months to no avail, but there have certainly been no direct talks between the Speaker and Attorney General, and the department is still stonewalling."

Nothing but high marks for Team Mitt - and if he keeps this up, I might have to apologize for all those awful things I said about him.

I think the bigger story here is Bill Ayers actually celebrates the Fourth of July.

Rush Limbaugh: "Whatever happened to this notion in America, if you want it, you buy it. If you want it, you pay for it. Whatever happened to that? Why is that considered so out of touch?"

Rush Limbaugh: "Why should anybody think that Obama will fight for them when he doesn't even fight for his number one supporters?"

Rush Limbaugh: "The left don't care about fiscal responsibility or sanity. They don't care about balanced budgets. They don't care about any of that. It's why there's no compromise with them."

Rush Limbaugh: "The biggest net takers are municipal unions and the biggest net payers are property owners."

Rush Limbaugh: "When I read liberal journalists talk about how Obama is obviously struggling with policies to reduce America's indebtedness, I laugh. Do they think he cares? Where's the evidence that he cares about reducing the deficit, or the national debt? He doesn't care."

Rush Limbaugh: "You have to admit the New York Times is consistent. They always publish national security secrets if they will hurt a Republican president, or if they will help a Democrat president."

Rush Limbaugh: "I don't think there's anything forward about Obama or progressive. I think Obama's locked in the thirties. I think that's his nirvana."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama is blaming the weakness in our economy on budget cuts made by state and local governments."

Rush Limbaugh: "I'm telling you that a significant number of the people that voted for Obama were not supporters. They had other reasons that were surface, shallow, specious, and those people aren't going to vote for him again."

Rush Limbaugh: "This Fast and Furious is about more than just walking guns across the border to drug cartels and having them used as a means of ginning up opposition to the Second Amendment."

Rush Limbaugh: "They are really irritated that I'm calling him Barack Hussein Kardashian. And I got to thinking, you actually could say it's an insult to the Kardashians, because they have started businesses. They have employed people. Obama's not done some of the things the Kardashians have done. Now, they both star in reality TV shows, Obama as celebrity of the United States."

Rush Limbaugh: "Romney is accusing Obama of purposely slowing down the economy so as to worsen people's economic circumstance so that they would demand health care since they were losing it because they're getting fired. That's what he's saying. And that is a bold criticism. That is something that we would say and have said. But to hear a Republican presidential candidate say it, is kind of cool."

Rush Limbaugh: “My buddy Andy McCarthy...says Obama's profiling Muslim men. This is profiling Muslim men. Obama has simply granted to himself here folks the right to wipe out all Al Qaeda Muslim men. If they're military age 18 or over - if they're male and they're 18 and they're Muslim - he can wipe them out.”

Rush Limbaugh: "A public employee union member gets a job, works for 23 years, retires, and gets 90% of salary as the pension and full health care until they die. And people who are out of work or don't make very much money are paying the taxes that fund all that."

Thomas Reed: “One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.”

The CNN bus pulls out of Wisconsin; two liberals are saddened by this event. This is both sad and funny.

Here is a compendium of MSNBC broadcasts on the Scott Walker recall election. Less than 4 minutes will tell you all you need to know about MSNBC’s election coverage.

The Washington Free Beacon reduces Obama’s answer to the security leaks to only his “uh’s”

This is fascinating. There are 2 non-white staffers at Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago, out of a staff of about 100. However, they show up so prominently in a video about this Chicago group that you would think it is normally integrated.

It’s an advertisement for Jonah Goldberg’s new book, but it’s pretty funny. Obscenity warning.

NBC reporter tells us in one way the Saudi Arabia has it all over the United States when it comes to women’s rights.

Jon Stewart actually give the president a little grief with “Polish that ___”; about this week’s job report.

Comedian Don Rickles: "I shouldn't make fun of the blacks. President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke."

Jobs numbers are way down; only 69,000 jobs created in May and unemployment creeps up to 8.2%. Recall that the break-even point is around 150,000–250,000 jobs (depending upon how many people simply stop looking for work that month).

Every Friday, Joe Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president's residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and then hops on Air Force Two to fly back to his home in Delaware. At the end of the weekend, he returns on Air Force Two, usually a Boeing C-32. During warm weather, Biden regularly returns to Andrews on the airplane on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the golf game, he flies back to Delaware and returns to Washington on the plane on Sunday evening - all at taxpayer expense. The cost of these outings is about $1,000,000/year.

Obama attends his 153^rd fundraiser; Bush only did 79 at this same point in his presidency.

Here is one way the government has been hiding one of the unrecovered expenditures in GM. The government paid $49.5 billion for 26% of the shares of GM. That is now worth $16 billion less. One of the other ways was, the government came in and made the bondholders stake worth nothing, simply by government fiat. Bondholders get the lowest interest return in exchange for being the first ones paid. Obama didn’t like that idea.

Planned Parenthood will be spending $1.4 million on pro-Obama ads. Obamacare would potentially given the abortion industry $1 billion yearly.

Nearly 90% of the Americans who gave $200 to Obama's 2008 campaign haven't re-upped this year. Some did not give to his campaign because he was not as much of a socialist as they expected him to be.

A network exit poll for the special election showed that Walker won the votes of 38% of voters who said they were a union member or lived in a household with a union member.

Among Michigan voters, Romney is leading Obama 46%-45% (a statistical dead heat). Recall that Obama “saved” Detroit.

21% would keep most of the law, but invalidate the mandate for Americans to buy health insurance.

Americans Oppose Bloomberg's Big Gulp Ban By Huge 64% To 36% Margin. WZ: It's almost like Americans don't like the idea of a nanny state.

51% of Americans continue to believe that the government is more of a threat to individual rights than a protector of them.

34% of adults in this country regard the federal government more as a protector of individual rights.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans believe that states have the right to secede, according to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports - up 10 percentage points in two years.

This poll obviously will change with every vote, but bear in mind, CBS is not where most conservatives go to get their news.

A month ago, the Washington Post published a 5,400 word front page hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's high school years which included a now infamous hair-cutting incident. This past Sunday, the Post devoted 5,500 words, beginning on the front page of the sports section, to an excerpt of David Maraniss's new book with the headline "President Obama's Love for Basketball Can be Traced Back to His High School Team"

Last month 43 Catholic institutions across America joined together to defend the First Amendment and filed a total of twelve lawsuits against the Administration in order to protect the right to freedom of religion on behalf of all Americans. This is the most significant religious lawsuit in U.S. history and Christian leaders all across America have joined in support of the Catholic institutions. This lawsuit is not a single action by a few "out of touch religious leaders," as the liberal national media would like to portray it. Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of this event, the media has largely ignored it. Bias by omission has been a repetitive theme among the liberal national media and this obvious showing of bias is almost as scary as the Obama administration's battle against religious freedom.

The media cheers Obama’s pro-gay marriage stance, and speaks of him and the fundraisers in Hollywood in glowing terms.

National "Public" Radio has barely touched on the 43 Catholic organizations that filed lawsuits against the Obama administration, but it continues to be a noisy sounding board for leftist nuns and their supporters. This week, NPR offered more than 14 minutes of air time to the left-wing forces. 10 minute was given over to nun who bashed Paul Ryan and his budget. Then 4.5 minutes was given to a priest who spoke against the Vatican making top down decisions (and yet, I can guarantee you that he wants a government to function in that way).

Current TV host Bill Press said of Michelle Malkin: “I was on Current TV with Cenk Uygur last night on the Young Turks and I said being attacked by Michelle Malkin is like being attacked by an ant or like a gnat or like a flea.” Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had compared say, Margaret Cho, to some insect. Wonder if that might be in the media as a racist thing to say?

Democrat Diane Feinstein of California calls for an investigation of security leaks, and strongly condemns the practice.

President Bill Clinton has been sabotaging President Obama’s reelection campaign. He will say something like, “Mitt Romney is qualified to be president” on one day, take that back or give nuance to his statement the next. In the book, The Amateur, which is about Barack Obama, the title was inspired by Clinton calling Obama an amateur. Dick Morris suggests that Clinton could retain his claim to fame as the first Democrat President since FDR to win reelection; and that, this would clear the path for Hilary Clinton to run in 2016, if she is so disposed.

Controversial Pastor Jeremiah Wright Claims Obama Bribed Him for Silence in 2008

On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of Bain Capital, Barack Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this third party. The issue remains as fresh as today's headlines, as Romney argues that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style social democracy, which was precisely the New Party's goal.

In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a "crackpot smear." Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that "Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party." I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press.

Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a "contract" promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office.

Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party's Chicago chapter read as follows:

Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

Knowing that Obama disguised his New Party membership helps make sense of his questionable handling of the 2008 controversy over his ties to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). During his third debate with John McCain, Obama said that the "only" involvement he'd had with ACORN was to represent the group in a lawsuit seeking to compel Illinois to implement the National Voter Registration Act, or motor-voter law. The records of Illinois ACORN and its associated union clearly contradict that assertion, as I show in my political biography of the president, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

Why did Obama deny his ties to ACORN? The group was notorious in 2008 for thug tactics, fraudulent voter registrations, and its role in popularizing risky subprime lending. Admitting that he had helped to fund ACORN's voter-registration efforts and train some of their organizers would doubtless have been an embarrassment but not likely a crippling blow to his campaign. So why not simply confess the tie and make light of it? The problem for Obama was ACORN's political arm, the New Party.

The revelation in 2008 that Obama had joined an ACORN-controlled, leftist third party could have been damaging indeed, and coming clean about his broader work with ACORN might easily have exposed these New Party ties. Because the work of ACORN and the New Party often intersected with Obama's other alliances, honesty about his ties to either could have laid bare the entire network of his leftist political partnerships.

Although Obama is ultimately responsible for deceiving the American people in 2008 about his political background, he got help from his old associates. Each of the two former political allies who helped him to deny his New Party membership during campaign '08 was in a position to know better.

The Fight the Smears website quoted Carol Harwell, who managed Obama's 1996 campaign for the Illinois senate: "Barack did not solicit or seek the New Party endorsement for state senator in 1995." Drawing on her testimony, Fight the Smears conceded that the New Party did support Obama in 1996 but denied that Obama had ever joined, adding that "he was the only candidate on the ballot in his race and never solicited the endorsement."

We've seen that this is false. Obama formally requested New Party endorsement, signed the candidate contract, and joined the party. Is it conceivable that Obama's own campaign manager could have been unaware of this? The notion is implausible. And the documents make Harwell's assertion more remarkable still.

The New Party had a front group called Progressive Chicago, whose job was to identify candidates that the New Party and its sympathizers might support. Nearly four years before Obama was endorsed by the New Party, both he and Harwell joined Progressive Chicago and began signing public letters that regularly reported on the group's meetings. By prominently taking part in Progressive Chicago activities, Obama was effectively soliciting New Party support for his future political career (as was Harwell, on Obama's behalf). So Harwell's testimony is doubly false.

When the New Party controversy broke out, just about the only mainstream journalist to cover it was Politico's Ben Smith, whose evident purpose was to dismiss it out of hand. He contacted Obama's official spokesman Ben LaBolt, who claimed that his candidate "was never a member" of the New Party. And New Party co-founder and leader Joel Rogers told Smith, "We didn't really have members." But a line in the New Party's official newsletter explicitly identified Obama as a party member. Rogers dismissed that as mere reference to "the fact that the party had endorsed him."

This is nonsense. I exposed the falsity of Rogers's absurd claim, and Smith's credulity in accepting it, in 2008 (here and here). And in Radical-in-Chief I took on Rogers's continuing attempts to justify it. The recently uncovered New Party records reveal how dramatically far from the truth Rogers's statement has been all along.

In a memo dated January 29, 1996, Rogers, writing as head of the New Party Interim Executive Council, addressed "standing concerns regarding existing chapter development and activity, the need for visibility as well as new members." So less than three weeks after Obama joined the New Party, Rogers was fretting about the need for new members. How, then, could Rogers assert in 2008 that his party "didn't really have members"? Internal documents show that the entire leadership of the New Party, both nationally and in Chicago, was practically obsessed with signing up new members, from its founding moments until it dissolved in the late 1990s.

In 2008, after I called Rogers out on his ridiculous claim that his party had no members, he explained to Ben Smith that "we did have regular supporters whom many called `members,' but it just meant contributing regularly, not getting voting rights or other formal power in NP governance." This is also flatly contradicted by the newly uncovered records.

At just about the time Obama joined the New Party, the Chicago chapter was embroiled in a bitter internal dispute. A party-membership list is attached to a memo in which the leaders of one faction consider a scheme to disqualify potential voting members from a competing faction, on the grounds that those voters had not renewed their memberships. The factional leaders worried that their opponents would legitimately object to this tactic, since a mailing that called for members to renew hadn't been properly sent out. At any rate, the memo clearly demonstrates that, contrary to Rogers's explanation, membership in the New Party entailed the right to vote on matters of party governance. In fact, Obama's own New Party endorsement, being controversial, was thrown open to a members' vote on the day he joined the party.

Were Harwell and Rogers deliberately lying in order to protect Obama and deceive the public? Readers can decide for themselves. Yet it is clear that Obama, through his official spokesman, Ben LaBolt, and the Fight the Smears website, was bent on deceiving the American public about a matter whose truth he well knew.

The documents reveal that the New Party's central aim was to move the United States steadily closer to European social democracy, a goal that Mitt Romney has also attributed to Obama. New Party leaders disdained mainstream Democrats, considering them tools of business, and promised instead to create a partnership between elected officials and local community organizations, with the goal of socializing the American economy to an unprecedented degree.

The party's official "statement of principles," which candidates seeking endorsement from the Chicago chapter were asked to support, called for a "peaceful revolution" and included redistributive proposals substantially to the left of the Democratic party.

To get a sense of the ideology at play, consider that the meeting at which Obama joined the party opened with the announcement of a forthcoming event featuring the prominent socialist activist Frances Fox Piven. The Chicago New Party sponsored a luncheon with Michael Moore that same year.

I have more to say on the New Party's ideology and program, Obama's ties to the party, and the relevance of all this to the president's campaign for reelection. See the forthcoming issue of National Review.

In the meantime, let us see whether a press that let candidate Obama off the hook in 2008 - and that in 2012 is obsessed with the president's youthful love letters - will now refuse to report that President Obama once joined a leftist third party, and that he hid that truth from the American people in order to win the presidency.

Stanley Kurtz was about the only journalist who did any reporting on the Annenberg Foundation, which was another of the many links between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.

All the property of this country now belongs to the state and will be used for the good of the state. - FDR, 1933

"Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States in the tradition of the Founding Fathers." -

There are monarchies and republics aplenty, but there's only one 24/7 fundraising presidency.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee a few days ago - that's 60 years on the throne. Just to put it in perspective, she's been queen since Harry S. Truman was president. At any rate, her jubilee has been a huge success, save for a few churlish republicans in various corners of Her Majesty's realms from London to Toronto to Sydney pointing out how absurd it is for grown citizens to be fawning over a distant head of state who lives in a fabulous, glittering cocoon entirely disconnected from ordinary life.

Last week, the republic's citizen-president passed among his fellow Americans. Where? Cleveland? Dubuque? Presque Isle, Maine? No, Beverly Hills. These days, it's pretty much always Beverly Hills or Manhattan, because that's where the money is. That's the Green Zone, and you losers are outside it. Appearing at an Obama fundraiser at the home of Glee creator Ryan Murphy and his "fiancé" David Miller, the president, reasonably enough, had difficulty distinguishing one A-list Hollywood summit from another. "I just came from a wonderful event over at the Wilshire or the Hilton - I'm not sure which," said Obama, "because you go through the kitchens of all these places and so you never are quite sure where you are."

Ah, the burdens of stardom. The old celebrities-have-to-enter-through-the-kitchen line. The last time I heard that was a couple of decades back in London when someone was commiserating with Sinatra on having to be ushered in through the back. Frank brushed it aside. We were at the Savoy, or maybe the Waldorf. I can't remember, and I came in through the front door. Oddly enough, the Queen enters hotels through the lobby. So do Prince William and his lovely bride. A month ago, they stayed at a pub in Suffolk for a friend's wedding, and came in through the same door as mere mortals. Imagine that!

So far this year, President Obama has been to three times as many fundraisers as President Bush had attended by this point in the 2004 campaign. This is what the New York Post calls his "torrid pace," although judging from those remarks in California he's about as torrid as an overworked gigolo staggering punchily through the last mambo of the evening. According to Brendan J. Doherty's forthcoming book The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign, Obama has held more fundraisers than the previous five presidents' reelection campaigns combined.

This is all he does now. But hey, unlike those inbred monarchies with their dukes and marquesses and whatnot, at least he gets out among the masses. Why, in a typical week, you'll find him at a fundraiser at George Clooney's home in Los Angeles with Barbra Streisand and Salma Hayek. These are people who are in touch with the needs of ordinary Americans because they have played ordinary Americans in several of their movies. And then only four days later the president was in New York for a fundraiser hosted by Ricky Martin, the only man on the planet whose evolution on gayness took longer than Obama's. It's true that moneyed celebrities in, say, Pocatello or Tuscaloosa have not been able to tempt the president to hold a lavish fundraiser in Idaho or Alabama, but he does fly over them once in a while. Why, only a week ago, he was on Air Force One accompanied by Jon Bon Jovi en route to a fundraiser called Barack on Broadway.

Any American can attend an Obama event for a donation of a mere $35,800 - the cost of the fundraiser hosted by Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg, and the one hosted by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and the one hosted by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, and the one hosted by Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, and the one hosted by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. $35,800 is a curiously non-round figure. Perhaps the ticket cost is $36,000, but under Obamacare there's a $200 co-pay. Those of us who grew up in hidebound, class-ridden monarchies are familiar with the old proverb that a cat can look at a king. But in America only a cool cat can look at the king.

However, there are some cheap seats available. A year and a half ago, big-money Democrats in Rhode Island paid $7,500 per person for the privilege of having dinner with President Obama at a private home in Providence. He showed up for 20 minutes and then said he couldn't stay for dinner. "I've got to go home to walk the dog and scoop the poop," he told them, because when you've paid seven-and-a-half grand for dinner nothing puts you in the mood to eat like a guy talking about canine fecal matter. And, having done the poop gag, the president upped and exited, and left bigshot Dems to pass the evening talking to the guy from across the street. But you've got to admit that's a memorable night out: $7,500 for Dinner with Obama* (*dinner with Obama not included).

And here's an even better deal, for those who, despite the roaring economy, can't afford even $7,500 for non-dinner with Obama: The president of the United States is raffling himself off! For the cost of a $3 non-refundable online-application processing fee, you and your loved one can have your names put in a large presidential hat from which the FBI background-check team will pluck two to be ushered into the presence of their humble citizen-executive. That's to say, somewhere across the fruited plain, a common-or-garden non-celebrity will win the opportunity to attend an Obama fundraiser at the home of Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, co-hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the British-born inspiration for the movie The Devil Wears Prada. I wish this were a parody, but I'm not that good. But I'm sure Sarah Jessica and Anna will treat you just like any other minor celebrity they've accidentally been seated next to due to a hideous faux pas in placement, even if you do dip the wrong end of the arugula in the amuse-bouche.

If you're wondering who Anna Wintour is, boy, what a schlub you are: She's renowned throughout the fashion world for her scary bangs. I'm referring to her hair, not to the last sound Osama bin Laden heard as the bullet headed toward his eye socket on the personal orders of the president, in case you've forgotten. But that's the kind of inside tidbit you'll be getting, as the commander-in-chief leaks highly classified national-security details to you over the zebra mussel in a Eurasian-milfoil coulis. For a donation of $35,800, he'll pose with you in a Seal Team Six uniform with one foot on Osama's corpse (played by Harry Reid). For a donation of $46,800, he'll send an unmanned drone to hover amusingly over your sister-in-law's house. For a donation of $77,800, he'll install you as the next president-for-life of Syria (liability waiver required). For a donation of $159,800, he'll take you into Sarah Jessica's guest bedroom and give you the full 007 while Carly Simon sings "Nobody Does It Better."

There are monarchies and republics aplenty, but there's only one 24/7 celebrity fundraising presidency. If it's Tuesday, it must be Kim Cattrall, or Hootie and the Blowfish, or Laverne and Shirley, or the ShamWow guy . . . I wonder if the Queen ever marvels at the transformation of the American presidency since her time with Truman. Ah, well. If you can't stand the klieg-light heat of Obama's celebrity, stay out of the Beverly Wilshire kitchen.

A Tale of Two Protests: Media Cheer Wall Street Occupiers But Jeered Tea Partiers

Study: ABC, CBS and NBC loaded their broadcasts with 33 full stories in just 11 days of coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

The Occupy Wall Street protestors have received overwhelmingly positive coverage from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks, as they used their airtime to publicize and promote the aggressively leftist movement. In just the first eleven days of October, ABC, CBS and NBC flooded their morning and evening newscasts with a whopping 33 full stories or interview segments on the protesters. This was a far cry from the greeting the Tea Party received from the Big Three as that conservative protest movement was initially ignored (only 13 total stories in all of 2009) and then reviled.

Where the Tea Party was met with skeptical claims of their motivations - with some reporters claiming they were merely corporate backed puppets and others implying they were spurred on by their racist opposition to the first black president - the Occupy Wall Street crowd was depicted as an almost genial 'grassroots' movement.

While network reporters weren't hesitant to describe the Tea Party as conservative, only once did a reporter attach even the 'liberal' label to the overtly leftist Wall Street protestors.

Network anchors like Brian Williams couldn't be bothered with ideological labeling of the occupiers as he was, on the October 5 NBC Nightly News, too busy celebrating the arrival of the 'massive protest movement' that 'could well turn out to be the protest of this current era.'

ABC's Diane Sawyer was so excited she tripped herself up in hyperbole as she proclaimed, on the October 10 World News, that the movement had 'spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries - every continent but Antarctica.' (Video) Sawyer would have to correct herself on a later edition of the program as she clarified it was 'more than a thousand cities around the world - every continent but Antarctica.' That's still a tremendous exaggeration.

Most astoundingly, the networks' Occupy Wall Street (OWS) stories were overwhelmingly sympathetic: Protesters and supporters of the movement dominated the soundbites, with 109 (87%) to just 8 critics (6%), with another 8 soundbites from neutral sources. Five of the eight soundbites unsympathetic to the protesters were brief clips of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain blasting the occupiers. In addition to the 109 pro-OWS soundbites, seven times guests on the Big Three network morning shows expressed sympathy for the protestors. No guests opposed the protests.

MRC analysts tracked all the stories on the Big Three broadcast networks' evening and morning news programs (ABC's World News and Good Morning America, CBS's Evening News and The Early Show, NBC's Nightly News and Today show) and found that from October 1 through October 11 network anchors, and reporters, in addition to the 33 full stories, delivered 15 brief items and 14 mentions in other stories not devoted strictly to the Wall Street protest.

In 2009 Tea Partiers were repeatedly but accurately described as conservative. Back on the April 15, 2009 Today show, NBC's Chuck Todd's labeling was typical when he introduced the Tea Party movement to viewers this way: 'There's been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-called Tea Parties around the country, hoping the historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the President's economic ideas. But, I tell you, the idea hasn't really caught on.'

However, when it came to appropriately labeling the OWS crowd as leftist or liberals, it happened exactly one time, when on the October 11 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, co-anchor George Stephanopoulous asked Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe if he thought the OWS protestors were the 'liberal version of the Tea Party?' and wondered if that was a 'good thing for the White House?'

The only other usages of the world 'liberal' came when Columbia University's Dorian Warren, on the October 1 NBC Nightly News asserted that the protesters were 'a liberal version of the Tea Party' and obligingly offered: 'I think this could potentially carry over into the 2012 elections and get people to the polls.' Then, on the October 9 edition of Sunday Morning, Rebecca Jarvis pegged Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin as 'a liberal observer of the politics of the protest.'

In fact, as the MRC's Business & Media's Julia Seymour documented, not one network report has called the protesters "radical," "extreme," "left-wing," or "socialist."

Digging deeper into the stories, a clear double standard emerges. Where the Tea Party's motives were met with skepticism, with some stories questioning if they were not a grassroots movement but rather an Astro-turf movement backed by corporations, the Occupy Wall Street crowd was repeatedly classified as 'grassroots.'

Back on the April 15, 2009 edition of ABC's World News, reporter Dan Harris told viewers that 'critics on the Left say' the Tea Party was not 'a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it's actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests.'

But when labor unions started joining the OWS protests, reporters didn't greet that information with jaundiced skepticism of a movement being taken over by well-funded, well-heeled union organizers, but treated it as recognition of the growing respect and influence they were gaining.

On the October 5 Today show, Mara Schiavocampo alerted viewers that on 'Tuesday, several labor unions, including transit workers and teachers, joined activists for a march to Wall Street. Today they plan to join protesters in what could be their largest event yet, a rally and march in lower Manhattan.' In the very next sentence the NBC correspondent was careful to remind her viewers: 'The grassroots movement has no official leaders.'

While the Tea Partiers were portrayed as racist and rude yokels, the OWS crowd has been portrayed in a decidedly more positive light with reporters highlighting cute school kids, spending their Columbus Day holiday holding up signs in opposition to corporate America and even featured a kindly grandmother baking cookies for the crowd.

On the October 10, NBC Nightly News, Mara Schiavocampo highlighted: 'From school to the streets. On Day 24 of the Occupy Wall Street protest demonstrators were joined by a group of students on their day off.' Viewers were then presented clips of little children holding signs that read: 'Tax the one percent, not the 99 percent!' and 'Tax the greedy, feed the needy!'

Despite hundreds of arrests, the media have painted the Occupy Wall Street crowd as friendly, genial, even industrious folk who started their own newspapers, and taught Yoga classes to pass the time.

Over images of protestors stretching, on the October 10 Evening News, an impressed Jim Axelrod glowingly noticed: 'The Occupy Wall Street protestors have set up a camp with a food court, newspaper, medical unit, Internet café, even yoga practice.'

On the October 3 edition of ABC's World News, Dan Harris played tour guide to the protest scene: 'This is a surprisingly functional little city. Let me give you a little tour. It starts here with the information desk for people newly arrived. Behind that this whole area back here, this is the media area. It's filled with bloggers and other people getting the word out and powered by donated generators. And this is the food station. It's all free and all donated including some cookies that came in today from a grandmother in Idaho.'

In subsequent days, the effusive notices came streaming in from the network anchors.

On the October 5 Nightly News, NBC's Brian Williams trumpeted: 'While it goes by the official name 'Occupy Wall Street,' it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era.' ABC's weekend evening news anchor David Muir, on the October 9 World News, hailed: 'Look at the images coming in tonight, spelling out the anger. This sign in New York, 'The rich get bailed out, the poor get sold out.''

In contrast, the network anchors treated the Tea Party much more harshly, depicting its members as violent, racial slur hurling thugs. As the MRC's Rich Noyes pointed out in the special report, TV's Tea Party Travesty, in September of 2009, 'NBC's Brian Williams trumpeted Jimmy Carter's charge that the Tea Party was motivated by race: 'Signs and images at last weekend's big Tea Party march in Washington and at other recent events have featured racial and other violent themes, and President Carter today said he is extremely worried by it.''

In March of 2010, Noyes found that on 'the night of the final vote on ObamaCare in March, for example, ABC's Diane Sawyer cast Tea Partiers as out-of-control marauders, 'roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets.' CBS's Bob Schieffer also cast a wide net, accusing 'demonstrators' of hurling 'racial epithets' and 'sexual slurs,' and even conjured images of civil-rights era brutality: 'One lawmaker said it was like a page out of a time machine.''

Schieffer's colleague Jeff Greenfield, on the September 20, 2009 edition of CBS's Sunday Morning, went as far to wonder about the Tea Party: 'Does this new militancy on the Right pose an opportunity for the Republican Party or create a dilemma?' He added: 'Some of it is aimed specifically and virulently at Obama....At his background, at his race, at his agenda.'

In the media's coverage of the Wall Street occupiers and Tea Partiers, a clear tale of two different protests is seen. One that grew out of concern for out-of-control government spending was initially ignored and treated to catcalls of racism and thuggery by ABC, CBS and NBC. The other, a leftist movement screaming for an even more expansive government, that actually resulted in hundreds of arrests, was greeted by the Big Three networks with a tidal wave of coverage full of friendly talking heads.

AP Panic Is Evident Over Obama's 'Private Sector Is Just Fine' Comment, Non-Walkback

RUSH: At Obama's little press gaggle today at the White House, an unidentified reporter stood up, said, "There are a couple of books out with interesting details about national security issues. There are reports of terrorist Kill Lists that you've supervised. There are reports of cyberattacks on Iranian nuclear programs that you've ordered." That would be Stuxnet. "First of all, what's your reaction to this information getting out in public, and, secondly, what is your reaction to lawmakers that accuse your team of leaking these details in order to promote your election?"

OBAMA: The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It's wrong, and, you know, people, I think, need to have a better sense of how I approach this office and how the people around me here approach this office. And we're dealing with issues that can touch on the safety and security of the American people, our families, or our military personnel, or our allies. And so we don't play with that.

RUSH: Somebody is. Somebody is. I remember leading into the Iraq war, battle plans, war plans would show up in detail, specific war plans for Iraq and later Afghanistan, would show up on the front page of either the New York Times or the Washington Post. When those leaks took place we all speculated that those leaks were coming from career appointees or political appointees from the Clinton years. Remember, Bush did not purge. As a show of good faith, trying to heal the wounds of America, put everybody back together, all of the political appointees over at the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, Bush left them there. He did not replace them with his own people, as a show of faith.

And it wasn't long before efforts to sabotage Bush military plans started showing up on the front page of the big newspapers and on the networks. And it was easy to speculate that the leakers were holdover Democrats, Clinton appointees trying to undermine Bush. And of course the Republican establishment didn't want to hear that. They thought when it came to foreign policy and national security, that members of the establishment took off their partisan hats and everybody worked together. We would loudly shout at 'em, "Get real. Get modern. You've got Democrats who are trying to undermine." We were shouting at Bush, "Why don't you understand they're trying to undermine you?" He probably did.

Anyway, those leaks were good. The press approved of every leak that might undermine a Republican president's strategy and plans. But now we've got some really detailed leaks, that some of the stuff on the Kill List, Obama is personally picking the targets. This stuff is being leaked with detail that people have rarely seen in leaked information. And then you have the Stuxnet, the computer virus that confounded the Iranian nuclear plan. People admit, "Yep, we did it." Huge national security breach. I mean, even Democrat senators are outraged over it. Dianne Feinstein, California, is beside herself that this is happening. So Obama gets the question: "Are you doing this on purpose to help facilitate your election?" (Obama impression) "I'm offended by that, the notion that my White House purposely released."

I've never seen this before. The Politico has a story: "The New York Times denies receiving leaks from Barack Obama." I have never seen anything like this before. The New York Times is getting the leaked information. The New York Times has a story: It ain't Obama feeding us. The story at The Politico is by Dylan Byers. "Caught in the crosshairs of a contentious dispute between the White House and Congress, The New York Times is vowing to charge ahead with its coverage of developments in US national security -- and denying that the paper is on the receiving end of silver-platter leaks from the Obama administration. 'These are some of the most significant developments in national security in a generation,' Times managing editor Dean Baquet told Politico on Thursday, referring to his paper's recent reports on the Obama administration's use of drone strikes and cyberattacks. 'We're going to keep doing these stories.'" But they are not coming from Obama.

When's the last time a newspaper said anything about a source? So despite complaints from both Republican and Democrat senators, the New York Times is courageously vowing to continue to publish these secrets. And the reason this stuff is being leaked, like the Stuxnet and the Kill List, this stuff is being leaked to make Obama look like a tough guy. It's to burnish his reputation. After all, he's a thin, wiry, can't even throw a baseball looking like a guy, president. There's not a whole lot of masculinity there in appearance. Plus, he's a liberal Democrat. That means he's a dove. Liberal Democrat, progressive, socialist, whatever, means that in his mind the US military is the focus of evil in the modern world. But it's election time. Gotta make Obama look tough.

The United States is a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, and Obama's got to be made to look like he's up to the task. And so this stuff is being leaked to show how tough Obama is and how engaged he is and how willing he is to pull the trigger on the bad guys. That's what the Kill List is all about. And the New York Times is doing its duty, "We're gonna keep publishing this stuff. By the way, Obama is not the guy sending us the stuff." You have to admit the New York Times is consistent. They always publish national security secrets if they will hurt a Republican president, or if they will help a Democrat president. They don't play favorites. But the most preposterous thing in this Politico story relating to the New York Times is that the Times is denying that they're being given these leaks by the White House.

The managing editor is saying that his reporters "came by the stories strenuously." Whatever that means. He's trying to say, "Our reporters are out there, they're turning over every rock. They've got their ears to the pulse, fingers to the grindstone. Our reporters are out there, they're doing good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. Our reporters are digging deep. Our reporters are uncovering all of these secrets." That's what strenuously means. But also, it's laughable. They're being fed this stuff, obviously. That's why it's leaks. Everybody knows it's leaks. They're answering the phone. The Times article on the Obama Kill List, I mean that was positively lousy with references to their inside sources. It was clear the Times reporters were simply taking dictation.

And in this story, even The Politico, which is a White House stenographer unit, even The Politico is forced to admit that it's pretty obvious what's going on, since even the White House isn't complaining about the leaks. Have you noticed that? The only people complaining about it are on Capitol Hill and the general public. Democrat senators along with Republican senators are complaining about it. They're very unhappy about it, but the White House isn't complaining. Here's a takeout from The Politico story: "But the fact that the White House has not raised complaints about the Times' reports further stokes congressional concern that the administration was somehow involved in leaking the stories. Baquet rebutted those accusations, saying his reporters came by the stories 'strenuously.' 'I can't believe anybody who says these are leaks,' he said. 'Read those stories. They are so clearly the product of tons and tons of reporting.'"

They took dictation. Now, Feinstein, she is the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and she told Wolf Blitzer, "What we are seeing is an avalanche of leaks." She used an incorrect word, but I know what she meant. Anyway, a lot of people are concerned about it. But the White House is leaking and it's all being done to make Obama look good. And the New York Times saying, "There aren't any leaks. Obama's not giving us anything. Our reporters are really digging deep and working hard for this stuff." Meanwhile, it's being reported as a political game. Everybody knows Obama's leaking. The question is, will he get away with it? Will the press not give up the ghost? Will the American people buy this? Will all this redound to Obama's benefit?

Can we end up making him look like the tough guy that everybody knows that he's not?

What I mean is, these leaks are so detailed they had to have either been dictated or the detail provided. There's too much information in these leaks. Normally, a leaker will give out enough to blow the whistle but not to identify him- or herself.

RUSH: You know, Lindsey Grahamnesty actually got it right. He was on Greta the other night on Fox. He said, "I don't think it's an accident that you have three stories within about 45 days that paint the Obama administration as being effective in the War on Terror -- at our national security detriment." Now, that's what McCain thinks, too, since Lindsey Grahamnesty said it. So McCain thinks it. He said, "You don't need Sherlock Holmes to figure this out," and you don't.

So, US national security... You know, the Kill List is one thing, but owning up to it? It's one thing for everybody to think it. It's another thing to own up that you're the author of the computer virus that confounded the Iranian nuclear program. To own up and admit that, publicly the way it was done, was all to make Obama look like a tough guy.

RUSH: Nashua New Hampshire, Open Line Friday. Steve, I'm glad you called. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Oh, yeah, hi, Rush. I happened to be listening to NPR last night. I don't make a regular habit of doing it, but I just had it on the car radio. And they had the author --

CALLER: I could, but the reason I left it on is because they were talking about the Obama administration being tough on national security, and I was curious to what their position was on it.

CALLER: All right. So they had the author on, and he wrote this new book about how tough the Obama administration is, surprisingly, on national security, including discussion or a chapter on the cyberattacks, like in Iran. And the program host precisely was concerned about leaking national security secrets, and the hostette, the author, "Aren't you concerned about that?" And the author said, "Oh, well, that was okay." They specifically went to the Obama administration official, and they gave it the okay for the information that he put in the book, that he released. So, therefore, regardless even if the information didn't come from the Obama administration and they somehow got it on their own, they went to the Obama administration, and the Obama administration okayed, according to this author, the specific release of that information or else he would never have released it.

CALLER: Didn't go into that, but somehow that kind of absolved the author. In other words, that was like okay 'cause the author didn't release anything. The Obama administration knew about it, and didn't say who in the Obama administration, but of course he would go to the Obama administration, made the request, they said that information was okay, that's already out there.

CALLER: So I thought it was interesting. The reason I raised the point is because you don't even have to get to the question of did the information come from the Obama administration initially. Let's say that the author got it on their own through mistakes or whatever. Then they go to the Obama administration, and according to this author, the Obama administration, "Okay, you can release that information." So it doesn't even matter where it came from, the Obama administration went along with releasing the information.

CALLER: It may have been. It's a new book and apparently there's only one chapter on cybersecurity, and the other chapters are on drones and that kind of stuff, basically the premise being that, surprisingly, the Obama administration's pretty tough on national security.

RUSH: All right, Steve, I appreciate it. I just got an e-mail from my good friend Professor Hazlett. He's a good friend of mine that I met back in Sacramento when I was there in 1985, I think -- no, might have met Professor Hazlett later in the year, 1984. But certainly 1985. He said, "Rush, I just listened to the Obama clip that you played where he said that it's offensive to suggest that his administration's leaking. Now, how can he know that the suggestion is offensive unless he knows who's leaking?" I mean if you were president, and you didn't know where the leaks were coming from, wouldn't you want to ferret out the leaker right now? But how do you know to be offended? Unless you know who's leaked. You can't possibly be offended by this unless you know who the leaker is.

And then he makes these points. Here's what the public knows. One, there are abundant national security leaks. Two, the regime has the ability to create such leaks. Number three, the regime has motive to create such leaks, make Obama look macho and all that. And number four, the regime is not doing anything to stop these leaks, like appoint a special prosecutor. Instead they're trashing people who are making a reasonable inference after reviewing the evidence. Now, the New York Times, how can they know that the original source for their secret classified documents is not Obama? How can they know that? In fact, the source for the leak has to be either the Obama administration or the Pentagon. It has to be one of the two. If it's the Pentagon, somebody over there needs to be fired. If it's the Obama regime, then Obama has to come clean with the American people, and somebody, or maybe a lot of people, deserve to be fired.

How can this not be an issue? How can they not appoint a special prosecutor? That's the question Professor Hazlett asks. Now, he's asking it rhetorically, but I have an answer to that. This is all 100% political. In Obama's mind, this is nothing more than a political tactic. It is the playing of a political card. It just happens to be stuff that people think is classified. But Obama doesn't care. Obviously he doesn't care. They're not trying to find out who leaked it. He doesn't want a special prosecutor. It's not a big deal. Okay, so I'm looking at the Kill List, big whoop. Okay, so I'm telling everybody that we're the ones that did the Stuxnet virus to undermine the Iranians. No big deal. It's not a big deal to 'em. It's a political opportunity. And I don't think there will be a special prosecutor. This issue has achieved its purpose.

RUSH: Look, folks, somebody has leaked -- three times -- very detailed and very damaging stuff. Do you see any sense of urgency at the White House to find out who? All we got today was Obama saying he's offended that anybody would think it's him. But how can he be offended if he doesn't know who's leaking? No, that's not deep. Being offended is being offended. If you're offended somebody thinks you're leaking, then you have to know something about it. I think this is a great, great example of how inside-the-Beltway Washington does not understand what we're dealing with here.

In the old world of Washington where on things like this the two parties genuinely did come together, special prosecutors get to the bottom of it, and then in that fight the partisanship erupts and people try to protect turf and so forth. But to get to the bottom of it, at least put on the show of caring to get to the bottom of it, would happen. So they're all lining up and only experts are predicting a special prosecutor. "Oh, yeah, gotta be one, no question about it." There isn't gonna be a special prosecutor. This is the regime that defies federal judges. A federal judge said this moratorium on drilling is illegal. And Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, said, "(raspberry) you. We're gonna enforce our moratorium." They didn't care about the Constitution when they wrote Obamacare. And they argued to maintain a piece of legislation that is unconstitutional.

This issue has served its purpose. There's a book out there now about how courageous and macho Obama is. There are news stories about how he's Mr. Tough Guy. He's looking to Kill Lists and he's personally picking the bad-guy targets. Well, that's important because up 'til now people have questioned just how much Obama really is interested in the War on Terror. Don't think it's a big deal. If you go back and listen to him talk, the things he said about the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and Club Gitmo and everything else, he didn't take it seriously, wasn't a problem. The problem was Obama looked like a wuss. Problem solved now.

This is just how Obama does things. National security? Everything is nothing more than its value as a political item. That's all. I think to try to attach the traditional conventional ways of Washington to Obama is to misunderstand what we're dealing with here. I mean in the real world, where people care about national security, if you don't think America's exceptional, if you don't think America's a justified superpower, why would you care about national security? If you believe, as many of us think Obama believes, if you believe that the United States is an unjust superpower and an illegitimate superpower, if you think we have only acquired that status by virtue of stealing from other people and nations of the world, if you think that we don't deserve this greatness and superpower status, then what value is attached to our national security anyway?

If you think the country is basically guilty, which necessitates you bowing or apologizing, what is there to protect here? "Mr. Limbaugh, do you realize how offensive this sounds?" Yeah, I do, probably to you because if you look at Obama in the standard traditional political ways, the standard traditional, political prism, you're gonna say, "Why no special prosecutor?" and you're gonna assume that, well, because he doesn't want to indict himself. That's not why. This has served its purpose. If Obama has his way, there won't be another word said about this. Not by him. He dealt with it today. "I'm offended anybody would think that I'm the leaker." And the New York Times is right there, "He didn't leak to us. Obama didn't leak." How do they know?

I'm just saying you can't look at this guy -- it's like when I read liberal journalists talk about how Obama is obviously struggling with policies to reduce America's indebtedness, I laugh. Do they think he cares? Where's the evidence that he cares about reducing the deficit, or the national debt? He doesn't care. But they are convinced 'cause they look at the traditional politics. We got a deficit problem, a spending problem, an economic problem. In the old ways of Washington, what you would do is announce policies, try to have legislation that's designed to, quote, unquote, reduce the deficit. Whether you intended to or not, that's what you would make people think you're trying to do. Fiscal responsibility. He doesn't care. Where's the evidence he cares about fiscal responsibility? How can you say that he cares about it, given what he's done in three-and-a-half years, racking up all this spending?

National security, to me, is the same thing. I just don't think we're looking at this guy -- well, I am, and you are -- I just don't think that the wizards of smart see this guy the right way. They look at him in the traditional prism of American politics and we're dealing with somebody that's totally outside that prism, in ways they don't want to admit. They're scratching their heads, why no special prosecutor? We gotta get to the bottom of these leaks. No, we don't. The leaks were no big deal. As far as Obama's concerned, "Okay, Kill List, big deal. Stuxnet, everybody thought we did it anyway. All I did was confirm it, big whoop. In the meantime, I've shown that I'm tough on the Iranians and I'm trying to sabotage their nuclear plan. That's all I care about. People think I'm a wuss. I've now made 'em look like I'm trying to undermine their nuclear plan, and I'm a big, tough macho guy 'cause I'm personally wiping out terrorists, mission accomplished. Special prosecutor, huh. Don't make me laugh. Are you kidding?"

RUSH: Back to the phones. To St. Louis. Jim, thank you for the call. You're next. Hello, sir.

CALLER: (bad cell connection) Hey, Rush. Just want to say if I sound a little nervous, it's 'cause I'm so excited to talk to you. I had the chance last week of visiting your portrait on the floodwall down at Cape Girardeau, and I'm gonna report that it's well.

CALLER: Yeah. And I tried to hug your portrait, and a train almost ran me over. I think it was time for tour groups.

CALLER: Well, the only issue I had was whether you were approvingly looking at what's her name, Josephine Baker, who was dancing next to you. But I thought it was a very appropriate glare for a stare, and I just love the shrine. The reason I called was the New York Times. I love to read it but we can't afford because it's $2.50 a copy, but they had an editorial.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Jim. Jim, when you say you love the New York Times, you mean for the entertainment value, right?

RUSH: You're not in love with the New York Times. It's not your bible. That's not what you mean.

CALLER: Oh, absolutely. But I want to tell you that it may be too funny for people -- you know, conservatives -- to read, but let me just give you a little sample. On June the 4th, the lead editorial is called, "Whose Welfare?" -- question mark. It talks about the fact that the IRS ought to go after certain conservative groups and focus on what they're doing. And I looked at the article, and I'm reading this lead editorial and I'm trying to figure out: What do they want to do to these groups or what are there are trying to do to them? And what it says is that they're going to, quote, "return full control of Congress to Republican Party." Well, I'm thinking to myself: Since 1960 when I was first publicly aware of politics, how many times -- how many years -- have Republicans controlled Congress?

CALLER: I'm talking about... Yeah, that was -- and (unintelligible) years, I believe. So what they're saying is that's a threat, when the Democrats have controlled both houses every year since then. I mean (garbled) since 1960.

CALLER: That's the problem? They've got a problem with the Republicans taking control of the House?

CALLER: Well, I just think that it's incredible when you realize that what they're saying simply is: Here's what we're worried about: That Congress may, sometime in the history of the United States, have Republican control. And I'm thinking, what better example of their showing where they're coming from. And you know who they're really busily investigating these days? The Karzai family in Afghanistan. Now, why would they worry about them so much?

CALLER: Yeah, the president. And they're talking about it. If you take, well, the lead articles --

RUSH: To protect Obama! They gotta protect Obama somehow. Remember, it's macho time in Washington. We got Afghanistan cookin'. We got Obama pulling out. We gotta make sure Karzai maintains some level of control over there so the place doesn't blow up, making Obama look bad or his decision look bad. So the New York Times threatens to investigate Karzai. Karzai reads the New York Times and, you know, Karzai is supposed to be intimidated by what the New York Times might report. This is trying to keep him in line. All so Obama is not embarrassed. The New York Times is all funny pages. But the fact... You don't need any evidence that they're liberal other than they print every day. That's it. Jim, thanks. I appreciate it.

RUSH: Folks, I pulled together during the break here some relevant pages from the first New York Times article on these leaks. Now, remember, the New York Times has a story (and the managing editor talked to The Politico) and they're openly saying that Obama did not leak to them. Honest. I've never seen this before, but they're doing it. 'Cause everybody says, "Special prosecutor! We've got to get to the bottom of these leaks. This is huge stuff. This is really detailed. It's damaging things."

Obama doesn't care about that. Trust me. But traditionally in Washington, this is a bad thing. This is unacceptable. And all of this is to make Obama look macho. It's to make him look big and tough, to make him look like he really cares about the country and so forth. And mission accomplished in that sense. And now people are calling for a special prosecutor. Obama didn't count on that. There's not gonna be any special prosecutor. So the New York Times is out protecting him.

Do you believe that? Normally they'd say, "We're not gonna tell you diddly-squat about our sources!" So I went back to this New York Times story on the assassination list, on the Kill List. The New York Times article itself says in many places they got their information from current and former regime officials. The article quotes Bill Daley. He's just Obama's former chief of staff. And General Jim Jones, the former national security adviser. The New York Times article quotes those guys!

It also quotes Tom Donilon, the current national security adviser. He happened to tell the New York Times that Obama, quote, "is quite comfortable with the use of force on behalf of the United States," unquote. The current national security guy is quoted in this story as saying (paraphrased): "Oh, yeah, our guy loves to pull the trigger. Our guy, we may as well call him Rambo Kardashian. Not Barack Kardashian. Rambo Kardashian!"

It is totally obvious that the administration and people it controls on the outside, former administration people, are the ones feeding info to the New York Times. Here, let me read you a relevant passage. "In interviews with the New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama's evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda." Okay. Yet the New York Times says: Obama didn't leak us any of this stuff.

They're owning up to it. I'm reading from the story. "In interviews with the New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama's evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda. They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing."

All right. I feel like I need to translate this to make sure you get it. What they're saying here is, "Boy, that Obama guy, he's a paradox. He didn't want to work with Congress to come up with a deal to close Gitmo, but when it comes to pullin' the trigger and wipin' out these terrorists -- lethal action -- he does it without even thinking about it! He's Mr. Tough Guy. I'm telling you." That's what they're saying here. He doesn't flinch. This guy, he's got ice water running through his veins!

"While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands." Yeah, he wanted to make nice with the Islamists. He wanted to make nice with the jihadists, but they rejected that. And so he has followed them wherever they go! He put America first, damn right. "When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda..."

I am reading to you from the New York Times, who claims that Obama was not the source for any of the leaking. "[E]ven when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was 'an easy one.'" The level of detail... This is what people in traditional Washington are reading, and they're shocked! This is unprecedented. This is the White House writing public relations releases. This is not strenuous reporting. This is the phone rang, and it's Obama on the phone or Bill Daley on the phone.

"Here's what we want you to write. This is what we're doing." This is laughably shameless.

Here's another outtake (or relevant passage, if you will) from the New York Times story: "Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence until he was fired in May 2010, said that discussions inside the White House of long-term strategy against Al Qaeda were sidelined by the intense focus on strikes. 'The steady refrain in the White House was, "This is the only game in town" -- reminded me of body counts in Vietnam,' said Mr. Blair, a retired admiral who began his Navy service during that war."

You know what that means? What that means is, "To hell with this long-term strategy! Obama rolled up his sleeves -- he put on the camo gear, he put on the Kevlar -- and this was it! He said, 'Getting Al-Qaeda, that's the only game in town. To hell with Obamacare, to hell with the economy, to heck with everything else. I am protecting America!'" That's that paragraph translated. And, again, the source is a former director of national intelligence for Obama. But, the Times tells us: We didn't get this stuff from Obama or the White House.

And Obama says (impression), "I'm offended anyone would think we leaked. Not my White House!" That's what he said: "My White House." Here's another one, same story, a relevant passage: "William M. Daley, Mr. Obama's chief of staff in 2011, said the president and his advisers understood that they could not keep adding new names to a kill list, from ever lower on the Qaeda totem pole. What remains unanswered is how much killing will be enough." Oh, man! If we want somebody to protect this country, we've got the guy! Barack Kardashian is on the case.

What do you think Barbra Streisand thought when she read this? She probably didn't. They all claim they do, though. Another passage: "The president's directive reinforced the need for caution, counterterrorism officials said, but did not significantly change the program. In part, that is because 'the protection of innocent life was always a critical consideration,' said Michael V. Hayden, the last CIA director under President George W. Bush." But, writes the Times (listen to this): "It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." My buddy Andy McCarthy, this is one of his many areas of expertise. He writes about this. He says Obama is profiling Muslim men. This is profiling Muslim men. Obama has simply granted to himself here, folks, the right to wipe out all Al-Qaeda Muslim men.

If they're military age, 18 or over -- if they're male, and they're 18, and they're Muslim -- he can wipe 'em out. If they're in a strike zone -- he don't care how they're dressed, doesn't care anything about them -- they are subject to death. He doesn't allow our soldiers this. He doesn't allow combat troops this latitude, but for him, for the Kill List? It's a piece of cake. So Obama's profiling Muslim men. Now, A, to go to these lengths -- and, B, we assume he went to these lengths. This could just be a bunch of mishmash.

We don't really know how much of this happened. We know that a couple of sheiks get blown away by a drone, but that's not the point. Again, the point is, "Oh, you think he's a Muslim, huh? Oh, you think so? You think he doesn't really care about America, huh? You think he's a soft wuss liberal, huh?" This New York Times story is supposed to counter all that. And the detail is what everybody's looking at here and saying, "My God, where did they get this? It has to be somebody inside."

As I say, this is all coming from either the circle or former members of the circle, and this is not leaks. Folks, this is not leaks. This is public relations. This is PR. And there's much more. I mean, I've just scratched the surface. Then also there's the story on the other aspect of this: Stuxnet. The New York Times has a story on that, relevant passages from that. Let me give you one of those before we go to the break. "At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm's 'escape'..." That's the hack, Stuxnet, the computer virus known as "the worm."

"At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm's 'escape,' Mr. Obama, Vice President [Joe Bite Me] and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America's most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran's nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. 'Should we shut this thing down?' Mr. Obama asked..."

That quote from Obama, "Should we shut this thing down?" in the New York Times, is attributed to "members of the president's national security team who were in the room." So the Times is quoting Obama from members of his national security team who were in the room. Leaking. The Times is telling us their source is the "president's national security team ... in the room," and they're giving the Times quotes. While the Times is denying it! (laughing) I guess they lied to their own story.

And Obama says he's "offended" that anybody would say these leaks came out of his the White House.

RUSH: Quickly, Roseville, Minnesota, and Jeff. Great to have you on the program, sir. Open Line Friday. Hello.

CALLER: Mega dittos, Mr. Limbaugh. Hey, it is an interesting contrast between the way the Obama administration is handling these leaks as opposed to how the Bush administration handled the outing of Valerie Plame.

RUSH: That is interesting, isn't it? Valerie Plame, which was not a leak, everybody knew where it came from. It was Richard Armitage over at Colin Powell's office, titular head of the Republican Party. Richard Armitage leaked Valerie Plame's name to Bob Novak, and somehow Scooter Libby went to prison for it. They demanded a special prosecutor get to the bottom of this, oh, this was a profound security leak. Poor Valerie Plame, yes, she was a CIA agent and an operative, and it was horrible, and they leaked her name. It was Armitage. He never paid a price. They wanted Bush for this. They wanted Karl Rove. I'm glad you reminded me of that. Valerie Plame. And there wasn't even a leak. Everybody knew who had done it and yet we needed a special prosecutor.

And on this, ah. We actually don't need a special prosecutor on this. The New York Times has told us everything. The New York Times has done the job of special prosecutor. The New York Times is quoting people. There are names, dates. Obama's inner circle. The New York Times is the special prosecutor, in a sense. I mean, you get my drift.

RUSH: Even Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco is saying that these leaks have jeopardized American lives. Nobody's life was jeopardized by the non-leak of Valerie Plame's name.

RUSH: Daily Caller has an interesting story. "Mitt Romney would collect at least 72 of the 110 electoral votes available in eight battleground states if President Barack Obama's current polling numbers, as reported by The Huffington Post, are overstated by a mere 1%." Now, let me go back to Wednesday on this program, the day after the Wisconsin recall election. Now, I remember leading off the program with what I thought was the key point of the day. Everybody had their thoughts on what's the big lesson.

And a lot of people were saying the impact on unions, the literal loss of membership in public employee unions in Wisconsin, was profound. One of the reforms that Walker initiated was an end to the state deducting union dues off the top of a union member's paycheck. The union member never saw it. It was just like taxes: They never saw the money. The state deducted it and it went to the union and then it went to the Democrats. By the way, I have to tell you, I'm really pleased about something.

I read voluminously last night about the Walker recall and the latest opinion punditry, and I was excited to see how many people are writing about the lesson learned in the Walker recall. And basically, if I had to synthesize it, it would be the point that I have been pounding home for two years now. Finally, taxpayers have realized that they are paying for a deal they don't get. Taxpayers finally woke up and realized that lifetime...

You know, a public employee union member gets a job, works for 23 years, retires, and gets 90% of salary as the pension and full health care until they die. And people who are out of work or don't make very much money are paying the taxes that fund all that. And finally people woke up and realized that's not sustainable. I can't tell you how many people have come to that conclusion and realized that that's one of the primary lessons that has been learned by the public in all this.

'Cause, folks, you know, private sector union membership is down to 7%. The construction workers unions, the private sector union workforce is 7% of the US labor force. It topped out way back in the glory days at around 30, 35%. Now, the government union percentage is a little bit higher, but it's coming down as well. It was a profoundly educational campaign. The unions, when they retrace their steps here, are going to rue the day they did this recall. They're gonna rue the day they did all the recalls.

Because all that happened is the general public was educated. The general public woke up and finally understood what-all they were paying for. And then they coupled that with the entitlement mentality of union people who would go on vandalous rampages if they didn't get what they want. So there are people writing in the aftermath of the Wisconsin recall about the real death of the unions. That initiative of Walker's where union members could opt out of the state withholding their union dues?

That pretty much was akin to, "Do you want to be a member of a union or not?" And before the initiative, 60,000 people in Wisconsin were having their union dues withheld by the government. They never saw it. Something like 40,000 union workers opted out of that. It was a death knell. So that's all good. The second thing -- and in a political sense, almost as important. Because we know how flawed the exit polls were.... I mean, at nine o'clock when the polls closed they said it was 50-50.

They said it was too close to call on the cable networks. And by the way, the cable networks knew that that wasn't true. I wish I could tell you how I know that, but I would be betraying a courtesy. And I don't want to do that. But trust me: When you saw the Chyron graphic on the network at nine o'clock, "Race Too Close to Call," they knew it wasn't too close to call. I'll bet you also heard this. When you saw the Chyron graphic, "Race Too Close to Call," you then heard somebody say, "but we expect to call it in the next hour."

Well, if it's too close to call, how do you know you're gonna be calling it within the hour? The networks all send out memos, and the exit polls go to every network. They all combine, they buy them, and they all get the same data. And they all send memos out to their on-air staff and producers (memos, series of them) in the course of the afternoon. And I was privy to a bunch of these, and it was right there. "We expect to call the race between nine and ten. There's a percentage chance that we will not and percentage chance that we will."

So my point is that everybody knew, despite what was being reported on the air at the time, that the exit polls were worthless. It wasn't 50-50. It wasn't too close to call. But they like viewers, and the indecision and the unknown makes people stay tuned longer. I understand all that. But when it was all said and done, I know that one of the most important things going on at the White House is polls. They're looking at all the polling data they've got from all over the country, and they're saying, "What if this isn't right?

"What if none of these polls are accurate anymore?" How many years has it been, how many elections has it been that the exit polls were dead wrong? You go back to 2004, and the first two waves of exit polls had John Kerry elected. I'll never forget old Bob Shrum. The story goes that Bob Shrum, who ran Kerry's campaign, went in to him at five o'clock in the afternoon when the second wave came in and said, "Mr. Kerry, may I be the first to call you, 'Mr. President.'"

But when the real votes came in and they started being counted, the exit polls were nowhere near accurate. They said, "Okay, what's wrong? Why are our exit polls so wrong?" They started look at their methodology. Then they discovered that they oversampled Democrats by four to five percent in the exit poll, like they do every other poll during the course of the year. So are the polls right? That's what they're asking themselves. So, here comes this story from the Daily Caller.

"Mitt Romney would collect at least 72 of the 110 electoral votes available in eight battleground states if President Barack Obama's current polling numbers, as reported by The Huffington Post, are overstated by a mere 1%." If they're off by 1%. "Romney would win that electoral majority in Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin if there is a 1% undercount and if undecided voters there split evenly between Romney and Obama.

"That would give the former Massachusetts governor at least 253 Electoral College votes -- just a few votes shy of the 270 he will need to claim the White House. But if the undecided voters break for Romney by two-thirds, Romney would win all those states' 110 votes, pushing him well above the 270 margin and earning Obama a helicopter ride home to Illinois. 'It's a good reminder that small shifts in votes can play a big role in electoral votes,' Trey Grayson, director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, told The Daily Caller."

"Grayson predicted that the battleground states are 'likely to break together,' resulting in a strong showing for one candidate or the other." They're not going to split. "'A lot of these states have things in common,' he said, including Midwestern geography and higher than average populations of white voters. ... Tuesday's recall vote in Wisconsin .... was a good indicator of how badly some pre-election polling can perform." So now I guarantee you, there is abject panic out there.

Because Axelrod and Plouffe are asking themselves, "My gosh! What if our data's wrong?" And they're believing this notion how lovable and popular and likable Obama is. That's why this poll that came out yesterday (the New York Times/CBS poll) showing 67% the American people want Obamacare overturned by the Supreme Court -- only 24% want it upheld -- makes you wonder: What's the real number if they're willing to tell us that it's two-thirds? What if it's 75%? What if it's really 70%?

What if in that 24% there are some people afraid to tell the pollster that they don't like Obamacare? This is what they're asking themselves. And state by state, they're looking at the independents and the undecideds. They're really looking at the undecideds and saying, "Are these people really telling us the truth?" And you know they're trying to factor things like the Wilder Effect/the Bradley Effect. And then there's the new specter they're considering: Are people just trying to screw with the pollsters?

Are people just having fun with the pollsters, purposely telling them things aren't true just to screw up the outcome? They're thinking all of this, because it's been too many elections in a row where the exit polls are way off. And, by the way, a lot of the pre-election polls were, too. But not as bad as the exit polls.

RUSH: I want to pose this as a little think piece for you. 'Cause I find this fascinating. I ran across this at PJMedia.com, PajamasMedia.com. There's a guy there by David Goldman who writes under the name of "Spengler." We have always focused on the tipping point in this country being where net takers from the government begin to outnumber the payers.

People getting government assistance outnumbering those of us who pay taxes to pay for it. That's always been what we've looked at as the tipping point, that the country's lost once there are more of them than there are of us. But Mr. Goldman points out -- and he's got plenty of charts. I'll send a link to Koko. We'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com. (Give me some time to do that 'cause I'm swamped here.) He points out that the biggest net takers (and he's got the chart data to back this up) are not welfare recipients.

Now, this dovetails with... I mean, everything they have comes from taxes. It's not called "welfare." It's called their salaries and their pensions and their health care and their benefits package. But every dime of it comes from taxpayers. Government doesn't produce anything. Every federal worker, every municipal employee, every union in every state, is who Mr. Goldman says are the biggest net takers. Now, Snerdley's in there frowning because he's so rooted in this notion that the food stamp crowd and the AFDC crowd and all these others are the biggest net takers.

But this guy's got the chart data. Again, it does me no good on the radio to show you. But just stick with me on this. It's not very complicated. The biggest net takers are municipal unions. The biggest net payers are owners of property. Because it's much easier to raise property taxes than it is to enact brand-new taxes. You get your property tax bill, what recourse do you have? It goes up; you have no recourse. Even when your property value is falling, your property taxes are going up, are they not?

So, the biggest net takers are municipal unions and the biggest net payers are property owners. Now, fortunately property owners still significantly outnumber municipal union workers. So the tipping point in this way of looking at things is a little down the road. We're not quite as close to it. And added to this, property owners are ticked off. Their property values are way down, and yet their taxes are way up. And this could be one of the best things that we have going for us that's not commented on, not reported on.

The Tea Party are property owners. Not all of them, but many of them are. Their home values are plummeting. Property taxes are rising. Everybody... I mean, this Wisconsin recall and the whole contretemps over the past two years is focused on this. Now how many people, largely because of this program (ahem), do you think for the first time really understand how municipal employees are paid? And how many people, for the first time, understand they're earning more than the people who are paying them?

And how many people, for the first time, understand the circuitous money-laundering route that union dues take before they end up in the campaign coffers of Democrats? It's a never-ending cycle. Here's how it works. It's very simple. Taxpayer Joe Snerdley pays his taxes. A portion of Joe Snerdley's taxes goes to pay Melva Snerdley, the union employee that works at the city. It goes to pay her salary and her pension and her benefits. She's a member of a union. She pays dues.

It's a money-laundering scheme. It's a way to get people to donate to Democrats who have no control over the money. It's not very many unions that allow their union members to direct how their dues are going to be spent. By the way, an added source of contretemps in Wisconsin was the option for people not to join a union if they didn't want to. And that takes the dues out of the whole thing. And the money-laundering scheme takes a hit. And that's another reason why the unions were fit to be tied in Wisconsin.

How many people, largely because of... Well, forget why. (We all know why.) And in the midst of this, the Tea Party is born. And people, property owners, their taxes are going up. And they finally figure out what their taxes are doing. They're funding all these union people who are showing up and beating up people at Tea Party rallies and so forth. And they're saying, "We're paying these people? It's our taxes paying these people? It's our taxes paying their pensions, and we don't have a pension?

"It's our taxes paying their health care after they retire, and we don't have anything like that? It's our taxes paying them? And they're out there saying, 'Gimme more! Gimme more! Gimme more!' They're out there with a sense of entitlement. 'It's mine, it's mine, it's mine.' And they're tearing things up like state capitol building if they don't get their way like a bunch of spoiled-rotten kids?" People are finally saying, "No more," and, "If we'd-a known this 30 years ago, we'd-a stopped it then."

And that's why it's not gonna go away. That's why the Tea Party's not gonna vanish. That's why it's not going to dematerialize. It's only gonna intensify, as more and more people have a hands-on understanding of it.

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

Conservative Review
Issue #230	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	June 10, 2012