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).

The Olympics began with what appeared to be a Saturday Night Live skit, with hospital beds and nurses dancing about and eventually spelling out the initials NHS (National Health Service).

Did you know that the largest protest marches ever are going on in Mexico over election fraud? Neither did I. I read it in Facebook. Where is our news on this? Reuters and CNN gave this some coverage. Very little elsewhere as of Wednesday, August 1.

The President is about to grant legal status to a number of illegal aliens, at a cost of $465. This is just coming out, so details are sparse. I also heard $465/day from one source.

A week or so ago, the owner of the private company, Chick-fil-A, spoke affirmatively of normal marriage, and said that trying to change the definition of marriage in America was defying God’s Word. Four mayors came out against Chick-fil-A, and talked about not letting them come into their arena of influence, as if these mayors were kings of their little realm (at least two of them backed off partially).

Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential hopeful and now a FoxNews host, suggested that people who believed in free speech and/or a

normal marriage show Chick-fil-A their support by buying some food there on August 1^st; and this ended up being the largest sales day for Chick-fil-A ever, with lines of cars extending for blocks and even miles in some places. In several areas, Chick-fil-A brought out lemon aid and water to protestors. People also went to Chick-fil-A in large numbers on Thursday, and Friday was declared some sort of a gay kiss-in, where gays were to go to Chick-fil-A’s and kiss.

One picture floating around the internet has people lined up at Chick-fil-A berating Christians for showing up to their, but not to homeless shelters or food kitchens to help. That conservatives give more of their time and money than liberals has been verified on many occasions.

Priests for Life, a Catholic organization that has been on the front lines of the pro-life cause for the past 20 years, announced August 1 that it will not comply with the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate which went into effect on that date. The mandate, which is already the target of over a score of lawsuits filed by nearly 60 faith-based organizations, requires that all non-church employers provide their employees with health insurance that includes free access to sterilization and contraception - including abortion-inducing drugs.

This week, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state's law governing voting by members of the military (it gave the military a couple extra days to vote). Their suit said that part of the law is "arbitrary" with "no discernible rational basis."

Actress Roseanne Barr announced Thursday that she is seeking the Peace and Freedom Party's nomination for president, with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as her intended running mate. Barr had earlier sought the Green Party's nomination, but lost to Massachusetts physician Jill Stein.

An Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer, Cook Medical, says it is scrapping plans to open five new plants in the coming years because of a looming tax tied to President Obama's health care overhaul law. They claim that the tax on medical devices, set to take effect next year, will cost the company roughly $20 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities over the next five years.

Carbonite famously dropped Rush Limbaugh on a Saturday Night at the height of the Sandra Fluke controversy. Carbonite became the poster child for the Rush boycott movement organized by Media Matters, whichcoordinated the effort with so-called independent groups. On August 1 Carbonite released its 2d Quarter 2012 results, the first full quarter after dropping Limbaugh in March. The results shocked Wall Street, as Carbonite did not meet its growth targets, causing multiple analysts to drop the target price. The stock dropped 15% in a day.

President Barack Obama's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein is resigning his position in the Obama administration.

Despite being saved by the government and still propped up by tens of billions of dollars, GM profits dropped 41% in the 2^nd quarter.

A report by the Government Accountability Office has revealed that taxpayer-funded Amtrak has lost more than $800 million in food and beverage sales over the last ten years, largely due to waste, theft, and a lack of proper oversight.

A top White House adviser received clear notice that solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. faced a "severe liquidity crisis" even before a controversial restructuring allowing investors to recoup money from the now-bankrupt company before taxpayers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has again blocked a Republican attempt to vote on repealing the healthcare reform law this week.

Washington voters last year approved privatization of the state's liquor business, opening up liquor sales to grocery stores and other retailers. However, government then requried a new 10% distributor fee and a 17% retail fee to replace money the state lost when it shut down its state-run liquor stores. The result was higher prices for consumers at many retail outlets. Not too much of a surprise: liquor sales increased dramatically in Idaho and Oregon in their border stores. What I did not know is, Idaho and Oregon both have state-run liquor stores.

Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has determined the breast milk is better for babies than formula, so formula will hereon in be locked up in hospitals and be made more difficult to get for new mothers.

From the LA Times: "Gov. Jerry Brown's administration on Friday announced that $119 million more in untapped money was found in a sweeping audit of state accounts, bringing to more than $286.5 million the sum lawmakers were unaware of as they repeatedly cut government services. The additional money that lawmakers were unaware of includes funds for healthcare programs, reimbursement of crime victims and cleanup of underground petroleum tanks."

Mark Clayton, 35, reported raising no money and campaigned little, but received more than 48,000 votes- twice the number of his nearest competitor in Thursday's seven-candidate Democratic primary. However, because of his clear stand against gay marriage, the Tennessee Democratic Party is disavowing the man who won the party's nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Bob Corker in November. Clayton campaign's Facebook page champions three major positions: strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution, family stances that are pro-life, and keeping the country from turning into "an Orwellian super state."

I am a couple months late in mentioning this, but, while some cities have called themselves sanctuary cities; Costa Mesa, CA declared itself a rule of law city. That means, the city council intends to abide by the law there.

The Civil Rights Agenda, a local LGBT rights advocacy group, filed multiple complaints with the Illinois Department of Human Rights Thursday, alleging that the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A restaurant chain's "intolerant corporate culture" violates Illinois law and a provision in the state's Human Rights Act.

OnStar and General Motors have become official partners of Pecan Street Inc., the country's first nonprofit research and development consortia, where residents agreed to be part of a clean-energy smart grid test for sustainable living. This is a 700-acre planned community near Austin, TX, will test the impact of "smart homes" and other green technology, like electronic vehicles. 100 Chevy volts were offered at deeply discounted prices, and 55 of them were purchased. They have rejected my suggested name, A Very Deep Hole.

A group of 100-200 Occupy Oakland protesters began marching down Telegraph Avenue after being denied a permit to protest near the First Friday event at Art Murmur. One of them apparently smashed a window at President Barack Obama's Oakland campaign office while there were people working inside.

So far, about 280 people have been murdered in Chicago this year; and they have strict gun laws.

Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel repeatedly claimed he had no memory of the Obama administration's controversial $535 million loan to failed solar company Solyndra, but White House emails released Thursday say it was Emanuel's idea for the administration to tout the doomed firm.

New Attorney General Eric Holder made two early gaffs; one about us being cowards and another about desiring to reinstitute the assault weapons ban. Since the President needed to get a united Democratic front for his domestic agenda, then chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel sent a message to Holder to “shut the ___ up on guns.”

Harry Reid has been on the winning end of a number of land deals, such as some land which he purchased far under market price in Bullhead City. The details are somewhat difficult to sort out, but needless to say, Harry Reid’s investment of $10,000 could be parlayed into 10x that amount today.

Fairly recently, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though HE had NOT personally OWNED the PROPERTY for three years, property deeds show.

As a senator and the majority leader in the Senate, Reid pulls down a salary of $193,400 per year. According to the latest data from Opensecrets.org, which is from 2010, Reid has assets totaling $10,360,000. This is the very same man who has, for the past month, been claiming that he was told over the phone that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for 10 years.

Coptic Christian villagers in Egypt were terrorized after a Muslim Brotherhood cleric roamed the village vowing that the village church of St. George will be burned down, its pastor and all the entire Christian inhabitants killed and their homes torched after the burial of Muslim man.

`Honor Killing': Pakistani parents found guilty of suffocating teenage daughter who refused forced marriage to her 1st cousin

The Egyptian government has requested the release of a top al Qaeda explosives expert from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah, an explosives expert.

In the wake of the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt, which led to the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and the election of a parliament dominated by Islamist parties, expressions of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification have become common in the Egyptian media, including in government-owned media, according to the U.S. State Department.

Ali Mussa Daqduq, the Hezbollah terrorist released by the Obama Administration to Iraq out of respect for the country's sovereignty won't make it to the U.S. to face trial for killing five American soldiers. He was in Iraq and the Obama administration did not want to bring him back to the U.S.

Nancy Pelosi: “Well, I don't know what's trickling down, but it's not a pleasant experience.” Okay, taken out of context. :)

President Obama: "They have tried to sell us this trickle-down, tax-cut fairy dust before; and guess what, it didn’t work then and it will not work now. It’s not a plan to create jobs; it is not a plan to reduce the deficit; it is not a plan to build our middle class; it is not a plan to move our economy forward; it takes us backwards, to a place where we don’t need to be." Apparently, when taxes were reduced and tax revenues increased, this was magic?

Democratic Mayor of Leesburg, Virginia Kristen Umstattd: “The president, I think, will never get the credit he deserves. I think his policies averted a second great depression and we ended up with a recession which hasn’t been a great thing to live through, but a depression would have been far worse.”

Socialist Bernie Sanders: “The last number of years, there has been class warfare being perpetrated by the very, very wealthy against the middle class and the working families.”

House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi: "The fact is we've been very clear. President Obama has said it in his campaign and since then and in this campaign as well. The Democrats want to be - have fairness in our tax code; that we want to go forward with giving - having the tax cuts for those making over $250,000, a couple making over $250,000, to have those tax cuts expire."

Alen Krueger, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers: “Today's employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression."

Alan Krueger: "The household survey showed that the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3% in July (or, more precisely, the rate rose from 8.217% in June to 8.254% in July). Acting BLS Commissioner John Galvin noted in his statement that the unemployment rate was `essentially unchanged' from June to July."

Former Vante CFO Adam Smith, who bullied a female worker at the Chick-fil-A drive-thru window, as he ordered a cup of water: "When I

first thought about participating in this protest, I was really excited. I felt purpose in standing up against Chick-fil-A's funding of anti-human rights groups. I felt like it was the right thing to do - the human thing to do. After recording the conversation, my enthusiasm in standing up against Chick-fil-A was very high, and in that moment, I decided to post the video. For me, and at that moment, the main goal of supporting the gay community outweighed the collateral damage that Rachel became. And I literally just saw Rachel as collateral damage. We have to stop rationalizing our destructive actions this way. We have to start seeing people as people. We aren't ever going to make social progress by personally attacking people. I'm clearly guilty of this. The degree of reaction my video ended up having took me by surprise, obviously. There was a lot of passion expressed, and still is being expressed. Part of me is quite discouraged by the threats made to my family and former co-workers. But another part of me is encouraged. If people can get this passionate about a guy being rude to a girl in a drive-through, how much more passion can we have for our fellow human beings whose basic rights are being threatened by corporations like Chick-fil-A. How much more passion can we channel toward fighting for equal rights - for all people, not just straight ones."

Senate leader Harry Reid, back in July: "His father, George Romney, set the precedent, that people running for president file their tax returns, let everybody look at them. But Mitt Romney can't do that because he's basically paid no taxes in the prior 12 years."

Harry Reid, to the Huffington Post, at the end of July, about a man who invested in Bain Capital who called Reid up a month ago: "Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years. He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain. But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look? You guys have said his wealth is $250 million. Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

Former car czar Steve Rattner on CNN: “I will tell you that as a private equity guy, I'm familiar with many of the things that he did. And I know many people who have done many of the things that he did. I do not know anyone who did everything that he did. Some of what he did, like the [up to $100 million] IRA, I have asked fellow private equity guys . . . none of us had even known this was a possible trick, if you will. He has pushed the envelope all the way to the edge, to his benefit, and I think that Americans would find that pretty distasteful.”

CBS’s Bill Buck: “Whatever the level of exaggeration from the Senator or his source, there is probably at least some level of truth to the statement. Unfortunately, Romney is stonewalling the American public by not releasing his records so we'll never know the truth.”

Harry Reid, from the Senate floor: "The word's out that he hasn't paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove he has paid taxes, because he hasn't." The word is out because Reid put the word out.

Robert Gibbs, Obama campaign guy: “Again, put the tax returns out. Put this whole thing to rest. Candy, have you ever seen anybody go to such great lengths to not put something out? And when you generally don't put something out, isn't it because you're generally hiding something?”

President Obama: "[Women] are beginning to gain access to contraception at no additional cost I'm not going to give any ground to those who would deny women their own health care choices." Government trumps religion.

Jacob Meister, Governing Board President of TCRA and the attorney who filed many complaints against Chick-fil-A in Chicago: "In our current high speed media and social media environment, Chick-fil-A has announced and caused to be published, to hundreds of millions of people, that LGBT people are unacceptable and objectionable. They have made it clear the lives of LGBT individuals are unacceptable to them and that same-gender families are unwelcome at Chick-fil-A."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: "I don't think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn't he release his tax returns?" Harry Reid, incidentally, has not released any tax returns.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "[Mitt Romney is] the most secretive presidential candidate since Richard Nixon...Forget about president - Mitt Romney couldn't get confirmed as a cabinet secretary."

Sen. Chuck Schumer: "Every day Mitt Romney has to talk about tax returns is a bad day for him and a good day for the Democrats."

The Center for American Progress email of research that they did: "ANALYSIS: Romney would kill 360,000 in 2013 alone." Left out the word jobs.

Jeremy Bird, BarackObama.com email: “President Obama's 51st birthday is coming up this Saturday, August 4^th. To celebrate, Californians [they seem to think I live in CA -ed] are coming together at phone banks across the state this weekend...”

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): "I believe that the situation we face, Mr. President, is as dangerous as any of the sort of real crises that we talk about - today we had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of Syria, and we all know what's happening with respect to Iran, and nuclear weapons and the possibility even of a war. Well, this issue [climate change] actually is of as significant a level of importance, because it affects life itself on the planet."

NASA scientist James Hansen: “[climate change] is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact...There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time"

James Hansen: "We now know that the chances these extreme weather events would have happened naturally - without climate change - is negligible."

The gay novelist Christopher Bram on NPR: “In 1968, he published "Myra Breckenridge," where transsexuality leaves the gay-straight question in the dust. Later that year, he got into a battle with William F. Buckley, which began with Buckley calling him a queer -- on national television during the Democratic convention.” Except, this was a lie.

Mark Krzos, a reporter for the News-Press in Southwest Florida, on his facebook page about a local Chick-fil-A restaurant on Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day: "I have never felt so alien in my own country as I did today while covering the restaurant's supporters. The level of hatred,

unfounded fear and misinformed people was astoundingly sad. I can't even print some of the things people said...It was like broken records of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and a recitation of half-truths and outright lies. Such a brave stand, eating a __damn sandwich."

George Soros-funded far-left website Think Progress publish an article with the title: "In Oklahoma, It's So Hot The Street Lights Are Melting." The melted street lights were because of a fire. Think Progress has since changed the title.

Washington Post’s Lisa Miller about the Black pastors who oppose Obama’s stance on gay marriage: “CNN, Fox News, NBC, the New York Post, the Daily Caller and the Christian Post, among others, followed the story. Headlines underscored the potential threat: ‘Obama's support for gay marriage `might cost him the election,’ wrote NBC.com. In reality, though, Owens isn't a story. He's a figurehead in what political operatives call an Astroturf campaign. It looks like a grass-roots movement, but it's really a political stunt.” However, kudos to those other organizations for not burying this story.

Actor and CNN host D.L. Hughley: "[Obama] doesn't seem to get that you have to be willing at some point to fight fire with fire. He's closer to being a white kid. Intellectually, like his experiences are so different from mine that, I should say, he responds like an intellect as opposed to a regular guy."

Cher tweet: If Darth Vader & Dracula got married & had a Baby,it would be Dick Cheney!OMG! Darth Is BLACK &Born on another Planet Dicks Not an AMERICAN

Cher tweet: If u dont know my politics,U do now! I must fight against these T-Baggies ! Michele Bachman & Sarah these r the best they got ! Bring it !

Cher tweet: U R LUV'D & WELCOME! Mitts A Spineless Racist ! 2Words "British Olympics" @Suzannehaley: I GOP Pls don't make fun of me,showing my luv 4 u !

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew from last month on the president's decision to exert executive privilege over documents related to the "Fast and Furious" operation: "This administration has been the most transparent ever."

Gore Vidal, recently deceased: “But what I was saying, that early on, before the word gay had really been invented, was there's no such thing. Only a country, basically as mindless about these matters - based upon our peasant superstitions, religious superstitions - would they make categories...only a country that is based upon an extremely primitive religion, which is Christianity, I am a devoted enemy of monotheism in all of its forms, could have come with a categorizing of people as one thing or the other...well, it's a very primitive country, the United States, and it's full of superstitions, which come out of a very fundamental religious bias, which is primitive Christianity. And since they have enough votes to terrify the more sophisticated people who run the country, these are some of the bones that they get thrown - like prayer in the schools and abortion and all subjects which have nothing to do with the federal government, but they see to it that it does. No, no, we're kind of a joke.”

President Obama from 2 weeks ago: "Most of the ads are negative. In fact, almost all of the ads are negative; and it's understandable that as you watch these TV ads that you start thinking that politics just doesn't seem to get what's going on in your lives. That there's so much negativity and so much cynicism; and it's understandable if at a certain point, people just say `you know what, there's a disconnect here. This is not speaking to me. It's not speaking to what's going on in my neighborhood, my community.'"

Van Jones: “[The TEA party] want Obama fired so they don't care how many Americans are in economic pain... they want to hurt the American people economically so they can gain politically.”

Karl Warden tweet: keep letting all those conservative crazy christian ass holes eat all the @ChickfilA they want and they'll die off! #NOsurvivalfortheFAT

Molly tweet: Hope all you judgmental bigots feeding your fat asses at @ChickfilA choke on their disgusting waffle fries.

s a m tweet: If you go eat at a Chick fil A today, I hope you choke to death on that LGBT hating chicken. #chickfilA

aleashuhh tweet: oh please please let there be a news story about some bible thumper having a heart attack and dying in a chick-fil-a today fingers crossed

Dick Cheney suggested that Sarah Palin was not ready as a vice presidential candidate; his daughter tweets:

Liz Cheney tweet: Rarely do I disagree with best VP ever but @SarahPalinUSA more qualified than Obama and Biden combined. Huge respect 4 all she's done 4 GOP.

As you know, mention the name Palin anywhere, and the hate will suddenly appear:

psychedelicatessen tweet: @Liz_Cheney @SarahPalinUSA wow, you're an idiot. She quit during her term as Gov. She was a train wreck VP Nom. Go drink blood w/ Daddy.

semironic tweet:@mlake9 @Liz_Cheney Agreed... as long as we're talking about showing off your ass in tight skirts.

bmaz tweet: @speechboy71 @Liz_Cheney @SarahPalinUSA Yes, completely adorable. For a cravenly insane right wing sack of lying shit like Baby Dick Liz.

Karen J tweet: @Liz_Cheney That statement by you about @SarahPalinUSA is proof positive that you're as insane/delusional as every other Tea Party nut.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "They are the decision makers, to the extent that the presidential election hopefuls [of the USA] must go and kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their election victory. Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom."

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party: "And all the troubles that exist around the world are because of the Jews. When the Jews are wiped out, then the world would be purified and the sun of peace would begin to rise on the entire world."

Congressman Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, who is a married gay, on Chick-fil-A: "I wouldn't want to personally eat there. I wouldn't want to support a guy who thinks I shouldn't have my rights, but I don't think the government should do that." Barney, I could kiss you for that.

Stephanie Cutter, BarackObama.comfundraising email: “Subject: Romney defeats Obama? ...When you read the news 101 days from now, that might be the headline you see.”

Houston-made video for dealing with workplace gun attacks, with the 3 bullet-points, “Run, hide, fight...And commit to taking the shooter down, no matter what.”

Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, and speaking on behalf of an 18-year law enforcement and military veteran: "[The federal government is] punishing law enforcement officers who are just trying to uphold U.S. law."

Steve Robinson, Chick-fil-A's executive vice president of marketing: "While we don't release exact sale numbers, we can confirm reports that it was a record-setting day."

FoxNews host Shep Smith on Chick-fil-A: "Forget National Day of Intolerance, let's just stay with badminton."

Chicago Cardinal Francis George on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's statement that the fast food chain's values "are not Chicago values": "Recent comments by those who administer our city seem to assume that the city government can decide for everyone what are the `values' that must be held by citizens of Chicago. I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city? Approval of state-sponsored homosexual unions has very quickly become a litmus test for bigotry. . Surely there must be a way to properly respect people who are gay or lesbian without using civil law to undermine the nature of marriage."

CBS’s Scott Paulson on Harry Reid’s charges against Mitt Romney: “How dare Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, spew his latest unsubstantiated rumored statements which he made against Mitt Romney? Reid now says that he has heard - but won't specifically reveal from whom - that Romney hasn't paid any taxes for ten years. Reid will only say that someone who used to invest with Bain Capital - where Romney was a former CEO - called his office with this no-tax-paid information...To play Reid's game, apparently the Republicans need to have their phones ringing with unsubstantiated information about Obama's unreleased files, as there are many. For starters, how about some calls about the sealed Occidental College records, the sealed Columbia College records, the sealed Harvard College records, the sealed Columbia thesis paper, the sealed selective service registration, the sealed medical records, the sealed Illinois State Senate records and schedule, and the sealed law practice client list. All of these things are ‘rumored’ to be unavailable. So, in Harry Reid's world, they are definitely worth mentioning.”

CNN’s Candy Crowley: "But wages are lower than they were when he took office. The cost of health care is higher. The cost of college is higher. We all know what has happened to the housing market. So the question is, why should Americans look at this and say to themselves, am I better off than I was four years ago, since all of those mile markers that he put up there have gone south?"

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs: "Well, let's be clear, Candy. The President has taken dramatic steps that will help lower our health care costs. The President has countless number of times passed legislation and ideas to reduce the burden that students have and middle class families have to borrow money to go to college."

Chris Wallace: “But, David [Axelrod], didn’t this White House badly misjudge this recovery. I remember in 2010, two summers ago, you and Vice President Biden were running around talking about Recovery Summer?”

David Axelrod, Obama campaign advisor: “First of all, I wasn’t running around saying anything other than we were going to have to be persistent, that it took years to get into this mess; it was gonna take years to get out of it.”

David Axelrod in 2010: "This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing."

Senate Leader Harry Reid: “There is a controversy because the Republican presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, refuses to release his tax returns. As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands...It's clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is. Whatever Romney's hiding probably speaks volumes about how he would approach issues that directly impact middle-class families, like tax reform and the economy. When you are running for president, you should be an open book.”

Republican candidate Mitt Romney: "Harry Reid really has to put up or shut up, all right? So Harry, who are your sources? Let's have Harry explain who that is. And by the way, Harry, I understand what you're trying to do. You're trying to deflect the fact the jobs numbers are bad, that Americans are out of work, and you're trying to throw everything up on a screen that will grab attention away from the fact the policies of the White House haven't worked to put Americans to work."

Rush Limbaugh: “I'll tell you what ought to be happening here. IRS agents should be interrogating Harry Reid to determine who it is that supposedly leaked confidential tax information about a private citizen to him. And Harry Reid, having disclosed publicly what he was told, should be investigated as well for passing such information on to the public. This is a felony, what Harry Reid is doing. So if anybody needs to be investigated here, it's Harry Reid. IRS agents ought to be talking to him and trying to figure out who leaked. You know, who is this guy from Bain that's calling Harry Reid? Who are these people? And then he publicly disclosed what he was told, and he doesn't know if it's true. He's demanding that Romney prove it, so Harry Reid's admitting he doesn't know if it's true.”

Reince Priebus: “As far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen...I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself, complains about people with money, but lives in the Ritz Carlton here [pointing]...down the street...this is just a made up issue.”

Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters: “You know, Candy Crowley's a great journalist. But she earlier said that Harry Reid wouldn't reveal his sources. How do we know he has any sources?”

Chris Matthews: I think a lot of it [the TEA party platform] is ethnic to it and I'm not trashing people as racist or anything, but I think a lot of it is ethnic. Meaning, they don't like the changing demographic of the United States. So every time—

Matthews: No, no. He's a Cuban-American and that's always been a little different situation.

Matthews: Every time a speech is written by a Tea Partier, they're not sufficiently happy with saying, 'we're going to cut spending.' They've got to say we're going to do something with the border. By the way, the border doesn't cross Cuba by the way, it's always Mexico.

Pappas: What brings the whole Tea Party together across the country is at the center of American politics. It's not extreme. It's let's only spend what we bring in. It's fiscal policy.

Matthews: What do you mean there's not a consistent position? How come when you meet them, they talk about the 'cause'? It sounds like the Confederate Army still fighting the Civil War when you talk to them.

Pappas: When we bring together Tea Partiers from across the country to FreedomWorks, what they agree on is on free-market fiscal responsibility and Constitutional limit to federal power. They disagree on everything else; social policy, immigration.

Bob Schieffer: “...some pretty dismal economic figures that came out Friday, our economy is really just limping along. It is President Obama's policy. He's been there for a long time now. So with the election just a hundred days away now, Congresswoman, is the President running out of time here in terms of turning this economy around?”

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “Well, we have made progress from where we were when President Obama took office, when the economy--our economy had just contracted almost by nine percent. Now we've begun to turn things around and had our twelfth straight quarter of growth. We have a long way to go.”

Bob Schieffer, CBS Host: “Let me go to you, Governor Strickland. You have been pounding Mitt Romney for not releasing his tax returns, and you have repeated what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been saying that Mitt Romney may have paid no taxes in all of, in some of those years. You know, this morning Reince Priebus who's the chairman of the Republican Party, said I think over on Fox, that, that Harry Reid is a dirty liar. And I have to say, he has shown nothing, no evidence to substantiate that charge. He just says he heard it from somebody. Do you have any proof that Mitt Romney paid no taxes in some years?”

Ted Strickland, Former Democratic Governor of Ohio: “No, but Mr. Romney could give us the proof that he has paid taxes consistently. The fact is, Bob, Mitt Romney wants the American people to trust him with the presidency, but he won't trust us with his tax returns. All he has to do is release his tax returns. The question that I think is this: why is Mitt Romney refusing to give us his tax returns?”

Schieffer: “Well, you know, I take your point, Governor, but isn't this kind of like Joe McCarthy back in the era when he said, ‘I have here in my hand the names of 400 people in the state department who are communist?’ It turned out he didn't and he was saying the way to prove that they're not is for them to come forward here. I mean, asking somebody to come forward to, to just because there's been an unsubstantiated charge, that's a little thin to me.”

George Stephanopoulos, Host: “Before we go, George, Ann Coulter talks about energizing the base. I think we saw one base that was certainly energized this week by the -- in Texas, the Tea Party had a big victory by the election of Ted Cruz. He's going to be the Republican Senate nominee, almost certainly the next senator from Texas.”

George Will: “Another example of journalistic malpractice in this country - the constant writing off of the Tea Party, which just goes about its business of electing senators. They'll elect Cruz, they'll probably elect Mourdock in Indiana, they'll probably elect Deb Fischer in Nebraska. Often, George, the most interesting and important fights in American politics aren't between the parties, they're within the parties. People say about Ted Cruz, well, he's part of the anti-intellectual Tea Party. Well, Princeton, Harvard, clerked for Justice Rehnquist, I don't think so.”

Will: Then, they say, well, he doesn't play well with others. And people in Texas say, he doesn't play well with others? Send him to Washington.

"Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is." -Richard Nixon

The full title of his book is: I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes Is Ruining America

Roseanne Barr tweet:@CindyChafian u certainly have a lot of disrespect 4 someone who is running for POTUS-why is that? No respect for american ways?

Cindy Chafian tweet: @JoeySwinson @TheRealRoseanne No darling, its called common sense and being married to a naval officer who deals with it.

Roseanne Barr tweet: @CindyChafian @JoeySwinson i knew you were on the dole-as are all ppl who think like u! living off tax $ forever.

Roseanne Barr tweet: t party is another word 4 ppl employed by the military who want to see the social safety net dismantled so they can b assured of their gov$

Ted Cruz, nominee for the U.S. Senate from Texas, on Washington values: “The ret of America is looking at Washington and saying, ‘What’s wrong with you people?’ ” [quoted from memory]

Ted Cruz, on compromise: “I’ll work with martiana if they’re willing cut spending and reduce the debt.”

Ted Cruz on the conservative principles of Hispanics: “When was the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?”

Mancow, on Mayor Bloomberg saying police should go out on strike: “Goodnight, Irene; that’s 2 scoops of stupid.”

Ann Coulter: “The Obama campaign message is, you can vote for the guy who put millions of people out of work, quadrupled the deficit and wrecked American healthcare, or you can vote for that really mean guy whose wife owns a horse.”

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas): "You said when we fail, there are dire consequences. Of course, we know there are dire consequences, there's a bunch of dead people stacked up over at Fort Hood right now that are dire consequences...two of the most important agencies of this government still haven't defined what happened at Fort Hood by even mentioning that Islamic terrorism had anything to do with it...at what point does it get to be Islamic terrorism?"

Mitt Romney: "Over the years Iran has amassed a bloody and brutal record. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats, and killed its own people. It supports the ruthless Assad regime in Syria. They have provided weapons that have killed American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has plotted to assassinate diplomats on American soil. It is Iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and the most destabilizing nation in the world. We have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran's leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions.”

Mitt Romney: "A nation has the capacity to choose its own capital city, and Jerusalem is Israel's capital. I think it's long been the policy to ultimately have our embassy in the nation's capital of Jerusalem." This is a dig at the Obama administration, as none of them will call Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio): "Sometimes I have to catch my breath and slow down because the rhetoric in this campaign is just so over-the-top. And that's because the president's policies have failed. Listen - 93% of Americans believe they're a part of the middle class. That's why you hear the president talk about the middle class every day, because he's talking to 93% of the American people. But the president has never created a job. He's never even had a real job.”

Charles Gasparino: “Maybe that's because the real administration power on these issues is senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who shares the president's most absurd economic theories, like the virtues of raising taxes on job-creating small businesses even in a time of economic distress.”

Florida congressman Allen West: "As a retired Army officer I am appalled at the Obama administration's actions to bring a lawsuit against the State of Ohio for the early voting privileges it extends to our Men and Women serving in uniform. To have the Commander in Chief make our US Servicemen and Women the target of a political attack to benefit his reelection actions is reprehensible. The voting privilege extended to these Warriors who represent the best among us should not be a part of the collective vision of this inept President who is more concerned about his reelection than sequestration. As a Combat Veteran, for this President to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military is unconscionable..how dare this President compare the service, sacrifice, and commitment of those who Guard our liberties not as special and seek to compare them to everyone else. Barack Obama is undeserving of the title Commander-in-Chief."

Chicks On The Right fb posting: “So, Harry McSenile makes about 200 grand a year. And he's worth over 10 million....hmmm....makes me want to see HIS tax returns. Hypocrite.”

Paula Priesse fb posting: July 29th - Unemployment over 8% for 41 straight months. GDP growth at 1.5%. Trillion dollar plus deficits. Poverty at the highest level in 50 years. Now imagine if a republican president had said, "We tried our plan and it worked." The media would go bonkers! O uttered these exact same words last Monday. But nary a peep from ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN. In 1980, more than 50 million Americans watched network news. That figure today is barely over 20 million. CNN's ratings are the lowest since 1991. This is O's last election. Be nice if it was the last election for the corrupt media as well. P

Paula Priesse fb posting: July 30th - First Newsweek informs us Romney was a school bully, a dog torturer and a heartless Gordon Gekko wannabe. Now they pull a 180 and insist Mitt's a "wimp." They must have photos of Romney wearing mom jeans while very "delicately" throwing a baseball. Or ones where Mitt's riding a kid's bike wearing a helmet. Hmm . scratch that. (below) The magazine also thinks Romney's too "insecure." Like making up stuff in his book to make himself look good. And saying "I" or "me" 117 TIMES in a recent 25-minute campaign speech in Ohio. Oops . that was O too. Sadly, Newsweek will soon be available online only. Sorry bird & cat lovers, looks like you'll have only the NY Times to line your cages & litter boxes. P

Paula Priesse fb posting: August 2nd - Sure, most polls over-sample Dems. But even so you wonder, "How can O still be in the mid-forties?" Could make you depressed. Then something like yesterday happens. Americans saying they've had enough! Not with mindless chants or drum circles but with their wallets. They've had enough of insecure blowhards dictating what their values should be. There's no record of discrimination at Chick-fil-A. Yet the anger from the left yesterday was brutal. No way to show quotes, way too vile. But the basic sentiment was this: "Hope these fat, Bible-thumpers all die of heart attacks!" Peace & love to you too, oh tolerant & open-minded ones. As for the believers in free speech? A great day to be an American! P

Harry Reid will demand Romney release all his tax returns. If that doesn't work, they'll raise a big stink over Ann Romney's horse. And if that doesn't work, they'll demand higher taxes on those (including small businesses) making more than 250 grand. That's always been a big job creator. Who says Dems don't know squat about economics? P

Paula Priesse fb posting: August 4th - 163,000 new jobs in July. Still terrible but better. But how so when 195,000 fewer Americans were employed? (Bureau of Labor Statistics: June - 142,415.000, July - 142,220,000) Oh right, hundreds of thousands of fake "seasonally adjusted" jobs were added. No worries, O & the Dems have a surefire plan to finally tackle 42 straight months of 8% plus unemployment. First,

Paula Priesse fb posting: August 5th - Lib columnist Mary Williams on gymnast Gabrielle Douglas: "The gold medalist is a teenager of deep faith and gratitude and that can be a little unnerving." What has Mary "unnerved?" Gabby saying this after her win: "I give all the glory to God. The glory goes up to Him and the blessings fall down on me." A salon.com colleague of Mary remarked, "I would like her more if she were not so, so, so into Jesus." Ms. Williams then snidely asks, "What is Jesus going to do now for Gabby Douglas' career?" Two things Mary: 1) Millions still believe "deep faith" and "gratitude" are qualities to be admired & 2) Not being as crass and as self-absorbed as you, it's likely Gabby views her faith as much more than a smart "career move." P

Jodi Miller: “Ice T defended gun rights as the last defense against tyranny. Racist.”

Alec Baldwin, in character, on 30 Rock: “There’s an iPod3 now and a Mitt Romney4—he’s no longer killing hobos at night.”

Jodi Miller: “Michael Moore said if the founding fathers had actually seen assault weapons, they would have banned them. Hey, Michael, had the founding fathers had actually seen you, they might have banned special sauce.”

Ann Coulter tweet: The word's out, Harry Reid is a child pornographer. If he's not, let him prove it.

Pat King from my fb asks: “If by being in support of traditional marriage you are automatically in support of gay hate and anti-gay groups would the same be true for gay people who announce their support for same sax marriage. Would they not be in support of Christian hate and and anti-Christian groups. Why do gay people hate Christians so much?”

Rush: "Obama is nothing. He's not even president of the United States right now. He's not even celebrity of the US. He is the fundraiser-in-chief."

Rush: "The playbook for the Obama campaign is to find out whatever dirt there is on your opponent and get it out there, have the help of the media, and have it be so embarrassing, whether it's true or not, have it be so embarrassing that it just destroys the candidacy or, in best instances, it forces the opponent to withdraw."

Rush: "Obama's whole history, his whole electoral history, is to find dirt on opponents or make it up and run them out of the race before the election. That's the Axelrod-Obama modus operandi."

Rush: "More and more people are becoming more dependent each day on the government. The welfare rolls, or the dependency rolls are growing; they're not shrinking. And that growth is being promoted and advertised and sought by this administration."

Rush: "What must be done cannot happen under Obama. It will not happen. He doesn't understand it. He is in an ideological straitjacket. He is obstinate and stubborn, and he's not all that smart. And we are paying the price."

Rush: "Obama doesn't understand self-reliance, and he doesn't believe in it. And the reason is, he's a liberal, and they don't believe in people having the innate ability to provide for and care for themselves."

Rush: "This is the United States of America that we're talking about. Our GDP ought to be 5%, 6%, 7%, not one-and-a-half, not 1.7, not 1.9."

Rush: "The economy under Obama has been so bad that there are over two million fewer jobs to have in this country. That's why everybody talks about job growth. It's not as though there are jobs unfilled out there. It's that there aren't any jobs besides those that we have."

Rush: "Dingy Harry loves throwing out baseless, ridiculous, slanderous accusations, and then hiding behind the fact that he's a member of the Senate and can't be sued, or any number of other protections."

Rush: "There will always be a select group of people, who, because of who they are, their upbringing, or just their own innate ambition, whatever obstacles are in their way, they're going to work around them. They will find a way past them."

Chris Wallace of FoxNews to David Axelrod: “Let’s do a lightning round; and frankly, you’re not very good at it.”

Bernie Goldberg on CNN playing the song Stupid Girls before a news story on Sarah Palin: "The most offensive part of all of this is this statement by a news organization, whose only mission is to tell the truth, and they say that this was unintentional. Really? They have literally millions of songs in their data base to chose from—millions....and they pick `Stupid Girls' and they have the nerve to tell us...it was unintentional. They’re not even embarrassed by this. Look, CNN and other news organizations expect politicians to tell the truth, they expect business people to tell the truth....and they issue a statement like this? They show no respect for the people who watch them...I'm guessing the people who watch them don't like Sarah Palin all that much anyway, which is why they did it and thought, like the old days that they could get away with it. Well, it’s not the old days anymore."

The End of Liberty in America (a documentary). There are some serious problems with this documentary, but it is still worth seeing. It is an hour long, however.

Houston video, put out by, surprising to me, Mayor Anise Parker, and how to survive an office gun attack.

MoveOn.org picks the important issues of the day to do ads on. This is a 30 second ad about Ann Romney’s horse.

Scott Brown ad to counteract Elizabeth Warren. Several presidents speak. Brown and Warren are vying for “Ted Kennedy’s seat” in Massachusetts.

Jonathan Karl, ABC: “And I would say, Deb Fischer in Nebraska, not exactly a Tea Party candidate, although she was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is 4 for 4 on her Senate endorsements. But they are not all Tea Partiers. She endorsed Orrin Hatch. And Fischer in Nebraska was not endorsed by any of the Tea Party groups.”

The NY Times takes note of Harry Reid’s unsubstantiated attack and says that it pushes the bounds of political propriety.

1) I have been looking for an article but I can’t find it. President Obama has won pretty much all

of his elections and primaries by vicious attacks against the other opponent. Does anyone know a link where these are all laid out?

This past month’s unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 8.3%, with 163,000 new jobs being added. However, 195,000 fewer Americans had jobs this month as opposed to last month, as 150,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force (and so were not counted in the Labor Department's calculation of the unemployment rate).

The labor force participation rate is the percentage of working-age persons who are employed and who are unemployed but looking for a job. Typically "working-age persons" is defined as people between the ages of 16-64. People in those age groups who are not counted as participating in the labor force are typically students, homemakers, and persons under the age of 64 who are retired. Right now, the labor participation rate is 63.8%; although I heard that it is usually up around 68–70%, that may just be the case over the past 20 years or so.

Employment to Population Ratio Broader measurement than Labor Participation Rate, includes all working-age persons 16-64. Measures what percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 64 that have a job. The employment ratio is 58.6%.

175,000 fewer American women held jobs in July than in June. From June to July, the number of women in the labor force-meaning they either had a job or had actively looked for one in the last four weeks-dropped by 94,000.

The number of young adults ages 20 to 34 who lived with their parents jumped from 17% in 1980 to 24% in 2007-09 - the Great Recession- according to a detailed analysis out today. The rise was sharpest among those under 25 - a new high of 43% vs. 32% in 1980 - but it increased largely across the board. Even among 30-to-34-year-olds, nearly one in 10 lived with parents.

President Obama's budget—his plan to pay down the debt and which was unanimously voted down in the House and the Senate—would increase the national debt to $25.4 trillion by 2022, according to the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., which studied the update filed by Obama's Office of Management and Budget.

4.4 million people reported being permanently out of work in July. This figure has declined since its recession-era peak of 6.8 million in November 2009, and it remains well above the pre-recession level of around 1.6 million.

Sunni Muslim extremists were responsible for "about 70 percent" of the 12,533 terrorism-related deaths across the world last year, according to a report by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

In the best election season Democrats have enjoyed since Nixon resigned, 2008, the Democrat advantage was only 8%.

You may recall that, over and over again, there has been a push for Democrats to continually speak of Republican views as being extreme.

86% of the coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC "emphasized Romney's perceived gaffes," according to a content analysis of 21 major news stories by the Media Research Center, which also compared Mr. Romney's trip to a similar excursion made by President Obama in 2008. In that trip, the broadcast networks committed 53 minutes of almost entirely negative coverage to Mr. Romney, and 92 minutes of "gushing" to Mr. Obama.

What Unemployment Rate Increase? Three Headline Writers Avoid Friday's Reported Uptick; AP Scrubs Original Rate Reference

The Associated Press carried two stories on Friday about the attempt by and ultimate failure of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to avoid going back to prison. In the first, ahead of that day's hearing, AP reporter Bob Johnson failed to mention Siegelman's Democratic Party affiliation. In the second, Johnson managed to get Democratic Party references designed to raise what appear to be partisan questions about whether Siegelman really deserved his fate into his 29th and 34th of 35 paragraphs.

CNN, which played the song “Stupid Girls” before doing a bit on Sarah Palin denies that this is sexism or some sort of slam against Palin. Right.

Every day that Democrats can avoid talking about unemployment and the economy is a good day for Democrats. Here is an example. They have actually done a pretty impressive job of making Mitt Romney’s tax returns a front-and-center issue over the past week or so (which is easy to do when the press is on your side). However, this is still brilliant. The Senate leader can essentially say anything on the floor of the Senate, without being sued; and he can make similar statements (but more carefully worded) when speaking with reporters.

This is another prophecy that is not quite completed. I have talked about an Obama phone app, which would, among other things, tell you where you would go to vote. This has, apparently, just come out this week; and they are working on the application still for the Android. The government also provides free phones (nicknamed, Obamaphones) for people. Now, will there be a similar application on their phones? Maybe a non-partisan application that tells them when they need to go out and vote. In nearly any election, there are more than enough people who sit the election out who favor one of the two candidates. The people getting a free phone—who do you think they might favor in an election? If they went out and voted, in part because of an app which was on their phone, who do you think they might be voting for?

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: With only 96 days remaining until the most important election of our time, Governor Mitt Romney is showing Americans that he is not taking the attacks against him, his wife and even his deceased father sitting down anymore.

Now, in just a moment, we're going to play for you his response in an interview that he did on my radio show, he responds to Harry Reid's attacks on his tax record.

But first, let me remind everyone what the Senate majority leader told the Huffington Post, saying, quote, "His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son."

Now, that disgusting comment was during the same interview in which Harry Reid claimed that an unnamed Bain executive told him that Romney had not paid any taxes for 10 years. And today, he took that unsubstantiated rumor to the floor of the United States Senate. He doubled down. Watch this.

SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEVADA, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The word is out that he hasn't paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn't.

Well, Mitt Romney has had enough. And today on my radio program, he hit back hard. Listen to this.

MITT ROMNEY, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it's time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry is going to have to describe who it is he spoke with, because of course that is totally and completely wrong. It is untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It's wrong.

So -- so I am looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources and we will probably find out it's the White House.

Look, the Obama campaign is going to do everything in its power to try and talk about anything besides the president's record.

HANNITY: And this just in, Senator Reid is getting himself back into this mix by responding to Romney in a statement that reads in part, "there is controversy because the Republican presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, refuses to release his tax returns. And as I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of those loopholes, stashing money in secret overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands." Blah, blah, blah.

Joining me now in studio, she's come out of her bunker, hiding, to react to these outrageous examples of the left's rhetoric and a whole lot more. The author of "Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America," available in paperback. By the way, beginning this Tuesday, August the 7th.

HANNITY: You know, I have an unnamed source that you didn't write your book, that you weren't born on the day you said, that you don't live where you said -- what is this?

COULTER: I have an unnamed source in Kenya who says that Obama was born in Kenya. I mean, this is the order of what they're doing. You won't -- they want the tax records because this is how Obama wins all his elections, as I described today. It's always by default. He takes out his opponent by going into secret, sealed divorce files, medical records. In his very first race --

COULTER: His very first race, he wanted to take the place of Alice Palmer. I can even put this in the column. I have a word limit. They persuade her not to run for her own seat for the Illinois State Senate by raising her breast cancer treatments. She decides to run, anyway. So, they get her disqualified by not having enough signatures.

Then when he is running for the Senate, he was up against Blair Hull, a multi-millionaire investment banker. Blair Hull was way ahead in the polls, and what happens? David Axelrod's ex-employer, The Chicago Tribune, pushes the story that Blair Hull's ex-wife had accused him of abuse and had gotten a protective order. This becomes the whole focus of the campaign. And suddenly, Blair Hull falls behinds, Obama wins the primary.

Then Obama is up against that amazingly attractive Republican Jack Ryan, Harvard law, Harvard business school , Dartmouth, Catholic, he went worked for Goldman Sachs, made hundreds of millions of dollars and then left it all in his 40s to teach in an inner-city school in Chicago. But he did have one problem. He was divorced. And so, once again.

COULTER: He released his tax records. He released his divorce records. The one thing that both he and his wife wanted under seal were their custody filings. He accused her of having an affair. She said he took her to sex clubs and that drove her into the arms of another man. So the sex club allegations come out, which he denied at the time. But they come out and five days later, Jack Ryan is knocked out.

And who does Obama end up running against? Alan Keyes, great man, no political aptitude for running for Senate. And that's how Obama became a senator.

So, you know -- look at what McCain -- the New York Times had on its front page rumors about an affair that they never got any substantiation for. You will also recall, Sarah Palin and Todd Palin, there were the rumors about their marriage. There was Herman Cain.

COULTER: The attacks on Herman Cain were traced directly back to people David Axelrod knew, making hazy accusations against an actual American black running for -- unlike the Kenyan -- because I hear it on good authority. This is how Obama wins. So, his secret plan --

HANNITY: Do you have any other unnamed sources you want to quote on the program?

COULTER: His secret plan for winning this campaign is for the Romneys to divorce before the election.

HANNITY: All right. Here's -- but this is the key follow-up question to all of this. Because, you know, if you listen to NBC, it's about dressage and the $900 shirt that Ann Romney had.

HANNITY: Not the $6800 jacket that Michelle Obama was wearing at Buckingham Palace.

HANNITY: Fair enough. But this is what they -- a felony, war on women, Ann Romney never worked a day in her life.

HANNITY: This is all they've got. It's all related to the fact that he can't run on his record. But here's the question. Does this work? They got class warfare distraction, attacks, surrogate attacks. We had a surrogate say Romney was a racist the other day.

COULTER: Not with so many people unemployed. I mean, the Obama campaign message is, you can vote for the guy who put millions of people out of work, quadrupled the deficit, wrecked American health care. Or you can vote for that really mean guy whose wife owns a horse.

That's true. Let me show you the latest MoveOn ad and -- just one of the many negative ads that are out there. Let's roll this tape.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: My name's Rafalca, the Romneys' dressage horse. You might have seen me executing leg yields and flying changes. How do I pull off such grace and athleticism while looking so good? Maybe it's because the Romneys spend $77,000 per year on my upkeep.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And after Mitt Romney repeals health care and ships your job overseas, I daresay your life will not be nearly as pampered as mine. After all, you're not one of his horses.

NARRATOR: MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertising.

HANNITY: Here is the interesting to me -- and this is where the NBC attacks just crossed the line -- is that, you know, Ann Romney has MS. And that's the reason she got into horses. It's therapeutic for a lot of people.

COULTER: He's a rich man. He hasn't wrecked the economy. He hasn't put a million people out of work. And by the way, there are a lot of ads with horses. The other one shows the other end of the horse saying, I'm Barack Obama and I approved this ad, all over the place these horse ads.

COULTER: But, you know, back to the tax records, Romney should absolutely not release these tax records. This is outrageous, we know exactly what they're doing.

COULTER: Because this is -- it is not just that. This is how they win, Obama wins -- it's like his signature move. This is his modus operandi, unleash -- somehow get unsealed, sealed records and then make a big deal out of them, even if there is nothing there. They have already tried to do it with the first two years of tax filings Romney didn't release.

And you notice how that just disappeared from the news. All we find out was that Romney paid millions of dollars in taxes and gives a lot to charities. Why didn't we get the 10 years of -- of tax filings by Teresa Heinz Kerry?

COULTER: I mean, they say, oh, well, she's the wife of the candidate. Well, she was supporting the candidate. He was a gigolo. His tax returns are no more interesting than Seamus the dog's tax returns.

COULTER: Yes. He's always supported by women, including this multi-millionaire wife --

HANNITY: All right. I am not responsible for the trouble you are going to get in.

COULTER: You are getting off the subject here. Why didn't we get 10 years of Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns?

Having been born in 1936 has allowed me to witness both societal progress and retrogression. High on the list of things made better in our society are the great gains in civil liberties and economic opportunities, especially for racial minorities and women. People who are now deemed poor have a level of material wealth that would have been a pipe dream to yesteryear's poor. But despite the fact that today's Americans have achieved an unprecedented level of prosperity, we have become spiritually and morally impoverished compared with our ancestors.

Years ago, spending beyond one's means was considered a character defect. Today not only do people spend beyond their means but also there are companies that advertise on radio and TV to eliminate or reduce your credit card and mortgage debt. Students saddled with college loans have called for student loan forgiveness. Yesterday's Americans would have viewed it as morally corrupt and reprehensible to accumulate debt and then seek to avoid paying it. It's nothing less than theft. What's worse is there's little condemnation of it by the rest of us.

Earlier this year, as a result of a budget crunch, the Philadelphia School District had to lay off 91 school police officers. During the 1940s and '50s, I attended Philadelphia schools in poor neighborhoods. The only time we saw a policeman in school was during an assembly period when we had to listen to a boring lecture about safety. Because teacher assaults are tolerated -- 4,000 over the past five years in Philadelphia -- school police are needed. Prior to the '60s, few students would have thought of talking back to a teacher, and no one would have cursed, much less assaulted, a teacher.

I couldn't have been more than 8, 9 or 10 years old when one time, on the way home from school, my cousin and I were having a stone fight with some other youngsters. An elderly black lady walked up to my cousin and me and asked, "Does your mother know you're out here throwing stones?" We replied, "No, ma'am," praying that the matter rested there. Today an adult doing the same thing risks being cursed and possibly assaulted. Fearing retaliation, adults sit in silence as young people use vile language to one another on public conveyances, in school corridors and on the streets.

Yesteryear there was little tolerance for the kinds of crude behavior and language that are accepted today. To see a man sitting on a bus or trolley car while a woman is standing used to be unthinkable. Children didn't address adults by their first name. By the way, over the course of my nearly 45 years of teaching, on several occasions, students have addressed me by my first name. I have told them that I don't mind their addressing me by my first name but that my first name is Professor.

Much of what's accepted today would have been seen as bizarre and lowdown yesteryear. Out-of-wedlock childbirth was a disgrace and surely wouldn't have occasioned a baby shower. Popular TV shows such as "The Jerry Springer Show" and "Maury" feature guests who openly discuss despicable acts in their personal lives, often to the applause of the audience. Shame is going the way of the dinosaur.

You say, "Williams, you're just old-fashioned and out of touch with modern society." Maybe so, but I think that a society's first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms -- transmitted by example, word of mouth, religious teachings, rules of etiquette and manners -- represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important legal thou-shalt-nots -- such as shalt not murder, steal, lie or cheat -- but they also include all those civilities one might call ladylike or gentlemanly behavior. Police officers and courts can never replace these social restraints on personal conduct. At best, laws, police and the criminal justice system are a society's last desperate line of defense.

The International Olympic Committee decided not to include in the opening ceremony a moment of silence to honor the eleven Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian gunmen during the 1972 games in Munich. That move drew the ire of NBC's Bob Costas. During Friday's ceremony, he commented that, although a private moment of silence was held before a mere 100 people this week at the Athlete's Village, "for many, tonight, with the world watching, is the true time and place to remember those who were lost and how and why they died."

Instead, the Olympic ceremony featured a weird, politically correct extravaganza by film director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire). It was hailed by the sports website The Roar with the headline "London 2012: Most political Olympics opening ceremony since Berlin 1936." The 1936 games, of course, were an infamous propaganda exercise for Adolf Hitler.

For The Roar's Spiro Zanos, "the political message at London was that Britain could recover its greatness and become Great Britain once again if . . . [it] re-embraced the radical politics that unleashed the industrial revolution and the welfare state. . . . If this means having the most political opening ceremony since the Berlin Olympics in 1936, then so be it." The state-worship so ably skewered by Jonah Goldberg in Liberal Fascism is alive and well.

The Boyle ceremony got underway with images of a bucolic Britain being swept away by a cigar-chomping elite that builds satanic mills filled with oppressed workers as steeplejacks hang from the towering chimneys. Later, 600 doctors and patients recruited from National Health Service hospitals were featured in a bizarre tribute to socialized medicine, with children bouncing up and down on 320 hospital beds arrayed in front of a giant Franken-baby wrapped in bandages. Villains from British children's literature, ranging from Cruella de Vil to Lord Voldemort, sweep in on the children, in an apparent reference to conservative forces seeking to reform the tottering NHS. The 15-minute sequence ended with a series of red lights triumphantly spelling out "NHS."

Left-wingers were thrilled. "Brilliant that we got a socialist to do the opening ceremony," tweeted Alastair Campbell, former communications chief for the Labour party. Boyle denied he was promoting a political agenda. "The sensibility of the show is very personal," he told reporters. "We had no agenda other than . . . values that we feel are true." At a news conference beforehand, he explained that one of the reasons he "put the NHS in the show is that everyone is aware of how important NHS is to everybody in the country. One of the core values of our society is that it doesn't matter who you are, you will get treated the same in terms of health care."

Can anyone seriously believe that? Sunday's British papers report that a study by the research firm Lloyd's TSB Premier Banking found that nearly two-thirds of Britons earning more than $78,700 a year have taken out private health insurance because they don't trust the NHS. A survey by the British health-care organization Bupa found that two-thirds of its customers cited the risk of infection from superbugs as a top reason for buying private insurance. Shaun Matisonn, the chief executive of PruHealth, says that "patients today are sophisticated consumers of health care. They research the treatments they want, but cannot always get them through the NHS."

Horror stories about the NHS abound. A 2007 survey of almost 1,000 physicians by Doctors' Magazine found that two-thirds said they had been told by their local NHS trust not to prescribe certain drugs, and one in five doctors knew patients who had suffered as a result of treatment rationing. The study cited one physician who characterized the NHS as "a lottery." A new study this year by GP magazine supports that conclusion. Through Freedom of Information Act records, it found that 90 percent of NHS trusts were rationing care.

Rick Dewsbury of the Daily Mail was aghast at the worship of the NHS during Friday's Olympic ceremony. The columnist noted the sheer hypocrisy of the spectacle, as "the majority of the athletes taking part in the Games will have access to the most expensive cutting-edge private treatment available in the world for even the slightest graze on their bodies."

Dewsbury recounted the 2009 case of Kane Gorny, a 22-year-old NHS patient. Gorny was admitted to the hospital for a hip replacement. A series of hospital employees refused his request for a glass of water and failed to give him diabetes medication. He went so far as to call the emergency operator for help. When the police arrived, nurses assured them that Gorny was confused and needed no outside help. A day later, he was dead of dehydration. The official inquest into his death was published this month. It found that neglect by hospital staff - "a cascade of individual failures" - contributed to his death. Here's hoping that not everyone is "treated the same" in Britain's NHS hospitals.

(Reuters) - The Obama administration ignored internal warnings to cut its losses on Solyndra and instead opted for a restructuring that led to a bigger loss for taxpayers when the solar panel maker went bankrupt, Republican investigators said on Thursday.

In its final report on its 18-month probe into the failed $535 million loan, the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee said the Energy Department rushed into the deal, then helped keep the company going despite a series of red flags.

"Solyndra should stand as a cautionary tale of what happens when an administration ties itself to a project so closely that it becomes the poster child of its signature economic policy," the 147-page report concluded.

Investigators -- lawyers and staff members on the Republican-controlled committee -- reviewed more than 300,000 pages of documents, including many internal emails that have embarrassed President Barack Obama, who held the company up as an example of how the government could help spur renewable energy jobs.

The failure has become a political weapon for Republicans ahead of the November 6 elections as they seek to highlight their own energy policies, which are more favorable to the fossil fuels industry than to alternatives.

A White House spokesman dismissed the report, saying the documents, briefings, and hearings confirm the Energy Department's decision was "merit-based" and slammed the Republicans for wasting time and money on the probe.

In a memo, Democratic staff on the committee said the report "contains obvious inaccuracies, frequent misstatements, cherry-picked evidence, and glaring omissions of exculpatory information."

They accused Republicans of oversimplifying the remarkable plunge in prices for solar panels because of Chinese competition that they said caused Solyndra's demise.

The FBI has been investigating the failed company for close to a year in tandem with the Energy Department's Inspector General, an independent watchdog.

In early 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu had made it a top priority to get the loans program, funded through economic stimulus initiatives, running quickly, and Solyndra was the first company to get a guarantee.

Solyndra had developed a new kind of solar panel and sought a loan guarantee to build a second factory.

Emails showed Energy Department financial analyst Kelly Colyar raised questions about the proposed loan early in 2009, but officials above her rushed the loan through the initial approval process by March because of a planned publicity event.

Democratic staff on the committee said the emails showed healthy internal debate, and said Colyar confirmed in an interview "that no corners were cut in the review of Solyndra's application."

Treasury Department officials also raised alarms on the deal. "Treasury had NOT had time to review and consult with Energy on the term sheet, which is a statutory requirement," said Paula Farrell, a policy director at Treasury.

After a one-day review, Gary Burner, the chief financial officer of Treasury's Federal Financing Bank concluded: "I do not like this deal, but it is not the worst I've seen."

Analysts at the White House Office of Management and Budget also wanted an announcement on the finalized loan guarantee to be postponed.

"Recent developments in the solar market, in particular, pricing pressure from China from silicon wafer plants scheduled to come on line ... raise concerns about how strong Solyndra's position will be in the face of rising competition," wrote Kevin Carroll, chief of OMB's energy branch.

The OMB review of the Solyndra deal was completed in nine days, but the average time for review for subsequent loans was 28 days, the report said.

By March 2010, an auditor had warned the company would have trouble remaining a "going concern" in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The company hired two Washington lobby firms to pursue government contracts to get their panels used at military bases. But the company was running out of money. A report by independent consultant Navigant in September said Solyndra's costs were too high to compete.

Layoffs at the company were delayed until just after the November 2010 election, a decision now being investigated by the Justice Department, the report said.

The Energy Department and the company's private sector backers worked to restructure the loan. That deal put the government behind private investors in the eventual bankruptcy.

Financial analyst Colyar, who by then had moved to work at the OMB, flagged early in 2011 that the government would recover more if it allowed Solyndra to go bankrupt instead of restructuring.

During the investigation, Republicans accused the administration of making decisions to favor one of the company's private backers, George Kaiser, a billionaire from Oklahoma, who had contributed to Obama's campaign.

But Democrats said the findings did not support that. "The report is remarkably silent on the influence of campaign contributions," Democrats on the energy committee said in a memo, noting that all officials interviewed said contributions played no role in their decisions.

Argonaut Private Equity, the investment arm for Kaiser's foundation, eventually owned a 39 percent stake in the company, investing about $430 million.

Emails from Kaiser and his financial advisers showed that he was aware of what was happening with the company and the loan but the probe did not establish that he influenced government decisions.

When the top Energy Department loan official, Jonathan Silver, tried to phone Kaiser directly in August 2011, emails showed Kaiser would not take his call, and complained to his advisers that Silver had not used the "correct" channels.

From our seats in front of the television, it certainly feels like the TV network programmers have all the power to entertain us. But the press gatherings of the Television Critics Association in Tinseltown suggest that others audaciously think they should be in the driver's seat, and they're not shy about saying so.

The latest TCA press tour showed off the intimidating power of the television critics flailing away at young, shy Bristol Palin, who's returning to ABC for an all-star version of "Dancing With the Stars."

Look, there's no doubt that Sarah Palin has figured out a way to benefit from all the media attention - mostly negative, often vicious - after the 2008 presidential race. The enemy of my enemy is my friend - and her support has grown by the millions. Her supporters across America made Bristol a fan favorite on "Dancing," even if she was hardly Ginger Rogers on the season debut. But the Palin-haters who dismissed her as being on the show only because of her famous mother proved their real agenda when Chastity "Chaz" Bono took a turn (as a "male") on the program, and the crickets chirped.

In addition to the TLC series "Sarah Palin's Alaska" and Bristol's two turns on "Dancing," Bristol is currently on the show "Life's a Tripp" on Lifetime. Her father Todd will star in the fall on the NBC show "Stars Earn Stripes." There's no doubt the TV critics hate the idea of this family on television.

Washington Post critic Lisa de Moraes made great fun of how the Palins are cashing in to become "the Barrymores of reality TV" and competing with the Kardashians to see which shameless "family business" can do the most programs. The Palins have a good response: "I don't think it's our business," Bristol said of her family, when one TV critic asked that question. "I just think you guys are going to be talking about us either way, so we might as well be doing something enjoyable and fun."

"You haven't gone full Kardashian," joked ABC host Tom Bergeron. "No, not at all," Bristol replied. Bristol kept up the "might as well have fun" line for the next hardball. She was asked: If you don't like the harsh media attention, then why don't you just go home to Alaska and raise your son, rather than make yourself a target? The "please go home" feeling in the question was unmistakeable.

In the eyes of these critics, the Kennedys are American royalty, while the Palins are to cordoned off with reality TV divas like the Kardashians, or hicks like the stars of "Hillbilly Handfishing."

A journalist also brought up a recent episode of "Life's a Tripp" where Bristol's son said an "F-word" that was bleeped. (I say "a journalist" because the critics don't identify each other by name when they report on how they have picked on young Palins.) Gay activists claimed the little boy uttered their hated F-word, and Lifetime's corporate line of defense was no, actually it was the more common F-bomb. The better question is why Lifetime felt that tantrum of profanity and brattiness was considered great television, instead of cutting-room floor garbage. The toddler bleeps haven't helped. The "Tripp" show has performed badly enough that it's now airing in a late-night slot.

The critics' toughest hardball question for Bristol was how she would react if paired with a homosexual professional partner on the new season of "Dancing With the Stars." It's also a somewhat strange question. On Bristol's previous tour of the show, bisexual comedian Margaret Cho and her gay professional partner, Louis van Amstel, danced to "Copacabana" with a gay-pride message. There was no storming off the set or critical comments from Team Palin. But that is never good enough.

Under fire from the journalists, Bristol answered: "You know what? I like gays. I'm not a homophobic [sic], and I'm sick of people saying that, just because I'm for traditional marriage." The media elite replied by happily tweeting the grammatical mistake.

Again, the media code is obvious: no "homophobes" in favor of traditional marriage should be allowed to star on a TV program - and certainly not in a room full of ballroom dancers. It doesn't matter if they never say a word of protest, or never plan an "educational" dance routine that honors Jesus and the ridiculed home-schooled kids who are allowed to study Him in school time.

Would it be rude to ask Chaz Bono how she would feel if ABC paired her with a male professional partner, since she was (and is) female? Not just rude, it would be insulting. In the calculus of the TV critics, Bono must be applauded for her courage, and Bristol must be brought low because she's a Palin.

Marriage is between one man and one woman. Those are odd `fighting' words. Yet, for rabid homosexuals and their Liberal lackeys, they are "hate speech." How very, very odd. When America's consensus culture was based on a confident, bold and brave Judeo-Christian worldview, such words were a simple statement of truth and encoded in our laws. A Muslim or Mormon might raise an eyebrow about the number of wives, but only behind closed doors. Today, the puffed up outrage, the best Bullies can bluster, explodes.

Oddly enough, the Bullies known by an acronym, LGBT, changed the issue from a discussion about marriage to a fight over free speech.

The LGBT Bullies must suppress Christian free speech. Homosexual "marriage" can't compete in the marketplace of ideas. Honoring sinful sexual behavior is morally wrong. Christians know that homosexuality does what all sin does to man. Even though Christians love the sinner, LGBT Bullies demand they submit to doublespeak. Christian love is hate to the LGBT. Christians must be bullied into silence.

Bullying reveals LGBT and Liberal character. Also, it makes their political behavior predictable.

What Bullies Do. Where are speech, songs, and symbols banned? Where bullies reign. Whether it is an ancient despot, a modern totalitarian, a corrupt church-state, or Islam everywhere, when bullies govern intolerance rules. The absolutism of Puritan Liberalism forbids Christian prayers, songs and symbols in public, Confederate flags anywhere, and any expression of American exceptionalism.

Why Bullies Win. Bullies win as long as opponents don't fight back. Power corrupts. Bullies learn to win by intimidation. If given the chance to hurt others, without putting themselves in danger, bullies can be sadistic and cruel. Bullies do awful things, whether a single person, politician, pundit or a police state, if no one will stand up to them.

Bullies Are Cowards. Bullies of all ages are cowards. Boys who learn to fight like men don't get bullied. The homosexuals who felt bullied as children, learned how to bully back better than their tormentors. Their agenda of anti-bullying campaigns is about promoting and recruiting more homosexuals through the public schools. It's counter the Christian anti-bully message of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Bullies Always Call Others Bullies. Bullies always cry "Bully" when someone fights back. If they had the moral courage to fight fairly, they would. Since they don't, they accuse all others of doing what they specialize in. Criticism of LGBT teaching in schools, vulgar parades, obligatory modeling in all media and promotion of disorder in the military is called "censorship." Suppression of Christian free speech is called "tolerance." Expect to hear the LGBT and Liberals call Christians `bullies' - often and loudly.

Today's Bully Is Tomorrow's Tyrant. In every age, Bullies just get worse. If an American can't say, "Marriage is between a man and a woman," then what is next? What is Freedom of Speech if such simple speech is forbidden? If an American says homosexual behavior is immoral, when will they be fined, put in jail, or executed?

Bullies Always Go Too Far. It's good that the LGBT bullies pushed too hard too fast. They picked a clear fight about freedom of speech. And they choose as a battleground where restaurants serve tasty chicken. Better to have a `Chicken War' now than a bitter Thirty Year's War-like conflict between the Liberal Human Secularists and Christians in the future.

This is a good fight to win. America will see who are chicken and who are men and women.

1. If Obamacare has not been repealed , yet, will you vote to repeal it - entirely?

2. If Obamacare is repealed will you vote for return healthcare - Medicare and Medicaid to the States? You may grandfather in benefits for folks already depending on the services.

3. Will you vote to send Social Security to the States? You may grandfather in benefits on a sliding scale for folks over 50 years old.

4. Will you vote to eliminate your retirement benefits? You may create a 401k program for Congress - just like the average citizen.

5. Will you vote to eliminate your healthcare benefits? You may create a healthcare program where you contribute your part - for private, corporate insurance.

6. Will you vote to impeach Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan - if you are in the House? Or, hold the impeachment trial - if you are in the Senate? She violated United States Code, Title 28, Section 455, Disqualification of Justice, Judge, or Magistrate.

7. Will you vote AGAINST raising the debt ceiling? And vote for continuing the government operations by funding the Department of Defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid first?

8. Will you vote for new spending cuts for every item on the budget not enumerated in the Constitution?

9. Will you vote to cut taxes - individual, corporate and capital gains? A flat tax of 20% is a good place to start for individuals. A good rule of thumb is to tax capital once - only.

10. Will you vote to impeach (see #6 above) any Federal judge who bans Christian free speech in public schools? Or, who cites any foreign law in his decision? Or, who rules for any aspect of Sharia law being enforced?

Guide to the Voters: If any candidate voted all "A", then they passed this job application. The straight As remind you that they are All for America on key issues.

If any candidate voted for B, for any question, do NOT support them. There are plenty other people who chase after public office. Get a better quality candidate.

If your candidate passes this job application and gets elected, then hold him or her accountable for his votes. If his "Yes" didn't mean "Yes", then use this application to find another, new candidate for the next election.

RUSH: The media and their cherry-picked economists are doing their best to dumb down the unemployment picture. They predict a hundred thousand jobs will be created in the month, and we get around 160,000, and they run around and say "better than unexpected." They're all happy, and they're looking at this through the prism of Barack Obama's reelection. Anything they can do to cover up the bad news or lie about it and make it appear to be good news. The United States economy, this economy -- sometimes I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. Sometimes I really wonder if spending all this time on economic news makes any sense anymore.

This economy should be growing by hundreds of thousands of jobs every month. If this economy is to roar back, if we are to have a genuine recovery, if we're to get back to some semblance of where this nation is in terms of the rest of the world and the economic engine that drives it, we're talking 400, 500,000 jobs a month that must be created just to stay even before we even talk about any growth. They're out there doing handstands over 160,000 jobs, and that number's likely made up out of whole cloth because of a computer algorithm. This is the worst so-called recovery after a recession in modern American history. We are talking about the American economy here. This economy is the engine of the wealth of the entire world.

We sit here, we analyze a couple thousand jobs here, a couple thousand jobs there, a tenth of a percent increase or decrease in the unemployment rate, and we're told what to expect when. And it's all just a game. Everything is just a game to the elites that report this stuff,

that calculate it, that disseminate it. We need to be growing by 400,000 or 500, even 600,000 jobs a month, coming out of a recession. That's what's standard. That's what's normal. This isn't even a recovery. We're nowhere near a recovery. There's no strengthening going on. More and more people are becoming more dependent each day on the government. The welfare rolls -- or the dependency rolls -- are growing; they're not shrinking. And that growth is being promoted and advertised and sought by this administration.

They get all excited about gross domestic product of 1.5, 1.7%. Hey, you know what? It was revised, it was actually 1.7 last month, not 1.5, whatever they're saying. This is the United States of America that we're talking about. Our GDP ought to be 5%, 6%, 7%, not one-and-a-half, not 1.7, not 1.9. It wasn't that long ago that we had five, six, 7% GDP growth. It wasn't 50 years ago. It was ten or less, 8.3% unemployment. That means that under Barack Obama, unemployment has never been under 8%. And this is even before all of the massive tax increases that are associated with Obamacare kick in, before the massive tax increases kick in when the Bush tax rates expire in January and before the regime's massive EPA and other regulations, which are being held back until after the election, and instituted if he wins. There's a whole bunch of damage that's on hold, folks. There are a whole bunch of regulations and a bunch of hidden fee increases, user fees, tax increases that are not scheduled to implement until after this election.

So what's the role of the media? You know as well as I know, the role of the media is to find good news for Obama wherever they can, even if they have to make it up. Now, I've said all this before, I don't know how many times since this guy was immaculated. I've said all this before. The only way that we can grow this economy and create opportunities, create wealth, create jobs, see real GDP growth over 4%, see real job growth of hundreds of thousands a month, the only way to do that is to get rid of this economically illiterate president who is driven by an ideological straitjacket that makes it impossible for him to do what must be done.

What must be done cannot happen under Obama. It will not happen. He doesn't understand it. He is in an ideological straitjacket. He is obstinate and stubborn, and he's not all that smart. And we are paying the price. It is Barack Obama standing in the way of blue-collar jobs. It's Barack Obama standing in the way of small business job creation, big business job creation. It is Barack Obama standing in the way of a healthy and vigorous economy. He's a wet blanket. He's a wet blanket that is holding this nation back while sitting there telling us that his policies have worked and that the only way out of this mess is to not go back to the failed policies of the past. The policies of the past that worked are precisely what needs to be done and cannot be done as long as he is in the White House.

There's a giant blanket smothering this economy. He's the one smothering our economy, smothering opportunity for young people; smothering hardworking people; smothering one industry after another. I've got some sound bites coming up from a manager of a coal plant asking, begging the American people to wake up. His business has just been thrown out of business because of Barack Obama and his sheer hatred for coal, the energy source, by the way, for his electric car from Obama Motors, the Chevrolet Volt. We're talking about real people who are being smothered; real people who can't find jobs; real people whose ability to create wealth is being impaired. These are not numbers. It isn't a game.

RUSH: I have some audio sound bites from President Obama a half hour ago at the White House, and then I have some facts and figures to illustrate how he's lying to us. Pure and simple. I don't know how else to say it. Let's just get started. Here he is bragging, bragging, folks, about job creation.

OBAMA: This morning we learned that our businesses created 172,000 new jobs in the month of July.

OBAMA: That means that we've now created 4.5 million new jobs over the last 29 months --

OBAMA: Those are our neighbors and family members finding work, and the security that comes with work.

RUSH: Sadly, folks, there were 195,000 fewer people employed in this country in July than there were in June. It might have been 172,000 new jobs. That's even debatable. But it was a net wash because -- these are numbers from the BLS report. I'm not making it up. Obama's Department of Labor's own numbers, 195,000 fewer people employed in the United States in July than there were in June. We lost jobs. We also lost more people from the labor force. The national unemployment rate went up, 8.2 to 8.3%. One-hundred and fifty thousand people simply dropped out of the labor force. Actually that number is 155,000, which means that this 172,000 new jobs that he's trumpeting are actually a wash, folks. No net new jobs, 195,000 fewer people employed, 150,000 simply dropped out of the labor force. That's the pattern.

The percentage of people working continues to shrink. The number of jobs available in the country continues to shrink. Well, here's how they got there. In June, according to the BLS, there had been 142.4 million people employed. In July, it's 142.2. Two-hundred thousand fewer people employed. He goes out, "We created 172,000 jobs." It's a lie when plugged in with all the other relevant data. And that's why the real unemployment rate, what's called U-6, when you include the people who've given up looking, it's now 15%, and our buddy Jim Pethokoukis has his analysis of the numbers out. We do this every month. We've been doing this every month for three years. We've been trying to hammer the truth home for three years.

Every month for three years, it's the same old thing. The regime comes out, lies big time, and everybody's trying to tell us, essentially, we've got a burgeoning, growing economy. We got the worst, there is no recovery. It's the worst recovery ever since the Great Depression. I would like for the president to have told us what's working, what it is that he's doing that's causing all this wonderful news to be reported today. He didn't take any questions. Fifteen percent is the U-6 unemployment number. Fifteen percent. And if this 8.3% number, if the labor force participation rate were today what it was when Obama was inaugurated, that number would be 11%. In fact, probably could go ahead and call it 11% in order to try to make the point because the labor force has shrunk.

This man's economy has been so bad that there are over two million fewer jobs to have in this country. That's why everybody talks about job growth. It's not as though there are jobs unfilled out there. It's that there aren't any jobs besides those that we have. And we keep shrinking, that number keeps shrinking every month. Oh, yeah, in pockets, you can find companies with openings, people looking for work. But nationwide, overall, the universe of jobs able to be filled is down by over two million. That's why job creation, new businesses, entrepreneurial growth, that's why the recipe that's called for that is what's not being done. That's why we are talking about job growth. We need to create jobs so that people have jobs to apply for. There aren't a bunch of jobs unfilled out there.

In July, the number of people in the civilian labor force, 155 million. That's down by 150,000 from June. Every hard number is down. Every seasonally adjusted number is down. In fact, it's gotten so bad that even last night, the New York Times committed a random act of journalism. On a blog post, one of their economics writers, threw cold water before he even know what the numbers were, and he mighta known what the numbers were gonna be for all I know, threw cold water on whatever was announced today because it's really, really bad out there. The point was, it's gonna be really, really easy to misunderstand some misleading numbers that might make it look good, or better than it is. The New York Times last night, admittedly on a blog post, random act of journalism. Here's the next Obama sound bite. This is where he says, "We're not gonna get where we need to be by going back."

OBAMA: Let's acknowledge, we've still got too many folks out there who are looking for work. We've got more work to do on their behalf. Here's the thing: We are not gonna get there, we're not gonna get to where we need to be if we go back to the policies that helped to create this mess in the first place.

RUSH: You, sir, are the one creating the mess. The days of who created the mess are long gone. You inherited the mess, and you've doubled down on it. You have made the mess even worse. It's amazing, these guys love Reagan, now and then. They hate Reagan most of the time, but sometimes they want to invoke Reagan's name. It's amazing, really, except when it comes to comparing economic recoveries, then they don't want to talk about Ronald Reagan. During this time in Reagan's first term, our economy was growing at 6%, the GDP. Unemployment was dropping like a rock, from double digits under Carter. We were creating 600,000 jobs a month. And when Reagan was done, we had created over 20 million new jobs, economic growth for 25 years like the nation had not seen in a century. So, yeah, that's what Obama says we can't go back to.

He doesn't know what he's talking about. Ideological straitjacket. A closed-minded economic bigot, is what Barack Obama is. Yeah, folks. I'm sorry. I am mad. I am mad at what is being done to this country, and I get infuriated listening to an arrogant know-it-all tell the world essentially that he doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about while sounding condescending and arrogant as though he's got all the answers. In the meantime, you go through these numbers, 150,000 jobs, people leaving the labor force. Those are real people! Those are real lives that are being destroyed.

And I'm sorry, food stamps doesn't make up for it. Welfare benefits don't make up for it. Disability payments don't make up for it. Real people are being affected by this, and it's just disheartening to see. The greatest nation on earth, economic engine of the world. The economy that has created the wealth of the record is essentially under assault here by a bunch of arrogant economic bigots, know-it-alls, elites, nothing but a bunch of theoreticians whose only experience with any of this is talking about it in the faculty lounge or in class. And here's one more. This is Obama. Yep, couldn't finish this off without telling us that patriotic Americans realize they're not paying enough taxes.

OBAMA: Keep in mind, we're talking about folks like me going back to the tax rates that existed under Bill Clinton. If you remember, that was when we created 23 million new jobs, we went from deficits to surplus, and, folks at the top did well, too, because when middle-class families have money in their pockets, they go out and buy that new car or that new appliance or the new computer for their kids or they go out to a restaurant --

OBAMA: -- and that money goes back into the economy and businesses do well because they've got more customers. And, you know, here's the thing. There are a lot of well-to-do Americans, patriotic Americans who understand this and are willing to do the right thing.

RUSH: You hear that? He just redefined trickle up. Did you catch that? The money starts with the middle class, and as long as the middle class has money, then they go out and spend it, and that's how the rich get rich. Wow! Wow! Folks at the top did well, too, because when middle-class families have money in their pockets, they go out and buy that new car, that new appliance, or that new computer for their kids when they've got money in their pocket. So we gotta get money into the hands of the middle class. How we gonna do that? We're gonna do food stamps. Trickle up. So we got a brand-new economic definition here from Mr. Wizard of Smart.

RUSH: Oh, my friends, it gets so tiresome. It really does. It's exhausting. Let me try to explain something to our absolutely uneducated, delinquent economic bigot of a president. He talks about this class and that class, trickle down and trickle up and trickle sideways and rich folks and middle class folks and vacations and toasters and cars and rich people doing well and poor people doing well and rich people agree they're not paying enough taxes. We don't have economic classes in this society. That's the whole point. It is the whole point of free markets. We don't divvy people up this way. In a free market economy, people are moving in and out of every category their whole lives.

You're not born into a caste in this country. You're not born into a class that you're forever -- they look at this like they look at the economy as a zero-sum game: You're born middle class and that's it, you're forever screwed unless some angel like Obama comes along. We are our own angels in a free market economy. You talk about individual human beings in this country. We don't talk about people as members of a caste or class, as though they're slaves to some economic group, as defined by Obama or the IRS. I don't think this man has ever understood what the American dream means. Mr. President, I don't think you have the slightest idea. You wouldn't talk like you do. You wouldn't act like you do, if you understood the whole concept of the American dream.

People in this country can come from nothing and be whatever they want to be, or they could. I try not to get too personal with this stuff. And I will admit, it gets frustrating. Three years talking about this stuff, and it doesn't seem to matter, three years and this rotten economic news doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem to move anybody. It's because there's so much welfare. I don't know why. So many food stamps. But it just doesn't seem to bother people. But people say to me, after hearing a show like this, "Why are you so concerned? You're doing okay, you could retire if you wanted to. What's it matter to you?" Well, they don't say that. They say, "You can't fix it for everybody."

You know, one of the things that's always driven me, one of the things that that I get the most joy out of my life is sharing what has happened to me. And having the knowledge that it can happen to anybody, for anybody. That's what's eroding. That's what's being destroyed. It used to be, the American dream, you come from nothing, it didn't matter where you were born, and didn't matter where you grew up. What mattered was you, how much did you have. And I'm talking about desire, ambition, guts, commitment. You had all that, you could write your ticket. If you didn't have any of that, you weren't gonna be writing a big ticket. It was up to you. It was up to every American. And there used to be people who inspired others. There used to be heroes that people wanted to emulate. There used to be role models that people wanted to be like. And those people generally achieved things. They were accomplished people, in whatever field. They served as role models.

Those people are now under assault in this country. They're the suspects. They are the targets. The people that show the way, the people that provide the inspiration, whether they know they're doing it or not, the people that light the path, those are the people that are the enemy to Barack Obama. I want everybody to have the chance I had. I want everybody to be able to pull off what I pulled off in whatever field of endeavor they want. Whatever success is to you, I want you to be able to reach it, however you define it. That's what's being destroyed. That's why I was talking to the 24-year-old guy yesterday who was talking about how much fun it is. I worry that he's not gonna have the opportunity to create the kind of wealth that's possible or that used to be. Or don't even look at it that way if it bothers you. To be successful as he defines it. Whatever that would be. There's gonna be too many shackles, too many regulations, too many taxes, too many penalties for doing well, that's gonna take away what people earn.

RUSH: I played some sound bites from the president an hour ago. He went to the microphones in the White House an hour ago, right at the beginning of this program, and I have to tell you, what we saw today, in Obama's media appearance and his statement, is a cold-hearted man. I mean this: cold-hearted. We saw a president who is spinning the worst economic recovery numbers in modern history. We didn't see any compassion. We didn't see any concern. We didn't see any caring. We saw a cold, calculating president spinning what is disastrous news into a way that he can benefit from.

There's nothing in this economic news that ought to benefit anybody. There is nobody anywhere in the United States government who is an architect of this who ought to benefit an iota from what they have done and what they are doing. There is nobody in this regime, nobody in this administration who deserves to benefit from this. And yet here is our cold-hearted, calculating young president showing no compassion whatsoever for the people of this country who are really suffering from his policies. The people in this country who are suffering are doing so because of him, because of his policies.

He's spinning this and spinning these numbers in such a way as to lie to the American people about how good things are and how they are improving. And if your life isn't improving and it isn't getting better and you listen to this guy spin that it is, you gotta be scratching your head, saying, "What am I missing? Why am I being left out?" Let me assure you, you aren't being left out. Let me tell you why he's doing that. I'll beat my head against the wall again. We're dealing with a man, Barack Obama, who is a revolutionary.

A revolutionary. And as such, he believes, that is the case in all revolutions, there is a period of pain and suffering. Not by him. Not by his friends, so-called masses. And that's the price that must be paid to transform society, to achieve social and economic justice, which is so long overdue. There must be some suffering. It had to happen. This country was founded illegitimately. This country was founded immorally. This country must pay the price for that, and sadly, there will be a price to pay, and it is going to be one of economic hardship. But we deserve it, because we have been living a lie, the lie of the United States' founding. We have been living in an unjust country. We have been purloining everything of value all over the world, stealing it for ourselves. Why, we've been conquering other nations. And we've been going in and taking their oil and taking everything else they want, and then calling ourselves a superpower.

That's how he looks at it. So he's come along, and now for the first time in 260 years, 210, whatever the number, for the first time in 225, 230 years, we're gonna get it right. For the first time since our founding, finally somebody here understands exactly how this nation did it and how guilty we are, and it's time for a revolution, and we're gonna do it, and there's a price to pay. And that price to pay is pain and suffering. All revolutions have them. Ask Fidel. Ask Hugo. Ask Che. Ask Mao. Ask Stalin. They all know. Every revolution has a price. The price is pain and suffering. Not by him, though, not by the leaders, not by the leaders and the leaders' friends and elite buddies.

No, no, no. The pain and suffering is borne by the masses. The pain and suffering is borne by the unemployment numbers, the lack of economic growth numbers. The health care debacle and disaster. That's the pain and suffering. That's the price that must be paid in order to achieve social and economic justice that has never existed in this country before. See, where we are now, folks, is that the people who have benefited from the way this country was founded, the people in this society who've gotten rich, the people in this country, the top 1%, those that have had the power, the genuine descendants of the Founding Fathers, also a bunch of rich white guys. They set it up for themselves and for other people like 'em, and they knew what they were doing. They were setting up a phony, fraudulent country to take care of only themselves and everybody else is gonna be working to make them rich.

Well, those days are over. And now we got somebody who understands social justice. And now we have somebody who understands economic justice. We have somebody who understands fairness and freedom and liberty in the right way. We have a guy now who's gonna make sure that anybody who benefited from this corrupt, immoral society now pays a price so that others might achieve. That's how he sees this country. It's not just him. That's how his staff sees the country. It's how most of the Democrat Party sees the country these days. It's not LBJ's Democrat Party. It's not your grandfather's Democrat Party anymore. It's not your grandfather's media. They all are aligned in this notion that this nation is corrupt, was founded as such, and the people that have benefited didn't really deserve it. The people that have benefited, they won life's lottery. The people that benefited, luck.

You hear it. Obama says it in his own words, using his own terminology. "Winners of life's lottery" or just luck or not paying their fair share or whatever. But now, now they're going to. That's how this man sees this country. And that's why when he goes out to the microphone today to try to spin all this into great news, you got nothing but cold-hearted selfishness. Spinning the worst economic recovery in modern history in such a way as to make you think that there is good news and that he is responsible for it, and we can't go back to the unjust, immoral ways that were established in this nation's founding.

He's been honest about it from the get-go. He said his job was to spread the wealth. He said his job was to transform the country. But still, even at this point in time, to this day, folks, there are people in this country who refuse to even consider the possibility of what I just said being true. They don't want to. Many people can't conceive that somebody who thinks this way has actually been elected president. It doesn't happen. "Presidents love the country, Rush. Presidents only want what's great for the country." No, not now. We don't have a president who believes in America, not in American exceptionalism, not in the America of our founding. That's just the way it is.

I'll tell you a little story. I mentioned it at the end of the first hour, that one of the things about all this that really bothers me, I just cringe when I see opportunity being squelched and shut off for people. I really mean it when I say I want everybody to have the same opportunity I had. I love sharing good things that happen. This country is one of the greatest things that ever happened to humanity. There are people who try to take advantage of it.

RUSH: Rod in Saginaw, Michigan. We're starting with you on Open Line Friday today. Hello.

CALLER: And mega dittos. You know, as a true conservative, really, my philosophy is this. As you know, the private sector is what really drives the economy. And we all know that, as a result, it's really not the government's responsibility to create jobs in the private sector, in my opinion. Instead, what I think the government can do much better is really get out of the way and allow the private sector to thrive, you know, using the fundamental capitalistic policies and principles --

RUSH: Forty-six. Well, you're young. You know, you're figuring this out. That's excellent.

RUSH: Here's another thing about Obama. Look at how he talks. He creates jobs. He has policies. He's gonna do this. He's gonna do that. He's gonna give you this, make sure those people don't have that, gonna make sure those people get punished, those people gonna pay the price. You're gonna do okay, he's a command-and-control central planner, and here's a guy who hasn't done anything of the sort that he claims to be an expert in. He's done nothing. He's not worked in the private sector but for one job. In his own book he described it as being surrounded by the enemy.

He is not the guy to hand the car keys to, folks. It was a giant mistake to put this guy in the driver's seat. It's essentially letting somebody who despises the fact the automobile was invented be your driver. He doesn't know what he's doing. You know, forget the ideology. The ideology, you know, that's another swipe. That's just added damage. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't have anybody around him who understands something as simple as the American dream. He doesn't understand self-reliance, and he doesn't believe in it. And the reason is, he's a liberal, and they don't believe in people having the innate ability to provide for and care for themselves.

This guy would not be hired for a sales job, marketing job, a design job, nothing in creativity, nothing in accounting, nothing. He's got an empty resume. He couldn't get hired at any professional health care institution. He's got no experience. He doesn't know anything, and yet he's the world's foremost authority. He's got all the answers. He and his buddies have all the answers on virtually every problem in this country, and he's never done anything. And he doesn't even care. The idea that there's this giant compassionate blood flow going, that's not even true. Breathtaking, really, how far removed from the traditional American experience this man is. Romney was dead right about that. His life experiences do not comport with the American experience. They just don't. Rod, I appreciate the call.

RUSH: Here's Lisa in Houston on the program. You're next. Great to have you here. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Thanks, Rush. I just wanted to say that I am just frustrated and angry as you are when I watch how arrogant Obama is. It just makes me not even want to look at him. And it just makes me so mad. I don't understand why Romney and the rest of the Republicans don't throw that "fair share" thing back in their faces. You know, they say that the rich don't pay their fair share. And I think, sadly, most Americans buy into that, you know, they think, oh, yeah, that's right, they're not paying their fair share. And really, what is it, like the top 10% pay 50% of all taxes; is that right?

RUSH: Yeah, let me tell you something about that. We've had that number on our website going on five years. For 20 years I've been making the point on this program that the top 1% pay 40%, top 5% pay 80%, whatever the number, and yet I don't think if we had never mentioned it, it would matter. This is one of those arguments where the real numbers don't , 'cause it's never enough. The left is never happy. If you could get them to agree that a tax rate of 50% was fair, the next year they'd want 60. They're very wise not to demand a number. It's not about numbers. It's about attitudes leading to votes against Republicans. That's the only reason they spout this stuff. I'm blue in the face telling people that the top 1%, top 10%, top 50%, I'm blue in the face telling people they pay their fair share and more. It doesn't register. That doesn't cut through the noise. That argument, I don't think, has ever mattered. It's never blunted it.

CALLER: See, I think if Romney were to say that in a debate, you know, if he were to ask Obama, "What percentage should someone who makes $300,000 a year, what should they pay? What percentage should they pay of their salary, what do you think?"

RUSH: He wouldn't answer it. He wouldn't answer it. He would take the question and go off to another talking point making the same point. He would not answer it, I guarantee you.

CALLER: Well, then it just irritates me that you have these Hollywood liberals who, you know, give millions of dollars to Democrats, but then, you know, they live in these mansions and they say that rich people aren't paying enough. I guess I just have always thought, why don't those people be the first to give all of their money away? Keep three or four million dollars, but give the rest of their money to the government and then they can tell other people.

RUSH: You're making the mistake of interpreting them literally. When they join the chorus that the rich aren't paying their fair share, that's not what they're saying. All they're doing is trying to tell people who may have trouble coming up with 15 bucks or ten bucks to go to the movie that

they're no different. All they're doing is trying to relate. I mean some of them are ideologues, some of them are liberals and so forth, but all they're really trying to do is to form a linkage or a bond with their audience that they, too, are average people. That they, too, think the rich ought to pay fair share. That they don't want the audience to think of them as the rich who aren't paying their fair share. So they go out and call for it. It's how the Kennedys and the Warren Buffetts and the Bill Gateses of the world inoculate themselves from this very criticism. They go out and claim the rich aren't paying enough. They never offer to pay any more themselves, but they join that chorus, and thereby they never get criticized for being rich.

CALLER: I know. And I guess I just wish that instead of giving these vague campaign speeches that you hear, it's just very vague stuff, and it's almost like, they don't want to just tell it like it is and why these -- you know, why Romney --

RUSH: You're asking something impossible. You're asking for liberals to engage in the debate literally. They're never going to do that. They're never going to get specific and attach numbers to whatever argument, because it's not about what they're saying. It's all misdirection. It's all code. So when you hear them say the rich aren't paying their fair share, you're saying, "Well, what is?" They're not thinking of a number. They're thinking of a way to relate to most people who aren't rich and trying to get them to support them, or to let them know that they're on their side or what have you. The biggest mistake people make is listening to liberals and wanting to engage them literally. That's not at all what they're talking about when they say these things.

Let me try again. When Ted Kennedy came out and railed against the rich, that they weren't paying their fair share, everybody said, "You're richer than anybody in the world. What are you talking about?" That's exactly right. Ted Kennedy knows, the Democrat Party knows that the class envy stuff sometimes works, that they can gin up real hatred for the rich. Well, they don't want to be hated. Yet they're rich. So? They run out and they criticize the rich, as though they're not. In the process they inoculate themselves from their own criticism.

See, everybody believes that big businessmen are Republicans. That big corporate CEOs are conservatives, and they believe in individualism and self-reliance, and they don't like big government and so forth. Nothing could be further from the truth today. The people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett run around, they both do, they run around, "There isn't enough charitable giving by the rich. They're not paying enough taxes. The rich ought to be paying more," and in the process, the richest people in the world inoculate themselves from the hatred for the rich that they are helping gin up, and people leave them alone, and that means nobody's coming for their money.

The biggest mistake in the world is to engage liberals literally on what they're talking about. When Ted Kennedy said, "Robert Bork's America is an America were women are getting back alley --" that's not what he was saying. He was creating, trying to sustain an attitude of bigotry and hatred harbored by conservatives, pure and simple.

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the liberals, the American left, the Democrat Party cannot ever allow the country to be unified. They just can't. They cannot survive without conflict. They cannot survive without chaos. They cannot survive without an us versus them. To illustrate the point, if the top marginal tax rate were moved up to 90%, it would not stop them from saying the rich aren't paying their fair share. They're going to say it if we abolish the rich. If we make it illegal to be rich. They're still gonna run around talking about the days when the rich weren't paying their fair share and do you want to go back to that.

Look, for 24 years on my website every day and on this program, frequently, here are the latest numbers: the top 5% pay 44% more in taxes than the bottom 95%. The top 5% pay 44% more in taxes than the bottom 95%.

Now, what does that mean? Nothing. What are the dollars? That doesn't mean jack to anybody hearing it. And it's really frustrating. You could say the top 5% pay 50% of all taxes. It doesn't matter. Apparently it doesn't cut through the noise and change anybody's mind who believes the rich aren't paying their fair share. All that number does is validate people who already understand it. But it's not winning any converts. At least I don't get the sense that it is. Otherwise, they wouldn't still use class envy. Now, there are arguments. Political scientists routinely argue about the effectiveness of class warfare politics, does it work or does it not, and you get for as many political scientists as there are analyzing it, you get that many theories and that many answers. But the fact that the Democrat Party keeps doing it is proof positive to me that they think it works. In this case, that's all they've got.

They can't run on their current record, they can't run on this economy, even though Obama today was trying to massage these numbers in such a way as to lie to the American people whose lives he's destroying, that it isn't so bad out there. That's a cold, calculating guy to do that, try to tell people whose jobs you're destroying that things are getting better. I tell you, that's heartless. It's pure heartlessness, but that's who he is, it's what he's doing. They live in cliches. The biggest mistake in the world, and I've found this over the years, is to engage them literally. As a persuasion technique, I don't see how it works.

Remember when Paul Ryan took Obama to school on his own health care plan at that joint session at the White House or maybe it was at Blair House, but anyway they had a bunch of congressional leaders and Obama, the Democrats and Republicans got together, one of these fake pretenses that everybody's working together try to solve a problem. And Paul Ryan just read Obama the riot act on his health care bill and how he's destroying the economy and rising deficit all that. The guy was very accurate, it was very true. And even among people who saw it, all it did was validate those of us who already knew what he was talking about, but I don't think it was pervasive. Not that what he was saying isn't pervasive, it's just the literal aspect of this stuff, when we're talking to liberals, who is it we're trying to persuade anyway?

We're trying to talk liberals out of being liberals. Isn't that what this objective is? Or we're trying to depress 'em so much that they don't go vote, whatever. But that's what we're trying to do. But they're not literal in any way. They live an image. They live in fantasy land. They live in the world of emotion. Realville, they get nowhere near it. They see the sign that says Realville, and they turn around so that it's in the rearview mirror. They're out of there, don't want any part of it. They can't survive in Realville. They live in cocoons. Studied this. The art of persuasion is a very, very tricky thing.

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.

Pirates Cove, a mixture of news stories and opinions (often on those stories) as well as interesting links to other sites.

Words Matter—they claim to be nonpartisan, but they seem to be anti-Obama. Excellent videos on the front page. The videos are tough on Obama, but nothing that I have seen is taken out of context.

Conservative Review
Issue #238	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	August 5, 2012