If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

Democrats will have a majority and possibly a super-majority, and control the house and executive branch. Although Obama is a complete unknown (although we can theorize about him), Pelosi and Reid are well known and will probably lead him around by the nose.

Niether he nor Palin are lawyers, and when asked a question, most of the time you understand what their position is; Obama and Biden are both lawyers; about half the time, when asked a question, their position is less clearly explained (but Obama does sound quite intelligent in delivering his nuanced positions).

Once the electorate realizes that it can vote in such a way as to require richer people to pay them money, Democracy is dead (from the Dennis Miller program).

"Look, John [McCain]'s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs." --Joe Biden

Penn and Teller handle the peace issue. Be forewarned about Penn’s language. Teller keeps his swearing to a minimum. You may or may not agree with them, but they are always entertaining.

Saturday afternoons on FoxNews, there is a 1.5 hour block of programs: Wall Street Journal, the Beltway Boys and FoxNews Watch. All 3 programs are excellent.

This, by the way, is not just Obama’s position, but there are many others who believe in spreading the wealth as well:

If McCain wins, there will be riots in the street. If Obama wins, there will not be.

If McCain wins, there will be nothing that abnormal on the international scene. If Obama wins, there will be several international crises, arising simultaneously, along the lines of unlike Russia’s invasion of Georgia or the complete destruction of an American Consulate (see below).

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential Joe Biden nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.

"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.

"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."

Biden’s right. However, I don’t see this as just one crisis, but I think we are going to see a number of crises, one right after another. Russia may seize the pipeline in Georgia or attack the Ukraine; Iran and several other nations may band to attack Israel; Israel may bomb Iran; mainland China may move to annex Taiwan; more African nations may break out with more genocide. In my opinion, by the end of February, if Obama is president, there will be at least 3 major international crises break out, almost all within the same week.

By the way, since Biden made said these things, he has disappeared. No more quotes from Biden. Rush theorizes that, since Biden went to a national security briefing recently, he is telling everyone what he found out at that briefing, as he cannot keep a secret.

[A disclaimer: I do not have the gift of prophecy—no one does at this time—but these are reasonable predictions based upon the political climate and being able to read the historical trends of the day]

I said that gas would be down to $2.50–2.75 levels by November. Here in Texas, they can be found even below that price today.

You may or may not be aware of this, but Congressional Democrats are announcing the kinds of things they want to do, now, and when Obama gets elected president. They are a little scary, but don’t worry—no one in the news is going to tell you about these things.

I mentioned last time that Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live would be their biggest audience this year—turns out, it was their biggest audience for 14 years.

For the past several years, Bush has been compared to Hitler, our prisoner of war camps to gulags, and Republican rallies are called blood-curdling hate-fests; the end result is to be anger and violence from those who believe such things against Bush and Republicans. Although it has not been documented very well, there has been a lot of hatred on the left for those of us on the right. Logically, it has to be this way. If you really believe that Republicans are Nazis, you do not reason with Nazis, you kill them. It is beginning, but such anger and violence will continue past the election, no matter who wins this election.

My interest in politics is related to my faith in Jesus Christ. We, as a country, will get the leader which we deserve. God controls human history in the devil’s world, and when people move toward great degeneracy, they get appropriate leaders.

I talk to a lot of people, in person and via email, and have been fascinated by this election. I know some Democrats who will vote for anyone but a Republican. No matter what the issue, Bush did it wrong.

I know one college educated woman—and I think she speaks for a lot of people out there—who really did vote for Bush, actually likes Bush, and yet is swayed by Obama. In talking to her further, however, it appears as though she knows very little more than various slogans. For instance, she told me, Obama will talk to our enemies rather than shun them or start a war with them. Of course, that sounds great, and who would not prefer peace over war?

There are a great many of the electorate who honestly believe that they will pay less taxes under an Obama administration, and they take to heart 95% of working Americans (or families or Americans—he changes this often) will pay less taxes under him than under McCain. The Obama campaign and all of their surrogates are very disciplined when it comes to getting their message out there, and I have heard dozens of people quote this figure over and over and over again; and they do so with great conviction. And who isn’t for paying lower taxes?

There are some who are voting for Obama simply because he is Black. When 95% of the Black vote is predicted to go to Obama, you know there is more going on here than simply his economic policies just seem to resinate with African-Americans.

In a Democracy, we the people are saddled with the responsibility of choosing the most powerful man in the world. Huge numbers take this responsibility lightly, and give little or no thought to their choices. They have always voted Democrat (or Republican) and they always will. Many Democrats think that their party stands up for the little guy and for minorities, and that Republicans are just a bunch of rich white men who want to keep their wealth (which they stole from the working man). Many Republicans see their party as the party of freedom and free enterprise and free expression and see Democrats as being for more government, more government handouts, more restrictions on freedoms, and more income redistribution.

However, in a Democracy, we ought to choose the candidate based on more than our preconditioning.

Despite all the hype and propaganda from the left, Bush was not a terrible president. Throughout most of his term, there has been low unemployment, low interest rates, lower taxes, and a low inflation rate.

Despite all of the hype and propaganda from the right, Clinton was not a terrible president. Throughout most of his term, there has been low unemployment, low interest rates, lower taxes, and a low inflation rate.

Now, this does not mean that there are no reasonable criticisms of Bush or Clinton. Bush has tried to solve far too many problems by throwing money at them. Obviously, there is a deep divide between Americans with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. Similarly, with Clinton, there was a very close association with the criminal element which was disconcerting to those who knew about it; and some wonder about his foreign policy decisions with regards to North Korea, Bosnia and Rwanda, just to name a few.

If you are going to be objective, you should be able to find good and bad in most presidents; and if you are unable to, then you are far too partisan to even be reading this.

To actually find some bad presidents who policies affected the American people in a very negative way, we have to go back to Carter, FDR and Hoover.

Under Carter, energy prices soared, unemployment was more than double what it is today, inflation was in the teens and interest rates were in the high teens. This affected almost every single American. For those of us who recall waiting hours in gas lines, we realize that, either Carter was a lousy president or, there was a surprisingly confluence of bad events which all took place during his 4 year presidency. His foreign policies with regard to Iran, Rhodesia and South Africa have had long-term negative effects not only for those countries, but for us as well.

Listing FDR as a bad president is going to ruffle some feathers. However, the stock market did not regain its losses until Eisenhower’s presidency. We had huge unemployment rates which were not decreased by FDR, but finally by the War. This was a disturbing time in our history, and even though he was quite reassuring to the people of the United States, he did not put the country on a good economic path until WWII.

Now, to mollify what I just said, FDR was president during a time when socialism and communism seemed like reasonable answers for some economies. It was brand new and Roosevelt had many friends and associates and even cabinet members who saw the Soviet experiment as a good thing. Stalin fooled most of them. FDR also dealt with a depression as the US had never seen before. His arbitrary setting of the value of gold, his playing around in the economy, first trying this thing and then that, resulted in little or no trust in American business, because (1) no idea what FDR would do tomorrow and (2) when you viciously tax business and success and prosperity, you get much less of it.

In other words, you can look at certain things and historically excuse FDR for not knowing what to do; but, given his background and associations, and lack of judgment, he probably doubled the time America suffered under the Great Depression.

Now, let’s look at what is going on today. We have suffered an ugly downturn in the markets, and the media is telling all America, it is the deregulation of the Republicans and greedy Wall Street which caused the market crash. However, I have chronicled in previous issues the hugeness of FNMA and FHLMC and how practices in these institutions probably kicked off the market free fall. Certainly, there were other factors, but the amount of equity (good and bad) held by FNMA and FHLMC dwarf all US companies.

Something has to be done here, and, as you know, I am one of the majority of Americans who opposed the bailout, which was supported by Bush, McCain, Obama and a majority of the Democratic Congress.

When I look at Obama, his grasp of economics appears to be very socialistic, approaching economic problems that, if you just took some of the wealth from the wealth-makers and give it to the wealth-takers, that is going to solve America’s economic woes. Given Obama’s history and associations, this very much lines up with the little that we know of his background here.

Furthermore, Obama and Biden had never run a business or held executive positions of any sort. Even as the executive of his campaign, Obama does not really handle any of the financial end of this short-lived company. McCain has never owned a business or held an executive political position, but he has had an executive position in the military. Palin is the only person of the 4 who has actually had any relationship with an executive political positions (she has held 3) as well as having a personal business. Of the 4, she is the only person I would trust with a budget and with making economic decisions.

When it comes to foreign policy, Biden has warned us that something big is going to happen within a few months of Obama becoming president, and I completely agree with him. In fact, I think that several things will happen, almost simultaneously. I believe that we are going to see Iran, Russia, Georgia, the Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, mainland China, Taiwan and probably several countries in Africa, all erupt into situations which are going to threaten the stability of those nations around them. I don’t know that all of these countries will become hotspots, but I suspect that at least 3 of them will be within the first 6 months of an Obama presidency. We have a decision-maker who has absolutely no foreign-policy experience (his is equivalent to Palin’s); and his second-in-command has a fair amount of experience, but none of it executive, and a track record of making many bad foreign policy decisions.

In this area, only McCain has any concept of the interactions between the various countries and he is the only person in this race with enough military experience to have a grasp of what our military can and cannot do.

It is worth noting that nations which are hostile to the United States have some fear of McCain because they know he is a military man. There is nothing to suggest that any of them fear Obama or Biden, but that they see these as newcomers to world politics, men who can be more easily manipulated and fooled (like Stalin fooled FDR).

It is also worth noting that McCain and Palin both have something to lose in an international crisis; they have sons in the military right now. Therefore, it is unlikely that either of them would make a rash decision in this particular arena.

If, at this point, you keep going back in your mind, Obama will provide hope and change; he will give a new direction to American, he will give tax cuts to 95% of all Americans, and that other foreign nations will love him, that McCain is just going to continue the Bush failed policies, and that Obama alone has the ability to talk to and reason with our enemies, there is very little I can say to you. These are the themes of his campaign, they repeat these themes over and over and over again, and you believe it, even though he has nothing in his record to indicate this will be what is going to happen in his presidency (what hope or change did he bring to Chicago? Did he ever once vote for a tax reduction for anyone?).

What will happen in the next few months is going to be significant. There will be a new direction for America, no matter which person wins; and there will be a marked change in both our economy and in foreign relations, because, again, this is the most powerful person on the earth that we are voting for.

Because we are in a Democracy, it is incumbent upon all of us as Americans to actually look at the character and records of those running for presidency, to cut through the hype of their campaigns, and to resist letting the media lead us around by the nose, and to vote for the person who is best for America.

Change = the policies of Hoover, Carter, Saul Alinsky, William Ayers, Marx and Putin.

Republican attack-dog ads = political ads which question Obama’s judgment, his past associations and his total lack of experience.

“We need to talk about the real issues” = you have found another chink in my armor.

Bush-McCain economic policies = somehow conflating Democrat-like spending (Bush) with a call for fiscal responsibility (McCain).

Bush-McCain economic policies = the absurd notion that government is already taxing Americans too much.

Not the same old Washington-style politics = the same old Chicago-style politics.

Tax cuts for 95% of Americans = some supplemental payments for 40% of Americans who did not pay any federal income tax (aka welfare); and, with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, higher taxes for 55% and much higher taxes for the remaining 5%.

Meeting enemy leaders without preconditions = meeting enemy leaders with preparations (i.e, preconditions).

We have a righteous wind at our backs (spoken by Obama) = come on, you know he can say any damn thing that he wants and no one is going to call him on it.

“We have a righteous wind at our backs (said by Palin) = crazy religious talk.

"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." = he can say anything, no matter how ridiculous.

The newest Pew Report looks at how journalists have been treating the candidates over the past month.

As we move closer and closer to the election, there are more and more negative stories about McCain and fewer positive ones.

36% of Obama stories are positive. In the final week of this survey, this has moved to 50% positive and 19% negative.

The coverage of Obama was quite similar to Kerry coverage in 2004 (in terms of percentages). Bush, in 2000, had twice as many negative stories as positive; and now, McCain has four times as many negatives as positive. I guess the media is looking to find the proper balance to insure the election results?

The public clearly sees the imbalance in press coverage, which is also a part of this report. What is not examined is the more elusive concept of, even though someone recognizes that news coverage is strongly biased in favor of Obama, are they still influenced by this imbalance?

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.

I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.

This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many.

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.

[The qualifications of a good judge are...] We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society.

When asked at what point does the fetus in the womb enjoy some protection by the government, Obama answered, "Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade." Although Obama later agreed that this answer was perhaps too flippant, he has never actually answered this question—not with words anyway; he has answered this question with his actions, which is what actually counts in the function of a politician.

"Just this past week, we passed out of the out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee -- which is my committee -- a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon." --referring to a committee he is not on, Sderot, Israel, July 23, 2008

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people.

Obama has said, “No one is pro-abortion;” “I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.” and “Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.”

Believing that abortion is to be left up to the woman, her doctor and her pastor (rabbi or whatever) is an illogical position to take by a person who does not believe in God or for a person who says, “No one is pro-abortion.”

The instant of conception, science tells us that there is a new person there, with a different DNA that the mother carrying him and often a different blood type. No scientist believes that mass of cells within a woman is analogous to a tumor, a thumbnail, or a wart.

The only possible way for a person to make the determination that the fetus in the womb is less than human is from a religious argument that life begins at birth. Scientifically, the only difference between the fetus in the womb and the baby outside the womb is one breathes air rather than absorbs oxygen through the blood stream alone. The brain of a fetus has electrical signals just like the brain of an infant just like the brain of someone who is 60 years old.

The argument that the fetus is completely dependent upon the mother is specious. An infant is also completely dependent upon the mother (or some other adult). Does that give the parent the right to kill an infant, based upon complete dependence?

For Obama to say, “No one is pro-abortion” makes little sense in the light of his voting again and again to support laws and policies which allow abortion. If no one is pro-abortion, does that imply that maybe there is something bad about having an abortion? If this is more than removing a hangnail, then what is it, if not killing a living thing that no scientist would identify as anything other than human?

Take an aborted baby and give it to a scientist and ask him what it is. Is there any question that he would come up with any answer than a human person? Is there any scientist who would have some sort of scientific data which could prove that the fetus is somehow just an extension of the mother?

From Selwyn Duke: Strangely, though, while Obama claimed that the question was above his pay grade, legislating in areas in which it must be answered never seemed to be. Why, he never shrank from making policy or pronouncements regarding abortion. He never said, "I'm, uh, sorry, but this issue is, uh, above my pay grade; I'll have to withhold judgment and, uh, recuse myself from votes." Nor did he take the logical, compassionate and humane default position, which is to say that since I don't know whether this being is human, I'll err on the side of caution. I won't allow him to be killed. Instead, whenever Obama was called to weigh in, there was never any question as to where he stood: Shoulder to shoulder with the most radical elements of the pro-abortion lobby. And, as with them, we have to wonder not about when Obama believes human life begins, but whether he believes in the human right to life at all.

After all, in 1997 Obama voted "present" on two bills that would have prohibited partial-birth abortion (in the Illinois legislature, such a vote counts as a "no"). In the same vein, while a member of that body, he effectively blocked his state's version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA). This bill was proposed because some babies in Illinois who were meant to be aborted were born alive and then, unbelievably, were left to die in soiled store rooms. Now, to understand just how far off the rails Obama was on this issue, know that senators Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy all supported the federal BAIPA, and even the radical NARAL went neutral on it.

Apparently Obama/Biden and the neo-marxists in the democratic party think so. Why is it if a person nets 250K annually they are greedy? What is wrong with being prosperous and successful? I thought that is what made America great from the rest of the world, people can succeed and prosper. Can somebody please show me where in the Constitution were the government has the right to determine how much somebody can make?

In reality politicians use class warfare to distract people from what really is going on, outlandish government spending. Obama is quick to criticize Bush on his spending and increased deficit. Then in the next breathe he talks about how he is going to increase spending. Well how is he going to pay for it? Even if he taxes the rich for everything they have it won’t be enough to pay for it. In my eyes there isn’t a dime of difference between Bush, McCain, Obama, and Biden, they are all big government politicians (whether neo-conservative or neo-marxist). You cannot tax into prosperity and that is a myth that people are buying into. I want to ask any Gen Xer and younger to go to the social security office and ask to see the balance of your social security account. I bet you get a blank stare and get fed a line on the benefits you get. Wait a second benefits! Social security is suppose to be a government saving system, benefits are associated with welfare programs. You see the 18% or more that is taken from our checks aren’t going into an account. It is thrown into the budget were it is being spent faster than money can be put in it, Generation X and younger won’t see a penny of what they put in. Now they want to nationalize our banking system and take over the medical system. How can we trust these morons in Washington with the financial banking system and healthcare when they can’t even take care of social security and medicare. People freedom is synonymous with choice, when the government takes over there isn’t a choice. Right now we are heading into corporatism which is a stone throws away from fascism. Too many people turn to the government to "fix" things and the government is all to happy to do it. But whether you believe it or not you don’t get something for nothing.

The watchdogs (press) have failed in their duty and became guard dogs, for a few lap dogs, for the government. When politicians think they are above the law and can ignore Constitutional law we have a problem. The only way to get the government under control is from the American people, doing so is a constant vigil. The best example that our government is out of control is this bail-out. I haven’t heard a single person say that it is what America needed, this is a power grab and who is paying for it, the US taxpayer and Constitutional law.

The remedy isn’t more government spending and programs; it’s cutting spending, delegating responsibility back to states, cities, and the individual. I am tired of hearing how candidates keep saying what they are going to do for me and my children and my children’s children. How about what you are not going to do? Let American people decide what is good for themselves. We don’t need the government micromanaging business? and people’s lives.

Sorry about going off a rant like that but the debates were a joke just like this entire presidential election. But the democrats and republicans own the election process and give the illusion of choice to the citizens of America. I think we are one or two elections away from going from a democracy (suppose to be a republic) to an oligarchy (a country ruled by a single group of people).

What I say has always been true, the government should let and help the American people be successful. Because when the American people are successful America is successful. Obama (whether the Obama Nation wants to admit it or not) is a politician. When people think of politician its not a person of integrity and truth, no it?s usually a person who is a liar and a crook. Obama comes from Chicago a city rife with crooked politicians. Obama didn’t get to be where he is today coming from Chicago with his good looks. Why am I focusing on Obama so much? Because when I talk to a McCain supporter they are luke warm at best. Obama supporters are absolutely enthralled by him, they bought into the romanticism, won’t find any fault, and if anybody criticizes him they are the devil. Well people are also romantic through a relationship, but when the honeymoon is over and life goes on it is never happily ever after. Fairy tales are only in fairy tales. People were warned about Clinton’s affairs before he was president but the media ignored it and romanticized him. They are doing it again with Obama and that is the second reason I cannot stand him. The first reason is that he wants the government to be in every aspect of people’s lives (aka socialism).

To say this story is the biggest steaming-pile-of-manure on the planet would be an understatement. Leftie-progressive HuffingtonPost writer compares John McCain's military service in Vietnam to the killings Bill Ayers and his WeatherUnderground performed. In case you haven't yet, read the yesterday's story in the NYT about the Obama/Ayers connection. It's as fair as anyone could expect from the NYT, but does detail the event Ayers hosted for Obama to launch his political career.

RUSH: I want to talk to all of you who have 401(k)s or SEP/Keogh plans, some kind of pension plan or retirement plan. The first thing I want to do is share with you something that Joe Biden -- he the one given to rhetorical flourishes, according to Obama -- on the campaign trail in Colorado, and he was out there doing full-fledged Democrat Party playbook 101. He promised a full-scale attack on corporate greed if he and Obama win. Biden vowed to target executives of failing companies who draw big salaries. "Their pensions go first," he told the cheering crowd. Now, folks, I want you to stop for a moment and very seriously consider what you just heard Joe Biden say. Here he's got a roomful, an auditorium full of rabid Obama supporting Democrats, they are there for whatever reason, they support Obama, they are filled with class envy, and here is Joe Biden telling this crowd that these CEOs of failing companies who draw big salaries, we are going to go get their pensions.

Now, we're not going to go get their salaries, we're not going to cap their salaries, although that's what they want to do, he didn't say that. We're going to get their pensions. Their pensions go first. Meaning what? We're going to take 'em. We're going to punish this evil greed that is making you angry and making you poor. Well, the only way to punish the greed that is making you angry and making you poor is to take Biden's pension away first. Biden has a pension as well, and he didn't talk about his pension to this audience. His pension is what's called a defined benefit option. It's backed by the US Treasury, which means that Joe Biden and Obama and everybody else in Congress is sheltered from the ups and downs of the stock market. He gets a generous pension no matter how bad liberal legislation screws up the economy for the rest of us. Biden also has the option of drawing his benefits earlier than private sector employees, with no penalty. His contributions accrue faster.

Now, the private sector greed that Biden attacks cannot hold a candle to the greed that liberals have for your tax dollars, as evidenced by Obama, who cannot wait to get his paws on your tax dollars, and Biden. This is striking! "Their pensions go first." He's going to take away people's pensions. If you let that happen, he can take away yours. Guess what. They are doing it in Argentina. They are nationalizing everybody's pensions. You stick with me on this, folks. The failures in the private sector are minuscule compared to the continued massive failures of Big Government. Everything they touch has unintended consequences and goes wrong, and they then get to act like innocent bystander spectators and point fingers at everybody else, and now they've got Greenspan up there agreeing that the free market screwed up when the free market had nothing to do with this economic mess. It was just the exact opposite.

So, Senator Biden, if anybody's pension deserves to go first, it should be yours. You are the person of greed. You're the person who's made how many millions of dollars over the last number of years and given $3,600 of it to charity? You and your liberal buddies, you go first. You give up your pensions. Show us some leadership, Senator Biden. You go first. You show us how it's done. You want to be fair, you'll get rid of your own pension, because you'll say, "What we have done up here has been a disgrace and we are resigning out of a sense of honor." Now, this is just part of this pension and 401(k) business. I want to remind you, two weeks ago Congressman George Miller from California who chairs some congressional committee, big Democrat, been there for ages, said, "We're going to have to do something about the tax deductibility of contributions to people's 401(k)s because government's losing money. We're losing money on this," so he's going to propose eliminating the deductibility of whatever you contribute to your 401(k).

Now, we don't know if Obama would go along with this. The odds are pretty good that he would, because they have another plan. But now stop and think, here's Biden, they're going to take -- I don't care what you think of Big Oil, I don't care what you think of Enron -- the New York Times, by the way, is the Enron of media. They are now officially, according to Standard & Poor's, junk, on the very day they endorse Obama, they are junk. This just goes to show you propaganda does not pay. There isn't profit in propaganda. The New York Times is no longer the New York Times. Not what it was. They're losing advertising revenue, they're dropping pages, they're losing readers, circulation, and they are obstinate as hell about it, and now they are officially junk on the day they endorse Obama. So you can talk about all of this greed and all of this private sector greed and so forth, and they're going to go out and they're going to take some CEO's pension, his pension, their pensions go first? Next, your 401(k) is no longer deductible, and get this. This from James Taranto yesterday at the Wall Street Journal, Best of the Web today, and the headline of his piece here, "Are 401(k)s Safe from Congressional Democrats?"

Now, I could answer this in two ways. First, I know you're scared to look at your 401(k) statements when they come in, what's happened to this market. Are your 401(k)s safe from congressional Democrats? They're not safe from Democrats right now, folks, because Democrats have caused what we're all experiencing. The second answer to the question is the startling information in this story. "If you have a 401(k) or equivalent retirement plan, you've probably been watching nervously the past few weeks as your nest egg has shrunken owing to the current turmoil in the markets. Well, it could be worse. But don't take heart, for what we mean is it could get worse. The market turmoil has some politicians on Capitol Hill eyeing the end of the 401(k) as we know it. Workforce Management reports on a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee earlier this month."

Listen to this. Look at me. "A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. ... Under Ghilarducci's plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the US government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration." In other words, there is a plan that the Democrats are considering to convert your 401(k) to the Social Security Administration, your 401(k) then administered by the SSA, your private retirement plan becomes owned by the government. "The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation."

Now, the purpose of this plan is they think you'll go for this because you've seen these wild market gyrations, and you've seen your 401(k) plunge, so now they're thinking that you'll go along with the Social Security Administration running your private retirement plan at a guaranteed 3% a year. "The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated," so no longer would you get the deduction off the top of your income for whatever you contribute to your 401(k). The current system of tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated. Teresa Ghilarducci, "I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s. 401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won't have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break." So that's two people now that want to come along and take away the tax deductibility and subsidy of your 401(k). George Miller, who runs the committee, and some babe, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York.

"Ghilarducci outlined her plan last year in a paper for the left-liberal Economic Policy Institute, in which she acknowledges that her plan would amount to a tax increase on workers making more than $75,000--considerably less than the $250,000 Barack Obama has said would be his tax-hike cutoff. In addition, workers would be able to pass on only half of their account balances to their heirs," so that your 401(k) would be subject to the 50% death tax rate because the government's going to own it. The government's going to own your 401(k), and your 401(k) will guarantee you just 3% in government bonds administered by the government. Your private retirement account that the government set up and got you into, now they want to take over from you, just like Joe Biden wants to go out and make sure that these evil CEOs, their pensions go first. The concept that your money is your money will vanish when the Democrats take over Congress and Obama takes over the White House. All money will officially be government's.

Now, this is getting pretty brutal, so they had this babe up to testify before this committee, Teresa Ghilarducci, and she offered a sweetener. "Short-term I propose ... that the Congress allow workers to swap out their 401(k) assets, perhaps at August levels, for a guaranteed retirement account--just a one-time swap. ... How would this work? You go back to your districts and meet up with a 55-year-old who had had $50,000 in his account last month and now has $40,000 in the account. He can swap out that $50,000, valued in August, for that guarantee of what would become, if he retires at 62, a $500 a month addition to Social Security." So her plan is to have your 401(k) plan taken over by the government, invested by the government, the Social Security plan at 3%, and then your retirement is paid back to you in a Social Security check. Whatever your Social Security benefits are when you retire will be added to by whatever is in your 401(k). The point is that in your mind, if you go along for this, the government is in total charge of your retirement.

And the sweetener, the little hook here is for people to say, "Well, my 401(k) in August it was worth a lot of money, and now it's lost." Okay, we'll give you the August value. Your generous and benevolent government will give you the August value, and then they will take your plan and will put it in the Social Security Administration and will invest your plan in safe bonds at 3% a year, and then when you retire, that money in your 401(k) gets added to whatever your Social -- you get one check, your Social Security check. And in that check will be whatever your retirement account is, and you're essentially giving it up. You're essentially giving it up. By the way, gone also is any incentive to contribute to it, in terms of the subsidy you get off the top of your income for whatever you donate to your 401(k). Now, I don't want to totally alarm you here, it's by no means a certainty that Congress or Obama would embrace this proposal, but I'll tell you when you listen to them talk, this is the direction they're headed. You know they're going to come after pension plans. It's one of the largest sources of money out there, be it you California teachers, public employees, Teamsters Union, your pension plan, I guarantee you people like Obama and Democrats in the House are eyeing that as though it's theirs. Joe Biden, "Their pensions go first."

And then Buenos Aires: "A year ago, when leftist Cristina Kirchner was elected to succeed her husband Nestor as president, many Argentines hoped she'd follow a more conciliatory path ... But with gambits like Tuesday's proposal to nationalize private pension funds, the 55-year-old former senator has shown a combativeness that is every bit the equal of her husband's. Mrs. Kirchner justified the proposed seizure of $30 billion in pension assets by accusing the funds of having instrumented 'policies of plunder.' She said Argentina was setting an example of how to deal with the global financial crisis." So here's Argentina with a leftist nationalizing everybody's pension on the basis of people running the pension funds are crooks. Folks, if you don't take this election seriously, this is exactly the kind of stuff headed our way.

RUSH: By the way, this move down in Argentina by the new leftist president, Cristina Kirchner, to nationalize private pension funds is being fought. The citizens, there are all kinds of lawsuits being filed against her down here. People are not standing for this. Look it, Argentina, if I'm not mistaken is the country we always heard about in the late nineties as a model for how to reduce Social Security. That's right, Chile. Sorry, Chile. One South American country is like all the rest, I guess. I get them confused out there.

RUSH: The first hour contained a detailed explanation of plans that Democrats have to take your 401(k) away from you and give you the value of it before the market plunge and then put it into the Social Security trust fund, and your 401(k) then will be invested. It's not your private retirement account anymore. The government owns it, and they're going to guarantee you 3% growth every year with the purchase of government bonds. And therefore you give up all of the tax deductibility, you know, let's say you earn whatever it is, a hundred thousand dollars and you put whatever percentage of it into your IRA, then of course your adjustable gross income comes down. So you face a smaller tax payment while saving money. It's a government sponsored deal and everybody was happy with it. They're going to take all of that away and put the money in the Social Security trust fund, and then when you retire you'll get one check that represents your Social Security and whatever your 401(k) has matured to at 3% a year in one check.

Now, one thing I forgot to mention here on this is that IRA contributions drive down adjusted gross income. Using my example, you earn a hundred thousand dollars, and let's say you direct that $20,000 of it go to your IRA, whatever the maximum you can put away. For some plans it's 30% max, SEP/Keoghs up to a certain ceiling, but let's say just for argument's sake it's 20 grand, so therefore your adjustable gross income is reduced by $20,000 so you're going to have a smaller tax payment. Once they take that away from you, guess what? Your tax rate's going to also go up because your adjusted gross income is not going to have your IRA deduction, and guess what this is going to do? It's going to push more people into Obama's new tax increase bracket. It's going to push more people over the $250,000-a-year magic number. Right now this is not an Obama proposal, I want to make sure that you understand, this is a Democrat Party proposal, and they have been conducting hearings on this already, and the appropriate committee in the House and this plan has been advanced by a professor that they brought in, and they're intrigued by it. Democrats on the committee are intrigued by it.

In the meantime, we've also learned that Ted Kennedy, on his sickbed, has been working on national health care with lobbyists and senators from both parties. The want to rush this through and, quote, "Do it for Ted." The Ted Kennedy National Health Care Act in his honor. I predicted this would happen. Here it is. Who can oppose that if you're in Congress? After Ted Kennedy passes away, who in their right mind would oppose it? So this is happening. Your adjustable gross income is going to go up. You might make it now into Obama's $250,000 or more tax bracket where you will get an increase, and then Snerdley said, "What are they going to do with the money that they're putting in there? They going to build roads and bridges and so forth?" Snerdley, come on, roads and bridges? New social programs. They might build some infrastructure because there are gonna be a lot of people out of work, the government will hire 'em, it's going to FDR all over again. The "new" new raw deal.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the few news organizations which actually examines what is happening and how it affects us:

RUSH: A guy named Kevin Collins at www.CollinsReport.net has taken the AP survey that had the one-point lead and has dug deep into the internals, and he says that this AP poll that has it one point for Obama just screams trouble, because this poll reported that Obama's base support is just 80% -- and that's a big if, if that's true. But if it is true, it's monumental. I hate to keep going back to yesterday, but I offered you a theory in the third hour yesterday, that what's happening with a lot of these polls, the pollsters go out and they ask all of their respondents, "Are you Republican or Democrat?" It's the first question, and right now you've got about 10% more people who say they're Democrats just in general than are Republicans and this is because the war in Iraq's been forgotten and Bush is not popular.

That figure turns around when there's a popular Republican in the White House. So you get a ten-point advantage here in Democrats. So the pollsters therefore weight it. They put that many at least more Democrats in the poll than they do Republicans, and one of the things that they're not factoring in... I'm confident of this, and this AP poll data sort of confirms this for me. One thing that they're not factoring is how many Democrats are not going to vote for Obama despite what they tell the pollsters. There are a lot of Reagan Democrats out there. There are a lot of Democrats who don't like Obama. There are a lot of Democrats who didn't vote for him in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Texas when the primaries were going on. There are a lot of Democrats who don't like French-type socialism, which is what Obama is talking about here.

And you know what the situation was in France before they elected a conservative, Sarkozy, to start fixing it. It was a mess. They couldn't fire anybody. Unemployment was at 14%. Over half the country was receiving their total subsistence from the other portion of the country that was working. Now, last June when former Hillary supporters were asked, 58% said they supported Obama. But the same survey also showed that 21% of Hillary supporters were voting for McCain. And they did a follow-up survey of the very same people sometime later. It showed McCain had grown to 28% of Hillary's voters, while remaining stagnant at 58% for Obama. So in the internals of the latest AP poll, it looks like the undecideds seem to be moving to McCain. Now, the media is not talking about these numbers, obviously, but they could be very important.

If Obama is just getting 80% of Democrat support, then he's got to be in trouble. A base support that low can't be overcome and it's not enough to get Obama elected. In 2000, Algore got 92% of the Democrat vote, and he lost. In 2004, John Kerry -- the haughty John Kerry (who served in Vietnam) -- got 89% of the Democrat vote, and he lost by a clear margin. Now, there would have to be a huge difference in party ID to pull Obama through with just 80% of his base, and the reported split among independents doesn't help matters. The base support numbers in this AP poll, if it's accurate, tell a very important story. And if they are real, it's going to be tough for Obama to overcome this. Also, this is from the CNBC.com website yesterday. "Election Day is only two weeks away, and as John McCain and Barack Obama make their final pitches to 'close the deal' with voters, a stunning new ATI-News/Zogby poll shows a clear majority of undecided voters disagree with Obama's plan for wealth redistribution in America.

"'The major issue on voters' minds right now is the economy, and the major voting bloc on candidates' minds right now is the undecided voter,' said ATI-News president Brad O'Leary. 'Our poll results show that undecided voters overwhelmingly reject Obama's economic plan to redistribute wealth,'" and we've got Obama. Let's see. I'm looking through the sound bite roster here, Mike. I know we've got Obama saying he's going to stand by this. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Pardon me, folks, while I look for this. Well, it's here. I can't find it right now. But I think he told Robin Roberts at ABC's Good Morning America that he has no regrets about saying anything that he said to Joe the Plumber. Here it is: audio sound bite number seven. It's Robin Roberts interviewing Barack Obama, and she said, "Do you have any regrets that you said to Joe the Plumber, your spread the wealth comments?"

OBAMA: Not at all. Look, if John McCain's best argument is that he wants to continue the same Bush tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans that in 2000 he himself opposed -- and in the meantime fails to give tax cuts to a hundred million people in America that I would give tax cuts to -- John McCain's going to have some problems. Because the American people understand that the way we grow this economy is from the bottom up.

RUSH: Uhhhhhhh, wrong on so many counts. But the one thing that I have to say here about Obama: He is consistent. He never wavers from what he says. Well, that's not true. He has moderated his position on a couple things. But the point is, as far as his base is concerned, he's consistent. He didn't back off this. When he talks about the free market he always criticizes the free market. When he talks about the rich, he always rips the rich. You know, one day you've got McCain out there sounding like Milton Friedman; the next day you've got him sounding like FDR. The lack of consistency in the McCain message is striking compared to the consistency in the Obama message. And he's also, Obama, very consistent about America is to blame.

Now, he's consistent. He's wrong in practically everything he's voted on and said, but he's consistent with it. He doesn't shock his supporters. He doesn't make 'em scratch their heads. Of course they're not even really listening to the substance of what Obama is saying. Now, this tax cut thing is one thing where he has changed his mind because he got caught on this. He was going to give "a tax break to 95% of Americans." Now, the problem is that a little under 70% is the largest number of Americans that pay taxes. Around 30, 32% of Americans do not pay income taxes. This was pointed out to Obama. He said, "Well, they pay payroll taxes, and I'm going to give them a tax credit, and they're going to get a tax credit on their payroll taxes. They're paying taxes; they ought to get a tax cut, too."

So he's going to rob the Social Security trust fund, theoretically, in order to give this tax cut, and then he said... This is one of these things that leads me to believe that Obama does not understand certain crucial things about this government. When he was challenged about his tax plan for "a tax cut for 95% of all Americans" -- because 95% of all Americans don't pay taxes -- he was quick to point out that working Americans do pay payroll taxes. He said they needed a tax cut, too. When it was pointed out to him that his tax cut was in reality a socialist welfare program because it was confiscating more tax revenues from income-tax-paying Americans to hand over to non-income-tax-paying Americans, Obama said, "No, no, no, no, no."

He did this this week. He said there's going to be a "work requirement" to his tax plan. Now, I have a news flash to Senator Government here. The fact that a person pays payroll taxes means they already have a job. And if they already have a job, Senator Government, it means they're already working. So what in the name of tarnation are you talking about that these people are going to face a work requirement, and that's going to eliminate the fact that it's welfare? They're already working if they're paying payroll taxes. Now, because I have come to understand Obama, I don't think he understands what payroll taxes are. I don't think that he understood what capital gains taxes are when he started talking about making them "progressive."

I'm not sure he knows that payroll taxes are taken out of workers' paychecks. Furthermore, I don't think he cares. He talks about Biden's rhetorical flourishes, but Obama is given to his own. What he understands and believes, my good friends, is income redistribution. He understands socialism. He understands radicalism, just like his friends. I think that he's treading here on dangerous water because this is a wide-open for McCain in a normal campaign. Of course, I want to reiterate something else, ladies and gentlemen. This economy... I was on Fox & Friends this morning for about ten minutes. They got, I think, two questions in, in those minutes. And I made the point that where we are right now, this economy is the election. I said, "Even though this economy can be directly traced to Democrat policies, McCain has to make that case," and people sent me e-mail.

"This is not about just the economy! It's about national security." I know it's about all those things! What I'm trying to say is that right now, with a little over a week to go, with what's happening in the stock market and all this never-ending news about we're coming up on a recession, we got layoffs coming, people are getting fired... Chrysler is going to make deep cuts, white-collar workers; 25% of their white-collar workforce is going to be laid off next month. "Cuts are necessary because of the deep downturn in the economy and the tightening credit situation choking off auto sales." Well, shazam! Thank you, Democrat Party, and thank you, Obama. So he's got to link the Democrat Party to this economic crisis, but he has to criticize Democrats to do that, and he's afraid he's going to lose moderates, which he's losing moderates left and right anyway!

Last week, ladies and gentlemen, October 17th, six days ago, I reminded you of a truism, and this was it.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I just saw something, and it's about Obama today in Roanoke, Virginia. This tells me that he is definitely in trouble. He has pulled out a page from the 30-year-old Democrat playbook: "John McCain will cut Medicare." It won't be long before we're going to cut Social Security as well. And then we're going to cut school lunches.

RUSH: All right, that's what I said six days ago. Last night, Hannity & Colmes, Governor Fast Eddie Rendell of Pennsylvania said this about Senator McCain.

RENDELL: If you're a senior, John McCain's economic advisors say they're going to tax, $1.3 trillion is going to come out of Medicare and Medicaid. That means higher premiums; that means lower benefits. Why in the world would you vote for John McCain?

RUSH: That's the same Fast Eddie, by the way, who begged Obama to get back to Pennsylvania for a couple rallies 'cause it's close there. They are in trouble. What is this? They're going to tax, $1.3 trillion is going to come out of Medicare and Medicaid? This is another one of these falsehoods that they're telling about McCain but it's aimed right at the seasoned citizens. Now, if all of these yutes that they have registered, all these young people, these college students, if they're really, really, really, really, really going to show up and vote in big numbers for the first time ever this year, then why do you have to care what the old folks do? They're out there as they always do trying to frighten the elderly. Here's Robert Wexler, Larry King Live, Bob Wexler, by the way, Democrat, Maryland.

WEXLER: Senator McCain supports a privatization plan, which would play the stock market into Social Security, which is very frowned upon in Florida. And Senator Obama has a much more realistic, sober plan to improve Social Security's financial standing. Senator Obama's got a very strong case to make in Florida.

RUSH: I told you six days ago when they went after Medicare that Social Security would be next, a 30-year-old page from the Democrat playbook, and Wexler lied through his teeth. McCain has not put a privatization plan on the board to put Social Security in the stock market. He's going back and he's tying McCain to Bush on that. McCain has advanced no such plan, that I'm aware of. So once again they're designed to scare elderly people, they're going to cut your Medicaid, they're going to take away your Social Security. You elderly people, let me give you the truth about Social Security and Obama. Obama says he's gonna cut taxes for 95% of Americans. The problem is, 30 to 38% of Americans don't pay income taxes, yet they're still going to get a tax cut, how's that? Well, Obama says they all pay payroll taxes, Social Security taxes, yes, but theoretically those Social Security taxes are for their retirement, theoretically. Obama's going to give them a credit of $500 to a thousand dollars, which means he's going to be robbing the Social Security fund of $500 to a thousand dollars for all these Americans. He's just going to hand the check to them. It's welfare. So if anybody's going to put a dent in the Social Security fund, for whatever it's worth, it's Obama's plan. Obama even has an ad on Medicare up now.

ANNOUNCER: John McCain's health care plan. First we learned he's going to tax health care benefits to pay for part of it. Now the Wall Street Journal reports John McCain would pay for the rest of his health care plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, $882 billion for Medicare alone, requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility, or both. John McCain, taxing health benefits, cutting Medicare. We can't afford John McCain.

RUSH: We can't afford John McCain. I wonder where they got that line. The fact is nothing in the ad is true. Nothing in that ad is true, and no less than David Shuster of Obama TV yesterday afternoon said this about this new ad.

SHUSTER: It is certainly late in the game, which makes it all the more puzzling that the Obama campaign is running this particular ad on Medicare and Medicaid called, "It gets worse." The nonpartisan group FactCheck.org says that ad and a Wall Street Journal article were both bogus and false.

RUSH: Bogus and false. Obama running a bogus and false ad on Medicare, 30-year Democrat playbook, a page right out of it. That tells me that they think they are in trouble. They haven't reverted to this kind of campaign the entire time until now. It is negative. It is very negative. It's a personal attack, and it's a lie. It's a lie, and it's unbecoming The Messiah, who is upset with the way McCain is conducting his campaign. Now, going back to Pennsylvania, Fast Eddie out there telling people that McCain's going to cut their Medicaid and their Medicare. Yesterday it was Gloria Borger who warned us that Fast Eddie was desperate for Obama to get back into Pennsylvania 'cause they're hurting there. Last night on CNN, David "Rodham" Gergen and Joe Klein warning about Pennsylvania.

GERGEN: This is not over. I'm here in Pennsylvania. I can tell you that folks here have been telling me here in Philadelphia, the Democrats, that while Barack Obama has a 10- or 11-point lead in the polls, there is a widespread feeling that it's much closer than that and it's going to be very close on Election Day and Governor Rendell very much wants Barack Obama to come back here to campaign. So this is not over.

COOPER: Joe, if the polls are so far apart, how then are people saying on the ground that it's going to be closer?

KLEIN: There are reports that even Obama's private polls had Pennsylvania closer than the public polls. I don't know how that works, but I do know, I think that David is absolutely right.

RUSH: Now, all of this is academic if McCain doesn't win Ohio. He's got to win Ohio. Pennsylvania does not substitute for Ohio. It comes close, but you gotta win Ohio, too, and the latest internals show him still up there by a couple points, although there's a Quinnipiac poll and another poll showing him down 12 or 13 in Ohio. So the polls continue to just bounce all over the place.

RUSH: Here's the proof on the Obama Medicare ad that's a flat-out lie. It's from FactCheck.org.

"In a TV ad and in speeches, Obama is making bogus claims that McCain plans to cut $880 billion from Medicare spending and to reduce benefits. A TV spot says McCain's plan requires 'cuts in benefits, eligibility or both.' Obama said in a speech that McCain plans 'cuts' that would force seniors to 'pay more for your drugs, receive fewer services, and get lower quality care.' A second Obama ad claims that McCain's plan would bring about a 22 percent cut in benefits, 'higher premiums and co-pays,' and more expensive prescription drugs." FactCheck.org says, "These claims are false, and based on a single newspaper report that says no such thing. McCain's policy director states unequivocally that no benefit cuts are envisioned. McCain does propose substantial savings," blah, blah, blah.

Anyway the damage has been done because it's all out there. The ad has been seen. Barry has all this money. He's spending it left and right. And the ad's been seen. You know, in the last couple of presidential elections -- and this has been something that's been heartening to me -- it hasn't worked on the elderly. Playing the Social Security card, "They're going to cut your Social Security!" hasn't worked. You might say, "Well, how come, Rush?" It's very simple. For 20 years or more the Democrats every four years have been promising seniors that their Social Security is going to be cut and it never has been. In fact, I just saw a story the other day the average Social Security check's going to go up 63 bucks next year. Big whoop! You know, stop and think of that. You know, the Social Security budget is one of the largest budget items in the country.

If so many people are on it, with the hundreds of billions on Social Security, every recipient is going to get 63 additional dollars a month. Before Obama's tax increases. $63 a month. I don't know anybody who would be ecstatic over that.

RUSH: Your phone calls are coming up in an el jiffo, but first, one more thing about these Obama ads on Medicare and Social Security. We have to be confident in our own assessment of things because we're not going to get reinforcement on this from the Drive-Bys, but Obama has been hit hard on this socialism business. He has been hit hard by Joe the Plumber. He has been hit hard with Biden trying to turn this campaign back to foreign policy and national security. When Obama is in a prevent defense and not doing anything -- he convened a meeting of his so-called foreign policy advisors yesterday, ostensibly, and then walked out in Virginia to look presidential, trying to cover it up. That's what these Medicare and Social Security ads are.

They are just raising the dust. They are just raising the dust to try to obscure that Obama is being creamed here with the socialism charge and his own words to Joe the Plumber and the rhetorical flourishes as Obama says of Joe Biden.

RUSH: Mere moments ago -- it was about 25 minutes ago -- we had a call from a woman in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She's serving her residency there. She'd moved there from Pennsylvania. She's Jewish, and she was telling us all these stories about how the Jewish people she knows are all voting Obama because they didn't want to be called racists. They didn't want to be thought of as racists. So we had a little conversation, and I expanded on her theme, and I tried to tell her that one of the ways that this country is kept in constant turmoil is by people on the left who are promoting racial disharmony at every turn; trying to portray this country as inherently, unabashedly and unalterably racist; that there's nothing we can do. It's part of our heritage and there's nothing we can ever do to end this racism.

And, "Oh, woe is us," and it's just so horrible. I advanced the notion that a lot of people of black community, despite a rising middle class, are still constantly enraged. They're being taught to be enraged. They're being taught that they have no chance here. They're being taught this country is discriminatory and is going to keep 'em down, and they end up believing all of this, they're constantly angry and being put out, because they do see all this prosperity all around them. I have a story in the Stack today. Let me find this. I have one pulled out here. Let me find the other one. It's all about cities and where the greatest wage gap or income gap disparities are, and of course they're New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. It's all about how these people that live, say, in Harlem and in the outer boroughs are angry.

Here we go. Two stories here on this topic. The first one is from the UK Guardian: "Wealth Gap Creating Social Time Bomb -- Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest [read: riots] and increased mortality [read: death] says a new United Nations report on the urban environment. In a survey of 120 major cities, New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya Abidjan and Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable 'alert' line used to warn governments. ... According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada."

So in this case what you have is the United Nations putting out a report that now gets reported on in the United States and widely disseminated, that all this wealth gap is purely based on race. It plays right into the Obama campaign and the leftist belief that this United States and Western civilization in general are the director result of white man's greed. And it is only white man's greed that keeps otherwise well-qualified people of race and color subjugated to inferiority. Of course a guy like Jeremiah Wright will see the story and start preaching about it, and others. Jesse Jackson will see it. The Reverend Sharpton will see it and use it. Bill Ayers will put it in his curricula. And then there's this story. Now, see what you think of this. This is from Durham, North Carolina.

"Lacrosse Party Dancer Still Claims Assault -- The escort service dancer who claimed she was raped by members of the Duke University lacrosse team is scheduled to talk with reporters today as she promotes a book about her life. Crystal Gail Mangum's accusations were labeled falsehoods by the state attorney general, who dismissed charges against three lacrosse players. Attorney General Roy Cooper said investigators found no evidence of an assault. But in excerpts of the book released today, Mangum continues to claim that she was assaulted in March 2006 at a lacrosse team party, where she had been hired to dance. 'Even as I try to move on with my life...'" Yeah, you know, Crystal, putting out a book on this subject will really help you move on with your life a lot.

"'Even as I try to move on with my life, I still find it necessary to take one more stand and fight,' she says in the book. 'I want to assert, without equivocation, that I was assaulted. Make of that what you will. You will decide what that means to you because the state of North Carolina saw fit not to look at all that happened the night...'" In her book, she says "the state of North Carolina saw fit not to look at all that happened." There was nothing short of a nationwide media orgy for months on this story! The only one who didn't look at what happened was Nifong. "Mangum says in the book that her story 'has never changed' and that some of those who participated in discrediting her were motivated by race." Now, what's the purpose? Do you think this is her idea? Do you think this is Crystal Mangum's idea to do this? You want to talk about increasing the racial divide? Who is paying for and promoting this effort?

Bring this up again in an election? Bring this up now, after months and months and months of a media orgy where this woman was totally discredited by an investigation that was relentless and unstoppable? The Duke Lacrosse case showed precisely what is wrong in this country regarding race, and now somebody sees fit to bring it back up 13 days before an election? She still claims she was raped and assaulted? The Duke Lacrosse case showed who the real racists in this country are. They are the faculty at Duke, the Nifongs of the world and the Drive-By Media, who saw, "Well, here's a story that fits what we believe! Here's a story that fits our narrative. You know, by golly, by gosh, yeah!" So they keep it alive. This is exactly what I meant when I said that there are efforts being made to keep the racial divide big and to keep it on edge with a lot of tension.

The purpose of this, by the way, is to get as many people like this woman from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who called and said, "I don't want to be called a racist," and they'll do whatever they have to do to prove (in their own minds and to everybody else) that they aren't racist. Folks, have you heard the old saying that some brilliant philosopher way back when said at one point in time: "Democracies always fail because once people learn that they can vote themselves money, then that's it." Once they figure that out, it's over. Well, here's an actual quote, and it is from a science fiction writer named Robert Heinlein, and it is from a book called, To Sail Beyond the Sunset: "The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories.

"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. ... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so..." They'll vote themselves bread and circuses every time "until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader [such as] the barbarians enter Rome." Now, you juxtapose this with Barney Frank the other day: needs to be a focus on immediate increase in spending; deficit fear has to take a second seat. Later on there should be tax increases.

So here we have a situation where many of you probably would believe we're nearing the point that with so many people now on some sort of federal sustenance, that that's all that matters to them. Issues, anything else, national security, they couldn't care less -- as in Social Security and the seasoned citizen population (although that's changing a bit). But the theory is that once enough people figure out that they can vote themselves a house by voting Democrat who'll relax mortgage rules. They can vote themselves help with their home heating. They can vote themselves health care. The producers will not be able to stop it. Like Hawaii with health care for children, remember that story? It lasted seven months. Free universal health care for children.

It was only going to cover 2,000 kids in Hawaii. It went bust after seven months. They had to cancel the program. Now, we are at this situation, and what I find very simple... Others apparently don't, but I do. I find this very simple. There's no question we have a dependent class in this country, and it's growing. We have people -- and, of course, who are their biggest champions? Well, the Democrat Party's considered to be the party of caring. The Democrat Party is the party that cares about the little guy. The Republican Party is the rich party. The Republican Party doesn't care. The Republican Party, in fact, got rich by stealing from these poor people, and that's why they've got nothing. Now they're stealing their opportunities, and so forth and so on.

What is simple to me is that this entire class of people whose lives have been stunted, whose ambitions have been destroyed, whose own realization of their own dreams has been destroyed (their dreams have been destroyed, much less their realization!) have been created by the Democrat Party. This degree of dependence, this degree of unproductivity, this degree to which people's lives, in their own minds, are miserable and they've got no way out, has been created by the very party that has sought all these years to be their benefactors. So now we face the situation where, in a lot of people's minds really serious issues -- national security and so forth, the kind of country we're going to be -- don't matter at all. All that matters is, "We've got an economy in bad shape and we need change!"

"We need people who are going to continue to give me what I have here." The Democrats have created this, and the dirty little secret is, they've done it on purpose. They have sought to take people who otherwise would have been productive and could have realized their dreams (or at least gotten close, could have used whatever ambition they had) and they destroyed all that for the express purpose of making them wards of the state, owing their existence to the Democrat Party. And then the same party that did this comes out and claims to be their champion, claims to be the only ones who care about them and is going to fix their circumstance. It really just distresses me to see how this has happened, because this country produces and has produced millions of great people, millions of hardworking Americans.

I mean, you never meet them. They're the people that make the country work, and there are millions of them that could be part of that group who have just been dispirited and dissuaded from even trying. I'm not talking about race, now. I'm talking about everybody that thinks they're in poverty or lower middle class because Republicans have been in power for too long and the Democrats are going to fix all of this. It's the Democrats that have brought this about, on purpose, for the sake of their own ascension to power. The idea that these are the people who are the most tolerant and compassionate among us, really offends me. It does more than that. It enrages me. Because these are people who, as I say, have had their futures taken away from them.

You know, it's not hard to do that. We're all born pessimists. We're all born needing leadership. John Wooten has a famous phrase: "Learn to discipline yourself so somebody else doesn't have to." Most people don't have self-discipline. It takes effort to be optimistic. This is why parents and the right kind of teachers and friends and so forth that are optimistic are so important. Anybody can hang around and tell you that you can't do something. Anybody can tell you that you have an excuse for not becoming what you could be. It's always somebody else's fault. That's easy to accept! It's very hard to look at yourself and say, "Gee, I'm screwing this up. I could do better." But that's why you need people around you who will do that: inspire you and motivate you.

The Democrat Party, I want to ask you a question: "When's the last time they inspired anybody in a positive way?" In the last six, seven years, everything out of their mouths has been the epitome of doom and gloom and the apocalypse. They have sought defeat of their own country and the military in Iraq. They have sought to create in the minds of as many Americans as possible we're already in a recession and depression and it's going to get worse. They're telling people that the greatest days of America are over and it's going to be different from now on. They have done everything they can to frighten, panic, and scare people. Keep them in a constant mode of crisis, with no happiness in their lives and no contentment.

It's gotten to the point now where those who are unaffected by the onslaught of Democrats in the media who are content -- who are working, who are seeking to improve their own lives and the lives of their family -- are resented now. They're said to be out of touch. They're said to be people that are insensitive. So Obama comes along and says, "We gotta spread the wealth around," meaning: We're going to take from these people who are unfairly producing more for themselves than they need, and then we're going to hand it out. We're going to hand it out to the group of people who the Democrat Party has specifically taught how not to be productive. Yet, they get the credit for having all this compassion and love for people whose lives they've damaged, in some cases greatly.

RUSH: Paul in Long Island, you're next on the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Good afternoon. First time caller and I got through on the first time that I dialed. I have my own business on Long Island. My weekend, sometimes I work 35, 40 hours just between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The work ethic, which you brought up, which is a completely different point, it's gone. I pay kids $15 an hour and you can't find people to work. They just don't want to roll out of bed and come to work on the weekend.

RUSH: I know that exists in a lot of places, but it's not everywhere. I feel bad for you, but the work ethic is not totally gone. If it were we'd be in a lot worse shape than we are in. But I know we've got a lot of young people -- this is my point -- we've actually got a lot of young people who think they ought to have their parents' home when they're 22 or 23 years old.

RUSH: Now, look at those expectations. They must think this is one hell of a country if they have those expectations. The only problem is they don't think they should have to work very hard for it.

RUSH: But in the midst of all these kind of expectations we still are surrounded by people who don't have these expectations at all, they think they've got no chance to have a house, period.

CALLER: Correct. The only bigger point I want to make which no one's bringing up, I know it's a dirty little subject and people don't want to talk about it and make believe it doesn't exist, is that should he raise taxes on small businesses like myself, revenues will go down because if I don't want to pay more taxes, there's money that goes under the table, a cash market, call it what you want, but not only does he miss out on the federal tax, the state misses out on the state tax, Social Security misses out on the Social Security tax, 'cause there's ways to get around it when you have your own business, so raising my taxes and I'll still show the same amount of money or less because there's ways to do it.

CALLER: If they raise my taxes, I'll pay the kids under the table, however you want to call it.

CALLER: And nobody wants to talk about it, make believe it doesn't exist, but not only are you missing out on the feds, you're missing out on the state--

RUSH: We're missing the point, we're missing the point. We're taking Obama seriously. When I say we're taking him seriously, what I mean is we're looking at his plan to benefit small business and analyzing it. He has no intention of benefiting small business. Don't you understand? Of course, not only may he drive you to a cash economy. That's your business. You'll probably find a lot of employees who will show up on the weekend for 15 bucks an hour, cash, but you're running great risks doing this. But this is one way people escape the taxes. Another thing you might do is fire some people, but the point is, I'm going to get blue in the face here telling you this. People like you, Paul, Obama, you're his best friend. He wants to help you. He wants to give you tax breaks and tax credits so you will hire more people. One of the ways he's gonna do it is to give you a $3,000 tax credit. And you're going to take that $3,000 tax credit for every full-time worker you hire and you're supposed to start hiring people like crazy.

Now, the problem with this is that it may cost you, for full-time people, if you pay 'em say $35 grand a year, may cost you $45 to employ 'em. So 45 minus this $3,000 tax credit, 42 grand to hire somebody to pay 'em 35, what's the deal? So you say, "This is a bad deal for me. I'm not going to hire people this way." Besides, that's not why people hire employees. They don't hire 'em for tax breaks. They hire 'em because they need their productivity, for crying out loud. So Obama wants the federal government to come in and manage the way businesses hire people, and one of two things is going to happen. You're either not going to hire under his premise, in which case he's going to be able to point fingers at you and say it's still corporate greed that's preventing people from getting them jobs. He'll talk to these dunces that have voted for him and he'll say, "I've offered 'em tax breaks, I did everything I could, but they won't hire you, 'cause they're tightwads and want to keep the money for themselves." Or the other thing that happens is if you do end up hiring and take his tax break, he's going to run around and say he saved small business.

Folks, everything about the Obama plan is designed to make sure only one person and entity get credit for an economic recovery when it happens, and that's Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and government. That's what this is all about. And by the time you throw in the Employee Free Choice Act with his attempt to unionize every small business. Talk about a cash economy, it's going to be worse than that.

RUSH: CNN is now even lying. And this is something, by the way, they need to apologize for -- although even if they do, yip yip yip yip yahoo. It's going to matter less. We're talking about here the reporter Drew Griffin and his recent interview with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Here was his question.

GRIFFIN: The National Review had a story saying that, you know, "I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, or all of the above."

RUSH: All right, in the first place, nobody posted that at National Review. Byron York wrote it, but he said something quite different -- and it was posted someplace else. What Byron actually wrote was, "Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it's sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or, well, all of the above." He was talking about the kind of press coverage that she has received. He was not describing her. Listen again. This is what he wrote: "Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for VP, it's sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin's incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward," or whatever else. Now, let's go back and listen, cut 19 again. Now that you know what Byron York wrote, listen to Drew Griffin make a mockery of journalism.

GRIFFIN: The National Review had a story saying that, you know, "I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, or all of the above."

RUSH: So this is what the media has come to, and this is just one example. There are many others. "CNN reported yesterday incorrectly that the McCain Camp is ceding Colorado to ... Barack Obama. The report by CNN on the Colorado election was not true," and what made this "even more profoundly wrong was that CNN published this report and Sarah Palin was setting all-time attendance records in Grand Junction, Colorado: 22,000 supporters showed up to see her break a Grand Junction record. Todd Palin making four campaign stops in western Colorado and Denver." While all this is going on, the media -- CNN twice now -- tries to report that Republicans are criticizing Palin in National Review, which they're not; at least not as being described here by Drew Griffin at CNN.

Now they're trying to suppress the Colorado vote by saying that the McCain camp is ceding Colorado to Obama, and they have said the same thing about other places as well. So, you know, this is par for the course. It's what's been happening. It will continue to happen as this election continues to unfold.

RUSH: Snerdley said to me, "These people, this audience, they're going to need you more than ever if McCain loses." I said, "Don't worry," because, folks, let me tell you what's happening, whether McCain wins or loses, we are going to rebuild the conservative movement.

We would not be in this predicament were it not for the fact that a bunch of wayward conservatives lost their way and a bunch of Republicans who got focused on the wrong way to win elections. If McCain wins or loses, it's rebuild the conservative movement. That's the focus, and that's going to be an upbeat, positive thing. It's going to be an interactive thing. It's what happened in 1994. You know, Clinton wins '93, we rebuilt the conservative movement, won the House two years later, first time in 40 years. Don't panic. Let me show you what the Democrats are planning. This actually gives voice to it. Jeff Bingaman yesterday in Albuquerque on our affiliate, the EIB affiliate KKOB, this is during the Jim Villanucci show. Villanucci talking to Senator Bingaman. Villanucci says, "Talk radio listeners are concerned about the Fairness Doctrine. Do you think there will be a push to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine?"

BINGAMAN: I don't know. I certainly hope so. I would want this station and all stations to have to present a balanced perspective and different points of view, instead of always hammering away at one side.

RUSH: Now, Mike -- talking here to the broadcast engineer -- start-stop in this next bite, so be standing by. Jim Villanucci then says, "Well, in this market, Senator Bingaman, for example, you've got KKOB, got us, if you want liberal talk you've got Air America down the street, you've got National Public Radio. If you have satellite radio, there's a lefty talk station there and there's a righty talk station. I mean, do you think that there are people who aren't able to find a viewpoint that's in sync with what they believe?"

BINGAMAN: My thought is that radio and media generally should have a higher calling than just reflect a particular point of view. I think they should use their authority to try to -- and their broadcast power to present an informed discussion of public issues. You know, KKOB used to live under the Fairness Doctrine. Every broadcast outlet --

RUSH: Stop the tape. Before the Fairness Doctrine was lifted by Ronaldus Magnus in the late eighties, I think it was 1987, you know how many radio stations were doing talk, Senator Bingaman? One hundred and twenty-five. And you know what was on those stations? I mean sometimes from midnight to six you'd get the wild wackos, the provocational political people, but most of the time it was the correct carrot cake recipe for the holidays, where the next traffic problem was going to be in town. Then you'd have a little segment where if your dog was lost you could call the station, and do lost animal reports. All of this wonderful stuff that nobody wanted to listen to, Senator. One hundred twenty-five talk stations. Senator Bingaman, do you know how many talk radio stations there are in America today? Try over 2,000 since the Fairness Doctrine was lifted, and on those 2,000 radio stations are countless points of view, from the extreme communist left to the wacko whatever it is way out on the fringe right. They're all over the place.

What Bingaman is saying here is, (paraphrasing) "Well, it's not that. We want every station to be balanced." What he wants is for this kind of programming to be stopped. Because of the way the Fairness Doctrine worked and will work, especially the way it will work if it's ever reinstituted, reimplemented, within five minutes of my show open, 15 or more extremist groups in every city carrying this program will call the station carrying this show, demanding a response to the outrageous thing that I have just said. And then, after the next ten minutes, they would call again. After an hour, the management of the local station would probably have received over 150 phone calls demanding a chance and an opportunity to reply.

At which point the manager says, "I can't keep up with this. In order to maintain my license, I'm going to have to do all this and grant all these people all this access. I gotta put amateurs on the radio? I gotta put talentness, complaining whiners on the radio? I'm not going to mess with it." And that's how it works. It's not that the Fairness Doctrine is passed and all of us go away. It's that local stations will not put up with the grief they're going to get. And that's what Senator Bingaman and that's what the Democrats want. They don't want balanced programming on a radio station. They want no conservative programming on a radio station. He sounds all concerned and educated here, but make no mistake. Here's the rest of his bite.

BINGAMAN: And there were a lot of talk stations that seemed to do fine. For many, many years, we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country. I think the country was well served.

RUSH: Stop the tape. A hundred twenty-five radio stations talking about carrot cake recipes for the holidays. Hell, I'll tell you a little story. I got to Sacramento in 1984, my first real big break to do a talk show, and the Fairness Doctrine was in force. I got to town, it's October of '84. We're a month, maybe three weeks from the election, the Mondull and Reagan reelection. So I get into town early, I'm driving around, I'm listening to the other talk station, there's another talk station, I'm listening to the market, and nobody was talking about the election. Nobody was talking about it. Now, the morning news guys, "The latest news of the election is, latest poll shows Ronald Reagan down 50 points with Walter Mondale three weeks --" all that kind of garbage was going on, but nobody was talking about the election, honest to God, folks, it was carrot cake recipes, it was the latest fashion show going on at Neiman Marcus or what have you. And I said, "This is going to be a gold mine! Nobody's talking about it!"

So I got out there and started talking about this stuff. In fact, Morton Downey, Jr., got fired, that's how I got the job, he got fired for a political comment. He told a bad joke, he used a slur word about Chinese people, refused to apologize, bam, he's gone. Then he went on to New York to do that ill-fated big-mouth TV show. And to this day still don't know whose mouth is bigger when it's open, Morton Downey, Jr.'s or Susan Estrich's. I'm just talking about size, not what comes out of it. But I remember, I said something one day about some issue, and some local community black leader called, demanded to come in and respond to what I had said. Management bent over, grabbed the ankles, "Oh, sure, come on in," called me and said we gotta have this guy in here, so he came in, and I had to give up an hour of my show to this guy. I did my best to make it entertaining, but I mean I had to let him speak in order to let him have his access to Fairness Doctrine. It was the most boring damn hour of radio I've ever done, and that's how this stuff works. So Bingaman doesn't know what the hell he's talking about in terms -- 125 radio -- well, maybe he does know exactly what he's talking about when you get down to it, because he wants all of this kind of conservative talk, because it's effective, shut down. He says, "I think the country was well served." And then here's how he ended it.

BINGAMAN: I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since.

RUSH: Man, would I have loved to ask him for examples of that. By the way, even with the Fairness Doctrine, NPR is going to be there all day, all the time, and all liberal. Conservatives aren't going to complain to the Air America station because conservatives are smart enough to know that even if they get on the air there, nobody will hear what they say!

RUSH: Who is the real Barack Obama and what will happen to this country if he becomes president? George Neumayr, writing today at the American Spectator. Let me read some excerpts of this to you. "The extent to which the 1960s counter-culture has become the culture and 1960s anti-Americanism become the new patriotism is amazing.

"That's why Obama could launch his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist and pay almost no price for it. As Chris Matthews lectured Pat Buchanan on Hardball last Friday night, Ayers was a terrorist with a worthy motivation: He bombed the Pentagon because he wanted America out of Vietnam, a blameless goal indeed. Under the Left's tortured understanding of the new patriotism, even Jeremiah Wright is pro-American: His fulminations had the purpose of drawing America into the light. Patriotism is now measured not by respect for the conservatism contained in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution," rather patriotism is measured by the level "of one's enthusiasm for the America to come," which includes the new patriotism of paying higher taxes.

Remember one of the founding moments of this nation was the Boston Tea Party, when Americans said that taxes were too high and they weren't going to pay them anymore. Now the new patriotism has us agreeing to pay higher taxes. "To be a good American now means you nod vigorously as an Obama supporter at a cocktail party bashes the Boy Scouts as bigots while explaining to you why Obama's association with the 'distinguished' education professor (as Congressman Rahm Emanuel put it) Bill Ayers is no big deal. It means you chuckle along with Joe Biden as he tells Ellen DeGeneres that conservative Californians are deluded to oppose gay marriage. Or it means listening in hushed awe as unimpeachable American hero Colin Powell calls the most liberal Republican presidential nominee ever 'narrow,'" meaning McCain, "and insufficiently 'inclusive,' and scolds unnamed Americans for objecting to the notion of a Muslim president. ...

"What was once considered the anti-American Left now has the power to define who is and who is not a good American. Seeing victory in sight, they grow more bold and unapologetic. Over the last few days, instead of denying charges thrown at Obama, they have readily conceded them and basically said: So what? To them, Obama's 'spreading the wealth around' comment isn't a cringe-inducing gaffe but an appaluse (sic) line and sound basis for policy. What's wrong with the state redistributing wealth? more than a few of them have asked, including, by the way, Colin Powell after his Meet the Press appearance before reporters.

"Here, too, we see the new Americanism at work: where the founding fathers saw King George III's overtaxation as an occasion to start the country, an enlightened modern American is expected to join Joe Biden in welcoming new taxes as a 'patriotic' duty. Under the unholy triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, good Americans will be expected to entrust their economy to redistributionists, their defense to pacifists, and their culture to proponents of abortion and gay marriage. Expect a crisis within six months should Obama win, promises Joe Biden. Perhaps he is right, but the first one is more likely to be domestic than international."

The narrative also has been set, ladies and gentlemen, for election night on TheHill.com's website tonight, "Police Prepare for Unrest." The headline should say: Cops Prepare for Riots. "Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest. Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence. Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors."

Now, about this sports event analogy, let us not forget that many of these riots have taken place when these people's teams won, as well as when their teams lost. So what we're being set up here with is there are going to be riots regardless what happens, in certain urban areas. So once again, the Drive-By Media is saying to black America, "We expect you to riot. No matter what happens, we expect you to riot. We're going to have a bigger cop presence out there where you live." So once again, the party that cares, the party of compassion and their media allies are now warning America that no matter what happens, black America is going to riot. No mention of the NAGs rioting here if Sarah Palin wins, just black Americans.

"Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters." So while the cops are getting ready to stop riots, Democrats have said: Whoa, whoa! Wait a minute, you put the cops out there and you're going to enhance the chance for riots because you're going to have a greater opportunity for voter fraud out there. So the cops can't win. If they show up, they're going to fudge the election, they're going to affect the outcome. If they don't show up, there are going to be riots one way or the other. "Sen. Obama ... has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly." (gasp!)

"Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed. In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby." Welcome to Third World America! I read this, and I said, "My God, we're becoming a banana republic. It's sick. We're going to have riots because we're going to have a peaceful transfer of power." We always have peaceful transfers of power in this country. Welcome to the land of Barack Obama, folks. That's the only reason any of this is happening. Welcome to the land of Barack Obama. Welcome to the land of Saul Alinsky. Welcome to the land of the community agonizer -- and I meant to say "community agonizer" -- and welcome to the land of Bill Ayers. Welcome to the land of ACORN. Welcome to the land of the Marxist-Leninists who make up Obama's core group of friends. So the scenario here has been written. If Obama loses, it's due to racism and voter fraud. If he wins, he has a mandate to transform our society into some kind of European socialist authoritarianism.

RUSH: Obama was just -- what? -- ten, 15 miles south of us this morning. He was down in Lake Worth, Florida, and this is among the things he said.

OBAMA: Yesterday I heard Senator McCain say I'm more concerned with who gets your piece of the pie than with growing the pie. But make no mistake about it, after eight years of Bush-McCain economics, the pie is shrinking. It's not growing. That means lower wages and declining incomes, plummeting home values, rising unemployment. So we've seen what happens with their policies. We've had an eight-year experiment. We see where it leads. This economic crisis is the final verdict on that failed leadership. It is time to try something new.

RUSH: All right, now, none of that's true. But what is the "something new"? We've had eight years of tax cuts; we have had eight years of profound economic growth. It wasn't until Democrat-inspired crises in the home mortgage industry surfaced that the economy took its sharp turn. Don't buy into all this, folks. The last six years, last seven years have been an economically robust time in this country, when you consider what we had to deal with. We had to deal with a recession that Bush inherited coming out of the Clinton years, and then 9/11 happened. We had to rebuild the economy after that. We had tax cuts; people's incomes grew. The economy expanded. The pie did grow. Health care spending went up; government spending went up.

Everything was going up, and then all of a sudden this Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac stuff hit. That's when everybody thinks... This is the challenge McCain has. Because there's no doubt that to the extent that there are people unhappy out there, it's because of the economy; and the natural tendency is to blame the party that holds the White House, in this case Bush, i.e., Republicans. But this economy is directly traceable to Democrats from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton on, to Barney Frank, to Chris Dodd, the whole mess of them. McCain is going to have to tie them together. I just don't see him doing it. He still rips on these Wall Street greedsters, and he does reference government corruption.

Well, the government corruption is what led the Wall Street greedsters doing what they were doing, and the bankers doing what they were doing. It was Democrat policy that forced these loans to people that had no business paying them back. Now the Democrats are out whining and moaning about tens of thousands of people will soon be homeless because of this and we've got to do something about it. Well, what's "the thing" we have to do? We have to raise all of our taxes to bail out these people who are going to be foreclosed on. We're working on the audio of this right now. But the challenge McCain has here is to peg this economy to Democrats and their policies, because that's the culprit. They are the culprit.

Obama says, "McCain says, I'm more concerned with who gets your piece of the pie than growing the pie." He doesn't deny that, by the way, in this statement. "Make no mistake about it, after eight years of Bush-McCain economics the pie is shrinking. It's not growing." Only in the last quarter can you say that the economy has not grown! The economy has grown, GDP has grown throughout the past seven years. Only in the past quarter or so has it slowed down to the point... We're not even in a recession! Obama can't even be up front about this. Lower wages, declining incomes? Wait 'til you see what his tax increases will cause in both of those categories. Plummeting home values? I wonder why that happened? That's traceable straight back to the Democrat Party.

I know a lot of you people think I'm just being partisan. I'm not. Being factual with you here. All of this that's happening in the home market is brought about by all these subprime loans that were given to people had no business being given loans because they never had the opportunity to pay 'em back. It was what Barney Frank called "affordable housing." What we've had is not an eight-year experiment. What he's talking about is capitalism doesn't work. Capitalism doesn't work. We've got to find something new, and what is that something new? Some people call it socialism. I don't know if that resonates with a lot of people. Pretty much what Obama is going to do is punish every achiever he can find. I don't care how much income you earn, you're going to be punished for earning it. Here, Barney Frank, closing bell, CNBC yesterday, Maria Bartiromo, "Do you want to encourage Obama to pull in his spending plan a little bit?"

FRANK: Well, I think at this point there needs to be a focus on a -- an immediate increase in spending and I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take a second, ehhh -- a second seat. I do think this is a time for a very important kind of dose of Keynesianism. Yes, I believe later on there should tax increases. Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a -- at a point down the road, and recover some of this money.

RUSH: "Recover some of this money" by taxing some rich people down the road. "A lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road to recover some of this money." He's talking about the deficit spending. He wants new spending. He wants the government spending like drunken... (well, I don't want to insult sailors) and to fix the deficit spending that occurs. They will raise taxes on "the very rich at a point down the road and recover some of this money." Now, I know a lot of people have a resentment for the rich. A lot of people say it's just unfair and so forth. But you have got to change your attitude about this. The old American dream was becoming rich. The old American dream was becoming the best you can, experiencing the greatest amount of prosperity possible. The Democrats have succeeded in tarnishing these people and making them evil and making them the enemy of the United States. This is what Obama means when he talks about trying something new. Maria Bartiromo then said, "Do you think we'll actually see this market return to focusing on fundamentals earnings news like the quarterly numbers that we're talking about right now in the near future, or do you think that we're still very focused on the stimulus plans and alleviating this troubled banking system?"

FRANK: I obviously hope we will get back to the fundamentals. I think it's clear that the fundamentals are better than the psychology.

RUSH: What? What did he just say? He just said, "[T]he fundamentals of the economy are better than the psychology." Thank you, Congressman Frank, for opening up and being honest. Now, when John McCain said this, the Obama campaign went out and reamed him a new one. McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." "That just shows how out of touch that old man is," they said. Now here's Barney Frank admitting, "the fundamentals are better than psychology," meaning the economy is in far better shape than what you people have been led to believe and what you have soaked up. Barney Frank even said so.

RUSH: Now, here's Obama once again talking about the pie, mentioning that McCain's accused him of not wanting to grow the pie, said this in Lake Worth, Florida. Don't forget, Michelle Obama, they don't want the whole pie, she told a woman, "There are some who do but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit, but that's becoming more out of reach. The truth is in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system somebody's going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more." Barney Frank, once again, yesterday on CNBC.

FRANK: Well, I think at this point there needs to be a focus on a -- an immediate increase in spending and I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take a second, ehhh -- a second seat. I do think this is a time for a very important kind of dose of Keynesianism. Yes, I believe later on there should be tax increases. Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a -- at a point down the road, and recover some of this money.

RUSH: This is just -- folks, how can anybody who hears this not be affected by it? In the first place, look at the deficit spending these bailouts have already added. Now he wants to spend even more, cementing the Democrats' hold on the electorate, and to make up for the difference, "They're plenty of rich people out there we can tax down the road and recover some of this money," that we're going to spend. Bartiromo then said, "You agree taxes should go up, then, for the top earners, even in this slow environment?"

BARTIROMO: Did you ask him to push the plan back, then? Because he wants to raise tax as soon as he gets in office, correct?

FRANK: Well, I don't think he has said recently he'd do it as soon as he gets into office. I do think that we can incur a short-term deficit increase and not raise those until later in the year.

RUSH: One of the premises of the Obama campaign is how out of control the deficit is and how irresponsible the Bush administration has been with spending. And here's Barney Frank who wants to ladle it up, load on even more spending and then raise taxes on the rich down the road, "There are plenty of rich people out there we raise taxes on. We can get that money back, but we don't want to do it next year. We want to give the deficit spending a time to work." Now, the point about this is, he's admitting that it's not a good idea to raise taxes in a slow economy. That's what he's saying. So if it's not a good idea to raise taxes in a slow economy, why is it a good idea to raise taxes any time? If raising taxes in a slow economy is going to retard economic recovery, wouldn't raising taxes in a good economy slow it down? Especially the kind Obama's talking about. Obama's talking about marginal rates on achievers, not just the rich.

You've got to get this word "rich" out of your mind. He's not talking about the rich; he's talking about achievers. And, by the way, he is going to cut into your Social Security benefits. Democrats are out talking about how McCain's going to cut Medicare and so forth. We're going to go into great detail on this as the program unfolds. Some people have taken in-depth looks at Obama's tax plan and he's been out there saying 95% of the American people going to get a tax cut. We now found out how. He's going to give money away. He is going to call stimulus checks tax cuts, even for people who do not pay taxes. And people said, "How are you going to give a tax cut if people don't pay income taxes?" "Well, everybody pays payroll taxes and we're going to give 'em a payroll tax credit." Well, you know what the payroll tax is. That's what funds Social Security. May I have the attention of all of you seasoned citizens? You damn well know, I've talked to enough of you, you don't even want your own kids getting a tax cut because you're afraid it will incur negative results on your monthly Social Security checks.

I'll never forget that woman that called from somewhere off the Mass Turnpike, was all upset that somebody was going to cut taxes because it would mean less Social Security to her. So listen to this. If Obama is going to make sure that people who don't pay income taxes get a tax cut by giving them a payroll tax credit, that means that less money will be pouring into the Social Security trust fund, i.e., the lockbox, and that is going to have a negative impact on Social Security benefits, that's how he's going to do it. Algore ought to be coming out of the woodwork saying, "I can't support Obama. He's messing with my lockbox." That's exactly what Obama is going to do. That's how this is going to happen. Now, on CNBC this morning a show called Squawk on the Street, cohost Mark Haines was interviewing Eugene Ludwig, the former controller of the currency and now a Wall Street executive and Obama supporter, and they are discussing how many homeless will be produced by the housing crisis.

HAINES: Here's where you run into a political problem in my opinion because an awful lot of people, I mean they are mad enough that we're bailing out, they perceive we're bailing out Wall Street, now you want them to bail out their neighbor who lied, probably lied on his mortgage application and couldn't afford the house he bought.

LUDWIG: Mark, I realize that this is not necessarily popular politically, but in fact a lot of these people were victimized. They were sold products by unregulated institutions, mortgage brokers, people thought they were getting one thing, got another, and we really have to show compassion here. We have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens that are going to be on the street. That's not acceptable in America.

RUSH: This is an Obama supporter by the name of Eugene Ludwig, who once again is lying through his teeth. "They were sold a bill of goods, they were sold products by unregulated institutions, mortgage brokers, people thought they were getting one thing and they got another." Nothing could be further from the truth. There were not greedy, predatory lenders. I'm sure there were some but this whole thing that we're talking about here was brought about by the fisted, big hand of government demanding these loans be made to people who couldn't qualify for them. And now you hear an Obama supporter, what does he say, 10,000 a day are being thrown out of their houses, he's told. Where are these 10,000 a day on the street? You seen 'em? 10,000 a day for how many days? Ten days, 20 days, 30 days? We got 300,000 people out there on the street? Now, where are all these homeless people? Where are they, Mr. Ludwig? So we're back to making all this up. Now we've got a crisis, people being thrown out of their homes because of greedy Wall Street people. This is all traceable to the Democrats in Washington.

Folks, if we could get rid of the Democrats who were responsible for this problem, the Republicans would win this election in a landslide. And so now Mark Haines gets it exactly right. Now we're going to start bailing out these people who were the victims of all of these horrible products, they were lied to because we have to show compassion. So we're not only going to bail out the banks and bail out the Wall Street firms, whoever we're bailing out, now we're going to bail out all the people being foreclosed on. And guess who's going to pay for that? You are. Do you realize how little money we're all going to have left after Obama gets through taking from the achievers of this country what he needs? This is stunning stuff! A brief time-out. We'll come back. Joe Biden now on the front pages and the lead item on all the Drive-By network programs over his promise yesterday that Obama will be tested in his first six months because world terrorist dictator leaders think he's weak.

RUSH: We'll start in Columbia, South Carolina, with Rick. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: I just wanted tell you, I'm one of those people that's within weeks of being foreclosed on, and I want to tell you something.

RUSH: Hang on just a second, though, hang on just a second. You have a subprime mortgage?

RUSH: Okay, so you have a subprime mortgage. Were you given a loan that you really weren't qualified for?

CALLER: No. No. It was one of those adjustable rate mortgages, and I knew what I was signing when I signed it. But what I want to tell you is, I'm out there every day trying to scrape up enough money to get enough money to catch up this mortgage and pay the house. I'm not sitting around whining, blaming everybody else, and if Barack Obama himself was standing at my doorstep with a check to pay off my mortgage, I'd tell him to go pack sand. I don't want what these guys are shoveling, and I'm tired of listening to the liberal media tainting people like me like we're all standing in a soup line waiting for Obama bin Biden to swoop down and save us, 'cause we're not all that way. All you can do is go out there, if it's a house -- and, you know, I'm a single dad. I could qualify for all kinds of stuff that the government wants to give away, and I don't want any of it. I'm just tired of being tainted by these elitists as somebody standing in a soup line waiting for them to come down and save us, because that's not the way it is.

RUSH: Now, this is pretty gutsy. This is pretty courageous. You have government assistance that would alleviate your situation; you don't want it, and you're offended at how you are being portrayed by the Obama people as near homeless and incompetent and just a waif waiting to be bailed out.

CALLER: Well, you hear it all the time. You know, all they do is they talk about how stupid we are. We were taken advantage of, or there was some kind of predatory lending going on out there, and that's just wrong. Maybe not in every case, but I think in most cases. You know, all you can do is go out and give it your best shot, pick up the pieces, and if the worst happens, you pick up what you got and you move on.

RUSH: Nancy Pelosi says -- or Obama says, some Democrat said -- they want a three-month moratorium on foreclosures. I don't know for what reason, but they do. Does that not intrigue you?

CALLER: No, it doesn't, and I'll tell you why. Because where does that solve the problem? They put a three-month moratorium, "Okay, you can't foreclose on my house for 90 days," big flying whoop. Maybe during that time I can scrape up enough money to catch the mortgage up, but it doesn't solve the problem. Government isn't in the business to solve this problem. The way that they can solve it is to get out and let us do our thing. Get out of the mortgage business, stop trying to... Them trying to save people like me to begin with is what got us into this mess, and I didn't necessarily need it at the time. I'm sure you can hear my frustration. I'm just tired of being painted as some kind of a pauper who has to depend on the government to do this. I'll sink or swim on my own.

CALLER: I've got a brother who's told me that me and my son can move in with him.

CALLER: (laughing) Well, my background is in real estate and sales for the most part, but I don't have to go into what's happened in the real estate industry, so... But it just frustrates me to hear this, and when I heard you on the radio talking about it -- and every place I listen to I hear about, you know, the poor people that are getting foreclosed on and, you know, and with our hands out. It's just not a true picture, not of your basic, everyday people. You know, I am Joe Six-Pack, and I don't want what these guys are shoveling.

RUSH: No, seriously. Somebody in your situation, most people in your situation, I would... Well, it would be nice if a lot of them did, but I don't think most of them do have your attitude about this. Because you're in dire financial states here. I mean, if you're unemployed, have been for a while and your field of expertise is financial and real estate sales. By the way, that's going to be back when we come back at some point. It always does, and there are going to be... Have you seen home sales figures in California up 65%?

CALLER: Well, that's typical of real estate. If these bozos would just leave it alone, it will come back on its own. Business doesn't need the "help" of these people; and if they really had everybody's best interests at heart, that's what they would do is get out. Just leave us alone. But they're just lining their own pockets and using people like me to further their own political agenda --

CALLER: -- and line their own pockets and get themselves elected. They don't care, and that's the height of hypocrisy, because they're trying to steal this election on the fact that they do care. And if they did really care, they would leave us alone and just get out of the way.

Charles Krauthammer “McCain Gets My Vote; I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.” He is always interested and persuasive.

You don't have to look at socialist countries to know that redistribution of income punishes success and rewards sloth. We've seen it here. Our welfare system was intended to help the poor - but because it was poorly structured, it wound up discouraging work and marriage, thus prolonging poverty rather than alleviating it for many.

Every election cycle, Democrats warn that Republicans will cut medicare and social security:

Conservative Review
Issue #46	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	October 26, 2008