Transcript of the Rush Show today....
RUSH: Now, let's see. In New York, they've been going back and forth at the state level on budgets. They are over-budget. They have a deficit in the double-digit billions, and they've been going back and forth in the State Assembly in New York over whether to raise taxes. They finally decided to do it over the weekend. "Personal income taxes for the upper-middle class and the rich are about to skyrocket under a secret deal reached last night by Governor Paterson and the leaders of the legislature. It's a two-tier tax plan." You heard about this, Snerdley? "It's a two-tier tax plan. They say it's going to bring in $4 billion annually..." I'll bet you that it does not come close to bringing in $4 billion annually. How's it going to do this? "...in part by raising income taxes 31% for all New Yorkers making more than $500,000 a year. Now, remember Mayor Bloomberg, who opposed this at one point -- I don't know where he stands on it now, but Mayor Bloomberg way back -- said (summarized), "Look, we got eight million people that live here, there are 40 or 50,000 taxpayers -- families, what have you -- that pay so much in tax that they essentially support the city -- and if they start to leave, we've got a big problem." He said, "Even if 5,000 of them leave, we've got a huge problem. We just can't run out there and keep raising taxes on the rich." The governor, Mr. Paterson, didn't hear him. "It's not just people earning over $500,000 a year that are going to get hit. A lower-tier tax increase would increase taxes by 14-1/2 percent for single people between 250 and $500,000 a year, and for married and joint filers earning 300,000 to 500,000. Taxpayers now hit the current top rate of 6.85% when their incomes reach $65,000. The Paterson plan would tax top-tier earners at 8.97%, the second-tier earners at 7.85%."This is just one of the elements of a $121 billion spending deal that the governor and legislative leaders forged in secret in a race to make the April 1st budget deadline. A lot of other taxes and fees, including expanding the deposit law to include plastic water bottles." The tax on tobacco is skyrocketing. Now it will be up over a dollar a pack. That happens also in April. But I want you to see if you can follow something here. They're going to raise taxes on all these people -- dramatically, 31% in New York State -- who earn over $500,000 a year. At the same time, the Obama administration is moving directly against one of the industries that pays people that much to limit their bonuses, to limit their salaries, to limit how much they can be paid, and to limit how they can run their businesses. So if the Obama administration succeeds in reducing salary -- they want a $1 million cap on these people, a salary cap. I'm telling you, these people have been paying a lot of tax freight. There is no way Governor Paterson's going to raise $4 billion a year on this. Because, folks, it's axiomatic: when you raise taxes on an activity, you reduce that activity. People start doing that activity less. In this case: working. When you reduce taxes on an activity, then that activity increases. When you reduce taxes on income, people start working harder to earn more. Governor Paterson needs to cut taxes on people. He needs to spur investment. He needs to get people going and working. It's just the exact opposite. Governor Paterson is like most other liberal Democrats: zero-sum game. The economy is a pie. It never grows. Somebody gets their slice; somebody gets their slice. If somebody's slice is bigger than somebody else's it means that somebody else is being cheated. So we gotta even this out. Obama looks at it the same way. So massive tax increases in New York -- and, of course, in New York City. And over all spending in New York will go up over 9%, almost 9%, overly spending will go up almost 9% while tax increases go up like 31% to a little over 8% in New York for the "super rich." (interruption) I don't know what the breaking point in New York is, Mr. Snerdley when people leave. (snorts) I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I am seriously... See, ladies and gentlemen, I would love to tell this story. I don't think I should. I don't think I should get personal, but I would love to tell my tax audit story of New York State and New York City since 1997. It happens every year, but that's not the point. I have to prove 14 different ways where I am every day of the year. I have to prove 14 different ways, 'cause I pay New York state and city tax on a per diem. When I am there working I pay whatever, you know, my rate is based on income for that day in New York. And I try to go as little as possible. If it weren't for hurricanes down here, I would never go up there. New York is the escape valve in case hurricanes are showing up in our area, because of the loss of electricity. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to look for an alternative studio somewhere outside New York, perhaps Texas -- another no-income-tax state -- and I'm going to get the hell over there, when a hurricane starts coming our way, 'cause I told Mayor Bloomberg: I'll be the first to lead the way. You know, this is just... I'll sell my apartment. I'll sell my condominium. I'm going to get out of there totally, 'cause this is just absurd, and it's ridiculous -- and it isn't going to work. It's punishing the achievers for the mistakes and the lack of discipline on the part of a bunch of corrupt politicians that have run that city and state into the ground for I don't know how many years -- and I, for one, am not going to take the blame for it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Well, I announced that I was officially vacating New York after these stupid, punitive, massive tax increases, and basically I go to New York now for hurricane relief, whenever a hurricane hits. No other reason to go there. Well, sometimes I visit the overrated staff, but it would be cheaper to fly the staff down here to visit me than to pay these stupid tax increases! Anyway, the point is that I have affiliates from all over the fruited plain now offering their studios as a hurricane relocation location. Well, we're not going to go to Hawaii, that's certainly not a no-income tax state, either. We're not going to California. We're not going anywhere that pays massive taxes and they audit people left and right. That is a no go. Besides, if we did Hawaii, Dawn, the show would start at six a.m. I'd have to get up at midnight for show prep. I love Hawaii, now, don't misunderstand, but for me Hawaii is not for work. Greetings, my friends, welcome, great to have you back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Speaking of New York, I tell you, Governor Paterson, you need to come up with a new slogan for New York: "New York: It's Never Enough." New York takes in billions with its lottery, billions more with the tobacco settlement of years ago, billions and billions more with their share of the Porkulus bill. And it's still not enough. And that's the liberal capital of the world. People ask, "How often do you go to New York now?" As little as I can get away with. I think last year I was there a total of 15 working days. I go up to see the staff at Christmastime. New York is probably going to celebrate that I'm not going to come back, and I know Snerdley. They hate me, so they're happy I'm not coming back. They're going to praise Paterson for driving me out, even though I am rarely there anyway. Or, instead of a slogan, like: "New York: It's Never Enough," the I love New York campaigns, "You May Love New York, But New York Doesn't Like You." That ought to be another slogan that Governor Paterson ought to employ. It's not a surprise. It's a no-brainer that they did this. This is what liberals do. They spend everybody into oblivion. They blame the rich for not paying enough, and they raise taxes on them. And they decrease the activity that generates the tax revenue. There are going to be others that are going to get out of there, especially in this economy. New York's not exactly in the midst of a boom recovery. Every state in this country is in its own version of recession one way or another.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
He Said What?
This morning, I was reading an article on line about the government cutting some defence spending. While I am totally against this, the one comment that just fired me up was posted in the comments section afterwords. The poster had the balls to suggest that military pay and benefits be cut, in his words, to save this country even more money.
I must admit, it does take a huge pair to actually say this in a public forum, but the idea that somehow military members are over paid is just wrong.
A quick look over at the Defence Financing and Accounting website revealed these numbers:
For a E-2 Private in the US Army, with less than 2 years in service, (right after finishing basic and AIT) is $1568.70 a month.
That figures out to be something like $396.18 a week.
now, if that Private were working a 40 hour a week job, he would be getting $9.80 an hour.
The problem is, military service is NOT a 40 hour a week job.
I think it could be said that it is upwards of 100+ hours, if you were deployed.
That would bring the hourly rate down to $3.96 an hour.
Wonder if the poster of that stupid comment would be willing to do what the members of the armed forces do for a measly 4 bucks an hour.
Save me the crap about "well, they get "combat pay"...its a insult at $225 bucks a month.
That's right folks, you too can get shot at, blown up, and be insulted by your own countrymen for a whopping $4.49 an hour.
Here is an idea, why not cut the pay of this wackjob who posted this comment and then shoot at him from time to time or try to blow up the car he is driving...something tells me he would be looking for a little more than $4.49 an hour for all that.
But this is the new hope and change filled America, where hard work and dedication is punished, where earning money is somehow evil, and being a glut on society is rewarded.
If anybody should be made to take a cut, it should be the dregs of society like this loser.
He should get a real job, give back to the country he owes so much too.
Enlisting would be a start.
I must admit, it does take a huge pair to actually say this in a public forum, but the idea that somehow military members are over paid is just wrong.
A quick look over at the Defence Financing and Accounting website revealed these numbers:
For a E-2 Private in the US Army, with less than 2 years in service, (right after finishing basic and AIT) is $1568.70 a month.
That figures out to be something like $396.18 a week.
now, if that Private were working a 40 hour a week job, he would be getting $9.80 an hour.
The problem is, military service is NOT a 40 hour a week job.
I think it could be said that it is upwards of 100+ hours, if you were deployed.
That would bring the hourly rate down to $3.96 an hour.
Wonder if the poster of that stupid comment would be willing to do what the members of the armed forces do for a measly 4 bucks an hour.
Save me the crap about "well, they get "combat pay"...its a insult at $225 bucks a month.
That's right folks, you too can get shot at, blown up, and be insulted by your own countrymen for a whopping $4.49 an hour.
Here is an idea, why not cut the pay of this wackjob who posted this comment and then shoot at him from time to time or try to blow up the car he is driving...something tells me he would be looking for a little more than $4.49 an hour for all that.
But this is the new hope and change filled America, where hard work and dedication is punished, where earning money is somehow evil, and being a glut on society is rewarded.
If anybody should be made to take a cut, it should be the dregs of society like this loser.
He should get a real job, give back to the country he owes so much too.
Enlisting would be a start.
Monday, March 16, 2009
This Just Pisses Me Off.
WASHINGTON, March 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.
"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."
The Commander, clearly angered as he emerged from the session said, "This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ' to care for him who shall have borne the battle' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"
Commander Rehbein was among a group of senior officials from veterans service organizations joining the President, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki and Steven Kosiak, the overseer of defense spending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The group's early afternoon conversation at The White House was precipitated by a letter of protest presented to the President earlier this month. The letter, co-signed by Commander Rehbein and the heads of ten colleague organizations, read, in part, " There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran's personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide. While we understand the fiscal difficulties this country faces right now, placing the burden of those fiscal problems on the men and women who have already sacrificed a great deal for this country is unconscionable."
Commander Rehbein reiterated points made last week in testimony to both House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees. It was stated then that The American Legion believes that the reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate that VA treat service-connected injuries and disabilities given that the United States government sends members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. The proposed requirement for these companies to reimburse the VA would not only be unfair, says the Legion, but would have an adverse impact on service-connected disabled veterans and their families. The Legion argues that, depending on the severity of the medical conditions involved, maximum insurance coverage limits could be reached through treatment of the veteran's condition alone. That would leave the rest of the family without health care benefits. The Legion also points out that many health insurance companies require deductibles to be paid before any benefits are covered. Additionally, the Legion is concerned that private insurance premiums would be elevated to cover service-connected disabled veterans and their families, especially if the veterans are self-employed or employed in small businesses unable to negotiate more favorable across-the-board insurance policy pricing. The American Legion also believes that some employers, especially small businesses, would be reluctant to hire veterans with service-connected disabilities due to the negative impact their employment might have on obtaining and financing company health care benefits.
"I got the distinct impression that the only hope of this plan not being enacted," said Commander Rehbein, "is for an alternative plan to be developed that would generate the desired $540-million in revenue. The American Legion has long advocated for Medicare reimbursement to VA for the treatment of veterans. This, we believe, would more easily meet the President's financial goal. We will present that idea in an anticipated conference call with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel in the near future.
"I only hope the administration will really listen to us then. This matter has far more serious ramifications than the President is imagining," concluded the Commander.
This should piss off all veterans. This is the "support our troops hope and change". how long will it be before companies do no thire any disabled vet fo fear of the insurance costs? Or terminate those they already have? And what about those vets who do not have insurance? are they to be left out in the cold with no medical care because the VA cant bill somebody? Or does that veteran get the bill himself?
This administration is not just a joke, it is an insult to every real american.
To all those veterans who this affects, now you know how much your sacrifice means to this country.
$540 Million dollars.
Make the check payable to a Mr. Obama.
The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.
"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."
The Commander, clearly angered as he emerged from the session said, "This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ' to care for him who shall have borne the battle' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"
Commander Rehbein was among a group of senior officials from veterans service organizations joining the President, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki and Steven Kosiak, the overseer of defense spending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The group's early afternoon conversation at The White House was precipitated by a letter of protest presented to the President earlier this month. The letter, co-signed by Commander Rehbein and the heads of ten colleague organizations, read, in part, " There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran's personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide. While we understand the fiscal difficulties this country faces right now, placing the burden of those fiscal problems on the men and women who have already sacrificed a great deal for this country is unconscionable."
Commander Rehbein reiterated points made last week in testimony to both House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees. It was stated then that The American Legion believes that the reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate that VA treat service-connected injuries and disabilities given that the United States government sends members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. The proposed requirement for these companies to reimburse the VA would not only be unfair, says the Legion, but would have an adverse impact on service-connected disabled veterans and their families. The Legion argues that, depending on the severity of the medical conditions involved, maximum insurance coverage limits could be reached through treatment of the veteran's condition alone. That would leave the rest of the family without health care benefits. The Legion also points out that many health insurance companies require deductibles to be paid before any benefits are covered. Additionally, the Legion is concerned that private insurance premiums would be elevated to cover service-connected disabled veterans and their families, especially if the veterans are self-employed or employed in small businesses unable to negotiate more favorable across-the-board insurance policy pricing. The American Legion also believes that some employers, especially small businesses, would be reluctant to hire veterans with service-connected disabilities due to the negative impact their employment might have on obtaining and financing company health care benefits.
"I got the distinct impression that the only hope of this plan not being enacted," said Commander Rehbein, "is for an alternative plan to be developed that would generate the desired $540-million in revenue. The American Legion has long advocated for Medicare reimbursement to VA for the treatment of veterans. This, we believe, would more easily meet the President's financial goal. We will present that idea in an anticipated conference call with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel in the near future.
"I only hope the administration will really listen to us then. This matter has far more serious ramifications than the President is imagining," concluded the Commander.
This should piss off all veterans. This is the "support our troops hope and change". how long will it be before companies do no thire any disabled vet fo fear of the insurance costs? Or terminate those they already have? And what about those vets who do not have insurance? are they to be left out in the cold with no medical care because the VA cant bill somebody? Or does that veteran get the bill himself?
This administration is not just a joke, it is an insult to every real american.
To all those veterans who this affects, now you know how much your sacrifice means to this country.
$540 Million dollars.
Make the check payable to a Mr. Obama.
The Cat Cheats.
OK, I admit it. I am a kid at heart. I sell kites for a living, I collect hot wheels and matchbox cars, and I love yo-yo's.
Now most adult have no experience in this field, and it may be something that we learn as children, then forget as time passes and adult life takes hold.
The simple rule is this.
Never play yo-yo with a cat.
The cat is infinitely better suited to playing this game than you are.
for one, his role in the event is simple. All he has to do it hit the descending or stationary yo-yo and he wins.
You have the difficult part, that being the control of the yo.
If the cat scores a hit, which he is apt to do, the yo will spin out of control and the cat will look up at you with a look of glee on his whiskered face.
Now it is against the rules to bean the cat with said yo, as this will possibly escalate the game into a physical combat match that you, as a human, are also ill-suited for.
Now I have tried many variety of models of yo-yo's, and found that the cat has no preference for shape. He is able to tag the yo almost every time. I have requested a judges call on some of them since I think his latest tactic is to attack the string, but so far my cries have gone unanswered.
I know he is cheating.
Bu that's what I get for tempting fate.
Now if I just could get my dog to understand the concept of the "bee" part of "Frisbee", which is to catch and return the flying disk to me, rather than stand over it and wait for me to come retrieve it, I am all set.
Now most adult have no experience in this field, and it may be something that we learn as children, then forget as time passes and adult life takes hold.
The simple rule is this.
Never play yo-yo with a cat.
The cat is infinitely better suited to playing this game than you are.
for one, his role in the event is simple. All he has to do it hit the descending or stationary yo-yo and he wins.
You have the difficult part, that being the control of the yo.
If the cat scores a hit, which he is apt to do, the yo will spin out of control and the cat will look up at you with a look of glee on his whiskered face.
Now it is against the rules to bean the cat with said yo, as this will possibly escalate the game into a physical combat match that you, as a human, are also ill-suited for.
Now I have tried many variety of models of yo-yo's, and found that the cat has no preference for shape. He is able to tag the yo almost every time. I have requested a judges call on some of them since I think his latest tactic is to attack the string, but so far my cries have gone unanswered.
I know he is cheating.
Bu that's what I get for tempting fate.
Now if I just could get my dog to understand the concept of the "bee" part of "Frisbee", which is to catch and return the flying disk to me, rather than stand over it and wait for me to come retrieve it, I am all set.
It's Only Fair.
Comments about President Obama by Jackie Mason draw racism charges
Legendary funnyman Jackie Mason is getting jeers for referring to President Obama with a Yiddish word considered by many to be a racial epithet.
During his act Thursday night at Feinstein's at Loews Regency on the upper East Side, Mason, 72, caused some fans to boo and walk out when he called Obama a "schvartze," which is Yiddish for black.
"I'm an old Jew. I was raised in a Jewish family where 'schvartze' was used," an unapologetic Mason told TMZ.com Sunday night.
"It's not a demeaning word and I'm not going to defend myself." Mason then went on a rant about racism, saying, "If it's a racist society, the white people are the ones being persecuted because they have to defend themselves."
The Rev. Al Sharpton noted that in 1991 Mason apologized for calling former Mayor David Dinkins "a fancy schvartze with a mustache."
"At this stage in Jackie's life and career, he should get our prayers more than our responses," Sharpton said.
Ok, for some reason, this little story just pisses me off to no end.
Lets start at the end and work backwards shall we?
Why does the Good Rev. Al Sharpton have a damn thing to say about this at all? Was he there?
Or is he the "Go To Authority" in this country for the final determination of what makes something "racist"? That should be easy. If he says it, it ain't. neither is anything any African-American says. If you marked any other box under "race", you're wrong.
Then we have the word itself. It is a Yiddish word, derived from the German word for the color black. It is listed as "often offensive". For those non Yiddish readers, think "blacky"...
Here is a great idea.
Get Over It.
In a time when we cant use the word "blackwall" to describe a car tire, or the scientific term for a collaped star, A black hole, can't be spoken for fear of being accused as racist, When the term "black out" is dropped from news reports about power outages, to be replaced with the politically correct term "loss of service", or "black boards" are called "presentation panels", we have gone way too far.
Just listen some time to media reports. I mean really listen. The word black is never used.
I am dying to hear what the call a "black bear" or heaven forbid, the section if Germany known as the Black Forest.
It is a word. The name of a color. Like orange. or green. Funny, on St.Patricks Day, everybody wears and thinks green. Is that racist? I personally wear orange, but I am Scottish. Look it up.
The truth is, The Rev. Al Sharpton and his ilk are being selfish.
They want the word all to themselves.
There is a current song in the Urban Top Ten titled "My President Is Black". I have seen personal profiles on websites of young african-americans that describe themselves as "nigga"...Pardon me, but what the hell...I think we should all have the ability to use these words.
Why does one group claim sole control over part of our joint language?
I think all caucasians should claim the word "white". No african american can use the word. No more white wall tires, no more White-Out correction fluid, and dont even think about calling it white bread.
Hey, that would be fair right?
Legendary funnyman Jackie Mason is getting jeers for referring to President Obama with a Yiddish word considered by many to be a racial epithet.
During his act Thursday night at Feinstein's at Loews Regency on the upper East Side, Mason, 72, caused some fans to boo and walk out when he called Obama a "schvartze," which is Yiddish for black.
"I'm an old Jew. I was raised in a Jewish family where 'schvartze' was used," an unapologetic Mason told TMZ.com Sunday night.
"It's not a demeaning word and I'm not going to defend myself." Mason then went on a rant about racism, saying, "If it's a racist society, the white people are the ones being persecuted because they have to defend themselves."
The Rev. Al Sharpton noted that in 1991 Mason apologized for calling former Mayor David Dinkins "a fancy schvartze with a mustache."
"At this stage in Jackie's life and career, he should get our prayers more than our responses," Sharpton said.
Ok, for some reason, this little story just pisses me off to no end.
Lets start at the end and work backwards shall we?
Why does the Good Rev. Al Sharpton have a damn thing to say about this at all? Was he there?
Or is he the "Go To Authority" in this country for the final determination of what makes something "racist"? That should be easy. If he says it, it ain't. neither is anything any African-American says. If you marked any other box under "race", you're wrong.
Then we have the word itself. It is a Yiddish word, derived from the German word for the color black. It is listed as "often offensive". For those non Yiddish readers, think "blacky"...
Here is a great idea.
Get Over It.
In a time when we cant use the word "blackwall" to describe a car tire, or the scientific term for a collaped star, A black hole, can't be spoken for fear of being accused as racist, When the term "black out" is dropped from news reports about power outages, to be replaced with the politically correct term "loss of service", or "black boards" are called "presentation panels", we have gone way too far.
Just listen some time to media reports. I mean really listen. The word black is never used.
I am dying to hear what the call a "black bear" or heaven forbid, the section if Germany known as the Black Forest.
It is a word. The name of a color. Like orange. or green. Funny, on St.Patricks Day, everybody wears and thinks green. Is that racist? I personally wear orange, but I am Scottish. Look it up.
The truth is, The Rev. Al Sharpton and his ilk are being selfish.
They want the word all to themselves.
There is a current song in the Urban Top Ten titled "My President Is Black". I have seen personal profiles on websites of young african-americans that describe themselves as "nigga"...Pardon me, but what the hell...I think we should all have the ability to use these words.
Why does one group claim sole control over part of our joint language?
I think all caucasians should claim the word "white". No african american can use the word. No more white wall tires, no more White-Out correction fluid, and dont even think about calling it white bread.
Hey, that would be fair right?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Crack A Nut...
Could Peanut Allergy Fix Be More Peanuts?
Allergic Kids Seem to Be Helped by Minute Amounts of Peanuts
Eight-year-old Daniel Clowes is so allergic to peanuts, even a tiny bite of a candy bar can create a life-threatening allergic reaction.
His mother, Gina, described a harrowing incident when Daniel was at a friend's house and spotted some innocent-looking candy.
"My son asked his 5-year-old friend, 'Does this have peanuts in it?' and his friend said 'No.' Well, it certainly did, and we ended up in the emergency room," Gina Clowes said.
Daniel also suffers from other severe food allergies to eggs and milk.
But an increasing number of studies are giving hope to children with food allergies. The latest findings were presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology in Washington.
In the study, conducted at Duke University and Arkansas Children's Hospital, 33 children with peanut allergies were given carefully measured, incremental doses of peanuts. The initial doses were as tiny as one-1000th of a peanut and were administered in powder or liquid form.
Over several months, the children were given increasing doses, until they were consuming up to 15 peanuts per day without an allergic reaction. The most important finding was that half of the children who completed two and a half years of the therapy -- five children -- are now allergy-free.
"They're eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," said Dr. Wesley Burks, chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke. "They're not having allergic reactions and we really anticipate [the immunity] will last for the rest of their lives."
Most of the other study participants continue to receive daily maintenance doses of peanuts.
Burks said that results from this study could aid in developing treatment for many types of food allergies, "in the next few years."
With 3.3. million Americans suffering from nut allergies, that is reason to be hopeful. Children and adults with severe peanut allergies have been known to go into anaphylaxis or even die from exposure to even a minute amount of peanuts or other nuts.
Burks cautioned strongly that parents and other doctors not part of a study should not try the experiment on their own. It can have fatal consequences.
Similar studies that aim to desensitize children to certain allergens have been done in the past and the notion of building tolerance through exposure has been floated in the medical community for a century.
Some say such studies may also provide evidence that increasingly popular total nut bans in places such as schools and airplanes may actually be doing more harm than good.
"What we do with nut bans is actually make the problem worse," Harvard medical sociology professor Dr. Nicholas Christakis said. "We increase anxiety, we decrease exposure to nuts, which might increase the actual epidemic that we're trying to fight."
This study doesn't prove that theory, but Gina Clowes, who founded allergymoms.com, said she's "over-the-moon" about the increasing number of studies that may one day lead to treatment for her son Daniel and the millions like him.
So yet another Liberal nannyism falls by the wayside...how long did we put up with the "No Peanut" crowd on airliners, school lunch rooms and workplace break rooms...We were told that even the sight of a peanut or something that might have come into contact with one would kill someone...Give me a freekin' break.
I understand how they feel though...I am allergic to Socialists and other Leftist types...They make me break out in fever, rapid heart beat, and profuse sweating. Oh thats just from the effort I have to use from kicking them in the ass for being stupid..
Allergic Kids Seem to Be Helped by Minute Amounts of Peanuts
Eight-year-old Daniel Clowes is so allergic to peanuts, even a tiny bite of a candy bar can create a life-threatening allergic reaction.
His mother, Gina, described a harrowing incident when Daniel was at a friend's house and spotted some innocent-looking candy.
"My son asked his 5-year-old friend, 'Does this have peanuts in it?' and his friend said 'No.' Well, it certainly did, and we ended up in the emergency room," Gina Clowes said.
Daniel also suffers from other severe food allergies to eggs and milk.
But an increasing number of studies are giving hope to children with food allergies. The latest findings were presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology in Washington.
In the study, conducted at Duke University and Arkansas Children's Hospital, 33 children with peanut allergies were given carefully measured, incremental doses of peanuts. The initial doses were as tiny as one-1000th of a peanut and were administered in powder or liquid form.
Over several months, the children were given increasing doses, until they were consuming up to 15 peanuts per day without an allergic reaction. The most important finding was that half of the children who completed two and a half years of the therapy -- five children -- are now allergy-free.
"They're eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," said Dr. Wesley Burks, chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke. "They're not having allergic reactions and we really anticipate [the immunity] will last for the rest of their lives."
Most of the other study participants continue to receive daily maintenance doses of peanuts.
Burks said that results from this study could aid in developing treatment for many types of food allergies, "in the next few years."
With 3.3. million Americans suffering from nut allergies, that is reason to be hopeful. Children and adults with severe peanut allergies have been known to go into anaphylaxis or even die from exposure to even a minute amount of peanuts or other nuts.
Burks cautioned strongly that parents and other doctors not part of a study should not try the experiment on their own. It can have fatal consequences.
Similar studies that aim to desensitize children to certain allergens have been done in the past and the notion of building tolerance through exposure has been floated in the medical community for a century.
Some say such studies may also provide evidence that increasingly popular total nut bans in places such as schools and airplanes may actually be doing more harm than good.
"What we do with nut bans is actually make the problem worse," Harvard medical sociology professor Dr. Nicholas Christakis said. "We increase anxiety, we decrease exposure to nuts, which might increase the actual epidemic that we're trying to fight."
This study doesn't prove that theory, but Gina Clowes, who founded allergymoms.com, said she's "over-the-moon" about the increasing number of studies that may one day lead to treatment for her son Daniel and the millions like him.
So yet another Liberal nannyism falls by the wayside...how long did we put up with the "No Peanut" crowd on airliners, school lunch rooms and workplace break rooms...We were told that even the sight of a peanut or something that might have come into contact with one would kill someone...Give me a freekin' break.
I understand how they feel though...I am allergic to Socialists and other Leftist types...They make me break out in fever, rapid heart beat, and profuse sweating. Oh thats just from the effort I have to use from kicking them in the ass for being stupid..
Speed Bump.
LOS ANGELES — Authorities are investigating the death of a toddler who wandered onto an East Los Angeles street and was run over by a sports utility vehicle.
The California Highway Patrol says the 2-year-old from Bakersfield was playing on the sidewalk Saturday when he ran into the street and into the path of a Chevy Tahoe.
The driver of the SUV, 43-year-old Carlos Sanchez of Long Beach, was traveling between 10 and 15 mph.
It was not immediately known who was supposed to be watching after the boy.
Typical media anti-SUV bias...what the hell difference does it make if the kid was hit by a SUV or a Smartcar? A two year old stands no chance in a contest against ANY motor vehicle. Period. So why do they insist on even posting this story exept that he was hit by a guy driving a Tahoe. Save me the crap about visiblity and height and so on. Stand a child in front of any car and see if you can see him...The real problem here is that somebody was not paying attention to where the child was...
The California Highway Patrol says the 2-year-old from Bakersfield was playing on the sidewalk Saturday when he ran into the street and into the path of a Chevy Tahoe.
The driver of the SUV, 43-year-old Carlos Sanchez of Long Beach, was traveling between 10 and 15 mph.
It was not immediately known who was supposed to be watching after the boy.
Typical media anti-SUV bias...what the hell difference does it make if the kid was hit by a SUV or a Smartcar? A two year old stands no chance in a contest against ANY motor vehicle. Period. So why do they insist on even posting this story exept that he was hit by a guy driving a Tahoe. Save me the crap about visiblity and height and so on. Stand a child in front of any car and see if you can see him...The real problem here is that somebody was not paying attention to where the child was...
Friday, March 13, 2009
Breaking and Entering. How Not To Do It.
Man Unwisely Tries to Rob Wisconsin Tae Kwon Do Studio
Friday, March 13, 2009
Fox Point, Wis. — A robber gets more than he bargained for when he targets a Tae Kwon Do studio in suburban Milwaukee.
The robber thought he could quietly slip in and out of David Kang's studio in Fox Point with some loot.
What he didn't realize is that he would encounter a Tae Kwon Do master who wasn't about to let him off the hook. Kang was giving a private lesson Tuesday and heard someone in his office. Kang found the man going through his closet, grabbed him by the neck and sat him down while he called police.
The robber took off and Kang gave chase, finally catching up with the man and holding him by the neck until police arrived.
Bet this looser got a "private lesson" as well...
Friday, March 13, 2009
Fox Point, Wis. — A robber gets more than he bargained for when he targets a Tae Kwon Do studio in suburban Milwaukee.
The robber thought he could quietly slip in and out of David Kang's studio in Fox Point with some loot.
What he didn't realize is that he would encounter a Tae Kwon Do master who wasn't about to let him off the hook. Kang was giving a private lesson Tuesday and heard someone in his office. Kang found the man going through his closet, grabbed him by the neck and sat him down while he called police.
The robber took off and Kang gave chase, finally catching up with the man and holding him by the neck until police arrived.
Bet this looser got a "private lesson" as well...
Buyer's Remorse?
Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN and SCOTT RASMUSSEN
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
M.E. Cohen
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seeded, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.
Mr. Schoen, formerly a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System" (Random House, 2008). Mr. Rasmussen is president of Rasmussen Reports, an independent national polling company.
Please..can I say I told you so?
By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN and SCOTT RASMUSSEN
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
M.E. Cohen
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seeded, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.
Mr. Schoen, formerly a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System" (Random House, 2008). Mr. Rasmussen is president of Rasmussen Reports, an independent national polling company.
Please..can I say I told you so?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
So Who Ordered This?
PHILADELPHIA — Employees of a Pennsylvania pet store expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water got a man's dead body instead. Mark Arabia owns the Pets Plus store in northeast Philadelphia, where the mix-up was discovered Tuesday. He says he learned the body was that of a 65-year-old San Diego-area man who died of early onset Alzheimer's disease.
The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, a 70-mile drive away.
US Airways Inc. released a statement saying the air cargo problem was caused by a "verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative." The Tempe, Ariz.-based airline said it's deeply sorry.
The fish were shipped in three boxes. The corpse was shipped in a wooden coffin wrapped in cardboard.
Arabia said the fish were left at the airport and probably died.
Always check your packages before signing for them...
The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, a 70-mile drive away.
US Airways Inc. released a statement saying the air cargo problem was caused by a "verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative." The Tempe, Ariz.-based airline said it's deeply sorry.
The fish were shipped in three boxes. The corpse was shipped in a wooden coffin wrapped in cardboard.
Arabia said the fish were left at the airport and probably died.
Always check your packages before signing for them...
Sunday, March 8, 2009
For your viewing pleasure.
Just a bunch of good ole' boys...take some frozen mud, a few deep wooded trails, and a handful of looneys with jeeps and this is what you get...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zZ9W0zsJ7k&feature=channel_page
This video was taken from the passengers seat by my oldest son.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zZ9W0zsJ7k&feature=channel_page
This video was taken from the passengers seat by my oldest son.
Hope and Change Version 2.0
Analysis: Obama recovery plans sowing some unease
By TOM RAUM
President Barack Obama offered his domestic-policy proposals as a "break from a troubled past." But the economic outlook now is more troubled than it was even in January, despite Obama's bold rhetoric and commitment of more trillions of dollars.
And while his personal popularity remains high, some economists and lawmakers are beginning to question whether Obama's agenda of increased government activism is helping, or hurting, by sowing uncertainty among businesses, investors and consumers that could prolong the recession.
Although the administration likes to say it "inherited" the recession and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on Obama's still-young watch.
Every day, the economy is becoming more and more an Obama economy.
More than 4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007 — roughly half in the past three months.
Stocks have tumbled to levels not seen since 1997. They are down more than 50 percent from their 2007 highs and 20 percent since Obama's inauguration.
The president's suggestion that it was a good time for investors with "a long-term perspective" to buy stocks may have been intended to help lift battered markets. But a big sell-off followed.
Presidents usually don't talk about the stock market. But the dynamics are different now.
A higher percentage of people have more direct exposure to stocks — including through 401(k) and other retirement plans — than ever.
So a tumbling stock market is adding to the national angst as households see the value of their investments and homes plunge as job losses keep rising.
Some once mighty companies such as General Motors and Citigroup are little more than penny stocks.
Many health care stocks are down because of fears of new government restrictions and mandates as part a health care overhaul. Private student loan providers were pounded because of the increased government lending role proposed by Obama. Industries that use oil and other carbon-based fuels are being shunned, apparently in part because of Obama's proposal for fees on greenhouse-gas polluters.
Makers of heavy road-building and other construction equipment have taken a hit, partly because of expectations of fewer public works jobs here and globally than first anticipated.
"We've got a lot of scared investors and business people. I think the uncertainty is a real killer here," said Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy for the libertarian Cato Institute.
Some Democrats, worried over where Obama is headed, are suggesting he has yet to match his call for "bold action and big ideas" with deeds.
In particular, they point to bumpy efforts to fix the financial system under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Obama may have contributed to the national anxiety by first warning of "catastrophe" if his stimulus plan was not passed and in setting high expectations for Geithner. Instead, Geithner's public performance has been halting and he's been challenged by lawmakers of both parties.
Republicans and even some top Democrats, including Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, have questioned the wisdom of Obama's proposal to limit tax deductions for higher-income people on mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
Charities have strongly protested, saying times already are tough enough for them. The administration suggests it might back off that one.
Even White House claims that its policies will "create" or "save" 3.5 million jobs have been questioned by Democratic supporters.
"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, told Geithner last week.
"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
Republicans assert that Obama's proposals, including the "cap and trade" fees on polluters to combat global warming, would raise taxes during a recession that could touch everyone. "Herbert Hoover tried it, and we all know where that led," says House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
The administration argues its tax increases for the households earning over $250,000 a year and fees on carbon polluters contained in its budget won't kick in until 2011-2012, when it forecasts the economy will have fully recovered.
But even those assumptions are challenged as too rosy by many private forecasters and some Democratic lawmakers.
Many deficit hawks also worry that the trillions of federal dollars being doled out by the administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve could sow the seeds of inflation down the road, whether the measures succeed in taming the recession or not. The money includes Obama's $3.6 trillion budget and the $837 billion stimulus package he signed last month.
Polls show that Obama's personal approval ratings, generally holding in the high 60s, remain greater than support for his specific policies.
"He still has a fair amount of political capital, so the public is willing to cut him some slack and go along with him for a while," said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "But the public will have to get some sense that the kinds of things he's proposing are going to work, or are showing some signs that they are working."
Allan Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a Boston-area consulting firm, said the complexity and enormity of the crisis make it hard to solve.
"There's no way to get it all right, regardless of which president is making policy," Sinai said. "The problem is the sickness got too far. The actions taken, medicine applied, were mainly the wrong actions. So it's just worse, and it gets harder to deal with. At this stage, there is no easy answer, no easy way out. It's a question of how we fumble through."
So here is your Hope and Change.
Can I say "I told you so" now?
By TOM RAUM
President Barack Obama offered his domestic-policy proposals as a "break from a troubled past." But the economic outlook now is more troubled than it was even in January, despite Obama's bold rhetoric and commitment of more trillions of dollars.
And while his personal popularity remains high, some economists and lawmakers are beginning to question whether Obama's agenda of increased government activism is helping, or hurting, by sowing uncertainty among businesses, investors and consumers that could prolong the recession.
Although the administration likes to say it "inherited" the recession and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on Obama's still-young watch.
Every day, the economy is becoming more and more an Obama economy.
More than 4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007 — roughly half in the past three months.
Stocks have tumbled to levels not seen since 1997. They are down more than 50 percent from their 2007 highs and 20 percent since Obama's inauguration.
The president's suggestion that it was a good time for investors with "a long-term perspective" to buy stocks may have been intended to help lift battered markets. But a big sell-off followed.
Presidents usually don't talk about the stock market. But the dynamics are different now.
A higher percentage of people have more direct exposure to stocks — including through 401(k) and other retirement plans — than ever.
So a tumbling stock market is adding to the national angst as households see the value of their investments and homes plunge as job losses keep rising.
Some once mighty companies such as General Motors and Citigroup are little more than penny stocks.
Many health care stocks are down because of fears of new government restrictions and mandates as part a health care overhaul. Private student loan providers were pounded because of the increased government lending role proposed by Obama. Industries that use oil and other carbon-based fuels are being shunned, apparently in part because of Obama's proposal for fees on greenhouse-gas polluters.
Makers of heavy road-building and other construction equipment have taken a hit, partly because of expectations of fewer public works jobs here and globally than first anticipated.
"We've got a lot of scared investors and business people. I think the uncertainty is a real killer here," said Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy for the libertarian Cato Institute.
Some Democrats, worried over where Obama is headed, are suggesting he has yet to match his call for "bold action and big ideas" with deeds.
In particular, they point to bumpy efforts to fix the financial system under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Obama may have contributed to the national anxiety by first warning of "catastrophe" if his stimulus plan was not passed and in setting high expectations for Geithner. Instead, Geithner's public performance has been halting and he's been challenged by lawmakers of both parties.
Republicans and even some top Democrats, including Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, have questioned the wisdom of Obama's proposal to limit tax deductions for higher-income people on mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
Charities have strongly protested, saying times already are tough enough for them. The administration suggests it might back off that one.
Even White House claims that its policies will "create" or "save" 3.5 million jobs have been questioned by Democratic supporters.
"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, told Geithner last week.
"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
Republicans assert that Obama's proposals, including the "cap and trade" fees on polluters to combat global warming, would raise taxes during a recession that could touch everyone. "Herbert Hoover tried it, and we all know where that led," says House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
The administration argues its tax increases for the households earning over $250,000 a year and fees on carbon polluters contained in its budget won't kick in until 2011-2012, when it forecasts the economy will have fully recovered.
But even those assumptions are challenged as too rosy by many private forecasters and some Democratic lawmakers.
Many deficit hawks also worry that the trillions of federal dollars being doled out by the administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve could sow the seeds of inflation down the road, whether the measures succeed in taming the recession or not. The money includes Obama's $3.6 trillion budget and the $837 billion stimulus package he signed last month.
Polls show that Obama's personal approval ratings, generally holding in the high 60s, remain greater than support for his specific policies.
"He still has a fair amount of political capital, so the public is willing to cut him some slack and go along with him for a while," said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "But the public will have to get some sense that the kinds of things he's proposing are going to work, or are showing some signs that they are working."
Allan Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a Boston-area consulting firm, said the complexity and enormity of the crisis make it hard to solve.
"There's no way to get it all right, regardless of which president is making policy," Sinai said. "The problem is the sickness got too far. The actions taken, medicine applied, were mainly the wrong actions. So it's just worse, and it gets harder to deal with. At this stage, there is no easy answer, no easy way out. It's a question of how we fumble through."
So here is your Hope and Change.
Can I say "I told you so" now?
A Hummer Tax?
SUV owners are already paying more to fill their tanks at the pump. Now, in Massachusetts, they could be forced to pay even more just to hit the road, charged a higher fee when registering their vehicles.
If implemented, the so called 'Hummer Tax' would be the first in the nation.
Tim Lerchenfeldt, general manager of Cadillac Hummer Saab Village, a dealership in Norwwood, argues now is not the time for another fee, when sales are down and the auto industry is struggling.
"It's a penalty for driving an SUV, which currently is not the popular choice. Or you're being penalized for a lifestyle choice, or maybe the fact that you have a large family and you need that size vehicle to put them in and it just doesn't seem fair," said Lerchenfeldt, who adds that a given SUV owner may spend less time on the road and burn less gasoline than a given hybrid car owner.
Under the new proposal, owners of more fuel efficient vehicles would pay less. The ultimate goal of the policy is supposedly to get consumers to buy those instead.
"If you're going to make a choice that's counterproductive for the planet, counterproductive for the state, counterproductive for America, then if you want to make that choice, it's America, you can make that choice, but if you have to pay for it, I think that's fair," said Josh Wright, a Toyota Prius owner who lives in the town of Hanover.
The plan to charge larger gas guzzling vehicles more has the backing of Democratic Governor Deval Patrick who admits there are some kinks to work out, like how to protect larger families from being unfairly impacted. The Governor is calling for a wide array of new fees and taxes to fund and fix the state's ailing transportation system, which he says has suffered more than a decade of neglect.
Among the most controversial elements in the plan, Patrick is calling for a 19 cent increase in the state's gas tax. He is appealing directly to voters, crisscrossing the state and holding town hall style meetings, listening to the fears and concerns of Commonwealth residents.
"For the average driver what we're talking about is the equivalent of a large cup of coffee per week, but still, for some people that's a lot." Patrick said, admitting the choices are hard.
As part of the package, Patrick is promising to streamline the state's transportation bureaucracy and put the breaks on government spending.
"I think a gas tax without the reforms is unacceptable. More to the point, I will veto that bill. But, I think reforms without the new revenue doesn't really get us very far."
The administration estimates that up to 19 billion dollars will be needed over the next 20 years to pay down debt and to maintain and update the Massachusetts transportation system.
Class warfare at it's Liberal best...so who defines what a "SUV" is? It used to be there was a very definite line between cars, minivans, trucks and SUV's. Now with the new generation of "cross overs", that line is at best, a bit blurry. And what about other vehicles, like a Jeep? I drive a Jeep Wrangler. Is it a SUV? It has 4 wheel drive, like a Hummer. and all models made by Subaru. it carries 4 passengers. like a Prius. I get 17 MPG on the highway, better than my Father's Dodge Minivan. But according to some sources I have read, my Jeep is the direct descendant of the source of the name. It fits all the specs for one, light truck chassis, box shaped (station wagon) body,gasoline engine, high towing capacity, four wheel drive, off road ability, high ground clearance.
So I guess I am to be made to pay more for my "lifestyle choice" than others.
I have a huge problem with this.
Mainly, it was MY CHOICE.
I love my Jeep. I live in upstate NY. It snows here. A lot.It is something like 15 miles to the nearest large supermarket for me. I NEED 4 wheel drive.
There have been many times I have been out and the weather has changed from a nice sunny day to a snowstorm that puts a few inches of snow on the roads. I dislike ending up in a ditch, so I drive in 4 wheel drive. Even last night, we had a record amount of rain fall. You guessed it, 4 wheel drive it was.
I drive a lot.
I have over 150,000 miles on my '04 Wrangler.
So that makes me a bad person.
BITE ME.
I know people who drive a new Ford Mustang. it has a huge modified V8 engine. It carries 2 people. They get something like 9 MPG. why do they get a break when I don't?
Don't get me wrong. I dislike Hummers. But not for the same reasons as the treehuggers do. They are just a waste of money when compared to a Jeep. But it is there choice to buy one. I also hate it when I see a Jeep all chromed out with ghetto wheels and fuzzy seats.
I also dislike Smart cars. I worry that I might run one over and then have to remove the remains from the underside of my Jeep. My John Deere riding mower is bigger.
But do I feel that they should be punished for risking their lives driving one on the highway?
Hell No.
The less the government, and the Leftists that control it intrude into my life, the better I off I am.
I know this proposed tax is in another state, but trust me, New York is just as cash starved as it is, and it is only a matter of time before my blind governor proposes this plan here.
Truly a case of monkey see, monkey do.
oh, sorry, was that racist?
Too bad.
Oh, by the way, I have noticed that the local Sheriff's Department has started to switch over from sedans to Chevy Tahoe's for all the road patrol vehicles.
Seems the Police have decided that the officers are safer in the larger SUV's, as well as being still V8 powered, and can carry all the first responder equipment they need and still fit the captured bad guys in the back.
Maybe they are on to something.
If implemented, the so called 'Hummer Tax' would be the first in the nation.
Tim Lerchenfeldt, general manager of Cadillac Hummer Saab Village, a dealership in Norwwood, argues now is not the time for another fee, when sales are down and the auto industry is struggling.
"It's a penalty for driving an SUV, which currently is not the popular choice. Or you're being penalized for a lifestyle choice, or maybe the fact that you have a large family and you need that size vehicle to put them in and it just doesn't seem fair," said Lerchenfeldt, who adds that a given SUV owner may spend less time on the road and burn less gasoline than a given hybrid car owner.
Under the new proposal, owners of more fuel efficient vehicles would pay less. The ultimate goal of the policy is supposedly to get consumers to buy those instead.
"If you're going to make a choice that's counterproductive for the planet, counterproductive for the state, counterproductive for America, then if you want to make that choice, it's America, you can make that choice, but if you have to pay for it, I think that's fair," said Josh Wright, a Toyota Prius owner who lives in the town of Hanover.
The plan to charge larger gas guzzling vehicles more has the backing of Democratic Governor Deval Patrick who admits there are some kinks to work out, like how to protect larger families from being unfairly impacted. The Governor is calling for a wide array of new fees and taxes to fund and fix the state's ailing transportation system, which he says has suffered more than a decade of neglect.
Among the most controversial elements in the plan, Patrick is calling for a 19 cent increase in the state's gas tax. He is appealing directly to voters, crisscrossing the state and holding town hall style meetings, listening to the fears and concerns of Commonwealth residents.
"For the average driver what we're talking about is the equivalent of a large cup of coffee per week, but still, for some people that's a lot." Patrick said, admitting the choices are hard.
As part of the package, Patrick is promising to streamline the state's transportation bureaucracy and put the breaks on government spending.
"I think a gas tax without the reforms is unacceptable. More to the point, I will veto that bill. But, I think reforms without the new revenue doesn't really get us very far."
The administration estimates that up to 19 billion dollars will be needed over the next 20 years to pay down debt and to maintain and update the Massachusetts transportation system.
Class warfare at it's Liberal best...so who defines what a "SUV" is? It used to be there was a very definite line between cars, minivans, trucks and SUV's. Now with the new generation of "cross overs", that line is at best, a bit blurry. And what about other vehicles, like a Jeep? I drive a Jeep Wrangler. Is it a SUV? It has 4 wheel drive, like a Hummer. and all models made by Subaru. it carries 4 passengers. like a Prius. I get 17 MPG on the highway, better than my Father's Dodge Minivan. But according to some sources I have read, my Jeep is the direct descendant of the source of the name. It fits all the specs for one, light truck chassis, box shaped (station wagon) body,gasoline engine, high towing capacity, four wheel drive, off road ability, high ground clearance.
So I guess I am to be made to pay more for my "lifestyle choice" than others.
I have a huge problem with this.
Mainly, it was MY CHOICE.
I love my Jeep. I live in upstate NY. It snows here. A lot.It is something like 15 miles to the nearest large supermarket for me. I NEED 4 wheel drive.
There have been many times I have been out and the weather has changed from a nice sunny day to a snowstorm that puts a few inches of snow on the roads. I dislike ending up in a ditch, so I drive in 4 wheel drive. Even last night, we had a record amount of rain fall. You guessed it, 4 wheel drive it was.
I drive a lot.
I have over 150,000 miles on my '04 Wrangler.
So that makes me a bad person.
BITE ME.
I know people who drive a new Ford Mustang. it has a huge modified V8 engine. It carries 2 people. They get something like 9 MPG. why do they get a break when I don't?
Don't get me wrong. I dislike Hummers. But not for the same reasons as the treehuggers do. They are just a waste of money when compared to a Jeep. But it is there choice to buy one. I also hate it when I see a Jeep all chromed out with ghetto wheels and fuzzy seats.
I also dislike Smart cars. I worry that I might run one over and then have to remove the remains from the underside of my Jeep. My John Deere riding mower is bigger.
But do I feel that they should be punished for risking their lives driving one on the highway?
Hell No.
The less the government, and the Leftists that control it intrude into my life, the better I off I am.
I know this proposed tax is in another state, but trust me, New York is just as cash starved as it is, and it is only a matter of time before my blind governor proposes this plan here.
Truly a case of monkey see, monkey do.
oh, sorry, was that racist?
Too bad.
Oh, by the way, I have noticed that the local Sheriff's Department has started to switch over from sedans to Chevy Tahoe's for all the road patrol vehicles.
Seems the Police have decided that the officers are safer in the larger SUV's, as well as being still V8 powered, and can carry all the first responder equipment they need and still fit the captured bad guys in the back.
Maybe they are on to something.
Friday, March 6, 2009
But I Wasn't Driving...
DILLSBURG, Pa. — Police say horns started honking as a sport-utility vehicle sat through six red lights at a south-central Pennsylvania intersection.
Officers arrived to investigate the SUV that seemed to be parked in the intersection, and found the driver asleep at the wheel, with his foot on the brake and a beer in the console.
Officers yelled to wake the man, then had to quickly halt the vehicle when his foot came off the brake and it drifted into the intersection Saturday night in Carroll Township, about 15 miles west of Harrisburg.
The 41-year-old was charged with driving under the influence.
DUI? why? It wasnt like he was actually driving...more like SUI...stopped under the influence.
you also cant tell me that Dillsburg PA has that much of a traffic flow problem that one stop light would actually back up traffic...
Officers arrived to investigate the SUV that seemed to be parked in the intersection, and found the driver asleep at the wheel, with his foot on the brake and a beer in the console.
Officers yelled to wake the man, then had to quickly halt the vehicle when his foot came off the brake and it drifted into the intersection Saturday night in Carroll Township, about 15 miles west of Harrisburg.
The 41-year-old was charged with driving under the influence.
DUI? why? It wasnt like he was actually driving...more like SUI...stopped under the influence.
you also cant tell me that Dillsburg PA has that much of a traffic flow problem that one stop light would actually back up traffic...
Makes Sense To Me. Not.
It’s no surprise that President Obama and his crack vetting team are considering Randy Babbitt as the next head of the Federal Aviation Administration. After all, Mr. Babbitt is former head of the country’s largest union representing airline pilots, and we know how near and dear to Mr. Obama’s heart unions are.
“The choice, if it goes through as anticipated,” writes the Wall St. Journal’s Andy Paszfor (who reports on the FAA), “would satisfy labor leaders who have been urging the appointment of someone to the FAA sympathetic to their views. Babbitt has labor connections going back to the labor-management struggles at Eastern Airlines before the carrier folded decades ago,”
Who suggested Babbitt to the Obama administration? Why none other than Jane Garvey, the former chief of the FAA, who, Mr. Paszfor said, is now likely “to get the No. 2 job at the Department of Transportation.”
To understand what a horrible – indeed, dangerous – choice Ms. Garvey would be in the sensitive position of insuring the safety of Americans’ land and air travel, a little history is in order.
Four months before Sept. 11, 2001, recently retired Brian Sullivan, a former risk-management specialist (for over 10 years) in charge of physical security of air-traffic control towers and air-route traffic control facilities in New England, was so concerned about the lax security at Logan Airport that he wrote a letter to Sen. Kerry (D-MA), warning him of the potential for a terrorist disaster at the airport.
His letter held these prophetic words: "With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack that took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely.”
Sullivan followed up by sending Kerry a videotape that showed the ease with which undercover reporters had successfully penetrated Logan’s security screening 10 times with potentially deadly weapons.
For three months, Kerry did nothing with the information, finally sending it to the one agency – the Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General: DOT OIG – that Sullivan had specifically told him had been consistently remiss in taking action after such warnings.
Two of the four planes that attacked our nation on September 11th took off from Logan Airport and 80 of Kerry’s constituents died. Yet Kerry, who held evidence in his hands of Logan’s vulnerabilities, took no action – when his action may well have prevented the horrors of that fateful day.
Significantly, Sullivan also filed a complaint with the Hotline of the Federal Aviation Administration’s chief administrator Jane Garvey (a Clinton holdover) and had the incriminating videotape delivered to her office.
Who Is Jane Garvey?
In the mid-‘90s, Garvey was the former top administrator at Logan Airport, where it was no secret that the airport’s security system was riddled with problems. Strangely, however, the unremarkable job she did at Logan was thought worthy of reward by the Clinton administration.
In a gesture that served to affirm the validity of the Peter Principle – in which people are promoted until they reach their ultimate level of incompetence – Clinton appointed Garvey to be director of the FAA in 1997.
During her tenure, Sullivan said, “FAA security personnel were placed in key management positions despite their limited experience in air security and their apparent ideological aversion to prescreen high-suspect people”: i.e., Arab males from the Middle East between the ages of 20-40.
Two years after Garvey took the helm, the FAA fined the Massachusetts Port Authority $178,000 for 136 security violations at Logan that included failure to screen baggage properly and allowing easy access to restricted areas and parked planes. On one occasion, a 17-year-old man cut the razor wire on a perimeter fence surrounding Logan and walked for two miles across restricted areas, finally stowing away on a British Airways Boeing 747.
Did Garvey’s FAA follow up on those fines? No. In the criminal indictment she never received, surely Exhibit A would have been September 11!
It is public knowledge that during the spring and summer of 2001, Garvey’s FAA sent out a CD-ROM of potential terrorist threats prepared by her security chief, Mike Canavan, to 700 airlines and airport executives. The FAA also had extensive data about Al Qaida and bin Laden in its Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation Reports for 1999 and 2000. For instance:
▪ In a May 1998 interview, Bin Ladin suggested that he could use a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile to shoot down a military passenger aircraft transporting U.S. military personnel, adding that his attacks would not distinguish between U.S. civilians and military personnel... an exiled Islamic leader in the United Kingdom proclaimed in August 1998 that Bin Ladin would “bring down an airliner or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.”
▪ Ramzi Yousef masterminded the 1994 conspiracy to place explosive devices on as many as 12 U.S. airliners flying out of the Far East. In September 1996, Yousef was convicted for this plan and for placing a device on a Philippine Airlines plane in December 1994 as a test for his more elaborate scheme. Although Yousef is currently in prison, at least one other accused participant in the conspiracy remains at large. There are concerns that this individual or others of Yousef’s ilk who may possess similar skills pose a continuing threat to civil aviation interests.
▪ The terrorist threat remains. The most recent significant aviation-related terrorist action was the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by members of a Kashmiri separatist group. There continues to be concern that the hijacking may either be copied or spur others to commit acts because this incident succeeded in gaining the release of prisoners and the hijackers have never been caught. Another threat is attributed to terrorist financier Usama Bin Laden...[who] has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so.
But when I-don’t-know-nuthin’ Garvey testified before the 9/11 Commission, she claimed ignorance of any threats – saying that she hadn’t seen the CD-ROM until after September 11!
The 9/11 Commission didn’t believe her. On page 83, its report states: "... the FAA's intelligence unit did not receive much attention from the agency's leadership. Neither Administrator Jane Garvey nor her deputy routinely reviewed daily intelligence, and what they did see was screened for them. She was unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit, which, in turn, was not deeply involved in the agency's policymaking process. Historically, decisive security action took place only after (my emphasis) a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered."
Further, according to Kevin Berger of Salon.com, commenting on reaction to the 9/11 Commission’s Report: “But all of the international intrigue, not to mention partisan sniping over what president or government agency was at fault, has deflected attention from the one culprit that gets a universal thrashing in the 9/11 report: the Federal Aviation Administration.” Translation: Jane Garvey!.
Berger documented the 9/11 Commission’s findings of the grievous failings of the FAA under Garvey:
▪ Each layer of the FAA that was relevant to hijackings – intelligence, passenger prescreening, checkpoint screening, and onboard security – was seriously flawed.
▪ Although government watch lists contained the names of tens of thousands of known terrorists, including a State Department TIP-OFF list with 60,000 names, the FAA's own "no-fly" list contained names of just 12 terrorist suspects.
▪ At Logan’s check-in counters, airline clerks tagged four of the five hijackers on American Flight 11 (the first jet to hit the World Trade Center) as suspect, yet they were allowed to board the plane.
▪ Two of the hijackers on American Flight 77 from Dulles, which crashed into the Pentagon, set off the security gate alarm but the screeners didn't bother to investigate further and, again, allowed the hijackers to board the plane.
▪ And most damning, Jane Garvey did not review daily intelligence and so was "unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit."
It was also under Garvey that the then-Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS I was neutered. After 9/11, the program was renamed the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPs II, because, according to Sullivan, “of overzealous liberals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the diversity crowd who are hell-bent on insuring that political correctness is always implemented at the expense of our basic security.”
And Sullivan cites additional flaws in Garvey’s FAA, all of them omitted from the 9/11 Commission’s report. For instance:
▪ A memo dated April 2001 from Joe Lawless, director of security at the Massachusetts Port Authority, citing terrorist ties to Logan Airport and the need to address the airport’s known vulnerabilities.
▪ The rejection of another Lawless memo by the Logan Airline Managers Council (LAMCO) and the FAA's federal security manager at Logan, proposing that the Mass. State Police begin undercover testing of screening checkpoints in July '01.
▪ Reported sightings of Mohammed Atta at Logan in May and early September '01, involved in suspicious activity on the Air Operations Area and surveillance of checkpoints.
Incompetence Incarnate
Yet all this is not where Garvey’s egregious mismanagement of the FAA ends. According to NY Times reporter Matthew L. Wald, Garvey ignored both past incidents and those under her watch, including:
▪ 1994: The hijacking of two jetliners (one by an Islamic “militant” group) with the intent of “crashing them into buildings.”
▪ 1994: A man stormed the cockpit of a domestic flight with the intention, according to his fellow employees, of crashing the plane into a building in Memphis.
▪ 1994: A lone pilot crashed a stolen single-engine Cessna into a tree on the White House grounds near the president's bedroom.
▪ 1996: The crash of T.W.A. Flight 800, which to this day many people believe was a terrorist attack.
▪ 1999: A report of an exiled Islamic leader in Britain who said in August 1998 that bin Laden would ''bring down an airliner or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.''
▪ 2000: The FAA’s annual report saying that although Osama bin Laden ''is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so...bin Laden's anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.”
“But aviation security officials,” Wald said, “never extrapolated any sort of pattern from those incidents.” That includes the top official – the FAA’s Jane Garvey.
Yet in spite of mountains of evidence pointing to Garvey’s complete incompetence, and in spite of the all the security experts in the United States – which include former or active police chiefs, retired FBI and CIA operatives and private companies that spend 24/7/365 assessing threats and formulating “coping” strategies – Kerry chose Garvey as an “expert” consultant in charge of security for the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
That’s right, Jane Garvey, who was singled out by the “we won’t point fingers” 9/11 Commission as taking action “only after a disaster had occurred ...” and whose FAA got “a universal thrashing” in the report.
A commentary in Aviation Insight & Perspectives said that: “Appointing Garvey head of convention security is like making John Gotti the head of the FBI.”
Sadly, according to Brian Sullivan, “one single recommendation from the Gore Commission in 1997 to harden cockpit doors and enforce rules to keep them closed would have stopped the 9/11 attack cold. If the FAA’s Garvey and DOT’s chief Norman Mineta hadn’t been asleep at the wheel, 9/11 wouldn't have happened, plain and simple.”
But it did happen and now we’re left to ponder how on earth the Obama administration could be considering Garvey for the No. 2 spot at the FAA.
After less than three weeks in office, the woefully inexperienced Mr. Obama has offered our country the services of three tax cheats (Geithner, Daschle, and Killefer), a man under criminal investigation (Richardson), and a host of leftist policymakers that would do the Marxist-Leninist Politburo proud.
The possible appointment of the incompetent Jane Garvey to the deputy’s job at the DOT – which has oversight of the FAA – should be the last straw for Americans of every political stripe, or at least those who care about the still-looming terrorist threat and their own safety on our roads and rails, and in the skies.
“The choice, if it goes through as anticipated,” writes the Wall St. Journal’s Andy Paszfor (who reports on the FAA), “would satisfy labor leaders who have been urging the appointment of someone to the FAA sympathetic to their views. Babbitt has labor connections going back to the labor-management struggles at Eastern Airlines before the carrier folded decades ago,”
Who suggested Babbitt to the Obama administration? Why none other than Jane Garvey, the former chief of the FAA, who, Mr. Paszfor said, is now likely “to get the No. 2 job at the Department of Transportation.”
To understand what a horrible – indeed, dangerous – choice Ms. Garvey would be in the sensitive position of insuring the safety of Americans’ land and air travel, a little history is in order.
Four months before Sept. 11, 2001, recently retired Brian Sullivan, a former risk-management specialist (for over 10 years) in charge of physical security of air-traffic control towers and air-route traffic control facilities in New England, was so concerned about the lax security at Logan Airport that he wrote a letter to Sen. Kerry (D-MA), warning him of the potential for a terrorist disaster at the airport.
His letter held these prophetic words: "With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack that took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely.”
Sullivan followed up by sending Kerry a videotape that showed the ease with which undercover reporters had successfully penetrated Logan’s security screening 10 times with potentially deadly weapons.
For three months, Kerry did nothing with the information, finally sending it to the one agency – the Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General: DOT OIG – that Sullivan had specifically told him had been consistently remiss in taking action after such warnings.
Two of the four planes that attacked our nation on September 11th took off from Logan Airport and 80 of Kerry’s constituents died. Yet Kerry, who held evidence in his hands of Logan’s vulnerabilities, took no action – when his action may well have prevented the horrors of that fateful day.
Significantly, Sullivan also filed a complaint with the Hotline of the Federal Aviation Administration’s chief administrator Jane Garvey (a Clinton holdover) and had the incriminating videotape delivered to her office.
Who Is Jane Garvey?
In the mid-‘90s, Garvey was the former top administrator at Logan Airport, where it was no secret that the airport’s security system was riddled with problems. Strangely, however, the unremarkable job she did at Logan was thought worthy of reward by the Clinton administration.
In a gesture that served to affirm the validity of the Peter Principle – in which people are promoted until they reach their ultimate level of incompetence – Clinton appointed Garvey to be director of the FAA in 1997.
During her tenure, Sullivan said, “FAA security personnel were placed in key management positions despite their limited experience in air security and their apparent ideological aversion to prescreen high-suspect people”: i.e., Arab males from the Middle East between the ages of 20-40.
Two years after Garvey took the helm, the FAA fined the Massachusetts Port Authority $178,000 for 136 security violations at Logan that included failure to screen baggage properly and allowing easy access to restricted areas and parked planes. On one occasion, a 17-year-old man cut the razor wire on a perimeter fence surrounding Logan and walked for two miles across restricted areas, finally stowing away on a British Airways Boeing 747.
Did Garvey’s FAA follow up on those fines? No. In the criminal indictment she never received, surely Exhibit A would have been September 11!
It is public knowledge that during the spring and summer of 2001, Garvey’s FAA sent out a CD-ROM of potential terrorist threats prepared by her security chief, Mike Canavan, to 700 airlines and airport executives. The FAA also had extensive data about Al Qaida and bin Laden in its Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation Reports for 1999 and 2000. For instance:
▪ In a May 1998 interview, Bin Ladin suggested that he could use a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile to shoot down a military passenger aircraft transporting U.S. military personnel, adding that his attacks would not distinguish between U.S. civilians and military personnel... an exiled Islamic leader in the United Kingdom proclaimed in August 1998 that Bin Ladin would “bring down an airliner or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.”
▪ Ramzi Yousef masterminded the 1994 conspiracy to place explosive devices on as many as 12 U.S. airliners flying out of the Far East. In September 1996, Yousef was convicted for this plan and for placing a device on a Philippine Airlines plane in December 1994 as a test for his more elaborate scheme. Although Yousef is currently in prison, at least one other accused participant in the conspiracy remains at large. There are concerns that this individual or others of Yousef’s ilk who may possess similar skills pose a continuing threat to civil aviation interests.
▪ The terrorist threat remains. The most recent significant aviation-related terrorist action was the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by members of a Kashmiri separatist group. There continues to be concern that the hijacking may either be copied or spur others to commit acts because this incident succeeded in gaining the release of prisoners and the hijackers have never been caught. Another threat is attributed to terrorist financier Usama Bin Laden...[who] has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so.
But when I-don’t-know-nuthin’ Garvey testified before the 9/11 Commission, she claimed ignorance of any threats – saying that she hadn’t seen the CD-ROM until after September 11!
The 9/11 Commission didn’t believe her. On page 83, its report states: "... the FAA's intelligence unit did not receive much attention from the agency's leadership. Neither Administrator Jane Garvey nor her deputy routinely reviewed daily intelligence, and what they did see was screened for them. She was unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit, which, in turn, was not deeply involved in the agency's policymaking process. Historically, decisive security action took place only after (my emphasis) a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered."
Further, according to Kevin Berger of Salon.com, commenting on reaction to the 9/11 Commission’s Report: “But all of the international intrigue, not to mention partisan sniping over what president or government agency was at fault, has deflected attention from the one culprit that gets a universal thrashing in the 9/11 report: the Federal Aviation Administration.” Translation: Jane Garvey!.
Berger documented the 9/11 Commission’s findings of the grievous failings of the FAA under Garvey:
▪ Each layer of the FAA that was relevant to hijackings – intelligence, passenger prescreening, checkpoint screening, and onboard security – was seriously flawed.
▪ Although government watch lists contained the names of tens of thousands of known terrorists, including a State Department TIP-OFF list with 60,000 names, the FAA's own "no-fly" list contained names of just 12 terrorist suspects.
▪ At Logan’s check-in counters, airline clerks tagged four of the five hijackers on American Flight 11 (the first jet to hit the World Trade Center) as suspect, yet they were allowed to board the plane.
▪ Two of the hijackers on American Flight 77 from Dulles, which crashed into the Pentagon, set off the security gate alarm but the screeners didn't bother to investigate further and, again, allowed the hijackers to board the plane.
▪ And most damning, Jane Garvey did not review daily intelligence and so was "unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit."
It was also under Garvey that the then-Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS I was neutered. After 9/11, the program was renamed the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPs II, because, according to Sullivan, “of overzealous liberals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the diversity crowd who are hell-bent on insuring that political correctness is always implemented at the expense of our basic security.”
And Sullivan cites additional flaws in Garvey’s FAA, all of them omitted from the 9/11 Commission’s report. For instance:
▪ A memo dated April 2001 from Joe Lawless, director of security at the Massachusetts Port Authority, citing terrorist ties to Logan Airport and the need to address the airport’s known vulnerabilities.
▪ The rejection of another Lawless memo by the Logan Airline Managers Council (LAMCO) and the FAA's federal security manager at Logan, proposing that the Mass. State Police begin undercover testing of screening checkpoints in July '01.
▪ Reported sightings of Mohammed Atta at Logan in May and early September '01, involved in suspicious activity on the Air Operations Area and surveillance of checkpoints.
Incompetence Incarnate
Yet all this is not where Garvey’s egregious mismanagement of the FAA ends. According to NY Times reporter Matthew L. Wald, Garvey ignored both past incidents and those under her watch, including:
▪ 1994: The hijacking of two jetliners (one by an Islamic “militant” group) with the intent of “crashing them into buildings.”
▪ 1994: A man stormed the cockpit of a domestic flight with the intention, according to his fellow employees, of crashing the plane into a building in Memphis.
▪ 1994: A lone pilot crashed a stolen single-engine Cessna into a tree on the White House grounds near the president's bedroom.
▪ 1996: The crash of T.W.A. Flight 800, which to this day many people believe was a terrorist attack.
▪ 1999: A report of an exiled Islamic leader in Britain who said in August 1998 that bin Laden would ''bring down an airliner or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.''
▪ 2000: The FAA’s annual report saying that although Osama bin Laden ''is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so...bin Laden's anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.”
“But aviation security officials,” Wald said, “never extrapolated any sort of pattern from those incidents.” That includes the top official – the FAA’s Jane Garvey.
Yet in spite of mountains of evidence pointing to Garvey’s complete incompetence, and in spite of the all the security experts in the United States – which include former or active police chiefs, retired FBI and CIA operatives and private companies that spend 24/7/365 assessing threats and formulating “coping” strategies – Kerry chose Garvey as an “expert” consultant in charge of security for the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
That’s right, Jane Garvey, who was singled out by the “we won’t point fingers” 9/11 Commission as taking action “only after a disaster had occurred ...” and whose FAA got “a universal thrashing” in the report.
A commentary in Aviation Insight & Perspectives said that: “Appointing Garvey head of convention security is like making John Gotti the head of the FBI.”
Sadly, according to Brian Sullivan, “one single recommendation from the Gore Commission in 1997 to harden cockpit doors and enforce rules to keep them closed would have stopped the 9/11 attack cold. If the FAA’s Garvey and DOT’s chief Norman Mineta hadn’t been asleep at the wheel, 9/11 wouldn't have happened, plain and simple.”
But it did happen and now we’re left to ponder how on earth the Obama administration could be considering Garvey for the No. 2 spot at the FAA.
After less than three weeks in office, the woefully inexperienced Mr. Obama has offered our country the services of three tax cheats (Geithner, Daschle, and Killefer), a man under criminal investigation (Richardson), and a host of leftist policymakers that would do the Marxist-Leninist Politburo proud.
The possible appointment of the incompetent Jane Garvey to the deputy’s job at the DOT – which has oversight of the FAA – should be the last straw for Americans of every political stripe, or at least those who care about the still-looming terrorist threat and their own safety on our roads and rails, and in the skies.
Who's Desperate Now?
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama told the nation's leading experts on health care Thursday that Americans are "desperate" for an overhaul of the expensive system, and he urged them to "get to work" to pass legislation this year.
Fifteen years after Democratic President Bill Clinton failed in a similar effort, Obama embarked on the most ambitious task of his young presidency: He assembled top members of Congress and leaders of health care interest groups -- some of whom have blocked health care changes in the past -- to a health care conference to debate ideas for overhauling the system.
"There are a lot of people out there who are desperate. There's a lot of desperation out there," Obama said, digressing briefly from his prepared remarks in the East Room of the White House.
By fixing problems of access, cost and quality once and for all, he said, "all of us could share extraordinary pride in finally dealing with something that has been vexing us for so long."
Melody Barnes, the president's domestic policy adviser, said the roughly 140 people invited to the session know that "one undeniable truth brings everyone to the table" -- that the status quo is "simply unsustainable."
Obama joked that an invitation to the forum was "the hottest ticket in town."
"Today's forum is so important, because health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative," he said. "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of health care this year, in this administration."
"They are coming to the White House and coming to the table because they want to get this done," Barnes said.
Rather than being prescriptive, she said, the president will be pragmatic.
The half-day session included presentations by average Americans caught in the health care maelstrom.
About 46 million people are uninsured, according to the most recent census figures. Others are paying more than they can afford.
The status quo is unsustianable? huh? keeping what you have, (the status quo) and improving it, not replacing it is what we need. But the American Idol President doesnt want, or understand that is what is needed. He and his goose steppping Liberal drones just want to tear down what we have and replace it with some mutant goverment system that will have all the care and concern of the DMV...
I don't have insurance. I have major medical problems, and am self employed.
I am the "focus group" that the media construct resident of the White House is talking about.
I don't want his or anybody elses "help", not if it comes at the cost they have placed on it.
I am too much of a patriot for that.
I love my country, but not the goverment. I want it as far out of my life as possible.
Fifteen years after Democratic President Bill Clinton failed in a similar effort, Obama embarked on the most ambitious task of his young presidency: He assembled top members of Congress and leaders of health care interest groups -- some of whom have blocked health care changes in the past -- to a health care conference to debate ideas for overhauling the system.
"There are a lot of people out there who are desperate. There's a lot of desperation out there," Obama said, digressing briefly from his prepared remarks in the East Room of the White House.
By fixing problems of access, cost and quality once and for all, he said, "all of us could share extraordinary pride in finally dealing with something that has been vexing us for so long."
Melody Barnes, the president's domestic policy adviser, said the roughly 140 people invited to the session know that "one undeniable truth brings everyone to the table" -- that the status quo is "simply unsustainable."
Obama joked that an invitation to the forum was "the hottest ticket in town."
"Today's forum is so important, because health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative," he said. "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of health care this year, in this administration."
"They are coming to the White House and coming to the table because they want to get this done," Barnes said.
Rather than being prescriptive, she said, the president will be pragmatic.
The half-day session included presentations by average Americans caught in the health care maelstrom.
About 46 million people are uninsured, according to the most recent census figures. Others are paying more than they can afford.
The status quo is unsustianable? huh? keeping what you have, (the status quo) and improving it, not replacing it is what we need. But the American Idol President doesnt want, or understand that is what is needed. He and his goose steppping Liberal drones just want to tear down what we have and replace it with some mutant goverment system that will have all the care and concern of the DMV...
I don't have insurance. I have major medical problems, and am self employed.
I am the "focus group" that the media construct resident of the White House is talking about.
I don't want his or anybody elses "help", not if it comes at the cost they have placed on it.
I am too much of a patriot for that.
I love my country, but not the goverment. I want it as far out of my life as possible.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
US Treasury secretary attacks oil, gas tax breaks
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday.
It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change.
"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.
The Obama administration's budget would levy an excise tax on oil and natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.
This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies enjoying a loophole that allows them to avoid paying royalties on the energy supplies they drill. Companies already paying royalties would get a tax credit.
Obama's budget would also place a $4 per acre annual fee on energy leases in the Gulf that are designated as nonproducing. The budget proposal projects the fee would generate $1.2 billion from 2010 to 2019.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas criticized the tax increases, saying they would hurt independent energy companies that provide a large share of U.S. oil and gas supplies.
"My view is that higher taxes on small and independent producers here in America will make us more dependent on imported oil and gas while we transition to cleaner energy alternatives, a goal we all share," said Cornyn. "And it will also hurt job retention and job creation in the energy sector, which provides an awful lot of jobs in this country."
Geithner said the additional taxes "can be absorbed" by the oil and gas companies, given the billions of dollars they have earned from high energy prices.
"The impact of these subsidies are very small relative to revenues produced by U.S. oil and gas producers," he said.
This guy has no idea what reality is. The myth of "Man Made Global Warming" is best left in the pews of the First Church Of The Sky Is Falling, not in the area of public policy.
The end result of all this is not any improvement to a non crisis, but a money grab by a cash strapped socialist goverment that will do nothing but raise gas and oil prices for the rest of us.
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday.
It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change.
"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.
The Obama administration's budget would levy an excise tax on oil and natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.
This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies enjoying a loophole that allows them to avoid paying royalties on the energy supplies they drill. Companies already paying royalties would get a tax credit.
Obama's budget would also place a $4 per acre annual fee on energy leases in the Gulf that are designated as nonproducing. The budget proposal projects the fee would generate $1.2 billion from 2010 to 2019.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas criticized the tax increases, saying they would hurt independent energy companies that provide a large share of U.S. oil and gas supplies.
"My view is that higher taxes on small and independent producers here in America will make us more dependent on imported oil and gas while we transition to cleaner energy alternatives, a goal we all share," said Cornyn. "And it will also hurt job retention and job creation in the energy sector, which provides an awful lot of jobs in this country."
Geithner said the additional taxes "can be absorbed" by the oil and gas companies, given the billions of dollars they have earned from high energy prices.
"The impact of these subsidies are very small relative to revenues produced by U.S. oil and gas producers," he said.
This guy has no idea what reality is. The myth of "Man Made Global Warming" is best left in the pews of the First Church Of The Sky Is Falling, not in the area of public policy.
The end result of all this is not any improvement to a non crisis, but a money grab by a cash strapped socialist goverment that will do nothing but raise gas and oil prices for the rest of us.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Tell 'Em Rush!
The following is a raw transcript of Rush Limbaugh's speech on the final day of CPAC.
RUSH: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you all. I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. It happens everywhere I go, but it's still special here. [ Laughter ] If you all will indulge me, I learned something, I guess, it's early Friday morning that I didn't know. Friday morning is when I learned this. I learned that Fox, God love them, is televising this speech on the Fox News Channel, which means, ladies and gentleman, this is my first ever address to the nation. [Applause] Now, I have someone in back taking phone numbers. In fact, I would like to introduce to you my security chief, a man who runs all of my security. His name is Joseph Stalin. Joseph, would you please --
[Laughter ] I am safe from any liberal attack, in public, because they would be afraid of offending Stalin.
[Laughter] Now the opportunity here to address the nation, a serious one, it really is. And I want to take it seriously. I want to address something. I know that people are probably watching this who never have listened to my program and may not even really know what conservatism is. They think they do based on how they've been told -- the way we've been impugned and maligned and so forth. One of the things that is totally erroneous about me -- and I just want to get this up front -- is that I'm pompous. [Laughter] And that I am arrogant. Neither of these things are remotely true. I can tell you a joke to illustrate this. Larry King passed away, goes to heaven. He's greeted by Saint Peter at the gates. Saint Peter says, "Welcome, Mr. King, it's great to have you here. I want to show you around, give you an idea of what's here, maybe you can pick a place that you'd like to reside." King says, "I just have one question: Is Rush Limbaugh here?" "No, he's got a lot of time yet, Mr. King." So Saint Peter begins the tour. Larry King sees the various places and it's beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty. Finally, he gets to the biggest room of all, with this giant throne. And over the throne is a flashing beautiful angelic neon sign that says "Rush Limbaugh."
[Laughter] And Larry King looks at Saint Peter and says: "I thought you said he wasn't here." "He said, he's not, he's not. This is God's room. He just thinks he's Rush Limbaugh."
[Laughter] [Applause] So you see I'm not pompous.
[Laughter] Now, seriously, for those of you watching on C-SPAN as well, and on Fox, I want to tell you who we all are in this room. I want to tell you who conservatives are. We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people know. What they know is largely incorrect based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the Drive-By Media, by the Democrat Party. Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause]
When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [Applause]
We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
We don't want to tell anybody how to live. That's up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we'll try to stop it, but it's a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause] We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we're all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we're all the same, that we're no different than anybody else. We're all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That's up to them. They are created equal, given the chance - -[Applause] We don't hate anybody. We don't -- I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience -- let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. [Applause]
It was not us asking whether Barack Obama was authentic. What we were asking is: Is he wrong? We concluded, yes. We still think so. But we didn't ask if he was authentically black. We didn't say, as some Southern Christian Leadership Conference leaders said: Barack is not authentic, he's not got any slave blood. He's really not down for the struggle, but his wife is. So don't expect the race industry to go away. Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- you may not know this, because it wasn't reported in the Drive-By Media -- the racism, the sexism, the bigotry that we're all charged with, just so you across the United States of America know, and you'll see demonstrated here as the afternoon goes on, doesn't exist on our side. We want everybody to succeed. [Applause] You know why? We want the country to succeed, and for the country to succeed, its people -- its individuals -- must succeed. Everyone among us must be pursuing his ambition or her desire, whatever, with excellence. Trying to be the best they can be. Not told, as they are told by the Democrat Party: You really can't do that, you don't have what it takes, besides you're a minority or you're a woman and there are too many people that want to discriminate against you. You can't get anywhere. You need to depend on us. Well. Take a look, someone has to say this -- I am thrilled for the opportunity to say it in my first national address to the nation -- and I'm going to touch on this in more detail in a moment, but this is just to get you thinking -- take a look at all the constituency groups that for 50 years have been depending on the Democrat Party to improve their lives. And you tell me if you find any. They're still complaining, still griping about the same problems. Their problems don't get fixed by government. And those lives have been poisoned. Those lives have been cut short by false promises, from government representatives who said don't worry about it, we'll take care of you. Just vote for us. [Applause]
For those of you just tuning in on the Fox News Channel or C-SPAN, I'm Rush Limbaugh and I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed. I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed. And I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching Big Government that would stop your success, I want that organization, that element or that person to fail. I want you to succeed. [Applause] Also, for those of you in the Drive-By Media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I've said. [Cheers and Applause ]
And nor do any of us need a teleprompter, because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances. Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology. Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don't have to make notes about what we believe. We don't have to write down, oh do I believe it do I believe that we can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads and we can do it with passion and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively. Some of us just haven't had the inspiration or motivation to do so in a number of years, but that's about to change. [Cheers and Applause] For example, we gather here -- I understand that. I talked to David and Lisa in the super exclusive private green room that nobody, but about 55 people were allowed into, and they said that there's a sense of liberation here among all of you that are attending CPAC. I understand what the sense of liberation is about. But don't make the mistake at the same time of feeling liberated as thinking we're better and we can do better as a minority. Because we're not a minority. And if you start thinking of yourselves as a minority, you're going to be defensive. And you'll allow the majority to set the agenda and the premise and you're responding to it. The American people may not all vote the way we wish them to, but more Americans than you now live their lives as conservatives in one degree or another. And they are waiting for leadership. We need conservative leadership. We can take this country back. All we need is to nominate the right candidate. It's no more complicated than that. [Applause]
Now, let me speak about President Obama for just a second. President Obama is one of the most gifted politicians, one of the most gifted men that I have ever witnessed. He has extraordinary talents. He has communication skills that hardly anyone can surpass. No, seriously. No, no, I'm being very serious about this. It just breaks my heart that he does not use these extraordinary talents and gifts to motivate and inspire the American people to be the best they can be. He's doing just the opposite. And it's a shame. [Applause]
President Obama has the ability -- he has the ability to inspire excellence in people's pursuits. He has the ability to do all this, yet he pursues a path, seeks a path that punishes achievement, that punishes earners and punishes -- and he speaks negatively of the country. Ronald Reagan used to speak of a shining city on a hill. Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure. He's constantly telling the American people that bad times are ahead, worst times are ahead. And it's troubling, because this is the United States of America. Anybody ever ask -- I'm in awe of our country and I ask this question a lot as I've gotten older. We're less than 300 years old. We are younger than nations that have been on this planet for thousands of years. We, nevertheless, in less than 300 years -- by the way, we're no different than any other human beings around the world. Our DNA is no different. We're not better just because we're born in America. There's nothing that sets us apart. How did this happen? How did the United States of America become the world's lone super power, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it? It saddens me. The freedom we spoke of earlier is the freedom, it's the ambition, it's the desire, the wherewithal, the passions that people have that gave us the great entrepreneurial advances, the great inventions, the greatest food production, the human lifestyle advances in this country. Why shouldn't that be rewarded? Why is that now the focus of punishment? Why is that now the focus of blame? Why doesn't -- Mayor Bloomberg the other day, ladies and gentlemen, resisting his Governor's call for an increased tax on the rich in New York had some astounding numbers. Eight million people live in New York. 40,000 of those eight million pay roughly 60 to 70% of New York's operating budget. He was afraid that if he raised taxes on those people some of them might leave. Mayor, one already has, by the way. [Applause]
Stop and think of this, though. Stop and think of this. Forty thousand people out of eight million. He's right, if 10,000 of them leave, or 5,000, they've got a huge problem. Because New York has its own welfare state inside the one the federal government's created. They've got a dependency class that has grown up and been educated that their entitlement is to be fed and taken care of by these evil mean people who have more than they do. If New York City, New York State or Washington, DC were a business, these 40,000 people would be taken on golf tournament trips to Los Angeles, and they would be wined and dined and they would be thanked and they would be encouraged to keep it up. They wouldn't be told they're the problem. They wouldn't be told, except there's -- I pride my accuracy rating. There is one other business where the customer is always wrong and that's the media. Sorry about that. [Applause]
Have you ever called to complain about whatever they do? They say, yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full. They hang up and say you're too stupid to know how they're doing what they're doing. You can't get it. You're not sophisticated enough. So that's another business where the customer is always wrong. But, seriously, the people who have achieved great things, most of it is not inherited. Most wealth in this country is the result of entrepreneurial, just plain old hard work. There's no reason to punish it. There's no reason to raise taxes on these people. Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, have one responsibility, and that's to respect the oath they gave to protect, defend and follow the US Constitution. [Applause] They don't have the right to take money that's not theirs, from the back pockets of producers, and give it to groups like ACORN, which are going to advance the Democrat Party. If anybody but government were doing this, it would be a crime. And many of us think it's bordering on that as it exists now. [Applause]
President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create anger in a created atmosphere of crisis, he is so busy fueling the emotions of class envy that he's forgotten it's not his money that he's spending. [Applause] In fact, the money he's spending is not ours. He's spending wealth that has yet to be created. And that is not sustainable. It will not work. This has been tried around the world. And every time it's been tried, it's a failed disaster. What's the longest war in American history? Did somebody say the war on poverty? Smart group. War on poverty. The war on poverty essentially started in the '30s as part of the New Deal, but it really ramped up in the '60s with Lyndon Johnson, part of the Great Society war on poverty. We have transferred something like 10 trillion, maybe close to 11 trillion, from producers and earners to nonproducers and nonearners since 1965. Yet, as I listen to the Democratic Party campaign, why, America is still a soup kitchen, the poor is still poor and they have no hope and they're poor for what reason? They're poor because of us, because we don't care, and because we've gotten rich by taking from them, that's what kids in school are taught today. That's what others have said to the media. You know why they're poor, you know why they remain poor? Because their lives have been destroyed by the never-ending government hay that's designed to help them, but it destroys ambition. It destroys the education they might get to learn to be self-fulfilling. [Applause]
And it breaks our heart. It breaks our heart. We lose track of numbers with all of the money, with all the money that's been transferred, redistributed, with all the charitable giving in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, there ought not be any poverty except those who are genuinely ill equipped. But most of the people in poverty in this country are equipped for far much more. They've just been beaten down. They're told don't worry, we'll take care of you. There's nothing out there for you anyway; you'll be discriminated against. Breaks our heart to see this. We can't have a great country and a growing economy with more and more people being told they have a right, because of some injustice that's been done to them or some discrimination, that they have a right to the earnings of others. And it's gotten so out of hand now that what worries me is that this administration, the Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it. George Will once asked Dr. Friedrich Von Hayek, tremendous classical economist, great man, 1975, George Will, Dr. Von Hayek, why is it that intellectuals, supposed smartest people in the room, why is it that intellectuals can look right out their windows, their own homes and cars and look at their universities and not see the bounties and the growth and the greatness of capitalism? And Von Hayek said: I've troubled over this for years and I've finally concluded that for intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, and all liberals, it's about control. It's not about raising revenue. You think Obama has any intention of paying for all this spending? Folks, if he had any intention of paying for it, he wouldn't do 90% of it because we don't have the money. [Applause]
They don't care about paying for it. All that's just words. All that's just rhetoric paying for it because he knows you have to worry about paying for it. He knows we all have to be concerned -- oh, except, wrong again. Except the words of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who were given homes that everybody knew they could never pay for, and now Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the architects along with Bill Clinton of the policy that gave us the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis, get to sit around and act as innocent spectators to investigate what went on when they largely had the biggest role in causing it. [Applause] Congressman Frank's definition of affordable housing is you get a house you don't have to pay for that everybody else in the neighborhood will pay for. Why? Because it's unfair that some people can have a house and some people can't. Geez, it's just unfair. So here we have two systems. We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism. Admittedly over on the right side capitalism there will be unequal outcomes because we're all different. And some of us care more and have more passion and we know what we want to do and others are still struggling for it. Some people are just going to work harder than others. Okay. You get what you work for. Those who have a genuine inability for whatever reason are taken care of. We're compassionate people. On the left side when you get into this collectivism socialism stuff, these people on the left, the Democrats and liberals today claim that they are pained by the inequities and the inequalities in our society. And they believe that these inequities and inequalities descend from the selfishness and the greed of the achievers. And so they tell the people who are on different income quintiles, whatever lists, they say it's not that you're not working hard enough, you could have what they have, perhaps, if you applied it. They're stealing it from you.
So what liberals do, and I say this again to the -- another thing, I know people in the country are watching. I was watching a focus group after some event this week. Might have been after Obama's State of the Union show. [Laughter] And they had -- it was a typical, you know, Drive-By Media focus group. They round up losers -- [Laughter] -- who hear Obama speak and think that the next day their gas tanks are going to be filled up and get a new house and a new kitchen and a new car. And so this one guy said -- oh, it was some guy responding to Bobby Jindal. Oh, by the way did you hear about Joe Biden? Joe Biden was mystified how Bobby Jindal got his shift off at 7-Eleven that night to make the speech. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Time out. Suspend speech for explanation. People watching at home. I'm glad this happened. Glad this happened. You think I just made a joke, an ethnic joke about Bobby Jindal, don't you? I didn't. I made a joke about the bigotry of the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. It was Joe Biden while walking through the train station he knows so well because he's such a real guy, that he made a comment that you can't go into a 7-Eleven without seeing some Indian guy behind the counter. They're all over the place. Now, let a conservative say something like that and he's brought up before John Conyers' committee with Pat Leahy wanting at you next. Many people think I lose my place in these speeches because -- by the way what time is it? We have plenty of time. We have to be out of here by -- [Applause]
We have to be out of here by 6:00 -- okay, depends on how you behave. I'll decide as we go on. What liberalism Democrat, for those of you in the country, I really want you to believe this because it's the truth. I'm not saying it just because I believe it. This is a core. I want the best country we can have. We want the most prosperous people. We want to be growing. We want to lead the world. We want everybody to come here legally. We want this country to be so damn great and we just cringe to watch it -- basically capitalism be assaulted and our culture be reoriented to where the people that make it work are the enemy. That's not the United States of America. The people that make this country work, the people who pay on their mortgages, the people getting up and going to work, striving in this recession to not participate in it, they're not the enemy. They're the people that hire you. They're the people that are going to give you a job. They're the people that are going to give you a raise, the people that need you to do work for them. [Applause]
President Obama, and take your pick of any Democrat, love to say we've tried it your way. Meaning Reaganism. We've tried it your way. We tried it your way in the '80s and it didn't work. We tried it your way eight years, the last eight years and it didn't work. Excuse me. Excuse me. Have you ever noticed those of you watching around the world in my first international address to the world, Fox is on some international satellites. They're watching this in the UK right now going (cringing). When Obama talks about past economies, he somehow always leaves out the recession of the '80s as worse than this one. Why does he leave it out? Because you know why he leaves it out, America? He leaves it out because we got out of that recession with tax cuts. [Applause] For those of you watching at home, I'm not nervous it's just really hot in here. These people are wired. We got out of the 1980s recession with tax cuts. Do you know that President Obama, in six weeks of his administration, has proposed more spending than from the founding of the country to his inauguration? Now, this is not prosperity. It is not going to engender prosperity. It's not going to create prosperity and it's also not going to advance or promote freedom. It's going to be just the opposite. There are going to be more controls over what you can and can't do, how you can and can't do it, what you can and can't drive, what you can and can't say, where you can and can't say it. All of these things are coming down the pike, because it's not about revenue generation to them, it's about control. They do believe that they have compassion. They do believe they care. But, see, we never are allowed to look at the results of their plans, we are told we must only look at their good intentions, their big hearts. The fact that they have destroyed poor families by breaking up those families by offering welfare checks to women to keep having babies no more father needed, he's out doing something, the government's the father, they destroy the family. We're not supposed to analyze that. We're not supposed to talk about that. We're supposed to talk about their good intentions. They destroy people's futures. The future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried, tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster. President Obama, your agenda is not new. It's not change, and it's not hope. [Applause]
Spending a nation into generational debt is not an act of compassion. All politicians, including President Obama, are temporary stewards of this nation. It is not their task to remake the founding of this country. It is not their task to tear it apart and rebuild it in their image. (Crowd chanting "USA")
It is not their task, it is not their right to remake this nation to accommodate their psychology. I sometimes wonder if liberalism is not just a psychosis or a psychology, not an ideology. It's so much about feelings, and the predominant feeling that liberalism is about is about feeling good about themselves and they do that by telling themselves they have all this compassion. You know, if you really want to unhinge a liberal it's hard to do because they're so unhinged now anyway, even after -- but all you have to do is say you know that the things you people do, the things you people believe in are cruel. That's the last way they look at themselves. They are the best people on the -- they're the good people. You tell them that their ideas and that their policies are cruel and the eggs start scrambling. I have learned how to tweak liberals everywhere. I do it instinctively now. Tweak them in the media. And no reason to be afraid of these people. Why in the world would you be afraid of the deranged? There really is no reason to be afraid of them. And there's no reason to assume they're the minority. And there's no reason to let them set all the premises and all the agendas to which we respond to. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself here but everybody asks me and I'm sure it's been a focal point of your convention: What do we do as conservatives? What do we do? How do we overcome this? Well, the one thing, and there are many, but one thing that we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas right now. I don't want to name any names. It's not the point.
But I talk to people about the Obama budget or the Obama Porkulous bill or whatever else TARP 2 whatever it's going to be, and they start talking to me in the terms of process and policy. I say stop it. What do you mean? Who is setting the process or policy? They are. You want to tweak it? No. This is philosophy, folks. This guy, I forgot -- the guy in the focus group after Bobby Jindal said, I didn't want to hear him talk, he said: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans and Democrats. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America, that's exactly what your future is about, who wins, Republicans or Democrats, conservatives versus liberals. The notion of partisanship, false premise. Let me define bipartisanship for you. Bipartisanship -- everybody seems to go orgasmic over the concept of bipartisanship. Don't worry, I checked with Fox, that word's okay. [Laughter] [Applause]
Remember, they covered the Lewinsky thing, so that's my -- bipartisanship occurs only after one other result, and that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives liberals demand that we be bipartisan with them in Congress. What they mean is: We check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show and agree with them. That's bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them. And that has to be what we're focused on. [Applause] Why would any of us in this room who hold the core beliefs we believe, somebody tell me where is the compromise on all of this spending? Where is the compromise on all this punishment of the achievers. I don't know. [Laughter] [Applause]
Where is the compromise between good and evil? Should Jesus have cut a different deal? Serious. From the standpoint of what we have to do, folks, this is not about taking a policy or a process that the Democrats have put forward and fighting around the edges. If we're going to convince the minds and hearts of the American people that what's about to happen to them is as disastrous as anything in their lives in peacetime, we're going to have to discuss philosophy with them. We are going to have to talk about principles, because our principles are not present in what's happening here. So where the hell do we go to compromise what we believe in when our principles are not their principles, they're just the opposite of what's happening? [Applause]
The American people -- it's a tough challenge. I admit -- I admit it's a tough challenge, but it's worth it. It's worth it. The way I just defined bipartisanship you could turn it around and liberals will define bipartisanship when we surrender and say okay we give. We're not quitting. We are not giving up. The country is too important. [Applause] There are certain realities. We don't have the votes in Capitol Hill to stop what's going to happen. What we can do is slow it down, procedure, parliamentary procedures, slow it down and do the best we can to inform the American people of what's really on the horizon. I know it's going to be tough. At some points, I don't think it can happen even right now. This is still the honeymoon period, and there's a lot of devotion to the Obama administration. It doesn't have anything to do with intellectual thinking, it's feelings. It's going to take some time for this to play out. But I spoke to David Keene, interviewing him for my newsletter. I asked him about this. He said they're going to overreach. Wouldn't you say they have? [Laughter].
They're going to overreach. At some point, at some point people have got to realize none of this is possible. You can't have people living in homes they don't pay for. You can't have people driving cars they don't pay for. I mean, you can for a while. But after a while the people paying for it -- screw this. We're not putting up with it. And you're going to see -- you're already starting to see evidence of these. All the tea parties that are starting to bubble up out there. Those are great. Fabulous. [Applause] And here's the big question. Here's the big question. And I ask this again in the context of my first address to the nation. [Laughter] You don't know how I love saying that, how excited I am about this. Aside from the bastardization of the Constitution that the Obama plans are, that TARP is, it's not constitutional. Aside from that, where is the evidence that the people offering all of this have ever succeeded in any similar plans before? There's none. There is no evidence it works. [Applause]
So you say how is he getting it done? Dumb down public education. Emotions. And the ongoing -- this is why I think it's such a waste for a man as gifted as President Obama with the communications skills, you know he could wipe out the Republican Party. He can wipe out the Republican Party if he would inspire this country to be the best it could be, but we don't have to worry about that because that's not what he wants. He wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing the worst each and every day because that clears the decks for President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers, which are abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn't matter. They'll have control of it when it's all over. And that's what they want. Because they think they can do it better. They see these inequalities, these inequities that capitalism produces. How do they fix it? Do they try to elevate those at the bottom? No! They try to tear down the people at the bottom. It's not fair you're up there. So they whack us. That's not what made the country great.[Applause] And no evidence of it is in play here. John Kerry [Boos], who served in Vietnam. [Laughter] Think about this, and, by the way, Barney Frank got involved with this, too. Northern Trust, a bank in Chicago -- by the way, which holds the mortgage to the Messiah's house, purchased by Tony Rezko, Northern Trust holds the mortgage. Northern Trust was forced, like Wells Fargo was forced, to take TARP money. The Wells Fargo CEO said they were taken into Paulson's room and they were given until 5:00 to sign it. They weren't getting out until they did. They wanted it spread all over the banking business. 17.35.34 Northern Trust was in there. They didn't want it. They took $1.6 billion. As you know, they went out and they sponsored the LA Riveria Open two weeks ago that Phil Mickelson barely hung on and won. [Applause]
And we find out they hired some liberals to entertain, but it still wasn't good enough. They hired Sheryl Crow. And they hired the rock crooner group Chicago, but they had the audacity, Northern Trust did, to entertain their clients, to try to reward their best customers, to get new customers, banking is in trouble, Northern Trust is trying to do what they always do, what all businesses do, and that is mine for new clients and reward existing good customers. Not since they took $1.6 billion, I guess. The haughty John Kerry wrote a piece of legislation said: He's getting sick and tired, sick and tired of these CEOs using taxpayer money to throw all these lavish parties. And I'm saying where do you get yours, Senator? [Applause] Sad thing, sad thing is it works. They've created class envy in so many average Americans that they love hearing that. Yeah, you get even with those bank guys. How is it going to improve here? Let me ask a question for those of you watching my first national address. Take the favorite villain you've got, maybe it's John Thain at Merrill Lynch, because he used his own money, his company's own money, his company's own money, to redecorate a bathroom in an office for $1.2 million. By the way, to do that he had to hire a contractor. They got paid. Had to hire a designer and buy furniture, that's called stimulus. And he did it. But all of a sudden John Thain's thrown out. John Thain is thrown out. He's humiliated and embarrassed; how dare he? He did it a year before they took the TARP money. And all these Congressmen are standing up saying this is not going to happen. We are not going to watch these people capping executive pay while Obama tries to live like one. You know, he's trying to emulate the lifestyle he is attacking. That's what liberals do. Two sets of rules: One for them; one for everybody else. But it's coming. See, if you think that John Thain or the Northern Trust CEO, if you love them getting attacked, if you love them being ripped, ask yourself the next day, do you have any more money in your pocket? Is your life any better because that guy got taken out or down by some haughty senator from Massachusetts?
If you ask yourself this, you'll realize your life is no better off. That the Democrats and Obama are asking you to feel better simply on the basis that they're going to get revenge for you, but your life isn't going to improve, somebody else's is just going to be destroyed and they want you to be happy over that. That's sick. And that is not the United States of America. [Applause] Besides, as far as John Kerry is concerned, if it wasn't for his varicose veins, he would be totally colorless. [Laughter] 17.39.13 Now let's talk about the conservative movement as it were. We, ladies and gentlemen, have challenges that are part and parcel of a movement that feels it has just suffered a humiliating defeat when it's not humiliating. This wasn't a landslide victory, 52 to, what, 46. Fifty-eight million people voted against Obama. There would have been more if we would have had a conservative nominee. [Applause]
I don't mean that -- I mean that in an instructive way, as a lead-in to what I'm talking about here. No humiliating defeat here. I can't -- sometimes I get livid and angry. We do have an organizational problem. We have a challenge. We've got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and worst of all to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn't need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is and it is forever. It's not something you can bend and shape and flake and form. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. 17. For the purposes of this occasion, I'm not going to mention any names, I bet with you I won't have to. People watching my first address to the nation might be curious what I'm talking about. They'll find out in due course, trust me on this. I cringed -- it might have been 2007, late 2007 or sometime during 2008, but a couple of prominent conservative but Beltway establishment media types began to write on the concept that the era of Reagan is over. [Crowd Booing]
And that we needed to adapt our appeal, because, after all, what's important in politics is winning elections. And so we have to understand that the American people, they want Big Government. We just have to find a way to tell them we're no longer opposed to that. We will come up with our own version of it that is wiser and smarter, but we've got to go get the Walmart voter, and we've got to get the Hispanic voter, and we've got to get the recalcitrant independent women. And I'm listening to this and I am just apoplectic: The era of Reagan is over? When the hell do you hear a Democrat say the era of FDR is over? You never hear it. Not only that, the President of the United States today thinks he's FDR, thinks he's Abraham Lincoln, and sometimes, Tuesday night, thinks he's Ronald Reagan. Our own movement has members trying to throw Reagan out while the Democrats know they can't accomplish what they want unless they appeal to Reagan voters. We have got to stamp this out within this movement, because it will tear us apart. It will guarantee we lose elections. [Applause]
We have to. You see, to me it's a no-brainer. It's not even something to me: How do you get rid of Reagan from conservatism? The blueprint -- the blueprint for landslide conservative victory is right there. Why in the hell do the smartest people in our room want to chuck it? I know why. I know exactly why. It's because they're embarrassed of some of the people who call themselves conservatives. These people in New York and Washington, cocktail elitists, they get made fun of when the next NASCAR race is on TV and their cocktail buds come up to them, those people are in your party? How do you put up with this? It would be easy to throw them overboard, so as to maintain these cocktail party/Beltway/New York City/inside-the-Beltway media relationships. 17.44.01 But I tell you: This notion that Reaganism is dead, conservatism needs to be refined, let's take a look at this. We've got to go get the Walmart voter. I opened my remarks tonight by telling the people watching on Fox who we conservatives are. When I look out at you in this audience, I don't see a Walmart voter. And I don't see a black, and I don't see a woman, and I don't see a Hispanic. I see human beings who happen to be fortunate enough to be the luckiest people on Earth since you are Americans. [Applause]
Conservatism -- for us to make the decision that we've got to figure out policies, to get the Walmart voter -- psst, we've got most of them already, is the bottom line. Conservatism is a universal set of core principles. You don't check principles at the door. This is a battle that we're going to have. And there are egos involved here, too. When the situation like ours exists, there are people who want to lead it. They want to redefine it. Their egos are such that they want to be the next X, whoever it is. So there will be different factions lining up to try to define what conservatism is.
And beware of those different factions who seek as part of their attempt to redefine conservatism, as making sure the liberals like us, making sure that the media likes us. They never will, as long as we remain conservatives. They can't possibly like us; they're our enemy. In a political arena of ideas, they're our enemy. They think we need to be defeated. Why do you think -- you all in this room know this. For those of you watching at home, my first address to the nation -- [Laughter] -- I'm sure you paid close enough attention, that you knew at one time Senator McCain was the favorite Republican of all the cable news networks and the Sunday shows. And they would just -- I mean their tongues would be on the floor. The media people (panting) when they knew McCain was coming. And they would treat McCain as the greatest guy in the world. Did you wonder why? You were told he was moderate. He was not strict. He was not an authoritarian, he was able to walk to the other side of the aisle, able to get along with the enemy. And everybody wants love and bipartisanship. That's not why they invited Senator McCain. They invited Senator McCain because he happened to be the loudest at criticizing his own president and his own party and that's what they want, is people from our side -- and there will be factions in our movement, folks, who are going to make an effort to say we have to grow, we can't stay stale, I think I heard the term used the other day. Nothing stale about freedom. There's nothing stale about liberty. There's nothing stale about fighting for it. Nothing stale whatsoever. [Applause] Freedom. Are you getting tired of standing up, I don't blame you. By the way for those watching on TV you think the standing -- people are just tired. They've been up and out of their chairs 100 times here. [Applause]
Thank you. Freedom -- freedom is the natural yearning of the human spirit as we were endowed by our creator. And the United States of America is the place in the world where that yearning flourishes, where freedom is expected because it's part of the way we're created.
I loved it when the Soviet Union went down and the wall went down and the liberals in our country said you know they may not be ready for freedom over there. They've been oppressed -- yes, liberals will gladly tell you who can have freedom and who can't. And that's what the pieces of legislation are all about, folks, freedom, liberty, economic prosperity, they're all entwined here. We'll have to as a conservative movement understand that our job, after we come to an agreement among ourselves, which shouldn't be hard but it's going to be difficult because the people that think they're smarter than everybody else are going to be out there forging alliances with people that try to make themselves look like new power brokers, and they will become the spokesmen, by the way. By the way, explain that to you. This is a funny story. Show you how I can hijack a news cycle even by doing anything. The Tuesday before the inauguration, President Bush invited me to the Oval Office for lunch. And it was on and off the record, some of the conversations. And he brought out, interesting, at the end of it -- my birthday had been the day before. He brought out a chocolate birthday cake, a microphone, and stood beside me with Ed Gillespie and sang happy birthday. Photographers taking pictures. I wish my parents were alive. My parents wouldn't believe my life. They came out of the Great Depression. They didn't think it was possible for somebody who did not go to college -- and even for people who did -- they didn't think this was possible. Life has changed so much for the better in this country.
That's why I cringe when I see what is in store. So as I'm flying home from lunch, I'm watching television and I see that the word has leaked out that Obama is hosting a dinner with conservative media pundits at the home of George Will. I said: I wonder who these people are? [Laughter] In the media, one of them is going to have to leak it. Sure as heck, one did. Now, we all know who were there. And let's see -- I can't remember all the names, so I won't mention any. But let me tell you Obama's purpose. Does anybody really think that Barack Obama had dinner with a bunch of conservatives hoping they would change his mind?
CROWD: No!
RUSH: Hell, no. His purpose -- and his purpose really wasn't to change theirs -- his purpose was to anoint them as conservative spokesmen. These are the people that Obama's willing to break bread with. These happen -- some of the people there happen to be the people who think the era of Reagan is over, who believe that conservatism needs to be redefined. Of course Obama would try to lure them in. Well, all of a sudden I land. I get home about 5:00, and my e-mail is jammed with questions from reporters, are you, is that why you took the day off today? Is that why you're not on the air? Are you going to dinner with Obama? By the way, I left out a crucial part of the story. Was this a Monday, Kit? It was a Tuesday. I had forgotten to tell my audience that I was going to miss the next day. I signed off the show saying I'll see you tomorrow. That's the last thing I said. The staff reminded me you're not going to be here tomorrow. I came up with a plan, that the guest host the next day would say that I was called out of town to Washington at midnight the night before. Just an innocent little trick on the radio audience. Everybody picked that up and thinks I'm invited to the Obama dinner. So those people that were invited to it got less coverage than I did and I didn't even know about it. [Laughter] It was fun. [Applause]
Conservatives are naturally happy. We seek happiness. We pursue it. It's part of who we are. So what can you do? Live your life. I swear, folks, you do not know in just the everyday life that you live in your homes, your neighborhoods, the favorite word of this administration, your "communities." Remember the root word there is "commune." [Applause] Be happy, live your life according to your values and principles. Know you're going to fail, no human being is perfect, you're going to make mistakes, but live your life -- you'll be stunned at how many people you impress. Don't be afraid to tell children that they're wrong. They don't know what you do. They simply haven't lived long enough. It's not their fault, but they're being fed a bunch of garbage in school and don't be afraid to tell them that they're wrong. Don't go the Oprah route and say gotta be friends with my parents, my kids, first and foremost. Understand they're going to hate you for a while and they're going to rebel against you and someday they're going to think you're the smartest person they ever met. But you owe them the truth. You owe them the truth about things. You owe them the truth about morality. You owe them the truth about values. [Applause]
You owe them the truth about politics. Next thing, we've got to stop treating voters as children. [Applause]
Somebody says they want something that's bad for them, do you give it to them just to be nice? Or do you tell them, regardless of their age, no, you shouldn't have that? Well, it's none of your business. Maybe not. And then you back out of it. But you still have to have the ability to tell people what's right and wrong. And that's not authoritative. That's not authoritarian. And it's not trying to deny somebody a good time. It's not trying to interrupt somebody's hedonism, pleasure, it's about all of us with shared values trying to make sure that people live the highest quality lives they can. Ultimately, it's their decision as to what they do. But the point is, don't treat them -- especially voters -- as kids just -- they say they want it okay we'll come up with a plan to give it to you. Have any of you seen the movie -- I'd never heard of it, but I happened to get a DVD the other day. Anybody see the movie Swing Vote with Kevin Costner? You know, it's kind of a moronic movie like most things out of Hollywood are. But this is fascinating in the way -- tell you a short story, because a voter screwup in New Mexico there's one voter who is going to elect the president. His vote didn't count because his daughter voted for him. I won't give the whole story away. But New Mexico's electoral votes, New Mexico's electoral votes determined it. And they have a two-week period before this guy can vote again. So the challenger and the president both relocate to where this guy lives in New Mexico and they end up like the Democrat played by Dennis Hopper stands for antiabortion.
The Democrat candidate comes out with a commercial for life. The Republican candidate comes out, because this guy is an idiot and doesn't know what he believes, and every utterance that he makes these politicians react to it throwing their principles on the floor, just to get his vote. Sadly, this is what some of the conservative intellectuals in our movement want to do, essentially. And that we cannot do. We've got to stand for what we believe and treat people as adults and understand they can learn. [Applause]
Go optimism. Joe Biden, ladies and gentlemen, was watching CBS -- when did you start here? Thursday. You might have seen this. The days run together. It might have been Wednesday, but Biden was on the CBS Early Show. And he was asked -- the anchorette -- sorry. I'm trying to change my ways. I've been doing women summit programs so not to offend women. The anchor, Maggie Rodriguez, went out and got some man-on-the-street questions. And one guy, woman, I think question for Biden. What is in the stimulus package for small business? Biden was clearly stumped because there isn't anything in the stimulus package for small business. So what Biden said, honest to God, what Biden said was: Well, if there's a bridge to your small business, we're going to make sure that bridge stays open so that you can get to your small business and your customers -- honest. I kid you not. Now, of course, the media today is a bunch of hacks, they're out there as PR agents; they're starting to get a little embarrassed. Maggie Rodriguez says, Senator Biden, there's a website that answers all these questions. What is the name of the website and Biden says I don't know. He looks off stage. "Does somebody have the website number?" [Applause]
I realize those of you watching at home during my first address to the nation, you have never heard liberal Democrats be made fun of in this way. Get used to it. [Applause]
Two other things and we'll get out of here contractually over time. The president's stimulus package, the TARP, the whatever, the budget, relies on one thing for its success. Well, aside from authoritarian government power. It relies on the complacency of the American people. It relies on their belief that they can convince the American people that there's such a crisis that only government, the only entity that can fix it is government, as Obama has said. So they get complacent and they sit around and they wait. See, this is something liberals will never understand about the United States of America and it's right under their noses, right in front of their faces, we are a competitive people. We strive, enough of us do, to be the best. We strive to win. We strive to avoid defeat. Enough of us still do. Don't believe otherwise. The liberals have made efforts to shut that aspect of our nature down. Wherever you live, I am certain that you, when you were a child or your kids today in youth sports are told not to keep score, because the losers, it's just not fair. They'd be humiliated, especially if one girl's basketball team can defeat another one 100 to nothing. And let's fire the coach who put that game together. It's so unfair. So let's not keep score. Well, here's the dirty little secret. The kids are keeping score. [Applause] You know they are. They don't want to lose. They know what winning and losing is. They're saying, well, why go out there and put on the pads and play football or T-Ball if the objective here is to not keep score. So they're keeping score. They get in the car with mom and dad and they tell mom and dad: Yeah, we kicked their butts tonight. Wait a minute, I thought you weren't keeping score. They weren't officially. They keep score. We're competitive people. Adults are doing the same thing.
It didn't take long for people to get fired up when they figured out that they're going to be paying mortgages for people who should never have been lent money in the first place for the bogus excuse of maintaining property values in the neighborhood. This is something that -- the complacency of the American people is something they're going to rely on along with their authoritarian efforts to control it. But they will not succeed at this. Because we're not quitters. We don't acquiesce. We're not going to give up the American dream and watch idly while it is restructured and transformed. [Applause]
As I say, we want the best: Happiness for everybody. Now, about my still-to-me mysteriously controversial comment that I hope President Obama fails. I was watching the Super Bowl. And as you know, I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. [Cheers and Applause] So they have this miraculous scoring drive that puts them up by four, 15 seconds left. Kurt Warner on the field for the Cardinals. And I sure as heck want you to know I hope he failed. I did not want the Cardinals to win. I wanted Warner to make the biggest fool of himself possible. I wanted a sack, I wanted anything. I wanted the Steelers to win. I wanted to win. I wanted the Cardinals to fail. This notion that I want the President to fail, folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we've got. That's nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it, why in the world do I want what we just described, rampant government growth indebtedness, wealth that's not even being created yet that is being spent, what is in this? What possibly is in this that anybody of us wants to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war on Iraq to fail!
CROWD: Yes!
RUSH: They certainly did. They not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail, they proclaimed it a failure. There's Dingy Harry Reid waiving a white flag: [doing Harry Reid impression] "This war is lost. This war is" --
[Cheers and Applause]
They called General Petraeus a liar before he even testified. Mrs. Clinton -- [Crowd Booing] -- said she had to, willingly suspend disbelief in order to listen to Petraeus. We're in the process of winning the war. The last thing they wanted was to win. They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest to say that I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? [Applause]
Let me add a caveat here. My friends, I know what's going on. I know what's going on. We're in the aspects here of an historic presidency. I know that. But let me be honest again. I got over the historical aspects of this in November. President Obama is our president. President Obama stands for certain things. I don't care, he could be a Martian. He could be from Michigan, I don't know -- just kidding. Doesn't matter to me what his race is. It doesn't matter. He's liberal is what matters to me. And his articulated -- his articulated plans scare me. Now, I understand we can't say we want the President to fail, Mr. Limbaugh. That's like saying -- this is the voice of the New Castrati, by the way, guys who have lost their guts. You can't say Mr. Limbaugh that you want the President to fail because that's like saying you want the country to fail. It's the opposite. I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed. [Cheers and Applause]
[Crowd Chanting "USA" ] I want the country to survive as we have known it, as you and I were raised in it, is what I mean. Now, I have been called -- and I can take it. Pioneers take the arrows, I don't mind what anybody says about me, any time ever. I don't have time for it. I don't give other people the power to offend me. And you shouldn't either, by the wasted time being offended.[Applause]
I mean, there's some people you can't say you want the President to fail. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, the Democrat Party has actively not just sought the failure of Republican presidents and policies and now wars for the first time, the Democrat Party doesn't stop at failure. Talk to Judge Robert Bork or Justice Clarence Thomas about how they tried to destroy lives, reputations and character, and I'm supposed to say I don't want the President to fail? [Applause] We're in for a real battle. We are talking about the United States of America -- and there will always be an America, don't misunderstand me -- we're talking about it remaining the country we were all born into and reared and grown into. And it's under assault. It's always under assault. But it's never been under assault like this from within before. And it's a serious, serious battle. So as you leave here, as you leave here optimism, confidence, not guilt, it's not worth it. There's nothing to be guilty about. Don't treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there's a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves. They'll think they're smart that they figured it out. Who cares how you persuade them, the fact they can be persuaded is factually correct, it's possible. But the main thing to do here is stop thinking that we are a minority. Stop thinking that it is being in the minority that liberates you. It is your beliefs. It is your core principles, it is your confidence that liberates you. It's not being in the minority. In fact, for those of you watching my first national address and still hanging in there, we really are not that happy about being a minority and we're out to change it. [Applause]
So I have -- I've gone over my allotted time by an hour. [Applause]
I want to thank all of you so much for everything that you have meant to me and my family in my life.
CROWD: Thank you.
RUSH: I understand it's mutual. And I hear people -- you have made my heart grow so much that it barely fits in my chest cavity here tonight. But the things that by virtue of your listening to my radio show and being active in this movement that we all cherish and love, you have meant more to me, my family and my life than whatever it is I might mean to you, even though I know that's considerable. [Applause]
You still can't outdo the absolute joy and awe and thanks I feel for all of you. I've been doing this for 20 years and the numbers just keep growing. And I can't tell you how appreciative I am and proud to be in a movement with the same passions, desires and core beliefs that all of you have, because we know that it's right for the country, and we know it's right for people. It's not something that has to be forced on them. It's not something that has to be authoritatively pressed on them. We are what is, and that's why we are an enemy because we're effective. The people that do want control look at us as the enemy. We're always going to be -- don't ever measure your success by how many Drive-By Media reports you see that are fair to us. Never going to happen. Don't measure your success by how many people like you. Just worry about how they vote. And then at the end of the day how they live, but that's really none of your business once they close the doors. Thank you all very much. It's been great.
RUSH: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you all. I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. It happens everywhere I go, but it's still special here. [ Laughter ] If you all will indulge me, I learned something, I guess, it's early Friday morning that I didn't know. Friday morning is when I learned this. I learned that Fox, God love them, is televising this speech on the Fox News Channel, which means, ladies and gentleman, this is my first ever address to the nation. [Applause] Now, I have someone in back taking phone numbers. In fact, I would like to introduce to you my security chief, a man who runs all of my security. His name is Joseph Stalin. Joseph, would you please --
[Laughter ] I am safe from any liberal attack, in public, because they would be afraid of offending Stalin.
[Laughter] Now the opportunity here to address the nation, a serious one, it really is. And I want to take it seriously. I want to address something. I know that people are probably watching this who never have listened to my program and may not even really know what conservatism is. They think they do based on how they've been told -- the way we've been impugned and maligned and so forth. One of the things that is totally erroneous about me -- and I just want to get this up front -- is that I'm pompous. [Laughter] And that I am arrogant. Neither of these things are remotely true. I can tell you a joke to illustrate this. Larry King passed away, goes to heaven. He's greeted by Saint Peter at the gates. Saint Peter says, "Welcome, Mr. King, it's great to have you here. I want to show you around, give you an idea of what's here, maybe you can pick a place that you'd like to reside." King says, "I just have one question: Is Rush Limbaugh here?" "No, he's got a lot of time yet, Mr. King." So Saint Peter begins the tour. Larry King sees the various places and it's beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty. Finally, he gets to the biggest room of all, with this giant throne. And over the throne is a flashing beautiful angelic neon sign that says "Rush Limbaugh."
[Laughter] And Larry King looks at Saint Peter and says: "I thought you said he wasn't here." "He said, he's not, he's not. This is God's room. He just thinks he's Rush Limbaugh."
[Laughter] [Applause] So you see I'm not pompous.
[Laughter] Now, seriously, for those of you watching on C-SPAN as well, and on Fox, I want to tell you who we all are in this room. I want to tell you who conservatives are. We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people know. What they know is largely incorrect based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the Drive-By Media, by the Democrat Party. Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause]
When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [Applause]
We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
We don't want to tell anybody how to live. That's up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we'll try to stop it, but it's a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause] We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we're all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we're all the same, that we're no different than anybody else. We're all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That's up to them. They are created equal, given the chance - -[Applause] We don't hate anybody. We don't -- I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience -- let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. [Applause]
It was not us asking whether Barack Obama was authentic. What we were asking is: Is he wrong? We concluded, yes. We still think so. But we didn't ask if he was authentically black. We didn't say, as some Southern Christian Leadership Conference leaders said: Barack is not authentic, he's not got any slave blood. He's really not down for the struggle, but his wife is. So don't expect the race industry to go away. Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- you may not know this, because it wasn't reported in the Drive-By Media -- the racism, the sexism, the bigotry that we're all charged with, just so you across the United States of America know, and you'll see demonstrated here as the afternoon goes on, doesn't exist on our side. We want everybody to succeed. [Applause] You know why? We want the country to succeed, and for the country to succeed, its people -- its individuals -- must succeed. Everyone among us must be pursuing his ambition or her desire, whatever, with excellence. Trying to be the best they can be. Not told, as they are told by the Democrat Party: You really can't do that, you don't have what it takes, besides you're a minority or you're a woman and there are too many people that want to discriminate against you. You can't get anywhere. You need to depend on us. Well. Take a look, someone has to say this -- I am thrilled for the opportunity to say it in my first national address to the nation -- and I'm going to touch on this in more detail in a moment, but this is just to get you thinking -- take a look at all the constituency groups that for 50 years have been depending on the Democrat Party to improve their lives. And you tell me if you find any. They're still complaining, still griping about the same problems. Their problems don't get fixed by government. And those lives have been poisoned. Those lives have been cut short by false promises, from government representatives who said don't worry about it, we'll take care of you. Just vote for us. [Applause]
For those of you just tuning in on the Fox News Channel or C-SPAN, I'm Rush Limbaugh and I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed. I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed. And I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching Big Government that would stop your success, I want that organization, that element or that person to fail. I want you to succeed. [Applause] Also, for those of you in the Drive-By Media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I've said. [Cheers and Applause ]
And nor do any of us need a teleprompter, because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances. Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology. Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don't have to make notes about what we believe. We don't have to write down, oh do I believe it do I believe that we can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads and we can do it with passion and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively. Some of us just haven't had the inspiration or motivation to do so in a number of years, but that's about to change. [Cheers and Applause] For example, we gather here -- I understand that. I talked to David and Lisa in the super exclusive private green room that nobody, but about 55 people were allowed into, and they said that there's a sense of liberation here among all of you that are attending CPAC. I understand what the sense of liberation is about. But don't make the mistake at the same time of feeling liberated as thinking we're better and we can do better as a minority. Because we're not a minority. And if you start thinking of yourselves as a minority, you're going to be defensive. And you'll allow the majority to set the agenda and the premise and you're responding to it. The American people may not all vote the way we wish them to, but more Americans than you now live their lives as conservatives in one degree or another. And they are waiting for leadership. We need conservative leadership. We can take this country back. All we need is to nominate the right candidate. It's no more complicated than that. [Applause]
Now, let me speak about President Obama for just a second. President Obama is one of the most gifted politicians, one of the most gifted men that I have ever witnessed. He has extraordinary talents. He has communication skills that hardly anyone can surpass. No, seriously. No, no, I'm being very serious about this. It just breaks my heart that he does not use these extraordinary talents and gifts to motivate and inspire the American people to be the best they can be. He's doing just the opposite. And it's a shame. [Applause]
President Obama has the ability -- he has the ability to inspire excellence in people's pursuits. He has the ability to do all this, yet he pursues a path, seeks a path that punishes achievement, that punishes earners and punishes -- and he speaks negatively of the country. Ronald Reagan used to speak of a shining city on a hill. Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure. He's constantly telling the American people that bad times are ahead, worst times are ahead. And it's troubling, because this is the United States of America. Anybody ever ask -- I'm in awe of our country and I ask this question a lot as I've gotten older. We're less than 300 years old. We are younger than nations that have been on this planet for thousands of years. We, nevertheless, in less than 300 years -- by the way, we're no different than any other human beings around the world. Our DNA is no different. We're not better just because we're born in America. There's nothing that sets us apart. How did this happen? How did the United States of America become the world's lone super power, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it? It saddens me. The freedom we spoke of earlier is the freedom, it's the ambition, it's the desire, the wherewithal, the passions that people have that gave us the great entrepreneurial advances, the great inventions, the greatest food production, the human lifestyle advances in this country. Why shouldn't that be rewarded? Why is that now the focus of punishment? Why is that now the focus of blame? Why doesn't -- Mayor Bloomberg the other day, ladies and gentlemen, resisting his Governor's call for an increased tax on the rich in New York had some astounding numbers. Eight million people live in New York. 40,000 of those eight million pay roughly 60 to 70% of New York's operating budget. He was afraid that if he raised taxes on those people some of them might leave. Mayor, one already has, by the way. [Applause]
Stop and think of this, though. Stop and think of this. Forty thousand people out of eight million. He's right, if 10,000 of them leave, or 5,000, they've got a huge problem. Because New York has its own welfare state inside the one the federal government's created. They've got a dependency class that has grown up and been educated that their entitlement is to be fed and taken care of by these evil mean people who have more than they do. If New York City, New York State or Washington, DC were a business, these 40,000 people would be taken on golf tournament trips to Los Angeles, and they would be wined and dined and they would be thanked and they would be encouraged to keep it up. They wouldn't be told they're the problem. They wouldn't be told, except there's -- I pride my accuracy rating. There is one other business where the customer is always wrong and that's the media. Sorry about that. [Applause]
Have you ever called to complain about whatever they do? They say, yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full. They hang up and say you're too stupid to know how they're doing what they're doing. You can't get it. You're not sophisticated enough. So that's another business where the customer is always wrong. But, seriously, the people who have achieved great things, most of it is not inherited. Most wealth in this country is the result of entrepreneurial, just plain old hard work. There's no reason to punish it. There's no reason to raise taxes on these people. Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, have one responsibility, and that's to respect the oath they gave to protect, defend and follow the US Constitution. [Applause] They don't have the right to take money that's not theirs, from the back pockets of producers, and give it to groups like ACORN, which are going to advance the Democrat Party. If anybody but government were doing this, it would be a crime. And many of us think it's bordering on that as it exists now. [Applause]
President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create anger in a created atmosphere of crisis, he is so busy fueling the emotions of class envy that he's forgotten it's not his money that he's spending. [Applause] In fact, the money he's spending is not ours. He's spending wealth that has yet to be created. And that is not sustainable. It will not work. This has been tried around the world. And every time it's been tried, it's a failed disaster. What's the longest war in American history? Did somebody say the war on poverty? Smart group. War on poverty. The war on poverty essentially started in the '30s as part of the New Deal, but it really ramped up in the '60s with Lyndon Johnson, part of the Great Society war on poverty. We have transferred something like 10 trillion, maybe close to 11 trillion, from producers and earners to nonproducers and nonearners since 1965. Yet, as I listen to the Democratic Party campaign, why, America is still a soup kitchen, the poor is still poor and they have no hope and they're poor for what reason? They're poor because of us, because we don't care, and because we've gotten rich by taking from them, that's what kids in school are taught today. That's what others have said to the media. You know why they're poor, you know why they remain poor? Because their lives have been destroyed by the never-ending government hay that's designed to help them, but it destroys ambition. It destroys the education they might get to learn to be self-fulfilling. [Applause]
And it breaks our heart. It breaks our heart. We lose track of numbers with all of the money, with all the money that's been transferred, redistributed, with all the charitable giving in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, there ought not be any poverty except those who are genuinely ill equipped. But most of the people in poverty in this country are equipped for far much more. They've just been beaten down. They're told don't worry, we'll take care of you. There's nothing out there for you anyway; you'll be discriminated against. Breaks our heart to see this. We can't have a great country and a growing economy with more and more people being told they have a right, because of some injustice that's been done to them or some discrimination, that they have a right to the earnings of others. And it's gotten so out of hand now that what worries me is that this administration, the Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it. George Will once asked Dr. Friedrich Von Hayek, tremendous classical economist, great man, 1975, George Will, Dr. Von Hayek, why is it that intellectuals, supposed smartest people in the room, why is it that intellectuals can look right out their windows, their own homes and cars and look at their universities and not see the bounties and the growth and the greatness of capitalism? And Von Hayek said: I've troubled over this for years and I've finally concluded that for intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, and all liberals, it's about control. It's not about raising revenue. You think Obama has any intention of paying for all this spending? Folks, if he had any intention of paying for it, he wouldn't do 90% of it because we don't have the money. [Applause]
They don't care about paying for it. All that's just words. All that's just rhetoric paying for it because he knows you have to worry about paying for it. He knows we all have to be concerned -- oh, except, wrong again. Except the words of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who were given homes that everybody knew they could never pay for, and now Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the architects along with Bill Clinton of the policy that gave us the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis, get to sit around and act as innocent spectators to investigate what went on when they largely had the biggest role in causing it. [Applause] Congressman Frank's definition of affordable housing is you get a house you don't have to pay for that everybody else in the neighborhood will pay for. Why? Because it's unfair that some people can have a house and some people can't. Geez, it's just unfair. So here we have two systems. We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism. Admittedly over on the right side capitalism there will be unequal outcomes because we're all different. And some of us care more and have more passion and we know what we want to do and others are still struggling for it. Some people are just going to work harder than others. Okay. You get what you work for. Those who have a genuine inability for whatever reason are taken care of. We're compassionate people. On the left side when you get into this collectivism socialism stuff, these people on the left, the Democrats and liberals today claim that they are pained by the inequities and the inequalities in our society. And they believe that these inequities and inequalities descend from the selfishness and the greed of the achievers. And so they tell the people who are on different income quintiles, whatever lists, they say it's not that you're not working hard enough, you could have what they have, perhaps, if you applied it. They're stealing it from you.
So what liberals do, and I say this again to the -- another thing, I know people in the country are watching. I was watching a focus group after some event this week. Might have been after Obama's State of the Union show. [Laughter] And they had -- it was a typical, you know, Drive-By Media focus group. They round up losers -- [Laughter] -- who hear Obama speak and think that the next day their gas tanks are going to be filled up and get a new house and a new kitchen and a new car. And so this one guy said -- oh, it was some guy responding to Bobby Jindal. Oh, by the way did you hear about Joe Biden? Joe Biden was mystified how Bobby Jindal got his shift off at 7-Eleven that night to make the speech. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Time out. Suspend speech for explanation. People watching at home. I'm glad this happened. Glad this happened. You think I just made a joke, an ethnic joke about Bobby Jindal, don't you? I didn't. I made a joke about the bigotry of the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. It was Joe Biden while walking through the train station he knows so well because he's such a real guy, that he made a comment that you can't go into a 7-Eleven without seeing some Indian guy behind the counter. They're all over the place. Now, let a conservative say something like that and he's brought up before John Conyers' committee with Pat Leahy wanting at you next. Many people think I lose my place in these speeches because -- by the way what time is it? We have plenty of time. We have to be out of here by -- [Applause]
We have to be out of here by 6:00 -- okay, depends on how you behave. I'll decide as we go on. What liberalism Democrat, for those of you in the country, I really want you to believe this because it's the truth. I'm not saying it just because I believe it. This is a core. I want the best country we can have. We want the most prosperous people. We want to be growing. We want to lead the world. We want everybody to come here legally. We want this country to be so damn great and we just cringe to watch it -- basically capitalism be assaulted and our culture be reoriented to where the people that make it work are the enemy. That's not the United States of America. The people that make this country work, the people who pay on their mortgages, the people getting up and going to work, striving in this recession to not participate in it, they're not the enemy. They're the people that hire you. They're the people that are going to give you a job. They're the people that are going to give you a raise, the people that need you to do work for them. [Applause]
President Obama, and take your pick of any Democrat, love to say we've tried it your way. Meaning Reaganism. We've tried it your way. We tried it your way in the '80s and it didn't work. We tried it your way eight years, the last eight years and it didn't work. Excuse me. Excuse me. Have you ever noticed those of you watching around the world in my first international address to the world, Fox is on some international satellites. They're watching this in the UK right now going (cringing). When Obama talks about past economies, he somehow always leaves out the recession of the '80s as worse than this one. Why does he leave it out? Because you know why he leaves it out, America? He leaves it out because we got out of that recession with tax cuts. [Applause] For those of you watching at home, I'm not nervous it's just really hot in here. These people are wired. We got out of the 1980s recession with tax cuts. Do you know that President Obama, in six weeks of his administration, has proposed more spending than from the founding of the country to his inauguration? Now, this is not prosperity. It is not going to engender prosperity. It's not going to create prosperity and it's also not going to advance or promote freedom. It's going to be just the opposite. There are going to be more controls over what you can and can't do, how you can and can't do it, what you can and can't drive, what you can and can't say, where you can and can't say it. All of these things are coming down the pike, because it's not about revenue generation to them, it's about control. They do believe that they have compassion. They do believe they care. But, see, we never are allowed to look at the results of their plans, we are told we must only look at their good intentions, their big hearts. The fact that they have destroyed poor families by breaking up those families by offering welfare checks to women to keep having babies no more father needed, he's out doing something, the government's the father, they destroy the family. We're not supposed to analyze that. We're not supposed to talk about that. We're supposed to talk about their good intentions. They destroy people's futures. The future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried, tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster. President Obama, your agenda is not new. It's not change, and it's not hope. [Applause]
Spending a nation into generational debt is not an act of compassion. All politicians, including President Obama, are temporary stewards of this nation. It is not their task to remake the founding of this country. It is not their task to tear it apart and rebuild it in their image. (Crowd chanting "USA")
It is not their task, it is not their right to remake this nation to accommodate their psychology. I sometimes wonder if liberalism is not just a psychosis or a psychology, not an ideology. It's so much about feelings, and the predominant feeling that liberalism is about is about feeling good about themselves and they do that by telling themselves they have all this compassion. You know, if you really want to unhinge a liberal it's hard to do because they're so unhinged now anyway, even after -- but all you have to do is say you know that the things you people do, the things you people believe in are cruel. That's the last way they look at themselves. They are the best people on the -- they're the good people. You tell them that their ideas and that their policies are cruel and the eggs start scrambling. I have learned how to tweak liberals everywhere. I do it instinctively now. Tweak them in the media. And no reason to be afraid of these people. Why in the world would you be afraid of the deranged? There really is no reason to be afraid of them. And there's no reason to assume they're the minority. And there's no reason to let them set all the premises and all the agendas to which we respond to. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself here but everybody asks me and I'm sure it's been a focal point of your convention: What do we do as conservatives? What do we do? How do we overcome this? Well, the one thing, and there are many, but one thing that we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas right now. I don't want to name any names. It's not the point.
But I talk to people about the Obama budget or the Obama Porkulous bill or whatever else TARP 2 whatever it's going to be, and they start talking to me in the terms of process and policy. I say stop it. What do you mean? Who is setting the process or policy? They are. You want to tweak it? No. This is philosophy, folks. This guy, I forgot -- the guy in the focus group after Bobby Jindal said, I didn't want to hear him talk, he said: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans and Democrats. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America, that's exactly what your future is about, who wins, Republicans or Democrats, conservatives versus liberals. The notion of partisanship, false premise. Let me define bipartisanship for you. Bipartisanship -- everybody seems to go orgasmic over the concept of bipartisanship. Don't worry, I checked with Fox, that word's okay. [Laughter] [Applause]
Remember, they covered the Lewinsky thing, so that's my -- bipartisanship occurs only after one other result, and that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives liberals demand that we be bipartisan with them in Congress. What they mean is: We check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show and agree with them. That's bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them. And that has to be what we're focused on. [Applause] Why would any of us in this room who hold the core beliefs we believe, somebody tell me where is the compromise on all of this spending? Where is the compromise on all this punishment of the achievers. I don't know. [Laughter] [Applause]
Where is the compromise between good and evil? Should Jesus have cut a different deal? Serious. From the standpoint of what we have to do, folks, this is not about taking a policy or a process that the Democrats have put forward and fighting around the edges. If we're going to convince the minds and hearts of the American people that what's about to happen to them is as disastrous as anything in their lives in peacetime, we're going to have to discuss philosophy with them. We are going to have to talk about principles, because our principles are not present in what's happening here. So where the hell do we go to compromise what we believe in when our principles are not their principles, they're just the opposite of what's happening? [Applause]
The American people -- it's a tough challenge. I admit -- I admit it's a tough challenge, but it's worth it. It's worth it. The way I just defined bipartisanship you could turn it around and liberals will define bipartisanship when we surrender and say okay we give. We're not quitting. We are not giving up. The country is too important. [Applause] There are certain realities. We don't have the votes in Capitol Hill to stop what's going to happen. What we can do is slow it down, procedure, parliamentary procedures, slow it down and do the best we can to inform the American people of what's really on the horizon. I know it's going to be tough. At some points, I don't think it can happen even right now. This is still the honeymoon period, and there's a lot of devotion to the Obama administration. It doesn't have anything to do with intellectual thinking, it's feelings. It's going to take some time for this to play out. But I spoke to David Keene, interviewing him for my newsletter. I asked him about this. He said they're going to overreach. Wouldn't you say they have? [Laughter].
They're going to overreach. At some point, at some point people have got to realize none of this is possible. You can't have people living in homes they don't pay for. You can't have people driving cars they don't pay for. I mean, you can for a while. But after a while the people paying for it -- screw this. We're not putting up with it. And you're going to see -- you're already starting to see evidence of these. All the tea parties that are starting to bubble up out there. Those are great. Fabulous. [Applause] And here's the big question. Here's the big question. And I ask this again in the context of my first address to the nation. [Laughter] You don't know how I love saying that, how excited I am about this. Aside from the bastardization of the Constitution that the Obama plans are, that TARP is, it's not constitutional. Aside from that, where is the evidence that the people offering all of this have ever succeeded in any similar plans before? There's none. There is no evidence it works. [Applause]
So you say how is he getting it done? Dumb down public education. Emotions. And the ongoing -- this is why I think it's such a waste for a man as gifted as President Obama with the communications skills, you know he could wipe out the Republican Party. He can wipe out the Republican Party if he would inspire this country to be the best it could be, but we don't have to worry about that because that's not what he wants. He wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing the worst each and every day because that clears the decks for President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers, which are abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn't matter. They'll have control of it when it's all over. And that's what they want. Because they think they can do it better. They see these inequalities, these inequities that capitalism produces. How do they fix it? Do they try to elevate those at the bottom? No! They try to tear down the people at the bottom. It's not fair you're up there. So they whack us. That's not what made the country great.[Applause] And no evidence of it is in play here. John Kerry [Boos], who served in Vietnam. [Laughter] Think about this, and, by the way, Barney Frank got involved with this, too. Northern Trust, a bank in Chicago -- by the way, which holds the mortgage to the Messiah's house, purchased by Tony Rezko, Northern Trust holds the mortgage. Northern Trust was forced, like Wells Fargo was forced, to take TARP money. The Wells Fargo CEO said they were taken into Paulson's room and they were given until 5:00 to sign it. They weren't getting out until they did. They wanted it spread all over the banking business. 17.35.34 Northern Trust was in there. They didn't want it. They took $1.6 billion. As you know, they went out and they sponsored the LA Riveria Open two weeks ago that Phil Mickelson barely hung on and won. [Applause]
And we find out they hired some liberals to entertain, but it still wasn't good enough. They hired Sheryl Crow. And they hired the rock crooner group Chicago, but they had the audacity, Northern Trust did, to entertain their clients, to try to reward their best customers, to get new customers, banking is in trouble, Northern Trust is trying to do what they always do, what all businesses do, and that is mine for new clients and reward existing good customers. Not since they took $1.6 billion, I guess. The haughty John Kerry wrote a piece of legislation said: He's getting sick and tired, sick and tired of these CEOs using taxpayer money to throw all these lavish parties. And I'm saying where do you get yours, Senator? [Applause] Sad thing, sad thing is it works. They've created class envy in so many average Americans that they love hearing that. Yeah, you get even with those bank guys. How is it going to improve here? Let me ask a question for those of you watching my first national address. Take the favorite villain you've got, maybe it's John Thain at Merrill Lynch, because he used his own money, his company's own money, his company's own money, to redecorate a bathroom in an office for $1.2 million. By the way, to do that he had to hire a contractor. They got paid. Had to hire a designer and buy furniture, that's called stimulus. And he did it. But all of a sudden John Thain's thrown out. John Thain is thrown out. He's humiliated and embarrassed; how dare he? He did it a year before they took the TARP money. And all these Congressmen are standing up saying this is not going to happen. We are not going to watch these people capping executive pay while Obama tries to live like one. You know, he's trying to emulate the lifestyle he is attacking. That's what liberals do. Two sets of rules: One for them; one for everybody else. But it's coming. See, if you think that John Thain or the Northern Trust CEO, if you love them getting attacked, if you love them being ripped, ask yourself the next day, do you have any more money in your pocket? Is your life any better because that guy got taken out or down by some haughty senator from Massachusetts?
If you ask yourself this, you'll realize your life is no better off. That the Democrats and Obama are asking you to feel better simply on the basis that they're going to get revenge for you, but your life isn't going to improve, somebody else's is just going to be destroyed and they want you to be happy over that. That's sick. And that is not the United States of America. [Applause] Besides, as far as John Kerry is concerned, if it wasn't for his varicose veins, he would be totally colorless. [Laughter] 17.39.13 Now let's talk about the conservative movement as it were. We, ladies and gentlemen, have challenges that are part and parcel of a movement that feels it has just suffered a humiliating defeat when it's not humiliating. This wasn't a landslide victory, 52 to, what, 46. Fifty-eight million people voted against Obama. There would have been more if we would have had a conservative nominee. [Applause]
I don't mean that -- I mean that in an instructive way, as a lead-in to what I'm talking about here. No humiliating defeat here. I can't -- sometimes I get livid and angry. We do have an organizational problem. We have a challenge. We've got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and worst of all to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn't need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is and it is forever. It's not something you can bend and shape and flake and form. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. 17. For the purposes of this occasion, I'm not going to mention any names, I bet with you I won't have to. People watching my first address to the nation might be curious what I'm talking about. They'll find out in due course, trust me on this. I cringed -- it might have been 2007, late 2007 or sometime during 2008, but a couple of prominent conservative but Beltway establishment media types began to write on the concept that the era of Reagan is over. [Crowd Booing]
And that we needed to adapt our appeal, because, after all, what's important in politics is winning elections. And so we have to understand that the American people, they want Big Government. We just have to find a way to tell them we're no longer opposed to that. We will come up with our own version of it that is wiser and smarter, but we've got to go get the Walmart voter, and we've got to get the Hispanic voter, and we've got to get the recalcitrant independent women. And I'm listening to this and I am just apoplectic: The era of Reagan is over? When the hell do you hear a Democrat say the era of FDR is over? You never hear it. Not only that, the President of the United States today thinks he's FDR, thinks he's Abraham Lincoln, and sometimes, Tuesday night, thinks he's Ronald Reagan. Our own movement has members trying to throw Reagan out while the Democrats know they can't accomplish what they want unless they appeal to Reagan voters. We have got to stamp this out within this movement, because it will tear us apart. It will guarantee we lose elections. [Applause]
We have to. You see, to me it's a no-brainer. It's not even something to me: How do you get rid of Reagan from conservatism? The blueprint -- the blueprint for landslide conservative victory is right there. Why in the hell do the smartest people in our room want to chuck it? I know why. I know exactly why. It's because they're embarrassed of some of the people who call themselves conservatives. These people in New York and Washington, cocktail elitists, they get made fun of when the next NASCAR race is on TV and their cocktail buds come up to them, those people are in your party? How do you put up with this? It would be easy to throw them overboard, so as to maintain these cocktail party/Beltway/New York City/inside-the-Beltway media relationships. 17.44.01 But I tell you: This notion that Reaganism is dead, conservatism needs to be refined, let's take a look at this. We've got to go get the Walmart voter. I opened my remarks tonight by telling the people watching on Fox who we conservatives are. When I look out at you in this audience, I don't see a Walmart voter. And I don't see a black, and I don't see a woman, and I don't see a Hispanic. I see human beings who happen to be fortunate enough to be the luckiest people on Earth since you are Americans. [Applause]
Conservatism -- for us to make the decision that we've got to figure out policies, to get the Walmart voter -- psst, we've got most of them already, is the bottom line. Conservatism is a universal set of core principles. You don't check principles at the door. This is a battle that we're going to have. And there are egos involved here, too. When the situation like ours exists, there are people who want to lead it. They want to redefine it. Their egos are such that they want to be the next X, whoever it is. So there will be different factions lining up to try to define what conservatism is.
And beware of those different factions who seek as part of their attempt to redefine conservatism, as making sure the liberals like us, making sure that the media likes us. They never will, as long as we remain conservatives. They can't possibly like us; they're our enemy. In a political arena of ideas, they're our enemy. They think we need to be defeated. Why do you think -- you all in this room know this. For those of you watching at home, my first address to the nation -- [Laughter] -- I'm sure you paid close enough attention, that you knew at one time Senator McCain was the favorite Republican of all the cable news networks and the Sunday shows. And they would just -- I mean their tongues would be on the floor. The media people (panting) when they knew McCain was coming. And they would treat McCain as the greatest guy in the world. Did you wonder why? You were told he was moderate. He was not strict. He was not an authoritarian, he was able to walk to the other side of the aisle, able to get along with the enemy. And everybody wants love and bipartisanship. That's not why they invited Senator McCain. They invited Senator McCain because he happened to be the loudest at criticizing his own president and his own party and that's what they want, is people from our side -- and there will be factions in our movement, folks, who are going to make an effort to say we have to grow, we can't stay stale, I think I heard the term used the other day. Nothing stale about freedom. There's nothing stale about liberty. There's nothing stale about fighting for it. Nothing stale whatsoever. [Applause] Freedom. Are you getting tired of standing up, I don't blame you. By the way for those watching on TV you think the standing -- people are just tired. They've been up and out of their chairs 100 times here. [Applause]
Thank you. Freedom -- freedom is the natural yearning of the human spirit as we were endowed by our creator. And the United States of America is the place in the world where that yearning flourishes, where freedom is expected because it's part of the way we're created.
I loved it when the Soviet Union went down and the wall went down and the liberals in our country said you know they may not be ready for freedom over there. They've been oppressed -- yes, liberals will gladly tell you who can have freedom and who can't. And that's what the pieces of legislation are all about, folks, freedom, liberty, economic prosperity, they're all entwined here. We'll have to as a conservative movement understand that our job, after we come to an agreement among ourselves, which shouldn't be hard but it's going to be difficult because the people that think they're smarter than everybody else are going to be out there forging alliances with people that try to make themselves look like new power brokers, and they will become the spokesmen, by the way. By the way, explain that to you. This is a funny story. Show you how I can hijack a news cycle even by doing anything. The Tuesday before the inauguration, President Bush invited me to the Oval Office for lunch. And it was on and off the record, some of the conversations. And he brought out, interesting, at the end of it -- my birthday had been the day before. He brought out a chocolate birthday cake, a microphone, and stood beside me with Ed Gillespie and sang happy birthday. Photographers taking pictures. I wish my parents were alive. My parents wouldn't believe my life. They came out of the Great Depression. They didn't think it was possible for somebody who did not go to college -- and even for people who did -- they didn't think this was possible. Life has changed so much for the better in this country.
That's why I cringe when I see what is in store. So as I'm flying home from lunch, I'm watching television and I see that the word has leaked out that Obama is hosting a dinner with conservative media pundits at the home of George Will. I said: I wonder who these people are? [Laughter] In the media, one of them is going to have to leak it. Sure as heck, one did. Now, we all know who were there. And let's see -- I can't remember all the names, so I won't mention any. But let me tell you Obama's purpose. Does anybody really think that Barack Obama had dinner with a bunch of conservatives hoping they would change his mind?
CROWD: No!
RUSH: Hell, no. His purpose -- and his purpose really wasn't to change theirs -- his purpose was to anoint them as conservative spokesmen. These are the people that Obama's willing to break bread with. These happen -- some of the people there happen to be the people who think the era of Reagan is over, who believe that conservatism needs to be redefined. Of course Obama would try to lure them in. Well, all of a sudden I land. I get home about 5:00, and my e-mail is jammed with questions from reporters, are you, is that why you took the day off today? Is that why you're not on the air? Are you going to dinner with Obama? By the way, I left out a crucial part of the story. Was this a Monday, Kit? It was a Tuesday. I had forgotten to tell my audience that I was going to miss the next day. I signed off the show saying I'll see you tomorrow. That's the last thing I said. The staff reminded me you're not going to be here tomorrow. I came up with a plan, that the guest host the next day would say that I was called out of town to Washington at midnight the night before. Just an innocent little trick on the radio audience. Everybody picked that up and thinks I'm invited to the Obama dinner. So those people that were invited to it got less coverage than I did and I didn't even know about it. [Laughter] It was fun. [Applause]
Conservatives are naturally happy. We seek happiness. We pursue it. It's part of who we are. So what can you do? Live your life. I swear, folks, you do not know in just the everyday life that you live in your homes, your neighborhoods, the favorite word of this administration, your "communities." Remember the root word there is "commune." [Applause] Be happy, live your life according to your values and principles. Know you're going to fail, no human being is perfect, you're going to make mistakes, but live your life -- you'll be stunned at how many people you impress. Don't be afraid to tell children that they're wrong. They don't know what you do. They simply haven't lived long enough. It's not their fault, but they're being fed a bunch of garbage in school and don't be afraid to tell them that they're wrong. Don't go the Oprah route and say gotta be friends with my parents, my kids, first and foremost. Understand they're going to hate you for a while and they're going to rebel against you and someday they're going to think you're the smartest person they ever met. But you owe them the truth. You owe them the truth about things. You owe them the truth about morality. You owe them the truth about values. [Applause]
You owe them the truth about politics. Next thing, we've got to stop treating voters as children. [Applause]
Somebody says they want something that's bad for them, do you give it to them just to be nice? Or do you tell them, regardless of their age, no, you shouldn't have that? Well, it's none of your business. Maybe not. And then you back out of it. But you still have to have the ability to tell people what's right and wrong. And that's not authoritative. That's not authoritarian. And it's not trying to deny somebody a good time. It's not trying to interrupt somebody's hedonism, pleasure, it's about all of us with shared values trying to make sure that people live the highest quality lives they can. Ultimately, it's their decision as to what they do. But the point is, don't treat them -- especially voters -- as kids just -- they say they want it okay we'll come up with a plan to give it to you. Have any of you seen the movie -- I'd never heard of it, but I happened to get a DVD the other day. Anybody see the movie Swing Vote with Kevin Costner? You know, it's kind of a moronic movie like most things out of Hollywood are. But this is fascinating in the way -- tell you a short story, because a voter screwup in New Mexico there's one voter who is going to elect the president. His vote didn't count because his daughter voted for him. I won't give the whole story away. But New Mexico's electoral votes, New Mexico's electoral votes determined it. And they have a two-week period before this guy can vote again. So the challenger and the president both relocate to where this guy lives in New Mexico and they end up like the Democrat played by Dennis Hopper stands for antiabortion.
The Democrat candidate comes out with a commercial for life. The Republican candidate comes out, because this guy is an idiot and doesn't know what he believes, and every utterance that he makes these politicians react to it throwing their principles on the floor, just to get his vote. Sadly, this is what some of the conservative intellectuals in our movement want to do, essentially. And that we cannot do. We've got to stand for what we believe and treat people as adults and understand they can learn. [Applause]
Go optimism. Joe Biden, ladies and gentlemen, was watching CBS -- when did you start here? Thursday. You might have seen this. The days run together. It might have been Wednesday, but Biden was on the CBS Early Show. And he was asked -- the anchorette -- sorry. I'm trying to change my ways. I've been doing women summit programs so not to offend women. The anchor, Maggie Rodriguez, went out and got some man-on-the-street questions. And one guy, woman, I think question for Biden. What is in the stimulus package for small business? Biden was clearly stumped because there isn't anything in the stimulus package for small business. So what Biden said, honest to God, what Biden said was: Well, if there's a bridge to your small business, we're going to make sure that bridge stays open so that you can get to your small business and your customers -- honest. I kid you not. Now, of course, the media today is a bunch of hacks, they're out there as PR agents; they're starting to get a little embarrassed. Maggie Rodriguez says, Senator Biden, there's a website that answers all these questions. What is the name of the website and Biden says I don't know. He looks off stage. "Does somebody have the website number?" [Applause]
I realize those of you watching at home during my first address to the nation, you have never heard liberal Democrats be made fun of in this way. Get used to it. [Applause]
Two other things and we'll get out of here contractually over time. The president's stimulus package, the TARP, the whatever, the budget, relies on one thing for its success. Well, aside from authoritarian government power. It relies on the complacency of the American people. It relies on their belief that they can convince the American people that there's such a crisis that only government, the only entity that can fix it is government, as Obama has said. So they get complacent and they sit around and they wait. See, this is something liberals will never understand about the United States of America and it's right under their noses, right in front of their faces, we are a competitive people. We strive, enough of us do, to be the best. We strive to win. We strive to avoid defeat. Enough of us still do. Don't believe otherwise. The liberals have made efforts to shut that aspect of our nature down. Wherever you live, I am certain that you, when you were a child or your kids today in youth sports are told not to keep score, because the losers, it's just not fair. They'd be humiliated, especially if one girl's basketball team can defeat another one 100 to nothing. And let's fire the coach who put that game together. It's so unfair. So let's not keep score. Well, here's the dirty little secret. The kids are keeping score. [Applause] You know they are. They don't want to lose. They know what winning and losing is. They're saying, well, why go out there and put on the pads and play football or T-Ball if the objective here is to not keep score. So they're keeping score. They get in the car with mom and dad and they tell mom and dad: Yeah, we kicked their butts tonight. Wait a minute, I thought you weren't keeping score. They weren't officially. They keep score. We're competitive people. Adults are doing the same thing.
It didn't take long for people to get fired up when they figured out that they're going to be paying mortgages for people who should never have been lent money in the first place for the bogus excuse of maintaining property values in the neighborhood. This is something that -- the complacency of the American people is something they're going to rely on along with their authoritarian efforts to control it. But they will not succeed at this. Because we're not quitters. We don't acquiesce. We're not going to give up the American dream and watch idly while it is restructured and transformed. [Applause]
As I say, we want the best: Happiness for everybody. Now, about my still-to-me mysteriously controversial comment that I hope President Obama fails. I was watching the Super Bowl. And as you know, I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. [Cheers and Applause] So they have this miraculous scoring drive that puts them up by four, 15 seconds left. Kurt Warner on the field for the Cardinals. And I sure as heck want you to know I hope he failed. I did not want the Cardinals to win. I wanted Warner to make the biggest fool of himself possible. I wanted a sack, I wanted anything. I wanted the Steelers to win. I wanted to win. I wanted the Cardinals to fail. This notion that I want the President to fail, folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we've got. That's nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it, why in the world do I want what we just described, rampant government growth indebtedness, wealth that's not even being created yet that is being spent, what is in this? What possibly is in this that anybody of us wants to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war on Iraq to fail!
CROWD: Yes!
RUSH: They certainly did. They not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail, they proclaimed it a failure. There's Dingy Harry Reid waiving a white flag: [doing Harry Reid impression] "This war is lost. This war is" --
[Cheers and Applause]
They called General Petraeus a liar before he even testified. Mrs. Clinton -- [Crowd Booing] -- said she had to, willingly suspend disbelief in order to listen to Petraeus. We're in the process of winning the war. The last thing they wanted was to win. They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest to say that I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? [Applause]
Let me add a caveat here. My friends, I know what's going on. I know what's going on. We're in the aspects here of an historic presidency. I know that. But let me be honest again. I got over the historical aspects of this in November. President Obama is our president. President Obama stands for certain things. I don't care, he could be a Martian. He could be from Michigan, I don't know -- just kidding. Doesn't matter to me what his race is. It doesn't matter. He's liberal is what matters to me. And his articulated -- his articulated plans scare me. Now, I understand we can't say we want the President to fail, Mr. Limbaugh. That's like saying -- this is the voice of the New Castrati, by the way, guys who have lost their guts. You can't say Mr. Limbaugh that you want the President to fail because that's like saying you want the country to fail. It's the opposite. I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed. [Cheers and Applause]
[Crowd Chanting "USA" ] I want the country to survive as we have known it, as you and I were raised in it, is what I mean. Now, I have been called -- and I can take it. Pioneers take the arrows, I don't mind what anybody says about me, any time ever. I don't have time for it. I don't give other people the power to offend me. And you shouldn't either, by the wasted time being offended.[Applause]
I mean, there's some people you can't say you want the President to fail. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, the Democrat Party has actively not just sought the failure of Republican presidents and policies and now wars for the first time, the Democrat Party doesn't stop at failure. Talk to Judge Robert Bork or Justice Clarence Thomas about how they tried to destroy lives, reputations and character, and I'm supposed to say I don't want the President to fail? [Applause] We're in for a real battle. We are talking about the United States of America -- and there will always be an America, don't misunderstand me -- we're talking about it remaining the country we were all born into and reared and grown into. And it's under assault. It's always under assault. But it's never been under assault like this from within before. And it's a serious, serious battle. So as you leave here, as you leave here optimism, confidence, not guilt, it's not worth it. There's nothing to be guilty about. Don't treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there's a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves. They'll think they're smart that they figured it out. Who cares how you persuade them, the fact they can be persuaded is factually correct, it's possible. But the main thing to do here is stop thinking that we are a minority. Stop thinking that it is being in the minority that liberates you. It is your beliefs. It is your core principles, it is your confidence that liberates you. It's not being in the minority. In fact, for those of you watching my first national address and still hanging in there, we really are not that happy about being a minority and we're out to change it. [Applause]
So I have -- I've gone over my allotted time by an hour. [Applause]
I want to thank all of you so much for everything that you have meant to me and my family in my life.
CROWD: Thank you.
RUSH: I understand it's mutual. And I hear people -- you have made my heart grow so much that it barely fits in my chest cavity here tonight. But the things that by virtue of your listening to my radio show and being active in this movement that we all cherish and love, you have meant more to me, my family and my life than whatever it is I might mean to you, even though I know that's considerable. [Applause]
You still can't outdo the absolute joy and awe and thanks I feel for all of you. I've been doing this for 20 years and the numbers just keep growing. And I can't tell you how appreciative I am and proud to be in a movement with the same passions, desires and core beliefs that all of you have, because we know that it's right for the country, and we know it's right for people. It's not something that has to be forced on them. It's not something that has to be authoritatively pressed on them. We are what is, and that's why we are an enemy because we're effective. The people that do want control look at us as the enemy. We're always going to be -- don't ever measure your success by how many Drive-By Media reports you see that are fair to us. Never going to happen. Don't measure your success by how many people like you. Just worry about how they vote. And then at the end of the day how they live, but that's really none of your business once they close the doors. Thank you all very much. It's been great.
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