This is so rich. I mean the cajones on President Obama .. a day after the House passes his $825 billion spending package, Barack Obama actually stood there in the White House and complained about Wall Street bonuses and the need for responsibility.

He said that Wall Street employees getting paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year is "the height of irresponsibility." He called it "shameful." Did you get that, folks? Shameful. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."

Restraint? Discipline? Responsibility?

And then we get this. This is the Barack Obama I have been afraid of. Obama went on to say, "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses ... Now is not that time." Yup ... there you go. The new President of the United States - the president who wrote of his affinity for Marxist professors and student groups while he was in college - the president who thinks that America's greatness comes from its government - this president is now telling the captains of industry when they can and cannot make a profit; when they can and cannot earn bonuses.

OK .. it is easy to gin up some anger toward an executive who takes a bonus while his company is getting bailout money from future generations of taxpayers. But I would like for you to consider just a few things.

First: Please remember that some of these Wall Street companies, specifically banks, made it clear that they didn't want any government bailout money. The Bush Administration told them that what they did and did not want didn't really matter all that much, they were going to take the bonuses, and they were going to sign over part ownership of their companies to the government whether they liked it or not.

Second: What are the details of these bonuses? Almost certainly they are being paid according to a contract. What are the terms of that contract? Let me suggest a scenario. Let's say that the AAA Investment Bank is in trouble. It looks like they're going to lose about $5 billion dollars because of past mismanagement. They go on a search for a new CEO who can turn things around. One of the candidates tells the search committee that there is no way he can prevent a loss .. but he might be able to limit that loss to $1 billion instead of the projected $5 billion. An agreement is reached that the new CEO will get a new bonus at the end of the year equal to ¾% of the difference between the projected loss and the actual loss. The CEO makes changes and takes actions that save the company, and the shareholders, $4 billion dollars. He gets his ¾% .. about $30 million. Tell me .. has he earned it?

But then comes the anti-capitalist president telling the nation how "shameful" it is that you've taken that bonus. Can we really judge whether or not those bonuses were shameful until we know the parameters upon which those bonuses were paid? Only if you're an anti-capitalist leftist with a love of government that surpasses any appreciation for the wonders of the free market.

Another question: Has anyone out there heard Obama say one thing about any of the many shameful shenanigans going on in government .. unless his comment was in the context of slamming George Bush? How about passing those tens of millions of dollars to buy condoms to the people as "stimulus?" That wasn't shameful? How about $50 million in welfare for artists who don't have the artistic skill to produce something that will sell in the private marketplace? That isn't shameful?

A window has opened. We have now seen Barack Obama's animosity toward capitalism out there in the open. More is certain to come.

I talked about this on the air yesterday, but let's be honest, a lot of you were probably too busy planning your Super Bowl parties or wondering what happened to your latest issue of "People Magazine." It's OK, you've come to Nealz Nuze, so let's get on with it.

The Washington Times is reporting that the economic stimulus bill includes $2.25 billion for the National Parks Service. That's a lot of money. But hold on .. it gets worse. The chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association just happens to be the son of the House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, obviously a Democrat.

So here we have a man, Craig Obey, who is one of the top people in charge of making sure that our national parks get funding from Congress. That's his job. And when this economic stimulus bill came to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Craig and his association managed to get $802 million in stimulus funding. Not bad, considering the obvious question - how in the world is money for our national parks going to stimulate the economy? But apparently, that wasn't the issue. The issue is that when the House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the bill .. that $802 million for national parks suddenly became $2.25 billion. Yes, that's billion with a "B." That amounts to the total yearly budget of the National Park Service. And guess who happens to be the chairman of the committee that bumped up the spending from $802 million to $2.25 billion? David Obey. The father of the chief lobbyist for National Parks Conservation.

Does anyone find this vaguely outrageous? Apparently PrezBO doesn't. He's too busy slamming evil CEOs. The Democrats have been preaching transparency .. but those words only get as far as a teleprompter. You can say one thing, but clearly the Congress is still practicing another.

As if we didn't have enough to talk about when it comes to this Democrat dream scheme .. otherwise known as the economic stimulus bill .. a top Republican Congressional official is claiming that illegal aliens would be eligible for the stimulus.

Part of the stimulus includes tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple. But in order to receive these tax credits, you don't need a social security number. All you need is an individual taxpayer identification number in order to qualify.

According to Jamie Dupree, "millions of Americans who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes could file returns next year and receive checks." Well of course! That's the point! This is a welfare program; a brand new entitlement program. You think this is just part of a one-time stimulus program? Hardly. Just how in the world do you think these Democrats are going to go back to their voters and tell them that their $1000 check was only a one-time deal. Not gonna happen. This $1000 welfare check is going to become a permanent part of our annual federal budget. What's more, every time an election comes around the Democrats are going to promise to increase the size of this phony "tax cut" while warning the voters that if they vote for evil Republicans they'll take that money away.

We're screwed.

When is it going to end, folks?

A listener pointed us to this quote by his own Congresswoman in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her name is Betsy Markey and she is the first Democrat to represent this district in almost 40 years. And what does she do? She goes and votes with her fellow Democrats in supporting this so-called economic stimulus package.

But if it makes you feel any better (trust me .. it shouldn't), Markey did struggle with her decision. What tipped her over the edge was a message she received from a government school superintendent in her district. This government school hack sent Markey a message saying that a vote for this bill would be like "Congress throwing us a lifeline." And that is why Markey decided to vote on the bill. I guess she did not take into account the fact that not only is this gargantuan spending bill a "life line," this legislation literally doubles the amount of federal dollars spent on government education. This is something that Markey's grandchildren are going to be paying for. That doesn't matter. She's a Democrat. When she runs for reelection she's going to need the help of the teacher's unions and education bureaucrats. Connect the dots.

But that brings me to this quote, which would explain why a politician like Markey would make such a crucial decision based on a message from a government school bureaucrat. Markey says, "Is it a stimulus tomorrow that we're going to put money into education? No. But (the public education system) has always been the basis of our economic prosperity."

Did you hear that? This woman believes that it is our government education system which makes this country and our economy great. No credit to capitalism. All credit to government schools.

Go ahead, watch it. Your boss isn't lookin'.

Before you go any further, stop to read this amazing letter from the founder of the Weather Channel who explains the story behind the global warming scam. We here in Atlanta are bracing for a possible snow and ice storm early next week. Well, I should say "you" in Atlanta. I'm bailing for the Everglades. Don't need this.

As if $825 billion wasn't enough .. how about $2 trillion for another bank bailout?

Here's Nancy Pelosi's brilliant defense of STD prevention in the economic stimulus bill.

In case you didn't know, Nancy Pelosi didn't go to Washington to be bipartisan. This woman is vile.

The FCC commissioner says that if the Fairness Doctrine were to come back, it would have to be "rebranded." Yeah, just like the Democrats have rebranded "pork barrel spending" to be "economic stimulus" and welfare checks to be "tax cuts." The FCC dude is acknowledging the stupidity of the American people here.

The National Endowment for the Arts wants its piece of the stimulus.

The Heritage Foundation wants to know why non-existent unemployed climate modelers are getting $140 million in economic stimulus.

The FBI has cut off call contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) because they are concerned that it has roots in a Hamas-support network. And just what have I been saying for five years now?

People are outraged when the government wants to tax candy and soda .. but $825 billion in Democrat pet projects is OK.

Which do you think is the "reddest" state? How about the "bluest"? The Gallup Organization has the answers.

The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee has uncovered some disturbing news about how people in Wisconsin are conning the state child care welfare system. Golly! I'm just shocked!

Bruce Springsteen says that he wants to "inspire" people with his half time performance at the Super Bowl. If he wants to inspire me he can shut the hell up. "The Boss" my posterior.

Apparently I have a lot to learn from Denver's mayor. He has declared it to be "wear your PJs to work" day in order to raise awareness for homelessness.

The Pew Research Center has done some interesting research and found that more than half of Americans wish they lived somewhere else. When I want to live somewhere else I start the prop spinning and ... .live somewhere else. Like early next week.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute will be on the show today at 11am ET. He'll be talking about an ad campaign the Cato Institute is rolling out today that features the signatures of over 200 economists urging the President to avoid excessive government spending to try and overcome the recession. You'll see the ad in the New York Times, Roll Call, the Washington Post and more. View it here. [pdf] Politico also has the story.

Scott Slade, host of Atlanta's Morning News on the mothership News/Talk 750 WSB, suffered a major leg break. He is having surgery and will be okay. Here is a place for you to leave your Get Well wishes for Scott.

Okay, so this is a little bit of a departure from our normal topics here, but, what they hey! Here's what you need to do RIGHT NOW. Get out your cell phone and add a contact called ICE. That stands for In Case of Emergency. Then put in the person you want contacted when some EMT finds you smashed up and unconscious in your car or in some other situation where you can't call for yourself. We have confirmation from law enforcement that they do indeed look for this contact. So save them a few minutes and pop it in there now.

Well ... at least the Republicans stood fast yesterday in the House. They were joined by several Democrats in opposing this $825 billion government growth bill. Now it's off to the Senate. Will the people of this country wake up in time to let the Senate know they aren't particularly fond of this boondoggle? Probably not .. but there's always hope. It really is too bad the GOP couldn't generate this much outrage over excessive government spending when they had control. How easy is it to posture over excessive spending when the other side is doing the funding?

I love what House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said yesterday in response to criticism of the government growth plan. "Americans voted for change." There you go. The Democrat's answer for every objection to a Democrat atrocity? Does Obama's focus group created slogan give Democrats a clear field to destroy our free market economy and burden your children and grandchildren with a bill they may never be able to repay? Oh yeah .. we did all of this because Americans voted for change. What a jerk. What an asinine and arrogant response to the valid concerns of many Americans.

In the meantime the leaders of both Communist China and Once-and-perhaps-to-be-again Russia are in the news today condemning capitalism. I guess they feel free to do this now that they have a fellow traveler in the White House. It's gang on capitalism time. BOHICA

During this financial crisis, we've encountered countless people whining about the evil, filthy rich. Wealth envy has really reared its ugly head. For all those callers who call up and complain about corporate bonuses, here's a little something to consider.

The state of New York is going to lose $1 billion in tax revenue this year. Any guess as to why?? That's right .. cash bonuses to Wall Street employees decreased by 44% in 2008.

When it comes to the city of New York, employees brought home $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. Sounds like a lot .. until you realize that the year before, they brought home $33 billion. That is going to cost New York City $275 million in tax revenue.

An analysis by the State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that this is the largest tax revenue percentage decline in over 30 years. Before the financial crisis, tax revenue from those evil, greedy rich people on Wall Street accounted for 20% of the state's tax revenues and 12% of New York City revenues.

But you go ahead and call up and tell me what a terrible person I am because I dared to defend the concept of corporate bonuses. Go ahead .. I'm standing by for the hate mail.

By now I am sure you are tired of me ranting about celebrity worship and celebrity culture. The fact that the average American has no concept of how we are being robbed at this very moment .. there are thieves in your living room, stealing the future of your children and grandchildren. Obviously I am referring to this economic stimulus bill. And I would say the average American has absolutely no idea what we are getting ourselves into. The average American doesn't know that this bill is going to double the amount of federal spending on education. This bill claims it is going to "create jobs" by building Frisbee golf courses and dog parks and preventing STDs.

But Barack Obama and the Democrats say that we must pass this bill and we must pass it now. Obama said, "We don't have a moment to spare." And the reason why they are so anxious to pass it so quickly is for two reasons .. the longer it lingers out there, the longer people have to comb through it and realize that this is nothing but a giant pork spending bill. And the politicians want to do it before the Super Bowl when most Americans are worried about what type of dip to serve on Super Bowl Sunday than the future of their families.

Here is a viewer comment from CNN's website that illustrates the average intelligence level of an American .. maybe I am even being too generous.

This is from Coherent1:

Has anyone really read the stimulus plan? How could anyone say what's in it and what's not. This plan will need a healthy combination of spending and job creation. That tax thingy will on work for a few, however, how are you going to reduce in taxes for the now over 81,000 people laid off over the last couple of days? I'll bet cutting those taxes will help them get jobs! NOT! It has to be well rounded, maybe even include some of the Republicans tax cuts (for those with jobs).

So .. this ignoranus doesn't understand how cutting business taxes can allow businesses to invest more capital in business expansion and thus job creation? Here is yet another fool educated by government ... and going through life without one ounce of understand for the free market economy.

At the end of the road this all comes down to government education. There's a reason why Americans are so ignorant ... and you must wonder if this was all intentional.

One of Al Gore's favorite sock puppets is this James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute. Well Hansen's former boss, retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, has come forward with some news .. Theon is skeptic of man-made global warming and his former employee James Hansen is an embarrassment to NASA. Yep, Theon says, "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made." He goes on to say, "Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress."

There's more to chew on here, but it is good to know that Al Gore is keeping good company.

We have located your future celebusluts. These are girls that wish to emulate such spectacular role models as Britney Spears and other sex icons. Here in the Atlanta area, the dance team at Jonesboro High School has been disbanded after a racy performance at a basketball game. The eight girls were wearing little booty shorts, tight tops and dancing on chairs. Once they leave the chairs, their gyrations look like got their choreography straight from BET music videos. A video of the performance showed up on YouTube titled "The Sluts of Jonesboro." That about sums it up.

The school has disbanded the group for the rest of the year. The faculty advisor has been removed. The school will not be punishing the girls beyond that .. but let's only hope that the parents take care of the rest. One thing for sure ... there's a lot of boys in this school who know where they're going to go for their next sexual conquest.

Dick Morris has yet another column that will scare the pants off you .. and some suggestions for Republicans.

Well this is just an ugly story .. about the CIA chief under investigation for raping Muslim women.

Our new Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, says that there are no plans to nationalize the banks.

Michelle Malkin has some more goodies that have been uncovered in this economic stimulus bill. They just keep coming.

This is unfortunate: The first oil drilling deal off the coast of California in almost 40 years may be done for good.

Iran wants the United States to apologize for its actions and change its policies. Yeah, and people in hell want ice water.

Russia says that it has stopped the deployment of missiles in Europe because Obama is reconsidering building a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. Russia is testing Obama to see how he reacts.

As Secretary of State for maybe a week, Hillary Clinton explains that the entire world is breathing a sigh of relief now that George Bush is out of office.

Iraqis are headed back to the polls this week. I'm sure the mainstream media will be all over this one.

Al Gore made it to Washington yesterday, in a snow storm, to deliver the grave news about global warming: A new climate change treaty is critical to continuing human life on Earth.

Some terrible news to report .. for all five people out there who still use the US Post Office, it is considering cutting back mail service.

House Republicans did do something yesterday .. they defeated a bill that would delay the transition from analog to digital television. For now, we are still on for Feb. 17th.

When you spend $530 million to build a new subway station, what's another $200,000 to fix the fact that it was built incorrectly?

Breaking news .. Obama couldn't find the door to the Oval Office.

A new study has found that children with unpopular names are more likely to commit crimes. Yeah, it is all about your name .

Hackers broke into road signs for the Texas Dept. of Transportation to warn people that zombies were ahead.

Tampa has been cracking down on the local prostitutes in preparation for the Super Bowl.

Since the US population seems more interested in Britney Spears than in politics, here's an idea! I think I'll spend my 4 1/2 hours on the air today talking about the things that really matter to the American people. We'll start with the Super Bowl. Now before I start talking about the Super Bowl it will probably be incumbent on me to figure out who is playing and when the game is. I think the Arizona Cardinals are in there ... and I think it's in Tampa. Cristina will find out the rest for me.

After a rousing conversation about the Super Bowl we'll move on to Super Bowl TV commercials; especially that rejected PETA commercial that you won't get to see during the Super Bowl.

After we've exhausted the Super Bowl talk we'll move on to American Idol. I understand that another season is under way on Fox. Since almost every young person in this country steadfastly believes that they'll someday be famous -- either as a rock star or an athlete - my younger democrats are sure to soar.

When we're through with American Idol about 30-minutes conversation about Britney Spears should top things off nicely. Perhaps one segment about what a great body Barack Obama has.

Yeah ... like I could get through one hour of this without gagging.

The vote in the House is today. Get that? Today! Why? Because these people are thieves. They're stealing your children's future. There rummaging around your living room in the middle of the night stealing much of that stuff you've worked for .. and stealing the future you've been trying to make for your children .. and they're scared to death that you'll wake up before they get away. They're pushing for a vote on their Democrat spending plan before the American people actually figure out what they're up to.

How many times over the past year did I explain this to you? Democrats - and this goes double for President Obama - think that America is great. Some of us have a different idea. We might think that America is great because of the dynamic of free, self-sufficient people working together in an economic system based on liberty and the rule of law.

This grandiose Democrat spending plan is not going to stimulate our economy. It is, however, going to fulfill decades of Democrat dreams and schemes. It will make government more powerful. It will weaken the private sector. It will insure the reelection of Democrat officeholders for years to come. It will inevitably lead to massive tax cuts which will harm, if not destroy, American private sector productivity. It will absolutely change the way your children and grand children live their lives. It will rob them of opportunity and lock them into a life of mediocrity in service to the all-powerful Imperial Federal Government of the United States.

Quick ... get that vote done today before someone actually wakes up!

Obama met with Republicans yesterday to discuss the economic stimulus plan. That didn't get very far .. he is refusing to compromise on his phony "tax cuts" for lower income Americans. Not surprising. Obama doesn't need any Republicans in order to pass this stimulus. Which leads to my next question .. if he doesn't need any Republican support to pass this economic stimulus bill, why meet with Republicans at all? Why include any tax cuts in the stimulus bill? The Democrats don't really want them. So why do it?

Here's a theory. Anyone who has a basic understanding of economic principals can understand why tax cuts are a surer way to stimulate an economy compared to government spending. (More on that in a minute.) Somewhere along the way, I genuinely believe that the Democrats know that to be true. Despite what many may think, most Democrats in Congress aren't dumb people. But they do have one goal: to keep their jobs and increase the power of government. Therefore, they have to pander to their constituents and campaign donors. This is why they are willing to include these spending plans and pork projects .. it brings home the bacon and it panders to the mindless who believe that government can always do it best.

But they don't want to put all their eggs in one basket. You see, now that the Democrats are in charge, they will get the full credit or full blame for whatever the outcome of the economic stimulus may be. By including tax cuts into this plan, it alleviates some of their responsibility. If the stimulus fails, they can blame it on the fact that they were willing to compromise with Republicans and include those silly Republican tax cuts. If the stimulus is a success, there is no need to credit Republicans with the tax cuts because the Democrats were the ones in charge .. they were the ones who decided to include the tax cuts.

Don't make me say "I told ya so."

The attacks on the Godfather of Talk Radio (that would be Rush Limbaugh) are stepping up ... and they're coming from all sides! First .. and I think I can speak for many of my talk radio colleagues here .. we couldn't be more thrilled: Not because Limbaugh is under attack, but because millions of people are turning to talk radio who haven't listened before just to see what in the world is going on. Some will tune back out, but some will stick around. Good for our side.

Now it's perhaps understandable why the left - why Democrats - are on the attack. The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee now has an online petition so that Democrat myrmidons can put their outrage against Rush Limbaugh on the record. Sure, I feel left out here .. but the truth is I'm doing quite well with Limbaugh's scraps. Besides .. the nail that sticks out the furthest gets pounded down first. I'm happy with my nail not sticking out all that far.

Oddly, Republicans are joining in here. Georgia Republican Congressman groinocoligist Phil Gingrey told Politico that it was "easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh .. to stand back and throw bricks." Yeah .. that poor Republican leadership, they're so misunderstood. They're just trying to get along.

In the meantime - Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center is saying that the attack on conservative talk radio has begun. Bozell says that Obama is "setting the stage for the Fairness Doctrine."

Let's see how many Democrats and assorted leftist moonbats join in the Amen Chorus here.

I read an alarming statistic recently .. parts of the United Kingdom are becoming so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than one-third of the regional economy. A new analysis found that the government's share of output and expenditure is more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% in some parts of the UK.

That is what our country could be heading for, if we continue on this path of government spending and economic dominance. Currently, US federal government spending comprises about 26% of our economy. But compare that to the fact that before the New Deal, that number was only 3%.

As of right now, consumer spending in the US accounts for 70% of our economy. Not government spending, but spending from you, the consumer. And we are about to pass the largest spending bill in the history of this country .. there is no reversing this spending. But the government has to get that money from somewhere. It doesn't just appear out of thin air. And the answer is simple - it is going to get the money from you, the taxpayers. A pie can only be worth 100%. Right now, the consumers are spending 70% of that pie. If the government wants to increase its spending, guess who has to decrease their spending - you! Eventually in this country, we will reach these levels of parts of the UK, where government spending account for two-thirds of the economy. Too bad I won't be around to see it.

If you don't believe me when I say that government spending isn't going to stimulate the economy, you must believe the Heritage Foundation. Now this report is a bit long, but let me bring you some of the highlights .. this information is available to your Congressmen and Senators. Too bad they busy working on their re-election campaigns, rather than working to stimulate the economy.

Most government spending has historically reduced productivity and long-term economic growth due to:

1. Taxes. Most government spending is financed by taxes, and high tax rates reduce incentives to work, save, and invest--resulting in a less motivated workforce as well as less business investment in new capital and technology. Few government expenditures raise productivity enough to offset the productivity lost due to taxes;
2. Incentives. Social spending often reduces in­centives for productivity by subsidizing leisure and unemployment. Combined with taxes, it is clear that taxing Peter to subsidize Paul reduces both of their incentives to be productive, since productivity no longer determines one's income;
3. Displacement. Every dollar spent by politicians means one dollar less to be allocated based on market forces within the more productive pri­vate sector. For example, rather than allowing the market to allocate investments, politicians seize that money and earmark it for favored organizations with little regard for improve­ments to economic efficiency; and
4. Inefficiencies. Government provision of housing, education, and postal operations are often much less efficient than the private sector. Government also distorts existing health care and education markets by promoting third-party payers, resulting in over-consumption and insensitivity to prices and outcomes. Another example of inefficiency is when politicians earmark highway money for wasteful pork projects rather than expanding highway capacity where it is most needed.

And then, you might want to take a look at some of these:

Mountains of academic studies show how government expansions reduce economic growth:

• Public Finance Review reported that "higher total government expenditure, no matter how financed, is associated with a lower growth rate of real per capita gross state product."
• The Quarterly Journal of Economics reported that "the ratio of real government consumption expenditure to real GDP had a negative associa­tion with growth and investment," and "growth is inversely related to the share of government consumption in GDP, but insignificantly related to the share of public investment."
• A Journal of Macroeconomics study discovered that "the coefficient of the additive terms of the government-size variable indicates that a 1% increase in government size decreases the rate of economic growth by 0.143%."
• Public Choice reported that "a one percent in­crease in government spending as a percent of GDP (from, say, 30 to 31%) would raise the un­employment rate by approximately .36 of one percent (from, say, 8 to 8.36 percent)."

During the election, we heard a lot of stories about one particularly corrupt organization known as ACORN -- Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The organization is now under investigation for voter registration fraud in the wake of this election .. registering Mickey Mouse, the entire Dallas Cowboys team, dead people, people who don't exist. If you didn't have enough reason to love the democratic process, ACORN really left a sour taste in our mouths during this election.

So now, ACORN is getting the thanks that it deserves for electing Barack Obama. I'm not saying that this was in any way condoned by Barack Obama .. but ACORN organized a massive, often fraudulent, grass roots campaign to get Barack Obama elected. And it worked. And here comes the big "thank you" from the Democrats in Congress.

ACORN could be eligible for billion in aid from the economic stimulus plan. You know that plan that is supposed to turn our economy around and provide jobs? Yep, that's the one. Somehow, providing aid to ACORN is going to kick start our economy. At least that is what the Democrats want you to believe.

Here's how it works. The economic stimulus bill provides $4.19 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities." Yup! There you go! We're going to stimulate the economy with "neighborhood stabilization activities." Pretty darn specific if you ask me. So this money for "neighborhood stabilization activities" was originally intended for state and local governments. But the Democrats want to make it available to non-profit entities as well, which means .. tada! .. that ACORN would be eligible for the funds.

Just what this country needs .. using taxpayer money to fund an organization under investigation for voter registration fraud. And that is just the beginning of its troubles.

Here's a real shocker. This economic stimulus plan will end up costing more than $1 trillion when you calculate interest costs.

Here comes TARP Two! The fun never ends.

The Georgia peanut processor knew their products had salmonella. They shipped the products anyway. Wouldn't you think that criminal prosecution would be in order here?

RINO Arlen Specter says that he is going to vote for Eric Holder for attorney general.

Did you know that Obama is our first "truly American" President? That is news to the other 43 who came before him. Golly .. I thought he was "African American," right?

Democrats have launched a petition against Rush Limbaugh. Thank you, thank you , thank you. More people tuning into talk radio every day.

A group out there has produced an ad urging Obama to oppose the card check bill.

You need to see this video and read the story about this judge and her tirade when she was arrested for drunk driving. They're trying to figure out whether or not she should be kicked off the bench. If she were white there would be "trying to figure out."

The Internet is creating a generation of amoral teens. They're calling it "Generation Sex". Born too early, I guess.

I'm sure this magazine cover is going to get some liberal thongs in a wad. Me? I love it!

Government school students in Carpentersville, Illinois will no longer have Veterans Day off from school because "they don't understand the meaning behind the day." Like I said ... government schools.

I read this article during the information overload hour yesterday. From Mike Adams: My New Spread the Wealth Grading Policy. Now if only we could find a way to actually have him implement the plan.

While we are at it, just a little update on what is going on in our universities in this country. The liberal elites are busy brainwashing your children, under the guise of "education."

Here's how our new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar feels about offshore drilling. I bet you can already guess ..

A new way to rake in the money at the rate of $400 a day .. panhandling. Homeless my left ..... Anyway, God Bless You.

Did you hear the sad news? Cartoonists may soon be out of a job because they just can't think of anything funny to do with Barack Obama. How about that wart to the left of his nose?

A bill has been submitted to Congress that would make it mandatory for camera phones to make a clicking sound when a picture is taken, in order to prevent perverts from trying to sneak a shot. Seriously.

So after 8 years of unfortunate photos of President Bush, we're starting to see some of President Obama. That's what happens when you have press following you around every waking hour.

I couldn't watch the swearing-in ceremony last night. The spectacle was so disgusting I just turned off the television.

This was the mastermind behind the last bailout plan and TARP .. the "Troubled Asset Relief Program." Yeah, that's working real well, isn't it? Yup, there was Timothy Geithner, tax cheat extraordinaire, being sworn in as the Secretary of the Treasury. This, my friends, is change we can believe in.

Geithner can thank his lucky stars that he's a Democrat. There is just no way in the world that he would ever have been confirmed had he been a Republican. The media and the Democrats would have been on him like a crow on a June bug. We have an economic crisis, so we're told that its just fine if we have a willful tax cheat running the department that includes the Internal Revenue Service.

Now ... let's get on with the nationalization of the banks.

Obama wants to eliminate weapons from space. Come one here. Is there anyone out there who seriously thinks that weapons can be eliminated from space? This can't be a serious proposal. As space technology continues some country, somewhere, is going to surreptitiously move weaponry into orbit around the earth. Only when the weapons are in place will we be told of their existence That little news bulletin will come complete with a set of demands and promises of a little spaced-base ugliness if those demands aren't met.

The only thing Obama's efforts will produce will be our finding ourselves flat-footed when space weapons become a reality. Then we'll be playing catch up ... if catching up is even possible.

We'll add this to the closing of Gitmo, the halting of the trials of terrorist detainees, and the promise not to use extraordinary interrogation techniques - including things as benign as the "good cop, bad cop" routine - to the list of signs of weakness shown by the Obama administration.

People are noticing. People we don't particularly like.

... or so you would believe if you had heard one particular caller to the show yesterday. This caller started out with the normal nonsense about Republicans always being for big business and Democrats being for big government ... and he'd rather have stronger government than stronger businesses. I asked this caller to give me a specific example of those evil Republicans being in favor of big business. He cited the merger of Exxon and Mobile oil companies under George Bush.

Sorry, pal. That merger was completed in 1999 - while Bill Clinton was running the show. It was Clinton's Executive Department that gave the OK, not the evil big-business Republicans.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

This giant excuse for a Democrat spending bill is shaping up to be conglomerate of earmarks. The problem is that they aren't being called "earmarks." Remember when Obama ran on a platform of transparency and earmark reform? Well he is dedicated to living up to that promise. So here's what happens ... the earmarks are still there, they are just called something different - "ready to go" or "shovel-ready" projects. All in the name of economic stimulus.

Changing the name of earmarks to "ready to go" projects. More Change We Can Believe In.

The AP reports that that Obama's ban on earmarks doesn't mean that interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won't figure out a way to get their constituents their ration of pork. They will just figure out another way to do it. And by doing THAT, we have inadvertently made the process even more secretive.

Projects like a "disk-golf" course in Austin, Texas or a water park in Arkansas or dog parks in California ... as earmarks, these projects would have gotten money up front. But now what we are doing is giving money to these projects in the back end by just lumping them into one pile of "ready to go" projects. The money will be divided up based on arcane formulas outlined in the bill, and then the politicians, on the back end, will decide who gets what.

Lawmakers, lobbyists and local officials say that this stimulus plan actually makes it more difficult to pick out how exactly the hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent. Former mayor of Costa Mesa, California Peter Buffa says, "'No earmarks' isn't a game-ender ... It just means there's a different way of going about making sure the funding is there."

Did we really think that our politicians were going to give up the power of pork barrel projects so easily? Yeah, I didn't think so. Remember that they have a history of re-labeling this type of spending. First it was earmarks, then pork, then Congressional directed spending, then stimulus, now they are "ready to go" projects.

I've been saying this for a while, folks .. the Democrats are slowly working on implementing their universal healthcare plans. And this is probably how it is going to be this time around .. you see, they did learn something from Hillarycare in 1994 - you can't bite off more than you can chew. But if you do it gradually ... maybe the people just won't notice! (Reference the old frog in the frying pan story).

Yep, that is exactly what is currently happening, and even Nancy Pelosi's office has admitted it. Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly says, "There are some incremental steps that we are taking -- first we did SCHIP, then in our economic recovery package, we have money to help stem the tide of people losing health insurance -- coverage for Medicaid and COBRA. There is also money for quality, Health IT, comparative effectiveness and wellness, and money for prevention." Do you hear that, folks? They are using the economic stimulus package in order to gradually implement their dreams and schemes of universal healthcare.

How long do you think it is going to be before you, or one of your elderly relatives, hears from some government hack that they can't get some needed medical care because there are younger, more vital people who need the help more. Rationing of medical care - it's on the way.

Well actually, two people in Minnesota ... State Sen. Geoff Michel and state Rep. Laura Brod (both Republicans) are working on a bill to sell the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to private firms. The current budget deficit in Minnesota is $6 billion, and that happens to be about what they estimate they can get for selling off the airport and other state property and programs including roads, parks, prisons, rest stops and the naming rights to public transit systems.

The proposal would lease the entire airport and its operations for 99 years. The idea is catching on. Chicago is in the process of privatizing Midway Airport. Many foreign airports are already privately operated.

Enter State Sen. Steve Murphy, a Democrat. Murphy is set on raising hell, calling the plan to sell the airport a "horrible idea" and a "gimmick." Murphy says, "You have to do what you have to do to get by [in] these economic times, and it's not having a fire sale on government ... It's sitting down with a sharp pencil and cutting out programs that have run their useful life. It's cutting back on maybe Sen. Michel's per diem, things like that." Then he adds, "This is ... government that works ... So now we want to sell it? For what reason?"

For what reason? For revenue, you idiot. Take Atlanta, for instance. Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport is the world's busiest. It's wholly owned by the City of Atlanta. Federal law prohibits the city from making one single penny from the operation of the airport. That's the "operation" of the airport. Atlanta could earn money .. billions of dollars ... from a long term lease. No go, though. The airport is a nice little power and patronage base for Atlanta politicians ... so it will remain under city ownership.

Back to this Murphy guy: What we have here is a politician that is in love with government. A man that believes that government can do everything better. Mr. Murphy should consider the fact that a recent survey by J.D. Power and Associates put the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport at the bottom of a list of 19 "large airports" in terms of customer satisfaction. But let's leave it up to the government to continue running an operation in mediocrity.

A headline in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution reads "Teens mourn Cobb athlete killed in wreck." Not a Cobb "student." A Cobb "athlete." Well, being an athlete is more important than being a student, I guess. I love this paragraph from the AJC story:

"Griggers [the school Principal] called Reed a "nice kid -- just a regular kid who came to school and did what he was supposed to do, played sports and was part of the community."

Yup .. that's what you're supposed to do in school. Be a part of the community (who isn't?) and play sports.

Oh .. and yes. There were grief counselors at the school yesterday. Above all you have to teach these kids that the government is always there ... even to hug their necks and tell them everything is going to be OK.

I'm not as mean and uncompassionate as I sound here. But how many years have I --- and many other people --- been saying that you don't give car keys to a 16-year-old kid. These kids don't have the judgment to be driving with the rest of us. And let's not lose sight of the fact that this teenager was driving illegally. Is there a role for parental responsibility here? Some people learn this lesson the hard way, and that's very sad.

• Looks like the millions of dollars for contraception in the "stimulus" plan will be removed. That's too bad. Tax-paying Americans .. a thinning minority ... are getting screwed here. A little contraception would only be right.
   
• The American people voted for Barack Obama and made him president. So, he grants his first interview as president to Al-Arabiya, an Arabic cable TV network based in Dubai. He'll get around to American TV when he can.
   
• Biden is warning of more US casualties in Afghanistan. That's OK, though. A Democrat is in the White House. To the media American battlefield causalities are no big deal when a Democrat is running the show.
   
• Do you know why Clinton, Bush 41 and 43, and Obama stood apart from Carter at that pre-inauguration White House lunch? They're afraid senility is contagious.

Al Gore won't be testifying in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week ... because there is going to be a snow storm. Al Gore and global warming are fast becoming a universally recognized joke.

The White House is backing away from Nancy Pelosi's little plan to include contraceptives in the stimulus bill. Please don't tell me you're surprised. Margaret Sanger is spinning in her grave.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell says that America is heading towards a looming entitlement crisis. Gee ya think? I wonder what his first clue was.

Is Obama really going to challenge Ted Kennedy in his opposition to the first offshore wind farm off of Cape Cod?

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has appointed a special envoy for climate change. Was it OwlGore?

Obama is going to allow states to set their own standards for tailpipe emissions. California is ecstatic. The next step .. tax the emissions!

And Senator Carl Levin has already spoken up against the plan, saying that it discriminates against U.S.-made vehicles of the same efficiency as the imports.

Carl Levin had a busy day yesterday ... he also spoke out against the hypocrisy of CitiBank buying a new jet, while the automakers are being made to sell theirs.

Obama pledges to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space. Pandering.

California is a mess. Schwarzenegger wants to tax golf courses, veterinarians, auto mechanics and amusement parks. What a miserable failure the Governator has been.

Tax rate reductions are more effective as an economic stimulus than rebates. This from the Heritage Foundation. Democrats don't want you to read this.

Latest Rasmussen polls show that 59% of Americans are worried that Congress and President Obama are going to increase government spending too much in the next two years. Well duh! What did you expect when you voted these people into office? A bit late to worry about that, don't you think?

New GAO estimates of state and local government deficits are not looking good at all.

Something good has come from state budget deficits .. lawmakers in Connecticut are considering a bill that would punish low-level marijuana users with a fine, instead of a criminal charge, because it costs the taxpayers too much money.

It's about time ... the state of New Jersey is considering requiring high school seniors to take Finance 101.

Hospitals in Great Britain are taking meat off their menus in order to decrease their carbon footprint and fight global warming. Let us know how that works out for ya.

Hillary Clinton is pledging that the Obama administration is going to do more to fight hunger. What hunger?

What's the mature way to handle things when Bernard Madoff loses your entire trust fund? Toilet paper his mansion.

Nobody should be behind the wheel while talking on a cell phone. Especially teenagers. But children talking on cell phones while crossing the street is another hazard, according to studies.

When the economy is down .. reach for a Big Mac. That's what a lot of Americans seem to be doing.

Government waste isn't exclusive to the United States. Take China, for example, which used earthquake donation funds to buy luxury cars for government officials

Hey, look who is now in the comics business: The Truth About Evolution - Somebody's Making A Monkey Out Of You.

Lordy, all this talk about the economic stimulus bill is dull. Sorry about that. Discussions about prostate or breast cancer can be dull as well, but sometimes you just need to listen a bit in hopes that you'll learn something that just might save your life.

It's taking a long time for this thing to sink in to a lot of Americans, but this Obama spending bill is not a stimulus bill. It's nothing more than good old-fashioned Democrat big-government spending on steroids.

If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had delivered their instructions to the Democrat members of Congress I suspect the memo would have read something like this:

You're not going to read the bill. They know this. None of them will read the entire bill either. They'll read long enough to see that their own spending proposals are included ... but no further. This monstrosity is over 400 pages long, and just stuffed with pork spending.

• Swimming Pools
• Arts funding
• Contraception programs
• Sports stadiums
• Parking garages

If any special interest group favored by Democrat supporters has a spending wish, that wish is probably included in this so-called "stimulus" plan. Jamie Dupree has a more complete list of spending in his blog.

It's a fraud, folks. You need to understand that.

The quickest way to stimulate our economy right now would be to allow the people who earn the money to keep it and spend it on what they want, not what politicians want. That means tax cuts.

Democrats want nothing but spending ... no tax cuts. Pelosi says she'll judge ideas by ability to create jobs. Horsesqueeze. She'll judge the ideas base on their ability to grow government

Let's take the birth control bit. There's about hundreds of millions in the "stimulus bill" for birth control funding. The aging hollow-eyed hippie has an explanation. We are supposed to stop having children in order to reduce costs. Stopping women from having children will "help states meet their financial needs." Yeah .. they have all those expenses from health care and education. New human beings are bad for the economy.

Wake up, my friends.

The Democrats want to print and spend about one trillion dollars. They say that they are doing this to "stimulate" the economy. The more discerning among you know that this is crock. This is nothing less than a massive government spending program ... one that will result in much higher taxes down the road.

Did you know that there is $13 trillion dollars out there ready to stimulate our economy? This $13 trillion dollars - 13 times the size of the Democrats spending bill - doesn't have to be printed. It's already out there. It would not add to our national debt. It would not add to the deficit. It would not be inflationary. Putting this $13 trillion dollars into our economy would not result in higher taxes down the road. Simply put ... we just take this $13 trillion that is already out there working in other world economies and bring it home to work for us.

How? The Fair Tax. This $13 trillion belongs to American citizens and businesses and is working overseas - offshore - to get away from America's punishing tax system. Pass the Fair Tax and this $13 trillion starts coming home to work in our own economy. No deficit spending - no tax increases - no creation of new money that leads to inflation - just $13 billion coming home to work here to boost our economy.

Tell me why this is such a bad idea. You can't? Well the Political class can certainly tell you why this is a bad idea. It takes power away from politicians and gives it to ordinary people. The $13 trillion I'm talking about are private funds. When that money comes back home private citizens and private businesses get to decide where it's spent ... not politicians. This is money that can't be used to reward political supporters and special interests. This is money that can't be used to buy votes. Politicians would sit back and watch the private sector drive the economic revival. The private sector would be revitalized and strengthened. Politicians .. especially Democrats ... don't like this.

OK .. so it was actually a shot at the Godfather, but we're all in the crosshairs. And no, I'm not at all outraged by this. It's great! Who knows how many new listeners are listening to talk radio today trying to see just what it is that PrezBo is so upset about.

On Friday, Barack Obama had some sound advice for Congressional Republicans ... stop listening to talk radio. Well to be more specific, stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. Obama said, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." A White House official says that Obama meant that "there are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats ... We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."

Translation: We have the Republicans right where we want them. They're kowtowing to Barack Obama and giving up pretty much everything we want without much of a fight. We don't need them listening to anyone that could possibly cause them to see the light."

Yes, but when one party wants to spend billions of dollars on their party platform in the name of "economic stimulus" .. somebody has to talk about it. And when one party wants the government to be in charge of your healthcare, someone has to say something. And when one party supports the unionization by intimidation, someone has to say something.

Are you getting my point, folks? The reason why Barack Obama doesn't want people listening to talk radio is because it is a major speed bump in the way of his massive government spending and national socialist schemes. Talk radio is really the only form of media that is willing to challenge Barack Obama .. somehow we just don't seem to get tingles up its leg every time he speaks. Talk radio is willing to ask the tough questions. And now, more than ever, is the time for tough questions.

The Daily Show takes a humorous look at the Fox News coverage of the new administration as compared to the old. What do you think?

State officials in Missouri are considering the idea of a Fair Tax. Rep. Chris Kelly has a bill that would replace the state income tax with a state sales tax. First things first .. the bill calls for the Department of Revenue to figure out how much of a sales tax increase would be necessary to make tax collection revenue neutral. It would also include a provision to "rebate a tax credit to individuals meeting poverty guidelines."

No .. it isn't an exact copy of the Fair Tax. You really can't do that on the state level because there is no practical way to allow the workers to have 100% of their paychecks.

By the way, if you read the article about the bill, you will notice that the author isn't a fan .. constantly referring to the idea as the "so-called fair tax." Oh and the writer also felt the need to include that fair taxes are "typically backed by conservatives."

But back to the point ... Kelly says that the proposal hinges on a federal law allowing states to charge sales tax on Internet purchases. Kelly also says, "More states are looking into adopting so-called 'fair tax' proposals, putting a 'greater degree of pressure on Congress to do so.'" That's good to hear.

By the way ... the Fair Tax has been reintroduced into this congress - and this time with the largest amount of co-sponsors ever.

Hey, lady on that FOX affiliate, it's called a "fist bump."

Here's a little look at what the teachers unions are up to. This story comes from Northeast Pennsylvania. Democrat state legislatures are introducing a bill that would make religiously affiliated schools subject to state labor relations laws. It all started because the Catholic diocese would not recognize the teachers union as a collective bargaining unit.

So this bill would allow teachers and employee at religious schools the option, by a majority vote, to be represented by a union. If this were the case, the unions of religious schools would be able to bring their grievances to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. As of now, the Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction over issues in religious schools.

The union argues that by religious schools not recognizing teachers unions, this puts the teachers "at the will of their employer." Oh, the horror! If you don't want to be "at the will of an employer," get out there and create your own job!

The local Catholic diocese says that this bill would mean the end of Catholic schools in the district, which would cost local communities $73,880,400 each year to educate these students. Maybe that's the goal! The more students who are removed from parochial schools and placed into the government school system the more powerful the teacher's unions become.

Nancy Pelosi says that the federal government may spend even more of your tax dollars to help financial institutions. This is beyond the $700 billion in TARP funds.

Would you agree that Rahm Emanuel is the second most important man in the country, after Barack Obama? If that's the case, we are in for a long four years. As if we weren't already.

After his first week in the White House, Obama has an approval rating of 68%. Good, but not a record.

Russ Feingold is going to introduce a Constitutional amendment to end Senate appointments by state governors.

We, the taxpayers, have bailed out auto companies like GM, which are now using the money to built electric cars which are predicted to make up a whopping 5% of the market by 2020. Smart ... real smart.

On Friday, auto industry supporters in Congress asked Obama to support another $25 billion in federal loans for car companies to make more fuel efficient cars.

Europe may be the recipient of some of our Gitmo detainees.

For the second time in history, it snowed in the United Arab Emirates. Must be all that global warming.

China is going to take a stab at universal healthcare.

Do you have your Pocket Obama? "It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times."

Hawaii is considering a state-funded program that would provide airline tickets for homeless people stuck in Hawaii to return home.

You'll enjoy this use of tax dollars ... $135,536 to teach government school children in Bethlehem, PA how to ice skate.

For your entertainment .. here are some of the more odd laws on the books in Minnesota.

One of our WDBO listeners sent us this story about a man who jumped into a river on a dare and was paralyzed .. now he has been awarded $76.6 million.

A woman in Iowa was arrested after not returning a library book.

A new study found that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop dementia.

Another study out of Great Britain found that divorce makes men richer.

A man in Australia was fired for his "un-Australian" bathroom habits.

Here's your unemployable parasite of the day.

Spring is just around the corner and we can look forward to ladies showing their navels once again. And, we're very, very sorry for this. Very sorry.

• Obama throws his support behind a tax cheat slated to be the HMWIC at the Treasury Department and ultimately in charge of the IRS. Please don't try to pass of that "it was an innocent mistake" on my show. The truth is that when a Republican fail to pay taxes it's a crime that disqualifies that person for all future government positions. When a Democrat fails to pay taxes it's just a mistake. Horsesqueeze. This man intentionally evaded taxes, and he got caught. Furthermore ... when he did get caught for two years of his tax evasion he wiped his brow and said "Whew .. at least they didn't nail me for those other two years." Finally, the day before his nomination, me suddenly realizes his "mistake" and steps up to pay. You're not buying this nonsense, are you?
   
• PrezBo signaled support for the nearly one trillion dollar spending boondoggle being promoted by his party on Capitol Hill. Read the Nuze segment below. This whole Democrat stimulus package is a complete fraud. It will NOT stimulate our economy. It will add to the deficit and pave the way for huge tax increases on the actual achievers in this country in years to come. Someone tell me how funding the arts is going to stimulate our economy.
   
• President Obama has, in my humble opinion, transmitted a clear signal of weakness to the Islamic terrorists who want to kill us. You just have to know that these Islamic goons were standing by watching Obama to see just how tough he may be to deal with. What do they see? He's going to shut down the facility where some of their Islamic killer-compatriots are held, and he's halting trials of their buds. On what planet does this not send a signal of potential weakness. With this action I believe that President Obama has made America a bit less safe ... all to pander to the moonbat-left wing of the Democrat Party.

• Obama doesn't need to wait until the end of his administration to issue pardons. I think he should start immediately. First on the list would be that inane poet who hogged endless moments of TV time during the inauguration to deliver a ridiculous and painful poem at the inauguration. What drivel. But in the spirit of the new administration we should forgive her.
   
• Nancy Pelosi said that when Bush left Washington it felt like a 10-pound anvil being lifted off her head. So ... that's been the problem all along. That anvil on her head. Explains a lot. By the way, anvils generally weigh well over 100 pounds. Some weigh over to 1000.
   
• Caroline Kennedy has a tax problem. Well, isn't that special. One thing we all know for certain .. since she is a liberal Democrat you can rest assured that whatever Kennedy did to either avoid or evade (if you're government educated, there is a difference) taxes ... it was most certainly an innocent mistake. Right?
   
• Did I hear Brian Kilmeade use the phrase "ass backwards" on Fox this morning? Why yes, I do believe I did. Way to go, Brian? Americans are prudes. Time to shock them out of their pacifiers.
   
• Speaking of Fox & Friends .. .I like these guys. I really do. But this childish vendetta against Soledad O'Brien over at CNN needs to stop. You don't want to get her Irish up.

House minority leader John Boehner distributed an email this week containing some details about the Democrat's "stimulus" plan. Now you read this stuff and tell me that the Democrats haven't just taken every grandiose spending plan they've been dreaming of for the last decade, bundled those schemes together, and are now trying to sell it to ignorant Americans as economic stimulus:

We're all very happy about this. Anything, after all, for PrezBo. Barack Obama has made history yet again .. he will be the first sitting president to use e-mail. Kinda weird if you think about it, but until this point, but he's gonna be the first. Someday in the future some Congressman is going to go slobbering nuts thinking about filing a subpoena for Obama's BlackBerry records.

Throughout his transition, Obama was apparently "obsessed" with the idea of keeping his personal BlackBerry. And this is a battle he won. His BlackBerry will allow him to stay in touch with senior staff and a "small group of personal friends." Naturally, it will be equipped with extra security precautions so that hackers won't find their way into the president's private email.

One of my favorite things to do is to read the comments left by readers. I happened to scroll down and find this comment from Bee from New York. She is a Barack Obama voter.

"I love this administration already. This is a President i can believe in. It is the coolest President of my life time. By the way, i am too young to see what Reagan, and Bush Presidents looked like. President Obama is cool like cat, smart as whip and current as Silicon Valley nerds. Indeed, a Change i can believe in. I can't wait till he put the whole government business online."

Gotta love it.

The Wall Street Journal came out with a pretty sobering (but not surprising) report yesterday: Political Interference Seen in Bank Bailout Decisions.

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection .....

He cites the bank's status as the state's only financial institution owned by African-American (blacks). "We did say, yes, I thought it would have been a social tragedy if the one minority bank in Massachusetts that has been working so hard and had been overextended into housing was to be wiped out by a federal action, the Fannie-Freddie preferred [shares] thing, and that's why I think it was important to try to help them.

So .. there you go. Barney Frank raises his handsome head again; this time he is send money we don't have to a black-owned bank. The purpose here was not stimulus. The purpose was to use the financial crisis as an excuse to shore up a politically favored bank in Barney Frank's district.

There is not one bit of doubt in my mind that, considering the various ways Barney Frank has been involved in this financial mess, if he were a Republican the media and the entirety of the Democrat Party would be yelling - and yelling loudly - for his scalp.

Get used to this.

Earlier in the week I told you about a Congressional Budget Office report that basically said that this economic stimulus plan is a bunch of horsesqueeze. It isn't actually going to do what it is supposed to do - stimulate the economy. That's because only $26 billion would actually reach the economy this year and $136 by 2010. I know a great way to give the people of this country hundreds of billions of dollars back immediately ..... but we've already been through that, haven't we?

So the Democrats took this report into consideration. What they took from the report is not the fact that throwing money at the problem isn't going to work ... what they took from the report is the fact that they aren't throwing enough money fast enough.

You might enjoy this moment from Capitol Hill yesterday. Ranking member on House Ways and Means committee Dave Camp (a Republican from Michigan) asks the chair of the joint committee on taxation about job creation in the Democrats' proposed stimulus bill.

The response from the chair of the joint committee cannot tell us how many jobs will be created by this economic stimulus package. Not private. Not government. The guy shows up to testify about the economic stimulus package, and can't bring any data to show how many jobs it is expected to create?

Dick Morris has another excellent column .. we will enter the Obama presidency as the United States and finish the first 100 days as France.

Al Gore is headed to the Senate next week to testify on global warming.

The New York Times is now saying that tax issues and a housekeeper might have been the reasons why Caroline had to pull her bid for Hillary's seat.

Obama has decided to receive daily briefings on the economy.

The Senate Finance Committee endorsed Timothy Geithner for secretary of the Treasury. This pretty much guarantees a quick confirmation.

Barack Obama places stringent rules on lobbyists in his administration ... but if he wants his choice for the No. 2 Pentagon official, he is going to have to get an exemption from the rules.

US officials intercepted an Iranian ship that they believe was carrying arms for Hamas.

Larry King says that his eight-year-old son wishes he were black, because of Obama.

While waiting for the results of his Senate race with funny guy Al Franken, Norm Coleman has taken a job as a consultant.

A bill in North Dakota calls for a $450,000 grant to have government school teachers teach Native American languages.

I know what is going to get our economy going .. spending $8.4 million on slave memorial project in Pennsylvania.

Obama's dress codes turned some heads in the White House, as he appeared in the Oval Office without a suit jacket.

A group in Canada is upset with a company's job requirement: smokers need not apply. The group says it is discrimination. Damn right it is ... and that's the way it should be.

Government officials in Great Britain are now taking thermal pictures of houses to see which ones are wasting energy.

It took a year's worth of research to determine which type of vehicle gets ticketed the most.

Two girls in Great Britain have been banned from their government schools for "being too blonde."

Ok .. just a few comments on Obama's first day in the Oval Office.

You will remember that one of the first things Clinton did when he took office was to pave the way for gays in the military. By that we must assume that Clinton placed a supreme importance on that issue. Obama? His first move was to stop the trials of accused Islamic terrorists and to move to close Gitmo. Right now intelligence experts are warning us that the Islamic goons want to hit us quick and hard under a new president, What sort of message is being sent to these Islamic terrorists? Is it possible that this is will be seen as a signal that Barack Obama will be soft on terrorism?

On the economic stimulus issue ... Obama's Treasury ("Pay taxes? Who, me?") is announcing a bold new plan to rescue the banks. I wonder if that bold plan includes nationalization. Something needs to be done to get banks lending money again. How do you encourage the banks to lend money again right now by spending $355 billion on highways and bridges next year. If you have an explanation, I would sure like to hear it.

Last night Obama took the oath of office again. Good. This time Justice Roberts got it right. That means we won't be getting idiotic phone calls from people saying that Obama really isn't the president because the Chief Justice flubbed it.

One of the media's favorite lines during this presidential transition has been that Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings in modern history. Turns out that this is not true. Surprised? The Media Research Center has run the numbers, and both Truman and Nixon left office with lower approval numbers. In addition, other presidents were in an approval ratings freefall when they left office ... they just got out before they bottomed out. Kennedy, who left office under tragic circumstances, had an approval rating that was in crash mode. Don't expect the media to correct their error on this one. They'll just let the "Bush had the lowest approval ratings" things slide.

Yesterday on the program, a lot of you gave me grief for referring to Barack Obama as a rock star. What's your problem with this? Deal with it! This was the first real You Tube, American Idol, Entertainment Tonight presidential election. There were people jumping and screaming at the Mall on Tuesday who couldn't write a cohesive paragraph on the functioning of American government. They were the modern day equivalent of the crowd that greeted the Beetles at Idyllwild. To be blunt - when it comes to government these people are, by and large, ignorant. If you are still in denial, just remind yourself of some of the research. By sharing this information with you, this makes me a racist and a Nazi .. at least according to one moonbat caller yesterday and the emails Web Guy and Cristina have been forwarding me. It's just the painful truth, folks.

Calling Obama a rock star doesn't mean that I don't wish him to be a great president. I truly do. Remember, though, that this rests on my definition of what a great president would be. If he drives us further into socialism and creates a majority government-dependent voting block, he won't qualify in my mind as being "great." And if he is shown to be soft on terrorism, then "disaster" might be the more appropriate word. Based on the quality of his voters, I have my reservations.

How about an example of the rock star qualities of the Obama presidency ...

One of the first orders of business for Obama yesterday was a pay freeze for his senior White House staff. More specifically ... senior White House staff making over $100,000 a year will have their salary frozen until further notice. Obama says he is doing this because "the American people deserve more than simply an assurance that those who are coming to Washington will serve their interests." Now, how much are we talking here? Well that depends ... based on the Bush White House, there were a little over 100 White House staff members with salaries over $100,000. The most senior officials earning $172,200 a year.

A symbolic move? Yeah, I'd say so. One that is really going to affect the bottom line? Not in the slightest. But it is more of a feel good gesture to the public .. that Obama is serious about cutting spending. But there has got to be A LOT more cutting before anyone gets too excited.

If you are a regular listener to the show, or reader of Nealz Nuze, you know that I believe smokers to generally be stupid, ignorant people .. who also stink. There is no small amount of research that shows smokers have lower IQs and score lower on intelligence tests than non-smokers. If you're an employer and you're looking to make cut backs in these economic times, my suggestion is to start with the smokers. You save money in so many ways. Your smoking employees are probably less intelligent and will miss work more often than people who chose not to submit themselves to such poor habits. Now for this ....

More than half of smokers who are diagnosed with cancer continue to smoke. This is according to a West Virginia survey published in the Journal of Oncology Practice. And guess who gets the blame? The doctors. Not the people who willingly choose to continue smoking. Nope. The doctors are at fault for not doing enough to help them quit.

Amazing. Personal responsibility ... out the window. Just wait until the government gets a hold of your healthcare, then you have someone new to blame it on - the government!

Read the following paragraph. Not one word is spelled correctly .. but see how easy it is to read anyway:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulacity uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervery lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, huh?

There ... actually there were some words spelled correctly, but Belinda couldn't pick them out.

Yesterday the Senate confirmed Hillary as Secretary of State. So .. who keeps her seat warm in the Senate? For that matter ... who would even want to keep her seat warm?

Dick Morris believes that Republicans will regain much of their power in the coming years, but not after Obama has implemented irreversible socialist policies. Sorry, I disagree. Not the Republican Party we see out there today.

This credit crisis may cost as much as $3.6 trillion in US financial losses. That's more than some people make in their entire lifetimes.

How many of you saw this coming ... GM says that it is going to run out of money by the end of March. Am I going to get a big "I told you so" for this?

Republicans want a private meeting with Obama to discuss their ideas for the economic stimulus. It better include tax cuts ... a lot of them.

Even though we said it would be more complicated than it seemed, Obama wants Guantanamo Bay to be closed in one year. Won't happen.

The confirmation hearing of Eric Holder is going to be delayed for about a week. This is not the guy to be our Attorney General.

No real surprise here .. Obama's inauguration was the most watched since Reagan in 1981. And that doesn't include the people who watched this one online.

China did its own editing of Obama's inauguration address, leaving out Obama's references to communism and dissent.

The lamestream media has a new name for the festivities of Obama's inauguration - "Barack-stock" because of its "peace, love and history." Gag.

Do you remember Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who made the controversial movie about Islam? He is now going on trial for making anti-Islamic statements. Coming soon to the United States?

A Michigan-based bank is offering Sharia banking. It will also stop having a Christmas party and no longer serves alcohol at after-hours events. Private bank. Their choice.

Helen Thomas says "what else should a reporter be" than a liberal? Well .. you could be a sea hag as well.

A woman trying to steal food claims that she has "a food addiction." Oh yeah, she's a victim.

Apparently there is a big brouhaha in Britain over the Hokey Pokey. Don't these people have bigger things to worry about?

Obama the musical is set to open in Great Britain. Its official title is "Obama on My Mind."

Some people evidently didn't realize it yesterday, but the election was over and Barack Obama was, indeed, the 44th President of the United States. There is no longer anything anyone can do about Obama's lack of experience, the strange way he won both that first election to the Illinois State Senate or when his Republican opponents mysteriously self-destructed in his race for the U.S. Senate. His relationship with human sludge like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is no longer an issue. He won. He won in spite of the blemishes on his record, his decidedly leftist ideas, and his cadre of frightening friends. He is now the president. Whether you voted for him or not, he is your president and he is going to have a huge affect on your life, your finances, you job and your future.

No .. I can't say that I'm particularly happy that Barack Obama is president. I would have preferred Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney. But now, as I said yesterday, I find myself truly hoping that Barack Obama becomes the best president this country has ever had. He's going to have a tough time withstanding the pressures that will be brought to bear by people like Nancy Pelosi and the MoveOn.org crowd.

Now, judging from the emails, quite a few of you are upset with me because I didn't take a negative approach to the proceedings yesterday. I guess in order to please some people I needed to wee wee all over the inauguration parade. I found it more satisfying to look to the future with a small amount of hope rather than dwell on the fact that the YouTube, MoveOn.Org, Facebook, Entertainment Tonight, American Idol crowd - voters stupefyingly ignorant of the workings of government - have elected this president.

We have a lot to be wary of with Obama in the White House and the Democrats in control of the congress ... a lot to watch. There's the unionization-by-intimidation bill is a horror waiting in the wings. We're well on the way toward the era of government rationing of health care.

The biggest threat right now is this $850 billion "stimulus" bill. We have a mainstream media now that is determined to make sure that Barack Obama is not allowed to fail. This means that you won't be told that this so-called "stimulus" bill is merely a compilation of years of Democrat spending schemes. Now that they're in complete control the Dems are going to take all of their spending dreams, lump them into one bill, and call it economic stimulus.

Two points:

First ... the spending projects incorporated in this bill simply will not work to stimulate our economy. FDR tried this spend your way out of a recession thing .. and it failed. Tell me how research into more efficient windmills and buying laptops for school teachers is going to bring our economy around. If you want to stimulate the economy you cut taxes. You let people and businesses keep more of the money they earn. You let the people chose the economic winners and losers. You let the competitive forces of the free market get out there and battle with each other for the dollars. You don't let politicians channel freshly printed money to favored political interests and big-time campaign donors.

Second point: We don't have the money, folks. The cash is going to have to be printed by the Federal Reserve. By definition we are going to inflate the money supply. There are going to be additional dollars chasing pretty much the same amount of goods and services. With all of those extra dollars in circulation the prices of those goods and services will be bid up. There's your classic definition of inflation. Sooner or later our economy is going to come out of this, in spite of what the government does. When that happens stand back for rising prices. Looks like a good time to be invested in real estate is just around the corner. I've decided to hold on to what I have to wait for the big price surge.

I wasn't going to dwell on this today, but when our own personal editorial cartoonist, Joel Samuelson, came up with this gem of a logo I couldn't resist. It seems that the stock market recorded a record inauguration day fall yesterday. So ... for your entertainment .. the new Obama logo:

.... Now we're going to hear about that Oath of Office for the next four years. Lord help us. It seems that Chief Justice John Roberts and President Obama flubbed the oath of office yesterday. They left out the word "faithfully." Gee ... thanks guys. For the last six months we've had to endure endless phone calls and emails from people insisting that Barack Obama was not a real citizen and that his birth certificate is a fake and that he's a Muslim and that he is going to take the oath of office on the Koran and that he's not really black and all that nonsense. Now we have something else to add to their inane scripts ... mainly that Barack Obama really isn't the President of the United States because he hasn't taken the oath of office. Maybe a teleprompter would have helped.

We will do everything we can to keep those calls off the air and those people as far back in the crowd as possible.

By the way .. the screw up in the oath of office was TOTALLY Justice Roberts'. No, I'm not giving anyone a pass ... just being honest.

That would include calls from people who want to tell me that President Obama isn't really black - he's really white, you know - or some other designation. Save it. Surely you'll find another radio show that would welcome that nonsense. It matters not, and I don't intend to spend any time dealing with those asinine comments.

Wow! I'm in some sort of a mood today, aren't I?

Well, as long as I'm blowing it out of my ... er ...um ... ears today - let's talk about that tired old race war lord Joseph Lowery. If there was anyone on the program yesterday that we could absolutely, positively depend on to play the part of the weird old race pimp, it would be Lowery; and what's more, he chose a prayer to toss his racial comments around.

A lot of conservative bloggers and pundits are up in arms over Lowery's benediction, "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen'..."

Yeah .. those evil white bastards. We just have to get a little pointed remark into these proceedings somehow. We'll just ask the Almighty to make those white folks act right now that Obama is the president.

I've been aware of Rev. Lowery for decades. Without a racial grievance this man simply ceases to exist. Anyone who didn't expect him to get just a bit of a slam against the evil white man yesterday just wasn't aware of his history.

I was on the air when the speech was delivered. I'm good at multi-tasking, but not that good. I've digested the speech since then and found good and bad.

Let's try this excerpt:

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

You can imagine that I wasn't impressed with this. I'm sorry, but the size of government is important. Size equates to cost. Government costs us enough. Government is force. The bigger the government, the more the threat of force. Besides .. just where is it written that it is the role of government to help families find jobs at a decent wage. Since when is it government's role to provide us with a dignified retirement?

Much more on the speech, including your thoughts, on the show.

Perhaps the strongest message to come from Obama's speech was his remarks about the peace-loving religion of Islam. Obama said:

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you....

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West--know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Good stuff ... especially that "we will defeat you" line. Now, how do we do that by pulling our troops out of Iraq before victory is assured? Just wondering.

I was flipping through channels watching some of the coverage yesterday. Just two different moments I happened to catch on CNN ....

First was a CNN correspondent talking about Obama's policies. She noted that the Obama administration would be crazy not to "take advantage of the goodwill of the American public" and pass as many of his campaign promises ASAP. When asked what Obama's team plans to focus on first - healthcare, Iraq, education - the response was apparently "do it all now." Now wait a minute. Is this the role of a reporter? Were we listening to a journalist here or a cheerleader for big government? That leads to my point that the Obama administration is going to capitalize on his popularity and this economic crisis in order to get his policies passed. Rather than waiting to gradually implement them over a four-year period ... he is going to throw everything at us at once, and hope that most will stick.

The other moment came right before the parade began. CNN was interviewing some young college students from the Bronx. The correspondent asked three different students what they wanted Obama to focus on during his presidency. The exact reaction went as follows:

Student #1: Illegal immigration.

Student #2: Um .... Um .. ummm

Student #3: Like, education.

That pretty much sums it up, folks.

The brutal truth is if you took what most of the people on the Mall and watching that parade yesterday, and I'm talking about 90% here, knew about our form of government and the people who are running it, and shoved that knowledge up an ant's hind end, it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar.

Before you get too bent out of shape and continue sending me the emails .. just know that I am aware of the proposed Constitutional amendment to repeal the 22nd Amendment. For those of you who went to government schools, this is the amendment calling for the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President. The repeal was proposed by Democrat Representative from New York Jose Serrano on January 6th.

Look, folks ... we have so many other issues to discuss. Are you really concerned that the Congress is going to amend the Constitution to make Barack Obama president for as long as the people want? No. Not to mention the fact that Jose Serrano did not propose this amendment specifically to keep Barack Obama in the White House. He has proposed this amendment in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007. And guess what? It hasn't passed before, and I highly doubt that it is going to pass now.

Obama has eight years .. at the most.

Teddy Kennedy had a seizure yesterday during the congressional luncheon. I'm sure we join many of you in wishing him well. The reports this morning are good.

The stock market did not react too well after Obama's inaugural address. That tends to happen on Wall Street on inauguration day, but this was the worst inauguration drop in history. I'm sure it means nothing ... right?

Did you notice that it didn't take long for the official White House website to make the transition to a President Obama. Exactly one minute passed 12pm ET yesterday.

Speaking of the new website, some are already upset over the White House's new website and how it refers to President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina. I wonder why we don't concentrate on the response of Louisiana's Democrat governor and New Orleans' Democrat mayor?

For those of you who are not feeling optimistic about an Obama presidency .. you might enjoy this article: Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears.

If you were George Bush, and you had to write a secret note for Barack Obama.... what would it say? For me it would be simple: "Welcome to the Big Leagues."

Hillary Clinton's nomination will more than likely be approved today. Yesterday, seven of Obama's cabinet nominees were approved.

Today, Obama will discuss the possibility of an accelerated troop drawdown from Iraq with top military officials.

The Los Angeles Police Department has been told not to wear riot helmets because it might make demonstrators more upset. Yeah .. you don't want police upsetting law-breakers.

Iowa City is considering an ordinance that would allow police to breath-test entertainers at bars and restaurants to make sure that they don't have a blood-alcohol concentration of .02 or higher.

Another reason to quit smoking (other than the fact that you're an idiot) is that your pets will be healthier.

Apparently Barack Obama has an Indonesian look-alike.

Say what you will about the politics and celebrity-worship of Barack Obama, but today is a historic day for this nation ... a day to celebrate.

Once again, for the 44th time in our history, the United States will show the entire world that the world's most powerful country can peacefully change leadership. We're used to it. That doesn't seem so special to us ... but to citizens from other countries it is nothing short of amazing. Witness what is happening in Russia. A new leader through an election? Yeah ... tell that to Putin and get fitted for a blindfold.

Did I vote for this guy? No. Do I want him to be the best president this country has ever had? Absolutely; but that's according to my definition of what "the best" would entail, not Bill Ayers'. I want a president who promotes self reliance, who honors the concept of the individual, who brings us more economic liberty, who recognizes the danger of big government, and who will be an inspiration to millions of people who, before today, thought that their future was out of their hands. As my father used to say; "People in hell want ice water." But we'll see.

Many people have asked me if I suspect that I've made my last trip to the Oval Office for a chat with the president. Yup, I expect so. If the oceans should ever part, however, and if I should receive such an invitation I'll gladly go and I'll be honored to meet and talk with the President of the United States. The institution is larger than any man, and any man in that office deserves our respect: Perhaps not our support at all times, but always our respect.

Maybe there is hope for Obama after all. I mean, the guy is in love with government just like most Americans; particularly those educated in government schools. But in his inauguration speech today we're led to believe that Obama may stress the importance of self reliance and responsibility. I'll really believe it when he slashes funding for our welfare system and allows the people to keep more of their money in the form of tax cuts .. rather than relying on the government to stimulate the economy.

At a volunteer event yesterday, Obama said, "Government can only do so much ... And if we're just waiting around for somebody else to do it for us, if we're waiting around for somebody else to clean up the vacant lot or waiting for somebody else to get involved in tutoring a child, if we're waiting for somebody else to do something, it never gets done."

Good for him. That's a good start.

Now I assume that he said this in the context of volunteerism .. why can't he take more of an approach like this to our economy? Remember, it was just last week when Obama said that "only government" can get us out of this economic crisis.

The inauguration of Barack Obama has emphasized .. at least, for some .. the vast divide between the evil, disgusting, rancid, rotting, putrid, hated, crooked rich and "real Americans," a/k/a the poor and middle income citizens. You can thank the media for reminding us that rich people are attending the inauguration with all the luxuries they can afford, and yet that same media that slammed George Bush for spending about one-third of what the Obama folks are spending on this one.

I want you to take a look at how ABC News covered the pre-inauguration events. Here's a little taste:

President-elect Barack Obama billed his inauguration an event "for all Americans." But in the nation's capital this long weekend, wealthy visitors are finding themselves a bit more equal -- and warmer -- than others.

Most Americans here to see President-elect Obama make history crammed onto buses and trains, slept on floors and fought crowds and cold. But the wealthiest Americans coming to see the event are enjoying all the perks their money and power ever warranted.

For CEOs and stars arriving by private jet, local airports have shut down entire runways to serve as parking lots for their planes. Officials are prepared to handle hundreds of private aircraft for the long weekend ...

Visitors without connections may scrounge to buy a $150 ticket to a state ball and feel a small part of history; meanwhile CEOs, media personalities and major campaign donors hop from private party to ball to private party.

Well, there you go. Isn't it just horrible that these high-achievers are allowed to spend their money to attend this inauguration? Don't they know that everybody is supposed to be equally miserable during this event? If one person has to arrive by bus, then everybody should arrive by bus. Nobody is better than anyone else, right? If one church group of Mississippi has to stand in the mall shivering in the cold, then everyone should stand in the mall. If one bus load from Illinois has to carry their own toilet paper ten who are these rich SOB's to have warm bathrooms and super-soft tissues?

Is this going to be the media routine throughout the Obama presidency? Are we in for four years --- maybe eight --- of the leftist media making a big deal of the differences in lifestyle between high-achievers and your local union pipe fitter?

Oh hell yes, we are.

Since this video feed automatically cranks up when you load this page, we moved it behind a link. If you want to watch, go here.

Yesterday President Bush decided to commute the sentences of the two Border Patrol agents who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer. The shooting took place back in 2005. The agents shot admitted Mexican drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila as he tried to cross the Rio Grande, abandoning a van full of marijuana. The agents say that they believed Davila to be armed and shot in self defense. Either way, the men were served with prison sentences longer than 10 years. They have already served two of those years.

During our Oval Office visit last week one talk show host, who shall remain unnamed (hint: It wasn't me) brought up the case of these two imprisoned agents. The president said that there was a process to be followed there, and that he was confident the host wasn't trying to circumvent that process. Talk about slinking back into your seat! For some reason the matter wasn't mentioned again during out visit.

While illegal immigration has taken a back seat to the election of Barack Obama, it still stands as one of the most vital issues when it comes to protecting our nation. GW really dropped the ball on this one. As did John McCain. And the Democrats won't be any better ....

But at least these two Border Patrol agents, who many argue were doing nothing but protecting the borders of this nation, will become productive members of society a little sooner. Keep in mind that Bush didn't pardon the men for their supposed crimes, he just commuted their sentences because he believed they were excessive. No kidding, even Osvaldo Aldrete Davila the drug smuggler was sentenced to less time in jail than the Border Patrol agents.

Apparently the newest Senator from New York will be Caroline Kennedy. Americans haven't lost their affection for Royalty.

Joe Biden's wife let it slip that Obama gave Biden the choice of either vice president or secretary of state. Trust me, Hillary will get her ounce of flesh for this one.

Keeping the Obamamania alive .. Obama is single-handedly redefining the male physique. That's only because you folks haven't seen that picture of ME on a Hawaiian beach. Just ask Belinda.

Remember when the Clinton's left the White House, they trashed the place and took over $200,000 worth of stuff. Well it seems that the Bushes are going to leave with a little more class. And who would expect that?

Here's what Obama's first day in office is going to look like. Iraq is going to be back in the spotlight.

Defense secretary Robert Gates will not be attending the inauguration ceremonies. He will be the designated chosen one if something terrible were to happen today. He's going to Disney World.

Over the weekend, Obama said that we need a "new Declaration of Independence." And who, Mr. Obama, would be in charge of drafting that one? Back in 1976, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the original, I wrote "The Declaration of Individual Independence." That got me a guess appearance on NBC's "Tomorrow" show with Tom Snyder and some other guest shots. Yeah .. there are copies, but none on the Internet. Perhaps someday I'll post it.

A government school superintendent in Dayton, OH is warning students and staff against "inappropriate comments" today during the inauguration. Free speech is alive and well.

Bill Clinton says that we are not going to have partisan politics over the next 30 years of American history. Easy for him to say.

So far, Congress is very pleased with Obama's willingness to work with them and listen to them.

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, more Americans believe global warming to be caused by planetary trends rather than by human activity. Good! An indication that Americans might not be all that dumb after all!

Great Britain spent tens of millions of dollars on a computer to calculate how climate change will affect its country ... only to find that the machine itself has a huge carbon footprint.

A scientists from Berkeley wants to paint major cities white in order to tackle global warming.

Experts from the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis say that Iran will have nuclear weapons this year.

The Seattle Post editorial board admits: "We can only imagine what we would have said had Geithner been a Bush appointee." Ahh .... Honesty! Too bad this paper won't exist in about six months.

Irish bookies are betting on what phrases Obama will use during his inauguration speech today.

A "memory pill" could be available over the counter soon. Looks like someone else is going to have to hide my Easter Eggs this year.

Well, here we are.  Inauguration week .. coronation week .. call it what you will, just know that we're going to have a presidential inauguration tomorrow such as nothing you've ever seen before. It's rather tough to put everything I have running through what I use for a brain into one cohesive writing ....  So let's just go the random thought routine for now:

The Routine Transference of Power

This is perhaps the most impressive thing about a presidential inauguration.  To this extent at least, our Constitution works.  We're the most powerful nation in the world and every four years we change leaders (eight years at a minimum).  We do so peacefully and with the full input and participation of the people.  None of that nonsense that's going on in Russia; no Hugo Chavez here trying to become president for life.  It's too bad our Constitution - the 10^th Amendment, for instance - doesn't work this well in other areas.

The Cost of the Inauguration

Couldn't care less.  Look, when we're talking about a one trillion dollar deficit, what is 150 million dollars?  OK .. since you asked, I'll tell you:  $1.5 million dollar is to a Trillion as one cent is to $6,666.  Does that put it into perspective for you?  Most of this inauguration money comes from private donations - security is paid for by the taxpayers, and that is as it should be.

I recognize that this is a historical event - but it is the hypocrisy of the media in covering the event.  Bush spent $50 million four years ago, now Obama is spending three times that much.  Four years ago the media portrayed Bush's spending as a travesty and extravagance during wartime.  Now?  Silence.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  

The Voters Who Put Him There

I'm not saying anything about Obama and his intellect here.  We're talking voters.  One of the things that distresses me about this election is the ample amount of evidence we have that the voters who gave the victory to Obama are - in a word - ignorant.  Not to assuage some of you literalists out there; I know that not ALL of the people who voted for Obama are ignorant, but the label surely holds true for the majority of them.  There have been quite a few surveys and polls done since the election, and the results are pretty much the same.  The people who voted for McCain had a higher knowledge and understanding of American government than did the people who voted for Obama.

Who can forget those interview you heard from Don Imus?  His people went out on the streets and interviewed Obama supporters in Harlem.  They would ask some Obama supporters if they thought Sarah Palin was the right choice to be Obama's running mate.  Not one pointed out that Palin was tied to McCain, not Obama.  Imus' henchmen asked these hapless, ignorant voters if they were supporting Obama because he's anti-abortion. They answered yes.  They asked these supporters if they were supporting Obama because he wanted to stay in Iraq until victory was accomplished.  Oh yeah ...that's why we're voting for him.

Then we had that wonderful spectacle of Obama voters coming out of a polling place to be interviewed after casting their ballots.  These people all thought that the Republicans were in control of the congress, and none of them could tell you who Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid was. 

Sorry to say it, but a huge hunk - perhaps the majority - of Obama voters put about much thought and intelligence into their votes this year as an addict does into the purity of their next hit.  Teenagers spend more time thinking about their choices of zit crème than most of these voters did thinking about who should lead our country for the next four years. 

Our founding fathers understood that everyone is not intellectually qualified to cast a vote.  That's why there is no guarantee of a right to vote in the Constitution.  This may be our first election where the dumbest half of our population selected the president.  How can that be good?  We need to get some of the uniformed ignoranuses away from ballot boxes. 

Understanding the Celebration

There is one group of voters and celebrants out there who's joy I can understand and appreciate; and I'm talking about black voters.

First ... let me make a point about "black" vs. "African American."  I'm not one of those out there who slavishly fell in line when Jesse "The Sloganmaster" Jackson decided that from henceforth all blacks shall be referred to as "African-American."  Political correctness run amok.  Most blacks in this country have about as much in common with African natives as I have with Finnish yak herders.  I just flat-out don't like hyphenated-Americanism.  I'm not European-American, I'm an American ... and so is our next president.  I'll just be damned if I'm going to call the President of the United States an "African-American" President.

Now .. having said that, let's address the overwhelming joy we see in black America over the events of this week.  How could blacks NOT be joyous?  Someone a few months back told me that Barack Obama was black America's greatest achievement.  I disagreed.  I said that black America's greatest achievement was our black men coming back from World War II to a country where they had separate waiting rooms and drinking fountains; where they had to sit in theatre balconies if they could get into the theatre at all; where they could surely spend their money at Woolworth's, but don't try to sit at the lunch counter; where a black soldier couldn't even find a decent motel in which to put his family to bed as he traveled across our country to a new duty station ----- to come home from World War II to experience this oppressive segregation and bias ---- and instead of burning this place to the ground going right back out there and fighting for America in the Korean War.  There's black America's greatest achievement; its forbearance. 

I can fully understand that for the black voter; especially the older black voter, voting for Barack Obama transcends politics or policy.  It's about affirmation.  A sense of finally and fully belonging.  We should all try to appreciate the joy and satisfaction so many of our fellow citizens will get out of this inauguration tomorrow.  It may not turn out all that well for the nation; but it sure doing something to pump of the psyche of our black neighbors.

Celebrity Worshipping Atmosphere

It's Pennsylvania Avenue, running, depending on your perspective, from the Capitol to the White House (or the other way around). It's not a red carpet running from some fleet of limos into a movie palace.  The reality is that here we have a man being sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States who major, perhaps only real accomplishment in his lifetime, has being elected president.  This he did on the basis of good looks, a strong personality, a pleasant voice and eloquence ... eloquence with words written by someone else.  Eloquence, good looks and a rock star persona are not predictors of success in the Oval Office. 

This week, however, celebrity qualities rule while accomplishments and actual ability take the back seat ... and in this atmosphere of manic celebrity worship (something America does quite well) some of the lines you hear from people in the streets are less than inspiring:

• Barack is definitely it.  He's the biggest star here.
• Everybody's here.  Ever celebrity you can think of is here.
• Barack is definitely a rock star. 
• The energy in Washington is out of control.
• Obama has come to deliver us.
• Obama is the biggest star of all.
• Washington is becoming the 'it place'."

This is going to be an orgy of celebrity .. and there's really no way to stop it, so you might as well just sit back in wonder and either enjoy it or be amused by it.  But sooner or later the focus returns to such mundane items as foreign policy, relations between the three branches of government (can you name them?), shepherding America through this economic crisis and trying (we hope) to preserve a modicum of freedom and independence in the process.

There are actually people out there who truly believe that Obama is going to lift the burden of mortgage payments and paying for food from their shoulders.  For them disappointment will come early.  For others disappointment or just flat out alarm will come when they see that growth in the size of government threatens to swamp any vestige of individuality, economic liberty and independence we have left in this country.

Unprescedented Spending

I've gone out of my way to give Obama the benefit of the doubt since his election.  Truth be told, some of his cabinet nominations can give you hope.  Others are alarming.  The idea of getting a socialist to run what has really be little more than an effort to destroy capitalism - the global warming hoax - certainly doesn't sit well if you understand the force for good that is free enterprise.

If I had to make a medium range prediction on the results of Obama's grandiose spending plans I would say that would be inflation ... somewhere in the double digit range. There are investment methods that take advantage of inflation .. and that's where I'll be headed.   

There is simply no realistic way to tax Americans who are working now enough to fund Obama's spending plans.  The bill is going to be waiting for your children and their children.  Will it be a bill they can pay? 

One thing is clear:  Obama and the Democrats have seized on our economic crisis to make good on virtually all of their campaign spending promises.  Whatever Obama promised; whatever powerful Democrats promised by way of government spending programs;, has suddenly become spending that is critical and absolutely necessary if we are to recover from this economic crisis.  The economy has given Obama a blank check.

Something else is clear, and that would be Obama's belief that spending by government is almost always good; while spending by the people is often suspect.  We now have a president and a political party in charge that believes it can do a better job of spending the money that you earn than you can.  We'll see how that works out for us. 

Just some of the stuff we came up with while watching the  building Obamagasm over the weekend:

Have you been reading the accounts of Obama worship leading up to his inauguration?  Let's start with this little diddy from the New York Times:

"Four years ago, a largely white Republican crowd - including out-of-towners from places like Mississippi and Alabama - piled into Love Nightclub in northeast Washington D.C. to celebrate George W. Bush's inauguration, and to see B.B. King, the celebrity guest for the evening ... This year, however, it was Diddy doing the celebrity honors and the vast majority of the crowd was young and African-American: men in dark suits and vests and women in dresses and skirts, some still donning their fur coats ... 'This is a true celebration,' said Mason Chaudhry, 32, a bartender at Love.  Mr. Chaudhry said he hasn't seen as much energy in the club - or in the city for that matter - since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers ... The crowd's sense of jubilation seemed to transcend the dire economic times. Mr. Chaudhry, the bartender, said he hasn't seen people spend as much money in the club since the recession began."

When it comes to celebrity worship, this inauguration won't disappoint.  News organizations are gawking at the chance to spot celebrities around town.  An example from the Politico: "Jay-Z! At Pentagon City mall this afternoon, apparently with Mary J. Blige in tow. Shopping? Mall revelers were "screeching" and chanting: "H-O-V-A". Point is, he's in da house."

In preparation for inaugural events, what do you think was one of the top items on people's to do lists?  Botox.  That's right.  USA Today reports that Washington DC-area cosmetic dermatologists suddenly got a lot of business for people wanting "quickie cosmetic fixes" before the inauguration.  This includes Botox and microdermabrasion.  A DC-area dermatologist says that requests have doubled and some have even tripled in preparation for the inauguration.

Or have you seen the new American flag?  Seriously, there are pictures of a new American flag that has emerged for the inauguration dawning none other than the face of Barack Obama and the date of his inauguration.  Nevermind the official US flag code: "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."

Obama's hair cut has also become all the rage.  Apparently it is a "medium-short, tapered at the end of the neckline; the hairline is natural, finished with shears,"  according to his barber, Zariff in Chicago.  Zariff calls the cut "the Obama" and it cost $21.  Tourists have come from all over, including overseas, just to get "the Obama" from Zariff.  But other barbershops across the country are also offering Obama haircuts, which have become all the craze. Barber shop owner Tony Thomas says, "Before they were saying it was a business cut. Now, a lot of clients say, 'Give me the cut that the president is wearing,' ... People want what's popular. You try to relate to somebody you know." 

If the Obama hair cut isn't enough to show your devotion to the chosen one .. how about a tattoo.  There are stories from all around the country of people getting Obama tattoos to show their support.  One tattoo parlor in DC is doing an "Obamathon" for the inauguration where you can get a free Obama '08 tattoo if you get another tattoo costing more than $200. 

But this idol worship isn't just exclusive to a few graffiti artists or barber shops .. 67% of Americans say that they plan to watch the inauguration tomorrow.  And 92% of blacks say they plan to watch.  And it will be pretty easy considering that every network from BET to Disney Chanel to QVC will have wall-to-wall coverage of the event.

And for Americans abroad .. all of the sudden it is "cool" to be American again.  Take a look at this article from the Washington Post about the treatment of Americans abroad now that Obama will be president.  An American woman living in Prague says that she no longer hesitates to say she is American, "Thank God! It feels better ... The people I work with give me high-fives and say things like 'You can be proud to be from your country again.' "  Krispy Kreme in Great Britain is offering free café Americanos to people who walk up to the counter and say Obama's slogan "Yes, we can!"

President Bush will be leaving the White House as the most unpopular president in history, according to the latest polls from CBS News and the New York Times.  His final approval rating will be just 22%.  The previous record was Harry Truman with a 32% approval rating upon leaving office.  So this makes Bush's rating the lowest for an outgoing president in the history of tracking presidential approval ratings.  Now, this should tell you a little something.  Only 6% of Democrats approve of President Bush, compared to 57% of Republicans.  That's a mighty large partisan gap.

Again, history will be kind to Bush once people recognize and appreciate the fact that he has kept our country from sustaining another terrorist attack .....

This letter has been making its way across the Internet.  I don't know if anyone actually wrote this letter to their employees or not.  I hope they did ... but it doesn't really matter.  My guess is that there is no small amount of businessmen and women out there who are harboring exactly these thoughts right now.  Enjoy:

The hate mail has really been lame lately.  Sorry, but this is the best we could come up with. 

Name: peter
Subject: your mouth
You are such a creep,and big headed with it ,you have to brag about being with Bush three times you and Hennity are a pair of brown noses.The fair tax will never get passed,the only one who will benefit is you on the sales of your book,you are worried about Obama taxing any one earning over$250,000 because this will affect you and your pal.

Belinda must get a good salary to put up with your attitude and the way she has to put up with you and your ignorance.

What do you want to bet that "peter," if that really is his name, works for someone who is going to see their taxes go up under Obama.  We wonder how that will work out for him.

On the eve of Obama's inauguration, the rest of the world is beginning to be wary of Obamamania.  And many Americans are preparing for an inevitable let down .. considering the enormous expectations placed on his presidency.

Who do you think were the top donors for Obama's inauguration?  

Obama is considering creating a government-run "aggregator bank" as a way to ease the financial crisis.  More government the solution?  What a surprise!!!

A Muslim scholar speaking at Obama's inauguration is from an Islamic group that has been linked to Hamas.  Wow!  Another surprise!

Rev. Jeremiah Wright showed up to give a little sermon in Washington yesterday.  And the surprises just keep on coming!

There is going to be a larger security force in Washington DC on Tuesday than there will be serving in Afghanistan.

Some are going to be disappointed, but they have made Washington DC a "prostitution-free zone" for the inauguration. Only the taxpayers get screwed.

According to Jim Hansen of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, Obama only has four years to save the planet.  Hansen is a moonbat.

Nancy Pelosi says that she is open to the idea of prosecuting officials of the Bush administration.  Pelosi is a barking moonbat.

Nancy is also insistent on repealing the Bush tax cuts immediately .. aka. increasing taxes on the evil rich.  Keep at it, hippie gal. 

Hugo Chavez has some welcoming words for Obama .. saying that Obama has the "stench" of President Bush and runs the risk of "being killed if he tries to change the American 'empire.'"

Larry Summers says that Obama will keep the unemployment rate under 10%.  Bush did that as well.

California is having such budget problems that it is going to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks and student grants.  Perhaps they need to raise taxes and spend more money!

More than 80% of the nation's top 100 corporations have subsidiary tax havens in countries with lower or no taxes.  Now imagine if we had the FairTax .. how many of those companies would return their money to the US?

Your government at work .. a Florida town paid $141,000 to count the number of trees on public property.

The law of unintended consequences .. a Consumer Product Safety law may force libraries to ban children until they get rid of any books containing traces of lead.

A government school teacher in Fort Pierce, Florida wants to rename streets in the black community after tulips, daffodils and birds in order to combat crime.

Many of you took the liberty of sending me this article .. why women have better sex with rich men.  It's news to me. 

We've been getting literally thousands of emails from Tampa fans asking when I'm going to be on the air back there again. Well, relief is on the way! Beginning Monday The Neal Boortz Show will be carried live on NewsTalk 1220 WSRQ in Sarasota! The signal reaches into Tampa ... so all you Tampa Bay listeners be sure to tune in!

Last night I watched the President's address to the nation from the East Room in the White House. Around noon on Sunday I'm sitting with this man in the Oval Office with some other talk show hosts engaged in general conversation. Thirty-six hours later I'm watching him deliver a speech on TV. Let me tell you, these were two entirely different people. When we sat down in the Oval Office President Bush just started talking about his presidency and the ups and downs of the last eight years. His presence was dynamic. He was connecting with every person in the room. I'm certainly not saying that his speech was a disaster of any type --- but it's just a shame that the American people, and that includes the critics, can't experience the George Bush I experienced on Wednesday.

A few hours after I signed off yesterday, a US Airways jetliner ended up in the Hudson River. If you haven't heard the story by now .. a flock of birds knocked out both engines just after takeoff and the pilot managed to land the sucker safely. Not one casualty.

The pilot is Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger. Here is a quick bio from the Smoking Gun: Some now say that Capt. Sullenberger is the frontrunner for the nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton as New York's Junior Center.

Who is this guy, the US Airways pilot who today amazingly crash-landed a US Airways jet in New York's Hudson River without any fatalities? The heroic Sullenberger, 57, has worked for US Airways since 1980, and before that spent more than six years as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. Sullenberger is also the founder of Safety Reliability Methods. The firm describes itself as providing "technical expertise and strategic vision and direction to improve safety and reliability in a variety of high risk industries." Business should soon be booming. Click here to revel in Sullenberger's brilliance and professionalism, as detailed in the veteran pilot's resume. Expect his "executive career highlights" to be updated shortly.

Now, how long will it be until we get some activist group out there talking about the dangers of commercial aircraft or the fact that this plane could have landed on people's homes .. we shouldn't have airports near highly populated areas! Oh .. and I fully expect some environmental nut job to wonder why nobody is concerned about the geese.

As I've said about these airline pilots before ... this flight crew earned every penny they will be paid in their entire lifetimes in just three minutes on January 15, 2009. God bless them.

By the way ... the plural of Canada Goose is Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese. Just a small point. If one is a Canada Goose, then two are Canada Geese. Now .. to belabor the point. One California Brown Bear is a California Brown Bear. Two would be California Brown Bears, not Californian Brown Bears. Get that? Good.

I think the temperature of the Hudson River yesterday was around 40 degrees. That's cold. If your health club has an ice bath for your aching legs it is probably around 47 degrees or so. That is also the temperature of the Colorado River as it flows through the Grand Canyon ... even in the dead of Summer. On one of my six rafting trips through the Canyon the boatmen, during their initial safety briefing, told us that if we get thrown out of the boat in a rapid the LAST thing we would think about was how cold the water was. They were right. I got tossed out on the first morning. It took them about 10 minutes to get to me and get me back in the boat. During that time I thought about rapids and rocks .. but never how cold the water was. I would be interested in the experiences of some of the people who went into the water after the US Airways ditching yesterday.

Yesterday I was saying that I knew of no other successful ditchings of commercial jet airliners where the aircraft stayed intact and all parties survived. In fact, there has been one. Just one. From AirSafe.com here are the details on the three intentional jet airliner ditching events since 1960.

October 1963; Aeroflot Tu124; Leningrad, USSR: According to a report in Flight International Magazine the aircraft was on a flight from Estonia to Moscow when a landing gear problem led to a diversion to Leningrad. While holding prior to landing and about 13 miles (20.8 km) from Leningrad airport, the aircraft ran out of fuel. The crew managed to land the aircraft on the nearby Neva River, where it remained floating on the surface. The aircraft was towed to shore and all 52 occupants survived.

2 May 1970; ALM DC9-33CF; near St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: The aircraft had departed JFK airport in New York for St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles. After three missed approaches, the crew diverted to St. Croix. While en route, the aircraft ran out of fuel and the crew ditched the aircraft. While the flight crew made specific preparations for ditching, the imminent ditching was not communicated to the cabin crew. As a result, several occupants were not belted in at the time of the ditching. The aircraft remained afloat for five to six minutes before sinking in waters about one mile (1600 meters) deep. One of the six crew members and 22 of the 57 passengers were killed. The accident was investigated by the NTSB and the details are available in NTSB report NTSB-AAR-71-8 dated 31 March 1971.

23 November 1996; Ethiopian Airlines 767-200ER; near Moroni, Comoros Islands: The aircraft was on a flight from Ethiopia to Kenya when it was hijacked by at least two people. While attempting a landing near Moroni in the Comoros Islands the aircraft ran out of fuel and ditched near a beach. Ten of the 12 crew members and 117 of the 160 passengers were killed. The three hijackers apparently died.

An analysis of a video of the ditching reveals the following information.

Speed: The aircraft was traveling in excess of 130 knots (150 mph, 244 km/h) as the aircraft first touched water.

Crash Sequence: The aircraft initially dragged the left wing tip in the water, followed by the left engine. The left engine apparently broke up, and the increased drag caused the aircraft to swing to the left. The right wing and engine stayed out of the water as the aircraft continued to swing to the left. The fuselage broke somewhere aft of the wing, causing a number of objects to be ejected forward as the remains of the aircraft came to rest.

Flight Control Surfaces: As the aircraft touched down, it did not appear that any of the leading or trailing edge flaps were extended. As the aircraft made its initial water entry, there appeared to be movement of spoiler panels on the left wing and rudder movement as well. The right wing was flexing, but there did not appear to be movement of any flight control surfaces.

For those of you who want to see it for yourself, here is a copy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. [pdf] Basically what you are looking at is a litany of pork-barrel and grow-the-government spending projects under their new and improved label, "stimulus." What you are also looking at is a big fat "thank you" from Barack Obama to any and all people who supported him .. he is going to pay off on his campaign promises, and he's goi9ng to do it in the name of "economic stimulus." Rather than waiting four years to work through your proposals, why not just get it all out on the table right from the start and take advantage of this historic economic situation.

By the way, the stimulus includes just $275 billion in tax cuts, which is clearly less than the $300 billion originally proposed.

Here are just some of the examples of what Obama considers "economic stimulus":

$3.836 billion for rural water and waste grant and loan programs

$6.2 billion to help low-income families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes and make our country more energy efficient

$400 million to help state and local governments purchase efficient alternative fuel vehicles to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions

$6 billion for broadband and wireless services in underserved areas

$650 million to continue the coupon program to enable American households to convert from analog television transmission to digital transmission

$400 million to replace the 30 year old Social Security Administration's National Computer Center to meet growing needs for processing retirement and disability claims and records storage

$3.1 billion for infrastructure projects on federal lands including improvements to visitor facilities, road and trail restoration, preservation of buildings of cultural and historic importance, rehabilitation of abandoned mines and oil fields, and environmental cleanup projects

$400 million for ready-to-go habitat restoration projects

$850 million for hazardous fuels removal and other efforts to prevent wildfires on public lands

$1 billion for 21st century classrooms, including computer and science labs and teacher technology training

$66 million for formula grants to states to provide services to homeless children including meals and transportation when high unemployment and home foreclosures have created an influx of homeless kids

$2 billion to provide child care services for an additional 300,000 children in low-income families while their parents go to work

$30.3 billion to extend health insurance coverage to the unemployed, extending the period of COBRA coverage for older and tenured workers beyond the 18 months provided under current law

$500 million to rehabilitate and improve energy efficiency at some of the over 42,000 housing units maintained by Native American housing programs

$1 billion to help low-income families pay for home heating and cooling at a time of rising energy costs

I hope I'm getting the point across here. Barack Obama and the Democrats made some pretty hefty spending promises during the campaign. Now that they're moving into power they see a wonderful opportunity to implement virtually all of those promises. They just cite the financial crisis and apply the "stimulus" label to their spending plans. Pretty clever ... but then again maybe not so clever when the realize that the media will go along with the scheme.

Just days before George Bush leaves office, the FISA court issued a major ruling. Now remember, FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Secrecy Act. It is a secret court that expedites warrants for our intelligence agencies to help fight the war on terror. In a really rare public opinion from the court, it validated the "power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved." Here's the story from The New York Times.

This marks the first time that an appellate court addressed the constitutionality of the wiretapping powers of the federal government. With this ruling, "it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration's repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans."

As a senator, Obama was very much against Bush's presidential wiretapping power. But then he voted for the bill anyway that gave Bush the power to do so. Now that Obama is entering the Oval Office, maybe he will appreciate a ruling like this .. knowing the challenges that face him.

Apologies from those who slammed Bush on this issue? Yeah, right. Are you kidding me?

By the way ... note that the critics always used the term "domestic wiretapping" when referring to these wiretaps even though either the caller or the person receiving the call was always in another country. Only in the mind of a liberal is that "domestic wiretapping."

Name: Doug Butler
City: Gainesville
Subject: you
Your message:...too bad Bush 43 is gone...now you can't carry his water for torture and warmongering. No self respecting libertarian would have anything to do with Bush and his hatchet job on the Constitution...which, obviously you go along with.

So, be outraged by Obama all you want; you just accept big government from so-called conservatives and rage at liberals who do exactly the same thing.

Do you think that Tim Geithner, PEBO's choice for Treasury Secretary, just made a "mistake" when he didn't pay his taxes? Read this and then check back with me on that.

Just so you know ..Obama says that we no longer need to kill Osama bin Laden.

Eric Holder, possibly our future attorney general, believes that waterboarding is torture.

The Senate voted yesterday to clear the rest of the $350 billion in bailout funds

We have something new that makes you a racist .. opposing drilling for oil and gas because this "could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents."

Henry Waxman is already busy at work to pass legislation to curb all of this global warming we are experiencing.

Are liberals really arguing that the reason FDR's Neal Deal policies failed is because they weren't big enough .. and this is why Obama needs to make this stimulus package even more expensive?

The ACLU in Louisiana wants to make sure that students have the right to express their views on the day Obama is sworn in.

More than half of Americans believe thathistory is not going to be kind to President Bush's legacy.

They are going to have valet service for your bicycles at Obama's inauguration.

Guess what country the United Nations has chosen to chair the multibillion-dollar United Nations Development Program.. Iran. Unbelievable.

For all of you global warmers out there who are riding around on scooters to save the planet.. looks like they might not be as environmentally friendly as you would like to believe.

It was only very recently that I learned that prostitution is legal in Rhode Island. Well here we have someone who wants to make it illegal. There's a surprise.

A city council in Great Britain is offering workers time off if they get a boob job because it would 'generate goodwill' among staff. Yeah, no kidding.

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, bought ads on county buses in South Florida. Needless to say, it has caused quite a stir.

Here's the scenario: gypsies set up camp next to a highway, and then they demand that the government build them a wall to shield them from the noise of the traffic. And the government complies.

For those of you who are into science like Royal and myself, here are some nifty close up pictures of earth taken from space.

What's this? A column in praise of Dick Cheny? Yes indeed! And a good read it is.

Here's that column I mentioned yesterday. A British historian says that history will show that George Bush was right.

Achmanutjob from Iran says that it is not feasible for Israel to live. Another "welcome to the big leagues" moment for PEBO.

The left is determined that Californians are just not going to be allowed have their say on the issue of gay marriage. This from George Will.

Skeptical about Obama's bailout plan? Don't feel pregnant. You certainly aren't alone.

I had just returned from traveling to Arizona and Nevada over the holidays, and was ready to settle in for the Winter when the email came: "The President Wants To See You." Well, you don't ignore invitations like that, so it was off to Washington on Tuesday afternoon for an Oval Office meeting with several other talk show hosts with President Bush. This was the third time I had been invited to such a meeting - and my best guess is that it never going to happen again - at least not for the next eight years.

Too much to put into the notes ... but we'll talk about it today.

Discuss.

One step at a time, in the days leading up to an Obama presidency .. we are getting closer and closer to government healthcare in this country. The latest step is the House passage of the Children's Health Insurance Plan bill (SCHIP). Now it's off to the Senate for approval. Then it is off to Obama's desk for him to sign once he is sworn in.

Don't forget that this is the bill Henry Waxman says, "This bill is a down payment, a down payment on health care for all Americans." Healthcare for all Americans is just another way of saying "healthcare that is run by the government."

Forty Republicans in the House said yes to the bill, despite some of the following criticisms ..

First of all, Republicans had little to no input into the bill. There's something they are going to have to get used to. Republicans claim that the bill would allow states to enroll families with incomes upwards of $80,000. Another reason they opposed the bill was because of "a provision in the measure that would lift a ban on providing the benefit to legal immigrants who have resided in the United States for less than five years." And finally, they were upset with a provision that would prohibit doctors from referring patients to hospitals that they (the doctors) have an ownership interest in. So we are talking about physician-owned hospitals. The private sector shall have a limited role in health care - how dare these providers of medical care actually own a facility for providing medical care? This makes about as much sense as forbidding a mechanic from owning the garage where he works.

As Waxman says, this bill is a down payment. This gets the foot in the door. And it is all happening without many Americans even batting an eye or picking up a phone to call their Senators.

Barack Obama has chosen former Republican congressman from Illinois Ray LaHood to be in charge of directing billions in federal highway spending through the stimulus package. The only problem is .. LaHood is known for his love of earmarks and has notoriously used his influence to get funding for projects that would benefit his campaign contributors.

Last year alone, LaHood sponsored $60 million in federal earmarks .. $9 million of which was directed to his campaign donors. He ranked in the top 10% of earmark sponsors in the House last year.

You can read all of the specifics as to where LaHood directed these federal funds, but it doesn't seem like a smart appointment for Obama considering his apparent dedication to transparency and earmark reform.

Yes ... I know that earmark pork only accounts for one percent of less of federal spending. It's not the amount. It's the fact that these politicians see the working taxpayers of this country - those few that are left - as not much more than funding machines for vote-buying projects in their districts. Enough.

President Bush has declared Washington DC in a state of emergency. The emergency: the inauguration of Barack Obama. This promises to be the most expensive inauguration in history, costing over $150 million. Upwards of 2 million people are expected to attend .. are you ready to sue over those lines at the port-a-potties? Anyway, Bush did this so that unlimited funding could be released to help local authorities pay for the event. Mostly security costs.

Just for kicks .. take a look at this article from Bush's last inauguration. The liberals are throwing a fit over the cost and extra security. As you can imagine, that is nowhere near what we are gearing up to spend for Obama. For liberals it's the end of the world when big bucks are spent for the inauguration of a conservative Republican, but business as usual and entirely justified when the same bucks - and more - are spent on a coronation of the most liberal president in our nation's history. You can't accuse the left of hypocrisy though .. only conservatives can be hypocrites.

Have you heard the buzz? Barack Obama's inauguration is going to be a "green event." As you can imagine, that is far from the truth. In fact, Dan Beard of the Chief Administration Office says, "This is something that's going to consume massive amounts of energy. If you believe that global warming is man-made, then the Obama Inaugural ceremony will do more to add to man-made global warming than any other political event in Washington, D.C. this year."

But here are some of the lengths the Obama camp is going through to make this event "green."

Manure from horses in the parade will be scooped up and sold to a nearby farm.

Volunteers will pick up recycling along the parade route.

And Obama will take the oath of office on a recycled, solid-blue carpet.

Impressive ... very impressive.

Part of the economy stimulus package may include incentives for people to buy cars and financing to help auto companies develop better batteries and alternative fuel. Auto executives and lobbyists say that they have discussed options with Obama officials that would allow the stimulus bill to spark new credit, boost technology development, get people into showrooms and help auto companies achieve fuel efficiency goals. Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety says, "The stimulus is about creating jobs. If the automakers are able to sell the cars they make, they will be able to put people to work. Better technology requires more people."

So there you go ... a plan for the government to finance a new car credit if consumers turn in their older, less efficient cars. Another possibility for this stimulus is to double an Energy Department grant program to help bailout companies GM, Ford and Chrysler speed up their development of hybrid and electric cars. That would cost $50 billion.

Do you remember the story we covered sometime before Christmas about the parents who named their kid Adolf Hilter Campbell? It became national news when the parents wanted to get a birthday cake personalized for little Adolf Hitler, and the bakery refused to make the cake.

As an update to that story, authorities have now removed Adolf Hitler and his two sisters from their home and placed them with child services. OK .. the parents are idiots, but do we want a government that is strong enough to remove children from a home because of what the parents named them?

These are always enjoyable. This time it's No Pants Subway Ride 2009!

Osama bin Laden had a message for Barack Obama, calling for jihad against Israel amongst other things. Question .. why always audio tapes? Why no video?

Did you hear that Mexico bears the risk of a rapid and sudden collapse? Why? Drugs. And what would happen if we legalized those drugs?

As Barack Obama gets ready to enter the White House, people are still concerned about the color of reporters in the White House press corps. This is just the beginning folks.

Obama will soon have to decide the fate of the US space program, keeping in mind his economic challenges. I say we let Communist China go ahead with their program and militarize space.

Here's a DRT story out of an Atlanta neighborhood. This criminal has tried to carjack his last car!

Here's a no brainer: A majority of voters say their confidence in the federal government's ability is falling. Actually, that's a good thing. Are we ready to rely on ourselves again?

Russia stops supplying oil to the EU and guess who is blamed .. the United States. Yeah ... we're responsible for all of the world's problems.

A small business owner in Florida has to cover up a mural on the side of his building because he didn't apply for a permit to have the mural. Wait a minute! Do graffiti "artists" get permits?

The City Council in Houston wants to ban people from parking cars, boats, campers, etc. on their own lawns.

A bill has been proposed in Colorado that would allow cops to ticket anyone going under the speed limit and blocking traffic. 'Bout time.

The city of Madison, Wisconsin is doing some re-zoning in the name of "climate change."

When your government school sends home a flyer titled "Why I hate Black History month" .. someone is bound to say something.

City officials in the Indonesian town of South Jakarta must now ride their bicycles to work .. in order to battle global warming.

An ancient Scottish tradition may soon be a thing of the past because of "health and safety reasons." Nanny government at work.

What do you think is the most caffeinated city in America?

Neal is off at a "dental appointment" this morning, so Herman Cain has graciously agreed to keep you informed and entertained today. Neal will be back tomorrow with interesting tales to tell, I'm sure.

Hey, have you heard about Herman's movement to take back our government? He'll be talking about it on the show today. You can do something now! Join the Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement, HITM, and take part in the political revolution of 2009! "When they feel the heat, they will see the light!"

Atlanta area listeners can catch Herman weeknights 7-10pm on News/Talk 750 WSB. Listen, you just might learn something!

Within the first three months of the budget year, the federal government has already run up a record deficit of $485.2 billion. Your grandkids will thank you one day.

It's not really a matter of if the Democrats raise taxes, it is when. At least, that is the mentality of a liberal. There is no other way to stimulate the economy or other tax plan that would give the money and power back to the people.

Union leaders are working on revamping their strategy to ensure that the Democrats pass their card check bill.

Roland Burris will officially be seated in the Senate tomorrow. Glad to see the Democrats finally came around.

Some great news .. yesterday on the show you heard me talking about Barney Frank's brilliant idea to ban all corporations receiving bailout money from owning or leasing private jets. Well, Barney has now stripped the ban from the bailout bill.

The University of Colorado is planning to bring a "professor of conservative thought" to campus.

Barack Obama's inauguration is going to be a Lincoln-themed inauguration .. right down to the food served.

The other day we told you about how Bernie Sanders had his boxers in a bunch over George Bush's plaque in the Smithsonian .. well it looks like Bernie got his way.

As the mayor, when you city is running a $36 billion deficit, it may not be a wise idea to purchase yourself a brand new $30,000 Hummer on the taxpayers dime.

Barack Obama's inauguration is going to air in movie theaters across the country.

The father of the year award goes to a California man who tried to sell his 14-year-old daughter into marriage for beer.

A cat has been banned from a post office in Alabama because "he doesn't pay federal taxes."

Our current secretary of labor says that our workers deserve a secret ballot. Too bad she is only in office for a few more days.

Hillary Clinton wants to use her position as Secretary of State to fight ... climate change because "it could well incite new wars of an old kind over basic resources."

Are you one of the millions of Americans who has their thongs in a wad over which religious leaders will have a role in the inauguration ceremonies? When Barack Obama chose Rick Warren to give the invocation on the big day, many liberals threw a fit. Well now the shoe is on the other foot .. Obama has asked Bishop Gene Robinson to deliver the invocation at a kickoff event for the inauguration. Gene Robinson is openly gay. The selection of Robinson is supposed to "heal the anger" over Obama's decision to give Rick Warren such a high profile spot in the ceremonies.

Wait until you hear the outrage over this one. Obama appoints an anti-capitalist socialist to be his global warming czar .. big yawns. But let a gay pastor deliver an invocation ... oh my!

Can I just say one thing .. get over it.

Within Obama's first week in office .. maybe on his first day .. we can expect him to issue an executive order to shut down Guantanamo Bay. He'll shut down Gitmo in order to fulfill one of his campaign promises and keep some his fidgety liberal barking moonbat supporters at bay. I say fidgety because some on the left are a little dumbfounded by some of Obama's centrist appointment thus far. And his proposal to provide tax cuts as part of his stimulus package .. what kind of Conservative hash must this guy be smoking? Tax cuts? Let those evil rich bastards keep their own money? Is he nuts?

So, two advisers to Obama's presidential transition team say that the order will come almost immediately. But this is when reality starts to kick in. Even Obama acknowledged over the weekend that closing Gitmo is going to be a challenge. In fact, even if he issues the executive order on day one, it is going to take a long time before you see the last Islamic terrorist goon leaving Cuba. And from there, Obama's team will probably create some sort of hybrid court system to deal with them. The danger is that if you let them into this country they suddenly have full Constitutional protections. That would not be a good thing.

That'll give the Left another countdown to monitor .. now that George Bush will be out of office.

As our economy trudges along, researchers are starting to look back and make sense of it all. One thing we know for sure .. it was the mortgage meltdown that led to this economic crisis. But researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are now saying that one of the main triggers of the mortgage meltdown was the 2005 bankruptcy reform act. Originally drafted in 1997 and pocket vetoed under President Clinton, it took until 2005 to get the darn thing passed, after years of lobbying from the credit card industry.

Basically, this legislation shifted the burden of risk from credit card lenders to mortgage lenders, which inevitably led to a surge in home foreclosures. You see, before the law was passed, households could erase any unsecured debts by filing for Chapter 7 liquidation. This would give them enough disposable income to use to make mortgage payment. But the new law forced "better-off households" to file Chapter 13 if seeking bankruptcy protection, which would require them to continue paying unsecured lenders.

So people who before could have saved their homes by filing Chapter 7 were now much more likely to face foreclosure because they would be forced to file Chapter 13. The law's original intent seems to be to trap high-income debtors from abusing bankruptcy .. but instead, it hurt "ordinary American families in serious financial distress." Yeah ... it hurt them by forcing them to try to figure out a way to pay their bills. Oh, the humanity!

From my experience practicing law I can tell you that under the old law someone would be allowed to run up $40,000 or more of credit card debt, waltz into bankruptcy court, promise to pay those credit card debts off at 5 cents on the dollar, and a bankruptcy judge would rule that the debtor was making a "good faith effort" to satisfy his obligations. What a joke.

The conclusion from these researches at the Federal Reserve Bank is that the new law increased the number of people who were defaulting on mortgages or just walking away from their homes, rather than seeking bankruptcy protection.

Here's a clearer picture of what was going on. Ten years ago I owned quite a few rental homes. Someone would come along to look at the house. I would tell them the rent was, for example, $1,500 a month and that I required a $500 deposit. They would then tell me that I was out of my mind because they could go down the street and buy pretty much the same house with no money down, no closing costs, and with their adjustable rate mortgage their payments would be lower than what I was asking in rent! So ... I sold my rental homes. Bottom line? Those people who went for their no money down, no closing costs, adjustable rate mortgaged homes were not cut out to be home owners. They were renters, pure and simple. These are the people that defaulted on those loans when the payments started going on ... and here we are today.

Now ... doesn't that make so much more sense than blaming this on bankruptcy courts forcing people to pay their bills? Yeah, I thought so.

Let's set the cast of characters. Mark Sanford is the governor of South Carolina. He is opposed to any sort of bailout for the states. James Clyburn is a Representative from South Carolina. He is the House Democrat Whip, making him the highest ranking black lawmaker in the House. Oh ... and Clyburn is a First Class Race Pimp. So Sanford and Clyburn disagree about what constitutes an earmark. James Clyburn says that any federal money included in the stimulus should be sent back home to lawmakers' districts. Sanford says that this is the same thing as an earmark, but without calling it an earmark.

And then Clyburn came out with this line about Sanford's opposition, "[H]e happens to be a millionaire ... He may not need help for the plantation his family owns, but the people whose grandparents and great-grandparents worked those plantations need the help" in the form of federal money.

Mark Sanford's response? Yeah, that wasn't a rational explanation as to why he is in favor of earmarks. "You're playing the race card as your way of trying to defend stimulus packages and deficit spending out of Washington, D.C."

Obama asked President Bush to request the remaining $350 billion so that he will have it ready to go come inauguration day.

This is a real shocker: GM says that it may need more money from the government .. aka. the taxpayers. Yeah .. this bailout is working big time, isn't it?

Guess who is next up to the government trough? Public radio and public TV.

The death tax is set to expire in 2010 .. but not if the Democrats have it their way.

Guess what's back? An anti-OPEC bill that would subject OPEC to U.S. antitrust law.

The states are going to get $80 billion for school grants so that we can continue to abuse our children by subjecting them to government education. Payoff to teacher's unions.

Here's a list that has some boxers in a bunch .. ten things President Bush got right.

Dick Morris hits it all: Obama, the Warren Courts, torture, and the future of intelligence in this country.

I love it .. Al Franken went to the governor of Minnesota and the secretary of state asking for an election certificate, and they said no.

President Bush is going to give a prime time farewell address on Thursday night.

This is a great article about American's inherent love of government. Hey, it's not your fault, you were educated in government schools.

Some experts are saying that Obama doesn't need to spend anything to get the economy going .. just suspend the income tax for an entire year. Duhhhhh ... didn't I write a column on this yesterday?

Joe Scarborough made the mistake of discussing torture with a moonbat, Chrystia Freeland. He says her logic is so sophomoric that he can't continue the conversation.

A man in London was told by the government that he couldn't adopt a child because he was morbidly obese. He might fall on the kid an kill him!

A new study shows that surveillance cameras in high-crime areas of San Francisco do not actually prevent crime.

One of the repercussions of a sour economy: less people getting divorced.

A listener sent in this picture from a Burger King in Camdon Camden, South Carolina. Yep, your government schools at work!

Have you visited your local strip mall shopping lately? It is starting to get depressing (no pun intended). It seems that in some local malls there are more empty storefronts with signs advertising their availability than there are occupied spaces open for business. Almost every empty storefront represents a small business that has failed and closed.

These small businesses are the backbone of American commerce and employment. Not only is every empty storefront a lost dream for a business owner, it represents lost jobs for employees. Small businesses employ about 70% of the American workforce and account for 80% of a new jobs in our economy.

Is there anything we can do while our esteemed Congress sets about the task of stroking larger businesses and campaign contributors? Yes. We can go out of our way to become small business customers. I now do everything I can to buy whatever it is I need from a small business. I'll try to stay away from the big box scores as much as practicable. Groceries, socks, hardware, restaurants ... whatever ... I'll look for the small independent businesses. If more people would do the same we might be able to help some of these small businesses stay alive until this economic crisis has passed. Certainly worth a try.

How long have I been telling you that this who global warming scam was basically an anti-capitalist campaign? I'll answer that for you. Years.

When global socialism collapsed in the late 1980s and the Communist Soviet Union failed the world was filled with desperate socialists and anti-capitalists looking for a new base of operations. They found this new base in the environmental movement. They saw environmentalism as a way to attack capitalism rather than a way to act responsibly for cleaner air and water and reasonable environmental regulations. So environmental movements suddenly became flooded with rejected socialists and communists happy to find a moral base upon which to build their case against free enterprise. The founder of Greenpeace once remarked of his surprise at suddenly finding his headquarters populated by people wearing Mao hats and berets with cute little red stars.

Enter Barack Obama. We made quite the big deal of Obama's self-professed intrigue with socialism and communism during the campaign. It didn't seem to matter to the voters all that much. Maybe you'll give that a second thought now that Obama has made his choice for a global warming czar --- and in this case "czar" is exactly the right word.

Her name is Carol Browner, and she was the EPA head under Clinton. More evidence, if you're looking for it, that this will be the third Clinton term. Since leaving the White House eight years ago became one of the leaders of a socialist group called the "Commission for a Sustainable World Society." Browner's name and bio was featured on the web page for Socialist International. It mysteriously disappeared last week. They did forget to remove a picture of her making a speech to the Socialist International World Congress last June ... along with such luminaries as the speaker of the Russian Legislatures upper chamber, the vice minister of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, and a former minister of employment and social affairs of the Spanish Socialist Worker's Worker's Party.

Browner's confirmation does not need to be approved by the Senate.

So now we have someone who seems to be strongly connected to the socialist movement running our global warming response. Nice.

We have a lot of news about global warming lately. Particularly stories of record low temperatures in Alaska, record snowfall in Wisconsin, the reports that we are actually entering another ice age .. oh wait, never mind .. but we must still use government to curb all of this manmade global warming. Right?

Just how asinine can this get? Well, for starters, did you know that you are increasing your carbon footprint by doing searches on Google? Just what we need - one more thing for the government to regulate. Apparently two Google searches is the equivalent of boiling a kettle for a cup of tea in terms of the amount of CO2 generated. This is because Google data centers consume a lot of power. Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist, says that there is no doubt that a Google search has an environmental impact.

And how about the latest from the EU .. European governments are finalizing their plans to regulate the size of "energy-guzzling" flatscreen plasma televisions. Yes, folks .. the government will be deciding how large of a plasma TV you should be allowed to buy. The government will be picking the winner and the losers in this industry. It knowingly says so, "The worst performers will be phased out, and the rest will have to be labeled with energy ratings which ... will make it easier for consumers to identify the most and least energy-efficient televisions available," according to The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Barack Obama says that he is going to stimulate the economy and create 4 million jobs by investing in green energy. He plans to invest billions of dollars to upgrade the national energy grid to that we can get our power from alternative energy sources like wind, water and the sun. In fact, Obama wants to double alternative energy production in just three years.

But guess what needs to happen first ..... the solar and wind energy industries need a bailout. Yep, in order for Obama to stimulate the economy, he must first spend billions in order to prop up the industries he intends to use. Executives from the wind and solar industries say that they need help in the upcoming stimulus package in order to meet Obama's goals. They claim the economic downturn has made the effectiveness of a tax credit for their investors virtually obsolete. Instead, executives want to change the tax credit to a tax refund. The cost to make that switch? Over $1 billion over the next two years.

And when it comes to your own home .. the government wants to make sure that you can use all this "green energy" that it has created, and that you are changing your energy consumption habits. So, Representatives Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) have proposed to Obama the creation of a national "green bank." This bank would be a fund that would help homeowners fix up their houses to make them energy efficient. Just what we need - another government program. Its official name is the National Clean Energy Lending Authority. It would be a $10 billion program responsible for financing the transformation of the energy sector.

This statistic should astound you .. then again, if you have been to Disney World lately, maybe not. The number of American adults who are obese has surpassed the number of adults who are merely overweight. More than 34% of adults are considered obese. That is more than 72 million Americans. This is compared to 32.7% of adults who are just overweight. I'm not a genius, but that means that almost 70% of our population is made up of lardassess ... blubber butts .. however you want to classify them.

But don't worry, now we have an excuse. Because of the downturn in the economy, health professionals are worried that Americans are going to gain more weight. More weight?? They are calling it "recession pounds" and it is exactly what you think: people in a recession spend less money on food and end up buying a lot of junk and fluff for their money. They aren't eating as healthy and therefore gain weight. Naturally this affects the poor the most. EVERYTHING affects the poor the most. Even the end of the world will have a disproportionate affect on the poor. Don't worry .. I'm sure the Obama administration is working on a government program to make grocery-buying a fair playing field for everyone.

Here's a must-read article from the Wall Street Journal explaining how we are living the real-life version of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." Whatever you do don't pay attention.

Obama says that "everybody's going to have to give" when it comes to our economy .. and by "everybody" I assume he means the evil rich that aren't paying their fair share.

The ante has been upped for Obama's job stimulus program. At first he promised 3 million new jobs, now he says his plan will create 4 million jobs.

Mitt Romney is going to be in Washington this week to offer his ideas for an economic stimulus.

Looks like my bit on an alternative stimulus plan made it to Townhall.com

President Bush said that he refused to bailout the Republican Party by withdrawing from Iraq. The Republicans have a lot more than just Iraq to worry about.

The producers and entrepreneurs are fleeing California at record rates. I'll give you one guess as to why ...... taxes.

Obama hasn't even taken office yet, but do people really expect our nation to be healed of racial differences? Nope, we are still going to see people playing the race card.

Bernie Sanders wants a re-write of the text that accompanies George Bush's portrait at the Smithsonian's National Gallery.

It's going to be a cold day in Washington, DC for the inauguration. Must be all that global warming.

A talk radio host in Great Britain was fired for offending Muslims by defending Christianity on air.

This is Atlanta for you .. we spend $550,000 to put new bathrooms in a MARTA station, and then MARTA decides it wants to close all of its bathrooms because of "budget cuts."

England's government is launching an investigation as to why only 10 government school teachers have been fired for being incompetent in the last eight years.

As our economy gets worse, there is evidence that people are becoming increasingly stupid: sales of lottery tickets are on the rise.

And for the most important news of the day .. the Obama's are down to two different breeds for the First Dog.

Are you starting to see what is happening here? Yesterday Obama gave a big speech about his economic stimulus plan .. he is calling it an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Well there's a nice focus group title. "Reinvestment," by the way, means "spending." We could call this the "American Government Growth and Spending Plan." Anyways ... so we have this speech yesterday and the clouds are starting to break. I am starting to see the light .. and it ain't pretty. This economic recovery plan is nothing but a camouflaged way of enacting the promised spending programs of Obama's candidacy.

Someone 'splain something to me: How on God's green Earth is investment in education supposed to stimulate the economy? Even if you wait a generation for that education to pay off .. these people will have been educated in government schools. So that doesn't seem too promising. But part of Obama's stimulus speech was that he wants to "equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries." He also wants new computers and new training for teachers. And just how does THAT stimulate our economy? Answer: It doesn't. It stimulates teachers and their unions. Stimulation you pay for under the guise of economic stimulation.

Another one of Obama's plans to stimulate the economy is to double the production of alternative energy. He wants to improve energy efficiency. He wants you to go out there and build solar panels and wind turbines. Oh and by the way, Obama says that these will be jobs "that pay well and can't be outsourced." That's a pretty ballsy thing to promise. How can he guarantee that? He can't .. unless he uses the force of government to do so. Goodbye whatever is left of the free market. Again, this is Obama deciding where your money should be spent, not you. If you want to spend money improving energy efficiency they you can do so. This is nothing less than Obama using economic scare tactics to enact green campaign promises.

Then there's healthcare. Again, can someone please explain to me how switching all of America's medical records to computers is going to provide an immediate stimulus to our economy? Anyone? I didn't think so. It isn't going to. But this was one of Obama's great promises on the campaign trail. Which allows me to reinforce my point .. PEBO is going to capitalize on America's economic crisis in order to enact his agenda. Pretty clever, huh? Anything that Obama proposes will, from here on out, be part of his efforts to "stimulate the economy."

Do you now see how much this man loves government? PEBO said, "At this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe." That's right. Only government. Not your personal self reliance or perseverance. Not your commitment to your community. Not your employer's paycheck or benefits. Not more money in your pocket. No more economic activity from the private sector. Only government.

Obama's stimulus plan is very little more than a plan to enhance and solidify the power of the Imperial Federal Government over our economy at the expense of the private sector and free markets.

Is there a better idea out there? You bet there is, and it came from the 1st Congressional District of Texas. We've talked about this great idea several times on the show ... and after Obama's speech its time to bring it up again.

Texas Congressmen Louie Gohmert notes that the federal government collects about $100 billion in income taxes every month, plus another $60 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes. If those of you who are government educated have a calculator handy, you'll see that this adds up to about $160 billion a month. Now if you divide Obama's proposed $800 billion stimulus plan by $160 billion, you'll come up with five. This means that our government will collect $800 billion in income and payroll taxes from February through June of 2009.

So, Gohmert asks, instead of bureaucrats and politicians deciding how all of this money is going to be spent, why not let the people who actually worked for this cash make their own independent spending decisions for this money. How would you do that? Simple: declare a five-month tax holiday. From February through June everybody keeps their paycheck. No income tax withholding ... no payroll taxes. No income or payroll taxes owed. What will the people do with this money? What, are you crazy? They'll spend it, that's what. And they'll spend it on the stuff that they want! Not the stuff Obama promised during his campaign. Talk about stimulating the economy!

Let's just wrap this up with a handy little chart. Politicians just love charts.

Is there a detriment to the Gohmert plan? You betcha! And the flaw is fatal. If you declare a full tax holiday people are actually going to figure out how much they earn. No more of this "take home pay" nonsense. You get your whole paycheck. Now just imagine what happens in July with the withholding starts again.

Revolt.

The second part of Obama's stimulus plan is supposed to be tax cuts. And when I say tax cuts what I really mean is Obama's version of tax cuts - which would be welfare checks. Now PEBO is running into opposition from his own party. This is because a lot of Democrat senators are grumbling that they believe tax cuts won't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Why would they? They are Democrats who are in love with government. Tax cuts give money to the people, it empowers people .. it does not empower the Max Baucuses of Congress, who would get to decide how to spend stimulus money.

Just remember this: This is true for politicians for both sides of the aisle - but especially true of Democrats. When you win that election and go to Washington your immediate focus quickly changes from "serving" the people to making sure you don't lose this wonderful job with all of these privileges and perks. Do keep your job you immediately work on expanding and strengthening your power. Stimulus money for government to spend is power. Stimulus money for private citizens is not. This is all just that simple.

We can expect more stories like this, folks. Our country is becoming so wussified, so afraid of offending someone, that we are willing to sacrifice common sense.

A marching band from Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte, Michigan was selected to play in the inaugural parade in Washington. That's great. Now, the official name of this band from Roosevelt High School is The Wyandotte Marching Chiefs high school band. Well when you turn on the tube to watch the inaugural parade, don't expect to see The Wyandotte Marching Chiefs high school band. They will be marching under a different name, the Roosevelt High School Marching Band. And you can probably guess why they had to change the name ... because the word "chiefs" is offensive to American Indians.

The band will have to sew patches over their logos on their uniform sleeves and they will not be able to carry their Marching Chiefs banner.

The decision actually came from the band's director after he received a letter from a group that opposed the use of American Indian nicknames and logos. He says that he didn't want to bring any negative publicity to the school. Yeah, and if I applied that thought process to my own show .. I would have been out of a job ages ago.

Do you know how Obama is trying to sell this stimulus plan to the public? The same way he won the election .. by using focus groups to change the language of what he really means. Well .. when you're the winner of our nation's first YouTube, American Idol, Entertainment Tonight presidential election, this comes naturally.

A recent survey found that reporters really dropped the ball when it came to this financial meltdown. Duhhhhhhh.

Small businesses are hurting right now. Big time. And remember that after the government, it is small businesses that employ the most people in this country.

During the election we heard a lot about ACORN. Well here is the latest on what is going on with their organization.

You want to talk about government schools? More than 20% of adults in Florida don't have the basic reading skills to read Boortz.com every morning.

Alabama is going to allow the power company to cut off home air conditioners on the hottest weekdays of summer. People have to sign up for the program, so no big brother .. yet.

PETA wants to rename fish "sea kittens" because they think that will make seafood less appealing. This organization is such a joke.

What a bunch of horsesqueeze .. do you know how much the carbon industry is worth? You can thank Owl Gore for that one.

Speaking of global warming, did you know that the Minnesota sled dog race has been canceled? Yep. Too much snow.

For those of you who look to the government to solve all your problems .. it looks like you are in good company.

Take a look at what they are doing with parking meters in France? They send cops a text message when your time is expired.

US scientists think that they have discovered a way to levitate small objects!

The FairTax has been introduced into the 111th Congress as H.R. 25. While that's good news in and of itself, here's some better news. The FairTax is being introduced with more co-sponsors than at any previous Congress. Now why do you think this is? It's because of you .. those of you who are undying in your support of this badly needed tax reform proposal.

Now ... since PEBO is making a big time speech today on the economy, here's a little reminder about the FairTax. PEBO is considering a one trillion dollar stimulus bill. Well, what about a $13 trillion dollar stimulus? Do you think that would work? Well $13 trillion is the best estimate of the amount of money that is floating around in overseas investments, and this is money that belongs to American citizens and corporations. Why is this money working overseas instead of here in this country? Simple: To escape our high tax burdens. Get rid of the income tax and replace it with the FairTax and watch this $13 trillion start to come home and work in our economy .. work producing jobs and expanding domestic wealth. The problem, of course, is the FairTax takes power away from politicians. Politicians will approve almost any scheme for economic recovery - any scheme except one that diminishes their power.

So the next pig up the government trough may be ... the adult entertainment business. You got it. The porn industry. The CEO of Girls Gone Wild, Joe Francis, and the publisher of "Hustler" magazine, Larry Flint, say that they want a bailout from the government, similar to the one given to the Big Three automakers. Their request is $5 billion .. oh that's all? They say they will use the money to invest in new means of distribution. They say they will use the money wisely and create jobs for hard working Americans.

Actually ... this is a lot of fun. Francis says that if they are invited to Washington to present their plan, they would be willing to drive across the country in a hybrid vehicle. Francis also says that they would be willing to discuss the idea of the government buying equity stakes in their companies, just like the financial firms. Wow, now there is a way to kill the porn industry .. let the government get involved!

Flint of "Hustler" says, "People are too depressed to be sexually active ... This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

The man does make a point.

The Democrats are getting straight to work on passing their agendas for Obama to approve once sworn in. And as soon as next week, the Congress will be debating a children's healthcare bill. Otherwise known as SCHIP. You'll remember that SCHIP passed the Congress twice in 2007 and it was vetoed twice. Now, we are playing a different ball game.

Next Tuesday or Wednesday, expect a vote for the program, which is described by democrat lawmakers as "providing health insurance for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford coverage." Why can't they just call it what it is, folks? It's welfare. And many of these people who cannot afford coverage .. how many of you want to bet that they have big flat-screen televisions, cell phones and a brand new car with huge payments ... plus other assorted luxury items. Remember that our definition of "poverty" in this country is becoming synonymous with the size of your flat screen TV, not your ability to obtain food and shelter.

I've said this before and I will say it again, this SCHIP nonsense is just a Trojan Horse .. what these politicians are really after is establishing universal healthcare in this country. And this isn't just me being all "glass half empty." This is straight from the mouth of Henry Waxman. He says that passing the SCHIP bill next week is a "down payment on national health insurance."

Did you get that? This is just the beginning. I hope you are ready to get back into the thick of things. These politicians have a goal .. and that goal is to make you dependent on the government for health care. Once they have control of your health care, they have control of you.

Here is the story of a single father in Great Britain that wants to take his kids to the pool. So what's the big deal with that statement? The big deal is the fact that I said "kids" and not "kid." Phillip Smith is the father of two boys, Jake (5) and Aiden (3). Phillip is a single dad. One day he decides that he wants to take his boys to the local community swimming pool. He packs up their swim trunks .. probably puts on those horrendous little arm floats .. and heads for the Hillsborough Leisure Center.

He gets to the door .. uh oh .. you and your boys can't come in here to swim. And why not? Because there is only one Phillip Smith and two little Smiths. Apparently the community pool has a rule that any child under the age of eight must be accompanied on a one-to-one basis by adults. So each child must have an adult supervisor at all times. If Smith wanted to come to a special session for single parents who have more than one child, he would have to come back at a different time when the pool would be able to provide him with extra supervision.

Ok now Mr. Smith doesn't get off scot-free here. You know that I am not a fan of people who plan the victim card. Mr. Smith had legitimate reason to believe the policy to be asinine. But then he has to go and throw in this little line about the leisure center "discriminating against single parents." Okay, now, the rule is not written that "single parents can't bring multiple children to the pool." If a nanny had brought them, if their uncle had brought them .. they would still be faced with the same limitations. So let's back off the victimhood thing.

You are going to love this one. In fact, when I first read it I wanted to call BS on the whole thing. I looked at the website, and it wasn't The Onion, so I'm going to operate on the assumption that this is true. Hey, I can be fooled so go figure this one out for yourself.

A Republican state senator in Utah is really putting his public service and taxpayer salary to good use. Michael Waddroups, of Taylorsville, wants to make sure that minors in restaurants do not see alcohol until it reaches the table. Children should be forbidden to see liquor bottles or drinks being poured by bartenders. Waddoups says, "Restaurants are turning into bars" .. oh no! .. "It's making it look attractive. Kids see it and wonder what they're missing. I think we need to be a little more strict." So his solution is to create a physical barrier that would block the view of any alcohol or bartenders in restaurants. Or he wants to require that all restaurants have a separate room, which the customers can't see, where bartenders can store alcohol and prepare drinks.

Now Utah is already pretty backwards when it comes to their alcohol laws. They already have this thing restaurants call the "Zion Curtain" which is a glass barrier that separates customers from bartenders. Utah also has a law that requires customers to fill out an application and pay a fee for the "right to walk into a bar." There's a new right to add to the books.

There was supposed to be a legislative meeting about this proposal last night. We'll let you know if we find out any more details ... in the meantime, join me in saying "Give me a freakin' break."

Get this, Obama says that he wants to "tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending."

I read this column while on vacation in Vegas. I heartily recommend it to you. Peter Berkowitz writes "Conservatives Can Unite Around the Constitution." At the end of this article you'll find the outline of a Conservative-Libertarian agenda I think you'll really like.

We need a tax revolt. Now that they're calling welfare checks "tax cuts" we need this tax revolt something awful. Are tax revolts a thing of the past? Hope not.

So the Democrats now say that they are willing to seat Burris .. but they sure are dragging their feet about it.

Barack Obama says that he knows the bad press is coming. For now, the mainstream media is still in idol worship mode.

John McCain is teaming up with Russ Feingold in order to battle earmarks. Somehow the prospect of another McCain-Feingold collaboration is not comforting.

Tomorrow the House is expected to vote on two bills that combat workplace sex discrimination. And guess what is the driving force for these bills? The labor unions!

Just as a heads up .. they are banning all baby strollers and carriages from the inauguration. And what about all the adults crying "I want my mommy!"

We had Ann Coulter on the show Tuesday. She finally got her invite to the Today Show. Here's an exchange she had with Matt Lauer that I thought you might appreciate.

Did you hear this comment accusing the Senate of racism from Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois?

The Governor of New York wants to require group health insurers to allow parents to extend coverage of their children until age 30. Thirty? A child? Well, maybe in New York.

Looks like Joe the Plumber won't need to get his plumbing license after all .. he is going to be a war correspondent.

Things are so heated over the situation in Gaza that some Denmark schools are refusing to allow Jewish parents to place their children in schools for fear of backlash from Palestinians.

And now for something positively uplifting .. Five Ways the World Can End.

This from "One pissed-off dude." We need more.

For Barack Obama, that is - but perhaps not necessarily for America.

I don't know many people who are thrilled with Obama's pick of Leon Panetta to head the CIA. The guy has less experience working in intelligence than our own Washington correspondent Jamie Dupree. Of course I strongly suspect that Dupree is actually working under cover as a journalist. You should see the armament he carries. Anyway ......

One of the first to really speak up was Dianne Feinstein. She got her feelings hurt that Obama didn't consult her before making the selection. Well, she's right. You do talk to the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee about your pick to head the CIA .. but that was quickly corrected with some obsequious fawning by Obama and Biden.

Other thoughts on Panetta run the gamut. Dick Morris thinks he's being sent to Langley to effectively emasculate our premier spy agency. The destruction of the CIA began under Jimmy Carter. Will it become a fait accompli under Obama? There is much liberal angst over this phony torture controversy. Is Panetta the payoff to the left?

Others are saying that Panetta's experiences in the Congress and the Clinton White House qualify him for this position. After all, as the president's Chief of Staff he was a "consumer" of intelligence information. By that reasoning, since I bought a new GM vehicle a few weeks ago I'm now qualified to run GM. Than again, who isn't?

... should be the man who gave him the job. Barack Obama is a smoker. He's also America's principal celebrity at this time. Teenagers are going to want to emulate their celebrity hero. I think that there is no doubt whatsoever that many young people will take up smoking because their hero-celebrity president smokes. Sanjay Gupta could make quite a statement if he made Obama's quitting of the nicotine habit as a condition of his acceptance of the appointment to Surgeon General. That could be an initial victory for the cause of public health.

By the way ... please consider this. I know that ending your addiction to nicotine is a tough job; so is the presidency. If Obama isn't strong enough to quit smoking, how is he strong enough to be an effective president?

We hear now that there is a great deal of international effort to stop the violence in Gaza. Why? Why now? Where was all of this grand international pressure when Hamas was tossing rockets at Israeli civilians? Why was all of this international pressure delayed until Israel reacted in pure self defense? If the international community wasn't out there in loud condemnation of this Islamic terrorist group for firing missiles at innocent Israeli civilians. If the international community could not come up with condemnations and pressure then, perhaps it should sit back, shut up, and allow Israel to take care of this situation now.

BTW ... why is it that nobody seems to want the so-called Palestinians? Just wondering.

So we have yet to capture Osama bin Laden. Nancy Pelosi and her liberal compadres will tell you that this is one of the great failings of the Bush administration. Well even if Bush didn't catch him, his administration did do something ... they made the guy obsolete. He doesn't matter. He is just another turban hiding somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan. This isn't just me blowing smoke, folks. This is coming from a senior US counterterrorism official. He says that "Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command have been rendered ineffective by international anti-terrorist efforts."

But don't worry. If he is caught under the Obama administration, he will have full access to the US court system. Yep, remember when he pledged that during the campaign? I wonder if that will be another one of those promises he can't keep once he realizes the realities of the situation.

Back to one of my favorite subjects - the unions. The union representing university workers in Ontario (that would be Canada) has decided that it would be a good idea to ban Israeli professors. Yep. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has decided that it wants to take a stand against the evil Israelis who are attacking innocent Hamas victims. So their solution is to use the power of the union to ban Israeli professors from Ontario universities. The president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees of Ontario says, "In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general." The bombing he is referring to is that of Islamic University in Gaza.

The union apparently has nothing to say about Islamic Hamas terrorist goons stashing rockets and other armaments in the buildings on these university grounds.

This isn't the first time this union has tried to pull something like this. There have been previous attempts to boycott and goods and services from Israel. But I believe this is the first time they have tried to ban professors because they are from Israel.

Imagine if it were the other way around .. and someone tried to ban Muslim professors.

Hey ... now there's an idea ...

Stossel has this one dead right. When it comes to Ponzi schemes, Bernie Madoff is a rank amateur.

So funny guy Al Franken wasn't seated yesterday. Norm Coleman is suing to challenge the recount results.

Obama says that he is "concerned" about the situation in Gaza. He is going to be a lot more than "concerned" in just about a week. In the meantime, we'll just be glad he's concerned. So am I. About him.

According to Obama, trillion dollar deficits will last for years. Well duh .. the people of this country have done a great job of ensuring the growth of government. The media will treat these deficits as OK until there's a Republican in the White House.

You'll hear me talking about this column today, and you will want to know where you can get your own copy. Walter Williams on the power of the rich. Just do your little clicky thing right here.

Ann Coulter was on the show yesterday. Brent Bozell III has this take on Coulter vs. the Counter-Coulters

Speaking of Ann Coulter .. here she is with "Teaching Democrats New Tricks."

Dick Morris echoes what I have been saying .. some of Obama's "tax cuts" are really welfare checks. Brilliant minds think alike.

Obama probably won't read this .. so you can. Tony Blankley on "Being President 101."

When it comes to Obama's stimulus package, he pledges that there won't be any earmarks included. Yeah ... let's see how that works out.

How will Obama handle countries like Venezuela? Some say that Hugo Chavez will be Obama's first "test" in international negotiations.

For all you wealth-envy types .. here's something for you to celebrate: American millionaires have seen their assets shrink by 30%.

Any guesses as to how much it costs the government to spend $350 billion?

Did you know that gas is actually cheaper now than it was when Bush took office? So much for those bumper stickers .. "When Bush took office, gas was $1.46." Not that the president really has any say in the price of gas.

If you haven't been keeping up with the antics of Vladimir Putin .. Russia has cut off gas supplies to many European nations because it is angry with Ukraine (and European pipelines run through Ukraine).

Here's a way for you to get to know the newest members of the House and the Senate.

Residents in Indianapolis are upset because their local paper The Indianapolis Star has decided to drop its daily prayer. This, by the way, is coming soon to your own local newspaper. I'm not happy about it .. .but newspapers are doomed.

Just what we need .. our taxpayer money funding cops who chase ghosts. Yep, ghosts.

In traffic court for speeding? Here's a way to ensure that you never speed again ... a message from the judge.

Barack Obama wants a stimulus plan and he wants it quick. Part of his stimulus plan, as we are now learning, may include $300 billion worth of tax cuts. And the next question is .. tax cut for who? During the campaign Obama promised a tax cut to 95% of working families. This brought up the question of how you deliver tax cuts to people who don't pay income taxes .. and that includes about half of the 95% of Americans Obama was schmoozing. Now Obamabots are trying to get around this little factual inconvenience by reminding you that these people pay Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes. But wait a minute! I thought that money that goes to Social Security wasn't a tax, it's a contribution! What does it say on your paycheck? FICA? That's "Federal Insurance Contribution Act." This is really an insurance premium, not a tax, so what's really happening here is that Obama wants to give those more likely to vote for him a free ride for their Social Security. That turns Social Security into a pure welfare program. Ditto for Medicare.

So .. .when Obama says "tax cut," he really means "welfare check." A government handout. Your money seized from you and given to someone who didn't earn it ... or your children and grandchildren hit with a debt they'll have to repay later.

This is the new definition of a tax cut. And we have Barack Obama to thank for it, not to mention a compliant media ... a media that refuses to expose this government-speak.

Now with this stimulus package, we don't have many specifics yet. We know that it will include a tax credit/welfare check of $500 per individual or $1,000 per family (whether or not you actually pay taxes), which would "eliminate taxes for about 10 million low-income workers and offer relief to those who pay no taxes at all," this according to The Politico. Do you see how they slip that in there .. "offering relief." That is just a fancy way of saying "redistributing the wealth." The package will also include tax breaks for businesses, a one-year tax credit for new hires and a write-off for new investments.

The GOP has responded "warily" to Obama's plan. GOP leadership is starting to say the things that John McCain should have said during the campaign - being skeptical of Obama's new definition of "tax cut." Finally. But too late. Now the GOP doesn't have the power to do squat. Somehow we need to get back to some clear definitions of tax cuts vs. government handout checks.

Simply put, you can't give tax cuts to people who don't pay income taxes. Government checks to people who don't pay income taxes are simply welfare checks.

Before we move on, I thought you might enjoy this. Read this article from The Politico. It explains how the GOP isn't dancing up and down the aisles about Obama's phony tax cuts. After you've read the article come back to read the very first reader's comment. This is your typical Obama voter. Read this comment and experience the wealth envy, the playing of the race card, corporate hatred .. pretty much what you would expect. This person goes by the initials PJN:

The GOP doesn't want a tax cut???????!!!!! WHY? Because it's not for rich, white folk! Because it's reversing the transfer of wealth (AND POWER) that's been the GOP sham for the past forty years- concentrate wealth and power in an increasingly smaller cicle at the top. How do we pay for Obama's tax relief? Tax the living S--- out of the 10% of this country that has 90% of the wealth. Fuld, Madoff, and the rest of the Wall Street criminals at AIG; Bear Stears; Goldman Sachs; Freddie 'n' Fannie; Citi, and on and on...should have every penny they own stripped from them - domestic and overseas- they should be cast out on the street, homeless, to be spat upon and driven to suicide. Hey, every recovery, you gotta break a few eggs, right?

The age of Obama. Gotta love it.

From NBC that is .. for life. At least that is what Drudge is reporting. Coulter's new book "Guilty" debuts today, and Coulter was to appear on NBC's Today Show this morning. At the last minute she cut from the segment and then, according to some NBC insiders, banned for life. The reason? Apparently NBC wasn't too thrilled with the theme of her book - liberal media bias. Now if this next quote is true, you will enjoy it. A Today Show insider said, "We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now ... It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

Belinda tells me we have Ann Coulter scheduled for 11am ET today. Sure wish I could write like this lady.

One more thing. This is just the beginning, my friends. It's begging to look like the New York and DC media are circling the wagons around Obama. They're going to protect him big time. Remember Debra LaFave? She was the Tampa teacher who was described as "to pretty to go to jail." Well Obama is too pretty to be criticized. This is really going to be fun.

This is going to be upsetting news to many of you out there. Global sea ice levels are now equal to those recorded 29 years ago. This is according to the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center. Why only since 1979? Because that was the first year we started recording this data. But for you people out there howling over the melting sea ice and the endangered polar bears .. now what? Sea ice is at the same level as almost 30 years ago. The number of polar bears is increasing. Back in May, the United States officially put polar bears on the threatened species list. And do you know why? Because of "concerns over disappearing sea ice." You mean the same sea ice that is at the same level it was 30 years ago? Is it starting to dawn on you? This global warming craze is a scam. The goal here is to hamstring capitalism, transfer wealth, and empower government. There is absolutely no reason for polar bears to be a threatened species, especially because of global warming. But, since they're cute and all that, there they are on the list.

Oh and just so you know, sea ice doesn't affect ocean levels. So if you are concerned that all of this sea ice is going to melt and we are going to have those apocalyptic rising oceans - as promised by Owl Gore - Get over it. Try this little experiment. Put water and ice into a bowl. Make sure that the water is right up to the brim of the bowl. When the ice melts the water will not rise and overflow the bowl. Don't get a government-funded scientist to do this for you. He will somehow come up with a different result, so do it yourself.

By the way .. for those of you who were convinced that the North Pole was going to be one big swimming pool by the end of 2008, congratulations on making to 2009 where I am glad to report that Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery last year.

I love this .. some Democrats are starting to backtrack on their support of the card check bill, realizing that it is, in fact, difficult to defend it. Not to mention just completely asinine. These clowns supported the bill when they knew it would be vetoed ... but now that it might actually become law, their support weakens.

Academics are now warning that terrorist could use tactics like insect swarms to launch biological attacks. I would prefer an insect swarm to a swarm of misbehaved toddlers.

According to Israeli news, more than 70,000 Iranian student volunteers have registered to carry out suicide bombings against Israel because of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. Let's arrange a practice run for all of them.

Obama will be the first to host a "Neighborhood Inaugural Ball." Spare me. If he's going to include that neighborhood around the White House he had better have metal detectors.

Guess who is looking to expand to the US market? European auto makers that are excited about the prospect of nonunion labor. Not if the Democrats get their way, though.

Yesterday Jamie Dupree and I were talking about how the President has to pay for any meals cooked by White House chef. Here are some other little goodies about the ins and outs of the White House.

This is classic government .. law enforcement in Newark, NJ is enforcing a ban on barbed wire in order to "prevent passers-by or anyone climbing the fence from being injured by the barbed wire." You gotta be hiding me. Barbed wire serves many purposes ... including warning potential renters or homebuyers that you don't want to live in that neighborhood.

An Indian airline is having issues with hostesses (those are flight attendants) who have been fired for being lardasses. Hey ... it costs money to haul all that blubber around the world.

Speaking of lardasses, Americans are becoming so overweight that the Army has had to devise a waiver program for overweight people to join.

We've heard versions of this story before, but it never ceases to amaze me .. a kiddie pool may have to be drained because it is not manned by a fully qualified lifeguard.

A city council in Great Britain is going to spend about $15,000 on pigeon awareness day. Makes you proud to be a taxpayer, doesn't it?

Ever heard of a "double ended male adapter"? Apparently they are "immoral" according to Ace Hardware. Sooner or later someone is going to start a movement to have terms like "male end" and "female end" banned from our lexicon.

Here's the fun website about words we talked about on the show today.

Jamie Dupree is covering the rumble over the Illinois and Minnesota Senate seats in his blog and on the show in the information overload hour.

In case you missed it, here's the jump we were talking about this morning.

I just hope I can remember most of them......

• Israel fighting back against Hamas ... and the world's reaction.
• That idiot attorney who used to represent the PLO and her insane observations on the Middle East situation.
• What is in store for our country with leaders elected by the less-educated and poorly informed?
• Al Franken will probably be named the winner of that Senatorial race in Minnesota. How many of you really doubt that there was some funny business in the counting of the ballots. Franken, by the way, is a jerk.
• Obama is dead set against the idea of school choice ... for you. Today his spawn start school at an exclusive private institution in Washington DC. Choice for the Obamas. No choice for you.

We - and by "we," I means those of us who actually work and pay the taxes that keeps this government behemoth well fed - have completely lost control.

Have you heard about some of the people lined up at the stimulus trough? The latest? Newspapers! You got it .. newspapers want some of the bailout money. This isn't new, actually. I remember an article a few weeks ago where someone was suggesting that the government set up a fund - taxpayer money of course - to pay journalists and writers who lost their jobs. An excuse? Yup - this joker had an excuse. These people and their precious journalistic abilities were just too important to our culture to let them actually go out and have to find a job out of their field if they find themselves laid off. So ... to save them the pain of having to find a job they don't particularly like, the government needs to step forward and pay them ... I guess pay them to write stuff. Of course, if the government is paying them you can bet they're going to write stuff that will make the government happy. Just like those government-funded global warming "scientists."

Right now Ford Motor Company is offering cars with 0% car loans. Do you want to know how they pulled this off? With GMAC, that's how. It seems that General Motors only has a minority stake in GMAC, and GMAC is now using bailout money to make these car loans available to Ford buyers. So, what's wrong with this? Well, if you will remember, Ford said it didn't need any bailout money. They were going to do this on their own. So now we have Ford competing against the other two-thirds of the Big Three with 0% car loans made possible by government bailout money. In short, the politicians picked a winner here, and the winner was Ford. You didn't get to pick .. the government picked for you. The one company that didn't need bailout help now has a government-funded advantage over the two companies that did.

Also in line .. in case you aren't keeping a scorecard here ... the U.S. steel industry. Orders of steel from domestic manufacturers are down. What to do? Why, get the government to spend more taxpayer money on steel orders, that's what? These companies can't sell their products on the free market, so they ask the government to make a consumer choice the consumers clearly don't want to make.

Back to my theme: Clearly we have lost control of this process. Government is in the ascendancy, individual liberty, self-reliance and economic freedom are the losers. The politicians in Washington have no real fear of the voters. They know that in all probability they are going to be reelected no matter what they do. The true allegiance of these people in the congress is to the big donors and business interests that provide the bulk of the campaign cash. They just spend year after year building a power base and adding on the privileges and perks. It truly has become an imperial congress. If you want a definition of "imperial," try this one: "characterizing the rule or authority of a sovereign state over its dependencies; domineering; imperious."

Several weeks ago I made a suggestion as to how we might put the fear of God into our rulers in Washington. I got the idea from Georgia's Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and just expanded on it a bit. Since we all have rather short attention spans (go ahead, name your two Senators and your Congressman) I thought I would remind you of the idea here today.

We need a Constitutional Convention. More specifically, we need a Constitutional Convention called for the sole purpose of adding three specific amendments to the United States Constitution. The convention would consider these three amendments ... and nothing further. Two-thirds of the States need to pass a resolution calling for such a convention, and those resolutions need to be specifically worded so as to limit the purpose of the convention to these three amendments. Without that limitation we're going to have left-wing fools trying to add amendments guarantying such things as a right to a job, a place to live and health care. Not good.

So .. what are the three amendments? (You don't listen to me all that much, do you?) Very simple ...

1. An amendment to the Constitution repealing the 16th Amendment. What is the 16th Amendment? That would be the income tax. By repealing the 16th Amendment the Congress would be forced to come up with a new way of generating the revenue needed for the legitimate functions of our government.
   
2. An amendment repealing the 17th Amendment. The 17th Amendment calls for the popular election of U.S. Senators. Before the 17th Amendment each state legislature would appoint that state's two Senators. The congressmen were in Washington to represent the people, and the Senators were there to represent the states. Right now the government of Mexico has an official representative in Washington; the government of New Mexico does not. This enables the federal government to run roughshod over the states with unfounded mandates and other federal demands. Give the state governments a voice in Washington .. repeal the 17th Amendment.
   
3. An amendment setting term limits for members of the House of Representatives. Give them three terms, then send them home. Yes, I know, there are some people we would truly like to keep up there to pursue some worthy objectives, but in the balance we're hurt by those who spend taxpayer money to solidify their power than we are would be by sending the few good representatives home at the end of six years.

Now .. here's the reality here. The Congress would probably never permit this Constitutional Convention to be called. As soon as they saw state legislatures passing the resolutions to bring these things to pass we would see the members of congress trying to beat the citizens to the punch. No ... they're not going to send the choice of Senators back to the states, and they're unlikely to set term limits for themselves. But we might actually see some movement on the repeal of the 16th Amendment and serious consideration given to the FairTax.

Dreaming? Maybe so, but maybe not. Get the right grassroots organization formed to push this idea for a Constitutional Convention and you just might rattle some cages in Washington. Who knows? Maybe the people might start counting again.

Come on, you have to be kidding me. Yeah ... I've heard all of this nonsense over the weekend about the Democrats blocking the door to the U.S. Senate to prevent Roland Burris from being seated. Yeah ... sure.

So what if Governor Blago appointed Burris while he was under a rather dense cloud of suspicion. Are you forgetting the most important point here? Burris, in case you haven't noticed, is black. When he is seated he will be the only black in the Senate. Now you tell me that the Democrats are going to prevent the swearing-in of the only black in the Senate. Don't hold your breath. Political correctness will rule; just as in the forthcoming appointment of Caroline "you know" Kennedy.

Fact is, since Blago hasn't stepped down, he still has the legal right to appoint Obama's replacement. And he did .. despite his own party's wishes. He appointed former state attorney general Roland Burris. As far as Burris goes.. we'll get into him another time. Like the fact that he is an advocate for a national handgun ban. But again .. I digress.

So Harry Reid decides that he isn't going to allow Burris to be seated. Reid says that he has the "legal authority" under the Constitution to bar anyone that is selected by Rod Blagojevich. He points to Article I, Section 5 which says that "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members..." Reid's interpretation of this is, "We determine who sits in the Senate. And the House (of Representatives) determines who sits in the House. So there's clearly legal authority for us to do whatever we want to do. This goes back for generations."

You'll be interested to read this piece in the Wall Street Journal about a legal precedent for cases like this, set by the Supreme Court back in 1969. Like it or not, the only way Harry can get rid of Burris legally would be to allow him to be sworn in and then get two-thirds of the Senate to vote for his expulsion.

Enter the race card. Yep, so Roland Burris is black. As we have been reminded many times .. Obama's seat was supposed to be filled by a black man. I guess that's some sort of a law. Blagojevich held up that end of the bargain. But aides for Burris are now saying that Harry Reid won't allow Burris to be seated because of his race. Who didn't see that coming? A senior consultant to Burris told Politico, "It's interesting that all those who are viable are white women and the ones who are unacceptable are black men." Oh, you didn't hear about that? Apparently Harry Reid talked to Blagojevich about who should fill the Senate seat just six days before Blagojevich was arrested. During that conversation, Reid didn't want any of Blagojevich's suggestions (which all happened to black men) and favored two women who happen to be white. So there's that ..

We operate under a rule of law here ... Seat Burris. Uphold the Constitution.

You've heard me talk about James Hansen of the Goddard Institute .. this is one of Al Gore's global warming sock puppets. James decided that he wanted to write a personal letter to Barack and Michelle Obama with his suggestions on how we can save the planet from this phony global warming crisis. He outlines three ideas for the Obama's. One of them I can agree with: the need for nuclear power. The other idea is one that Barack Obama has already said he would do .. bankrupt the coal industry. Hansen refers to coal-fired power stations as "factories of death." Isn't that pleasant? But he wants a moratorium and phase out of these "death factories."

But my favorite suggestion is to enact a tax on carbon emissions. But not just any tax .. a tax that would take money from the evil rich and give the proceeds to the less fortunate. Don't ya just love that phrase? Here's the basic gist .. Hansen wants a carbon tax and 100% dividend. Carbon would be taxed at the source -- aka. those people who produce more would pay more .. we are assuming the evil rich are in this category. But then the revenue from this tax would be equally distributed among all tax payers. So the "less fortunate" who don't produce as much carbon would be making money from the exploits of the evil rich. Sounds like wealth redistribution to me!

Here's a little taste of Hansen's letter, but you can read the whole thing here.

The public will support the tax if it is returned to them, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts. No large bureaucracy is needed. A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money. A person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend. Not one cent goes to Washington. No lobbyists will be supported. Unlike cap-and-trade, no millionaires would be made at the expense of the public....

A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective. It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead.

Sooner or later ... hopefully sooner ... we're going to put this idea of man-made global warming to rest. In the meantime, enjoy this record-breaking cold winter.

There is one certainty in these uncertain times .. this unionization by intimidation bill, otherwise known as the card check bill, will come up in the Congress. And it will be supported by Democrats who have to repay their union supporters for getting them elected. Knowing the inevitable, some states have decided that they are going to have to take the matter into their own hands. Five states are gearing up for state initiatives to enacting a constitutional amendment that would protect the right to a secret ballot in union elections. People are already starting to gather signatures in Arizona, Arkansas and Missouri. Utah and Nevada state legislatures are also considering the amendment.

The amendment says, "The right of individuals to vote by secret ballot is fundamental. Where state or federal law requires elections for public office or public votes on initiatives or referenda, or designations or authorizations of employee representation, the right of individuals to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed."

There is a new twist to this card check nonsense. It seems that many Democrats are starting to bail. They could vote for this absurdity when they were assured of a Republican filibuster or a Bush veto. Now they're concerned that it might actually become law - and the support of many of these Democrats is starting to weaken. If you want a law that would cripple American business and prolong this recession/depression or whatever it is ... pass this Unionization-by-Intimidation bill. That would do it.

If you're a long-time listener to the show you know that I'm not a big fan of out-of-control, screaming kids. I prefer restaurants that do not have high chairs available, and I would love to see an airline ban children under 12 from first class. Constantly kicking the back of someone's seat should be treated as seriously as smoking in the lavatory, and the captain should land the airplane and kick the offending little brat off.

Actually, I shouldn't call that wonderful child a little brat. After all, It's not his fault that he is an out-of-control misbehaving menace. The fault lies with the parents; parents like that hideous woman I encountered in that Mackinac Island restaurant a few years ago. You remember her, don't you? Every time her toddler would utter a long, ear-piercing screech, would lean over and softly say "Are you through making noise now?' Dammit woman! Shut that kid up!

OK ... here's the latest. Kids in club-level lounges at swanky hotels. This is an adult lounge folks ... not a freaking day care center. They serve drinks there, not chocolate milk. This time it was a great hotel in Las Vegas. We were spending New Years in Vegas with friends, and we managed to score rooms on the Club Level. This was a great place to go after dinner to have a cordial or a cup of coffee and unwind. Well --- it would have been a great place if it hadn't been for the toddlers. There was one particular family at this hotel .. an extended family .. that had about five toddlers in tow. These people seemed to spend virtually their entire day in the lounge. I'm sure they were saving money on meals big-time, because every breakfast, lunch and dinner there they were ... with dishes piled high on a coffee table. As soon as their kids finished a stack of appetizers they immediately set about making a complete pest out of themselves to everyone else in the lounge. They would get out some board games and sprawl right in the main walkway through the lounge. To get from your table to the bar you had to step over about three game boards and countless game pieces. Through it all the adults just sat on their butts stacking up more plates on the coffee table.

What in the hell is the matter with parents out there? Are they blind? Can't they see that their children are creating a problem for other people? Now I can tell you exactly what would have happened if someone would have said something to the parents. The mother would immediately have started yelling "We're paying for a room here just like everyone else, and our kids have as much of a right to be in here as you do." Yeah, lady; you're right. Instead of complaining about your misbehaving children we should be congratulating you because your womb works.

We really do need a better breed of parents out there.

I really hope you didn't miss Kathy Griffin with Anderson Cooper on New Year's Eve on CNN. If you did ... you might want to click here and listen to this. Get the kids out of the room.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is out. He won't serve as secretary of Commerce for Barack Obama because of a "pending investigation." Can't say I'm that broken up about it.

Obama's "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" claims it will create 600,000 new government employees. Just what we need .. more government incompetence. With our government schools they should have no problem finding qualified applicants.

The next industry up to the government trough: the steel industry.

Al Franken will be declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race today. It still isn't over quite yet though.

The Democrat governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin want Obama to spend $1 trillion on aiding state budgets.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will probably be the next chairman of the Democratic Party.

Harry Reid believes that President Bush is the worst president we've ever had.

A federal commission has decided that we need a 50% increase in federal fuel taxes in order to make up for revenue shortfalls.

Here are Peggy Noonan's thoughts on a new year, a new presidency, a new economic era and then some.

Is the bailout going to need a bailout? So says a blogger for the Heritage Foundation.

Georgia has a new sex offender law that forces all sex offenders to give their online passwords to the government.

Ah, don't you just love the IRS? Stories like this wouldn't be possible if we had the Fair Tax .. and that is a good thing.

Did you know that America is an empire in decline? So says the Times of London.

How about $1 million of your tax dollars for San Francisco to study "congestion pricing" options. In other words .. the government would charge you a fee to drive in certain parts of the city.

While we are talking about San Francisco, people flying out of San Francisco International Airport will soon be able to buy certified carbon offsets at airport kiosks to offset their air travel.

Here's a concept, the governor of Washington state wants illegal aliens serving time in state prisons to be deported in order to save her state $9 million over the next 2 years.

When you go to a brothel, there are a few people you would rather not run into. Your wife may be one of them.

How many of you would like to have this problem? I'm guessing around 50% give or take.

Here's a handy guide to converting to metric. Warning, some bad language.

This is what happens when you let someone work without supervision. Happy New Year!

Myspace Glitter Graphics

The Neal Boortz Show or its agents are not responsible for an seizures caused by viewing the above graphic.

Yelling at your computer not only doesn't help, it may actually hurt. You know, unless this is a load of crap.

The fine art of photoshopping diversity, paid for by your tax dollars!

What does New York get for hosting the Times Square New Year's bash? 40 tons of trash.

If you have some long lost relatives, it might be time to reconnect.

Here's a novel use for those unwanted gift cards.

Do you want to start off 2009 right? Check out the 80 best lifehacks of 2008 for some ideas.

Have a little down time? Check out the LIFE photo archive on Google.

7 things no one tells you about marriage.