RUSH: People ask me a lot, because I make no bones about the fact that I'm not upset that I've never been a father, never had kids: "Rush, why have you never wanted kids?" (shuffling papers) I hold the answer to the question in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. Get this: "A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, stopped his allowance and dragged him to the police station because he stayed out late." The son "responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook." His mom didn't know how to cook! She said, "My son doesn't respect me, doesn't tell me where he's going in the evenings, returns home late. He's never happy with the food I make. He always complains. I'm tired of it." How old is she? It doesn't say. The son is 61. It says here, "Most Italian men still live at home late in their thirties enjoying their mama's cooking, washing, and ironing." That's it! I have had a perpetual fear that they will never leave. That's a shortened version of the answer. The answer is actually multifaceted, but nevertheless...

RUSH: Did you see the latest Zogby poll? Congress has a 3% approval number on the war. The president has a 24% approval number. Overall, 55% oppose it, 44% support it, but that's going up, it's going up. That's why the New York Times had to go out and poll their people twice, because they didn't believe the first result. "Well, we know this doesn't make any sense." They went out and polled them again, had to admit: Yep, first poll was right. Three percent! I'll tell you something. You know, the president's negative numbers on this war, we've discussed this on this program on countless previous occasions. I think that a large factor in the dissatisfaction with the Iraq war poll is simply people upset that they don't think that we are kicking butt all across that country. We are the United States of America! We do not lose. We are up against a ragtag bunch of Seventh Century bombers that hide out in various places. A lot of people think if we wanted to take care of these people, we could do it overnight. We're the United States of America. That's where a lot of dissatisfaction comes from. Well, there are some opponents of the war out there as well. But how do you explain the 3% approval Congress has on the war? Do you really think some of you leftists out there, that they're getting 3% because they haven't been able to bring the troops home? Do you think they're getting 3% because they haven't passed their resolutions mandating a specific troop withdrawal date? What do you think explains a 3% -- 3%! -- approval rating in the way Congress is dealing with the war? A caller said, "I'd like to know the margin of error on that Zogby poll that put the Democrat Congress at 3%, to know if it would be possible to say that inside the margin of error, no one in America likes the Democratic-led Congress." The margin of error in the Zogby poll is 1%, not the usual 3%. That's a slick adjustment that Zogby made.  

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Story #3: John Edwards' Lead Evaporates in Iowa

RUSH: The Washington Post has this big story today, ladies and gentlemen: "Clinton, Obama, Edwards Tied in Iowa Poll." (Gasp!) Oh, no! That's right! Barack Obama is the first choice of 27% of respondents in the Washington Post/ABC News poll. Next, Mrs. Bill Clinton and the Breck Girl, each at 26%. Oh, no, the Democrats are tied! What are we going to make of this? Well, the real story is that Edwards once led big in Iowa. That was his sole saving grace. His lead is evaporating in Iowa. That's not in the story. That's because I am informed as your host.

RUSH: How about the Breck Girl? After Rupert Murdoch buys the Wall Street Journal, the Breck Girl demands that Hillary Clinton and anybody else that's taken money from him, like Obama, give it back. And then, I tell you, this Clinton, Inc., bunch, they are fast. John Edwards, who yesterday demanded that Democratic candidates return any campaign donations from Rupert Murdoch and the News Corporation, himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of Murdoch's publishing houses. (Laughing.) I'll tell you what, the Hillary campaign is fast. "John Edwards, who yesterday demanded Democratic candidates return any campaign donations from Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of the media mogul's companies. The Edwards campaign said the multimillionaire trial lawyer would not return the hefty payout from Murdoch for the book titled 'Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives.' The campaign didn't respond to a question from The Post about whether it was hypocritical for Edwards to take money from News Corp. while calling for other candidates not to. In addition to a $500,000 advance from HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp., Edwards also was cut a check for $300,000 for expenses. Edwards claimed $333,334 in royalties from last year's release of the book, according to media accounts. The campaign said last night that those funds were part of the advance. He says he gave that amount to charity, which would also provide tax benefits," for the Breck Girl. Well, Rupert bought his haircuts. Rupert bought a lot of things for the Breck Girl.

RUSH: Get this AP story: "The Washington Post company reported a 13% drop in quarterly earnings Friday as declining revenue from its flagship paper continued. Circulation continued to fall. For the first six months of the year, circulation of the Post fell 3% as of July 1 it stood at 652,200 daily." This is the only revenue in Washington that is going down: the Washington Post.

RUSH: Unbelievable. Carl Leubsdorf writing in the Dallas Morning News. Now, to set this up, the new Congress has a 3% approval rating in the way they're handling the Iraq war, okay? They're not getting anything done other than the minimum wage. All they're doing is investigating, yammering away, sending subpoenas, sounding negative and doomy and gloomy. There's nothing uplifting or inspirational coming out of any of these Democrats in House or the Senate -- and, of course, that means it's time to buck 'em up. That means it's time for the Drive-Bys to give 'em cover. So Carl Leubsdorf and the Dallas Morning News headline: "Too Early to Judge the New Majority; Democrat Congress Slow to Move But with Reason -- Democratic congressional leaders and their labor allies held a big Capitol Hill rally last week to hail the increase in the minimum wage," which is the only thing they've passed. Big deal, a bunch of cents. What a party. These guys, do they know how to throw a party! A party over the minimum wage! I'm so sorry I didn't get my invitation. 

"On Wednesday, they staged a signing ceremony to mark completion of action on a package of post-9/11 homeland security proposals. And they're working this week on extending congressional ethics laws and a popular children's health care program. ... This recent rush of action -- and the accompanying publicity campaign -- is designed to counter the fact that public approval of Congress remains very low, below 30 percent in most surveys." Hey, Carl? Try 3%. "That's an even worse showing than Mr. Bush is registering these days, and Republicans are gleefully dusting up the old 'do-nothing Congress' campaign..." We've added to it: The Do-Nothing-Good Congress. So anyway, it's just a fascinating story. It's too early to judge a new majority. No, no, we gotta give 'em cover. We gotta explain to our readers why it is they're not getting anything done, because the Republicans still have the White House, for all is said and done, all this power that we have running the Congress, there's still a Republican in the White House, and the Republicans still have clout in the White House. If this were a Republican Congress, they'd be writing about how this is a bunch of boobs. This is a bunch of failures. These guys are ruining the country, not getting anything done. Impeach 'em!

 RUSH: All right, how many of you, when I shared with you the blockbuster story of two days ago that the Democrats were all intent here on coming up with a spy program that was going to help the United States, how many of you said, "Whoa, this is rich. These guys have been trying to shut down the spy program. What's going on?" Some of it didn't make sense. It's almost like the Democrats were trying to pretend that they cared about security. Here is what brought this about. "A federal intelligence court judge..." and this, by the way, I think this is a tremendous learning exercise and opportunity to understand what the Democrats say in public oftentimes is not what they really know to be the case when it comes to national security. "A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers." The Democrats were joining in this effort to expand his spy powers after they had been trying to tear down the program in public. 

 
"House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information." Now, they haven't released the name of the judge here, who declared a key element of the wiretapping efforts illegal, but the judge "concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two..." count them, two, "...locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision." The incident that led to the Democrats, "Oh, we gotta expand the capabilities of the program," was because this judge ruled an element of the program unconstitutional for two phone calls overseas which is exactly what the program was designed to do: detect potential terrorist communications from overseas calls into the United States.

So when this happened, of course, the Democrats find out about it, everybody finds out about it, and the crazy thing about this is that they're the ones that have been trying to accomplish just this very thing. They have been trying to make this program unworkable. They've been trying to strip these powers from the president. They've been trying to subpoena and investigate and Republicans, too, like Arlen Specter, a number of them have been going nuts. The judge actually rules an element of the program illegal, two phone calls? They understand the serious nature of the program and why it's valuable, why it works. I don't know what's better about this, that they actually did this and showed themselves to really understand the grave nature of intel gathering and data mining and so forth, or if they're just trying to pretend like they care about it. I haven't figured it out. It's one of the two.

RUSH: Get this. "When the United Nations concluded a two-day debate Thursday on the potential devastation from climate change, it covered a lot of territory: deforesting, decertification, greenhouse gases, renewable energy sources, biofuels, sustainable development. But one thing the debate on global warming lacked, according to June Zeitlin, the executive director of the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organization, called WEDO, was the gender perspective," or maybe it's "We do." I don't know. "Women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster spawned by global warming," and they didn't talk about it at the UN, and the NAGs upset about it.

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Story #9: Hurricane Forecast Lowered Again