| Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page |
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November 6, 2008 |
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Story #1: Obama-Alinsky Democrats Will Tilt the Battlefield
RUSH: Quin Hillyer today in the American Spectator: "Conservatives may not realize just how difficult it might be to recover from this week's elections. ... Too many conservatives think we've seen all this before -- in 1964 and 1974 and 1992 -- and that we know how to handle it. ... We're not dealing with the same sorts of opponents. These New Alinskyites who are taking over the White House, combined with the most leftist congressional leadership in memory, will not let us play by the same rules under which conservatives recovered from those earlier debacles. They will try to drastically tilt the playing field, seed our side of the field with land mines and, in short, rig the process to make it next to impossible for the political right, or Republicans, to recover. And they are likely to succeed in at least some of these designs. It will begin with their efforts to secure a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators (including the two independents).
 "We've seen this game before. They did it in Indiana's 'Bloody Eighth' congressional district in 1984. They almost succeeded in 2000 in Florida. They did succeed, outrageously so, in the Washington State governor's race in 2004," where a recount produced more votes for the governor than there were people who lived there. 'Those are just the most obvious of many similar examples. And now they are even more ruthless, more lawyered-up, and in a more powerful position to pull it off than they were in any of those instances,'" '64, '74, and '92. "Next, watch what happens if they regularly can't peel off enough Republicans (or hold their own semi-fairminded people like Nelson and Joe Lieberman) to overcome whatever filibuster attempts Republicans do mount. Watch for an assault on the filibuster itself. Watch how they use as precedent the GOP a nuclear/constitutional option' on judges in 2005 -- except instead of just using it for judges, watch them use it against all filibusters. It's easy: Make the ruling from the chair that the filibuster is out of order for some reason. Instruct the parliamentarian to rule in their favor. Win the appeal of the parliamentarian's ruling by simple majority vote. And watch the courts pronounce it an internal matter of the legislative branch and thus outside of courtroom purview," and, bam, they've got the filibuster.
"Watch a cheerleading establishment media -- the Fourth Estate as a veritable Fifth Column -- actually back these lefty maneuvers. It's all in the name of one-man/one-vote democracy, dontcha know? The filibuster once served its purpose, they'll say, but as a vestige of Southern 'massive resistance' to integration it is now being used for massive resistance to the first black president, which invalidates it (suddenly) as a legitimate tool. Watch the left use these tactics and others to pass even more liberalized voting laws -- an open invitation to even more fraud that is more creative, easier to hide, and less challengeable in court. ... Other ways the Obama axis will tilt the playing field: 'card check' legislation to eliminate secret ballots in unionizing and to force union victories in contract negotiations. Provision after provision giving favors to the trial bar so it can sue enemies into submission. ... only when the time is right and the ground (or air) has been well prepared, will come the grand-daddy of all fights, the re-enactment of the misnamed 'Fairness Doctrine.'
"Oh, they'll be clever. They'll pick their spot. They'll wait until Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin says something innocent they can twist out of context and call 'hate speech' -- and then they'll highlight some schoolyard fight where a member of a 'victim group' gets the worst of it as if the 'attack' were caused by talk-rad…no, make that 'hate radio,' which will be the new moniker the Fifth Column/Fourth Estate hangs on the talkmeisters. (Even before imposing the Fairness Doctrine, they'll use the Federal Communications Commission in other ways to put a muffler on their opponents.)" By the way, speaking of that, Henry Waxman, who is a partisan leftist radical, apart from that, this guy holds more hearings and investigations than anybody in Congress, and he has entered into a battle now, he's asked Pelosi to give him oversight over the FCC and take it away from John Dingell, who's already had global warming taken away from him by Pelosi.
"The erosions of conservative rights will be incremental. Each one will have its own justification. Each one will be supported by the establishment media. Each one will be timed so as to allow the general public to become accustomed to it, to accept it as unremarkable, or even to come to regard it as a public good for the sake of keeping conservative 'troublemakers' from fomenting disorder. … These are the sorts of things Alinskyites do. These are the sorts of tactics used by ACORN, at whose conferences Obama himself regularly taught seminars on 'power.' These are the sorts of policies favored by the academic left, Obama's old milieu -- the policies that favor speech codes and stolen campus newspapers and the firing of faculty for 'offensive' remarks. Conservatives have fought things like this for years already, of course. But they've never fought it while the left controlled so many of the levers of power, and certainly not when the left was led by such a charismatic and near cult-inspiring leader who was so smart, so well steeped in these stratagems, and so fully supported by a Fourth Estate up whose legs warm feelings run every time he waxes eloquent. It will take very focused, very intelligent, very skillful action by conservatives to stop this creeping subversion of a free society. This is a whole different political battlefield than any on which we've fought before. And we haven't yet found our Omar Bradley." That's Quin Hillyer today in the American Spectator.
Story #2: How Will Obama Deploy His Internet Army?
RUSH: Here is Frank Greve from McClatchy newspaper. This is the Drive-Bys. "'How Will President Obama Deploy his Internet Army?' -- A powerful new lobbying force is coming to town: Barack Obama's triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers." See, Snerdley, it's not just the 1.9 volunteers, it's the Internet donors. "In a mass e-mail thanking them, written moments before his Grant Park victory speech, Obama put them on notice. 'We have a lot to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next,' he wrote." This again aimed at all of you dunces out there who think that we're going to get a centrist government out of Obama. "How Obama will use his ardent laptop-armed cadres is unclear. So is the extent to which they'll rally behind his priorities, press him for their own or both. Joe Trippi, the Internet politics guru whose computer geeks made Howard Dean a contender in 2004 and who went on to design Obama's socially networked campaign machine, offers a provocative and educated guess.
"Trippi predicted that Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge 'one of the most powerful presidencies in American history.' ... because his Internet operation was miles ahead of Republican John McCain's, Obama's liberal-to-libertarian electronic activists are in a position to dominate the new political medium much as conservative Republicans dominate talk radio. ... 'We really know who Obama's community leaders are,' issue by issue, said Thomas Gensemer, the managing director of Blue State Digital, the Washington-based mobilizer of online communities." Trippi said this: "Obama will be able to say these are the 10 members of Congress standing in our way on health care. Basically, it'll be the president and the people united, with some members of Congress in between, which won't be a very comfortable place to be."
Let me translate this for you: 3.1 million volunteers and Internet donors all continuing to get blast e-mails from the Obama campaign. The Obama presidency will continue in campaign mode just as Clinton's did. What they're going to do is find somebody to send the e-mails out on whatever issue it is, Obama wants tax rate to 90%, Obama wants whatever he wants, if he runs into trouble, he tells these 3.1 million people we got these ten congressmen -- and it can be Democrats -- we got these ten congressmen, these two senators, they're providing us problems, we need you to really go after them. Here comes the Internet onslaught, and we've seen how Harry Reid and Pelosi bent over, grabbed the ankles for MoveOn.org and Daily Kos. So I mention all this, right now it's prediction and speculation. But I far believe most of this than I believe this silly notion that Obama's going to be a harmless little centrist 'cause he knows he can't go very far and the economy is so bad, he's not going to be able to raise taxes, there's nothing to tax, there's no capital gains to tax. This is why we spent two years learning who Obama is. It's why we spent years learning about his past and who his alliances are with, the things the Drive-Bys were not interested in, the things McCain was not interested in.
We know why he sought the office. He sought the office to accomplish all this radical stuff. He's not doing this singularly because of an ego like many people who run for office. This is serious, serious stuff. Quin Hillyer is right. We've not faced a playing field like this in these previous instances. Now, we can get geared up for it and we can give them a good game and contest this, but Obama and his team are going to get whatever they want. It doesn't matter if it's Democrats standing in the way. If they have to be intimidated, if they have to be thrown overboard, if they have to be told they're not getting any campaign money, including Pelosi, by the way. There is going to be one guy running this show in Washington, and it's not going to be Pelosi, it's not going to be Reid. They think, maybe, that they can roll this new guy, they think that they can maybe make sure that he gets some lessons taught, that these barons in Congress, they're the ones that really run the show. Let's wait and see. I don't think anybody has any idea what's ahead for them, other than us, who are watching.
Story #3: Reuters Discovers Democrat Plans for Your 401(k)
RUSH: "Will Democrats Tinker with Mutual Funds and 401(k)s?" This is Reuters. I heard that they're going to do this, folks. I heard it. I heard. See, I heard myself say it. I love listening to myself talk 'cause I love listening to people who are right. It's inspiring. That's why I like to listen to myself. This story from Reuters details everything we told you before the election about with about what's going to happen to your 401(k) via the Democrats running Congress.
Imagine every 401(k) and SEP/Keogh Plan in the country, and the government takes 'em over. They're going to pull 'em out of the stock market. Your investments are in the markets or wherever else you have them. They're going to take your 401(k). The way they're going to "sweeten" this for you is to take your 401(k) back to its August levels before the market decline. They're going to say to you, "We're going to restore the full value of your 401(k)," and you're supposed to have your tongue on the floor panting going (panting), "Really? Really? Oh, wow! I love Obama! I love the Democrats."
Right. Then they take your 401(k) away from you after they "restore the value," and they put it in your so-called Social Security fund, which is bankrupt, and they're going to grow it by 3% each year with government bonds, and they're going to adjust that for inflation. Well, whoopee-doo. If we enter a deflationary period, which a lot of people think we might now -- which is not good, by the way. Deflation is bad for producers because they can't sell the things they produce for a profit. It can drive businesses out of business if we go deflationary. Inflation is bad, too. But deflationary is a horribly bad cycle. They're going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund, whatever the hell that is. Trust fund, my rear end. Whatever they're calling it, going to put it there, guaranteeing you 3% interest a year, and the most that you're going to be able to contribute to it every year is 5%.
It's not whatever you choose adjusted off the top. But then what nobody's talking about, ladies and gentlemen, is this. It's particularly troubling out there. Massive amounts of investment capital will be taken out of the market and given to the government. Imagine all of the millions, hundreds of millions of dollars -- your 401(k) and everybody else's invested wherever you have it invested -- taken out of those companies, out of those instruments and put in the government. Can you imagine the recessionary pressure of that? The de-capitalization of the markets? One of the things that happens when you buy stock is the companies in which you buy stock use that money for investment and so forth; borrowing, building, whatever. That's going to go, if this happens.
So, in addition to you losing your 401(k) to the government at 3% a year for the rest of your life, adjusted for inflation, all that money comes out of the stock market. Okay. So let me start at the top here, connecting the dots. On Tuesday we elect a new president. The new president promised -- even before the election, by the way, when we had a 4,000-point drop. The president promised to increase corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, the top marginal income tax rate, a massive new energy tax that will bankrupt coal, and his party is talking about a government takeover of 401(k) plans. So on Wednesday the Dow drops about 486 points. It's down 346 points today, but of course, according to the Drive-Bys, these two events have nothing to do with each other. It's just a coincidence.
Story #4: VD Hanson: Make Haste Slowly, President Obama?
RUSH: Here's Victor Davis Hanson: "In the coming weeks we may hear some interesting variations of this theme: Obamaniac Europeans shocked that we are consulting the UN on trans-Atlantic problems and conflicted about free trade." We may hear some interesting things from "new-age hedge-fund directors shocked about new capital gains taxes;" We may hear "hip Silicon Valley types shocked that their shredded 401(k)s have not surged back and now they learn that a 65% combined federal, state, Medicare, and FICA income tax really does apply to them, despite the Obama sign out front on the lawn." So Victor Davis Hanson is saying essentially the same thing as I. You idiots that voted for Obama, bring on the 65% tax rate for you people. Bring it on! You think you're immune to it. You hedge fund guys, bring on these new capital gains taxes. Hell, yes! Let people who made this mistake find out how bad it was.
Story #5: New Yorkers, Californians Should Consider Moving
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, as you know (and I have mention this had before) I had a fashionable apartment in New York in the Upper East Side. I'm seriously considering selling it. I have owned it since 1994. I love it. It was second home that I ever bought in my life. I stay there whim rarely in New York. I am "rarely" in New York because I get audited by New York State and City every year starting in 1997, when I moved to Florida; and it's become a hassle that I could tolerate, but it may now become stupid to own any property there.
"Mayor Michael Bloomberg is going to cut the city work force by 3,000, but that's just the beginning of the pain New Yorkers will feel as part of the fiscal crisis. A slew of new taxes are also on the agenda. There will be 1,000 fewer cops..." Now, listen to this -- and this is a liberal mayor. This is a blue city. This is Bloomberg. He's an independent. He was a Republican, but he chose Republican only to get elected after Giuliani left. "There will be 1,000 fewer cops but the city will hire 200 more traffic agents to give out $60 million a year in new [parking] tickets." They're laying off cops and adding meter maids. The quality of life in New York is just going to blossom, isn't it? Lay off a thousand cops and hire 200 more traffic agents for the purposes of collecting $60 a year in "block-the-box tickets"?
"'The gravity of the budget situation requires us to propose both deep spending cuts and revenue increases,' Bloomberg said. The spending cuts mean reducing the city work force. The revenue increases mean taxes -- lots of taxes. In the current fiscal year there's the 7 percent property tax hike that starts in January -- and the plan to renege on a promised $400 property tax rebate. 'I think the people of the city are going to be enraged,' City Councilman Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn, said." No, they won't. If they haven't been enraged by what's happened to them all this time, why is this going to enrage them? But if they want to drive people out of there, I'll be the first to lead the way. I only go there, as it is now, a maximum 20 working days a year, because of these silly audits.
"I think the people of the city are going to be enraged," says this Democrat from Brooklyn. "'They've been told the check is in the mail on the rebate.'" Uh, the operative word here is, "promised." The operative word here is promised. The property tax rebate of 400 bucks is gone -- and if you in New York think all this is bad, just wait 'til you get hammered with Obama's tax increases on top of this. Oh! Oh! Oh! By the way, "The mayor proposed raising the income tax by either 7.5 percent or 15 percent." I can guess which one it's going to be. "A 7.5 percent a taxpayer making up between $50,000 and $75,000 would pay an additional $116. At 15 percent that same taxpayer would pony up an extra $233. 'When people are suffering to tell them too bad you might suffer even more next year is telling them to eat cake next year,'" said the Brooklyn Democrat. "Added Councilman Lewis Fidler, D-Brooklyn: 'Nobody likes to raise taxes...'" BS! Democrat liberals love to raise taxes! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. You're all going, "Yeah! Right on, Rush! Thank you." Liberal Democrats (liberals period) love raising taxes. Don't give me this "nobody likes to raise taxes" BS. This is Lewis Fidler, Democrat, Brooklyn.
"[I]t's not something I'm planning on doing unless I'm absolutely sure we've exhausted every other reasonable resource." Hey, ahem. Have you tried cutting spending? "Oh, we're going to cut the spending, Mr. Limbaugh. We're going to lay off a thousand cops." Oh, that's right. Are you sure you got no other area in that city budget that you can cut other than to lay off a thousand peace officers? And you think that these tax increases are going to help the city, Mr. Mayor? You have another think coming. Ask what happens to your subway when they raise fares. But that's just New York City.
Governor Schwarzenegger, California, "will propose one day a month unpaid furloughs for state workers for the next 17 months as well as rescinding two of the state workers' 13 paid holidays, sources said this morning. The governor is scheduled to unveil his proposals this morning for closing a budget deficit that could be as big as $11.2 billion for the fiscal year that started July 1st, another $13 billion in the next fiscal year." So blue states and blue cities are in deep doo-doo. Again, those of you in California, add to the new taxes and whatever else you're going to get out there, Obama's federal tax increases.
Story #6: Unmarried Women Put Obama Over the Top
RUSH: Snerdley, do you remember we had a survey not long ago about unmarried women, women that are not in a relationship are stupider than women who are in a relationship? Remember that? It was not the word, but what was the word? I use the word stupid because it worked. Less informed, ignorant, whatever. Get this. "Unmarried Women Put Obama Over the Top." Seventy percent of support for Obama came from unmarried women.
Story #7: AP: Suddenly, It May Be Cool to Be an American Again
RUSH: Here's a headline, ladies and gentlemen, from the Associated Press: "Suddenly, It May be Cool to be an American Again." It's from Vienna, Austria. "She was a stranger, and she kissed me. Just for being an American." This is William Kole of the AP-Obama. "She was a stranger, and she kissed me. [smooch] Just for being an American. It happened on the bus on my way to work Wednesday morning, a few hours after compatriots clamoring for change swept Barack Obama to his historic victory. I was on the phone, and the 20-something Austrian woman seated in front of me overheard me speaking English. Without a word, she turned, pecked me on the cheek [smooch] and stepped off at the next stop. Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans." Mr. Kole, you buffoon, check your back pocket for your wallet. Check under your pants to see if you still have your underwear, goof. "Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans."
Story #8: Health Plans to Cover Dependant “Children” to Age 30
RUSH: From Boca News just down the road here, gang. I don't even want to read the headline here. I just want to read the lede of the story. "Palm Beach County commissioners..." This is where we live, folks. "Palm Beach County commissioners have approved an additional tier of coverage in the county's self-insured health plan for certain dependent children ages 26 to 30, in accordance with..." Yes. (laughing) You heard right. "[I]n accordance with a recent revision of Florida law. To be eligible, the dependent child must be unmarried, have no children, be a student or Florida resident, have no other health insurance, and must pay the full cost of coverage. Commissioner Bob Kanjian noted that Florida was only the second state in the nation to have such coverage and he added with sarcasm, 'They can't be married; they can't have kids yet. That cuts down a little bit of the universe."
So Florida now requires health plans cover dependent children up to age 30. No, the headline is, "Florida Now Requires Health Plans Cover Dependent Children up to Age 30." Oh. And, by the way. My friends, let me share this with you. This also from AP-Obama. While you're absorbing that, Snerdley, dependent children up to 30... Look, that's in the SCHIPs plan, don't you recall? The Democrat update to the SCHIP plan, the children's health program covered dependent children up to 30. Florida's just going first at it. Incomes up to 80 grand a year, your dependent child covered for health care with income up to 80 grand a year. It's in the Democrat SCHIP (with a "P" at the end there, folks) program.
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Story #9: Bailout Will Cover Legal Fees for Mortgage Execs
RUSH: While you're absorbing that, "When the government took over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac..." and, by the way, Rahm Emanuel was a counsel over there, now chief of staff to Obama. (laughing) It's going to be so much fun to watch all these Obama voters just find out what  they've done. "When the government took over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers inherited more than just bad debts. [Taxpayers are] also potentially on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for the executives at the center of the housing market's collapse." We are going to pay the legal fees to prosecute these people, and we're going to pay the legal fees for the lawyers the accused hire to defend themsleves.
"With the Justice Department investigating companies involved in the mortgage and financial meltdown, executives around the country are hiring defense lawyers. Like many large companies, Fannie and Freddie had contracts promising to cover legal bills for their executives. When the Treasury Department delivered a $200 billion bailout to Fannie and Freddie, that obligation passed to the government, which may find itself paying for the lawyers defending the executives against the government's own prosecutors. 'Who'd have thought we might be on the hook for paying the defense costs when we're also paying the prosecution costs?' said Doug Heller, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based group that has been critical of the financial bailout packages.
"'To defend the economy from the havoc that's been created, we're going to defend the havoc creators?'" There's one thing wrong with this. I mean, as far as it goes, it's reporting accurately, but these executives are not guilty. They may have a secondary, tertiary role. This mortgage crisis is at the feet of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson. These are the executives that ran Fannie Mae. Now, if they're going after some of those people, fine and dandy. If these were Wall Street executives, banking executives, these people were under thug directive from Janet Reno and the Clinton administration to make these stupid loans that everybody knew at the time nobody could pay back. Obviously this is part of the deal to get Barney Frank and these clowns off the hook, as it were.
Story #10: Hindery: Why Obama, Congress Must Curb CEO Pay
RUSH: Let's see. This is from BusinessWeek magazine, Leo Hindery. This is a business magazine. This is a magazine written for executives: BusinessWeek. Now, we all know there are liberals and socialists all over the Drive-By Media, including in business magazines. "Why Obama, Congress Must Curb CEO Pay -- Managers rise to something akin to royalty when their compensation is at unjustified levels and when the rewards of employment are not more commonly and fairly shared with the general employee base," and this guy, Leo Hindery, Jr., writes: "[T]his particular cancer -- which has been growing exponentially for almost two decades -- is at the core of many of our nation's economic ills." Excessive CEO pay! In a business magazine, a column in a business magazine: Excessive CEO pay is at the core of our problems.
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