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$100 Whores

From Rush Limbaugh:

CALLER: Good, good. Rush, I almost fell out of my chair yesterday. I'm watching Fox News on TV, and I watched these senators come out to tell us that they're going to give us a hundred dollar rebate because of the gas prices.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah.

CALLER: You know, these are political giants. These are the guys that we all look upon to get us out of time and trouble. I can just picture them sitting around this big huge mahogany desk and this is what they came up with. It's laughable. I cannot believe that's what they came up with.

RUSH: Let me add my perspective to this. I saw the president in the Rose Garden today, and he was talking about the economy and first quarter growth -- folks, wait 'til you hear the news on this, too. First quarter growth was 4.8%. Four-eight! You won't believe the coverage. Four-eight is astounding, and one of the news services reports this as "less than expected," and "underperforming expectations" or something. I'll get to that in due course. We talked about this hundred dollar rebate. The president talked about how he thinks the oil companies ought to do more exploration, and I said, "Where?" I'm shouting at my own president. I said, "Where are they going to explore? They're not allowed to explore anywhere! They can explore off the coast of Cuba and they can explore off the coast of Mexico, for those two countries, but where can they explore?" It's 4.8% first quarter growth, and it was portrayed as "less than expected."

With moderate inflation! There still isn't any sign that core inflation is going up. So now we come up with this hundred-dollar rebate plan. Somebody has set the price for buying us off, folks. This is an election year. Somebody in Washington, and I'm sad to say it's a Republican, thinks that we are upset over gas prices and that for a hundred bucks, they could buy us off and we'll cool down. For a hundred bucks! This is so mixed up and just plain wrong, it's unbelievable. If they would have asked they would have never heard me say, "These high gas prices suck but for a hundred bucks I'm willing to forgive and forget." Why didn't somebody ask me if I was upset about gas prices and if so what I was upset about? Because the last thing I would have said is, "Yeah, I'm upset but you can buy me off for a hundred bucks and I'll still vote for you." What kind of insult is this? A hundred bucks, folks! They want to buy us off for a hundred bucks. It's absolutely absurd. This is the kind of stuff I'm telling you you're going to get more and more of it as this year goes on. They want to buy us off. That's all! It's a bribe! A hundred bucks! That's all we're worth to 'em. A hundred bucks and we'll shut up! A hundred bucks and we'll go away! A hundred bucks and we'll vote for 'em.

Here's what I would have said if somebody asked me if I was upset about gas prices or what I was upset about what to do about it, I would have said, "Let the oil companies drill for oil on our land or under our seas with no restrictions now. Clean up the regulations. Let the oil companies bills some refineries, a bunch of them." I would investigate Senator Schumer for his role in illegally taking Maryland Lieutenant Governor Steele's credit report. This may be off the point a bit but it makes more sense to investigate Schumer than investigate oil companies for succumbing to supply, demand and congressional lunacy! Look at the obstacles they have. They have got to put up with supply-and-demand problems and then a bunch of lunatics in Congress who want to investigate the oil companies -- and you can bring those old fat execs in all day and all night and you're not going to produce an additional drop of I'll by doing it, and you're not going to produce an additional drop of gasoline by doing it.

All you're going to do is make people think, "Yeah! Yeah! Get even with them," but the price is still going to be what it is, and the supply is still going to be what it is. Next thing I would suggest is that every member of Congress take a course in hysteria management. There's not an anger management problem in the country. There's a hysteria management problem, big time. It's a tsunami after tsunami after tsunami of hysteria. I have a couple of other ideas, but you get the point. About this hundred bucks, I am guessing that a hundred bucks could not even pay for two strippers to attend a lacrosse team party, and yet they think they can buy us off with a hundred bucks! You think you can get a couple strippers to show up at a party for a hundred bucks? There is no way, folks, and a hundred bucks sure would not get me to attend a congressional insult-a-thon. So instead of buying us off and treating us like we're a bunch of whores, just solve the problem. Guys, how about solving the problem? Don't try to buy me off. Don't try to buy us off. That's not the solution. It just makes us even madder. Have some guts and do your job. That's my advice to the people who think I'm not better than a cheap hundred dollar bill.

High gas prices and the environmentalists

From Henry Lamb:

A $60 fill-up is certainly enough to get fingers of blame pointing in every direction: Democrats blame Bush; pundits blame "Big Oil"; and consumers blame the powers that be. The real cause of the ridiculously high gasoline prices is generally ignored.

The underlying cause, of course, is the incontrovertible fact that demand has outstripped supply. There's plenty of oil in the world; the problem is that the available oil cannot be extracted and refined into usable gasoline in sufficient quantities to meet the world's demand.

Why? Thirty years of environmental advocacy has produced a majority in the United States who would rather pay $3 per gallon, and even more, than to allow oil to be extracted from the frozen tundra of Alaska, or from the Gulf, or from any other place.

Not a single refinery has been built in the U.S. in 30 years. Arizona Clean Fuels has been trying since 1989 to build a new refinery east of Phoenix. Having finally gotten an initial permit, environmental organizations are gearing up their opposition.

Extremely high gasoline and energy costs are the price society must pay for the environmental protection it has demanded.

Kennedy, another idiot

From Dave Cloud:

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and them misapplying the wrong remedies." --Groucho Marx

Who knew that Ted Kennedy was an Economics genius? Kennedy’s never-ending campaign for an increase in the minimum wage—the law that Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has called "one of the most anti-black laws on the statute books"—certainly never betrayed his hidden expertise. But after Sunday’s edition of Meet The Press, the secret is out.

In response to a question from Tim Russert about what should be done in response to rising gas prices, Kennedy laid out his clever three-part plan:

1). President Bush should call the oil company executives into the Oval Office and "jawbone" them to lower prices.

2) The FTC should be awakened from its slumber and put to work "24/7" to do an investigation. Perhaps someone should investigate who told Kennedy he wouldn’t look silly saying "24/7".

3) The U.S. government should "capture the excess profits" from the oil companies.

Like the two guys in the beer commercial say: "Brilliant!" All that is really needed to bring down oil prices is to give the oil company bigwigs a good talking to. Kennedy, ever the leftist, sounded just like Marx—Groucho not Karl.

Limbaugh comes to terms

Rush Limbaugh has come to terms on his drug issue:

Rush Limbaugh and the Florida state attorney have reached a settlement in the long-running prescription-drug investigation against the conservative radio talk-show host.

Under the agreement, a single charge of doctor shopping, filed today, will be dismissed in 18 months if Limbaugh continues to seek treatment from the doctor he has seen for the past two and one half years.

"This is the same doctor under whose care Mr. Limbaugh has remained free of his addiction without relapse," said Limbaugh attorney Roy Black in a statement released today.

Limbaugh, with his attorney Roy Black, reported to the county jail at about 4 p.m. Eastern where Limbaugh was booked on a warrant issued by Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office and released an hour later on $3,000 bond.

"Mr. Limbaugh and I have maintained from the start that there was no doctor shopping," said Black, "and we continue to hold this position. Accordingly, we filed today with the Court a plea of 'Not Guilty' to the charge filed by the State.

"As part of this agreement, Mr. Limbaugh also has agreed to make a $30,000 payment to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation. The agreement also provides that he must refrain from violating the law during this 18 months, must pay $30 per month for the cost of 'supervision' and comply with other similar provisions of the agreement.

"Mr. Limbaugh had intended to remain in treatment. Thus, we believe the outcome for him personally will be much as if he had fought the charge and won."

Do you think the left will do the Christian thing and forgive Limbaugh? Certainly Chad Schuldt doesn’t seem to see the light. And they call themselves tolerant?

Anti-lifers, destroying property is free speech

From LifeNews:

A Northern Kentucky University professor who led pro-abortion students in destroying a pro-life display the campus Right to Life group set up on the lawn outside the campus center has been charged with misdemeanors in the case.

Dr. Sally Jacobsen, a British literature professor, and six of the pro-abortion students involved have been charged with misdemeanors concerning their vandalism on April 12 of destroying a pro-life cross display meant to memorialize the number of unborn children who have died from abortion.

County Attorney Justin Verst indicated Jacobsen and students were charged with criminal mischief and theft by unlawful taking, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper.

Jacobsen was also given a third charge of criminal solicitation for encouraging and leading the students in trashing the pro-life display.

The theft charge is a class A misdemeanor and punishable by up to one year in jail and a $500 fine while the criminal mischief and criminal solicitation charges are class B misdemeanors and could result in 90 days of jail and a $250 fine.

Vert told the Cincinnati newspaper that additional charges may be filed as the identities of other students involved in the vandalism are determined.

The university has also placed Jacobsen, who had tenure at the time, on leave and she will retire at the end of the semester. Other professors have taken over her classes from the remainder of the year.

Margo Grubbs, Jacobsen's lawyer, said she never meant to hurt the university by her actions and had no idea there would be such a national controversy over her criminal activities. But he also indicated Jacobsen will plead not guilty, saying the vandalism doesn't constitute a violation of law.

"The intent was just an expression of freedom of speech," Grubbs said. "She saw harm coming from it, and she was just expressing her attitude towards the harm."

McGovern, the idiot

From Rush Limbaugh:

Bush is trying to and will end up, mark my words, upgrading his ratings. That will happen. Congress on the other hand, it's out of control. The Republicans are now trying to out-Democrat Democrats, and there's a great piece today, I'm not going to have time to read the whole thing to you, but my buddy Bob Tyrrell has a great piece in the American Spectator. He can't believe what he's looking at. He says, "Do my eyes deceive me? Am I reading that President George W. Bush has joined with the Republican leadership to call for investigation of the oil companies in light of soaring oil and gas prices? Oil hit $75 a barrel recently and apparently transformed the Republicans into Democrats, Democrats of the Charles Schumer and [John] Kerry variety.

"Actually if they are going to haul in the oil executives for investigation, I suggest they get to the root of the matter and haul in famed economist Milton Friedman. Let him bring his Nobel Prize along for display. Professor Friedman is the fellow who, roughly fifty years ago, revived the world's awareness of markets, and he has been explicating the consequences of markets ever since, first from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and more recently from an office in the Hoover Institution," on the campus of Stanford. Now... "The oil industry is a high-risk operation. As Boone Pickens, one of the industry's most perceptive entrepreneurs, has been saying for several years now, the production of oil has probably peaked.

"The world can pump 85 million barrels a day. The world consumes 30 billion annually and will thirst for more as the years go on. That means prices will go up. Moreover, with a madman running Iran and a would-be Fidel Castro running Venezuela, it is not clear we can count on the aforementioned daily production of 85 million barrels. The politicians may think the answer is to drag businessmen into investigations, but that is not going to produce oil. It may produce votes for the politicians from the electorate's economically illiterate but not much else. What is needed is more oil or at least a steady contribution to Boone Pickens' 85 million barrels.

"That means opening up areas where we know oil exists, for instance, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It means encouraging the creation of more refineries. We have not built a new refinery in the United States in 30 years. It means encouraging alternative energy sources, the best being nuclear. Unfortunately these three recourses have all been thwarted by environmentalists... One wonders why the Republicans have not made energy growth their response to the high energy prices that are troubling the electorate. Instead of haranguing the oil companies, one would have expected the Republican leadership and the President to unite in blaming the Democratic environmentalists while calling for wider oil exploration, more refineries, and the development of a real alternative to fossil fuels, namely nuclear.

"Instead the Republicans have continued to forsake their principles. Yet what do they expect to get for this abandonment? Owing to their excessive spending there already is fear that the Republican vote will stay at home this autumn. Now with the Republicans adopting the economic illiteracy of the Democrats, there is even more pressure for the Republicans to stay home. I do know how the President could lower oil prices immediately. Suspend all federal taxes on oil through the summer driving period. That would put a smile on the electorate's faces -- and it is not nearly as irresponsible as denigrating markets."

So Congress' approval is 22%. Does it even deserve that? That's my question. You can talk about the president all you want. Our guys are trying, as Tyrrell points out, to out-Democrat the Democrats in pandering and demagoguing, and so the left has succeeded with phase one and that is blocking and scaring everyone they can. The second shoe is yet to drop, phase two, and it's this: Whether it's a good plan or a bad plan or a very bad plan, there is going to be a plan. There's going to be a plan to deal with all this, and we're going to call these oil companies in, and we're going to rake them over the coals and we're going to tell the IRS we want to see their books, not one thing of which of those items is going to produce any more oil or alleviate any of the pressures on the market that caused these price rises.

None of this is going to make a shred's bit of difference to the real problem, but it may solve the problem of elected officials in an election year -- and that's what frustrates me about this. So prepare yourselves for -- oh, and how about this brilliant scheme, ladies and gentlemen, a brilliant scheme of one-hundred-dollar rebates to all of us to accommodate the rising prices of gasoline. That is patently absurd. It takes me back, what was this idiot's name, McGovern, back in 1972, who wanted to give everybody a thousand dollars, or $2,000. Just for the sake of it. So we create a panic. We've got great economic news.

We've got a forging ahead economy, but we've got negative news all over the place. Now, we can have one of two things. We can have a roaring economy and we can have great upside potential and a great future for everybody and our kids, along with bad news because the Democrats control the media, the drive-by media. All that good news cannot be allowed to stand, particularly in an election year. So if you want to go along with all this you can say, "I don't care about the actual good news. I don't care about the future opportunity. I'm tired of bad news. I want good news." Okay, elect Democrats, the country will go to hell, and the media will tell you how wonderful things are, and that way you can have what you want. I'm not playing that way.

The far-left unhinged about Snow

From NewsMax:

It didn't take long for Bush administration critics to start beating up on newly announced White House press secretary Tony Snow.

Over at CNN, Jack Cafferty welcomed the former "Fox News Sunday" host to his new job yesterday by referring to his old employer as "the 'F'-word network."

"Tony Snow, who also happens to be an anchor over there at the "F" word network, is likely to take the job as White House press secretary," reported Cafferty. "President Bush can do worse -- not a bad guy. But it might be too late."

Over at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann didn't sound very impressed either.

"And as to the forecast for Snow at the White House," Olbermann told his audience last night, "in the words of one Washington wag about the press secretary heir apparent, 'The administration appears to have vetted him as well as it did Bernie Keric.'"

Olbermann was referring - not to skeletons in Snow's closet - but to the fact that columns he'd written critical of the White House would be "thrown back in his face."

The New York Times took the same tack in its report announcing Snow's move the White House, noting: "Democrats were already circulating, via e-mail messages, a link to a blog affiliated with the Center for American Progress, which features a list of Mr. Snow's critical comments about the president in his columns."

But perhaps the harshest assessment came from the influential left wing blog, the Daily Kos, where a poster complained:

"Tony Snow has officially taken the job as Press Spokesman-Official Liar at the White House . . . Make no mistake about this, Snow will NOT be a big change for this sad sack outfit in the White House . . .

"While he's not Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Ingraham, O'Reilly or some of the other right wing kooks," the Daily Koser explained, "he still worked for Faux news, the official propaganda arm of the RNC and the White House."

Judging from the reaction, it sounds like Tony Snow has made all the right enemies.

Gas tax greater than profits

From Rush Limbaugh:

RUSH: I made a couple statements in the last hour that I told you I would back up, and that is that gasoline taxes exceed oil company profits. The media is continuing to blame Big Oil for "gouging" you as they collect record-breaking profits, but the windfall profits raked in by the government in the form of energy tax revenue actually dwarf the oil companies' jackpot. I have warned you people about this. I have tried to tell you I don't know how many times, that if you really want to get to the site of gouging, go to your governments.

(story) "The media sounded the alarm last year when the largest U.S. oil company, ExxonMobil Corp, announced profits of $36 billion. But according to the Tax Foundation, the biggest price gouging profiteer was the U.S. government, cashing in to the tune of $54 billion in oil and gas taxes. The think tank, the Tax Foundation, said, 'Tax collections on the production and the import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs.' In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest US oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.

"Since 1977, federal and state governments have collected more than $1.34 trillion," folks, and that is about half of our budget this year. That's about half of what we're going to spend this year. We're at 2.7 trillion now. Now admittedly this is since 1977, but that's, you know, 29 years. "They've collected more than $1.34 trillion in gasoline tax revenues in inflation adjusted dollars. That's 'more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period,' the Tax Foundation says." But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because despite government tax gouging on oil industry revenue, you have pandering senators like Chuck Schumer who want to raise energy taxes even more, complaining that oil company profiteering is simply unconscionable.

…

It's people like Chuck Schumer who want to break up the oil companies because they're price gouging. It's Chuck Schumer that keeps the oil companies from expanding their supply and expanding their business. It's just maddening here, folks, and of course the Republicans up on Capitol Hill, they're not going to speak up. They're not going to, "Oh, we're going to join the whole presentation of snake oil. Yeah, we all gotta jump now on Big Oil," because your vote is at stake, and of course they're not going to do anything to alleviate the circumstance. What the president is going to do is going to have more impact than what anybody in the Senate is going to do by relaxing these formulation regulations. But I mean it's just insulting, and it gets worse here. At another press conference, here is Miss America, Nancy Pelosi.

PELOSI: We have two oil men in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. There is no accident, it is a cause and effect, a cause and effect. How dare the president of the United States make a speech today, in April, many, many, many months after the American people have had to undergo the cost of home heating oil, a woman told me she almost fainted when she received her -- her home heating bill over this winter. And when so many people making the minimum wage, which hasn't been raised in eight years, which has a very low purchasing power, have to go out and buy gasoline at these prices, where have you been, Mr. President?

RUSH: Now, don't sweat this, folks. She's got about as much respect as an iguana swimming around in your bathtub. You know, this is just pure demagoguery, and even the people on the left are embarrassed by Nancy Pelosi and even Dingy Harry. And, by the way, Dingy Harry is in trouble. He's encountering the Tom Daschle problem. As he goes to Washington and spouts all this left-wing kook bilge and drivel, the people back home in his red state are going, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, this is not what we're for, this is not what we're in favor of." So his own approval polls in Nevada are not doing well.

Abortion drug under fire

From LifeNews:

The dangerous RU 486 abortion drug has claimed the lives of at least nine women worldwide and six in the United States. A lawsuit getting a hearing Tuesday in a federal appeals court is seeking information about why the Clinton administration approved the drug in the first place.

During the waning days of the Clinton administration, the Food and Drug Administration hurriedly approved the mifepristone abortion drug under a special protocol normally reserved for crucial lifesaving medicines.

Judicial Watch, a governmental watchdog group, filed a lawsuit to obtain more than 4,000 documents pertaining to the RU 486 approval process the FDA continues to withhold.

"The FDA continues to abuse the open records process by withholding pertinent health information from the public," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.

"We're tired of the FDA’s stonewalling the public's right to know about the political motivations behind the RU-486 approval process, as well as the inherent dangers of this abortion drug."

Through the use of the Freedom of Information Act, and later through litigation, Judicial Watch discovered that the FDA approved RU 486 under the "Accelerated Approval of New Drugs for Serious or Life-threatening Illnesses," a measure adopted to encourage the manufacture and importation of drugs designed to treat illnesses such as cancer or heart disease.

Judicial Watch also discovered paperwork regarding the abortion drug trials that revealed serious health complications resulting from the use of the drug.

Oprah’s far-left propaganda

From Walter E. Williams:

About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Williams alerted me to an episode of Oprah Winfrey's show titled "Inside the Lives of People Living on Minimum Wage." After a few minutes of watching, I turned it off, not because of the heartrending tales, but because most of what was being said was dead wrong. Let's look at it.

The show claims that 30 million Americans earn the minimum wage of $5 an hour. Actually, the federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, and 17 states mandate a higher minimum wage that approaches $7 an hour. At one point, Oprah did manage to clear up this aspect of the show's errors.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports: "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15."

Workers earning the minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25. Only about 2 percent of workers over 25 years of age earn minimum wages.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: 63 percent of minimum-wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 15 percent still earn the minimum wage after three years. Furthermore, only 5.3 percent of minimum-wage earners are from households below the official poverty line; 40 percent of minimum-wage earners live in households with incomes $60,000 and higher; and, over 82 percent of minimum-wage earners do not have dependents.

…

Two important surveys of academic economists were reported in two issues of the American Economic Review, May 1979 and May 1992. In one survey, 90 percent, and in the other 80 percent, of economists agreed that increasing the minimum wage causes unemployment among youth and low-skilled workers.

Minimum wages can have a more insidious effect. In research for my book "South Africa's War Against Capitalism" (1989), I found that during South Africa's apartheid era, racist unions, who'd never admit blacks, were the major supporters of higher minimum wages for blacks.

Gert Beetge, secretary of South Africa's avowedly racist Building Worker's Union, in response to contractors hiring black workers, said, "There is no job reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances I support the rate-for-the-job [minimum wages] as the second best way of protecting our white artisans." Racists recognized the discriminatory effects of mandated minimum wages.

I'm trying to figure whether ineptitude explains the errors in Oprah's show or a deliberate attempt to mislead.