Ingraham pressed this matter a little further, "So that didn't have any effect on it?" she asked, which drew laughter from Specter. "Absolutely not," Specter replied, adding, "I've got a pretty good record, Laura, for making up my own mind."

Astoundingly, Ingraham responds by saying, "I would conclude that that is accurate, Senator." AGH! Then why imply otherwise, with a bunch of pointless and insinuating questions, that you don't even sincerely believe?

But Ingraham deserves credit for putting a direct and sensible question to Specter:

"Just explain to me, if you could, in just a minute or so, how more government spending creates private sector growth or private sector jobs over the next twelve months." I understand that Ingraham is not ideologically predisposed to support this contention, but the press is doing so little actual digging into the thought that underpins both the the stimulus bill and the debate behind it that I'll take it wherever I can get it.

[LISTEN.]

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=ydnz4z6USU  (2:32)

Ingraham to Specter 'Is It Nice to Be Wined and Dined?'

Posted: February 09, 2009
Posted By: Jpoor
Views: 21,281  |  Network: BMI

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I got an e-mail.  This is from Susan in Virginia Beach.  "Dear Rush:  You are my professor.  I am indebted to you for the knowledge that you have given me.  You've always told us that you would tell us when it was time to panic.  I'm starting to wonder how we are going to get our country back from these revolutionaries.  Is it time to panic?"  No.  'Cause panic doesn't accomplish anything.  But when we come back from the break, I'm going to tell you how to get the country back.  I'm going to tell you how it will happen, and I'm going to suggest what we might do when we get it back, because we will, 'cause these people are going to overreach.  They are not going to win every election from here on out unless they end elections, which I wouldn't rule out they're dreaming about doing.  

So when we come back from the break I'll tell you how we're going to get our country back, and I'll tell you what we're going to do when we get our country back.  I'll give you a little hint.  We're going to treat them the same way they have been treating us for years.  We are going to subject them to the same things they have subjected us to, and we are going to have a big and strong and powerful government to wield against them because they're in the process of building it.  And we're going to win it back one day, and when we win this country back, and this government back, we are going to deploy government against them the way they have been deploying it against us, and let them find out what it's like, and they're not going to be able to stop it, because they will not have a power base anywhere that will let them stop it.

RUSH:  Is it time to panic?  No, my friends, it's not time to panic, because nothing gets done in a panic. What we have to realize is this: the left, the Democrat Party, will not control the government forever.  It just will not happen.  They are going to overreach. They're going to overreach pretty quickly.  Polling data already shows that, in a generic race for Congress, it's tied Republican and Democrat.  Only when you put the names in...  Nobody can believe this.  Fifty-six percent of the American people now are in opposition to the stimulus in total or in part.  By the way, about the negotiations: They're trying to ram this through just like amnesty. They're trying to ram this through, and they're using the same tactics that they used with global warming.  It's a fear of crisis.  We can't wait; we gotta do it now.  The conference negotiations are going on with not one Republican being permitted to participate.

Did you know that?  Not one Republican from the House, not one Republican Senator is involved in the conference between the House and the Senate to come up with a bill that both support.  Not one Republican in this new era of responsibility, not one Republican in this new era of bipartisanship.  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have shut the Republicans out.  This is from Mike Pence, congressman from Indiana.  So, let 'em go ahead with these tactics.  We can't stop them anyway.  We lost the election.  But they're going to lose down the road.  They will not control government forever, and when our turn comes, we are going to turn the power of government against the left.  We are going to investigate them. We are going to hold public hearings. We are going to humiliate them. We're going to nationalize their unions. We're going to fund our groups for a change.

If they can give ACORN $4.1 billion then we can start paying our groups with federal money.  We're going to do exactly to them what they have done to us.  We're going to build and use the big government that they have built and turn it right against them.  We are gonna turn the power of government against the left, and against Democrats in ways they cannot imagine.  They will not know what hit them.  They are using the law. They are using government to advance a cause that is un-American.  Yes! They are using law. They are using government to advance a cause that is un-American.  We are going to use the power of that left is centralizing in the federal government to punish them, to break 'em up, and to make them pay for this.  It's time for tit-for-tat.  Nice guy playing by the rules when they don't, is over.  It's time they got a taste of their own medicine, and it's going to happen, folks, because they're not going to hold power forever.  

The left -- you people, you Democrats -- you are creating a monster that you will not be able to control forever.  You will ultimately regret what you are doing just like the media will ultimately regret its sacrifice of reason, its abandonment of its primary purpose.  The day is coming when the media will actually investigate a Democrat and find some problems and nobody's going to believe them because they've lost all credibility.  Nobody believes what the mainstream media says now anyway.  Except the uneducated, the illiterate, and the uninformed -- which, sadly, is a fairly large number.  Well, we'll deal with that.  We are taking names.  We are taking names now.  We are monitoring who on the left is going to deserve payback, and it's going to be hell.  This much I promise you.  This is just getting out of hand.

We're gonna come after the left's favorite corporations.  We're going to come after your favorite political constituents.  We're going to come after your favorite media outlets.  You want to try the Fairness Doctrine?  Fine.  We'll impose it on network television.  We'll impose it on newspapers.  You want to try censorship? Fine! We will censor you when we get the control of the government back.  We will reapportion districts using the Census to help conservatives.  We're going to turn the power of government against the Democrats and the left and weaken and you break you into little pieces. Because, my friends, the day has passed when we can become passive and be passive about what they are doing.  We will use the political and the legal system as they have and are, and we will use it to promote our party and to diminish theirs.  We will use the power of government and legal system to promote our movement and our agenda, just as they are.  

If they are going to bastardize the American system, if they are going to make this government large and powerful and intrusive, someday they're going to lose it. But they're going to lose it after having amassed all this power.  We will control it, and we're going to turn it right back against them.  We will build a massive army of patriots to counter ACORN.  We will defund ACORN.  We'll defund the labor unions, and we will fund our own people to go out and zap ACORN.  And we will do everything we can to enhance anti-union employment. We will make sure that when companies lose money, that the people that get canned are union people.  We're going to use the power of government just like the left is using the power of government.  We're going to use the justice department. 

We're going to go after big unions with the justice department. We're going to find all of the criminal activity. We are going to find all the lack of ethics. We are going to find every bit of corruption we can, and we're gonna sic the attorney general and the justice department and the US attorneys on you people just as you have been doing to the people of the right and the Republican Party for 50 years.  And then we're going to find George Soros and other concentrations of left-wing power and wealth.  And we're going to focus our attention on him, so that the American people will finally learn just who the hell paid for the bastardization of the United States, just who the hell paid for the destruction of the American way of life.  

We have learned from you leftists.  We have sat by, we have watched, and we've been too passive.  We have sat on the sidelines as impotent observers, and we have trusted in the goodness and the decency of the American people.  But you have even perverted them.  It was a disgrace what was on display in Fort Myers, Florida, yesterday.  It was an absolute saddening, shocking, depressing disgrace.  And you have created that segment of America that has no faith in and of itself, no faith in this country, and thinks the only reason to talk to a president is to ask him for a kitchen, to ask him for a car. By the way, asking a president for a new car who hasn't even given his brother who lives in a hut a welcome home mat!  I don't think he's given his brother a pot, much less a pan.  

His brother lives in a nine-square-foot hut in Nairobi.  You're asking the president of the United States...? God bless these people. What has this government done to them?  What has the media in this country done to these people, depriving them of the very essence of humanity?  So sense of self, no pride.  This is what Democrats and the left do to people.  They rob people of their humanity, of their goodness and their decency. They rob them of confidence.  We are going to restore this.  We are going to use the power of the government to tell people how good they can be, how important they are, and how much happier they will be if they're not looking to our president for the next kitchen or the car or a job.  We're going to become activists.  We'll take back our government.  

It's going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government -- and we're going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.  So, Sue in Virginia Beach, we can't do any of this if we panic.  I know some of you saying, "Rush, it all sounds great, but who's going to do this?"  Well, folks, I admit that you look out on the horizon right now and you don't see a single person in the political class willing to do this.  But before these people on the left get through, there is going to be so much anger and outrage among the people who made this country work, who are now being targeted as the enemies.  You who have jobs, you who have played by the rules, you who are not asking anybody for your next kitchen, you're the enemy -- and it isn't going to be long before the people of this country get fed up enough that they're going to want to turn the tables on the people who are trying to destroy America as we have always known it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Carol has been waiting awhile.  I appreciate that, Carol. It's nice to have you here on the EIB Network.  Hello.

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  Thank you for having me on.  I appreciate it.

RUSH:  You bet.

CALLER:  Rush, I wanted to tell you, this morning when you started off, you were just inspiring. I was getting so inspired. You were talking about how, when the Republicans come back, you know, they're going to take this strong government that the Democrats have built and they're going to turn it on them.  And I was thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah.  And then I was thinking -- you know, it came to me -- "Wait a minute," you know? "What Republicans is he talking about?"  The Republicans that I remember were always so careful to make sure they included the Democrats in everything they did.  What makes you think they won't do that again?

RUSH:  Well, it's a crapshoot. I agree.  You have a very important observation.  This is something, however, that I think we're going to try to inspire.  I think, you know, if the Democrats go as far as I think they're going to go, it is going to cause anger and outrage like you can't believe.  But the point of that whole monologue was these people are using the power and the finances of the federal government to defeat political opposition, to build up this grand old socialist system that destroys capitalism in the process, or tries to.  To me, I'm just getting fed up. You know, we play by the rules all the time, and we aim for the hearts and minds of the American people, the American voter -- and these people are trying to dumb everybody down.

They want to talk about investigating George W. Bush for war crimes.  Well, by God, I want to investigate Barney Frank! I want to investigate Chris Dodd! I want to investigate Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and all these things.  I want the truth to get out, I want to use federal money to fund our groups and our organizations.  I want to investigate George Soros and find out just exactly what his role has been in precipitating this economic decline we're in for the political purposes of defeating Republicans and electing Democrats.  I think that between now and then, hopefully there's a battle that is raging within the conservative movement over what conservatism is and who is going to lead it, and the same thing is happening in the Republican Party.  I'm hoping all this happens to coalesce.  There will be efforts made to bring all this to bear.  I know it sounds like it's a long shot, but this is what we hope to inspire, because it's payback time.  It's not enough just to beat these people in elections.  It's time to give them a dose (or multiple doses) of their own medicine, and it's something I want to work toward and see to it that it happens. It's not time to panic yet.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Let me answer Carol from Spring, Texas, and her question again.  She said, "You know, I loved that monologue you did, but then I thought, where are the Republicans that are going to engage in this kind of payback?"  Carol, the simple answer is by the time we get to that point, those are the only kind of Republicans that have a chance of getting elected.  That is how bad it is going to get.  The only Republicans that are going to have a chance of getting elected or reelected are those that are outraged over what has been done to their country, and not only want to fix it, but they want to name names, they want people to know exactly who it was that destroyed the capitalist system for their own personal political gain. 

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• National Review: Centrists Are Over the Line

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzllNjhlODVjMTE5MjBiNjRhMGM1MTQ0ZDE2MjI4NmQ=

• American Spectator: Obama's Failed and Tired Ideas From the Past

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/11/obamas-failed-and-tired-ideas

• Wall Street Journal: Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431484726570949.html

Conservative leaders including Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell have called for an up-or-down vote on ending the "Fairness Doctrine" once and for all.

For more on that, read this related NewsBusters piece.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb-staff/2008/06/11/mrcs-bozell-congress-celebrate-radio-independence-day

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters

Ken Shepherd's blog
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Topics:

Congress
John Gizzi
Nancy Pelosi
Radio

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3624001&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/fns/  (16:30)

David Axelrod on 'FNS'

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: WALLACE: "Are — will you rule out re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine?

DAVID AXELROD: I'm going to leave that issue to Julius Genachowski, our new head of the FCC, to — and the president to discuss. So I don't have an answer for you now..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/axelrod_fairness_doctrine/2009/02/16/182359.html

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. "Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."

Waxman and his staff are also thinking about creating congressionally mandated advisory boards to police both radio and TV programming:

One idea Waxman's committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place "advisory boards" that would act as watchdogs to ensure "community needs and opinions" are given fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff.

What about policing internet content?  According to The Prowler, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is already looking into this.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet. "Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information," says on committee staffer. "We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

This is all hardly a surprise, as liberals have never liked that internet content is not regulated in someway.

Hillary Clinton made her views known on this issue back in 1998, when her husband was embroiled in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.  Matt Drudge reported on Clinton’s comments about regulating internet content.

Hillary Clinton Continued:

I don't have any clue about what we're going to do legally, regulatorily, technologically -- I don't have a clue. But I do think we always have to keep competing interests in balance. I'm a big pro-balance person. That's why I love the founders -- checks and balances; accountable power. Anytime an individual or an institution or an invention leaps so far out ahead of that balance and throws a system, whatever it might be -- political, economic, technological --out of balance, you've got a problem, because then it can lead to the oppression people's rights, it can lead to the manipulation of information, it can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes which we have seen historically. So we're going to have to deal with that. And I hope a lot of smart people are going to --"

In 1999, then Deputy Attorney General (now Attorney General) Eric Holder talked about “reasonable restrictions” on internet content following the tragedy of the Columbine Massacre.  VIDEO

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=e4qGQukUVr  (0:39)

Last November, I asked FCC Commissioner and Fairness Doctrine cheerleader Michael Copps about his thoughts on applying the Fairness Doctrine to the internet. VIDEO:

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=e4qGQukUVr  (0:39)

I think we do have to have an expectation that the internet, if that is going to become the primary vehicle for even broadcast over the years not tomorrow or the next day, but over the years, There has to be some discussion about how the internet encourages a civic dialogue that’s adequate to the needs of the country, but I think that’s way premature too say exactly this.  We haven’t even teed up the question.  I’m trying to get people to talk about it.  If we can talk about it then maybe we can come up with some intelligent answers.

However, government regulation of private citizen’s speech is un-constitutional. Waxman and company may be biting off more than they can chew on this one.
Liberals only quieted down some about internet content regulation, when they found how the internet could benefit themselves in elections.  

Angering a liberal base that enjoys reading websites like Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and Democratic Underground would be risky.  After all, if Waxman is insistent that all internet content is to be policed for so-called balance, that should include liberal sites as well….right, Congressman Waxman?

Photo Credit:PBS

Crossposted at Picketlines.org

http://picketlines.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/rep-henry-waxman-wants-to-apply-censorship-doctrine-to-the-internet/ 

To sign the Free Speech Alliance petition, click here.

http://www.mrcaction.org/517/petition.asp?PID=18645182

Photo credit: marklevinshow.com 

• FoxNews: White House: Obama Opposes 'Fairness Doctrine' Revival

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/18/white-house-opposes-fairness-doctrine/

http://danareport.com/2009/03/02/toomeys-run-against-arlen-specter-is-back-on-the-table/

Given Specter's abysmal poll numbers in Pennsylvania right now, this is interesting, to say the least. 

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_613850.html

On Sunday the Associated Press reported these words from Vice President Biden:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jHguJbugBdU-sKvGqGdYJZsCYikQD96LFDBO1

At a reception Friday in Philadelphia with Pennsylvania's congressional delegation, Vice President Joe Biden thanked Specter for supporting the stimulus bill.

"He knows what's worth losing over and he's willing to act on it," Biden said. "In his heart, I know he's a Democrat."

Now, if that isn't enough to make you want to bang your head against the desk, the AP story also has this to say about Specter's liberal votes:

"It is that streak of independence that the fifth-term Specter flaunts and Republicans fear."

No, it's that streak of liberalism that we despise, not fear.