Lynn De Rothschild: “Obama Tax ‘Cuts’ Are Biggest Welfare Program Since Welfare Began

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After Wednesday night’s debate, FoxNews‘ Greta Van Susteren interviewed Lynn Forester De Rothschild, a prominent former Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser who recently came forward to support John McCain.

Mrs. De Rothschild informed Greta that Sen. Obama’s purported tax cuts for 95% of Americans is not a tax cut at; it’s a welfare program disguised as a tax cut. She pointed out that the Obama campaign fails to mention that under the Obama plan, 40% of the 95% are people who currently pay not taxes at all. The 40%, some 60 million people who again, currently don’t pay any taxes, would receive money from the government through a “tax credit”. Mrs. De Rothschild stated further:

It’s the biggest welfare plan in the guise of a ‘tax cut’ since welfare began. This is not a tax cut.

In addition, she pointed out that analysts have confirmed that this plan would cost $1 trillion dollars. Greta then asked how the plan would be funded.

Barack Obama isn’t going to get all that money from the other 5% of taxpayers.

Greta inquired:

So, you’re saying the rest of the taxpayers, would have to pay for it?

Mrs. De Rothschild replied in the affirmative. She concluded by explaining that John McCain’s tax plan would cut taxes for people who are paying taxes today.

Time for a Dan’s Bake Sale America! America’s Bake Sale

In 1993, a man named Dan called Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. What started as a flippant conversation, quickly exploded into a listener-driven phenomenon. Although, the whole “saga” may seem trivial, there were fundamental truths within it that appealed to Rush’s listeners. Dan introduced himself by thanking a friend who’d recently made him aware of Rush, and for the weekly photocopy of Rush’s subscription Limbaugh Letter. Initially, Rush was simply going to gift a year’s subscription to the poor fellow, whose wife didn’t care for Rush’s show.

Rush, being the true conservative at heart, advised Dan to have a bake sale and raise the money himself to purchase the subscription. He rightly told Dan that he would appreciate the subscription more if he paid for it. Beginning with the very next caller, listener after listener called in to donate everything from baked goods to t-shirts for Dan’s effort. Ultimately, an estimated 65,000 – 80,000*  people showed up for Dan’s bake sale in Fort Collins, Colorado. Rush himself, best explained why his listeners responded so enthusiastically:

Here’s the truth of the matter.  These people show up, 35,000 to 65,000*, they drop a hundred dollars in and around Fort Collins.  That, my friends, is called trickle-down economics.  You should see the people who were at Dan’s Bake Sale, ’93, in Fort Collins, Colorado, because this is something that’s just fundamental.  What happened in Fort Collins, Colorado, is a microcosm of what could have happened all over this country, could be right now if you just had the right kind of leadership.  If we had somebody talking about how great people can be.  If we had somebody talking about how good people are and decent they are in their hearts and motivating those people, take the people who play by the rules, take the people who are good and decent, hardworking, motivate them, inspire them, don’t punish them, motivate them, then you could have Fort Collins, Colorados, all over America.  It’s just overwhelming.

Again, what may have seemed like a superficial endeavor to some at the time, reveals what is universally true about the heart of America: America is a country filled with good, generous, and kind-hearted people. We are a people who are more than willing to stand up and help out our neighbor, whether he be next door or in a state across the country. The vast majority of us are busy living our lives and taking care of our families, trying to live the American dream, but when action is called for by a leader, or events require, we will come together to support a just cause or convey a necessary message.

There is something in the phenomenon of Dan’s Bake Sale that makes a very clear point that is not to be overlooked. People responded so enthusiastically because they were willing to get behind a man who was going to work to earn something for himself. Dan was making the first move, and people were willing to back him up. It wasn’t a government-imposed form of “neighborliness” or an attempt to impose someone’s arbitrary idea of fairness. It was support of the idea that Dan’s friend needed to stop enabling him from taking the newsletter for free, something he hadn’t paid for, and earn the money himself. Once Dan embraced the concept, people we were willing to step forward and help him out. America, at its heart, has always been like that.

The majority of Americans know that social engineering through government-fiat is always doomed to failure. We know that handing something to people who aren’t willing to take the first steps themselves, who aren’t willing to work hard, or who don’t play by the rules, will ultimately fail in helping the person and drag down the rest of society who are burdened with paying for the experiment.

The American people are angry because they know two such massive social engineering programs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were wildly mismanaged, enlarged, and forced upon the banking industry, and they know that none of the responsible parties are being held to account, and to add further injury, capitalism is now under attack. The American people know that the Fannie and Freddie mess are not totally to blame; massive over spending by Congress, left unchecked by President Bush’s veto pen, and very bad money policies by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, lack of enforcement of existing regulations, and failure to communicate the extent of the problem effectively to the American people in time to head off disaster, were also to blame. The American people also know that there was a lot of greed on the part of some companies to make a fast buck on the loosened lending rules, and yes, some people were taken advantage of.

The financial meltdown that has taken place was a wake up to all Americans; from the average citizen on “Main Street”, to the institutions on Wall St., to the halls of Congress, to the Oval office, and to the media. Of late, a large number of Americans have previously woken up and spoken out on a couple of other serious issues facing this country, both of which, in retrospect, it can be seen, in one way or another, have helped to contribute to our economic problems. Large numbers of calls and e-mails have reined down on Washington in the recent past, albeit not in the totally unprecedented numbers seen with the proposed bailout bill. In 2007, a very large number of Americans voiced their disapproval of a so-called comprehensive immigration bill that did not adequately secure our borders and was viewed as granting a form of amnesty to illegal aliens. Just this past summer, again, a large number of Americans put pressure on politicians to “Drill Here, Drill Now”, recognizing the lack of a truly comprehensive energy policy that includes immediate increases in the amount of drilling and refining for oil, is very damaging to our economy and endangering our national security.

The average American understands the problems and the solutions. Torrential downpours of phone calls and e-mails flooded Washington in an effort to stop the extraordinarly ill-conceived “bailout bill”. While many of us may not be able to articulate the minute details, we knew in our guts that it was wrong. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to bail out “the fat cats” on Wall St., we opposed it because we knew the very same people who engineered the failure were not the ones to engineer the solution. We knew the bill was dangerous, we knew there were saner, better solutions proposed that did not socialize a large portion of our financial sector. After decades of expansion in the housing market and a long period of growth of the stock market, the average person took stock of history, applied their common sense, and knew that it was time for a major correction. We knew some would get hurt and we could personally suffer hard times. In order to preserve freedom, and the principles of a capitalist, free market society, we shouted our voices that we were willing to accept that. We knew those of us who could, would help others out. We will and do help each other out, but we don’t want the government taking the money from us and deciding. That’s the American way. Sometimes we fail but we will get back up. Punish the guilty, correct the mistakes, learn from them and then, emerge stronger and smarter than before. Many, many Americans conveyed this message to Washington.

But Washington utterly failed to listen. Many of us were momentarily hopeful that the initial failure of the bill meant that our voices were being heard. While there were some of our representatives of principle who opposed the bill from the beginning for the right reasons, we were informed that it was not the fundamental principles of the bill that were the cause of the failure; it was partisan politics embodied in a speech on the House floor given by Speaker Pelosi. Most unfortunately, a bill was ultimately passed. We heard phrases like “that’s whay happens in the sausage factory” and that the bill was “sweetened” to entice more politicans to vote for it. It was Washington business as usual, but this time, large numbers of Americans were watching and were completely repulsed.

Americans are outraged at the complete disenfranchisement that has occurred in this whole debacle and that has been going on for some time. We are outraged that no one directly responsible for the financial mess in which we find ourselves are being held to account. We are outraged that the very same people should be under intense scrutiny, are instead hatching plans to further socialize this country and impose still more social engineering programs. And we are equally outraged that many of the same representatives in our government that sat idly by in the past are still doing it today. Why don’t they speak?

Americans are fed up with being lectured to by the media. After the bailout bill initially failed, the all-out assualt on public opinion, nay, the sheer propaganda flew from every quarter. We were inundated with stories of businesses that had been having financial troubles for quite some time now supposedely going belly-up because of the “credit crunch”. We were warned about so-called experts about the devasting effects of the sharp drop in the stock market on all our retirement accounts and the impending apocalypse should the bill ultimately fail to pass. In one case, a business network anchor actually wagged her finger at the screen and chastized, “Wall Street is ‘Main Street’, folks!” How dare we form our own opinions! Apparently, or so we are told, we are just too stupid to understand the fatal consequences.

We are fed up with the absolute absence of tough questioning to politicians who are currently in power while corruption is “hiding” in plain sight. We are fed up with the complete lack of journalistic ethics that has resulted in free advertising for one candidate on the one hand while deploying squadrons of investigators to dig up dirt on another.

As this is being written, the press are perverting what is behind the righteous anger of citizens who have begun expressing themselves at McCain – Palin campaign rallies, and even using it as a weapon against the campaign, accusing them of inciting a racist, mob mentality. While there have been a very few inappropriate remarks at a couple of the rallies, those hyperbolic expressions come as no real surprise to the rest of us.

These unfortunate inflammatory effusions of anger are what come from years of disenfranchisement of the average citizen while Washington continues down a ruinous path. Nearly all widely available forms of media, including broadcast and print news, films, celebrity interviews and award ceremonies convey to Americas what a terrible country they live in, that it must become more like Europe, that capitalism doesn’t work, and that they, the average person with values, are just plain ignorant if they disagree with a socialist agenda. The calvacade of insulting rhetoric has recently reached a crescendo, so much so that it has become nearly a parody of itself. This kind of environment does ultimately produce a frustration that spills out. The elitists in the world who are nearly the only voices broadcast, are so totally out of touch, they can’t possible understand this.

The majority of Americans, a few principled, lonely souls in Washington, some in print, some on TV, and a huge number of people in “the blogosphere” do get it. The sentitments of the majority of Americans are best embodied in the passionate remarks of a gentleman at an October 9^th McCain-Pally townhall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, during which the following exchange occurred:

Speaker: I’m mad, I’m really mad, and what’s going to surprise you is, that it’s not the economy. It’s the socialists taking over our country. (applause) (to the crowd) Sit down, I’m not done. Thank you.

John McCain: You’re going to have to…(inaudible from Speaker) You’re going have to give me…

Speaker: Let me finish, please.

John McCain: Ok. Excuuuuse me….(laugher) I think I get the message.

Speaker: Thank you. I think it’s important, what we’re really missing, and what’s going on, when you have an Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run this country, we’ve gotta have our heads examined. It’s time that you two are representing us and we are mad!

This gentleman spoke for so many, many people and he was trying to convey to Senator McCain and Gov. Palin that we know where the real power in this republic is supposed to reside. Many of us are concerned that Sen. McCain is just as out of touch with the majority of Americans as the rest of Washington, based on the fact that he, too, voted for the bailout, and has even proposed using some of the money to bail out people who took on more house than they can afford. Sen. McCain is not articulating the many issues about which people are so angry, he is not spelling out how he would punish the guilty, or what he would fundamentally change to prevent a recurrance. People attending his rallies are just trying to get the message through. Senator McCain is not inciting a mob, the average American is trying to incite him to hear truth and take appropriate action.

The expressions of fear by McCain rally attendees at the prospects of a President Obama are being called racist by the media, the Obama campaign, and his supporters. Again, while a very few of those comments have been inappropriate, it is again, an expression of a righteous emotion. Despite all the efforts by the Obama campaign and the overwhelming majority of the media, many Americans are aware of the questionable aspects of Sen. Obama’s history and have followed his ever-evolving versions of past and current associations, comments, positions, and policies. Many Americans are becoming increasily dismayed by the emerging portrait of a man who once gives such eloquent speeches, yet in other quarters says so many troubling things. The espousal of principles of unity, hope, and a new kind of politics does not square with the demeaning remarks about Americans with values, the inciting of supporters to “get into people’s faces”, appeals to the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission, even local law enforcement to silence the free speech of those in opposition, and a failure to distance himself from the multitude of odd supporters whose t-shirts, signs, songs, and chants evoke the imagery of socialism, communism, and fascism of days gone by.

The rumors regarding Mr. Obama that speculate on his past and present ideology and connections are only fueled by the near-total lack of journalistic ethics. The number of false rumors about him are the direct result of an absence of rigorous investigation. It is left to the individual to sort through what is available from a few in the media, from those with whom they speak casually, and most especially from the internet. Because there is much about Mr. Obama to correctly cause genuine concern intuitively, some people latch on to the wrong reason for it. The media, rather than pointing fingers at the McCain campaign have only themselves to blame.

While many Americans are feeling the same way, they feel they have no one who is voicing their concerns and they are fearful that time is running out. The daily message from the media is: “This election is over.” There is growing concern, as the gentleman from Wisconsin put it, “What’s going on, when you have an Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run this country, we’ve gotta have our heads examined.” The gentleman was articulating the growing concern that “the hooligans” will actually increase in numbers, that there will be a tipping of the balance of power and the increasing forces of socialism will be unstoppable. And, he was attempting to clearly tell Senator McCain and Gov. Palin that they are not articulating that particular message at all or the overall issues with clarity.

What is so desperately needed at this time is leadership. There appears to be an absolute lack of it from the President, whose failures and failure to communicate have lost our trust. The only leadership in Washington is leading this country to ruin.

Perhaps because of a long period of prosperity and an agenda-driven media that has long attempted to frame the overall picture of government, including what it should and should not do, and what it really does, too many of us may have “bought in” to these ideas. Clearly, the majority of us no longer trust the government and have come to question how much stock we put in its leadership.

Leadership cannot come from Washington at this point. America has lost sight of the single most important principle on which it was founded: God grants rights to the individual and “In order to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” “We the people” need to be the leaders and remind all of those “hooligans” in Washington, the media, and Senator McCain, with home the power really rests.

We the people need to come together and send the following messages…

To those currently in power:

1. No more bailouts! Companies and people who make bad decisions should be allowed to fail so they learn from their mistakes.
2. America is not a socialist country, so stop nationalizing the private sector
3. The only thing that you should be doing to “help” fix the current situation is to come up with real market based solutions.
4. Stop spending our money! Actually stop printing it! Right this minute! We’re broke!
5. You work for the American people – when we barrage Washington with phone calls and e-mails in opposition to your plans, you better listen.
6. If we have too many foreign entanglements that have tied our hands, you’d better figure out how that happened and begin extracting us, somehow. Trade may be global, with global markets, but America is not a market! America is a sovereign nation filled with American citizens, we are not citizens of the world.

To the media elite and celebrities:

1. Stop telling us who to vote for and do your jobs.
2. If you’re a reporter, investigate and report. Stop advocating. Look carefully into Sen. Obama’s background and ask him the tough questions.
3. If you’re a celebrity, shut up. No one cares what you think. All you’re dong is alienating a good chunk of your audience. If you’re a comedian, poke fun at both sides or find something else to joke about.

To John Mccain and Sarah Palin:

1. Stop talking to us about corruption on Wall St. and predatory lenders and start talking about corrupt politicians. Announce who you would appoint as your Attorney General and develop a plan with him to investigate and prosecute all responsible parties on Wall Street and in Washington. Send him around the country until Election Day to explain this plan to the American people.
2. You must totally ignore the opinions of the media, you’re not going to win them over no matter what you do. Do only live interviews with major broadcast networks, go on every local media affliate you can wherever you go, and one of you should call someone in talk radio, daily, everyday until the election is over. More people are paying attention than ever before; there are a lot of new listeners calling in, upset about the current situation.
3. Tell the history of Barack Obama, from start to finish. That includes all of his socialist and radical ties, including Rev. Wright. Weave a narrative, it’s really not that complicated. Stop telling crowds that Mr. Obama is a decent, honorable man, from whom they have nothing to fear. At the very least, he is not truthful and it just makes you look out of touch and like your’re caving into media criticism.  Any criticism will be called racist, and by caving in, you are allowing yourself to be completely disarmed. Expose, vigorously all of Mr. Obama’s ties to ACORN.
4. Call for an immediate investigation into and a nationwide rejection of any more voter registrations to be accepted by ACORN. Propose the introduction of an immediate spending freeze on funds to ACORN. Promise the American people, if you are elected, you will direct your appointed Attorney General with investigating this group and all of its activities, say that you are willing to appoint a Special Prosecutor, if necessary. Promise the American people you will challenge election results that appear questionable due to the widely reported incidents of voter fraud involving this group.
5. Start talking about the danger we all face from the possibility of a Democratic majority in Congress, the loss of the filibuster, and the plans of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid in the event of this possibility and in particular, in the event the majority is secured, what America might look if Barack Obama would also be elected President.
6. Stop talking to us about any additional bailouts! Realize your mistake in supporting the original bill. Propose only real market solutions and advocate for capitalism and free markets. Talk about how the wrong kind of government intervention led to the current financial mess, how because there were a few greedy companies, it doesn’t mean we reject the entire capitalist system. Talk about how the fear of increased taxes and looming prospect of the re-imposition of the offshore drilling ban creates so much uncertainty in financial markets, those factors are contributing to fear. Talk about how increasing government intervention creates even more uncertainty and failure of investors and business to trust that the government won’t swoop down on them, too.
7. In the event you are elected, Sen. McCain, you need to realize that you work for us. The American people are awake to the difficulties that face the country and have little trust in politicians. If the majority of Americans express themselves so loudly in the future, as they did in trying to stop the bailout you need to listen to them next time.

Let’s send these messages, together, by raising money to either form a 527 group or by donating to one already in existence to run ads about these issues during the last few days of the election.

Let’s raise money to support candidates who voted “No” on the bailout bill and to avoid tipping the balance of power in the House and the Senate so far to the left that further damaging legislation can’t be stopped.

Let’s get together for one big event in a central location and in as many locations across the country as possible. Let’s remember Dan, and really do something with it this time, together. Let’s remember that we’re not alone, that this is our country and then, as Rush said, “Then you could have Fort Collins, Colorados, all over America.”

I call on anyone who is interested in fighting for freedom and stopping socialism, to send a message that We the People are the true leadership in this country, to join me.

Here’s to Fort Collins, all over America.

How, and what next?

Instead of Dan’s Bake Sale, it’s…

America’s Bake Sale

Saturday, October 25

Time to be determined

I invite as many people as are able to participate in the main event, which will be held in Lincoln, Nebraska. I’ll start out with the idea of holding it in a nearby park shelter, with an advertisement in my local newspaper. If that’s all, so be it. I’ll donate any money raised to the American Issues Project which is the only organization currently running any ads close to the kind that should be on the air. If we work together, though, a show in numbers can make a difference, and it would definitely send a message.

I call on anyone willing to help, to join me. We’ll move from the park shelter to a small community center. If we get more help, we’ll move from the community center to an event center, or to a large farm field near the edge of the city.

For those who cannot come and join me in Nebraska, I urge you to hold an event in your city own or town. Starting out, just like I suggested for myself, with a little sale in your driveway, local park shelter, or community center. Call on others to join in, and see how big you can make it and try to move it a larger venue.

I call on people who own businesses to donate items for sale, including, of course, the requisite baked goods. But I also call on any business that is willing to donate t-shirts, stickers, buttons, or like items, to be sold. I call on people with sound equipment, with video and webcam equipment to set up to broadcast the individual bake sales across the country, live, over the internet. I call on vocalists, musicians, or other people with the skills to put on some entertainment at local events. I call on those with motivational speaking abilities to say a few words of encouragement to those attending. I call on printers to make up flyers and signs.

I call on attorneys who know more about election finance law than I do to advise on setting up a 527 group or to work with one already existing to best spend the money raised. I call on these attorneys to advise on any election law issues allowing or preventing the invitation of worthy candidates to attend these events.

I call on widely known people who have been in positions of leadership in government, like Newt Gingrich,  Fred Thompson, and others to come and speak in Lincoln. I call on radio talk show hosts, who have led the way on in the past on grassroots movements just like this one, to join in and spread the word, and speak at one of the locations where one of these bake sales is being held.

I call on people with video editing skills to make some more videos to put on the internet to explain the vital issues and post them on the internet in a coordinated effort to spread the word. I call on people with these skills to work together to possibly prepare ad spots should it be determined forming our own 527 group is the best way to go, so they are ready for placement during the last few days of the election immediately after the nationwide effort.

I call on anyone who is willing to help me organize this thing, right now, to give ideas for ensuring its success, and to get immediately to work.

And most earnestly, I call on bloggers all over the internet, whose many voices have been shouting out the truth, trying to spread the word about the issues facing all of us, who love their country, and who feel frustrated about what to do. You can do something – spread the word!

If you believe that We the People are the leaders in this country and can make a difference, go to the following link at Facebook and sign up!

America’s Bake Sale Event

or email me at americasbakesale@gmail.com

Keating 5 Prosecutor Bob Bennett Speaks 10/6: McCain Exonerated

Keating 5 Prosecutor Bob Bennett, self-acknowledged Democrat, spoke with attorney Mark Levin about the investigation on Levin’s radio show Monday, October 6.

(The following is a transcript of the portion of the interview that is pertinent to the Keating 5 case. For a full transcript of the entire interview, which also includes an interesting conversation about the Iran-Contra scandal, visit this post. For audio of the full show, which Levin posts to his website go to marklevinshow.com.)

Mark: Well, first of all, your book, In the Ring: Trials of a Washington Lawyer. We’ve linked to that on marklevin.com. It’s a terrific book and that is why I want to talk to you.

Bob: Thanks, Mark, yeah.

Mark: You have a chapter on the Keating 5. And Bob, this is very important, now, because, people are bringing up, i don’t want to drag you into politics, but people are bringing up William Ayers, and suddenly this Keating 5 thing pops up again. Why don’t you tell us, give us a thumbnail sketch of what happened there and what was the deal about John McCain.

Bob: I’ll stick to the public record. What my role was – I was hired by a bi-partisan Senate Ethics Committee to investigate what was known as “The Keating 5″.  And in essence, what it was, was that there was something called the Direct Investment Rule which Charles Keating was opposed to. What it did was it basically said that Savings and Loans, which he owned one, couldn’t, were limited in where they could invest their money. Senator DiConcini scheduled a meeting with several Senators  to meet with the head of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and pressure them.

And, Senator McCain attended that meeting. And one thing led to another and the Ethics Committee conducted an investigation. And I investigated it for a long, long time, well over a year. For the purpose of determining whether or not the Senators, including McCain, violated any standards, rules, ethical prohibitions. And at the end of the investigation, I concluded that Senator McCain and Senator Glenn should be exonerated, that is, that there should be no further action against them, but that was rejected by the Committee and there were some twenty-six days of public hearings.

As you know, Mark, ’cause on the occasions we’ve met, I- we argued some. I’m a Democrat, as you know. But, I had to call it the way the evidence dictated, and I called it that John McCain did nothing wrong. How Heflin, who at the time, was the Chairman of the Committee, was very concerned that there be twenty-six days of hearings with only Democrats in “the docks”, so to speak, so my recommendation about exonerating Senators Glenn and McCain was rejected and we went forward. But… it’s….and at the end of the day, it was pretty clear, from all the evidence, that there was no violation by Senator McCain.

I’m sorry to be so long but that’s in a nutshell, what happened.

Mark: Well, it’s important, because it’s a long time ago, we have five and a half million people listening and we gotta get this right, Bob. And, it seems to me, that based on what you’re saying, based on what I’ve read in your book, and what you’ve said before, frankly, that he was thrown into this for political reasons, and it’s being raised again, you don’t have to answer the last part, I’m commenting, it’s being raised now for political reasons. John McCain is not an unethical man, can you, can we agree on that?

Bob: Let me say this: from all the evidence, he’s not a friend of mine, although I guess, in the spirit of full disclosure, years after the Keating case, just this past year, he hired me as a lawyer, to represent him in connection with this dispute about lobbying he was having with the New York Times. But, at the time I made my findings, I was totally independent, and I’m not a surrogate of his in this political…. You know, I represent too many people on both sides of the aisle. But the direct, that as background, I certainly saw nothing in my investigation that would call into question, John McCain’s ethics. When he learned that there had been a referral to the Justice Department by the regulators, uh, he withdrew from any assistance to Keating and in fact, got into a big argument with Charles Keating, who called McCain “a wimp”, which did not sit well with the Senator. So, I certainly, based on my investigation in that case, saw nothing to call in to question John McCain’s ethics.

Mark: And you’ve represented, you’re right, people of all political stripes and so on.