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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So I got in here today, and I got a flash e-mail: "Hey, Rush, I know you've got a ban on MSNBC, but F. Chuck Todd said that the Obama presidency is over. It's done. It's fini because of the latest NBC News/Washington Post poll." I'm sad to say that F. Chuck Todd is wrong. In fact, the correct way to look at the Obama administration is that it's just now getting started. It is in no way over. It is in no way crumbling. It may be in public opinion, but that doesn't matter. I will...

With the situation in the Ukraine escalating and the US continuing to call for sanctions against RussiaÂ’s financial and political elite, Vladimir Putin is now not only mobilizing tens of thousands of troops on his Western front, but sending intercontinental strategic bombers across the Pacific Ocean. According to the US military, itÂ’s the first time since the cold war that RussiaÂ’s incursions have come this close to America. WhatÂ’s even more alarming is that Russia is making it clear that any attack on the Motherland would likely lead to widespread bombardment of western interests. Nuclear capable Russian bombers have been...

It's time to defy health-care mandates issued by bureaucrats not in the healing profession. In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I've learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship. How we interact and treat our patients is the practice of medicine. I acknowledge that there is a problem with the rising cost of health care, but there is also a problem when the individual physician in the trenches does not have a voice in the debate and is being told what to do and how to do it. As a group, the nearly 880,000 licensed...

No major injuries were reported after a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck near Los Angeles last night. Beyond word of property damage, power outages, and general anxiety—there were dozens of reported aftershocks—moviegoers, especially those who saw the biblically-themed "Noah," were a little shaken up.

Say hello to Obamacare’s latest technocratic gimmick — the Accountable Care Organization (ACO). The first of these federally-chartered Pioneer ACO groups of healthcare providers just recently launched. Proponents of ACOs claim that the new entities will help doctors and hospitals better coordinate care in order to improve the health of Medicare patients and reduce costs. Don’t count on it. Instead of helping doctors and patients to make individualized treatment decisions, ACOs will empower government bureaucrats to consolidate healthcare providers into top-down organizations and dictate how care is delivered — at greater cost. According to Obamacare’s supporters, ACOs will streamline communication...

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers. For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by...

Harvard professor David Cutler, a so-called architect of Obamacare, says we "could be" witnessing "the beginning of a death spiral" for the unpopular health care bill. Cutler made the comments last night on Fox News: "So when you were on last week I asked you, if they don't get enough people in the exchanges, then what happens?" said host Megyn Kelly. "And you said then the premiums go up very, very high. Now, was that ball put in motion today?" "We don't know yet," said Cutler. "So what the president is trying to do is to say the website is...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper.</p> <p>The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.</p>

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters. The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates. Financial institutions that operate...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I played for you, an hour ago, a three-minute sound bite from my television show 1995 illustrating how Democrats use scare tactics to get everybody to agree with growing the budget and expanding government... By the way, this is a challenge for me. The Democrats are talking about what a great era the Clinton era was. They tell us now, when they want to come and raise taxes, "Well, look, let's go back to Clinton-era taxes. We had an economic boom and everything was great back then!" Of course, we played sound bites, a sound bite from...

Title shortened to meet FR guidlines. Full title... GOP Establishment Invites Its Own Extinction by Declaring War on Tea Party and Seeking Compromise with Democrats BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Eric Cantor is out saying the Republicans have to change. The Republican Party has to change. The Republican Party has to show that we want to help people. The Republican Party has to reach across the aisle. Karl Rove and his PAC. What is it, American Crossroads? Is that the name of his PAC? There was a New York Times story a couple of days ago that basically said they are gonna...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Look, folks, I really don't like being a "see, I told you so." I mean, I know I do it a lot 'cause it happens a lot, and I used to even have a little jingle with it. "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! See, I Told You So," because it used to be somewhat unique. Now it's not difficult at all. It is important, however. I do, when relevant, like to remind you of things that you've heard in the past on this program that you may have forgotten, things that I've said. Here's a story that leads into my point....

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama on Monday reiterated his call for a comprehensive package of steps against gun violence as the focus on possible Senate legislation appeared to narrow to expanded background checks and limited ammunition magazines, rather than a ban on semi-automatic rifles that mimic assault weapons. Obama took part in a discussion with Minneapolis officials before telling police officers and others that an increase in gun violence nationwide, including the Connecticut school massacre in December, made it vital to address the issue now. "No law or set of laws can keep our children completely safe," Obama said in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Did you know that the unemployment rate went up last month? They just announced that today. It went up from 7.8% to 7.9%. But the Drive-Bys are not reporting that. The Drive-Bys are all reporting the number of jobs created. That number, 157,000. They're saying that the unemployment rate going up, that's a statistical anomaly. It's not really relevant. What's happening out there is that despite the best efforts of the Republicans in December to crash this economy, despite the best efforts of the Republicans to kill this country with all their spending cuts in December, the...

Missouri conservatives proposed a bill that will punish feds violating the Second Amendment with jail time. The Tenth Amendment Center reported: Introduced by Missouri State Representative Casey Guernsey, with 61 co-sponsors, is the Missouri 2nd Amendment Preservation Act. House Bill 170 (HB170) would nullify any and all federal acts, orders, laws, statutes, rules, or regulations of the federal government on personal firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition. The bill states, in part: “Any official, agent, or employee of the federal government who enforces or attempts to enforce any act, order, law, statute, rule, or regulation of the federal government upon a...

JERUSALEM — Less than a week before Israel’s parliamentary elections, a fractured array of centrist parties has failed to join forces and offer a coherent alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Divided by personal rivalries and the lack of a shared agenda, Netanyahu’s centrist challengers remain at odds, and two have even signaled more readiness to join a future coalition under his leadership than unite with each other. While Netanyahu has focused on what he portrays as his ability to defend Israel militarily and diplomatically, his centrist opponents are trying to steer the campaign to other issues, targeting potential voters...

The Obama administration's current warpath against so-called "gun violence" -- which is Newspeak for non-violence committed by non-criminals with their non-illegal private property -- is a brazen challenge to America's manhood. The progressives have apparently decided that this is the moment when they can play their ultimate authoritarian hand, and let the chips fall where they may. They believe, in other words, that this is the moment when they may be able to break America at last, one way or another. Through Obama's forceful, smug insistence on taking action in defiance of Congress, along with the aggressive urging to do...

Take small victories; engage the grassroots; go viral before the State of the Union. As outlined in a column earlier this week, Republicans/conservatives should try to outmaneuver Barack Obama and his leftist allies via a new strategy consisting of guerrilla tactics, constantly keeping Obama on the defensive, combined with a re-crafting of how conservatives communicate our principles. Conservatives have proved inept at managing crisis-atmosphere brinksmanship, but we can consistently win smaller skirmishes and ward off societal disaster long enough to outlast the Democrats’ current hold on the Senate and the White House. It’s not that budget-cutters in Congress are wrong,...

When the Supreme Court, or any other court for that matter, makes a ruling in a case they first look for precedent, in other words to see if there has been a court decision rendered on the same subject in the past and usually defer to the old decision in ruling on the case. The greatest teacher in life is experience; it only takes one time of burning your fingers on a hot stove to know that you never want to touch another one. The next greatest teacher is observation, paying attention to someone else's experiences and profiting from their...

AFP - No one wanted to be president less than Mitt Romney, his son said in an interview out Sunday that raises new questions about the candidacy of the losing Republican nominee. In an interview with the Boston Globe examining what went wrong with the Romney campaign, his eldest son Tagg explains that his father had been a reluctant candidate from the start. After failing to win the 2008 Republican nomination, Romney told his family he would not run again and had to be persuaded to enter the 2012 White House race by his wife Ann and son Tagg. "He...