There's another story that just came across the wire on the UK Daily Mail.
And I was going to tie in with a DSK story.
Anyway, it's funny in and of itself and explains why the guy was so confused.
Here we go.
From the UK Daily Mail.
France has just banned the word Mademoiselle from official documents.
The French will no longer permit the use of the word Mademoiselle from official documents.
You know why?
Because it suggests a woman is available.
So you have to say Madame or Madame.
But you can't say Mademoiselle.
Now, here's the DSK story.
Also from the UK Daily Mail.
I mean, it's no wonder this guy was so confused, didn't know whether he was sleeping with prostitutes or not.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was today arrested by French cops, faces criminal charges relating to an illegal prostitution racket.
A former IMF chief was told by detectives that there is evidence linking him to complicity in pimping and misuse of corporate assets.
Now, he has, he's 62.
He has admitted to attending sex parties in cities all over the world, but he denies knowing that the women he slept with were prostitutes.
He has claimed he didn't know that he was sleeping with prostitutes because the women were all naked at the time.
Honest to God, gosh, that's what he said.
DSK said that he didn't know he was sleeping with prostitutes because the women were all naked at the time.
They didn't have on the uniform, which is what?
What's the uniform?
You would know this, Snerdley.
You wouldn't know the official prostitute.
Well, I don't buy this.
But anyway, now that you can't call women Mademoiselle, is any wonder why the guy was confused?
Because it implies that a woman is available.
Here's from the article.
From now on, Mademoiselle should be replaced with Madame, the female equivalent of Messieur, because it does not indicate marital status.
Now, I thought, I thought Madame meant something.
Like Mayflower, Madame?
What was her name?
Mayflower Madame.
That's right, Sidney Vidilberos.
She had relatives that came across on the Mayflower.
At any rate, greetings, folks, and welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh here, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Great to have you.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address, lrushbo at EIBNet.com.
What?
Sex parties all over the world.
That incident with the maid at the Sofatel Hotel in New York was just one of many.
Now, this guy has a rich wife who has stood by him during all this.
He ran the IMF.
He's clearly a pervert.
Clearly a pervert.
I ran the IMF for a while.
He's just, this guy's just a year older than I am.
He looks 25 years older than I do.
He's 62 years old.
It must be all the sex parties.
Well, I don't, how do you get on that invite list is a good question.
You have to be somewhat known and oriented toward those proclivities.
Well, yeah, apparently a lot of people knew about this guy and every detail all along, but they circle the wagons around each other.
This apparently just gotten so far out of hand now that there are not enough wagons to circle anymore.
And there are not enough people want to circle the wagons.
That's what socialists do.
They set up rules for themselves that don't apply to anybody else.
They exempt themselves from all the other rules.
They run around and use other people's money to do this, which is what old DSK was doing.
I want to get this story.
We referenced this earlier in the program.
This is from the UK Telegraph.
The amount of income tax paid fell sharply in Britain last month in the first formal indication that the new 50% tax rate is not raising the expected amount of revenue.
Well, duh, everybody knew this was going to happen.
This is why average Americans look at people who run governments and say, are you stupid?
Every time you, if you want less of an activity, tax it.
And after you tax it, if you want less again, you raise taxes on it.
If you want more of an activity, you lower taxes on it.
But look what government does.
If there's a shortage of riders on the New York subway, what do they do?
They raise fares.
And this is what bureaucrats do is shortage of revenue in Great Britain, so raise taxes.
Plus, they wanted to go out there and punish the rich.
Remember, Obama, a couple of years ago, talking about the capital gains rate.
And people told him, no, no, Mr. President, if we lower the capital gains rate, we'll have more revenue.
No, no, no, I don't care about that.
I don't care about the revenue.
I want fairness.
And fairness to him meant raising the rate on capital gains taxes.
And it's our capital gains.
It's the same thing here in Great Britain.
They wanted to punish their achievers.
And they wanted to score points with the middle class and the lower class by making them think the rich are going to be punished.
But look what happens.
The rich always find a way around it.
The Treasury, we're going to, this is do the conversion into dollars because they use pounds in the story.
The treasury received $16.2 billion in income tax payments from those paying by self-assessment last month.
That's a drop of $798 million compared with January of 2011.
The amount of income tax paid fell sharply last month by almost a billion dollars by raising the tax rate.
And they're shocked.
The story is all about how leaders are shocked.
They can't believe that this happened.
And they talk about how these evil rich guys, they found ways around this.
Well, of course they'll find ways around it because there is no such thing as a static economy.
Everything is dynamic.
Obama, by the way, has announced what he's claiming to be is a corporate tax cut.
His corporate tax cut will actually raise taxes on businesses by $250 billion.
He's cutting the rate to 28%, but he's making other changes that will actually result in businesses paying more money.
Here's the Wall Street Journal version.
President Obama's 2013 budget is the gift that keeps on giving to government.
One buried surprise is his proposal to triple the tax rate on corporate dividends, which, believe it or not, is higher than in his previous budgets.
Obama is proposing to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year.
Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the new rate on dividends will hit 41%.
Then you add 3.8% the investment tax surcharge in Obamacare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 is going to be 44.8%.
You know what it is today?
15%.
The current dividend tax rate is 15% next year.
If Obama's budget were adopted and coupled with what happens with Obamacare, the dividend tax rate will jump to almost 45%.
But he's out there saying, well, I'm cutting corporate tax.
I'm going to cut corporate tax.
I'm going to cut that rate down at 28%.
But this more than makes up for it.
At a time where the economy is puttering along, Gallup says that unemployment is slated to rise according to their data.
Jim Pethakucas at AEI posted a story about this, and his original headline was, Geithner should resign over Obama's corporate tax increase plan.
And he changed, shortly after that post went up, the headline changed to why Obama's corporate tax plan is a total bust.
But this is an absolute disaster.
This is absolutely purposeful.
And I'll make your prediction.
The media will describe this tax corporate, this corporate tax proposal as a massive tax cut and a friendly reach across the aisle to achieve fairness.
You watch.
In fact, well, I know they already are.
All day long, they've been talking about Obama's massive corporate tax cut when it is exactly the opposite.
In fact, here's the New York Times story.
Obama offers to cut corporate tax rate to 28%.
Now, what a coincidence.
The White House proposes this right after Romney's tax plan announcement in Detroit, which he made in Arizona today.
He's going to have a 20% across-the-board income tax rate cut.
The top rate under Romney would go to 28%.
The bottom rate would be 10%.
There'd be six rates.
28 would be the high.
But for the top 1%, Romney will not permit deductions or other write-offs.
So they will effectively see their tax rate remain at 35%.
Under Romney, there will not be a significant reduction.
I think that's a bit of a mistake Because it accepts this 1%, 99% premise that Obama has put forth in his class envy scheme.
But apparently, Romney's advisors think that there is ground to be gained with the 99% by portraying himself as being on their side and against the 1%.
Just in this climate, with Occupy out there, and by the way, Romney, one of the things that he does, and he's right about this, he's very sensitive to it.
He does want to avoid at all costs the allegation sticking that he's a rich guy favoring the rich.
And that's why his 1% are exempted from his across-the-board tax cut.
Well, I don't know if he'll tell us it's a severely conservative tax plan or not, but he's very sensitive to being called a rich guy.
But yet, at the same time, at the debates, he's out there proudly describing himself as a great achiever in life, and he's not going to apologize for his success.
But clearly, his advisors have decided that it makes sense politically in terms of winning the White House and the nomination to let it be known that the 1% are not going to get away with anything, even under our Romney regime, back after this.
Look, I know some of you are going to get mad at me for this, but I just can't gloss over this because to others in the audience, I would be accused of failing to not do my duty, but to say what everybody knows here.
Mitt Romney has a great proposal in his tax plan, an across-the-board 20% cut, which takes the top rates 28%, but he's going to exempt the top 1%.
Mike, we just had that soundbite, right?
Let's play the, if I can find it.
I don't even, did we play the Romney soundbite?
Or am I imagining it?
Grab that bite again, and let us listen to him explain this.
And then be remiss if I didn't have some analysis of it.
I'm going to lower rates across the board for all Americans by 20%.
All right?
And in order to limit any impact on the deficit, because I don't want to add to the deficit, and also in order to make sure that we continue to have progress.
Hello, stop the tape.
Back it up to that point if you can.
I'm sorry.
How do I say this?
Oh my gosh.
There's just not...
Why do I have to be the one to do this?
Why can't somebody else do this?
You don't add to the deficit by cutting taxes.
You don't add to the deficit by cutting tax rates.
What's happening here is that Governor Romney is announcing an across-the-board tax cut, which is good.
And his top rate ends up being 28%, but then falls into a trap.
I'm sure it's a consultant that's come up with this.
He says, look, but you've got to make sure.
I know what they're doing.
What they're doing is assuming that most members of their audience, i.e. voters, the American people, however you want to describe them, do think that a tax cut equals less money to Washington.
And so rather than teach and explain how that isn't the case, you go ahead and accept what they think and Well, I don't want to use the word pander, but why not take the occasion to teach?
You're in the middle here of a primary fight.
You're trying to secure the nomination with a conservative base, and here's a great opportunity to do it.
How would you do it, Mr. Lumbo?
You say you know everything.
Well, fine.
Okay, in this context, I'm going to cut taxes across the board.
And the top rate's going to get cut too, and it's going to be cut to 28%.
I would rather this be a flat tax.
We're going to get there someday, but this is the best we can do right now.
And to any of you who think that the rich are getting a tax cut here, they're going to end up paying more revenue.
More revenue is going to be collected by the government.
And I go back and I cite the statistics from the 80s when Reagan lowered the top rate in 70-28 and revenue doubled.
Take the opportunity to teach it.
But I'm sure the advice was don't get caught in defending the rich because there's no way to win that.
That's what a consultant would believe.
No way to defend it.
No way to win that.
So just go out and make sure that the voters know that the rich are not getting a cut in to pay their fair share.
The top 1% aren't getting a break here.
Well, what does that result in?
Well, besides, yeah, I know, but the result of this is what I'm talking about.
Sure, it's accepting the premise.
That's what bugs it.
It's accepting the 99 versus 1% premise that Obama's setting up to run a class warfare.
But there are hundreds of thousands of small businesses who are not going to get tax relief because of this, because a lot of these subchapter S small businesses file a personal tax return, Form 1040.
And some of them, because of the overall size of the business, in terms of gross receipts, are going to be lumped into the 1%.
So they're not going to get the benefit of the tax cut here because they're going to get the rate reduction to the 28%, but their ability to write off and deduct which everybody else is going to maintain will not exist.
So you're going to have some small businesses that won't get tax relief and who, compared to others, will suffer.
Now, yesterday, Kudlow told us that Romney was going to announce a pro-growth supply-side proposal, but he didn't say that it was going to contain his 99 versus 1% stuff.
Folks, this is really, you have to understand.
I like Mitt Romney.
He's come by here over the course of many years.
I've sat with him and chatted many times since the 2008 campaign.
And I just, it's not.
Well, the tax plan, Snurgly is yelling at me that it's aimed at the moderates.
The tax plan really isn't aimed at moderates.
The way he's describing it is aimed at moderates.
And I guess that's a good way of describing why I think it could be so much more.
Let's just put it that way.
This tax plan that he announced today has the potential to be really, really great.
Something that his campaign needs.
And it may work for what he wants to accomplish here in terms of, you know, this 99, 1% exists for a reason.
Class warfare works for certain voters.
But we don't do it.
At any rate, I've got to take a brief time out here at the bottom of the hour.
We'll do that.
We'll come back and continue with much more right after this.
Welcome back.
Great to have you, Rushland Boy.
I'm the fastest three hours in media.
I'm being inundated with Romney supporters saying, hey, wait a minute, this is nothing different than what Reagan did.
Reagan did exactly the same thing.
No, Reagan didn't do exactly the same thing.
In the first place, when Reagan took office, the top rate was 70%.
The first stage got him down to 50%.
Then in 1986 came the famous tax rate reduction down to 28%.
There was a bubble in there that left some people at 31%.
But what happened when the rate got down to 28%, the trade-off was that everybody lost their deductions.
Remember, Snerdley, all the calls we had from people who were livid, middle-class people, 99%ers in today's lingo, upset that they had lost the ability to deduct their credit card interest.
Romney's plan reduces rates for everybody.
No question about that, but he limits deductions for the top 1%.
But my problem, as I just told Snerdley, is the way it was announced and the acceptance of the 99 and 1% premise, which is an Obama premise.
It's a liberal Democrat premise.
Many of the deductions that were eliminated in 1986 have not come back.
There aren't that many deductions to limit anymore anyway.
The 1% already have much greater limits on what they could deduct than existed even back in 1986.
They've continued.
And everybody knew this was going to happen.
The great fear was with reducing the rate to top rate 28%, get rid of the deductions.
You get a Democrat back in the office, and lo and behold, what's going to happen?
The rates are going to come back up.
And what happened?
Bill Clinton gets elected in 92, and rates went back up and with retroactivity, and the deductions were gone.
And so we're faced with having to get the rates back down again.
And George W. Bush did the famous Bush tax cuts.
And they got the 39.6 down to 35 or 36, whatever it is, where we are now.
They're going to sunset.
Rates are going to go back 39.6.
Then the Obamacare tax increase is going to kick in.
And whatever other tax increases on the 1%, Obama can engineer.
So Romney's plan is good in that sense.
He cuts rates across the board for everybody.
I'm just a stickler.
I'm just a stickler for language, words, and how the whole thing ends up being sold.
It's accepting a premise that somehow certain Americans have to be punished.
And if we don't say that certain Americans are going to be punished, then somehow we're not going to be able to win elections.
It's an opportunity to teach.
That's all.
It's very, I don't know, folks.
It's just difficult to say.
I don't dislike any of these people at all.
I like them.
They're all fine people.
I just see so much potential.
I'm almost, you know, I feel like a parent.
I see so much potential in my kids.
And I've done my best to teach them.
Now I know how my dad felt when I told him college.
Anyway, I want to grab, we got a lot of audio soundbites here, folks.
I'm, again, overwhelmed trying to get everything in.
I've been swamped with great stuff here today.
And yeah, these are all good.
Let's just, let's start here with Mary Madeline, Audio Soundbite 14.
Last night on the Situation Room at Wolf Blitz, a Blitzer.
Mary Madeline's the guest.
Blitzer said, Mary, how's this going to play the Santorum and the devil stuff?
How's it going to play out there?
Republican voters in Arizona in Michigan a week later on Super Tuesday.
You know, Wolf, he was at a, he's a devout Catholic using the language of a well-versed Catholic at a Catholic university.
That was not a campaign event.
There's also nothing particularly over the top to use that language right now or for Catholics to hear that because they are 30% of the electorate.
They're in the swing states.
And Obama has lost the support that he enjoyed among that Catholic demographic in the last go-around.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing for Rick Santorum.
That's an excellent point.
And she knows her stuff and she knows what she's talking about.
And it's obvious that Obama's written off the Catholic vote.
He has written off white working class voters.
They announced that, don't forget, in a column in the New York Times.
Guy named Thomas Edsel, who's now at the Huffing and Puffington Post.
They're writing these people off.
Obama is campaigning to the people in the cart who are being pushed or pulled by the 5% or 6% that pull the cart.
Obama's campaigning for the people he thinks outnumber the producers.
Takers versus producers.
Obama's aiming at the takers.
He's counting on the fact there are more of them who will vote than there are producers who will vote.
And with his attacks on religious liberty, like I said earlier, you got two candidates here, if it ends up this way, Santorum and Obama.
Which one of those two is a greater threat to religious liberty?
There's no question it's Obama.
He's already assaulted religious liberty.
And for those of you, look, I know, before even checking the email, I know I'm probably trying to get on the phones now, mad at me for ripping Romney's plan.
You have to understand, Sonny.
I just want these guys to be the best they can be.
It's nothing more than that.
I want all of them to be the best they can be.
I cringe when any one of them does something that I think is mistaken or could be done better.
Whether it was Perry or Michelle Bachman or Palin or whoever it is, Newt, when you know they can be better, that's what I want.
We're talking about one of these people is going to be our nominee.
One of these people is going to be out campaigning for votes.
You want them to be.
I want them to be the best they can be at this.
So the criticism is entirely constructive.
I'm not trying to kill anybody's candidacy here.
And I don't want any of you Romney people or Santorum people or Newt people to think that.
Here's Sarah Palin last night.
She was on Hannity who asked her, he said, I believe there's good and evil.
I believe in the Lord's Prayer.
You look at the killing fields, 9-11.
I would argue that that's evil, is it not?
Evil in our time in this century as well.
But Sean, that's foreign to so many in that leftist media.
They will attack any conservative who boldly proclaims their faith and talks about there is good in the world and there is evil in the world.
And that's what Rick Santorum was talking about.
And this was a speech that he gave back in 2008 where he named evil as Satan.
And for these mainstream media characters to get all wee-weed up about that, first you have to ask yourself, have they ever attended a Sunday school class even?
Have they never heard this terminology before?
And that's why they just got so just whacked out about this speech.
That is a fascinating question to me.
I know that Chris Matthews is a Catholic.
But I have to wonder, does he go to Mass?
And when he goes, what does he hear?
When he hears Santorum speak, is that the first time he's ever heard this stuff?
It's like Juiam, when he heard Lord Moncton give the counter-arguments to global warming, he at least admitted, God never heard this before.
I never heard this.
But Santorum is not out of the Catholic mainstream at all.
So she's exactly right about that.
Now, the Reagan tax cuts, because I think the Romney people are still hitting me on this, and I understand that.
But when Reagan initiated the great tax cuts that his administration was famous for, he indexed rates to offset the impact of inflation.
He increased the tax exemption on estates and gifts.
That's why the exemption on gifts is as high as it is.
He established a 10% investment tax credit.
There were a lot of other improvements in taxes for business, capital investment, RD.
It was pretty comprehensive.
And it was, in its context, I mean, given the tax code in 1981 when he assumed office, I mean, this was practically rewriting it, what he did.
I got to take a brief time out here, folks, as time stops for no one back after this.
Now, the New York Times on the Romney tax plan says this.
For now, at least, Mr. Romney will dodge any potential backlash by avoiding any specifics.
Mr. Romney will pledge to work with Congress on limiting them, meaning the deductions, according to his advisor, Mr. Hubbard, but it's not his intention to take on any specific deduction or exclusion and eliminate it.
So they've clarified somewhat from Romney's statement that we played in our now famous audio soundbite number 31.
Jack in Salem, Oregon, as we head back to the phones, thanks for your patience, sir.
I believe the Republicans have a great choice of different types of candidates.
We shouldn't be hating each other over this.
Hate is what the Democrats do.
We have Met, who's a successful businessman, Turnaround King.
Newt is things in the box, out of the box.
We have Santorum as a conservative.
They all have pros and cons.
But when liberals have on their ticket, oh, you have a choice of liberals versus liberals.
What Jack here is saying, correct me if I'm wrong, Jack.
What Jack here is saying is we have bigger fish to fry than each other, right?
Correct.
That's exactly what Jack is saying.
We have a choice.
Republicans are going to make it.
And we shouldn't be so much as fighting between ourselves.
Well, but, you know, Jack, this happens.
This is a feature of primaries.
And it's rooted in exactly what I just said, if I may be so bold and assume that everybody is looking at this the same way I am.
When we see, well, don't let me ask you this.
Don't you wish that these candidates could talk about all this stuff the way you do?
To your friends and family?
Don't you wish they could?
What does that really mean?
It just means we just want them to be the best they can be.
When they announce a tax cut plan, we want them to do it right.
We want them to do it the best it can be because we know it works and we know it attracts voters.
It really isn't any more complicated than that.
What I think what a lot of people are interpreting as criticism, and I can understand how people would see it as criticism, is really a desire for these people all to do it better.
But we haven't had a real primary in a long time.
We aren't used to how rough they can get.
The 2008 was over before it began, really.
It was over by this time in 2008 with the Florida primary.
This is unusual.
Well, I didn't get it all in.
I didn't even get most of it in, but I got a lot in.
And there's always tomorrow to get in.
Well, we didn't get in today.
I held some stuff over.
We'll see.
And man, it's just, it's overwhelming each and every day.