Posted on 04/21/2009 3:55:58 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
On Today's Show... |
|||||
|
|||||
|
Terms of Use | Privacy Statement | Copyright & Trademark Notice | Unsubscribe
The Rush Limbaugh Show® Premiere Radio Networks © All Rights Reserved, 2009. Premiere Radio Networks, Inc. 15260 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
|
To be added or removed from the "Rush In A Hurry" Ping List, FReepmail GOP_Lady.
Rush on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren RUSH: Well, you know, a handshake is symbolism. There are things about this trip, Greta -- and thank you for having me on -- that are far more troubling. But a handshake is just a symbol. I mean, you almost have to do that if you're going to go into a room where Chavez is at one of these meetings. You have to either say in advance to the planning people, "No handshakes or I'm not going in there." My biggest problem -- and it's something that's very troubling to me, and I think it's very reckless -- is President Obama is willingly putting himself in the presence of people who despise this country, who make no bones about it. These people are dictators; they are people who hold political prisoners; they squash public dissent and so forth, but he's acting as though they are close associates and good friends. He sits around and smiles when they trash and destroy and criticize and rip the United States of America, particularly Chavez and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. If it were me -- if I were president of the United States, and I had to go to one of these things, knowing full well the den of thieves that I'm going to be sitting around -- I'm not going to sit there and take it if somebody starts trashing my country. When President Obama spoke after the 50-minute lunatic diatribe of Daniel Ortega and said, "I'm just glad he didn't blame me for things that happened when I was only three months old," it was all I needed to hear. I think we're looking at a person with a God or messianic complex, certainly narcissistic, who looks at these trips -- not just to Central America, South America, the G20 in Europe; looks at all these trips -- as making it about him. The United States was an immoral and unjust country until he was elected. Now all of a sudden it's on a bright path to a bright future, when millions, 55 million Americans didn't vote for this, and have just the opposite fear. They have the concern that this country has seen its better days, and President Obama wants to tear apart the foundation that built this country into the greatest country in the world, American exceptionalism, and remake it in an image that's closer to something that would be approved of by a Daniel Ortega and people like Hugo Chavez. When Chavez gave him the book... I mean, this is a book that, I think, blames the United States for virtually every evil under the sun, largely evils committed by the very people who have been running these countries into the ground -- socialist dictators, Marxist dictators of one another. And the president says, "Oh, I like to read. I like books," and so forth. I don't think he's going to find much in that book that's foreign to him. I don't think he's going to find much in the book that's strange to him. You know, his good friend William Ayers in November of 2006, went down to an education forum that was held in Caracas, Venezuela; and praised the socialist economic system of Hugo Chavez, which basically teaches that capitalism is slime, that America is slime and militaristic and responsible for the problems of the world; the purpose of education is to teach religion, anti-capitalism, anti-militarism. I mean, it's very frightening, and I think it's very naive, and I think what Vice President Cheney said tonight with Sean Hannity is right on the money. It's reckless. He's sending a signal around the world to people who intend us and other people harm, that he doesn't see much wrong with them and that he thinks he could forge an understanding with them because he is somehow morally superior to every previous president and administration that we've had in this country. So it really troubles me. I try to find humor in everything, and I think to start telling jokes about this and being humorous about it too much would be to ignore the seriousness of it all. VAN SUSTEREN: What do you predict is going to happen between the United States and Cuba or the United States and Venezuela after this trip? RUSH: Well, I don't care what happens with Cuba and Venezuela. I mean, they're what they are, and if we have changes of policy with them... In Venezuela's case, Hugo Chavez has a 70% approval rating, and he doesn't think that's high enough. He wants it to go to 80% or 85%, so he's nationalizing more media. But the people in that country, it's amazing how dictators and Marxists are able to persuade their followers that they're headed toward a paradise. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his book, described the time that he was in prison, in the gulag, and it was announced that Stalin had died, and every prisoner where Solzhenitsyn was started crying. They were so sad that Stalin had died. Stalin is the guy that put 'em there; Stalin is the guy that put 'em in prison. These are people that killed cops, blew up the Pentagon, wanted to blow up Congress and so forth. As for Cuba and Venezuela, back to your original question, I'm more concerned what's going to happen to the United States without whatever ties or relationships we have to these countries. I'm much more concerned with the... I think there's an operating philosophy that Barack Obama has; you can see it in the economics of his administration. I think he really believes -- if you want understand what he's doing -- he thinks it's his job to return the wealth of the nation to its, quote, unquote, "rightful owners." I think he's one of these people that does believe that achievers, affluent people have somehow come by it in an ill-gotten way. They've stolen it from the "rightful owners," the poor, the middle class, and he's gonna get it back. He's gonna penalize achievement and affluence and redistribute it to an ever larger group of people who are going to be convinced they don't have to work for it. So I'm... You know, to the extent that he sees in Chavez a kindred spirit, to the extent that he sees in Daniel Ortega a visionary, to the extent that he sees in Castro a visionary... You know, he runs around and says to all these people, "The old, tired debates of the past, we gotta get rid of them," and to people who don't like partnership or who don't like bickering, why, that's just magic, and they think, "Wow, Obama really wants to get past all this." That's nothing but pure demagoguery. He is actually besmirching the history of his own country when he says to foreign leaders like these that hate us, that we gotta get past the old, tired debates of the past. The old, tired debates of the past were built upon what's best for America, what's best for American interests. He was elected to represent American interests, not to usurp and rewrite the Constitution. VAN SUSTEREN: What about his trip to Mexico? Did he gain anything by his trip to Mexico? RUSH: He didn't gain anything anywhere he's gone. He didn't get anything he wanted in the G20, and if you read the British papers, it's fascinating. The British press, which is not personally invested in the presidency or the election of Obama, if you read their papers -- even the Guardian, even some of the left-wing papers -- you read what a joke the trip was, what an absolute failure it was from his point of view. He did not get troops for Afghanistan; he got 5,000 "trainers." He caved in on a couple things that he didn't want to give up. A trip to Mexico? I mean, everywhere he goes, Greta, he's just apologizing for the United States. It's one apology after another. He apologizes to Mexico, even though we sent them a $25 billion bailout check in the nineties. We're employing half of their workforce in this country, and he goes down there and he apologizes to them? He apologizes to Europe for all of the mistakes that our country has made. He's outdone Bill Clinton in this, and it's not healthy. I mean, the world sees. Believe me, the United States is a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, and the people who pose the greatest threat to us see this and -- whether they're in caves in Pakistan, whether they're in capitals like Moscow or Caracas or Beijing -- they have to be laughing. They have to be saying, "This is going to be easier than we thought. This guy is actually going to give us part of his country in order to make us like him, because he thinks this country is so damn guilty of things." I'm just bemused by it, and I'm also a little frightened by it because I don't see how it can be stopped. The Republicans in the House don't have votes to stop anything. I look at the latest polls, he's got 88% approval among liberal Democrats and Democrats in general. I don't think Reagan ever had that kind of approval among conservatives. This is scary. It's scary, this cult-like following that he's got, which pays no attention to the specifics of what he says or what he's doing. So I don't know how it can be stopped, and it's... You know, there are cycles that are going to have to take place, and he's going to have to keep doing more and more of these things. Eventually at some point he's gonna overreach, and hopefully some people wake up and say, "It's not what I voted for." VAN SUSTEREN: What happened to the Republican Party that they lost the House, the Senate, and the White House? They created a new entitlement bill for Medicare. We don't do that. We don't grow government that way. You don't try to buy votes. Republicans tried to. I mean, you can say that Republicans didn't en masse, but it was a Republican, Senator McCain and President Bush, that tried to grant amnesty to 12 to 20 million Americans. This is not what Republicans or conservatives do. You had Republicans running away from one of the core identities of Republicanism: small government, less taxes, government growth, economic prosperity for everybody. And, as such, what's happened now is that the Republican Party and the conservative movement -- which are two different things -- now both have factions who are trying to take over and redefine what Republicanism is. And the conservatives are trying to redefine what conservatism is, and some of these factions have things in common. One of them that is potentially very bad for us is that some of these conservative intelligentsia types want Republicans to think, "Well, look, the American people have spoken. They want big government, and they want government growing, and they want government giving them their health care. We as Republicans, we as conservatives, must recognize this. We must figure out a way to tell them we're for that, but do it in a smarter way." We're never going to win elections that way. The Democrats own that. Liberal Democrats own big government and giving things away, and robbing the rich to pay for it. There's no way the Republicans can do that. Incumbent in that is of course listening to too many polls. It's just I think overall the Republican Party, conservative movement, has abandoned principle in exchange for trying to come up and play funny little games that they think are smart -- which are not -- about policy in a competition to hoodwink voters. You don't need to hoodwink 'em. You just need to outline a set of philosophies and principles that you believe in, build policy around that, and treat people with intelligence and respect. Tell 'em the greatness of the country depends on them, not Washington getting even with people who seem to be doing too well. There's a blueprint for landslide victory for Republicans. It happened in 1980s; it happened in 1994. It's amazing to me that there are conservative Republicans who just want to cast it aside and pretend that it doesn't exist. VAN SUSTEREN: Who do you admire, and why? RUSH: Say that again, a little slower. VAN SUSTEREN: Who do you admire, and why? RUSH: What, in politics? VAN SUSTEREN: Anything. Politics, theater, music, anything. RUSH: Oh, gee. You know, this is when I have brain freezes. It's like asking me what my favorite movie is. Who do I admire, and why? Um... Well, you know -- VAN SUSTEREN: You like the Humane Society. RUSH: Who? VAN SUSTEREN: The Humane Society. RUSH: (laughing) The Humane Society. Well, now, you're getting into politics. If you want to talk about things I admire, I admire a lot of people that nobody even knows. They're hardworking people who are trying to struggle against all of this, just trying to be the best they can be, fight against the odds, working harder than they ever have to overcome the obstacles in their way. Those are people that I really take inspiration from. And I admire people who are not afraid to speak out, you know, musicians and people in the arts. I'm sure... I admire Camille Paglia; I admire her brilliance. I admire Krauthammer and Victor Davis Hanson, Justice Scalia. If I wish... If I didn't have my own brain, I wish I'd have theirs. I'm satisfied with mine. But there's a tremendous list. Clarence Thomas. VAN SUSTEREN: How about -- RUSH: There are a number of people I admire. RUSH: Well, you know... VAN SUSTEREN: What's your thought on the media? RUSH: Greta, the tea parties of last week, I think, were the best illustration yet of what the media has become. "The media," let me define it. I call it the Drive-By Media, but the mainstream media. You've got the New York-Washington axis. You've got the magazines published in New York and Washington. You have the Big Three networks. You have NBC, CBS, ABC. There's CNN, and most of the major daily, large-city newspapers. Plus the Associated Press. That's the Drive-By Media. They've thrown journalism away for advocacy, activism, and agenda-oriented politics. They've made no bones about it. I was talking to a friend last week. The tea party ratings, Fox News, as you well know, had two to three times the other networks combined in covering what went on in the tea parties. We all know the disaster that Susan Roesgen was at CNN. Somebody said to me, "Rush, they had 600,000 viewers in primetime at CNN compared to four or five million over at Fox. How can they survive?" and I was telling this person, "They don't think they've got a problem. At CNN, they look at the Fox audience as a cult audience. They look at their own audience, CNN's own audience, and say, 'Those are real news people,'" and they're sitting there and they're laughing. They're having a great time. They think they're doing serious journalism, while you and everybody else at Fox are just leading a cult of mind-numbed robots. The person said, "They can't be making money here." I said, "Look, they may not be, but they don't care. TimeWarner will use 'em as a loss leader." CNN is a vanity project. It tells all the people at TimeWarner and everybody in New York City, "CNN is cool. They've got Andy Cooper. They have 600,000 viewers. They've got the real news viewers! We were for Obama. We're the good people," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They don't have to make money. If they fired everybody that put that thing together, the whole network, who would they replace them with? They're not going to do anything differently than what they do. Neither is TIME. Neither is Newsweek. They aren't going to change. It's amazing to watch. We need a new term for what is happening. It's journalistic malpractice, 'cause these people are not living up to the constitutional privileges that they were granted by the Founding Fathers. VAN SUSTEREN: Rush, as always, thank you for joining us. I hope you'll come back soon. Thank you, Rush. RUSH: I also admire you, Greta. VAN SUSTEREN: (giggles) Thank you, Rush. RUSH: All right. VAN SUSTEREN: I appreciate that. RUSH: See you later. VAN SUSTEREN: Thank you, Rush. RUSH: Bye.
|
Anti-Americanism has never been cooler. Look at the polling data from the left, or of the left in this country. Look at the smiling faces of Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez and all the other leaders down there at the Summit of the Americas. It was not refuted whatsoever. The way they define anti-Americanism is just amazing. And what do I mean by anti-Americanism? Well, Tim Geithner today, the diminutive Treasury secretary, who I think they've told to man up out there, because he went before Congress today, he started to sound like an Arnold Schwarzenegger tough guy in his diminutive egghead Ivy League frame, started explaining the bailouts and the stress tests and so forth, and he said that the health of banks will not be the only requirement for TARP money repayment. This was a congressional oversight panel with Geithner, and I have a question here from Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas. "If there are firms that wish to repay taxpayers their money, if the taxpayer money is at risk, if their relevant regulator certifies that, commensurate with safety and soundness of the financial institution, they can return that capital --" in other words, the bailout money, "-- if this is an accurate assessment of your position, why wouldn't you take the money back?"
GEITHNER: In those conditions, we would welcome it. But I just want to underscore what's really important. And I said this at the end of my testimony, but I want to underscore it again. My basic obligation and our responsibility is to make sure that the system as a whole, as a whole has the ability to provide the credit that recovery requires. And so we need to make a careful judgment about what policies are going to best promote that objective. Under the laws and conditions established in the Recovery Act, the judgment about when institutions can repay is a judgment that the federal banking agencies have to make.
RUSH: Wrongo. It's totally up to him, and he's the federal banking agencies. The Treasury secretary has total power. So the bottom line is they're trying to construct a circumstance here where they don't want to take the TARP money back, and there's a reason for that. Obama wants control of the financial system, and you heard about these stress tests. We never had stress tests before. Stress tests have been created by Obama, and I think there's a new name for them: possess tests. When the banks perform or have these stress tests performed on them, and they don't show up as strong and as healthy as Obama would like, then he's just going to possess them. Wall Street Journal has a great piece today, that this is back door nationalization. Back door nationalization will make Obama the owner of the financial system. Common shares in banks have voting rights. Preferred shares don't. What Obama wants to do is convert the government's preferred shares to common shares, which magically help with stress test results by increasing capital on the bank's balance sheets.
Now, these stress tests were designed by Obama. They never existed before. They're a creation of the man who stands to become an owner of the financial system. You just heard Geithner say it. The individual banks and their health is not what we're looking at here. We're looking at the health of overall system. So if banks fail the stress test, Obama can then possess them. All he has to do is convert preferred stock to common stock, and the government has voting rights in the way these banks operate. The results of the tests will determine if Obama can possess certain banks. Now, weak banks are going to fail them. They're going to be run by Obama. The possess tests -- and these results are coming soon, and I have to think that Obama's new friend, Hugo Chavez, is going to be watching, hoping America will be a country like his. Here's the next part of Geithner's testimony. The question from Hensarling, "Just to understand, then, there will be other considerations besides the individual institution's financial stability?"
GEITHNER: The critical thing we care about is whether the system as a whole is in a position where it has the capacity to support the credit the recovery requires. That's the ultimate test.
RUSH: There isn't any credit. This is another thing that's going uncommented upon. The banks are not extending credit. Credit is in the process of being tightened, all of this by design. All of this to create even more chaos, to promote economic uncertainty, to promote and prolong the economic recovery, because the chaos is what Obama needs. He needs these banks to fail these stress tests so that they become possess tests. Now, at the same time this is happening -- and this is crucial, ladies and gentlemen -- at the same time all this is happening, the Obama crowd says they're probably going to need more bailout money. Right? Now, how logically can they claim and say that they need new bailout money when they won't accept the return of old bailout money? What these hearings were about today was essentially Geithner telling the Congress that even if banks want to give back the money, it's not that simple 'cause they don't want to take the money back. They do not want to give up control over the US financial system. This is key to understand here.
If they say they need new bailout money and there's supposedly $135 billion left in TARP that has not been allocated yet, then why do they need new bailout money if they won't return, or accept the return of the old bailout money? Some of the banks that you've been told to hate are lining up asking big government to take the TARP money back. They're begging, they're pleading, take back the billions, we're solid, we don't need it anymore. But Obama's bailout brigade says no, and at the same time, team Obama is setting up to spread around more bailout money. It's clear as a bell to anybody who wants to admit what is happening. At the risk of repeating myself here, folks, I think this dovetails right here with this Axelrod comment that anti-Americanism is not cool anymore. It's just the exact opposite. You can say that anti-Americanism is a lot of things, but I'm going to tell you, the government controlling the financial system and owning common stock in banks and the government having voting privileges in private sector banks, that's not American, as we have understood it. Anti-Americanism is sprouting up all over the world, and it has been for a long time. The only different thing about it today is we have an American president sympathetic to it, wants to understand it, probably agrees with half of the anti-Americanism out there, at least judging by his reaction to its expression at the Summit for the Americas.
See, I think there's a method to this madness. I really do believe that these stress tests are the forerunner of what I am calling possess tests. I think this whole damn thing has been orchestrated just like they orchestrate hits on other areas in the country in order to distract people. See, you cannot have real change without a crisis. That's a fact. And these stress tests of the banks are meant to identify a bank in crisis as defined now by Obama and Geithner. There's no crisis without the test. The test is hypothetical information about a future economic downturn. That's what the test is. Now, the Feds had extensive information on all those banks. Geithner's been gathering it ever since TARP, loads of information. The White House, the Treasury department knew the test parameters. I'm guessing they put together a test, knowing in advance that some of these banks are going to fail. An added bonus is that you get a stock market that sort of seesaws up and down and doesn't appear to gain any traction on the upward swing.
I know it sounds conspiratorial, but if it makes sense, you might bounce it off of some people you know or in the banking industry. There's just been too much talk about these stress tests and the Drive-By Media go, "Oh, the stress tests, we just love the stress tests, he really cares." But too much turmoil has been caused here. Why tip everybody off on the Sunday shows that these stress tests were coming and that they weren't sure of the results? I mean that was the administration's line on the Sunday shows a couple days ago. They knew that would roil the markets, and it did. They knew that would roil the public. Why wasn't all this done in secret? And now I think I know why Geithner was indispensable. He's an insider on this. He's willing to play this game as ordered by the Obama administration.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Orlando, Florida, as we go to the phones, Chris, thanks for the call. It's nice to have you here with us.
CALLER: Hey, almost-got-me-fired dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Almost got you fired? How did that happen?
CALLER: Ummm.
RUSH: Listening to my show at work?
CALLER: Sir?
RUSH: Listening to my show at work?
CALLER: No. No. No. I'm a Baptist minister who used to be professional wrestler and I was going to try to do a Dan's Bake Sale and the St. Pete Times got hold of it, and I found out how many Democrats I had in my church.
RUSH: Ahhhh. Okay.
CALLER: I loved you on Greta Van Susteren last night, absolutely loved you, and no one else is putting the conservative views out there like you are.
RUSH: Well, now, wait a minute. I think that's not quite fair. The Drive-By Media has anointed the daughter of John McCain, Meghan McCain, as the new voice of the Republican Party. You gotta give Meghan McCain credit here, Chris. You can't leave here out here.
CALLER: Ah, she cannot even hold your shoes, Rush.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: She cannot even do that.
RUSH: I was being facetious.
CALLER: Well, my question for you --
RUSH: You know what they ought to make Meghan McCain a judge at the next USA pageant. She'd fit right in.
CALLER: And she's blonde. Yeah, that would work. My question is, great Maha Rushie, in the future, what will our relationship look like with Cuba and Venezuela and North Korea and China in one or two years, under the Obama administration?
RUSH: Well, I don't know one or two years is going to be a perceptible change in the relationship. In fact, I'll tell you, instead of answering this, you cited my appearance on Greta last night. I was on for the first 18 minutes of the show. I did a phone interview. By the way, we have been trying for a year -- and I've left this up to other people, it would have been done in two weeks if I'd have done it myself. But we've been trying for a year to get this studio wired to do TV out of the studio, so I don't have to go to some cheap, Podunk little studio that can't handle the audio requirements I have over in West Palm Beach. I've left this up to other people, we've been dragging on for a year over a stupid purchase order of $19,000. Eventually we're going to get this done, and I won't have to do telephone interviews. (interruption) Next month? I've been hearing that for a year.
I've been hearing "next month" for a year, and then the testing will start, and it won't work for six weeks. But nevertheless... (interruption) I am not ragging on the staff. I'm not ragging on the staff. It's just another one of these things where if you don't do it yourself, it just doesn't get done as quickly. When you leave it up to a bureaucracy, has to go through 15 different departments. Nineteen thousand bucks! It has to go all these bureaucratic departments and people signing off on this and that and the other thing. So, at any rate, at some point we're going to be able to do live TV out of this studio. "Well, why can't you just use the Dittocam?" We might even be able to use the Dittocam, probably gonna upgrade the quality of the camera, but it's not the Dittocam. It's not the camera right now. It's the bandwidth necessary and the cabling that we are going to have to install. It's the cabling that we're installing here. At any rate, the foreign policy aspect. Greta asked me last night, "What do you think about the handshake between Obama and Hugo Chavez?"
RUSH ARCHIVE: Well, you know, a handshake is symbolism. There are things about this trip, Greta -- and thank you for having me on -- that are far more troubling. But a handshake is just a symbol. I mean, you almost have to do that if you're going to go into a room where Chavez is at one of these meetings. You have to either say in advance to the planning people, "No handshakes or I'm not going in there." My biggest problem -- and it's something that's very troubling to me, and I think it's very reckless -- is President Obama is willingly putting himself in the presence of people who despise this country, who make no bones about it. These people are dictators; they are people who hold political prisoners; they squash public dissent and so forth, but he's acting as though they are close associates and good friends.
He sits around and smiles when they trash and destroy and criticize and rip the United States of America, particularly Chavez and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. If it were me -- if I were president of the United States, and I had to go to one of these things, knowing full well the den of thieves that I'm going to be sitting around -- I'm not going to sit there and take it if somebody starts trashing my country. When President Obama spoke after the 50-minute lunatic diatribe of Daniel Ortega and said, "I'm just glad he didn't blame me for things that happened when I was only three months old," it was all I needed to hear. I think we're looking at a person with a God or messianic complex, certainly narcissistic, who looks at these trips -- not just to Central America, South America, the G20 in Europe; looks at all these trips -- as making it about him.
The United States was an immoral and unjust country until he was elected. Now all of a sudden it's on a bright path to a bright future, when millions, 55 million Americans didn't vote for this, and have just the opposite fear. They have the concern that this country has seen its better days, and President Obama wants to tear apart the foundation that built this country into the greatest country in the world, American exceptionalism, and remake it in an image that's closer to something that would be approved of by a Daniel Ortega and people like Hugo Chavez. When Chavez gave him the book... I mean, this is a book that, I think, blames the United States for virtually every evil under the sun, largely evils committed by the very people who have been running these countries into the ground -- socialist dictators, Marxist dictators of one another.
And the president says, "Oh, I like to read. I like books," and so forth. I don't think he's going to find much in that book that's foreign to him. I don't think he's going to find much in the book that's strange to him. You know, his good friend William Ayers in November of 2006, went down to an education forum that was held in Caracas, Venezuela; and praised the socialist economic system of Hugo Chavez, which basically teaches that capitalism is slime, that America is slime and militaristic and responsible for the problems of the world; the purpose of education is to teach religion, anti-capitalism, anti-militarism. I mean, it's very frightening, and I think it's very naive, and I think what Vice President Cheney said tonight with Sean Hannity is right on the money. It's reckless. He's sending a signal around the world to people who intend us and other people harm, that he doesn't see much wrong with them and that he thinks he could forge an understanding with them because he is somehow morally superior to every previous president and administration that we've had in this country. So it really troubles me. I try to find humor in everything, and I think to start telling jokes about this and being humorous about it too much would be to ignore the seriousness of it all.
RUSH: That is one of the answers last night when I was on Greta that Chris in Orlando wanted to ask me about and said he was very praiseworthy about the foreign policy effect. And he said, "What's going to be the status of our foreign policy with Venezuela, Cuba, China, and some of these other countries in the next two years?" It's hard to say, but Obama's moving at a breakneck pace. He's just lightning fast on all of these things. I think it really boils town here, folks, to the fact he is trying to chum it up with these people that despise us. Why, I don't know. But he does believe that this country was immoral and unjust before he was elected. His wife has said so in so many words, about him and about them and so has he.
And now all of a sudden America's great, America's moral, and he's around apologizing for everything we've done. Vice President Cheney is right. The people who intend us harm hear this, and they see a sap. They see a weakling. They see someone who can be exploited. You know, these dictators and thugs by definition thrive on being hated. They do not want to be loved and adored. They end up being, if they have the cult personality of a Stalin or a Mao, they have the ability to be loved by the people they're imprisoning and holding in tyranny, but they want to be feared. They want people scared to death of them! Obama's... (chuckles) He's doing the best to indicate that he's got some problem with his own country and not with them. So I think the United States looks ripe. You know, for as long as we have been around, ladies and gentlemen, there have been countries that have wanted to wipe us out or cut us down to size.
It's the nature of the beast. It's human nature. People say, "How come people around the world can look at the goodness of this country and not want to emulate it and become our friend?" There is this thing in the world called evil. And when you couple an unquenchable thirst for power with evil and the desire to control people's lives -- which is found all throughout the intellectual elites in this country, on college campuses, for example, the desire to control people's lives -- that's why socialism, communism is attractive to these people. It's because they think they're going to be above the ones that are controlled. They're going to be the ones that are doing the controlling. So people who have long sought to cut this country down in size or even defeat it, have to be looking at developments in this country with the new president, saying, "Our task just got a little easier."
END TRANSCRIPT
Obama Responded to Tea Parties with $100 Million in "Budget Cuts"
April 21, 2009
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The Heritage Foundation, even the Drive-By Media yesterday on these $100 billion budget cuts out of a $4,000 billion budget or debt or $8,000 billion new spending, debt, whatever you want to call it, Heritage Foundation, we talk about them a lot, AskHeritage.org, I'm a member, only costs $25 to become a member. You can spend more if you want. But I swear, folks, there are more things available at Askheritage.org, than I see anywhere else.
They have a great, great chart, a great visual effect today. I'm going to show it to you on the Dittocam here, but you won't be able to make out 'cause the resolution is not high enough. You really need high definition to see this. But what they've done here, imagine the sun, and the sun represents the $3.69 trillion 2010 proposed budget of Barack Obama. And then inside the sun you have the $787 billion Porkulus bill and the $410 billion appropriations bill. And up at the top, a microscopic dot that is about the size of Pluto compared to our sun representing Obama's requested budget cuts of yesterday. It's the tiniest little dot, smaller than a period on your computer page that represents the size of the budget cuts compared to the sun, or the whole budget of 2010. Everything here is just smoke and mirrors, and even the Drive-Bys yesterday were all over this kind of peppering that clown, Robert Gibbs, about all this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's more on the Obama budget cuts. Show prep for the rest of the media. That's what this program is. Let's return to me, yesterday on this program. This is what I said about these budget cuts.
RUSH ARCHIVE: [T]his gets back to the emotional connection. This is what people want to hear. They don't hear the end details. Plus, a hundred million sounds like a lot more than eight trillion, because one hundred is bigger than eight. A hundred million sounds bigger than four trillion. Four trillion is the new spending and debt. "A hundred million? Why, that's a lot of money," people think. People want to hear he's gonna cut spending, he's gonna cut the budget. I'm sure they've got internal polling data that shows these tea parties are successful and these tea parties are a problem. So they're responding to the tea parties here. That's all this is, and so they're responding to the tea parties with chump change, with irrelevant numbers.
RUSH: And so now we have a montage of a bunch of Drive-Bys repeating this essentially throughout the day.
JOHN HARWOOD: Anybody who thinks Barack Obama is ignoring those tea party protests ought to look at what happened today when the president gathered his cabinet officers together and told them all to look for 100 million in savings.
PETER MORICI: It's a populist reaction to the tea parties.
RICK FOLBAUM: Maybe President Obama was listening to tea party protesters last week.
MIKE VIQUEIRA: The White House also very concerned that Republicans are after them every day about profligate spending. We saw those tea parties.
MIKE EMANUEL: Reaction to the April 15th protests.
LARRY KUDLOW: In response to the tea parties last week, the president is proposing a pathetic hundred million dollar cut in the budget!
RUSH: Larry Kudlow there on the tail end of the montage. So you see, this program is show prep for the rest of the media. There's no question that the tea parties are upsetting... Look it, folks, you gotta understand these people. They're running around and they're telling everybody, "You don't dare oppose Obama. He's the most popular man in the world. Obama's the most popular man ever! He's the most popular man in the country. He's the most popular man in the world." In fact, did you notice that Michelle did not go to the Summit of the Americas and show off another new classless wardrobe? Why do you think she didn't go, Snerdley? Give me two guesses. Why did Michelle (My Belle) Obama not go to the Summit of the Americas?
And don't tell me she had to tend to the garden in the White House. It is because she overwhelmed his popularity in Britain. All the press was about Michelle, the new Jackie O. Michelle this, Michelle that. Michelle's wardrobe, Michelle here, Michelle there. The friendship with the queen, arm around the queen. I'll guarantee you, this whole image of Obama as The Messiah is the one that's predicated on the fact that nobody is more popular than he is and nobody has ever been more popular. "And you can't oppose Obama," they say to the Republicans. Why, he's the most popular man in the world. You want to take him on, go right ahead," and so here come the tea parties. Here come the tea parties, and the tea parties demonstrate he's not the most popular guy in the world.
He's not all that popular in this country. He is among Democrats. But the Gallup poll is out today. They've got some interesting information. "Big Gov't Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business -- In your opinion, which of the following will be the biggest threat to the country in the future -- big business, big labor, or big government?" Fifty-five percent say that big government is the greater threat to big business. Only Democrats reverse and cite big business. The rest of every other demographic holds firm. "In fact, independents' view did not change much over the period. Solid majorities in both polls saying big government is a greater threat. Eighty percent of Republicans view big government the biggest threat to the country, up from 68% in December 2006.
"At the same time, Democrats' perceptions of the greater threat are completely reversed. In December 2006, 55% of Democrats said big government posed the greater threat. Thirty-two percent said big business did. In the latest poll, a majority of Democrats now view big business as the greater threat, 52%, while only about one in three think big government is." So the Democrats are in the minority when you break down the poll, and they're in the minority in the general poll over what poses the bigger threat, government, big government, or big business. So in the midst of the so-called never-before-seen popularity, here come the tea parties. So Obama has to hustle together, put a phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller mythical budget package, budget cut together, and that's what it was yesterday.
END TRANSCRIPT
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Pleasure to talk to you. Hey, listen, I was watching a program last night. I was watching Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney was talking about releasing all the -- I was totally, totally against releasing anything, but since you're going to release 'em, release 'em all 'cause I want the American people to know the good things that came out of this.
RUSH: Yeah, let's address that right now. Vice President Cheney was on with Sean Hannity last night, and the question was interrogation and the releasing of the memos that gave out specific information. "Why were those tactics needed and necessary? Why do you think they continue to be necessary?"
CHENEY: They didn't put out the memos that show the success of the effort, and there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified. I formally ask that they be declassified now. I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country. And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have the chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.
RUSH: Now, isn't this fascinating? And, by the way, Vice President Cheney asked for the release of these memos back in March, not just yesterday after the Obama administration released these memos. So the Obama administration goes halfway. The Obama administration releases the memos that describe the kind of torture -- and, by the way, we're now calling anything that causes any discomfort torture. It's like women being allowed to get away with saying their husbands torture them if they shout at them. Those are about the kind of restraints we're putting on interrogation now. I'll guarantee you -- I don't know this -- but the morale among the counterterrorism people in the field has got to be in the basement after all this, especially since there are memos that Vice President Cheney just referenced that show the success of the techniques, and the Obama administration does not release those.
Now, there's a great piece today in the Washington Post by Marc Thiessen. It's a column, and its title is, "'The CIA's Questioning Worked' -- In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists 'did not make us safer.' This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public -- in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media. Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that 'the CIA believes "the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001." ... In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.' The memo continues: 'Before the CIA used enhanced techniques … KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, "Soon you will find out." 'Once the techniques were applied, interrogations have led to specific --'" This is what Obama released. This is in what he released that did not get reported on after the release of the memos.
This is quoting now from the memo, May 30th, 2005: "Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques 'led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the "Second Wave," "to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into" a building in Los Angeles.' KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that 'information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemaah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the "Second Wave."'" So even the stuff he puts out, the success is noted. Cheney says there are many more memos that he saw, that he wants now declassified that show the success of the techniques.
Now, what's happened, and, you know, Obama gives out half the story. When he releases these memos, he focuses the media on, (impersonating New Castrati) "the harsh, unfair, ridiculous, torturous treatment of citizens of the world, Mr. Limbaugh. It's uncalled for by Americans, it should never happen." The voice of the New Castrati. So Obama knows what he's doing. He's focusing once again negative attention on his own country in the war on terror to advance his silly theory that our interrogation techniques created more terrorists. Well, what interrogation techniques were we using before 9/11 that led to 9/11, hmm? We have allowed these guys, Obama and his buddies over at the CIA and in Congress to water down the definition of torture to mean anything that makes a person uncomfortable. You know what this reminds me of? Remember when the NOW gang and all these other social interest groups started asking women if they'd ever been a victim of domestic violence? They didn't like the numbers they got initially. The numbers weren't high enough for the NOW gang. So they expanded the definition to include a man shouting at them, a man shouting at them equaled domestic violence. It didn't matter if the women shouted first. But let's not get sidetracked.
The important thing to understand is that these appeasers have painted themselves into a corner. Dick Cheney has now called their bluff. The stark truth is that despite what the political left and the Hollywood elites say extreme measures, enhanced measures, so-called torture, whatever you want to call it, it works, and he's seen the memos. He wants them released. I gotta take a brief time-out. But folks, there are people who have sacrificed greatly to keep us safe. They're out in the field. There aren't very many of them, couple hundred, and they feel betrayed like you can't believe right now, and scared to death they're going to be indicted or brought to trial by people in the Obama administration for helping defend and protect the country.
END TRANSCRIPT
He's seen them, and they show the success of these so-called extreme measures. You can call them torture, whatever you want to call 'em. Extreme measures, enhanced measures. But, folks, there's a book I want to tell you about here in just a second, but there have to be -- we just know this to be the case. There have to be lots of people who have sacrificed greatly in the field. We can never hear about them, and we can never hear about their success stories, but they've kept us safe. And I will guarantee you that the people in the field, CIA counterintelligence operatives, they feel betrayed. They have to feel betrayed. There was a giant pep rally that made me sick yesterday at the CIA. It was a bunch of total BS.
The Drive-By Media said that Obama got "rock star reception" at the CIA, just like he got a rock star reception in Baghdad. Do you know how they set up that photo-op and all the screaming soldiers? They went around and they only allowed soldiers that had voted for Obama in there -- and now at the CIA. Do you think anybody other than the secretarial pool and people with hardly any clearance were able to get in there and see this thing? I guarantee you the whole thing was stacked as well. All of this is for show. It was designed to show that the CIA is totally, 100% up to speed with what Obama is doing, when that cannot be the case. People who have trained all their lives, devoted their lives to defending and protecting this country in some of the most dangerous places in the world have to feel betrayed, especially with the release of Obama's memos.
We keep hearing from the left that going to Iraq created more terrorists, and doing this created more terrorists. Torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, all created more terrorists. How about the release of those memos? How about the release of Obama's memos? He gave away all the techniques, advised everybody, "Here's all they're going to do, and here's training on how to resist it." How many terrorists did that create? How many people are now eager to sign up with the Islamofascists after getting a load of the release of Obama's terror and torture memos? Here is a montage, again, the Drive-By Media saying Obama had rock star treatment at the CIA. You know, Hugo Chavez does not even get press like this, and Hugo Chavez owns the media! The idea that the CIA universally loves Barack Obama, especially yesterday, is absurd.
CHIP REID: He was received like a rock star there. It was like a campaign event, complete with screaming fans.
ED HENRY: It was a rock star reception.
NORAH O'DONNELL: ...greeted like a rock star.
TAMRON HALL: ...treating him like a rock star.
DAVID SHUSTER: The president was greeted like a rock star this afternoon by employees of the CIA at agency headquarters.
RUSH: Just amazing! They all say the same thing, every damn description, doesn't matter where you go, doesn't matter what you watch, you hear the same treatment of an Obama event. "He got rock star treatment." By the way, the first wave of Pulitzers was announced yesterday. What have I always told you? You budding young journalists in journalism school out there, what have I always told you? If you really want to advance, if you really want to enhance your resume, if you're working for a small town paper and you want to move up, what do you do? You destroy somebody. You delve into their private life and you destroy them. Not their public life. You delve into their private life. And so what the New York Times got a five Pulitzers for the Eliot Spitzer story. If anybody should get a Pulitzer for that, it's the hooker!
Anybody can reprint what the hooker said! But there are five Pulitzers for destroying Spitzer. And then there was somebody else. Oh, Kwame Kilpatrick. The Detroit paper's got some Pulitzers for destroying Kwame Kilpatrick. Well, anybody can read text messages. But there you have it. Destroy somebody. Destroy somebody's personal, private life, and you get a Pulitzer. In the meantime, the New York Times announced today that they lost $76 million in the first quarter. These people are practically losing a million dollars a day. CNN has no audience. They gotta be losing money, too. TimeWarner could probably use CNN as a loss leader, 'cause CNN, is a boutique agency, a boutique division. CNN gives the TimeWarner liberal imprimatur, all the proper cocktail party invitations in New York, all of the attaboy, attaboy!
They may only have 600,000 viewers and they look at Fox's five million and they'll say, "Well, those are just cult followers. We have the real news audience. Yeah. We have Anderson Cooper. We were for Obama. We're good people," and I have people asking me, "What can CNN do to change this? I mean they can't be making any money." Yes, they can. Advertising agencies are polluted with young little feminists and liberals that are the media buyers, and they will funnel ad buys to CNN on behalf of clients when they don't deserve the buys and they'll probably get rate card rates. I'd be stunned to know that CNN sluing money. I think it's all a nice little game the libs have cooked up. I understand this because we couldn't... I don't know. Just trust me. I know this to be the case.
And even if CNN... Let's just say CNN recognized that they've got no viewers, and the viewers they have are becoming smaller and smaller, and they're losing their audience. What changes would they make that would end up having them be any different? They are committed Obamaists; they are committed liberals. If they broomed the entire executive suite, they're going to go out and hire the same kind of people that come in and run the place then. And they'll put on, "Weeeeell, maybe we'll change the cosmetics of this show. We'll change a different set. Maybe get a different liberal to host the losing eight p.m., nine p.m., and ten p.m. hours. Just go get some new liberals in there!"
They're not going to change anything substantively. The New York Times isn't either. Both outfits, CNN and the New York Times are losing... Well, I don't know about CNN. The New York Times losing money hand over fist. And I'll guarantee you, the last thing they think is wrong is their content. The last thing they think is wrong is their product. They're blaming it on the recession. "We can't sell ads. Our ad sales are down 21%. It's a recession." I'm not having any trouble. Have you seen the story about all these members of Congress, everybody gaining weight during the recession? The recession has caused people to quit their gyms. You know, a lot of congressmen are overweight. It's a common joke about how fat congressmen and Senators are.
And so they've taken up, "Well, yeah, it's a recession. A lot of people out there, not congressmen and senators, a lot of people have had to cancel gym membership and they're not doing as much exercise. The recession, it's causing a lot of people to gain weight, recession, and global warming, fatties, by the way, are causing more global warming." Let me tell you something. I have lost 35 pounds in 41 days in the middle of a recession. Everything they report is just stupid! Everything they report is BS. The recession causing people to gain weight? "Yes, Mr. Limbaugh, because nutritious foods, organic nutritious foods are in shorter supply and they're much more expensive and so people are having to resort to eat junk food and they're gaining weight as a result of it."
Really? It's somebody else's fault, forcing all of you liberals against what you think you know to be good for you into these fatty foods? The recession's doing this? "That's right, Mr. Limbaugh! It's these circumstances that were unintended brought in by the recession. That's why people are gaining weight, and that's why, that's why we need to end the recession so that the people join the gyms again." The reporting that we get from the Drive-By Media today is just insufferably insipid sophistry. Plus, it's bogus. So here's Obama, a biiiig rock star at the CIA. I just don't believe it. That was a pep rally, and it was a pep rally after the interrogation memos were released. It was a show, because Obama took some hits on the release of those interrogation memos, so what do you do?
You bop over to CIA and you show that the CIA loves you, and then you get your sycophants in the media to follow you over there and then report that you got rock star treatment. Do you know how many people worked Langley? Ten thousand people work at Langley. At any given time, at the CIA headquarters, there are fewer than a couple of hundred counterterrorism operatives. They're in the field. The very people who feel betrayed are not there. Have you've ever read a Vince Flynn book, I'm talking about the Mitch Rapp types, they don't have offices and hole up in the CIA. They're holed up in caves and other places most Americans wouldn't go, along with the Special Ops guys and the SEALs.
And they're not there to give the president of the United States rock star treatment. Who is there? A bunch of secretaries, a bunch of paper pushers who have lower security clearance than the janitorial staff that cleans the director's office. That's who shows up. That's who gets organized for the Obama pep rally. The men and women who work in the clandestine service, to my mind, they don't know what in the hell to do. They've just been compromised. Every tool at their disposal has been taken away from them now. I would think their morale is at an all-time low. They have to live under constant fear that they're going to be indicted. Not for just doing their job right now, but for doing what they were told was legal in years past.
You get the right Democrat and the right committee and they find the right CIA operative, they'll bring him up there, for violating a law he thought was legal in the past. Vince Flynn wrote a book about this called Extreme Measures. I've read the story. I know how it turns out. When we get hit -- not if -- this entire administration, as well as all the political opportunists on Capitol Hill are going to be culpable. If you want to know what the result of the release of these memos is and this phony little dog and pony show, rock star pep rally at the CIA was about yesterday, go get Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn. And if you have it, read it again. Now, here's Obama informing the CIA he ended the interrogation techniques that worked. He's condescending to them, I think.
OBAMA: I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want -- I want to be very clear and very blunt. I've done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values, including the rule of law. I know I can count on you to do exactly that.
RUSH: Why would anybody at the CIA listen to a former community organizer with no experience in executive management or intelligence? Why would anybody listen to this guy come over there and condescend to them? He has just helped Islamofascists recruit more terrorists, is what he has done. Under the guise of protecting American values? What American values is he talking about? The values we're concerned about where the CIA is concerned is defending and protecting the country. He makes a joke here about being criticized on cable shows.
OBAMA: I understand that it's hard, when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents. Al-Qaeda is not constrained by a Constitution. Many of our, uh, adversaries are not constrained by a belief in freedom of speech or representation in court or rule of law. I'm sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we're operating with one hand tied behind our back or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naive. I understand that. You know, I -- I watch the cable shows once in a while.
FOLLOWERS: (laughter)
RUSH: He understands what these people are going through? He's talking to people not even in counterterrorism. He's talking to people not even in the field. He understands? He watches cable TV, too? He understands what? He understands he's made their job practically impossible, and then he went and said this.
OBAMA: So, yes, you've got a harder job, and so do I. And that's okay. Because that's why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans -- and over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies because we're on the better side of history.
RUSH: There he goes again.
OBAMA: So don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks. Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge, potentially, we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn.
RUSH: So he goes over to the CIA once again as the morally superior man in America (forget president) and said this country's made some mistakes, it was unjust and morally before I got here but now we're moral. And your job is going to harder, but this is what's gonna make America greater. I swear, folks, it's just the opposite. I want you to think about something. If we had a conservative president, conservative Republican, who, in the first week, had announced the cutting of the Department of Education and had announced that the federal budget would be can you tell in half, and then the next week had empowered the CIA for even tougher guidelines on torture? Can you imagine the Drive-By Media and how out of whack they would be? And yet dramatic changes in what has always defined this country's greatness are taking place seemingly every day, every week -- and we basically get pep rallies of cheering Obamaites, as though this is some great day for America, when we all know it isn't.
END TRANSCRIPT
FRANK: One of the causes of the terrible crisis we had over the last few years, which has given us today's problem, it came from people being pushed into buying houses --
RUSH: No!
FRANK: -- taking homes that they couldn't afford.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Who did that? Who pushed them to buy houses? Who pushed them? Who told these people (unintelligible) that they could buy (unintelligible) in there? It was you, it was Barney Frank and Bill Clinton, you pushed these people, you called the banks, you told them they should live in them when they couldn't really afford it. You did. (unintelligible) You did yourself, and now all of a sudden these people were preyed upon. Here's the rest of his answer.
FRANK: It was a conservative view that rental housing was a bad thing. I have been trying to continue programs to build descent rental housing.
RUSH: What?
FRANK: What we had were in people in power who didn't like that, and they said no, no, we'll help them become homeowners.
RUSH: What?
FRANK: People were pushing home ownership who shouldn't have been there. We have now, in Barack Obama, a president who understands this. But if you are low income in America, if you're poor, you probably are not going to be able to afford a home.
RUSH: Obama understands it? He's keeping 'em in the houses! We're paying the mortgages! It's called bailout or foreclosure to keep the bank from foreclosing on people with mortgages (unintelligible). Obama said they should not have been homeowners. Obama's ACORN forced them to be homeowners, Mr. Frank. This is unreal (unintelligible). I can't keep a straight face listening to this. The rest of the bite.
FRANK: I met with a group of people today who are very responsible advocates for building decent, affordable rental housing.
RUSH: Unbelievable. So now all of a sudden to hell with affordable home ownership being you own it, now affordable housing is you rent it, and then Travis Smiley sitting there like the dunce that he is, "I'm glad you're on the case," said Tavis Smiley, "but how does that lead to home ownership, because you can't tell me that you want to sell folks short on the American dream." Now, this ought to be good.
FRANK: I don't want to sell them short. I want to recognize, though, Tavis that they may come up short. Pretending people can do something they can't do is no favor for them. I wish we could do something about income inequality in America, and I'm for that. I would like to get better education all up and down the social sphere so people can earn more money. I'd like to bring down the cost of housing. But the point --
RUSH: It's come down! The cost of housing has collapsed, Mr. Frank, you have succeeded the cost of housing is so bad that it's destroyed people's equity in their homes, it's destroyed everything, it's at the root of the problems in the housing crisis. (unintelligible) You want to see housing prices come down, you made it happen, you made it happen, and Tavis Smiley sits there, yes, yes, yes. This is why we produced this song about you, Mr. Frank, because you're the architect of all of this. The song is you singing Banking Queen because that's what you are.
(playing of Banking Queen)
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
| • Wall Street Journal: Barney Frank's Double Indemnity • Politico: Members Battle the Bulge |
OBAMA: I understand that it's hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples --
RUSH: Yeah, you try it.
OBAMA: -- and would willingly and gladly kill innocents.
RUSH: Now, listen here.
OBAMA: Al-Qaeda is not constrained by a Constitution --
RUSH: Stop the tape. Al-Qaeda is not constrained by a Constitution. Your president, our president, Barack Obama, looks at the Constitution as a constraint and we know this because President Obama is also the kind of man who has legal people around him who look at the Bill of Rights, who see it as a set of what is called negative rights. I know a lot of people, "Negative rights, how can the Bill of Rights being negative rights?" Because, folks, to liberals, the Bill of Rights is horrible, the Bill of Rights grants citizens freedom. It tells the citizens what the government cannot do to them. The Bill of Rights limits the federal government, and that's negative to a socialist like Obama; that's negative to an elitist like Obama. The Constitution is negative. So he's got constraints. The Constitution tells him he's got things he can't do that he wants to do. That's not his job. He is there to defend and protect it, not unilaterally change it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to belabor a point because this is fundamental and it's crucial to understanding Barack Obama. He's over at the CIA yesterday, he's got this pep rally of secretaries and custodial staff assembled, and they're cheering him on like he's a rock star. And he tells them, (paraphrasing) "Yeah, I know your job's going to be a lot harder now because of me, but, but, but, and I know Al-Qaeda is not constrained by a Constitution." Folks, that is so important to understand how he looks at the Constitution. He's not alone. This is how liberals look at the Constitution in general. They look at it as a constraint on them. There's a new, I don't know if you want to call it legal theory, but liberal judicial activists harp on this and write about it all the time: the theory of negative rights in the Constitution. Now, all of us who understand the Constitution and were taught the Constitution, who read it, would never imagine anything negative about it, as it relates to ourselves.
The Constitution protects the average citizen. The Constitution basically lays out our freedom and it limits what the government can do to impinge and infringe on our freedom. And people like President Obama see that as a constraint. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, specifically spell out what the government cannot do to intrude on our freedom. That's called negative rights by people like Obama because it limits government. And that's just not fair. They believe in government, not you. They believe in government, not the individual. So the Constitution's a problem for them. They look at the Constitution as having them in shackles. The Constitution is sort of like a miniature prison for them. They're constrained by it. So what's the easiest thing to do? Change it. Or just ignore it. Or get your liberal buddies in the judicial system and rewrite it, the Constitution, from the bench. And this they have done.
I just think it's crucial, hugely important to understand from where President Obama comes on a daily basis. He loved making the CIA's job harder. He loved it by imposing some mythical version of US values -- which are not US values; they are Obama values -- on the counterterrorism people at the CIA. It was just a couple of weeks ago that President Obama said we're not going to live in the past, we're not going to look at the past, we're not going to prosecute the Bush administration, that wouldn't make any sense. Apparently President Obama has caved to pressure from the left and now says he is open to prosecutions for torture. This afternoon at the White House, in the Oval Office, he was meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, took some questions from a giddy Drive-By Media corps. A reporter said, "I want to ask you about the interrogation. You were clear about not wanting to prosecute those who carried out the instructions. Can you be that clear about those who devised the policy? Quickly, on the second matter, how do you feel about investigations into the special commission, or something of that nature to go back and really look at the issue?"
OBAMA: The OLC memos that were released reflected, in my view, us losing our moral bearings. That's why I've discontinued those enhanced interrogation programs. For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do think it's appropriate for them to be prosecuted. With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that this is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that.
RUSH: I tell you, it's hard to go through a day of this program without getting boiling blood mad, without just getting livid. This doesn't happen in the United States. This happens in Third World nations where you imprison your predecessors. This just doesn't happen here. Besides, this is all bogus. Nothing was done that was illegal! And yet the whole country thinks that it was. Extreme measures, torture, we let down our moral guide, and we behaved immorally. It's mind-boggling to have to sit here and listen to this and see that there is a stupid, ignorant press corps lapping all this stuff up, in fact advocating for this, advocating for the prosecution of the Bush administration that came up with these "immoral" procedures. Obama then continued with this.
OBAMA: I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical, uh, uh, hearing process that can sometimes break down and break entirely along party lines, to the extent that there are independent, uh, uh, participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take.
RUSH: Independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, we need to do this outside the typical hearing process? We still need to go after them, we just have to do it in a different way. Even if they have great credibility and they're above reproach, we're still going to go after them, we just have to do it in a way that's not public so that you don't see it happening, so that we don't besmirch their reputations in the process. This business, folks, of the Constitution being looked at as a shackle, the brilliance of the Founding Fathers was separation of powers, everything in the Constitution was designed to protect against a president like Obama. The express purpose of the Constitution is to stop somebody like Obama who wants to have the federal government now have equity stakes in the automobile companies and in the banks and control the credit markets, the financial systems, and anything else he can get his hands on. It's to stop the president of the United States from handcuffing US security, in limiting freedom of the American people. The Constitution was written with people like Obama in mind to stop them. It's been turned upside down and on its head, the Constitution has, because now the Constitution's looked at to some as limiting the great Messiah. Why, the Constitution limits the greatness of The One who has finally restored mortality and justice to the American nation.
Everything is ass backwards and we have a sycophantic press corps engaging in journalistic malpractice. We have a legal profession which has sidled up with this administration, a legal profession supposedly defending and devoted to the Constitution as well. There's nobody standing up for the Constitution, nobody. "But, Rush, but, Rush, Obama says --" yeah, he wants you to think he's defending the Constitution by telling you it's imperfect and it needs to be changed to allow him more latitude to save you from the economic crisis or whatever crisis he creates down the road.
A quick phone call from Kim in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Rush it's a privilege and an honor. Thank you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: And I appreciate the fact that you're a voice for so many of us who don't have a voice.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I'm calling to voice my concern about the fact of Obama releasing recklessly the interrogation secrets that we have, because I believe it really puts every sailor, soldier, Marine in imminent danger should they be ever taken captive. Obviously Al-Qaeda and those types of regimes have no respect for human life whatsoever, so I think we ought to remember what happened to those two soldiers who disappeared in Iraq and whose mutilated bodies were found later as a source of retaliation and I believe because of the reckless release of this information, that really does put every single soldier, sailor, Marine deployed or currently looking to deploy --
RUSH: You know what? I want to respectfully disagree with you on one small thing here. I don't think the release of the memos puts our uniformed personnel in greater harm, or puts them in greater harm's way. They always have been, from the moment they put the uniform on, I don't care what year, I don't care what war, I don't care where they're deployed, they are always in harm's way. Now, it may well be that we have run up against a bunch of terrorists who commit atrocities unlike previous regimes, although I don't think anybody can outdo the Nazis, and I don't think anybody can outdo the Japanese in World War II. The point is, evil is always there and it's always gonna focus on the men and women who wear our uniform. What has changed with the release of the memos is that the enemy will be less intimidated of our men and women in uniform. Our men and women in uniform are going to be constrained and shackled and worried that any action they take could later come back and land them before a congressional hearing and maybe in jail, for just defending and protecting the Constitution and the country.
After seeing this, the people you're talking about who have beheaded and have created all these atrocities and committed them, they're going to be emboldened to do even more because they're going to get away with it! We're not going to be able to retaliate. Our hands have just been tied, or the men and women in the uniform's hands have just been tied. And, by the way, this isn't new. Look at the Marines at Haditha that John Murtha wanted to convict solely on media reports. We've got the men and women of the armed forces under assault in this country by a political party and an ideology in this country, and they have been for quite a while. What's changed is, not the release of memos, what's changed is we have a president of the United States who has just as much disregard for the men and women of the United States military as every other liberal who's come along but has never been president before.
END TRANSCRIPT
To explain it, let me proclaim an established truism. It is this: Barack Obama thinks he's better and more moral, more special than any president we've ever had. He's The One. I firmly believe he's gotta messianic complex. But even if you don't believe that, you can listen to him speak just the last two or three days or the sum total of his speeches and you know he thinks he's special. And this country was immoral and unjust until he came along -- and now we're on the right road. Okay, if you have that established: America sucked, America had problems, America was not the best she could be, America was immoral and unjust before Obama gets here. That means everybody was immoral and unjust, from George Washington on to George W. Bush. So what's Obama up against? In the world of protecting the United States, nobody's done it better, recently, than George W. Bush and his administration. After 9/11, not one single attack, by terrorists, on this country's soil. That's unarguable.
You can argue if you want, but it's inarguable. If you want to be wrong, go ahead and be wrong. So you have that as a baseline. You have that as a foundation. The simple reality is that Obama and his people cannot deal with the previous administration's success in stopping more terror in America. Obama's entire popularity poll existence, relies on the fact that people think he's special, better than ever before, that everybody came before him -- especially Bush -- was the absolute pits. They can't afford for one aspect of the Bush administration to be portrayed as successful. So, tearing up every aspect of the Bush administration's counterterrorism and defense posture to protect this country, which worked, has to be torn apart in order to keep Obama up on the pedestal. He's supremely narcissistic, a man about whom this country is devoted to him. This is all about him. This has nothing to do with the country. It has nothing to do with our way of life. Every aspect of his presidency is about building him up, making him appear to be savior, messiah, whatever term you want to call it -- and don't think others are doing it. He's inspiring it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This morning on Joe Scarborough's show, PMSNBC, he had Elijah Cummings, Democrat, Maryland on. Scarborough said, "So you visited Latin America, you went to Colombia, you saw the president this past week getting criticized. How do you think he did?"
CUMMINGS: What has happened with President Obama is that, as in the elections, a lot of people underestimate the man who I believe is a great leader. He takes leadership to another height. Now, I understand the Chavez situation and people are trying to figure out, did he smile, did he -- you know, but I think Barack Obama is above that and I think that a lot of times people are operating on a little bit lower level than he is. His leadership is a leadership that this country has not seen a lot of.
RUSH: There you have it, the messianic complex come to life in Elijah Cummings. This sort of sums up the emotional attachment Democrats have to Obama, whatever he does is good. Why? Because it's him doing it. And, by the way, it's so good nobody has ever done it this good before. He's above all this stuff, shaking hands with Chavez. Don't forget, either, that Elijah Cummings is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which idolizes Fidel Castro. So it's not as though Chavez and Castro are looked upon with disfavor by Elijah Cummings. Scarborough then said, "It's been quite a 90-day time period. George Bush reached out to Vladimir Putin early, thinking it would yield results. Didn't. And so you believe that if this president reaches out, has his hand slapped, he'll pull back?"
CUMMINGS: I believe that. And I think leadership, you know, I've always believed that leadership, true leadership is always before its time, and I think that you have to -- and I think Barack believes it -- that you've gotta act on what you believe is right, and then sometimes you gotta wait for the critics to catch up.
RUSH: So not only is he unlike anybody we've ever had, he's so far ahead of us that we are blinded by the light, as we look at his trail. He's so far ahead of us, folks, that all we see is the dust in which he is leaving us. He's so far ahead of his time. And people ask me, "How the hell could he have gotten elected?" I give you Elijah Cummings who represents the mind-set, the ignorance of the average Obama voter. This kind of idolatry of political people has happened before, but it's not healthy, pure demagoguery.
END TRANSCRIPT
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: Jan?
CALLER: Rush.
RUSH: Yeah, hi.
CALLER: Thirteen trillion or 4,000 billion mega dittos to you, Maha Rushie.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I'm calling about a recent American Thinker article entitled "America's November Revolution." I think it totally encapsulates everything Obama has done thus far and plans to do to us in the future, and I'm interested in what you think.
RUSH: I haven't seen it. You know, I normally read the American Spectator website every day, but I have not seen it.
CALLER: Or American Thinker.
RUSH: Oh, American Thinker. I haven't seen it.
CALLER: "America's November Revolution."
RUSH: Could you summarize it for me?
CALLER: Basically he's comparing it to the Russian Revolution in 1917, although that was violent.
RUSH: Last November's election he's comparing to the Russian revolution?
CALLER: Yes. Though it's not obviously violent, but... I mean he goes into -- John Griffing. It's done by John Griffing. He goes into all the things that Bush set up for him. This is the Patriot Act; the Military Commissions Act; the Posse Comitatus Act, revisions to that. And then he goes on to... Let's see. "But Obama's strategies go far beyond mere economic control. We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we set. We've got to have a civilian..." Well, he talks about a civilian national... Anyway, he goes on to, "The president has become an aggressive campaign against free speech. He wants to ramrod a bill through to nationalize the press."
RUSH: Okay, now I get it. I get it. So the question is: Does Obama's election change the American way of life? (snorts) Forget the election. Yeah, you can maybe draw similarities. Look what the hell is happening! I mean, yeah. (sigh) Folks, do you realize Obama has even created czars? I mean, if we want to start comparing Obama to the Russian revolution, he's got czars! Only the Russians had czars. For every cabinet level he's got three czars that run herd over the cabinet level people. I'll read the piece. I'll find the piece. This piece obviously I haven't seen it, it has to be written from the standpoint that individual liberty and freedom under assault here at the expense of big government. Tony in Middletown, Delaware. It's nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, Tony. Listen, just a quick... I've been struggling with this paradox that I understand that the Founders were diligent in crafting the Constitution to balance of it and powers and prevent the very situation we're now facing, so how did it happen and why can't we invoke the Constitution to stop or reverse this?
RUSH: Well, uhhhh. (sigh) At some point hopefully we will. These things happen in stages. How did it happen is simple. It's been developing over 50 years are. You dumb down the education system. You stop teaching American history. You teach the Constitution as a constraint and limit rather than what it really is: a limit on government. You teach the Constitution as something that keeps the government from doing even greater things for you. And then you eventually nominate a candidate who's a demagogue, who can create, among his followers, a cult.
CALLER: Mmm!
RUSH: People who are emoting, not thinking. And people who are so fed up with what they see as constant bickering, somebody can come along and say, "Okay. The old, tired ways of the past, we need to get rid of them, and we're all going to get along." You promise people you're going to pay their mortgage. You promise people they're going to have health care. Really, it's the easiest thing in the world to do, is tell people you're going to give them everything, because the liberal Democrats have created more and more people who think that that's their entitlement as American citizens. So it didn't just happen overnight. It has been building and the lack of an opposition to it, I think, is probably due to the fact that the Washington-New York elite culture -- from the Ivy League schools down to the halls of government, to the lobbying places -- are all made up of people whose jobs resolve around government, and the bigger it is, the richer they get. And the more power government has, the more power they have. So we just, you know, turn the meaning of the Constitution and the founding of the country upside down. But at some point there's going to be a younger generation pop up that's just not going to take it. They're not going to accept the 70% taxes to pay for all this, and they'll throw these people out. They're going to be your kids and grandkids, once they discover how indebted they are on the first day they're born.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
| • American Thinker: America's 'November Revolution' - John Griffing |
On yesterday, I thought this bit was brilliant! ...
“Mr. Snerdley, who was the big guy on radio before I came along? (interruption) Well, no, no, in the modern era. I don’t want to go back to the days when TV was just new. (interruption) Arthur Godfrey. Okay, the big guy in radio was Larry King. That was the big guy. Larry King was the big guy in radio. I should apologize as the new leader of radio. I should apologize to the country for
Larry King. I should apologize to the world for Larry King. Larry King’s time on the radio was an embarrassment, and things are not going to be right with American media until I apologize for King’s arrogance and his shoddy performance, even though nobody heard it because it was after midnight. I should apologize for National Public Radio.
I should apologize for them, too. I should. Not to them, for them. I should apologize to the world! I mean, if Obama can run around apologize for America because he’s now its leader, I should apologize for broadcasting because I’m now it’s leader. I’m going to apologize for Chris Matthews, apologize for Dan Rather, apologize for Katie Couric. Hell, I won’t stop there! I’ll apologize for Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite lost the Vietnam War. I’ll apologize for him. Larry King is seen and heard around the world. They should know America is sorry we subjected them to people like King and others. I want to apologize to the world for foisting Larry King on it.”
Even though Rush was not into it - because of the earlier caller - he still pulled it off well. (like 1/2 his brain tied behind his back ;-)
Greta has a MAJOR crush on Rush....
So do I. ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
