Posted on 06/01/2009 4:16:40 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I don't believe what I just heard except that I believe it. I can't believe I'm hearing it spoken by a leader in the United States of America, but of course I have to believe it because I heard it. But I still don't believe it. I cannot believe it! The news was depressing enough today before Obama gets up to announce how he doesn't want to run General Motors as he lays out how he's going to run General Motors. Good grief, my friends -- oh, ho-ho. Welcome to broadcast excellence hosted by me, Rush Limbaugh. Here we are on the EIB Network. Great to have you with us. The telephone number, 800-282-2882. Cookie, get me -- and if nothing else, get me the last five minutes of what Obama said just now in his little announcement of the government taking over General Motors. I'm going to paraphrase it, but I want you to hear it yourself. Man, oh, man, oh, man. Folks, he just told the adult generation today that your life is not going to improve before you die. He just said things are not going to improve before you die, that what we're doing today is your sacrifice for your children and your grandchildren, that there are going to be further plant closings, there are going to be further job losses, there are going to be further dealership closings.
There is going to be a mess. We don't want to run General Motors, he says, while he spells out how it's going to be run. He was spelling out how now we're gonna move forward on building these little putt-putt cars. That's what General Motors and Chrysler are going to do and we in the federal government are going to boost our purchases to provide the impetus for these fuel economy cars. We're going to boost our fleet purchases here of these kinds of cars. Now, there's an interesting little aspect of this. General Motors makes these kinds of cars around the world. General Motors builds these cars in Europe. General Motors builds these cars in China and other places. This deal, from what I have been given to understand, will prevent General Motors from importing any of those cars that are made already overseas. They are going to have to be made here. Your choice in the kind of car you buy will soon be over. I can't wait for you to hear this quote when he details how much worse it's going to get and how we are all making a sacrifice for our kids and grandkids. Plants will close; jobs will be lost; dealerships will close.
You know what this guy is doing? He is implementing his campaign agenda without regard for current economic circumstances. ABC's The Note today has an interesting little line as they were previewing this General Motors announcement today. It's written by Rick Klein: "Maybe an all-consuming Supreme Court fight wouldn't be that bad after all," they say, for Obama. Remember, now, we're talking with I think all but official state-controlled media. Call it state-controlled, call it state-run, the media here is no different than the media Hugo Chavez has. So forget Drive-By Media. Forget mainstream media. It is now-state controlled media by their choice. The media is choosing to be controlled by the state, regardless how it happened it's state-run media. And so ABC's The Note here: "Maybe an all-consuming Supreme Court fight wouldn't be that bad after all," to take attention away from this rotgut.
"What’s filled the vacuum, as Judge Sonia Sotomayor hits the Hill this week, looks a lot like what President Obama doesn’t want to be talking about. He never signed up to be in the auto business. His election was about ending the culture wars. The old divisions were supposed to fade away." None of that's true. He never signed up to be in the auto business? If he didn't want to be in the auto business, he wouldn't have furthered more bailout money that's been thrown down the drain, he would have let them file for Chapter 11 way back when, before all this money was dumped and wasted. His election was about ending the culture wars? Just the exact opposite. His election was about creating and expanding wars between groups of Americans. The old divisions were supposed to fade away? The old divisions have never faded away. He is not a messiah, he is not a magician, he is a partisan liberal hack, which means that the old divisions are going to get sharper and have gotten sharper. They are not going to fade away. "The economic mess? He inherited it." Maybe so. You gotta admit that he inherited some of this. But he's built on what he inherited. He has built on the mess. He is amplifying the mess, and he's doing it on purpose.
This guy came into office with an agenda, a pure socialist agenda, and he's implementing it without regard for current economic circumstances. You don't raise taxes in a recession. You don't do anything he's doing in a recession. He's doing it because that's what he planned to do from the first days he read Saul Alinsky, from the first days at ACORN, from his first days as an activist, this is what he and his wife have been dreaming of doing, and they're going to do it regardless. The Heritage Foundation has a great post today. We're big believers in AskHeritage.org. It's well worth your becoming a member. You can do it for as little as 25 bucks. They're a think tank, lots of brilliant scholars writing on subject after subject. Here's a post today: "Government Motors is Not the Answer." And here is a striking observation: "Despite claiming that the administration will not --" oh, he said this today. We're not going to be involved in any aspect of running this company except in major decisions. We're not going to be involved in running this company. You've got to hear this whole thing.
"Despite claiming that the administration 'will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations' it is instructive that this announcement is being made by the President, from the White House, and not by the company's CEO from either the company's Detroit headquarters or the New York bankruptcy court." And they are exactly right in that observation. They're appointing a new board of directors. It's going to have United Auto Workers on it. "At midday today, President Barack Obama will announce details of his administration’s $30.1 billion plan to restructure General Motors. Despite claiming that the administration 'will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations' it is instructive that this announcement is being made by the President, from the White House, and not by the company’s CEO from either the company’s Detroit headquarters or the New York bankruptcy court. Since March of this year when the White House rejected GM’s restructuring plan, their interventionist actions have spoken much louder than their hands-off rhetoric." Amen. Heritage has it exactly right.
He goes up and says we don't want to run it day to day and then spelled out how he's gonna run it. He told us the kind of cars they're going to make. He told us the kind of cars the government's going to buy to boost their fleet purchases to provide an impetus for everybody else buying little cars that nobody wants. "Just days after the White House informed GM that they were unhappy with the company’s first restructuring plan, President Obama fired GM CEO Richard Wagoner." A guy who has no desire to run the company, fires the CEO. "The payoff from Obama’s handpicked replacement, current CEO Fritz Henderson, quickly became apparent when Henderson stood next to Obama in the Rose Garden and announced his support for the Obama administration’s new fuel efficiency standards: 'GM is fully committed to this new approach.'" It's no accident that Obama rejected GM's restructuring plan. I want you to listen to a sound bite. It's gonna make you cry. Well, it may not make you cry, but it makes me cry -- how right I was. How right I was. September 17th, 2008, I said this about government takeovers and how high the stakes were in the upcoming election.
RUSH ARCHIVE: We have automobile and aviation companies on the verge of bankruptcy or government ownership due to legislation and regulation in oil prices that could be half of what they are if Congress got out of the way. We are playing for keeps, folks. This is not just another election. Events have brought us to where the government has become so invested in the affairs of the private sector that the next president will determine if the private sector or the public sector is going to be calling the shots. Barack Obama is one of the people who could be making those decisions. Their enemies list is the private sector of this country where you work. Their enemy, all of their enemies, are your employers. You have it, you can see, side by side, A-B comparison, government runs mortgages, what happens? Government gets in charge and runs health care, what happens? Government gets in charge, fixes poverty, Great Society, what happens? Affirmative action, feminism, you talk about creating a meaner America? It's liberal policies that pit groups of Americans against one another, on purpose. There needs to be a cleansing of this process at some point, folks. Either we take control of events and address them now or events will take control with disastrous consequences, if not for us, surely the next generation or two. And all those people making these decisions today, the members of Congress and all that will be long gone, but your kids and grandkids will not.
RUSH: September 17th last year. I warned you, and I'm sure all of you in this audience or the vast majority of you in this audience listened. Here we go, GM permanently closing nine more plants, three more to be put on standby. It's the wrong Chyron, Fox and MSNBC. It is Obama permanently closing. Can we get this right for once? GM doesn't exist anymore. GM's in bankruptcy. This is Government Motors, this is Obama. He just told us more plants are going to close; more jobs are going to be lost; more dealerships shut down. Well, right now Fritz Henderson gets the dirty deed, he's the CEO, he gets to announce the closings. Obama got to announce all the wonderful things, the government's going to say this and say that, but here's the GM CEO Fritz Henderson now talking about all the new plant closings and all of the dealership shutdowns and all the jobs to be lost, he's detailing it. Obama forecast it, but he didn't give the bad news per se. He's leaving that to the GM guy. But this is all Obama's doing.
Here's Obama, my friends, as I interpret him. I inherited this, I inherited that, everything going wrong is somebody else's fault, I inherited it. The majority of the good parts that I inherited I'm going to give to the unions, and what you inherit from me, you won't be able to pay off for centuries, because I'm leaving you with nothing, I'm leaving you in debt. What you are inheriting from me is -- and he believes this BS he is spewing -- he believes it, folks, he's a true believer. That's what's so scary. He believes this stuff. All right. We have brief time-out. Well, one more. Audio sound bite two. It's very short, eight seconds. This is March 30th, two months ago, Barack Obama.
OBAMA: Let me be clear. The United States government has no interest in running GM. We have no intention of running GM.
RUSH: That statement expired today because today Obama announced how he's running it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, here are the Obama sound bites that I heard just prior to the program beginning. Here's the first of two.
OBAMA: I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors, and so will many parts suppliers. But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation, a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice you are nevertheless called to make so that your children and all the -- of our children can grow up in America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future.
RUSH: Strives for a better future? Strives for a better future while you tell people they have none? He just told us we have no future, particularly if you are at present in the automobile industry. You have no future. You have to sacrifice. You are being called on to sacrifice. Sorry. Sacrifice is being mandated upon you, and you must do it for your children and grandchildren so that they can "grow up in an America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future." My friends, Barack Obama now owns General Motors and Chrysler. Whatever happens to these companies down the road, Barack Obama owns it. He can no longer say he inherited the problems, because he's now telling these two companies how they're going to be run. Now, he's saying he's not doing that, but he is. He's dictating to them the kind of cars they're going to make. He's going to provide an impetus for everybody else to buy those cars by having the government fleet upgraded. They're going to buy these cars. Little tinfoil cars is what we're talking about here. So there you have it. Your future is bleak. You are now engaged in sacrificing for the future of your kids and your grandkids. Here's the second sound bite.
OBAMA: As our autoworkers and auto communities pass through these difficult times, we as a nation must do our part. That's why in March I appointed Ed Montgomery, director of recovery for auto communities and workers. That's why two weeks ago Ed announced a green jobs training program for autoworkers in hard hit communities. And that's why last week Ed and Karen Mills, my Small Business Administration chief, traveled to Indiana to announce a new plan to provide loans to auto, RV, ask boat dealers to help finance floor plans. That's why we are accelerating the purchase of a federal fleet of cars to jump-start demand and give the industry a boost at a time when it needs one. And that's why I'm calling on Congress to pass fleet modernization legislation that can provide a credit to consumers who turn in old cars and purchase cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars. These are important steps on the long road to overcoming a problem that didn't happen overnight and will not be solved overnight. I recognize that today's news carries a particular importance because it's not just any company we're talking' about. It's GM. It's a company that's not only been a source of income but a source of pride for generations of autoworkers and generations of Americans. While the GM of the future will be different from the GM of the past, I am absolutely confident that if well managed, a new GM will emerge that can provide a new generation of Americans with the chance to live out their dreams, that can outcompete automakers around the world and that can once again be an integral part of America's economic future.
RUSH: Barack Obama -- who has never run anything! Barack Obama has never been in charge of one single enterprise that had as its objective the making and earning of a profit. He has never, as a bureaucratic, as an activist, he has never had to care about profit. In fact, Barack Obama sneers at the whole concept of profit. Profit, to him, is stealing. A company profits only by raping consumers and suppliers. They should not profit! They should simply sell everything as a zero-sum game, at cost, and stay in business as service to mankind, which of course would mean that no business would survive. So the Barack Obama -- of zero, zilch, nada private sector experience -- has the audacity to say, "While the GM of the future will be different from the GM of the past, I'm absolutely confident that if well managed, a new GM will emerge."
Hey, bud, you're managing it. You're in charge. Mr. President, if you didn't want people to think you're in charge, you shoulda not said a word today. The announcement shoulda come from Fritz Henderson, wherever he is, either at the bankruptcy law firm in New York, in court, or in Detroit. But he didn't make the announcement; you did. You spelled out the future of General Motors, now Henderson's been sent out there with all the details of the horror that is to come. You gave us the generalities, Mr. President. So a man who's never run a private sector business, who's never been challenged to show a profit, a man who sneers at the concept of profit, now lectures us on how well GM can do if it is run well and managed well. Meanwhile, all of you in the automobile business today suck it up, because your days of profitability and success are over. You now are sacrificing for your kids and your grandkids.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Three more audio sound bites from Obama and his General Motors press conference today. Here's the first of the three.
OBAMA: These companies were facing a crisis decades in the making and having relied on loans from the previous administration, were asking for more. From the beginning, I made it clear that I would not put any more tax dollars on the line if it meant perpetuating the bad business decisions that had led these companies to seek help in the first place. I refused to let these companies become permanent wards of the state kept afloat on an endless supply of taxpayer money.
RUSH: This is like saying I don't want to litigate the last eight years and then continuing to litigate the last eight years. I don't want General Motors living as wards of the states. He wants us all living as wards of the state bottom line. Next bite.
OBAMA: GM's management team, including its new CEO, Fritz Henderson, its interim chairman, Kent Kresa, and all of their colleagues has -- have worked -- has worked tirelessly to produce a plan that meets the strict standards I laid out at the beginning to streamline GM's brands --
RUSH: Wait a second.
OBAMA: -- clean up GM's balance sheet --
RUSH: Wait a minute.
OBAMA: -- and make it possible for GM to --
RUSH: Wait a minute.
OBAMA: -- compete and succeed.
RUSH: Wait a minute. He doesn't want run it, yet he talks about his handpicked CEO and his task force that did exactly as he told them to do. But he doesn't want to run it. He doesn't want them being wards of the state. The strict standards he laid out to streamline the brands and clean up the balance sheet -- and he's never done this himself at any financial enterprise. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Here's the last one.
OBAMA: What we are not doing, what I have no interest in doing --
RUSH: Remember what you just heard.
OBAMA: -- is running GM. GM will be run by a private board of directors and management team with a track record in American manufacturing --
RUSH: You're dictating to them.
OBAMA: -- commitment to innovation and quality.
RUSH: You're dictating to them.
OBAMA: They, and not the government, will call the shots and make the decisions about how to turn this company around.
RUSH: You just called the shots in the previous sound bite.
OBAMA: The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions. When a difficult decision has to be made on matters like where to open a new plant or what type of new car to make, the new GM, not the United States government, will make that decision.
RUSH: That's simply not true. He just contradicted that in the previous two sound bites. He's dictating the kind of cars they're going to make and the government's gonna buy the first fleet of them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Fifty-four percent of the General Motors bondholders approved of this. That means that 46% did not, pretty close to the election returns. This is a huge number of people and institutions and investors that did not approve of this to whom it has been rammed down their throats, this forced bankruptcy by the government. And think of all the bailout money that was spent prior to this when everybody said at the get go just let 'em file Chapter 11, oh, no, can't do that, the warranties won't be honored, who would buy a car? Well, they're going to close 12 plants, they're going to close a bunch of factories, dealerships, but Obama's going to honor the warranties. Everything that coulda been done months ago is being done today except with the government in charge of it, not General Motors. Where are the news stories on all the little old ladies who got their clocks cleaned from this deal, all the people whose pension and retirements are invested, who got their clocks cleaned in this? Of course, the state-run media is not interested in any of that. The state-run media has no interest in any negative aspect of anything having to do with Obama, and if you remember nothing else, I want you to remember Obama saying this at the White House just prior to the show starting, it was a little bit after 12 noon Eastern time.
OBAMA: I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors, and so will many parts suppliers. But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation, a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice you were nevertheless called to make so that your children and all of our children can grow up in an America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future.
RUSH: He's not just talking to automobile people here. He wants you to think that. He wants you to think he's just talking to people in the automotive industry, but he's talking to every one of us. I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors. And so will many parts suppliers. But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation. Your future is zilch. Your future is not worth talking about because you don't really have one. And what you're doing by biting the bullet here and living in the poorhouse is making sure your children and grandchildren have a wonderful future. You want to try to tell me how that figures out? How does that result take place? So Obama used taxpayer money to buy General Motors, and essentially give it to the United Auto Workers. See, this is the dirty little secret. Obama is returning the nation's wealth to its rightful owners. We've got an economy in collapse, and he's implementing his campaign agenda regardless. UAW is a political contributor and this is socialism. Barack Obama now owns the means of production and cronyism as well.
The real interesting aspect of this is that part of this deal bans General Motors from importing small foreign cars to sell that they make overseas. You know what this is? You gotta ask yourself, Obama wants us all in these new little tinfoil cars. New green jobs to produce them, save the economy, save the country, save the planet, stop our carbon emissions, he wants us all in these worthless little Podunk cars, right? Well, these companies already make 'em. They make 'em overseas where people over there don't mind driving around in a bag of manure. But we can't import those cars. GM could sell 'em, but we can't import 'em. You know why? Because we have to protect manufacturing jobs as best we can. So this is protectionism, in addition to everything else. I don't care who you are, protectionism has never built and grown an economy. It never has. So we have, in one little ten-minute announcement today, we have protectionism, socialism, and cronyism. The trifecta for Barack Obama, political payoffs, protectionism makes sense to socialists; it's what they do. The White House kneecapped secured creditors on behalf of the UAW.
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed months ago would have produced a General Motors that looks far, far different from the one you see today. Taxpayer money was used to occupy the private sector and pay off a political contributor. The reason that Obama went through with the automobile bailout is 'cause it put UAW in an ownership position and on the board. Wall Street Journal here: "The Administration's concessions to the UAW also restrict the company's ability to import smaller, more fuel-efficient cars that it already makes overseas. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger boasted on PBS's NewsHour last week that "we, quite frankly, put pressure on the White House, the [auto] task force, the corporation" to bar small-car imports from overseas. GM is also selling its Opel operation in Europe as part of this restructuring, and the Washington Post reports that one of Treasury's sale conditions is that Opel's new owners must stay out of the US, and even out of China, where GM's business is strong." This is pure protectionism to protect people that voted for Obama and shaft everybody else. And it's not gonna work.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's that answer from Fritz Henderson, the acting CEO at General Motors. Obama is the CEO. This is in New York City at a news conference. An unidentified reporter asks Fritz Henderson: "President Obama has been very firm, really, talking about more fuel-efficient vehicles. Will there be pressure on you to come out with a new greener vehicle for the United States sooner?"
HENDERSON: We're planning our business assuming that economies, as they improve, well higher oil prices than we have today. I think it's a fair assumption. Uhhh, you have to make assumptions about your business but I think our view is that oil prices will trend higher. We learned one thing in 2008, and that is economic growth can drive sharp increases in oil prices. The consumer themselves have actually changed, but for example the mid-sized car segment here fuel economy, consumers are behaving as if fuel prices are higher than they actually are today. So I do think fuel economy will remain a key driver of the purchase decisions for consumers. So I think it's very important. I think the market will drive it, first of all. So I think our objectives, both as a firm, as well as to the market, are in alignment with what not only President Obama but I think most governments around the world would view the importance of having more fuel-efficient vehicles. I don't think it's unique simply to the United States.
RUSH: I don't know about you, but I don't think he answered the question. He was asked if because of what Obama's doing they're going to have to make 'em sooner, and he gave market-related answers and the market doesn't matter anymore. That's the problem here. The market is not dictating the future of General Motors, despite how Fritz Henderson spoke here. Barack Obama is. But he didn't want to say anything negative about Obama. The question was a softball. "Are you going to have to start making these putt-putt cars sooner than you thought you would because Obama is making you?" YES, is the answer. You know what he also said in there? What he also said in there, in that answer, is the primary reason they are in trouble today is gasoline hitting four bucks.
Everybody has forgotten that. But when the price of oil went to 120, 130 a barrel, and that sent gasoline up to four bucks, that was the tipping point, and that's when the bottom fell out. Not that they were healthy and rosy and everything else prior, and now he says people are still buying or not buying cars on the basis that gasoline is gonna again be four bucks. "And a growing economy..." Now, he also said this. "We know that a growing economy rises or raises oil prices." Well, now, wait a second. It was just last year, wasn't it, a year ago that the oil price was trending upward to eventually maybe 150 a barrel on one day, but averaging around 120 to 130 and during that time we kept hearing what about the economy? That it was tanking. We kept hearing the economy was tanking a year ago.
In fact, the US state-run media has been saying the economy's been tanking for six years. So was it a rising economy that brought about $4-a-gallon gasoline? If it was a rising economy, then people would have been able to afford it a little easier than they were able to. So Fritz Henderson says here, "Well, you know, people are still behaving as though gasoline is four bucks." They're smart. It happened once; it could happen again. Most people can't understand an economic reason for it happening, and they start talking speculators and this sort of stuff and they think manipulation. They don't think market; they think manipulation. So the consumer thinks you can manipulate and get it to four bucks you can manipulate it again to get it to five. And look out, folks, because as desperate as Obama is to get you in pieces of junk that you would never otherwise buy, if you don't make the decision on your own to do it, steps will be taken where you have no choice, like higher gasoline prices.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Shazam. Shazam! The numbers just keep getting bigger. Now it's 14 plants that are going to close by 2011. Fourteen General Motors plants and three parts centers. So the bottom line here is, "The closures will reduce GM's US facilities to 33 from 47 by 2011, and between 18,000 and 20,000 workers will be affected." Not only are these jobs "lost," these are not jobs "saved," Mr. President. And I don't want you to forget this, because Obama lied through his teeth today saying on numerous points at numerous times during his press conference that he had -- his announcement; there was no press conference -- that he had no interest in running General Motors, that the government wasn't going to run it. He didn't get in the car business, none of that, yada yada yada yada. But he said this.
OBAMA: What we are not doing, what I have no interest in doing, is running GM.
RUSH: Remember that.
OBAMA: GM will be run by a private board of directors and management team with a track record in American manufacturing --
RUSH: Appointed by you.
OBAMA: -- that reflects a commitment to innovation and quality.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OBAMA: This, and not the government --
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: -- will call the shots and make the decisions about how to turn this company around.
RUSH: You heard that.
OBAMA: The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions.
RUSH: Whaaa?
OBAMA: When a difficult decision has to be made on matters -- like where to open a new plant or what type of new car to make -- the new GM, not the United States government, will make that decision.
RUSH: He also said, "The government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental..." The most fundamental is all. In all but the most fundamental? He wants you to think we're barely going to be involved. What it really means is, "When it matters most, the federal government's going to be involved in running General Motors." In all but the most fundamental decisions? The fundamentals are the most important decisions. The "fundamentals" are the most important of anything. So what he's saying is the exact opposite of the way it sounds. What he's saying is, "We're not going to get involved in minutia. I don't want to get involved in daily progress reports, but the fundamental decisions like what kind of cars we're going to make and where we're going to open dealerships. For example I'm not going to let as many who didn't donate to me own a dealership, I'm not going to let some Republican own a GM dealership who didn't contribute to my campaign!" That's what this means.
END TRANSCRIPT
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. People have been waiting patiently on the phones. We'll go now to Mansfield, Ohio, and Mike, we'll start with you today, great to have you, sir, hello.
CALLER: Heyyyyyyyy. It's an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I'm starting to lose the signal here, I'll get out where I can defeat better signal. (interruption) I feel like I'm talking to the president.
RUSH: A lot of people wish you were.
CALLER: (laughing) As you should be. You know, we got an announcement this morning that our Ontario stamping plant was closing. That Ontario stamping plant employs hundreds of people.
RUSH: Now, wait a second. A lot of people -- Ontario, Ohio, stamping plant. What happens at a stamping plant?
CALLER: The announcement was made on the radio this morning that the plant was closing. They didn't give the exact date, but they this notified employees this morning. Not only does that affect that stamping plant, but it affects our steel mill here, and it affects three other major manufacturers that provide for that stamping plant.
RUSH: What happens in a stamping plant? What do you do there?
CALLER: My understanding is they make like door panels, hoods, any of the stamped components for the vehicles.
RUSH: All right. I figured it wasn't the plan that's going to stamp the Obama logo on the cars.
CALLER: (laughing) No. And I mean, the hundreds of employees, the city of Ontario gets 40% of their income tax from that plant. We have already lost -- and I can't give you an exact figure, number on police officers. We don't have enough police officers to maintain even our county.
RUSH: But I'll bet you have a bunch of bureaucrats that still have jobs that you could fire and rehire the cops with that money.
CALLER: Oh, most definitely. As a matter of fact, they just had an article not too long ago in the paper about city officials and how much money they were making.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I mean, if you take a 3%... "Oh, we took a 3% pay cut!"
RUSH: Yeah, big whoop.
CALLER: They're making $150,000 a year. Three percent isn't going to hurt you.
RUSH: That's not the point. Oh, it hurts. I don't care how much you're making when you lose anything it hurts because everybody lives to their income level. It hurts. But that shouldn't be why you should be satisfied with the decision, because somebody's going to hurt? I'm not saying you, but this is the way they buy off communities. "Oh, look! These big bureaucrats, they're going to take a hit, too, 3%." "Oh, they're going to get hurt? Good!" End of story. No! When you have a community -- state, city, local, federal community -- telling you that they gotta cut cops and they gotta can you tell firemen because of this horrible economy or lack of tax revenue or whatever, tell them to cut the overweight bureaucracy with a bunch of people sitting at desks not doing anything and rehire the cops. (interruption)
Question from Mr. Snerdley, the program observer. Okay, the question from Mr. Snerdley: "How will some of these communities...? As it's just been described here in Ontario, Ohio, if 40% of their tax revenue comes from the stamping plant and the stamping plant gets closed, then 40% of the operating revenue for the town vanishes. How are they going to survive, laying off cops? What's going to happen to the crime rate?" The cynical voice in me says, "It fits the Obama mold right out of the box," because the more chaos you have in the more places, the more demand for action you will have, and the one entity in our entire nation that can never go bankruptcy is the federal government because it can print money. So, if you have to bail out Ontario, if you have to bail out California...
Even though they say they're not going to, you let this stuff get bad enough. And if people still think that Obama is The Messiah and can fix this stuff rather than blaming him for causing it or being a party to it. See, I don't think people understand that this kind of pain and suffering fits somebody's master plan, and it's hard to convince people of that. What president would want citizens to suffer? Okay. You ask that question: "What president would want citizens to suffer?" and I have to ask you: It's been five months now, and we have employed every fix Obama told us, and it's only gotten worse. Grab... What is it, sound bite 32? Thirty-four? Stupid things in... Thirty-one or 32. Grab number 31. No. It's 32. For those of you asking yourself, "Why in the world would a sitting president want people to suffer?" here's what your president said today.
OBAMA: I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors, and so will many parts suppliers. But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation, a sacrifice you may not have chose to make but a sacrifice you were nevertheless called to make so that your children and all of our children can grow up in an America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future.
RUSH: Who is calling us to make this sacrifice? Nobody's calling us to make this sacrifice; it's being forced on us. It's being forced on us. By the way, Mike, Mansfield, Ohio, talking about what's going on in Ontario and all the rest of you that work at a Chrysler-related business or a GM-related business? I, like you, thought the rich were going to be paying for everything. I thought the rich were going to get their taxes increased so that you wouldn't suffer. Do you remember, it is I, El Rushbo, who has been warning you for the longest time that when liberals come talking about raising taxes on the rich to make 'em pay their fair share, and you go along and (applauding) clap your hands, "Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby!" it's the little guy who gets hurt.
The little guy is getting hurt. And this is the real shame, if you can identify just one. The rich, the achieved, they've got theirs and they're gonna lose a lot of it. A lot of it's going to be taxed away from them. But at least they got there. The real crying shame here is what all this is going to cost middle-class people that voted for Obama thinking their problems are over. This is going to put the brakes on their realization of the American dream. This brings the pursuit of the American dream to a screeching halt. And your president just said you gotta defer your American dream for the rest of your life. What you're doing now is sacrificing so that your kids and their kids might have a chance to pursue their American dream.
But how are we going to define the American dream by the time we get to the next two or three generations? Without a middle class that is striving to elevate itself, without a middle class inspired and motivated to seek to improve, there goes the country. I don't care what will the rich do. I don't care what they own. I don't care what they invest in. I don't care what their businesses are. You convince the middle class that it's not worth trying anymore, and you have killed the American dream. With rare exception, every achieved, wealthy family in this country started out middle class or worse. The exceptions are people who inherited, and that's not a whole lot of people.
I mean, even the "robber barons," quote, unquote, of the old days were born with nothing. It's always been the dream of the middle class to be able to raise their standard of living. The belief that it can happen, the belief that it's out there, has kept them striving for it. And Obama just told them today, at least those in the auto business, "Stop striving! Your purpose is to eat excrement sandwiches for the rest of your life. It's not there for you. All that's ahead for you is worse." I don't know how this plays in a positive way. I do not know how it plays. I don't know how you get away being the most beloved figure in the country by telling people they have no future.
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RUSH: Here's Andre in Houston. Andre, nice to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: Good to talk to you. Love the show.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: My question is, this guy says that he don't want to run the company, but at the same time he's laying out a plan to fix the company. You already answered the question for me. But this thinking that this thing is gonna work that he's got planned, do you see any way in the future that this will work?
RUSH: You gotta define working. You know, we're to that point in time now -- so you're asking me, is there any way I can foresee in the future what Obama's doing today will make General Motors a success? Is that what you're asking?
CALLER: Exactly, yeah.
RUSH: Okay, define General Motors succeeding for me, before I answer that, what you mean by that.
CALLER: The way it was before, when they were producing cars, the cars they producing now that people wanted, and the thing he's going to produce now --
RUSH: No.
CALLER: -- you say that people want that --
RUSH: No. Because the kind of cars to produce have now been taken out of the hands of the experts who know that or supposedly know that. I don't want to play Obama sound bites all day. But he said here this is gonna speed up the production of these green vehicles, which means these little tinfoil cars. People are going to have to be forced into those. They don't buy them of their own volition. We're seeing this with hybrids. We're seeing it with all these puddle jumpers that people have out there. The people that buy them are making a statement. It's like wearing a ribbon to say you have consciousness about AIDS or breast cancer or whatever. They buy these cars to make a statement. Most of them are not buying it for practical reasons, and the sales of hybrids and these kinds of cars are way, way down. So people are going to have to be forced into these cars. Now, will GM succeed from Obama's standpoint? Obama doesn't care a whit whether it makes a profit. Obama doesn't care a whit who loses a job. What Obama cares about is tearing the country down to size. And if he wants people in these little putt-putt mobiles and this is the only way to do it, then whatever happened today and happens in the future, General Motors is going to be a rousing success.
CALLER: Exactly. Could I say one thing, Rush?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I want to be your Official Obama Criticizer. (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: This guy has got to be the biggest disaster I ever seen. I'm automotive technician, I'm a Chrysler certified technician, I'm also Ford certified and GM. He's killing the economy for me and the people that I know. I don't see nothing that he's doing is going to fix it and I --
RUSH: Wait a minute. It's guys like you that he was going to champion.
CALLER: He's killing us. The people who were praising this guy have got to be blind. He hasn't done nothing. He ain't created one job that's sustainable, besides in the government. The private sector is dying, but still he's spending all these trillions of dollars for what?
RUSH: Okay, let me ask you a question. Do you think all this is by accident, happenstance, or is this maybe really what his agenda was all along?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Yeah, all right.
CALLER: You're a smart guy.
RUSH: You qualify as an Official Obama Criticizer. And you can call any time you want and be a criticizer. We can't hire you because you have to be a member of a union, and we don't hire union people.
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RUSH: Remember, Barack Obama said today he wants us to sacrifice for our children and our grandchildren, right? The problem is he has stolen their money. Those children and grandchildren will be born broke because of all the deficit spending of Barack Obama. He's a generational thief. He wants us to sacrifice for them.
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Now, when you tell the middle class to forgo their pursuit of the American dream, you effectively kill the US economy. The US economy is the middle class, the little guy that the Democrats have always claimed to care about, more than anybody else. And they make that point by claiming they're going to punish the rich and they're gonna tax these guys, and they allow protests at the execs' homes who ran AIG, and so the little guy thinks Obama's on their side. Meanwhile, the little guy keeps losing his job, to the tune of 600,000 jobs a month. And the little guy is supposed to be satisfied with the supposed pain that the rich people are experiencing. And every time Obama announces a fix to something he always tells us, it's going to get worse. "Unfortunately, this isn't going to make it better right away. I wish it was but it wasn't." We now know that 12 manufacturing plants, three parts suppliers shut down, 18 to 20,000 jobs lost just because of this GM decision today.
Okay, you want to hear the next hit on the middle class, the next obstacle that's going to keep you in the middle class from aspiring and reaching the American dream? It's from ThePolitico.com today: "'Barack Obama's Health Plan Takes Shape.' -- Obama and congressional Democrats are considering an overhaul that could exceed $1 trillion over 10 years --" that we do not have, "-- and spending cuts will get them only so far. That means some people will take a tax hit. The hot target at the moment: levying a tax on health benefits provided through employers, which currently aren’t subject to taxation." So The Politico's the second news organization to make this something they're officially considering after it has been long predicted by me and others that this would be a target for new tax revenue. Now, the vast majority of people in this country are the middle class, right? And the vast majority of the people who work have health insurance provided by their companies, right? That means the vast majority of the people in this country, middle class, are going to get a huge tax increase, because the value of your health plan at your job will be treated as imputed income or additional income to what you are paid.
So if it costs your employer 12 or $15,000 a year to give you a health plan, that 12 to $15,000 a year is added to your gross, and, bam, it gets taxed. So everybody, your take-home pay is going to get smaller to the tune of you getting a 12 to $15,000 raise. It will push you in another income range, too. I don't know if they're going to do it that way. They're going to have to, Snerdley. They're going to have to come up with the most important ways of raising taxes and the most varied ways they can because the Chinese are telling us, "You can't keep printing money like this, you're making our investment worthless." So Little Timmy and Pelosi are over there telling the ChiComs, "Don't worry, your investment's safe."
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| Read the Background Material... |
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| • Politico: Obama Health Plan Takes Shape • Bloomberg: Geithner to Reassure China US Will Control Deficits |
RUSH: Matt in Cabot, Arkansas, nice to have you on the program. Welcome, sir.
CALLER: Mega concealed-carry dittos O'Great Maha Rushie.
RUSH: By the way, concealed carry dittos, the permits are rising, ammo purchases, gun purchases skyrocketing in this country.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: Yes, Matt, what's up?
CALLER: Well, sir, I called this morning to tap into your infinite wisdom and help me process His Majesty's comments this morning of the doom and gloom. Going back to the magnificent one's comments last week, speaking to a group of his Hollywood groupies, did he not say that things were looking better and on an upswing?
RUSH: Well, what he said was the economy's coming back from the brink.
CALLER: And if they liked what they'd seen, "You ain't seen nothing yet"?
RUSH: That's right. "If you like what you've seen, you ain't seen nothing yet. The economy's coming back from the brink," he told a Hollywood fundraiser last Wednesday. That's exactly right, Matt. Now, you're not supposed to be that smart; you live in Arkansas. Obama thinks people like you not supposed to be able to figure out his hypocrisy. But that's right. He did say that: "We turned a corner and you ain't seen nothing yet," and then we get.. Grab sound bite 32 again, Mike -- or 31, whatever the hell it is. I've got two different sheets with two different numbers here. It's the first Obama, all right? Here, listen to this. Last Wednesday, he said he turned it around, the economy has bottomed out. It's coming off the wall or whatever he said, rebounding, and "You ain't seen nothing yet."
OBAMA: I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors, and so will many parts suppliers. But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation, a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice you are nevertheless called to make so that your children and all the -- of our children can grow up in America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future.
RUSH: It's gonna get worse. It's gonna get so bad that you have no hope. Only your children or grandchildren will have hope, and that's because you are being called on to make sacrifices for them now. Except your children and grandchildren are going to be born broke, because Obama has spent money that has yet to be even earned. By people who have yet to be born. Patricia in Trumbull, Connecticut. Hi, and welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm a couple years older than you, and I grew up being taught that you had to save money and have it before you could spend it and invest it. And I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone now, where, when I was growing up, Pravda told us the lies, and now it seems like Obama's White House press corps or press office and the websites are being run by the former types of Pravda. And now you're telling us that Pravda is telling us the truth about what's happening in the world. It's just mind-boggling that initially I called a couple of hours ago thinking I'm finally getting the picture from you. Obama is deliberately making the economic situation worse so that when it inevitably recovers somewhat, hopefully in 2010, just in time for the election, that that will help him show that he can claim credit for taking us out of the bottom. Is that it?
RUSH: Well, I... (sigh) We're going to have to define the economy "recovering." I don't know what it's going to be. See, I think for most people to think the economy is recovering, the unemployment numbers have to reference. And I don't think they're going to. All the experts are telling us that unemployment will lag, or employment will lag after the economy does turn. The real estate market has to stabilize and there has to be some indication that value is returning to assets in the real estate market. I just don't see it. People have to be unafraid to spend money or to borrow money, and I... Look, I guess it can turn around in nine months starting in 2010. Maybe a year because 2010 midterms, you know, middle of the year next year campaign starts and give it a year to turn around.
The US economy is very powerful thing but, I'll tell you what, it's taken a lot of hits. It's taking a lot of hits. Contrary to being revitalized and stimulated, it's being stomped on. It is being depressed by policies from the Democrat Party and this administration. Now, what you may be talking about is that the bulk of the stimulus money starts being spent in 2010, and people might see that as a sign that the government is finally doing something and therefore credit Obama. All of this is academic. But, you know, if they get their way -- if they get cap and trade, and if they get taxing the health care benefits as income, and they get their health care plan -- there's not going to be any economic recovery here.
The only segment that's going to be growing is going to be government and the only people that are going to be doing well are people that work for government. The private sector is not going to benefit, and I just... Here's the bottom line, folks. It's cut-to-the-chase time, okay? Okay? It can be as bad as it is now or worse a year from now, and if there is not a Republican Party running candidates opposed it, it isn't gonna matter. People can rise up all they want but unless they storm the gates -- which, you know, it doesn't happen in this country. Unless they've got alternative candidates to vote for that will vote against this stuff, you tell me. You can talk about whether Obama is going to get credit for it. You know damn well he's going to try to get the credit for it. The state-run media is going to give him credit for it. It's going to be entirely up to an organized party that voices the truth and an opposition to give people an alternative to the Democrat Party to vote for, that get enough votes.
But Obama has taken care of that, see? He's just thrown out any voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia specifically. The secretary of state in Georgia wanted to purge the voter rolls to get rid of illegally registered people and dead people, and the US justice department -- again Eric Holder -- said, "No, you cannot do it. It would be discriminatory." So illegally registered voters stay on the roles in Georgia. ACORN got five to $8 billion worth of stimulus to run out, and you know what they do. They fraudulently register people to vote. So I don't know. I mean, the news today is very depressing so I'm not going to predict the future. All I know is that whatever happens that could be portrayed as good by the state-run media, will be credited to Obama, whether he asks for it or not. That's what state-run medias do. They credit the Grand Pooh-Bah.
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RUSH: Ken in Livonia, Michigan. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush, I was calling to kind of throw a wrench into Obama's plans for nationalizing the auto industry. A group of friends of mine recently had a conversation and what came out of that conversation I think was important, because I think a lot of Americans feel the same way. And that is, we would never buy a product from any company that was being controlled by the federal government. And a lot of that had to do with our hatred for socialism --
RUSH: Now, wait a second. Obama says he's not going to run the company, except for the most fundamental decisions.
CALLER: Well, Rush, we both know that Obama is lying through his teeth.
RUSH: All right, all right, all right. So you and your buddies aren't going to buy a car from a company owned by the government?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Obama's got a plan for that, I hate to tell you.
CALLER: Well, we have a plan, too. And it's called we're going to try to vote him out of office.
RUSH: You're going to try to do what?
CALLER: Vote him out of office.
RUSH: Well, yeah. Good luck. He's in the process of stacking the deck against that option. Is there an alternative party out there?
CALLER: No, not yet.
RUSH: No, there isn't yet. There probably will be. You talk about putting a wrench in his plans, Obama is a wrench into everybody's future. You say you're not going to buy a car built by an Obama-run company, you're not going to have a choice once you get to 2016, the new CAFE standards, every company, every automobile company in the world that sells a car in this country is going to have to meet CAFE emissions standards that will in effect make every car a car you don't want.
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| Read the Background Material... |
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| • Pravda: American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper |
How many will die needlessly in these little toilets on wheels Bammy wants to build??? Seriously...any guesses?
"Well, why don't you put the menu up?" Because I'd have to put the recipes up and it's not the business I'm in. I'm not trying to deny anybody this. If you want to lose weight, trust me, I've done every diet there is, and they all work. They all work. I'll tell you what. (interruption) I'm not going to go on Oprah to talk on it. Don't make me laugh. You disturbed my train of thought in there, Dawn. I was going to say something about this, trying to recapture my train of thought here. I'll tell you the first three days of this diet, first three or four days are Atkins. You just pound as much protein and fat as you can. If you have a steak, dip it in melted butter, have lobster scampi, scallops scampi, shrimp scampi, no vegetables. No fruit. First week I lost ten pounds. That's the first three or four days of the diet is Atkins. After that, it goes to this 1500-calorie regimen. If I didn't have help doing this, I couldn't do it myself. It's a jigsaw puzzle putting it together every day, to do it right. I started March 9th. This is June 1st. So June the 9th is going to be roughly 90 days, right? Three months and I'm at 58 pounds this morning. I was at 55, it's leveled off now to about three and four pounds a week, three to four.
I do not think about food, this is real food, not boxed food. Real food. The recipes are the key. I look forward to it. I don't feel deprived. I can see eating this way the rest of my life in fact and be satisfied. Now, I'm not going out. I could but the problem with that is you can never trust the chef at a restaurant. You can tell 'em, "Please do not put any oil of any kind on the chicken breast." But restaurants are in the business of their food tasting good and they do that with fat. Fat is what makes food taste good. And even if you know the place you're still running a risk that they're telling you they won't do it -- I want seven ounces of salmon, not seven-and-a-half, not eight, I gotta trust that when it comes out of there it's seven ounces, you don't want to go in there with a scale and weigh it, besides it's precook weight that you have to measure. So I wish you could tell you, folks, but it would be a full-fledged business. "You could put the recipes on the web." No. I'm not going to turn RushLimbaugh.com into recipe central. If I wanted to do all this I could do it myself right here.
"Okay, well, then what did you have for breakfast?" I'll tell you what I had for breakfast. I had two ounces of an egg beater omelet with four ounces of fat free milk to stretch it and a quarter cup of chopped vegetables, mushrooms, green pepper. Red pepper you can't have, green pepper you can, and some tomatoes. "What did you have for lunch?" Chicken salad on one piece of low fat whole wheat bread. But the chicken salad, see, I can't tell you how to make it. All I can tell you is it's delicious. It doesn't have any mayonnaise in it. It's not the chicken salad you're thinking of. But it does have some lettuce in it; it's delicious. Dinner, twice a week I have five-and-a-half ounces of fillet, half of a baked potato, a little side dish of pasta and a quarter cup of broccoli. When I started this I got mad, I said, "I'm not going to lose weight eating this much." I couldn't believe it, but it's worked.
No exercise except golf. You cannot drink, no adult beverages. Well, probably now if I wanted to have a glass of wine once or twice a week I could do it without throwing the diet off. But when you're starting you can't. It's not the calories. Alcohol gets metabolized as pure sugar and that requires insulin, and insulin is the biggest enemy of weight loss because insulin is what's necessary to store fat. So any diet worth its salt you're going to be eating very little sugar so that you trigger as little insulin as possible because that shuts down the weight loss process, that's why alcohol is banned. And now the only alcohol diet that works is if you don't eat anything then you can drink all you want. But the minute you eat something you're dead. I don't know too many people who can just drink all day long and be functional. But that's the only alcohol diet I've ever seen that works. I could name you a couple of people that do that, but I would get sued for revealing trade secrets of famous people. So I'm not going to do that.
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| • Columbia Missourian: George Parker, Founder of National GOP Group, Dies at 86 |
I just want to say one thing because I'm getting all kinds of e-mail. "Rush! Rush! Can you believe everybody in the Republican Party's bailing out on you because you had the audacity to call her a racist?" Look, here's what he need to know about that. The Republicans are not bailing. The Republicans are content to let Newt and me carry the heavy load. They're going to go out and be "reasonable." They're not throwing anybody under the bus. But here's what you need to know about the racist comment. Nobody's denying it. All they're doing is saying, "Ooh, it's too strident. Ooh, that language is just too strident. They ought to cut back on that language."
But nobody is denying the fact that if a white guy had said the equivalent of what Sonia Sotomayor said he'd be finished. In fact, Obama wants her to be able to have a do-over, a retraction. "Weeeeell, I think if she had it to do again, if she had it to say again, she would choose her words different." Oh, so the liberals and the Democrats get a do-over. Nobody's denying what she said. That's what you need to keep in mind. She would bring a form of racism and bigotry to the United States Supreme Court. The only allowance I will make for Sonia Sotomayor is this: She is probably a result of two things, her upbringing and her education. I have no doubt that where she went to school -- from high school into college, into law school -- I'm sure she had a multicultural curriculum, and I'm sure she heard all the stuff about how rotten white guys are.
White Europeans brought all this pestilence, syphilis, environmental destruction, sexism, racism, with them when they discovered The New World. I'm sure that in that case, Ricci vs. New Haven, where she sided against the firefighters -- the white firefighters who had worked their asses off to pass the test, and the test results were thrown out because not enough blacks; I don't think any blacks passed it official to be qualified as a firefighters -- I'm sure she thought that this was justice can be it was justice, that white people need to have reverse racism and discrimination thrown at them because of all the horrors they committed. She was raised that way, she grew up that way and she was taught that. That's the only allowance I will allow.
Now, I'm not saying that it's not intrinsically part of her soul. I'm not denying that, but that's what she's been taught. That's what anybody's been taught who has attended an Ivy League school and gone to an Ivy League law school, especially a minority: a woman, an Hispanic, whatever, that's what they've been taught. So more on that as the program unfolds, but nobody's denied the charge. They're just upset that the charge has been made. By me. If they make the charge against one of us... Do you know how many times I've been called a racist, lyingly and incorrectly? I'm not a racist. Do you know how many times I've been called one? They can get away with it. They can call people racists all they want. They can call people sexist all they want.
They can call people bigots all they want. They can call people homophobes and all that stuff. And we deny their charge because their charge is wrong. They're not denying this charge. They're just saying, "Shut up! That's too harsh. We need to bring decorum to the debate." By the way, simply by saying she would bring a form of racism and bigotry to the court is not meant to take the focus away from her other lacks of competence. She brings plenty of incompetence to the court. That statement about judges making policy? Folks, do you realize if she stands by everything she said as a judge when she takes the oath of a Supreme Court justice, she will be lying? You ever stop to think of that? He's the antithesis of the oath. "Oh, now Limbaugh's called her a liar!" And nobody's gonna deny that charge, either. They're just going to say it's "harsh."
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RUSH: I just checked the e-mail: "Rush, you didn't talk about how the press is dumping all over you still on Sonia Sotomayor and you calling her a racist." Yes, I did. If you missed it in the first hour it's real simple. Everything you're reading in the press about this is not true. The Obama people understand. They're on defense on this. They got a problem. She did say something very racist. She would bring racism and bigotry to the court. Now, what they're doing, the people in the media, in the state-run media and a couple of wobbly Republicans are kind of going, "I wish Rush wouldn't use that word." But nobody's denying the charge. In fact, Obama is confirming the charge by suggesting that she would do it differently if she had a do-over, she'd say it differently if she had a do-over, but if you look at her whole comment in context and I will do this tomorrow. If you look at major parts of the speech where she said that she would rule better because of the riches of her experience as a Latina than a white guy, the whole speech is filled with things like this.
So all you need to know is that while the White House and the state-run media are trying to condemn me for this and paint me as some kind of a mean SOB, they're not denying the charge, and it's key. They're talking about a do-over. She'd say it a little bit different. No, she wouldn't. She's product of her environment. This is what she was taught. She was taught that white males destroyed this country, this continent. That's what she was taught. That's what all people are taught today, multicultural curriculum.
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Reuters: "US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong US currency. A major goal of Geithner's maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington's bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation. … 'Chinese assets are very safe,' Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s." So in a sense Little Timmy here returning home to the ChiComs. "His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience," when he said Chinese assets are very safe to students who can spot a lying capitalist when they see one -- sorry -- who can spot a lying socialist when they see one 'cause they deal with them every day. They laughed in his face. The laughter, it says here in Reuters, "reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home." Chinese students are more on the ball than Obama and his cronies. So Pelosi's gone over there and Little Timmy is over there telling the ChiComs that their dollar assets are safe.
Bloomberg has a fascinating story. It might be the line of the year, and it is from a ChiCom. Now, the US state-run media could take a lesson here. Listen to this little excerpt from the Bloomberg story: "Geithner, 47, needs to show how the U.S. can prevent the value of China’s investment from being eroded by a weaker dollar or by the inflation that might be stoked by the stimulus money being pumped into the US economy, according to Yu," a ChiCom financial expert. The ChiCom financial expert said, "It will be helpful if Geithner can show us some arithmetic." That's the line of the year. When I first saw this I laughed out loud. See, this is the difference between faith in a phony, i.e., a Marxist in messiah clothing, and reality. And that is arithmetic. Okay, the ChiComs, they understand Marxism, so they can't be fooled by a pretend Marxist like Little Timmy. So Little Timmy comes over, "Oh, your assets are safe." "Really? Show us the math on this. We see where you're spending $12 trillion that you don't have. We're seeing that you're going to have to print that, or that you're going to have to raise taxes on that. And either way you go, your population is going to have less disposable income, which means your population is going to have less buying power of the cheap stuff our country makes." This is what the ChiComs are concerned about.
In addition to their debt being worthless, we are a huge export market for them. If by printing all this money, the ChiCom guy says, show us the math, Timmy. You know, don't try to bamboozle us here with ideology; we have that down pat. So you want to tell us how $12 trillion that you don't have but you're printing or you're going to combine printing it with raising taxes on people, you're going to take money out of their pockets, Timmy, tell me how your people are going to be able to purchase our goods. Oh, your assets are safe, Timmy says, everything's fine. Let me tell you where this is going to end up. Yes, Snerdley I'm on a roll today because I've about had it. It's fine and dandy to suffer ignorance and fools for a while but everybody reaches their breaking point and the American people rolling over and applauding this little lackey when he goes driving by to go to the play, we're in the middle of a recession and this guy flaunts it, he takes three airplanes and a helicopter to New York for a date with his wife? And the people who get shoved off the FDR, the West Side Highway, whatever it was, applaud him? The theater started, the play started an hour late 'cause Obama got there an hour late, didn't care, they applauded when he walks in.
He inconveniences his own voters and they applaud him? I don't care, in the middle of a recession when you're telling everybody that they gotta sacrifice their future for their kids and grandkids and you fly in with three airplanes and a helicopter to go to dinner and a play, it's a slap in the face. People just sit around and go, yeah, yeah, man it's Obama, cool. Well, let me tell you what Obama cool is going to get us, and this is what the ChiCom financial guy was saying to Little Timmy. Little Timmy, do the math for me here, will you? Will you show me how $12 trillion that you don't have that you're going to print or taxes you're going to raise is going to help your people buy my country's products? The Chinese -- look for this as a distinct possibility -- the Chinese are going to say, "You know what, we're not going to buy your debt anymore. It's worthless. And, you know what? We're going to stop exporting to you, too. We're going to change our economic circumstances. We're going to start manufacturing products in this country for sale in this country, not for export to you 'cause our economy is rising and our people have an increasing standard of living," despite still having a two-tiered communist system with a quasi-capitalist economy.
You try that double whammy with the ChiComs refusing to buy our debt and then saying, screw you on exports, too. You don't like the lead in our toys, fine, we're not going to give you any toys, period. Then where are you going to go buy 'em? Your country is not manufacturing them anymore, where are you going to go buy your toys? Where are you going to go buy your paint? Where are you going to buy your iPhones? Do you realize they're made in China? Where you going to buy this stuff if we don't export it to you? Chinese can then say, "To hell with building your economy up. We're going to start building ours up." That's with Little Timmy and Pelosi and probably a parade of others, that's why this guy from Utah, Huntsman, was named the ambassador over there because he speaks the lingo. Because it's beg time. It's get down on our knees and beg to the ChiComs to keep buying our debt even though they know and we know the math, the arithmetic, doesn't add up.
RUSH: The one story about this that is probably the most understandable is in the New York Post today. It's by a columnist Irwin Stelzer. He's a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and the director of economic-policy studies at the Hudson Institute and he goes through the ramifications of our debt and the nervousness that the ChiComs are feeling about it.
They're nervous about how we're going to pay the debt because we're either going to devalue the dollar with inflation or we are going to raise taxes. In either case their investment suffers and our consumers have less disposable income, which means less money to buy ChiCom exports. So the Chinese are going to say, "Screw exporting. We're just going to manufacture products for sale in this country and we're going to hire people in this country to make these products," and blah, blah, blah, and screw the United States. Now they can't let our economy go totally in the tubes because of the strength of their investment. But this is deadly serious stuff. If he gets everything he wants and there's nothing stopping him, if he gets everything he wants with two terms all the way through 2016, my friends, we are going to be 11 or $12 trillion in debt by then, if not more.
Here's one more little thing to add to this. I'm going to have to take a break here, but I'll titillate you with this. "Federal Reserve Puzzled by Yield Curve Steepening." The long bond yield is increasing. The T-bill, the long T-bill, long bond, the 30-year bond, the yield, meaning the payoff to the investor is increasing. Now, you would think that's good news, right? You tell people, okay, buy bonds, buy long bonds at whatever the price is, and the yield, if you hold them to maturity, your investment is going to be better than it's been in a while. This is a problem. Remember the old days when employment numbers improving was bad news on Wall Street because they thought it meant inflation? Okay, when the yield on the long bond -- and they're puzzled why the yield on other bonds is not going up, only the long bond. I think it's the long bond. I'll check this during the break and give you the details. Anyway when the yield goes up it means the investor benefits. He's getting a bigger return. That's a problem for the Federal Reserve.
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RUSH: Here's that Reuters story. It's from yesterday. "The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the US government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank's strategy to combat the country's recession. But the Fed is not really sure what is driving the sharp rise in long-dated bond yields, and especially a widening gap between short and long term yields. Do rising US Treasury yields...?" Now, remember a yield is simply what the investor makes. Think of it as an interest rate and it's an interest rate the investor makes if he holds the bond to maturity. The yields are going up.
"Do rising US Treasury yields and a steepening yield curve suggest an economic recovery is more certain, meaning less need for safe haven government bonds and a healthy demand for credit? If so, there might be less need for the Fed to expand the money supply by buying more US Treasuries. Or does the steepening yield curve mean investors are worried about the deterioration in the US fiscal outlook, or the potential for a collapse in the US dollar as the Fed floods the world with newly minted [printed] currency as part of its quantitative easing program. This might be an argument to augment to step up asset purchases.
Another possibility is that China, the largest foreign holder of US Treasury debt, has decided to refocus its portfolio by leaning more heavily on shorter-term" bonds. So they don't even know what it means. The yields are going up. Now, normally if you invest in something and get a good return it's good news, but it might not be for the US economy. Or it might be, it might be bad for the Fed. It might be bad for Obama. It might mean the economy is coming out of it, or it might mean the exact opposite. I had to educate myself on this 'cause it made no sense to me that people would be upset that bondholders get a good return on the investment. So if you want to sell bonds with no yield, who's going to buy 'em? You know, for what point?
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Rush is looking GREAT!
He sure is!
Obama says he's not going to run the company, except for the most fundamental decisions.
Rush pointed out this most astounding double-talk by the messiah. Its construction makes it sound as if only minor decisions will be Obama's when it means just the opposite.
To go to China and beg for money and/or assets to keep us solvent?
What the hell is going on out there?!!!
the people in our Great Country NEED TO WAKE UP!,
Oh, I think they are, dear peace with honor.
On the way home this evening, my husband told me how some BHO voters that he works with were complaining about him and how he spends money.
Go, Lakers! ;-)
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