RUSH IN A HURRY -- The Waxman-Markey-Madoff Bill

H.R. 2454: The Cap & Tax Travesty
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This climate bill, I just got something and I can't look at it until the next commercial break. But I'm told here that there was a test vote this morning, the House Democrats narrowly won a test vote on ground-breaking legislation to combat global warming. This is so unnecessary, there isn't any global warming. This bill is not about climate change. It's not about improving the environment. It's not about anything but raising taxes and taking away people's freedom. Folks, we are made of carbon, and what this is is a carbon tax. Theoretically, we could be taxed because of the carbon dioxide we exhale. If they want to figure out how much that is contributing to global warming, we could be taxed on that basis. There's no limit here once you start taxing carbon. We are made of carbon. We are a carbon-based life form. What this legislation seeks to establish is that we, by virtue of our existence, are destructive polluters who have to be punished. We are polluters whether we want to be or not, because we're carbon. It is absurd. In all kinds of countries they're learning that this doesn't work. Spain, it didn't work. Australia, it didn't work.

Kimberley Strassel has a great piece at the Wall Street Journal, which I'm going to cite here in just a moment. This test vote today was 217 to 205 to send Obama and his legislation over to the full House. Thirty Democrats defected. Do you know that there was a tax for cow farts in this bill? Now, Rachel, you watched Gore's stupid movie and you bought it. I'm telling you, there was a tax on bovine flatulence. This upset a bunch of Democrat Congressmen in agricultural states. So they went in there and they removed the tax on cow farts to get the votes. This is how ridiculous it is. There are Republicans on the fence on this. There ought to be no Republicans on the fence on this. This is another one of these premises where we say: no you won't. We don't debate it. We don't say, okay, we're going to do global warming legislation. Fine, well, here's our idea. Our idea on global warming legislation is that there isn't any global warming. Sunspot activity is way, way down. I've got a NASA website series of photos to show you from 2000 to 2009 how the sun's activity has slowed down. It is cooling off all over the planet.

There is no global warming. Temperatures have not risen in the last nine years in an appreciable way and this legislation is not going to lower temperatures. It's not going to do anything they claim it's going to do. Nobody is going to have fully read this. There are over a thousand mandates, meaning limits on freedom, over 1,300 pages. Even the chairman of the committee, Henry Nostrilitis Waxman doesn't know what's all in it. It doesn't matter to him what all is in it. Yesterday I think that I heard there was something like 17,000 or 20,000 calls to Congress opposing this. It's going to take a lot more than that to stop this. Yesterday it looked like this thing is going to go down to defeat. But at like three or four this morning they offered a 300-page amendment that nobody's read. But they told the farmers, the Democrats from farm states, agriculture states, yeah, we're going to take care of you. We're going to take out some of these punitive things to get their votes. This is signature legislation and it would be very embarrassing if this goes down in defeat. They're going to have a tougher time in the Senate with it. But it would be best to shut it down in the House of Representatives today, and that's the vote, and I'm told we're going to need six to seven votes, it looks like, whereas a couple days ago it seemed to be a slam dunk. So six to seven votes on either the Republican or Democrat side to stop this.

Let me tell you something else that's happened. I read about this in a lot of different places today. What I have here is a piece from the Competitive Enterprise Institute which summarizes it pretty well. They are making public an internal study on climate science, which was suppressed by the EPA and Lisa Jackson. "Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration's agenda of regulating carbon dioxide." There's a defector, there's somebody in the EPA who put together a report: Wait a minute, temperatures are not rising. We can't prove that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. He cited evidence from around the country; he cited scientific data. By the way, the consensus on climate science that you've always heard about on global warming, it's falling apart. It's falling apart. Scientists from Australia and two or three other countries have defected from the so-called consensus. That's what this guy's report was about. They told him to shut up. They suppressed his report and they said don't you dare talk about it. They fired him. They said don't you dare talk to anybody about this.

The point is the Environmental Protection Agency, Obama Administration, they don't care about the truth in any of this. This is not about global warming. It is not about climate change. It's about nothing but taxes. It's taxing everything they can get their hands on. It's revenue generation. Obama yesterday even had the gall to call this a jobs bill. Well, I'll tell you what green jobs did to Spain. George Will wrote about it yesterday. The stimulus bill was supposed to be a jobs bill and it didn't turn out to be a jobs bill, and this is not a jobs bill. This is a jobs-killing bill. Now, I know it's a tough sell because people listening to me talk about this: Why would our government come up and do something? Folks, I know it's hard to understand that we've elected somebody who is willingly, purposely setting out to deplete the capital in the private sector, to destroy the US economy. I know it's hard to understand. Most of you don't have, most of us -- I'll include myself in this -- most of us don't have this concept of that kind of power; of wanting it, wanting to use it for our own personal fun, frolic, frivolity, whatever. We can't imagine that we have elected somebody who really doesn't like the United States as it was founded, but that's what's happened. This is exactly what we've done here.

There was a great piece, and I had it in the stack yesterday. I thought this is a little too esoteric to get into. And I may try to find it and do it again today. It is a piece in the AmericanThinker.com by a woman from Nigeria who says: Barack Obama is no different than any other African colonial. Meaning he's a despot. The British went in and colonialized all Africa. By the way, her piece tells us why -- she doesn't say this, but if you have a basic knowledge, this piece will instruct you why Obama so often disses the UK. They went in there, they colonialized Africa and they set up despotic leaders and they end up being Marxist, Mugabe and these other guys. This woman from Nigeria thinks that's exactly what we have here, an African colonial-type president who views this country in ways unlike most Americans view this country, in ways unlike most Democrats view the country. And when I read the piece yesterday, I put it together with what he's trying to do with healthcare, what he's trying to do now with this cap-and-trade climate science, all this rotgut, what she says has a lot of credence. I'll find it. I'll share it with you as the program unfolds before your very eyes today.

Kimberley Strassel, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, focuses on Australia's parliament's efforts to curb their own carbon emission scheme. They had the same thing. They tried to do what we are on the verge of doing. She writes about the Australian parliament's efforts to curb their own scheme due to many politicians' doubt in human causes of global warming. More and more Australian politicians are being convinced now that the human contribution to climate change, global warming, be it cooler or warmer, is something you can't factor. We don't have that kind of power. So as the global warming debate climate is shifting, the backlash has fallen on Australia and Europe and Japan. The consensus has broken down. The scientists and politicians in those countries are taking a second look and saying: Wait a minute, we don't see any evidence here that man's causing any of this, and we don't see any evidence that there's any warming going on.

Now, this is not being reported widely in the United States, but it's happening in Australia and Japan and Europe. It's happening there and the reason it's not being reported here is because, of course, our star is Al Gore and the United Nations. The media goes out and they smear any dissenters. After listing scientists from all over the world who are skeptical of manmade global warming, Kimberley Strassel writes this: "The collapse of the 'consensus' has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon," and they're deciding around the world they don't have the desire and it makes no sense to put even more stress on their economies to reduce carbon when there's no evidence that more carbon is harming anything, bottom line.

Our official climatologist here, Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, sent me a note last night. Let me find it in the stack here. It's about fish. They're finding that fish ears are growing because of carbon dioxide in the ocean. Remember all the horror stories that we have seen over the years about deformed frogs at birth and we have been told this is due to global warming and their ecology all out of whack. We find out that that's not the case, and the left-wing BBC is nonetheless the source: "Scientists think they have resolved one of the most controversial environmental issues of the past decade: the curious case of the missing frogs' legs. Around the world, frogs are found with missing or misshaped limbs, a striking deformity that many researchers believe is caused by chemical pollution.
However, tests on frogs and toads have revealed a more natural, benign cause. The deformed frogs are actually victims of the predatory habits of dragonfly nymphs, which eat the legs of tadpoles. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, researchers started getting reports of numerous wild frogs or toads being found with extra legs or arms, or with limbs that were partly formed or missing completely. The cause of these deformities soon became a hotly contested issue."

It had to be caused by global warming, this and that. And people said, no, no, this is happening naturally. They were debunked and then called deniers and so forth. But they have now proven that these deformed frogs are simply nature taking its course. Nothing to do with man. Nothing to do with us. The cap-and-trade bill will probably tax dragonflies once they learn about this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One thing that you need to know about this test vote that the AP, the State-Run Media is talking about all over is the test vote is designed to make you think it's all over. The test vote is designed to make you say, "Oh, it's too late now! I can't do anything about it." That's not true. This thing is still up for grabs. I've got two different lists here of Republicans and Democrats on the fence. One's from Red State and I don't know where the other one's from. But they're a little different from one another. And there are too many names here to give out. Let's go with the short list, the Republicans. Here are the last names of the Republicans on one of the list. Some of these names I don't see on both lists so we'll do the best we can here. But these are the Republicans that are on the fence about it -- and there ought to be no Republicans "on the fence."

This is nothing to do with saving anything. This is nothing to do with global warming. It is nothing to do with saving the climate or saving the planet or saving the polar bears. It is nothing to do with that. The problems that this legislation claims to address do not exist. Well, to the extent that some problems exist, they are not caused by us. Regulating our behavior, changing our behavior, limiting our freedom will not have any effect on whatever climate changes are or are not taking place out there. It's just that simple. So we can argue about this. We can debate the merits of it all day long, but just in an ideological or philosophical way, this is a no-brainer, a non-starter. It is unnecessary. It is a pure power and money grab by the same people in Washington who have been grabbing power and money since Obama was inaugurated.

Now, according to the Washington Post: Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota -- he's the agricultural committee chairman -- "said he was not sure what the offset program would look like: 'The truth is, nobody knows for sure how this is going to work.'" This is a Democrat chairman of the Ag Committee talking about cap and trade. Nobody knows how it's going to work! Nobody's read the full thing. Waxman has admitted he doesn't know what's all in it. All they know that's in it that matters to them is tax increases, limitations on liberty and freedom and Washington regulating more and more of the behavior of the American public. That's what's attractive. Here are some Republican names on the short list that I'm told are on the fence. Buchanan in Florida. Gerlach in Pennsylvania. I forgot how to pronounce this rookie's name C-a-o in Louisiana. Chow? Cho? I'm not sure how. Johnson in Illinois. Ehlers in Michigan. Kirk in Illinois. Frelinghuysen in New Jersey and Smith in New Jersey. Those are the Republicans on the short list of on the fence.

BREAK TRANSCIRPT

RUSH: I'm told the pronunciation of Mr. Cao's name, the rookie -- the guy that replaced Congressman William Jefferson (Democrat-Louisiana) -- is "cow." Regardless, some people are asking, "Is there a number on this bill, Rush?" Yes. H.R. 2454. Look, all you have to do is call your member of Congress. In fact, I'm now told there are a million and a half calls yesterday, not 17,000 to 20,000. Some of those million and a half calls yesterday were about healthcare as well, I'm sure. But regardless. H.R. 2454. The message is, "No, we won't!" It's just very simple: "No, we won't!" Obama's out there saying, "Yes, we can." The answer is, "No, you won't. No, we won't." Here's more from the Competitive Enterprise Institute analysis: The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations' 2007 'Fourth Assessment' report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those [new] developments include a continued decline in global temperatures..."

And you know by virtue of your own life global temperatures are not rising. If you live in the Northeast, you live in Chicago, you live in the upper tier of states, you know you're barely... You haven't seen summer yet and it's June 26! "Rush, you can't use this anecdotal stuff." BS! Reality is reality. Global warming is not happening. The polar ice caps are not shrinking! At any rate, "developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense..." We know that. We've had fewer hurricanes since that bad year of including Katrina. New findings are that "water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature." The point is that this old "consensus" we've all heard about for all these years, "A consensus of scientists agree global warming is appearing..."

You can have no consensus in science. It's not up for vote, it's not up for an opinion. But whatever. That consensus was so-called preferred scientist software even falling apart now. "All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations." Now, this is what the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes. That's not the point. "EPA should independently..." The science is irrelevant to the EPA! They don't want to analyze the science. It's not that they're accepting science from outside sources; they're accepting a political conclusion from outside sources. This whole issue is nothing but politics and it has been nothing but politics since I first heard of it in 1980. Back in 1984 -- I've told you the story -- I was watching This Week with David Brinkley and there was some global warming alarmist on named Oppenheimer. "We've got 20 years, George!" he said to George Will.

"We've got 20 years. If we don't get in gear fast the oceans are going to rise." Twenty years? Well, 20 years was 2004. It's 2009 and everything's hunky-dory. All of this is just absurd. The EPA is not relying on science. Everything that Barack Obama has taken control of is pure politics. It is purely political, 100%. So to ask the EPA to look at different science? They just suppressed an internal report from one of their own employees. It says, "What you guys are doing is wrong. They said shut up. Don't tell anybody about this," and they fired the guy. "Shut up. You're not going to get out there." Anything that contradicts the political desire -- and the political desire here is power, control, regulation of human behavior, the weakening of the US economy all for the benefit of the creation of more power for Obama and his minions. So, it's down-to-the-wire time on all this. And again here's the short list of Republican Congressmen and women who are on the fence on this the legislation H.R. 2454.

Buchanan in Florida. Gerlach in Pennsylvania. Cao in Louisiana. Johnson in Illinois. Ehlers in Michigan. Kirk in Illinois. Frelinghuysen in New Jersey. Smith in New Jersey. Now, there's a lot of Democrats on the fence, way too many to name here. Heath Shuler from North Carolina is one. But he's not on both lists. Here's the short list of Democrats. Altmire from Pennsylvania. Bright from Alabama. Dahlkemper from Pennsylvania, Driehaus from Ohio. Ellsworth from Indiana. Kissell, North Carolina. Kratovil, Maryland. Paul Kanjorski, Pennsylvania. Minnick in Idaho. And Teague from New Mexico. That's the short list of Democrats apparently on the fence. That test vote you're hearing about, if you have heard about it, it was 217 to whatever it is. They need 218 to pass this. That's the majority. The test vote's designed to make it look like they've got it and to dispirit people from opposing it. That's not the case.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know they call this the Waxman-Markey bill but they should call it the Madoff-Waxman-Markey bill. Put Madoff's name in this bill because this bill is a con game. It promises what it cannot deliver.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Heritage Foundation: The Economic Impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill
• Wall Street Journal: The Climate Change Climate Change - Kimberley Strassel
• CBS: Will Congress Read Bills Before Voting?
• American Thinker: A Lame Liberal Media Response to a Lame EPA Response to Cover-up Allegations
• Seattle Times: Spain's Experience With the 'Green' Economy: Save the Planet, Lose Some Jobs - George Will
• Washington Examiner: 'Green Jobs' Studies Contain Fundamental Flaws, Think Tank Experts Say
• BBC: Legless Frogs Mystery Solved
• Sweetness & Light: Biggest Tax Increase In US History
• Investor's Business Daily: Waxman-Markey: Man-Made Disaster
• Investor's Business Daily: How Unions Define Environmentalism
• HotAir: Cap and Trade Vote Today, Complete with AP Apin; 300-Page, Last-Minute Amendment
• Science Daily: High Carbon Dioxide Levels Cause Abnormally Large Fish Ear Bones

Barack Obama Seeks to Turn America into a Third World Country
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: "Obama, the African Colonial" This is by L.E. Ikenga. This is LE Ikenga. She is a first-generation American, and she absorbed the African culture from her parents. This is a special piece, and I'm going to read most of it to you here. It's at the AmericanThinker.com. "Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa. Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror," the UK, and that means that Barack Obama, Jr. is likewise enraged and we see it in the way he frequently disrespects the UK.

"But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign 'isms', instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas." May I translate this for you? This is L.E. Ikenga, a first-generation American, but she absorbed the African culture from her parents. The Brits go in and colonize Africa. Africans get enraged about it in trying to resist it, and then when the Brits leave, rather than trying to reform their country back to their own cultural roots, people like Barack Obama, Sr. turn to Marxism rather than their own roots to rebuild nations that were once colonized by the UK.

This is how we get Nigeria. This is how we get Mugabe and Zimbabwe (which used to be Rhodesia), and this is what Barack Obama, Sr. became: an African colonial. "Before I continue," she writes, "I need to say this: I am a first generation born West African-American woman whose parents emigrated to the US in the 1970's from the country now called Nigeria. I travel to Nigeria frequently. I see myself as both a proud American and as a proud Igbo ... Politically, I have always been conservative (though it took this past election for me to commit to this once and for all!); my conservative values come from my Igbo heritage and my place of birth. Of course, none of this qualifies me to say what I am about to -- but at the same time it does.

My friends, despite what CNN and the rest are telling you, Barack Obama is nothing more than an old school African Colonial who is on his way to turning this country into one of the developing nations that you learn about on the National Geographic Channel," meaning he wants to turn this into a Third World country. And when you look at cap and trade, when you look at the stimulus, when you look at the healthcare proposals he's got, I mean the only way to turn this into a Third World nation -- if that's possible, but the only way to try to do it, the only way to try to do this -- is to just attack the private sector and deplete it of its resources, of its money and capital, which is exactly what he's doing.

"Many conservative (East, West, South, North) African-Americans like myself -- those of us who know our history -- have seen this movie before. Here are two main reasons why many Americans allowed Obama to slip through the cracks despite all of his glaring inconsistencies: First, Obama has been living on American soil for most of his adult life. Therefore, he has been able to masquerade as one who understands and believes in American democratic ideals. But he does not. Barack Obama is intrinsically undemocratic and as his presidency plays out, this will become more obvious." Well, it's already obvious to us. All these czars that have no accountability to legislative forces? They are not approved by Congress like cabinet secretaries are. He's announced 13 or 14 czars. He's running the car companies. He's running the mortgage and banking business. He's done this without the process of Democratic legislation.

He's just declared it fiat, and his party is in power in the House so they're letting him do this. "Second, and most importantly," she writes, "too many Americans know very little about Africa. The one-size-fits-all understanding that many Americans (both black and white) continue to have of Africa might end up bringing dire consequences for this country. Contrary to the way it continues to be portrayed in mainstream Western culture, Africa is not a continent that can be solely defined by AIDS, ethnic rivalries, poverty and safaris. Africa, like any other continent, has an immense history defined by much diversity and complexity. Africa's long-standing relationship with Europe speaks especially to some of these complexities -- particularly the relationship that has existed between the two continents over the past two centuries. Europe's complete colonization of Africa during the nineteenth century, also known as the Scramble for Africa, produced many unfortunate consequences, the African colonial being one of them."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to continue reading here from L.E. Ikenga: "Obama, the African Colonial," from the AmericanThinker.com: "The African colonial (AC) is a person who by means of their birth or lineage has a direct connection with Africa. However, unlike Africans like me, their worldviews have been largely shaped not by the indigenous beliefs of a specific African tribe but by the ideals of the European imperialism that overwhelmed and dominated Africa during the colonial period. AC's have no real regard for their specific African traditions or histories. AC's use aspects of their African culture as one would use pieces of costume jewelry: things of little or no value that can be thoughtlessly discarded when they become a negative distraction, or used on a whim to decorate oneself in order to seem exotic. (Hint: Obama's Muslim heritage)," is one of these examples.

"On the other hand, AC's strive to be the best at the culture that they inherited from Europe. Throughout the West, they are tops in their professions as lawyers, doctors, engineers, Ivy League professors and business moguls; this is all well and good. It's when they decide to engage us as politicians that things become messy and convoluted. The African colonial politician (ACP) feigns repulsion towards the hegemonic paradigms of Western civilization. But at the same time, he is completely enamored of the trappings of its aristocracy or elite culture." She's pegging Obama here, just pegging him. He's totally caught up in the trappings of aristocracy or elite culture, taking the plane up to New York, flying the kids over to Paris. This is the stuff about the job he loves, he's enamored of it.

"The ACP blames and caricatures whitey to no end for all that has gone wrong in the world. He convinces the masses that various forms of African socialism are the best way for redressing the problems that European colonialism motivated in Africa. However, as opposed to really being a hard-core African Leftist who actually believes in something, the ACP uses socialist themes as a way to disguise his true ambitions: a complete power grab whereby the 'will of the people' becomes completely irrelevant. Barack Obama is all of the above. The only difference is that he is here playing (colonial) African politics as usual. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father -- an eloquent piece of political propaganda -- Obama styles himself as a misunderstood intellectual who is deeply affected by the sufferings of black people, especially in America and Africa. In the book, Obama clearly sees himself as an African, not as a black American. And to prove this, he goes on a quest to understand his Kenyan roots. He is extremely thoughtful of his deceased father's legacy; this provides the main clue for understanding Barack Obama.

"Here are a few examples of what the British did in order to create (in 1914) what is now called Nigeria and what Obama is doing to you: One: Convince the people that 'clinging' to any aspect of their cultural (tribal) identity or history is bad and regresses the process of 'unity.' Two: Confiscate the wealth and resources of the area that you govern by any means necessary in order to redistribute wealth. Three: Convince the masses that your upper-crust university education naturally puts you on an intellectual plane from which to understand everything even when you understand nothing." Pegs Obama to a T. "Four: Lie to the people and tell them that progress is being made even though things are clearly becoming worse." Pegs Obama to a T. This woman from Africa, first-generation American, identifying what an African colonial is: the despot leaders that take over these countries and how they do it. And she's defining Barack Obama. Lie to the people. Tell them that progress is being made even though things are clearly becoming worse.

"Five: Use every available media outlet to perpetuate the belief that you and your followers are the enlightened ones and that those who refuse to support you are just barbaric, uncivilized, ignorant curmudgeons." Well, that speaks for itself, too. She concludes: "America, don't be fooled. The Igbos were once made up of a confederacy of clans that ascribed to various forms of democratic government. They took their eyes off the ball and before they knew it, the British were upon them. Also, understand this: the African colonial who is given too much political power can only become one thing: a despot."

I share all this with you because she's nailed who the guy is. Americans look at Obama, first black president, and they go, "Oh we're shedding some of our guilt here. Look at how enlightened we are, what a great country we are," when in fact we've elected somebody who is more African in his roots than he is American. Loves his father who was a Marxist, and is behaving like an African colonial despot and you can see it in his healthcare legislation, the stimulus bill, taking over automobile companies, the czars that he has that are not accountable to anybody but him and now the climate bill. All of this is about nothing other than the acquisition of power and the ability to further regulate your privacy and behavior.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• American Thinker: Obama, the African Colonial - L.E. Ikenga

Dems on Fence Gripped By Fear
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is from RedState.com. Congressman Perriello from Virginia, his office told a caller that the Congressman wants there to be enough votes to pass cap and trade so he can vote no on it. Now, let me explain this to you. He wants his Democrat leadership to be happy at the end of the vote, but he wants to vote no on this 'cause he knows his constituents don't want it. So he wants cover. And he ended up, according to redstate, deciding to vote yes on the bill according to his office just now.

Now, the State-Run Media, NBC, is a little concerned over what's happening up there on this. Mere moments ago on Andrea Mitchell NBC News Reports show, she talked with their Capitol Hill reporter, Mike Vicara, the State-Run Media. Her question: "Harry Reid says it (2454) doesn't have any prospect of passage in the Senate--" By the way, the Senate just adjourned without doing anything on health care. They adjourned for the July 4th recess. They're out of there. I think I saw that on the screen. I looked at it quickly. And health care's in limbo. But Andrea Mitchell's quoting dingy Harry saying this cap-and-trade bill doesn't have any prospect of passing the Senate, "So why force these Democrats to take a vote like this when it isn't going any place?"

VIQUERA: Let's take, for example, a chairman, Nick Rahall, Chairman of the Resources Committee from West Virginia, a coal-producing state, it's not popular there. He's voting against Democratic leadership this morning on procedural votes. That is a heresy. And so the people that are on the fence, a lot of freshman from moderate districts look at something like that and say, "Why should I walk the plank and vote for this when the prospects of the Senate are unclear and more senior Democrats aren't even voting for it?" So it's a very, very heavy lift for Democratic leadership in the house

RUSH: It must be. If the State-run Media is reporting it this way, it must be. Normally State-Run Media, oh, slam dunk, they'd be trying to dispirit everybody and make it look like this thing was going to happen. This is a real test for Pelosi, because if it isn't going anywhere in the Senate the question is a good one, "Why make these Democrats vote for this?" And the answer from Pelosi is: "Because I said so and I must be supported. I'm your leader." She's been threatening some of these rookies. She's been threatening some of the freshmen with no re-election campaign money from the campaign committee, finding opponents to run against them so forth, all kinds of things. They've really had to pay off some of the agriculture states. For example, Peterson, the chairman that we talked about earlier of the agricultural committee, he said back on May 6th: I will not support any kind of climate change bill even if you fix this because I don't trust anybody anymore. I've had it. But now he supports it.

They bought him off. He was chairman of the agricultural committee in the House who was leading the opposition to the bill. He's from the most rural part of Minnesota. He's a leading blue dog Democrat. They bought him off. I don't know how. I don't know what they bought him off with. But a who guy was dead set against it back on May 6th has been turned, but other Democrats aren't. Some of these freshmen are saying, "Why the hell should I if it's not going anywhere?" This is a classic illustration of to whom do they answer, you, the voters, or Nancy Pelosi. And there's fear of both. I'll guarantee you something. A lot of members of Congress who vote for this thing regardless of where it goes have seen their last days in Congress in front of them. They're going to lose. The vast majority of them are going to lose re-election. And I'll tell you, James Carville sent a fundraising letter out from maybe the DNC or maybe the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, I don't remember which, but he's warning Democrats: You know what, we have the identical set of circumstances that we had in 1994 coming up in 2010. We had young, popular president and all of a sudden we woke up on election day in '94 and they picked up 56 seats in the House and eight or nine in the Senate and we were cooked. The same set of circumstances exist, he said.

They're worried about this. They're using it as a fundraising thing. And I do believe they're worried about it. I think that deep in the bowels of this party -- and you've got to go deep in the bowels to find these people -- there are a couple of them, "This is just outrageous," but they don't dare publicly walk away from their president and some of this stuff, but they look at this and this is not what they want. They don't want a future for their kids like this either. They're worried about this and I don't think the circumstances in 2010 are going to be identical to '94 because in '94 there was a bunch of corruption that people learned about, the House bank, the House post office, and a couple of other things. The corruption that we have is still like that, but it's not as present because the State-Run Media doesn't report Democrat corruption. Charlie Rangel, folks, ought to not be in the House anymore. They've just extended the investigation, the ethics committee. He's out there charging racism over this.

A Republican would have been gone after one allegation of what Rangel did. He has homes and apartments that there's no way he can support or own on a congressional salary, for example. But, anyway, Carville points out in his letter: Look, the Republicans don't need eight or nine in the Senate. They just need one or two and they can totally block anything that's going to happen. So they are worried about that. I'll guarantee you that there's some people, Republicans and Democrats alike, who know full well. I'll tell you what's happening here on this bill on Capitol Hill is identical to what happened on amnesty. They're getting flooded, overwhelmed. The phone lines are busy, e-mail accounts are full, blocked out. You can't get in. They know how you feel about this. It's just that some of them don't care how you feel on this. And those are the ones who are going to pay the consequences.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. We need to make a correction. Congressman Goodlatte's office called us. He's voting no. He has always said he's voting no. And he doesn't understand how somebody in his office told a caller that they were undecided. Because he's voting no and they were always voting no. So there. I'm glad to get that straight.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: From two sources on Capitol Hill I'm hearing -- and I fairly trust these people; they've been fairly accurate in the past -- that the Democrats right now are 12 votes short with 17 undecided. So there's 17 Democrats undecided. They need 12 of that 17. Those are not good odds, but it's not over. Trouble is brewing for them on this. This is no time to relax the pressure on this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: From the National Review Online, the Corner, which is the name of their blog, a post by Steve Hayward: "Word flying around D.C. as of 1:30 is that Waxman-Markey is being pulled..." Now, I haven't heard that it has been. This is just "word flying around." This might suggest "Pelosi doesn't have the votes. It may be they need a little more time to buy off one or two more people, or possibly they simply can't get enough committed votes," because all these people are running around saying they'll vote yes as necessary, but they've got to deal for cover with a no vote because they know what their constituents want. So that would complicate the ability of the whip to get an accurate count of how many Democratic votes there actually are. My two sources say that there are 12 votes short with 17 undecided. That would mean they would need 12 of 17 votes today, which is a pretty high percentage.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• RedState: You Are Only as Powerful as Your Vote and Your Voice
• Heritage Foundation: The Economic Impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill
• National Review: Cap and Trade Being Pulled? -Steve Hayward

There Is No Global Warming!
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's see. Yeah, here's another one. Get this. What is this from? It's the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It's their website, Cleveland.com. Here's the headline: "Tree Owners Could Reap Climate Bill Windfall -- For years, landowners have gotten paid for not farming. Now they may get paid for not cutting down trees. While U.S. families could see their annual energy bills rise hundreds of dollars under a massive climate bill that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to push through the House, owners of large swaths of forestland — timber companies, large farms, even foreign countries — could reap billions of dollars. The bill is aimed at curbing the gases, largely carbon dioxide from power plants and vehicles, blamed for global warming." I'm getting to the bursting point on this. There isn't any global warming! Since 2001 temperatures have flat-lined. There isn't any global warming!

Anyway, the new bill "would allow polluters to buy credits from owners of forestland as an alternative to switching to fuels other than coal and gas or installing expensive equipment to capture the greenhouse gases. The land owners would get the credits because trees suck up greenhouse gases, preventing them from reaching the atmosphere and acting like a blanket to warm the Earth." This is already a hoax going on out there. Arnold Schwarzenegger flies back and forth from LA to Sacramento every day in his own jet to work, and they say, "What about your carbon footprint?" (Arnold impression) "No! No carbon footprint. I am planting trees," or he's giving money to companies that say they're planting trees. This is so absurd. (sigh) I don't know about you, but I'm just losing patience every day with the insult to my intelligence.

It insults me to have to spend time on this rot gut so people who own forests, if they don't cut down the trees they're going to reap a windfall because their trees are going to soak up all the carbon dioxide that's not causing global warming. "'In effect, the public is going to pay polluters to plant trees,' says Frank O'Donnell of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch. 'Does that really lead to a major improvement in global warming? I don't know and I'm not sure anybody knows.'" He's exactly right. It's called water vapor, folks. Do you know the number one source of carbon dioxide greenhouse gasses is water vapor? It's something like 94, 95%. Water vapor! Now, I don't think anybody in this bill has figured out a way to drain the oceans. If there is a way to drain the oceans I don't know where the drain is. Where do you pull the plug to drain the oceans? (sigh) Some days. Some days. Some days.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have a friend, folks -- funny little note here -- I have a friend who owns one of those Maybachs. These are the Mercedes version of the Rolls-Royce line. He's six-six, weighs 270 pounds, so he likes a big car. It probably gets two miles to the gallon in the city and eight on the highway. I'm exaggerating there. It's like 10 and 18 or some such thing. I don't know what it is. Anyway, he said that if he's forced out of his Maybach and he has to go buy one of the bubble cars, it's going to take two, one for each foot, because he simply will not be able to fit in one of these new Obama mobiles. Either that -- (interruption) who is losing money? The Tata? The Tata, the Indian car from the country of India, the Tata? I have not heard of the Tata motorcar. I did see where the Obama people are going to fund this Tesla. I had that yesterday, $400 million bail them out or do something, Tesla. I don't even know what the Tesla is.

All right, look, folks, a couple things here. I referenced this earlier, and I want to share the data with you here from the exact source. This is Cybercast News Service: "The stimulus law enacted in February promoted the purchase of plug-in electric cars by the federal government and the broader market, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month says that the use of plug-in electric vehicles will not by itself decrease greenhouse gas emissions. To do that, the report argues, the United States would have to switch from coal-burning plants to lower-emission sources to generate electricity such as nuclear power." The putt-putt little electrical cars will do nothing to help emissions. I don't want to hurt the feelings of any of you people driving hybrids out there, but if you're driving a hybrid to save the planet you have been snookered. If you drive it because you like it and you want it and you think you get better gas mileage, fine and dandy, no complaints.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Cleveland Plain Dealer: Tree Owners Could Reap Climate Bill Windfall • Cybercast News Service: Electric Cars Will Not Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says Federal Study

Waxman-Markey-Madoff Directly Redistributes Wealth to the "Poor"
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Apparently the Capital switchboard and individual members' telephone lines are being inundated. You can't get through. E-mail boxes are full. Voicemail messages are full. People are not answering the phones. Busy signals. Don't let that deter you. Keep trying. The Waxman-Markey bill is a disaster. It's not about saving the planet. It's not about saving the climate. It's not about anything, folks, other than raising taxes and redistributing wealth. The Heritage Foundation, www.AskHeritage.org, has put together a fabulous analysis of this bill and they have summarized it in a great, understandable way. I found it because I'm a member at AskHeritage.org. It costs only 25 bucks. You can spend more if you want to if you like the cause and want to donate to it. But AskHeritage.org is a single site, a single resource -- other than me. I realize a lot of you use me as your primary resource, and that's fine. The Heritage Foundation is just a superb place as well.

"Later today, the House of Representatives is slated to vote on the most convoluted attempt at economic central-planning this nation has ever attempted: cap and trade. The 1,200-plus page Waxman-Markey climate change legislation is nothing more than an energy tax in disguise that by 2035..." Think your children, and this is independent of any other market forces that are going to affect the prices of these items as a mental list here. This bill alone will raise gasoline prices by 58 percent by 2035. This bill alone, in addition to whatever increases there are in gasoline between now and then, this bill will raise natural gas prices by 55 percent by 2035. It will raise home heating oil prices by 56 percent, and electricity prices by 90 percent.

Your electricity bill, by 2035, is going to go up by 90 percent. If we didn't do this bill, I guarantee you your bill is not going to go up 90 percent between now and 2035. "Although proponents of the bill are pointing to grossly underestimated and incorrect costs, the reality is when all the tax impacts have been added up, the average per-family-of-four costs rise by $2,979 per year. In the year 2035 alone, the cost is $4,609," for a family of four, additional taxes on energy. Energy, of course, is how we move, how we get around, how we heat our homes, cool them, run our refrigerators. Basically energy is one of the building blocks of our advancing lifestyle. "And the costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035 are $71,493." In other words, the bill's slated to go into effect 2012, and if you add up all of these costs for a family of four from 2012 to 2035, you've got to come up with $71,493 that you otherwise wouldn't have to.

"But on second thought, cap and trade is much more than that. It kills jobs." The Heritage people have analyzed this. "Over the 2012-2035 timeline, job losses average over 1.1 million. By 2035, a projected 2.5 million jobs are lost below the baseline (without a cap and trade bill). Particularly hard-hit are sectors of the economy that are very energy-intensive: Manufacturers, farmers, construction, machinery, electrical equipment and appliances, transportation, textiles, paper products, chemicals, plastics and rubbers and retail trade would face staggering employment losses as a result of Waxman-Markey," this bill. "It's worth noting the job losses come after accounting for the green jobs policymakers are so adamant about creating. But don't worry, because the architects of the bill built in unemployment insurance," too.

You want to hear how that works? They know that the bill is going to cream you! Listen to this. Section 432, Energy Refund Program For Low Income Consumers: "(1) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, or the agency designated by the Administrator shall formulate and administer the 'Energy Refund Program'. (2) At the request of the State agency, eligible low-income households within the State shall receive a monthly cash energy refund equal to the estimated loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act." Now, this is just for the poor. Pay attention. This is a part where the poor get direct deposit transfers of your money. They know your "purchasing power" will be lost resulting from this act! I'm reading from the act.

Let me read this again: "(1) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, or the agency designated by the Administrator shall formulate and administer the 'Energy Refund Program'. (2) At the request of the State agency, eligible low-income households within the State shall receive a monthly cash energy refund equal to the estimated loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act." They intend to raise prices on energy. They intend to make you use less of it. They intend for you to be less mobile. They intend for you to be less comfortable. They intend for you to have less disposable income. Disposable income is liberty! Disposable income is freedom. They intend for you to have less of it. What's an "eligible household"?

Well... "Participation in the Energy Refund Program shall be limited to a household that (B) has gross income that does not exceed 150 percent of the poverty line. ... (c) Monthly Energy Refund Amount -- "(1) Subject to standards and an implementation schedule set by the Administrator, the energy refund shall be provided in monthly installments via -- (A) direct deposit into the eligible household's designated bank account." Barack Obama and the Democrat Party intend to just "direct deposit" your money into the bank accounts of the poor because of their "loss of purchasing power" due to the passage of this act. Your loss of purchasing power is not going to be compensated. In addition to paying these new taxes, you are also going to be redistributing or have redistributed your wealth to the poor.

It's straight out of Barack Obama. This is who he is, what he wants to do. This is a redistribution scheme. This is an attack on achievers. It's an attack on wealth disguised as something to get to your heart by convincing you that voting for this, supporting this is somehow going to save Woody Woodpecker, Peter Polar Bear, Flipper and deformed frogs. Not to mention your own child's climate. They don't even have the guts to call this a carbon tax. So much for transparency! So much for liberal straight talk. It's a carbon tax. They're taxing carbon. We're a carbon-based life form. We inhale carbon dioxide. This bill says that we are polluters by virtue of breathing, which we have no choice about, by the way. We can't stop, as long as we're alive. They could tax us on that basis. It just is absurd. They ought to call this Waxman-Markey-Madoff, because it's a con game. It promises what it cannot deliver.

It cannot change the climate and it certainly is not going to bring about more jobs. He called it a "jobs bill" yesterday. Mr. President, tell us how many. How many jobs is this going to cost us? Now, you rattle off all these new jobs, but how about the existing jobs that we're going to lose? How many more jobs will be lost than the jobs created? George Will yesterday: "The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the US president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating 'green jobs' in 'alternative energy' even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of spending on such jobs?" The Spaniards have tried it. They've got 18.1% unemployment. The Australians tried it; they're seeing the light. The Japanese are seeing the light. Spanish professor: Why is Obama doing this when he can see it hasn't created any jobs. The net job action is a loss, and he's not going to tell us how many jobs are lost.

"Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report that, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it." The professor "says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and" these jobs, in order to be created "have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies..." In other words, that's how much it costs to create a job so you can go out and say, "Heyyyy, look at the job we created!" This is what it costs per job in Spain: 800 grand.

"[W]ind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation ... of capital," of money. Deplete the private sector, existing energy sources. Turn it over to these new inventors. You lose jobs when you take money from existing private sector businesses. There is no market, there is no technology yet to do wind and support ourselves. So you have to subsidize these businesses and hire these people, and in Spain it costs $1.4 million to hire new employees. It's total insanity, and that's why this Spanish professor cannot understand why Obama's going through with this.

"(European media regularly report 'eco-corruption' leaving a 'footprint of sleaze' -- gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.)," but Professor "Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs elsewhere in Spain's economy" -- elsewhere. So all these new jobs -- these new green jobs and all the costs to get them, produce them -- has lost 110,000 jobs elsewhere in Spain's economy and that's why they are at 18.1 percent. "The president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the report's contention that the political diversion of capital into green jobs has cost Spain jobs. The White House transcript contained this exchange: Gibbs: 'It seems weird that we're importing wind turbine parts from Spain in order to build -- to meet renewable energy demand here if that were even remotely the case.' Questioner: 'Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?' Gibbs: 'I haven't read the study, but I think, yes.' Questioner: 'Well, then. (laughter.)'

"Actually, what is weird is this idea: A sobering report about Spain's experience must be false because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the US government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project." The administration wants you to think that what's happening in Spain is simply an aberration, it isn't true, and we can go ahead and import ideas from Spain. "Windmills are iconic in the land of Don Quixote, whose tilting at them became emblematic of comic futility. Spain's new windmills are neither amusing nor emblematic of policies America should emulate. The cheerful and evidently unshakable confidence in such magical solutions to postulated problems is yet another manifestation -- Republicans are not immune:

"No Child Left Behind decrees that by 2014 all American students will be proficient in math and reading -- of what the late senator Pat Moynihan called 'the leakage of reality from American life.'" There is no reality in this. The reality is out there for us to see around the world. We're ignoring it. That's what's at stake with this legislation. And I know it's hard for a lot of people to believe that their fellow citizens, elected officials would do something this destructive. If you don't understand modern-day, left-wing, statist-oriented Democratic Party, if you don't understand -- and you can't. I mean, I don't. I can't relate to having the desire, that much power to control people's lives, to limit other people's freedom. I can't relate to it. I understand it through history. I understand it's horrible.

I don't want somebody having that kind of power over me. A lot of people can't understand that there are actually Americans, a significant number of them in electoral power, that have that desire. Well, they do, and the evidence is all around you in just the first six months of this administration. All you've got to do is open up your eyes and admit it. It's as plain as day. You can stay in denial as long as you want, and as long as you stay in denial the more disposable income you're going to lose and the more of your hard work and income produced from it is going to be transferred to somebody else who doesn't deserve it...and for what? How does that benefit you or somebody else? How does it benefit the US economy? It doesn't. It destroys it. President Obama, "Yes, we can!"

No, you won't.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Heritage Foundation: The Economic Impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill • Wall Street Journal: The Climate Change Climate Change - Kimberley Strassel • CBS: Will Congress Read Bills Before Voting? • Seattle Times: Spain's Experience With the 'Green' Economy: Save the Planet, Lose Some Jobs - George Will • Washington Examiner: 'Green Jobs' Studies Contain Fundamental Flaws, Think Tank Experts Say • Sweetness & Light: Biggest Tax Increase In US History • Investor's Business Daily: Waxman-Markey: Man-Made Disaster • HotAir: Cap and Trade Vote Today, Complete with AP Spin; 300-Page, Last-Minute Amendment

Amendment Creates Manhattan Project Prizes for Green Inventions
June 26, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Frank in New York City, thank you for waiting, sir. You're next on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh, it's a pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Quick response. I was listening to Fox and Friends this morning between 8:15 and 8:45, and they had an interview with Mr. Steny Hoyer who said that he was voting for the cap and trade. He said it's a good thing but that it's not a tax and that it would only cost the people $174 per year. Now, if that's not a tax, why would it cost $174. Obviously, it's a tax of some type, right?

RUSH: Well, depends on how you define tax. I would say that legislation that raises the cost of living, it's a tax on whatever, but it's still bad. That number $174 is so low and so untrue that he's making it up.

CALLER: I think so, too. But then he went through the wind and the solar and all this. But wind and solar only account for like 7 percent. What is the alternative energy?

RUSH: There is no wind and solar!

CALLER: I know.

RUSH: There isn't any! It doesn't work! Look, one of the things they've done in this bill -- I've got to find this in this stack -- but one of the things that they have done is offer all kinds of incentives to inventors to get going on this. Let me take a commercial break and find this. This is going to be another one of these things I think I put in a stack -- ah, I found it. Here it is. Listen to this. They had an early morning amendment today, 300 pages added to the cap-and-trade bill. And one of the things they added in this creates a New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence. The project calls on the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years and 100 percent energy independence in 20 years, and "will award competitive prizes to the first individual or group who can reach any of seven established energy goals." Here they are: "Double CAFE standards to 70 MPG while keeping vehicles affordable." If somebody can do that in 10 to 20 years, they'll get a prize.

Now, wait. I want you to stick with me on this. Seventy mile per gallon CAFE standard. Anybody who can come up with a way "to cut home and business energy usage in half" will get a prize. I could do that. You know how I could do that? I could do it right now. If I were a member of Congress, or if I were Obama, I'd just have my energy czar order every electrical power plant to cut power to every home to 20 percent of the day. Voila. I have cut home and business energy use in half. Number three: "Make solar power work at the same cost as coal." My friends, we are in Neverland here. We're in dreamland. Here's number four: "Make the production of biofuels cost-competitive with gasoline. Five: Safely and cheaply store carbon emissions from coal-powered plants. Six: Safely store or neutralize nuclear waste. Seven: Produce usable electricity from a nuclear fusion reaction." If a group or individual can do any of those things in 10 or 20 years, then they will be awarded some sort of a prize.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We are back. I love this. Actually, folks, this is a teachable moment. So in the amendment to cap and trade, they have offered some incentives. They call it here "the New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence." Do you know what the Manhattan Project was? Rachel? Let me do a little... Brian, do you know what the Manhattan Project was? There's no wrong answer. (interruption) I'm trying to illustrate a point. (interruption) You don't know what it was. Rachel, do you know what it was? Snerdley, do you know what the Manhattan Project was? (interruption) Snerdley does. (interruption) Fascinating. I've got two people here who went to the public school system. This is not their fault. They don't know what it is. It was not a movie. They don't know. The Manhattan Project was our all-out effort to create and invent the nuclear bomb. We knew we could do it. Now, this is key: We knew we could do it.

Price was no object. Money was no object. We knew we could do it. We know that there are nuclear explosions. The sun is an example. We knew it could be done, so we put our best minds on it and we did it. That's what they want to replicate here in energy. But here are the differences. Let's take the first one. They're going to award a prize to somebody or some organization who in 10 to 20 years can invent a way to double CAFE standards to 70 miles per gallon while keeping vehicles affordable. The very fact that they have to offer a prize is evidence we are nowhere near this! The market does these things. Government does not decree inventions. Individuals invent, using ambition, their talents, their freedom, their liberty, their passion. Nobody told Thomas Edison: "We're going to give you a million bucks if you invent the light bulb." Nobody told the Wright Brothers: "We're going to make you rich if you find a way for us to fly."

They wanted to do it themselves. Energy is something that everybody needs. There is a huge profit potential in the energy business. We all know this, because everybody needs it. I'm talking market economics. You need gasoline. You need electricity. There's a profit for the people who provide it. Ergo, if there were a profit in solar power, we would have it! If there were a profit in windmill power, we would have it. If there were profit in a putt-putt car that got 70 miles a gallon, we would have it. Don't believe all these conspiracy theories that the oil companies work with the car companies to keep gas mileage down. Propulsion. Energy "expension" has amazing costs to it. Right now there's nothing that compares to oil and natural gas and coal. Nothing! Like I said yesterday: Why are we using coal-fired power plants?

Because it's the cheapest that we have found! It's the most efficient that we have found. We don't have to harness the energy. It's in the coal. All we've got to do is go get the coal. Ditto, oil. All we've got to do is go get it and refine it. But we're going to... "But, Rush, the sun has lots of energy out there." Yeah, but we don't know how to harness it yet. There's no way. Wind? Give me a break. Green technologies? By the way, these little putt-putt electric cars are not going to save anybody any emissions. There's already huge profit potential. Don't you think if any viable energy technologies were out there they would already be employed if they really did work? The people that are engaged in windmills and so forth are simply doing it because they're being paid by the government. General Electric? You wonder why they go "green" every other day on MSNBC. Because they're getting grants to explore and experiment in this stuff! They're not doing it on their own. There's no profit in it. We're not there.

So the very fact that this horrible, rotten, worthless piece of legislation has to dangle carrots in front of people's eyes is proof positive that none of what this bill seeks to achieve is anywhere around the corner. Necessity is the mother of invention, and government demanding something is not the same thing as necessity. But running out of oil? Which we're in no danger of running out of oil anytime soon, ditto natural gas. What is the thing? Let's see. "Make solar power work at the same as coal." Why? All we've got to do is go drill for our own oil if you want to limit our dependence on other people. But none of this is anywhere near happening. And just because Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi say, "Hey, here's a prize if you go out and invent some stupid little car that gets 70 miles a gallon and still costs what a car costs today," ha! "then we'll give you a big prize." Yeah, that's really going to inspire some people out there. The danger is somebody will claim they've come up with it and stupid politicians will say, "Okay, good," and claim that it works when it doesn't, just to create the image that they have accomplished some miracle.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to the amendment that they hurried through at 3:00 this morning. Part of the purpose of this amendment on H.R. 2454, the cap-and-tax bill, is to buy off the agriculture senators who are having some trouble with it.

And they put in as part of this amendment the creation of a New Manhattan Project For Energy Independence. The project calls on the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years. We could do it in 10 years if we just drill for the oil that we've got! I'm sorry to yell, folks, but it's out there. Tons of it. In Alaska, off-shore. So call for the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years and 100% in 20 years. They're going to "award competitive prizes to the first individual or group who can reach any of seven established energy goals: Double CAFE standards to 70 miles per gallon while keeping vehicles affordable; cut home and business energy usage in half; make solar power work at the same cost as coal; make the production of..." This stuff enrages me because there's nothing wrong with coal. There's nothing wrong with oil. There's nothing wrong with fossil fuels!

We do not need to switch off of these energy sources. Anyway, these are so pie in the sky. The very idea that they have to offer an award for this means that it's not feasible. Nobody in the market is working on it, and the reason is energy is already highly profitable because everybody needs it. If you're in the energy business, you make a profit. Everybody needs it. You know what happens when your power goes out. You know how mad you get. Imagine if you ran out of gasoline as often as you lose power in your house. You need it and the people provide it, are going to get a profit for doing so. So if there is this new magical technology out there with all this profit potential everybody's going to need, they'd be on it already. So if we're going to start... I'll offer a prize. I don't know what it's going to be. The first liberal who can call here and convince anybody in this audience that George Bush is responsible for the death of Michael Jackson, I'll give you an award.

They blame everything else on George Bush, why not this? How about getting an award if you can figure out how to get our spaceships to go warp speed? How about offering an award for coming up with an actual way to make somebody invisible? How about an award for finding the technique that we can fly like Superman without having to have an engine strapped on our back and no wings. Superman can do it. Somebody can come up with the technology so we can fly around. Look at the energy reduction that would create, if we could just fly like birds. Now, granted we'd probably have to eat a lot more to flap our arms. Well, but Superman doesn't flap his arms; he just lays out there.

So if somebody comes up and invents flying like the way Superman does, we'll give an award for that, too. How about an award for world peace? I'm sorry, we already have that. Nobel. Nobel Peace Prize. There's never world peace, but people get awards for it, nevertheless. See, this is what I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is that somewhere down the road some yokel who understands the game here is going to come up with some little vehicle that has a 70-mile-per-gallon CAFE standard, meets it. And these lunkheads in Congress are going to say, "Oh, look it works," when it doesn't, just to say they've created this miracle or have managed to make one to happen. This stuff, I'll tell you just every day, every day it just keeps adding up. They just keep going for more and more of this stuff and every day it's stand up and say, "Stop! No, you won't."

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Forbes.House.gov: Forbes Introduces New Manhattan Project to Tackle Energy Dependence, Rising Gas Prices
• Heritage Foundation: The Economic Impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill
• Wall Street Journal: The Climate Change Climate Change - Kimberley Strassel

The Role of Government is to Secure Our Liberty, Not to Seize It
June 26, 2009

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RUSH: You know, folks, time for a little philosophy here. Government's role... You look at the Constitution; you read the Constitution. Government's role is to secure liberty, not seize it. As is stated in the Declaration of Independence, in fact, Americans are "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness." We all know that phrase. But what follows is just as important. Here's the whole thing. "Americans are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men," da da da. To secure the right to life, to secure the right to liberty, to secure the pursuit of happiness. "To secure these rights governments are instituted...." The United States government's purpose is to secure our unalienable rights, not seize them, as socialized medicine certainly does.

That's self-evident to a majority of Americans and because of that we're being force-fed a diet of lies from the alleged guardians of our freedom. The object of nationalizing the relationship between a doctor and patient and putting the government in the middle of it does not bring the object of government, securing our rights, any nearer. Obama's attempt to seize control of the healthcare industry will put our rights at a greater distance. Barack Obama feels that the power of the office of the president. He feels it. He forgets the rights of the people. Our liberties are sacred yet we find them being treated with all the concern of the swatting of a fly by our own president and his political party. The cost of healthcare is a concern to people, but it's a red herring as it relates to the relationship of the U.S. government to those who have granted them the privilege as guardians of present and future liberties; i.e., our elected officials.

The president and this Congress are behaving as captors and oppressors. Not only in healthcare, but this whole cap and trade BS, and this must not stand. Thomas Jefferson said in his first inaugural address that the president was to lead, quote, "a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government and this is necessary to close the circle of our happiness." Now, most of these are felicities, but happiness? Most Americans are not happy with the state of affairs in Washington. In fact, most are outraged and are frightened. Under this administration, our pursuit of happiness is grounded with complete halt and it's been replaced with a pursuit of survival.

James Madison, the speech delivered in 1788 in favor of the federal constitution, said: "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgements of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent or sudden usurpations." It's amazing. Every time you go back and consult Founding Fathers, you find that their wisdom was timeless. Their ability to foresee the future was incomparable. Liberty is the birthright of every American. The usurpation of liberty -- whether it be by nationalized healthcare or taxing the energy we need to live -- that's a seizure of liberty. That's a usurpation of liberty under the false pretense of providing security or "saving the planet."

Economic security is the role of the private sector. Economic security is the role of the individual. Economic security is the role of a person born with liberty exercising that liberty to secure whatever he can for himself and his family in life. The safety and defense of the country is the role of federal government. Economic security is not. Barack Obama is on a relentless march to weaken the private sector, to deplete it of money and capital, to seize control of our lives. His words may not convey that. His actions, however, establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I am the foreman of this jury and the verdict is guilty as charged. Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are usurping the liberty of American citizens. See, I think that there are millions of Americans who know in their hearts and minds what Barack Obama and Democrats are doing is wrong.

I know it. The revulsion that most Americans feel when it comes to socialized medicine comes from the instinctive feeling and understanding in a concept of liberty. We know the difference between securing liberty and seizing it. So the answer is, "No we won't." Our personal liberty is not for sale and it's not up for a vote. It's our birthright. We've made the mistake of electing somebody who thinks his job as president is to secure his power by seizing our liberty. Members of his party agree with this, and this is the foundational building block of virtually everything that you hear them talking about. I don't care if it's immigration reform, cap and trade, nationalized healthcare, the stimulus bill. All of this stuff is designed to... Look, folks, it's very simple.

Look at the cap-and-trade bill. All it's going to do is take away more of your disposable income by raising the cost of energy. Energy is something that everybody needs. It's like food. When you raise the cost exorbitantly on a need like energy, you are going to rob people of disposable income. When you rob people of their disposable income, you're robbing them of their liberty. You're making them more and more dependent on something other than themselves to just get by. And if we have a nation of people who are just trying to get by, we are going to cease being America and there will be no such thing as American exceptionalism. I'm not even going to talk about Obama's motives. They're not important to me. I know what they are. But I can just tell you that Obama looks out across this country as a giant pot of gold.

He can go get it -- from here, there -- and he thinks that somehow it's going to be magically replaced once he grabs it, because his policies are smarter than anybody in the private sector. You know, he's never run a damn thing in his life. All he's done is agitate people. He's never ever run anything. So he can seize little bits of the private sector here, a large chunk of it there. Transfer the power of that particular entity to the federal government where everybody is a brilliant individual, can make it work better than anybody in the private sector. Of course it never works. And to him the private sector is never going to be depleted. There's always going to be some more of it to grab and put under his control. It really doesn't matter why. All you have to do is come to grips and admit that is what's happening. And it's time to say, "No he won't," when he starts to gin up this whole little chant, "Yes, we can."

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