Posted on 08/19/2009 3:29:34 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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On Today's Show... |
August 19, 2009
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"Obama has lost the only thing he had going into all this, and that’s the trust of a majority of the American people.
“The days of us being defensive and worrying about what the media and the precious moderates might say are over.
“Folks, I cannot tell you how proud of you I am, and I don't mean to sound paternalistic. “I have made it plain, Obama is not Hitler, and Pelosi is not Joseph Goebbels. “The Democrats could ram this down our throats any time they wanted to, but they're being stopped.
And without that, he's got nothing."
“By the way, 60,000 AARP members have canceled their membership.
That's a good start. We only have 40 million more to go.
But who would have ever thought that a Democrat president could get 60,000 seasoned citizens to tell the AARP to go to hell?”
Going on offense here is what has worked, and that’s the huge lesson.”
I'm saying this as one of you.
You and you alone have totally turned this administration upside down and inside out.”
But this health care plan and the entire Obama agenda is frighteningly close to the National Socialism policies of Nazi Germany.”
And they're not being stopped by the Republican Party or the media -- they're being stopped by you.
They're being stopped by the people who make this country work.”
Continually repeat ...
It's not about me.
I'm the President.
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FRANK: When you ask me that question I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.
RUSH: It's fabulous and fantastic and hilarious that a woman shows up at a Barney Frank town hall meeting with an Obama-as-Hitler poster and this Nazi stuff, in his district! I mean this is unreal. But the killer for me was, here's Barney Frank, "What planet do you live on?" to this woman. Isn't it an established fact that Barney Frank himself spends most of his time living around Uranus? So when he starts talking about where people live, ha-ha-ha-ha, folks, this is all so much fun to watch, and it's all so much fun to analyze. Here's another exchange, another audience member with Congressman Frank.
MAN: You're gonna bankrupt this country, you and the Democrats, and you're making a mistake. (cheers and applause)
FRANK: Let me respond. I really -- I don't understand your mentality. What do you think you accomplish by yelling? When you're through yelling, call me. Are you incapable of a conversation where you talk and then I talk, you have to interrupt? I don't ask you to trust me. I ask you to have a civil conversation.
RUSH: Well, Barney Frank losing it here with his own people, scolds the crowd for interrupting him. Next he gets booed when he tries to say that Medicare isn't bankrupt.
MAN: The government is not the church. Socialism is taking money that people don't want to give, assuming that you can do better with that money than they can.
FRANK: Well, I disagree that it's socialism to have unemployment compensation. Is Medicare bankrupt? No, it's not technically bankrupt. It needs more money. (crowd laughs) If we hadn't gone to the war in Iraq, we would have more than enough money to pay for health care.
RUSH: Somebody is putting the news out there, folks, that Social Security is going to be in default in two years. Yeah, Social Security in default in two years. We're trying this massive health care plan.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A little tidbit of information about the woman at the Barney Frank protest -- and again, let's see. I want to hear that. Play number ten. Audio sound bite number ten. A woman holding an Obama-as-Hitler poster asks Barney Frank why he supports Obama's Nazi health care policy.
FRANK: When you ask me that question I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.
RUSH: Now, Larry King on CNN showed that clip, showed that video clip of Barney Frank whacking the woman because of what planet she lives on. Even though, again, we all know that Barney Frank patrols Uranus. In the full video, the woman makes it clear... Well, she's a Democrat. She's a Lyndon LaRouche Democrat. She is not a conservative. She is not. We had this caller in the first hour, "Rush, you gotta get these people to stop it. It's making us look bad." This is a Lyndon LaRouche Democrat showing up. A lot of these town hall people protesting are Democrats showing up at these own congressman's office. There are so many myths and stereotypes out there that are being blown to smithereens in this argument, too. All of it is positive.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Gateway Pundit has revealed, apparently there was some wacko woman that showed up, not the one carrying the Nazi picture, but some wacko woman showed up at Barney Frank's town hall and identified herself as a doctor. And she's not a doctor. She's an idiot. Sheila Leavitt, a nutty, annoying, unrelenting Newton, Massachusetts, lefty who home schools the kids and raises chickens to share eggs with neighbors, not to eat 'em. She's a vegetarian. She shows up and she says she's a doctor. Now, this is the second or third time at a Democrat town hall meeting somebody stood up as a doctor, "We love the plan, Mr. Frank, we love the plan, Mr. Obama."
What is it with these Democrats and their attraction to fake doctors? Well, the answer is very simple. Everything they are doing is fake; everything is a head fake; everything is deceit; everything is fraud. They have to send the union thugs out to try to intimidate the people who are showing up out of genuine passion. It's so great because they've got all this power, and now they're just showing everybody who they are, what they are, and people are seeing it. And when Obama loses that commodity that he had, the trust, you don't get that back. When people start doubting you, and you are The Messiah, and you lose your messianic status, I don't know how you get it back.
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Now, the reason that this was decided is because there is a constitutional requirement that the government have a budget and that they pass a budget. So reconciliation is the way that that's done. The Democrats are talking about using reconciliation to pass their health care bill in the Senate. And if that happens, the Republicans, if they want to, via parliamentary procedures, can shut down the Senate for a year simply by demanding that every bill and every amendment be read every day on the floor of the House before voting on it. When you're talking about a thousand-page bill and all these other large bills that are filled with lots of pages, that's going to take a lot of time. And so now the question is, are they bluffing about reconciliation? There are a lot of people that think the Democrats are just bluffing and they're just trying to scare. And if you look at Pelosi, I don't know that Pelosi has enough guile to bluff. I mean she's got guile, don't misunderstand, but I mean in this case she has no reason to be deceptive about it. She doesn't have any reelection problems. Her big problem differs from Harry Reid's in a big way. Harry Reid is up for reelection 2010 and he's got a problem.
Harry Reid is going to have to do things in the Senate in a totally different way than Pelosi does in the House. Pelosi has got to go pedal to the metal, far left, radical extreme as much as possible to keep her base and her radical Democrats in the House unified. Harry Reid can't go that way. Harry Reid's in big trouble if he goes all the way a radical left wing extreme 'cause that doesn't help his reelection efforts. So they're in kind of a funny mess. They still pose a great threat, don't misunderstand, nothing's changed, they could still do this tomorrow if they wanted to and I think all this talk about bipartisanship and wanting compromise, get the Republicans on board, I think it's just been a delay tactic. I think it's just been a way for them to distract people. They're going to end up trying to do this anyway. Too much is riding on it, particularly their dreams for the kind of country they want to run and, of course, the fortunes and the future of their dear president, whose legacy will largely rise or fall based on what happens with this.
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RUSH: Folks, I want you to imagine an America where a majority of the people were better informed and wiser than the State-Controlled Media and their controllers. It appears that's where we may be. The American people have been "misunderestimated" by Obama, "misunderestimated" by Congress, the Senate, the State-Controlled Media. Look at this from The Politico today: "The percentage of Americans who hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party has slipped below 50 percent for the first time since President Barack Obama took office..." This is a Pew Research Center poll released today. "Only 49 percent of Americans now hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party," and, by the way, it's mostly their doing. We've helped a little here.
But it's mostly their doing. It's they're being who they are, and total power with no check or balance on them, and people are seeing it. Sixty-two percent of Americans held a favorable view of the Democrat Party shortly after Obama was immaculated. So they've gone from the day of his immaculation 62% now down to 49% who hold a favorable view of the Democrat Party. "Democratic favorable ratings hovered around 60 percent as recently as April, when 59 percent of those polled held a favorable view." Now, folks, this is fascinating. I said last week, I think -- maybe the week before -- Barack Obama may be destroying the Democrat Party. We won't know for a while. But it might be happening right before our eyes. I find it fascinating.
Pelosi and Obama and Henry Waxman, Harry Reid, are taking their party to the brink. Now, if the Republicans can just hold together the way they did with the stimulus bill the first time around -- if they could just hold together and don't join this health care business, just turn this all on the Blue Dogs (it's all up to them and how they want to be perceived and who they're most afraid of, Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel or their voters) -- if the Republicans just hold together, they could win big in 2010, assuming that there are still polls open. I'm just assuming that we'll still be allowed to vote in 2010. And if that's the case, there's a great, great chance. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they could get close to or maybe even secure control of the House again.
But if they fold, and if they try to cut a deal for a watered-down health care bill, then they're going to stay the minority party for a long, long time. If the Republicans fail to recognize the power and the importance of what happens this month, what is happening at these town hall meetings... They blew it when they voted for TARP. They can't make that mistake again or they will have failed the American people. So we got polls today that show that conservatives outnumber liberals in every state in this country. This is a center-right country. We have a poll showing that the Democrat Party approval is under 50%. So the path for the Republicans here is crystal clear: No deals, present free-market solutions, and reap the rewards. They don't have to join 'em, Senate or House. Let 'em do it on their own. They're out there saying they're going to go it alone anyway, and some people think they're just bluffing.
Call 'em on the bluff! Let 'em go on their own. They're in the process of committing political suicide. When that's the case, get out of the way. The best thing you can do to help your opponent commit political suicide is get out of the way and let it happen. You know, Obama was going wobbly. He sent Sebelius out there: "Weeeell, the public option, ah, it's not a centerpiece. Ah, just drop the public option," and then Obama and various other administration people drop the same kind of hint, and Pelosi looks at that and says, "Oh, my God, Obama's going wobbly!" So she stepped in. She is not going to disappoint the kook-fringe left. She's going to carry this as far as she can. She is their leader.
The kooks are so ticked off at Obama for showing weakness. The kooks are ticked off at Obama for making a deal with Big Pharma. The kooks are ticked off at Obama because of his Afghanistan and Iraq stuff and showing weakness. Pelosi stepped into the limelight. There is hope because the more Pelosi is the face of this, the more Pelosi is in the limelight, the better it is for us. These Blue Dog Democrats, they are totally screwed. If they go against Obama and Pelosi, they are cut off from House reelection money, committee chairmanship opportunities, power. If they go with the flow in the House, politically speaking, they're dead fish, because the Democrat Party...
This is where the Blue Dogs have gotta realize this. The Democrat Party has chosen to go against the will of the American people. They are openly saying it. Barney Frank: "What planet do you live on?" You're a nut; you're a fringe. "Talking to you like talking with dining room table." They're calling the American people an unruly mob. It was Pelosi who called us Nazis showing up with swastikas. The Democrats have chosen to go against the will of the people. The American people have become the enemy, the opponent of the Democrat Party. This isn't a country "of the people, by the people, or for the people." For now, we're a country of central planners and statists.
END TRANSCRIPT
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want you to hear some of the sound bites of the flip-flop and the double flip-flops that are happening here with the administration. First off, Gibbs, daily press briefing, reporter says, "What's been the response so far, kinda feedback to this suggestion in recent days that a public option might not be part of health care reform?"
GIBBS: The president, his position, the administration's position is -- is unchanged, that we have a goal of fostering choice in competition in a private health insurance market. The president prefers the public option as a way of doing that. That's what the president has said for months. Coincidentally that's what the secretary of Health and Human Services has said for months. It's what I've said for months. I think that suggestion that somehow anything that was said Saturday or Sunday as being new administration policy is just not something that -- that I would agree with.
RUSH: Well, now, this is flat-out unbelievable. I mean Gibbs is trying to tell the press corps yesterday and everybody else that what Obama and Sebelius said on the weekend never happened. They didn't say what you heard 'em say, it didn't happen. And this is supposed to be the most competent press secretary and the most savvy White House machine that we've ever had in terms of communications. So let's go, yesterday, Washington, the Administration on Aging's Senior Medicare Patrol Conference. What the hell is with all these names? The Administration on Aging's Senior Medicare Patrol Conference. And Kathleen Sebelius spoke, and here's what she said.
SEBELIUS: All I can tell you is that Sunday must have been a very slow news day, because here's the bottom line. Absolutely nothing has changed. We continue to support the public option. That will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice, and keep private insurers honest. If people have other ideas about how to accomplish these goals, we'll look at those, too. But the public option is a very good way to do this.
RUSH: Okay, so now she comes out and says that what she said Sunday she didn't say. Gibbs says, no, Obama and Sebelius didn't say what you heard 'em say and Sebelius said it must have been a slow news day because you guys, I mean, I didn't say it. She blames the media. Kathleen Sebelius blaming the media for what she actually said on Sunday. Let's go back. This is what she said on CNN State of the Union on Sunday, John King asked her a question: "You don't have the votes right now in the Senate for the public option. Is the message from the president that the votes aren't there, it's time to come up with a plan B?"
SEBELIUS: What we don't know is exactly what the Senate Finance committee is likely to come up with. They've been more likely focused on a co-op, a not-for-profit co-op as a competitor as opposed to a straight government-run program. What's important is choice and competition. And I'm convinced at the end of the day the plan will have both of those but that is not the essential element.
RUSH: All right. You know, I only had two or three hours' sleep last night, but I can follow this. And these people have no idea. They have lost the message. There is no discipline. Now, some people might think, "Rush, they're doing it on purpose, they're just trying to keep everybody distracted and have you talk about how they're saying one thing and doing another thing," but this is not productive. Obama has lost the only thing he had going into all this, he's lost the trust of a majority of the American people. More and more people do not trust what Obama is saying. They don't believe him, ad without that and he's got nothing because he's got no success track. I mean everything he's done to supposedly fix problems has made them worse. I hoped for it, folks, I'm going to be honest. When I said I hope Obama fails, this is exactly the kind of stuff I hoped would happen from day one. But I mean this is the Keystone Cops. This is the gang that can't shoot straight and they still, of course, pose a great danger.
Now, Rasmussen has polling data out that's interesting on this. Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called public option is removed. In other words, without the public option, enthusiasm for the health care reform, especially among Democrats, collapses. Well, now, that is a double whammy, because most people don't want the public option, they understand what it is. What lingering support there was, or is, for Obamacare resides in the public option. A lot of Democrats think that's what we have to do. Now with talk of it coming off, Obama's losing even the people that were locked in on this. The stuff that I dreamed of when I said I hope he fails is starting to happen. I just wish it had started six months ago instead of today, but I'll take it. Here's Linda Douglass yesterday afternoon on MSNBC's Dr. Nancy. Dr. Nancy Snyderman says, "Could you shed some light as to why, perhaps, that's the reason the president, at least it appears, to be opening the door to co-ops instead of a public option?"
DOUGLASS: Let me just say again, as I've said to many of you over the last 24 hours or so, nothing has changed. I mean it's very interesting that somehow there is this story that something happened when actually nothing happened. Nobody in the administration's said anything different, the president has always said that one of the key goals -- among the key goals of health insurance reform is you've gotta lower costs and you've got to increase choice and competition in the insurance market. The president said over the weekend, said again, a good idea of achieving those goals would be a public option.
RUSH: And there's another thing, too. They keep talking about wanting competition. They do not want competition. They do not want competition and choice. But here's Linda Douglass, the cheap propagandist, you know, she is -- it's a toss-up. Remember Baghdad Bob, Brian? Do you remember Baghdad Bob? Our troops were in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein was hiding in bunkers and places around town. We had pictures, live TV shots of our troops moving in on Baghdad and there's Baghdad Bob saying, "Oh, no, the troops aren't here, they're not even close." Well, I think Baghdad Bob perhaps has taken over the bodies of Bob Gibbs, Robert Gibbs and Linda Douglass because Baghdad Bob is the PR operation, the communications strategery they've got. This is utterly absurd. They're trying to tell us that what Obama said and Sebelius said they didn't say, and then Sebelius is saying, "I said it, but you're distorting what I said and I really didn't say it, it was a slow news day." So Dr. Nancy Snyderman, MSNBC, "Another NBC News poll just out today looking at people, the American public and how they're looking at the public option. And 45% are saying they believe in lower costs, but a significant number believe that it will limit access. Now, if you would reframe the White House message that a public option is in fact Medicare but without the age restrictions, can you address these numbers?"
SNYDERMAN: Well, you know, the way the public option works, and people really don't have a lot of information in some ways. I mean there's a lot of misinformation floating around there. There certainly are scare tactics underway to try to prevent people from getting at the truth. The president thinks it would be a good idea to have a public option or a mechanism that would lower costs and increase choice and competition. So it's not a question of limiting access. That's certainly not part of it. It's a question of expanding access.
RUSH: It cannot possibly be expanding access. There was no way around this. A good idea to have a public option that would lower costs and increase choice in competition? We've already got numerous choices that people have in the private sector. Why is it that a public option, a government-run option is going to provide great petition, it's going to really bring these insurance companies into line? It's going to do just the opposite. There's no way costs are going to get lowered. Now, the overall costs are not going to be lowered. We are going to spend less on certain people, and that is the sick and the elderly. By the way, the AARP, what is it, 60,000 members canceled their membership. That's a good start. We only have 40 million more to go. Who would have ever thought that a Democrat president could come along and get 60,000 seasoned citizens to tell the AARP to go to hell? But it's happened.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, folks, following their argument out here, this "We need a public option to increase competition. The public option out there will lower costs." That would be the same thing as if there were no post office now and them telling us we need to create the post office to drive down prices at FedEx and UPS. I mean, it's none of this is sensible at all. All right, very short segment here because, as I say, I went long. We gotta take another break here coming up. There's not enough time to get another sound bite. But it is interesting, "Democrat Investigators Targeting Health Insurers." Wait 'til you hear this story. You have to ask yourself: Do we still live in the United States of America?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Have you noticed, by the way, in all these sound bites -- from Gibbs, to Linda Douglass, to Kathleen Sebelius -- the words "lower costs, increased competition"? Do you realize that the Democrats now have had to resort to conservative principles and ideas to sell a radical, socialist health care overhaul? And that's right out of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: "Never make an argument outside your audience's area of expertise." What Alinsky's rules are really all about is how to lie to people effectively. The truth doesn't matter. Words are just tools. There are no facts. It's how you present what you want. So this is a tacit acknowledgement and admission by the Obama crowd that the American people ain't liberal.
The American people are not a bunch of socialists and they don't want a socialist country or government. So they're having to sell this radical overhaul as filled with competition that is going to lower costs. Now, if they really believed that, they would have never done the stimulus. They would have been doing things to get themselves out of the private sector so that stimulation could occur there via competition, via incentives and costs coming down and so forth; the way economies revive anyway, on their own, at some point or another. And Gallup... The reason they're doing that -- you know, they've got the same polling data that we have and probably even more. "Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states now," according to Gallup.
"At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative and have made that claim in any of the last four years." Thank you, President Obama and the Democrats because they are bringing it out. The only... If you want to attach something that's -- well, not really negative to this, but it's still worth pointing out. It's not because some magical conservative figure (other than me, of course) has popped up and is dominating the scene. There is no identifiable Republican in elective office right now that's articulating this. Well, maybe Palin, but even so. This is all happening because we're finally seeing what ultra-radical leftism is. We're seeing exactly what it is. Thank you, President Obama. It is arrogance; it is contempt. He is finally opening up being exactly who he is. And this next sound bite from Eleanor Clift I think illustrates this. She was on Matthews' show last night on MSNBC, and he says to Eleanor Clift, "Are we going to get a bill or not?"
CLIFT: If the Democrats don't produce, I think the anger against them in the midterm elections next year will be quite strong. And they would condemn Obama's presidency to failure. I'm waiting for the Barack Obama who the country voted for to show up in this battle --
MATTHEWS: Mmmph!
CLIFT: -- and they view everything through the last campaign, and they're saying, "Oh, he's a great closer." There's still fight left on this public option.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. Mmm-hmm.
CLIFT: And if you use the analogy I think we're in the Reverend Wright stage of the campaign right now (haughty laugh) --
MATTHEWS: Ha!
CLIFT: -- on health care.
RUSH: This is amazing. She says that Obama is as low as the Reverend Wright stage. She's waiting for the Obama from the campaign trail to show up. She talks about what a "great closer" he was. He was not ate great closer. He could not put Hillary Clinton away. It took the superdelegates to get rid of Hillary Clinton. Remember Operation Chaos. She was a viable contender up until the superdelegates decided to throw it for Obama and end that campaign 'cause it wasn't looking good for Obama. He was not a closer. So now here they are. They're waiting for the Obama of the campaign to show up. Where is this guy we voted for? He's been campaigning the whole time; he's never stopped! Where is the Obama? You know, what's happened, Eleanor, is that your guy never had to leave platitudes in the campaign.
But now there are specifics. Now Obama has done things, and they don't jibe with any of the platitudes that came out of the campaign. The bloom is off the rose here, and she pointblank says here: "If the Democrats don't produce, they would condemn Obama's presidency to failure." See, it's all on the Democrats now. The Republicans really can't stop any of this, as we keep saying. And all this trumped-up, bipartisan garbage? There was never any bipartisanship here because they don't need to it. In fact, where is it? Newsweek has a story today. Oh, yeah. Here it is. This is just amazing. It's by Andrew Romano. "Bipartisanship is Dead." Newsweek is now proclaiming bipartisanship is bad. That's the headline of the piece.
Now, what a fascinating sentiment after eight years of bashing Bush and Rove because of their unwillingness to compromise with Democrat critics. You know, they were just slapping everybody out of the way, refused to compromise, needed bipartisanship. If Andrew Romano in this piece can really claim with a straight face that, quote, "Since the early 1970s Democrats have drifted only slightly leftward," you need to get outta Washington, Mr. Romano. You need to get outta Washington and go to California or go to North Carolina. Go to Florida. You will see. (chuckles) "Drifted only slightly drifted leftward"? So now bipartisanship is bad. Just change the rules during the middle of the game in order to make Obama look good. It's just fascinating.
END TRANSCRIPT
How about the incompetence of the Obama administration in manifesting the situation over there, not to mention what's happening in Afghanistan. We are saddled with the biggest bunch of incompetence. It poses a great threat. But the point I was making on this Cash for Clunker business, you got these automobile dealers who are out, in one case $36 million in Maryland, they've reimbursed for 2% of it. It's a tiny program. The Department of Transportation is having to hire contract workers to deal with it. How many people work in the DOT sitting around doing nothing in the first place? What does it take to sit there and reimburse the dealers? You see, the end result is not what matters to Obama. What matters is people are out the door in their new cars, they're potential voters. Screw the dealers. We'll get to them when we have time, we have other priorities.
I look at this bunch, and folks, I cannot tell you how proud of you I am. And I don't mean to sound paternalistic. I'm saying this as one of you. You and you alone have totally turned this administration upside down and inside out. They don't know what to do. They don't know what to say from day to day. They're double flip-flopping in the same day. They send this doofus carton-character-like guy Gibbs out there, and it's a laugh riot to watch one of these White House press briefings. And, remember, we were told he was the smartest and the brightest, perhaps the best potential White House press secretary there had ever been, and they're a laughingstock.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's Robert Gibbs talking about the violence in Iraq. As a reporter said, "Nearly 100 people have died in the latest bombing in Iraq, the bloodiest day of the year. It comes just weeks after US troops, combat troops pulled out of the urban centers. What, if anything, Mr. Gibbs, does this say about the readiness of Iraqi security forces to take over responsibility? And there any concern that the US pullout of those cities was premature?"
GIBBS: No, I don't -- I don't think the -- again, remember, that was a -- this is determined by the Iraqis as part of agreements that were made. Look, I think it shows you the degree to which extremists will always go to wreak havoc through senseless violence that harms innocent human lives.
RUSH: I am stunned. I know some of you think that he was comparing the extremists in Iraq to those of you showing up at the town hall meetings, and I wouldn't reject it out of hand, "But did you guys maybe pull out too soon?" "Oh, no, no, previous administration did that deal, we inherited that pullout date," that's what he was saying, we inherited that, and, you know, just part of the agreement, look, extremists will always wreak havoc, as though it's just commonplace now. I love these guys.
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's Richard in St. George, Utah, as we go back to the phones. It's great to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you. Thank you for taking the call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I am a real doctor, not a fake one (chuckles) and I've been watching this very closely, trying to understand the public option and everything. My analysis has been basically what the writers in Bloomberg wrote, but today when I heard that Henry Waxman basically requested records over 50 insurance companies, it just struck me. If this is all about competition and increasing competition, how in the world can they get proprietary knowledge from their competitors?
RUSH: Well, that's an excellent point. It really is, although I don't think that's what Waxman is doing because I don't think he cares. He knows they can't compete with him.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But it's still an excellent point. Here you have the federal government -- and a lot of people are more frightened of their government today than they have ever been -- and here Henry Waxman is sending out letters to these insurance companies demanding every bit of information about how they run their business, how the executives are compensated. I want to see in the Constitution where they have that right. The insurance companies are under indictment only because the Democrat Party has made the insurance industry its latest demon, its latest villain. But I don't know that any federal regulatory agency is investigating the insurance industry as a whole for unfair practices and so forth. So here you have this little power hungry guy sending out these threatening letters. This is all about scaring these people. This is about getting them to go along with the plan.
This is about forcing them by virtue of fear and intimidation. This is the way they did it in Russia, the Soviet Union. This is the way of the world in most places: harassment, intimidation, extortion. But your point is doubly powerful. If they really do mean this business about "we just want to provide a public option because we want more competition," then they've got no business being able to see all the proprietary information of their competitors. So no matter how you look at this, it stinks. Once again: Get out of the way, let 'em do this. They're showing themselves finally for who and what they are, and they're paying the price for it, big time, and they don't care. It doesn't matter, as long as they get as much as they can ramrod through before 2010 in those elections. They're governing against the will of the people. They have chosen not only to demonize the American insurance industry, they are now demonizing over half the American people. This is who they are.
This is Tom from Colorado. Nice to have out program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Very well, thank you.
CALLER: I thank you so much for getting the information out there that most people don't find in the mainstream media. I appreciate you so much. You know, one thing that just terrified me, when Obama says, "You get to keep your doctor," and I run a medical practice here in Colorado; what I hear him say is, "I will take the public option. I will basically have my doctors take that insurance or we're gonna take our medical license away," which just terrifies me. I don't take Medicaid because we can't afford to. We can't see too many patients. I don't know if you're aware of this, but on average, the private health care insurances pay 26% more than what Medicare does, and Medicaid --
RUSH: You mean the reimbursements?
CALLER: Reimbursements. The reimbursements to the doctors --
RUSH: So the private insurance companies reimburse you 26% higher than Medicaid does?
CALLER: Yes, they do. It varies as far as per city, per state in your region.
RUSH: Well, don't forget something. Obama has demonized the doctors, too.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: Remember, you guys take out body organs that are not necessary to be taken out. You do it to line your pockets. You chop off diabetics' feet for 30, 40,000 bucks. This guy has demonized doctors. If you look at what he's doing, he really wants people to end up hating the doctor, hate the HMO, hate the insurance company; love the government.
CALLER: Yeah, everyone should love the private insurance companies because your local hospital could not make it if they just went with Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, can you imagine if you take a 26% cut out of any business? I mean, how many employees would you have to lay off? People say, "Well, I don't get to spend enough time with the doctor now." If you cut 20% off of -- I'm not a physician, but I run a practice. But if you cut 20% out of my practice, I'm going to have to cut patient time. I'm going to have to cut quality of product. I'm going to have to cut services, you know?
RUSH: It whittles it down to the point it doesn't pay you to do your job. It doesn't pay you.
CALLER: We have a friend who is in California. She was out to visit this weekend, and in our practice as far as dermatology goes we see somewhere in the nature of 37 or 38 patients per day, and primarily -- because, you know, Medicare is about 20, 30% of our business. Medicare and Medicaid is somewhere in nature of like 75 or 80% of her business. She sees 65 patients a day. I mean, compared (crosstalk) and who would you rather go see?
RUSH: Wait a second. One doctor, 65 patients a day?
CALLER: In and out in five minutes. It's dermatology. You see it, you identify it, you fix it, you write the script, you have the nurse do everything for you.
RUSH: Wow. Interesting.
CALLER: If you want that, go ahead --
RUSH: I guess --
CALLER: -- to encourage them to support the system. It's ridiculous. Doctors will find a way.
RUSH: Well, Tom, I gotta run here. I just again noticed the clock. I'm a little long. I want to catch myself here before I go too long. But I appreciate your call.
CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush.
RUSH: Thanks very much.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
| • Politico: Democratic Investigators Target Health Insurers |
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Matt, Charleston, South Carolina. It's great to have you on the program, and welcome.
CALLER: Rush, I wish I could say "mega dittos" today, but I'm having a hard time doing that.
RUSH: Well, what do you think "dittos" mean? You might still be able to say it.
CALLER: Okay. Agree just to the bobble-head, Rush, because you are --
RUSH: No. You know what? I'm glad you said this. I'm not trying to distract you; you'll have a full complement of time to make your point. "Dittos" simply means, "You know what, Rush? I love the show. Please don't ever stop doing it." It does not mean blanket agreement with what the host says. It never did that.
CALLER: Well, I was mistaken then. Um, but I'll see if you can change my mind. The Hitler mustaches, the Nazi talk, wearing-the-gun-strapped-to-your-leg stuff. Yeah, we have the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, but it's stupid. The other side is painting us -- in some cases effectively -- I'll give you a sound bite I heard driving into work this morning about the Barney Frank town hall. And of course you're brilliant, Rush. You analyze the big picture. You look at everything. People don't have time to do that, and we're giving them ammo and in some cases they're being effective in painting us as a bunch of whack jobs, and it needs to stop, Rush. All of it. The sign you have on your website, the Obamacare thing compared to the Nazi stuff. I think it needs to stop, Rush. It's hurting us.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: Yes, I do.
RUSH: Would you --
CALLER: This is --
RUSH: No, no, no. How is it hurting us?
CALLER: Because we're giving them ammo, and... Here's a sound bite I heard coming to work this morning. Before I listened to you in the full analysis I got the sound bite, and it was a slam dunk. It seemed like --
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait a minute. What sound bite? You mean the woman at Barney Frank's town hall?
CALLER: Yeah, when said, you know --
RUSH: What planet are you on while he occupies Uranus?
CALLER: Well... (laughs) Great analysis, I like that, but the sound bite was, "What planet are you on?" and they stopped it right there. It made it... It was a slam dunk in his favor. It made her look bad. It sounded bad, Rush. It's just... I think all the signs with the Hitler mustaches and carrying the guns strapped, it's just too much. It's over the top. And, Rush, I tell you, everybody I talked to is saying the same thing. It needs to stop.
RUSH: Matt --
CALLER: I know we have a right... We have a right to do it, Rush, but in this case it's just stupid.
RUSH: Wait. My only problem with this, Matt, is that it's not hurting.
CALLER: Well --
RUSH: The support for Obama and his health care plan is plummeting.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: His presidential approval numbers are plummeting. These town halls and the things that are happening out there --
CALLER: Rush --
RUSH: -- are precisely what has forced Obama into retreat --
CALLER: (big sigh)
RUSH: -- and are the things that may actually prevent him getting this bill done.
CALLER: Well, do you think it's a good thing if he gets it through with 51?
RUSH: I don't think they're going to go the 51 route. If they do that they're committing suicide on anything else they want to do.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But you mean you're talking reconciliation rather than going the normal route?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: That's another thing. You're saying that the woman showing up with these Nazi posters and my website and so forth is --
CALLER: We need to... Yeah, we need to rise above it. It's giving them ammo. It's giving them ammo to come up with the sound bites that make us look bad.
RUSH: Uh, I don't think it's playing out that way. I think --
CALLER: I disagree, Rush.
RUSH: You're making a mistake here of seeking validation in the media.
CALLER: No, no, no.
RUSH: You're not looking at the hardcore results here. I'm almost starting to think you might be a seminar caller.
CALLER: No way. Rush! That's crazy. That's crazy talk, man.
RUSH: Well, but so is what you're saying is a little crazy.
CALLER: I think --
RUSH: Because you're looking success right in the face and saying, "We gotta stop this."
CALLER: No. No, no. Only a couple things I think are over the top. The Hitler mustaches, I think, is over the top.
RUSH: Let's examine that.
CALLER: Okay. I'm open. I got time.
RUSH: Why can we not use Hitler, who was the architect of National Socialism in Germany?
CALLER: Because, Rush, it's just... It's not... It's a mistake because --
RUSH: Nope. Nope. See, this is where --
CALLER: Rush, people don't --
RUSH: I have explained this. I have explained this in great detail. I'm going to do it again. The reason say that we shouldn't be using Hitler and this Nazi stuff is because everybody associates genocide with Hitler. And you're afraid that people are going to think that we're trying to say that Obama is identical to Hitler in that way, and I have made it plain: Obama is not Hitler and Pelosi is not Joseph Goebbels. But this health care plan and the entire Obama agenda is frighteningly close to the National Socialism policies of Nazi Germany. Far close are the Democrats and Obama and their policies to National Socialism in Germany than anything we on the right believe. We've been sitting here and we've been tarred and feathered for 21 years, about the length of time I've been doing this show, about how we are Hitler. The conservatives are like Nazis!
Hitler was a man of the left. And the Democrats are getting a taste of their own medicine here. If there is a close association to Hitler in this country policy-wise, the Democrat Party owns it, particularly this version and this strain of it. Now, I look at the polling data, I look at conservatives now outnumber liberals in all 50 states. I look at people showing up at these town halls. The Joker poster. You know, everybody was saying, "That has to be the some militia guy that put the Joker poster out!" It was not. It was not only was the guy not a right-wing nut, but he wasn't white, and he wasn't right-wing. The guy is from Chicago. He's from Illinois. (interruption) He's a what backer? Yeah, that's right! He loves Kucinich. The guy that did this is a far leftist. I think you're misreading this. Listen to Charles Krauthammer. Charles Krauthammer used to say, Matt, the same thing you're saying. Krauthammer said, "Ah, these tactics, they're just going to hand Obama victory on a silver platter. They're just over the top. We gotta go out there, and we gotta be civil." But he's totally taken it back, done a 180. Monday night on Special Report with Bret Baier, question: "Is this a cat-and-mouse game, Charles, with the semantics? Are we just seeing the end result now that they're going to eventually pull it off the table?"
KRAUTHAMMER: It's a full retreat. Look, Obama had wanted the public option a lot, because it is the road to a government-run system, which is what in his heart he wants. But he's not going to get it and he knows it and he knew it early but he hung on because it would be a bargaining chip when he goes for the minimal plan, which would be health insurance reform where he slaps a lot of restrictions on the insurance companies where there are no preconditions, et cetera. The reason he had to drop it now is because of the town halls and the public rebellion. It's because of the reaction -- the angry agitated, educated reaction -- of people against the public option understanding that it's a way to national health care that it became a distraction and a liability.
RUSH: So here's Krauthammer, who had the same opinion. I understand why. You know, on our side, we are very sensitive to the notion that "independents" and average Americans who are not, you know, all in the game ideologically or politically don't like partisanship. When the Republicans do this, the Republicans yell and scream, "Ooooh, it's just bad, and those people run to the Democrat Party," and it's always been a lie. It has always been a lie, because the Democrat Party is the most angry, partisan, mean-spirited, insulting, filled-with-rage bunch of people I have seen in my lifetime. The idea that mild-mannered people who only want us all to get along are going to up and run to find solace with a bunch of hatemongers in the Democrat Party because some Republican stands up and offers criticism, has always been absurd. Matt, you're falling prey to an attempt by people to get us to shut up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, folks, there are always going to be sound bites out there that can be edited to make conservatives get defensive, but let's not forget where all this started: Nancy Pelosi. You know, we keep forgetting this. Nancy Pelosi called us all Nazis. Dick Durbin has used the term. Harry Reid has had some things to say. But we're the only ones that edit those sound bites. We don't even edit them! We play 'em in full to show who they are. The days of us being defensive and worrying about what the media is going to say or worrying about what he's precious independents are going to say or something, it's over. You know, going on offense here is what has worked. There's a huge lesson. Moderate Republicans need to take note here of how you win, and you don't do it by being moderate. You don't do it by pretending you're part of the Oxford Debating Society.
I mean, when you're dealing with a guy like Obama and the Democrat parties who are going to impose Nazi-like socialism policies on this country, you've got to say it! And at the same time you say it, you have to go out and point out: "We're not talking about the genocide. That's at the tail end of Hitler." But, you know, the stuff that preceded it. Look who is acting Nazi-like anyway? Who is it that's sending out thugs to beat people up at these meetings? Who is it that is organizing passionless people, at least on the issue? It's the Democrats. It's the Obama White House. Who is it that had the snitch website that they finally admitted and that they've taken down? We are dealing with a known quantity. We are dealing with people, and we have to point it out. A new poll here: 3% more say that they oppose Obama health care. If the protests are hurting, how is that happening?
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RUSH: Look, folks, the bottom line is these protests are working. The media don't want anybody to realize that, and that's why they're behaving as they are. But they're working, and they're working big time, and the White House is totally flabbergasted by all of it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I'll tell you, that caller last hour who said, "You gotta stop the Nazi stuff, Rush. You're sophisticated enough to understand it but it's making us look bad out there, these people showing up with Obama with the Hitler mustache pictures and so forth, gotta stop it, Rush, making us look bad." You know, checking the e-mail during the break and some of the calls we've got coming up when we get to the next segment, people are fired up. This is, I think, monumental what is happening, what has happened here. We have one-party rule in this country. They can do whatever they want to do, and they are unable to get it done. Try to put this in some kind of profound context. Here we have a bunch of people who want to ram something down our throats that they know we don't like. They don't care. But they do have an election coming up in 2010, especially Democrats in the House and quite a few of them in the Senate, Harry Reid being one, and that is what they're concerned about is, of course, their reelection, which is their number one job. The second job is spending money. Maybe spending money first to help 'em get reelected. But they could ram this down our throats any time they wanted to and they're being stopped.
They're not being stopped by the Republican Party. They're not being stopped by the media. They're being stopped by you. They're being stopped by the people who make this country work. As I pointed out, there's a new poll from NBC: "Two weeks since the town hall meetings on health care became a national story, Americans remain skeptical about White House plans to overhaul the health care system. A plurality believes Obama's health plan would worsen the quality of health care." That is stunning. They're right. And who's gotten that message out for them? It hasn't been the Drive-By Media. It hasn't been the State-Run Media. How is it that people know this? "A plurality believes Obama’s health plan would worsen the quality of health care, a result that is virtually unchanged from last month’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. What’s more, only four in 10 approve of the president’s handling of the issue, which also is unchanged from July. And a majority -- 54 percent -- is more concerned that the government will go too far in reforming the nation’s health care system, while 41 percent is more worried that the reform will not do enough to lower costs and cover the uninsured."
In other words, nobody's got any confidence that anybody on the Democrat side is going to be able to accomplish what they say they're going to accomplish. There are doubts galore. Now, if the protests are hurting our cause, how come these numbers? If the protests are hurting our cause, how come Obama's approval number is plummeting? How come his support on the health care issue is plummeting? They are working. They're working big time. And here's another thing. You go to these kook web pages, Daily Kos, for one. At the Daily Kos, you have John Kerry has a page with a blog or post, comments. Hillary has one. Ted Kennedy, Pelosi. Every other top Democrat have a page there. And they go to their conventions, and they praise their great works, like Hillary did. Now, how come they've never spoken out about how the writers at Daily Kos have mentioned Hitler at least 15 million times, and I'm not making it up? You do a Google search, Hitler, Daily Kos, 14,900,000 English pages where the word Hitler, Bush, or Republicans has been mentioned over the course of the past number of years. How come these Democrats don't care about that? Bush was Hitler, we had to listen to how it was art to read a book on how to assassinate Bush. All this Nazi stuff, it's just phony baloney, it's the Democrats unable to take the heat, it is the media not wanting you to know that these protests are working.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bill in Carlsbad, New Mexico, as we get to the phones. It's great to have you here, sir, and thank you for waiting.
CALLER: Thank you so much for taking my call. I want you to know that thanks to a gift subscription by my friend Barclay Gibson, I am a 24/7 subscriber. And I would like to get you to comment on something. My concern is with the attitude of the last caller. If we were to recognize that what is taking place in the United States today is very similar, almost identical to what took place in Nazi Germany -- apart from all the atrocities -- then I think we'd be yelling louder. I don't know that people understand that we are on the verge of the fundamental collapse of the United States as we know it. Would you comment on that, please?
RUSH: Yeah. I've said as much. I think that there is an effort here to remake the country in a new image. I think Obama has got a chip on his shoulder about how unjust and immoral this nation's been since its founding. This is what people recognize. It's clear as a bell now vis-a-vis this health care bill what the overhaul Obama agenda means. Let's not forget the stimulus package, which has not created any new jobs. The economy is not getting any better after Obama's done his "magic." So the bloom is off the rose.
END TRANSCRIPT
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: F. Chuck Todd of MSNBC on Scarborough's show this morning, and talking about the health care plan. And F. Chuck said this.
TODD: This is what happened to the Clintons in the nineties and what's happening to the Obama White House is that they haven't been able to tell the American people that have private insurance what they get out of health care reform. They're hearing what they're not going to have or what the opposition says they're not going to have. They're not hearing what new they're gonna get. At the end of the day, we're kind of a selfish society, and health care is a very personal thing.
RUSH: Health care is a very personal thing, we're a selfish society. No, this is not selfishness, F. Chuck. It's self-interest, and there's a huge difference between selfishness and self-interest. You know, it's called staying alive. Remember that? The Bee Gees. Staying alive. The American people know that they have a primary objective that's taken on even more urgency if Obama wins this thing, and that's staying alive. I listen to the contempt that these people have for you, for the American people, and you are befuddling them and you're beating them back. And don't forget the Gallup poll: Conservatives now outnumber liberals in all 50 states. We are a conservative country. We are not a liberal socialist country. We don't want what Obama is offering. They can sit there all day long, like Eleanor Clift did and lament and desire, "Where's the Obama who ran for office, where's the great campaigner?" You're looking at him.
And here's another great story, and this is out of Congressional Quarterly Politics, the headline: "Some Obama Promises Must Wait." Well, I say, hallelujah. "President Obama sounded a bit like a weary air traffic controller on Aug. 10, when he was quizzed during a three-way summit with leaders from Mexico and Canada about a promised overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. 'I’ve got a lot on my plate, and it’s very important for us to sequence these big initiatives in a way where they don’t all just crash at the same time.'" Where they all don't just crash, meaning crash and burn. It all means that "a large number of political promises Obama made during his historic campaign have been pushed to the back of the agenda. Most, in fact," have been pushed to the fact. "The PolitiFact.com Web site, which compiled a list of 515 Obama pledges, lists 374 under the category of 'no action.'" No Child Left Behind, Gulf coast revitalization, immigration on the back burner now. And don't forget, Jack Murtha said, I don't think we're going to get health care this year. I don't think we're going to get a vote maybe until January, he said, this is just way too complicated.
Now, here is a story that's truly frightening. When I read this at The Politico, it made me ask, "Where do I live? What country do I live in?" "House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences." Now, this from the bunch that tried to buy eight brand-new corporate jets to fly themselves all over the country and around the world, a bunch that routinely votes themselves pay raises. They take junkets to fine hotels and resorts. So here we go, all-out war now on the insurance industry. And even if there is no government option, even if there's no government option, I guarantee you Obama and his crowd plan to run the private industry even more than they're running it now. The Democrats, House Democrats have sent letters to 52 insurance companies demanding extensive documents for an examination of extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry. The letters set a deadline of September 14th for the documents. As though these businesses have nothing better to do. It reminded me of my stupid New York tax audit that's been going on since October. Documents after documents after documents, all for an anal exam by Dr. Henry Waxman.
Henry Waxman wants to give all these people anal exams, find out who they're paying, how much they're paying, is it too much. I mean, they are going to harass these people to the point that the insurance companies say, screw it, we can't afford to stay in business this way and we don't want to. "Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday. An industry source replied when asked for comment: 'This is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition designed to silence health plans.' By Sept. 4, the firms are supposed to supply detailed compensation data for board members and top executives, as well as a 'table listing all conferences, retreats, or other events held outside company facilities from January 1, 2007, to the present that were paid for, reimbursed, or subsidized in whole or in part by your company.'"
Now, this from the same damn Congress trying to sneak in eight new Gulfstream jets so they can go all over the world at our expense. The point is this is none of Henry Waxman's business. This is outside the US Constitution. Obama does not have the constitutional authority to take over an automobile company, but he owns two. He doesn't have the constitutional authority to ram health care down everybody's throat, but he's trying to do that. You know, the Constitution here, you talk about something being thrown under the bus, the Constitution has been thrown under the bus but the bus is backing up and forward, backing up, forward, they're just trashing the hell out of it. And all we're trying to do is just keep up, stay alive.
All right, a quick time-out here, my friends. We'll come back and I'm excited to get some of these phone calls, because the passion is out there about these protests and the efforts that are underway, subtle and otherwise, to get you to stop doing it. Don't go away.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is just great. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, opened her program today this way.
MITCHELL: Our new NBC News poll shows misinformation is heavily clouding public opinion on health care. Fifty-five percent believe the myth that illegal immigrants could be covered. Fifty-four percent believe it will lead to a government takeover. And half believe that tax dollars would fund abortions. Despite White House efforts to dispel all those rumors, 45% still believe that the proposed legislation includes the so-called death panels. These numbers not good for the White House. It shows that they're not getting their message out.
RUSH: No, no, no. It shows that their message is getting out, Andrea! There is no disinformation here. There's no disinformation; There's no misinformation. It shows that their message is getting out and people don't like it. The message is the House bill. You say there aren't any death panels here? Well, there certainly aren't any life panels! We're not hearing about improved medical care. We're not hearing anything but a focus on dollars and saving money and squeezing doctors and so forth. Now, this business, tax dollars wouldn't fund abortions? Let's go back to the archives. This is July 17th, 2007, in Washington. Obama was candidate speaking to Planned Parenthood, and during the Q&A, the following question was asked: "You know the rights and access and rights and ability have to go hand in hand. We know that health care reform is an important part of your agenda. Could you talk, give us some specifics about how reproductive health care and women's health care is gonna fit into, be a part of primary care for women in your health care reform plans and how Planned Parenthood will continue to be a part of the health care safety net for women and families across the country?" Now, this is coded language. When they talk about "reproductive health care," it's abortion. "Reproductive health care" is abortion. Here's Obama's answer.
OBAMA: In my mind, uh, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, uh, and so it is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose. Essentially, uh, what we are doing is to say that, uh, we're going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don't have health insurance. Uh, it will be a plan, uh, that will provide all essential services, including, uh, reproductive services.
RUSH: There you have it.
OBAMA: We also will subsidize those who prefer to stay in the private insurance market, except the insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care.
RUSH: All right, folks. It could have been more clear. He just explained here how his health care plan would provide abortion as basic care -- and furthermore, he was going to force the private insurance market to have to abide by the same rules. And here's Andrea Mitchell saying, " White House efforts to dispel all these notions that tax dollars would fund abortions..." They most definitely would. Look, this guy is a big pro-abort guy. Don't forget, this is the guy who voted three times in Illinois to go ahead and allow a botched abortion -- a child that survives the abortion -- not to be saved. I mean, you can't get more pro-abort than this guy is. And I'm telling you when he starts talking about "reproductive health care," what else could it mean?
We already have "reproductive health care" if you're talking about prenatal, postnatal. This is abortion. And here he went on to explain same date, same time. He went on to explain the Planned Parenthood role. And, by the way, Planned Parenthood, they make money off abortions. Planned Parenthood is asking this question to find out: "Are you going to have abortions taxpayer funded? Are we going to be hurt here? What role are we going to have in reproductive services?" Planned Parenthood's role in reproductive services is abortion. Here is Obama's answer.
OBAMA: ...the role that organizations like Planned Parenthood play. Obviously my hope under a universal health care system is that everybody's got access to basic care, and then we have less of a patchwork quilt of services. Uh, that I still being it is important for organizations like Planned Parenthood, uh, to be part of that system.
RUSH: Of course.
OBAMA: I believe we can have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president's first term, by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America.
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on. Andrea Mitchell is all upset complaining, people told pollsters that Bush lied and weapons of mass destruction. She wasn't worried about that misinformation but now she's all worried this -- and it isn't misinformation, Andrea. It is the truth. People have found out what this health care bill is and they're reacting to that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, back to Andrea Mitchell. Can you play that sound bite again? Sound bite number 30, Andrea Mitchell. I have a simple question to ask her after this.
MITCHELL: Our new NBC News poll shows misinformation is heavily clouding public opinion on health care. Fifty-five percent believe the myth that illegal immigrants could be covered. Fifty-four percent believe it will lead to a government takeover. And half believe that tax dollars would fund abortions. Despite White House efforts to dispel all those rumors, 45% still believe that the proposed legislation includes the so-called death panels. These numbers not good for the White House. It shows that they're not getting their message out.
RUSH: There's no misinformation here. And, Andrea, if all of this is nothing but rumor, why don't you do your job? Why don't you disapprove each of these points rather than just berate the people for buying into rumors? I mean, if you know that there's no government takeover, and if you know illegal immigrants are not going to be covered, and if you know that abortion is not going to be paid for with taxpayer dollars, then show us! Tell people. But you can't. I don't even think she knows. I really don't think half these people in the State-Controlled Media know what's in this plan. It's just, "We gotta get it done for Obama. We gotta get it done for Obama." But, look, if there's no abortion in the health care plan, if there's no taxpayer-funded abortion, somebody explain to me why Planned Parenthood is lobbying for it.
Planned Parenthood thrives, financially survives performing abortions, counseling women to do it. I guarantee you if there were no taxpayer dollars for abortion in this health care bill, they'd be demanding that there would be dollars. But they're not doing that. They're lobbying for the bill to be supported. And, Andrea, you may not know what's in the plan, but I know you read the New York Times. July 20th, 2009, headline: "Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion." You know where they put this? They buried this in the Money and Policy Section of the New York Times: "An Obama administration official refused Sunday..." This Peter Orszag, and we talked about it at the time. Peter Orszag "refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions." Andrea, come on. It is what says.
END TRANSCRIPT
They had to take some pictures for the animators for me. And so I said, "Okay, sure." And they're all, "Boy, why, we can't refer to you as fat anymore in this episode." I said, "I know." So I posed for some pictures, I just stood straight, it wasn't professional, just had a point and shoot pocket camera and they took a couple straight on. Then they said, "Would you mind turning so we can get some from the side?" "Oh, you want a side shot?" Gladly turned to the side, and then I said, "Hey, why don't you take a picture of my butt?" so I bent over and grabbed the ankles and said, "Take a picture of my butt." (laughing) You never know what the animators are going to do, so they did that. This was attracting a crowd and everybody starts laughing. We go into the sound booth, wrap it up in an hour and forty-five instead of three forty-five. Now, I do sing a song in this episode, but it was a song to which the melody I'd never heard, so we didn't get the song finished yesterday. I'm going to be coming back in September to put the wrap on that.
On the way out another guy comes up, "I'm the only conservative in the building and I just wanted to say hi, and I wanted to see you before you left." And I said, "No, no, no, no, there's another. There are actually two of you." "There are?" I didn't tell him who, I didn't identify him, his secret is safe with me, but I said there's another guy in here that came up and he said he's conservative, too. So another guy. We're walking through this Family Guy office complex, the set, it was huge. There are two lobbies. And on the way out I said, "Seth, how many people work on this show?" He said 500. Five hundred people. You heard it, Brian, you were there, five hundred people. I believe it. I don't know how many do what, but 500 people for this show. Now, one thing I didn't know until yesterday, I thought this episode was going to start out this season, it would be the premiere episode this season. It's not. It's the premiere episode in September of 2010. It takes them a year to animate every episode. They've got teams of people doing the animation, and it's extensive and it's very hard work.
And I said, "Seth, where did you get your start, how did you get the idea for this?" He worked at Hanna-Barbera when Hanna-Barbera said, "You know what, we want to get back into the primetime animated cartoon business rather than just doing things for Saturday mornings and other things. And he had an idea for this Family Guy thing, he pitched it to Fox, and they liked it. So it was great fun. It was -- (interruption) a question has just been asked. Will the character capture my new svelteness. That is the theory behind taking the pictures. But they can animate me however they wish. I hope they animate me with the current iteration of my lithe and very slinky body and look. I feel confident that they will otherwise they wouldn't have taken the pictures and so forth. But it was all a lot of fun.
A lot of you people been e-mailing me, "How dare you? Why would you capitulate, why would you go on a show that makes so much fun of conservatives? Why would you do this?" 'Cause it's a cartoon show and because they asked me and I had script approval, and some of the things in this script are -- I had to do four or five takes on one line 'cause I kept cracking up in the middle of it. No, I can't tell you what it is. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag, but the character, Brian, the dog, that becomes a Rush groupie, I'm doing my radio show, like now, I'm sitting at the microphone, and I'm talking about Pelosi, and I said, "What can we do to stop the Pelosi agenda?" And Brian says, "You're going soft!" I said, "What are talking about going soft?" "I know what to do to stop Pelosi! You know, the problem is you just tell everybody she's on crack." And I said, "Brian, look, I know she's on crack, but you can't just say it that way, it's not going to persuade anybody. And then he says, "I got a better idea to shut her up," and that's what I can't tell you, you'll just have to wait and hear it. But it was funny and I had a great time doing it. I want to thank Seth MacFarlane and his people for giving me the invitation and opportunity to appear on it and throwing such a great time yesterday.
END TRANSCRIPT
You look great, Rush!
| Read the Background Material... |
| • Hollywood Reporter: Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove to Appear in Family Guy |
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I just have a general comment on this health care bill. It gets passed, I'm afraid that the language that they use to write these bills is so vague and filled with loopholes. Looking down the road, what happens when lawyers and liberal activist judges start getting involved?
RUSH: Well, liberal lawyers have written this, and so forth. What do you mean?
CALLER: They're going to start finding a whole host of things in this bill that aren't apparent right now.
RUSH: Uh, you mean when people take elements of it to court?
CALLER: Yes. Down the road a ways.
RUSH: I don't know. See, that's one of the great unanswered questions is: Where can you sue? I think I read something earlier in the week, I don't think there is an appeals process here. I don't know that it's going to end up in court. I guess it could. I mean, if it does, you're right. Your point is that they're writing law anyway at the bench. Yeah, I don't know. It's a genuine concern, there's no question. Tom, I appreciate it opinion who's next? Sherry in Quad Cities, Illinois. Hi, and welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from the Quad Cities, 200 miles to the west of Chicago, but in no way to the left.
RUSH: Ah, yes. Thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to tell you that I love your use of humor. I am immeasurably appreciative of what you say, how you say it, and when you say it.
RUSH: Well, you know what? I do, too. I love listening to myself talk -- and if you were as right as I am all the time, you'd love hearing yourself talk, too.
CALLER: Case in point. Okay. My point is that, Rush. I watched the Montana town hall meeting at which Obama spoke about how he's going to pay for this health care and a number of the dollars that would come from "saved money" by the limiting deductions.
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: If I could have had a Hugo Chavez moment I would have at a town hall meeting taken him the book by Judge Judy Sheindlin: Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining. I think that sums up a lot of our frustration within this country. My concern has to do with his assumption of income flow. If you lower these deductions on people, I don't care what their earnings are -- $250,000 or more is the limit that he gives so that most of us feel safe -- it's going to divert earnings. People will just divert their earnings. They'll work to get under that threshold. So he's saying like we're all supposed to be mindless sheep that he's going to lower the rate of deduction, I'm sorry, and that's going to keep the money coming in. That's how we're going to pay for it. We're not supposed to think for ourselves. Well, guess what? We have brains. We do.
RUSH: This is the static analysis of behavior after tax policy has changed versus dynamic. And Obama does seem to think that there is no end to being able to "tap" the private sector and wealthy people, that they're always going to be producing wealth, and they're always going to have it, and there is always gonna be money for him to get. But what he's really doing with this is just playing the class envy card. He knows, or he thinks that he'll have a much easier time selling this if he convinces most people it's going to be free for them; it's not going to cost them anything. "Eh, I'm going to raise taxes on a couple millionaires -- and, by the way, we're going to limit their tax shelters! We're going to limit their deductions. We're going to make sure they can't shield it. We're gonna soak 'em."
Now, once he does that... See, that's not accidental. Remember these people love crisis. They thrive on it. Because crisis gives them an opportunity to propose even more government to "fix" whatever crisis they've caused. Now, if they actually do eliminate -- for incomes over $250,000 a year -- all deductibility of charitable donations, then it's going to kill charities 50,000 times worse than Bernie Madoff did, because a lot of people do philanthropic works because they just are philanthropic and they like doing good things. But a lot of people do it for the tax deduction. A lot of people buy houses just to get the mortgage deduction. If you take that away, you are going to really harm charities. Fewer and fewer private donations are going to be made, and that's going to lead to a crisis, and guess what?
Obama will be able to come in and say, "Well, we'll have to fix this problem, too, and we're gonna raise taxes on people so we can redirect some of that money." This is about how to kill the golden goose, and folks, I have said this -- I don't like saying it, but I've said this over and over again -- this is not accidental. This is not naivete. This is a desire to take the money that exists in the hands of people who have it now and redistribute it to Obama's friends: the disadvantaged, victims, whoever. Because Obama believes that most people who have a lot of wealth have not come by it honestly, that they've done it in a an unjust or immoral way because the American system of capitalism is unjust and immoral. This stimulus bill. It was a purposeful attack on the US economy. Nobody with any economic literacy would propose this kind of stimulus package, Porkulus package thinking that it's actually going to create jobs or that it's going to save jobs, especially where the money is going.
And what, 5% of it spent the first year? So here we have close to three million people who have lost their jobs, and they're talking about doubling down and doing another stimulus. They're stupid... You know, there's a term I like to use called "educated stupid," and these are educated stupid people. They know what they're doing and they're just hoping that they're going to continue to be able to get away with it, because exactly what you said: There are far more people that make less than $250,000 who think they're not going to get touched. The only problem for those people is they're losing their jobs left and right, and there aren't a whole lot of job opportunities for them out there. So this is a willful, purposeful destruction of the capitalist US economy, and health care is the number one thing. Well, maybe the way he's looking at it it's the final nail in the coffin. That's why it's crucial. To Alexandria, Virginia, next. Maureen, thank you for calling. How are you?
CALLER: I am fine. I was listening to your show yesterday with Mark Steyn, and he was talking about the British health system is the third largest employer in the world. So I was wondering what ours would be in the first place once it went in. But my husband and my daughter both work for the government as contractors, and let me tell you: I think the federal employee has got to be one of the laziest, most uneducated group of people that work in the United States.
RUSH: Well, I'll bite. Why?
CALLER: Well, because in the first place, they can't get fired. There is no way. They get to spend all the money they want -- and at the end of the year if they haven't spent all of their allotment, they go and ask, "If you want anything put in your request, because we've got all this money yet to spend." I think they all probably are pretty well related or they know somebody's who's in there and gets the daughter of or the son of or the nephew of somebody they know in there to work. I don't know how they do their hiring practices, but I don't think it's really 100% totally aboveboard. Plus they have so many regulations. And then they'll get a new supervisor and a new supervisor will come in and want to change everything because of the way it is running. He doesn't understand or it's not the way he wants it or he wants to make a name for himself, and they constantly are spinning their wheels. There's no forward progress. I don't see how they're ever going to be able to run something of this size or anything.
RUSH: Well, I know. What do they run efficiently now? I mean, these people can't even run the cash for clunkers program. Here's a measly little $1 billion program, and they can't even run that.
END TRANSCRIPT
>>When people start doubting you, and you are The Messiah, and you lose your messianic status, I don’t know how you get it back.<<
Rush is right. Watch the end of “The Man Who Would Be King”.
>>When people start doubting you, and you are The Messiah, and you lose your messianic status, I don’t know how you get it back.<<
Rush is right. Watch the end of “The Man Who Would Be King”.
In fact, that is exactly what we should start calling Zero:
The man who would be king.
Saw a recent photo of Rush after weight-loss, he looks great! The weight that he lost after the MSM said it was impossible for him to lose. Stay healthy Rush, your commentary on national and world events is invaluable!
We don’t want to be cruel to the Blue Dogs if they do what’s right. Ask them if they want to be Republicans.
Thank you for the transcript.
“The Democrats have chosen to go against the will of the people. The American people have become the enemy, the opponent of the Democrat Party. This isn’t a country ‘of the people, by the people, or for the people.’ For now, we’re a country of central planners and statists.”
BUMP! Hurry 2010!
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