RUSH IN A HURRY -- Keep Up the Pressure, America!

Wednesday Quotes: Keep Up the Pressure, America!
March 17, 2010

"This ploy to 'deem' Obamacare the law of the land makes Watergate look like Romper Room.
This is the overthrow of the US constitutional system."

"Don't get so wigged out here over this Kucinich business.
There's an easy explanation.
They either threatened him with a UFO trip, or they offered to make sure that his preexisting
condition of mental illness will not be a barrier to any kind of coverage that he gets down the road."

"The Asians have always outdone everybody in protests.
You gotta admire 'em for this.
The sixties people are just a bunch of pikers compared to the Asians."

"I think all these phone calls that you made yesterday, there's no question at all they had an impact."

"People are having trouble making outgoing calls from inside the Capitol.
I'm told there's quite a lot of frustration about this."

"There's no difference between the Democrat base and screwballs."

"Many of these people that signed on with John Edwards are the people who think Sarah Palin is an idiot.
Now, contrast that. John Edwards was the answer to everything.
Never a more duped, taken-advantage-of and intelligence-insulted group of
people than the Edwards supporters and they all think Sarah Palin's an idiot."

"Hey, Snerdley, did you hear that Pelosi has called a meeting today of all
the female Democrat members of Congress behind closed doors?
A lot of farding going on in that room, ladies and gentlemen."

"The evidence of an electoral landslide against the liberals is everywhere.
Obama came to divide and he's pulled it off."

"I have infinite faith in the country and the people who live here that they're just not going to put up with it.
We're not just going to lie down, bend over, and succumb to this. It just isn't going to happen.
One way or the other, this health care bill is not going to be the law of the land, but we have to make that reality come true."

"There is no allowance for the federal government to mandate that any citizen buy anything and then fine them
and put them in jail if they don't buy it, which is what this bill does along with many other disastrous things."

"Nobody can insure good health.
That's not what health insurance is about.
Health insurance is insurance against catastrophic injury, costs a lot of money.
Basically you're calculating risk. It's risk-reward.
There's no way that health care is a right."

"Saying health care is a right is simply a sales technique."

"Now, this is a little Pollyannaish, and I will admit this, but I can't get my arms around the fact
that we're three days away from the United States of America being over as we've all known it."

"The reason we're not talking about getting Bin Laden now is because everybody knows he's already dead.
He's been dead for years."

"The Democrats say they're waiting on the score of whatever the yet-to-be written bill is from the Congressional Budget Office.
Well, I have a little hint for you: Pelosi got that number yesterday."

"Pelosi's objective, if she can do it, is to pass this Obamacare bill on Saturday when there aren't as many people running around."

"The word 'deemed' means what? It means pretend!
That's what it means. We're going to pretend that we passed the Senate bill."

"The Senate health bill is so unpopular in the House that the leftist House leadership is desperately
trying to trick the American people into believing that the House can pass it without voting on it."

"I would like one of you Obama supporters in the audience to call me today
and tell me one thing Obama has said about health care that's true.
It would take a lot less time for you to tell me what he's said that's true,
than for me to sit here and listen to all the lies."

"Just what is in this Obamacare bill that makes it so important for the Democrats to do what they are doing?
Why are they willing to lose the majority in the House in November, and maybe the Senate as well?"

"When you boil it all down, what this does is destroy the private insurance business.
It just wipes it out, just eliminates it."

"The House leadership doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate bill,
and they never will have the votes to pass the Senate bill.
It is despised in the House."

"Obama will benefit very few Democrats if he does go campaign for them in their November reelection bids.
He's toxic. President Obama is a fraud."

"Now that we know, via the latest Gallup poll, that Obama's approval numbers are lower
than McCain's during the general election, can we 'deem' Obama to be unelected?"

"I would love to be there someday when somebody tells Obama that he has Jewish ancestors as well as Irish ones.
Oh-ho-ho! I would love to hear that."

"I'm hearing way too many people say, 'Let this thing pass and let the Supreme Court say it's unconstitutional.'
Why do you want to roll those dice? We ought not even be thinking in terms of this passing and repealing it."

"This is the United States of America. It is not Venezuela, it's not Cuba, it's not North Korea.
We're not a banana republic and we're not a Third World country -- yet.
We aren't going to sit here and comply with something that is unconstitutional."

"What Democrat leaders in the media are saying about the health care bill is what they want us to believe, but it really isn't the truth.
How often is that accurate about any news story?"

Continually repeat ...

It's not about me.
I'm the President.

Past editions of "Rush In a Hurry"

Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!

Keep Up the Pressure, America: Flood Congress with Calls, E-Mails
You've melted their phone lines for two days running.
March 17, 2010

Keep Trying to Call If It's Busy (That's the Point!)
• Dial: 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121
• Code Red: NRCC's List of Targeted Congressmen
• Ace of Spades: Who to Put Pressure On | Whip Count

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites from yesterday afternoon, last night, and this morning.

VAN SUSTEREN: Rush Limbaugh does something on air he has only down one other time.

PERGRAM: Rush Limbaugh had put out the word to have people flood the phone system.

BLITZER: Rush Limbaugh, who urged callers to complain to Congress.

BASH: Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to call in.

KARL: On the radio, Rush Limbaugh doing something he rarely does, urging his listeners to call members of Congress.

MEADE: Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh urged listeners to call the U.S. Capitol.

KILMEADE: Phone lines were jammed up on Capitol Hill yesterday because Rush Limbaugh said here are some phone numbers.

INGRAHAM: When Rush says something like that, I mean, when he says call that is basically a meltdown of the communication system on Capitol Hill.

HENNEBERG: The phones being jammed to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh giving out numbers on his radio show and web site.

RUSH: All right, it's even better or worse, depending on your point of view, than you've been told. It was so bad that people inside couldn't call out, either. They were having to use their cell phones to get out of there. I know a couple people who are journalists, and they said they couldn't get through to their secret sources and their secret sources inside the Capitol couldn't reach them. They had to go outside, use a cell phone or something. I don't see any reason to stop this. In fact, I don't think you have let up. I think I saw on Fox this morning that the phone lines are not as busy as they were, but more often than not you are going to get a busy signal. We may as well keep the pressure ramped up because they do not have the votes, and there is no reconciliation bill. There isn't. Heritage has it. They have not been able to write it. There is a lot going on with this. Make no mistake about this. What they really want is to pass the Senate bill. That's the simplest way to get it to Obama to sign by Saturday so he can head off to wherever it is he's going.

Let me explain in detail where I think they are on this. Where they are right now is no votes. Even if they turn Kucinich they're now down 11, according to CNN, they're 11 votes shy, and this actually dovetails with what we heard from Stupak the other day, who said they were 16 down. He said they were at 200. So it's probably not five or four, even with Kucinich flipping. Here are the numbers, and just keep barraging them, and if you get a busy signal understand that it's a circuit busy. They've sent out warnings from the Capitol communications office to members that it's going to be like this all week. They sent that out yesterday afternoon, so may as well stay at this because you are the ones, the American people are the reason why we are at this point. I'm not cutting the Republicans when I say this. They don't have the votes to stop this. And nevertheless Harry Reid is out there attacking them again today, but they can't do anything. They don't have the votes. It is you, the American people, speaking to your elected representatives all over the place. On the Democrat Party side, you are the ones who have stopped this and it's time to keep the pressure up.

So here are the numbers, the toll-free number for the Capitol Switchboard: 877-762-8762. The toll call number, the direct toll number is 202-224-3121. Now, we have these numbers at RushLimbaugh.com if you don't have a way to write them down, if you're driving around or something. If you have a smart phone, you can log on at a red light and get the numbers. Here they are again: 877-762-8762, I guess this is the third time now that I'm -- or maybe I could just say this is a continuation of yesterday, still only the second time in history that I have advocated this. And there's no better time than now. It is really crucial. I think all these phone calls that you made yesterday, there's no question at all they had an impact. I mean everybody noted it at the Capitol Hill switchboard. And you know what? This is surprising to me. It may have been reported but I've missed it. One of the reasons I've always shied away from doing this is that it would allow critics to delegitimize the whole thing. "Well, of course people are calling. They're not calling 'cause they want to. Limbaugh urged them to, you know, Limbaugh's mind-numbed robots." They're not reporting it that way. They're reporting it as a genuine outrage at the bill, and it is! There's no question.

So 877-762-8762 is the toll-free number at the Capitol Hill Switchboard, 202-224-3121 and you probably are not going to have to pay for it because nobody's ever going to answer it. The odds of you getting through with the hundreds of millions of people trying to reach there are so slim, that go ahead and call the 202 number, even if you're outta work. We did a bit on "when does a call begin?" Does a call begin when you dial it? Does call begin when you get a ring? Does a call begin when you get an answer? And if it's unwanted call, do you see the yellow blinking light or hear the ringer, and if you're in the middle of a call and you don't want it, you've answered it and you don't want it, don't want to deal with it and you hang up, have you successfully aborted the call and therefore don't have to pay for it? We checked this out with the phone companies back then in the late eighties and early nineties and they were perplexed at the question that we would look at it this way. But for practical purposes here, the likelihood somebody is going to answer is so slim. I don't think you get charged for a busy signal, do you? You don't get charged for a call that's not completed? What does it matter? Folks, even if you do, what does it matter? 202-224-3121, 877-762-8762.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Remember, now, if they "deem" the Senate bill to have passed, it includes everything in the Senate bill, but none of the changes, because the reconciliation bill is going to be a separate thing. This is why Pelosi needs the reconciliation bill. They want to be able to have it both ways, that they have approved the Senate bill but amended it, which allows the president to sign the Senate bill, and House members to claim that they had wanted it amended but the Senate wouldn't do it. This is all about putting Harry Reid and Obama on the spit. This is Pelosi taking care of herself. House members can blame the Senate while in the meantime the bill they never voted on but said was voted on is supposedly law. Let me run through this again. Pelosi needs the reconciliation bill because she wants to be able to have it both ways. She wants to be able to say that they deemed the Senate bill to have been passed but that they amended it, which allows the president to sign the Senate bill and everybody's under the illusion that the amendments, the reconciliation, will go to the Senate and they'll pass that, sent back, and sent to the president, we got two bills, but it's not going to happen. What will happen is the president will sign the Senate bill and that's it, end of story.

House members able to claim they had wanted it amended and they did amend it, but the Senate wouldn't do it. Then House members can blame the Senate while in the meantime the bill they never voted on but said was deemed to have passed supposedly becomes the law of the land. This allows 'em to basically say anything they want, which is exactly the purpose, to get the bill but claim no responsibility for it. That's why this is dictatorial. This is why this is a dictate. This is not governing. This is not even managing. This is dictatorial. Pelosi and Reid are delivering victory to Obama and their party against the will of the people and in contravention of the Constitution. That's what this really is all about. So she needs that reconciliation bill in order to get the House members that hate the Senate bill to vote for it. She needs it. And right now they don't have it. Right now they don't have any text for it. So I hope that this makes a corrupt, polluted, and very complex circumstance somewhat understandable. Again the two phone numbers. I'm told that there's been a change here, 877-762-8762 is not answering, no busy signal, just a never-ending ring, is that right? Okay. We called it twice and no busy signal, it's just not being answered. That means it's still working, folks, the system is still tied up. The 202-224-3121, still busy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here are the two telephone numbers for the Capitol Switchboard, toll-free: 877-762-8762, which is now reporting a busy signal. It was just ringing and not being answered. Now it is reporting a busy signal again. The other number is 202-224-3121. They are really tied up. People are having trouble making outgoing calls from inside the Capitol. That was the case yesterday afternoon, I'm told it is the case today, and I'm told there's quite a lot of frustration about this. Snerdley made an interesting point to me mere moments ago, "What's going on with the media here? Normally they would be attacking the hell out of you for doing this. You're irresponsible, showboating, you're just an entertainer, you're gumming up the works. But they're not doing that, they're not even saying that this is illegitimate. They're reporting it down the line, factually correct." One of the few times in history that something about me is being reported straight, factual, down the line and it is a curiosity. Why? I have no idea why. This seems made to order, you know, to beat me over the coals again.

The Seattle Times has a story: just who exactly supports what they're doing in Washington other than the SEIU and ACORN? Snerdley lived out there. There are two papers out there, the Seattle Times is a left-wing bunch, there's no question about it. Just who in the country supports what they're doing except ACORN and the SEIU? The Washington Post with an editorial: this is absolutely the wrong way to go. By the way, folks, phone numbers again, go to RushLimbaugh.com and click on the Code Red link. At the Code Red link a bunch of local numbers that you can call, they're in play, local congressional offices of members who are saying that they're undecided, trending to "yes" or what have you. It won't be a long-distance call, obviously, if you use your cell phone. People say, "Why don't you give out the number to the DNC? Why don't you give out the number to the CBO?"

Folks, it's not necessary to do that. The DNC doesn't have anybody over there that's going to be voting on this, and the CBO -- you just stick with these two numbers: 877-762-8762, 202-224-3121, and if you do get through, I mean somebody has to get through here. It is happening. You gotta ask for a member. You gotta have a Democrat to ask for to be connected to. You won't be connected and if you do get connected you'll be shouted at, cursed at and hung up on, but you still ask for somebody. You don't tell the switchboard operator to vote "no." The switchboard operator is just there to redirect your call. Be very nice, "Thanks for answering, I've been calling for 24 hours, I'm glad you picked it up," blah, blah, blah. And the Code Red numbers are still in play. They're all local numbers.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We got a third number here for you to call, ladies and gentlemen, a third Capitol Hill Switchboard number. It's very close to the other 202 number. The one you have is 202-224-3121. There's also 202-225-3121. And it's busying out as well. So all three of these numbers are busy, which means that you are continuing to melt the circuits in Washington. The phone lines are finite, you can overwhelm them, it's a little harder to overwhelm an Internet on an e-mail circuit, but phone lines are finite and they can only have so much capacity and we've obviously maxed it out here so much so that they're expecting the max-out to continue the entire week.

New Rasmussen polling data: "For the third month in a row, likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey holds a nine-point lead over incumbent Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race." Folks, the evidence of an electoral landslide against these liberals is everywhere. Obama came to divide and he's pulled it off. He's now at 46 approval, 47 disapproval in Gallup. He is lower than McCain was in the general election. So there's a landslide brewing out there and this is why these leftists hate the people. This is exactly why. It's why they're willing to govern against our will. They know we don't want anything that they stand for. That doesn't matter to them. They're going to try to do it regardless and they're in the process of doing it. I have infinite faith in the country and faith in the people who live here that they're just not going to put up with it. We're not just going to lie down, bend over, and succumb to this. It just isn't going to happen. One way or the other, this is not going to be the law of the land, but we have to make that reality come true, and we're working on these names. I'm still trying to do all of the due diligence to make sure I need to publish these names and numbers on the website without incurring any kind of mistake or problem, so I'll probably do of that after the program.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• The Hill: Limbaugh Prompts Healthcare Calls, Ties Up House Phone Lines • Politico: Limbaugh Urges Listeners to call Congress Politico • Ace of Spades: ObamaCare: Who Should We Be Putting Pressure On?

Kucinich Flips on Health Care Bill
Kucinich brooms principle after a pitch from Obama.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ah, folks, don't get so wigged out here over this Kucinich business. There's an easy explanation for this Kucinich business. They either threatened him with a UFO trip, or they offered to make sure that in his case his preexisting condition of mental illness will not be a barrier to any kind of coverage that he gets down the road.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, everybody's asking me, "What caused Dennis Kucinich to flip? I mean Kucinich, his principles may be wrong and screwy and kooky, but still he flipped and why did this happen?" Well, let's listen to Kucinich. He calls a press conference, takes ten minutes to get to the news that everybody knew, that he was going to flip and vote for the Obama bill, the Senate bill. He gave us this life history story of his own health care? I mean this guy clearly -- they played to his ego. Here's probably how it went. They're on Air Force One and they've taken off from Washington on their way to Ohio to, coincidentally, Kucinich's little district. So Obama brings him up in the presidential cabin, says, "Look, you F-ing R-word, you hate the insurance industry, you don't hate 'em any more than I do, I hate 'em. Are you really so stupid as to not understand that my bill is going to destroy the insurance industry?" "How is that, Mr. President?"

"For crying out loud, Dennis, nobody's going to have to have insurance 'til they get sick, nobody is going to be denied. The insurance companies can't stay in business with this kind of proposal. They'll shut down. They're going to force everybody to the government. The brilliant thing about this, Dennis, is we're going to get the single payer public option without anybody saying it. You want to screw this by demanding a public option, you're going to get it but you're out there screwing around by demanding it. We're going to get it, Dennis, without ever saying a word about it. Now, get on board here. I mean who's going to be dumb enough, Dennis, to pay for insurance when they can wait until they have the car crash or wait 'til they get the terminal disease, all they gotta do is pay a little fine. Hey, Dennis, that fine is nothing more than a tax, and we're pricing the tax, the fine much lower than the policy. No idiot in his right mind would ever buy insurance."

"But, Mr. President, the bill says, and the insurance industry is supporting it at one time, that they have to buy a policy, that you're mandating it, and that made me mad because I hate the insurance companies, and you're just giving them additional business." "Look, you F-ing R-word, Dennis, the fine does two things. It's cheaper than the policy, more tax dollars coming into the government coffers, which you like, and the insurance industry is put outta business, leaving the government as the only place that people can go for their insurance. Dennis, it's exactly what you want. We're giving it to you without saying so. Only the bright people like Limbaugh and some of the people on the right have figured it out. But you F-ing R-word, I mean what more do I have to do? I'm destroying the very industry you hate, Dennis. You ought to be kissing my feet. You ought to be bowing down and begging forgiveness that you've been so stupid as to run an obstacle course in front of me to stop this from happening. These people, the American people are going to see the light, they're going to leave these evil insurance companies high and dry, except when they need one of those unnecessary tonsillectomies or amputations that the doctors pull off."

"Now, Mr. President, I saw the survey that says that doctors are going to leave the profession. There's an amazing survey that was released yesterday that over 60% say they would leave the profession of medicine." "Dennis, don't you understand, that's what we want, too. How do you think we're going to lower costs, Dennis? We're going to have less health care for people. We're going to have no insurance companies, less health care, the people we don't want to be around are not going to be around, the people who know the truth about us are going to die off, the elderly and so forth. Dennis, this is made to order. We wrote this bill with people like you in mind. I don't have to give you anything, Dennis. I've given you nirvana in this health care bill. It's exactly what you want. But you're out there holding out 'cause you want it to say 'public option.' Well, if we say public option it doesn't have a chance, Dennis, that's why we got it passed in the Senate. So we had to put in a mechanism to destroy private insurance, and we've done it, and it's going to not take very many years, Dennis, and, meanwhile, your mental illness, preexisting condition, will still be honored. We'll make sure that somebody insures you for your mental illness preexisting condition." And folks, that's all it took. At the end of this conversation Kucinich probably looked out the window and said, "Oh, my God, is that the Statue of Liberty? I've never seen it up close like this." That's all it took, folks. Here, listen to Kucinich himself explain this.

KUCINICH: After careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth, and close friends, I've decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation. As a nation, we're losing sight of the expanded vision.

RUSH: See? See?

KUCINICH: The electrifying potential we caught when we caught a glimpse of the potential of the election of President Obama.

RUSH: Yeah.

KUCINICH: The transformational potential of his presidency.

RUSH: Yeah.

KUCINICH: And of ourselves can still be courageously summoned in ways that will reconnect America to our hopes for expanded opportunities for jobs, housing, education, peace, and, yes, health care.

RUSH: Dennis, have you checked what's happening out there in the job market? There's no expansion out there, Dennis, except in the government sector. Have you checked to see what's happening in housing, Dennis, after one year of this messiah of yours? Have you checked to say what's going on in education? They're closing 45 schools in Detroit, Dennis, probably a prelude to shutting down the school system there. Obviously it's a failure. Peace? Peace? Dennis, have you seen what he's doing to Israel?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kucinich, October 29th, 2009, was a true believer before they got to him. Here's what he really thinks about the health care bill.

KUCINICH: Forcing people to buy private insurance, guaranteeing at least $50 billion in new business for the insurance companies, is this the best we can do? Government negotiates rates which will drive up insurance costs but the government won't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies, which will drive up pharmaceutical costs. Is this the best we can do? Eliminating the state single payer option, while forcing most people to buy private insurance. If this is the best we can do, then our best isn't good enough, and we have to ask some hard questions about our political system, such as: Health care or insurance care? Government of the people or government by the corporations?

RUSH: That's Kucinich just last October. That's what he really thinks. He's bought off. He was told, "Dennis, everything you want is going to happen here, just under the cover of darkness." By the way, I said yesterday that Kucinich's wife would have a role in this, and Scarlett Johansson, the actress, and activist Elizabeth Kucinich will soon be working in tandem with Michelle Obama's anti-obesity efforts, taking up the benefits of plant-based meals. So Mrs. Kucinich wants to be someone, she's sitting right next to Michelle turning everybody into vegetarians now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We go to Eric in Waterloo, Iowa, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I just wanted to let you know it kind of frustrates me that you keep calling Dennis Kucinich mentally ill. I have bipolar disorder, but I don't believe in UFOs and do not support a bill banning mind control, which he introduced in 2001. Mental illnesses are treatable, but, frankly, this guy is beyond help.

RUSH: Well, I don't mean to frustrate you, I was telling a joke. I was just trying to be funny, what kind of deal did he get to change his vote, his preexisting mental disorder to continue to be covered by it, just a flippant line.

CALLER: Yeah, he's beyond help, there's no chance for him.

RUSH: No. No. And I'm not saying anybody else believes in UFOs. I'm saying that if Obama thought that he did, he'd promise him a UFO trip or something. I was trying to explain to people how such a, quote, unquote, principled guy as Kucinich could be flipped in less than an hour aboard Air Force One.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I was just sent a note about a post from the leftist web log, FireDogLake.com, and it's run by a woman named Jane Hamsher, big, big, big leftist, big Kucinich supporter, and she apparently is raising holy hell with Kucinich after his speech today, and he's going to refund campaign contributions that he received from people on the basis he was opposing the bill until it had a public option in it. So he's giving back money because he has betrayed the people that he has given a commitment to. He's giving the money back. He can afford it because his wife is a gazillionaire, plus she's now part of Michelle Obama's eat plants initiative. (interruption) Of course Obama helped him out, Obama's stash.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Plain Dealer: Rep. Dennis Kucinich to Vote "Yes" on Health Care • Sweetness & Light: Kucinich's Rant Against The Healthcare Bill

Democrats Will Violate Constitution to "Deem" Obamacare Law of Land
They're going to pretend, not really vote on health care.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Heritage, Morning Bell. I'm going to get started on this, then I’m gonna take a break and we'll come back to it. It's a little complicated only because of what's so convoluted and unconstitutional about what the House of Representatives is trying to do here. But there is no bill but the Senate bill. The reconciliation bill, all these changes that they want to attach to a "deemed"-to-have-passed Senate bill has not been written. They say they're waiting on the score of whatever the yet-to-be written bill is from the Congressional Budget Office. Well, a little hint for you. Pelosi got that number yesterday. She's holding it back. I don't know what it is. I do know what it is. I'll guarantee you are the number is under a trillion dollars. That's the tipping point number.

So she's been working with the CBO and she's told 'em whatever's hit there, but there's nothing to score. Again, there's not even a draft outline of this. It's why they don't have any votes! The only bill they have right now is the Senate bill. They haven't put together this reconciliation thing, yet she got a score from the CBO yesterday, I'm told, and she's going to announce it tomorrow to try to ignite some momentum heading into the weekend. Her objective, if she can do it, is to pass this bill on Saturday when there aren't as many people running around. This is her objective. Now, we're told all over the place that they're 11 votes shy, 12 votes shy, 16 votes shy, five votes shy.

There are four different estimates coming from the four different leaders of Pelosi's leadership team. But what is known is that right now there is no bill except the Senate bill, and there was another poll that came out yesterday (the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released theirs) and it showed the percentage of Americans who believe Obama's health care plan is a bad idea is at the highest level since they started asking the question last year, 48%. Only 36% of Americans are willing to call Obama's plan or the Senate plan or whoever's plan a good idea, and that's up a whole four points from the time Louise Slaughter started writing things about it. So there's no improvement. It's worsening. There is no reconciliation bill yet.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, there are a lot of people who are starting to say (John Hood is one from the CarolinaJournal.com) if they pass this using the Slaughter solution -- in other words, literally shredding the Constitution. If they do this in a lawless way, then he's not going to comply. He's simply not going to comply and he's urging everybody else not to comply. We don't have to comply with illegally passed bills. We don't have to comply with things which are unconstitutional. For example, maybe we can just "deem" our tax returns to have been filed. But we don't actually file 'em. We just "deem" our taxes to have been paid.

We just "deem" it! I mean, if they can "deem" to have passed laws, we can certainly say that we are "deemed" to have complied with them. The word "deemed" means what? It means pretend! That's what it means. We're going to pretend that we passed the Senate bill. That's what it means. We're going to pretend that we paid our taxes. Lawlessness? Unconstitutionality? Why do we have to comply with it? Now, let's get back to this mess that's taking place in the House of Representatives. The Senate health bill is so unpopular in the House that the leftist House leadership is desperately trying to trick the American people into believing that the House can pass the Senate bill without voting on it. There are many reasons why they want to do this but at the top of the list -- and I kid you not -- is that members of the House want to be able to go home during their campaign for reelection and say, "No, I did not vote for the Senate bill.

"You won't find a vote for the Senate bill. I didn't vote for it. No, no, we 'deemed' it to have passed but we didn't vote for it." They do not want to be tied to a vote on it. I know this sounds convoluted, and it is. It's unconstitutional and it is illegal. So that's why they've come up with the Slaughter rule which would "deem" the Senate bill passed, at the same time the House would approve a new reconciliation bill. Pelosi was crystal clear on her motives this week. She told a group of leftist bloggers, "It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know about, but I like it, 'cause people don't have the vote on the Senate bill." There is one increasingly glaring problem, however, with Pelosi's pass-the-bill-without-voting plan. It's impossible, proving impossible to draft that reconciliation bill. Now, again, not to insult your intelligence -- you probably know -- but I just want to explain what the reconciliation bill is.

Think of it as a bunch of amendments. Think of it as the House fixes what they don't like about the Senate bill. And they end up with two separate bills. They don't end up with a reconciliation bill that is attached to the Senate bill as one bill. They end up with two separate bills. The Senate bill which they "deem" to have passed, and then their reconciliation package. And those two bills would not go back to the Senate. They would go straight to Obama. If the House votes on these this thing, that's the Slaughter rule. They even found... The Drive-Bys are desperately looking for constitutional lawyers to say this is no problem. And they found some doofus in Maryland, someone at the University of Maryland who actually said, "Somebody show me in the Constitution where it says you can't pass two bills with one vote?" This is a guy teaching constitutional law to people. "Show me in the Constitution," he said, "where you can't pass two bills with one vote."

Now, the problem is that it's proving difficult to draft that reconciliation bill. The Democrats first promised to unveil their new bill last Wednesday. Then it was Thursday and then Friday. Then they were going to release it Monday. Then we were told they were going to release it last night. As of this morning, still nothing. The Democrats say they're waiting for a score from the Congressional Budget Office before they release their bill. But there's nothing stopping them from releasing whatever text they have now and then publicizing the CBO score when it comes back. But they don't want to do the open and transparent path. They don't want to take that way. I'm told from a very, very reliable source (a spy) that Pelosi's got here CBO score and she's waiting to release it tomorrow to provide some momentum. If she's got it and is going to wait to release it, then it obviously is a score that she likes, which is something under $1 trillion.

Now, the Heritage Foundation insists that "getting a CBO score consistent with reconciliation is going to be very difficult," and they tell me their reasons here. But if the House Democrats have chosen to break the law, if they have chosen to ignore the law, if they have chosen to simply violate the Constitution, then why would they stop or be stopped by any other rules? Now, here's what Heritage says will be the difficulty in "getting a CBO score consistent with reconciliation is going to be very difficult. According to House rules..." But what do they matter anymore now? "According to House rules, a reconciliation measure must reduce the deficit by at least $2 billion over five years compared to existing law. In 'this case, however, 'existing law' would be the yet-to-be-passed Senate bill." It exists only in the Senate. So that's the existing law.

"And all of the changes Democrats want to make to the Senate bill" the amendments, the reconciliation, such as "scaling back the tax on high-end health insurance policies; closing the Medicare D loophole; boosting insurance subsidies; increasing Medicaid payments; and expanding the Cornhusker Kickback" to every state. That's how they're dealing with it in the House. They're not taking it away from Ben Nelson. They're going to give it to every state, and they can't do any of this and satisfy the rule that says the bill must reduce the deficit by at least $2 billion over five years compared to existing law, which is the Senate bill. There's no way what they're writing is going to reduce the deficit at all. Even the AP today does a fact-check on Obama and virtually everything he's saying about this bill is a lie.

They even point out that he says premiums are going to go down. They're not. Premiums are going up. Even the AP! It's getting to the point now... You know, I would like one of you Obama supporters in the audience to call me today and tell me one thing Obama has said about health care that's true. It would take a lot less time for you to tell me what he said that's true, than for me to sit here and listen to all the lies because he's lying about everything. None of what he's saying is factual, none of it is truthful. So expanding the Cornhusker Kickback, scaling back the tax on high-end health insurance policies, closing the Medicare D loophole -- Oh, do you know they're also double counting? $500 billion in Medicare cuts are then going to be taken and applied to the new reconciliation bill. They're counting it twice.

They're saying, "Well, we're cutting the budget by $500 billion." You're not because you're just changing pockets. You're taking the 500 billion out of the Senate bill and you're moving it into your reconciliation bill. It's the same $500 billion. There's no cut, but they're counting it as a cut. Anything the CBO comes up here with is not going to be factual or true, either. Now, all of this means that the Democrats are going to have to identity some new revenues to make the CBO score work, "And as Congressional Quarterly reported yesterday, Democrats have not yet identified the right pay-fors to game the CBO right. That is why House Leadership has not unveiled their new bill yet: they can’t figure out how to pay for it." Now, again it's not that they care about having to pay for it. It's they gotta have a way on paper that makes it look like it's being paid for.

But my reaction to what Heritage says here (this is in their Morning Bell blog) is: If they're willing to go the total unconstitutional route, if they are willing to uproot the very fabric of our country to pass this... And you gotta ask yourself something about that, by the way: Just what is in this that makes it so important for them to do what they are doing? Why are they willing to lose the majority in November, in the House, maybe the Senate as well? Why are they willing to risk losing the White House in 2012? Why are they willing to openly violate the Constitution? Why? What's in this? What's in this that we don't know? What makes this so important? I think, if I had to take a stab at this: When you boil it all down, what this does is destroy the private insurance business, just wipes it out, just eliminates it -- and it gets them single-payer within years without ever having to really vote on that concept.

There are so many deceptions and tricks going on in this. Now, Heritage says -- after all of this, after saying the House hasn't produced their new bill because "they can't figure out how to pay for it. Not that it really matters if they ever do. The reconciliation bill is never going to become law. The Senate will never pass it. They have no reason to. The Senate likes the existing Senate bill. That's why it's called 'the Senate bill' ... they are the ones who passed it. The White House also likes the Senate bill. As soon as the House passes it, President Obama will sign it and then leave for Asia. That's it. Obamacare will be... 'the law of the land.'" But my fear, going a bit beyond Heritage, is that they will do the Slaughter solution with the claim that they have "deemed" the Senate bill to have passed.

And then they will send the Senate bill to the president to sign without sending reconciliation to the Senate. The plan is to treat them as separate bills. The Senate bill is passed, the reconciliation bill is a second bill. So the Senate would not have to vote again, the Senate could ignore the reconciliation bill altogether, and if they wanted to, they could go ahead and say, "Okay, we're going to attach this to the Senate bill, make it one bill, and have the president sign all this." Once you throw down the rules, once you say that we're going to "deem" it to have passed, there's no limit to what you can do. None whatsoever. Once you pretend that you've done something, you don't have to stop pretending at all. So it is convoluted, but at the bottom of all this is: They still don't have the votes, and they don't have the votes because the members of the House despise the Senate bill.

They don't have a reconciliation bill yet because there are however many Democrats in there that want their fingers in this pie that have to be satisfied, and it's just a mess. That's why Clyburn saying, "Oh, we might not even get to this by Easter," and Hoyer is saying, "Ah, we don't have the votes now." They don't have the votes to pass the Senate bill, and they never will have the votes to pass the Senate bill. It is despised in the House. This reconciliation, Slaughter rule -- and this is where Pelosi is willing to trick her own members. Go ahead and put together this amendment thing, this reconciliation bill and tell the members, "Yeah, we're fixing this. We're fixing this. All this going to be fixed.

"We're just going to 'deem' the Senate bill to be signed. We're going to fix it. We're going to send this stuff back over to the Senate. We're going to fix it all." But what won't happen is sending it back to the Senate. The Senate will never see it. It'll just die. The President will sign the Senate bill, "deem to have passed." Nobody in the House will have actually voted on it, and House members get screwed. The only upside for them is they get to run home and say, "I didn't vote for the Senate bill. We 'deemed' it to have passed." This is beyond rational explanation and description. This makes Watergate look like Romper Room. This is the overthrow of the US constitutional system, orchestrated from the White House through the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. That's what's going on here.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Heritage Foundation: There Is No Bill But the Senate Bill • Sweetness & Light: AP: Premiums Go Up Under Obama Plan! • Carolina Journal: I Will Not Comply - John Hood • Investor's Business Daily: Not Even A Vote?! • Wall Street Journal: 'Nobody Wants to Vote for the Senate Bill' • Gallup Poll: Obama Not Meeting Americans' Lofty Expectations on Issues • MRC: NBC Poll Finds ObamaCare Seen as 'Bad Idea' by 12 Point Margin, Squelched by Nightly News • CNSNews: Nearly One-Third of Doctors Could Leave Medicine if Health-Care Reform Bill Passes, According to Survey Reported in New England Journal of Medicine

Health Care is NOT a Right, but Obamacare Repeal Will be Hard
Once an entitlement is created, it's impossible to undo.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Chris in Cincinnati, great to have you on the program, sir, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from Cincinnati.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I'm a physician in the Cincinnati area, emergency physician. I asked questions for a couple years now from people who can't give me the answer. I thought maybe you had it. When did health care become a right in the Constitution or in any of the amendments?

RUSH: It isn't a right. It cannot be a right.

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: You cannot insure good health. Nobody can insure good health. That's not what health insurance is about. Health insurance is insurance against catastrophic injury, costs a lot of money. Basically you're calculating risk. It's risk-reward. There's no way that health care is a right. Now, the whole notion of health care being a right, you can probably trace it back to FDR with his attempt to have a second Bill of Rights, which also said that everybody is entitled to a house and everybody's entitled to a job and everybody is entitled to a living wage, a livable wage. I mean these are leftists' dreams of a utopia that have been tried and failed. Now, it became popularized, the whole notion in the modern era -- and Kucinich opened his press conference today by saying, "I believe health care is a basic human right." Now, Kucinich is an idiot, he is mental midget, he is a socialist utopian who has no concrete sense of reality at all. But the modern era of health care as a right concept I would trace to a candidate for the Senate who won in 1992 in Pennsylvania, Harris Wofford. Harris Wofford ran on the notion that health care is a right, and he said if the Constitution provides you a lawyer, the Constitution ought to provide you a doctor. And if you can't pay for the doctor, we should pay for the doctor for you. Just like if you can't afford a lawyer, we'll give you one and pay for him, the public defender, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then the Clintons picked up on that in the campaign, it was all part of an orchestrated, coordinated effort. But it's been a liberal dream since FDR, to have this. And just saying health care is a right is simply a sales technique.

CALLER: Right. And I think unfortunately a lot of my patients are buying into that, and many people don't realize, they talk about access to care, but as you found out in Hawaii, if you're sick and you go to an emergency department we have to see you and take care of you before we even ask insurance questions and, you know, if you can't pay for it, then the hospital eats that bill, or the physician eats that bill and they try to get reimbursed by the government anyway. So in that sense we already have some form of health care provided by the government.

RUSH: Well, I know, this is why we always say that everybody gets health care in this country because what you just said is the law of the land, you gotta be treated in an emergency situation, and they deal with getting paid later, either making a deal with the patient, pay it back in increments or some other way. Now, I meant to get to this, I've got a Stack of Stuff I haven't gotten to this week that's getting pretty big, and I'm not going to be able to find it right now. But it was a great piece earlier this week by Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post, and he explodes this emergency room myth. The emergency room myth, if I recall what he said, and give me the opportunity to be a little bit wrong on this until I refresh my memory looking at it, the emergency room myth is that it is overrun with uninsured people. And the fact is it isn't. Eighty-three percent of all emergency room treatments are made to people who have health insurance. It's pretty much consistent with every other form of treatment. It's not being overrun, is what his point is. Don't look at this as a negative. He's exploding a popular myth here that's being used to sell universal health care. I'm going to dig this up and I'm going to find it here because it's an interesting point. I skimmed over it real fast, I had it in the stack to explore later and the way this issue is happening all week, it's exploding by the minute here and just keeping up with it currently is an ongoing challenge. Anyway I appreciate the call very much. That was Chris.

David in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. You're next. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Appreciate your taking my call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: I hope you agree with me. I think you are completely right in that if they pass health care and we have a overwhelming win in November, it will not be enough to rewrite the health care bill because Obama would veto it.

RUSH: Well --

CALLER: We would not have enough to overrun his veto.

RUSH: Well, we probably won't have enough to override a veto. But before we even get to that point, here's the danger, and I have alluded to this, I'm going to couple it with what our emergency room doctor just said. He comes in contact with a lot of people, and a lot of people believe their health care is a right, that they shouldn't have to pay for it, we've had them call this show, they think the government should pay for it, they listen to Democrats make these promises and they think it's great. They buy this notion that they're just one doctor visit away from bankruptcy and so forth, and they think the government should pay for it. It's a right, it should be paid for. Now, it's not a majority of people who think this or otherwise there would be massive support for this bill, and there isn't. We do not have a lot of time here, but we have an opportunity to turn this back. Here's what happens if it becomes law. The Republicans will initiate a campaign theme called repeal. But, folks, the dirty little secret is that once this becomes law, to campaign against repealing it is almost a death wish. I know this doesn't sound like it makes any sense. "Why, Rush, so many people oppose it." Once it becomes law, once it gets implemented, the Republicans are what? Campaigning to take your health care away. That's what the Democrats would say. Just like they wanted to take your Social Security away, the Republicans want to take your health care away.

You have to understand what's going to happen if this passes. The most massive PR effort and party and celebration you've ever seen is gonna take place in Washington. And it's going to consist of one thing: America now joins the rest of the world with universal health care. You will never, ever have a health care worry the rest of your life. This is what the nation's going to be told with the best PR flacks and hacks in the world writing the message, there will be parties and celebrations. The one benefit here is that all the so-called benefits don't trigger for four years. The taxes and stuff start immediately. But if this thing sets in for five years, then I think the odds of overturning it dwindle down to zero. At that point you're not going to have a politician brave enough after five years of it to campaign on taking it away. It's just the way entitlements work. I wish I could give you examples here. I can, I just don't dare say them. But to people who rely on entitlements, you know, I've had an addiction problem, it's an addiction. There's no reason or rationality to it. It becomes an addiction and taking it away, they're not going to let you do it. This is a very, very grave situation. All the talk here about repealing it, we don't even want to have to think about that. All of the effort needs to be focused on defeating it and making sure they don't get their votes.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Washington Post: Obama's Illusions of Cost-Control - Robert J. Samuelson • Heritage Foundation: There Is No Bill But the Senate Bill • Sweetness & Light: AP: Premiums Go Up Under Obama Plan!

Barack Obama, the Great Unifier, Has Chosen to Divide the Nation
Obama has done exactly what he planned all along.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, Peter Beinart, this is a very, very long piece that ran on TheDailyBeast.com website, Tina Brown's blog and website. It ran on March 15th. It's very long. I'm going to excerpt it here for you 'cause it's worth reading. It's interesting. Beinart used to be -- where did he used to be? New Republic? I get him confused with Fareed Zakaria. New Republic. Yeah, and he's often a guest in the roundtable on Sunday shows. Oh, he's a huge lib. Oh, of course. He's at The Daily Beast, Snerdley, of course he's a huge lib. It goes without saying. I guess it doesn't go without saying. I just said it, he's a huge lib. Here's his piece: "Democrats, Forever Changed -- By pressing ahead on health care, President Obama is ending a decades-long internal debate within his party -- and the Democratic Party will never be the same.

"This week’s last-ditch health care push may or may not prove the defining battle of Barack Obama’s presidency. It may or may not prove a defining moment in the history of the American welfare state. But here’s a good bet: The Democratic Party will never be the same. For close to a decade now, Democrats have been arguing with each other about what kind of country this is, and what kind of party they should be. On one side stands a group of politicians, consultants and wonks who believe that America is, at its core, a pretty conservative place. These Democrats form something of a political generation. In their youth, they saw their party move left during Vietnam and get booted from power in 1968. Then they saw George McGovern, the most left-wing major party presidential candidate of the twentieth century, lose 49 states. Then they saw Jimmy Carter’s presidency destroyed in part because he looked weak during the Iran hostage crisis. Then they saw Ronald Reagan, once considered as an unelectable right-wing nut, become the most popular president of their adult lives."

We're talking now about the Democrats who understand this is a conservative-right country. "In the late 1980s, they responded to these disasters by creating the Democratic Leadership Council, which pushed the party to the right on welfare, taxes, trade, crime and defense." I've always thought that was an illusion and a trick to make people think that's where they were going, but let's give Beinart the benefit of the doubt here, 'cause I'm sure he believes that the DLC was a genuine substantive movement to try to move the party to the right. We know it didn't work, and probably 'cause it was not genuine. "They claimed vindication when a president of the DLC, Bill Clinton, became president, and claimed double vindication when, after Clinton pushed for universal health care and got creamed in 1994, he won reelection two years later by triangulating against the liberals in his own party.

"For this generation of Democrats, which includes Al From, Mark Penn, Joe Lieberman, William Galston, Elaine Kamarck, Dick Morris, Ed Koch, Jane Harman, Evan Bayh, and to some extent Bill and Hillary Clinton, being a liberal is like walking past a bear. Move cautiously and reassuringly and the bear will purr contentedly. But make any sudden or threatening gestures, and you'll be mauled because, fundamentally, the bear distrusts liberals. As Galston and Kamarck wrote in their famed 1989 essay 'The Politics of Evasion' -- a document that helped define the 'don't scare the bear' wing of the party -- Democrats can pass liberal programs 'but these programs must be shaped and defended within an inhospitable ideological climate.' To pretend that the American people are liberal at heart is to evade political reality, with devastating results."

So this bunch of Democrats essentially knew that to pass liberal ideas, you couldn't say you were passing liberal ideas. You had to position yourself as a centrist, a moderate, or what have you. You couldn't say, "I'm liberal." This is why they've always hated the word "liberal." We are the bear. They go walking by us, and they show us they're a liberal, and we maul 'em. That's why progressive is invented as a term or rotated with "liberal," anything but "liberal." "Liberal" wakes up the bear. The bear is us. The bear is the rest of the country. "By the late 1990s, 'don’t scare the bear' Democrats pretty much dominated Washington. But in the Bush years, a new faction began to emerge. These Democrats were mostly newer to politics. They had never seen a McGovern or Mondale mauled for being too far to the left. What they had seen was the post-1994 Bill Clinton, who shied away from ambitious liberal reform. And they had seen the Iraq War, which DLC types largely supported, partly out of fear that opposing it would allow Republicans to paint Democrats as soft on defense.

"By 2003, this new group of Democrats was angry as hell. The Iraq War, which party elders had mostly backed, was proving a disaster, and to make matters worse, Republicans were clobbering Democrats as weak anyway. So these Democrats began fashioning a different theory: Perhaps the problem wasn’t that Democrats looked weak because they were too liberal, perhaps the problem was that Democrats looked weak because they didn’t stand up for what they really believed." And this new bunch of Democrats doesn't like the Clinton wing and the old DLC guys because they think they're frauds, cowards, didn't have the guts to say who they really were, tried to paint a picture of themselves that was not accurate. This new bunch typified by the fringe kook leftists, the Kuciniches of the world, the Obamas, screw scaring the bear, screw centrism, we are proud of being radical, anti-American leftists and this is who we are going to be, and this is who we're going to tell you we are. And Beinart says this is the battle going on within the Democrat Party, much like we think a similar battle is going on in the Republican Party, conservative ascendancy to get rid of our phonies, the RINOs.

Anyway, I continue with the excerpts here. "In their version," these new Democrats, "the Democrats didn’t get mauled because they made sudden, aggressive moves," in front of the bear. "After all, the Clinton and Bush-era Democrats hadn’t been aggressive at all. They had been mauled for precisely the opposite reason: because they didn’t fight back. ... If Democrats defined themselves -- if they stood up for their beliefs in the face of political threats -- they would win in the end," is what these people think. "In Bush’s second term, the Halpin and Teixeira faction grew stronger. Congressional Democrats held firm against Bush’s effort to partially privatize Social Security, and forced him to back down. The netroots were further buoyed by the 2006 midterms, when Democrats ran against the Iraq War, and won control of Congress." They didn't run against the Iraq war. It was Mark Foley that they ran against.

At any rate: "Perhaps the Democrats were building their superjumbo after all. During the 2008 presidential primaries, each of the Democratic Party’s factions had a candidate. The DLC types -- led by Mark Penn -- mostly backed Hillary Clinton, who refused to repudiate her vote for the Iraq War, took a hawkish line on Iran and defended her husband’s centrist record. Many in the superjumbo faction, by contrast, signed on with John Edwards," and, by the way, many of these people that signed on with John Edwards are the people who think Sarah Palin is an idiot. Now, contrast that. John Edwards was the answer to everything, never a more duped, taken-advantage-of and intelligence-insulted group of people than the Edwards supporters and they all think Sarah Palin's an idiot. That is just a side observation.

So now the battle, Beinart says, is over. "When Scott Brown won his Senate seat, he made Obama choose. On the one hand, he handed the White House an excuse to abandon comprehensive reform and return to the incremental, small-bore approach that Clinton pursued after 1994. The Brown victory, in fact, seemed to illustrate the 'don’t scare the bear' theory perfectly. Obama had passed the stimulus and bailed out the banks and taken over part of the auto industry and for the American people, it was too much liberal activism too fast. ... Superjumbo Democrats, by contrast, argued that the public wasn’t so much anti-reform as they were anti-the legislative process that had produced reform. But more fundamentally, they argued that the American people would respect Democrats for not backing down in the face of adversity.

"Why exactly Obama -- advised by David Axelrod, Rahm Emmanuel and Valerie Jarrett -- decided to double down on health care remains unclear. But it’s a good bet that President Hillary Clinton -- advised by Mark Penn -- would have acted differently. And in acting the way he did, Obama has turned himself into a superjumbo Democrat. For the foreseeable future, he has forfeited any chance of bridging the red-blue divide. ... Conversely, Obama has cemented his bond with the netroots. It doesn’t really matter that the health care reform bill he is fighting for isn’t particularly left-wing." It is, Peter! "For the netroots, a politicians’ ideological purity has always been less important than his willingness to resist pressure from the other side. ... Obama has embraced polarization over triangulation. ... And that’s a disaster for 'don’t scare the bear' Democrats whether Obamacare passes or not. The reason is that the DLC wing of the party is much more top-down than the MoveOn wing. It has always wielded influence primarily through elected leaders rather than grassroots activists. But today, Obama is the only leader in the Democratic Party who really matters. As the retirement of Evan Bayh illustrates, there are few nationally prominent DLC-aligned politicians left." They've been swept away.

"From top to bottom, Democrats have decided to bet the party’s future on the belief that Americans prefer bold liberals to cautious ones. Now it’s up to the bear." Us. That's Beinart's analysis of where the Democrats are. That they've doubled down now, and they have bet their party's future on the belief that this country is ready for radical leftism, Marxism, and socialism.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, well, well! Right at one o'clock a new Gallup poll was released on Obama's approval-disapproval -- and, folks, he's upside down here. Right now President Obama is at 46% approval, 47% disapproval. This is his lowest yet in the Gallup poll. He is now below where McCain was during the general election. Now let's couple this news with a pull quote here from the Peter Beinart piece from which I just excerpted. Obama "has chosen Karl Rove's politics of base mobilization over Dick Morris's politics of crossover appeal, with consequences not merely for how he campaigns for Democrats in 2010, but for [how] he campaigns for himself in 2012." In other words, let me translate here what Peter Beinart wrote. Obama, contrary to what everybody voting for him thought, came to divide. Obama's purpose is to divide the country. His purpose was to never "unify."

His purpose was to never "reach across the aisle" and "bridge the political divide" or "gap." He was never interested in that. He does not want to compromise a shred with people who disagree with him. He wants to steamroller them. As we've always said: His tactic is to clear the playing field of any opposition. It's not to make the playing field level. So he succeeded. He's divided the country, but he's on the downside. Forty-six approve, 47% disapprove. At the height of the health care debate, it is his lowest number. He will benefit no Democrat, or very few Democrats, if he does go campaign for them in their reelection in November. He's toxic. President Obama is a fraud. He openly and successfully totally misled 53% of the American voting population. He came to divide. "Base mobilization." That's why he's doubled-down on health care. That's the whole plan.

This is just in addition to, of course, the substantive reasons of what he believes in. He's openly said that the Constitution is an obstacle, that the Bill of Rights is bad because it doesn't say what the government can do for anybody or what the government can do TO anybody. All it says is what the government can't do, and he doesn't like that, because government is his instrument. He doesn't like it. So all of you who bought into this silly notion because you desperately wanted it to be true -- you know, the Rodney King-Peggy Noonan way of thinking, "Can't we all just get along and stop fighting?" -- for crying out loud, Obama was not interested in unity! He was not interested in that at all. He had never unified anybody in his orb in the past. That was not his purpose. He's an agitator! Community organizer, ACORN advisor, lawyer, he's an agitator. Barack Obama came to divide, and he has succeeded. Forty-six percent approval in Gallup, just announced, and 47% disapproval at the height the health care bill. It's his lowest in this poll.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So now that we know, via the latest Gallup poll, that we know that Obama's approval numbers are lower than McCain's during the general election, can we "deem" Obama to be unelected? I mean, where does this 'deeming' stuff, which is nothing other than pretending, stop?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hanford, California, Donna, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you very much for taking my call, Mr. Limbaugh.

RUSH: Yes, madam.

CALLER: I sincerely believe after reading Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, that Barack Obama has developed this myth about himself, how great he is, and to him he really is the all-seeing, all-knowing answer to everything, and nothing that happens within his administration will ever taint him in his mind.

RUSH: That's exactly right. You nailed it.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: It's narcissism squared.

CALLER: Oh, yeah. Yes. And one other point. I saw your friend Karl Rove on Meet the Press on Sunday.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: It was a wonderful interview. I thought Tom Brokaw was going to come across the table at him, he had him livid. It was a great interview.

RUSH: Well, I didn't see it, but I know that -- see, the problem is these guys in the media, they don't know anything other than what they know, and they don't know anything other than their templates and storylines, and you have somebody like Rove come in there and tell them the truth, it's like telling them the world's flat. Or better, it's like telling them the earth is round when they think it's flat. And they don't know what to do with it. They're in stunned shock and amazement that anybody would think that way. They don't know how to come back at it. Yeah, I was with Brokaw once on election night coverage in 2002. He-he-he-he-he. You couldn't see it if you were watching, but when I was explaining why the Republicans had a clean sweep it was not a bunch of happiness on that set.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• The Daily Beast: Democrats, Forever Changed - Peter Beinart • Gallup Poll: Obama Not Meeting Americans' Lofty Expectations on Issues • Gallup: Obama Job Approval

Vote Hunch: Dems Aren't Close
If they had the votes, this would be passed already.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

You know, these vote counts, these whip counts, they're all over the place. You got Democrat leaders saying, "We're five votes short." CNN says they're 12 votes short of passing the Senate bill. Ace of Spades, a website, they claim that Pelosi only has 192 votes, that she's 24 short and that there are 26 "maybes" left. And of the "maybes" there are ten who voted "yes" the first time but have refused to commit to voting the same way this time. They are named here, and there are 16 who voted "no" the first time who could be victims of Rahm-in-the-locker-room-with-the-lead-pipe bullying or Cornhusker kickback bribery because they haven't declared yet what they plan to do. Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania, is one of those. I've got a list of some of these guys, their addresses in Washington and their phone numbers in Washington. Including fax.

Now, if I can verify this, then we'll put it up at RushLimbaugh.com. But I don't have 26 of them here. I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I know there are more than eight. So I need to check. A staffer sent me this, and staffers all assume I'm brilliant. They think I'm going to understand everything they send me without any explanation. But I'm curious, I always have questions: Who are these eight? Why just these eight? I know there are many more than these eight. I'll get all that data, and we'll go from there. Now, this Ace of Spades -- and put Stupak in there. Stupak says that she's at 200 votes, which is 16 short. Now, let me again rely on my common sense and instincts and my well-known, superior, critical thinking abilities. It's been a year. They have not been able to get this done. They really haven't been close. We thought they were close, then the Scott Brown election took place, but they really haven't been close in the traditional, required-by-the-Constitution way of passing a bill.

The House and the Senate have been far apart. It doesn't matter where the Republicans are on this. They're all united against it. They can't stop it, except in the Senate now with their numbers. So we've been hearing for a year, "The endgame is near! We're very close. We're very, very close." I've resisted saying what I really think about this very much, because I don't want to fall prey to my own wishful thinking compromising my objectivity. My wishful thinking is that this thing goes down a pile of dust and we never see or hear from it again, and I don't want that desire to pollute or corrupt my actual thinking on this. I'll just tell you: My actual thinking on this for the longest time has been that they were never close. Five votes? No way they're that close. They coulda found five votes by now. It took 'em, what, 48 minutes with Kucinich on Air Force One?

That's how long the flight was from Washington to Cleveland: 48 minutes. That's all it took 'em to get Kucinich. I mean, if it were just five (it's gotta be more than five) they coulda had this wrapped up. They can't even get this Slaughter solution reconciliation bill written. That's not even written! And they're talking about having the final vote here Saturday. The only thing they've got right now to vote on is the Senate bill, and they despise that in the House. So I see the Ace of Spades thing that shows Pelosi is 24 short. She's got 192 votes and there are 26 "maybes." Now, the way they're looking at it at Ace of Spades -- and I'm not holding them out as having a better count than anybody else does. They're just an example to look at here. But if they're right, if she's 24 short and therefore needs 24 and there are 26 "maybes," that means she needs 24 of the 26 "maybes" to say "yes."

Now, that makes sense that they're having trouble getting that many to switch. If it were just four or five, this would have been done. They'd have plenty to bully, plenty to bribe, plenty to pay. I've always thought and I've always believed -- especially when we're dealing with Democrat leaders in the media -- that what they're saying is what they want us to believe but it really isn't the truth. How often is that accurate about any news story? I'm not saying that to make everybody exhale and breathe a sigh of relief, because I want you to keep pounding those numbers, and I want you to keep thinking that they're just one vote short. But in the back of my mind it's been gnawing at me. Folks, there's another reason. I know that we have the most radical leftists running the Democrat Party than ever before in our history.

We now know that the people who are running the Democrat Party have decided they're going to run it on the basis that this is a majority leftist country, and they're going to approach it that way. They're going to identify themselves that way. But we have seen for the past year: This is a conservative country. You can look at it by polling data, self-identification polls. You can look at it by how issue by issue Obama is doing. You can look at it and judge the reaction to the biggest socialist attempt in this country's history. You can see nobody wants it. It has no majority appeal, not even close to majority appeal. So in my mind... Now, this is a little Pollyannaish, and I will admit this, but I can't get my arms around the fact that we're three days away from the United States of America being over as we've all known it.

I have not lost that much faith in the people who work in Washington, DC. I know we got a big, bad bunch of them but I don't think they're the majority yet. They're trying to pretend that they are, but if they were, this would have been done last year, last August. I admit this is Pollyannaish. And this view is not clouding my objectivity. I know, and I've led the train on this, the risks that we face. I know the horror show that awaits us. I know exactly who these people are and what their objectives are, and they do want to remake this country. They want to overthrow it, take it down and rebuild it in their own leftist, socialist image -- and I know they're in the process of doing it. Obama, if he can't get it done through Congress, he'll go to the EPA. If he can't get cap-and-trade legislation, have the EPA do it by fiat.

I mean, this is banana republic kind of stuff. I know what they're doing. I'm just saying -- and I've always believed this and I've always told you -- the people of this country always triumph. They always, in the end, get what they want. And there have been numerous attempts to take this country in a radically different direction. They have, in some ways, succeeded for a time. And then the American people get rid of the people who tried it. FDR? He got away with a lot. We're still living with some of the disasters that he created. But I just don't believe that here we are in 2010 and in three days, the United States of America ceases to be a representative republic and turns into a veritable tyrannical dictatorship, which is essentially what's going to happen if this health care bill passes. And if it does pass, the American people aren't going to put up with it. They aren't going to comply. We're still the United States of America, and we are still the United States of America because it's the people who make this country work

It's the people who have defined its greatness. Behaving and performing because of the freedoms and liberties that we acknowledge we are born with in our founding documents -- and those are under assault, too. I'm under no illusions of the heavyweight assault here, but I just... It's like I didn't have the guts to say this guy driving his Prius the other day was a fraud, but something told me: "This is not right. All of this is on TV, in the midst of all of these recalls, and here we got a guy who wants to be a reality TV 'star'? It's the balloon boy all over again." But I didn't say it, and I told you I regretted not saying it. Probably a lot of other people did. Regardless, I could well be wrong about this. I could be wrong on the vote count. I could be wrong. They might be closer than I think. I just think if they were, that would have been done. (interruption) Yeah! (interruption) Snerdley, yes. Of course I'm holding out hope, genuine hope here! Damn right. I'm trying to mobilize the hope.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Ace of Spades: Whip Count 3-16-10 • Ace of Spades: ObamaCare: Who Should We Be Putting Pressure On? • AP: House Leaders Joust Over Use of Parliamentary Rule • Sweetness & Light: Pelosi: Democrats Will Have The Votes

Constituent Treated with Contempt by Aide of Senator Johnson (D-SD)
Caller finds out what liberals really think of you.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jim in Rapids City, South Dakota, you're next on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, I was able to get through to my Democrat Senator, Tim Johnson, yesterday, as well as our Democrat only congresswoman, Herseth Sandlin, and in both cases I was treated to a little contemptuous, young intern who's basically talking from talking points and trying to school me as to what I should be saying and what I should be doing. It was amazing. And I'm an RN, I'm someone who's been in the field and I was able to rebuff every one of their talking points. One of the talking points from Johnson's aide was, "It's no different than buying car insurance." And I said, "Excuse me, I don't have to buy a car, I'm being forced to buy health insurance if I move or change my position." And his point was, "Well, you know, that's the way it is." And I said, "Tim Johnson bills himself as a moderate, fiscal conservative. What is fiscally conservative about this health care, Obamacare? I don't understand it." And I raised this question as I left. "We will boot both of these people out as being frauds. They bill themselves as Blue Dog Democrat centrist fiscal conservatives. There is nothing fiscally conservative or constitutional about what these people are doing. They've tied their boat to this radical administration and I seriously have doubts. This vote is taking them far, far to the left, and they're afraid to do anything. And I only say, hey, get some religion and jump ship and admit you're wrong." And that was kind of where I left it. But I was treated with such contempt. And here I'm a guy who's been in nursing --

RUSH: Well, you know what? I'm glad it happened to you because you're looked at with contempt by these people every day, and you finally got to experience it firsthand.

CALLER: We're all going to experience it firsthand. If we get treated to health care the way we get treated to the DMV and post office, wake up America, this is not --

RUSH: America has awakened.

CALLER: Well, I don't know what to say. I'm at a loss for words because I'm so frustrated, Rush, and I'm sure you are, too, and you do a great job of maintaining your composure --

RUSH: Well, yeah, we're all frustrated, but I'm glad you had the experience. By the way, I need to ask you a question. Are you saying Ken or Tim Johnson?
`
CALLER: Tim Johnson. He's the fellow who, sadly, had a stroke and --

RUSH: Yeah, yeah. You didn't talk to him, right?

CALLER: No, I talked to his aide.

RUSH: Yeah, you talked to some intern who's got talking points front of him, and if they're still using this auto insurance argument, those are requirements from state to state to state. It is not a federal government requirement. If that's what they're using -- and they've tried using that as an analogy for months on this now -- it's empty; it's full of holes; it's specious. You're right to have told this guy, "What you're doing is unconstitutional." There is no allowance for the federal government to mandate that any citizen buy anything and then fine them and put them in jail if they don't buy it, which is what this bill does along with many other disastrous things.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, this insurance argument, this automobile insurance argument, if you get through to a member of Congress and you get one of these little sniveling interns reading talking points and they say to you, "It's no different than having to buy car insurance, everybody has to have car insurance." This argument can actually be made to work for our side. You just say, "Okay, imagine if car insurance companies had to insure people who had just had an accident. Imagine if you could drive around with no automobile insurance whatsoever and pay a simple fine for not having it, then the minute you have a wreck that's your fault you can call the insurance company and get insurance. How long do you think that automobile insurance business would be in business? They'd all go out of business PDQ, pretty damn quick."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. We have a little confusion going on out there that I need to straighten out here. We had a caller from South Dakota, said he called the office of Senator Tim Johnson, and he got a sniveling little intern with talking points. What's happened is that some of you are calling Congressman Tim Johnson in Illinois and blasting him. His office called our office saying, "No, no, no. Don't call us. We are Congressman Tim Johnson, not Senator Tim Johnson. You need to call Senator Tim Johnson's office in South Dakota." Congressman Tim Johnson, Illinois, is opposed to Obama's health care scheme. So you people are making the calls. There's no question about it. But if you're calling Congressman Tim Johnson in Illinois, stop, cease, desist, and redirect your call to Senator Tim Johnson in South Dakota.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Ace of Spades: Whip Count 3-16-10 • Ace of Spades: ObamaCare: Who Should We Be Putting Pressure On? • AP: House Leaders Joust Over Use of Parliamentary Rule • Sweetness & Light: Pelosi: Democrats Will Have The Votes

A Teamster on His Health Care Plan
Not all rank-and-file union members tow the Obama line.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: James in Atlanta. It's great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush, it's an absolute pleasure.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Hey, yes, I was calling, I'm a retired Teamster and veteran, and I try to talk to people. You know, the unions have some of the best insurance there is, and they're all going to lose it. Because right now when you turn 65 you lose your insurance. You go on Medicare. They kick you right over to the government dole, and they're trying to up the age now, I know, from 57 to 62. If anybody wants to see how socialized medicine works, all they have to do is go down to a VA and see who you get assigned to and what happens down there. The companies, if they get a chance to pay, you know, a penalty...

RUSH: Well, now, you know, I'm curious about something here. You're talking about the Teamsters specifically?

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: I didn't think the Teamsters had anybody that worked beyond age 40.

CALLER: (laughs) Well, no. No, you gotta be... Well, it depends on your years of service, but right now, 57 and 30 years in the trucking industry part.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: To be able to retire.

RUSH: But you do? You lose your health care at age 65?

CALLER: Correct. You lose your health care at age 65. They'll be more than happy to send your company over.

RUSH: No, I've never heard that.

CALLER: You do. Once you hit 65, you lose your insurance.

RUSH: Now, how long have you been retired from the Teamsters at age 65?

CALLER: Well, I retired early, because I had the years, because I started early.

RUSH: Okay. But my point is very few Teamsters are still working at age 65, right?

CALLER: No, there's quite a few still working because right now to keep your insurance you have to be at least 57 and have 30 years of service.

RUSH: What?

CALLER: And most... Yeah. You have to have that.

RUSH: None of this is making any sense. Unions have the biggest Cadillac insurance, health insurance deals in the country.

CALLER: But in each union, you've got to remember, this is for the South-central states. In each area for the Teamsters... In the trucking part, now, is what I'm talking about.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: You have a northern division, western division. They're all separate. The pensions are even separate. They're not all together.

RUSH: They've assumed you guys are profile because you live in Georgia?

CALLER: Could be, because most of us are.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: But there's probably 40 to 50% of Teamsters that vote conservative, especially down here in the South.

RUSH: I know. Look, my beef is not with the rank-and-file. You get communists running SEIU and the Teamsters and so forth. No bones about it. Anyway, I appreciate the call, James. There's something else that we gotta research. 'Cause I didn't know that. You lose your health care at 65 and go on to Medicare.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• US News: Obama Healthcare Reform Bill is a Mammoth Job Killer • Heritage Foundation: There Is No Bill But the Senate Bill • Sweetness & Light: AP: Premiums Go Up Under Obama Plan! • Washington Post: Obama's Illusions of Cost-Control - Robert J. Samuelson

EIB Research on Congressional Pensions and Insurance Benefits
When Congressmen lose, they keep benefits for life.
March 17, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Sherry in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, great to have you on the program just outside Pittsburgh here. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah, hi, Rush. Yeah, I'm right outside Pittsburgh, and I'm near a district where one of the fence sitters for the health care bill, Jason Altmire, is.

RUSH: Yeah, I saw him on television. He sounds like he's pretty dead-set against this thing.

CALLER: Oh, I hope so. I used to live in his district in the eighties but I live on the other side of the Pittsburgh now, but I'd just like to give them a little friendly reminder all these fence sitters who might be considering taking one for the team or sacrificing for Obama or whatever. If they go ahead and pass this Obamacare and they get kicked out of office, because they will be kicked out of office if they do it, they are no longer going to be exempt from what they're foisting on us. They're going to have to live under this Obamacare. They're not going to be exempted like they're doing to themselves, which is the thing that really irks me the most about this whole thing is that they exempt themselves from what they're foisting on us.

RUSH: Well, why do you think they're not going to exempt themselves from it if it passes? They clearly have exempted themselves from it.

CALLER: But I'm saying: If they get kicked out of office they're going to have to go back and live with this. They're going to be back with us real people.

RUSH: Oh.

CALLER: Once they get kicked off office they're going to have to live with it.

RUSH: Oh.

CALLER: In other words, be careful what you wish for.

RUSH: Well, I'm going to double check that. They have one of the most generous pensions and going away packages even if people lose.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I don't know how long Altmire has been serving.

CALLER: But even for health care? Even if they're not working there?

RUSH: Come on. Come on. These people --

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: (laughing) Are you...? Even for health care?

CALLER: Let me say something, too, about this (garbled).

RUSH: These people are written rules that they can take with them $13 million or whatever is left in their campaign chest that hasn't been spent.

CALLER: Oh, you're right. That's probably true. Now you're really frustrating me.

RUSH: No, I don't mean to frustrate you.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: You gotta know who we're dealing with here.

CALLER: Well, I know.

RUSH: I'll tell you something else. I saw Altmire. I saw him on television yesterday afternoon and he's dead set against the Slaughter rule. I don't know where he comes down to the Senate bill, but he is one of these fence sitters. One thing I gotta tell you this about the fence sitters, these undecided guys. It's not universally true but it's very likely in some of their cases that they are already a "no" vote they just don't want to tell you because so they don't want the wrath so they're saying, "I'm undecided. Give me some space. I'm still thinking about it. Move on to somebody else."

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: A lot of people are using that as an excuse, but I still don't think they've got the votes. I know they don't have the votes. If they had the votes they'd be voting on it today.

CALLER: Okay. Well, thank you, Rush.

RUSH: All right. I appreciate that, Sherry. Now, I like this kind of thinking. "Okay, you guys, you give us this, you're subject to it when you leave Congress," but I'm not an expert on this. This is something to look up. This is something to find out. My research staff (me) is looking into this. (laughing) No, we have somebody looking into it even as we speak. Somebody's looking into it. We'll find out what they get to take with them when they lose, if anything, you know, when their pension vests or their retirement or whatever. We know that it's groovy. We know it's big. We know it's very comfortable and very rewarding.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, all right, the initial research report is in here on congressional pensions and health care after they retire, quit, or are defeated, and as usual, anything dealing with the government is quite confusing. So I have two things here. One is from C-SPAN: "When are Members of Congress considered vested and eligible to receive a pension? And how much is that pension? Members who have participated in the congressional pension system are vested after 5 years of service. A full pension is available to Members 62 years of age with 5 years of service; 50 years or older with 20 years of service; or 25 years of service at any age. A reduced pension is available depending upon which of several different age/service options is chosen.

"The average annuity for retired Members, as of 1998, was either $50,616 or $46,908." It depends on how they retired or were defeated. "However, these averages don't take into account any additional funds these Members may have also accrued through investments in the Thrift Savings Plan." So essentially members of Congress receive retirement and health benefits under the same plans that are available to other federal employees, they become vested after five years of full service. If this guy Altmire has been in Congress five years and gets defeated, he's vested, he gets his pension, the amount of his pension depending on what age he is when he gets out of there, and he gets his health benefits. So does Rostenkowski. They all do. Folks, there's no way that any ex-member of Congress is not getting health care to this day, and won't. My God, the way they take care of themselves in other ways you'd think they would forget to bequeath themselves health care after they leave office.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, members of Congress keep their health care 'til they die when they lose their job.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We had a caller who had a message for her congressman, Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania, who is undecided. He's a Democrat. And she wanted to send a message to him: "Congressman, if you run for reelection and lose, you lose your job and you lose health care." Now, why did she think that? Because it happens to all the rest of us -- except union people, and except to federal employees.

But if you lose your job, that's a big deal. That's why everybody talks about "portability." That's why people talk about COBRA. If you lose your job, you lose your health care! Well, right here from the USgovinfo.about.com, the Federal Employee Health Benefits program: "Q: Can I continue my Federal Employees Health Benefit program into retirement? A: When you retire, you are eligible to continue health benefits coverage if you meet all the following requirements." You know, you gotta have five years service to be vested and so forth. "Q: Will my FEHB [Federal Employee Health Benefits] and premiums change when I retire?" Answer: "No. You will be entitled to the same benefits and annual premiums as federal employees enrolled in the same plan." So they don't lose it. Anybody with a brain would know that they would give themselves universal health care for the rest of their lives after they've served five years in Congress. This is true not just of members of Congress. This is true of federal employees. If these people quit, if they get fired, if they retire, they keep it, but not you in your job.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• CSPAN: When are Members of Congress Considered Vested and Eligible to Receive a Pension? And How Much is That Pension?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Read the Background Material...

• AP: Obama Sings Praises of Irish on St. Patrick's Day

"Now that we know, via the latest Gallup poll, that Obama's approval numbers are lower than McCain's during the general election, can we 'deem' Obama to be unelected?"