Thread: Rush Limbaugh: What Elected Officials Beg Me Not to Say

Rush Limbaugh

Maybe the state legislatures will at some point get serious with an Article V constitutional convention. But Republicans inside the Beltway are petrified. They're petrified of Obama. They're petrified of the media. Obama's well aware of the paralysis that people have and he takes advantage of it fully.

What Elected Officials Beg Me Not to Say

February 14, 2014

Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: John in Miami. You're next, Open Line Friday, great to have you. Hello.
CALLER: Seventy-two degree, clear blue sky dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Same here, man. Same here. Great to have you.
CALLER: So while I was on hold, I developed a name for the theory that I have, and it's the "What are you gonna do about it?" theory that the administration has, and it goes something like this. The obvious answer that I see to a tyrannical dictator running the country and changing the laws, is the courts. That would seem to be... It would seem to me that every company that didn't get special deception by the administration would then have standing to challenge the favors that are being granted to everybody else.

In other words, the companies under a hundred. So why, then, aren't people pursuing action against illegal activity? I think the answer is easy. Companies that have a hundred people or more are run by not reckless managers who have better things to do than pick a fight with the government, who will then audit them, inspect them, what have you. So that's the "What are you gonna do about it?" theory. How did I do?
RUSH: Well, if I understand you correctly, one of the problems with going to court if you're one of these businesses that you would say has standing, that's being irreparably harmed or harmed greatly by what Obama is doing... I guess my answer is the biggest reason they don't is they're afraid. It's fear. Everybody's afraid of this guy. Everybody. The Republicans inside the Beltway are petrified. They're petrified of Obama. They're petrified of the media.
Way too many people, if you asked me, are afraid of the media and afraid of Obama, and the fear of Obama is racial. They're just scared to death of being called racists, and that may sound simplistic, but I beg you to not discount it. You'll never have any of 'em admit it, by the way. They won't even go so far as to admit it. But it's abject fear of being called a racist, and then there's the real fear of suing. Even if you are granted standing, you can't compete with the money the Department of Justice has in defending the president.
You just can't. They will take your company and bury it. So the prevailing attitude becomes one of survival. Let's try to weather this and let's hope other aspects of our system deal with this. Let's hope the political system deals with it, or maybe other areas or the judiciary. Maybe the state legislatures will at some point get serious with an Article V constitutional convention. But it's fear, and Obama's well aware of the paralysis that people have and he takes advantage of it fully.
You know, let me go back to something that the previous caller was asking about in terms of the Wall Street Journal and attacking talk radio for freezing amnesty in its tracks. I have had on several occasions -- three different occasions, folks -- meetings, two of them actual dinners, with either ranking representatives of high elected officials or elected officials themselves. They have done their best in one instance to persuade me that I was wrong in the way I was looking at "immigration reform."
The other two meetings did not try to tell me I was wrong. They tried to tell me that I was not correctly understanding their objective, that it wasn't amnesty, and they spent a lot of time detailing the minutia of their proposals. And it was stuff filled with green cards and e-verification and all of this gobbledygook bureaucracy that never stood a prayer, but they believed it a hundred percent. They thought it was a solution, and at every one of these three meetings... This is the point.
Each meeting that I'm talking about here have taken place in the last three years. At each of these meetings with high-elected officials -- not the Obama Regime, but there have been Democrats at these meetings -- I have been told, quote, "If you call it amnesty, it's dead," and they have sought to explain to me how it isn't amnesty, and they have done their best to show me how it isn't amnesty. "It is gonna take time for these people to be granted citizenship," and blah, blah, blah.
They've really gone to great lengths to try to persuade me. They haven't succeeded because at the end of the day, it is amnesty, what they're doing, even though they may not even admit it to themselves. Now, the point of this is, the Journal says that talk radio's killing it, and these people wanted to talk to me because, they say, "If you call it amnesty, it's dead." Why? Why does what I call it matter? Now, in the Journal's opinion, for some reason, elected officials are afraid of me.
You know, that's a popular bit of conventional wisdom, that Republicans are afraid of Limbaugh. You know, one day I'm the de facto head of the party. The next day I'm just an entertainer; then the next week, I'm the de facto head, and then the next week I'm back to just being an entertainer. But the Journal is of the opinion that elected officials are simply afraid to incur my wrath. Now, why? What does that really mean? Well, what it means is who they're really afraid of is you, not me. It's you. I am one person.
Okay. So I get on the radio after they propose their amnesty bill and I rail against it, big whoop. I'm one person. Nobody's afraid of one person. It's not me they're afraid of. What they are angry at, when you strip it all away, is this bond that I have with you, members of my audience. You happen to believe what I tell you, which is very smart, because I'm not lying to you. I do not say things I don't believe, for any reason. I don't want to advance the things I believe on false premises. I don't want to get a bunch of people supporting me on the basis of lies. I tell you exactly what I think about everything, and those of you who end up believing it then become, I guess, a very vocal and big group of people who let your elected officials know, and that's what the Journal's actually editorializing against.
Let's put it this way. I guess they think that if talk radio weren't in existence, that you wouldn't think what you think. If this show weren't on the air then you wouldn't care, and you'd be all for amnesty, and you wouldn't be bugging members of Congress and all that. It's a popular misconception that everybody's made since the first day of this program, which is that I'm a Svengali and you're a bunch of mind-numbed robots, and you're just executing my marching orders every day. Even people on the right apparently think that. And nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth of the matter is, you believe what you believe, I come along, I happen to be, in 1988, the first national media voice saying things a lot of people agreed with, and so I was simply validating what people already believed, giving them a little confidence in it. They weren't alone. But you're not sponges and mind-numbed robots. You're just the exact opposite. You're among the most informed and educated, intelligent people in the country. That's what bothers them, I think. So they just conveniently blame talk radio for it. But when these elected officials come to me and say, "Look, don't call it amnesty, 'cause it's not, and you're gonna kill it," it means the same thing.
It means if I call it amnesty, you're gonna believe it's amnesty because I'm saying it, and then you're going to call members of Congress and they're gonna end up being paralyzed. And they just think if talk radio wasn't here then none of that would happen and they would get it sailed through like a hot knife through butter. And I don't think that's the case at all. I remember it wasn't too long after the show started that TIME Magazine or Newsweek, one of the two, actually did a cover story on, "Is there too much democracy? Is there too much citizen participation?"
It was a cover story. I'm pretty sure it was a cover story. It was after 1994. Yeah, it was after the Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years, and it was, "Is there too much democracy? Are there too many people participating?" And the presumption was that you didn't know what you were doing. That you were nothing but mind-numbed robots and you got me on the radio telling you Democrats bad, Republicans good, you swept the Democrats out. Oh, no, there's a problem with democracy, and it's all my fault, because if it weren't for me, you would be voting the way you're voting, thinking the way you're thinking. That's what they don't get, that that isn't the reason you do what you do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me say one more thing about this, folks, if you'll pardon me, if you'll indulge me here. I got an e-mail during the break. I've never been threatened at one of these meetings with senators, members of the House, representatives from the Bush administration, I've never been threatened. These dinners, these meetings have always been totally aboveboard and there has been an honest attempt by these people to persuade me that I'm wrong and that it isn't amnesty and so forth and so on.
At one of these meetings, one of the Democrats changed the subject, started talking about the next election and started asking me what I was gonna do, and he started talking to me in the language of electoral politics. "What are you gonna do about the demographic and Arizona and district 4?"
I said, "Wait, wait a minute." I said, "You guys don't understand. I don't look at the country the way you do. I do not tailor my message for this group here or that group there. I don't come in here every day and say, you know what, I'm a little light on women today, I better talk about women's issues. I don't do that. You guys do that. You guys will come up with a campaign message or supposed position or piece of legislation, and you're trying to fool people. I don't do that. I don't even see those demographic groups in my audience. To me they're just human beings, they're people. They're men and women, they're adults, and they're Americans, and that's as far as it goes."

And this Democrat threw up his hands, "Oh, okay, okay, okay," and he was happy, 'cause he thought he had me, because I did not understand how elections are won. And he may be right about that. But I don't look at this radio show as winning elections. In fact, when I've talked about winning elections on this program, pretend here that I'm a candidate, what have I said I'd always do?
Whether the group is Hispanic or women or homosexuals, I've got a message for every American in the country, what I want the country to be, and this is what I would tell you in hopes that you would vote for me. And it wouldn't be tailored to whatever somebody's skin color is or their sexual orientation or any of that. But that's what politics is, but I'm not that.
And I said, "You guys, it might help you to understand I'm not opposing what you guys want to do because I think my audience wants to hear me oppose it. I oppose it because I really do," and then I tell them why. And if they believe me, they believe me. But it was cross-talk because politicians do tailor ads and messages for groups of people. "We're short on Hispanics. That's why we got to..." I don't look at it that way at all, and they do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It was TIME Magazine, folks. It was January 23rd, 1995, and the cover story headline was: "Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?" Since 1995 I have been seen as the problem for the political class.

END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links

• RushLimbaugh.com: We Will Survive This, Folks
• TIME: Look Who's Talking - Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?
• Citizens for Self-Governance: Convention of States Project
• CNS News: Mark Levin: States Should Call Convention to Propose Amending Constitution
• Read It! The Liberty Amendments -Mark Levin

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20..._me_not_to_say

Rush Limbaugh

There are a lot of people who try to pass themselves off now and then as conservative, but if they're challenged on it, they'll deny it cause they don't want to take the heat of being one. They'll say things like, "Well, I'm not one of those right wingers. I'm not a reactionary."

Why Do Some in the So-Called Conservative Media Bash Talk Radio?

February 14, 2014

Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Albert, San Francisco, thank you for calling, sir. You're on Open Line Friday, and it's great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I had a question for you. It's a two-part question, really. It's basically the same question. Last Friday you read from the op-ed from the Journal, the Wall Street Journal about how talk radio was a big reason why immigration failed this time.
RUSH: It was an editorial. It wasn't actually an op-ed. It was an unsigned --
CALLER: Yeah, the one that Paul Gigot wrote. In any case, and then you had a caller, I think it was the last caller of your show last Friday. You asked him a question, he didn't answer it. You were talking about O'Reilly's interview with President Obama, and you asked him why does he think that O'Reilly was bashing conservative media, talk radio. So my question to you is, it's related to both of those, why is it that the so-called conservative media like the Journal and so-called Bill O'Reilly, conservative, always bash basically you, since you are, you know, talk radio? That's my question.

RUSH: Okay. That's pretty much what I thought you were gonna say. So my two lines of summary, based on what you wanted to ask me are accurate. And I'll tell, you have put me in sort of a challenging position here to answer this, Albert, because, A, it's inside baseball, and I don't know how interesting that is to people. Secondly, you're asking me to explain why I think others view me the way they do. And I don't know that you can ever win doing that.
This is not what you're asking me, but just to give you an example. Let's say I knew somebody that you know and they're being very critical of you, and I said, "Albert, why do they hate you?" You might know, and you might be dead-on right, but when you start explaining it, it's a little bit uncomfortable. But I'll do my best here to explain to you, 'cause I think the fundamental question you're asking -- correct me if I'm wrong, 'cause I want to answer what you're asking -- you're basically saying, okay, we have a conservative media here, but then there's branches of it, and some branches don't like talk radio, which is me, Rush Limbaugh, but yet they're conservative. Why? Why do some of these conservatives not like Limbaugh, be it about immigration or whatever else? And you're probably looking at this as all conservatives on the same team, and you don't understand it. Am I close?
CALLER: Yeah, exactly, yes.
RUSH: Well, there are solid answers to this. But I don't know if it serves any purpose here in answering them. Let me take a break, Albert. Don't go away. You stay on hold out there and I will ponder the best way to deal with this. I mean, the Journal immigration thing will be easy. But some of the other aspects of this, it gets into marketing and positioning and professional career calculations more than it has to do with issues in answering the second half or phase of your question.
It also has to do with talk radio, slash, conservatism, slash, me. What's the image in the Drive-By Media? It's "Racist, sexist, bigot," and there are a lot of people don't want to be thought of anywhere close to that, and the safest, fastest way to distance yourself from being thought of as one of those is to criticize me. So it's an effort to insulate themselves.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to Albert in San Francisco. Albert, there's an overall answer to your question here -- be it the Wall Street Journal or some of these other people you asked about -- and it is this. A lot of conservatives make a huge mistake and set themselves up by assuming other people are conservative because they occasionally say things that sound conservative. But when the pedal hits the metal, they're not really conservative.
A lot of people think if you're on Fox, you're conservative, and that's not necessarily the case. So I think the root of understanding it is to understand really who is conservative and who isn't. There are a lot of people who try to pass themselves off now and then as conservative, but if they're challenged on it, they'll deny it cause they don't want to take the heat of being one. They'll say things like, "Well, I'm not one of those right wingers. I'm not a reactionary. I don't make up my mind in advance," blah, blah, blah.
But there are professional considerations, too. I mean, if you are in the media and you want to be Mr. Conservative? "Sorry, the job's taken. It's filled. You gotta go somewhere else." So maybe you can you can be Mr. Moderate. Maybe you can be Mr. Reasonable Right-Winger. You find a niche for yourself, because the Mr. Conservative Leadership is taken. I'm it. So where are you gonna put yourself, then, in the professional media structure? There's all kinds of explanations like that.
The Wall Street Journal rips into talk radio. They resent us. They really think that we are the only reason they haven't had amnesty passed. You ask, why is the Journal attacking me. To me, the real question is, I can't figure out why the Wall Street Journal thinks amnesty is the way to go. That befuddles me. I don't know how you call yourself a conservative and you are in favor of amnesty.
It's just the two don't go together, to me. California is the future of this country and the Republican Party if we do amnesty, and that is plain as day for anybody to see -- and if somebody can look at that and not recognize it, I am really puzzled. I don't know how you not see that. But then again who is it, Albert, that runs advertising in the Wall Street Journal? You are still there, are you not, Albert?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Yes.
RUSH: All right, who runs advertising? Who's buying advertising in the Wall Street Journal?
CALLER: Different corporations, like corporations who want amnesty, low-skilled labor.
RUSH: Big and small.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Big and small. So the Journal, just like any other business, they've got their clients. And if you look at the Journal editorial position over the years, it's always going to fall in line. Sometimes they're right on the money. I mean, Gigot and his buddies have written some of their best editorials lately in defending Apple against the attempt by the federal government to put a monitor in there 24/7 to guard against them violating anti-trust law.
I mean, the Journal editorials that they have written against Judge Denise Cote against this is the most amazing. This judge has assigned one of her friends, who has no experience in anti-trust law, to be the monitor for Apple in anti-trust violations. He's charging $1,100 an hour and is not qualified. He's had to go hire another lawyer, who is an expert in anti-trust, at another $1,000 an hour. Apple got a bill of 150 grand for 10 days. They have to pay it.
The judge appoints somebody, just a friend of hers, and the Journal has been exceptional in informing their readers about that circumstance. But when it comes to amnesty, when it comes to immigration, the Chamber of Commerce and whoever is running American business and the Republican establishment is calling the shots there, Albert. The Republican Party establishment, Chamber of Commerce, don't look at this as a political issue at all, or not very much of one. They're not looking at it ideologically.
This is pure cheap labor. I mean, Tom Donohue, the Chamber of Commerce guy, is out again today or yesterday and he's saying, "The American people, American workers are either unqualified for the work we have, or they just refuse to do it, and that's why we've got to pass amnesty." I mean, it's pure selfishness. The impact on the country apparently doesn't matter to them. So it's not even... You know, the people that are pushing this, they're not doing it because that's what conservatism is or because they're conservatives.
This is strictly their own personal policy preference. It's being plugged into a conservative framework, and they're attempting to benefit from that when it really is isn't. Talk radio has a direct connection with the American people, Albert. More than any other media, we have a direct connection, a bond of connection with our audience. The Journal does not have this bond with their readers. Nobody else does.
Talk radio is unique in the bond that it creates with its audience, and I could explain why in five minutes if you care. But because of this bond and because of the trust, when we tell them -- when I tell them -- what amnesty's going to mean, they believe me, and they agree with it, and they let their members of Congress know they don't want any part of it. And so the answer is: There is just too much democracy going on for people. They're not happy with that. Don't go away, Albert.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Back to the phones to Albert in San Francisco. Okay, now, I gave you a long-winded answer. Did I get anywhere close to what you hoped to hear?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Thanks a lot, Rush.
RUSH: Anything else?
CALLER: No. No. Well, yeah. Well, I guess O'Reilly, why O'Reilly bashes you, but --
RUSH: Well, why do you think?
CALLER: Well, that's the question you asked the caller last week, and he didn't answer. I think I'd probably say what you said earlier, just to show that he's not homophobic, racist, whatever the case may be. That's what I think, but, you know, I'm not real sure.
RUSH: Look, this is... I was hoping you would get the right answer, 'cause I can't say it.
CALLER: I wish you could say it.
RUSH: Well... (laughing). If you know what it is, you say it.
CALLER: I don't know.
RUSH: Oh, you don't? Okay.
CALLER: Unfortunately, I don't.
RUSH: Look, here's the thing. A lot of people in media are obsessed with their own image, and they do everything they can to create one, and I don't. I do not care about my image because of what I was talking about mere moments ago. The bond of connection that I have with you people in the audience. You know. I don't need an image for you to know who I am. You listen here every day. You know exactly who I am. You know what I am and what I'm not.
You know when there's BS about me in the media, and I know you know, and that's enough for me. I'm not obsessed with media campaign, <acronym title="Google Page Ranking">PR</acronym> image campaigns and that kind of thing. My only concern's you, the audience. Other people are really obsessed with that. Look, whenever you hear somebody who you think is a conservative say, "Look, I'm not one of those right wingers. I'm the one these extremists," the reason they're saying that is 'cause they don't want to be lumped in with the everyday criticism the media makes of conservatives.
I take that, by the way, as a badge of honor. I'm not troubled by it at all. Then there's professional jealousy, there's any number of things here to explain it, but it's largely professional calculation. It has nothing to do with image. I would just caution a lot of people that whenever you're watching somebody in the media you think is conservative, many times they're not, really. Anyway, Albert, I appreciate it the call.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Those of you who are not new and even those of you who have been around here for 25 years, you may have forgotten a lot of things. But in this discussion of amnesty and immigration, we had a caller an hour ago who wanted to know, "Look, the Journal's conservative; you're conservative. Why they ragging on you?
"Why does Bill O'Reilly rag on you? Why do all these other so-called conservatives rag on you?" I'm trying to answer this in a dignified way without... It's tough, because there are really short, truthful answers here that I'm not the one to say. But let me just, on this amnesty business, give you something that's really basic. Snerdley just pointed it out to me. I would venture to say, on our side of the aisle, there are a lot of people opposed to this who will not say so.
The reason is, they are scared to death of somebody calling them anti-Hispanic. And so they will not tell you what they really believe about immigration reform or amnesty, and in fact what they'll do is tell you what they don't believe in order to gain the approval of everybody or somebody or the media or what you have. That, I don't care about. I don't care if they call me anti-Hispanic because I know that you know that I'm not, and that's plenty for me.
I don't care what other people say about me. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I try to express my gratitude and appreciation for all of you and what you've meant to my life and my family, you'll never know. And part of it is, I don't care what is being said about me elsewhere. I know that all know who I am and you know the truth and you know when there's BS out there about me, and that's all that matters.
So if I oppose whatever immigration reform is being proposed, if I oppose it 'cause I genuinely oppose it 'cause I think it's harmful and wrong and business address for the country, the fact that somebody might call me anti-Hispanic is not gonna stop me from saying it. The fact that somebody might call me a racist is not gonna stop me from telling you what I really think about it, but it will stop most others.
Not only will it stop them, it will cause them to say things they really don't believe in order to not be criticized -- and, sadly, that describes way too many of our elected officials. But it also describes some of the people on supposed our side of the media. And you can extrapolate that to any other issue, beyond abortion, social issues, immigration reform, Obama, you name it. There are just a lot of people that will not speak up.
I can't tell you the abject fear people have of media criticism, public criticism, even people that are in media and have a chance to answer it or refute it. It's just, for a lot of people a path of least resistance is just easiest to calculate every issue. "Okay, what can I say here that will make me sound different than the people they're gonna hate, and what'll make me sound reasonable, and what will make me sound unoffensive, and what will make me appreciated by whatever group -- in this case, Hispanics?"
I don't make those calculations. It's not a factor. The only thing that matters to me, when I'm doing this program, is what I believe. 'Cause I figure if I lose that connection with you, then this is over. There is no more of this. I'm not gonna ever throw that away or put that at risk, and those of you who've been here for 25 years, there's something you know. I have not one time, other than when I fake endorsed Clinton, I have not one time changed my opinion on anything fundamental, crucial, serious, ideologically political.
Some radio programmers would say, "Rush, you gotta mix it up. You gotta, you know, change it, come out for something just to keep the audience off guard." I said, "Nope, I'm not gonna do that, not gonna do it." You wouldn't believe "the pressures," as I call 'em. They're not really. The attempts to say, "Rush, you know, we might be able to get a this or that if you will just..." and I won't do it. In 1995, TIME Magazine -- this is after the House elections where the Republicans took the House for the first time in 40 years.
So TIME Magazine does a story, and they put me on it, and they had a picture of me, but they added things. They Photoshopped or whatever was used in 1995. They made my face scowl, and they had a plume of cigar smoke coming out of my mouth. I looked really mean, and the headline was: Is Rush Limbaugh good for America? And I read the cover story, and I'm not mentioned. It was just on the cover.
The story was, there's too much democracy, that there are too many people that are now involved in politics who don't know what they're doing. It was classic elitism. It was everything, in a nutshell. It was ruling class versus country class, it was establishment versus citizen, and elites versus common folk, you and me. And there was a line in the story: "Talk radio is only the beginning. Electronic populism threatens to short-circuit representative democracy."
So in the minds of those at TIME, which were the same as in the minds of the Democrat Party hierarchy and probably the Republican Party hierarchy, there's too many people voting. There are too many people who don't know what they're voting on. They're just following this Limbaugh guy, and he's getting 'em to vote. That's what they all thought, and that's why there was too much democracy going on. There was too much participation, and that's why the cover story: "Is Rush Limbaugh good for America?"
Here's something else from that article. E-mail and other tech talk may be the third, fourth or nth wave of the future, but old-fashioned radio is true hyperdemocracy. Very hyper. Like the backyard savants, barroom agitators and soapbox spellbinders of an earlier era, Limbaugh & Co. bring intimacy and urgency to an impersonal age. ... What's new is that today the radio rightists are wired into the political process.
"In 1994 the scream rose to the top. These fervent spiels, in which we heard America slinging, stinging, cajoling, annoying, persuading, finally transformed the social dialogue," and the article ends like this (again, this is January of '95: "Will the mood of radio listeners change? Can the hot-talk hosts continue to squirt scalding water on the body politic without one group or the other crying 'Enough!'?"
See, that's the media bias Larry King claims he's never seen -- and, folks, that 1995 story could have been rewritten again, verbatim, after the 2010 midterms. Except after the 2010 midterms, it wasn't talk radio, it was the Tea Party. There was too much Tea Party. And now it's the same thing. The Tea Party, too many people dumb and stupid who don't know what they're doing, led by other idiots like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin. This is the traditional elitist rant. Now, some people in our media would like to be considered elitists. They want to be in that group. They want to be thought of as the special and anointed -- and the fastest way you do that is to attack me or others on talk radio.
That's how you join that club. But I just want to stress here that while the focal point may change: '95 it was the Republicans winning Congress; 2010 it was the Tea Party sweeping the Democrats out of power in the 2010 midterms. 2014 is shaping up to be the same way, I think. By the way, they disagree with me on that at Fox. But it's all gonna boil down to the same thing. You've got this group of elites who are not even trying to gain your trust, folks. They just want to be able to wield power. They're not even trying to gain your trust. They're not trying to relate.
If anything, they're trying to fool you, and some of them are in the media. They're trying to make you think they're something they're not. They're trying to relate to you with this segment or that segment. But the last thing they want is to be written about like TIME Magazine was writing about talk radio and so forth. And me, I don't care. No amount of criticism, particularly phony and wrong criticism, is gonna make me change my core belief. To me, I'm not the one who has the explaining to do. I'm not the one who has to justify myself. I happen to think the people that have to explain themselves today are the people in Washington who are making this mess, not people like me and you commenting on it and living in it and having to deal with it.
We're not making the mess. We're not spending money we don't have. We're not running the country into debt. We are not violating the Constitution. We are not forcing things on people that they don't want. We are not making people do things they don't want. We're not governing other people against their will. All of that is happening to us, and when we speak up and oppose, we become the problem. I don't look at it that way. They're not ones that have to justify what they're doing. The ones spending us into oblivion, the ones writing laws that are destroying the private sector. They're the ones that have to explain themselves. Not us.
I look at you and me the same way I look at the country and the world. I think the United States is the solution to the problems in the world. And I think you, the people who make this country work, are the solution to what's wrong with the country. The solution is gonna have to be implemented in Washington, sadly, or state legislatures, but the solution to the problem here is gonna have to involve people who are making this mess somehow not in a position to do so anymore. But we're not the problem, folks. They want us to think we are, and they want to create as many other opinions as they can that we're the problem.
The Tea Party's not the problem in this country. The Tea Party doesn't threaten anybody. Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, they're not threatening anybody. All they want to do is improve things. But you know how they're portrayed. Palin is great example, by the way. How much media piling on was there on Palin once that die was cast? And how many people stood up and defended her? You can count on one hand. I'm talking about Republicans in and out of the media, you can count on one hand the number of people who defended her. And you can't count the people that piled on. There are too many. And it is my contention that, in our media, conservative media, and Republicans, slash, conservative politics, many of the people dumping on Palin were just doing it to be seen dumping on her. 'Cause it was the safe play.

END TRANSCRIPT

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• RushLimbaugh.com: WSJ Blames Me for Amnesty's Demise -- 02.07.14
• Wall Street Journal: Washington's Growth Retreat
• RushLimbaugh.com: Conservative Pundits Don't Want to be Confused with Right Wingers -- 02.12.14

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20...ash_talk_radio

WSJ Blames Me for Amnesty's Demise

February 07, 2014

Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned yesterday that John Boehner, we played the sound bite, essentially said that immigration reform for this year is done, that it is... Oh! Oh! Folks, by the way, speaking of that, there is a Wall Street Journal... It's not even an editorial. This thing is a rant, this Wall Street Journal editorial. Two different times in this editorial, they blame talk radio for the death of "immigration reform" this year.
They're angry at the conservatives and talk radio for intimidating the Republican leadership, and they're angry at the Republican leadership for being intimidated, and they've had it with talk radio having so much influence over this. I didn't intimidate leadership. Here it is. It's called "Washington's Growth Retreat." Right there. I'm just gonna give you the highlights there of the blame for talk radio.
But conservatives and the GOP are as responsible for the failure on immigration... They give some space here to blaming Obama and the dismal Obamacare, and they note that Boehner said what good would it do to come up with immigration reform when you can't trust the sitting president to faithfully execute the law. In our view, people just gloss over that. Boehner said that yesterday.

The Journal acknowledges that that's a factor in immigration reform dying... Can I go back to that for a second here? Do you realize...? That's a bombshell if you ask me. The Speaker of the House... Forget that it's Boehner. I don't care what you think of Boehner. It's just the Speaker of the House says that it is pointless to pass any legislation because this administration can't be trusted to enforce the law. Now, you and I know this is true.
Obama abandons the Constitution, rewrites his own health care law, seemingly daily. Now he wants a three-year extension on you being able to keep the plan that you like that was taken away from you for a couple of weeks and then they let you keep it. He wants a three-year extension on this, which conveniently would take us past 2016. A three-year extension. You keeping your current plan is a violation of Obamacare.
They're just not punishing you.
They're not gonna enforce the law.
That's what Obama said.
Your plan that you liked that was taken away from you, that you were promised you could keep, is illegal, according to that law. They're just not gonna pursue it. They're not gonna enforce it on you, and now they want to tell you that they're gonna allow you to be illegal for another three years. Oh, this is what Boehner's talking about. This willy-nilly application or ignoring of the law. Why pass anything? If Obama doesn't like it, he's not gonna enforce it anyway.
Stop and think of that.
At any other time in this nation's history, that alone would be grounds for impeachment, because that is a direct violation of the presidential oath, which is essentially a promise to defend and protect the United States and the Constitution and its laws, and we have a president who is willing to openly operate and behave outside of it, and everybody knows it, and the Speaker of the House is saying, "Ah, no need to do immigration reform anyway because president won't enforce the law if he doesn't like it."
That, to me, is bombshell profound. The next logical step: Impeachment proceedings. Except! Except, we will never do that. We will never. That will never happen to the first black president of the United States, no matter how lawless, no matter how corrupt, it isn't gonna happen. Which everybody knows. So in effect, the people who make the laws in Washington have thrown up their hands.
The Democrats, as epitomized by Sheila Jackson Lee, are saying that their job is to write executive orders for Obama to sign. The Speaker of the House, the leader of the Republicans says doesn't matter what we pass; he's not gonna obey it anyway. What a mess. What a dangerous mess. What a crisis, if you ask me. Seriously. Of course, the big thing on people's mind is how in the world did Bieber get away with smoking so much pot that his pilots had to wear gas masks and he didn't get charged with anything.
That's what everybody wants to know, and it is kind of curious. (laughing) But, I digress. You think I lost my place, don't you? Wall Street Journal. They allude to the real reason Boehner's not doing it is 'cause Obama won't obey it. Then they say, "But conservatives and the GOP are as responsible for the failure on immigration" as Obama is. "The populist wing of the party has talked itself into believing the zero-sum economics that immigrants steal jobs from US citizens and reduce American living standards.
"Neither claim is true, but Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and the Heritage Foundation might as well share research staffs with the AFL-CIO." So the Journal is accusing Sessions and the Heritage Foundation of being in bed with Trumka. "So great," rants the Journal, "is the House GOP fear of a talk-radio backlash that it won't even pass smaller bills that 75% of Republicans agree on," and then at the end of the ranting editorial:
"So here stand Mr. Obama's two main pro-growth priorities: Freer trade looks like it will die at the hands of Democrats beholden to Big Labor, while immigration reform is strangled by Republicans dancing to talk radio. What a display of American economic leadership." Ladies and gentlemen... Snerdley walked in and said, "You killed it again! You killed it!"
"I didn't, Snerdley," I said. "Obama killed it. Obama killed it. Boehner said so!"
But he argued, "Nope, you killed it. You killed it 2005; you killed it this year. It says right there in the Wall Street Journal: 'Talk radio.' Who's talk radio? You. You did it."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. Grab number seven. John Boehner, who, in addition to saying yesterday that we're not gonna do immigration reform because, hell, the president won't implement it anyway. He's not obeying the law, abiding by it, so why should we do it? At his press briefing yesterday, in the Q&A, a reporter said to Boehner, "There have been reports that you offered to try and put forward the approval of the Keystone Pipeline to extension of the debt limit.
"But you ran into problems with your conference," meaning Republicans in Congress. "How could that not get 218 in your conference? You put red state Democrats in a very similar position in the Senate. How come you can't get 218 for Keystone?" You put red state Democrats in a very similar position in the Senate. How come you can't get 218 in the House for keystone?
BOEHNER: You know, Mother Teresa is a saint now but, you know, if the Congress wanted to make her a saint and attach that to the debt ceiling, we probably couldn't get 218 Republican votes.
PRESS: (laughter)
RUSH: Now, what do you think that was. That guy must be really under the gun. The House Republicans couldn't agree to make Mother Teresa a saint? Even after she'd been proclaimed one, the House Republicans wouldn't agree on that. I guarantee you, within their caucus, there has got to be so much friction, and Boehner is simply acknowledging it here. "I couldn't get 218 people to agree on anything here. That's how screwed up we are!"
Of course, that's all or mostly the fault of -- dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut -- talk radio!

END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links

• Wall Street Journal: Washington's Growth Retreat
• Washington Times: Boehner Says No Immigration Deal Until Obama Enforces Laws
• RushLimbaugh.com: Boehner: No Immigration Bill Because Obama Can't Be Trusted to Enforce Laws - 02.06.14
• Washington Times: Democratic Sheila Jackson Lee: 'Let's Write Up These Executive Orders'

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