×

Rush Limbaugh

For a better experience,
download and use our app!

The Rush Limbaugh Show Main Menu

RUSH: I want to warn you. My first item today is gonna infuriate you, and I don’t expect very many people to understand my point of view on this. But that has never stopped me from telling you my point of view, and it’s never stopped you from eventually realizing that I am right. Don’t doubt me. Telephone number, 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. The e-mail address today, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

This first item is deeply troubling to me, and I dare say that I am probably in the range of maybe 2% of the American people troubled by this for the reason I’m troubled. Of the American people who know about this, I will guarantee you a hundred percent of them are angry. Well, let’s say 99%, just to be safe. Nothing is ever fully complete or totally one hundred percent one way or the other, except that basketball score down in Texas, which is a hundred to zip. However, in this case, I fully believe that I’m going to be on the opposite side of 99% of the people. I am the one who resists the tug of popular sentiment. Now, I want to take you back to December, ladies and gentlemen. This is a teachable moment. I don’t want to build it up to be too big a deal, but I want to take you back to last December. Starbucks, the coffee bunch, had just announced layoffs of, oh, I don’t know, thousands of people, and they’re closing some stores. At the same time they were taking the delivery of a new G550 that month, $45 or $50 million corporate jet, and every corporate jet is described as plush, and I can assure you they are not all plush.

Some of them are built to be chartered and the decorator inside has basically made the whole thing look like a case of wine’s already been spilled on everything because of the people chartering it not owning it, not caring what they do to it in terms of damage. So they’re not all plush. But it is a cool way to get around. They had ordered this jet three or four years earlier, and they had decided to go ahead and accept delivery because they said the costs of selling it or refusing it made no sense. This caused an outcry. There was an outrage. There were protests all over the great Northwest. Why, how dare they? They’re closing stores and they’re laying people off, how dare they accept the corporate jet? That was the sentiment of about I’d say 99% of the people who heard the story. In fact, how can you blame ’em, with ignorance being the most expensive commodity we have. The demonization of the private sector continues unabated. It has been going on for as long as I have been alive, and it’s been the Democrat Party and the American left which has been demonizing the private sector, and after 50 years it’s just tough for people generation after generation to resist it.

So I asked a question. What is the correct conservative response to Starbucks accepting delivery of their new plush corporate jet? Oh, by the way, to add insult to injury, the CEO flew it to Hawaii for a week over Christmas, between Christmas and New Year’s while having closed stores and laid off employees. And I said, what is the correct conservative response? And then what is the expected public response? Well, the correct conservative response is it’s none of our business. It’s none of anybody’s business. If they want to run that company that way and if it results in the company going to hell and if it results in the morale of the employees that are left going to hell, that’s their business. It certainly isn’t Obama’s business what they do. It certainly isn’t Carl Levin’s business. It certainly isn’t Barney Frank’s, and it certainly isn’t Chris Dodd’s, but all four of those people are attempting to make similar decisions made in the private sector their business, and their foot in the door is bailout money.

Okay. First we had John Thain, who has now thrown himself on the mercy of the masses. He spent a million-two, not of TARP money, he spent a million-two of Merrill Lynch money to redecorate his office, $1.2 million, had to hire a contractor, had to hire a decorator, had to buy the furnishings, private sector stimulus, it all happened, but it has been skewered, it was insensitive, it was at a time when Merrill was losing money, and Thain’s out there, he’s throwing himself on mercy for everybody, ‘I shoulda used my own money, I’m sorry, but that’s horrible. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to go up on the cross? What do you want me to do? That’s just terrible.’ So he’s apologized, he’s gone, he’s history. We now learn that Citibank is accepting or had made the decision to accept the delivery of a new Dassault Falcon Jet, which is assembled in France. The components are made all over the world. It’s assembled in France. It’s a French jet, and it’s around $50 million, it’s a Falcon C7 or X7 or some such thing. Seats 12 people, flies 559 miles per hour, and of course very plush.

Now, hang on. Snerdley is already whispering in my ear, ‘You’re not going to defend that.’ Would you just let me take this to where it’s going? I told you I’m going to be 1% of the opinion in this. Okay, so, Citibank has been bailed out. So arguably Citibank is accepting the delivery of this thing with money from the bailout. However, I guarantee you that during the building process of this jet they had to make progress payments long before they were bailed out. It takes three or four years to get one of these things, two years minimum. The New York Post announced yesterday that Citibank was taking delivery of this thing and the execs wanted it, $50 million Falcon private jet, this caused outrage on Capitol Hill and at the White House, and I want to read to you something that Carl Levin said. Now, Carl Levin is a Senator from Michigan with bad hair.

‘To permit Citigroup to purchase a plush plane — foreign-built no less — while domestic auto companies are being required to sell off their jets is a ridiculous double standard.’ Levin said he urged Timothy Geithner, tax cheat, Treasury of the secretary, to ‘do what he can to stop this absurdity from occurring, and I am assured that he will look into the matter promptly,’ and I am sure also that 99% of the American people are cheering, and I’m sure most of you are cheering this. ‘Make ’em get rid of the jet. Why, how many salaries could they have paid people with that $50 million? They wouldn’t have had to lay people off, and that jet’s just for the execs to fly around and go on their vacations. Come on, Rush, get with it. Don’t tell me you’re going to defend this.’ I’m not defending it. I want to give you something more chilling to consider. I realize that the federal government now has the power to tell any of these peons, these idiots that went along with this bailout how to run their businesses. These idiots, these titans, these so-called Masters of the Universe who ran around with their hands out, they’ve lived on everybody else’s money for so long that they thought nothing of living on ours, and so they willingly take these bailouts.

Once they do that, Carl Levin can tell them what they can do any time of the day. He can tell ’em what kind of bathroom they’re going to have; he can tell them where they’re going to go, and this scares the hell out of me. When I read this quote from Carl Levin, ‘to permit Citigroup to buy their jet, when the auto companies are being required,’ who’s doing the permitting here? Who’s doing the forcing or the requiring here? Why, Carl Levin and the Treasury secretary, which is the federal government. If you are going to sit around and applaud this on some silly populist notion that these Masters of the Universe deserve to have somebody slap ’em upside the head and tell ’em what’s right, then just stand by and wait for them to tell you how to run your business someday. Hell, folks, the public school system is already being dictated curricula by federal governments and state governments because of the money. The school lunch program is the ticket that allows the federal government to tell some schools what their curricula is going to be. Well, you want your kids to eat? You want us to pay for it rather than your parents? Ha-ha, wink wink, your parents are paying for it anyway, we’re just taking the money first. Ah, ah, ah, ah.

Another thing about this stimulus. Like my brilliant proposal yesterday, why do we have to have this money washed by the money launderers in Washington? Why don’t we let the people who are producing it keep it and stimulate the economy themselves? Why does it have to go to Washington for these bigwigs to sit around and ponder who’s going to get it? Do you know in the Obama stimulus package $4.19 billion is going to ACORN, Obama’s community organizing group? Would somebody tell me what the stimulus is in that? Oh, it’s not called ACORN, it’s called neighborhood stabilization programs. Now, would somebody explain to me what in the name of Sam Hill — and there was a Sam Hill; I looked it up — would somebody explain to me what in the name of Sam Hill $4.19 billion to a voter fraud organization has to do with stimulus? I’ll tell you what’s going on here, ladies and gentlemen, we are funding Obama and the Democrat Party’s army on the street. We are funding the forces of the Democrat Party’s reelection. (interruption) Oh, on Fox there’s a picture of the plush jet that will now no longer be accepted by Citi and flown. And by the way, they got $45 billion in the bailout. The plane’s $50 million. Taking the plane away from them, how many people in their flight department are now out of work?

Do you know what it takes to fly and maintain an airplane? You know how many mechanics? Do you know what the maintenance on these things is? They just don’t sit in the hangar like your car and when you decide to get in there put the key in, head down the Quick & Stop or the blockbuster or wherever the hell else you go, these things are so federally regulated with maintenance, inspections, and — (interruption) I am not trying to garner sympathy. I’m trying to educate. Now my staff’s even getting smart ass with me. I’m not trying to garner sympathy. Oh, jeez. If you people don’t even get it in there why should I even continue exhaling another breath on this? I’m sorry, folks. Some of this is personal but not the way you think. I met with my financial guy yesterday. I do this every month. By the way, I hired my financial guy, he’s salaried. He doesn’t get a percentage of wherever he puts the money. I want him totally objective. I hate the fees. I despise the fees. I hate the fees whether I win or lose, they get paid. Screw that.

So he’s going through last year’s performance, down 7%, so forth. One of my accounts was down 41%. Everybody’s down because of the market. And he said, ‘Well, we’ve got future this and future that,’ and I said, ‘Let me tell you where my head is right now. My head is you’re showing me I’ve got X in my portfolio. But I don’t think I’ve got anything. I’m pretending I got nothing because I got Barack Obama in the White House and I got Democrats who are going to try to figure out how to take every bit of it from me or how they’re going to get it from me in taxes or what have you. I want to know where I can put it that they can’t get it, and I’m not talking about offshore. I’m talking about preservation of principal.’ What bothers me here, folks, the jet at Citibank and the executive suite at Merrill are just, my God, folks, they are such visible lessons shouting at us to understand what is happening to the engine of American greatness. It’s being usurped, it’s being absorbed by people like Carl Levin and Timothy Geithner and Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and all of them, and the more this goes on and the more we sit by thinking they and only they can create jobs, they’re going to have their hands in as many industries, large and small, in this society as possible, and when that happens, by virtue of bailouts or what have you, then they’re going to be able to direct the way you run your business, the way you work at your business, or what have you.

If they don’t like it and if they think they can get votes by telling you you can’t accept the delivery of your jet — and that’s all this is — don’t think that Carl Levin is genuinely offended that these guys are gonna accept delivery of a jet they ordered three years ago, because it’s going to upset the future of Citibank. I mean this company’s got far more problems than a $50 million jet. These CEOs, they’ve got worldwide businesses. They have these things in large measure — look, I’m not even going to try to defend it. I know it’s a waste of time. It’s a total waste of time. People don’t want to understand it, Snerdley. People do not want to, they look at a corporate jet, they’ve watched Dynasty, they don’t care about Oprah having her jets, they don’t care that Oprah has ten homes, but somehow these guys — and here’s the reason why. The reason why is when government is passing out the goodies, all the people in the country think they’re benefiting from it. But when private industry CEOs or executives get goodies, they think it’s the rich getting richer.

Look at Big Oil. Six months ago Big Oil was hated, despised, thought of as a giant conspiracy ’cause gasoline prices were at four bucks a gallon and rising. And now, gasoline prices a buck-and-a-half some places. Nobody hates Big Oil. Is anybody thinking what’s happening to them here? No. As long as Big Oil suffers, that’s fine. I’m just worried. If these guys are going to go in and make grabs for all this money at Citibank and wherever else, folks, it’s not long ’til they’re going to come for ours.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jason in Bremerton, Washington. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Dittos. Straight to the point. This should be a wake-up for the American public. What we are seeing with senators and congressmen and women telling these CEOs what they can and can’t do related to toilets, planes, et cetera, this should be an eye-opener of what they can expect when it comes to such things as universal health care. What makes people think the government’s not going to tell them what they can and can’t do as far as eating food, drinking adult beverages, et cetera.

RUSH: I know, especially since they’re already doing it. The governor of New York made it official with his 15%, whatever it is, tax. He wants to raise $400 million on Coca-Cola, and regularly sweetened 7-Up, and Pepsi and all the others. They’re already telling us what we can and can’t do. It doesn’t seem to bother anybody.

CALLER: But it’s isolated to New York. Wait ’til it goes across the country.

RUSH: Oh, no. Would you tell me how Democrats keep getting elected in California? California is leading the pack in some of this insanity. Californians vote, ‘No health care, no for welfare for illegal aliens.’ A judge says, ‘No, that’s unconstitutional. You gotta keep paying it.’

CALLER: That’s right.

RUSH: People are leaving California. Schwarzenegger has just proposed taxing golf rounds, rounds of golf at country clubs in public golf courses.

CALLER: Because we have incompetent Republicans running in California, and they are not getting the message out.

RUSH: Well, yes. That certainly is a factor. But I think we have some cultural problems. I read a great piece in the Wall Street Journal op-ed page last night, and it was written by a lawyer, and he said the biggest — I’m going to summarize this. This is not really doing this the full justice it deserves. But he said one of the greatest obstacles to the kind of unbridled freedom that built this country, the willingness to take a chance, is tort law. Everybody calculates whether to do anything, including let the kids run around at recess. They calculate what it might cost ’em if something goes wrong, and they always say, ‘Well, I can’t pay what the damages would be, so we’re not going to do the activity,’ and so a lot of freedom, a lot of activity that is oriented in freedom and exploration, pioneer spirit, is not happening. Because the people who make the country work are getting more and more frightened each and every day of what might happen to them if some slacker decides to sue ’em with a tort lawyer.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Joe in Aspen, Colorado. It’s nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, Rush, the reason I’m calling… Can you hear me?

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Okay, good. The reason I’m calling, you know, you sparked some interest in me when you were talking about a correlation between Starbucks’ jet versus Citicorp. The fact of the matter is, Rush, is that we actually have public funds, tax dollars that are going to be bailing out Citicorp and have; and I think we do, as American people, have a say. If anything, I want to go further. I’d like to have some stock in Citigroup and maybe in some of these other banks that we’ve given out money to, versus just —

RUSH: No, no. You know, see, this is the thing. I made the distinction. I said that Starbucks hasn’t taken any money and Citibank has. And you may have missed this, but I’m angry they took it. I am angry these Masters of the Universe ran around with their hands out and said, ‘Please, give me money,’ because, you know, I’ve said it constantly. Folks, when you take freebies, it’s not free. When somebody gives you something, comps you something, they’re always going to want something back. I hate these guys for doing it. Well, not ‘hate,’ but I just wish these guys had not taken this bailout. I wish the ones that were going to fail just failed, because all of this has just allowed the federal government to get in there. Joe, we cannot run this country with people like you thinking you should get stock for your taxpayer dollars and that you ought to have something to say about whether or not they get a corporate jet. It ain’t gonna work. It’s not gonna work. It’s none of your business. It ought not be any of your business.

The fact that you think it is, is another thing that troubles me greatly. I can understand how you think it is. You think, you think that your taxes are going to it. I guarantee you it’s nobody’s taxes now. They’re printing the money, my friend. They are printing the money — and I’m going to tell you something, folks, it is amazing that inflation has not reared its ugly head. At some point, it’s going to have to. It just is the law of economics. When you start printing money and there’s nothing to back it — old supply and demand, too many dollars for too few goods — guess what happens? (sigh) So you’re going to have the currency inflate here. Inflation, when it hits, like it probably is on this deal, is going to be the greatest tax that you pay, and it will be hidden and you’ll not even know it because it’s going to happen gradually. It’s theoretical that in the next number of years — and I can’t peg the number, but let’s say if you have a retirement fund (just to pick a number) of a hundred bucks, it’s going to be worth 75 in a few years.

And nobody’s even talking about that. This is just absurd, and none of it… If you look at the details of what’s in this porkulus plan, very little of it is stimulating. It’s just pork. It’s the Democrats paying back unions and the people that got ’em elected. There’s $4.19 billion for ‘neighborhood stabilization.’ That means voter fraud. That’s ACORN. We are funding Obama’s army with a so-called stimulus plan, and it wounds me to the heart. Joe, I know you’re a great guy. But it wounds me to the heart to hear you call here and say you think you should be given stock in Citibank and that you ought to have a right to make a decision on whether or not they accept delivery of their corporate jet when you don’t know the first thing about what they do. You couldn’t run the place if you had to.


You probably wouldn’t know what to do with the share of stock that you got, but you’ve been made to believe that you own the outfit because your elected officials have bailed them out. My anger is not at guys like Joe. That just makes me sad. It makes me sad as an American that there are a lot of Joes out there. What makes me angry is allllll of these freeloaders with their hands out taking this bailout money. ‘But, Rush! But, Rush! They needed it. Their businesses were going under.’ If they were irresponsible, then sayonara. ‘But, Rush! But, Rush! The government made ’em do some of these things.’ Yeah, let Barney Frank and Chris Dodd go with them. We can’t bail out everybody and everything, and I guarantee you, when the need comes for you to get a bailout, you’re gonna raise your hand and they’re going to laugh at you. (sigh) Okay, Lois in Chicago. Lois, you’re next here on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: Thank you so much for keeping me sane —

RUSH: Well, I’m doing —

CALLER: — in an insane world.

RUSH: I may be failing at that in my own case here.

CALLER: No, Rush, listen, I’m on the page with you every day. I sit and I watch these people and I say to myself and my television, ‘They don’t get it. They just don’t get it.

RUSH: Here’s the thing, Lois. Lois, here’s the thing that sadly has been lost. We need a little reminder. It pains me to say this. This is like trying to tell people that 1 + 1 = 2.

CALLER: I know.

RUSH: We need to remember that ‘we the people’ are the ones that are supposed to tell our supposed representatives how to behave.

CALLER: They are the employed, we are the employees.

RUSH: Not the other way around. These politicians have created the situation in which these foolish corporate executives are now begging for help. This is a destructive cycle. If you want stock in Citibank, Joe in Aspen, then go out and buy it!

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: Because you haven’t yet, just because Carl Levin or somebody is gonna bail out. These guys in Washington set these corporate execs up. They created a circumstance. (interruption) Snerdley says, ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, Rush. They’re never going to believe you,’ and he’s right. See, Lois, he’s right.

CALLER: Well, you know, Rush.

RUSH: He’s right, because they’re going to hear me defending the corporate execs. I can tell you the truth all day long that it’s people like Levin and Barney Frank that set these guys up and determine the conditions under which they operated which led to these worthless loans, toxic assets. They want a bailout because they think the government screwed ’em. ‘Okay, make us whole again.’ ‘Okay, we’ll make you whole. Now we’re going to own your business.’ I tell you, it’s just — and we’ve got a president here now who is facilitating this and making it happen. This is the most glaring and largest grab of the private sector by government ever. This dwarfs what FDR ever dreamed of.

CALLER: I know, Rush. I wanted to tell you, I love your stimulus plan. It’s the best.

RUSH: Well, I appreciate that, Lois. I do.

CALLER: (crosstalk) It’s the only fair plan, and I’m here. I’m in Illinois, and I wanted to tell you that you and I are on the same page. I’m rooting for Rod Blagojevich every day. I sit and I listen to these people say, ‘Oh, my taxes are so awful in Illinois.’ (crosstalk)

RUSH: Let me tell you something about —

CALLER: But they vote these same dogs in every year. And I want to say who is without sin up there to —

RUSH: Testing.

CALLER: — the first stone —

RUSH: Testing, one, two, three. Lois, do you hear me?

CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: Okay. Let me tell you something about Blagojevich.

CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: And this is another thing. Ninety-nine percent of the rest of you, by the end of this show I think you’re going to think I need to be committed. Blagojevich is a smart guy. It’s a shame this clown went into politics. He did a stupid thing, but he’s playing this. ‘I was gonna nominate Oprah, but I didn’t know if she’d take my call’? Oprah is more influential than a hundred senators? This guy, he’s running around going on The View and he’s saying the things that those airheads want to hear. He’s a typical schemer. We need schemers like this in the private sector. We need these schemers screwing other people on our behalf, not screwing us. He just went in the wrong business. Lois, thanks for the call.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: These things, like harping on the John Thain office at Merrill Lynch or the corporate jet at Citibank, or the corporate jet at Starbucks or the auto companies, what in truth these things really are, are simply diversionary tactics to get people to stop talking about the trillions of waste in the bailout bill. That’s why I, ladies and gentlemen, I’m immune to these kinds of tricks. I am your highly trained broadcast specialist host, and I’m combining both of these into one presentation as a teachable moment. At least I’m trying to. I’m trying to say that this jet business and the office redecoration are irrelevant to what’s going on, are irrelevant to the trillions of dollars that the government is taking out of our economy and absorbing itself.

Now, a lighthearted moment here. As you know, I tried to make a point about private sector stimulus with the Merrill Lynch office redecoration. Let me redo the point, because I have come under criticism for this on CNBC. I told Snerdley, ‘By the end of this day I’m going to be in the upper one-tenth of 1% of popular thought in this country. I’m going to have 99.9% of you thinking I’ve gone off the deep end.’ Basically, I just look at all the parameters, all the circumstances here. It was a year ago, before any bailout money, John Thain redecorates the executive suite, $1.2 million. It’s learned last week that this happened so it’s put in the context it was TARP money or bailout money. It wasn’t. But they were in a plunge, they were in a crisis, so it opens the door, ‘Well, that’s stupid, that’s outrageous, these guys are just so self-absorbed, it’s all about them,’ and so forth. I said okay, let’s look at it in context: $1.2 million, have to hire the contractor, the decorator, and you buy the furnishings, private sector stimulus. Somebody got paid for this, somebody got paid for their services in the private sector now when that needs to happen. What’s the difference if Merrill Lynch or a bank, you know, if they had decided to loan all of that money to a bunch of people that were going to go out and invest in businesses. It’s still private sector stimulus either way it happens.

But, see, since they got bailout money, which was not used, it allowed Obama and Carl Levin to say, ‘Well, see, see, see, we don’t want the money used this way,’ and of course the American people, ‘Yeah, screw them,’ and these guys, look, these Wall Street people, I’m as infuriated as you are, but not for the same reasons. I am mad at them for not standing up when Congress ruined their businesses. I’m mad at ’em for not standing up and saying, ‘No, we’re not taking your money.’ They thought they had an unholy alliance, they thought they were in the same club with these elected officials. A lot of these guys that are going down the tubes on Wall Street are Democrats being taken down by Democrats. And the Democrats are showing, ‘We’ll take you down if it means votes for us. I don’t care how much money you’ve given us,’ most of these execs on Wall Street we’re talking about are high level liberal Democrats. They’re going down the tubes and they’re having their images destroyed by people they thought were on their team. So, okay, now, given that, here’s a little clip, CNBC this morning on a show called The Call. New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin says to Charles Gasparino of CNBC, ‘That Thain office, that’s not defensible. There’s nothing defensible about it.’

GASPARINO: The two people who I love that defended that office, or one person I love is Rush Limbaugh, and he defended it on — purely like it was supply-side economics.

RUSH: So Mr. Gasparino, big fan, apparently, CNBC, wait ’til he finds out what I said about the Citibank jet. (laughing) But I didn’t defend that. Don’t forget, the Citibank jet, that’s a teachable moment. What I’m saying is that I’m livid at these guys for putting themselves in this position ’cause the jet doesn’t mean diddly-squat compared to what’s happening all around us. We’re being distracted and diverted by this populist class envy stuff while our private sector is being eaten alive by federal government led now by Barack Obama and Democrats who want to absorb as much of the private sector as they can and they’re doing it unabated, practically. Nobody is standing up and stopping them. You can get sidetracked, this jet business, and the bathroom business and the corporate exec business, but not here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rod Blagojevich would never have apologized for the jet. Rod Blagojevich would never have apologized like Thain did for redecorating his office for $1.2 million. Blagojevich would have said the jet and the office redecoration were stimulus for the economy. And the Democrats would have bought it. Blagojevich is telling these guys to stick it, even while they’re playing tapes of him trying to sell a Senate seat. How can you not be amused by this?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Play sound bite number 23. This is Charles Gasparino responding to a New York Times reporter on CNBC this morning about Merrill Lynch and their bathroom redecoration.

(replaying of sound bite)

But that’s not entirely true. Yeah, I gave a supply-side economics lesson there, but also, folks, the foundation for my philosophical reaction to the Merrill Lynch bathroom is freedom! Freedom! This was not bailout money that they used. Do you understand the degree to which freedom is under assault? When the federal government is usurping trillions of dollars from the private sector and absorbing it themselves, along with those trillions goes some freedom. I admire Charles Gasparino’s work as well, but I hope he doesn’t mean that he thinks that all corporations have to submit their proposed expenses to Obama and to Carl Levin and whoever else before they actually spend the money. But that’s where we’re headed and that’s where we had a call from a citizen out in Aspen, ‘Yeah, I want to know where they’re going to spend the money.’ Look at what’s happening here. The engine of freedom is being absorbed by the group of people who limit freedom, by definition, that’s the government, Bill of Rights.

You know, for the last few days in this country — and I’ve tried to make these teachable moments — for the last few days we in this country have spent more time discussing the refurbishing of an office in Manhattan and the purchase of a private jet than we as a nation have discussed the responsibility of Barney Frank, who I just saw on television opposing tax cuts, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, and driving this nation into a housing and financial crisis. The people who have gotten us where we are are being ignored, they’re being given a free ride, they’re being made members of the new administration, including some who are tax cheats, have nanny problems and so forth, and nobody is focused on that. We’re focused on a corporate jet; we’re focused on bathroom redecorations and so forth. You ought to be more outraged by what’s happening to your economy and your country than a corporate jet and a bathroom redecoration.

And look at this, the Financial Times: ‘Thain Called to Testify on Merrill Bonuses.’ They’re going to bring him up here and they’re going to flog this guy on paying bonuses. He might have done it with TARP money, I don’t know. If he did, he deserves what he gets. This is what happens, folks, this is a teachable moment. When the federal government pays you to run your business, they run it, and if you do things to embarrass them, they’re going to call you up and they’re going to destroy you. This guy’s name may as well be Robert Bork today. His name may as well be Clarence Thomas. This is what the Obama administration is about. This is what the left has been about in this country for as long as I’ve been watching them, and that is destroying people who stand in their way of amassing federal power that is not theirs, and nobody cares. Nobody is standing up to oppose it. This is why Obama mentioned my name, to divert everybody from what he’s doing. All these people saying, ‘Rush, Obama’s scared of you.’ He’s not scared of me. He’s the president of the United States. He’s not scared of me at all. What he does know is I’m probably a louder voice of opposition than he’s got anywhere else, but to say he’s scared, with one signature he could spell the end of this radio show and others as you’ve come to know it, it may happen, who knows, down the line.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This