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RUSH: Now Fox News is reporting (they’ve been reporting all day) that the House is two votes short of passage. They just now said that they’re one vote short, so that means they’ve got 215. Clyburn, the House whip, Democrat whip, just came out and said, ‘We got the votes. We’re gonna get this thing done Sunday afternoon at two o’clock. It’s over, it’s over.’ Other whip counts show them still under 200. The bottom line is, folks…

Let me give you a football analogy. I don’t want anybody to get down and out over this, because even if this passes, it ain’t over. You have to understand that. We’re not going to just lie down and turn our country over to these people. But don’t believe yet that it’s going to pass. On Tuesday morning of every National Football League week, Las Vegas oddsmakers publish the line for the following Sunday’s or following weekend’s games. And every one of those games we pick a winner. Well, they’re not actually picking a winner. They’re trying to pick a winner they get money bet on both teams equally so they don’t lose. But to entice people to bet that will install a team as a certain favorite, 6-1/2 point favorite, +3 favorite. Why do we play the game? If somebody’s out there predicting the outcome of something, then why engage in the activity?

So now we got all these people predicting it’s going to pass, which they’ve been doing for a year. They have been predicting they had the votes for a year. Obama had to go to a Republican to try to get him to change his mind, Joseph Cao, Joseph ‘Cash’ Cao of Louisiana. Now, if you gotta go to a Republican, something tells me you’re not that close. Bloomberg today, while Fox was saying they were two votes short, was saying the Democrats are ten votes short. But you play the game, I don’t care what it is, and in the process you find your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. If your opponent says, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re going to beat you.’ ‘Oh, okay. You think you’re going to beat us? Well, let’s not play the game.’ Did the Baltimore Colts say, ‘Okay, you guys win,’ after Joe Namath guaranteed a Jets victory in the 1969 Super Bowl, hmm?

No, they played the game. Well, we’re going to keep playing the game, because these people are Democrats. These people are leftists, and they have been engaging in a PR scam for a year to convince everybody they’ve got votes when they don’t have them. The media is pushing this. The media is not your friend in this. The media is doing everything they can to further this PR effort to make you think it’s over, so you don’t show up in Washington tomorrow at noon if you’re planning on going, so that you stop calling. But the game isn’t over. They’ve announced kickoff at one o’clock Sunday — and guess what? There’s another little procedural trick that they’re going to do. They have a bill on ocean algae or something. I don’t even know what it is, but they’re going to be voting on a second piece of legislation on Sunday. Why?

Because if they come up short, if there is a surprise… If they call a vote, Pelosi thinks they’ve got them, but somebody could change their mind in the middle of the vote. It isn’t over ’til that 216 number is reached. So if somebody waits, somebody delays, somebody doesn’t vote the way Pelosi wants, they can hold off and go to this second piece of legislation before closing out the first vote. It’s common. It’s not something special that they’re doing this Sunday, it’s common. But that again tells me that they’re not confident, that they don’t have the votes, if they’re trying to get a second bill to vote on to keep the first period, the health care vote, open longer than normal. To twist arms or what have you. So let ’em say they’ve got the votes. Let Fox News say they’re only one vote short. You know, let ’em say the game’s over.

But it’s not over until it’s over. It’s not over until it’s played, and in the process of playing the game you find your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and how to exploit them, and it’s crucial — it is crucial — that members of the House who have been given these special deals understand that the likelihood of these deals ever happening is less than 15%. What is going to happen again, if this passes, is that the reconciliation package (all of these amendments, all these special deals like the North Dakota bank and whatever other deals there are) are going to be separated. And the Senate bill alone — which will not have been voted on; it will have been ‘deemed’ to have been voted on — will be broken out, and it will be sent by Pelosi. She’ll certify it, send it over to the Senate for whoever’s running the Senate to certify it, and it goes to Obama.

And if they’ve got the votes, we’ve got national health care: Senate version only, on Sunday. Senate version only. None of these changes that the House has been promised, none of that bill that was posted on Louise Slaughter’s website yesterday, will become law on Sunday. Only the Senate bill will become law. Those changes that these House members are being promised will have to, at some point, go to the Senate where reconciliation will take place. The Republicans are going to do everything they can to stop every one of them from happening and identifying every one of them and explaining who was bribed with what so that everybody will know, prior to November, who was bribed, who accepted the bribe, what the bribe was, who was appointed to some ambassadorial post, who was given some nomination that will be held up.

House Democrats have to know that what they were doing by voting on their reconciliation package Sunday is nothing more than sending the Senate bill into law by itself. That’s all that’s going to happen and that’s all Obamacare is about. He’ll split. He’ll find somewhere to go. This reconciliation stuff, you won’t see that acted on until well after the Easter break, if then. These Democrats in the House, just like the Blue Dogs — I’ve been trying to warn the Blue Dogs all year — you’re going to be sold out. Pelosi would love to cull her herd. She wouldn’t mind if you guys lose big in November. The House Democrats are being shafted, lied to, by their own leadership and by Harry Reid. They don’t trust each other. The House Democrats, Senate Democrats, don’t trust each other. Somebody has told them something to make them believe the Senate’s going to enact all this stuff for them. But if they don’t trust each other, why should we trust ’em? We don’t. The American people don’t. The American people are being screwed royally by the President of the United States. There’s no other way to put it. We’re being screwed royally. The big shaft. We are being bludgeoned. This is banana republic-type stuff. This is what happens in dictatorships. This is tyranny. If you ever wondered what it looks like, close up, this is it.

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RUSH: Okay, forget everything that you have heard today about they’ve got the votes or they’re just two votes shy or they’re just one vote shy. Forget Clyburn saying, ‘Yep, we’ve got the votes, we’re voting on Sunday, we’re going to have health care by two o’clock Sunday afternoon.’ The truth of the matter is, and no less than Obama’s own network, MSNBC, just announced it, Democrat leaders say they do not have the votes. But it’s even more profound than that. There are 40 undeclared Democrats, 40 Democrats who have not declared how they’re going to vote. There is no way anybody knows that they’re five short or one short or two short or what have you. There are 40 undeclared votes, and if this thing is to pass on Sunday, if they’re going to have this vote on Sunday, Pelosi’s going to have to get over two-thirds of that 40 voting ‘yes.’ There are 40 undeclared, 40 undecideds. Now, the conventional wisdom is that somebody telling you they’re undecided is just buying time and trying to avoid hassles, that they actually are going to vote ‘yes,’ but it could be just as easily they’re going to vote ‘no’ and they don’t want to get hassled because of that, too. It could go either way.

Now, as I mentioned, 40 members are undeclared and House leaders just said they don’t have the votes. Even Obama, at his declaring war on the insurance industry rally at George Mason University this morning, said, ‘If this vote fails, if this bill fails,’ so it’s still in his mind it could fail. Remember, Pelosi’s telling people to go ahead and quit their day jobs, they’re going to have health insurance, complaining about people being job locked, have to keep a job they don’t like just to get health insurance, forget that, we’re going to pay your health insurance for you.

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RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. And remember, again, the House leaders said today, they don’t have the votes yet. Clyburn went out and said he’s got the votes. He doesn’t have them. There are 40 undeclared House Democrats on this. So there’s no way any of these accurate whip counts that say one vote short, two votes short, five votes short, nobody knows what they’re talking about, all this is just PR put out by the Democrats, media is lapping it all up, trying to create an inevitable, it’s a done deal. It’s like I said, people predict they’re going to win, okay, let’s not play the game then, if you think you’re going to win, you win. Nope, not going to do it that way. It never happens that way in real life, but that’s what they’re trying to do, just get us stop playing the game. It ain’t going to happen. James Clyburn this morning, MSNBC, F. Chuck Todd said, ‘The soonest you can call a vote as far as the pledge you guys made is two o’clock Sunday. But is it fair to say that you won’t call the vote until you know you have the votes or will you possibly call the vote even if you’re not quite sure?’

CLYBURN: Nancy Pelosi will make that call. But I’m very hopeful that by the time we get to two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, we will see our pathway forward. You know, a lot of momentum has built over the last day or so and from what I hear, the wind will continue to blow at our backs throughout the day.

RUSH: Now, that’s this morning. He’s the whip. He’s talking about this like he’s looking at it from afar. ‘From what I hear, a lot of momentum built over the last day or so. From what I hear the wind will continue to blow at our backs throughout the day.’ He’s the whip, he is the wind, he’s the wind that’s supposed to be blowing at everybody’s back. They don’t have ’em yet, folks. Do not doubt me. Last night, Charlie Rose asks Clyburn, ‘Does this CBO report close the deal for you to get to 216 votes?’

CLYBURN: I think so. I really am — believe that the people who were very leery about what this would do to the country’s debt and deficit are very pleased with this. It makes it easier, as well as on the progressive side, they wanted more people covered, and we’ll be almost doubling the size of community health centers.

RUSH: Not true. Not true. Don’t forget Steny Hoyer has a memo to all Democrats, don’t discuss details of the CBO report, just say it cuts the deficit, just say it cuts the deficit, don’t focus ’cause they don’t want anybody looking at the real CBO numbers. People have looked at the real CBO numbers even though they’re just estimates. It’s a disaster. Folks, it is a disaster. It would cost over $2 trillion. Jeffrey Anderson, Weekly Standard: ‘The CBO’s most recent analysis is out, and it’s not likely to convince wavering House Democrats to jump to the Obamacare side of the fence.’ It’s over $2 trillion, and not $1.3 trillion in deficit reduction. We are being fully, totally lied to about it. ‘It includes 2010 as the initial year. As most people are well aware, 2010 has now been underway for some time. Therefore, the CBO would normally count 2011 as the first year of its analysis, just as it counted 2010 as the first year when analyzing the initial House health bill in the middle of 2009. But under strict instructions from Democratic leaders, and over strong objections from Republicans, the CBO dutifully scored 2010 as the first year of the latest version of Obamacare. If the clock were started in 2011, the first full year that the bill could possibly be in effect, the CBO says that the bill’s ten-year costs would be $1.2 trillion.’ No wonder they don’t want to focus on any of the details in the CBO report.

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RUSH: Now, here’s a post from Ramesh Ponnuru at the National Review’s Corner blog and it’s from yesterday. ‘A Whip Count Going Around K Street … has fewer than 30 undecideds, with Pelosi needing two-thirds. Don’t believe Democrats who say they’re within five.’ Well, it was just a half hour ago, 40 minutes ago now that NBC — the Obama network — announced that there are 40 undecided Democrats, not 30, and that she needs two-thirds of those. Clyburn said this morning they’ve got the votes. House Democrat leaders quickly ran out and said, ‘No, we don’t have the votes.’ It’s not over. Just because they make predictions of how this is going to end up does not mean that that’s how it’s going to end up.

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RUSH: Now, there’s Fox again reporting that the Democrats are two votes short. I don’t know how they’re coming up with that, but that’s just not right. I mean, there are 40 undecided Democrats, unless they know at Fox what these 40 are going to do. But NBC doesn’t know what they’re going to do. NBC has no clue what the 40 are going to do. They’re saying the Democrats don’t have the votes — and get this. Fox just published this on the website: ‘So the House will vote to approve the health care bill on Sunday, the Senate will promptly polish off a ‘fix-it’ bill, and this whole political nightmare will end — right? Not so fast.’ I have to stop here again. This opening sentence gets it all wrong. ‘So the House will vote to approve the health care bill on Sunday, the Senate will promptly polish off a ‘fix-it’ bill, and…’ That’s not what’s going to happen! Pardon my frustration here, folks.

This is so crucially important and it’s really unfortunate so many people are getting what’s going on wrong. This fix-it bill, the reconciliation bill, the amendment package — all of it — it’s not going to the Senate to get fixed next week! It’s not going to be part of what Obama signs into law, if they sign anything. The Senate bill will be broken out. Once this thing is passed, it will be ‘deemed’ to have passed. It will go to the Senate for certification (as I get blue in the face repeating this) and if Obama signs anything Sunday or whenever, it will be the Senate bill. It’s not going to be any of these ‘fixes.’ But a lot of people in the media are out there saying, ‘Oh, even if this thing goes on Sunday doesn’t mean anything because a lot of real action is from shift to the Senate.’ It’s not going to shift to the Senate!

You’re telling me that Obama is going to wait when he’s got a Senate bill that’s ‘deemed’ to have passed both houses? That he’s going to wait? (laughing) He’s going to sign it, throw his party, and let everybody else start dealing with these fixes later on. Anyway, I just wanted to correct this because the Senate is not going to do a quick fix-it bill and agree with what the House is doing. The Republicans in the Senate are making a point of that yesterday and today. That’s not going to be the case. Anyway that’s not the focus of the story. I just had to correct it.

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RUSH: Okay, here’s the latest from Paul Ryan, ladies and gentlemen, via Robert Costa at National Review Online, The Corner. Ryan says, ‘It is a coin toss. We were just on the floor going through whip-check. [The Democrats] still aren’t there yet. It’s narrowed down, from what we can tell, to four or five. Obviously, the numbers favor [the Democrats], if you compare the pool of undecided votes to how many they need to come over. They only need about 50 percent of the remaining undecideds to break their way. On [the Republican side], we need seven votes to defeat this.’ Seven of the undecideds, and I don’t know what that number is now. It’s 20 or 30, I’m not sure which. Paul Ryan further says, ‘At this point, we’re really only talking about a handful of votes. It’s such a close situation, and very, very fluid. They don’t want to win by just one vote — with everyone cast as the tiebreaking vote — they want to win by two or three votes. That’ll be hard to do, as will muscling votes in these final hours, since everyone is watching.’

Now, that’s a good point. When he says they don’t want to win by just one vote because then everybody could be cast as the tiebreaking vote. Every Democrat could be cast, ‘You’re the guy who gave us this bad bill, you’re the Democrat,’ and none of them want that so they want to win by two or three, which Ryan says is going to be. They’ll take it, don’t misunderstand, they’ll take a one vote win, but they want to get more than that. Whether it will prevent them from calling a vote on Sunday is another thing.

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RUSH: Okay, two things on websites and phone calls. A friend of mine, Heather Higgins, Independent Women’s Voice, just posted a very easy-to-use website, it’s called BarackHatesThis.com. It is a list — you don’t have to spend any money there, there are no tricks, you’re not going to get fundraising letters, you’re not going to get requests for money — it’s a list of all the undecideds, their local phone numbers and their Washington phone numbers. And the thing to understand about the Blue Dogs and these moderates, they’re Democrats. What will turn them is when they know you understand what’s going on here. If they think they can vote for this and rely on your ignorance, when they come back, ‘No, no, no, what I voted for was X,’ and that you’ll believe the lie, then they’ll vote for it.

But if the Blue Dogs become convinced that their constituents know what’s going on here, that’s how they’re going to be persuaded, that’s how they’re going to be swayed and that’s why you have to keep calling them. It’s BarackHatesThis.com. They’re probably going to shut this down for a while, but keep trying to get through. It’s very well placed and positioned for people to see who is still undecided and very simple, their local office number and the Washington office number, BarackHatesThis.com. Remember that the Blue Dogs and all these moderates, once they know that their constituents have figured out what’s going on, that’s the beginning of the process where they firm up and vote ‘no.’

Somebody pointed out to me yesterday that this toll-free number in Washington, 877-762-8762 translates to SOB-U-SOB. 877-762-8762 is SOB-U-SOB. Ha-ha. SOB-U-SOB! Look it up. It works.

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RUSH: They do not have the votes. Obama wouldn’t have gone on Fox, he wouldn’t have gone out to George Mason today, if he had the votes. He wouldn’t a canceled his trip for Sunday if they had the votes. They don’t have the votes. This is by no means over. 877-762-8762, or SOB-U-SOB, that’s the toll-free number to the Capitol Hill Switchboard.

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