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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: There were two speeches today. Romney gave a speech back on the campaign trail and it was dynamite. It was really good. Obama is in Green Bay right now. Now, everybody here listening knows that I don’t like Obama. Everybody knows that I’ve never been fooled by Obama, and everybody knows that I’ve got a prejudice and a bias against Obama. I mean, I hope he loses. I want him to lose big. I want him to lose in a landslide. I want this country to reject everything he stands for. That’s what my dream is, okay? Even having said that, this speech today is one of the most tired, worn-out, repetitive, nothing new in it. I mean, if this is a turnout election, I don’t see what he’s doing turning his people out. I don’t see this as inspiring.

He’s got a crowd there at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay. He’s wearing his Air Force One jacket. He’s saying things like, (imitating Obama) “We’re gonna keep investing in solar and wind and clean energy, green energy. I don’t care what anybody says, I’m not gonna cede any of that to other countries.” It’s bombing! All of that is bombing. Do you know that there were 16 electric cars, these Fisker things, 16 Fisker Karmas burned up after being submerged in water by Hurricane Sandy. I don’t know where. Obviously in New York or in New Jersey somewhere. Terrible thing. Then he was talking about Al-Qaeda’s on the run.

The day after Fox News discovers that there was a cable from the dead ambassador Chris Stevens to Washington begging for security at the consulate in Benghazi, saying that Al-Qaeda is massing here, Al-Qaeda is organizing and they’re planning attacks. This was in the weeks prior to the attack. It was an Al-Qaeda attack. An Al-Qaeda attack planned and strategerized, killed four Americans. Everybody knows this. Obama, “Al-Qaeda’s on the run.”

(imitating Obama) “Don’t tell me that hiring more teachers won’t boost our economy.” I’ll tell you, hiring more teachers is not the answer to boosting the economy. I’ll tell you now, I’ll tell you tomorrow, I’ll tell you tonight. He’s going point by point trying to refute what Romney has said. Then he promised to raise taxes. “And I don’t believe that these millionaires ought to be complaining at all. The tax rate goes back to what it was when Bill Clinton was president.” It was the same old rigmarole, not even recycled.

I don’t know how many people caught this, folks, but in the real world, Obama really stepped in it yesterday with Chris Christie. He really stepped in it. After his photo-op tour in New Jersey, Obama told the press — see if you catch this — Obama told the press that he has directed his staff and his administration to tolerate no red tape or bureaucratic excuses when it comes to getting storm victims the help they need. Obama said he had instructed his people to return the calls from officials in storm damaged states within 15 minutes. If they need something, we figure out a way to say yes. (paraphrasing) “My message to the federal government: no bureaucracy, no red tape. Get resources where they are needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible, and for the duration.”

What does that mean?

It means that the normal state of affairs is the government doesn’t work. Barack Obama just spelled out for everybody that in the normal existence of the bureaucracy, it doesn’t work, and that it takes special commands, fist pounding, presidential orders with fear behind them in order to get the bureaucracy to work, period. Not smoothly, not timely, but just work, period. But this is not it. That’s not what I caught. Everybody can catch that. What I caught, in addition to this sounding like government normally is totally messed up, government normally can’t get anything done, government normally is filled with red tape and roadblocks and delays. Normally government bogs down efficiency. Normally the natural state of affairs of the bureaucracy is to bog down efforts to deal with problems and that needs to be stripped away. We need to strip away the roadblocks, the bureaucracy.

But here’s the thing. That’s exactly what Mitt Romney’s campaigning to do. Mitt Romney is campaigning to make this government exactly what Obama wants it to be for a short while to handle New Jersey and Chris Christie. And when Mitt Romney suggests that we streamline the bureaucracy; that we get rid of some of the deadweight. When we get rid of some of the redundancy, when we get rid of all of these regulations and bottlenecks, what does Obama say? He starts stammering that that’s taking us back to what caused our economic problems in the first place. Mitt Romney’s solution is what Obama keeps blaming.

That’s what I caught.

Mitt Romney or any conservative’s solution to big government: cut it, streamline it, pare it back. Obama, (imitating Obama) “We gotta do that. I’m not gonna stand for the normal state of affairs. You call me and I’m gonna get something done in 15 minutes.” Why isn’t that the case every day? Why is that the exception? Why is that something that he needs to be applauded for, by the way? Why couldn’t he have been doing that the last four years? So Mitt Romney says, (paraphrasing) “That’s what I’m gonna make government. I’m gonna streamline it. I’m gonna get rid of all of these roadblocks. I’m gonna get rid of all of these regulations.” What does Obama say? “Romney wants to take us back to what caused our economic problems in the first place.”

I think Obama’s standing in quicksand. That’s just me and people who hear this stuff the way I do. And now you have heard it the way I do ’cause I just told you what I heard. So now even if you didn’t hear it that way, you are now going, “Oh, yeah, ho-ho-ho, yeah, right on, Rush man.” I know you’re doing that out there. I can see it. So it sounds to me like when Obama’s reelection is on the line he actually agrees with Romney. We got too much red tape. We got too much bureaucracy. We have a government that is a barrier to efficiency. Barack Obama just admitted it.

Now, there’s also a natural rejoinder to this, too, another one. Wouldn’t it have been great if Obama had shown that kind of can-do spirit when the consulate was being attacked in Benghazi. You think they would have appreciated a response in 15 minutes? I think they would have. I think everybody at the annex, at the consulate, everybody at embassy Tripoli, Embassy Cairo, I think they’d have been thrilled with a response in 15 minutes. They didn’t get a response in over a month. Remember, Catherine Herridge at Fox produced a cable. The ambassador Chris Stevens, requesting security in August because Al-Qaeda was amassing. Al-Qaeda was planning an attack and they didn’t have any way to beat it back.

The same Al-Qaeda that “Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!” says is on the run. He said it again today in Green Bay just now. (impression) “Al-Qaeda’s on the run, aaaaand Osama Bin Laden is dead.” Yaaaaay! “I’m gonna raise your taxes! I’m gonna put the taxes of rich people back up to where it was under Bill Clinton.” Fine. Let’s reduce spending to what it was when Clinton was in office then, too. How about that? Oh, wait. Obama said he’s already done that.

“I’ve cut spending over a trillion dollars.” He said that. “I don’t believe… I don’t… I — I — I don’t see how adding teachers doesn’t help the economy. I certainly think it does.” Yaaaaaay! So it’s a turnout election now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Anyway, as I was saying, Governor Christie is saying the first thing they need to do in New Jersey is get gasoline into the state. Not solar power. Not windmills. Not solar panels or clean energy. Chris Christie’s out there calling for gasoline, evil gasoline, as the first thing they needed in order to recover. Have you seen the lines of people standing in line at gas stations trying to get a gallon or two just for their generator?

That’s right.

And tempers are short because there isn’t any fast action being taken. It’s not possible. People are sitting around waiting for government, but those doing for themselves? ThereÂ’s gonna be a marked difference in lives. You watch people sitting around waiting for government to do something, and others taking matters into their own hands, and you’ll see a distinct difference. But I don’t mean that to be critical of people.


I guess what I’m saying, folks, is nobody knows the effect of this storm on the election. Nobody knows. That’s why everybody’s asking everybody else, “What do you think the storm’s gonna do?” Because they want to hear what other people think because internally people don’t know. I’ll tell you why you don’t know. Because you instinctively… You’ve been alive a long time. You know how the media plays these things up.

And the one thing you know is that when it comes to compassion, the media template is that the Democrats have all of it and the Republicans have none. So, you are convinced that so many people believe that. You think that the media template works. So it goes into gear here and you fear that it’s gonna work, and it’s gonna convince people that had no intention of voting for Obama to now vote for him because all of a sudden he cares.

I understand the fear and I understand the logical progression people make there. Now, I don’t happen to believe that, but I understand people who have that fear. What I see… Don’t forget, we’re talking about people in Obama states here. These are deep-blue states: New York and New Jersey and to whatever extent eastern Pennsylvania’s been affected here. These people, these tempers are short.

These people are not… I don’t know how many of them are gonna vote for Romney anyway, but they’re not happy. There is no immediate relief. There is no solution or relief from the red tape. There is no way to permeate the bureaucracy and get what you need. It’s not, I don’t think, possible this soon afterwards. But don’t forget after Hurricane Katrina.

The very people here cautioning that we need to be patient, the very people who were excoriating Bush for not caring and not going down to New Orleans and not helping the people and, “Where was FEMA?” and so forth. Now it’s all different. “We gotta understand the difficulties and limitations here and everybody’s trying as hard as they can.” I understand the media template that Republicans don’t care and Democrats do has been around for as long as we’ve been alive, and it appears to work.

So the natural fear is that Obama’s gonna somehow change the game. If he’s gotta change the game, where is he? Losing? What’s the game changer here? The bottom line is, nobody knows how this is gonna affect anything. If anything, it might shore up some Obama voters who weren’t gonna vote. I don’t think it’s persuasive. I just think the fundamentals are way too deep.


Anyway, back to Governor Christie. I mean, heÂ’s just making a plea for gasoline. “Please, we need gasoline.” He said he was authorizing… Get this: He was authorizing, and that the federal government was allowing, the relaxing of numerous regulations that will now allow the free flow of gasoline. So what has to happen here from both Christie’s mouth and Obama’s?

What has to happen for there to be a solution is government has to get out of the way. Obama says, “I’m gonna end the red tape. I’m gonna get rid of it.” In other words: “The normal inefficiency, I’m gonna sweep it aside. When this is over, we’re gonna go back to the normal inefficiency.” Christie says, “You know what? To hell with all these fuel formulations for pollution or global warming. Screw it! Whatever gasoline we can get in here, we’re taking.”

Well, if it’s okay now, why isn’t it okay every day? What we’re getting here, what these two titans of government are basically telling the people in the Northeast is: “You know what? We’re gonna give you a waiver from government.” I really wish there were time to use this as a teachable moment, ’cause this is great opportunity. There’s not that many days left, but this is really illustrative.

To have the president of the United States out there promising everybody that he’s gonna get government out of their way? A Democrat to boot? He’s gonna get government out of their way, while heÂ’s campaigning on making it bigger and more intrusive, higher taxing, more regulations. But in order to get things done, what does even he admit needs to be done? You need the waiver from government.

We need to get government out of the way. Christie goes out and does the same thing. “Well, you know what? We’re gonna waive all these regulations we have on formulations of gasoline. We need gas. Whatever gas we can get, we’re gonna take it in, and the Feds have told me it’s okay to do it.” Now, the lesson is: Look at how much more efficient and look at how much more productive we would be if they got out of our way every day.

Here we are in an emergency, and what’s a solution? Waivers from government, admitted by the two stewards at the highest levels: Nationally and in the state of New Jersey. The president and the governor are admitting that they need to get government out of the way. What a teachable moment. And then Obama goes to Green Bay and in that campaign speech just promises more government, bigger government, more regulating government.


And when Romney says he wants to do this every day, he wants to limit the size and the scope and intrusive of government every day, Obama attacks him. Obama says, “Yeah, he wants to take us back to the days and the problems that got us in this mess in the first place.” You know what else it also shows? It shows that with a snap of the fingers, you can get rid of government just like that. That’s what he’s trying to imply here.
With a snap of the fingers, no gas regulations. “Get it in here!” Snap of the fingers, and you get a phone call back in 15 minutes. A snap of the fingers is all it takes. Really? We know this isn’t gonna happen. Obama’s gonna live off the fact that he promised it, but look at how easy theyÂ’re making it look. Get rid of government. Such a teachable moment.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to the phones. Sandy, Pittsburgh, great to have you on the EIB. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s a great honor to speak with you. You’ve been my hero for over two decades.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: Mine is probably not the most popular first name this week, but I do have a comment and a quick story about red tape in New Jersey.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: Obama’s promise to clear the red tape for the hurricane victims is even worse than you stated, because we’re not just talking about normal inefficiencies of government. Barack Obama is Mr. Red Tape. If you look at all the roadblocks that he’s created when people deal with the EPA —

RUSH: I agree.

CALLER: — health care —

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: — all these different things, that’s the irony of all ironies.

RUSH: I think you’re right. If I hear you right, what you’re saying is that Obama is promising to get himself out of the way.

CALLER: Exactly. And he’s made it so much worse than what it was before, the normal inefficiencies, because of his policies.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: You know, small businesses, “You didn’t build it, so we can control everything you do.” I mean, it is a real problem that, you know, I think —

RUSH: That’s exactly right. (imitating Obama) “You didn’t build that, we did, and that’s why we get to control it, we get to regulate it. You didn’t build that. We did.”

CALLER: Exactly. And health care, people that are dealing with health care, my brother-in-law says the paperwork is ridiculous.

RUSH: Hey, Sandy, you want an iPad? Would you like an iPhone?

CALLER: Oh, that would be wonderful.

RUSH: Which one?

CALLER: I’m not sure ’cause I just have a regular computer, HP. So I don’t —

RUSH: I’ll send you an iPad.

CALLER: Okay. Well, that’s so wonderful.

RUSH: I don’t care what you have, that will be a step up. Hang on. Don’t go away.

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