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February 14, 2008 |
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Story #1: Apple Corporate Finally Calls About Mac Trouble
RUSH: I have an announcement to make: Apple corporate called. Somebody from high up the corporate ladder at Apple Computer in California, out in Cupertino, called the office. When did you get the message? When did they call, late yesterday afternoon? All right, they called at nine o'clock this morning, very, very, very nice guy, put my IT guy in touch with them, working -- No, it was not Algore. Ha! No, Mr. Snerdley, it was not Algore. I'm not going to mention the gentleman's name because the Mac user community that hates me will start bombarding this guy. He's a West Coast guy. He called about six a.m. out there and said, "I'm here now," so our IT guy is working with him. That's cool. Yes, it's official. It's not a hacker. It was official. Don't start gumming up the works. It was really true.
 Story #2: It Never Fails: Jobless Claims Fall "Unexpectedly"
RUSH: It never fails, folks, it just never fails. "Jobless Claims Decreased Last Week." This is an AP story. It never fails. "The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by a larger than expected amount." They are always shocked, whether the news is good or bad -- well, no, if the news is bad, the experts were right. This hasn't changed in the last two years. When there has been an unemployment report, news contains the term "larger than expected," "surprising," "shocking," yet they continue to use these same experts who are continually shocked and continually surprised by larger-than-expected numbers. "Analysts had been expecting a slightly smaller decrease." Plus, it's another indication the economy is not as bad as many people would love to have you believe.
Story #3: Romney Endorses McCain, Releases Delegates
RUSH: Romney is going to endorse McCain four o'clock this afternoon and release his delegates to Senator McCain. It's totally understandable and predictable.
Story #4: Bush, House GOP Battle Democrats on FISA Bill
RUSH: President Bush, by the way, has announced he's going to delay his trip to Africa in order to push Congress on this terror surveillance. Members of the House, the Democrats, are not going to take the bill up, the bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday. If this bill does not get passed by the House, FISA, foreign intelligence surveillance, basically ends as we know it at midnight tomorrow night. This is not politics. This is life and death for the country. Democrats are playing politics with it. The Republicans just recently walked off the floor of the House of Representatives. John Conyers was up, he was filibustering, making some attack on a Bush administration official. The Republicans walked off to protest the fact that Democrats are doing nothing on the FISA legislation.
Story #5: Secret Washington Deal on Amnesty Lite?
RUSH: This I had not heard anything about. "Capitol Hill news sources have been buzzing for the past 48 hours about backroom negotiations in the House of Representatives that may bring comprehensive immigration reform 'lite' to the floor. Congressional Quarterly reports that Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA), Chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, is leading the fight for legislation that would provide a five-year amnesty visa to illegal aliens currently in the US. Baca said the five-year amnesty visas would be available to illegal aliens who can 'prove they have a job, pay taxes and pass a criminal background check.'" This is from yesterday's Congressional Quarterly. "The negotiations for the five-year amnesty visas are already taking place at the highest levels of House leadership. They include Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoë Lofgren (D-CA) and are reportedly bipartisan in nature. Speaker Pelosi, however, denies there has been any firm decision to move forward. (Id.) Not surprisingly, jumping on the visa bandwagon are business interests that have been attempting for months to secure an increase in H-2B visas -- visas for unskilled workers. These business interests have made repeated, but failed attempts since the demise of the 2007 Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill to increase the number of H-2B visas so employers could import more cheap foreign labor. Now they are at it again and Congress seems willing to listen, even during a period of economic downturn in the U.S.! Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA), assistant to Speaker Pelosi, confirmed that leadership was attempting to find some 'relief' for employers who cannot get enough foreign labor due to the caps set forth by law. (Congress Daily, February 13, 2008) Commenting on these negotiations, the senior manager for immigration policy at the US Chamber of Commerce said, 'I think there is some type of deal in the works.'"
This should not be a surprise, doing it behind closed doors under the cover of darkness, so to speak, been working on it for the past 48 hours, five-year amnesty visas, because of the downturn in the economy, business unable to hire cheap foreign labor because some of the states are, you know, natural attrition is taking place, some of the illegals are actually leaving certain states, and some are leaving the country because states are enforcing the law. We all told you, ladies and gentlemen, that just because McCain-Kennedy was stopped, don't expect this to go away. Don't expect your representatives to have seen the light. Don't expect them to have learned the lesson. Senator McCain himself was asked, "If McCain-Kennedy, if your comprehensive immigration reform bill came across your desk as president, would you sign it?" "Yes. Yes, I would, but we're past that point now. It's not going to happen." But he said he would sign it. They want this, folks. They're going to get this done by hook or crook, and they know that they're going to have to do it in secret and in private, but now here it is. It has leaked out. Again, this is yesterday, Congressional Quarterly reported that Joe Baca, who is chairman of the Hispanic caucus, leading the fight for legislation to provide a five-year amnesty visa to illegal aliens currently in the United States. Good. Let's bring this front and center to the presidential campaign. Our buddies at the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere are writing, "It's not a big issue. Nobody cares about it anymore." Let's bring it front and center and find out if it's not a big issue anymore.
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Story #6: Trial Lawyers Contribute to Dems, Lobby on FISA
RUSH: And we're learning a little bit more about what's going on in the House of Representatives regarding the FISA bill. Amanda Carpenter writing at Townhall.com, she's a columnist. "As Congress debates giving immunity to phone companies that assisted the government in tracking terrorist communications, trial lawyers prosecuting those phone companies have poured money into the coffers of Democratic senators, representatives and causes. Court records and campaign contribution data reveal that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against these phone companies donated at least $1.5 million to 44 different current Democratic senators and Democratic causes. All of the trial lawyers combined only contributed $4,250 to Republicans in comparison. Those contributions were made to: Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Sen. Mel Martinez, and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.)." Those donations totaled a mere $4,250 compared to the million-and-a-half the trial lawyers have given to Democrats.
"One maxed-out lawyer donor, Matthew Bergman of Vashon, Washington, has given more than $400,000 in his name to Democrats. In the 2008 cycle alone he donated $78,300 to various campaigns. Bergman's law firm's website says he also specializes in 'identifying viable asbestos defendants, locating evidence and developing legal theories to hold offending companies accountable.' In 2004, his firm split a $4.3 billion payout from Halliburton with seven other law firms. $30 million of that was delivered to their firm's asbestos victim clients. ... On Wednesday, the Senate held a critical vote on an amendment to the FISA reauthorization that would grant this immunity. It passed, but 29 Democratic senators voted against it. 24 of them have accepted campaign contributions from trial lawyers who are suing the government over those activities. Two of them are running for President. Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), who is in the running for the Democratic nomination, was given $28,650 from trial lawyers listed as counsel for plaintiffs who are suing those companies because they turned over phone records as a part of President Bush's covert phone surveillance program. $19,150 of that was donated in the last year. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), the other main contender for the Democratic presidential bid, also accepted money from trial lawyers on the case. Records show those lawyers have poured $34,800 to her and her husband's campaigns over the years."
So this is now making sense. Senate passed it, FISA reauthorization containing immunity for the phone companies' prosecution. The House is holding it up because of one-and-a-half million dollars in donations from the trial lawyers who want to prosecute the phone companies, who want to sue them on behalf of victims, customers, and of course the trial lawyers are a huge constituency, so as I said earlier, this is not politics. The heavy artillery is coming out, folks. This is going to shine the light of attention. This is the kind of stuff President Bush hates doing, by the way, and I'm sure he doesn't want to go in areas like this, but he's canceled his Africa trip to push this thing and get it done because it's crucial. This is about finding out what the terrorists over there and anybody else that plans ill for this country, finding out about it in advance, and two of the Democrats that are running for president, "Screw it! Trial lawyers donate to us. We have to be more loyal to our trial lawyers than we do to the country." That's how it appears. That's the heavy artillery that's coming out. I wanted to update you on that.
Story #7: Another Mommy Moment in the Clinton Campaign
RUSH: Now, the Wall Street Journal today has a story: "The Clinton Team Seeks to Calm Turmoil," and again, the sources for the story are Clinton people, and you have to understand the first thing: These people lie. Clinton lies. The Clintons lie. The campaign lies. So they put out these stories that they're in deep trouble; big, deep trouble. It could be a sandbag, could be an attempt for sympathy. "Mrs. Clinton is working so, so hard." Maggie Williams apparently now bringing all the old White House chums in, getting rid of some of the dead weight. Patti Solis Doyle -- by the way, an Hispanic group wrote Hillary a letter, "You better not have hired her because she was Hispanic." (laughter) I'm not kidding. But this story today in the Wall Street Journal has this little paragraph about Patti Solis Doyle, who's been with Hillary since the Arkansas days. "Ms. Solis Doyle recently returned home after two months on the road to find a family accustomed to her absence, she told colleagues. When her 6-year-old son cried out one night recently, he rebuffed his mom, saying, 'I want Daddy.' Ms. Solis Doyle flew out of the room in tears and told her husband: 'Joey doesn't want me. S[crew] this campaign, I'm quitting."
Now, she's the source. It says here, "she told colleagues" about the story. Well, somebody in the campaign leaked the story. So now we've got a mommy moment; another mommy moment in the Clinton campaign. Now, I can imagine there's trauma here. You're away from home for a couple months, and the kids forget about you; grow accustomed to you not being there. (interruption) Daddy is a good housewife, right. Serving your country is a real pain in the rear end. Screw that! Go home. You're not only serving your country but serving the one and only great Hillary and Bill. Yeah. So you go home; your six-year-old doesn't care that you're back. The kid cries out in the middle of a nightmare, your mom runs in. "I don't want you! I don't want you! I want daddy, got that?" You leave the room in tears, and go to the husband, "Joey doesn't want me. Screw this job. I'm quitting." Another mommy moment in the Clinton campaign, but it's gotta be traumatic, if this is true.
Yes, I know, it's a six-year-old, but to liberals, six-year-olds have more sense than you and I do, H.R. They could sue you. A six-year-old is going to be able to sue you. That's absolutely right. Six-year-olds under Hillary Care back in the nineties, would be able to sue their parents. She was for the Children's Defense Fund, remember that? Yeah, for neglect and so forth. What? Exactly. Mr. Snerdley is asking me in the IFB in a very disbelieving tone of voice, "Who would tell the press that this happened in their family?" Well, the root supposedly is that Solis Doyle "told colleagues," and apparently it is "colleagues" who told the Wall Street Journal -- which, Mr. Snerdley, you know it is not sweetness and light in any group of people. There are always people who talk. A real good friend of mine, he's coined a really great phrase. He's a boss. He's a CEO, and he's had some problems in his company recently because they've started small; they've gotten really big and he's got problems with divas and people who think they ought to be having the big jobs other people have.
So all the success is gone to their head, and he wrote them a note: "Negative people aren't going to live here. Negative people make positive people sick, and I am not going to have my positive people get sick because you negative people know who you are, and you are on notice." Well, in every organization you're going to have negative people, and you're going to have jealousies and so forth. So if Solis Doyle didn't tell the Wall Street Journal this herself... You gotta understand. A liberal might think this makes her look good. This is how they struggle. This is how they suffer -- and life is suffering and struggle to liberals, and it's a sympathy play. "I was working so hard for Mrs. Clinton, my own son didn't want me anymore! It's terrible, but I was doing it." You might think that some liberals think that that could garner this month some sympathy. It could be that Patti Solis Doyle's colleagues, some of them who didn't like her, wanted to put the story out to embarrass her. Who knows? It doesn't matter how it got out there. It's out there. The question really is: Do we even believe this?
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