RUSH: ‘Virtual town hall’ at the White House today. One of the questions from Harriet in Georgia (summarized): ‘Mr. President, I love you. God bless you, all the hard work you’re doing! But when are you going to bring these jobs that have been outsourced back? When are you going to bring these jobs that are overseas back so they can be made available to unemployed workers here?’
OBAMA: The answer to the question is, not all of these jobs are gonna come back, and it probably wouldn’t be good for our economy for a bunch of these jobs to come back because, frankly, uh, there’s no way that people could be getting paid a living wage on some of these jobs.
RUSH: Stop the tape! That’s all you need to hear from the answer. They swerved into the truth here. He just explained why the jobs left in the first place. It’s cheaper overseas. Now, ask yourself this. If Harriet from Georgia is listening — and I highly doubt it, but Harriet, if you’re listening out there — what did you think was going to happen? Obama gets elected, and all these jobs in India and around the world, these people are going to say, ‘Oh! Oh! (clapping) This is wonderful. This is wonderful! Obama’s been elected. We’re going to give up our jobs so that you Americans can have them back.’ Is that what you thought was going to happen? And then he added this.
OBAMA: We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that, uhh, will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy, uh, that you’ve generated in your home through a solar panel or through, uh, eh, other mechanisms. All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now. Our biggest problem, we don’t have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there.
RUSH: All right so you have smart meters, Google is building them. ‘Smart’ meters will be installed in your house by newly hired electricians (working for the government, obviously.) I got a note during the break from a friend who is very closely connected to an industry expert in the electrical power-generation business. It’s an incredible statistic if it’s true, and that’s that 40% of all electrical power is stolen now, that 40% of people have found a way to bypass the meter outside their house so that not all the electricity they use is showing up! It’s like back in the old days people were able to go outside in a telephone poll and insert a box and fool the cable company. They were able to steal the cable signal.
And this is exactly what will happen, if they ever did this, put these smart meters inside people’s houses, they would just find a way around them. It’s what we Americans do! It is how we react to onerous control and regulations, after we’ve stupidly elected the people who want to impose them. We then go out and find ways around it. And, of course, your car in California can no longer be black as of 2012, if the California Air Resources Board gets its way, which leads to the question: ‘What if you promise them to only drive your black car at night and then pay a fine if you’re caught driving your black car in the daytime?’ Snerdley believes this will cause a revolt in California. I, frankly, don’t think we’re near the revolt stage.
We got the tea parties going on over the spending and so forth, but in California, I mean there’s so much to revolt over out there for the last two or three years that it isn’t happening. People are just leaving. Now, last night, again I was channel surfing last night. I took a break from show prep, I went over there, sat down on the couch, grabbed the trustee Crestron remote control unit, and fired up the giant 16-foot high definition projector, and I started channel surfing around. I wanted to make sure I could use as much damn power as I could. I turned the thermostats down to 70 degrees, 68 degrees. I turned on every light in the house! I turned on every light in the backyard and aimed ’em down so they wouldn’t hit the turtles! I mean, I had my house lit up like a Christmas tree last night.
Do you want to know why? ‘Cause I swerved into Larry King Live. And you know what the subject was on Larry King Live in the last half of the show? They had an actor on there by the name of Edward Norton. I like Edward Norton. I think he’s great. I love some of the stuff that he does, and they had the singer Alanis Morissette on there. Has she had any hits recently because I don’t listen to music radio. Craig, you should know. Does she have any…? Those were the two ‘experts,’ and Edward Norton has been named US Ambassador for Worldwide Earth Hour on Saturday night. Saturday night local time, whatever time zone you were in, everybody supposed to turn off their lights for an hour in a symbolic demonstration of saving electricity and saving the planet via reducing global warming.
And here’s a story on this from the French News Agency: ‘Around a billion people living in the world’s major cities are being invited to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday for ‘Earth Hour,’ described as the biggest mass campaign to demand action on climate change.’ We are freezing. The earth is freezing. All of these floods in North Dakota, you watch, they’re going to be blamed on global warming. You know what’s largely causing the floods in North Dakota and Fargo? Too much snow over the winter! There was snow pack and ice, and it’s melting. ‘The Empire State Building, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Acropolis in Athens and the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan are among the buildings whose illuminations will be switched off for an hour, the organisers said on their website.
‘More than 200 buildings in Paris will be dark for an hour, including the Louvre, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Paris Opera House… Last year’s event drew a claimed participation of 370 cities in 35 countries. Last week, the organisers said that 1,189 would be taking part this year. People are being invited to provide blogs and short video clips on the ways of spending an hour in the dark.’ You know what generally happens in a power failure in the dark? I mean, nine months later you have a Baby Boom. Will we get to see videos of that? Is that what these people are going to show us, videos of activity when the lights are out between 8:30 and 9:30 local time Saturday night? ‘The campaign has been backed by the United Nations, whose secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last week described it as a ‘a clear message… (for) action on climate change’ in the runup to a crucial meeting in Copenhagen.’
I’m watching Edward Norton and I’m watching Alanis Morissette, who… (sigh) Folks, they compared this to the march and the beatings in Selma, Alabama, and the civil rights movement as carrying the same symbolism. Edward Norton said it wasn’t the riots or it wasn’t the beatings in Selma that actually changed the civil rights movement. It was the symbolism of what happened there that caused a consciousness nationwide to occur that resulted in this. So now, the civil rights movement Selma march is being appropriated (I should say misappropriated) by global warming lunatics, and Larry King was beside himself what great citizens these two were. He’s a great actor! He’s a great actor out there, great citizen, doing wonderful things for the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
And Alanis Morissette, I’m still not convinced she knew where she was, much less knew what she was saying. It’s not a sexist comment. Edward Norton wasn’t much better. He just looked better saying it. He sounded better saying it. What he’s saying is, these people were nuts. It’s at 8:30 local time. That’s why when I saw this, when I was watching this — see, I have the ability from my couch, wherever I happen to be, I can turn on very light in the place, on all five houses. I can turn on the air conditioner and I can regulate the air conditioner. So I lit my place up like a Christmas tree last night. At 8:30 on Saturday night, I’m going to do the same thing. I mean, I might even put a Christmas tree up! I might even put Christmas lights on the outside lights, on the outside landscaping. I mean, I’m going to go just the opposite way, because I, El Rushbo — as you know — resist the tug of popular sentiment.
This is what makes me, me. I’ve never been a conventional wisdom guy, nor a conformist. And you’re going to have a bunch of these people doing this for two reasons: Fear if they don’t do it they’ll be ridiculed, if they’re a city, a town, a building, a corporation; and the second reason is because they actually think they’re making a difference here, with a show of symbolism. ‘What can it possibly hurt to turn the lights off? It can’t hurt anything to turn the lights off other than promote crime.’ What are the homeless going to do? I mean, it’s already dark for them anyway, their life prospects are dark, live under bridges, street lights. What’s going to happen when you turn those off? People driving black cars at night can’t be seen they’re going to come in there and create mayhem and crime.
It is just ridiculous. This level, folks, of emotional chaos, this level of emotional derangement, has been present in this country for a long time. But look — with the election of an extremist, tyrannical president, look — at all of it that he’s brought to the surface, and you watch this stuff, and you say, ‘This is not the country I know. This is not America. This is not the country I was raised in. This was not the country I grew up in.’ We’re being run by a bunch of idiots, a bunch of children — spoiled brat children, who actually think they’re ‘making a difference’ by turning out the lights for an hour. So I urge all of you — especially those of you who are stealing your electricity by short-changing the meter — to fire ’em up! On Saturday night at 8:30. They chose 8:30 ’cause daylight time, of course, it gets dark by 8:30, fire ’em up. I mean fire up every light you got! Go out and drive your car turn the headlights on after you’ve turned every light on the house, in the house on outside.
Just fire it up! Go out and rent spotlights. Go out and get some lights and light the buildings when the lights have been turned off. Somebody’s gotta make up for the electricity not being used. I mean, everybody depends on the money being spent here on electricity. It would be so wonderful if we have more lights on that are get turned off.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, you people that are unable to resist the tug of popular sentiment and are going to participate in this childish and foolish symbolic, meaningless act of turning off your lights at 8:30 on Saturday night for an hour, just remember something. In California, when they mandate that everybody start driving a bunch of little lawn mowers with a couple seats on them, to save the environment, and to save energy, the state realized after not too long a period of time that fewer gallons of gas sold meant a loss of tax revenue. So they talked about raising the tax on gasoline. In North Carolina, Raleigh-Durham area, the Golden Triangle, as it’s called, during a drought they limited the use of water. And when people followed the law and used less water, the city got less revenue from sales and taxes on water and so they raised taxes on water.
I can’t say it any other way. I know this might offend new arrivals here who think I’m pompous and arrogant and so forth, but if you are stupid enough to think that turning off your lights for an hour on Saturday night’s going to do anything other than raise the cost you pay for electricity, you need to think again. It isn’t gonna make one Sam Hill’s worth of difference to anything. I know you’ll feel better about yourself, and I know you think I’m trying to deny you feeling better about yourself. That’s not it at all. I just hate people acting as sheep, engaging in worthless, meaningless things that will end up resulting in the loss of freedom. If you willingly, because of some initiative put forth by an actor and a singer, if you are willing to turn off your lights for an hour, then how willing will you ultimately be for them to come along and order you to do it.
Well, I know I mentioned that they’re going to have videos of what people do when the lights are off. That’s what the website says. We know that when the lights go off in a power failure nine months later, bammo, got more human beings and more abortions, depending on who got pregnant. So it could end up, this hour off could end up producing more people which will ultimately threaten the planet far more than any one hour without electricity in your house. So make sure that you get a condom. Make sure you get a condom from China so that it has lead in it. Get prepared, either up the contraception or go out and get a condom and prepare for your hour of darkness. Saturday night at 8:30, so that you don’t mistakenly raise and elevate the US population, which of course will put stress on the planet down the road.
All right, I gotta go to the phones. Do you realize I haven’t even gotten to the top of my show prep stack? All the time I spent on show prep so far have been unnecessary, at least for today’s show. It’s never unnecessary, it’s never worthless. But everything that’s happened on this program in the first hour-and-a-half happened after it started. For you new arrivals I know you’ll consider this pompous and arrogant, too, but I dare say there’s not a host in America who could do what’s being done today. It’s why I don’t write speeches. You have to be able to react to things happening the final second before you go on stage.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Vancouver, Washington. Greg, great to have you here. Thank you for waiting.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Longtime listener, first-time caller. I was closing on my house yesterday — refinancing it, I should say — and my banker told me that he was really upset. Because their bank — 126 years old with no financial problems, everything was going smooth — was just purchased by a bank that received TARP funds.
RUSH: Yeah, we have heard about this happening. Banks are out there investing in themselves and buying other banks, which, by the way — now, don’t forget — the original allocation of TARP money was to get rid of toxic assets and start lending. And then Paulson changed it and gave permission for banks to be using money this way, which then led to Barney Frank saying, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on? It’s sus’thposed to be a lot of credit, lending, affordable housing,’ and so that’s what got all this started because the original TARP money has not been used for its original purposes.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: So your news does not surprise me.
CALLER: Well, I’m sorry. I’m not surprised it doesn’t surprise you, Rush. You’re on top of everything, or so it seems. One last little thought. What’s going to happen if Obama goes to California? Is he going to drive a white car? Are they going to build a brand-new one for him?
RUSH: Ah, ah, ah. There will be exemptions. This is the way liberals work. The state officials and their official cars, limousines, SUVs, will of course remain black. Obama’s the president. His motorcade will remain black. The new rules on the color of cars will only apply to the bourgeois, the hoi polloi, the average people. Special people, the elites of course will be exempt from all of this. It’s the way it works.
RUSH: This is Michelle in Oxbridge, Massachusetts, great to have you here.
CALLER: Oh, thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: I listen to you as often as I can, and I heard you talking about something about putting something in our homes to monitor our power usage?
RUSH: I didn’t say it. I want you to listen. Grab audio sound bite number 25.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I want you to listen to this. This is your president. This is President Barack Obama at his town meeting today that he held on the Internet, the ‘virtual town meeting,’ and he was describing — after telling a woman that outsourced jobs are gone and we’re never going to get ’em back — how we’re going to create new jobs.
OBAMA: We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that, uhh, will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy, uh, that you’ve generated in your home through a solar panel or through, uh, eh, other mechanisms. All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now. Our biggest problem, we don’t have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there.
RUSH: That’s what you heard me discussing.
CALLER: Okay. Well, it makes me so angry to hear some of these things that I keep hearing more and more on a daily basis. I am absolutely livid — and I tell you, I want to see the day somebody tries to come into my home and tell me what I can and can’t use.
RUSH: Well, it’s coming.
CALLER: (giggles) They won’t get into my house, that’s for sure. They’ll have to take me away screaming — screaming and yelling in handcuffs. We have to wake up, you know? We have to wake up! It’s time to say, ‘No! Enough!’
RUSH: It won’t be an official government worker, Michelle, that comes in.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: It will be a utility worker, somebody from there. An electrician from your friendly utility company that will come in, and you’ll be mandated to get a new thermostat, mandated to get one of these new meters and you’ll be mandated. Just like you had to get a digital TV. Just like you had to upgrade certain things technologically, you will have to upgrade to one of these and your utility company. At no charge! The government will be so wonderful about this, they will not charge you for your new meter.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm. Well…
RUSH: If this actually comes to pass, that’s how it will happen.
CALLER: Well, people really need to wake up and start understanding what’s happening!
RUSH: Tell me!
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: Tell me!
CALLER: (laughing) I know, I know. Preaching to the choir here. I know, it’s just awful, and it’s —
RUSH: You’ve got to understand that far many more millions of Americans love this kind of thing than you would believe. We have a bipolar country. There are people who want to control you via their government officials. There are people who want to tell you how you should live via and by way of their government officials. There are more people that are going to support this, ‘Save the planet,’ all this sort of garbage. ‘Conserve energy! Go green!’ all this stuff, I mean this is the culmination here of decades of propaganda how prosperity is destroyed in the planet.
Chris in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It’s nice to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Hi. I just wanted to say that I’m a little nervous. The reason I’m calling is I moved from El Dorado Hills, California, to Bucks County three years ago with my family — and people need to understand that it is very important… As important as it is to take back the presidency, it’s almost more important to take back Congress and the Senate. I voted for immigration reform in California, which passed. I also voted for insurance rollbacks years ago, which passed overwhelmingly. Those were both overturned by the Democratic leaders in the state of California. And as much as Governor Arnold has tried to change a lot of the things that are going on in California, he’s really been ineffective.
RUSH: He’s given up now. He’s given up. He’s joined them.
CALLER: Well, you know, he has to. He tried to cut the prison guards’ pay, and he was, you know, overwhelmed. And if people don’t wake up all across the nation, I mean I don’t think that California is what we want to model our country after. You know, people should be driving tour buses by Pelosi and Chris Dodd’s house and Barney Frank’s house, not these guys at AIG. It’s misguided.
RUSH: Tell me. Twenty years ago, it would have happened. Twenty years ago, all these protests would be going by the White House and Pelosi’s house and Congress.
CALLER: I know. Exactly.
RUSH: Now these protests are aimed at people like you and me who oppose this.
CALLER: It’s scary. I mean, we moved. Our state income tax in California was 10%. It’s 3% in Pennsylvania. Our utilities, I paid $1200 for one month of PGAs.
RUSH: I understand. I understand. I understand. And Bucks County is a beautiful place. But it’s still Pennsylvania. I’m just kidding. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. I apologize.