RUSH: Hey, folks, did you know that youth gang violence is a problem in America? Did you know that? Yeah. They just had a string of bad incidents up there in Obamaland in Chicago where he and his community organizer buddies supposedly — and, by the way, the City of Chicago is in debt like it never has been, and they’re in trouble. It’s a huge, huge problem. Chicago is just a mess. It’s run by Obama and his buddies and cronies. They’ve got this youth violence problem up there. And remember the latest incident involved a little kid getting killed trying to break up a fight. The participants were all black. Dare I say this? Dare I say that? We’ve got 40 seconds to delete that comment. I’m putting it up for a vote of the local staff here. Should I delete the comment? We’ve got 30 seconds now.
Should I bleep the comment that I pointed out that all of the participants in the most violent crime spree in Chicago were black? Should I have the broadcast engineer bleep it? I’ve got 15 seconds in order to kill it. (interruption) Okay, we’re not bleeping it. We’re not bleeping it. It’s too late to bleep it now. The 40 seconds went by. So guess what? Today, in Chicago, there’s a meeting of community organizers being led by Eric Holder, the attorney general, and Arne Duncan, the education secretary; and Holder just now said, something to the effect — I read it in the closed-captioning — of: ‘The level of vibrancy, youth violence that’s springing up in our country clearly is an indication that there needs to be a national focus on this.’ Ah, see? Any little bit of chaos, any problem whatsoever — a city cannot handle its own streets — so now the federal government’s gotta go in there. This is not about youth violence.
This is not about any of that. This is a mere show put on by Obama’s administration for another grab of what should be dealt with locally. It’s a local crime problem. It’s going to be nationalized now. ‘National focus,’ and this is also, by the way, going to be an excuse to spend more money. What do liberals always say the problem with anything is? There’s not enough money. There’s gang violence out there because there’s not enough money being spent on programs to discourage gang violence so we gotta get more money but Arne Duncan said, ‘Now, look money alone is not going to solve the problem.’ (snorts) Nothing’s going to solve the problem as long as you guys tackle it! Dirty little secret: It is liberal policies which create the socioeconomic circumstances that lead to this kind of culture. It is liberal cultural policies. It’s liberal economic policies. It’s liberal welfare policies. It is liberal fix-it-up policies.
They create the circumstances. ‘It’s a cultural problem. We can’t judge anybody. Nobody’s right; nobody’s wrong! People who are from a poor background engage in bad behavior.’ It’s excused. ‘Oh, they got every reason to be! You’d be mad, too, if they lived like you do. We have to understand their rage,’ blah, blah, blah. Now it’s getting a little bit over the top. It’s embarrassing Obama. He didn’t get the Olympics, black-on-black violence in Chicago where he’s from, ‘Oh, my God we gotta go and do something about it now. We need national attention on youth focus,’ and a chance to spend more money, and another (sigh) pure grab. And I wonder if at this meeting of community organizers they will accurately convey the fact that the vast majority of this stuff is black-on-black crime that’s taking place in Chicago. I bet they don’t, and I’m probably going to be accused of racism for pointing it out. But I, of course, ladies and gentlemen, am fearless when it comes to articulating and expressing the truth about this.
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RUSH: All right, we’re back, and we have sound, ladies and gentlemen, from the Youth Violence Community Organization Summit, I think they call it, in Chicago today. First, Mayor Daley was there. They call it a press conference. It’s actually a summit with the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, about youth violence. Here’s part of what Mayor Daley said.
DALEY: The needless and brutal violence that continues to take our children from us is an outrage. Even one child lost to violence is one too many in our city. I am very thankful that is also the outrage of the administration leaders in Washington, DC. Every Chicagoan has a responsibility to help prevent and end the violence. So does every level of government. To help deepen our partnership in Washington, I met with Attorney General Holder and Secretary Arne Duncan and community leaders. It was a very productive meeting. Among the things we talked about, how best to focus our resources on the young people and the families who need help the most.
RUSH: Resources. Anybody know what that means? Money, exactly right, resources equals money. So Daley is happy. Could I tell you why Daley is happy? Because he’s now gonna get the money he was gonna get from the Olympics, only this time it’s coming from Washington, ostensibly to deal with youth violence. I remember back in the nineties when I had my television show, there was a really senseless crime. And again, it was black-on-black, and it was in a poor neighborhood, you’ll remember this, Snerdley — a six-year-old killed a five-year-old or a ten-year-old killed a five-year-old, just blatant murder. And I did a monologue on my TV show quoting Bob Greene, at that time a columnist from Chicago, about how the nation had lost its soul. This is not new, youth-on-youth violence. Look, part of the reason it’s happening is because there’s a 52% unemployment rate among America’s youth. Another reason youth-on-youth violence is happening is because that happens to be the culture of liberal social programs. It’s what it creates.
Liberal social programs bust up families. They get rid of the husband or the father, the government takes that role, families get busted up, single mothers, there’s no discipline, there are all other kinds of cultural influences out there that promote this kind of thing and it’s been going on in Chicago and New York and Los Angeles for I don’t know how long, and all of a sudden now when Chicago loses Olympics money, we have to have a national focus on this with Arne Duncan and Eric Holder flying in from Washington to ostensibly, finally, and once and for all fix this with their resources. Make no mistake. I don’t doubt that Mayor Daley and all these people are concerned about the violence, I don’t doubt it, but I don’t see them doing anything about it. Nobody likes it, but I don’t see them doing anything about it. What I hear is, ‘Well, we can’t be too hard on them, can’t be too hard on them because we have to understand the circumstances that they came from. We have to understand their rage, their anger and so forth.’
By the way, folks, in case you missed today’s Morning Update, along the same lines — look, liberals are liberals wherever they are, radicals are radicals wherever they are. This is a UK story: ‘Next year, by order of one of Britain’s senior judges, up to 30 of the most dangerous terrorists in the UK will be released from prison. One such terrorist, designated ‘high-risk,’ is a radical Islamic convert who was found guilty in 2005 of possessing notes on how to fire mortar bombs. He was supposed to do 15 years, but he’s going to get out in April. Others due to be released were found guilty of soliciting murder during the Danish cartoon protests, or gave assistance to suicide bombers.
The ‘rationale’ of the British court?’ Get this. ‘They say giving long sentences to convicted terrorists could ‘inflame’ their terrorist buddies, rather than serve as a deterrent. A spokesman for the UK probation service says: ‘Scores more terrorists will be released. Every single one that comes out will have to be supervised until their full sentence expires.” Supervised?
This is more than a teachable moment, folks, this is a learn-able moment and if you haven’t learned it yet, learn it now. Not only is liberalism wrong about everything that matters, it’s deadly! Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, wherever Democrats and liberals have run places for years, check it out. Mayor Daley makes a press conference, gets Obama to send in a couple administration people, and, voila, he gets the money from Washington that he was going to get from the Olympics. Liberals in power are a threat to Western civilization. They are ruthless in pursuit of power, but they are weak in the face of evil and their compassion for evildoers defies sanity. Doesn’t matter where they are, folks, liberals are liberals. And so, take it back to Chicago. Where is the hardened punishment? Oh, we gotta be understanding. And this business about letting these terrorists go because it’s just going to inflame terrorist buddies and create more terrorism, well, doesn’t that apply then to any criminal? Because every criminal’s got buddies. Most criminals are part of some sort of organization or gang.
Shouldn’t we let all the Mafia guys that are in jail, let ’em out? Shouldn’t we let Omar Abdel Rahman out of jail? I mean, I can imagine all these terrorist buddies of his around the world are really, really mad now. But wait, but wait, but wait. I remember just from an hour ago I had a story from State-Controlled AP which said that Al-Qaeda barely exists anymore, there are just a hundred members. We can’t even find them, they’re so scattered, they’re leaderless, Obama is impotent — oh, sorry. Osama is impotent. I was right on both counts. Anyway, how can that be? In Britain they’re going to let terrorists go because they’re worried that the buddies of these guys are ratcheting up and they’re getting really mad, and this is all Al-Qaeda. AP has a story, Al-Qaeda, we can’t even find them in Afghanistan anymore, they don’t even exist. What about Abu Ghraib? What about Club Gitmo?
What about Americans and our loss of values? We have tortured these poor people. We flush their Korans down a toilet in a lie told by Newsweek magazine and all that was really supposed enhance terrorist recruitment. Oh, yeah. Bush, far from defeating terrorists, was expanding their numbers, expanding their resolve. Bush was making them angrier than they’ve ever been because of torture, Cheney and Rumsfeld, ditto. Now we can’t find Al-Qaeda, says AP, and furthermore, the Brits are letting these people out of jail because they’re scared to death their buddies, which don’t exist according to the AP, are going to get really, really mad. I guess the same applies to Chicago. Instead of going after the people that did this, let’s have a summit, bring in some money from Washington and make the country think we’re tackling the problem. It’s just another play for power and another transfer of wealth from Washington to a patron of Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm. And that would be the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, uh, uh, uh. None of it is right.
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RUSH: You know what’s really down low and dirty about this whole thing going on in Chicago today? Wait for it: Chicago knew they have a youth violence problem. Chicago has known this for decades that they’ve got a specific youth violence problem, and yet they still tried to trick the Olympics into coming to Chicago. Now, that’s just irresponsible. You got a youth violence problem and you’re trying to convince a bunch of poor Third World people to come in and get killed! (interruption) ‘Brazil is no better,’ I know, but Brazil is not doing press conferences out there to get rid of all the kidnappers and the crime. Brazil is saying, ‘Hey, yeah, we got a crime problem. Get your cars armored if you’re coming to the Olympics.’ Look, folks, if I may be serious for a moment. This is another case with this press conference today with Holder and Daley and Arne Duncan.
It’s another case! It’s just like Katrina. It’s just like Katrina. It’s just like Enron. It’s just like every other thing that goes on. It’s the case of the government swooping in now as innocent bystanders, as spectators! ‘Oh, Lordy, we got a problem! Oh, my gosh! How are we going to fix ’em? Oh, we got youth beating up youth. We got youth! Oh, my God, we got a problem. We gotta move in now. We’re just there to help. We’re gonna have a press conference.’ They are the problem to begin with! Their social programs create the culture and the climate for this. It drives me nuts. This place has been run by Mayor Daley and Mayor Daley.
It’s been run by Obama. It’s been run by Arne Duncan. It’s been run by Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge money since the ’90s. The liberals are totally in charge of the education environment where these kids are apparently not showing up. They’re hanging around on the streets beating and killing each other. And yet they swoop in as innocent bystanders, spectators. Oh, and they’re just there to help. They’re going to solve the problem and they’re going to find out who’s really to blame here. It does. It drives me nuts, that none of their ideas, none of their laws, none of their mandates for things ever get reviewed, studied, or investigated as perhaps being the problem. And you want to hear the piece de resistance? Eric Holder at the press conference today…
HOLDER: Nearly two weeks ago, this nation was shocked — shocked! — by a video showing scenes of such graphic violence that they left an indelible mark in the mind of every American who has seen them. For me, and for this administration, it was a call to action to address a challenge that affects this entire nation. Youth violence is not a Chicago problem any more than it is a black problem, a white problem, or a Hispanic problem.
RUSH: Okay, fine. It’s a liberal problem. It is a radical leftist problem, and you’re gonna make it worse by throwing a bunch of money at the mayor — and, by the way, it’s not just Chicago. That means there is money available for other cities to ‘help stop youth violence,’ when it’s these cities run by leftists that create the culture where all this happens. Now, last hour, ladies and gentlemen, I shared with you the news from the diminutive, small, tiny, could-never-play-third-base-in-the-major leagues-because-he-couldn’t-see-over-the-pitcher’s-mound-to-make-the-throw-to-first Tim Geithner in Germany saying, ‘We don’t save enough! We’re going to have to start saving money to create an economic recovery.’
Save what, I ask with 16% real unemployment. Just weeks ago, stories from the same source: People are saving too much. They’re not spending enough! So we gotta save. Got this news from the BusinessInsider.com: ‘Americans Spend More On Overdraft Fees Than They Spend On Fresh Vegetables — Overdraft fees have been getting tons of attention lately, including Congressional scrutiny — and some banks, like JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) are cutting back. That’s great. Still, The American Banking Association defends the practice this way: ‘Clearly, consumers who pay overdraft fees are the minority, and that number is shrinking. More importantly, most consumers want banks to pay their overdrafts so they can avoid the inconvenience, embarrassment and potential costs of having a payment or transaction rejected,’ said Nessa Feddis, ABA senior’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ‘But a new report underscores just how much financial institutions are profiting from the fees and how much they hurt average Americans.’
Oh, I remember the good old days when it was ATM fees. Now it’s overdraft fees. ‘Center for Responsible Lending: Banks and credit unions collected nearly $24 billion in overdraft fees last year, an increase of 35 percent from just two years earlier … The explosion in overdraft charges has drained the wallet of as many as 51 million Americans whose accounts become overdrawn annually,’ and it goes on to point out that Americans spend more on overdraft fees than they spend on fresh vegetables. They also spend more on overdraft fees than they spend on cars. Fresh vegetables? The point is: Save what? They’re overdrawn because they don’t have any money. They’re being taxed through the roof — other than 47% of the country, which are showing up in Detroit to pick up stimulus checks from where, they don’t know the money is emanating.
Jane in Seaside, California, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I’m a little nervous. I’ve never talked to you before. But the gang violence. I’m out here in Seaside, California.
RUSH: Where exactly is Seaside, California?
CALLER: It’s a town of both Monterey and two towns below Salinas.
RUSH: All right, so it’s by the sea?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Yes. In Salinas there’s a lot of gang violence. I think there’s been 22 or 23 killings this year.
RUSH: In Seaside? What’s the population there?
CALLER? No, no, no, in Salinas.
RUSH: Oh, Salinas. Okay.
CALLER: In Salinas.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I’m not sure what the population is in Salinas. When I first moved out here, I was told, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go to Salinas. You’ll get shot.’
RUSH: Go to Vallejo. You’ll get mugged. It’s easier.
CALLER: (laughs) I ignored them. I went anyway. But anyway, recently our police officers in Salinas and the government there, the city is trying to get help from the federal government, and they’ve pretty much been told, ‘You’re on your own. You’ve gotta get your money locally.’
RUSH: Have them call Mayor Daley.
CALLER: Exactly. And this is really ticking me off because we were just talking about this last night. And they’re wanting to pass a one cent sales tax in addition to all the other times they’ve done it.
RUSH: No, no, don’t tell me! They’re going to raise the sales tax to fight youth violence?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And gang violence?
CALLER: Well, that’s what they’re trying to do. It’s going up for a vote in November.
RUSH: So it’s a ‘funding’ problem?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: We’re not spending enough somehow to prevent this.
CALLER: (giggling)
RUSH: Well, what is the prevention of gang violence act going to do? How are we going to spend that money? When you want to go out and prevent violence what do you spend money on?
CALLER: Well, I don’t know what they’ve spent it on before. Because apparently it goes… I was told last night that it will go basically into some general fund, which then I guess the state can get hold on of some of it. It is really… I’m not as knowledgeable as I’d like to be on the situation.
RUSH: No, no. Ah, ah, ah, I do not want a member of this audience insulting her own intelligence. I will not put up with that. You are smarter than you know. You just… It’s not reasonable that you should understand the insanity that local and state and federal bureaucracies are doing. It’s perfectly normal and understandable that none of what they do would make sense to you. My question: Okay, a one cent sales tax to ‘fight gang violence.’ What do you spend the money on to fight gang violence? (interruption) After school…? Don’t we already have after-school programs? Don’t we already have — what do you call them — extracurricular events? Midnight basketball. We’ve done it all. We’ve taken the favorite sport of gangs and we’ve put it at midnight to get them on the basketball court. We had a hundred thousand new cops with Clinton. We’ve done it all, and the problem still is out of control. Liberalism doesn’t work. I’m going to tell you what. If they’re going to raise the sales tax in this little town Salinas, California, wherever you’re talking about it. They’re going to raise a one cent sales tax to handle gang violence then the money ought to go to the purchase of bulletproof vests for the law-abiding citizens when they leave their home.