RUSH: Yesterday on this program — well, I didn’t on this program say it. I mentioned in a commercial break to the staff a thought, and they all hit the ceiling, ‘Don’t say that! You’re finished and that means we’re finished. Don’t say that!’ Well, it turns out I don’t have to say it, somebody else has in the New York Post. Hi. How are you, ladies and gentlemen? Rush Limbaugh here and it’s already Wednesday, the fastest week in media. I, of course, the always on top of my game El Rushbo. Telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Yesterday, as you just heard, I was kidding around here and describing what I think Obama’s trip to New York might accomplish. Honest Obe going to the Cooper Union tomorrow to pitch this financial regulatory reform legislation. The staff begged me not to say to you what I had said to them. Not out of any fear of what would happen to me. The fear would be what would happen to them if something happened to me. Well, Michael Goodwin today in the New York Post: ‘Welcome, Obama – to City You Want to Ruin — Welcome to New York, Mr. President. Now go home and leave us alone. Please. When he brings his war against Wall Street here tomorrow, Barack Obama isn’t coming to praise Gotham. He’s coming to bury us. We’re not dead yet, but no thanks to him and his policies. His assaults on New York ought to be counted in the NYPD crime stats. They’re doing more damage than a year’s worth of stickups, and still the hits keep coming.
‘Under his initial plan, cops and the feds already would be locking down the Foley Square courthouse area to give the precious Khalid Sheik Mohammed his constitutional rights. Nary a New Yorker wants the 9/11 trial here, but Attorney General Eric Holder insists the city ‘is not off the table.’ Think about that. Would you buy an apartment or open a business anywhere near the courthouse if you thought the area would be turned into an armed camp, possibly for years? Or this. How dare Obama and Holder continue to even consider bringing the horror show here after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said it would make New York more of a target for Islamic radicals? Oops. The White House doesn’t say ‘Islamic’ radicals anymore. Or ‘jihad.’ Or ‘war on terror.’ See, 19 humans carried out the man-caused disaster on 9/11. Speaking of man-caused disasters, the health-care monstrosity certainly qualifies. New Yorkers will pay an additional $6.5 billion a year in federal tax hikes once the law is fully implemented, Mayor Bloomberg’s office says, depriving the city of money that could be spent on housing, entertainment and hiring other New Yorkers.
‘Instead, the cash will go to Washington to subsidize the federal bureaucracy and other cities and states. It’s worth repeating that Obama couldn’t have pulled off the heist without inside help. Only one of the 13 members of the House who allegedly represent the city voted against the health measure. All 13 are Democrats, as are the state’s two senators, but only Mike McMahon of Staten Island voted no. For his courage, he got berated by the White House and threats from labor groups that, politically, he’s a dead man. Now it’s Wall Street’s turn in the cross hairs. With Dems moving their sweeping package of financial restrictions to the Senate floor, it takes a fool to believe the timing of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s charge of fraud against Goldman Sachs was a coincidence. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid added to the suspicions with his initial reaction. ‘I’m pleased that the Obama administration is using all of the tools in its arsenal to bring accountability to Wall Street,’ he said of the charges.
On Monday, when Obama announced he was coming to Cooper Union, Reid again railed against Wall Street, getting so carried away, he went after ‘excess greed.’ I guess that’s worse than ordinary greed.’ Biden jumped in the fray as well. ‘But greed comes in many guises. A president who rakes in millions of dollars in contributions from New York banks, then goes after them like they are witches in Salem, has no respect for decency or capitalism. Then again, those Masters of the Universe deserve what they get. Executives from Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and UBS didn’t just back the president who now aims to turn them into political piñatas for the midterm elections. Their contributions bought the rope he’s using for their hanging. Maybe they’re not so smart after all.’ So you have here a columnist, Michael Goodwin, formerly with the Daily News, now with the New York Post, basically saying that Obama is heading into New York this week to finish it off, to complete the work others started but failed to accomplish. So he said it. It’s out there.
There’s also an interesting piece on this whole Goldman Sachs thing, and I put it down in the stack because I was gonna go to some other things when the program started just to have a little variety here, but I saw the Michael Goodwin piece and I had to start with it. So here it is, this is from William Jacobson and his blog is Legal Insurrection. He is a clinical professor of law at Cornell. ‘Now They Are Coming For Goldman Sachs — It would be easy to cheer as the Obama administration seeks to take down Goldman Sachs. After all, Goldman Sachs has become a proxy for Wall Street, since so many of the old icons no longer exist or have been consumed as a result of the 2008 credit crunch. But do not cheer too quickly this time. As even the NY Times now is admitting, the actual civil charges against Goldman Sachs are far from clear cut,’ which we pointed out yesterday and CNBC is on that case today.
‘Civil charges by the government can bring down an entire organization for reasons having nothing to do with the charges. As we speak, there is a clamor in Britain for the government to cease doing business with Goldman Sachs as a result of the charges. Expect the same thing to happen here, as Democrats ratchet up the crisis atmosphere to get a quick vote on financial regulations which would give the government vast powers over the financial services industry. As I documented yesterday, the Goldman Sachs charges are being politicized for the administration’s purposes.’ Well, not to get into he said, she said, but I pointed this out Friday. Anyway, ‘Goldman is not the first they came for. This administration already has emasculated the entire private health insurance industry, brought the health of hundreds of millions of people under its regulatory control through Obamacare, and demonized as racists and extremists law-abiding patriotic Americans who spoke out for individual freedom and constitutional federalism.
‘The pharmaceutical industry was evil until it cut a deal and bought advertising in support of Obamacare, and doctors were greedy — as they performed unnecessary surgeries so they could bill more — until the AMA joined the Obama chorus. One center of power after another fell in line in the year-long push for Obamacare. If the administration gets its way on cap-and-trade, the government will control through regulation virtually all industry through industry’s lifeblood, the consumption of carbon-based energy. State autonomy also is dwindling, and those who point out that the federal government is limited to enumerated powers are derided as ‘Tenthers.” Tenth Amendment people. ‘There are few remaining entities which can stand up to the overweening encroachment of the federal government. Taking down the leading, and in many ways last remaining, Wall Street powerhouse will remove yet another center of private industry power. The serial removal of centers of power outside the federal government in Washington, D.C. is a worrisome trend which becomes more difficult to reverse as the dominoes fall. Don’t wish too hard for the demise of Goldman Sachs. Because Goldman Sachs is not the end game.’
Now, this is a different take than mine, which is why I’m sharing it with you. Again, this is Legal Insurrection, a blog, a rising up against established authority. It’s by William Jacobson, associate clinical professor of law at Cornell. Now, my theory is that Goldman’s in on this, that they’ll gladly pay the fine, if there is one, that results from this in order to be in bed with the Obama administration because there are already so many former Goldman people at high levels of government, many of them have been Treasury secretary. Michelle Malkin has a great piece today, in fact documenting all of them and where they are and what they’re doing in the Obama administration. Now, Mr. Jacobson clearly thinks that the administration’s out to destroy Goldman Sachs and take over the entire financial services industry via regulation, and that’s how you can do it. You don’t have to go out and buy these outfits. You don’t have to go out and take ’em over. You can just regulate them into nonexistence, which is what he fears is happening. So this is a new take on this.