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RUSH: Did you see, folks, where the Bamster has come out in support again of the unionistas in Wisconsin? And so, by the way, has the Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis. She’s gone in there. This is, by the way, not the job of the labor secretary, but it’s indicative of much of the way this regime operates. It’s total federal control over everything. The states have no rights, no concerns, nothing. If they do, they are to be trumped. Anyway, the president told the governors at their meeting in Washington, ‘I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon,’ but apparently, at least according to Obama, nonunion bitter-clingers have no such rights to infringe upon. Certainly the First and Second Amendments don’t compare to the right to negotiate your number of sick days!

No, folks, these public employees, they are holier-than-thou.

They are of a special class.

Here is the president, yesterday, the National Governors Association Annual Meeting.

OBAMA: I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees or denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it. We’re not gonna attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make.

RUSH: Come on!

OBAMA: We’re not gonna convince the bravest Americans to put their lives on the line as police officers or firefighters if we don’t properly reward that bravery.

RUSH: Mr. President, this is so disingenuous. ‘We’re not gonna attract the best teachers for our kids if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make’? Um, they’re making twice what their private sector counterparts are making, and they’re being paid by those people! How many of you have seen the documentary Waiting for Superman? Have you seen this? Well, go get it. Go download it on iTunes. Go get it from Amazon. It’s like an hour-21 minute documentary. It’s amazing. I can’t believe something like this got produced. It is an indictment of the public school system. It is an indictment of public sector teachers.

It is dead on accurate, and it makes the point that the last thing on the mind of many of these public sector union teachers is teaching. It’s all the other stuff. It’s the pension, it’s the welfare, it’s the sick days, the vacations. It’s the money. It really is well done. I’m stunned not only that it got produced, I’m stunned that it survived once it got produced. But it’s out there, called Waiting for Superman. In fact, it just made it to DVD in Blu-ray. Yeah, you ought to, folks, take a look at this thing because the timing of this thing hitting DVD right now is awesome for it to be part… (interruption) WaitingforSuperman.com is the website.

Okay, you go there and check this out, WaitingForSuperman.com, but I bought it yesterday at iTunes, and I started looking at it amidst blowing my nose, sniffles and all this other cold stuff that I was trying to overcome. It’s terrific. So, anyway, anyway, after Obama makes the statement that you just heard, Governor Walker responded in Wisconsin. He issued a statement. ‘I’m sure the president knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits, while our plan allows it for base pay.’ They’re not doing away with it in Wisconsin. They’re only allowing it for base pay and not for all the benefits.

And said the governor, ‘I’m sure the president knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope the president knows these facts. Furthermore, I’m sure the president knows that we have repeatedly praised the more than 300,000 government workers who come to work every day in Wisconsin, and I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin and isn’t acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another.’ Folks, this is dynamite. I mean, that is knife sharp. That is just a fabulous statement.

What it further shows is that Governor Walker does not fear President Obama on this. Now, there’s a New York Times poll in today’s paper. The headline: ‘Majority in Poll Back Employees in Public Sector Unions. John Steele Gordon at Commentary, the Contentions blog site, says: ‘The Times thought the story so significant that it put it on page 1, above the fold, and even sent out a news alert last night via e-mail. According to the Times: ‘As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, …’

”Asked how they would choose to reduce their state’s deficits,’ the Times adds, ‘those polled preferred tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by nearly two to one.” Does anybody buy this? If this is the case, how in the heck did Walker win election? How did the Republicans take over the Senate? I mean, this is an out-and-out lie. ‘How do you square these figures with the results of last November’s elections, in which anti-tax, anti-deficit, anti-public-union forces swept to historic victories in federal and state elections across the country? Well, you can’t, of course. The Times doesn’t even ask this blindingly obvious question, let alone try to answer it. But if you read down to the seventh paragraph of the story, which is on page 17, not page 1, an answer emerges:

”The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 with 984 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults. Of those surveyed, 20 percent said there was a union member in their household, and 25 percent said there was a public employee in their household.” So, ‘Although less than 12 percent of the workforce is unionized today,’ and by the way, the private sector number is light eight. ‘Although less than 12 percent of the workforce is unionized today 20 percent of the households in the survey had a union member. Although government workers are 17 percent of the workforce, 25 percent of the households surveyed had one living there.

‘In other words, the sample was wildly skewed toward the very people most likely to give the answers the Times was hoping to hear,’ but you have to read to page 17 to get that information. So once again proving a bone of contention: Polls today are used to shape public opinion, not reflect it, pure and simple. Then there’s a story from Reuters. Reuters backs unions, Obama, and the fake poll. ‘Republican Gov. Scott Walker on Monday gave absent Democratic lawmakers an ultimatum to return to Wisconsin within 24 hours and vote on a proposal to reduce the power of public sector unions or the state would miss out on a debt restructuring.

‘Walker stepped up the pressure on 14 Senate Democrats who fled the state to avoid a vote on the bill as he prepared to unveil on Tuesday a two-year state budget that he said cuts $1 billion from funding … For the second time since the controversy erupted, President Barack Obama weighed into the debate on Monday criticizing the Wisconsin plan,’ the sound bite that you have heard that we played. Never mind that (again, now) according to Obama, nonunion bitter clingers have no such rights to infringe upon. But clearly the rights enumerated in the First and Second Amendment don’t compare the right to negotiate your number of sick days if you’re a member of the union.

Speaking of ‘denigration,’ is this not the same guy who like to say refer to his opponents as ‘tea baggers’ while scratching his nose with his middle finger? And while we’re on the subject, I thought ‘denigration’ was a racist term anyway? ‘Wisconsin’s Walker immediately issued a response, saying: ‘I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin,” and then Reuters intentionally misrepresents Walker’s response, and they get to a poll. ‘A new poll released on Monday suggested that if the 2010 election could be replayed the Wisconsin governor might lose. The Public Policy Polling survey found that if the election were repeated the result would flip with Walker’s Democratic opponent Tom Barrett getting 52 percent and Walker 45 percent.

‘Walker won with 52 percent in November. The shift came mainly from union households.’ So isn’t this amazing? But if you take a look, the Public Policy Polling sample is in itself skewed to get the result that it was the. Now, all this means the Democrats are losing. All of this means that public opinion is actually against them, and they’re now having to take drastic action and go to heretofore unseen lengths to start fabricating news in the form of flawed poll results, which basically say to the American voter, ‘Guess what? Everything you voted against and everything you voted for last November has done a 180.

‘Guess what? The vast majority of the American people want taxpayers to continue to pay public sector unions twice what the taxpayer earns. Guess what? That’s really happened now! Since this whole became public in Wisconsin now, our polling data shows that the average American taxpayer thinks union people are being cheated and not being given their fair share and they also believe collective bargaining is as important a right as anything that’s in the Constitution — and guess when all this started to change. All this started to change when the news out of Wisconsin went public and people finally got to see what a mean, evil, rotten guy Scott Walker is.’

Well, that’s what they’re asking us to believe here, that public opinion has done a massive 180. Now, you and I know that this is not the case. This is how desperate all of these people are getting. Here would be our poll question: ‘Do you agree to pay higher taxes so that state government employees can have higher pay (twice what yours is), more time off, better health care benefits, better retirement plan than you will ever get?’ Ask ’em that question, New York Times. Ask ’em that question, Public Policy Polling. What do you think the responses would be for that question? (Apart from union households, of course.) And while you’re at it, when you ask that question, make sure that the number of union households represented in your poll is no more than 12%, to make it accurate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, in a way the US Constitution was on the ballot this past November, and you saw the resounding response. And now you see the attempt by the losers to change the game. There’s no question Americans want to hold onto the freedoms guaranteed by a Constitution that calls for a limit government. Getting you and every other concerned American up to speed on what we face when it comes to preserving those freedoms, well, that’s the next challenge. There’s an easy way for you to learn or relearn those freedoms. For the next few days you can access many of the documents of our Founding Fathers on a website set up by Hillsdale College. It’s the website we refer to often when we talk about Hillsdale, rush4hillsdale.com. On that site right now, Hillsdale’s virtual professors have posted all kinds of documents for you to read through. It’s all there, from George Washington’s farewell address to the Articles of Confederation, and many more. And when it’s brought to life this is the stuff that gets the professors at Hillsdale and students energized. It will do the same for you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, in a way the US Constitution was on the ballot this past November, and you saw the resounding response. And now you see the attempt by the losers to change the game. There’s no question Americans want to hold onto the freedoms guaranteed by a Constitution that calls for a limit government. Getting you and every other concerned American up to speed on what we face when it comes to preserving those freedoms, well, that’s the next challenge. There’s an easy way for you to learn or relearn those freedoms. For the next few days you can access many of the documents of our Founding Fathers on a website set up by Hillsdale College. It’s the website we refer to often when we talk about Hillsdale, rush4hillsdale.com. On that site right now, Hillsdale’s virtual professors have posted all kinds of documents for you to read through. It’s all there, from George Washington’s farewell address to the Articles of Confederation, and many more. And when it’s brought to life this is the stuff that gets the professors at Hillsdale and students energized. It will do the same for you.

Everybody can access this for a limited time — teachers, counselors, tutors, pastors, Boy Scout Leaders, I mean they’re all invited to access the information. Take the site over if you want to. Rush4hillsdale.com is the website address and you’ll be amazed at the wisdom you’ll find in documents like these and understand why informed people are so energized about our rights and how they are under assault, and ostensibly by one of the guardians of those rights. And that would be the press. Think of it as a football game, basketball game, whatever. You got the Republicans on one team, the Democrats on the other. The conservatives on one team, the liberals on the other. The Americans on one team, the Marxists, communists on the other. Who’s the referee? Well, the referee’s the media. Ideally. It used to be. The problem is the media’s on the side of the Democrats. The media’s on the side of the communists. The media’s on the side of the liberals.

That’s why you need to be independently able to inform yourself and why you need to be able to inform yourself sufficiently so that you are confident in what you know and what you believe so that you can’t be shaken by these laughable excuses for news stories called these polls. I don’t care whether it’s health care or the government shutdown or Wisconsin, have you noted that every poll out there shows the Republicans losing? Every poll on every seminal issue shows the Democrats winning. And yet they got shellacked! Are we to believe that that record turn out last November’s going, ‘Ah, damn it, oh, no.’ And yet after two years of watching a president try to destroy the American economy they still haven’t come to grips with that happening? Is that what we want us to believe? They do. And if you are not confident on what you know and understand and believe they can shake you. Don’t let it happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, isn’t it amazing? Every poll you look at, the huge winners last November are now losing every important issue in the country according to polling data done by State-Run Media. And the missing senators, Wisconsin, are being paid by union people to stay away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Polly — one of my all-time favorite top ten female names. Polly from Buffalo. Polly, welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Rush, you are a breath of free speech.

RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CALLER: A speaker of truth. End of story, case closed. (chuckles) I want to ask you, what hope we have here in New York fighting union entitlements when approximately 25% of our workforce is unionized? But also just 70 short years ago our fathers fought and died for liberty and to stop the spread of communism, and today we have a dictator in practice who wants to send his communist friends to fight with the unions. So I just.. How did we forget that hundreds of millions —

RUSH: We haven’t forgotten it. We haven’t of course forgotten it. There’s two things.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Some people don’t want to admit that that’s what the battle is.

CALLER: I feel it is, and I have never been so afraid for my country since November 2nd, 2008.

RUSH: I understand that. Some people —

CALLER: I have cried more —

RUSH: It’s like some people still don’t get it. They might agree with you that Obama’s not what he seemed to be during the campaign, Obama’s not that. But they’re not yet ready to admit the guy’s doing purposeful destruction to the economy. They just don’t think that’s possible of an American president. The presidency is so revered that they just can’t believe that American people would elect somebody who’s got a design on this economy of total change that would end up wrecking capitalism and replacing it. The second aspect that you have to deal with is that those people never go away.

I mean, the Obamas of the world, the leftists never go away. They never give you a sense that they’ve ever been beaten because they never go away. So it’s an ongoing, never-ending battle. It’s very rare you get to claim victory, and I think that’s very frustrating to people. At some point, you want to be able to say you’ve won — if not the war, you want to be able to say you’ve won a battle. But the moment you win the battle and you know you’ve won it, the war continues because these people are like cockroaches: They just keep coming back. So you look at November. Take a look at what’s happening right now.

November: The biggest shellacking the Democrat Party has faced in decades, all the way down to the state legislative level. They got creamed! They lost the House of Representatives by a huge margin. They barely have control in the Senate in a functioning way. The president has a higher disapproval than he does approval. Yet the news today is how the Republicans are losing in the state of the Wisconsin and they’re losing on the budget battle and they’re lose on the unions, all because of a bunch of phony, fraudulent polling data. These people just never go away.

So you and others like you, even when you win, don’t get to celebrate it because it doesn’t last long enough because you never get to get off the battlefield. And that, I think, is an important point because not everybody wants to even get on the battlefield because they know once you get on it you’re never getting off. Once you take up this battle, once you take up this challenge, you’re in it ’til you die. ‘Cause these people aren’t ever going to go away — and, you know, the referees or whoever that’s gonna proclaim victory are not fair. So it can be very dispiriting. It’s why I was saying earlier: You really do need to be confident of what you know, confident that what you believe is right — confident — confident enough to know when you’re looking at total BS in the media.

You gotta be so confident that they cannot shake you. ‘Cause that’s their whole modus operandi is to separate you from your confidence, to separate you from what you believe, to get you questioning what you know to be true. Break your spirit. They can’t beat you in the arena of ideas. They try to beat you psychologically, public relations-wise, any number of ways. So when that’s going on… It’s not like football season; it ends. The Super Bowl, you got a champion. The Super Bowl is every day in this game, and it never ends. So you really never get to celebrate victory. You have to do this every day — and that’s why you, I think, experience the frustration levels, and you are not alone, other people, too. Even when there’s a big victory, you’re told that you’re losing.


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, look, folks, at the end of the day we have the most important characteristic on our side, and that’s reality. Reality and truth. For instance, the case of Wisconsin. No matter what the Democrats say, no matter what the fraudulent polling data says, no matter how the media spins it, no matter how many fake polls they publish, Wisconsin is still in debt to the tune of $3.6 billion. Wisconsin still cannot afford to pay public sector union people twice what the taxpayers of the state are earning. The taxpayers of that state simply cannot afford to pay public sector unions what they are paying. It cannot sustain itself. That’s the reality. Now, they can spin it, they can spin it all they want, but eventually reality is going to catch up with them. It has caught up with them. That’s what we’re dealing with. We got Greece, and everybody said Greece is coming to America. Greece has arrived. It’s in Wisconistan. It’s happening there. They’re gonna get a huge reality slap.

And if you want to know another little truth here, they would love for you to believe that this is all over this precious somehow God-created, God-granted right to collective bargaining. But that’s not what this is really all about. What do you think it’s really all about, El Snerdbo? It’s about the state of Wisconsin deducting to use the dues automatically. Walker wants the union members to start paying that. He wants to get rid of the automatic deduction. They don’t want that to happen. They don’t want for their rank-and-file to actually see what the hell is happening here, and that’s every bit as big a part of this. The unions want to keep their revenue stream, and the state automatic deduction is the revenue stream. They have to keep that. They don’t care about the kids. They don’t care about students. They don’t really care about their own union members. They care about that revenue stream, that auto deduction. That’s why they got thugs flying in from every state in the country in there to raise hell, pure and simple.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Missing Wisconsin senators ‘rely heavily on union campaign dollars’ in order to stay away. It’s exactly what I was talking about when I said these public sector unions are just money launderers, simply kick-back money from the taxpayers to these Democrat politicians, in this case to replace their salaries that they’re not getting so that they can stay away.

Okay, we got another exciting hour to go here, folks, as we move right along.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Daisy in Los Angeles. Glad that you called. You’re on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah, thank you, Rush, for taking my call. I wanted to ask you a question. If Governor Walker would declare Wisconsin bankrupt, file state bankruptcy, would this man nullify the union contracts or require them to renegotiate them?

RUSH: I have no idea. I don’t know bankruptcy law. Let me pretend to be another host. No, I can’t do that to you. I don’t know. I’m not even sure states can go bankrupt. I think cities can declare bankruptcy. I’m not sure a state can. In fact, the reality is, Daisy, before that ever happened the federal government would bail them out, and especially this federal government. If it meant the union going sayonara, they’d bail ’em out.

CALLER: Yeah, well, I certainly hope Governor Walker will not give in because this is —

RUSH: Everybody’s hoping that, Daisy, and he doesn’t show any signs of it.

CALLER: But, Rush, there’s a lot of pressure out there on him.

RUSH: There’s some moderate Republicans in the Republican assembly in Wisconsin, and some of them might cave. Yeah, but I know, the pressure is intense on this guy.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: I’m like you. I hope he maintains his spinal integrity as it were.

CALLER: Right. And even if some of the citizens could start the recall for their senators that are out of town.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: ‘Cause they can’t pass the budget with them out of town.

RUSH: That’s true. This is gonna come back and bite these guys running out on the job, running out on this. There’s no valor here. There’s no courage and bravery here. They’re not standing up for the people. They’re making it clear who matters to them and it isn’t the people, it isn’t the voters. It is their paymasters and that is becoming more and more obvious to everybody. So I think I’m right about that, cities can go bankrupt, states cannot. States cannot declare bankruptcy. Daisy, thanks so much for the call.

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