Shutdown Sob Stories Abound as Obama Skips Town with Sharpton

RUSH: Nothing is new. Everything is simply a rerun. Everything is a replay. Mere moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, if your local station happens to run ABC Radio News, you just heard a story about a teacher and students who had long planned to come to Washington. They won’t be able to go to the zoo now. They won’t be able to go to the museums. They won’t be able to see the cherry blossoms. In fact, the cherry blossom parade won’t happen this weekend if there is a government shutdown. I guarantee you, reporters are hunting all over the country for people who will be inconvenienced. They probably got somebody out at Jellystone Park as we speak trying to find a sleigh ride concession or something commensurate with it given it’s springtime. They’re trying to find the appropriate pain and suffering and they’ll send somebody out to the Washington Monument and they’ll talk to somebody, “Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to shut down,” and then people who watch the event are gonna be surprised the Washington Monument is still there because it got blown up on Sunday night on that show.

Anyway, folks, great to have you back. Here it is already Wednesday on the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network. I’m Rush Limbaugh here to serve humanity. I do that simply by showing up. Telephone number is 800-282-2882, the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

It’s comical. I mean it’s serious, but it’s comical. The news media fanning out under orders, it’s like the budget battle of 1995, remember, if you paid attention to things back then, Republicans back then were gonna starve kids by cutting the school lunch program, and they had kids in New Orleans send letters to Newt Gingrich and other Republicans saying, “Please don’t starve us. We can’t learn when we’re hungry.” And the media is just ratcheting all this stuff up. And they’re doing it with Paul Ryan’s budget. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, this little dynamo is gonna be the new head of the Democrat National Committee. She’s full-fledged, 100% partisan. She’s from down the road at Boca. Snerdley, what are you doing wearing the Malcolm X hat today? Oh, wait, okay, it’s not a Malcolm X hat. When you turn to the side it’s a Kangaroo hat. Okay, I thought it was a Malcolm X hat. That’s true that our esteemed president, Pharaoh Obama, has departed Washington today. He’s going to take part in the Reverend Sharpton’s National Action Network convention.

Now, in 2008 Obama wanted nothing to do with Sharpton or the Reverend Jackson or any of them. But now, given where things are, Obama’s gotta make amends here, gotta build bridges with people who are down for the struggle. He wants to put himself on the same side of things. So he’s gonna go up there and he’s gonna plan how they’re gonna use race in the upcoming reelection campaign. (interruption) I know. With the shutdown looming, he said he was gonna be available today to talk to anybody but he’s not. He’s gonna assign members of his regime to talk to anybody who wants to come to the White House. He’s off to New York to meet with the Reverend Sharpton on the verge of a shutdown. How many millions of dollars does Sharpton’s group still owe in taxes? Maybe that’s what Obama’s doing. I thought Obama wanted to go after rich tax cheats. (imitating Obama) “Look, you gotta pay up before I can renew my relationship with you. We could be down for the struggle together.”

Now, as of noon today, ladies and gentlemen, we’re only 60 hours away from a government shutdown. CNN is even running a countdown clock at the bottom of their screen. The media is so excited. They’re so excited. I was just watching Luke Russert on MSNBC. Folks, it’s comical, for those of us who have been there, done that, for those of us who know the media like every square inch of my glorious naked body, and I do. I know it’s frustrating, but it’s predictable and it’s comical. They are treating this as though a meteorite’s gonna hit the earth, it’s gonna be a nuclear disaster, a meltdown, it’s the worst thing, and yet they can’t wait for it to happen. And Luke Russert was saying, (paraphrasing) “Well, you know, obstacles, the shutdown, nobody knows what the Republican compromise number is.” Now, the Democrats have the White House. The Democrats have the Senate. The Democrats have not produced a budget, period. We have not seen one proposal. They have not released a list of their proposed cuts. We don’t have one thing from them on the budget, and yet the onus is on the Republicans to come up with a compromise number here. And if they don’t come up with a compromise, well, then, everybody knows the shutdown’s gonna get blamed on the Republicans.

However, I pointed out yesterday that the Washington Post seemed to be trying to warn Obama and the Democrats about the political risks of a shutdown because they had a poll that showed 37-37 blame. American people, 37% blame the Democrats; 37% blame the Republicans. Today State-Controlled Associated Press gets in on the action: “Government Shutdown Would Pose Big Risks To Both Parties — Democrats and Republicans say the last thing they want to do is to shut down the government. But with budget talks showing little signs of a breakthrough, there are growing worries that a stalemate could hurt the economy’s fragile recovery.” That is just a flat-out lie. It is a flat-out crock. That is insulting, to suggest that the private sector economic recovery could be affected by a government shutdown. The government shuts down ten times a year. There are ten federal holidays. Some of them are ten days long. What’s gonna happen here happens all the time. It just doesn’t get reported as a shutdown every time it happens.

The government goes on vacation. They take the Easter break. They have the post-Easter break. They have the spring break. They have the Martin Luther King break. They have the Presidents Day break. They got more breaks than you and I combined. And in each one of them the government is shut down, essentially. It just isn’t reported that way. But this is just too juicy. This is too big an opportunity. Blame it all on the Republicans. Go back to the same tired, worn-out tactics. You people at ABC Radio News, you know what I’m talking about. Have you heard your radio news at the top of the hour, how pathetic, a teacher and students who had long planned to go to Washington won’t be able to go to the zoo and the museums and won’t be able to pet the animals because the evil Republicans want to take Medicare away from senior citizens, have them die. Oh, yeah, that’s the latest. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, this was yesterday, her reaction to Paul Ryan’s budget.

SCHULTZ: We see a clear attempt for the government to back out of its commitment to seniors. As a result, many seniors in America will be forced into poverty, and worse, some seniors will end up dying because they are forced to put off getting that pain checked out due to huge out-of-pocket costs that will skyrocket for them. This Republican path to poverty is just wrong.

RUSH: Seniors will end up dying. The streets, ladies and gentlemen, will be littered with the corpses of seasoned citizens. This is like the good old days. This is exactly what they used to say. When did I make my GOPAC speech, 1994, 1995? This is hilarious. Back in 1994 the Republicans, of course, took over the House and the budget battle of 1995 is going on, the Democrats were saying the basic same stuff, extremist, gonna kill the elderly, gonna leave ’em dead to die on the streets, and I went to speak to GOPAC, and I opened up, said, “I want to welcome all of my fellow extremists as we sit here and plot the death of American seasoned citizens. And I just want to let you people know, I am taking it seriously. I went out and I bought my mother a brand-new can opener so she’ll have no problem opening the dog food.” Pat Schroeder goes to the floor of the House and makes a big speech suggesting that this is who they are, this is the Big Kahuna, the Big Kahuna Rush Limbaugh admits that he’s gonna get his mother a can opener so she can easily eat the dog food. And then somebody said, “You know, that was a joke.” She was profoundly embarrassed. They’re just recycling it now.

Let me tell you something. Politico, are you listening? (laughing) More senior citizens will die from Obamacare than from any other government action in this country. More senior citizens will die due to health rationing of Obamacare than anything else that government does in its history, outside, of course, of the Civil War. It is Barack Obama himself conducting an ABC town hall way back, two years ago. Woman shows up and raises her hand, (paraphrasing) “Mr. Obama, I got a question.” He says, “You may ask it.” “My mother is 98 years old, needs a pacemaker. Her will to live is strong. She’s perfectly fine except for the pacemaker. Will you permit –” you know, I’m cringing at that. Here we got a citizen asking the president, “Will you permit my mother to have a pacemaker?” and you know what Obama said? “Well, I don’t think we can calculate spirit or will to live. Just give her a pill.” So the leader of the regime says, “Give a pill, let ’em die.”

There will be health rationing. Senior citizens, Paul Ryan is trying to save them. Paul Ryan is giving them an option to either stay in Medicare or join a pool in the private sector, whichever they can best afford, whatever they want to choose. It’s called freedom of choice for their health care. It does not mandate they go before Obamacare death panels. And yet here’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Republicans are gonna leave senior citizens as corpses in the streets. Some seniors will end up dying because they’re forced to put off getting that pain checked out. So seniors are gonna sit around, they’re gonna suffer pain, but they’re not gonna be able to go to the doctor to get the pain checked out, and the pain’s gonna be deadly, bam. There are corpses in the street. What’s going to happen with Obamacare, they feel the pain, they go to the doctor, the doctor consults the regime, the regime says, “How old is this woman? Well, screw it, we’re not gonna invest in making her well. She’s only got five years to live anyway, so to hell with it. Give her a pill.” That’s what Debbie Wasserman Schultz is for. Here’s a continuation of her reaction to Paul Ryan.

SCHULTZ: No longer would Medicare be a guarantee of health insurance coverage. Instead, Medicare would become little more than a discount card. This plan would literally be a death trap for some seniors.

RUSH: All right, so we’re back at it, just recycling the whole thing. Republicans and their budget: a death trap for senior citizens. A death trap. (laughing) I’m sorry. I can’t avoid laughing at this. Now, I know some of you hear this stuff and you just get livid and you get angry. I used to, too. And some days I still do. You see, I can’t imagine people believing this. I know some people are going to. But at some point this stuff’s all gonna catch up with them. You can’t keep going back to the well. If the dead are gonna be in the streets, they better show up at some point. You’re gonna say that a policy is gonna lead to senior citizen corpses in the streets, there had better be some, otherwise you have no credibility.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You remember all the grief that Sarah Palin got talking about death panels in Obamacare. She was called a “fearmonger” and all that. Never mind that these so-called nonexistent death panels then were removed from Obamacare. Now, here comes Debbie Wasserman Schultz accusing the Republicans of killing senior citizens, and there is no outcry from anyone, anywhere, that is in any way similar to the outcry Sarah Palin got. That’s another example of the blatant double standard which exists.