RUSH: Did you happen to see the size of those flags behind Obama at the National Security Agency speech? Those flags are getting bigger and bigger and bigger every speech he makes. And, you know, that’s what dictators do. As our liberties and our freedoms shrink, the symbols get bigger and bigger and bigger. It happens all over the Third World. You can see it.
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RUSH: The NSA speech that Obama gave today, I don’t know if it’s a favorite BS line, but it has to rank at the top. Obama, in addressing whatever he was saying — by the way, it was the Limbaugh Theorem on display. He showed up today (paraphrasing), “I don’t know what they’re doing over there, but I’m gonna get to the bottom of it, and I’m gonna make sure that we don’t spy on you as much. I’m not sure what they’ve been doing, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.” It was the Limbaugh Theorem on display, and he said, “Throughout this evolution,” in surveillance technology, “we benefited from both our Constitution and traditions of limited government.”
Now, the reason there are jokefests about Obama being a dictator is because he’s ignoring the Constitution, but yet here he is talking about his reverence for it. And then, after speaking of his reverence for the Constitution, then he lauds our traditions of limited government, which he’s also blowing to smithereens. It’s the same thing that I mentioned yesterday. Obama showing up and talking about the tradition in America, that, “if you work hard, you can make it in America. That’s always been the case and that’s what we continue to fight for today,” which is absolute bunk. It’s becoming getting harder and harder and harder to work hard in America and have it pay off, precisely because of what he’s doing to the location of that hard work, i.e., the private sector.
In fact, I have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I, El Rushbo, in the top 10 most influential Americans in Forbes magazine, I’m losing track. I’m trying to keep track, but I think I’m losing ground here. Which scandal is Obama trying to distract us from now with this speech today on the NSA? ‘Cause you know he doesn’t think this is any big deal. This is just an opportunity. You know, a lot of young Millennials are really worried about this and in the high-tech world this is what really irritates them about Obama. The rest of the stuff they don’t care. But this… These young tech bloggers that I read, they just can’t believe that their guy would do this. Bush, yeah. And Republicans, yeah. But they just can’t believe that Obama would be doing this and they’re really agitated by it.
Now, for me, it is clear that Obama is trying to use this as a means of changing the news narrative and distract us from all of the scandals, and it’s keeping track of the scandals that’s becoming a bit of a challenge. For example, is it the latest Benghazi information he wants us to forget? Is it the abysmal Obamacare numbers? And, man, is that continuing to worsen. They do not know how many people have actually paid. They haven’t slightest idea. They don’t even know the number of people that have enrolled. They can’t tell you that. The only thing that we apparently know with any kind of certainty is that four out of every five enrollees are getting subsidies.
But we don’t know, at least they say they don’t know, how much money’s been collected because they don’t know how many people have actually paid, in addition to not knowing how many people have signed up. So you’ve got that scandal. You’ve got Benghazi. And Dianne Feinstein, you know, you might think that DiFi, with that committee report saying (paraphrasing), “Wait a minute, we knew about Benghazi the moment it was happening. And we knew that it wasn’t the video, and we knew that it was Al-Qaeda,” you might think that DiFi is dumping on Hillary, and she’s not. She made a point. She was dumping on the Department of State, not the secretary of state.
She was pointing out flaws in the State Department, but not flaws in the secretary of the State Department. And she made that distinction. Yeah, her name only came up once in all this. Only one time. In your world it’s a distinction without a difference. In my world it’s a distinction without a difference.
In Dianne Feinstein’s world, it’s a huge difference. The State Department, Hillary’s got nothing to do with that. She’s got nothing to do with what happened in Benghazi. She wasn’t there. Yeah, she was secretary of state, but the fault lies with the people in the State Department who were there and the State Department people in Washington. Hillary wasn’t involved. She didn’t know.
I’ve seen a couple of news reports say that this has effectively killed Hillary, that the DiFi report. A couple bloggers have said, “Well, this effectively ends Hillary’s campaign.” I said, “Wait, what? You can’t be serious,” and then DiFi makes that important distinction.
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RUSH: I’m telling you, Obama going out and talking about this NSA scandal? I guarantee you, it is to distract people away from all these scandals. You got Obamacare. You got Benghazi. What else? You got the IRS and the Tea Party. I mean, folks, it is incredible the number of scandals or the improprieties that are taking place from government down, against and to the people.
It could be that it’s an effort to disguise the economy in whole, which is also a scandal. I think you could actually call the economy one of Obama’s biggest scandals of all. We’re into Year 6 of this. Even if Obama were trying to grow the economy, there’s enough time gone by for an honest person to assess that this is not working and change it, and he’s not done that. That’s why I think the US economy also ranks as an Obama scandal.
We got some audio sound bites about all this and what the president said if you want to hear ’em. I’m not crazy actually about hearing them again. But it seems that Obama wants to give control over the NSA’s phone data collection to a third party, but he doesn’t know who. Maybe a blue ribbon panel will be appointed to find out who is gonna be in charge of vacuuming up all the phone data.
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RUSH: This is another piece of BS that Obama said today in his speech on the NSA. Because he doesn’t believe this. In fact, he’s thwarting this. He said, “Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends upon the law to constrain those in power.”
I’m telling you, this is the Limbaugh Theorem, back at it, a hundred percent. He is the one who is lawless. He is the one who is behaving outside the Constitution. He’s the one issuing executive orders. He’s the one changing Obamacare willy-nilly. And he’s the one and his party, by the way, which seeks to be judged on their good intentions and not their achievements.
We’re not supposed to judge the welfare state on its failure. We’re not supposed to look at the 40-plus- year War on Poverty, 50 now, for example. The LBJ Great Society at large. We’re not supposed to look at 50 years of that and catalog the failure. No, no, no. We’re supposed to count on the good intentions of the people responsible, because they’re good people. At least they’re trying. These Republicans are just a bunch of meanies that don’t care.
So, I mean, this is 180 degrees out of phase. This is Obama describing exactly who he is not. This is Obama praising behavior he never engages in. “Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power.” I’m sorry. That is all the left has going for it. That’s all the left has to recommend it, is their good intentions. They are abysmal failures. They do not improve life. They do not improve standards of living. They do not improve the economy. They don’t fix roads or bridges or any of that. Liberalism is destructive. It tears things down. It rips things apart, all the while claiming to help. Ergo, their good intentions.
Depends on the law to constrain those in power? The law isn’t constraining Obama. Whatever he wants to do, for the most part. I mean, he hasn’t engaged in everything he wants to do, but two weeks ago he admitted it (paraphrasing), “I’ve got a pen, I’ve got a phone, and if Congress won’t help me make this place more equal, I’m just gonna do it on my own.” To hell with ’em. I mean, it’s literally BS. It’s no different than Obama praising the old work ethic, which he doesn’t believe in, either. In fact, as I said yesterday, the work ethic is exactly one of those fundamental American traditions that he thinks has been bogus from the get-go. By the way, he could point to his own life as proof. He has not worked hard and look where he’s gotten.
These people believe that there’s a power structure that’s been here ever since the founding, and they take care of themselves, and they exploit everybody else, and that’s how they get rich. They don’t work hard. “You didn’t build that. You didn’t make that happen.” And that’s what he really believes. This is all so much — I’m not even gonna play the sound bites today. It’s all BS. Look at the size of those flags. Do you see that? Look at Fox. Look at the size. Every time Obama shows up, the flags, the symbols of freedom, get bigger. It’s what dictators do. Don’t doubt me. While our real freedoms and liberties shrink by the day.
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RUSH: As I say, I’ve got Obama sound bites from this thing. I’m not gonna play ’em, but I do want to play Michael Hayden. Grab number 19.
This on the Today Show today, and the cohost Savannah Guthrie spoke with former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden, a Pittsburgh guy, big Steelers fan. She asked him about Obama’s plans for changes at the NSA. She said, “Now, we now know the broad outlines, some of the changes the president’s recommending today. Do you think that this will significantly change the way the NSA does business, or is this largely window dressing, in your mind?”
HAYDEN: It’s a little bit more than window dressing. With regard to who holds the data, frankly, no one will hold it as well in all dimensions of the world “well” than the National Security Agency. So it’s no surprise the president has punted that question to Congress. With regard to querying the data, it appears the president will now demand that the NSA go to the FISA court before they ask the data a question. Savannah, I was a director of NSA on September 11th. It sends a message to the bureaucracy that we’re trending back to the old ways of doing business.
RUSH: I don’t think anything’s gonna change. Now, Hayden is saying, okay, we’re gonna go back to pre-911 days where we were handcuffed. I mean, that’s what his point is. I think this is all smoke and mirrors. I don’t think there’s gonna be any fundamental change. They’re just sweeping up everything, texting and instant messages and phone calls. They’ve got more data than they can possibly extrapolate.
Here’s the bottom line, folks. They’ve been collecting this data for who knows how long. Were they able to identify the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston? No. Have they been able to stop, via the collection of this data, any of the terrorist-oriented or criminal-type behavior that they would be looking at? Apparently not, because they didn’t stop that scenario. Look at what was known about the Tsarnaevs.
After the event took place, look at how much we knew about them almost instantaneously. So somebody had the data. But they may not have be able to put it together in time to stop it. But the point is, we’re collecting all this data, we’re mining it, and they don’t know what to do with it all. It’s gonna be a monumental task even for the most powerful supercomputers.
Because they still have to have algorithms or programs written to tell them how to sift through this stuff, what to search for, what is raising a red flag. But it doesn’t appear that collecting all this data is stopping any terrorism, does it? Well, it doesn’t to me, unless there’s something going we don’t know. Now, they probably might not announce the things they’ve succeeded in stopping, but the terrorist activity at the Boston Marathon, that was pretty big, and they weren’t able to stop it.
But I don’t think they’re gonna stop collecting the data. There’s nobody that’s gonna really know whether they’re stopping it or not. He’s gonna appoint a third party (doesn’t even know who). He’s all over the ballpark. When he was a candidate, he opposed everything that he’s now doing with the NSA! He’d go to the floor of the Senate or go on the campaign trail and he’s talk about how un-American this was and he’s not gonna stand by and watch these violations of privacy.
He became president, and they just continued and expanded.
So now, since there’s a lot of attention paid to this and Edward Snowden and all, we get a big, hour-long speech today. Over 5,000 words. (summarized) “This is intolerable! I don’t know how it happened. I’m president, but I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know anything. I’m like you; I don’t know about it ’til it’s in the papers, but I’m gonna get to the bottom of it. I’m gonna appoint a third party that’s gonna be the recipient of all this data and they’re gonna report to me,” and blah, blah, blah.
Meanwhile, nothing is really fundamentally going to change, in my learned opinion.
It’s out of control as it is.
This is a classic genie-is-out-of-the-bottle circumstance if there ever was one.
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RUSH: I’m sorry, folks, I have to guard against this, when it comes Obama and the Democrats I’m — I don’t even think it is cynicism. I was gonna say I’m a natural cynic. It’s not cynicism. It’s reality. Let me explain this. I have been reading some of the, shall we say, some of the learned reaction to President Obama’s speech today about changes in the NSA surveillance programs of the American people. And one of the things that I guess is taking hold out there is, “We gotta be very careful not to be critical of President Obama when he was a candidate. Because it’s natural that a candidate would take political shots at a sitting president and then become president, and the responsibilities totally change, and it’s only fair to judge a president as president. But to go back and to compare what he said as a candidate –“
Now, the reason this is being done is because when Obama was just a senator, he was just laying into Bush and the NSA every chance he got, about how rotten it was to spy and how this was so outside the Constitution, and it was not legal, and it was government getting too big. Now that Obama’s president, the NSA is doing more spying on Americans than it ever has, and it’s sweeping in more data than it ever has, and Obama went out there today and — here’s more conventional wisdom — he went out there and said this was a tough balance that he had to strike, because he’s got to protect the American people.
He’s got to balance doing everything he can to protect the American people with protecting their privacy and their civil rights, and it’s a very, very difficult thing for a president to do. I said, “What?” We’re dealing with a total hypocrite here, in my view. Now, this is where it may sound cynical, and this is where it is crucially important for people to understand what a politician’s ideology is. Obama loves having this power of spying on people. Folks, I don’t think spying on people is what’s going on here. I don’t think they’re listening to your phone call to find out what you’re doing that may be breaking the law. I don’t think they care.
I think this is data collection on enemies, domestic enemies. That’s who these people are. They’re not stopping terrorism. With all of this data that they’re collecting, and all the collating they’re doing and all of the metadata, they didn’t stop terrorism at the Boston Marathon, the Tsarnaev brothers. They had all the data. Either they couldn’t, which is most likely because they probably couldn’t put it all together. It’s just so much damn data. It’s more than you can conceive. But these are the kind of people, I think, who relish having the data.
Look at what they did with the IRS. That’s who they are. You give people who want the government to be as big as it can be, you give people who want the government to be as intrusive as it can be — of course their good intentions to make things fair, to make these equal — you put that kind of people in power, and they’re going to avail themselves of every opportunity to use that power and acquire even more as they can. If people are gonna willfully ignore the kind of people that Eric Holder and Obama are, then what they get, they deserve. But the key for me is, again, Obama didn’t know how bad it was. How long is this gonna go on, and how long is this gonna be a valid excuse?
How long are we gonna let people get away with: “He didn’t know, and boy, when he found out, you shoulda seen how mad he was. He didn’t know about Benghazi. He didn’t know about Fast and Furious. He didn’t know about the IRS being spied on and the Tea Party being hamstrung by the IRS. He didn’t know any of that.” Really? Yeah, he didn’t know the economy was as bad as it is. He didn’t know unemployment was as bad. He didn’t know anything. And that’s all part of Obama constructing himself as an outsider, battling against powerful forces trying to undermine him.
It’s all part of Obama’s continuing quest to somehow get away with not being accountable for anything after five years in office. Now, if people aren’t gonna admit — we’ve got a guy pretending to be dictator here, for crying out loud. This guy is willy-nilly changing his own health care law. One day exempting this group, the next day exempting that group, and openly promising, you know, of Congress doesn’t give me what I want, I’m just gonna do it.
Well, we have no excuse for being ignorant. We’re being told from the horse’s mouth. So I’m looking at all the conventional wisdom here now to excuse — because Obama, as a candidate, was just excoriating Bush and anybody having to do with the NSA. And now we’re told, “Well, you know, you can’t hold him accountable for that because he didn’t know. It’s really different when you become president, Mr. Limbaugh, because then the whole job changes. Then you have to protect the American people and their privacy at the same time. It’s a really tough balance. Candidates of course are going to say what they’re going to say.” Yeah, right.
So this is just another example here of being told we need to excuse behavior that need not and should not be excusable. Obama said today, “Our system of government’s built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power. It depends upon the law to constrain those in power.” Well, I’m sorry, but the laws that constrain him in his power he is ignoring. And it is precisely his good intentions and only his good intentions we are allowed to judge him on. And that’s true to the whole left.
I mean, they’ve botched every entitlement program. It is an absolute mess. The War on Poverty hasn’t changed anything. The Great Society, the elimination of income and wealth inequality, hasn’t done anything. We’re not supposed to judge the results. We are supposed to judge their big hearts and their good intentions and how much they care. At least they tried, blah, blah, blah. Well, I’m sorry. I’ve lived long enough now, and I know enough about who these people are, the kind of people they are, to recognize BS when I see it.
I still think that this thing today, this NSA business, is really nothing more than the latest effort to distract everybody away from the other things that are going disastrously bad: the economy, Obamacare, which is such a mess, it’s almost incomprehensible. They don’t know how many people have paid, people who think they’ve signed up can’t get proof from an insurance company? Four out of five enrollees are being subsidized? It’s an absolute, total mess.