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RUSH: All right, now, there’s a vote going on in the House of Representatives now. It’s a symbolic vote, and it’s designed to make those of you in the Republican base think that they are serious in the House about stopping Obama’s amnesty. Now, let me see if I can marshal all of my communicative skills here. (Not “communicable.” That would be making you sick.) I’ll martial all my communicative skills to see if I can explain what’s happening here.

I guess the basic way to start is to just use the story in the Drive-By Media as a foundation. It’s from TheHill.com, and the headline: “White House: Bill to Roll Back Immigration Order is Unfair.” So right away, you see, you’re supposed to think the House is doing something really good because Obama’s complaining about it. “The White House on Wednesday criticized a bill offered by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) that would roll back the president’s executive action on immigration, calling the bill ‘unfair’ and ‘bad policy.'” (sobbing) It’s un… unfair! Waaah.

The press agitator “Josh Earnest said the legislation would ‘exacerbate flaws in our broken immigration system’ and distract ‘limited enforcement resources’ from targeting criminals for deportation.” Never mind we’re not deporting anybody now, including criminals. I think of the 30,000-plus criminals, murderers and rapists that ICE released last year. They were not deported. Remember that? But let me tell you what this is. This is inside the Beltway on full display if you know how to interpret this stuff.

I, of course, do. It’s why I’m in this chair and behind this microphone. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is holding a vote (it’s happening right now) on a bill blasting, criticizing, ripping Obama’s executive amnesty. However, the bill does nothing. The bill means nothing. Admittedly, it’s a symbolic vote. It’s not gonna go anywhere in the Senate. In fact, it’s the first of many of these kinds of bills that will be voted on over the next couple of weeks.

So if I’m right here, you can expect a series of stories like this in the mainstream media that highlight efforts by the Republicans to stop Obama — and you’ll be treated to similar stories from the Drive-By Media about how mad about it Obama is. Even if it passed the Senate, even if it got there and passed the Senate (which it won’t because Dingy Harry still runs the Senate), Obama would veto it. This vote, I think…

One of the ways to describe this would be a cynical charade to try to placate the bitter clingers who don’t want to see our country and its culture fundamentally transformed forever. So the White House has to play its part here. The White House has to play its part and pretend that what the House is voting on today is really terrible and that they’re really worried about it, because they’re in on the charade. Folks, I know this may come as a shocker.

It was just… I don’t know if you heard this. Maybe you didn’t hear about this. Mitt Romney said recently that he thinks that the Republicans need to swallow hard… (interruption) What are you laughing at in there? (interruption) Mitt Romney said Republicans need to swallow hard — and Mitt Romney’s the former nominee, and he may be another one. Mitt Romney’s got his finger on the pulse of the Republican establishment. This is not Mitt Romney isolated and alone.

Mitt Romney is not speaking by himself. Mitt Romney… You may not have heard this. Mitt Romney said the Republican Party should go ahead and swallow hard and pass full, comprehensive amnesty or immigration reform. Right now! Beat Obama to the punch. Five mill! Let’s do ’em all. It’s gonna happen anyway. We may as well do it and get the credit for it. Jeb Bush believes the same stuff. You know as well as I do this government shutdown business is theater.

It’s the daily Washington soap opera. Here we are, it’s December again, and all of a sudden we’re facing government shutdown, second year in a row. It’s it amazing how this happens? Do you know what the government shutdown is? It’s something for the Republicans to hide behind. It’s an excuse for not stopping Obama. “Well, my God, we’d have to shut down the government!” What does that really mean? The government never gets shut down. It’s always open, except when it snows.

But these people, even if there are — and it wouldn’t be in this case. There are government workers that get laid off. They end up getting a two-week vacation or however long it lasts. They get their back pay; they’ll get their Christmas turkey. Everything’s made up. Everything’s retroactive. The government shutdown last year, the only thing that really happened of consequence was that World War II vets were denied use of the memorial after they had all spent money to go on a big trip to visit the thing, because Obama shut it down.

It was his discretion. They shut down White House tours, even though the Secret Service was fully staffed. Obama shut down things that would inconvenience people so that they would think there’s been a big shutdown, and then blame the Republicans for it. The Republicans, therefore, get properly scared. “Oh, my God, no! Oh, no! We can’t do another government shutdown! You see that? We’d get blamed for it again.” Okay, we can’t shut down the government, and that means Obama’s not stopped.

The Republicans want you to feel sympathetic, see, because they get blamed. It’s just so unfair! Every time Obama shuts down the government, they get blamed for it, and they’re not gonna do it anymore. They’re gonna sit there with 74% disapproval in the polls. You might say, “But wait, they shut down the government, they got blamed for it, and they won a landslide.” No, no! You’re not supposed to remember that. You’re supposed to focus on the polling data that shows they got blamed.

You’re not supposed to think that. No, you’re not supposed to associate the fact that the Republicans, a year ago, got blamed for this mythical government shutdown, and 10 months later, the Democrats are the ones that lost a huge shellacking landslide. In the first elections after the shutdown, for which the Republicans are blamed, the Republicans win in a landslide. You’re not supposed to remember that. So here we have the first in a series of votes in the House.


What’s the House doing?

“They’re really telling Obama. Oh, yeah! They’re lowering the hammer with words, and they’re expressing their disgust, and they’re expressing their opposition. They’re even going so far as to say, ‘Obama’s acting outside the Constitution. He can’t do that,'” and the White House, right on cue, is dutifully playing their role by acting mad about it and disagreeing and talking about what a bunch of reprobates the Republicans are.

And it’s inside-the-Beltway charade.

The truth of the matter is that the endgame way down the road there is full, comprehensive immigration reform. It’s just that both parties know they have to take different winding roads to get there. The Republicans have to get there by making it look like there’s no way they can avoid it. The Republicans have to get to amnesty all the while making you think they’re trying to stop it but they really can’t ’cause they’re gonna get blamed if they shut down the government.

Obama’s gonna get there by using the full force of his ability to violate the law to get there. Republicans are gonna get there by claiming they can’t stop him because if they tried, the media would cream ’em. So that’s what this story is. You doubt me on this? (interruption) You do doubt me? No. (interruption) Oh, you “got” me. Okay. I was asking if you doubted me. (interruption) Okay. So that’s what I think is going on today with this vote.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to stir anything up here, and I’m not trying to get quoted later in the media. I really don’t care about that. I’m just analyzing this as I see it. I’m listening to what people say — and I’ve heard enough Republicans, and I know what the Chamber of Commerce has said. We know that there are members of the Republican establishment that want comprehensive immigration reform. Whether they call it amnesty or not, we know that they want it.

The most recent prominent voice suggesting that we all swallow hard (swallowing noises, slurping) and do it was Mitt Romney, and Jeb Bush is gonna seek the Republican nomination running against the party’s base — as a courageous act. So that’s that. (interruption) No. No. See, I mentioned it. You were screening calls and you didn’t hear. You missed a brilliant monologue on this. It’s really tough for Snerdley. Folks, have you ever…?

Just to explain how things work, have you heard me wax eloquent here, make a brilliant point, go to the phones, and a caller is repeating exactly what I said as though the caller didn’t hear it? You’re saying, “What in the world is that?” It’s because Snerdley can’t listen to the program and screen at the same time. So if a caller calls in with a brilliant point that I’m in the middle of making, Snerdley may not know it, especially if the caller is claiming credit for it. Now, there’s supposed to be…

(This is where I stir it up.) There’s supposed to be people telling Snerdley, “Hey, he’s talking about that right now. Broom the call.” But nobody’s giving Snerdley that advice, and I can’t do it ’cause I don’t know what he’s talking about. So Snerdley’s swimming alone in a big ocean in there, so that’s why he’s asking me or repeating to me that I just said that he didn’t hear me, and that was a monologue an hour ago… (interruption) Oh, that has not been done.

The whole point that I made was that the natural way you run for office is you secure your base and then you move away from them, moderately so, to get the independents. That’s a big trick that’s been played on the Republicans, because the end result of that is that you get a Republican presidential campaign aimed at 20% of the voting population, ’cause you assume you’re gonna get your base. So then a Republican running for office sounds like a moderate Democrat in order to get independents.

The Democrats, in the meantime, are not falling prey to the trick because it is their trick. Republican consultants end up telling candidates, “The base, they’re gonna vote for you. But I’m the guy who’s gonna get you the independents,” and what happened last time was four million Republican base voters didn’t vote. They stayed home. Romney won a big majority of the independents, and it didn’t matter.

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