RUSH: Now, folks, Rand Paul has been on fire this week, the senator from Kentucky, and Tuesday in Washington on the Senate floor, he made a really great speech on the unconstitutional sham second impeachment of Donald Trump. We have a couple sound bites. Here’s number 1.

PAUL: If we are about to try to impeach a president, where is the chief justice? If the accused is no longer president, where is the constitutional power to impeach him? Private citizens don’t get impeached. Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office. Hyperpartisan Democrats are about to drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol —

RUSH: Already done that.

PAUL: — the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history.

RUSH: They’ve already done that.

PAUL: The Democrats are wasting the nation’s time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office. It’s almost as if they have no ability to exist except in opposition to Donald Trump!

RUSH: That’s true.

PAUL: Without him as their bogeyman, they might have to legislate and to actually convince Americans that their policy prescriptions are the right ones.

RUSH: By the way, what are they doing? Biden has formed a panel to investigate packing the Supreme Court. They’re gonna do that. They’re already looking into creating a state out of Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. Everything we warned you about to create Democrats in perpetuity is being done.

So when Rand Paul says here that “they might have to legislate and to actually convince Americans that their policy prescriptions are the right ones”? They’re never gonna have to do that. That’s my… If I had to make a point, if I had to try to find a way to convince people of one thing, it’s that the Democrats are never gonna have to convince you of anything. They’re just going to do it.

If you disagree with them having a 13-seat Supreme Court, too bad. They’re just going to do it. They’re gonna have the votes, and they’re gonna do it. They’re not gonna persuade you. This is what we’re missing. This is not retail politics as it’s always been. The Democrats aren’t gonna have to persuade anybody. Once they get states in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. — they’re gonna have to persuade people now because they’ve only got 50 seats in the Senate power sharing with Mitch McConnell and so forth. But their long-term plan is to not need to persuade anybody.

Do not doubt me. That is the core of their belief. That is the core of their agenda. To no longer have to persuade anybody, that they will have such vote power, such majority power, they won’t have to persuade a damn fool of anything. Now, one other thing here that he said. John Roberts. Where’s the chief justice? Well, this is an interesting point. John Roberts refuses to sit at the Trump trial. You aware of this?

“Chief Justice John Roberts’ refusal to preside over former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is raising questions about whether he views the first-of-its-kind proceedings as constitutional. The Supreme Court has been declining to comment,” when asked by the media why the chief justice will not take part in this historic trial. Chuck Schumer said that the chief justice doesn’t want to take part in it. “The Constitution says the chief justice presides for a sitting president.” Trump is not a sitting president.

I’m gonna tell you what I think’s going on here. I think the chief is questioning the constitutionality of the Democrats’ latest attempt here. Now, he would never say so in public because it would hurt his reputation in Georgetown.

So what’s gonna happen, in Roberts’ absence the trial will be presided over by Pat “Leaky” Leahy. You heard what happened to him, they swore him in and then something happened and they had to put him in an ambulance and move him up to the hospital, and then after a few short minutes, everything’s fine here. Do we know any more than that? (interruption) We don’t know why Leaky Leahy had to go to the hospital? Anyway, Rand Paul is making a big deal out of the fact that the chief justice won’t even show up. Here’s the next Rand Paul bite.

PAUL: But what of Democrat words? What of Democrat incitement to violence? No Democrat will honestly ask whether Bernie Sanders incited the shooter that nearly killed Steve Scalise and volunteer coach. The shooter nearly pulled off a massacre. I was there. Because he fervently believed the false and inflammatory rhetoric spewed by Bernie and other Democrats.

No Democrat will ask whether Maxine Waters incited violence when she literally told her supporters — and I quote — that if you see a member of the Trump administration at a restaurant, at a department store, at a gas station, or anyplace, you create a crowd, and you push back on them. Is that not incitement? Shame, shame on these angry, unhinged partisans who are putting forth this sham impeachment, deranged by their hatred of the former president.

RUSH: It’s truly that. It is deranged hatred; there is no question about it. He’s absolutely right about Bernie Sanders inciting that wacko to shoot up the baseball practice. But we’re not allowed to say that. And Republicans go along with it. The Mitt Romneys of the world go along with, “Oh, yeah. We cannot engage in that kind of hate speech. No, no, no, in. We don’t want to say that nice old Bernie had anything to do with it. Bernie had nothing to do with it.”

And they’re hoping that the Democrats will extend to them the same favor, that the next time some Democrat blows away another Democrat, that they won’t go out and start blaming Republicans for it. But of course that doesn’t happen, does it? They always try to find a way to blame Sarah Palin or me or Fox News, take your pick.