RUSH: You know, I need to have direct access to the White House. I need an e-mail address. I could just send ’em an e-mail, ‘Okay, I’m on the air, it’s time to send the president out.’ Second day in a row, Obama, big, major speech when this program starts. This is not coincidence. Obama talking about taxes, simplifying the tax code. A bunch of BS. Greetings, my friends, and welcome. It’s Rush Limbaugh, and this is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Great to have you here. Telephone number if you want to join us today, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
President Obama is giving a speech here, talking about all these mythical tax cuts, how wonderful it’s going to be for everybody, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. His speech is going to go on for 10 to 15 minutes. We, however, can synthesize Obama’s tax intentions in 60 seconds.
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Big tea party day today, not just due to taxes, but due to the size of government and the loss of liberty, 500 locations in 50 states today.
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It’s the Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB Network. Coming up, a special message from President Obama.
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(Playing of Obama spoof Homeland Security Update)
It is difficult to find, ladies and gentlemen, in American history, a time when so many liberals have spent so much time slinging so much mud on an embryonic movement. They are petrified and scared to death of the 500 tea parties scheduled for today in 50 American states. They’re out there snarling, ‘It was created by Fox News; it’s a right-wing plot; this is all Limbaugh’s doing; it’s white people who are afraid of Obama,’ and that nutty professor from Princeton, Paul Krugman. It’s backed by right-wing billionaires. Oh, even though that’s BS, I guess it’s okay if a movement is funded by George Soros; it’s okay if MoveOn.org is behind it. But what if it’s a grassroots bubble-up movement started entirely by average, ordinary, everyday Americans, then somehow it poses a great threat, and it’s something that must be discredited; it’s something that must be rained on; it’s something that must be destroyed or at least interrupted and tampered with.
So the liberals, who love the common man, the liberals, the American left, tell us daily, weekly, monthly, they are the ones looking out for the little guy, they now have to use every weapon at their command, from NBC, to the New York Times, to the Obama database, to the Twitter crowd, to mock, smear, and trash what is real democracy. What is real democracy is occurring in 50 states, in 500 different locations, and the American left, standing for the little guy, protecting the little guy from the onslaught of disaster. They have to go out and destroy these people, to mock them, to smear them, to trash them, because it is real democracy, it is the expression of individual liberty and freedom and the clamor for more, which is upsetting to no end to Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and the American left. You want to do a Million Man March, no problem. You want to have a MoveOn protest or Code Pink panties showing up at any congressional hearing room, no problem, ditto. You want Cindy Sheehan and her two dozen protesters outside Bush’s house. No problem. That’s democracy at work. You want the Democrat Party urging defeat for the US military, echoed by the Drive-By Media, that’s fine, that’s democracy at work.
But real people getting together because of real issues that frighten them and alarm them about the security that they feel they’re not going to have in the future and the very structure of their country, let that happen, oh, no, that is not to be tolerated. That is to be destroyed. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the new era of hope and change, a new era of genuine hope, of genuine change, not backed by MoveOn, not funded by George Soros, not supported by Al Sharpton’s busloads. These tea parties today are springing up all over the country and various people are being blamed. The Heritage Foundation has a report today that Dick Armey is being blamed by the Center for American Progress for this. Paul Krugman is blaming me and Tom DeLay for this. Blaming, blaming. Liberal pundits, liberal special interest organizations blaming various people for the outpouring of genuine sentiment that is born of love of country and devotion to the nation’s founding. The truth is, these tea parties are a completely grassroots movement. There is no specific leader or origin. I mean, you might be able to say that Rick Santelli of CNBC on February 16th talking about a tea party led to this, and you might want to say that somebody in the media, or there are politicians trying to claim credit for it, which is standard operating procedure. Some media people are trying to claim credit for it, that’s standard operating procedure as well.
But this is a genuine bubble-up movement from what is commonly called the grassroots. Front page of USA Today today has a headline: ‘Most Americans Okay with Big Government, At Least For Now.’ That’s bogus. USA Today reports that even though many Americans are supportive of what President Obama has done so far by a 55-32% margin, Americans still say ‘they worry more about big government.’ So have at it, those of you at the tea parties. There are all kinds of rumors that ACORN and other subversive groups loyal to President Obama are going to be out there trying to disrupt these things, maybe create racial incidents, maybe create chaos to make it appear as though the people gathering at the tea parties are the equivalent of angry left-wing mobs that blow up banks and try to destroy private property. By the way, grab audio sound bite number four, on the fly. This is on C-SPAN today, Washington Journal, the host Steve Scully talking to some guy named Shakir, from Think Progress. Steve Scully says ‘What do you think the aftermath of all this will be, the result, if anything?’
SHAKIR: If there’s a large number of people that show up, it’s Fox News protesters against Obama at the end of the day. Obama’s got an agenda here, and what we shouldn’t forget is that Rush Limbaugh, who has said he hopes Obama fails, this is now the fruition of that effort. For those people who are hoping that Obama fails and actively plotting for his failure, this is what this effort is trying to do, and I hope that the majority of the American public who agree with where President Obama stands and where he wants to take country understand that this is an effort that simply is trying to derail that.
RUSH: No, they’re not trying to derail failure. He’s exactly right about that. These are people — and they’re not all Republicans. There are some Obama supporters out there. Neil Cavuto is out in Sacramento, my adopted hometown, some Obama supporters there, not a whole lot, but some who have said this is not what they thought they were getting. So there’s a cross section of America represented by participants at the tea party. But of course they want him to fail. We’re going to get into this in a moment as the program unfolds. He’s trying, and he made it plain yesterday in his speech, he wants an entirely new foundation on which to build the United States and the US economy. We’ve already got a foundation. It’s called the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States is the foundation. He wants a new foundation. We’ll have details as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears. One more sound bite, Chuck Todd, stenographer for the Obama administration, disguised as an NBC reporter on the Today Show today, a portion of his report.
TODD: Today the White House is hoping to use the tax day deadline as a backdrop to highlight another part of his economic plan, that signature middle-class tax cut. Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling to make use of the day politically. There’s been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-called tea parties around the country hoping the historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the president’s economic ideas, but the idea hasn’t really caught on. The RNC has jumped in, a few other talk radio hosts have jumped in, but it hasn’t galvanized the party the way they would hope.
RUSH: It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, Chuck! One of the reasons the tea parties have sprung up is because the Republican Party is hibernating. One of the reasons it sprung up is because these people have turned to themselves for leadership, because they can’t find any in the fiefdom of Washington, DC.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dayton, Ohio. We’ll start with Rob. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I want to just call and thank you for helping to set the record straight on this tea party movement. You’re exactly right. I first became involved in it about a month ago. It’s a grassroots movement. People like me who felt not only appalled at shift toward socialism, but have also felt disenfranchised by the Republican Party — and heretofore, just gone about our lives — we have just provided for our families and our communities, and we didn’t want to get involved in politics. We see the freedom that we’ve had to pursue that is about to be taken away from us. It’s people like me, and we just have to finally get involved before it’s too late, and it’s not about party lines. We don’t care if someone who…
RUSH: Let me ask you some questions.
CALLER: Sure. Go ahead, Rush.
RUSH: Are you a neo-Nazi?
CALLER: (bursts out laughing) Absolutely not.
RUSH: Do you hate black people?
CALLER: Absolutely not.
RUSH: Do you hate illegal immigration?
CALLER: Illegal immigration? I think that immigrants should be helped to become citizens, US citizens.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I find that immigrants that come into this country, especially ones I see in Mexico, are some of the hardest working people I’ve seen.
RUSH: Okay. I just wanted to get your profile because you and people like you are going to be smeared and impugned today in ways that it’s never happened to you, and in fact you have been already in media reports prior to this happening. You know, about people trying to take credit, this is something that it’s just human nature. Especially politicians or wannabe politicians see something like this and they can’t wait to become part of it; they can’t wait to glom onto it. I remember Dan’s Bake Sale. (laughs) Dan’s Bake Sale, which was in the early nineties out in Fort Collins, Colorado, and there were 65,000 or 75,000 people showed up. When I got out there, practically every Colorado elected official was there, too. Now, they didn’t claim any credit for it, but they wanted to be involved and they wanted to make speeches. So this is natural. It’s normal human nature. You got some media people who want to claim they have something to do with this, too, because they believe that this is the way to reach out from outside the studio to build up and promote audience and so forth. But, look, everybody knows, I think, that what makes this great is how described it: This is real people. This is real democracy bubbling up. This did not have to be inspired; it did not have to be promoted; it did not have to be the created. This rage and this fear and the anger that people have and the desire to fix this and hold onto the founding principles of the country is real.
CALLER: I don’t know if I’d call it rage, Rush. I think it’s more that people have decided, ‘You know what? We just gotta get in the game. We sat on the sidelines long enough. It’s time for voices to be heard,’ and —
RUSH: Don’t be afraid of people saying that you’re angry about this. I’m angry. I can’t tell you how angry I am over all this. I heard just a little bit about what Obama said in his tax speech. It’s outrageous! It ticks me off like you can’t believe. It makes me livid. Everything that he’s trying to do makes me livid, and I’m not going to apologize for being angry about it. I don’t care who tries to mischaracterize me. It’s a genuine emotion, for crying out loud. We’re talking about the United States of America. We’re talking about our foundation of the Constitution. We’re talking about preserving this country as it was founded, children, grandchildren, ad infinitum — and we’re up against somebody who wants to totally remake it, tear it apart, and rebuild it with a new foundation that does not have the Constitution anywhere involved or very little involved. So I know you’re sensitive to this whole thing being driven by rage, but if there’s not some anger involved here this wouldn’t be happening. I’m just saying don’t be afraid to admit that. You’re going to be mischaracterized no matter what you do. You could show up singing peace songs. You could show up in togas and smoking some dope. They’re still going to call you kooks. You guys could sing hymns. You could be like monks. You could go out there and just never say a word, just show up in silent protest. They’re still going to call you dangerously deranged, angry, bitter clingers and so forth. You’re going to get impugned and maligned no matter what you do, so be who you are.