RUSH: You remember how much crap, you remember how much abuse I, El Rushbo, took when I was six months ahead of the game and said I want President Obama to fail. Now you know what I meant.
VOICE: And now from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip yahoo. Our all time favorite day of the week. Open Line Friday. Hi ya, folks, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. A thrill and a delight to have you with us, as we wrap up another superb week of broadcast excellence. Now as you know, Monday through Thursday — well, you may not know. You may be a new listener. They are flocking here in droves. Monday through Thursday we only talk about what I care about because I don’t want to sit here and be bored. On Friday, however, I throw that out. That’s what Open Line Friday is. When we go to the phones, the program is all yours. You can talk about that which interests you. And if I don’t care, I will fake it or I will try and I will not humiliate anybody by announcing I have just faked it. You’ll never know. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@EIBnet.com.
White House to Democrats: ‘Punch back twice as hard.’ Town halls turned violent last night and yesterday afternoon in Tampa; and in St. Louis, where a black conservative was roughed up and had to be sent to the emergency room thanks to union thugs. Six were arrested at the Russ Carnahan town hall after the St. Louis meeting, and this is the one where the union thugs, the SEIU people, beat up a black conservative, 38 years old. Physicians. Finally physicians, doctors are showing up at a town hall meeting in Houston, shouting. They don’t want socialized medicine. Tempers flare in Michigan when Congressman John Dingell shows up. People in Michigan. And I had a story in the stack yesterday. I didn’t get to it. Do you know that there is a hunger problem among the middle class in Detroit.
The thing that amazed me about that was I didn’t know there was a middle class left in Detroit. The unemployment there is so high and the automobile business is in such trouble. But we’ve got a hunger problem in a major American city. We have more job losses today with the State-Controlled Media trying to make it look like we’ve turned the corner and the recession is over; 235,000 more people lost their jobs. The real unemployment rate is not 9.4%. If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included in the unemployment rate — this is what’s called U6 — the total unemployment rate nationwide is 16.3%. If you add the people still looking for work and those who have given up, it’s 16.3% unemployed. State-Run Media is trying to make this out to be some big successful day today. Not only did tempers flare in Michigan, people shouted at Nancy Pelosi in Denver.
Nancy Pelosi shows up in Denver to dedicate some homeless center, and people in Denver show up and let her have it. There was an AARP meeting where angry AARP members asked the leader questions about the details of the health care bill, and the leader walks out, ending the meeting. Barack Obama — stand by audio sound bite number one. Barack Obama is in trouble. Now, he was in McLean, Virginia last night, and he was cocky, he was nasty, he was angry. He said, ‘I got a mess to clean up and I don’t want the people who made the mess to keep talking. I’ll be glad to clean it up…’ He’s talking about Bush, Republicans, and whoever else is criticizing him. Obama needs to learn something. He’s in big trouble just like Bill Clinton was in trouble. With Lewinsky or anytime Bill Clinton got in trouble, what did Bill Clinton do? Do you remember, Mr. Snerdley?
What did you see? What did he do? (interruption) No, no, no, no. I’m not talking about policy, not talking about policy. What Clinton did, he consulted with his ministers. In came the Reverend Jackson and a number of others and they held hands. They had soul-to-soul meetings getting to the heart of the matter and so forth. Obama’s approval numbers are sinking. In fact, let’s see. Boston Globe: ‘President’s Popularity Slips Again — As President Obama hits the 200-day mark, new polls show a further slide in his’ job approval numbers. CNN Opinion Research: Overall job approval of 56%. That’s down from 61% in June, 76% in February. And, of course, we remember the Quinnipiac poll, which has him at 50% approval. His approval numbers on his health care plan are also plummeting. It is time for Obama to go back to his roots. It is time for President Obama, with his approval numbers sinking, to get back to the basics and have a chat with his minister.
WRIGHT (screaming): Barack knoooows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! [snip] Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger! [snip] Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky!
CONGREGATION: (cheers)
WRIGHT: He was riding dirty. [snip] In white America, US of KKKA: black men turning on black men. [snip] I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. [snip] Not God bless America, God (bleep) America! It’s in the Bible. For killing innocent people, God (bleep) America! [snip] (screaming) And now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards!
CONGREGATION: (cheers)
WRIGHT: America’s chickensssss are coming home…to roost.
RUSH: It’s time for President Obama to return to his preacher and return to the church where he sat for 20 years and professed to hear none of that. Mike, we’re being overloaded here with requests for our little skit entitled ‘Martha.’ Do you have that standing by? Let ‘er rip.
(Martha spoof plays)
RUSH: Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Let me share a thought with you, folks, on these town hall meetings. I’ve heard from not very many but a few people who are losing spirit out there because they are perceiving (after watching State-Controlled Media) that we have lost our momentum, that the anti-Obama health care town hall participants have lost the momentum because the argument has now shifted from what’s in the bill to people having to defend themselves against being an unruly mob and racists and so forth and so on. It’s always been my experience that if you are in an argument with people and they change the argument, they are losing. Now, the details of the bill, the questions being asked, they were all shouted.
I mean, when these members of Congress at all of these places last night — St. Louis; Houston; over in the Tampa Bay area, Hillsborough County — and by the way, it was a Democrat official who slapped, a Democrat official slapped a guy named Osteen, who was just trying to talk to her husband about the plan. I mean, it got violent. The union thugs from the SEIU and the AFL-CIO were called out here to keep the halls only halfway filled with opponents. Those people are getting in there. When these members of Congress stand up and start talking and lying about it, these people are reacting. We haven’t lost the momentum on this. What’s happened is that the president of the United States has marshaled his forces against over half the country!
He gave them a pep talk yesterday and said, ‘We punch back twice as hard.’ This is the president of the United States, the president of all people. Now, these town hall meetings, it’s becoming clear that the Democrat leadership is advising their people to avoid these meetings or to stack the deck with union membership. And they are running around, ‘It’s dangerous. It’s so dangerous! And our precious Democrat leaders are having their lives threatened,’ which I don’t believe for a moment. I think it’s all BS because I’ve seen the pattern. Now they’re supplying union thugs — burly, obvious union thugs. You look at them and you know. You know they’re showing up, if you see these people, you know that’s who they are. They are showing up to intimidate, and you know who’s showing up? Seasoned citizens!
The people that need to show up to show they’re opposed to this, and they are being shoved up against the walls by union thugs. Old lady got shoved up against the wall in Tampa last night. One guy had a shirt ripped and his chest cut by a union thug over in Tampa. So they are saying, ‘Well, you people are just a big branch of the insurance business and you opposing voters are Nazis and so forth.’ But we need to look at this a different way. If I was a legislator, if I’m a member of Congress and I had a really great health care plan — I had a plan I really believed in; I had a plan I thought was going to make everybody healthier and safer; that would solve all of the major problems that people have with health care today — and a majority of my voters didn’t agree?
If I really thought this plan was the end-all to plans but a majority of my voters didn’t agree, I would want these meetings. I would want them. I would relish them. I would cherish the opportunity for these meetings to explain to them why it’s a good idea. If I really believed it, I’d want to sell it to them. I would not want to have to go lie to them! I would want the time. I would want every question to explain to people why this is a great plan. I would convince them of its virtues and I would give reasons: Reason one, two, three. I’d be logical, I’d be reasoned, I’d be informed. But that’s not what’s happening, is it? These Democrats are not doing that. You know why? They can’t. They haven’t read the plans — and if they have, they know they cannot explain them in a positive way. They know that their constituents are more informed about the plan than they are.
They are avoiding these meetings because it gives the opposition a way to voice an opposing point of view and that’s why the leadership is trying to avoid these meetings. They cannot stand to give anybody a venue to oppose them. But stop and think about it, folks. If you really… If you’re a member of Congress and you love the plan, your constituents don’t like it and they don’t understand it, take as many meetings as you can. Go out and rent a high school gym if you have to get a couple of thousand people in there to explain this, and tell them why they’re wrong. That’s not happening. They’re continuing to show up, they are lying and that’s when people at the meetings are standing up and shouting, shouting back.
People see their liberty being taken away. People see their freedom being taken away. Old people see their health care being taken away. They see it. They know what’s in the bill, and that’s why all this is happening. And now the president of the United States is leading and promoting an intimidation of average American citizens, many of whom voted for him. Do not think that all of these people showing up at town hall meetings are Republicans. A lot of these people are Democrats. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Last night, McLean, Virginia. The president of the United States was angry, nasty and cocky. He was at a fundraiser and he basically just told the Republicans: Just get out of the way.
OBAMA: I expect to be held responsible for these issues because I’m the president.
FOLLOWERS: (heavy cheers and applause).
RUSH: We know!
OBAMA: But I don’t want the folks who created the mess — I don’t want folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.
FOLLOWERS: (cheers).
OBAMA: I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking. Am I wrong, Virginia?
FOLLOWERS: No!
RUSH: This is not the man people thought they elected. The people who made the mess? Once again he’s whining and moaning like a spoiled child that somebody else gave me this mess. Mr. President, two million people have lost their jobs since your ‘stimulus’ bill was signed into law. This economy is foundering ever since you came into office. You have almost doubled the federal deficit this year and who knows what’s going to happen to the national debt. But he doesn’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. He’s got a snitch website! How in the world can he enforce this request or desire that he has for the folks who made the mess to just stop talking? Here’s the next bite from the president at McLean, Virginia last night.
OBAMA: I need every one of you to knock on doors and make phone calls and get fired up once again so that we can go towards the future!
RUSH: He is no longer the president. He is a candidate. He’s got a plan. This thing is now called ‘health care.’ So the community organizer is organizing. The community agitator is agitating. The only one sending out organizing memos nationwide is President Barack Obama, and community agitators can’t start bitching when communities agitate.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Brad Miller is a Democrat Congressman from North Carolina. He’s the guy who I told you yesterday says he’s getting death threats. Now Brad Miller claims that hundreds of Congressmen have received death threats. He offers no substantiation, and I’ve looked around. I don’t see anywhere on the World Wide Web where hundreds of Congressmen have made charges similar to Miller’s. Have you seen that, Mr. Snerdley? Hundreds of Congressmen? The president of the United States travels around every day, 24/7. The more he goes out, the more his poll numbers drop — and he’s out there every day pitching health care. If he can do it, then certainly our precious little Congressmen can sure as heck meet with their constituents.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: State-Controlled Associated Press: ‘White House Advises Dems on Health Care Protests — Top White House officials counseled Democratic senators Thursday on coping with disruptions at public events on health care this summer, officials said, and promised the party and allies would respond with twice the force if any individual lawmaker is criticized in television advertising.’ Is it not amazing? Here are our elected officials — members of the House of Representatives, the US Senate — and they have to get instructions from the White House on how to deal with their voters.
They have to get instructions from the White House, and the reason for this is the whole thing is a lie. Everything they are selling is a lie, and they have to get instructions on how to sell the lie. The dirty little secret is Obama has to lie. He can’t tell the truth. This country is not what Obama is. This country is not of the same values. This country is not oriented in a core value way the way Obama is. And more and more people in the country are seeing this and learning it and living it. And so when you’re a senator, a United States senator and you have to get instructions from the White House PR machine how to deal and talk to your voters, the translation is, ‘You’ve got to go out and lie this way.’ Now, what this is all about is the focus grouping they’ve done has forced them to change the terms. It’s not health ‘care’ reform. It’s health ‘insurance’ reform now and bashing the insurance companies.
This is Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner. ‘Last week I wrote in this space that Obamacare could be the death of AARP because it would expose to the rank-and-file of the 40 million member seniors group — most of whom oppose Obamacare — how their Washington leaders have been taking them for a ride for many years. The AARP leadership scoffed at that suggestion, but check out the video of a Dallas AARP meeting in this post by Moe Lane at Red State. The leadership wanted to give the members the usual dog-and-pony show in favor of government-run health care, but the members weren’t buying it,’ and as soon as the members said, ‘No, we don’t believe what you’re saying ‘the leaders got up and left. Evidently, you either sit down, shut up and listen to your leaders in AARP, or they abandon you.
‘If it happened in Dallas,’ it can happen in any other city in the country. David Axelrod — who is Obama’s word-speechwriter guru — has also given instructions to Democrats via talking points. ‘Axelrod and Jim Messina, the White House deputy chief of staff, met with the Senate Democratic caucus Thursday afternoon to strategize over how to talk about healthcare during the August break, and this is the famous meeting where they say, ‘If they hit you, we’re going to punch back twice as hard.’ This is from the White House. All right, Open Line Friday. Monte in St. Louis, I understand that you were at the Carnahan fiasco in Mehlville.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’m a member of the St. Louis Tea Party, unofficially. I go to them, and there’s a little man that —
RUSH: Oh, yeah, you sound like a Nazi and a mob!
CALLER: (chuckling)
RUSH: You do.
CALLER: Part of the angry mob, I suppose. There’s a little man that comes to the tea parties, and I don’t even know his political affiliation or what he believes, but he’s a nice guy. He’s a small man, and he sells flags and buttons, and he’s always nice. And then five of these big thugs from SEIU, the union, in their purple shirts —
RUSH: Yep?
CALLER: — walloped on him so badly, he’s going to be in the hospital for two days, and he did nothing but try to make a living selling his buttons and flags. They and Carnahan, they allowed all the union people in the side doors, had reserved seats, would not allow the people in. This is a pure, political Astroturfing — and exactly what Carnahan did again: He snuck out the back door. So our name for Mr. Carnahan is Back-Door Carnahan.
RUSH: St. Louis Post-Dispatch today says six people were arrested at this Carnahan meeting, including a Post-Dispatch reporter. This is the meeting… What’s a Post-Dispatch reporter arrested for? How does a reporter get arrested just standing by, watching, and reporting it? How does…? Maybe the Post-Dispatch reporter had a purple shirt on with the SEIU logo on the front. What in the world? How does a reporter get arrested? Reporters are supposed to be standing there with little notepads and a cameras and whatever and telling us what happened because we weren’t there. This is also the one where that 38-year-old black conservative got roughed up. Stop and think of this, folks. Stop and think of what’s happening. For two-to-three weeks the town halls happen.
Members of Congress who don’t know what’s in the bill, do not have the confidence to sell what’s in the bill, go up with their packaged presentation filled with lies. The people that show up know full-well they’re lying ’cause they’ve read the bill, they know what’s in it — and it’s starting to look real bad. Obama’s numbers plummet and what happens? A bunch of union thugs show up at these things! From the AFL-CIO, from the Service Employees International Union — and I looked at the video last night. These are big, intimidating, burly people. They are admitted into these town halls — the one near Tampa, the one in St. Louis — through side entrances. One thousand people showed up in Tampa and 250 got in. Half of them were SEIU union people. And still the half that were opposed to the plan were louder. The people outside that couldn’t get in were banging on the door wanting to get in.
That’s when the door opened and a couple of union thugs went out there and actually ripped a guy’s shirt off and cut his chest, pushing him up against a wall. The Democrat leader over in Hillsborough County slapped a guy in the face. Now, this is your modern-day Democrat Party. I do not think we are losing the argument here. I think we are showing the unraveling of the White House. I think we’re showing the unraveling of this plan. I think we’re showing the unraveling of the Democrat Party. This is the exact opposite of what moderate, independents, Democrats, Republicans alike thought they were getting when they elected Barack Obama and now marching orders go out from the White House, from the community organizer to send thugs!
Now, you’ve seen pictures. I’m sure you’ve been on the websites. You haven’t seen the pictures on television; the State-Controlled Media’s not talking much about this. They’re talking about me. But you’ve seen the pictures of these people. They are the most harmless, blend-into-the-crowd people. A couple of them may be wearing suits. I actually think they’re wearing Jos. A. Bank suits, not Brooks Brothers. But they are not even all that dressed up. A lot of them are elderly. They are nonthreatening. They have made no threatening moves. They have made no threatening remarks. Nothing whatsoever. Obama sends out his army. You’ve got to… Folks, this is Mussolini-type stuff. This is the president of the United States who cannot deal with opposition. There will not be any. He is going to silence it. He’s sending his union thugs out to physically assault, in some cases, and to in all cases intimidate average Americans who just want some answers. And nobody’s willing to provide them the answers. All they’re getting is lies.
Jacob in Westminster, Colorado. Great to have you with us on Open Line Friday, hi.
CALLER: Hello, Megadittos, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Listen, I attended the South Street Clinic protest in Denver yesterday with Nancy Pelosi and a couple of Colorado representatives.
RUSH: She was in there. This was some homeless shelter that she was in there decorating, commemorating or something?
CALLER: Correct. It’s actually a clinic run by the Coalition for the Homeless.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah.
CALLER: In Denver, yeah, and I just wanted to pass on some of the events.
RUSH: Hang on just a second. I have an observation about this. Here you have home homeless people and you’ve got the speaker of the House going in not trying to fix the problem. Not trying to do anything to solve it but to dedicate some sort of a building to house them. It’s no different than when they gave them shopping carts and said, ‘Here, man, I love you.’
CALLER: Exactly. She was there to tout the stimulus money that’s supposedly going to this clinic and just, you know, the protestors there that were —
RUSH: Wait a second. No, no, no. That can’t possibly be true. Stimulus money was to go to people to create jobs, building roads and bridges. You mean stimulus money went to a homeless shelter?
CALLER: That’s what they’re saying, and that was why she was there.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: Yes. And the only indecent behavior that I saw came from the proponents for health care reform who are using personal attacks on the members of our side and who were trying to actually destroy personal property: the signs made by opponents of health care.
RUSH: Yeah. I think they’re unraveling and I think that they’re discombobulated — and I think the average people can watch all this and hear about it and understand where the aberrant behavior is. You know, the only positive thing about this — it’s a very small positive — is we’ve always known that Democrats are antiwar. We’ve always known we can’t really count on them for the national defense. But we have finally seen with whom they will go to war: The American people who disagree with them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chris in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Hello, sir, nice to have you with us.
CALLER: It’s a she. Hi, Rush.
RUSH: I’m sorry. I do that all the time.
CALLER: No, no, that’s okay. I’m a first time caller and I love you and you look really hot. So keep up the good work.
RUSH: I know, and thank you very much.
CALLER: I want to say that I’m a mother of three.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: Twenty, 18, 13-year-old, okay? First time I started going to these tea parties because I’m really disgusted of what is going on.
RUSH: You really just went on your own?
CALLER: No, my husband and my 13-year-old my, kids come with and —
RUSH: No, no. But you decided to go on your own just out of the clear blue because you were fed up?
CALLER: Yes. I never have done it before. You know, I made the best signs on the computer. People come up —
RUSH: Some community organizer didn’t send you an e-mail and say, ‘Be here at this time and wear this and ask this’?
CALLER: No, and I’ve never gotten paid.
RUSH: You just show up on your own?
CALLER: Yep, never gotten paid. But I feel like my kids are not going to have — I’m sorry, I’m getting emotional — the America that I grew up in, okay? So I feel this is really important. And my son, when he was 14, he would listen to you. And my dad always played you. And I never listened, you know? I didn’t want to do what my old man was doing.
RUSH: (chuckles)
CALLER: But my son was listening to you at 14 and I said, ‘Who are you listening to?’ ‘Rush.’ So I started listening. Now he’s 20, okay? My son’s a bright kid. So we all listen. So when you played that clip of Barack Obama telling his supporters to get fired up and to get out there, I am just so upset that the other side… We cannot do the same for what we believe. We are all taxpayers. We’re paying into this system, but what we believe doesn’t matter.
RUSH: Wait a second. Hold it. Hold it. I’m glad you called. I’m glad you said this. I know when you mean when you say Obama can get up there and say to his supporters, get out there and double down and so forth. But when you say, ‘We can’t do it as taxpayers,’ what you’re saying, you’re reacting to what you’re seeing in the media, people like you being criticized as part of a mob or being Nazis or unruly.
CALLER: Yes!
RUSH: The fact of the matter is what you are doing is causing this unraveling on their part, is causing the president of the United States to act totally unpresidential. There is no dignity to the office of the president with what this man is doing in using it this way. Don’t ever be afraid of what you see on TV and how they characterize you in such a way that it makes you stop or intimidates you. Understand they are trying to do that to you. They are trying to besmirch you. They are trying to impugn you. They are trying to make you feel like you’re doing something wrong. Don’t fall for it. Don’t even watch it.
CALLER: But see, it gets me fired up.
RUSH: Good!
CALLER: And so I’m going to be in Washington on September 12th, on my own. Nobody’s telling me to go there. I’m going to go to Washington. My kids are going to go with me, and we’re going to go and support our choice, okay?
RUSH: God bless you.
CALLER: We do not want government health care. We don’t want socialized government! I want less government, Rush.
RUSH: Not just… Exactly. You don’t want Obamaism. You don’t want Obamanomics. You don’t want Obama judges. You don’t want Obama anything. Well, God bless you. Don’t be talked out of it. This is… See, there’s a percolating going on out there, folks. Things are effervescing; it’s boiling over. And the proof of the success is the reaction of the president with the union thugs. They are trying to change the argument, which means they know they’re losing it.