RUSH: Here’s Christine in Syracuse, Indiana. Hi, Christine. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Hi. I want to know how — I’m curious. You alluded to the fact what a fighter Ted Kennedy was. How do you know he didn’t have a living will or a medical directive? I mean if he had — if he had — of course, he had the means to be able to use any kind of New Age and/or experimental cancer treatment because he had the means, but I’m in favor of a national health care program. I’m uninsured right now. I know two other people with the same problem I have. They’re either working three minimum wage jobs with no health insurance at all, or they’re working a full-time job, my one friend is working a full-time job and a part-time job, and they just took away her prescription health care coverage. She has no prescription, so she can’t take her high blood pressure medicine. It isn’t on the Walmart list. She doesn’t have the means to pay for it, and she makes too much money to get it from a pharmaceutical company. It just gravels me that you talk about living wills as if it were a bad thing. I have a 90-year-old father who has a living will.
RUSH: Wait a second. I did not say living wills were a bad thing.
CALLER: There is no death panel.
RUSH: There are death panels.
CALLER: They are allowing doctors and paying for doctors to be able to discuss —
RUSH: No. No.
CALLER: — with a patient of a certain age —
RUSH: Christine.
CALLER: — to be able to write — to know what their intent is-
–
RUSH: Christine.
CALLER: — at the end of their life. And that is a good thing. That is a very good thing.
RUSH: Christine, you are just wrong. Now, do you want to talk about this, or do you want to go on living the illusions that you’re under right now?
CALLER: I’m not under any illusions.
RUSH: You are.
CALLER: Let me ask you something, Rush. Do you have a living will? Do you have a medical directive?
RUSH: Yeah, but the government doesn’t demand it. The government didn’t tell me I had to do it. And the government —
CALLER: No, the only difference is the government is paying for it.
RUSH: No, they’re not.
CALLER: The government —
RUSH: No, wait a second. The government is not paying for it, your neighbors are, Christine. When you complain that you have no health insurance —
CALLER: My government is also paying for Halliburton, my government is paying —
RUSH: Oh, for crying out loud, this is hopeless.
CALLER: — for Blackwater, my government is playing for Blackwater —
RUSH: Barack Obama just hired Blackwater.
CALLER: Yeah. My government is paying for a lot of things that I don’t necessarily want.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: You know?
RUSH: Join the club, Christine!
CALLER: –health care is one of the things I do want.
RUSH: Join the club, Christine! My government is paying for a lot of things I don’t want either, but you are wrong in your assessment of this health care legislation.
CALLER: No I am not.
RUSH: Yes, you are.
CALLER: I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think it’s about damn time. You know what’s also interesting is if you talk to people who are on Social Security, they will tell you, they will tell you that they love their Social Security but they don’t want national health care, now, why is that? Maybe they’re afraid that the pot will run dry, if that’s a problem —
RUSH: Because —
CALLER: I also have a preexisting —
RUSH: No. No.
CALLER: — condition that this law would eliminate.
RUSH: Would you take a breath?
CALLER: I can’t get a word in edgewise and you’ll cut my mic off.
RUSH: My gosh, can’t get a word in edgewise. (laughing.)
CALLER: You will cut my mic off, I’ve been on before. I’m just trying to make a point, you cut my mic off and then you go on.
RUSH: I have not cut your mic off, you’re too valuable.
CALLER: So you do have a living will and you do have a medical directive.
RUSH: Yeah, but —
CALLER: See that’s a good thing!
RUSH: Yes, but not because there’s a federal panel that’s making me do it. Not because the government’s requiring me to do it.
CALLER: Federal panel! I read the legislation on the bill, and that is such — you’re misrepresenting it.
RUSH: You don’t want to listen to reason. Christine, it’s real simple. At a certain stage in your life, Barack Obama and the executive branch are going to decide who gets paid, who gets covered, and who gets treated. And they’re going to make the decision based on how sick are you and how old are you. They’ll not be called death panels but it’s going to be rationing of health care, it is going to happen, and it didn’t happen to Ted Kennedy. Now, grow up here! You gotta get out of this liberal childishness you’re in and grow up and open your mind here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Thea in Spokane. Welcome to the EIB Network, great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: I just want to tell you that woman who called and harangued you has my blood pressure up so many points, my doctor is going to insist I go on blood pressure medicine — and thank you, I can pay for it. Tell that woman to get out of my life! If she and her friends want to stand in a welfare line and get their medications ‘free,’ then they’re welcome to it. But the problem with the health care bill is I’m lumped in with her, and I don’t want to be in any shape, way, or form. Try not to take Medicare. Just try it (sarcastically) ‘and that was just going to help the old people.’ Yeah, it helps us, all right. I’m dreading having to go on it in a year. Just try not to take Social Security. Try to tell those people you don’t need a handout from the government, and he couldn’t really earn it because you actually saved for your old age in retirement. Just try not to take it. Oh-ho-ho, no, madam! We’re not allowed to do that. We don’t have a slot for you not to take it. You must stand up and be a good little soldier in our social programs. Oh, that woman just pissed me off!
RUSH: Yeah, me, too, but for different reasons.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: (laughing) I couldn’t get a word in and she kept telling me that she couldn’t get a word in!
CALLER: Yeah, well the word ‘harridan’ came to mind.
RUSH: I got a lot of e-mail about that woman, Christine, and your reaction is identical to what a lot of people’s reaction is and it’s actually very healthy. I mean, a lot of people had the same reaction you had which is: ‘Hey go out and get it yourself! Stop depending on me.’
CALLER: Yeah, exactly.
RUSH: I’ve had people call here. Okay, she’s working three part-time jobs, and some people don’t have any jobs —
CALLER: That’s exactly right.
RUSH: — because of this president some people don’t have any hope of getting a job because of this president.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: And she’s out there, ‘Well, I’m working three part-time jobs and they’re not giving me any health care.’ Go buy it! Get rid of the cell phone; get rid of cable TV.
CALLER: That’s exactly correct.
RUSH: If it matters that much to you, get rid of something and go buy it!
CALLER: It’s all the entitlement mentality.
RUSH: Damn straight!
CALLER: ‘It’s mine because I want it to be mine, and my neighbor has to pay for it. Oh, well!’
RUSH: Exactly right. She thinks ‘the government’ is paying for it. Governments pay for Blackwater. That woman was a walking, talking cliche.
CALLER: Yes, she was.
RUSH: ‘Cause the mind-numbed robots in this country are the people who follow liberals blindly.
CALLER: Absolutely. You know, I ask teenagers, whenever I run across one of them, I ask them two things. ‘Do you know how a law even started and how it’s passed?’ and they look at me blankly, ‘Well, the president does it.’ Nooooooooooo, he doesn’t. And I ask them —
RUSH: Well, now, wait. The president does do it now.
CALLER: Well, yeah. (laughing) But that’s not what’s in the Constitution.
RUSH: Well, I know, that’s true, but the president is passing laws, he’s buying companies, he’s firing executives. He’s mandating all kinds of things out there.
CALLER: That’s kind of a case of being careful what you wish for it may come true. Well, the liberals have been wishing for it. Now they’re damn close to getting it and our country is going down the toilet. I can see it circling the drain.
RUSH: The Democrat Party is going to go down the drain and toilet before the country does.
CALLER: Well, I —
RUSH: Trust me on this. Don’t doubt me.
CALLER: Oh, good.
RUSH: I’m telling you that this country is far more resilient. There are many more millions people like you out there, Thea, than there are the Christines. There’s a scary number of Christines out there but there are many more people like you, otherwise the country wouldn’t be working, functioning. If we were a nation of Christines, we wouldn’t be functioning — and I’m going to tell you, Obama wants a nation of Christines. That’s the best way to explain it. Obama wants a nation of Christines! Now, people that didn’t hear the first hour, say, ‘Come on, Rush, it’s not fair! Who’s Christine? What did she do?’ It was tortuous friends to listen to this. It was tortuous to talk to that woman, to listen to it again… But, Mike, roll that call off because people are going to have to hear this if they didn’t hear it to know what we’re talking about here. Thank you. And Obama is desirous of having a nation of Christines. That’s the simplest way to put it. Look, Thea, I’m glad you called out there. Appreciate it very much.
Ken in Detroit. Nice to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush. I’d like to comment on the passing of Senator Kennedy. First of all I’d like to say that I would never wish any harm or death to anyone, but speaking strictly as him being a senator, I would have to say that because of his lifetime — or I should say lifelong — promotion of socialism, and because of his involvement with what happened at Chappaquiddick, I won’t miss not seeing him in Washington.
RUSH: That’s a very honest thing for you to say, sir. Very few people today would express that sentiment.
CALLER: Well, like I said, I have to look at the whole situation honestly.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And there again, I feel bad that any human being would pass away. But strictly looking at his lifetime career as a senator who I feel has done severe damage to society, not helped society…
RUSH: You know, there are many people… Let me paraphrase what you’ve just said. There are many people today and for a long time who have referred to Senator Kennedy as ‘the lion of the Senate.’ You’ve heard that right?
CALLER: Yes, yes. I’ve heard it.
RUSH: Well, what you’re basically saying is he may have been the lion of the Senate but we were his prey.
CALLER: Yes, absolutely. I think anyone who stood for truth and patriotism was the prey of people who are like-minded with Senator Kennedy because of their views on allowing the government to dictate our rights.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s not just their policy. It’s also their source of redemption. Any liberal possession, most every liberal politician can get away with any bad act, any bad behavior on earth as long as that liberal politician has famously and very visibly used government to take money from people who work to give it to people who don’t. That is called compassion, that’s called virtue, that’s called caring, and that buys you a lot of insurance against behavior that other people are sanctioned for and ripped to shreds for.
CALLER: Well, Rush, I’m a conservative who believes that it’s extremely important in protecting rights of the individual, which is what the Constitution does; and I think that it’s highly important that we stand up against those individuals who choose, per their political views, to strip away our freedoms and our liberties.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you called. I appreciate you taking the time. Beth in Westmoreland, New York. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. God bless you. My family loves you. I have four Rush Babies, and the oldest one introduced me to you. He’s in the military now. I want to ask a favor of Christine and three favors of the liberals, if I may, please.
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: I’m hard-of-hearing, and I went to get the tubing replaced on my hearing aid last week and there were some beautiful hearing aides in that office that I can’t afford to save my life, you know, $1,200, $2,400. I’d love to have one — could she buy me one please, since she wants me to pay for her health care and pay for her medication. You know, and if she really has three part-time jobs, what’s she doing on the phone with you? I’m a nurse and I work really hard, you know, I work evenings and all kinds of odd shifts so I can listen to you. But I have three favors to ask of liberals. A, please stop dragging around the dead bodies of people and using them for sympathy from everybody else. It’s not healthy. You know, it’s what that woman did with her son in the military who died, you know, that awful woman. What’s her name.
RUSH: Sheehan. Cindy Sheehan, yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, that’s horrible. My son is in the military. I wouldn’t do that to him if he lost his life. Please stop doing that to people who die.
RUSH: You know what? If all fairness to her, she was trying to find some reason to explain why her son’s death meant anything, and a PR firm — a liberal PR firm in San Francisco — dragged her through that mud. They’re the ones who did it. The libs used her and now they’re finished with her. They don’t want any more to do with her now that Obama’s in office.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: For those of you who heard it, the original call with Christine, about an hour ago, a little over an hour ago, I apologize you gotta put up with her again. It’s four minutes long, but for people that didn’t hear it and heard us discussing it, I wanted them to hear what we were discussing and so here it is.
(replaying Christine’s call)
RUSH: Everybody was just angry as they could be over that call, and did you hear…? You know, my hearing is somewhat limited. I heard something for the first time in this call. I didn’t hear it when she was originally talking to me because I was trying to respond to her in the first place. She talked about a friend of hers who now ‘makes too much money’ to get free prescriptions. Well, go frigging pay for it, then! And that’s the reaction everybody had. You know, everybody knows a Christine in their life. Everybody knows. Some people, sadly, have a Christine in their family. But everybody knows a Christine, and you can’t get through to them. They are mind-numbed robots. But that’s who she is. All right. Barry in Los Angeles. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Great fan of yours. I’ve been listening to you since 1991. Longtime fan.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Great fan. While everybody’s concentrating on Ted Kennedy and health care? I think one of the biggest services that Ted Kennedy made for Democrat Party and their power was that ’64 immigration law that changed the landscape that was this country forever. I mean, since then the demographics of this country is changing so much in favor of Democrats that they should thank him. The Democrats should thank him for that rather than advocating health care or other social programs. I just wanted to know your opinion.
RUSH: Well, hang on just a second. I’ve got some thoughts about this. I want to understand, though, you’re being sarcastic, correct?
CALLER: No. He changed the… No. I’m not being sarcastic. I’m a true conservative, and I think —
RUSH: Yeah, but you don’t think he changed the nation for the better with this is what you’re saying?
CALLER: No, no, no, no, no. No. He changed it for worse. The immigrants…
RUSH: It did help the Democrat Party and what you’re saying is the Democrat Party, forget health care, they owe him a big one because of what he did with immigration reform?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. That’s exactly my point.
RUSH: Well, I think you’re exactly right. Remember that during the debate, during debate on the Senate floor of his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Ted Kennedy — speaking of the effects of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — said, quote, ‘First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think…. The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants.
‘It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.’ He said that. It was his Immigration and Nationality Act, 1965. You’re absolutely right out there, Barry. And let’s not forget that Senator Kennedy also created the concept of HMOs. When you go back to health care, Senator Kennedy gave us HMOs, and in the latter years of his life Senator Kennedy was the number one outspoken opponent of the HMOs that he created! So while everybody’s doing this lionization today of Senator Kennedy, it’s classic. Liberals get credit for their intentions — and because their intentions are good their hearts are assumed to be gigantic and big and compassionate — but they wreak havoc on the country! LBJ, ditto. Great Society, the War on Poverty.
These programs have the exact opposite effect of their intentions, every damn one of them. They end up hurting the people they are supposed to help. Yet they’re never called to account for it. They’re never held accountable for this. They are always allowed to act like spectators. Then when something goes wrong they get to investigate it as though, ‘Who did this?’ Hurricane Katrina is great example of that. All the while being lionized and treated as the most compassionate among us. All because what they really do is use the government to take money from people who work and give it to people who don’t work. Like the Christines. And Barack Obama… You now have heard the Christine call. Barack Obama wants a nation of Christines. That’s what he’s aiming for.
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RUSH: Here’s Linda in Keller, Texas. Linda, I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. What an honor it is to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I am a first-time caller. I have listened to you for years. And I’m just so proud of what you do for our country. I am calling in regards to Miss Welfare Mentality, our caller that you had earlier.
RUSH: That would be Christine.
CALLER: Yes, Christine. I don’t know where this welfare mentality came from. We have been a proud people for many years. America was built on entrepreneurism.
RUSH: I’ll tell you where it came from. You know where it came from? Franklin. Delano. Roosevelt. Social Security.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: His big plans to try to get out of the Depression created the whole notion of entitlement, and the Democrat Party has been building on it ever since, and it’s taken a long time. I think we’re still safe. They haven’t gotten to the point that 50% or more of the American people have an entitlement mentality, but they’re dangerously close.
CALLER: But these people need to really take a hard look at the countries that are socialized and see the situations that the populations are in, because there is a lesson learned there. We do not want to go down that road, and there is something that I think President Obama and the Democrats have underestimated about the American people: Our resolve and our passion for keeping this country to what it is supposed to be under our Founding Fathers.
RUSH: Well, that leads to another element of this, and that’s the public education system. You say they need to look at these socialized countries. What if they did? The news is all over the place about the health care system’s, particularly we just had the story today: 4,000 mothers in Great Britain denied hospital beds cause there aren’t any, they’re giving birth in elevators, hospital bathrooms, in the hallways, in offices and so forth. They have birth panels, as Mark Steyn said. Birth panels!
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: But the left in this country is not made up of thinkers. It’s made up feelers; it’s made up of emotional self-loathers. People that don’t like themselves and they don’t like the country. They’re unhappy with their lot in life and they want everybody else to be miserable. And the only way to make everybody ‘equal’ is to make everybody miserable. You have to spread misery around to make everybody equal. They want equality of outcomes. It’s just absurd and if you heard the call from Christine, you cannot reason with them. You can’t reason. You can try to get through to them but it’s an art, and most of the time you just can’t. But you’re very nice, Linda, I appreciate the call. You’re very well spoken. I’m honored to have you in the audience.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
It’s Syracuse, New York. You find the Syracuse, Indianas, you find the Peoria, Arizonas, that nobody’s ever heard of. John, hello.
CALLER: Are you there?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Rush, hi. I am from Peoria.
RUSH: Yeah. I know. That’s what I said.
CALLER: Listen, listen, I’ve got a few things. First time I called. I’m a respiratory therapist. You don’t talk much about those people. But we deal with people on ventilators and life support, and I’ve done this for 46 years. I retired because of my back problem. That goes into my call. Anyway, to start out with this ‘let’s kill grandma thing,’ the death panel, you gotta remember, I’m really conservative. I don’t fly on airplanes because they have left wings, but I’m going to disagree with you a little bit on this one. There’s not really a death panel and they do need that because you get people out there on ventilators, Rush, and nobody knows what to do, they shoulda taken care of this a long time and you’ve got people just dying —
RUSH: Wait a minute. Now you have me confused. Are you advocating death panels?
CALLER: No, no. No, they’re not death panels. They’re misusing the word. They’re doing that right now, Rush, but they’re not doing it like they should. They should be forced to do this because we get people on ventilators and I can’t talk much because of HIPAA, you know, but we get people on ventilators nobody knows what to do, this guy’s terminal or this lady is terminal and they’re on the ventilator for, you know, six months and it’s just terrible so —
RUSH: Wait a minute, wait a minute, look, this death panel thing is not hard to understand here folks. It’s very simple. All you have to do is read H.R. 3200, and that’s scary. Nobody has written a bigger horror book than H.R. 3200. It mandates end-of-life counseling. We have the president of the United States who says, in response to a question from an American citizen, no, the will to live will not be a factor in our decision as to what we’re going to tell the doctors to do. Take a pain pill. Now, I don’t care what you call ’em, but there are going to be government bureaucrats treating American citizens as budget items. Look, my grandmother, I told the story yesterday. My grandmother had a stroke. The doctor said to us it’s unlikely she’s gonna come out of this vegetative state. And they said, ‘What do you want to do?’ And they advised the feeding tube, just let grandmother die. But it was our decision. Now, you could say that we were the death panel. Well, we had to decide and it wasn’t easy. But we had to decide. We had to believe what the doctors told us. We did it ourselves but there was not some bureaucrat making the decision basically just on the basis of budget items.
Some families want to hold out for the miracle. I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about this. The death panel phrase Sarah Palin came up with is precisely controversial because it was accurate. It helped people understand exactly what was in store.