RUSH: This is Joe in Warren, Ohio. Nice to have you here, Joe. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Nice to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: One of the problems I’ve had and I can probably speak for a lot of people in this country is the different standards that our present administration uses in solving problems. Let’s take the BP oil spill. He didn’t even respond to it for the first 50 days. There was no rush to Congress to pass a $30 billion bill to get that oil spill cleaned up. It was all thrown on the hands of BP. They’re gonna fix it, it’s their problem, they solve it, they pay for it. Even got $20 billion in escrow, and he’s gonna hold ’em accountable for every drop of oil, is going to clean up the ocean, make sure all the fishermen and everybody else that was affected gets reimbursed.
RUSH: Right. We’re gonna keep our boot on their necks.
CALLER: Now, if we apply that same principle to General Motors, General Motors wouldn’t have got it done, nor would AIG, any of the banks, Chrysler, or any of that stuff. It’s your problem, you fix it. But he didn’t apply that principle that way. And this is what keeps us all off balance. That’s what’s keeping the trillions of dollars locked up, not wanting to invest because we cannot trust this man to do the right thing.
RUSH: Yeah. I totally get that. I’m going to get into motivation with you. You’re a smart guy. Why do you think Obama was content to let BP just linger, flail away, perhaps go bankrupt, fade away, but he had to go in and take over General Motors — (crosstalk)
CALLER: — oil production in this country, and the worse it got, the more easier it would be for him to say let’s stop all oil drilling, and the connection with Brazil and their oil company and the billions of dollars that we loan them to drill, it’s all tied in there.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: One thing I can count on with Obama, if there’s something positive politically for him in it, he will respond to that. If it’s for the attorneys or if it’s for the unions you can make sure he’s going to respond positively to it.
RUSH: But if not, he’ll let it fade away and go by the wayside.
CALLER: You know, the union workers only represent not even 15% of the workforce in this country. This economy is not gonna turn around unless the other 85% are involved. And the sooner he gets —
RUSH: Yeah, well, in Obama’s mind, the other 85% are the reason we’re in trouble. The other 85% are the perpetrators of America’s crimes. The unions and the minorities, people of color, they are the victims of those 85%. You’ve nailed it. The 85% have to pay the price for all of their theft for all of these years and all of the unfair advantages that they have had. Obama was dreaming about running automobile companies when he wrote his book, Audacity to Hope, whatever it was in 2006. Read the book, he was envisioning making a deal where the government would save their pensions and benefits in exchange for making green cars, and, voila, GM is making the Volt. They didn’t want to make it, they didn’t want to go forward with it but there they are. So listen to what Obama has said, previous interviews, what he wrote in his book, because he was envisioning a deal, the government would save union pensions, benefits, all of that, jobs in exchange for the automobile companies making green cars. He became president. Voila, there it is.
The attorney general of Texas has filed suit against the government on this drilling moratorium. State of Texas is in this for keeps. State of Arizona’s in this for keeps. This guy is exactly right. Obama shuts down drilling in the Gulf Coast because he’s got a animus against US domestic oil production, but we have given $10 billion to a Brazilian company drilling for oil, a lot of it is owned by George Soros, or at least a significant investment at one time was made by George Soros. The rest of the world continues to drill for oil. We’ve got a moratorium. Now, it’s not fair to say that Obama didn’t do anything at the outset. He did send Big Sis down there and some SWAT teams. But for 50 days he didn’t do a thing, but he did want to take over General Motors, wrote about it in 2006. He wants to take over and run these industries that he holds guilty. And oil, they’re having trouble, BP, fine, let ’em die. That’s who he is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Twenty months of Barack Hussein ‘Hoover’ Obama, and look at this hope and change. New York Times, how did we miss this yesterday? ‘Market Drop Signals Fears About Global Recovery.’ I told you at the top of the show, at the top of the stack was economic news, that it wasn’t good, was trying to parcel it out so as not to hit you all at once with it. The stack continues. ‘As economic recovery wavers in the United States, evidence is mounting that growth abroad is also slowing and may be unable to sustain the fragile rebound here.’ There are a couple quotes from this New York Times story. ‘The optimism that had pervaded Wall Street only weeks ago has faded quickly. In its place is a growing realization of what many Americans have been feeling in their bones: this is not the economic recovery the nation had hoped for.’
This is the Obama times, folks. ‘While the economy is growing again, it is growing too slowly to create many jobs or to increase household incomes.’ Everybody is now acknowledging this, everybody. Another quote: ‘Without that lift from abroad, and with domestic spending moribund, the American economy is gradually losing steam.’ Another quote: ‘There is certainly a lot of angst about when this recovery is going to take shape,’ said Mr. di Galoma, head of United States rates trading at Guggenheim Capital Markets. ”This is going to be a long slog,’ said David H. Resler, the chief United States economist at Nomura Securities International.’
‘Californians’ Income Sees 1st Decline Since WWII — The personal income of California residents declined last year for the first time since World War II, state officials said Wednesday. An analysis by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis found that statewide income fell by $40 billion in 2009 to $1.56 trillion. That’s down about 2.5 percent. In the Los Angeles area, personal income fell 3 percent. In San Francisco, 3.3% decline. … Overall, the income drop in California was more dramatic than it was nationwide. The U.S. saw an average decline of 1.8 percent in 2009. ‘You’ve got an unholy trinity of three things going on here,’ said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance.’ Yeah, trinity would be three things. But I wonder if you California state officials can get an idea now why your state revenues are in the tank. You keep raising people’s taxes. Their income keeps going down. You’re wiping them out.
Now, remember the story we had a couple days ago, the controller, the City of Los Angeles, all of the multi hundreds of thousands of dollar salaries, $267,000 here, $280,000 there, $227,000 there. So some people’s incomes are going up in California, state workers, city workers. And as far as Obama’s concerned those are the people who deserve it, those are the backbone of America. It’s the 85% who are not unionized, private sector unionized, they need to be chopped down a bit, they need to be gotten even with, they need to find out what suffering is like. And that’s where we are.
Here’s Janet, Shiloh, Illinois. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hello Last Man Standing, and congratulations on your marriage.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: You’re welcome. I wanted to point out the real Marie Antoinette moment of this regime so far. And it came a few weeks ago with Governor Bobby Jindal. He met with Obama to discuss the effects of the moratorium that the Obama administration placed on drilling, and we must point out that the Obama administration lied about the word — people who went along with it, industry experts who went along with it, they came out later and said they did not go along with this moratorium, it was too overreaching.
RUSH: Exactly right. I remember.
CALLER: Okay. Bobby was explaining the economic effect this is going to have on the state of Louisiana, the moratorium. And Obama said, ‘Well, that’s okay, they can file a claim with BP.’ And Bobby said, ‘Well, wait a minute, what happens if BP doesn’t honor the claim?’ He said, ‘Well, then they can file a claim with unemployment.’ And what’s not been noticed in that is that unemployment traditionally is less than half of what someone normally makes. Obama did not care that via something he put into effect, a moratorium overreaching by all the analysts, is going to hurt people. He did not care that they would make half of what they normally make.
RUSH: Wait a minute. You’re calling it a Marie Antoinette moment where he doesn’t care. It’s not that I don’t think because Marie Antoinette was popular when she first arrived on the scene. I think that there were oil workers is why he had that attitude toward —
CALLER: Oh, you’re right, you’re right, but let’s just talk to the liberal media who isn’t very bright, okay? They can grasp Marie Antoinette and they think this man cares about people. No, he cares about the people he needs to keep him in office, his friends. And also, Rush, I have to point out something about you and Rick Wagoner. I have a memory that you interviewed him on your show, and in that interview you exposed the reason as to why he was fired by Obama. And it has to do with green technology and Rick Wagoner was discussing buses. If you go back and look, you’ll find it and you’ve got the sound bite. I have that memory.
RUSH: I don’t recall interviewing Rick Wagoner.
CALLER: Maybe one of your guest hosts did?
RUSH: That’s what it was, it was Paul W. Smith.
CALLER: Oh. Ha-ha, Detroit, where I used to live.
RUSH: Paul W. Smith does mornings as WJR in Detroit.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I’m sure it was Paul W. Smith.
CALLER: And they’re friends, and he got it, it’s in your archives.
RUSH: So tell me again what Wagoner said?
CALLER: Paul was discussing the efficacy of green cars —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — for the future.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And Rick Wagoner was a businessman, is a businessman, and he was a good one, and he was saying it’s not practical, I want to say money-wise, economically, but we could see it maybe with buses, transport buses.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And Rick is gone and now we’re going full forward, full steam ahead with green technology in cars, and I think there’s another car in the pipeline that’s coming from China that’s going to be built here by GM at a loss. It cannot be built at a profit, another one. I think that’s what I recall.
RUSH: Well, that’s right. I don’t know about the Chinese car that’s being made, but when you say Obama doesn’t care about people, that’s pretty true of liberals. They have floated along so far and for so long on this notion that they are the ones with compassion, that only they care about the downtrodden and the little guy, when it is their policies that do great harm to the little guy. I mean when you take money out of the private sector, as Obama has done, you limit the number of jobs in the private sector. Who holds jobs? The little guys. So when businesses have to downsize, lay people off or fire them it’s the little guy that gets canned. And yet this is as a result of policies put in place by liberals to help the little guy by punishing the big guy. But when you punish the big guy, there’s a ripple effect, trickle down, whatever you want to call it. The dirty little secret is that they know it. They’re not wrong. They’re not well-intentioned and wrong. They get exactly what they’re doing. Some of the rank-and-file doesn’t. I mean you got some brain-dead liberals out there, across the country who really believe in this utopia panacea stuff, and they’re really depressed because now they see with both eyes it don’t work, it doesn’t come close to working. Their worldview, their long-held passionate desires, their dreams crumbling right before their very eyes. They start the day mad anyway, then you throw that at ’em and you have genuine outrage.