RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. I didn’t see any of this, but I got a couple of emails. Last night during Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel, the discussion was the Chicago schoolteacher strike. And, of course, the subject was raised that Rush Limbaugh had said that the whole thing might be a setup, allowing Obama an opportunity to go in and settle the thing. However he settles it. For great political benefit, Barack Obama…
I made the point yesterday. This theory was debunked on two different shows yesterday on Fox, first by A.B. Stoddard.
STODDARD: Rush Limbaugh is wrong. This is not a Democratic setup so that the media can swoon and the president can rush in and rescue the deal, and end the strike and help the unions. I think it’s far more politically toxic for President Obama and [he] knows that coming out in favor of the teachers union would be a big mistake.
RUSH: Would it? Does he have to come out in favor of the teachers union to solve it? Could he not have a deal with the teachers union that goes something like this: “Okay, you guys you go in there and ask for 16%. It’s outrageous, and Rahm’s going to tell you to go take a hike. You have two or three days and the kids are out doing whatever they’re doing. Then I’ll come in there and I’ll get you to take 8%, which is far better than anybody else is getting out there. And it will be my magic that persuades you teachers to take 8% for the good of the school, the good of the kids.”
I don’t know. But that, to me, is entirely possible. It’s entirely possible. They reject 16% raises when 80% of the students don’t graduate because they’re “too stupid,” which is what the teachers say, not me. That teacher in Atlanta said it. Sixteen percent! You don’t think that figure gives Obama room to go in there and work his magic with his buddies, the unions? It’ll make Rahm look good. Well, it doesn’t matter how Rahm looks, because that city isn’t going to elect a Republican.
All that matters is how Obama looks and what the teachers end up getting. The teachers unions are big Obama supporters. All I’m saying is, I wouldn’t be surprised. And then over on Red Eye, the 3:00 a.m. show on Fox, Ann Coulter thought I was all full of it. Here’s a conversation. Greg Gutfeld, the host, said, “I like this story because you have a former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, going up against unions.”
JEDEDIAH BILA: I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about this today and I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but it would be really great for Obama if he could come step in and be, you know, the big man on campus and say, “Let’s all get along you. Give this. You give that. WeÂ’ll all make it work. WeÂ’ll solve the educational problem together.”
COULTER: No.
GUTFELD: Not going to happen?
COULTER: No.
BILA: No?
COULTER: No!
BILA: It would work for him if he did that.
COULTER: He’d have to be like Scott Walker.
RUSH: “He’d have to be like Scott Walker” to make it work. That’s Ann Coulter. So I’m all wet. I’m wrong. It couldn’t possibly happen, couldn’t possibly be a setup. Okay. Fine. But let me… I almost don’t want to give away the game here. See, it doesn’t matter whether I’m right or wrong. That’s the whole point of doing this. How many of you…? Yes, and I’m toying here. I’ll admit. I’m debating, as I’m speaking, whether to explain what’s really going on here and why I said this.
One theory is: “A magician never shows you ever how they do the trick,” and in this case I would be the magician. The analogy is somewhat flawed. I’m not saying there’s magic here, but there’s a feint. There’s deception. There’s an illusion that I’m deploying. Snerdley gets it. Snerdley knows exactly why I raised the possibility of this whole thing being an opportunity yesterday for Obama to go in and magically solve it for everybody in the middle of a presidential campaign.
What amazes me is how so many people say, “No way! Couldn’t happen!”
This guy, who politicizes everything, they think, “No way! Obama would have to be Scott Walker to solve it.” No, he wouldn’t! They’re asking for 16%. That’s made-to-order for negotiating. You always ask for more than you think you’re going to get. You always put some throwaways in your negotiation. (interruption) They were originally asking for 19%? Fine. The original offer was 4%. The original offer was 4%, but my point is, 16% or 19%? They can still settle for 8% and be way ahead of everybody else. Who else is getting raises of 8%?
Noooooobody.
But still that’s not the point. The nuts and bolts… Snerdley knows why I mentioned it. Snerdley knows why I made the prediction or raised the possibility. I’m still, though… “Fascinated” is too strong a word, but I am intrigued that so many people think that it’s not even possible that Obama would insert himself in this. Because he can’t? There’s no win here for Obama? That this is far more politically toxic for Obama? Coming out in favor of the teachers union would be a big mistake?
Who says he has to come out in favor of the teachers union? Why can’t he be for everybody? Isn’t that who Barack Obama is anyway? He’s for everybody! He can help the students. He can get them back in class — eating Michelle’s menu! What a bonus. Teachers get a big raise. It’s not what they’re asking for, but far more than anybody else is getting. And Rahm can go back and try to get the gangbangers to stopping shooting the kids in Chicago. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Yet the Wizards of Smart say, “No way! Impossible. Couldn’t happen. Obama’s got too much to lose.” The only way Obama has too much to lose is if he inserts himself and there is no solution. I’m sure that’s what they mean, but Obama wouldn’t insert himself unless there were a pre-ordained, pre-established solution. Like somebody gets on the phone to the teachers union. The teacher union guy, Michael Klonsky, is a former member of the Communist Party USA. He’s a big time Obama supporter.
The head teachers union guy in Chicago was a member of the Communist Party USA. He’s a huge Obama supporter. So somebody from the White House calls him and says, “Here’s what’s going to happen,” and they lay out the deal. The communist teacher guy says either yes or no. If the guy says, “Screw that! I’m not taking it,” then Obama doesn’t get involved. But if he takes the deal, then it works. It would be made to look like Obama couldn’t take it anymore.
“He had to act for the children. It’s just gone on too long. The kids are missing out on a very crucial education.” Of course, you can’t get anywhere in America without an education. Education this; education that. That’s all Democrats talk about. We’re not funding it enough, not spending enough on it. It’s the route to every possible thing that’s good in America, including gay marriage. You can’t have that without education, and here a bunch of kids are not being educated.
We’ve got to fix that. For Obama, it’s made to order in the middle of a presidential campaign. But he wouldn’t do it unless it was pre-ordained. Now, there has to be a reason why Obama hasn’t said one thing about this. He usually weighs in on everything, but he hasn’t this. The Great Leader, the Boy Wonder, has not uttered a word. But he’ll pronounce on anything that comes up anywhere! You watch. He’s going to find a way to come out for the children and for the teachers.
This is all going to be settled, isn’t it?
Every work stoppage is eventually settled, right?
Do you think Obama doesn’t want to be involved in that? Do you think Obama does not want to share in the glow of this future settlement, just like when he killed bin Laden? He did all that hard work, sitting there in that chair watching on TV as it happened. But even all of this is still not the reason I mentioned this. In fact, rather than give away the secret, the trick, I’ll leave it up to you. You people on the phones, if you want to take a stab at why I even brought it up, we’ll see if you can figure it out. We’ll see if some of you know.
I’ll give you a hint.
No, I’m not going to give you a hint!
I’m not going to give you a hint, but after 24 years I’m stunned it still works.
(chuckling)
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RUSH: Patrick from New Jersey, welcome to the EIB Network, great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, how are you?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: Every day I get up, I make lunch for my four kids. I send them off to school. I’m a single dad. I make them breakfast. I make them lunch. I basically almost fell off the floor, and I apologize if you talked about it yesterday, but the Chicago school system is sending these children to school, I estimated the cost at about two to $3 million a day, based on about a $4 lunch. Four hundred thousand children are receiving lunch —
RUSH: And breakfast!
CALLER: And breakfast from the Chicago school system.
RUSH: Right. The teachers are striking but the schools are open for meals.
CALLER: Who is paying for that?
RUSH: You and me.
CALLER: And the other thing is no wonder they can’t pay the teachers their $100,000 a year salary. I’m astonished. I think your parents probably made you a baloney sandwich every day. I do it. I make them lunch. The money is out of my pocket. I have to come up with after school, baby-sitter, I don’t understand.
RUSH: I hated baloney so my mother just gave me a quarter and said, “Okay, buy it.” That’s what school lunch cost, it was a quarter. I had the juicy burgers, and if I had known then that there was going to be a Michelle Obama, I would have doubled down on the juicy burgers. I would have had them every day, not just on Friday.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want to go back to our second audio sound bite. For some reason, I said something confusing today when I didn’t intend to. I’ve had three people tell me, “The woman you didn’t know in this sound bite was Jedediah Bila,” but I did know it was Jedediah Bila. Obviously I said something I didn’t intend to say. It must have been one of those moments when my mouth couldn’t keep up with my mind.
This is from Red Eye, and the discussion is my theory that the Chicago teachers strike is a golden opportunity for Obama, in the middle of the campaign, to walk in there and solve it to everybody’s benefit and show how wonderful he is and how he can get things done. And everybody disagrees with me on this.
The first sound bite was A.B. Stoddard on Fox saying (paraphrased): “No, no, no! Rush Limbaugh’s wrong. This is not a Democrat setup. This is a toxic situation for Obama.” Jedediah Bila, in this conversation that we have from sound bite number two on Red Eye (the 3:00 a.m. show on Fox), leads off this discussion. The other female voice here is Ann Coulter.
JEDEDIAH BILA: I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about this today and I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but it would be really great for Obama if he could come step in and be, you know, the big man on campus and say, “Let’s all get along you. Give this. You give that. WeÂ’ll all make it work. WeÂ’ll solve the educational problem together.”
COULTER: No.
GUTFELD: Not going to happen?
COULTER: No.
BILA: No?
COULTER: No!
BILA: It would work for him if he did that.
COULTER: He’d have to be like Scott Walker.
RUSH: Coulter doesn’t think it’s possible. Bila, she hadn’t thought of it that way. A.B. Stoddard said: No way; it can’t possibly happen.
Let’s review this. We have a bunch of teachers on strike in Chicago. By the way, let’s go back to Obama’s commencement speech at his convention (his State of the Union address, essentially) where he said the following. He said: “Education was a gateway of opportunity for me.” There were cheers. Yaaaaay, education! Then Obama said, “It was the gateway for Michelle.” Yaaay! The audience cheered. And then Obama said: “It was the gateway for most of you, and now more than ever it is the gateway to a middle class life.”
That’s what Dustin from West Virginia was pointing out: “Education is the gateway to a middle class life.” It’s the gateway to a lot more than that, is Dustin’s point. But then Obama said: “For the first time in a generation, nearly every state has answered our call to raise their standards for teaching and learning.” Okay. So then the question becomes: Well, how is Obama going to square that last part with the Chicago teachers going on strike because they don’t want to be evaluated?
That’s one of the reasons they’ve gone on strike.
They don’t want to be evaluated.
They don’t want to have to take tests to prove that they’re qualified. They don’t want to have to take tests to prove that they know what they’re doing. They don’t want to be evaluated. They’re also asking for a 16% wage increase. So my theory was, “My gosh, if there was ever something made to order! Where is this happening? It’s not happening in Philadelphia. It’s not happening in Dallas. It’s not happening in Los Angeles. It’s happening in Chicago, a town controlled totally by Obama forces.”
It’s totally controlled by the Democrat Party. The teachers union is in the tank for Obama. Rahm Emanuel, the mayor, is a former chief of staff. He said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” The teachers rejected 16% raises. Now, of course, Obama is not going to insert himself in this thing without a deal already having been struck. Of course, he’s not going to do that. But what’s to say that there aren’t negotiations going on even now and the teachers will happily, say, take 10%.
That will make Rahm look good. He talked them down to 10%. That’s better than what everybody else is getting in this country. (Even 8% would be.) Then they’ll make some deal on the evaluations. Tell everybody that the teachers are going to be evaluated, but they won’t be. After all it’s the teachers union. It’s any union, any union and Obama: They’re blood brothers. The teachers union head honcho is a guy named Michael Klonsky, a former member of the Communist Party USA.
He’s one of Obama’s big supporters, fundraisers, bundlers. It may not happen either, but I don’t think it’s cynical to suspect that something like this is possible. In the middle of a presidential campaign, everybody’s talking about, “What’s the October surprise going to be?” Who says we have to wait until October for it? It can still be an October surprise. Just have this thing happen in September. But even if Obama does nothing, there was still a point to my making the prediction — and that’s the big question of the day.
What was I really doing?
After 24 years, like I said: The magician doesn’t give away the trick. If somebody can call here and tell me what I was really doing — and you get it right– then you shall be rewarded with the prize. But I will not divulge the trick (i.e., in this case, the real reason I made this prediction) on my own. Somebody’s going to have to figure it out. As we speak, ABC News has a story that says this: Paul Ryan “crossed party lines and voiced support for one of Obama’s biggest backers today.” Paul Ryan said, “We stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel in his fight with Chicago teachers.”
Well, my friends what do we have here?
This is made to order for the GOP establishment.
You realize the orgasms they’re having? Well, guess what just happened?
Ryan and the Republicans have just engaged in bipartisanship. Why, we’ve just engaged in cooperation. We have just expressed solidarity with Rahm. The Republican ticket, and Romney did it yesterday, I got the story right here. “Romney Calls on Obama to ‘Stand Up’ for Chicago Kids in Light of Teacher Strike.” Here’s Romney’s quote: “IÂ’m with the kids and IÂ’m with their parents and IÂ’m not with the teacher union.” Now, Romney has been a critic of teachers unions. In May he called them “the clearest example of a group that has lost its way.”
So here are Ryan and Romney aligned with Rahm Emanuel, and thus with the children and parents of Chicago, bipartisan, joining a Democrat mayor. The teachers are isolated over there. The only friend they have left is Obama, who isn’t saying anything about this yet. Perfectly studiously avoiding this. Lurking on the sidelines, as we say. So, do you like Ryan and Romney joining forces with Rahm here? Is there a political payoff for coming out against the teachers union? Our base is not crazy about the unions. This has given Ryan and Romney an opportunity to make that very clear. So as far as base coalition is concerned, that’s good. But how do you feel about our guys actually trumpeting alignment with a Democrat mayor of Chicago, the ballerina, Rahm Emanuel?
Rahm isn’t going to like it. But I’ll tell you, the Republican consultants are literally having orgasms. This is what they think it’s about it: cooperation, bipartisanship, finding areas of common agreement and going for it. So the only person who hasn’t spoken up here is Obama. Yet. But how does it look? In fact, both of these stories are ABC. And if you read the entire story, both stories, they make it sound as though Romney and Ryan have really come out against the teachers. Not the teachers union. We’re talking perception here. Ryan and Romney, anti-teacher.
Now, aren’t teachers in our culture sort of sacrosanct and special and so forth? They used to be. I don’t know. Just asking. In a roundabout way here I’m trying to gauge your reaction to this. Ryan and Romney, “We stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.” They make it a point. They made it a big point. They wanted a lot of attention focused on it and they got it. Ryan and Romney standing with Rahm Emanuel against the teachers and with the children. I find all this fascinating. And then, folks, 79% of the eighth graders in the Chicago public schools are not even grade level proficient in reading according to Obama’s own Department of Education. Eighty percent are not grade level proficient in math. Seventy-nine percent of Chicago eighth graders cannot read. That’s stunning. And the teachers behind this are asking for a 16% raise and no accountability.
It’s impossible to support them. And that’s why the AB Stoddards of the world are saying it’s toxic for Obama. He can’t win supporting the teachers union here. They’re not doing a good job. They’re asking for far more than anybody else has got. But I disagree. I know liberals. I know how they think. I know how they set these things up. I know how they coordinate with the media to report something like a settlement on this thing. Believe me, if they wanted to structure a scenario where this thing gets settled and Obama gets all the credit, they could do it with a snap of their fingers. They could do it in a millisecond. And it’s a perfect group to go along with it, the teachers union. But that’s not why I made the prediction.
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RUSH: Okay. I’m through asking you. I’m going to lay this out for you. I’m going to tell you how it is. In Chicago, you got teachers. They’re members of a union. Here’s an undeniable truth of life. The conservative base of the Republican Party despises unions. The Tea Party especially, because unions beat them up at town hall meetings. Unions beat up Tea Party people. They hate them. Independents more and more are not crazy about unions, the teachers unions especially. Look at Wisconsin. The unions in New Jersey were hated. How do you think Chris Christie got elected? They hated them in Wisconsin. Scott Walker got elected. And then when they tried to recall him he won that with 53%. And what was Scott Walker identified with? Keeping the unions in line, particularly the teachers union.
So the teachers unions are on an island, particularly in Chicago. Even Rahm is publicly against them. What I think Obama oughta do is suspend his campaign and the presidency until the teachers go back to work. We need to take a page from 2008, the economic crisis, Obama should just stop everything, suspend everything until the teachers go back to work. That’s the most important thing to him, of course, is education, education is your meal ticket to the middle class.
To more and more Americans, teachers are just not doing their jobs. You go to Atlanta and you’ve got the teacher scandal there. Teachers giving away test results so that their accountability scores are higher. Public schools in general are not polling well. So you throw Ryan and Romney into this mix, what have they done? Ryan and Romney have solidified the base, if they needed to. They have come out against teachers unions. They’ve come out for the children. That can never hurt you. And they’ve basically expressed their solidarity with Rahm Emanuel.
Now, on the Democrat side of this. See, I’ve had a long-standing theorem, sort of like Rush Tzu’s Art of War, and that is when your enemy is imploding, you get out of the way and let it happen. When a caller is making a fool of him or herself, you shut up and let it happen. Well, Ryan and Romney have violated that. They have now helped speed this self-emulation along. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the teachers and Rahm and Obama… (laughing) I would love to see this. The teachers and Rahm and Obama, “The hell with being joined by these guys,” and they all unify and solve their problems, “The hell with Ryan and Romney. We don’t want them involved in this. We don’t want them on our side. The hell with those guys,” and solve the thing just to spite them. “We don’t want anything to do with them.” Anything can happen here. But that’s not why I brought it up.
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RUSH: You know, Obama could call up his SEIU buddy, what’s his name? Stern. Not there anymore, but he’s still the de facto head, call up his SEIU buddy, and say, “Look, you need to head down to the streets there in Chicago and start breaking some heads of those teachers union strikers. You gotta show them who is boss. You can’t have this happening in his hometown, with Rahm being embarrassed. It doesn’t look good.”
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RUSH: Yes, it is an unsightly sight. Obama’s biggest union supporters, the teachers unions in Chicago, are on strike. They don’t want to be accountable. Rahm Emanuel wants them teaching more frequently. What is it Rahm wants? A seven-hour school day. This is one of the worst-performing teacher systems in the country. They’re one of the highest paid. Emanuel wants a seven-hour workday, and they’re on strike over that money and accountability.
And Obama lurks in the sidelines waiting for the right opportune moment to move in. Of course, it’s been predicted by me, El Rushbo, that the whole thing’s a setup. You think Obama wants this dragging into his campaign? You think he wants it to become a factor in the election? It already is perhaps becoming that with Ryan and Romney coming out in solidarity with the kids and with the mayor. But that’s going to tick him off. They may…
Rahm and the teachers and Obama may unify! (laughing) They hate us, folks. They despise us. Do you think Rahm Emanuel is happy to have Ryan and Romney on his side? He doesn’t want that. They hate us. They hate us more than they hate al-Qaeda. They would let the militant Islamists have a mosque at Ground Zero faster than they’d let us build a church anywhere. It’s going to be fascinating to watch how this thing manifests itself.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, Ryan has doubled down on it now. There’s a tweet out there. Paul Ryan said he “stands” with Rahm Emanuel. Stands with him. So they’re doubling down on this siding with the mayor and against the teachers union. He’s “standing with” Rahm Emanuel. I don’t know why that’s a sign that Rahm’s wrong, but anyway they’re doubling down on this bipartisan business. They’re showing that they are cooperating, that they’re showing that there are areas of common ground and commonality.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So what’s happening is that Democrats are out there tweeting that Ryan’s support of Emanuel is proof that Emanuel is wrong. This is working out well, folks. Whacko Democrats are tweeting, they’re probably all over Democrat Underground, that this is proof that Emanuel is wrong and the teachers are right. So Democrat base voters, Obama base voters, are lining up behind the teachers.
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RUSH: This is Steve in Lewes, Delaware. You’re on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir!
CALLER: I’d like to take a crack at why you threw out that speculation regarding Obama and the Chicago teacher strike.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I am guessing that — and you know that the Democrats monitor everything you say.
RUSH: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
CALLER: Democrats also know that you have a huge audience —
RUSH: That’s correct.
CALLER: — and that much of what you say ends up elsewhere on various networks. I’m speculating. I think why you’re saying that is because you’re actually preventing them from carrying it out.
RUSH: Shhhhhh! Shhh!
CALLER: I’m saying that you are absolutely right. I think they had that in mind.
RUSH: Shhh! Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!
CALLER: By your speculation, your putting that out there, you’re keeping them from doing it because what they would have to do then would be to admit that you were right. It would be a feather in your cap.
RUSH: Well, I have to hand it to you. You nailed it. You nailed it! It took us two hours and 45 minutes, but we got somebody who knows the game.
CALLER: Rush, I have to tell you that as soon as you threw that out there and made that challenge, I knew exactly why you were doing it. If you know the liberal mind — and it’s not too hard to figure out; it’s a pretty simple thing — it was an easy answer.
RUSH: Exactly right. By accusing Obama of interceding, by politicizing the teachers’ strike in Chicago, my attempt is to make it very difficult for him to do it because then it makes me look brilliant. It makes me look brilliant, which they don’t want to do.
CALLER: Bingo.
RUSH: The last thing they want is for people to say, “Limbaugh called it!” The last thing they want to be said is, “Limbaugh said you would do this,” and so they don’t do it.
CALLER: (laughing) Absolutely right.
RUSH: You got it. You got it. But the media will never figure this out (even though I’ve just explained it) because they don’t listen. They’ll get this from somewhere else. This won’t be reported.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Okay. Door number one, door number two, door number three? Behind one is a new (well, soon to be old) iPhone 4S. The iPad 3 is the latest one, engraved. Or a MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina display. Door number one, door number two, door number three? You pick a door and I’ll give you whatever is behind the door.
CALLER: I’d like the door that has the iPad behind it. Number two.
RUSH: Number two?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: That happens to be the iPad!
CALLER: Well, how about that?
RUSH: I mentioned them in order: “Door one, door two, door three?”
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: So do you want black or white?
CALLER: Black.
RUSH: Black?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: We’ve got black back there. I’m going to send Brian back there. I want to make sure we’ve got black. If we don’t, you have no choice. You’ll get white.
CALLER: I’ll take white! (chuckles)
RUSH: But the black one, it’s going to be Verizon or AT&T. That’s the LTE cellular. That’s optional. You don’t have to hook that up with an iPad. It’s not a contract situation. It’s month-to-month that you can cancel anytime, and that’s totally up to you. But it’s Wi-Fi, and it’s fully loaded otherwise.
CALLER: Good.
RUSH: So hang on and Snerdley will get your FedEx address and we’ll get it out to you and you’ll have it tomorrow.