RUSH: Okay, the press conference, they just finished the joint part of it with the Turkish prime minister, and now Obama is theoretically answering questions from the White House press corps, so let’s JIP it and listen to a little bit.
OBAMA: — figure out exactly what happened, who was involved, what went wrong —
RUSH: Yeah.
OBAMA: — and we’re gonna be able to implement steps to fix it. And that ultimately is the main priority that I have, but also I think the American people have. They understand that we’ve got an agency that has enormous potential power and is involved in everybody’s lives, and that’s part of the reason why it’s been treated as a quasi-independent institution. But that’s also why we’ve gotta make sure that it is doing its job scrupulously —
RUSH: Right.
OBAMA: — and without even a hint of bias or a hint that somehow they’re favoring one group over another. And as I said yesterday, I’m outraged by this in part because, look, I’m a public figure. If a future administration is starting to use the tax laws to favor one party over another or one political view over another, obviously, we’re all vulnerable. And that’s why, as I’ve said, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you should be equally outraged —
RUSH: All right. Turn it down for just a second. Look, the whole point of the IRS scandal was to get him reelected. The whole point of the IRS scandal was to prevent his enemies from organizing and raising money. The whole thing was political. He was responsible for it. He set the stage for it. He is the one that sets the tone for it. He is Mr. Partisan. He is the man that they are all loyal to. He is the guy who inspires this kind of thing. For him to come out and say, “Well, you know, I’m just as mad about it as you are. We’re gonna fix this thing.” Yeah, they didn’t do anything about it until the problem surfaced, and, of course, they didn’t know any of these problems were taking place.
You know, folks, they’re insulting our intelligence. The president’s insulting our intelligence with this, but, again, I just want to stress that this is liberalism. This is Big Government out of control. When liberals end up with this kind of power, this is how they use it. This is why they want government to be big, and it’s why they want to be part of government. They thirst for this power and they love using this power. They love turning the power of the federal government on their enemies.
“Well, don’t conservatives do this, Mr. Limbaugh?” Actually, no. You might find rogue examples of it. Gotta go back to Nixon to find a Republican accused of this kind of stuff. Republicans want to get government out of people’s lives. Republicans — well, conservatives do. Conservatives want people not to have to even think about government every day. It’s kind of like an operating system in a computer. You just want it to work. You want to be able to do what the computer does without having to interact with the operating system all the time. You don’t want to go ask the operating system for permission to copy something and to paste something and to e-mail. You just want to do it.
Liberals want to run the operating system, and they want to use the operating system against you, or their political enemies. That’s not at all what conservatives view government as. Government has necessary functions, set those up so that it runs efficiently as possible, but the last thing government’s supposed to be is an obstacle. It is not supposed to get in the way of progress. It’s not supposed to get in the way of happiness. It’s not supposed to get in the way of prosperity. Liberals look at it as an entirely different thing. They make a life of it. Big Government liberalism. That’s what this is.
Now, I’ve got this whole Stack of IRS news, and we may as well tackle some of it. Remember Max Baucus? Max Baucus is a Democrat, Montana senator. He’s one of these guys right now running around talking about how outraged he is over the IRS. Well, you might remember Max Baucus urged the IRS back in 2010 to target conservative groups. Max Baucus, three years ago, urged the IRS to do what it ultimately did. Today Max Baucus is running around acting like he’s outraged by this. Max Baucus was not the only one.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen, Al Franken, they all wrote two letters to the head of the IRS demanding the IRS investigate all these conservative 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations. The second letter that they wrote just happened to coincide with the peak of this activity at the IRS in March of 2012. So all these Democrats demanded the IRS do this. After the Citizens United case, after the 2010 midterms, even prior to the 2010 midterms. Money is the mother’s milk of politics, everybody knows this, and the Democrats wanted to do anything they could to make sure that conservatives couldn’t raise money to compete with ’em. They urged the IRS to really be tough on granting approvals.
By the way, the left has taken out a new tack on this IRS thing, and it goes something like this. And these are leftists in the media. “Well, you know what, the IRS really only did what they were supposed to do. All of these conservative groups are a bunch of phonies. They weren’t doing social welfare. These were a bunch of conservative groups disguising who they really were. They were lying about being 501(c)(4)s. They were lying about being charities. They were lying about all this. They’re just a bunch of tight wads who wanted to not pay taxes and the IRS is doing exactly what it should have.”
So the left is not just bending over, rolling over, over this. They’re aggressively fighting back, and now the IRS has its defenders, even while Obama’s out there saying it’s inexcusable and it’s reprehensible, and we’re gonna fire everybody that had anything to do with it. Here is another example. Do you know that one pro-life group, in applying for its tax-exempt status to the IRS, was told that they would be granted their tax-exempt status if they promised not to protest Planned Parenthood? Oh, you didn’t know that? Oh, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, that absolutely happened. And not just protest Planned Parenthood, there were a number of other similar restrictions on other groups, conservative groups that were applying for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status.
But a pro-life group, they said, “Yeah, okay, you’ll get it, but you can’t protest Planned Parenthood.” The IRS can’t tell people that. That’s First Amendment Constitution. The IRS can’t tell ’em that. But they did it. They realized everybody’s intimidated by the IRS. Whatever the IRS says, that’s what people will do. Let me give you a quote from Obama. I’ve played this audio sound bite. I don’t need the bite. I just want to read this to you. This is Obama from the early 2000s. It was a radio interview in Chicago, or speech to a union group, I don’t remember which. Might have been on public radio in Chicago. This is what he said.
“The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasnÂ’t that radical. It didnÂ’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as itÂ’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states canÂ’t do to you, says what the federal government canÂ’t do to you, but it doesnÂ’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”
Now, the meaning of this is, Obama’s ticked off at the way this country was established. He doesn’t like the Constitution. He said the other day he is restrained by it. When you’re restrained, it means you want to do something that you can’t do. He said the Constitution restrains him, means there are lots of things he’d like to do to you but he can’t ’cause the Constitution says so. And the fact that the Constitution limits government, ticks him off. The fact that the Constitution limits government and promotes liberty and freedom of the individual, he doesn’t like that. He calls that a charter of negative liberties. When I first heard that term I said, “Wait a minute, how can liberties be negative? What do you mean?” I had to be sat down and explained the liberal mind on this. A charter of negative liberties is a Constitution that limits government.
So in their mind, the Bill of Rights, bunch of hogwash. The Bill of Rights is a bunch of negative can’t-do stuff. And to statists and liberal Big Government types who want to use the government to do things to people, such as using the IRS as has been done here in the last three years, they did it anyway, even though the Constitution says you can’t do it, the Obama people did it anyway. Obama today and last night, “I didn’t know about it, hell, I’m mad about it as you are. We fired the guy,” who was gonna leave anyway. Is it any surprise that his IRS, when you hear that quote, is it any surprise that Obama’s IRS discriminates against pro-Constitution and pro-life groups?
He swore to uphold the Constitution. It’s in his oath was office. “Broadening IRS Victims Include Pro-Life Advocates, As Congress Investigates.” This is a Web post from the Thomas More Society. And it’s about the pro-life group that was granted its status but told it couldn’t protest Planned Parenthood or it would be in violation.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You want another example of the Limbaugh Theorem on display?
From TheHill.com: “SEC Nears Decision on Requiring Businesses to Disclose Donations.” Here we go from the article: “The Securities and Exchange Commission under new chief Mary Jo White is approaching a crucial decision on whether to require publicly traded corporations to disclose their campaign spending to shareholders. If pursued, new disclosure rules could have major ramifications for both political spending on elections and the increasingly influential regulator.”
Folks, this is a backdoor way to get the same information that Obama was getting from the IRS. This is no different than what the IRS was doing, except in this case they’re using the SEC to demand that publicly traded corporations disclose their campaign spending to shareholders. The IRS was telling average citizens who were forming tax-exempt foundations to provide this information, who their donors were. They were demanding their donor list, which is illegal.
This is another end run around the Citizens United decision. The Supreme Court said that corporations are people — and, as such, they can make political donations to candidates and causes — and that just sent them for a loop. Now, the reason people say (New Castrati impression), “Rush, why did they care so much about that? What is the big deal? Citizens United was an outrage, but I don’t even know why I’m outraged. Can you explain?” Yeah. Because corporations have lots of money.
Ah, Mr. Castrati is upset, but he doesn’t know why. He wants me to tell him. Corporations have lots of money, and the possibility exists that they would give that to Republicans, and that’s not fair. Republicans aren’t supposed to be able to get campaign donations. Right now, the Democrats run and rule the roost with union donations. The unions collect all that money through dues, and they launder all that money back to the Democrat Party.
The Democrat Party has a massive fundraising advantage with unions. Well, the Citizens United case said that the people who employ the unions can also donate — and that really ticked ’em off. Oh ho! They’re still seething. So the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is now going to demand that those corporations divulge their campaign spending to “the stockholders,” meaning to the public. So if XYZ Corporation decides to donate, I don’t know, $15,000 to, say, John Boehner?
It’s gotta be reported, so that shareholders know.
The reason for this is to intimidate the giving. The reason that the SEC is doing this, the reason Obama’s doing this, is because they’re trying to intimidate these corporations into not donating if they have to divulge where they’re sending the money. This is a perfect example of the Limbaugh Theorem. In public, Obama is expressing his outrage at the IRS asking conservative groups for the names of their donors. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, his SEC is doing the exact the same thing via regulators.
While you’re not looking, while you’re noticing everything else, while you’re focused on the IRS, guess what? The SEC is basically doing the same thing. (The unions pay no taxes, by the way, unlike corporations.) See, this way the SEC will automatically get the names of everybody in business who is giving to conservative groups. The Democrats will soon be able to expose and punish these donors — or harass them — and then have the IRS audit them.
Have you heard the name Frank Vandersloot?
Have you heard the name Sheldon Adelson?
Look at all of the harassment of Romney donors by the IRS. So the regime now wants the SEC to force corporations to reveal the names of all the people they donate to, all those candidates — and here comes the harassment. This is liberalism, folks. This unfairness — this mean-spiritedness, all of this extremism, all of this using the power of government against citizens — is liberalism. Liberalism is not benevolent. It is not compassionate. It is not fair. It is not justice.
(New Castrati impression) “Mr. Limbaugh, that is absolutely absurd. All of this, of course, is oriented towards social justice.” Social justice isn’t justice. It’s harassment. So all of this is liberalism on parade. Everything that you’re seeing here — IRS, Benghazi, SEC, Fast and Furious, amnesty, you name it — is liberalism on parade. It’s why so many conservatives oppose it, among other things. By the way, speaking of guns, that is one element of the Obama agenda he has not yet gotten, but you know how hard he’s trying.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Mike in Little Elm, Texas. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. First-time caller, listener since 1988. My issue is that no one seems to be talking about the IRS scandal from a civil rights violation issue.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: It occurs to me that the strategy is to silence political speech and to discourage or prohibit freedom of assembly, which is not unlike what went on in the 1960s when Bull Connor was using attack dogs to disperse protesters who were exercising their civil rights, and no one seems to be talking about this. And as I understand it, this is a criminal violation. When you violate someone’s civil rights of speech and assembly, you’re committing a criminal act.
RUSH: No, no, no. This was just a couple of rogue agents that got a little bit outside the bounds of propriety. We took care of them. They’re gone. It’s all right. Nothing to see here.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: But you raise an interesting point, though. Because isn’t it true that throughout 2008 and 2010 and 2012, what did we have to hear every election? We had to hear that we conservatives are trying to suppress the black vote, right?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Or that we are trying to suppress the female vote, right?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: What are these clowns actually doing? They were suppressing conservative votes. They were suppressing conservative fundraising. I’m gonna tell you, these people, these liberals, when you hear them — folks, this is almost universally true. There are, of course, exceptions. But when they accuse us of something, you can damn well bet they’re already doing it themselves.
CALLER: And make no mistake, this is terrorism. Bull Connor was terrorizing people.
RUSH: Oh, yeah, the fire hoses and the dogs.
CALLER: Exactly. The aim is the same, and it is to terrorize people with a threat of jail or financial ruin —
RUSH: I think that’s right —
CALLER: — the IRS.
RUSH: — to intimidate, terrorize, exactly right.
CALLER: And here’s the question: Where are the people from the 1960s who were so outraged then, where are their voices today? Why aren’t they saying, wait a minute —
RUSH: No, no, no, no.
CALLER: — free speech. This is what we fought for back in the sixties. We’re not gonna allow it.
RUSH: That’s not what they were fighting for. I know you’re asking a serious question and I’m gonna give you a serious answer. I’m not just spouting here. You ask where are the civil libertarians, the free speech people the sixties? They’re applauding, is what they’re doing. Those people were all leftists back then. They’re all liberals back then. Everybody thought they were protesting government this and government that. They were protesting the Republican Party and standard, ordinary, good old-fashioned American values. They were extremists and renegades. They are applauding this. We, conservatives, in their mind, we are the straitlaced, Puritan, moral enemy who want to deny them their gay marriages and their gay soirees and their gay this and their gay that and their black this and their black that and their fun. We want to deny them all that. They love it when a bunch of church people are told to go to hell. They love it when the government tells a bunch of church people they can’t organize and raise money ’cause they don’t like church people.
CALLER: Yeah, it’s interesting to me that the tyranny that the government is using here — and make no mistake, this is Obama’s IRS —
RUSH: Exactly right. But these people from the sixties, people misunderstand. I had it explained to me by Midge Decter once. They were obedient. They were obedient liberals. They weren’t protesting anything. They weren’t protesting what everybody thought they were protesting. I gotta take a break, darn it. I know that leaves you hanging.
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