RUSH: Mitch McConnell has ruled out a government shutdown to block Obama immigration moves. Speaker Boehner said Thursday that Republicans could use a spending bill to block Obama’s planned executive action to grant amnesty. Mitch McConnell ruled out a government shutdown over it, canceling the one major piece of leverage the GOP has in the fight. Let me tell you what this means, in the real world.
All it means… That’s not the right way to say it. What it means is that all Obama has to do is threaten a government shutdown, and apparently the Senate will cave on anything Obama wants. They can’t shut down the government. Nope. They can’t shut it down, because the people will hate them. The people that just elected them in droves will hate them. Yeah, because you know why? Because the people that just elected them want them to cooperate with the Democrats.
The people that just elected them! This is what the Senate believes, that the people that just elected Republicans want them to work together with the Democrats. Boehner, to his credit, is out saying that they’re going to do… He’s saying that they’re going to do everything they can to stop Obama’s executive order on immigration. That is what they were elected to do. They were not elected to compromise. They were not elected to get along.
I tell you, we talked yesterday about the old rules of politics and how they’re out the door. Apparently the Senate has not modernized. The Senate still believes they were sent there to work together to compromise and to govern and work with the other side ’cause that’s what the American people want, and Obama’s gotta tack to the center. This is what losing elections mean and all that. “Pragmatism” is the new word being used to describe them. It’s silly.
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RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that a year ago, when we got to December, there was a so-called government shutdown. And I remember it vividly. The Democrats and the media were running around and they were tarring and feathering the Republicans. What an insensitive bunch of brutes. What a bunch of anti-poor people. What a bunch of anti-women. They shut the government down.
The New York Times was running articles asking people to send in their hard-luck stories. “How has the government shutdown destroyed your life?” And Ted Cruz was getting blamed for it. Remember all that? Apparently it was so bad, the media coverage was so bad that Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans do not want to revisit, no way, no how. We’re not gonna go there again. Look at how that hurt us. And that’s when you stop and say, “Hurt you? Who just won in a landslide election?” If I’m not mistaken it was the Republicans, those evil SOBs that shut down the government last December. They even called it the Ted Cruz shutdown. Remember this?
The Republicans themselves were running around complaining and moaning about Ted Cruz, and the media was dumping all over Ted Cruz. The shutdown was horrible, and we’re never gonna do that again. The media hates us. They’re gonna destroy us. And yet, despite having shutdown the government — and it wasn’t even a shutdown. That’s another thing. How is refusing to fund Obama’s unconstitutionality a shutdown of the government? What’s worse? In the minds of the people who participated in this last election, what do you think is worse, Obama mocking the Constitution and transforming this country into something it was never intended to be, or the Republicans taking the money away from him so he can’t do it?
To listen to the Senate Republicans, you would think the people, “No, no, no, no. If it’s a government shutdown or Obama transforming the country, let him transform the country. We do not want to suffer the humiliation and the media criticism ever again of shutting down the government.” Well, okay, fine. But if you’re gonna tell everybody up front that you’re not going to defund Obamacare bit by bit, if you’re not gonna defund the areas of amnesty, immigration reform to stop him from doing it because people are gonna call that a government shutdown, then you’re basically telling Obama he’s got a free road, he’s not gonna be stopped on anything. If they can call refusing to fund Obama’s unconstitutional power grabs shutting down the government — it damn well needs to be shut down, if that’s what it takes.
The president of the United States is mocking the Constitution. In the process, he’s transforming this country and changing it into something it was never intended to be and destroying a lot of hope and opportunity for Americans who live in this country, who were born in this country. This is outrageous. And if stopping that is called a government shutdown, then it seems to me that’s exactly what’s called for. But no, there’s so much fear over what the media would say. Look at how bad it was last December. Right, people really remember.
I guess a lot of people went to the polls on Tuesday, November 4th, and I guess even a lot more people would have voted Republican than did if it wouldn’t have been for the shutdown. Why, they might have gained control of the whole the Senate if they hadn’t shut down the government, right? No, it does tick me off. I don’t get this use of terms anyway. Okay, so Obama wants to do some unconstitutional things on Obamacare and amnesty. The only recourse the Congress has is the power of the purse to pass legislation that does not grant him the money to do it. And then all of a sudden, that’s called shutting down the government?
So destroying the Constitution or shutting down the government, we’re gonna put those two things on the scales, and we’re gonna figure that the American people would rather have the Constitution destroyed and transformed, instead of the government shutdown? They might even call them racists, too. That would be really, really bad. Racists shutting down the government. Oh, yeah, we can’t have that. We can’t put up with that.
I don’t know. So they’ve taken impeachment off the table, and they’ve taken this so-called government shutdown — why can’t they just stand up and say it’s not shutting down the government, it’s saving the government. It’s protecting this country as the way it was founded. Why can’t somebody stand up and say what’s really going on here?
All right, let’s hit the audio sound bites. We’ll get to your phone calls. I wanted to get that in. Immigration I think is every bit as important as Obamacare stuff is. As I said yesterday, the thing about amnesty, it’s not reversible. Obamacare, elements of it, still are. But once you announce that illegals are all of a sudden able to permanently stay here, I don’t know how you reverse that. All this is is a Democrat voter registration drive, and the Republicans on their side, too, don’t forget, Chamber of Commerce is lurking out there wanting all kinds of cheap labor. I wanted to get that mentioned lest any of you thought that it had escaped my notice today. Believe me, it hasn’t.
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RUSH: Here’s John in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I’m glad you called, sir. You’re next on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you. I just went through voting for all this to stop, and I thought it was just incredible that the people rose up and said, “Hey, you know what? This has got to stop.” But all’s we’re doing is finding out that it’s gonna be circumvented and our voice doesn’t really mean anything. Now that I hear that the Republicans are scared, it just kind of really hurts me.
Because there were so many guys in landing craft, in Tarawa, in Omaha, at Normandy beaches and things that were going in scared. The only reason why they did it was for a piece of paper and for the guy on the left and the guy on the right of them, and they knew they had a job to do. That goes for Fredericksburg in the Civil War, going up Marye’s Heights, or holding on to Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg and at Wake Island holding out.
Yes, and even for two guys who tried to help an ambassador at Benghazi.
Now we’re asking our representatives to stop this, and they don’t have the guts to do it. Maybe they should go out on The Mall and take a look at those Marines holding that flag up on Suribachi and think about how many didn’t make it to raise that flag and what it meant to all the rest of them to see that flag raised on Suribachi. We want this stopped, because sooner or later somebody’s gonna come up with the idea to cross the Rubicon and go to rally point to stop it with other brave men.
RUSH: Look, I hear your frustration. Let me jump in here and explain this to those of you who just might be tuning in. My guess here is John is a little ticked off. There’s a story in the Washington Times today: “House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that Republicans could use a spending bill to block President ObamaÂ’s planned executive action to grant work permits to illegal immigrants,” or amnesty, or blanket pardons.
“[B]ut his Senate counterpart ruled out a government shutdown over it, canceling the one major piece of leverage the GOP has in the fight. ‘We’ll not be shutting the government down or threatening to default on the national debt,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell, the incoming majority leader, told reporters after meeting with his GOP colleagues, flatly ruling out an all-or-nothing showdown over Mr. Obama’s plans.”
Now, look, when you strip everything away, what that means is that all Obama has to do — or all the media even has to do — is threaten a government shutdown, and it looks like the Senate will not go any further. I must remind you, again: The Republicans, according to the media, shut down the government last December. Ted Cruz got raked over the coals for it, by Republicans!
“Ted Cruz is evil! Ted Cruz is doing this! Ted Cruz is an embarrassment! Ted Cruz is killing us.”
But the last thing I saw was the Republicans won a landslide election, even after so-called shutting down the government. What I don’t understand — and I understand the Republicans all too well. I understand that they are total prisoners to what they think or fear the media might say about them, and some Republicans really believe that the meaning of this election was they were sent to compromise and get government working again.
They don’t buy that they were sent there to stop Obama.
That’s what they say. Some of them don’t think the country’s in crisis, John, like you do and like most of us do. They just think politics-as-usual is going on here. They’re governed by the old rules and rules of procedure, and they don’t see what’s going on. And the third thing, they think shutting down the government they’re gonna get raked over the coals, they’re gonna ruin their presidential chances in 2016, and they’re gonna destroy everything they might try to do because the people of this country don’t want their precious government shut down.
What I don’t understand is, how is it shutting down the government when you defund a little piece of Obamacare? How is it shutting down the government to not give Obama whatever money he needs to implement his amnesty? (interruption) Well, Obama will play hardball with them how? (interruption) “Well, they’re gonna shut down the government. This is the first stage. I know they want to shut down the government.”
But it’s not a government shutdown. (interruption) Well, Obama wouldn’t say that, but the media would. “Oh, by the way, the president is black and the Republicans are racists.” So the political calculation is that they can’t win doing any of this. (interruption) No, I don’t recall the Democrats ever publicly removing weapons from their arsenal. I don’t recall it ever happening.
But this I think just illustrates — maybe it’s not fear. I mean, I use the word “fear.” I assume that these Republicans are afraid of what the media’s gonna say about them. Or their consultants are afraid and they tell the candidates and the senators that they ought to be afraid. But it’s clear that they don’t want that said about them. They don’t want it said that they shut down the government, even though it was last December and they won anyway. So I remain perplexed about it.
Now, Boehner is out saying, we’ve got it on audiotape, it’s coming up here, Boehner is out saying that they are going to do whatever it takes to stop Obama’s amnesty or Obamacare, maybe both, or what have you. But the Senate, Senate leaders are not talking that way. In fact, many of them are out saying publicly that they think the election results are a signal from the American people that they want Washington to work again, and that means compromising with Obama. I don’t know. I’m getting blue in the face explaining all this.
You call here, and you express your anger, and I feel it and understand it, but beyond that, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell you to make you feel any better about it because your anger is justified. But the thing that we can always hold back or hold in reserve here is that so far all this is is just words. Nothing’s really happened yet. Now, it may not be a great indication of what is going to happen, but still, it hasn’t happened yet. And that always means there’s hope.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s June in St. Simons Island. Great to have you on the EIB Network, June. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. This is exciting. I have to say, I can’t imagine where this country would be without your insight and your courage. Thank you.
RUSH: Thank you very much. Sometimes —
CALLER: I have a question. With all these people coming across the border, we hear that the Middle Easterners are coming as well and learning Spanish and getting in. I’m wondering if you think Obama’s amnesty will apply to those Middle Easterners coming across.
RUSH: Oh, by all means. It’s gonna apply to everybody. It’s gonna apply to Central Americans that are not from Mexico. Damn right it will be! They’re all potential Democrat voters. They’re not gonna cherry-pick these people and say, “Only if you are not from Mexico are we gonna let you come out of the shadows.” I don’t think they’re gonna have the ability to do that.
CALLER: I was wondering. Yep. Well, I guess we better brace ourselves for that part of it as well.
RUSH: You know, whether they do amnesty or not, the bottom line is they’re not securing the border. So even if they do their blanket pardon here, that’s not gonna stop it. That’s only gonna increase the flow across the border, which Obama and everybody on his side supporting this also knows.
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