RUSH: Julie in Riverside, California. I’m glad you called. You’re up first. Welcome to the program today. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. How are you?

RUSH: Very well. Worked up, ticked off, but I’m here, I’m fine.

CALLER: Just like the rest of America.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: The reason I called was because I had the opportunity this morning to read the opinion in the case on the amnesty, Judge Hanen’s opinion. I’m an attorney and I’ve been practicing law for more than 30 years representing governmental agencies. And I wanted to say, first of all, that the opinion is extraordinarily well written. Judge Hanen does not get into the politics of any of this. He sticks strictly to the law.

RUSH: He uses Obama’s own words on him, I think.

CALLER: He does indeed, and what a joy that was to see. But the bigger thing is that with the actual politics of it in Congress, I’m very concerned that if Congress actually funds these activities that the president has enacted —

RUSH: Hang on a minute. Don’t hang up here, Julie

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RUSH: Okay. Back to Julie in Riverside, California. I’m sorry to have to interrupt you like that. I knew you were getting into a groove, but we just simply ran into a hard break and I couldn’t stop.

CALLER: Oh, that’s just fine.

RUSH: Fine. Pick up where you left off. You liked the judge’s ruling. You thought it was very substantive. It wasn’t political; it actually used some of Obama’s own language and turned it back against him. So what do you think’s gonna happen?

CALLER: Right. Well, one of the things I’m concerned about is the idea of Congress funding the very activities that the court has put on hold, because what the court said is in order to prove that this is basically an amendment of the law, you have to show that the Congress opposes it, that there is opposition there. And if there is instead endorsement by funding, it seems to me that undermines the whole purpose of the preliminary injunction.

RUSH: Well, that may be true. I don’t think that… Congress is not even in session right now. They don’t get back ’til the 23rd from the “ski vacation weekend break,” otherwise known as “President’s Weekend.”

CALLER: Uh-huh.

RUSH: Therefore they can’t do anything ’til they get back on Monday. Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit may rule on this this afternoon. Or if not today, then prior to the 23rd on Monday when Congress gets back. But I still get your point. If Congress —

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: By the way, the pressure is on. I don’t know if you heard me say, but the pressure in Washington is on. The media is now saying to the Republicans, “Hey, look, the judge has done your work for you! You can throw away that House bill, and write a whole new Department of Homeland Security bill that totally funds it because the judge has taken care of it. You don’t have to play around like this,” and the pressure is now on the Republicans to do just that.

CALLER: Well, and as I said, that was the motivation for my call is that that kind of pressure, in fact, is a means of getting endorsements, and therefore affecting the judicial outcome. But, of course, if they’re not there to do it — and they can’t do it until after there’s a ruling — maybe that’s something else. But I fully would expect it to go not only on a preliminary injunction. But ultimately, of course, it’s gonna be ruled on by this judge on the merits and then go to appeal and probably to the Supreme Court.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Again, if you have congressional funding of the very activities that are in question during that time it seems to me that’s congressional endorsement of the action.

RUSH: You are saying that would undercut the judge?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: And his ruling.

CALLER: It’d undercut the judge, who’s gonna defer to Congress.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: As we’d hope the president might (laughing), as a regular president would have. But ultimately, you know, these are legislative decisions, and if the legislature starts taking steps that support the action that’s been taken, it seems to me that that’s consent too.

RUSH: Well, according to that analysis you would be right. I’ll tell you something else that’s gonna happen here before this is all adjudicated. The higher courts have often disqualified what’s gone on in lower courts by claiming that the people that brought the action didn’t have standing in the first place. This is one of the most favored ways a lazy court or a politically oriented court can defeat a case.

“Oh, you don’t have standing. You’re not qualified to even bring this suit. I don’t know how you got this far, but we’re not taking the case ’cause you don’t have any standing,” and they throw it out, which has happened, I think, in a couple of Obamacare cases. But I know that’s not your point. That’s just the next phase of this that’s possible once the Fifth Circuit comes to, and the Supreme Court comes to the Fifth Circuit and decides what all’s gone on.

Because there’s egos in all these courts, and the people on the higher courts want to be the final authority on these things. They don’t want to have to sit there and affirm what happened in the lower court. That’s not always the case, but in many cases, it is. My gut feeling on this is kind of tough, because, see, the blaring reality here is that inside the Washington Beltway, the Washington establishment wants amnesty — and they’re going to get it one way or the other.

That’s just it.

They’re not gonna stop ’til they get it.

By the way, let’s say that every court rules against Obama. Well, as far as he’s concerned, so what? He’s already behaved in numerous ways the Constitution does not permit or allow. He’s already engaged in behavior outside the Constitution. So if he gets a ruling here that ultimately he doesn’t like, so what? Or as John F. Kerry would say, “So F-ing what?” (Well, he said, “Big F-ing deal;” it’s the same thing here.)

But it’s clear. You know it and I know it: The inside-the-Beltway establishment wants this. They want amnesty. The question is: Is the Supreme Court part of that inside-the-Beltway establishment, and do they want Obamacare? I mean, experience guided by intelligence, what did the Supreme Court do the first opportunity they had with Obamacare? (chuckles) They rewrote it to make it constitutional.

(interruption)

What are you…?

(interruption)

See? (sigh) Okay, Snerdley, I love your optimism. I really do. Sometimes I share it.

Snerdley said, “But isn’t that part of the thinking, why the Supreme Court took this next Obamacare case on the subsidies is to make up for the mistake they made the first time around?” I don’t know that that is how they look at it. Let me ask you this. Let’s go to the National Football League. Do you think that the referees in the Super Bowl did or did not make calls against the Seattle Seahawks to make up for mistakes a previous officiating crew made in a prior game?

(interruption)

Well then why do you think the court does? Why do you…?

(interruption)

But what does politics have to do with it? A court would correct something by saying, “Okay, we’re gonna take this next case ’cause we know here we blew it the first time”? They didn’t blow it; the chief did. The chief blew it. So you’re saying the chief wants this second case on subsidies to make up for his glaring mistake the first time around?
Is that your hope or is that what you’ve heard the “intelligenciata” inside the Beltway talking about?

(interruption)

“Both.” Okay.

(interruption)

No, I’m not saying that the court isn’t gone rule the right way on it. I’m not sure the courts take cases on that basis. “You know what? We goofed up the first time; we better take this case so we can fix it.” I don’t think these people’s egos ever, ever allow them to think they goofed something up. Speaking of this (chuckling), have you seen the story coming out of Hollywood that it’s maids and household staff ultimately are voting? There are 6,000 voting members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Science.

And there’s a critic out there, Barry Norman, who just wrote a piece claiming that many of these Academy voters are elderly, and they don’t care. They don’t want to watch these movies. They let their maids or the butlers or whoever vote. They trust ’em. They make them watch them and then tell them what they thought of it, and that’s how they vote. Now, admittedly, this is a critic writing about what goes on with the voters in the Academy.

But it has cast a little bit of a pall over the whole thing, ’cause the Academy Awards are thought of as more important than any Supreme Court ruling, in many people’s world, and to find out the voting might be corrupt? And then, of course, the jokes are going around, “Well, what? Do they send these movies over to the staff subtitled in Spanish?” So that joke is going around. “If the staff is gonna vote, can they even understand the dialogue?

“Do they send subtitles in Spanish over for ’em on these screeners?” So, anyway, I know the only reason I thought of that is because the operative theory here, the court took the Obamacare case on subsidies as an student to make up for their mistake the first time around. We shall see. We shall see. But I guarantee you, if that’s the reason they took it, we’ll never know.

Nobody is gonna ever say that. They are never, never gonna admit that they got it wrong the first time around! I mean, not publicly. It will never become part of the record. You might be able to get John Riggins to take a justice out and get her drunk and have her admit the truth. But I don’t think, other than that, you’re gonna find out anything super earth-shattering.

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RUSH: RUSH: Roger in Fallbrook, California. Welcome, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Listen, why is not this Homeland Security bill, since it’s funding bill, subject to the reconciliation process, which would preclude any filibuster?

RUSH: Wait, why is it not?

CALLER: Yeah, why is it not being done that way? Is it just that the Republicans just won’t do it?

RUSH: Yeah. That would be a strategy that they could employ, and they choose not to.

CALLER: Yeah, but isn’t that the whole purpose of reconciliation, is for budget bills?

RUSH: Well, it’s the only place it can be used, yeah, but it’s not automatic. It’s an option that they can use, and if they choose not to — it’s not something that happens automatically.

CALLER: Okay. But they just don’t want to do it, huh?

RUSH: No. In fact, that’s how Obamacare got passed, reconciliation —

CALLER: I remember that.

RUSH: It was considered an end run.

CALLER: Right. Well, okay, I guess we just have to sit back and accept that.

RUSH: Look, look. I’m not wanting to say this. I’m trying to hold back here. Your question and a couple other calls today, what they point out is — I mean, you’ve got a tool, I mentioned one, they could employ the filibuster or take the filibuster away like Harry Reid did. They’re not doing any of that. What’s the conclusion?

CALLER: Well, they just don’t want to do it.

RUSH: They don’t want to fight it.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Okay, that opens the question, why not? Well, we think we have the answer to that, too. I think they’re afraid of the media still, and I think there may be a serious number of open borders people in the Senate, in the Republican Party, that want this. We know that’s the case. We know that their donors want it. We know the Chamber of Commerce, everybody giving money to Republicans, the Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates wants amnesty. They want this bunch of people amnestied and they want ’em available for work, legally.

CALLER: Yeah. Well, then you’re saying they couldn’t even get 51 votes.

RUSH: Well, they could. The purpose of withdrawing the filibuster would be to eliminate the importance of the Democrat votes. The Democrats are able to stop this by requiring 60 votes, and the Republicans don’t have 60.

CALLER: Yeah. But if they invoke the reconciliation process, they would only need 51.

RUSH: True.

CALLER: And you’re saying they probably won’t even get that.

RUSH: Well, that’s up for grabs. I don’t really know. Mitch McConnell would know, and his whip would know if there are 51 votes for it. See, right now, when they know it’s not going to pass, there are a whole bunch of Republicans that could vote for it for appearance sake, if they know it isn’t gonna pass, but if reconciliation is used, you only need 51 votes, why, that puts pressure on people to maybe vote honestly, and that might turn them into “no” votes. We just don’t know. What we do know is that the options available don’t seem to be interesting to them. Draw your own conclusion.

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RUSH: Look, budget reconciliation pretty much a moot point anyway once the Republicans decided to go ahead and fund the government all the way through next September, when they did that with the Democrats last December. Made it harder to do reconciliation.

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RUSH: Debbie in Naples, Florida, great to have you on the EIB Network, the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m smug over here in Naples, too. Beautiful.

RUSH: Yeah, I was just there last week.

CALLER: It’s a beautiful town. I like where you live, too. Anyway, I have a question for you.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I’m hoping you can answer this ’cause I’m usually pretty good at figuring things out. I’ve been a student of yours for many, many years, but this one eludes me. Why would the Chamber of Commerce, and in their capacity as representing businesses, be interested in legalizing all the illegals that are here and then subjecting all these businesses to having to comply with all the laws that apply to legal workers? It makes no sense.

RUSH: Yeah, it does, from —

CALLER: How?

RUSH: — their standpoint. The Chamber of Commerce, what is the Chamber of Commerce? It’s just a representative of member businesses. So it’s not an ad hoc, independent group. It’s a group of people who represent businesses, businessmen, businesswomen, business owners. It’s all about cheap labor.

CALLER: But isn’t it going to become more expensive when they’re required to pay workers’ compensation, comply with overtime and wage laws, pay for health insurance, Social Security tax and all of the other things that go along with employing people legally?

RUSH: No, because you’re basing that on they get ’em really cheap now but when they become citizens or green cards —

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: — they’re gonna cost even more.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Not that many are being hired right now, and certainly most of them who are are in the dark, and they’re being paid under the table. What isn’t gonna change is that they’re going to remain low skill, and they’re going to remain poorly educated, so even if they are legalized, get amnesty, they aren’t going to command huge wages, because their abilities aren’t there. These are people to fill grunt work that these businesses claim many Americans won’t do.

CALLER: Okay, so can I ask you another question?

RUSH: Sure, fire away. I got about one minute.

CALLER: Okay, following up on that then, wouldn’t at that point, because there have been studies done that show that low skill jobs don’t pay as much as simply getting things from the government. What incentive would there be for those people then to stay in these low skill, low paying jobs when they can just go on the government dole —

RUSH: Well, see, that’s what many of us happen to believe is gonna be the end result.

CALLER: So how is this in the interest of business that the Chamber —

RUSH: It doesn’t mean they’re smart. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the Chamber of Commerce is populated by smart people.

CALLER: Oh, I can see they’re not.

RUSH: I mean, people labor under the misconception that all of these special interest groups are populated by really brilliant, smarter-than-the-rest-of-us people. And they’re not. One thing they’re missing, they have no ideology, so they wouldn’t understand what you just said. That hasn’t computed with them yet. Those are good questions, and I’m glad you called, Debbie. Really appreciate it.

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RUSH: You might want to try to make the case that the Chamber of Commerce has been taken over by the left. It’s not the total explanation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been some inroads there, like any other number of institutions the left has corrupted.