RUSH: Got these two stories here. One is in the Washington Post, and the other is in The Politico, and they’re almost identical. “Supreme Court Ruling Puts Obama’s Immigration Legacy in Jeopardy.” That’s The Politico. The Washington Post: “President Obama’s Legacy Is Increasingly in Legal Jeopardy.” Is this not amazing? Two wholly different, separate news companies have lead stories with almost identical headlines and the same premise — sorry, narrative.
And the narrative is that that hayseed judge in Texas, that Hanen, and these three judges at it Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld that stupid hayseed judge in Texas, claiming that Obama’s amnesty is unconstitutional, claiming it’s illegal, don’t they know what they’re doing? They’re harming Obama’s legacy.
No. What about the Constitution? What about the possibility that these judges here actually revere the Constitution and remember the oath that they swore to protect it. What if all they’re doing is defending and protecting the Constitution against a renegade attack that’s been mounted by the Obama administration? But note these news organizations, wringing their hands, “Oh, my God, oh, God, Obama’s legacy, oh, no, we’ve worked so hard these six years and these judges could wipe it out.” And the reason is this is going on longer than they ever dreamed.
They thought this judge would be overturned in a couple of weeks and that amnesty, executive amnesty would already be underway because Obama already started granting the work permits. But now it’s looking like this may drag on all through the remainder of his term, and that is what is going to cloud the legacy. So, as is always the case, take an event in the news, and it’s all about Obama. What does it mean for Obama? What does it mean for the Democrat Party? What does it mean for Obama and his agenda? What does it mean for Hillary?
It’s never, what does it mean for the Constitution? What does it mean for the country?
What does it mean for Obama? The last time something like this happened — and this is minor in scope — but TIME magazine and Newsweek magazine and US News & World Report all, same week, same issue, had Bruce Springsteen on the cover. This is back in the seventies, as America’s troubadour laureate or some such thing. And even George Will that week wrote a column about Bruce Springsteen. I think it was all three magazines. I know it was Newsweek and TIME, and it might have been US News, but same day, same week, same cover, Bruce Springsteen. And they knew in advance what they were doing.
I was once gonna be a cover on Newsweek ’til TIME found out about it then TIME decided to put me on their cover, but I was nowhere in the story, but it aced the Newsweek cover out. Newsweek said, “Oh, gosh, TIME’s figured out what we’re doing. Okay, sorry, Rush.” It was Howard Fineman. “We gotta bump it, gotta bump it. TIME has gotten wind of what we’re doing here.” And so TIME did put me on the cover of some story I had nothing to do with, and they prevented Newsweek from skyrocketing circulation that week by pulling the cover on me. Way, way back, this goes back to the nineties.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This morning on CNN’s New Day, chief national correspondent John King speaking with the senior political editor of The Daily Beast, Jackie Kucinich, and the Yahoo News chief Washington correspondent, Olivier Knox, and they’re talking about the latest court ruling against Obama’s amnesty. This goes back to both the Washington Post and The Politico are just beside themselves because they think this court, well, the three judges in the Fifth Circuit and Hanen in Texas are destroying Obama’s legacy with only a year and a half left, they’re destroying his legacy, and here’s how CNN’s discussing it.
KING: The Republicans are celebrating this because they want to get in the court. But do they win in the long run if you look at the demographics of presidential elections? If this issue is still being debated and litigated in our politics when we get to October 2016, you can make a case that if you look Florida even, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, a lot of states out there with a Latino vote could be the key decisive vote, and in the last two cycles, overwhelmingly the Democrats.
KUCINICH: Depends on the tone. It really depends on how they talk about the issue.
KNOX: Sure. And, you know, “the court agrees with us” is not a terrible message to take into a campaign, but I think this might be the last time, the last cycle where the Republicans can thread that needle.
RUSH: This is — how do I say this? In the last two midterm elections the Democrats have been shellacked, and these people are in an utter state of denial. In their world, the Republicans are constant daily always losers. And they’re always on the wrong side of everything. And they always trip over their own feet and their own words, and they always mess it up. While all that may be happening, the Democrats are losing major power all over this country.
And, folks, let me tell you something else the Democrat Party is quaking in its boots over. It’s something else that is soon to be handed down, a decision from the Supreme Court. I have here both a Los Angeles Times story and a Los Angeles Times analysis on this. “Supreme Court Could Deal California ‘A One-Two Punch’ on Redistricting.”
I’m telling you, the left is really worried. The short version of this is that if the court rules a certain way, the districting that has been done in LA to emphasize Latino and minority votes could be blown to smithereens.
“In recent years, California voters have backed a series of changes to the state’s elections
system to reshape its political landscape. Now, potential upheaval is brewing again, this
time from the US Supreme Court. Next month, the nation’s highest court will rule on a case challenging the legality of independent commissions to draw congressional districts. On Tuesday, the court said it would consider whether state and local voting districts should be based on total population or eligible voters.”
That’s a big distinction.
“Both cases could have enormous implications in California, where voters first approved citizen­led redistricting panels nearly seven years ago and where the state’s burgeoning immigrant population has contoured the political map, regardless of eligibility to vote.”
What’s happened here in California, we’re talking last week about what happened. I mean, you go to 1988, Richard Nixon won California four times, Reagan won California twice. As recently as 1988 California could be counted on in the Republican column. And what happened? In 1986, Simpson-Mazzoli immigration, and it began the end of the Republican Party’s existence in California. And while all that happened they started redrawing congressional districts out there, not the state legislature, but they set up independent citizen panels.
They drew congressional districts based on demographics and population, not registered voters, because there’s a lot of illegals that couldn’t legally register, so they drew the lines based on total population. It obviously had deep meaning for elections and campaigns and so forth. And that’s what is now being threatened.
“Should the Supreme Court issue rulings overhauling the redistricting process, it would be a ‘one-two punch to the gut to California,’ said Bruce Cain, professor of political science at Stanford.” Now, I don’t have time to get into all the nooks and crannies of this, but here’s the analysis piece headline that will give you an indication of the degree of fear and trepidation that exists. This is Cathleen Decker, a news analyst at the LA Times. Headline: “Once Aided by Courts, Can Latino Politicians Survive Supreme Court Act?”
So if they throw out the way California has been drawing districts, which has been done to influence the Hispanic population, where it lives and make congressional districts out of almost 80, 90% Hispanic population, if that goes out the window, then all kinds of planning for the future the Democrats have made with the Hispanic vote, shaping Democrat Party power and politics, could also be out the window. This case is really flying under the radar out there.
But it is very, very important to the Democrat Party, and particularly in California, which is why the LA Times has two different stories on this today. So these people, they can sit around here like John King and these guys on CNN, they can talk about how the Republicans are blowing it and how the Republicans get scared and everything that goes wrong in elections. It’s the Democrats — I’m telling you — this is what’s so frustrating. If we had a Republican Party with any confidence, we could be taking advantage of all these defeats the Democrats are incurring, 2010 and 2014.
It’s just a matter of confidence. Well, there’s one other possibility that always must be acknowledged. And it has to be stated that many in the Republican establishment may no longer believe what we believe. They may actually believe in open borders. They may actually believe in Obamacare. By the way, on Obamacare, it is not hard to read the tea leaves. The Supreme Court case, the Burwell case on these subsidies, it is clear the Republican Party is worried sick they might win this. Yeah, I meant to say that.
They’re worried sick they might win this because a Republican so-called victory would declare Obama’s federal subsidies illegal, which would mean they go away. It wouldn’t mean people have to repay the money, although it could, depending on how thoroughly people wanted to interpret it, but it does mean the subsidies would stop, and that’s where the Republicans, “Oh, no, God, no, they’ll blame us, awe, gee, Mabel, oh, no, they’re gonna hate us again. Why did we ever try to win this?”
I think there’s a lot of Republicans who have simply, in their minds, “You know what? This talk about repealing Obamacare is BS. We’re never gonna do it. It’s the law of the land. We gotta turn it into something that’s at least workable that we can support ’cause there’s nothing we can do about.” I think that’s the prevailing opinion in the Republican establishment. Do not doubt me on this. I think all this talk about repealing Obamacare was electioneer talk and it was designed to get you thinking they meant it. And maybe at some point in the campaign they did, but where we are now, I don’t think they want the work.
“Obamacare is the law of the land, okay, we’ve got our health care problem solved. If they throw it out or if it’s gutted, oh, my God, can you imagine the amount of work to rebuild? Ooh, jeez. With the Democrats and the media attacking us every day, killing us every day, oh, jeez, not worth the trouble.” I think that’s the prevailing attitude in certain people and levels of the Republican establishment.