RUSH: And greetings once again to you music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain. Welcome to a guy in a golf shirt in Palm Beach on the EIB Network! That’s right, my friends, a guy in a golf shirt running the country in Palm Beach. I tell you what I did — by the way, the phone number, 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.

I ran a little test of sorts, although I intended to do it anyway. I went off the grid. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I did not see — this is two weeks ago, was the last I was — we did a Christmas Eve show, and for two weeks straight until this morning I did not turn on cable news. I didn’t turn on any news whatsoever. I didn’t read any news whatsoever.

I heard some. I heard about the wacko who called Trump an M-Fer and I heard about Kyrsten Sinema taking the oath of office on a law book. I heard about some of the wacko left stuff because even the tech blogs that I was reading were talking about it, in high praise, by the way. But I literally tried to get away from it, A, just for my own sanity and health, but also as an experiment — “spearmint,” for those of you in Rio Linda.

I wanted to see what I would miss. I wanted to see, even though it’s a two-week break, it’s still a different time now because Trump is president and nobody’s taking any time off. The media and the left are as animated, exorcised and panicked as ever, so I just wanted to see. And it is stunning to me. These last two weeks there isn’t a single thing that happened that I missed and suffered for it. There’s not a single thing that happened in these two weeks — the government shutdown started before I left, and it’s gone on.

And, by the way, has anybody experienced any strife whatsoever because of the government shutdown? No! Exactly as I forecast and predicted. If you didn’t know, because the Drive-Bys are harping on it that there’s a government shutdown, you wouldn’t know otherwise because it’s not impacting daily life, despite the best efforts of the media to create fear and panic over what might happen if it continues. And, of course, how it’s all Trump’s fault.

Now, I knew the Democrats were sworn in because I knew that was gonna happen, but it’s amazing. And the next thing I did, I checked the audio sound bite roster today from Cookie, and it is incredible. The first 16 sound bites are me. And they continue this ridiculous meme that I put to bed before I left. And that is that Trump was all set to sign the continuing resolution until somebody ran into his office and said, “Mr. President, stop, stop.”

He’d already had the D of his name signed, already it had it written down on the bill and said, “Mr. President, no, no, no, Rush Limbaugh is warning you not to do it.” And Trump stopped. They’re still running that story, still running that version of the story even though I put it to bed and tried to explain to everybody that that is not at all what happened. And so the Drive-Bys are purposely carrying forward a meme or a narrative that is not true, it is demonstrably false.

And so you have to ask yourself why. Also, again, this is something that was eminently predictable. The left cannot get enough of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I’m already bored with her. I’m not interested in her. But it doesn’t matter because the Drive-Bys are. I think obviously there has been a political consultant that is advising Democrats to do videos now in the kitchen drinking beer.

Fauxcahontas opens a beer in her kitchen getting ready to run for president in Iowa and says something along the lines of “I’m gonna go grab me a beer” and then opens the bottle and starts swilling it in an effort to make herself look like an average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill Indian, uh, American.

I’m reminded of John Kerry when he was running for president in 2004, goes to Ohio and walks into some bait and tackle shop, “Is this where I get me a huntin’ license?” Trying to make himself look like the rube that he isn’t but likes to put everybody down as being. Nothing changes. Nothing changes in terms of how the left goes about it. Nothing changes about how the media reports it.

In fact, all of this great economic news that happened, the new jobs, 312,000 new jobs, the manufacturing in December, manufacturing sector is skyrocketing. And the Democrats are trying to spin that as bad news. How would you spin 312,000 new jobs and a totally revived manufacturing sector in December, how would you spin that as bad news? If you worked for Democrats and somebody ordered you to do it, how would you do it?

Well, here’s how they did it. First the numbers. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the economy added 312,000 new jobs in December. That’s twice – (interruption) What? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what happened with Apple. Yes, yes, yes, and if anybody cares I’ll be glad to weigh in on that. That I found extremely fascinating too. Oh, yeah. We have a lot of stuff. I had to go back and refamiliarize myself ’cause I really was off the grid.

But folks, I’m not ignorant. I’m up to speed. Actually, I cheated. Last night I started cramming. But I literally did spend two weeks without reading or looking at any of it at all. It’s amazing how much my mood improved. But I’ve mentioned that before. Anyway, 312,000 new jobs in December, nearly twice what Wall Street analysts had expected.

The Democratic National Committee chairman, Tom Perez, blasted Trump for increasing economic volatility! So 312,000 new jobs is bad because it’s too many! It’s too big a spike. The manufacturing sector recovery and all of the massive increased output in our manufacturing sector, that’s not good, either, because it’s too much. It’s too volatile. It’s not stable. It can’t be counted on. And so Perez blasts Trump for increasing economic volatility.

His statement, “Thanks to Trump, volatility in the federal government is translating into volatility across our economy.” All of this happens in the month of December when the Democrats are thinking the bottom’s about to fall out on Trump. Oh, and guess what? There’s a story on CNN today. I don’t recognize the guy who wrote it. Doesn’t matter. But the headline: “What if Mueller Comes Up With Nothing?” What if Mueller has nothing?

Did you hear that Mueller has asked to extend his grand jury six more months? He’s nowhere near winding this down. Don’t you think that if they had something that was really damaging and devastating to Trump, we would have had some leakage, some indication of it. But they’re still searching.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is missing oral arguments today for the first time in her history as a Supreme Court justice.  You know, she had cancer surgery not long ago.  First time she’s missed oral arguments ever.  Expect panic to ensue over this news.  Numerous leftists have been offering her their own body parts.  People have offered her their hearts, people have offered her their kidneys, people have offered her their sexual organs — whatever it takes to keep Ruth “Buzzi” Ginsburg alive — and that panic is gonna start all over again.

Mitt Romney’s piece that ran in the Washington Post.  You know, this is classic.  The Romney piece is a clear illustration of why the Republican establishment no longer gets it, how they are still clueless over the things that matter and don’t matter to Republican voters.  Romney’s basic beef is that even though Trump is doing some things pretty well and is experiencing good results, he’s putting a black mark on the presidency because of his character, and we just can’t tolerate this any longer.  We have got to get rid of Trump.

We’ve got to get rid of these horrible, bad character influences that this man is poisoning all of Washington with.  I was reminded of the Clinton years when I read Romney’s piece, and I thought we had all learned that going after people on their character is not a winning thing politically.  Isn’t that how people objected to Clinton?  Wasn’t that the primary objection to Bill Clinton starting in 1992 and going into both terms and when the Lewinsky thing happened?

What happened when everybody attacked Clinton’s character?  The American voter said, “We don’t care.  We don’t care.”  The Republicans haven’t figured this out yet.  I’m not saying it’s a good thing. It’s just a political reality.  Anyway, more on that as the program unfolds. There are 4.8 million more Americans employed since Trump took office.  This data released by the labor department on Friday “reveals that 4.8 million more Americans have joined the workforce since Trump took office January 2017.

“The figure includes the 2.88 million more Americans who are employed now than were employed in December of 2017.  The manufacturing sector has added 84,000 jobs throughout 2018.  That’s a 37% increase,” and that makes 2018 “the best year for manufacturing since 1997.”  If you would have told me that this kind of economic growth and performance would lead to this kind of criticism and unhappiness and misery, I would have had a tough time believing you.  I mean, if you would have told me this years and years ago.

By the way, White House has announced that Trump is gonna go to southern border on Thursday “to meet with those on the front lines of the national security and humanitarian crisis.