May 16, 2012
On the latest developments in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case…
In addition to everything you’ve heard from Zimmerman’s doctor, about all of his injuries, and about Trayvon Martin with bruised knuckles, discovered in the autopsy, the FBI, which is part of Eric Holder’s Justice Department, is planning to charge George Zimmerman with a hate crime. The prosecutors claim – and this is the local prosecutor, in Florida – claim that Zimmerman “profiled” Trayvon Martin. Not only did he profile Trayvon Martin, he stalked Trayvon Martin before killing him. And unlike the charge of second-degree murder, this hate crime, if he’s convicted of it, could get Zimmerman executed. So apparently noticing a stranger in your neighborhood is “profiling” and following the stranger to see what he’s up to is “stalking”. And they both are hate crimes according to the Obama regime.
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May 14, 2012
Mark Davis is filling in for Rush today… On gay marriage…
When we change the definition of marriage – the legal definition – the marriages that we are going to afford that unique protection – and say that homosexual marriage is THE same thing as heterosexual marriage – that means manhood and womanhood are in fact the same thing. And they are NOT… There are various protections and various delineations of manhood and womanhood. Mothers and fathers are not THE same thing. We don’t learn the same thing in the same way from your father as you do from your mother. A child needs both. A child benefits best from both a mother and a father… motherhood and fatherhood are not the same thing. And in the adoption issue… a child, for adoption purposes, should have a priority chance of being placed in a house with a married man and a married woman. It’s not the same thing as going into a house with two guys. Or going into a house with two ladies. Or going into a house with a single parent. All of whom, have an appreciable track record of doing good parenting – I stipulate that. I don’t quarrel with that. But that doesn’t change what the IDEAL is, and that is to have a mother and a father. And when society says – when the law itself says, “Eh. Household with a mother and a father, or household without a father – same thing (because it’s a lesbian). Or household without a mother (because it’s two guys). Ahh, same thing.” That is a perilous, perilous place to go.
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May 11, 2012
On media reports that Mitt Romney was a bully in high school in the 60s…
This is what I know. Mitt Romney was not at Chappaquiddick. Mitt Romney has not been accused of rape. Mitt Romney did not have an affair with a mob babe, he didn’t have an affair with an actress who committed suicide later on. Mitt Romney did not father a child out of wedlock. Mitt Romney did not support the tapping of Martin Luther King’s phone. Mitt Romney was never a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Mitt Romney did not lie about his law school grades. Chappaquiddick is Ted Kennedy. Accused of rape is Bill Clinton. Affair with a mob babe, and an actress – John Kennedy. Didn’t father a child out of wedlock – that’s John Edwards and Democrats too numerous to mention. Didn’t support the tapping of Martin Luther King’s phone – that’s Robert Kennedy. Never a member of the Ku Klux Klan – that’s Robert Byrd. Didn’t lie about his law school grades – that’s Joe Biden. All Democrats – and all of those Democrats did those things well after high school. And Obama even wrote in his book – “Dreams From My Father” – how he bullied a young girl. And he hasn’t even apologized.
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May 9, 2012
On the health of the Tea Party and the rising conservative political tide in 2012…
The Tea Party’s not dead – 2010 was a warm-up. The Tea Party’s moved on from a protest movement to an active, vibrant grass-roots movement that knows how to nominate the right people and then get them elected, and that is sending shivers of fear down the spines of professional Democrats, their consultants, elected officials, and people in the media. Democrats are voting against President Obama. Democrats are distancing themselves from failure. The cult of personality, the cult of celebrity, that this White House has attempted to mine, has been overwhelmed by the sting of reality. People’s homes having no value. People’s jobs paying nothing. People not being able to get jobs, no economic growth, moratoriums on drilling for oil, roadblocks on pipelines that would bring oil, which would cheapen energy prices. Attacks on conventional energy sources. The American people want no part of it.
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May 7, 2012
On the election of Socialist Francois Hollande in France…
So a lot of people are asking me, “What does this mean?” – the election of the avowed socialist in France, Mr. Hollande. What does it mean? It means that France is gone. It means that there are more people on the take than there are producing. Pure and simple… Don’t think Obama hasn’t noticed this. What it means, it only means what it means for France. It’s impossible to extrapolate this. Unless you want to say that we’ve become France, and if we have become France – and I don’t think we’re there yet – but this guy promised to raise taxes on the top 1% by 75%, a millionaire’s tax… and everybody just went for it and elected only the second avowed socialist in French history. The first was Mitterrand, in the 80s. And they said no to austerity… “We’re not going to cut back government, we’re not going to cut spending, no no no, I want my goodies. I want my benefits.”
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May 4, 2012
On the dropping of the “official” level of unemployment to 8.1%…
Barack Obama has decided that the only way to lower the unemployment rate is to kill off jobs. The unemployment rate went down one-tenth of a percent from 8.2 to 8.1 percent, but the number of people who left the labor force is at an all-time high. It’s over 88 million Americans not working. The Labor Force Participation Rate – that is, the universe of all jobs available – is skyrocketing upward, and that means fewer people are counted in the equation, which means the unemployment rate is plummeting… we’re not moving in the right direction. It is sick, folks… it’s just unacceptable, what has happened to this country, what is happening to the jobs in the entire private sector here.
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May 2, 2012
On Democrat responsibility for our huge budget problems…
The Democrats control both houses of congress for four years starting in 2007. During that time, during those four years – and it’s George W. Bush’s, the last two years of his administration, admittedly – but during that time, 2007, through 2010, no Republican legislation was considered in committee. Legislation is crafted in committee, where the majority is in control. And particularly in the house, where spending bills originate – Ways and Means Committee, and all the other committees – no Republican legislation was considered. Pelosi didn’t even consider Republican legislation. The idea that Republicans have any responsibility, congressionally, for the spending that occurred in this country starting in 2007 is simply not possible. Pelosi didn’t permit it. Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, they ran the house back then, they didn’t permit it. Even now, the Democrats still control the Senate, and the White House. So from 2007 to 2010 the Democrats had the House and the Senate, then they got the White House, and for two years, they had the White House, the House and the Senate, after two years of total control of Congress. So the Democrats had total control of Congress for four years. Two of those years they also had the White House. Those two years are the first two years of Obama. That’s when all of this deficit spending started. That’s healthcare, the stimulus – that’s when Obama’s spending took root.
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April 30, 2012
On the mindset of people like Al Armendariz, the EPA administrator who quit after he was revealed in a video speaking of his desire to crucify energy companies…
That word, ‘crucify’. I know in the popular vernacular it means, well, “wipeout”… but just stop and think… ‘crucify’. The guy chose the word ‘crucify’. That’s more than just ‘discard’. What do you do when you crucify somebody? You put them on a cross. It has a specific meaning. Now we know that Al Armendariz didn’t want to put people up on a cross, but it’s the same thing as humiliating them, killing them. That’s what he wanted to do. And people said, “Gee, how did these guys get past Obama, how did these guys end up in the [EPA]?” He LIKES them. They are in his administration because everybody picking these people knows exactly what Obama wants. Crucifixion is torture. It’s a terrorist act. It was chosen because it was one of the slowest forms of death – it was painful, it took days. It took days to die. And you ended up being targeted by birds and all kinds of– it was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. Now I’m not saying he literally meant crucify but he did not mean these people just need to be beaten – defeated, politically… I want people to understand that ‘crucify’ has a specific meaning and it’s more than just, “We want to discard this guy.” These oil people and so forth.
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April 27, 2012
On the politics of government student loan interest rates…
The Republican student loan plan is a piece of legislation that would prevent the interest rate from doubling. [The] student loan interest rate’s supposed to go up – it’s supposed to double – on July 12th. So John Boehner and the House Republicans have proposed legislation to prevent that from happening… Nancy Pelosi says that Obama would veto that. Why? This is so brazen and blatant… He wants the issue. He’s gonna veto this so that student loan rates will go up so that he can blame Republicans for it. He is counting on the fact that the media will not significantly report that the Republicans tried to stop it.
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April 25, 2012
On the Federal Government suing the State of Arizona over Arizona’s immigration law…
Folks, I know it sounds … well sort of incomprehensible, but I’m telling you that the Democrat party is looking at as many illegals as possible turning into voters. That’s why they don’t want photo ID at the polling place. It is the number-one reason why. There is no other reason. “Because it’s racist” or “Because it’s big-brotherish.” That’s not the reason. They want to be able to have people who aren’t legally registered to vote, vote. If you have to have a photo ID, then you’re shut out. If you’re illegal.
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April 23, 2012
Mary Matalin is filling in for Rush today… On so-called “gender issues in the 2012 election…
Half of new (college) graduates are jobless, or under-employed. Think about that. You know how much it costs to go to college? You know how much effort it takes to go to college today? So you work hard to raise your kids, and get them the kind of education that can get them in these schools from which they will graduate with no marketable skills anyway? And now, they can’t get a job in this economy! I don’t know how that is a gender issue – that’s just an American issue.
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April 20, 2012
Mark Davis is filling in for Rush today… On choosing a governing philosophy for the nation…
I’ve always believed, let conservatism and liberalism come to the table with their best ideas. Let the right come unapologetically with its best ideas. Let the left come unapologetically with their best ideas. Let the voters decide which way they want to go. And then go that way and see how it works. And if people aren’t liking the way it works then go the other way. Rather than this watered-down, mushy, middle ground, moderate, middle-of-the-roadism that gets us precisely nowhere… If you think of it geographically: you are in Chicago. You are in Chicago. And there are two people who have your attention. One of them wants to take you to New York and the other wants to take you to Los Angeles. What is the compromise position there? There’s no compromise position! Somebody wants to take you east and somebody wants to take you west. You gots to pick one! … And what is the middle ground, what is the common ground position between the two forces, one of which loves expansionist, collectivist government, and the other side which seeks to dismantle that and bring us closer to the kind of government the founders envisioned. What is the compromise position there? There is none. You’ve got to do one or the other.
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April 18, 2012
On prosecutor Angela Corey’s abysmally bad affidavit in the George Zimmerman case…
If these people who have analyzed the affidavit are dead right, and if this is the product of abject incompetence, embarrassing incompetence, on the part of the prosecutor Angela Corey, given our culture – given our education system – might a judge look at this prosecutor as a teacher would, and say, “Well, you know, she tried.” And go ahead and let it fly. That’s what happens in our schools. That’s what outcome-based education is. Kid thinks two plus two is five, it is. With an ‘A’ for effort. Until they figure out that two plus two is four. And then they argue about that… throughout our culture, excellence is not the objective. Not offending somebody is. Not hurting somebody’s feelings. Not humiliating them.
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April 16, 2012
On who is and isn’t qualified to talk about today’s economic challenges…
If a life of economic struggle is a pre-requisite for a woman to speak about economic issues effecting women, then aren’t many, if not most of the liberal female pundits belittling Ann Romney disqualified from the discussion too? Darn right they are. Pick your favorite female pundit on television. Or in print. And ask yourself – are they really worried about the price of milk? Are they worried about baby formula? Are they worried about the cost of an abortion? Are they worried about the cost of contraception? … So they don’t have this rigorous life either. Just like Ann Romney hasn’t in their mind. But somehow they’re qualified to talk about women’s’ issues and Ann Romney isn’t.
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April 13, 2012
On the outrage of Democrats over Hilary Rosen’s shot at Ann Romney that she’s “never worked a day in her life”…
That’s exactly what they wanted to (do) – they wanted that shot out there. They wanted her to say that, they wanted that out there, they wanted people thinking about Ann Romney that way, and they’ll take the heat. Because they personally got out of it. And it’s okay, they’ll throw Hilary under the bus – but there’s a wink and a nod because they’re not really throwing her under the bus. She’s one of ‘em. She’s in the tribe. They’re not getting rid of her. She’s gonna be intimately involved in Obama’s re-elect. All of this, throwing her under the bus, is strictly for show.
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April 11, 2012
On Democrats’ cynical attempts to distort Ronald Reagan’s legacy for their own political purposes…
So now we find out today that not only was Ronald Reagan for tax increases on the rich (but he) was pro-abortion. Have you ever stopped to realize, this bunch of people – the Democrat party, Barack Obama – they hate Reagan, they have always hated Reagan, they engage in revisionist history about the Reagan years. But when they need to move their agenda forward – when they need to marshall support for what they’re trying to do – who do they invoke? LBJ? No. Teddy Kennedy? No. JFK? No. RFK? No. Bill Clinton? No. They invoke Ronald Reagan.
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April 9, 2012
On President Obama’s interpretation of the weakness of the U.S. economy…
Obama wants you to believe it’s in decline because of capitalism. Obama and the Democrat party want you to think our economy’s in decline because of its own structural failures and inability. They want you to believe that $5 gasoline is what you get with an economy where everybody’s out there fending for themselves. When there’s nobody looking out for people, when there’s nobody with compassion, when there’s nobody guaranteeing fairness, this is what happens. And of course the U.S. economy is in decline only because it’s in the shackles of socialism.
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April 6, 2012
On the concerns of women in 2012 in the United States…
I don't think women are losing sleep over who gets into Augusta National. I don’t think women are losing sleep over where their next birth control pill is gonna come from. And I actually don’t think women who want abortions are losing sleep (over) whether or not they’re gonna be able to get one. I don’t think they feel threatened that way. And I don’t think most women are comforted by the fact that Obama is having a woman’s forum today in the White House. I don’t think most women give a hoot. Because I don’t think most women think it’s gonna matter to them. What I think most women care about is their children. And their future. As well as their present. What kind of a mess is their school? What is the country going to be like when their kids grow up and get out of school? What are their kids going to know when they get out of school? Are they going to be properly educated? This is what I think women care about.
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April 4, 2012
On the President’s speech to newspaper editors claiming that Paul Ryan’s budget will result in starving children, dirty water, etc. etc.
He is appealing to the absolute most ignorant segment (of) our population with this and with what he’s doing to the Supreme Court. And the decision upcoming on his health care bill. It is clear what he is doing. And it’s clear what he thinks of this country. His re-election hinges on him being able to mobilize the ignorant, the shallow, the uninformed, the uneducated, the dumb, and the stupid. That is who he’s appealing to. Now how many of you think that there are a lot of those people in this country. Are there enough of them to win somebody the White House?
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April 2, 2012
On NBC’s in-house “investigation” into its own doctoring of a 911 tape that made George Zimmerman look like a bigot in the shooting of Trayvon Martin…
A 100% distortion. A 100% recreation of what happened. In order to put together that sound bite that you just heard, they had to knowingly and willingly edit the question of the dispatcher, and then they had to edit Zimmerman saying “he looks black” right after he says “he looks like he’s up to no good.” But Zimmerman wasn’t through when he said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good.” That’s where NBC stopped it. Zimmerman kept on. After he said “This guy looks like he’s up to no good” he said “Or he’s on drugs or something – it’s raining.” He’s walking around looking about. NBC takes that out, they took the dispatcher question out, and they added on Zimmerman saying “He looks black.” What is there to investigate here? Anybody with two ears and an IQ of 50 knows what happens here. Is the investigation of who did it? Or are they investigating if it’s wrong? What are they investigating at NBC? They are investigating how they can get out of this. They’re investigating how they can come up with a plausible explanation for this. That’s what NBC is doing.
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March 30, 2012
On political commentator Juan Williams’ analysis that a supreme court ruling against Obamacare’s constitutionality is a lose/lose proposition politically – for everyone…
I know Juan Williams. I’ve been interviewed by Juan Williams. I like Juan Williams. But Juan do you even care what the bill says? Here we are, once again, analyzing the political ramifications for Obama, and for the Republicans – what about for the people? What about for the citizens of this country who are going to lose a significant amount of freedom? What about the constitution? The very foundation of it will be forever altered. The constitution limits what government can do. Pure and simple. That’s what it does. And this one piece of legislation throws that out and opens the door for government control over every aspect of life. Does this not matter? This is not an independent, isolated, political exercise. This is real life here. And I am struck by how many in the pundit class – the exulted, higher, elevated, more-than-the-rest-of-us, don’t even get that. Or they’re uninterested in it. Or they don’t see any use in talking about it. The political prism is all that matters. What about real life? What about the concept of liberty? What about the concept of the constitution that limits government? This is how you lose it. With people not caring. Not knowing. Even worse. People here incapable of seeing the big picture with this. And these, we are told, are the exulted ones. These are the ones smarter than we are.
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March 28, 2012
On predictions by some liberal pundits that a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare will help Obama in November…
We’ve got an economy that’s in a shambles, there aren’t any new jobs… there’s nothing, there’s not one element of Obama’s record on which he can run for reelection. There’s not one thing they can tout, that has been good for America, and thus Obama deserves four more years. Not one thing! So. The Supreme Court throws out the mandate. Let’s say. And let’s say they throw out some other parts of the law. What are they saying in Realville, where real people live? The Supreme Court has just said “Obamacare is illegal.” That’s what “unconstitutional” means – it’s illegal. They want to try and spin that as a positive? Let ‘em try. Let them try spinning, Obama’s signature legislation – the thing his name’s on. Obamacare! The great savior of this country. And the Supreme Court says it’s illegal.
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March 26, 2012
On the lack of condemnation by President Obama of The New Black Panthers for issuing a bounty on George Zimmerman, the alleged shooter of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager…
I do not understand – and I have no problem saying so – I do not understand the President of the United States not saying anything when a group of citizens issues a bounty for another citizen in the United States of America and the President, or his Justice Department don’t even seem interested in that. And then when this young kid gets shot in Sanford Florida the reaction is “if I had a son he would look like me”? Sorry, (that’s the) last thing that ever occurs to me when somebody gets shot. When somebody’s murdered the last thing (I think) is that they look like me. It doesn’t compute. But, the Left – they see things like this, purely as surface matters. These are political opportunities for these people, that’s the sad thing about this. Here you have the death of an American citizen that’s seen as a political opportunity. There’s no humanity in that. There’s no compassion in that.
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March 23, 2012
Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On the profound systemic unreliability of the Congressional Accounting Office…
One of the things I would like to see proposed is that we abolish the Congressional Budget Office – in fact that we blow it up, and we salt the ground so that nothing grows there ever again. Because this particular accounting device – ten years, ten-year cost projections – is unique to the United States. They don’t do it even in crazy countries like Greece and Spain and Portugal and Ireland and Italy, the so-called PIGS of the European Union. Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain. They don’t have this ten-year phony-baloney accounting trick. I mean for starters, it’s ridiculous. Senators’ terms are six years, Congressmen’s terms are two years, Presidents’ terms are four years. The idea that anyone’s in a position to say what anything’s gonna cost in ten years is absurd, because one of the most basic principles in free societies [is] that a parliament can’t bind its successor… so to “cost” things on the basis of what’s gonna be happening in 2022… none of us knows what’s gonna be happening in 2022, which is why the entire CBO accounting trick should be blown up. That should be the “Line 1” of Paul Ryan’s plan: “I’m going to abolish the Congressional Budget Office and get the United States back to an honest accounting system.”
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March 21, 2012
On the differing motivations within the Republican party for defeating President Obama in 2012…
We don’t hate Obama – we despise what he’s doing to the country. And yeah, it does require a massive turn-around. And it does require a massive repudiation of his policies. The American people have to know how destructive and bad they are and have been. And by the way, I’m in that group and I make no apology for it… This is a teachable moment. And it’s the most important teachable moment for the people in this country that we’ve had in my lifetime. But this is one of the problems that people on my side have with Romney. They don’t think Romney or the Republican establishment cares that much about repudiating Obama – they just want to beat him. They want back in control, they want to be in charge of the spending, they want the committee chairmanships. We don’t want to win for that reason. We don’t want to win so we can run government – we want to win so we can get rid of people who are trying to destroy it, as founded. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
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March 19, 2012
On Obama lying to the American people at the height of the debt-limit negotiations with Republicans last summer…
Obama intentionally lied to the American people in a prime-time address, announcing the failure of negotiations to expand the debt limit last summer… the Obama lie was telling the American people the Republicans were demanding cuts to the budget, only – as a means of expanding the debt limit: “We’ll give you the debt limit increase, but you have to have some budget cuts.” Obama lied to the American people and said that was the intractable Republican position. When in fact, Boehner and Eric Cantor had offered tax increases in the $800 million range. Now to take you back, nine months ago – it was Obama who needed the deal… it’s Obama, whose job is spending money, it’s Obama who needs the debt limit increased so he can continue to buy votes, expand government, whatever his plan is. What Boehner and the boys decided to do was essentially call his bluff. He was setting up to run against a do-nothing Congress. They said, “Okay – here you go.” Obama rejected it, and then addressed the nation and lied – told the American people that the Republicans were intractable, inflexible – was their way or the highway. They wouldn’t give an inch. When in fact they had given Obama – this is the key – everything he wanted. And that’s what he couldn’t afford. The trick that they played on Obama was giving him everything he wanted.
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March 16, 2012
On the difference between charity and welfare…
The reason the Catholic Church, all the way back to the days of FDR, got roped into the liberal/socialist agenda is that they became convinced that welfare was charity. And churches are big on charity. And they thought that it would sound good for them to support massive government wealth transfer programs – welfare programs – under the guise that it was charity. And so the Catholic Church and its hierarchy in this country slowly but surely migrated to socialism, in terms of its political preferences… under the notion that liberalism is charity, under the notion that welfare is charity. Well it isn’t. Welfare is the willful absconding of money owned by others and giving it to other people, for your benefit, not theirs. Liberals give money to people, wanting a payback. The payback’s the vote.
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March 14, 2012
On the new revised figures released by the CBO concerning the cost of Obamacare…
You can go back and look at any liberal social program you want – you can look at the Great Society, the War on Poverty, AFDC, Food Stamps – any program. It always costs far more than what we’re told when the legislation is signed. It never costs less, it never costs the same. Major entitlement legislation like this. So yesterday the CBO released new projections for 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as we critics expected. The ten year cost of Obamacare’s core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned from $940 (billion) to $1.76 trillion. It’s almost double.
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March 12, 2012
Mark Steyn is guest-hosting for Rush today… On Democrats’ peculiar understanding of “wars on women”…
It is interesting… to see the things that Hillary Clinton, today, is talking about, what is it, International, whatever it is, International Women’s Day. She’s comparing protestors in Burma with students in Georgetown Law School. There’s a real war on women going on in the world today – so-called “virginity tests”, which are in fact a form of legalized rape in the new, post-“Arab Spring” Egypt, and oddly enough – oddly enough – Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to have anything to say about that. And Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem don’t seem to have anything to say about that either. So there is a war on women, out there, but it’s not one that the feminists seem to be very interested in talking about.
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March 9, 2012
On what the most important campaign issue in the 2012 election is…
Playing golf, almost exactly three, four years ago, and a guy from South Carolina – was a Democrat I was meeting him for the second time – I couldn’t understand, this guy’s – it made no sense to me intellectually, he’s a Democrat – and he kept raggin’ on George W. Bush, kept making fun of Bush, trying to provoke me. And I finally said, “What is it with you and Bush? Can we get serious for a minute? What is your problem?” And he looked at me and said “It can’t get any worse, Rush.” And I looked at him and I just shook my head and I said, “It most certainly can! And it’s going to!” Now – it is much worse. It’s ten times as worse… as it was four, five years ago, when this guy told me, “It can’t get any worse.” And by the way when this guy told me the economy had not really started its downward plunge, he was just reacting to Iraq, and the fact that everybody thought we had a stupid President, was embarrassed at Bush’s lack of intelligence and the media was trying to tell everybody that the economy was in the tank but it wasn’t, yet… my point to you is, 75% of the American people in Super Tuesday exit polls said the number one, two, and three things that mattered to them are the economy… they don’t want four more years of this, and it won’t matter who the Republican nominee is to ‘em, because they’re going to be voting against Obama, first and foremost.
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