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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On the Left’s glee over Rush Limbaugh’s loss of a handful of commercial sponsors after the Sandra Fluke/contraception brouhaha…

If we added up all of our affiliates – let’s choose the number 600 – and we assumed that each of those affiliates had 30 such sponsors in the course of our three-hour program, there might be, all across this country, as many as 18,000 different sponsors of this program… there might be 18,000 different people buying advertising within this program alone. That is a conservative number. Six hundred stations, 18 commercial minutes an hour… you add all of those up over a course of 600 stations, over three hours a day, five days a week, we’re talking 18,000 different sponsors. Okay? ABC News – who understands how this works, and are purposely misrepresenting it – out there ballyhooing that we have lost 28 sponsors! 28 sponsors, out of 18,000. That’s like losing a couple of french fries in the container when it’s delivered to you at the drive-thru. You don’t even notice it.

On his own apology to contraception activist Sandra Fluke…

I don’t expect – and I know you don’t either – morality, intellectual honesty, from the Left. They’ve demonstrated over, and over, a willingness to say or do anything to advance their agenda. It’s what they do. It’s what we fight against here every day. But this is the mistake I made. In fighting them, on this issue last week, I became like them. Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong, I descended to their level, when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke. That was my error. I became like them. And I feel very badly about that. I’ve always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity, of independence, on this program. Nevertheless, those two words were very inappropriate, they were uncalled for, they distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. I do not think she is either of those two words. I did not think, last week, that she is either of those two words. The apology to her, over the weekend, was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do, and in so doing, I became like the people we oppose. I ended up descending to their level. It’s important not to be like them, ever. Particularly in fighting them.

On the pessimism in the Republican establishment about denying Obama a second term…

As a practical matter, it helps to have a fight over the Presidency to ensure victories in the House and Senate – how are these House and Senate victories gonna happen if attitudinally you think you’ve lost the Presidential race? What is the campaign – what would the consultants say – the way to win the Senate is to go out and say to the American [people] – “Look we know, that we’re not going to beat Obama, and therefore, we still have to find a way to stop him. And that’s what we need you for. We need you, and your money and your votes to vote for your Republican Senate candidate and your House candidate.” Is that the campaign? Well obviously not – even if somewhere in the bowels of the RNC they actually decide to proceed on the assumption that Obama can’t be beat. They obviously will not say so publicly but the fact that they believe it will have to have some impact attitudinally on the campaign. Do they have a meeting with Romney or Santorum – whoever gets the nomination – “By the way, we really know you can’t win this – and we’re going to be behind you! We’re gonna fight for you… but we really need your help here in shoring up the House and maybe winning the Senate.” Now how does that happen? How do you run a Presidential campaign when your head you have conceded, while at the same time campaigning to win the Senate and hold the House? Maybe there are expert consultants who can tell me this.

On the testimony of a Georgetown University co-ed at a congressional hearing in favor of President Obama’s contraception mandate on religious institutions…

A Georgetown University co-ed told Nancy Pelosi’s hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they are going broke buying birth control pills. Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Obama’s mandate that virtually every health-insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that it’s too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage. Apparently four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it’s hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, said Sandra Fluke’s research. Can you imagine if you’re her parents – how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be? Your daughter goes up to a congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi, and testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth-control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them. Or the Pope. Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us, said Sandra Flake (sic) that they struggled financially as a result of this policy. The policy is Georgetown University’s student insurance does not cover contraception. It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint at law school according to the calculations. “Without insurance coverage, contraception as you know can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school,” Fluke told a hearing. Three thousand dollars for birth control over three years – that’s a thousand dollars a year for sex, and she wants us to pay for it.

On the politics of oil…

In their hearts and minds, Obama and the Left are loving gas prices go[ing] up – they just can’t say so. But they love it. And that’s why there’s not a huge effort to bring them down. There’s a huge effort to make you think they want to – but have you, how many stories have you seen where Obama says “Well, there’s really not a whole lot the President can do.” And Jay Carney – “Well, there’s not a whole lot the President can do!” In 2006, don’t forget, Chuck Schumer, and John F. Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, were mocking Bush for asking the Saudis to pump more oil. Arabs producing more oil makes prices go down. But somehow the U.S. pumping more oil won’t make any difference, that’s what they’re telling [us] – “No no! That’s the stupidest thing we ever heard of! That’s a tired, worn-out cliché. Drill drill drill – and for thirty years they’ve been saying ‘That’s what the Republicans always say, just drill drill – that’s going to take us two to three years if we start–“ Well thirty years ago, where would we be if we’d just started drilling drilling drilling. Chuck U. Schumer in 2008, Schumer to Bush: “Stop coddling Big Oil and the Saudis and get on ‘em and make ‘em pump more!” And Chuck U. wants Hillary to make ‘em do the same thing now. Obama – he can lower the sea level but he can’t lower the price of oil…

On the elite media’s double standard in hazing Republican candidates on their supposedly radical views on contraception in 2012, but not asking candidate Obama in 2008 about his sponsoring of legislation which allowed the killing of babies who survived attempted abortions…

The woman’s decision is to abort. So, they do the procedure. Something goes wrong – imagine that – and the baby’s born alive. The legislation brings in another doctor to finish the job so as not to burden the woman with an unwanted child. And to take the original doctor off the hook and not have him undergoing a guilt trip. And that’s what the legislation was, and that’s what Newt Gingrich was talking about. And he was saying, how come nobody – you know, talk about extremism? – nobody asked Obama that. In 2008. So they [the media] immediately start doing a fact-check to find out if indeed Obama was asked about it and they say “Well, of course he was. He was asked about partial-birth abortion all the time.” This is not partial-birth abortion. This is botched abortion.

On the liberal double standard as it applies to the religious beliefs of politicians…

Isn’t Rick Santorum being attacked for having and expressing Catholic beliefs? I mean who is the better Catholic example – Ted Kennedy or Rick Santorum? And who has been lionized by our media? And who is being castigated, laughed at, made fun of, and destroyed, or an attempt to destroy is being made. It’d be Santorum. Aren’t we constantly told that we must always respect people for their religious beliefs? Or does that only apply to Democrats and Muslims? … Christian beliefs – “We’re going to come down hard on you if you express yours.” Nobody ever attacks Obama for his religious beliefs when he trots ‘em out for political purposes.

On social conservatives…

Social conservatism has led to victory in presidential elections. It’s the dirty little secret that Democrats know and the media know, and it’s why the social conservatives … are so despised. They’re also despised on principle. But they’re also despised because there’re so many of them. And they’re thought to be hick, hayseed idiots, who believe every syllable in the bible and how stupid can that be in their minds. And they vote Republican, and they’re anti-abortion – every ingredient necessary for a liberal Democrat to hate somebody the social conservatives have.

On the economic damage inflicted by President Obama on the country – and Obama’s refusal to accept responsibility for any of it…

Everything that George W. Bush proposed in terms of spending Barack Obama voted for. Obama voted for every thing that came before him – every spending increase, as a Senator, he voted for it. There were 14.3 million fewer Americans on food stamps than there are today. The record of economic damage and destruction in this country is owing to one man: Barack Obama. Are we ever, ever, going to hear that anything is Obama’s fault? In fact, what are we hearing? In fact all of this is the Republican congress’s fault. Obama’s running against a do-nothing congress. He just submits a budget – a bankrupting budget, that is indefensible – it’s a campaign document, that’s why it can’t be defended.

On President Obama weighing the option of dismantling up to 80% of the U.S. nuclear arsenal…

The regime, led by Barack Hussein Obama, is weighing options for reducing our US nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80% in the number of deployed warheads. Eighty percent. Folks, this is staggering. Meanwhile, the Iranians are nuking up… We are unilaterally disarming. We are not requiring the Russians to go along. And even if the Russians said they would match these reductions, they lie! That is the lesson of Russians, and nukes… Our number of warheads peaked at 12,000 in the late 80s. And let me tell you something. That number of nuclear warheads is what helped us win the cold war. That number of nuclear warheads sent a message to every other nation, particularly at that point in time the Soviet Union: you hit us, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got enough left to wipe you out in retaliation. That many nuclear warheads was a deterrent.

On President Obama’s “accommodation” to Catholics, under which insurance companies, rather than Catholic institutions, are compelled to offer contraception, birth control, and abortifacients for free as part of their health insurance policies…

And we’re supposed to applaud this? We’re supposed to think that we have emerged with a big victory here? Obama can mandate that we buy insurance, and now Obama can mandate what insurance companies must offer, and after mandating what insurance companies must offer, then Obama can mandate what insurance companies can charge for it? Freedom doesn’t mean anything to this guy. Freedom doesn’t mean anything to this regime or this administration… this is an incredible sight to behold here. So, Obama is said to offer a compromise proposal that is respectful of religious concerns. And everybody’s applauding today.

On Obama’s and the Left’s attitude toward Catholics in the contraception controversy…

The Left thinks that this stuff with the Catholic church is not Catholic-wide. That a lot of Catholics don’t care. No big deal. The only people – this is what the White House, the media, the Democrats, the Left – what they think is that the only people who get riled about this are white evangelicals and typical pro-lifers. And you know what they think of them. White evangelicals are a bunch of racists, and the pro-lifers are a bunch of egg-heads. They’re the bitter-clingers. Obama and the Left, they love sticking it to that group. They have no respect for them. They think they’re a bunch of hayseeds and hicks. And so – contraception battle, abortion battle, going against the Catholic church – they think most Catholics aren’t going to care. Because they don’t think Catholics are like pro-lifers. They don’t consider Catholics to be evangelical.

On the difference between Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns…

Going back to 2008, the presidential campaign, remember how Obama portrayed himself, remember how he was portrayed by the media. Messianic. We had never before seen a politician like this. Someone who told the truth. Someone who was capable of uniting all the people, all the various divisions in the country. Somebody who was going to restore respect for America around the world. Somebody who was going to get rid of all of the traditional harangues that take place in our political culture. Of course what’s happened is we have the most divisive president in our lifetimes, the most partisan president in our lifetimes, and we have a President who couldn’t tell the truth about the budget and spending to save his life. And so it’s important to go back and listen to him promise all of these things about budgets and spending because he’s running a campaign this year that is the equivalent of him saying “I’ve not been in the White House yet. Nothing that’s happened, taken place, have I had anything to do with.” He’s running a campaign, in a sense it’s going to replicate what his 2008 campaign was. The last three years happened, but he had nothing to do with it. That’s going to be his approach.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On the sheer scale of the coming Obamacare disaster if it is not repealed…

Everybody – everybody – has to comply with Commissar Sebelius when it comes to the health care arrangements that you make… It’s one size fits all, from Maine to Hawaii, for everybody… Obamacare is one size fits all health care for 310 million people, from Maine to Hawaii. That’s why it’s going to be a bigger disaster than Canadian government health care, or [the] British National Health Service, of health care in Europe, because nobody has ever attempted government health care on this scale before. And as Commissar Sebelius makes clear, this administration is now going to impose one size fits all for everybody. Doesn’t matter if you receive federal dollars or the rest of it. If you’re an employer, this is what you do, this is what you’ve got to do. And that’s why this election is critical. Because if a stake is not driven through the heart of Obamacare, early next year, as soon as the next president takes office, this thing will never be killed. If it’s not killed in this next presidential term it will never be killed, and we will be stuck with this thing for good, and government health care fundamentally transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to junkie and pusher and eventually any competing institutions with a different view of things – whether it’s the Catholic Church or anybody else – just shrivels away, and you just have this one big government monolith determining everything.

On the huge difference between raw numbers and “seasonally-adjusted” numbers in the Bureau of Labor Statistics job report…

The non-seasonally-adjusted numbers say that the economy lost 2.5 million jobs, December to January, those are the raw numbers… But the Bureau of Labor Statistics is saying, using seasonally-adjusted numbers, that the number of jobs increased by 233,000-243,000 jobs, whatever it is. That’s a difference of 2,739,000 jobs. That is one heck of a difference. How do you seasonally adjust 2,700,000 jobs? The raw number and the seasonal adjustment – I’m sorry, I don’t understand how they get there.

On statements made by Mitt Romney which are likely to be taken out of context by the media…

Okay. “I like firing people.” “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Both of them – if they’re standalones, and taken out of context – are big problems. And they indicate a problem. Taken in context – which isn’t going to happen, with the drive-by media – taken in context, it’s understandable. But I even have a problem with this in context. “I’m not worried about the poor – we got a safety [net].” The safety net is one of the biggest cultural problems we’ve got. We had better be worried about it, just like we had better get angry over Obamacare. Obamacare is worth getting mad about. Mitt said that it wasn’t. This business – “I’m not worried about the very poor, we got a safety net there.” Right. The safety net is contributing to the destruction of their humanity and their futures.

On complaints about negative campaigning in the Florida Republican primary…

I am getting tired of the whining about negative campaigning. I’m getting tired of the whining from everybody… What in the world is politics? What is it, if not this? Saying something to the Gingrich people here. Newt … Newt is really caught up in this notion that Romney is saying things about him that aren’t true. I’m telling you, I’m having a tough time relating to being upset about that as someone who is routinely lied about every day and has been for 25 years. It comes with the territory.

On the debate clash last night between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum over Obamacare…

Mitt Romney, in the debate last night, said “All of this talk about health care is not worth getting angry about.” And yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is. It is worth getting angry about, it is worth being angry about, and it’s worth staying angry about… Santorum said “We can’t afford to give away this issue.” We can’t afford for the issue of Obamacare to be subordinated to anything else that’s being discussed up there.

On the apparently liberal leanings of many of the super-rich…

I’ve had so many people ask me over the years: “Why? Why are all these rich guys all of a sudden so liberal? Buffet. Gates.” Folks, there’s a simple answer. The filthy rich will say they are liberal. They will do things in public that reflect that they might be liberal, to keep the peasants with the pitchforks away from ‘em. It’s all a game. Have you ever heard of a family called the Kennedys. Have you ever heard of a family called the Rockefellers. Every filthy-rich individual or family must spout/support/do, in public, liberal stuff. It is how they convince people that their wealth is justified and is untouchable. It is a protection mechanism. It is to keep the Occupy Wall Street crowd off of their front yards and instead on the front yards of people who work at AIG. That’s all it is.

On the dissatisfaction of the Republican Establishment with the field of contenders...

They are secretly trying to get Mitch Daniels back in the race. There are entreaties being made to Bobby Jindal to get in the race. They are panicked. They are scared to death they’re going to lose the House and not win the Senate and I told you on November 10th, that’s their primary concern. That’s why they were apoplectic at Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle getting Tea Party nominations. It’s about the Senate. It’s about being in charge of the money. It’s not about cutting spending. The Republican establishment is not … signed on to the cutting spending business… they don’t like conservatives, and they’re not really all that concerned about spending. They want to be in charge of it. That’s who they are. And they are not going to be in charge of it if they don’t hold the House and if they don’t pick up the Senate. And that’s what they really want. They’re not and never have been convinced that Obama can be beat.

On Newt Gingrich’s castigation of journalist John King at last night’s South Carolina debate, after King led off the debate with a question to Gingrich about revelations made by his ex-wife in a televised interview…

You cannot shame the mainstream media. If any of you are thinking that the media learned a lesson – if any of you believe that the media finally had it handed to ‘em – if you believe that the media had their eyes opened and they are fully awake now and they understand what they’re dealing with – forget it. John King is proud of what happened last night. John King is a hero in the mainstream media. Because he didn’t back down. Because he continued to illustrate how it is that the media does really control the agenda. That was a demonstration of the power they hold over every public figure’s head that they choose to hold a guillotine… it’s a badge of honor. If you are thinking that John King was embarrassed, and ran away with his tail tucked between his legs and learned his lesson and it’ll never happen again – uh-uh-uh-uhhh. You cannot shame the mainstream media. They are proud of this. They delight in their power to destroy candidates they don’t like. They revel in the fact that they can keep so many conservatives from even thinking about getting into politics.

On the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy…

The cruise ship captain? What a great politician this guy would make. “No, no-no-no! I wasn’t running away! I tripped! I fell in that lifeboat!” Bring this guy over here, legalize him and run him for office as a Democrat.

On the Taliban’s nonchalant reaction to a video recording of U.S. soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters…

The Taliban says, that that tape, is not going to hurt anything. “We’re not bothered by that.” What does that tell you? … It tells us that they’re winning, and they’re close, and if they start raising hell about this it’s going to delay the ultimate [triumph]… Taliban must think they’re close to winning. Taliban must think they’re pretty close to taking over Afghanistan. There are peace talks going on. And the Taliban must think that we’re pretty close to surrendering it to ‘em and getting out. And they don’t want this to come along and stop that process and delay it.

On the party establishment’s cold feet now that Mitt Romney seems to be locking up the Republican presidential nomination…

Here in the establishment there are now qualms. Up until today, they’ve been telling us we only have a chance with Romney. The only way we can win. The only guy who can win is Romney. Today – “Well, that’s if all the Republicans show up – that may not happen.” When did that realization hit? … I’m telling you – the establishment’s now saying “Wait a minute, what have we done?” … Sorry, I’m not trying to stir anything up here, but this has been the model candidate. This is the guy they’ve all been pushing. Now all of a sudden… What does this mean? Why are they saying this? I’ll tell you what it is. One word, that explains this. It’s passion. There just doesn’t seem to be any.

On the consequences of “animal rights” education in public schools…

There have been reports of growing rat infestations around the Occupy DC protests at Freedom Plaza, McPherson Square… When you educate young skulls full of mush with this pap and they grow up and find themselves in positions of power [in] government, this is what you get – the Wildlife Protection Act in 2010 in DC. According to Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia said “This law is crazier than fiction.” It requires that rats and other vermin not be killed, but rather captured. Preferably in families. No glue or snap traps can be utilized. The rodents must be relocated from where they’re captured, and some of these animals may need to be transferred through a wildlife rehabilitator as part of the relocation process. The law does not allow pest control professionals to kill the rats.

On which Republican candidate Obama would prefer to run against…

You think they don’t want to run against Romney? So you’ve got Romney advisors that were hijacked to help put together Obamacare, and now you’ve got Obama who’s about to institute a mortgage-refinance plan that is the idea of a Romney advisor. And yet we’re being told – “They’re scared to run against Romney, they really don’t want to run against Romney.” I don’t see it that way.

On the media’s refusal to cover a potentially embarrassing Halloween party in the White House…

The press doesn’t want to get Obama in trouble… It is safe to say – it’s very accurate to say – that, domestically, in this country, conservatives – conservative Republicans – are the biggest enemy the Democrats have. Bigger than al Qaeda, bigger than the Taliban, bigger than Iran, bigger than any foreign enemy. The Democrat party, the Regime, the media, looks at their domestic political opposition as the biggest enemy they have, the biggest threat. And in a way, it kind of makes sense. We are the only thing standing in the way of their absolute power. They don’t look at the Iranians as trying to stop them. They don’t look at the Taliban as trying to stop ‘em. They look at us as trying to stop them. And they are part of the Obama agenda advancement team.

On the Republican primary race after the Iowa caucus (in which Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum tied for first place)…

Perry said last night he was going to head back to Texas for prayer, and reflection, to figure out what he should do next. Because he spent a lot of money in Iowa, and it didn’t translate to votes. And the theory is that if money didn’t translate to votes in Iowa, then it may not translate to votes anywhere else. And is it worth going into debt. Does he have a high enough base here to pull off what now would be a miracle. I hope he stays in. ‘cause I told you I like Perry. And I like Santorum. And I told you countless times I know, either one of those guys, and I said this about Bachmann as well – if any of them are elected President, I know, I have no doubt whatsoever, they are gonna be fighting for this country each and every day. No doubt whatsoever.

[Previously-broadcast material] On the Occupy movement’s ignorant criticisms of capitalism…

Everything that’s happened to this country since 2008 is not capitalism. Bailouts. Government buying car companies. Investing in phony, fraudulent green energy things. This is not capitalism that’s happened in this country in the last three years. We haven’t had any capitalism. And the truth of the matter is that’s why we’re in the situation we are in. We’ve already abandoned it with this regime.

Walter E. Williams is filling in for Rush today… On the unequal reaping of economic rewards in the free market system…

Now you take somebody like Joanne Rowling… she is the Harry Potter lady. And she’s a billionaire. She’s in that top one percent. Although she’s in Britain, she’s in that top one percent. Now how did Rowling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us? Well I think the entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world’s children. The children are responsible. Because her wealth is a direct result of more than 500 million Harry Potter book sales. And if the children did not have their parents go buy them these Harry Potter books, she wouldn’t be rich, she wouldn’t be in that top one percent. Or you take my friend – actually he’s not my friend, I just like the way the guy plays – Lebron James. He is an animal on the basketball court. And this guy has 43 million dollars a year. And that’s very unequal to the rest of us. That’s socially unjust. Now how does Lebron James get 43 million dollars a year? Well again, it’s the children. It’s the children getting their fathers – instead of children staying home and doing homework and their fathers helping their wives out with the kitchen duties, they’re going downtown to the sports arena and plunk down $100 to see Lebron James play basketball. And then I think there’s a form of gross discrimination with this as well. Because I can play basketball too. But nobody’s paying me 43 million dollars.

Mark Belling is filling in for Rush today… On the lack of good news in advance of the full implementation of Obamacare…

I swear every three weeks, you’ll see a story about something – it’s never good – and then the phrase they put between the commas is “part of a little-known provision in President Barack Obama’s health care law”. The whole thing is filled with little-known provisions. Isn’t that what Nancy Pelosi said? “Well we’re just going to have to pass it and find out what’s in it.” Well now we find out what’s in it. Have we yet had one thing come out that’s in it, that’s been good? If there was, if there was just one thing in this, or one ramification – and we’re only in the early stages of this – if there was one thing that was working out well, can you imagine how the media would be trumpeting it? Obama would be there at wherever that magical place was where something good was happening because we passed Obamacare. Everything that happens as a result of this turns out to be a bad thing.

On the failure of the Supercommittee to reach a budget agreement…

Everybody knew the Supercommittee wasn’t going to do anything. And by the way, there are no spending cuts. Even with sequestration. There are no spending cuts. It’s just reductions in the rate of growth. It’s the same old thing. Spending is still gonna up! It’s just like everything else, with the U.S. budget – it’s said to be a cut because it’s not going up as much. But defense spending, with sequestration, will still go up 16%. There’s no spending cuts here. Zilch, zero, nada. But anyway, folks, the market’s not down because the Supercommittee is gonna admit failure. Everybody knew this was gonna happen.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On the utter irrelevance of the payroll tax controversy…

Economists say that to sustain a healthy housing market, this country needs to sell 700,000 new homes every year. It was 315,000 in 2011. Now, that 700,000 figure is not going to be reached under any conceivable circumstances because Fannie and Freddie and the subprime mortgage and all the rest of it so distorted the housing market that this country now has about twice as many large family homes as it’s gonna need for the foreseeable future. So the problem here is an immense structural one. And the idea that giving you an extra $20 a week for another eight weeks… if you earn $50,000 a year, you will benefit from this dramatic Christmas gift from the President, $20 a week for an extra eight weeks, so what’s that? Two, twenty by eight, that’s $160. One hundred and sixty dollars. And we are supposed to be grateful that President Obama was so serious about this $160 – he cared so much, about you getting your extra $20 a week – that he was willing to stay in Washington, and not fly out to Hawaii for his vacation until today.

On the need for Republicans to get serious about saving the country from economic ruin at the hands of Obama and the Democrats…

If you believe that our beloved country is collapsing due to government – why continue with these games? Why continue with such things as two-month expansions of the debt limit? Continuing resolution after continuing resolution instead of a budget. A two-month extension of a so-called payroll tax cut. These are games. This is style over substance. If we are to stop this, if we are to reverse this, if we are to get anywhere, we need to start now, make our case. We need to begin to reverse course. We can’t be so timid and scared and gutless that we jump every time Obama says “Jump!”

On the liberal media’s strangely reverential coverage of the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il…

He was a murdering tyrant. His people are among the poorest in the world. And he’s spoken of here in reverent terms. The best thing he had going for him as far as these people are concerned was: He’s not a Republican. He wasn’t a conservative. You know, Hitler and Stalin both loved American movies too. This guy loved Michael Jordan. Wow, there’s really a lot to recommend him! Bachmann, and Perry, are stupid. Kim Jong Il – not a nut! It’d be a mistake to say that he’s a nut.

On Democrat party class warfare tactics…

Out of the blue, the White House, and the Democrats, gave up on their millionaires surtax. Did you notice that? Did you notice that one year ago, they gave up on it too. Almost at the same time… I think, that when it comes right down to it, they’re never actually going to go to the mat demanding a tax increase on the rich in this economy. But I think they’re going to try and get as much mileage out of talking about one, and demanding one, and ripping into the rich, and exploiting class envy, just for the sake of reelection, just like Obama is putting his reelection first over the Keystone Pipeline. I think they think they can get just as much mileage out of the verbiage, blaming the rich, demanding a tax increase on them, without actually doing it.

On the revelation that American realtors grossly overstated home sales for years…

Nothing’s real… if this number can be so easily fudged – and where is the journalist community? Where’s the curiosity here? Where’s somebody hearing the numbers, “Well, maybe we’re not going to accept what you say, let’s dig deep and find it.”? There wasn’t any. There’s no curiosity about the truth of the unemployment numbers. None. How much other out there is not real? How much else is being faked? How many other things are we being lied to about? The best guess is that we’re being lied to far more than we’re being told the truth. Particularly when it comes to the state. The status of the economy. And in large part, certain sectors of the economy the American people are just in denial about all of this. And it’s true. A lot of people don’t want to face just how bad things are.

On the creeping, incremental growth of the state, how it benefits the Democrat party, and how difficult it is for conservatives to oppose it…

What are we trying to do? We’re trying to defend against this profligate spending, but we’re not on offense. We’re just trying to stop it. We’re like at The Alamo. We’re just trying to stop it. We’re constantly on defense. Everywhere. ‘cause we don’t use government the way they do. They’re constantly on offense. Constantly making a move, constantly trying to make it bigger. We’re just saying “Stop! Stop, dammit, stop!” We’re not even trying to advance anything… So this is how it works you see. If you feed them – if you feed the children, three square meals a day, during the school year, how can you expect them to feed themselves in the summer? So you start out with breakfast for the kids that can’t afford that… and then of course it expanded, and we learned – now it includes dinner! … Okay and then school ends. And of course how can we expect them to feed themselves in the summer, when they haven’t had to for nine months. So, this is how it works. They demand to be fed during the summer. Or their acolytes demand that they be fed, during the summer. Because after all, we’ve conditioned them to not feeding themselves. Plus their parents don’t have to take responsibility of feeding them. And their parents don’t have to take the responsibility of paying, not directly… Wanton little waifs and serfs, dependent on the state. Pure and simple.

On the possibility that a Republican presidential contender might try to run as an independent…

I think Ron Paul would do it. And if Ron Paul does it… we know that anybody, after this nomination process is over, is ticked off enough and goes third party – that’s it. You split the Republican vote. No third party candidate’s gonna win. No third-party candidate is gonna win beans in this election. All the third-party candidate is going to do is secure victory for Obama. And if that happens, if somebody on our side goes third-party, far as I’m concerned that’s what they’re trying to make happen. Re-elect Obama. For whatever reason. Anger at the electorate, at the Republican side for not nominating them, anger at other people for what happened to ‘em or what was said during the campaign, whatever… I think it’s one of the reasons the GOP is afraid to get tough and tell Ron Paul, “Look, you’re not polling anywhere, get out of this debate, you don’t belong here.” They’re not gonna tell him that… They don’t want to upset anybody and have ‘em go third-party.

On President Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kansas…

The elected President of the United States said, in Osawatomie Kansas, trying to be Teddy Roosevelt, that the United States of America has never worked. That is a quote. “Has never worked.” Quote, unquote. Really? What was the first Thanksgiving all about? What was George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation all about? What was 250 years of the greatest prosperity and standard of living known to exist in all of humanity? The President of the United States said yesterday that it has never worked. But he didn’t stop there. He said that Americans must look to a more activist government, that taxes more, spends more, and regulates more, if the middle class is to be preserved. I can’t get my mind around this. This is antithetical to me. This is foreign, this is what we have faced from our enemies, since our founding. This characterization of our country.

On the willingness of Republican candidates to let their campaign debates be hijacked by supposed entrepreneurial charlatans like Donald Trump…

Well the alternative view is – When are you Republicans gonna stand up and stop letting all these liberal media outfits moderate your debate? When are you Republican candidates gonna stand up and finally assert that the media is not gonna pick which one of you wins this nomination? Ergo, what’s so bad about Trump moderating a debate? Or about me, or about anybody else? Why must these debates be moderated by the Wolf Blitzers, and the MSNBCs of the world? For them to have any credibility? Why must these Republican debates be moderated by people who have one objective, and that’s to see to it that whoever wins this nomination loses? Let me put it a better way. Why should these Republican candidates repeatedly subject themselves to debates moderated by people whose only objective is to see Obama win? That’s my take on this.

On government reports that the national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.6%…

The regime needs this, and when we finally get to under 9%, it’ll be 8-point-something, but the point-what won’t matter. The only number that’s going to matter is the “8” – [it] can be 8.9 – it won’t be 8.9, it’ll be “8”. Well it’s 8.6, but it doesn’t matter, it’s “8” and predictably the media’s all over it and that’s the headline… they’re not gonna dig deep and find out how it happened… the truth of the matter is… it’s a corrupt number… folks, the number of people who have quit looking for work in the last few weeks is 315,000. Those are the people who have thrown up their hands after 99 weeks. Or more. Of being unemployed. And they’ve said “I’m quitting. I’m not looking.” So they’re not counted. Therefore, the universe of jobs available in the country is down by 315,000.

[Rebroadcast material]… On why President Obama would ask the Supreme Court for an expedited ruling on Obamacare…

We’ve mentioned a couple possibilities as to why the regime has asked for a quick review and decision from the Supreme Court on Obamacare. And I want to throw out another possibility. Given where Obama is in the polls – and folks, it is much worse than the state-controlled media polls indicate – I think it’s disastrous. Simple logic would tell us, it’s disastrous. We are on the verge of a depression. The idea that the incumbent President has a chance to be reelected is absurd, in those circumstances. Yet the media narrative each day is of course just the opposite because Obama’s their guy… So they ask for a quick review of Obamacare. One of two ways to look at it. They’re either very confident they’re going to win this thing, or – or – given who Obama is, a community organizer who loves agitating people, and who is probably very connected, if not personally, his regime, to these Wall Street protests, and he’s … egging them on, and so is Biden. They’re egging these people on. So there’s a part of me that says Obama would love the court declaring Obamacare unconstitutional. I think Obama loves playing a victim. I think he would love to take that to the bank and say, “See what they’re doing to your free healthcare?”

On a New York Times article which outlines the Obama Administration’s new reelection campaign strategy…

The Democrat party… is going after the entitlement class, the welfare-dependent class, and the elite, in academia, art, human resource management, lawyers, library and social workers and so forth – what a coalition! The backbone of America! And that’s who they’re going after. They are ceding it! … The New York Times is admitting that the Democrat party, the Obama coalition is saying, “If you work, we don’t want you… If you work, we know you don’t want us. If you work, you’re the targets. If you work, you are the people we are gunning for. If you work, we are coming after you to make sure the other elements of our constituency are able to eat.” That’s what the Obama coalition is saying.

On how freedom is lost…

You don’t need prisons to lose your freedom. Look at political correctness. People stifle themselves. People will refuse to exercise their own first-amendment rights out of fear for what might be heard. Somebody might be offended. Somebody might be upset. So people willingly, willfully, give up freedom every day of the week. Political correctness has resulted in self-policing of your thoughts.

On U.S. energy policy…

What we’re doing now – our energy policy now – is frankly absurd. Killing off our own energy sector. Shutting down our own production. Shutting down our own discovery. Shutting down our own drilling. For a host of reasons, chief among them a hoax. Global warming, and pollution. Making ourselves vulnerable to world supplies, political circumstances, price variations, all of these things. We’re not acting like a super-power. We’re acting like a needy, defensive, no-confidence little child. Because we don’t have the right strategies. We don’t think enough of ourselves as a country, at the highest levels.

On Michelle Obama being booed by a NASCAR crowd at the Homestead Miami Speedway…

Why would people boo the First Lady? Media can’t believe it. But I can. People don’t like being told they’re lousy parents. And Mrs. Obama has done that. People resent Mrs. Obama’s bizarre need to tell us what to eat and how much to exercise… Mrs. Obama has a husband that runs around and apologizes for this country that he was elected to lead… I’m also pretty sure that this crowd is not eager to go out and buy a car that you have to plug in, in order to drive. This is a fast car kind of crowd, this is NOT a Prius/Volt/Leaf plug-it-in-and-charge-it-for-40-miles kind of crowd. Also, I might point out, that people who go to NASCAR races are the very people her husband called “bitter clingers”: when things aren’t going well, what do they do? Why, they cling to their guns, and they cling to their religion.

On the Republican presidential nomination process…

Despite what anybody tells you, we do not know who the nominee will be. But we do know what he or she should be saying… in order to secure the nomination. And that is, Barack Obama is the problem, not fellow Republicans. The problem is Barack Obama. The problem is the Democrat party. The problem is the American left. America’s greatness is not behind us. America’s greatness is there, it’s on the horizon. Our nominee must say “We will be great again,” and the first step in the process is getting rid of Barack Obama and the Democrat party. And moving them out of the way. Whichever of these people seeking the nomination makes that case – the most consistently and the most believably, and the most sincerely; not as a phony sales-type presentation, but genuinely means it – that’s who’s gonna get this nomination, in the end. And it is still up for grabs.

On the winding down of the Occupy Wall Street movement…

Now that these kids from Occupy-Whatever have gotten used to urinating and defecating in the streets, when they go back home are their parents gonna have to house-break ‘em all over again? Teach ‘em how to use the potties, the bathrooms. If you are a parent of a “returning hero” from Occupy Wall Street you might want to put some newspaper down at strategic points inside the house. Particularly the bedrooms where your brave hero sons and daughters are returning home, after this valiant, valiant effort to overturn whatever it was they wanted overturned. But I am, folks at the end of the day here I’m still a little sorry to see them all go… Every photo from the Occupy protests looks like a campaign ad for conservatism… And this is why they had to be cleared out of there. This is why they had to go. I am convinced the mayors got phone calls from Washington, from Axelrod, from somebody, “Look, let’s shut this down because it’s not working any more.” The media gave it it’s best shot. The media tried to tell everybody “This is just like the Tea Party.” But it wasn’t working because the murders, the gunfire, the sexually-transmitted disease, the filth. The abject filth. Third-world type little city-states. In all these cities. Was a direct television ad for conservatism. These people. At Occupy whatever. They are the perfect representatives of the Democrat party.

On the Supreme Court’s announcement that it will take up Obamacare for deliberation in March of 2012…

The regime is out there saying they want an early decision. The regime is suggesting they would like a decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare next June. That’s gonna have a possibility, the potential of making health care the issue during the campaign. And I don’t know how that works out for the regime, folks. If you look at what just happened in Ohio, where Issue 3, 66% of the American people want no part of the mandate requiring them to buy insurance, the news about health care every day, it gets worse, in terms of people losing their insurance, costs going up. But the regime claims that they want this decision before the election. And they’re out there predicting victory.

On an announcement by the Department of Education that schools should start teaching personal finance classes to children in kindergarten…

Why would kindergarten students need to know anything about personal finance? By the time they grow up they’re not going to have any money of their own, it’s gonna all be the government’s. They are not going to have to worry about buying food; it’ll all be provided by the government. They won’t be buying homes or maybe even paying rent – they’ll be living in government-subsidized housing. They won’t have to buy a car, they’ll be given an electric car or told to ride mass transit.

On the steady drip-drip-drip of sexual abuse allegations against Herman Cain in the media…

They’re not going to stop. They are going to not stop this until they see erosion, sufficient, in his numbers, for them to say they’ve succeeded. Just like they didn’t stop with Sarah Palin. They didn’t stop. They didn’t stop until she said she’s not running. And now, do you ever hear about her? You hear about her any more? Not at all. And it’ll be the same thing with Cain… And I guarantee you, Newt is gonna be the next one targeted. If he keeps this slow creep back up, he’s going to be the next one targeted. This is how the left works. And then the same losers on our side will start piling on, saying “Newt’s got some explaining to do there.” It’s the most amazing thing to me. Political enemies go out and level charges against people on our side, some people on our side [say] “Yeah, yeah, you may have something there.”

On media accusations against Herman Cain that he made women feel “uncomfortable” in hotel rooms 15 years ago…

Folks, I get uncomfortable when Room Service shows up, when I’m in a hotel. What is this? That’s not a fact of anything, it is an accusation. And more than that, it’s a touchy-feely accusation. How many people are made to feel “uncomfortable” every day by other people? What kind of wusses run the world now? What kind of pantywaists run the world? Who is it – “Yes, I was made to feel very uncomfortable, I think it’s worth $50,000, Mister Limbaugh.” Every day, we all are made to feel uncomfortable by something. I would be afraid to complain, how many times I’m uncomfortable. For crying out loud, that’s the whole point, a nation of whiners! And complainers. Who want to be paid for it. For being offended or being made to feel uncomfortable but so what? By what? … The problem here is that it is not a fact. Not yet. That’s an accusation.

On the case of a Dutch scientist – who published a study claiming that meat eaters were more selfish than others – who admitted his studies were fraudulent…

Let me make an observation here folks. I know meat eaters. I am a meat eater. I have never met anybody who feels superior to anybody or anything because they eat meat. But! I have run into all kinds of holier-than-thou vegetarians and vegans and other wackos who do think they are superior, and better, and smarter, than everybody else. I know gazillions of beaf eaters and I don’t know a one of them who has forced his eating choices on anybody else. But I know a bunch of rag-tag stupid vegan vegetarians, holier-than-thou superiorists who try to force everybody to eat what they eat and to not eat what they don’t approve of.

On privatizing social security…

A question: if Barack Obama can use taxpayer money to invest in risky private sector investments – like all of these fraudulent, phony, there-is-no-business-there green energy loans – if Obama can do that – if he can use taxpayer money to invest in risky private sector investments that go belly-up – shouldn’t we be able to put our retirement money in a safer place than Washington? I personally, I don’t mind risking my money on investments I trust. What I don’t like is other people risking my money on investments only a fool would trust. Privatizing a portion of social security is an argument that’s always out there. And anytime somebody brings it up seriously within the realm of politics they get shot down as “third rail, can’t do that,” and of course look at how it’s demagogued. How is it demagogued? The argument for not privatizing even a portion of social security is that “people might risk their retirement savings on risky investments.” Yes, these stupid idiot people might go out there and invest their money in bad places. They might put their money in the stock market, “Oh no! And they might lose everything!” And they cite the most recent market crash they can think of. Well, excuse me, but isn’t Obama risking everybody’s retirement savings when he gives our money to green energy boondoggles?

On media allegations that Herman Cain made unspecified physical gestures which were not overtly sexual but which nonetheless left unidentified women in his presence “uncomfortable” fifteen years ago…

Obama’s a can’t-do Presidency – Solyndra, Fast and Furious, the absolute scandal that is the Porkulus Stimulus, the destruction of the U.S. economy – and The Politico and the mainstream media have launched an unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack on an independent self-reliant conservative black because that is not allowed… What would the left be doing right now if, let’s say, there were an assault on Obama of this nature. Let’s say some conservative publication ran a story exactly like this – unnamed sources, fifteen years ago, every detail, Obama, sexual harassment. What would the Democrat National Committee and what would the media be doing? They would be going after the women. They would be targeting these women, and they would name names, and they would destroy them. That is what the Democrats and the media would do. They would set out to find out who these women are that would talk to the conservative publication, and they would destroy them.

On Michelle Obama's campaign claims against Republicans…

This is what you get, when you can't run on your husband's economic record. This is what happens when you can't run on your husband's achievements, because there aren't any. This is what you get – Republicans want dirty air; Republicans want dirty water; Republicans want fewer people alive; and now, Republicans don't want you to be able to speak, and the Republicans don't want you to be able to practice your religion – this is what they have. This is what they're worth. This is all they've got. They are morally bankrupt. This is how they have to go out and raise funds. There is nothing – not one syllable – from either Barack Obama or Michelle Obama or anybody in this campaign, that's inspiring, or uplifting. They are happily presiding over, and managing a country in decline. And the only ammunition in their arsenal is these never-ending lies about (how) the Republicans want poisoned air and water, dirty air and water, nobody able to speak. It's breath-taking to listen to this, to listen to absolutely how morally vacant they are.

On the disconnect between the rhetoric and the behavior of Occupy Wall Street protestors…

Have you seen the photos of these parks after the occupation protests have been forced to de-occupy ‘em so people can go in there and clean ‘em up? Where’s all the recycling? Where’s all the saving-the-environment? Where’s all the organic stuff, whatever these people claim is necessary to save the planet? I can’t tell if these are pictures from Occupy Wall Street or from that earthquake in Turkey. These people are pigs… Their place is an absolute mess. And there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of recycling going on, unless you count recycling a bunch of hippie nonsense from the 60s, in terms of attitude and behavior. I thought these are the people that love Gaia. I thought these are the people that love Mother Earth. I thought these are the people that didn’t like any pollution, didn’t like any trash, didn’t like any garbage… look at the mess that they’re making wherever they are. And you didn’t see these kind of messes following Tea Party rallies.

On George F. Will’s comparison of Mitt Romney to Michael Dukakis…

It’s a profound insult to equate Romney with Dukakis and to say that the Republican party is happy with Romney, just as Democrats were with Dukakis. Woah! Now that may be true… we know that some of the so-called conservatives in the inside-the-beltway conservative media do believe in a big government, and an “active” executive, as they refer to the President… and they also believe that we Republicans and conservatives must support big government because the people, the voters, are signaling that’s what they want. We just must do it smarter. And so they’re looking at Romney as the steward. This is Will’s point. “Hey this guy’s a technocrat, this guy’s a policy wonk, this guy can do it.” And when George F. Will says that Romney’s not ideological, just like Dukakis wasn’t, what he’s essentially saying here is that Romney’s not conservative. He’s a technocrat. A policy guy. Which he is. But Dukakis, I say, was an active statist. When you think about it a technocrat is a statist because his selling point is that he can make the big government apparatus run more efficiently, which is what the David Brookses and his buddies on our side in the conservative media claim to support. And that’s the new definition of a Republican moderate.

On the late Steve Jobs…

He was as profit-oriented as any capitalist you have ever met… One of the stories that the left is very uncomfortable with about Jobs is when he took Apple back over in 1997 – he went back after being exiled, he went back in 1997 – and after a few months became interim CEO, then full-time. And the first thing he did was cancel every philanthropic program that Apple had. Because they were in a loss situation… And after Apple started turning profitable he did not re-implement… the philanthropic programs that Apple had in place… Jobs would in no way give any indication to anybody anytime anywhere what his political leanings were – they were anything but liberal… when it came to running that business of his he was as capitalist as any capitalist this world has ever produced has been… all of Apple’s products, 99% of them, are made in China. They’re made in China because if they weren’t they’d be prohibitively expensive made in the United States. The fact that he would tell Obama that unions are destroying the schools is perfectly true! It’s perfectly true.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today … On Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax proposal…

I’m wary about a national sales tax or a national value-added tax… once you give a new tax, introduce a new tax – they always say, with taxes, “Okay, we’ve got Tax A, and it’s 40%, so if we introduce Tax B, it’ll enable Tax A to come down to 20% and Tax B will be introduced at 5% and will never go higher.” And then the next thing you know, once they’ve got two taxes they can raise, oddly enough, both of them manage to go up… You can’t bind government, now and forever into the future, so Herman Cain can talk about his 9% VAT rate, but if he were to introduce that tax, you can bet it wouldn’t stay at 9% for long, and it would start to go up pretty quickly. But Herman Cain is right to attack the tax code in this country. Because it is disgusting. It’s absolutely disgraceful in a free society that people on relatively low salaries need professional help in order to complete their taxes.

On the Occupy Wall Street protestors’ lack of authenticity…

This is Obama’s protest to counter the Tea Party. They’re jealous! The Democrats are so jealous of the Tea Party they can’t see straight. This kind of thing is not spontaneous. They didn’t bubble up out of nothing. This didn’t bubble up out of genuine passion, like the Tea Party did. They’ve had to create this. They’ve had to pay for it. They’re advertising for protests. And even that, the numbers of people showing up are not that big.

On the Occupy Wall Street protestors and their ignorant responses to a reporter’s probing questions about how best to solve the country’s economic problems…

This is who the Democrats created. These people are the result of Democrat party policy, liberalism – this is what you get. Blatant, smug, arrogant stupidity. It really is a shame. It’s a human waste. These peoples’ lives have lost all their potential, because they have been inoculated with the notion that government is the answer, and that being an American means, you want it, you’ll get it. And this lunatic fringe is the Democrat base. Why do you think the Democrats are embracing them? … This is the Democrat base, folks. This is who it is. This is who Pelosi’s talking to every day. This is who Dingy Harry’s talking to every day. This is who Obama’s talking to every day.

On Rick Perry’s performance on last night’s Republican presidential debate…

Rick Perry managed to make himself disappear last night, like he was an A-List magician in Las Vegas, in the debate. I don’t know if he is finished after last night, but … I like his basic message. I like Perry’s basic message. But I don’t know that he knows yet how to run for President, run for the office of President… he was just too passive, last night, and I know maybe the thinking is “Let’s be calm and cool, collected, and exude an aura of confidence, an aura of ‘I belong here’.” But there needs to be some energy. Perry needed to dominate last night. Somebody needed to hit Mitt Romney in the back with his advisors show up at the White House on three different occasions to advise Obama’s people on implementing Obamacare. I thought it’d be a natural for Perry to do that. Or for Newt. Or any of them. Herman Cain. It did not happen. He needed to dominate and he didn’t dominate last night.

Mark Davis is filling in for Rush today… On President Obama’s re-election prospects…

I’m not gonna sit here in October of ’11 and tell you that it’s a definite 10-point Republican win in 2012. But, that having been said, right now, this President – who did us the favor, did us the favor of telling us what he was going to do, and then did it – I have to tell you, you can blister President Obama for a lot of things, but the usual politician thing of campaigning one way and governing another? That’s the problem with this guy. He’s governing exactly as he campaigned. His ideas were bad in the campaign, and they’re horrible in actual practice. And there are tons of voters – independent voters – who gave him the Presidency, who now have an enormous case of buyer’s remorse. These voters are there, to be lured, back into the Republican camp. And it seems that every day of actual Obama governance makes that job a little easier. But we can never be lazy. We can never be overconfident. We’ve gotta put up a good candidate, an upbeat unapologetic conservative, who can take it to this President on a debate stage and return him to private life.

On the Occupy Wall Street protestors…

What, exactly, are the contributions to society these protestors have made? How many jobs have they created? How many jobs have they held? Have they built any homes for people? Have they invented any life-saving drugs? Have they produced a drop of gasoline or a watt of electricity? Have they produced any food? Have they built stores? Corporations are nothing but businesses. And businesses are small, medium and large. Small, medium and large what? Small, medium and large collections of people! Productive citizens. Who make things, provide services, respond to the wants and needs and desires of other people. These protestors, who are actually few in number, have contributed nothing. They’re parasites. They’re pure, genuine parasites. Many of them are bored, trust-fund kids, obsessed with being something, being somebody. Meaningless lives, they want to matter.

On Democrat proposals for a new tax on millionaires as a way to fund job creation…

Washington has nothing to do with job creation. As we’ve seen in the last 2 ½ years what Washington does is destroy jobs. What Washington does is put obstacles in the way of economic growth that would lead to job creation, particularly Washington when run by Democrats and liberals. Aren’t millionaires the ones that hire employees – is this a good time to start punishing them?

On President Obama’s demagogic attack on Republican conduct at a debate regarding a question about homosexuality, and the role of new media in exposing his distortions…

Back in 1980, if this were 1993, folks, aside from this show, Obama would be getting away with making this country think that Republicans at a debate booed homosexuality. He would get away with it. He’s not going to get away with it this time. There is an entire alternative media that is going to see to it that a majority of Americans understand exactly what happened. Now, whereas I say in the Republican leadership and too many Republican candidates still think that the only way they can get their point across, the only way they can get their point of view aired is through the mainstream media – the Democrats are the same way but for them it makes sense because they own the media. Democrats and the media are the same thing.

On the inevitable side effects that follow from Democrat party efforts to punish corporate America…

The Democrats never factor the dynamism into anything they do. They look at everything as static. And they say, “We’re gonna really punish these banks, these banks have been ripping off our voters, these banks have been ripping off our customers, we’re gonna cut that transaction fee in half, we’re gonna make sure these banks only get half of what they’re …” … They have to know the banks are gonna find a back-door way to get that money back and then some. So while the transaction fee has been cut in half by law, here comes a $5 charge, brand new $5 fee, monthly fee, to use the debit card. This is above and beyond whatever your ATM fee is. This is now a $5 monthly fee just to have and use a debit card. Brand new fee. ‘cause you see there’s nothing in Dodd-Frank prohibiting it. Nothing whatsoever. They just fail to calculate the dynamism here. They think that all of these institutions they target for punishment are gonna sit there and take it. It never happens. Every time the Democrats set out as a party to help the little guy, it’s the little guy that ends up getting shafted.

On liberal media doyen Tina Brown’s criticism of Obama as being “unready” for the Presidency…

In Obama’s defense, let me say something here. Ms. Brown, how dare you attack Obama, he’s given you everything you want. He’s destroyed the private sector. He has upped federal spending, he’s got this country in debt three generations full. I mean for crying out loud Ms. Brown there are sperm cells in infants who have already seen all of their lifetime income taxed, spent. And they haven’t even met the egg that’s gonna fertilize the baby that’s gonna pay all those taxes. The sperm cells have been – for three generations out. All their income has already been spent and taxed. You got your healthcare bill. You got Obama owning a couple of car companies. I think you people on the left oughta be ashamed of yourselves. This guy has done exactly what you wanted! You know why they’re mad? You know why they’re mad? The polls! They’re mad because of the polls. They’re mad because the American people don’t like all this. They are mad because what’s happened is they have been made to realize that they are in the minority. They are made to realize that while in New York and Washington they may rule the roost, and they may think they’re the cat’s meow, they may think that they run the show, but nation-wide they are a distinct minority and this country doesn’t want any part of what they believe or have to offer.

On Obama’s election strategies in 2008 and 2012.

He was going to unify everybody. He was going to bring black and white and brown and red and green, alien, UFO – all of it – we’re gonna come together. We’re going to be at one with our country, at one with nature. The world will once again love us. Everybody’s going to get along. Politics, as it had always been practiced and known would end. There would be no disagreements. There would be no partisanship. Nothing, but love. Nothing, but agreement. For the good of all who walk and breathe, including the animals. And of course it’s just the exact opposite. We’ve got, not a unifier, we’ve got a man who in truth came to divide. And who has succeeded in his quest to divide. And so now, in order to win reelection, Obama has to segregate the voting public.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On America’s woefully inadequate education system …

An educator was touring a mid-western middle school in the early 1990s and walked into the vestibule and was very struck by a banner of all these hands applauding, school-childrens’ hands applauding, under the motto “We Applaud Ourselves”. And she was struck at the sort of horrible narcissistic self-absorption of the American education system in the early 90s. We applaud ourselves. Well those middle-schoolers, what do you think they did? The middle-schoolers went to high school, and then they went to college to do Complacency Studies for five and a half years, and when they finished their Bachelor’s in Complacency Studies … the kids who grew up with the big banner saying “we applaud ourselves” went out and voted for a presidential candidate who told them “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”. There are consequences. There are consequences for the wasteful, the fiscally profligate, wasteful self-indulgence of the education system.

On President Obama’s assertion that he is a warrior fighting on behalf of the middle class…

What is it specifically that Barack Obama has done to protect the middle class? What is it? Was it passing a law that raises their health insurance premiums until they become unaffordable? Was it putting the country on a path to socialized medicine, is that among the things he’s done for the middle class? Was it a moratorium on drilling for oil and gas that has contributed to increased gas and energy costs? Was it all these jobs that have miraculously been created under Obama? Was it conducting a war on prosperity that has resulted in millions of Americans losing their jobs, double-digit unemployment, eleven-plus percent in real numbers? Is that what he did for the middle class? Was it pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to smother private sector businesses with regulations that stifle growth and profitability? Was that what he’s done for the middle class? Was it pushing a tax increase on people earning $200,000 that will result in yet another wave of layoffs and business closings?

On President Obama’s speech citing the tax rates paid by billionaire Warren Buffet’s secretary as justification for raising taxes, again, on the rich.

Warren, would you pay your secretary a little bit more, instead of us sitting here having to hear how she pays a higher tax rate than you do? Why don’t you just give her a raise, Mr. Buffet? What are we talking about here? Here’s a guy, a trillionaire, who’s running around, talking about how his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does, which isn’t actually true. Give her a raise. For crying out loud. This poor woman is being made to sound like she can barely get through the day. Because the government is taking so much of what she earns. The top 1% of taxpayers already pay 40% of all income taxes. And by the time you get to the top 5%, you’re at about 70% of all taxes, and yet this bunch comes again proposing a bill that has no way of becoming law, by the way. This is pure Campaign Speech 101 class envy – set Americans against each other, create resentment, and even hatred, between the various economic classes.

On the awakening on the part of many voters to the destructive consequences of President Obama’s policies…

People are living the loss of their jobs, living the prospect of not finding one anytime soon, they’re living the loss of the value of their home, they’re living the loss of the value of their 401K. They’re living all of this. They are living, now, the inflation of the dollar. They are living all of this. They don’t need to be told. On the other side of that is the fix. The repair. And the repair is not a RINO in the White House. The repair is not a moderate Republican in the White House. The repair and the golden opportunity here is a conservative, a movement conservative. Somebody who’s proud of it, somebody who can proudly exclaim it, explain it, articulate it, happily, cheerfully, confidently, doesn’t have to have notes, doesn’t have to have a teleprompter, doesn’t have to be reminded what to say because it’s in his or her heart.

On Republican Bob Turner’s victory in the NY-9 special election…

Look at all the conventional wisdom here that has to be thrown out, and I want to make a contrast of something. After Obama’s speech last Thursday – the joint session of Congress speech, the campaign speech, where he announced his $457 billion in new tax increases – what did Boehner do? Boehner put out a Press Release immediately. And featured prominently in the Press Release was Boehner assuring everybody how eager the Republicans were to work with Obama on this. Now, Bob Turner, not one time, in a New York district that has been Democrat for 90 years, not one time did Bob Turner say, “I am eager to go to Washington to work with President Obama.” What Bob Turner said was “Send me to Washington to stop this. Send me to Washington to roll this back.”

On President Obama visiting a soup kitchen on the 9/11 anniversary…

Doesn’t making the anniversary of 9/11 into a day of service make it seem like we’re the ones who have to make amends? Community service – that’s in many cases part of a punishment that’s handed out to people… We have something to apologize for. To be sorry about. That America was somehow in the wrong, that we have to do something to make up for so we must have a day of service... I’m gonna tell you 9/11’s always going to be a day of remembrance. And when Obama shows up at a soup kitchen, it reminds all of us to remember that it is Obama who put all the people who are in the soup kitchen in the soup kitchen. Obama is going to the soup kitchen to visit the beneficiaries of his policies. On 9/11.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On the political correctness which is likely to mar many 9/11 commemorations this Sunday…

What those guys did, at 9:28 when the plane was hijacked, 9:58, half an hour later, half an hour later, Todd Beamer cried "Let’s roll!" and they fought back against those terrorists. We can’t put up a memorial to them in ten years either, the stupid ‘Crescent of Embrace' that’s supposed to be in that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania still isn’t ready. There’s something wrong – there’s something wrong not just in the sclerosis of the American bureaucracy, but there’s something wrong in that we don’t even agree on what it is those guys did. You know Todd Beamer is an all-but-forgotten man. "Let’s roll!" – it was the only good news of the day. Every aspect of national government failed that day. All the big, expensive, money-no-object federal alphabet soup, CIA, FBI, FAA, INS, failed. Floppo. Did nothing. Useless. The only government that worked was lowest-level metropolitan municipal government, the fire department, firemen of New York, pounding into that building, pounding up with a hundred pounds of equipment on their backs, pounding up into that burning building. That was the only bit of government that worked. So naturally the only functioning bit of government is eliminated from Nanny Bloomberg’s commemoration. And the courage – the raw courage of Todd Beamer and his fellow passengers, who got on an ordinary commuter flight, and when they discovered that it wasn’t an ordinary commuter flight – they didn’t sit there following the stupid 1970s hijack procedures. They acted, as citizen volunteers in an ad-hoc militia, and provided the only good news of the day. And we’re going to commemorate that ten years on with a lot of weepy, huggy, feely, touchy, weepy, multi-culti mushy, wimpy pansified drivel for the most part about, quote, “tragic events," unquote. It’s not good. It doesn’t say a lot about us, and if that’s what it is like at your 9/11 commemoration, complain about it. Make sure that this commemoration is addressed honestly and understood for what it is.

On the professed puzzlement of liberal economists over how to overcome the country’s economic malaise…

Why are we blind to history? What in the world is so unique about now, other than, for the first time we’ve got somebody actively trying to destroy the private sector job creation that has always defined this country’s greatness. Well, if we know that, then we also know what to do. And that is – defeat this guy… the whole Washington mindset, that if they can’t come up with something, then there is nothing to do. Which represents the whole problem – the world does not revolve around Washington, and this country does not revolve around Washington. Washington is nothing but a gigantic boulder in our highway. To progress… I’m not saying this in a reactionary way. I’m not saying it even in an ideological way. This is pure, unadulterated fact. You simply cannot have this level of regulation on people who want to create jobs, who want to grow businesses, start them. You just can’t have this kind of shackle around them, and expect magic to happen.

On the wretched economic condition of the United States under President Obama…

This is the United States of America, and we now know we’ve got somebody running this company, who believes that its greatness is illegitimate, and we’ve got to pay the price for it. In truth we have an effective unemployment rate in this country of 20%. Black unemployment 16.9%. The 9.1% number is government disinformation. And to the people who’ve been out of work for a year or longer, this is not a recession, this is a depression. I don’t care how the government defines it. That’s what this is. When one out of every five adults is struggling to survive in the greatest nation on the face of the earth, this is a disgrace. When we can’t produce a single job in the month of August, a GDP of 1%, the Chi-coms are growing at 9.5% – the Cubans are outgrowing us – this is unacceptable. This is the greatest nation on the face of the earth, this is a disgrace, and it is a disgrace because none of this is necessary. None of it.

On the bankruptcy and closure of green-energy company Solyndra after it was touted by President Obama as the wave of the future of American manufacturing…

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He hasn’t the slightest clue about solar energy or wind energy or green energy. This global competition business? They had to shut down – global economic conditions forced the company to shut down – that probably means that the Chi-coms are selling solar panels for less than they can sell ‘em in San Francisco. That’s what that means.

On establishment Republican calls to conservatives to tone down their rhetoric…

It really frosts me, the idea… that conservatives, speaking openly and honestly about conservatism is somehow gonna cause independents to run away, and to where? A party populated by the meanest, most extreme bunch of people in American politics today. We’re told the independents want bipartisanship. We’re told the independents want people to get along. And so here comes a conservative who’s not combative, he’s just being honest…(“The independents don’t like that, you’re gonna send them right back to the Democrats…”) There’s no meaner political group of people in America today than today’s Democrats. There’s no more combative group of people in American politics today than America’s Democrats. There’s no more extreme group of people in American politics today than the Democrat party. Where is it written that these independents are gonna flock to that? They’re not flocking to that. They’re flocking away from it.

Mark Davis is sitting in for Rush today… On the electability of Barack Obama…

Are we really going to be able to beat this guy? And, looking at things right now, one would say, sure. But we cannot be over-confident… it’s like having a 17-10 lead midway through the second quarter of a football game. You have no idea how the third and fourth quarters are gonna go… I don’t think President Obama is gonna do anything that makes everybody love him 20x more. I would have a hard time wondering what the October Surprise would be that would make everybody think “Wow this has been a great presidency!" So the only thing that maybe occurs to me is something either economic or militarily that makes us not want to change presidents. It’s kind of funny, I would never predict this, you never can tell, but when people sit around in bars and think about what could happen, like bombing an Iranian nuclear facility sometime around Halloween. If he does that I will flat out tell you he probably wins. Will he do that? [Laughs] One expects not… It appears that the only thing he really wants to do with Ahmadinejad is have him over for mint tea.

Mark Belling is filling in for Rush today… On the connection between “helicopter” (i.e. overprotective) parents and the federal government...

We now have a helicopter government. Barack Obama’s our helicopter President. He believes that we’ve got to give everybody healthcare, that healthcare costs are going up so much that we can’t figure out a way to make this work via the free market and that it has to become the next entitlement. He wants to take Medicare and Social Security off the table for any kind of reform, tweaks, or changes at all because we can’t survive if we don’t have them in exactly the kind of form that we’re in right now. The whole nature of the stimulus program – “The only way we can get through our recession is if I (President Obama) spend a trillion dollars and throw it out to my friends in government – that will get the economy started again.” He’s the helicopter President.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On the rapidly swelling social security disability rolls in the United States and Great Britain…

A lot of these guys rioting, looting, torching, burning in London were officially categorized as disabled because in the late 90s, in order to so called “reduce the unemployment rate” the British government found it convenient to reclassify the long-term unemployed as “disabled”. They weren’t actually disabled. They could hold most jobs. Yes you might be disabled if you were asked to rappel into the presidential palace in Tripoli and depose Ghadafi – you might be a wee bit too disabled for that. But you are certainly not disabled enough to hold down the majority of jobs… and yet they essentially for political reasons, to give the appearance of lowering the unemployment rate, they classified a big chunk of the unemployed as disabled. By the way this is profoundly wicked, because what you’re doing is, the state is inviting somebody, is incentivizing a citizen to collude in a lie because somewhere, somewhere deep inside, you know – you’re sitting around at home all day, you’re “disabled”, you’re claiming your disabled benefits – but somewhere deep down inside you know you’re able to work, you know there are jobs you can do and so there’s something actually evil about the welfare state classifying someone as unable to work when they are in fact able to.

Mark Davis is filling in for Rush today… On the logic of immigration enforcement.

Let us not divorce ourselves from some clarity here. The moment you set foot on American soil as an illegal immigrant you are a law-breaker. The minute you are. If you brought your beautiful family with you, you’re still breaking the law. If all you want is a better life for yourself, you’re still breaking the law. If you have the noblest of intent, you’re still breaking the law. Now, we have to figure out what to do about that. Lot of people want guest worker programs, a lot of people want amnesty, and a lot of people just want to deport every single one of ‘em and do deportation from now until we’re done. As a practical matter, that’s gonna be hard. I’ll be the first to tell you, with ten, fifteen, twenty million illegals that we have, finding every single one of them and at least sending them in the direction of the nation of their birth is a very tall order. But you know what? Try it anyway! Because using that logic – and I love when people give me this – they say, “Well, we’ll never get all of them, so why try?” What? Well guess what, we’ll never get all the drug users, either. We’ll never get all of the bank robbers either. We’ll never get all of the speeders. Let’s do away with speed limits. We’ll never catch all the speeders. Let’s do away with drug laws. We’ll never catch everybody that’s dealing in coke or hash or meth or pot or whatever, we’ll never catch everybody, so since we won’t catch everybody, why even try? That logic would never last a second, with various other crimes. But with immigration it’s supposed to.

On Barack Obama’s re-electability in 2012

We’ve got people on our side who think this guy is still invincible. And they think largely he’s invincible because he’s Obama… they’re still in awe of what Obama was, that imagery. But also the power of the presidency and this reported one billion dollars that he’s going to have to wage his campaign. But it’s patently obvious to you and me – you get somebody with a proud and cheerful and confidently articulated conservative message and agenda, and this guy is landslidable. He’s landslidable today… if the election were held today he’d lose in a landslide, and what’s gonna change? I know it’s politics, and things that no-one can predict can happen in a long period of time.

On the London riots…

Militant Islamists in the Middle East are sending emails to muslims in London saying “Hey, perfect opportunity, get in there and join the action." Once this kind of stuff starts, people that believe in this kind of stuff say “Hey, we can get in on the action too, and we can stay hidden because we’ll never be blamed for it, ‘cause it all started before we got involved." … A lot of people do this stuff because it works… You think it doesn’t work? Where is law enforcement? They won’t even bring out the water cannons. There is a proscription even against rubber bullets. Against people who are destroying, burning, private property. These people are being allowed essentially to do this. Or they were, for three nights. All because of political correctness. And don’t doubt me on this. "We can’t afford to offend these minorities. We’ve got to understand their rage. There’s been generations of this stuff building..."

On calls in the media for Republicans to compromise on tax cuts in the debt crisis.

On Wisconsin voters turning back Democrat attempts to recall newly-elected Republican senators.

On Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s bond rating.

On the immediate consequences of the new debt deal…

On the never-ending saga of the debt crisis.

This deal was supposed to be the salvation. This deal was supposed to buy us time. This deal was supposed to ward off Satan. And his sandwich. This deal was supposed to buy us some time, at least for Christmas. This deal was supposed to bring us a little peace. This deal was supposed to bring us a little compromise. And now here it is. When did Obama sign this stupid thing? Yesterday? Last night? So in one day – we have a story from Reuters – “Economists say the economy could face a further drag from the budget deficit cutting plan approved by Congress this week.” Wait a minute! I thought this bill was the salvation. Now they tell us, one day later, that the economy could face a further drag because we did this deal. And why? Because it’s a deficit cutter. And it’s not a deficit cutter.

Boehner 3.0 basically does this: Would pave the way for the debt limit to be raised, through the 2012 election, in two chunks. But it would mandate that the second increase of the debt ceiling could only occur after a balanced budget amendment passed both chambers of congress and went to the states for ratification. That’s the big difference in Boehner 3.0. Now before we get into the specifics of all of this, I want to say something to all of you conservatives out there. I want to tell you, how damn proud of you I am. Because you made this happen. The conservative intelligentsia, the conservative so-called “media”, inside the Beltway, would’ve accepted anything.

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You know what I would do? Folks, it’s real simple… I’ve mentioned this before. Stop. Presenting. A plan. All we’re doing is compromising with ourselves. Just stop presenting the plans. Just sit around and say, “Well, we’ll wait for yours.” Say it to Obama, say it to Carney, whatever, but, we’re through!

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Boehner’s plan, basically is 1.1, 1.2 trillion dollars in cuts. No defense cuts. No new revenue, no tax increases. In exchange for raising the debt ceiling a trillion dollars. Each member of congress – well, two members of each leadership, will get to name three members to a congressional blue-ribbon panel to actually make the cuts. So it’d be a 12-member commission, six appointed by Democrats, six appointed by Republicans. They would report back, and, debt ceiling runs out in April, here we are all over again. Obama, if this thing survives, this is what will be set up for him to sign. No guarantee on that yet but that’s the only thing that’s on the table right now.

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I would love it, if there was no debt-ceiling deal, and on August the third, every little item of federal expenditure had to be justified, because this waste is sick, it’s sick and decadent. And you can’t go on like this. Nobody’s doing it on this scale. We look at the Greeks and we laugh at the Greeks. We look at the Portuguese and we laugh at the Portuguese. We look at the Spaniards, laugh at them. All these Mediterranean layabouts – HA HA HA HA. You look at the numbers. You look at the numbers of the Mediterranean layabouts. The T-word isn’t involved. Trillion isn’t involved… Trillion was a word that was of no use to anyone except astronomers, until a couple of years ago.

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On the determination of the Left.

There’s a group of people out there folks who want a constitutional convention. And it’d be the nuttiest thing you could do cause you’d just turn the whole country over to the Left, the parasites, the government operatives, that’s who would take over, and they would re-write the constitution so that it would say exactly what they are doing, and what they believe. You know the Left fights on and on… when you look at how they operate, they don’t look for knock out punches. If they can find one they’ll throw it, but they keep at it – just like the old Soviets did. Soviets didn’t have four year plans – they just had a plan. They had an objective. And however long down the road it took ‘em to get there, that’s – and they were never deterred, until they, of course, couldn’t go on anymore because of their own implosion.

Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today… On economic signs of the times under the Obama Administration

Sales of ovens and stoves are at their lowest in twenty years. So if you want to stick your head in the oven and light the gas because you can’t stand the way the economy’s going, you won’t even be able to do it in a new oven… And while we’re giving out all these numbers, here’s my favorite number of the day. It’s an absolutely ingenious statistical comparison from Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner. According to Jim Messina, his campaign manager, through the second quarter of 2011, President Obama now has 552,000 contributors to his 2012 reelection campaign. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that during the same two quarters the US economy generated 260,000 jobs. In other words, Obama attracted twice as many campaign donors as his economic policies created new jobs.

Mark Belling is filling in for Rush today... On President Obama’s refusal to consider spending cuts.

Obama is taking the American treasury into the crack house. Now we’re addicted. We have a terrible problem – the country’s got the shakes. And he’s saying, “Well, I won’t go to the crack house as much, but you’ve got to give me some money so I can go there at least a few times more." You know how that’s going to work out. This problem can only be addressed by cutting spending, and he will not do it.

On the differing Republican and Democrat approaches to the budget crisis.

Eight hundred six days, ladies and gentlemen, since Senate Democrats – and they run the place – have passed a budget. There are 365 days in a year. So well over two years since the Democrats – who run the place – have passed a budget. The law requires them to pass a budget every year. Eight hundred six days and counting. And this, by the way, is the strategy. There’s no question. They devised, two years ago, a strategy: "We’re not going to present a budget"... now this was part of the 2010 re-election strategy: "Don’t put a budget out there, because we don’t want voters to have any specifics about what we intend." So they didn’t. Now the strategy remains implemented, so that they don’t have to tie themselves to any of their own numbers specifically. So while they have no numbers, they have no budget – Obama hasn’t presented one either. The Republicans do. The Republicans are acting like the adults. The Republicans are presenting plans. Say what you want about some of them, but the Republicans have ideas with numbers designed to seriously address the problem and fix it. Start down the road and fixing it. The Democrats as a strategy do not. For the sole purpose, of doing nothing but assaulting the Republicans for the numbers they present.

On the government program that spent over fifty-three million dollars of taxpayers' money to buy guns for Mexican drug lords.

Justice.gov, – web site – located, on page 96, of a report on this program – 2009, February: The Recovery Act, signed into law, allocated ten million dollars to ATF for Project Gunrunner... Stimulus money paid for this, is what has been discovered. Stimulus money paid for Fast and Furious. Ten million dollars was allocated in the Stimulus bill to buy machine guns and revolvers, and let Mexican drug lords take them across the border, back to Mexico. Stimulus money. That shovel-ready job stuff? You remember that. Right here it is, 2009, February, Recovery Act signed into law allocated ten million dollars to ATF for Project Gunrunner. 2009 June Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 allocated an additional six million dollars to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. Which means we can trace the money back to Obama ... You can trace the money back to the Department of Justice. They administer the program. Stimulus money. This is important because now there is a way to follow the money. This is stunning. Fast and Furious funded by the Porkulus bill. 2010, August, Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 2010, allocated thirty-seven and a half million dollars to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. Just a little over a year ago. Another thirty-seven and a half million. There’s more money from Obama’s stash. So, let’s add it up. Ten million in February 2009, six million in June of 2009 – so that’s a total of sixteen million in 2009. Then in 2010 thirty-seven and a half million. So. Fifty three and a half million dollars, spent on this program – to buy machine guns and revolvers. Fifty three and a half million dollars. All taxpayer dollars.

On the political views of President Obama and the American electorate.

Folks, do not believe anything you read or hear that Obama is unbeatable. He is a man further and further isolated from the mainstream of this country. And if there were a smidgen of mainstream media reporting along those lines it’d be over for him now. Of course there won’t be, they’re circling the wagons for the guy. Twenty-four percent of the American people – likely voters – 24% say their political views are about the same as the President. That means 24% of the people in the country are socialist/liberal. We have not lost the country, folks. It is only being made to appear that way. But we haven’t.

On the importance of House Speaker Boehner holding firm in debt-limit negotiations with Obama.

If Boehner holds firm, it’ll be Obama and his re-election team that gets choked up and starts crying, not Boehner. If he holds firm. Right now John Boehner is more than just the Speaker of the House and a negotiator in the debt ceiling deal. Right now, as far as Obama’s concerned, John Boehner is the life-line to Obama’s political future. Oh yeah. If Obama can get Boehner to cave – you look at it that way... and Obama’s out there saying, “If they don’t budge, there’s no deal." Fine! If there’s no deal, then we start cutting. The law of the land right now is the current debt ceiling. That’s the law of the land. If we don’t do anything and write a new law, guess who’s gonna be in violation of it if they don’t abide by it? Obama and the Democrats, not us. Right now, Obama looks at Boehner and sees his route to re-election. By getting Boehner to cave. That’s a lot of pressure to be under. For Boehner. But that’s the way Obama has set this up.

On tomorrow’s budget meeting between the House Republican leadership and President Obama in the White House.

I’m going to tell you Republicans something right now, and right here, and if you know anybody who’s an elected Republican I want you to pass this on to 'em because this is key. At this meeting tomorrow, Obama is going to do everything he can to get these guys to raise taxes... now in the Senate, he might not have much of a problem. In the Senate, there might be some Republicans who’d go along – I don’t think the majority of them. But the House Republicans are not. Going. To sign anything. That raises taxes. They just aren’t. And so Republicans you have got to go into that meeting tomorrow fully aware that the President is the one who’s gonna have to cave. The President is the one who can be made to cave, if you hold firm on not raising taxes, ‘cause that’s all he cares about, and that’s all the Democrats care about.

On the poor showing of Republican politicians and issues in a variety of media polls.

Isn't it amazing? Every poll you look at. The huge winners, last November, are now losing every important issue in the country. According to polling data done by state-run media.

On the generosity of Wisconsin Governor Walker's proposals to state unions.

Wisconsin bureaucrats ought to be kissing this governor's feet for what he's offering them, during these economic times. States that are running deficits should not be contributing to pensions or health care plans. Now that may sound cruel or unfair, but what's fair? Fair is spending money that you have. Fair is spending your own money, that you have.

On Reuters' deceptive description of the conflict between the Obama Administration and Judge Vinson over ObamaCare.

You shlubs at Reuters, you've got to try your tricks with other people. It's just not gonna work here. 'Judge Refuses to Halt Implementation'? That's their first slug. 'Judge Refuses to Halt Regime from Implementing Health care Law.' Hardly. So Judge Vinson has maintained again the entire health care law is unconstitutional. He can't believe that he was unclear. He was totally clear. He can't believe they waited two weeks before filing a motion to clarify. He expected the government lawyers to seek a stay of the ruling immediately. That they would effectively ignore the order and judgment for two and a half weeks, and continue to implement the Act, and only then file a belated motion to clarify? That was not expected. He thought he'd been perfectly clear in what he said... He has vacated the law. And they continue to implement it as though he doesn't exist.

On the Obama Administration's responses to Judge Vinson's rulings against ObamaCare.

What's going on here, is the Regime is trying to run out the clock. The more of this that gets implemented, they know the tougher it's gonna be to extract it. We know this too. That's why "Repeal repeal repeal" – screw replacing. "Repeal repeal repeal" has been the order of the day... the judge issued his ruling: vacate the law. It's unconstitutional. Two weeks later the Regime files a motion, "Did You Really Mean to Say Our Law is Unconstitutional? Did You Really Mean to Vacate It?" And that's when Vinson wrote what he wrote yesterday, and it was clear that he was irritated in the process. So the media, and the regime, are doing everything they can to thwart the rule of law in this country.

On the average voter's level of curiosity.

Most people do not have anywhere near the curiosity I have. Most people may not actually want to hear the President's motivation for his policies. I do. I want to know why does somebody who claims to want to lower unemployment, why does somebody who's claiming to focus like a laser on jobs – how does that guy end up with so many jobs lost? How does that guy end up presiding over an energy policy that's led us to five dollar a gallon gasoline? How does that happen?

On President Obama's credibility.

Why does anybody believe Obama when he talks about caring about private-sector jobs, why does anybody believe him? Why does anybody believe Obama when he talks about wanting economic growth? Where's the evidence? Why does anybody believe him? Why does anybody believe anything Obama says about his stated goals and intentions? Because folks, if he had been honest, he wouldn't have been elected. And if he was being honest since he's been elected, he would've been impeached because this, none of it, was what anybody bargained for when they went to the polls in 2008.

On social welfare spending.

Unemployment compensation. The payment of unemployment benefits, is almost as high as social security, in this country. Folks, we are not going to survive as a nation, not the way we've been founded, with this kind of sloth and laziness, and feeding at the public trough. It just cannot happen... Handouts. Handouts. The redistribution of wealth makes up one-third of U.S. wages. Social welfare spending has increased three and a half times since 1960. We declared war on poverty, and it's given us this. We declared war on poverty and what do we have? Thirty-five percent of our people living on the dole.

On the road ahead for Republican politicians...

What Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana Republicans are doing better be an inspiration. Because if what they're doing makes other Republicans get weak in the knees, if other Republicans get scared and don't like what they're seeing and alter the way they go, then all this is gonna be for naught. If we get caught up in "Oh my God, we're losing the headline war on Twitter...” – now's not the time to start hoping the media get it, see our way. There are decisions very difficult ahead. The pressure... can't be imagined. Forget the union thugs – up next is the Welfare Nation, that's gonna be storming into every building they can get into. This is the warm-up. Are we all ready for it? I wonder.

On community organizing.

What is community organizing? What are people in the community doing, standing around, waiting for somebody to show up and organize them? What exactly is it? Well we just saw it. You just saw what community organizing is. You saw it for weeks. It's seven and a half million dollars damage to the state capitol. It's vandalism. It is pollution. It's litter. It is spittle-flecked faces storming their way into the building with open windows. It is an attempt to shut down the normal democratic flow of government operations. You just saw community organizing. You just watched it.

On the risks posed by all forms of power generation.

All of our energy sources, all of our options, have dangers, have risks, inherent to their existence. Look at the deaths due to coal mine disasters. That's all in the name of fulfilling our energy needs. Natural gas explosions. Even the occasional oil rig explosion. The occasional oil tanker, springing a leak. And in the context of all this, nuclear really is our safest option in the long term, especially with newer technologies. These Japanese reactors are over forty years old. And they didn't fail because of them being inherently flawed.

On the anemic legislative performance of the house Republican leadership.

The mood of this country is what the hell's going on? More and more people think that we have an administration that's actively, happily presiding over the decline of this country. A decline the majority of the people in this country don't want. And there doesn't seem to be any noticeable effort to stop this way of thinking or believing, in Washington. So, one unfortunate constant seems to be the Republicans' incapacity to handle their electoral prosperity.

On the mainstream media's willingness to excuse President Obama's incompetence and irresponsibility.

I've rarely seen such a coordinated effort undertaken to excuse dangerous incompetence. And we're getting it. Each and every day it ramps up. I want you to ask yourself... forget the nuke stuff in Japan, forget the Middle East – just take a look at the domestic economic circumstances in this country, which have worsened since he took office. You put any other President – even if it's a Democrat. If it were another Democrat in office, going on television, ESPN, to do these picks, in the midst of all of this – why, whoever that President was, particularly Republican, but even another Democrat, would be scalded.

On the Left's view of the United States as a moral force on the world stage.

The United States has always been the moral force for freedom, and goodness and decency. Isn't that why so many of us just revolt at the view of this country held by the Left, and our current regime. They find our country flawed. They don't think we have any moral superiority when it comes to freedom and liberty, there is no such thing as this "beacon" business. They may say the words. Their policies don't follow it up.

On what's at stake in the Wisconsin confrontation between Governor Walker and the public-sector unions.

The Left does not stop with the law. The Left doesn't care. They will do whatever, they will get these teachers, these people they want us to think of as the kind of people seen in a Norman Rockwell painting, and they'll bring the little students up to the capitol building and say "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Scott Walker's gotta go." ... So the Left is showing us once again who they are, and what is it they're trying to preserve? ... they are trying to preserve the union money-laundering operation. That is what's going on here. Never forget that that's what the public sector unions are. They are money-laundering operations. They are doing their best – they're pulling out all the stops, to make sure – 'cause all those union dues, it's all about union dues, which end up as campaign donations to the Democrat party. In Wisconsin, in Washington, where have you. That's what's at stake. Secondarily – make no mistake, it's a close second... – that is, the freeloaders don't want to give up the gravy-train.

Mark Davis is guest-hosting for Rush... On the motives behind a muscular American foreign policy...

I'm sick to death of "Oh we can't go in and look like we're trying to impose an American solution. We can't look, oh you know heavy-handed. We can't look, you know, colonial." Did we make Iraq the 51st state? Did I miss something? Hasn't that lie been told? Hasn't that myth been exploded? You know we tried to get Afghanistan to apply as a protectorate of the United States... we are not trying to take these countries, we're not trying to take their oil, we're not trying to run their lives. We're trying to level the playing field, we've gotta level a lot of things before we level that playing field, we're trying to literally level the landscape that contains Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or whoever else we're trying to get rid of. We have to actually kill people and break things. It's a war. It's a war. And we have to do that. Our goal is to set up a resulting landscape in which the surviving population – hopefully the vast majority of them – can look around and go, "Wow, now our future is our own. Now we can actually create for ourselves, the country where we can elect our own leaders, draft our own constitution, have our own laws." And hopefully enjoying those freedoms creates populations that are less likely to want to kill us.

On the left's "no blood for oil" canard...

Where's our oil from Iraq? If anybody should have dibs on that, we should. At below-market prices. Contracts are going to everybody but us. Well, we got some but we're paying market prices for 'em. We had first dibs on that oil and we gave it away to prove we're nice guys. Part of the guilt of being a superpower. So we're going into Libya for the oil... I wish we were.

On Obama's lack of a coherent military strategy in Libya...

Whatever happens in Libya – whatever happens – Obama's either gonna claim success, or deny responsibility. Whatever happens. That's why they're all over the board here. "Oh yeah he can stay/no he doesn't have to stay, he can go/Doesn't have to/he's got to go/no he can stay/well– al Qaeda in there?/Yeah, changes it a little bit, we don't know/We'll have to wait and see."

On standards of legitimacy as they apply to middle-eastern tyrants.

On the President's failure to explain to the country why we are fighting in Libya.

I'd like to know – I'd like to know Obama's analysis of the "kinetic sports action" that's taking place here. He's just so damn good at this. He's so damn good at it. Obama spoke for almost ten minutes with ESPN on his picks, before he went on vacation. We're not even going to get a five minute speech from Obama on why we are sending our finest into harm's way in Libya. We're not gonna get that speech. We didn't get a preparation speech, we're not getting an update speech – think about it. The President of the United States devotes more time to explaining his NCAA basketball brackets to the country than he has explaining his reasons for bombing Libya.

On President Obama's differing energy policies for Brazil and the United States.

Obama is helping the Brazilians drill for oil. And he says he wants them to be able to drill for oil. He wants them to be able to be energy independent. But [he's] not implementing identical policies here, in fact [he's] doing just the opposite. Harming our own ability to be energy independent.

On the implications of Obama's conduct of the Libyan war.

On President Obama's claim that there's no "quick fix" to our country's energy problems.

No quick fix. Well that's probably true, but if we'd've started increasing our domestic drilling thirty years ago when everybody was calling for it, would we be in this situation today?  How long are we gonna keep saying "No quick fix" when if we woulda started on a quick fix thirty years ago we'd be at a solution by now?

Mark Steyn is guest-hosting for Rush... On the reason the United States is in Libya...

What is at stake, for the United States, in this war? This war is like Kosovo, this is liberal war-mongering. War to the modern liberal progressive – you never go to war in your national interest, because it's vulgar, it's simply vulgar for nations to have a national interest. An advanced western nation should only go in for multi-lateral, compassionate humanitarian war-mongering, like we did in Kosovo. Nobody remembers who the good guys in Kosovo were – the answer by the way is Neither of the Above. Nobody remembers what the hell the point of it was, nobody remembers why we went in there, and oddly enough, the fact that there was no rationale for it, was the rationale.

On journalist Mark Halperin’s on-air gaffe in which he called President Obama “kind of a dick".

If Halperin had said this about George W. Bush, would they be falling all over themselves to apologize? Nope... My guess is that “New ground had been broken. Finally, finally," they would say, “A reporter has had the courage and the guts to tell the nation just exactly the kind of President that we have. A gutsy move. It might’ve been over the line, it might’ve been a little bit risky, and it might be something you would never do again, but by golly by gosh the courage–" That’s how they would play it, had Mark Halperin said it about George W. Bush.

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On the political necessity of removing President Obama and the Democrats from power.

We must replace Barack Obama with a conservative Republican President. We must have as many conservative Republicans in congress, House and Senate, as we can. The way you increase jobs and growth and opportunity and wealth is through capitalism. We’ve just been through 29 months of Socialism. It’s miserable. It’s depressing. It’s stifling. It destroys the national mood. We need to contain the government. As long as Obama’s in the Oval Office – or on the golf course, or in some diner eating greasy hamburgers, or in charge of the Executive Branch – as long as his party controls any part of Congress – this nation can not recover. We do not have a chance... this country does not have a chance. With Barack Obama remaining in the Oval Office.

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On the rules of engagement for Republican presidential candidates.

Let’s just stipulate that all Republicans who are running are gonna be asked “Why do you hate Obama’s guts? Why do you think the President is such a dreadful, horrible, America-hating slob?" They may not phrase it exactly that way, but that’s the tone, and every Republican candidate will have to reveal a certain amount of graciousness by saying “I think the President’s a lovely person, delightful father, good husband, I’m sure he loves America too – but here’s why I think every idea in his head is wrong, and here’s why I think we can’t take another four years of him..." ... on you go, down to what you really need to say for your campaign. And I want every Republican candidate to be. That. Gracious. Being ungracious? That’s a liberal thing. Bush is Hitler? That’s a leftist thing. Okay? I want to be gracious. I want to be civil. And then I want to wholeheartedly, and aggressively, go after an agenda that is flat-out dangerous to America. I don’t for one minute think that those are mutually exclusive.

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Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today... On the First of April...

It's April first, April Fool's Day – a day when the papers are full of lame, pathetic stories that purport to be true but are obviously just pathetically, limply amusing spoofs. Papers are full of 'em... Hilary Clinton calls Bashir Assad a reformer. True, or just an April Fool's story. In Libya, the United States and its allies are thinking of arming Al Qaeda. True? Or just an April Fool's story. According to the Wall Street Journal, twice as many Americans work in government as in manufacturing. True? Or just a pathetically obvious April Fool's spoof.

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On Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan's new budget blueprint.

I talked to Congressman Paul Ryan on the phone this morning. He is going to announce a major budget blueprint, a ten-year budget blueprint tomorrow, and folks, it's wonderful... substantively it is superb. Politically, it's brilliant. They are going to throw so many balls in the air at the Democrats that the Democrats are not gonna know which ones to focus on and try to defeat. First, it's a tough budget – you've probably heard four trillion dollars in cuts, over ten years. It might end up being more than that. It is a growth-oriented budget, it doesn't feature a lot of tax increases... basically it's going to freeze spending levels at 2008 levels... it's exactly what the election of last November was all about.

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On the timidity of house Republicans with regard to a possible government shutdown.

Why are you so afraid of the shutdown? Why are you so afraid of it? Even if you do get blamed, what are we talking about here? We're talking about an out-of-control federal government, we're talking about you guys ran for reelection in November, you won big on it. If you believe in the idea, to hell with the ancillaries here. If the government's gonna be shut, if that's the result here, then own it. And go out and explain it.

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On Democrat demagoguery in response to Paul Ryan's new budget plan.

The Democrat reaction to the new Republican budget that Paul Ryan presented yesterday is nothing new. They always claim that people are gonna die, old people, kids, whatever – Republican budgets kill people. When in fact, if anybody's gonna die because of government action in this country, it's gonna be because of Obamacare, and death panels.

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On the Obama Administration's refusal to fund the military during the ongoing budget disputes between Republicans and Democrats.

The Office of Management and Budget – which is the regime – is calling a bill to fund the military a distraction. The OMB, and the White House both, have called the bill a distraction. A bill to fully pay the military through September 30th of this year. That is a distraction. That is who we are dealing with. That's who we're up against here. And all of this is about $30 billion. That's the difference in what the Republicans want in cuts, and what the Democrats want in cuts. For the next week. Let's say we miraculously come to some compromise on this – we're gonna be here in ten days doing this all over again because these CRs go for a week or ten days.

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On David Prosser's substantial margin of victory in Wisconsin.

The left put three and a half million dollars into this Supreme Court race. Prosser versus Kloppenberg. If they can't win in Wisconsin – if they can't win in Wisconsin with all that union money and all that union power and all that propaganda, and the bussed-in union goons – they bussed people in from across the country – in ultra-liberal Wisconsin – then we really should have hope here folks.

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On Speaker Boehner's $38 billion budget-cutting deal with President Obama and the Democrats.

The deal is done. The debate has shifted from spending to cutting, as we sit here today. Thirty eight billion dollars, I'm sorry, I can't start throwing parties over it. But it's a first step. I mean it didn't take overnight for the Democrats to get us here, and it's not gonna happen overnight shifting us outta here. So this is a first step. I wish they'd've kept their promise, I wish it had been 100 billion, I wish it had been 61 billion, but even those numbers, as you and I both know, are – we're talking pennies!

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On the futility of Republicans and conservatives seeking media approval during the budget battles.

If you go into this with, "Oh gosh we can't shut down the government, oh my God, what are they gonna say about us if we shut down the government," – well the answer is, they're going to say about us the same thing as if we don't shut down the government. They're still gonna say whatever they say about us because we are conservatives. And if you don't like that, become a liberal. If you don't like what liberals say about you, the only cure is to join them. Because it's never going to change. And there's not one action you can take, that will make liberals say nice things about you. And the more you try to manage what they think and say about you, the more they own you.

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On the tremendous opportunity Republicans have to contrast themselves favorably with Democrats.

Never in my lifetime has there been a greater opportunity to contrast who we are and what we stand for with our opponents and we don't really have to even say anything. Just point to what they're doing. People's lives – millions of people's lives – are being seriously hurt, in some cases destroyed, by this Administration, and by this Administration's policies. As the elections in November proved we don't really even have to say anything. It's that all we have to do is point out what we're for. If you're afraid to criticize Obama because he's black and you're afraid of being called a racist... fine. Just tell us who you are. And what you stand for. And it'll carry the day.

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On President Obama's budget speech at George Washington University.

It was a disgusting display. It was in no way presidential. This is what we're up against. He invites [Paul] Ryan and a couple other Republican leaders up there – "Sit in the front row!" – and then proceeds to insult 'em... There are two real reasons he did it. One is he's not this cool, calm, collected guy. He's just – folks, he's not a good guy... Obama's not a good guy. He's a mean, vindictive little guy. He's very cold. The second thing he was doing yesterday was shoring up his base.

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On President Obama's thin skin.

Imagine if the Republicans weren't afraid of him. Can you imagine if this guy got the same degree of criticism, or the same degree of vetting, or the same degree of suspicion that reporters grant everybody else with this kind of power. He mighta cracked. He simply can't deal with it. He doesn't expect that he should get it. He thinks he's above it.

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On how "tax cuts for the rich" increase revenues to the government.

There is something that happens when you lower tax rates. The first thing you do is create a positive outlook and attitude on people who hire other people. You create a positive financial outlook on people who invest their money in the growth of their business... you end up creating more jobs. As tax rates fall, small businesses have more money to grow. They're not sending as much to Washington, they keep it, they can hire more people, they can invest in the growth of the business, which is what they want to do, because that's where everybody involved in the business benefits. Is when it grows. When the business grows, large and small, obviously it creates more revenue, and more people are hired. And that's called the tax base. So you have more people earning income. More people paying taxes. So where it may not be the case that the individual rich guy sees his personal income tax bill go up, there is an increase in the number of rich guys paying taxes, so that there is more revenue generated.

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On President Obama's economics speech at Northern Virginia Community College.

... talking about Obama's Town Hall meeting today before the young skulls full of mush at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia. And one of the things that Obama said to these students early on, talking about the budget, the deficit – he actually said we can't spend more than we take in... now, if you are a rational person who has been paying attention for three years, you hear the President say that, and you are incredulous. It would be like Colonel Sanders saying, "We have got to stop killing chickens."

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On leadership.

Democrats have played a major role in creating this mess. They turn over the heavy lifting to the Republicans. Paul Ryan does the heavy lifting. Comes up with a budget plan to save the country. And then what does Obama do? What does Obama do? He attacks them for doing it. He attacks them for how they're doing it. That is real leadership folks. Real leadership on the part of our President, who now will not speak to adults. Create the problem. Act like he is going to provide leadership to fix it. Offer no fix whatsoever. The Republicans offer a fix. The Ryan budget. What does Obama do? Attacks Ryan personally, and the Republicans in general for doing it. That's real leadership.

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On Obama's accusation that Paul Ryan's budget plan is not courageous.

Obama said nothing's easier than solving the problem on the backs of the poor. That's not what Ryan has proposed. Ryan has not proposed solving the problem on the backs of the poor. This is another cliché from the liberal handbook. What about this folks? What about promising programs that you can't afford, using money from kids not yet born? There's nothing easier than that, if you ask me. There's nothing easier than promising programs to be paid for by people who aren't even born yet who thus don't even have a chance to object to it. What kind of courage are we talking about there?

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On the socialist model.

The socialist model, the things that Obama's trying to do simply can't – the country can't exist, they're gonna kill the golden goose. There's gonna be no money to redistribute at some point. And one of the things on our side is that the uninformed are ignorant acolytes of Obama, actually think that what's at the end of Obama's success is everybody prosperous, everybody earning a lot of money or having a lot of money, however they get it. Everybody having a certain degree of wealth. Once they realize that the end result of Obama-ism is servitude and near-poverty, then of course they're going to revolt against it. But right now we're stuck with their relative ignorance, born of the fact that the left has owned the education apparatus in this country for a hundred years.

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On the supposedly excessive profits of the oil companies.

How much profit did General Motors make? If we didn't pour tens of billions of dollars into General Motors, it would have failed because it wasn't making profits. So it has cost us a fortune as a nation to support a company that does not make profits. Now, what of these profits? When will the media tell us how much these companies net from sales after paying for the crude, the related expenses, and massive taxes. When they do these stories, why won't they tell us how much the government is taking from all of this? What is Obama's take? What's the state's take, and so forth?

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On the absurd hostility of the US government towards US oil companies.

The EPA – a bureaucracy – has denied Shell Oil a permit to drill off the Alaska coast. And you know why? Because their emissions – the emissions – might hurt a tiny village which is more than 70 miles away... That's the reason given. And along the same line it's been reported that seven more oil platforms have left the Gulf of Mexico because they couldn't get permits to drill... You know where they've gone? Brazil. They have gone to Brazil, where we are subsidizing Petrogras offshore drilling. So Shell Oil [is] told by the EPA, "You can't drill off the coast of Alaska because of pollution." We got a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. Seven oil platforms have shut down, and moved to Brazil, where we are funding that nation's oil exploration. What are we doing here? Well once again we're talking about raising taxes on the oil companies.

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On political notions of "seriousness".

This whole notion that Obama is a serious figure offends my sensibilities. Why is he serious? Because he can speak? Because he has a university resume that's appealing or approved by people who define who's serious? What about his intelligence? How smart is this guy? What does he know? I don't believe if Barack Obama had a dream for a product to bring [to market] I don't think he'd have the slightest idea how to bring a product to the marketplace. I don't think he has the slightest understanding. He's got a lot of resentment for it, but I don't think he has the slightest understanding about how wealth is created. He just resents it when it is. The guy is single-handedly destroying the United States economy.

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Mark Steyn is guest-hosting for Rush today...On the issue of Obama's birthplace...

One reason... I never got excited about the birther business – I don't want this President discredited and kicked out on a technicality... I don't want this President to be convicted on technical grounds. I don't want this Presidency to end on the technicality of whether he was born in Hawaii or whether he was born in Mombasa or whether he was born on the planet Krypton. I want these ideas to die. The ideas on which he got elected. Because these ideas are killing your country. And in that sense Obama is not a foreigner. He's like millions and millions of the Americans he's lived among in Hyde Park, Chicago, at Harvard, at Columbia, at Occidental. These are the people who take these ideas about economic growth, the inequities of American foreign policy – they're all entirely normal. This is the swamp in which he's been marinated his entire life... what's embarrassing about it is not that it's utterly foreign to the United States but that it's so normal to a huge swath of American elite. All the views Obama holds are entirely normal to huge swaths of the American elites. Those ideas have to be discredited. It's not enough to end his presidency simply on some rinky-dink technicality like where the guy happened to be born.

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On the political culture of the United States...

What we've created is a world where almost every key institution in society is in the hands of people who think like Barack Obama... everybody thinks that all you need to do to make stuff better is to have more government spending. All you need to do to make the planet a safer place is for America to retreat from the world, and then all the nice people will get on without America bombing them all the time. Every key lever, every key institution in society is now controlled by forces profoundly hostile to conservatism... don't be surprised when a country raised under those kind of institutions then elects somebody like Barack Obama in November of 2008. Why wouldn't they? When the air that you breathe is liberal. When the schoolhouses are liberal. When the sitcoms are liberal. When the pop songs are liberal. When the air that you breathe is liberal, it's asking an awful lot for people raised in that environment to then go and pull the lever for a small-government conservative every other November.

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On the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. military.

It was President Obama – single-handedly, and alone – who came up with the strategy that brought about the effective assassination of Osama bin Laden. He kept the Bush policies alive, keeping a military presence in the middle east, allowing the military to finish the job that they started nearly ten years ago.

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On the tactics used by US forces in the killing of bin Laden, which the Left found abhorrent under President Bush, but which it now accepts.

So again, to review: an American President, with admittedly incomplete intelligence, invades a foreign and supposedly friendly nation. Without that nation's knowledge or consent. Using information extracted from Guantanamo detainees subjected to allegedly illegal enhanced interrogation methods, i.e. waterboarding... and all of this was done without any United Nations resolution or authorization of any kind.

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On the political need for the Obama Administration to kill rather than capture Osama bin Laden.

There is no way this administration is going to bring him here alive and apply their own sissified techniques to this guy... You talk about politically DOA. You bring Osama bin Laden anywhere, you put him in Club Gitmo and you give him an ACLU lawyer? And then you promise him a trial? Everything they've done with Kalhid Sheik Mohammed– there is no way they were going to apply their own sissified policies that they've tried on everybody else to bin Laden.

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On all the things President Obama can't say.

He ordered an assassination, and he can't say it. He put us on a path to socialized medicine and he can't say it. The stimulus bill was a slush fund for public sector unions – he can't say it. EPA regulations are back-door cap-and-tax – he can't say it. He's a card-carrying member of the radical left – he can't say it. He has a leftist-inspired prejudice against the private sector – he can't say it. Bill Ayers was his good friend – he can't say it. He listened to every word in Jeremiah Wright's church for twenty years – he can't say it. And he has a real problem with Israel. But he can't say it. That is why Obama has so many lame, phony, nonsensical versions of answers to simple questions.

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On media coverage of the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate's up to 9%, and they're celebrating. They're talking about some of the strongest job growth – 244,000 new jobs, 62,000 of them from Micky D's. Sixty two thousand from McDonald's. Now remember, in the past, those jobs have been impugned by the Democrats and the left, as meaningless, futureless, hamburger-flipper jobs, without health care... if we'd had our news media of today, back in the days of Herbert Hoover, we would've never had a depression. Because it would've never been reported as a depression.

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On Obama's poor re-election prospects for 2012.

Nobody voted for this. Nobody wants this. Nobody wants a declining United States. Nobody wants a declining U.S. economy. Nobody wants rising food prices. Nobody wants rising gasoline prices. Nobody wants the price of their home to be worth less than their mortgage. Why would we re-elect the guy who did it all?

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On media priorities in their coverage of the assassination of bin Laden.

What's more important to the media – trying to convince us that bin Laden was still in charge of al Qaeda? Or trying to convince us that Obama was in charge of the raid that killed him?

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On President Obama's apparent disinterest in the historic Mississippi River floods.

Instead of going to El Paso, and pushing for amnesty, shouldn't Obama be going to Mississippi? And all these other flooded states? I mean he's got the ability to lower the sea levels. Why does he not put it to use? The Mississippi River is flooding in historic ways – and Obama goes down to El Paso Texas. He's talked about lowering the sea levels, I guess that means he can also lower a river's level. But he seems not to care much.

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On President Obama's casting of blame on the previous administration for the state of the economy.

So let me see if I understand here. Obama was in the Senate, voting for all of those things that led to the economy being worse than he knew that it was. He was voting for more spending. He was voting for higher taxes – Pelosi was speaker, Dingy Harry was the majority leader. And what? Poor old Obama, all 159 days he spent in the Senate, was clueless? He had no idea how horrible things really were? He just, one day stepped into the Oval Orifice, saw everything was worse than he thought, after two years of controlling all of Washington at the House and the Senate?

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On the actual political character of this country.

I think the majority of this country – is us. We just don't see it reflected anywhere. But we are the majority in this country. Tea party conservatism – particularly, if you look at the way people live their lives. We are categorized each and every day as the "fringe" but we are not. We are the mainstream. The way we believe, the way we live, the philosophies, the morality, all of it – we are the mainstream of this country

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On who President Obama would prefer to run against in 2012.

The last thing Obama wants is to run against a real conservative. Obama hopes to hell he gets a squishy, moderate, middle-of-the-road McCain type. He wants somebody who is afraid to occupy conservative positions. He wants a Republican who has been convinced that that is the wrong way to go... I'm telling you they will do anything to keep a demonstrable, genuine conservative from getting the Republican nomination, because they know that they will lose and lose big.

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On the emergence of a new political epithet.

There's actually a new term, it's just like 'deniers' – global warming deniers, climate change deniers, you know, connect them, relate them, to the Holocaust deniers. Now default deniers. The conservatives – on the outskirts of economic circles, who don't believe that default will lead to dire consequences – are now default deniers. Why is there even a debt limit if it would be catastrophic if it were not raised whenever it suits Congress to raise it?

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On the spending habits of Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich has racked up a huge bill at Tiffany's. The jeweler. Five hundred thousand dollars. Our ever-attentive media is on the case... do I care what a former politician and his wife do with their money? Or what a current politician is doing with mine?

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On President Obama's approach to problem-solving.

It looks like it's Obama's plan to get the Middle East to love us by giving them more money. Which makes sense because Obama has been spending other peoples' money to buy loyalty, or votes, for his entire political career.

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On American Liberal Jews' loyalty to liberalism above everything else.

So they're gonna sit there. It's entirely possible that American Liberal Jews could sit there and watch this regime whittle Israel away to nothing... What is it going to take to wake them up?

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On the supposedly weak field of Republican contenders for the Presidential nomination.

The rest of the field is said to be weak... that's starting to offend me too, as though the Democrat field in 2008 – Hilary and Obama and John Edwards – was the epitome of a great field?

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On Medicare reform, liberals, and the media.

What do you expect to happen, when we announce a plan to reform Medicare? You know that the Democrats are going to demagogue it. You know that it's gonna happen. You know that the media is gonna do everything they can to destroy anybody and everybody behind the plan. Because all they care about is winning the election.

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On Obama's political vulnerability in 2012.

What a political target. There's nobody that wants more unemployment. There's nobody that wants higher taxes. There's nobody that wants more of the same in the housing market. Is there? There's nobody that wants higher gasoline prices, there's nobody [that] wants what's happening with higher food prices to continue... there's nobody that wants more of what Obama's policies have led to, is there?

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On the federal government's decision to reject Texas requests for disaster relief after enormous losses from wildfires [Previously-broadcast material].

To date the fires have blackened more than two million acres, destroyed more than four hundred homes, and caused more than $20 million dollars in agricultural losses, including livestock deaths... don't try to tell me this isn't political. In this day and age the right question is Why in the world should the federal government help Texas? It's a red state. Why should they help Texas? ... Why should Obama help Texas? He knows they're not going to vote for him. That's the way of the world these days.

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On the primary obstacle between Herman Cain and the Presidency.

Herman Cain probably represents everything the news media says does not exist. Herman Cain is articulate, he is very – highly – successful. He is a conservative Republican who is black, and that is what they tell you doesn't exist. And that is a primary problem that Herman Cain has. You identify yourself as a black conservative, and you may as well be admitting that you're a whore, or a prostitute, an Uncle Tom, you've been bought off... you aren't real. It's not possible for a black person to be conservative. The way the media and the left look at this country, a black person who is conservative is a black person who would agree with the whole notion of slavery and would want to be a slave owner.

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Mark Steyn is guest-hosting for Rush today.

On the vote in Congress against raising the debt ceiling, in which prominent liberals joined Republicans and voted no.

We're winning this argument. We've won it with the Republican party – there were no defections on this issue. Republicans understand that raising the debt ceiling unconditionally is a disaster... Now obviously Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz – they don't care about the debt ceiling one way or another... but they understand that for the moment it's politically problematic for them to be seen to be approving more out-of-control spending.

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On the media and Sarah Palin.

They hate her, they despise her, they are frustrated that they haven't destroyed her. They can't believe she's still smiling, they can't believe she's still drawing crowds, they can't believe that she's enjoying life, they can't believe her family is still together, they can't believe her husband hasn't walked out on her. They can't believe any of this. Folks, you know this as well as I do. When they set out to destroy you, they mean just that. And Palin's not playing along with the script. She's not acting destroyed, she's not asking for forgiveness, she's not begging them to leave her alone, she's not changing in order to make them lighten up or anything. She's just looking at 'em and smiling, saying "Oh you want some more of it? Here it is."

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Mark Belling is guest-hosting for Rush today.

On President Obama and the anemic U.S. economy.

The reason there hasn't been more of a recovery and the reason we may be headed for another recession... is because of the policies of Obama. This isn't Bush's economy. And this is not the '07/'08 recession. This is Barack Obama's economy.

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On a Sarah Palin presidential candidacy.

Now for all of the stated Republican opposition to Sarah Palin, if she gets in the race – and you heard it here first, and don’t doubt me – she is going to end up being the one to beat.

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On Democrat party plans to accuse Republicans of intentionally inflicting economic harm on the country to improve their electoral chances in 2012.

Obama and the Democrats: You own this, kids! You have done this. Your fingerprints are all over it. The unemployment. The home foreclosures. The stock market. The coming inflation. The massive deficits. The subprime mortgage business. The fact that peoples' homes are underwater. You did this, there is no question you did it, and you are going to pay a huge political price for it in November of 2012. You can try and blame this on the Republicans all you want. In the process you are indicting yourselves…

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On the Obama Administration’s decision to stop handing out Obamacare waivers.

The reason they’re not going to grant any more waivers is because they don’t want the Republicans to be able to have the issue going in to the election. Well that’s all fine and dandy, the Republicans have the issue. The people, the companies, all these Union buddies of Obama, these people who’ve gotten these waivers – unions, Pelosi’s friends, Harry Reid’s entire state, they’ve already gotten their waiver. And that issue isn’t gonna go away... It’s still a big issue for the Republicans. The question is, will the Republicans nominate anybody with the guts to use it?

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On the release of 24,000 emails from Sarah Palin's time as Alaska's Governor.

The New York Times and the Washington Post both are begging readers to help them sift through 24,000 emails of Sarah Palin's, from her time as Governor of Alaska... I don't recall this happening when we had that email release from the Hadley Climate Center, University of East Anglia... that foretold the hoax that is man-made global warming. There was an effort to bury those emails. But now, the New York Times and Washington Post want their readers to help them sift through these 24,000 emails. This is an obsession. It is an obsession. And I tell you, this is all going to end up backfiring on these people. It's just too much. You watch.

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On the media's failure to find any dirt in the 24,000 emails released from Sarah Palin's time as Alaska's Governor.

What a spectacular backfire it was. I mean, 24,000 emails. How many? How many people could withstand a media analysis of 24,000 of your emails, replete with volunteers looking for any syllable of dirt on you, and nobody finds anything. What a giant backfire. Speaking of course of Sarah Palin, and the media – terribly distraught, looking for the knockout shot that they have been unable to deliver.

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On the government's role in the subprime loan fiasco.

It was a giant scam, rooted in, on the surface, "social justice", "fairness", "everybody should have a home". The American Dream. And underneath the surface, it was get-rich-quick for people that worked at Fannie Mae, to an extent Freddie Mac, and people that worked on Wall Street... these people walking in, to get a loan... wouldn't have walked in the door in the first place if the government hadn't wanted them in there. Remember the government was demanding that lending institutions loan money to people who were not qualified... the government wanted people in there borrowing money, and they didn't care if they lied (on the loan applications).

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On the relationship between the rich, the middle class, and the poor.

Somebody who is rich is not hurting somebody who is poor. Or middle class... A rich person is not hurting anybody. You take all the money away from the rich, where do the people who work for them go? What happens to them? Somebody who's rich is not hurting anybody who's poor, or middle class. Some politician (or) government bureaucrat can destroy your job. Somebody in government can destroy your profession, regulate your profession out of existence. Somebody in government can take your assets, or drive up your costs and prices and do more harm to you than any other person or people. And we look at them as the great equalizers?

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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?