Rush Transcripts...Dec. 20th

[mystery-ak]

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/


Panic on the Left Over Pelosi and Polls

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: You may not believe me on this, but don’t doubt me. They’re panicking big time on the left. They are panicking over Pelosi not sending the articles over to the Senate. One of her big witnesses in the Schiff committee has written a piece claiming, “You can’t even say he’s been impeached yet if you don’t send those articles over there.” And then there are two polls out today that finally reflect what we all know to be true.

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!

RUSH: Yes siree, wrapping up yet another barnstorming week of broadcast excellence here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Great to have you with us, as always, folks. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

One of the star witnesses during the Adam Schiff so-called committee hearing was Noah Feldman. Noah Feldman is a Harvard Law professor. He was made up and had his hair made to look like he was a 1930s or ’40s film star. He is a rabid and arrogant elitist who literally hates Donald Trump, just despises him, despises Trump so much he can’t even tell you why. It’s class related. It’s institution related. I’m sure there are some other personal reasons for it.

He was one of the three academics who showed up to offer their enlightened academic opinions of just what a rotten reprobate Donald Trump is. They attempted to explain how he had abused his power, how he had obstructed Congress. They were not persuasive at all. But they are rabid, Feldman, all these guys. And look, I’m not comfortable calling people names, but I want to be descriptive. And if you don’t remember who I’m talking about, the guy’s just very snobbish. He looks down his nose at most everybody who’s not in his circle. And none of us are, in his view. So I think they’re panicking.

We’ve got two polls out there. One’s a CNN poll. The other is a YouGov poll. Trump is trouncing Democrats in both of these polls. CNN is having an on-air meltdown over it today. They can’t figure out why. We’ll try to help ’em understand. Now, the Feldman piece, “Trump Isn’t Impeached Until the House Tells the Senate.” His point is that, “According to the Constitution, Impeachment is a Process, Not a Vote.”

He’s not happy at all with Pelosi. See, these people think they’ve made the case. They think they’ve made the case that Trump should go, that a trial would be a slam dunk, that Trump would be convicted, he’s gotta go. There’s no other way to see it, in their view. And now he’s all worried that Pelosi’s blowing this by not sending the articles over.

So all the leftist and Democrat analysts on TV today are trying to cover up for it by claiming, “No, Pelosi has leverage. Pelosi’s got all the leverage.” Pelosi doesn’t have any leverage. As Mitch McConnell said — I’m gonna paraphrase, and this was a great line — McConnell said how in the world can she have leverage when she won’t send us what we don’t want? He doesn’t want those articles. He’d be very happy if she never sent them over, just declare a mistrial and be done with it.

She has no leverage because she has nothing to say about how the Senate conducts its business in this. She could hold out for what she claims is a fair trial, but a fair trial is something always afforded the accused, not the accusers. But it’s not her purview anyway. Once the House voted the articles, the only thing left is for those articles to be presented to the Senate, then the House is done, other than the trial where the House managers would present the case.

But she cannot dictate, for example, that Senate call new witnesses, that the Senate continue the investigation that the House didn’t too. She can’t demand any of that. And by withholding the articles claiming she has leverage, McConnell said, “Leverage? She’s not gonna send us something that we don’t want in the first place. How in the world has she got leverage?”

So this has got these people in panic. They’re trying to cover-up up for this by saying, “No, no, this is Nancy outsmarting everybody,” the leftist commentators.

By the way, you know, it’s fascinating. I purposely didn’t watch much of the debate last night ’cause, frankly, I’m worn out. I’ve reached a point where I can’t handle any more of their rhetoric. I can’t handle any more of the perfunctory lying-through-their-teeth statements. Just my mental health, I couldn’t put up with it.

But people send me their reactions to this stuff all the time, and it’s amazing. I got a lot of reaction last night that Biden was an abject disaster. And yet I get up today and I read all the analysts like John Podhoretz thinks this was Biden’s best ever, Biden owned it, Biden was wonderful, Biden finally was the Biden we think he is.

So now I’m curious. Which is it? I had people sending me stuff saying Biden blew the Winston Churchill question, how old he is, didn’t know that Winston Churchill was prime minister of the U.K., had to be reminded that Winston Churchill was not an American, the question had to deal with American presidents and their age. And I get up and I read all these analysts, “Oh, Biden.” There’s three or four of them that Biden just mopped the floor with people last night.

I’m kind of at a disadvantage ’cause I didn’t see it. But it’s fascinating to me the reactions that different people have. Obviously, the people think think Biden did well wanted him to do well and are literally hoping that somebody can beat Trump on that side, and they think Biden’s probably only person who can and so that’s why they think Biden — he didn’t stumble. He acted like he knew where he was. I mean, the bar is very low for Plugs. All he’s gotta do is act like he knows where he is and what time it is and it’s an improvement over the last debate, right?

So, anyway, back to Noah Feldman. “[A]n indefinite delay would pose a serious problem. Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial. Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment.

“And the Senate must actually hold a trial. If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.” Let me tell you something. For Noah Feldman to write that, he is panicking. He doesn’t want to write that! He doesn’t want to have to consider that Trump is innocent of anything in his life.

The worst thing that could happen to Noah Feldman is exactly what’s happened, for none of this to go forward from this point. I’m telling you, Feldman writing these few sentences here had to be painful. Again: “If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached…” That is the worst of any preliminary outcome! Now, the worst outcome’s gonna be if he’s acquitted.

Pelosi knows her articles are nothing. Pelosi knows her articles cannot get votes of acquittal. Pelosi knows she doesn’t have a case. She knows Trump would be acquitted. She doesn’t want that; so she’s withholding the articles. But now her allies and her aides are panicking that this may be the wrong “strategical” move. Noah Feldman says, “That’s because ‘impeachment’ under the Constitution means the House sending its approved articles of to the Senate, with House managers standing up in the Senate and saying the president is impeached.

“As for the headlines we saw after the House vote saying, ‘TRUMP IMPEACHED,’ those are a media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement. So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message.” Now, we had a call about this yesterday. I have to admit that I was taken a little bit aback by this when I saw it.

We had a call yesterday asking me, “Hey, Rush, is Trump really impeached?”  I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  The House action is what it is.  Impeachment is a two-part process.  They voted to impeach him.  That’s done.”  Well, it turns out the caller may have been on to something, if Feldman is right.  Now some other people are chiming in and saying, “Yes, yep, this is absolutely true,” and some other people chiming in, “I said that first!” which is normal.

But it is clear that none of this is going the way they figured.  None of it — literally none of it, folks. So keep in mind, Trump hasn’t been impeached and won’t be until Pelosi lets the managers go over there and present the case.  Now, a companion story from Bloomberg: “Trump Lawyers Ask If Pelosi Delay Means He Isn’t Impeached Yet.”  Pull quote: “The White House legal theory, according to a person familiar with the legal review, is that if Trump has been officially impeached, the Senate should already have jurisdiction.

“Backers of the theory would argue that the clause of the U.S. Constitution that gives the Senate ‘the sole Power to try all Impeachments’ indicates that the impeachment isn’t formalized until the House reported the charges to the upper chamber.” So until the Senate has been notified and then is prepared to conduct a trial, the House vote — according to Noah Feldman and the White House lawyers — doesn’t mean anything yet.  It’s kind of like: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there, did it make a noise, did it make a sound?

If the House votes for impeachment but don’t take the case to the Senate, is there an impeachment?  Apparently, the answer’s “no.”  So Trump has not been impeached yet, and he won’t be. Pelosi is now saying she isn’t gonna deliver anything over this ’til January 7th because she sent the House home.  There will be no votes on anything until they get back next year, January 7th.  Now, in the midst of all of this, polling data.

Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard:  “President Trump is starting to run away with the 2020 election.  In the second poll in two days to show his advantage, the latest YouGov/Economist ‘electability’ survey found the president leading the top tier of Democratic challengers from six points to 41 points among registered voters, even amid” the he’s-not-impeached-yet period. “In the survey, 40% said that … Biden would ‘probably beat Donald Trump.’ But 46% said Biden would ‘probably lose to Donald Trump.’ Against [Crazy Bernie], the margin favored Trump 57%-31%.”

In other words, this is not a poll of, “Who are you gonna vote for? Who do you think…?”  This is a poll of, “Who do you think’s gonna win?  What are the odds such-and-such will beat somebody else?”  They call this an “electability” poll, and it’s the second one like it in two days — and YouGov is not an outlier bunch.  They are widely accepted by the Drive-By Media as mainstream. So’s The Economist.  So, again, 46% in this poll say that Biden would lose to Trump, 46% to 40%, a six-point edge for Trump.

That Trump would beat Crazy Bernie 57% to 31%. That Trump would beat Elizabeth Warren 57% to 27% (that’s 30 points) and that Trump would trounce Mayor Pete 59 to 18%.  Now, look at those margins.  Now, let’s stop and look at this for a second.  Does this sound sensible?  These margins, when you hear them or if you read the piece yourself, does this sound reasonable, believable, or does it sound like, “Whoa! This is so unlike any other poll I’ve seen out there, I don’t know if I should believe this.”

See, to me, this is the first poll to come along that makes any sense whatsoever. The Democrats are not making a case to the majority of this country to reelect them or elect them.  They’re not even close to it.  The amount of pro-Trump energy out there is expanding, and it’s growing, and even the polls that the mainstream media cite show this, that Trump is gaining support during impeachment; the Democrats are losing it.  This makes total sense.

Can Mayor Pete, really…? Living an illusion that Mayor Pete’s gonna be elected president?  There’s no way that’s gonna happen, and there’s no way Elizabeth Warren’s gonna be elected president.  It’s nothing but media mythology to believe that these kinds of things are as close as they are.  Now, let’s go to CNN.  Audio sound bite number 5.  The same thing is happening in a CNN poll.  This this morning on CNN New Day, and this is the senior politics writer, Harry Enten.

ENTEN: (excitedly) Back in October, Biden was up by 10! So his lead has been cut in half!  Bernie Sanders is up by nine — his lead has been cut more than in half — and Warren was up eight, and now she’s only up one! And Buttigieg was up six, and now he is down one! This is massive movement towards the president of the United States, at least in our poll at this particular point.

RUSH:  They are in horror over in CNN Land, because their poll is showing massive swing toward Trump in head-to-head polls with Democrats.  Here’s part two of the sound bite…

ENTEN: … 76% of the country say we have good economic conditions!  Just 22% say we have poor!  That is, in fact, the best numbers that we’ve had since the beginning of not just this past decade, but the last decade!  So take a look at his favorability rating.  Now his favorable rating, 46%.  The president is becoming more popular, in part, I believe, because of the strong — what people view as a strong — economy.

RUSH:  Right.  That’s only part of it.  “The president is becoming stronger” because people are reacting horribly negatively to what your pals in the Democrat Party are doing, Mr. Enten.  So after he mentioned all this, little Alisyn Camerota said, “Gee, can you explain this?  Why is this happening?”  They’re clueless.  They live in a world where every day they are destroying Donald Trump, and they think since Pelosi impeached him that he’s just about dead now. It’s just a matter of time.  They have thought this for three years.  It backfires on them each and every time.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  So here’s the bottom line: At the moment, registered voters don’t think any of the Democrat frontrunners are gonna beat Donald Trump.  This according to the YouGov/Economist poll.  The CNN poll is trending the same direction.  Now, there are reasons I think this poll — this electability poll showing Trump winning by such wide margins — is true, and I can’t make the case during the closing segments of this segment.  But we will when I get back.  Look at the debate last night. Elizabeth Warren’s a classic illustration of what’s wrong with the Democrat Party.

But it’s not just that, because she articulated things that they always say.  They do not adjust for relevant circumstances in America at any time.  They just continue to paint this country as dark and doomed.  It is the way they have always sought to relate to a majority of Americans and get them on their side, to portray America as dark and gloomy and dismal and most people have no hope, most people have no prayer — most people, the deck is stacked against ’em.

It’s the stupidest thing in the world to say during this particular time with economic unemployment at a historic low of 3.5%, African-American unemployment at an historic low.  The other positives look at it: African-American employment and Hispanic employment at all-time highs. Stock market through the roof.  Most people’s 401(k)s or other instruments are invested in the stock market are they’re doing well because of it. And here come the Democrats continuing to portray this country as a nation in decline where most people have no chance, no prayer, because of evil Republicans — and it’s just not selling, thankfully.

[mystery-ak]

Trump’s Shocking the World with the Most Conservatism Since Reagan

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: To so to summarize in the Economist/YouGov poll, Trump leads Biden by six, Sanders by 26, Elizabeth Warren by 30, Pete Buttigieg by 41%. This is not a preference poll. It’s an electability poll. It’s voters, registered voters being asked, “Okay. In this matchup, who wins? That matchup, who wins?” It’s not a, “Who are you gonna vote for, who do you want to vote for, who do you want to see win.” It’s what do people think.

And these margins, as I’ve said, make sense to me because the Democrats are offering nothing. We live in undeniably economically prosperous times. In fact, there’s a slogan that has long been a slogan desired to be true by every politician, every president since the beginning of time, and that is peace and prosperity. Donald Trump is the first American president in our lifetimes who has not started a war. He’s inherited some, and he may have expanded our involvement, but he’s not started one.

Wars are started for economic reasons, in part. They are started for legitimate strategic reasons, but he’s the first one who hasn’t. At the same time, we have an economy that many people alive have never experienced before and, as I have made clear, eight years prior to Trump’s three years the American people were hearing things like this was never gonna happen again, that they were not possible, that this kind of prosperity, employment, job opportunity, none of this was possible.

The Democrat Party, that was their message, as they were leading the country. Now, they do this for a host of reasons. They want people depressed and dispirited. They want people thinking they can’t get anywhere on their own. They want people to be victims. They want people to believe that there are invisible, mysterious forces keeping them down, making it impossible for them to advance in life.

And guess what? It just so happens that most of these invisible, powerful forces can be linked to Republicans, say the Democrats. I’ve been a conservative all of my life. I was born one. I grew up as one. I did not have to be taught. I did not have to have it ingrained in me. I just naturally am and was. And as I grew older, I learned why I thought what I thought. I learned how to explain what I thought, and I learned how to persuade other people.

I’ve had repeated attempts made to try to talk me out of it, and they’ve all failed. As such, I’ve grown up believing that the answer to reconstituting America, as founded, always resided in conservatism. Conservative ideology, conservative policies, conservative values, conservative language, conservative morality. And there have always been my entire life, there have always been noted, learned conservative intellectuals and others who set themselves up as powerful and influential enough to make it all happen.

And it took me a while to realize that every damn one of them was asking for donations in order to do what they do, and it took me awhile to figure out that conservatives don’t run around asking people for money. And yet all of these leading conservatives, conservative organizations, conservative individuals were thriving and surviving off of donors, just like everybody else in Washington. Donations, cruises, fundraisers. I’ve never asked anybody for a dime in my life. I never would. It goes against my very makeup.

And then if you add conservative principles to it, conservatives believe in self-reliance, they believe in self-advancement, rugged individualism, all of that. So we’ve had over the course of my lifetime one legitimate conservative individual that got elected and indeed did great things. That was Ronaldus Magnus. Outside of that we haven’t had any. Yet all this time we’ve had numerous conservative institutions, whatever you want to call them, think tanks, what have you.

And, by the way, full disclosure, when I first started this program 31 years ago, I made sure when I started, to thank them. I was the new kid on the block. These people had never heard of me. In my view, they had been toiling in the basement, figuratively, working in obscurity and anonymity, developing conservative theory and philosophy.

And here comes some kid out of California that didn’t even go to college and all of a sudden is becoming this widely famous and well-known conservative who is articulating it all, and I don’t have the pedigree these people have. So initially they looked at me very warily. They eyed me suspiciously. So I made it a point to thank them all for their contributions to my understanding.

And then the requests started coming to help them raise money, and I did. I thought that was what was necessary. The short version of this story is that after and before Ronald Reagan, we’ve had nobody from the, quote, unquote, movement that ever got elected despite all of this influence, despite all this fundraising, and yet we now have Donald Trump, who is doing more for conservatism — and he isn’t one — than any conservative prior to him with the exception of Ronaldus Magnus.

And Donald Trump’s not asked anybody for a dime, and he doesn’t — well, campaign contributions. But even in 2016 there wasn’t much fundraising. He was self-funded. The fund-raising didn’t start ’til he won and set up the inauguration and transition and this kind of stuff, and there were some donations, obviously. But it was not the usual fare.

My point is that not only are the Democrats in shell shock over what’s happened, so is the entire Republican establishment. Some guy has come out of nowhere — well, I mean they knew who he was. He was a television star, a construction guy. Nobody ever took him seriously as anything other than a Page Six celebrity who built buildings. And now he’s running rings around the entire Washington political establishment.

We have economic circumstances that we were told 11 years ago and seven years ago that were not possible to attain anymore. We were told America’s shining days were behind us. We were also told that some of those great days were not legitimate because America is unjust. Socially unjust, economically unfair, maybe a tinge racist still and all of that.

We were told as a population to temper our expectations economically. The Democrats like people thinking they have no control over their own lives, then those people are more than willing to turn over such control to Democrats. So the Democrats try to make victims out of as many people as they can, and they do their best to convince people that there’s no hope, and last night’s Democrat debate was just filled with this.

Now, in times where our economy has been floundering and unemployment has been high — people losing their jobs, people being laid off, factories closing — that kind of rhetoric resonates.  But it’s not resonating now.  People are listening to it like some kind of foreign language.  I don’t deny that there are people in various degrees of misfortune in the country.  That’s gonna always be the case.  But the Democrats want you to believe that the entire country is a deep, dark, desolate place because of Republicans — and as long as there are Republicans, people have no future.

Well, it is just the exact opposite.  So the Democrats keep harping on all this — negativism, pessimism, defeatism — and while they’re doing that, they’re trying to destroy the guy 63 million Americans elected and probably many millions more are gonna vote for again. And their line just isn’t resonating with people right now, and it’s not hard to understand why.  So the margins in these polls make perfect sense to me, folks.

The margin in this YouGov electability poll with Trump beating Biden by six, Crazy Bernie by 26, Elizabeth Warren by 30, Mayor Pete (come on) by 41, I can believe them.  The Democrat Party offers nothing.  They’re not even offering any hope!  The only hope they’re offering is if you elect them.  They don’t believe people have the ability to rise up.  They don’t believe people have the ability to live their own lives productively, to manage them.  That’s part and parcel of liberalism and socialism, and the Democrats have that wrapped down pat.

But it’s just not gonna resonate in times like this where we have record low unemployment, record high wage advances and increases, record high per capita income, record high job opportunity, jobs coming back that the previous Democrat president assured us could not come back — and that’s just half of it.  Now we’ve got a makeover of the federal judiciary underway because of Donald Trump.  We have a reworking of trade deals that put the American people at a great disadvantage being reworked.  I find it just fascinating that it’s all being done by a guy who never ran around once calling himself a conservative.  Still doesn’t.

[mystery-ak]

Putin Gooses Congress on Impeachment

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: This is Larry in Pine River, Wisconsin.  You’re first, and it’s great to have you, Larry, hi.

CALLER:  Hi.

RUSH:  Hey.

CALLER:  It’s a real pleasure to speak to you.

RUSH:  Thank you.  I can understand.  Yes.

CALLER:  I have a question for you.

RUSH:  What is it?

CALLER:  I just heard on the news that Putin came out in defense of Donald Trump.  Now, Donald Trump does not need Putin to defend him against anything.

RUSH:  Would you actually characterize it as “Putin came out in defense of Trump”?  What did Putin say?

CALLER:  Well, according to the news, he was defending the fact that this impeachment was, you know, not a good thing.

RUSH:  Right.  He didn’t defend Trump.  He went out and attacked Congress. (laughing) I laughed my ass off, Larry.  I laughed my ass off on Putin.

CALLER: (laughing) Yeah.

RUSH: He’s goosing them!  He’s driving them crazy.  He’s keeping them believing that Trump and Putin are buddies and are sabotaging the Democrats.  I think it was hilarious.  Putin… This is on a par with Trump asking Putin to find Hillary’s emails.  Here’s Putin ripping the U.S. Congress for not having the slightest idea what they’re doing, making a big mistake. He can’t believe how stupid they are. (laughing) This is fantastic.  He’s goosing ’em, Larry.  He’s gaming them out there.

CALLER: (garbled) …was the fact that he’s doing this simply because he wants to set up Donald Trump (laughing) in the media and the left to give them a reason to say, “See? I told you he’s out there doing this!”

RUSH:  Oh, maybe.  Maybe.  What Putin wants to do is exactly what he’s doing thanks to the Democrats falling for it all.  Vladimir Putin… The Democrats want you to believe that Putin wanted Trump to win, and so Trump and Putin are buddies, and they colluded, and they found a way to make it happen.  Well, that’s not what… Putin can’t control who wins.  All he wants is the United States in a state of disarray.  He wants the United States focusing on internal battles, paying less attention to him.

In truth, Donald Trump may be the worst thing that has ever happened to Vladimir Putin.  Trump is by no means (chuckling) a Russian ally or a Putin ally.  So there could be an element of this (chuckling), Putin trying to keep the Democrats going after Trump alive by claiming they’re doing it the wrong way, claiming they’re making a mistake.  But if that’s true, then all Putin is doing is simply trying to further their belief that Russia and Trump are buddies and are colluding.

Now, the Democrats are in such a state of delusion — and, folks, they really are.  They are as delusional as I have ever seen a political party.  Now, don’t misunderstand.  I’m not saying that they’re not dangerous or that they’re a joke.  That’s not what I’m saying.  I’m saying that they are so absent and distant from reality here that Putin coming out and chastising them for doing it the wrong way… It could be that Putin wants to further the idea that he’s on Trump’s side, which could then keep the Democrats further engaged and enraged in their effort to get Trump.

But (chuckles) if that’s his plan, he’s just gonna make them look crazier.  They don’t understand yet how they have come off in all of this to the vast majority of the American people.  And, frankly, I haven’t seen that much reaction to Putin anyway.  It’s been kind of muted.  There hasn’t been, you know, “Stop everything! Breaking news! Vladimir Putin criticizes Pelosi and her impeachment.” I haven’t seen that yet.  We’ll have to keep a sharp eye.  I don’t think it registered much except it did with me from the standpoint of being very entertaining.

[mystery-ak]

Entertaining Moments from the Democrat Exercise in Futility

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: There were some entertaining moments… Hard as it is to believe and imagine, there were some entertaining moments last night in the Democrat debate which was actually an exercise in complete and total futility, given their objectives here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, in the previous half hour, I went into a belief little monologue on how the Democrat Party sees America as a cold, dark, dank, gloomy place.  It is their natural, by the way, view.  That’s how they see life.  That’s how they see people.  It’s dismal, it is depressing, it’s dark.  You never get any optimism out of these people.  You never get any happiness, laughter, potential upside, none of that.  It’s always doom and gloom, and it’s typified by climate change.  What are we doing?

We’re destroying the planet.  We’re destroying the habitat — and then we’re destroying this or that for animals, and we’re destroying this for the transgender community and we’re destroying that.  It’s just a constant pummeling, and it was on full display last night in the Democrat Party so-called presidential debate — which, I believe, was an exercise in utter futility.  I don’t think the Democrats have, because they are living in a perpetual delusion that is worsening…

I don’t believe they have the slightest idea what they are headed for in 2020.  I really don’t.  I think they are lying to themselves continually, and I think they are telling themselves that they’re gonna win and win big, and it’s gonna be a landslide whoever the nominee is — and then they’re gonna put Donald Trump in jail, and then maybe even get the death penalty, if they leave it up to some.  Here’s an example.

Last night, Bernie Sanders promised to “criminally prosecute fossil fuel executives [for] destroying the planet,” and he said it on Twitter.  He said “if he wins, he’ll ‘pass a Green New Deal, and criminally prosecute the fossil fuel executives who destroyed,” not “are destroying,” but who have destroyed, “the planet.” Now, folks, that is insane.  It is the clinical definition of insane.  This is not just politics-as-usual.  It is insane, it is unrealistic, and the frightening thing is that there are some in the Democrat Party who believe it and eat it all up and applaud it.

Why is it insane?  Because there’s virtually no chance of this happening.  There is no chance that Bernie Sanders would “criminally prosecute fossil executives [for] destroying the planet.”  You know why?  No laws are being broken.  In fact, it is the energy and natural gas sector which is one of the leading elements propelling the growth of the economy and creating new jobs and bringing down the cost of living, and the people that run fossil fuel companies (like ExxonMobil, you name it) are not breaking any laws.

Even if he wanted to rewrite laws to make emissions — any emissions — criminally illegal, he still couldn’t do that because he’s not the authoritarian that he portrays himself as being.  But he would try.  I have no doubt that he would try to some extent, and I don’t doubt for a minute that he’s serious.  This is insane.  We need to call this stuff for what it is.  “Rush, don’t call it insane.  You’re just gonna scare people off.  People are not gonna believe it’s insane.

“It’s like calling somebody a communist.”  Well, they’ve been communists all these years and we were told not to call ’em that.  Now they’re calling themselves that! I’m telling you, these people are insane, according to a couple different definitions of the word.  He’s a socialist.  He’s a proud socialist.  “ExxonMobil has published a report predicting ‘no reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector through 2040…'”

Did you hear what Biden said?  Let me find what Plugs said.  Biden said that he would literally preside over the loss of 200,000 jobs if it meant getting even with the fossil fuel industry.  Hell, it’s not 200,000!  Biden said that he would favor the policies that would eliminate millions of blue-collar jobs for the Green New Deal.  Joe Biden admitted — proudly said — last night that he’s willing to blow up millions of jobs to satisfy the extreme left who now run the Democrat Party.

Let’s go to the audio sound bites of this debacle last night.  We’re gonna start with Fauxcahontas.  Fauxcahontas, I’m sure she’s been lying in wait all night for Mayor Pete.  Let me tell you what Mayor Pete did earlier this week.  Mayor Pete went to a Silicon Valley executive’s fundraiser.  The fundraiser was held by, I think, the family that owns the Rutherford winery in Napa.  Now, many wineries have underground caves where the wine is stored so that it can age at the proper temperature and proper humidity.

It’s much cheaper to put it underground than to hire a bunch of refrigeration equipment to have to maintain at the proper temperature.  They dig these caves and they put the wine in there and they deck these caves out.  They’ll throw parties in there and dinners and so forth, and that’s what happened.  They had this gigantic fundraiser for Mayor Pete, and there were photos of it — and it was the finest flatware you’ve ever seen, the finest silverware you’ve ever seen, the finest glassware you’ve ever seen, the finest tablecloths you’ve ever seen.

It was the epitome of the Gilded Age. Epitome.  Now, Mayor Pete is a left-wing socialist Democrat who doesn’t believe in palling around with the rich.  The rich are the problem, as far as Mayor Pete is concerned, because that’s what all Democrats want you to think they believe.  The truth of the matter is, the modern-day Democrat Party is the party of this kind of wealth! It is this kind of wealth that has been underwriting the Democrat Party for years, including that kind of wealth on Wall Street.

Well, Fauxcahontas saw the pictures.  Not of the party.  The pictures were of the tables, the long banquet tables where all the donors would show up and eat the finest foods and drink the finest wines and listen to the finest speech by Mayor Pete.  I saw some people on TV that asked, “Well, what’s a wine cave?  I never heard of a wine cave.”  Well, that’s why I just took the time to explain to you what a wine cave is.

And they’re common among wine vintners.  It’s a common thing to keep their product stored properly.  Much cheaper than refrigeration.  So, anyway, Fauxcahontas thinks she’s got Mayor Pete set up for the kill ’cause he went to this thing.  She thinks… She thinks she’s gonna take him out in the debate last night ’cause he went to the wine cave.  Here’s how she started the process…

WARREN:  The mayor just recently had a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900-a-bottle wine.  Think about who comes to that.  He had promised that every fundraiser he would do would be open door, but this one was closed door.  We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States.

CROWD: (smattering of applause)

WARREN: Billionaires in wine caves shouldn’t pick the next president of the United States!

RUSH: Now, obviously this is as phony as you can get, because this is the Democrat Party. Who are these vintners? They’re Democrats. Napa Valley, the vast majority of it — there are some exceptions — but they’re all liberal Democrats. I could give you some wine labels that are not, but I don’t want to open any worms.

But this is the Democrat Party of today. This is the big secret. They are the party of wealth, and they hide it. That’s why the fund-raiser was in a cave and not some rich guy’s mansion or estate. Well, Mayor Pete was waiting for this. Mayor Pete was ready for it. And this is how Mayor Pete retorted.

BUTTIGIEG: According to Forbes magazine I am literally the only person on this stage who’s not a millionaire or a billionaire. So if —

CROWD: (cheers)

BUTTIGIEG: — this is important. This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass.

CROWD: (Ooooh!)

BUTTIGIEG: If I pledged –

CROWD: (cheers)

BUTTIGIEG: — if I pledged never to be in the company of a progressive Democratic donor, I couldn’t be up here. Senator, your net worth is 100 times mine.

RUSH: And the audience conditioned to war hoop and believe and act like Mayor Pete had destroyed her. And most of the commentators, analysts suggested that Warren did step in it big time, that Mayor Pete, he was ready for this, and he knocked it out of the park. I don’t think there’s a winner or loser. Maybe within the Democrat view of things, maybe Mayor Pete did parry this off pretty well.

But they’re both a bunch of phonies is the whole thing about this. They tried to make it look like this is not a part of their friendship sphere, it’s not a part of their daily existence. And it is. Fauxcahontas is being hypocritical. She went on to say (imitating Fauxcahontas), “I’m just gonna tell you, I’m just gonna tell you, people can donate all they want, they can give millions, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna be an ambassador, that’s not gonna happen with me.” And Mayor Pete kind of blew that out of the water too.

Elizabeth Warren is constantly trying to make people believe she’s somebody she’s not, either an Indian or a middle-class pauper or a woman that’s never done anything in capitalism, is always been a good socialist. She’s a classic phony, classic misdirection phony.

Look at what their debates are about. Their debate is about who’s rich and who isn’t, who’s legitimately rich and who’s not, as though any of this has anything to say about who they are and what their policies end up being. We just had Barack Obama end up buying a $15 million house on Martha’s Vineyard, yet his whole career has been built on trashing people that do that with a wink and a nod at all the Democrat donors that give him enough money that he could afford a house like that, because that’s the game.

The game is to make it look like the rich are exclusively mean-spirited Republicans. The Democrat Party has more wealthy people in the Senate and House of Representatives than the Republican Party does today. Not even close.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I forgot to emphasize what has Crazy Bernie so irritated here when he promised to criminally prosecute fossil fuel executives for destroying the planet. ExxonMobil published the report predicting no reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector through 2040. That’s what blew ’em all up. That’s what sent ’em over the edge. And ExxonMobil also said in its report that there will be no date, there will be no time at which emissions reach net zero.

And so the entire radical left, from Greta Thunberg on down or up, depending on how you look at it, is enraged. And so that’s why Crazy Bernie believes this is destroying the planet. ExxonMobil is just being factually honest. Do you think the CEO and the executives and everybody that works in ExxonMobil, do you think that they intend to destroy the planet and still somehow be alive and have their company up and running and doing everything they do now?

This stuff is so asinine and obscene. And these Democrat predictions are common. All of these extreme, over him the top, radical predictions — destroy the planet, 12 years, 10 years, 15 years, destroying the habitat, all of that, none of that is gonna happen. It’s not possible. We can’t do it by virtue of our current lifestyle. These people are trying to say that progress, technology, innovation is destroying things? It’s all insane. It’s all absurd.

And all ExxonMobil’s doing is admitting the truth here. But these people have a political agenda, and it requires that people believe these extreme lies. And with ExxonMobil not playing along, why, they’ve just become an even bigger enemy. But the problem for them is they’re not breaking any laws, not even close.

Back to the phones, Leona Valley, California, Carl, great that you called. Nice to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’ll get right to the point. I’ve isolated three problems that our president has given the Democrats long term, and I’d like to know if you can tell me which one you think is most problematic. One is what he’s doing with the courts, the judges. The second would be, he’s breaking up the lock the Democrats have had on the minorities for all these decades. And, third, he’s exposing the mainstream media because he’s fighting back, and it’s obvious that they’re lying most of the time.

RUSH: And you want to know from me which of those three I think are hurting the Democrats the most?

CALLER: Correct. Yes.

RUSH: Well, this is kind of a chicken-or-egg question because I would say that I think the number one agent in creating and doing damage to the Democrat Party is the Democrat Party. But then you would have to say, well, how do people know this? You throw the media in and Trump. Trump is pointing it out. Trump is calling them out. Trump is helping to illustrate it. In the process, they even go more radical. As they fail to convince people, they get more drastic and extreme in their effort.

And what it all adds up to is that they know that they’re failing. This is what’s got Pelosi all — they’re failing. They’re racking up failure after failure after failure. They can’t accept it. They can’t believe it. The African-American vote, if these polls that exist now that show Trump’s approval rating among African-Americans is 34, 35% — and there’s three different polls that show this — if that is true, just in terms of elections, if the Democrats were to seriously lose 10 to 15% of the African-American vote, it would be close to a death knell.

So it would be tough to pick any particular one. I’d say throw them all in just the one big package called Trump. I think Trump himself is the agent of destruction here for all of the reasons that I have mentioned over the course of these past three years.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So looky here.  Right along the lines of one of my big points today, with the Democrat Party and how they see America — especially today — as a cold, dark, dank place, no hope, no opportunity.  I mean, they’re all over this debate stage last night. Elizabeth Warren says, “I am proud to stand on a stage with people who understand that the only people benefiting from this growth are the wealthy and the rich” and so forth, and it’s just…

I think Trump is doing so many magnificent things, it’s hard to literally categorize them all or list them all.  The Democrat Party has not changed its rhetoric.  They can’t.  Trump has created economic circumstances for many Americans unlike those ever in their lifetimes. And, in the process, the Democrat Party’s being who they are. And they are exposing themselves and their crazy thinking, their negative outlook on things — their dismal, dark look — and it’s there for everybody to see, without having to be told.

It’s just staring everybody in the face — and not only is it not true, it isn’t infectious.  You have people doing well, their jobs have come back, their savings accounts are up, their 401(k)s are up. Job opportunities are plentiful. And then you turn on TV, you listen to the Democrats, and they paint a picture of a country that doesn’t exist — and, furthermore, you don’t want to exist — and that’s where they’re really doing themselves in.

The kind of things they are trying to sell and get support for are things no American wants to be a part of.  You don’t want to join a movement of darkness.  You don’t want to join a movement of pessimism and defeatism, unless you already are pessimistic and defeated. And the odds are if you’re a regular Democrat voter, that pretty much might sum you up.  And I don’t want anybody to misunderstand.  I’m not a Pollyanna here.

I’m not saying that there aren’t people in trouble, that there aren’t people suffering, that there aren’t people in various stages of misfortune.  It’s the case, law of averages. It’s gonna happen no matter what overall circumstances are.  But then the question becomes, “What do you do about it?” and the Democrats’ sole solution is to blame people for it, blame Republicans for it.  Whereas our solution is to fix it, is to find a way for all of this uplift to include as many who want to be part of it, recognizing there are going to be some who don’t.

Three hundred million people in the country are never gonna have uniformity on things, even things that seem to make the most common sense.  But I think Trump is drawing ’em out.  I think Trump is helping to expose the Democrats and liberalism in ways that have not been as effective before, and the way it’s happening is their sheer hatred for him.  They know nothing else.  They can’t… Because of their opinion, they can’t agree with him on anything.

They can’t join him on anything.  Their fingerprints are not on any of the good things happen in America, and they can’t afford for their fingerprints to be because they think that would be hypocritical.  So they’re now forced into a constant position of opposition, and what are they opposing?  They are opposing things that have revitalized the lives of millions of Americans! I mean, it’s right where we want them.  Here’s a little piece from PJMedia.com.

“Fact Check: Democrats Claim Trump Economy Isn’t Working for the Middle Class; They’re Wrong — When Democrats were asked questions about the economy, one thing was clear: they want the public to believe the economy isn’t doing well…”  How would you like to have that as your job today, to try to convince as many people as possible the economy is not too good well?  That’s the Democrat Party today.

The Democrat Party’s trying to convince the middle class that they are losing ground and “falling behind, and that it’s all Trump’s fault.” But “the economy is doing great, and no amount of denial can change that.” We have historic, 50-year low unemployment.  The problem is, none of the claims they’re making can be backed up anywhere.  Do you know what “gaslighting” means?  I hear this term thrown around, and I’ve never been sure what it means.

Do you know what it is? When somebody’s gaslighting you, do you know…? (interruption) Well, let me tell you the best I have been able to ascertain, and there may be people that disagree with me on this, ’cause I have a lot of people who don’t know what it means, and people throw the term around.  Its meaning is not self-evident.  “Gaslighting?  When do you light gas?  Gas stove?  I don’t get it.”  Gaslighting is, the best I can tell, a tactic in which a person, in order to gain power, tries to make someone question what is undeniably real.

Gaslighting is nothing other than an effort to make you believe that what you know is true isn’t — and that, to me, was the Democrat debate last night.  I think the entire Democrat debate, they were gaslighting us.  They were asking us to believe that the economy is in a virtual recession; a virtual depression is on the horizon.  They know nothing else!  They tried to say the economy is destroying families, it’s destroying transgenders, it’s destroying illegals.  They’re an economic death cult!  The Democrat Party is an economic death cult, and they’re gaslighting everybody last night with how rotten things are, despite everything you’re living and everything that you know.

[mystery-ak]

We’re in a Battle to Save America As Founded

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: Here is David in Huntsville, Alabama.  Glad to have you, sir.  I’m glad you waited.  You’re next on Open Line Friday.  Hi.

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH:  Yes, sir.

CALLER:  I’d like to ask you a question I don’t think anybody in the media’s talked about and I don’t think the Democrats have really considered.  Let’s hypothetically say that Trump actually gets removed from office.  That makes Mike Pence president.  What kind of president do you think Mike Pence would make, and do you think the Democrats would actually try to impeach him, too?

RUSH:  Uhhhh… Pffft. No, but that would be a calendar or clock thing.  I think they’re fully aware that Mike Pence would be president.

CALLER:  What kind of president would he be?

RUSH:  Come on.  You have to… If they’re trying to get rid of Trump, they know who’s next, and it isn’t Hillary.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  It’s gonna be Mike Pence.  I’ll just tell you point-blank since you asked. I think they believe that Mike Pence is a big, fat zero.  They think he’s a big, boring dryball that’d be so easy to beat. They think they’ll be able to attach Pence to Trump, and you might have a point.  They might say, “If we could have impeached him, we woulda, because he was with Trump all the way.”  But they, I don’t think — and I think they’re so wrong about that. (chuckles) I think they’re misjudging this as badly as they’ve misjudged everything. But they believe Pence would be easily beatable.

I think they’re so delusional that nothing about this that is guiding them or propelling them makes any sense whatsoever. Now, I want to throw something else out. Since you have brought this up, if Trump is actually removed from office, I don’t even think it will require that. Let me ask you this.

If you wake up one day sometime during the next year, and since you structured a hypothetical, let’s create a really, really bad one. Let’s say the Democrats win the White House in 2020. And you wake up one day, and you learn that Chuck Schumer is demanding that every confirmed judiciary appointee made by Donald Trump be taken down because he was illegitimate because he was impeached. Do you think they’re capable of that?

You better believe they are. Not saying they could get it done. I’m saying do not be stunned if someday — and it may happen in January. They may throw this out depending on how this all goes, they may think they need to stoke wood on the fire to get it burning if they’re losing ground. They may even try to rouse up their base by throwing something like that out.

My only point is, we haven’t reached the end or even the limit of their efforts here to get rid of Trump or to render his entire presidency as illegitimate. Despite the obvious nature of the Democrats, I don’t think enough people realize exactly what we are all up against today when opposing the American left or the Democrat Party. These are not just political battles. Look. These people are refusing to accept now when they lose elections. This is the beginning of something, not the end.

They’re not gonna learn a lesson from this. These people are not interested in democracy. They’re not interested in representative democracy or a republic. It is a problem. We are in a battle for the overall kind of country this is gonna be. We’re not in a battle over who is going to win every four years. We’re not in a battle over who’s gonna be president, who’s gonna run the Senate, who’s gonna run the House.

The battle we are in is virtually and literally about, will this remain the United States of America as founded? That is what is being waged here. And we’re up against a party who is attempting to eliminate as much of and as many of the principles of our founding as they can. And they’ll do it year by year. They’ll do it election by election. They’ll do it event by event. That’s what we’re up against.

This is why, when I’m out and about and people say, “Hey, Rush, who do you think the Democrat nominee –” just bores the hell out of. Doesn’t matter who their nominee is. Doesn’t matter who their nominee is. The nominee is simply gonna be a figurehead for the overall objective of finally ripping up the Constitution and redoing it in ways they want this country to be. Doesn’t matter who their nominee is. “Well, it does in terms of if we’re gonna have an easier time beating ‘em.”

Asking me who the nominee is does not tell me you understand what’s at stake here. The same thing with the Republican nominee. This is a battle that is becoming more and more obvious as every day goes by. These people don’t just have a political disagreement with Donald Trump. They’re not just politically unhappy. They were on the way. Eight years of Obama. They were on the way to transforming this country.

In their minds, they had convinced people to stop dreaming about an always-improving country and always-improving economy. They had gotten people way on down the line stop thinking about traditional American values. Those are old-fashioned. They’re racist. They’re discriminatory. They’re bigoted. They were on the way to turning upside down everything that has become the foundation of this country.

And then Trump gets elected. And in three years the progress that they made in their perception, the progress they made has been brought to an utter, screeching halt. And not just economically. They’ve been exposed for what they’re trying to do. They don’t come out and honestly say that this is their agenda.

They still conduct business as though they’re raising money, they’re standing for office, they’re running for election, they hope to win. That’s not at all an apt description. All you gotta do is take a look at any of their issues to find out what their objective is. What is climate change really all about? It’s not about climate change. It’s about the power they would accrue if they were to ever prevail on the issue, as is everything else they claim to believe. Why do they want to wipe out the traditional definition of marriage? Why do they want to wipe out the traditional definition or morality of anything?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mount Vernon, Ohio, Cindy, great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, it’s a delight to talk to you. I’ve tried so often to get through to you. Thank you for taking my call today.

RUSH: You bet. You bet.

CALLER: I have a couple of comments, Rush. I am so proud of you and so glad that you are the voice of truth. I listen to you, I’m glued to the radio every day. You have the same values as I, my mother and father had. These people in Washington are — I don’t know — they’re living in outer space. They’re out of their minds. And they really are crazy, because they believe everything they have said. And when you look at their faces you can see the insane hate and rage in their faces that they don’t even know they’re showing.

And unlike the caller previously, I do believe, along with you, that this is gonna come out. And when it comes out, there is gonna be such a cry of freedom in this country like we’ve never heard. And one last thing I wanted to say, I’m so proud of our president for standing up for us and the first year in his election, it was the first time I went to a store at Christmas and people started saying, “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy holidays,” “Have a nice holiday” or whatever. And I’m nervous. I know you can tell that. But I’m just so indebted to you and —

RUSH: Well, you’re very kind. But that’s part of the corpus that is being remade here. Merry Christmas. Just traditional American values. America first. Make America Great Again. Nothing threatening about it. America being great can mean wonderful things for everybody. The left even tries to mischaracterize what Make America Great Again means. They think it’s a return to slavery. I’m not making that up. That’s what they think it means.

CALLER: And, Rush, for eight years I did not vote for Barack Hussein Mohammed Obama. I detested the man and his policies, but I didn’t complain because he was elected. However, after eight years of being called a racist when I am not a racist, never was, wasn’t raised that way, being called a homophobe, being called a bigot. You know, you are what you eat and what you read and ingest —

RUSH: That’s —

CALLER: — naturally you start to think.

RUSH: That’s how they try to silence you, that’s how they try to frustrate you. They want you tuning out, they want you forgetting about things, they want you to cease being any opposition. Well, it’s very nice of you. I appreciate all of that. I’m glad you’re out there. I wish I had more time to delve into some of these matters more with you, but I don’t.

[mystery-ak]

Iowa Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Burning LGBTQ Flag

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: This is from ABC News: “Iowa Man Who Tore Down, Burned LGBTQ Flag Is Imprisoned.”  The story’s out of Nevada, Iowa. “A man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for burning an LGBTQ flag that was flying at a church in central Iowa. Adolfo Martinez, 30, of Ames, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years for the hate crime of arson, as well as a year for the reckless use of explosives or fire, and 30 days for harassment.

“The sentences are to be served consecutively, court records show. A jury convicted Martinez in November. He was arrested in June. Martinez said he tore down the [LGBTQ] flag that had been hanging from the United Church of Christ in Ames and burned it because he opposes homosexuality.” This is a classic illusion of what’s wrong with hate crimes.  This same guy… This same guy could burn an American flag and he would be feted as a hero.

He could take down an American flag and he could burn it, and we would go to court. The left would go to court to have his civil right to protest his country protected.  He would be a hero and not a single thing would happen to him.  This guy could sneak into Mar-a-Lago, he could rip down the Trump family flag, he could light it on fire, and all that would happen (if anything) is maybe a little jail time for arson.  But he would still be feted as a hero and his bravery would be heralded.

His courage for “speaking truth to power” would be plastered all over every news network there is out there for taking down a Trump flag and burning it.  But because it is a flag attached to homosexuality, the LGBTQ movement? Fifteen years.  I don’t care, folks. That is not justice, this is social justice, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was just talking about in the battle that we are in with the left.  It’s not what everybody thinks, Republicans versus Democrats for who gets to have power for four years in the White House.

Because the Democrats have gotten to the point now where they refuse to accept elections that they lose, and they begin immediately to try to redo them and undo them.  They did it in 2000 with George W. Bush and the Florida recount.  We saw how that administration was treated throughout its two terms. And with Trump, Trump has been illegitimate since even before he was elected.  So the battle we are in is not Democrat versus Republican.

It’s America versus anti-America.

It’s American founding versus people who wish to transform America into something that it has not been founded to be.  Any time you have to put a modifier in front of “justice,” you can wave good-bye to justice.  There’s no social justice, gender justice.  What is all this? Cisgender? Binary gender?  There’s two genders.  There’s male and female.  Noooo, not anymore, and if you don’t agree with it, you represent an existential threat — and if you act on it, we might be able to put you in jail for 15 years like this guy.

Burn an American flag?

You are a hero to the same people who put this guy in jail for 15 years.

Thought crime violations.  Everybody, when they hear about this, ought to be outraged over it.  But the radical leftist of every stripe — the maniacs, the social justice warriors — have everybody buffaloed and frightened.  So, 15 years for ripping down a flag and burning it because of the hate, because of the hate — even though he admitted it.  Well, so, you do a crime, and then you add the fact that there might have been some hate behind it, and we’ll make it even more punishable.

[mystery-ak]

The Turtle on Fire (for the Turtle!)

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: Here is Mitch McConnell.  I mentioned he had a great line about the accusation from Pelosi that she’s the one that has all the “leverage” now because she’s refusing to send the articles over to the Senate.  This is last night on the Senate floor, two sound bites from the Turtle.  Here’s the first one…

MCCONNELL:  We remain at an impasse because my friend, the Democratic leader, continues to demand a new and different set of rules for President Trump.  My colleague wants a special pretrial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats themselves did not bother to pursue as they assemble their case.

RUSH:  I’m here to tell you, she has… Well, I say, “She has no right.”  She can demand all she wants.  She has nothing to say about what happens in the Senate.  Constitutionally, she’s got nothing to say.  But you see, the Constitution’s limits don’t stop her.  They’re not stopping her.  They’re talking about respect for the rule of law, respect for constitutional duty, constitutional limitations.

They don’t have any.  She is attempting to bully and use brute force with the rest of the Democrat Party to force the Turtle into conducting a further investigation with witnesses that she didn’t even bother to call.  She didn’t bother to call them because the president wasn’t gonna let them come up and testify.  He went to court to stop it.  They want to impeach him for that, calling it “obstruction of Congress.”

So now she wants the Turtle to call these witnesses so the investigation can go on.  The Turtle said, “We don’t investigate here.  You do that!  You bring us the case, and we’ll either dismiss it or we’ll sit in judgment of it, whatever.  But you don’t get to tell us what to do. We’re the jury.  The jury doesn’t do investigations.”  Here’s sound bite number 2 from the Turtle.  This is the one that has at great line in it.

MCCONNELL:  House Democrats imply they are withholding the articles for some kind of “leverage” so they can dictate the Senate process to senators.  I admit I’m not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want.  Meanwhile, other House Democrats seem to be suggesting they’d prefer never to transmit the articles.  Fine with me.

RUSH: (laughing) This is great. The Turtle’s on fire, for the Turtle. “I’m not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want.” (laughing) We don’t want your stinking articles. We don’t want anything to do with this because it’s not legitimate. “Meanwhile, other Democrats seem to be suggesting they prefer never to transmit the articles.” And there are some of those.

And, folks, it all boils down to — I don’t know if there is anybody sane. The reasonable members of the left know that this is gonna lead to an acquittal which is the absolute last thing that they want. In an election year, for it to be recorded as a matter of constitutional congressional law that the president was found not guilty. “Doesn’t matter, Rush. They’d still be able to say he was impeached.” Nah. I’m telling you, the reason she’s not sending these articles over there is because she knows she doesn’t have a case.

Now, I just saw on CNN a Pencil Neck kind of guy named Brad Sherman. He’s also from California. Have you noticed, by the way, speaking of elitism and all, whenever the Democrat leadership gathers on TV, like when Schiff and Nadler and Pelosi and all the people on these committees gathered, do you know what? They’re all from either California or New York. None of them are from the middle of the country. They’re all California, New York. They’re all radical, coastal elites. The House leadership. And yet they tell us that their party is the home of diversity.

[mystery-ak]

Durham Zeroes in on Brennan

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: Here is Mike in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, sir, Rush. Pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: My feeling is, nobody in Washington’s gonna get prosecuted on this entire affair because anybody that dares open their mouth is gonna suffer the same fate that Epstein did, and he had $500 million to protect him. And if I was being guarded by the Secret Service, I wouldn’t be too comfortable, either.

RUSH: Let me make sure I understand. The reason there will not be any prosecutions, you mean even by Barr and Durham?

CALLER: Barr and Durham my rear end. The guys smoke and that’s about it.

RUSH: Well, we got some sound bites from Barr coming up, you may change your mind. But you think there are never gonna be any prosecutions because the people who might be prosecuted, put in jail, are gonna get killed and they will know they’re gonna get murdered and so nobody wants to get killed and nobody wants to be the killer, so nothing’s gonna happen?

CALLER: That’s right. And Epstein had $500 million behind him.

RUSH: No, he had more than that. He had at least twice that.

CALLER: And, by the way, where are the tapes from his mansion and his Lolita island down there? They mysteriously disappeared.

RUSH: Yeah, I know what you mean. And you’re saying this because of who — isn’t it amazing that one guy has taken the fall for all of this? This poor, hapless Prince Andrew guy? His mom cancels his 60th birthday party. And the Clintons, who are up to their underwear in this stuff are just walking around breathing free and easy and not even concerned about it. I understand the way you’re thinking.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, there’s a news report out, the New York Times is reporting that, according to a person briefed on the inquiry, U.S. attorney John Durham, who’s leading the investigation into how the Trump-Russia thing started, has requested John Brennan’s communication records, including emails, call logs, and other documents from the CIA. Brennan’s the former CIA director who led, at least visibly, led the entire coup to overturn Trump’s election. So Durham wants his phone records, has asked the CIA for all of his communications records. Durham’s team is said to be scrutinizing prior testimony given by Brennan.

Now, according to the New York Times, Durham “wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of the dossier,” and other assertions about Trump and Russia. Which means he wants to find out who all was lying here. Who told who what? He’s looking for evidence that Comey and Brennan have been lying. Durham is trying to determine if Brennan privately contradicted his public comments. Meaning, he’s heard, he wouldn’t be looking for this if he hadn’t gotten some indication.

Brennan and Comey out publicly saying X, Y, and Z — Trump’s rotten, Trump’s a SOB, Trump’s this, Trump colluded with Russia. We’ve got four or five secret witnesses, we know this. He wants call records. He wants to hear what they were saying to themselves during all of this. He wants to find evidence of how they were strategizing to pull all this off. And my guess is he wants it because he knows it happened.

There are going to be leakers. There are going to be, before this is all over, people that flip. Somebody, somewhere is gonna determine they don’t want to go to jail to protect James Comey. Somebody in this chain is gonna decide they don’t want to go to jail to protect Brennan. Now, this source also said that Durham has been examining the roles of the agencies which contributed to the 2017 intelligence community assessment. This is the January 6th meeting — Comey, Brennan, Clapper — with Trump. It was January 5th they got together to conspire with Obama. January 6th they had the meeting. They presented Trump with evidence in the dossier about the pee tape.

And so Durham has been examining the roles of all the intelligence agencies who put that assessment for Comey to present to Trump together. That would include the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. The report concludes the Russians had meddled in the 2016 election and conspired to help Trump win the race. And Durham wants to find out who the hell asserted that, who said that, who included that, what’s the evidence for it, because there isn’t any, it didn’t happen.

He wants to get to the bottom of who started this mess. And he’s asked the CIA for Brennan’s records. I don’t know if he’s gonna have any good fortune in coming up with those. Now, Bill Barr was on Fox last night. He had some fascinating things to say about all this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s the Bill Barr sound bites.  He was on the Fox News Channel last night, and the question:  “We really learned a lot about the FISA abuse situation with the Horowitz report, the inspector general.  Do you believe that Durham’s investigation is broader scoped in terms of the intelligence agencies that are being looked at?”

BARR:  Oh, yes.  You know, he’s not just looking at the FBI.  He’s looking at other agencies and also private departments and also private actors, and so it’s a much broader investigation.  And also he’s not just looking at the FISA aspect of it.  He is looking at all the conduct, both before and after the election.

MACCALLUM:  So would that include the CIA, NSA?

BARR:  It would include agencies that could have been involved in this.

RUSH:  Well, that would definitely be the CIA.  That’s Brennan.  We already know from the New York Times… (Snort!) (laughing) I say, “We already know from the New York Times.” We don’t know diddly-squat if it’s in the New York Times! (sigh) Anyway, we know that Durham’s looking at the CIA.  We know he’s looking at the… He wants communications records of Brennan.  I would love… I would so love this guy to get called out for his role in this, Brennan.  He’s one of these guys on TV constantly.

You go back and look at what these people were saying! “Trump is going down.  Trump ought to resign! Trump ought to be ashamed. Trump is an embarrassment to the morality of our country and the intelligence community. Trump is…”  This guy was filled with vitriol about Trump, and it was all lies. He was uttering all these predictions. “Trump’s going down! Trump’s finished, he just doesn’t know about it.”  Comey was doing the same rotgut stuff.  Man, oh, man, I would love to see these guys called out.

Don’t forget, we had this caller who doesn’t think any of this is gonna happen because before any of these people could actually testify, “they’ll be murdered like Epstein was.”  That’s his theory.  He thinks we’re never gonna learn diddly-squat about this.  I remain confident that this investigation is going to hit pay dirt and that we’re gonna find out.  I don’t know about punishments.

But look, there’s grand jury, and a grand jury means one thing: Indictments.  That’s why you impanel ’em. Yeah, a prosecutor can indict without one, can level charges without one. But a grand jury is a much better way of doing it.  It’s considered to be nonpartisan, of course, considered to be evidentiary — and there’s only one reason you impanel a grand jury.  That is to hear evidence for the eventual handing down of indictments, and I think there will be.

Now, what punishment, if any, there will be? (Snort!) Who knows?  Here’s the next bite  The question (summarized):  “Are you surprised that James Comey is so convinced himself that all of this was completely aboveboard? He came out and said there was no treason, there’s no spying at all, on [Trump].” None of this that Trump thinks happened to him, happened.  Does Comey saying all that stuff surprise you?

BARR:  The IG report and the recent letter from the FISA court, I think, pulls the rug out from under that analysis, and one of the things that I object to is the tack being taken by Comey, which is to suggest that people who are criticizing or trying to get to the bottom of the misconduct are somehow “attacking the FBI.”  I think that’s nonsense.

MACCALLUM:  Were you surprised that he seemed to give himself such distance from the entire operation?  Do you believe that?

BARR:  No.  They pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and birddogged by a very small group of very high-level officials.  And the idea that this was seven layers below him, is simply not true.

RUSH:  All right.  Now, if Barr is willing to say all of that before the investigation’s even over with, then, folks, they know a lot — and this is big, I think. “t was run and birddogged by a very small group of very high-level officials.  And the idea that this was seven layers below” Comey, and he wasn’t really aware of it all, “is simply not true.” A “small group of very high-level officials.”  This group is so small and very high level that it has to reach into the Oval Office.

Now, he didn’t say that, and I don’t want anybody call him up and say that that’s what I say he said. But these people doing what they were doing would not have been doing it without Obama being aware of it. And, of course, I think Obama was not just aware of it, but actively involved in it.  But I do think he has plausible deniability. Pfft. (sigh) I think if they’re willing to say all this, that they’re much further along, and Barr knows what happened.

They’re just putting it all together now.  Remember they are taking on a very powerful cabal here.  I mentioned (this must be two weeks ago now) that this is a major thing. This is a very, very big thing that Barr and Durham are doing, and they’re gonna have to make sure that every T is crossed, every I dotted, to use the cliche, because they’re taking a shot at some of the most powerful people in the world — and it’s not Comey, and it’s not Brennan.

It’s the people running them.  It’s the people they report to.  You don’t know their names and I don’t know their names, but that’s who they’re gunning for here.  Now, these may be the fall guys here before this is all said and done, but this is a huge thing. You want to talk about bravery and courage? What Barr and Durham are doing here is a big, big deal.  They’re not just going for some temporary FBI director and a temporary CIA director and this or that.

They’re going to get as high to the top of this as they can.  Otherwise there’s no reason to do it — and if they succeed and expose this, it is going to be earth-shattering.  I’ll guarantee you the people that are being gunned for in this investigation are still, at this moment, cock-certain nothing is gonna happen to them.  They are that powerful and in that much control of things.  So don’t give up on this.  This is big — bigger than you can possibly imagine, riskier than you can possibly imagine.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me give you an example of John Brennan outright lying. John Brennan was accusing Trump of treason all during this. He was calling him a Russian agent. Do we forget these things? He was calling him a Russian agent. He was saying that he suspects that Trump is being run by Putin. I think that was the lingo.

So back on May 23rd of 2017 during a House Intelligence Committee hearing, Trey Gowdy is talking to Brennan, CIA director for Obama, about Russian intervention, and the Steele dossier came up.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filings, applications, petitions, pleadings?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?

BRENNAN: No.

GOWDY: Why not?

BRENNAN: Because we — we didn’t — it wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence, uh, information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the intel community assessment that was done. Uh, it was —

RUSH: That’s a flat-out lie. It’s a flat-out lie. The dossier was all they had. And the dossier was used in the intelligence assessment presented to Trump on January 6th that Brennan was a part of. He’s lying under oath to the House Intelligence Committee right here. Now, I want to see the 6 a.m. raid at his house, like they did to Manafort, like they did to Roger Stone. Let’s see the 6 a.m. raid to his house to get his computers and all the other stuff.

He lied through his teeth, and so did Comey. This is not incidental, meaningless stuff. These are the people that ran this bogus operation. These are the people with the energy, intellectual and otherwise, behind it. These are the people lying to the New York Times and CNN, and the New York Times and CNN were happy to accept the lies. They didn’t care.

[mystery-ak]

Jane Fonda’s Plan to Make Trump Believe in Climate Change

Dec 20, 2019



RUSH: One more quick one. Jane Fonda. Here is her plan to get Trump to believe in climate change.

FONDA: I hatched a plan ’cause I kind of know men like Trump, only not as bad, but, you know, they have — I sort of know those inclinations, and I thought, I’m gonna get three or four of the most beautiful, voluptuous, brilliant climate activists — Pamela Anderson is one of them — and a few scientists, and I’m gonna make an appointment, and we’re all gonna see Trump and we’re again get on our knees — (laughter) No! (laughter) No. — and we’re gonna say to him, “President Trump, you can be the hero of the entire world.”

RUSH: All right. So she’s gonna get a bunch of floozies in there and voluptuous whatever and attempt to get Trump to change his mind on climate change. Getting on their knees.

Has she forgotten who Trump is married to? I don’t think she could find anybody that would even make a dent. Anyway, that’s the intellectual corpus, as Brennan says, on the left.