RUSH IN A HURRY -- Don't Be Afraid to Speak, America

Don't Be Afraid to Speak, America
June 9, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, no, no, I don't think of it as courage. I don't think of it as courage at all. Snerdley is talking to me here, people are telling him that they can't believe how much courage I have speaking out against Obama. It's not courage, Mr. Snerdley. It's actually love. I'll explain this here in just a second. Greetings, my friends, and welcome. It's the Rush Limbaugh program. We're back at it at 800-282-2882 if you want to appear on the program. This is the EIB Network and the nation's most listened to radio talk show. Great to have you here. We have an exciting three hours straight ahead for you.

Snerdley says he's got so many people saying, "I can't believe how much courage Rush has." And I get this note from H.R. today before the program started, "A lot of reaction to yesterday's show and particularly the first hour, hour-and-a-half." You know, we need to put that on YouTube. I forgot to tell Koko that. We need to encode that from the Dittocam video yesterday and put it out on YouTube. At any rate, I got this note from H.R., he said, "A guy I frequently talk to said, 'Your boss wanted Obama to fail.' The guy said that to me when I said Obama's taking his lumps on the economy." H.R. told the guy, "Rush wanted the president's plan to spend your great-grandchildren into debt to fail because Rush knew Obama's plan wouldn't work. You think Rush is happy about somebody not working? We're spending money on shovels you won't get paid to see on bureaucracies you don't even know about, projects you'll never see, and if you do see 'em, not until 2010, and you still have unemployment rocketing. How about giving the American people their money back so they can pay their mortgage, buy products from companies that employ you and your neighbor, hold onto jobs, create tax revenue for the blessed government you hold so dear. You want the private sector to recover, Obama's spending money down the rat hole of government. Come on."

By the way, ladies and gentlemen, at RushLimbaugh.com, I didn't know that my acceptance speech receiving The Freedom of Speech award at Talkers Magazine Saturday was being videotaped, but Newsmax was there, Chris Ruddy and the boys were there and they videotaped it and we have linked to it now at RushLimbaugh.com, and it's only ten minutes. I got a note from my brother, "How in the hell did you manage to keep your remarks to ten minutes?" Brevity is the soul of wit. I'm speaking to about three or four hundred radio people in the audience, and I'm talking about freedom of speech and so forth, and it's just ten minutes. You can listen to it whenever you have time. But this business of courage -- and it was the linking of that video that reminded me of this -- I'm not trying to diffuse or deflect a compliment with that. I don't have to grab hold of myself and say, "Okay, it's time to get your guts in order now, time to be courageous here, be brave." I don't look at it that way at all.

I look at what I do here every day as a function of love. I love the United States of America; I love the people who make it work. I love the ability to speak. I'm in the free speech business. I don't take it for granted. I love being able to say what I think. You know what else I love? I love not being afraid of what people say about me after I say what I think. I love not being affected by critics. I love it. It took me awhile to learn it, but I now love it. My whole career, this whole radio program is a labor of love, if you want to call it that, but I don't look at it as courage. Koko, the webmaster, said, "You really need to post this little speech of yours because so many people tell me they're just afraid to speak out about Obama." I understand that. You're surrounded by brain dead Democrats and liberals who voted for the guy, or people who are not even necessarily Democrats or liberals, they just voted for the guy, they still have this cult like devotion and love for him so you're afraid to speak. Don't be afraid. As I say in this speech, I don't want to give it away because you ought to watch it, but the counter, the way to react to assaults on free speech is start shouting louder, more free speech. More speech, not cow tow; don't respond to critics and this kind of thing.

Algore is going to find out here -- you know, he's got two of his journalists imprisoned, sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea. One of these is Lisa Ling's sister, she used to be on The View, and Algore, I guess, is going to do something to try to get these journalists released. They work for his network, Current TV. I guess Algore is going to find out if global warming is more of a threat to the world than terrorism, as he claims. He claims that global warming is the bigger threat. These two reporters' lives, he's being sent to negotiate for, are not in danger of the ice caps melting. They are in danger of being worked to death and beaten to death by a communist tyrannical terrorist oriented regime.

I got this great e-mail from a guy in Gilbert, Arizona. His name is Tim. "Dear Rush: After finishing listening to your enthralling first hour yesterday, I hooked up my iPod to my powerful audio system, I turned up the volume, I opened all the doors and windows so my neighbors could hear, and I played it again. And hear it they did. My neighbors came out into their backyards to listen, and I can tell you many of them had never heard anything like that what you were saying. It was fantastic." I would love to have seen that. In Gilbert, Arizona, for a guy to hook it up to his massive audio system and blast it at all through the neighborhood.

You know, folks, one of the things I have done in continuing our discussion of yesterday about how President Obama is destroying the United States economy, whether by accident or by design he is destroying the US economy. By the way, polling numbers on the economy, he's in trouble; he's starting to lose some ground here; it's starting to take hold I think. It's no time to celebrate here. It's time to keep up the pressure.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• NewsMax: Rush Limbaugh Receives 'Freedom of Speech Award' at the New Media Conference of Talkers Magazine
• Talkers Magazine: New Media Seminar 2009 a Smash Hit

Five Months Later, We Examine Barack Obama's Empty Promises
June 9, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What I've done here, I went back, he made a YouTube speech on January 10th. This was President-elect Obama and if you go back and you listen to President-elect Obama in January of this year selling his stimulus plan to the nation, it is hard to listen to it. Because even then there was time to help the economy and to protect jobs. It's just five months ago and there was time to make sure that he wasn't going to do what he ended up doing. It's hard to listen to this because the opposition should have mounted in all sectors, not just here, at that point. In this address to the nation, President-elect Obama declared that he had assembled a brilliant economic team who had all the answers, and they would turn the economy around with millions of new jobs in every sector, and he said 90% of the new jobs would come from the private sector.

Barack Obama, who has never and had never run anything in his life, sounded self-assured -- you're going to hear it, I got sound bites. I went and dug it up -- self-assured, calm, smug, proud in this address, proud of his promises, proud of himself. His words would begin the healing, help was on the way. It was five months ago. We can now revisit his speech. We can assess the results. And remember, as a response to this obvious train wreck of a plan, we knew it back then on January 10th and we told everybody within our earshot that this was a train wreck, that this was a disaster waiting to happen, and anybody with a brain and anybody with a modicum understanding or knowledge of history knew that what he was proposing was a disaster, a literal train wreck. And that's when I wrote my bipartisan stimulus plan presented on January 29th that ended up running as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Let me take a break here. We'll come back. I broke this down into six sound bites from the January 10th Obama speech promising nirvana, promising utopia. It's just fascinating, but it's difficult at the same time to go back five months and listen, which we will do together when we come back after this brief EIB obscene profit time-out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know what one of the things that Newt said last night, Obama has failed. Obama has failed. Remember when I first said I hope Obama fails? Remember how the Republican establishment cringed, "Oh, no! No, no, no! Nobody wants that," and I made the point in the interview to Hannity last week, "What in the world is so difficult to understand?" Everybody knew, everybody knew what I meant at the time. I wanted what has happened not to happen. When I say I wanted Obama to fail, I meant that I wanted what he's done not to have happened. I wanted somebody to stop it. He is destroying the US economy.

All of you people who said you want and you hope -- on our side, you hope Obama succeeds, is this what you meant? You want a destroyed economy? You want a bleak future for children and grandchildren of parents today? Do you want the United States government running and designing car companies? Do you want this? Do you want two million jobs lost since he took office (1.8 million to be precise?) Do you want an unemployment rate of over 10%? Do you want an economy that some would describe as "as bad as the Great Depression"? Is that what you wanted? Because that's what he succeeded in doing, and that was his plan. Let's go back and listen to the YouTube speech. By the way, Koko tells me we are encoding yesterday's first hour, maybe first hour and a half for YouTube. We don't know how long it's going to take but we're going to YouTube it. We're going to get it up there. January 10th, YouTube Channel, Barack Obama, president-elect gave his weekly address. Here's a portion of his comments.

OBAMA: Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. This is an extraordinary challenge, which is why I've taken the extraordinary step of working, even before I take office, with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will call for major investments to revive our economy, create jobs, and lay a solid foundation for future growth.

RUSH: It was an extraordinary plan. He's exactly right. It was extraordinary in that Pelosi and Reid wrote it. Let us not forget. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi wrote his plan. The Republicans were shut out. They were not involved in writing the plan. Nobody read the plan after it was written. Millions of jobs have been lost since Obama's revival plan was passed, 1.8 million. Is what we're seeing today what he meant by "a solid foundation"? Five months ago, and people five months ago thought that circumstances today would not be what they are. People thought that people were going to be going back to work and that people's home values were going to rise, and it isn't happening. Five months ago. Listen to this stuff. (sigh) Here's the next sound bite.

OBAMA: Families across America are feeling the pinch as they watch debts mount, bills pile up, and savings disappear. These numbers are a stark reminder that we simply cannot continue on our current path. If nothing's done, economists from across the spectrum tell us that this recession could linger for years -- and the unemployment rate could reach double digits.

RUSH: Ha! Ha-ha! You just have to laugh. Once again the straw man, "If nothing is done." Nobody was saying, don't do anything. "Economists from across the spectrum tell us this recession could linger for years, if nothing is done." Well, we did what he wanted to do, and with we no longer have a recession. We have people talking about a depression now. Some of his acolytes are saying we've bottomed out and we may be seeing the end of things here. But double-digit unemployment is still in the future. "Economists from across the spectrum tell us this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits." It has! Not because we didn't do anything; because Obama inflicted a plan that is causing havoc and destruction on the US economy. Then this next little bite, it's only four seconds. Listen fast.

OBAMA: It's not too late to change course, but only if we take immediate and dramatic action.

RUSH: Now, what he was describing was we gotta -- again he's dumping on Bush and dumping on his predecessors. He has made the situation worse. He did not inherit a mess; he has created one. We were not in a mess. It was all trumped up. We didn't need TARP. It was not that pressing. We didn't need all these financial bailouts. It would have been very simple to slow the slide. We had a cyclical economy. If you want to bring the economy back, you put more money in the hands of people who make the economy work -- and that's us, the American people, not put it in the hands of bureaucrats from Washington to state capitals all over the country. By the way, Oakland, California, the mayor there, Ron "Red" Dellums thinking of filing bankruptcy in Oakland, California. And, you know, when you're going to spend stimulus money on local businesses like My Muslim Bakery, is it any wonder that your town's going to go bankrupt? Once again, a liberal Democrat is running an American city into the ground with the help of Barack Obama's economic policies. Here's the next bite. We have three more to go here.

OBAMA: I asked my nominee for chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Dr. Cristina roam other and the vice-president-elect's chief economic advisor Dr. Jared Bernstein to conduct a rigorous analysis of this plan and come up with projections of how many jobs it will create and what kind of jobs they will be. The report confirms that our plan will likely save or create three to four million jobs. Ninety percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector.

RUSH: So smug. He is so smug here. He has doctors working on this? They know how to save the patient.? They haven't saved any jobs; they have destroyed jobs. They haven't created any jobs; they've destroyed them. Ninety percent figure is a joke. But he's so confident !He had all the answers. He still is, while he is wrecking the economy. "[A] rigorous analysis of my plan to come up with the projections of how many jobs it will create and what kind of jobs they'll be." Create or save three to four million jobs? By the way, Bill McGurn, great piece, Wall Street Journal today and a number of other people also have made this point, that this business of "saving jobs" is nothing but a political trick because it can't be calculated. It has never been calculated officially by any government agency, Labor Department or anybody else. You can't know. It's impossible to know. It's simply a way to the administration to say even after they've lost 1.8 jobs they've saved five. "We're doing so great we've saved five million jobs! We mighta lost five but we've saved five." Actually, we've lost 1.8. It's all a lie. It's all political BS. It's Clintonesque. No jobs are being "saved." Jobs are being lost. He has not created or saved anywhere near three to four million jobs, five months into his plan. Here's the next bite.

OBAMA: The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries, and they'll be the kind of jobs that don't just put people to work in the short term but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term.

RUSH: "Jobs we create." Once again smug, false. His plan has destroyed jobs. Caterpillar! Caterpillar is the perfect example. Of all the companies, his plan was supposed to help Caterpillar. "Shovel-ready" jobs! We're going to start rebuilding roads and bridges. We need heavy equipment people to do that, so we need heavy equipment manufacturers to be working full time to build the equipment that the shovel-ready jobs are going to do. And his little announcement yesterday that we gonna start spending even faster now to create 600,000 jobs immediately, those were all short term jobs that aren't going to lead the world in anything. The problem is, we're heading down the path we're not going to lead the world in anything. We're not going to lead the world in technology. We're not going to lead the world in science. We're not going to lead the world in medicine if this man gets his way. The Chinese are scared to death about our debt. There's another story about it today. It's a mess. Everybody involved knows this is a mess. Party loyalty and the desire for power is compromising honest analysis on the part of millions of official people in Washington who know better than to sit idly by and watch this happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Last sound bite here from President-elect Obama, January 10th, this was his YouTube address to the nation.

OBAMA: And I am confident that if we come together and summon that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and write the next great chapter in our American story.

RUSH: He's not confident. People are confusing Barack Obama's outsized ego for confidence. His ego is such, his own messianic complex is such, he thinks that he can convince us to happily sacrifice and not oppose anything for his abject failure. His abject failure will doom the US economy. Or you might say his success in implementing his plan will lead to failure on our part. So the next chapter is being written. It's being written in red ink. This smug, inexperienced, egocentric fool has to be stopped. This has to be said now. He's had five months with no check and no balance on virtually anything he has done. He wanted nothing to do with bipartisanship all of those of you who believed that we were going to get unity. He had all the audiences. He cannot inherit a stimulus bill. He created it. He wanted it. And now our children and grandchildren will inherit Obama's deficits, high taxes, and inflation.

If you listen to how he's speaking, this is again January 10th, before he was even inaugurated, he speaks as if he's going through the motions, that his real agenda has nothing to do with improving the economy, and this is what everybody knows. This is what everybody with the guts to admit it knows, that his real agenda has nothing to do with improving the economy, because history is clear on how that's done, and this isn't it. He is plowing ahead with his transformation of government regardless of circumstances, including economic conditions. He had an agenda from the day he started running for president and even prior, and whatever circumstances existed in the country were irrelevant. He's going to implement that agenda, and he's doing it, and in the process of doing it he is illustrating that his agenda is destructive. He is destroying the greatest engine of freedom that ever exists on planet Earth, and there's nobody stopping him.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Wall Street Journal: The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims - William McGurn • AP: Obama Repackages Stimulus Plans with Old Promises • ABC: Amidst Questions About Their Numbers, White House Says Stimulus Will Save or Create 600,000 Jobs in the Next 100 Days • Bloomberg: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead: Kevin Hassett

Murdoch: Obama is Dangerous
June 9, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, Fox News, Twentieth Century Fox, da-da-da-da-da-da, last night he was on the air with Neil Cavuto on Fox. Cavuto said, "Many argue that President Obama's building a totally different kind of government, a much bigger -- some would argue more intrusive -- government. A lot of people either don't appreciate its magnitude or they look at all these 'czars' or task agency heads, and they don't appreciate what's going on here. What do you say? What are you worried about?"

MURDOCH: I think he sees himself as a president for "change" and that involves bigger government. He's made no secret of that, and I think it's dangerous, I believe in low taxes and less government if possible. The one place that's not affected what's happening, the recession, is Washington. It's just crawling with people all getting highly paid, whether they be lobbyists or whether they be going to new agencies and so on. I envy people with real estate in Washington.

RUSH: He's right. Washington never goes into recession. It's very dangerous what's happening because of Obama. So Cavuto says, "Well, do you think that when this administration says, 'The American people are on our side. Our numbers prove it. Support for what we're doing proves it. Critics like Rupert Murdoch, they just don't get it'?"

MURDOCH: We're in the very early days, yes. Wait to unemployment goes 10 or 11%. I don't think that can be stopped and they say, "Oh, we already saved 600,000 jobs." How do they count what they save or don't even save? Unemployment is going to go up.

RUSH: Nobody counts what they save or don't save. They throw it up there. I just figured out the other day, using this formula from the economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, that over the course of 20 years I have saved over 45 million jobs in America. You know how I did it? Because I improve the attitude of employers! I inspired employers who listened to this program and their businesses grew. They believed in the country because they listened to me. They were optimistic. They were positive. They hired a lot of people, and they didn't fire a lot of people that they would have otherwise fired. Forty-five million jobs saved, by me -- and nobody can say it isn't true. Not one person can say it is not true.

It might be 55 million jobs that I've saved and created. How many people grew their businesses in optimism while listening to me and this program? We know a lot. Remember when the white-collar layoffs happened in the nineties we did three state shows people in their forties and fifties got laid off, what they were going to do. They were three very inspiring shows in the history of this program, those people started businesses. They created jobs directly because of this program. They said so. But whatever, 55 million jobs "created and saved," and nobody can say it isn't true.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• FOXNews: News Corporation CEO Discusses Health Care, Taxes, Jobs

Rush Receives "Freedom of Speech Award" from Talkers Magazine
June 6, 2009

Watch it FREE at Rush's site.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Freedom of speech is something that we Americans, I think, have always taken for granted. We were born to it. We think that it's part of our natural spirit, which it is. Freedom is. But what we all have come to know -- at least I have over the course of my 20 years -- is that I have been made aware that there are people who don't like what other people say.

For it offends them or whatever reason. And rather than just leave it alone, turn it off, or run away, there are people who want to silence those who say things that they don't agree with. And that is an ever-present danger, and it is something that we all have to be vigilant against. And the best way to engage in free speech is to engage in free speech, to not be afraid of what somebody is going to think of what you say.

I got a piece of advice when I moved to Sacramento in 1984. That was actually my first full-fledged talk show, and the guy who took me out there -- who has passed away, Norman Woodruff, one of the most important people in my career -- said, "Look, we want controversy." I was replacing Morton Downey Jr., who had been fired for telling a "Chinaman" joke and not apologizing for using the word "Chinaman." And one of the city councilmen was Tom Chinn, and the joke was about him, and Mort refused to apologize. So it was curtains. I didn't know that 'til I got there, and they told me, "We want controversy, but..." (audience laughter) "We want controversy, but don't make it up. If you actually think something -- if you actually believe it, and you can tell people why -- we'll back you up.

"But if you're going to say stuff just to make people mad -- if all you want to do is rabble-rouse, if all you want to do is offend and get noticed -- that's not what we're interested in and we won't back you up," and I've never forgotten it. The best way to practice free speech is to do it and to not care what people say. The best way to get the people off your case who want to shut you up is to keep shouting louder. Well, we do it within the context of something I think a lot of people need never to forget. We're broadcasters first. The evolution of talk radio has been amazing in the 20 years. When I started in 1988, I was it. And the only cable network that mattered was CNN, in terms of news. The rest was CBS, ABC, NBC, the newspapers and the magazines.

And look what it's become now. A hundred and twenty-five radio stations were doing talk in 1988. Today it's 2,000, or maybe more. If you want to hear a discussion on Chinese opera, you can. The idea that points of view are being censored -- that points of view are not being heard, that somebody can't find what they want to listen to -- is ridiculous. There's more available now than there has ever been, and it's because the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded, but it was because everybody's interested in the whole concept of free speech. Now, we do it within the context of broadcasting, and those of us in broadcasting, I think, should never forget that we are broadcasters first. It's easy, given the evolution of what's happened to us, to think that we are issue oriented, involved in the public scene, the political scene, and that that is something that will define our success.

Mistake. None of us in this room can raise anybody's taxes. None of us in this room can send anybody off to war. None of us in this room can make sure that somebody gets elected. And none of us in this room can make sure that somebody gets defeated. Our job is to attract an audience, to hold that audience for as long as we can. (audience member snapping a photograph) Excuse me. (smiles) Did you get it? (audience laughter) Do you want a pose shot? (poses) (audience laughter and applause) Thank you. Attract the audience. We hold it for as long as we can for the purpose of charging confiscatory advertising rates. This is a business, and that's how we stay on the air. We don't stay on the air because we lead millions of people to a specific end or result of an issue.

We stay on the air because we attract an audience. If we don't attract an audience and don't hold it, all the rest is academic. Now, despite what people -- some of you in this room, outside the room -- might think, that is always my first, foremost objective: the business side of radio, the acquiring an audience and the holding it. I was first and foremost -- it's a close second, by the way, now, don't misunderstand. But if I were first and foremost interested in moving public opinion to the point that I was affecting policy, I'd get out of radio and I would move to Washington where that happens. I don't want to do that. I don't want to live in Washington, and I don't want to get involved with policy. I love what I do. I have never been happier.

I am one of the most fortunate people on the face of the earth. I'm doing what I was born to do. I have had people that I've worked for who have been just fabulous, who got out of my way, let me try it the way I thought it ought to be done. They invested trust and faith in me. As our business goes forward, you have arguments, "Well, there's too many syndicated programs now. There's not enough local talent. We don't have the local programming. We're not giving an opportunity for local hosts to develop." There may be some truth to that, but the way to find -- no matter where you are, regardless how much syndicated programming you take, you still have local hosts somewhere.

And it is a concern building a talent base, the bench that's going to take over and keep this business thriving. Now, based on my experience, you find somebody who really loves this -- and I'm talking to program directors and general managers. Find somebody who really loves this, who you can't keep out of the radio station, who you can't kick out of the radio station. Get out of their way for a while and let 'em see what happens, and you find out what happens. The only way you're going to find out if true talent exists is to let it blossom. We have the perfect vehicle for that. Radio. I've done television and I've done radio -- and radio, to me, is incomparable and irreplaceable. The other night I was on Hannity. I did a two-part interview on Fox.

Nine out of ten e-mails: "Gosh, you looked good." Didn't even hear what I said. (audience laughter) "Yeah, you looked good." I've never had anybody listening to me on radio say, "You know, I wonder what you were wearing when you made that brilliant point" that they can cite word for word. Radio is intimate, spoken-word radio that captivates the audience. You own that audience member. It's not Muzak. They're not doing anything else. This is direct, hands-on. This is primary listening. This is not secondary. They are listening to you if you've captivated them. That's why talk radio, as an advertising vehicle, surpasses anything else. The host has credibility, captive audience; audience loves the host, thinks the host tells the truth. Host advises a product is worthwhile, product moves off the shelves.

Bingo, success. I don't know about you, but that's what keeps me on the air. Not what I think about issues. Not what I think about who the president is or what he's doing. That matters; it's a close second, don't misunderstand. But we're in radio. We're broadcasters. We have the opportunity to move more people in a substantive way for the good of the country because of that intimacy that radio affords, that television doesn't. Television provides the pictures. Radio doesn't. The host either paints them or the listener paints the image him or herself. But once that starts happening, you've got them locked. Television, people sit there and watch it as a sponge, just soaking it all up, paying half attention to what they're seeing, very little attention to what they're hearing. Radio provides an entirely different opportunity and reward.

And the thing that makes it work is free speech. Don't be afraid of what somebody else thinks. It's just words. They can't hurt you. I learned... It took me about three years. One of the toughest things I had to learn as a human being. I had never -- growing up, nobody who knew me thought I was a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, nor did anybody hate me. (audience laughter) Except some old girlfriends (audience laughter) and now three ex-wives. (laughter) But nobody hated me. Nobody hated me, until I started on the radio. Then statistically, I'm told, half the country hates me -- and I had to learn how to take "hate" as a measure of success. None of us are raised wanting to be hated. We all want to be loved. We all want to be adored. We want everybody to like us.

In fact, so many of us want everybody to like us, we'll go out of our way and be who we are not trying to figure out who they want us to be, and then we try to be that. That means you lose who you are. You become phony. That's what happens if you start responding to critics. For all of you on the radio, we're all going to be criticized. We're all going to get ripped to shreds. We're all going to be compared to a bag of manure, the only difference between the bag and us is the manure. We're all going to have that said about us. But we know in our hearts whether we're being honest with the audience. We know in our hearts if we're being honest about what we believe and what we care about. And so, don't give anybody the power to offend you.

You turn that power over, and you're giving away who you are. You're giving them way too much power. We have so many special interest groups in this country based on being offended, and that's led to whole groups of people thinking that they're victims of an unfair, unjust society-- in the greatest country in the world, with more opportunity still today than ever before in human history. And every day in this country... Paul Harvey used to say this: "Every day in America is better than the day before." It still is the case. We can help make that remain true by focusing on our free speech and our job and our responsibility. Michael, thank you very much for this award. I'm very honored to have it. (audience applause) It's great to be here, folks. (audience applause) Thank you. And all the best to Talkers magazine! (continued applause)

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Talkers Magazine: New Media Seminar 2009 a Smash Hit

Panic Sets in at the White House
June 9, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Isn't this just rich, President Obama just concluding another economic session and announcement at the White House. He announced a program that we've heard before, starting in 2007 from Nancy Pelosi, paygo. We are no longer going to spend money we don't have. See how easy this is? You go ahead and bankrupt the country, you destroy the American dream for two generations, and then all of a sudden you find religion. Ah, we can't go on this way. Pelosi promised paygo, by the way, back in 2006 when they won the House, and it's never happened. Let me tell you how to translate this. Paygo is just another ruse for tax increases. It's all it is. This is no different than touting the fact that we can no longer spend our way into deficits like this. This is just a setup for more tax increases on the rich. This is gonna start to slip away from him, folks. He is implementing this stuff regardless of economic circumstances, and people are going to figure this out at some point. We will not rest until they do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I think, ladies and gentlemen, President Obama is in panic mode. I think he is in a full panic now. They have scheduled the Sotomayor hearings for July 13th. Republicans, there's no bipartisanship on this. They're trying to ramrod her through. They know there's trouble with Sotomayor and they're trying to ram that through. He had another press event today announcing saving 600,000 jobs, grabbing on to pay-as-you-go again, three-year-old rhetoric. They know they have a problem on their hands. They know that 9.4% unemployment is directly related to their policies. Folks, I'm telling you, they are in panic at the White House. Trust me. They are not going to ever say this in the State-Run Media, but that's why Obama is showing up everywhere, every day, touting this, all these new job created and saved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's panic. Not because of what is happening on the ground. The destruction of the private sector, that was the plan. The panic is that people are starting to see it and they don't like it. The power of Obama's personality is no longer strong enough to get people to sit idly by and watch their country destroyed. That's the panic, and the reason for it, and that's why you're going to see even more of Obama because they think he's the magic weapon, just get him out there talking, put him and his teleprompter out there and whatever angst that there is, he will be able to solve it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I believe the Obama White House is in full panic. I am not exaggerating. We go to the audio sound bites. Obama is flat-out lying now. He had a paygo press conference today. Paygo! All of a sudden we gotta pay for everything we spend after we're $12 trillion in debt? That's just a setup for tax increases. Here's the first of four sound bites.

OBAMA: Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers.

RUSH: Stop the tape and recue it. "Several financial institutions are set to pay back..."? They have been begging to pay it back for weeks, and this administration has said "no". Finally the administration has relented and said, "Okay, you can pay some of it back." Here's the rest of it.

OBAMA: Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers. It's worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these companies, the government has actually turned a profit. This is not a sign that our troubles are over. Far from it. The financial crisis this administration inherited is still creating painful challenges for businesses and families alike --

RUSH: (sigh)

OBAMA: -- and I think everybody sees it in their --

RUSH: Gutless!

OBAMA: -- own individual districts.

RUSH: Just gutless.

OBAMA: But it is a positive time. I've said repeatedly --

RUSH: Stop the tape. I can't hear this. Gutless! "The financial crisis this administration inherited is still creating painful..." $68 billion they're turning back, and we're gonna do it a profit? We just lost 1.8 million jobs. We are $3 trillion in debt, and he's talking about a meager profit on $68 billion? By the way, even though they're giving some of the TARP money back, he's still going to be able to regulate how much executives who work at these firms are going to make. Now, this business about what he inherited drives me batty. He keeps blaming it on his "predecessor." No president has ever done that. This is childish. It is immature. It's narcissistic. Let me tell you what Barack Obama "inherited," as president of the United States. Barack Obama inherited greatness. He inherited the birthplace of the individual. He inherited the defender of liberty at home and abroad, the United States of America. He inherited American exceptionalism.

He inherited the concept of equal opportunity and the right to fail and to try again. Barack Obama, as president, inherited the financial center of the world. He inherited the country that has successfully championed capitalism and widespread prosperity. Something else that President Obama also inherited: great responsibility. He inherited the great responsibility to lead the world's lone superpower. He inherited the responsibility to preserve and to strengthen free markets. He inherited the responsibility to continue the philosophy and tradition of a country founded on Judeo-Christian morals, ethics, and principles. He inherited the Constitution of the United States. He did not inherit the right to unilaterally rewrite it or to remake it. He swore to uphold it! Barack Obama did not inherit a mess.

He inherited the United States of America, where anything is possible, where greatness has been delivered to the world time after time in the form of private sector inventions, innovations, and advancements in products that improve people's lives for over 200 years. Barack Obama inherited all of that and a country of individuals energized by their liberty, individuals strengthened by their character. Barack Obama inherited a country that liberates the oppressed. Barack Obama inherited the greatest economy in the history of human civilization. That's all. Nothing more; nothing less. There is nothing to apologize for what he inherited! He may as well be a five-year-old crybaby spoiled brat. (crying) "I inherited this mess of my predecessor." He has nothing to apologize for regarding what he inherited. There is so much to be proud of in the United States of America. There's always a lot of work to be done to preserve it and to grow it, but not in the way Obama is proceeding. Obama is destroying what others before him created. He did not inherit a mess. He has created one -- and as the mess he creates deepens, so does his blaming it on his predecessors. That is gutless. It is childish. It is immature. It is unbecoming someone who serves as president of the United States. (sigh) I don't even want to listen to the rest of this garbage, but here it is. Here's another sound bite.

OBAMA: I have no interest in managing the banking system.

RUSH: Screw that, go to next one. I don't want to hear this. Just go to number 24.

OBAMA: All told in the next four years the deficit will be cut in half. Over the next decade nondefense discretionary spending will reach its lowest level as a share of our national income since we began keeping records in 1962!

RUSH: It's just a lie.

OBAMA: But we must go further. And one important step we can and must take is restoring the so-called pay-as-you-go rule, or paygo.

RUSH: Panic!

OBAMA: This is a rule I championed in the Senate --

RUSH: Panic!

OBAMA: -- and called for time and again on the campaign trail.

RUSH: Panic!

OBAMA: Today, with the support of these legislators --

RUSH: Panic.

OBAMA: -- including the speaker of the House --

RUSH: Panic.

OBAMA: -- my administration is submitting to Congress --

RUSH: Panic!

OBAMA: -- a proposal to codify this rule into law.

RUSH: BS!

OBAMA: I hope that the House and Senate will act quickly to pass it.

RUSH: Your party, your party's leaders promised us paygo in 2007. Your party has been running this country's economy for two and a half years. Your predecessor didn't do diddly-squat to damage this country's economy, your party did. You want to blame people? Blame Harry Reid, blame Nancy Pelosi, blame Chris Dodd, blame Barney Frank! I'm sorry for shouting. Paygo? Nancy Pelosi's byword: paygo. We haven't paygoed anything, and all this is now, this is panic. This is a result of people starting to ask serious questions about why the Obama magic is leading to disaster: more unemployment, more reductions in standards of living. So now we gotta do paygo, after he's already spent $12 trillion that he doesn't have, that hasn't even been earned yet? Now we need paygo? He knows that people have caught on. Enough people have caught on to know that this kind of deficit spending is unsustainable and will not work and is not working.

So all of a sudden now we're going to do pay going to we're only going to spend what we can pay for. Guess what that means? Hello tax increases! That's the next phase in destroying the private sector economy. You take as much money out of the private sector economy as you can, you transfer it to government so they can redistribute it to, in Obama's case, the people who got him elected the first time and are going to reelect him the second time: the unions and the leadership and whoever else, the civil rights coalitions. Because, you see, Barack Obama doesn't have a dime until he takes it from you. Harry Reid doesn't have a dime to give anybody else 'til he takes it from you. Nobody in Washington has a dime unless they take it from you -- and even when they print it, they're taking it from you, because they are devaluing dollars that you will earn and produce in the future. They've got nothing to give anybody without taking it from you first, and it's never been done on this grand a scale before.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• USNews: Media Skeptical Of Obama Stimulus Claims • Wall Street Journal: The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims - William McGurn • AP: Obama Repackages Stimulus Plans with Old Promises • ABC: Amidst Questions About Their Numbers, White House Says Stimulus Will Save or Create 600,000 Jobs in the Next 100 Days • Bloomberg: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead: Kevin Hassett

Jared Bernstein Gives Propaganda Tutorial to Eager State-Run Media
June 9, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yesterday at the White House, Vice President Biden's chief economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, held a press conference to talk about the new unemployment rate and the economic stimulus package. And during the Q&A, Jake Tapper of ABC says, "In January you and Dr. Romer issued your recommendation for the stimulus. It turned out to be rather optimistic. I think it's fair to say you said without the stimulus the unemployment rate will be just over 8%. Obviously it's 9.4% with your stimulus. How do you explain that?"

BERNSTEIN: That was before we had fourth quarter results on GDP, which we later found out was contracting at an annual rate of 6%, far worse than we expected at that time. Were this plan not to be implemented as I've described and as Dr. Romer and I articulated back then, in the absence of the plan, job losses would have been deeper from whatever level they started, job looses would have been deeper, the unemployment rate would have been, by our estimates by the end of next year, would have been between one-and-a-half and two points higher than it otherwise will be. So those estimates that we are touting today and the estimates that you hear us talk about, that's the difference between what would have happened to the job market, the unemployment rate were this plan not in effect and the actual outcomes of jobs. Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic.

RUSH: This is flat-out pap. This is rigmarole. This is BS, plain and simple BS. You just heard Biden's economic guru explain that their estimates on unemployment were wrong because it was Bush's fault, the fourth quarter of 2008 was worse than they thought, and, by the way, it would be worse than ever if we hadn't done what we did, that they were too optimistic. They are not optimistic at all. They talk optimism. They implement plans that are based upon pessimism. They implement plan and plan after plan that is destroying the US economy. It is destroying the opportunity for the American dream for millions of Americans who don't yet realize that their pursuit of the American dream is in the process of being destroyed. They will learn this, sadly, soon enough. This is how it's done. "Hey, we didn't know how bad Bush left it." I knew they were going to do that with Iraq, they were going to do it with Club Gitmo, "Well, we didn't know how bad it was, Bush didn't really tell us. The economy was so bad, we had no clue. Our plan, why, if we hadn't done our plan, it would be even worse."

His plan has made it worse the last five months, and that is why I have gone back to this January 10th speech to illustrate. His plan has made it worse. Obama is succeeding. He's getting everything he wants. We want our president to succeed. Well, this, my friends, is our president succeeding. Bye-bye, American dream; bye-bye a demand command economy; bye-bye free market economy. Now, another bite from Jared Bernstein. Chuck Todd of government-run NBC said, "Can you give us a little better accounting on the 150,000 jobs that are going to be created or saved? It's a number I know I've heard a couple of times. What is the accounting on that?" Now, if George Bush had tried, ever, at a single time during his eight years of presidency to talk about the jobs saved, he would have been laughed out of the briefing room, and so would have his press spokesman. And if in the midst of unemployment reaching 9.4%, on the way to double-digit 10%, in the midst of 1.8 million jobs having been lost since Obama took office, if George Bush faced the same circumstances and touted 150,000 jobs saved or created, he would have been laughed at and editorialized out of the office. But Chuck Todd from government-run NBC, "Could you clarify this for us, 150,000 jobs, give a little better accounting?" Chuck Todd so wants to be able, for government-run NBC to be able to report this accurately from Obama's standpoint. So he's asking for help here. Please, Dr. Bernstein, 150,000 jobs, please help me understand so that government-run NBC that I work for can help you here.

BERNSTEIN: We know how fast the plan is spending out, we know which sectors, and actually if you go back to the Romer-Bernstein report, you'll see that we actually have estimates by sector, by industry, but also by energy, construction, infrastructure, tax cuts --

TODD: One hundred fifty thousand are just based on these estimates so far or what you guys projected out of how this money would be spent?

BERNSTEIN: Correct.

TODD: So we don't know exactly --

BERNSTEIN: The 150,000 jobs, it comes precisely under the methodology I was just describing, that is we have -- we -- we know -- we know spendout, we know the types of spendout, we can assign multipliers to different parts of the plan. For example, tax cuts generate a smaller multiplier than direct government spending. Once you know the spendout and the type of spending that you're engaged in, then you can derive an estimate of how many jobs you believe you created relative to what would have occurred in the job market were you not doing that spending.

RUSH: Translation: It's a wild guess. Worse. Translation: I am going to calculatingly lie to you in a way that you will believe because you are part of the government-run media. I'm going to get to it, folks, just give me time here. When he said that tax cuts generate a smaller multiplier than direct government spending, that is absurd and even Christina Romer before she joined the Obama administration said so, that tax cuts generate something like a buck-and-a-half to two bucks of revenue and economic output where government spending is a negative, and yet she has thrown away everything she knows as an economist to serve Barack Obama. So basically what you just heard here was Jared Bernstein admitting that the jobs, quote, unquote, created and saved are just extrapolations from the amount of money they spend and what they think spending that much has created.

In other words, it's totally made up. There is no such formula. There is no record kept on jobs saved. It's not possible to know. God may not even know. That's how impossible it is to know. Tax cuts generate a smaller multiplier than direct government spending? Once you know the spendout, the type of spending, then you can derive an estimate of how many jobs you believe you created? What's the multiplier? Who is the multiplier? Is there a multiplier czar in the White House? One more Jared Bernstein, this time the question came from Bloomberg News' Hans Nichols: "Those summer jobs, that 125,000, are you counting that toward the 600,000 jobs you're going to be saving or creating?"

BERNSTEIN: Yes.

NICHOLS: Are you also going to be counting that towards the 3.5 total goal?

BERNSTEIN: That is -- yeah, that -- the 3.5 is the, uh, the 3.5 is an estimate of jobs created or saved by the end of, uh, of next year.

NICHOLS: What you're obviously acknowledging are temporary jobs over the summer which won't last three months --

BERNSTEIN: Oh, that's a good question, right.

NICHOLS: How that's being counted in the 3.5?

BERNSTEIN: Thank you. Now, that's a good question. The 3.5 million jobs are what economists call full-time equivalent jobs. So those 125 would not count as a full 125. Two part-time jobs count as one full-time equivalent job.

RUSH: You know how ridiculous this is? We've lost 1.8 million jobs since Barack Obama took office and got the stimulus bill passed. We were at 9.4% unemployment. Do you believe these exchanges? Do you think reporters would be asking for clarification on 600,000 jobs created or saved were it a Republican president who came up with this fallacious notion? Absolutely no way. This is the government-run media asking for guidance on how to report this so they can sell it to their viewers, readers, customers, whatever. This is a wild guess. These people in the White House, Jared Bernstein, Christina Romer, dirty little secret, they know that they have been tasked with destroying the private sector of the United States economy. They know it. They are employees of Obama, they have to be loyal, they are out there spewing absolute drivel that makes no common sense. They admit they're guessing. These are estimates based on the spending. They're speaking in such detail about 125,000 summer jobs, 600,000 overall, 1.8 million jobs have been lost, 9.4% unemployment. All of this is irrelevant. It matters only in that it is propaganda from the White House and the government-run media to you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: More on the gobbledygook from Jared Bernstein, who just announced the formula the Obama administration is using. He admits the job plan makes no sense. There is no "there" there. Jared Bernstein's brilliant formula was established when he brilliantly estimated an 8% unemployment rate, and now we're at 9.4%, and he blames the fourth quarter that he didn't know about for his formula being wrong. (crumbling up paper) This is Joe Biden's economic guru. I'd rather hear from Biden's guy at the Hair Club for Men! That guy probably has more knowledge of economics in the real world than Jared Bernstein has. And, hey, Chuck Todd! How many homeless people are there today? Have you asked about that? Brian Williams, ditto.

You're busy driving Obama around to get burgers. Did you visit any homeless shelters? Remember when you guys used to do that during the Reagan administration during the recession? Remember that, trying to drum up all the homeless there were? Even during George Bush 41. I mean, with all these foreclosures out there, with all this unemployment, where all these people living? Could you do a story on that? The homeless numbers have gotta be skyrocketing here but we're not going to hear about it. What about rising food prices? What about rising and high unemployment? How many children are going hungry every night in America? Could you cover that story like you did during the Bush years? Could you cover that story like you did during the Reagan years?

I want to know how many homeless there are, how many children are starving. I want to know if Obama is going over to Lafayette Park and stealing the homeless's cans of beans and taking them back to the White House and feeding them to his kids, as you said about Reagan! I want to hear about all the economic disaster. We got 9.4% unemployment! Where are these people living, all these foreclosures? How many children would have been fed if Obama had not taken his trip to New York with his wife for a play? Remember all those comparison stories you used to do, guys? Bush going to play golf here, Bush going there, Reagan going there, how many homeless people could be fed? Remember the school lunch program and how kids were gonna starve because of Newt Gingrich and the Republicans "cutting" the school lunch program when there were no cuts whatsoever, during the great economy of the 1990s?

Where are the stories on the hardships of America brought about by Barack Obama's economic policies? As State-Run Media, I guess you're not charged with doing that kind of reporting. As government-run media, I you're not only interested any longer about the hardships created by administration policies. You just want to celebrate at the feet of the king. And you want to be in the loyal entourage, and you want to be treated fairly. You want to be in the "in." Oh, there's an entire story that is the destruction of the United States economy. There are real people who don't get to travel on private jets to take their wife to a play and dinner in New York on somebody else's dime.

There are people who don't travel to Paris and snub foreign leaders, have another plane paid for by somebody else bring the wife and kids over, and then go out on a date paid for by other people and then go back yourself and leave the wife and kids to party and sightsee and fly back on a separate plane paid for by other people. There are real people in this country who have lost their jobs, who have lost their homes. There are children who obviously must be going hungry. It's so bad that when they go to McDonald's and want a Happy Meal and the fries are left out or there are no Chicken McNuggets, they call 911! This is left to local news to tell us about. This is a crisis in the making, the destruction of the United States middle class -- and what do we get? We get news stories from the government-run media about what a wonderful guy Obama and his wife are, and how great she looks in a sleeveless sweater. Well, what about the starving kids and what about the homeless? What about people losing their hair who don't have access to plugs like Joe Biden?

We'll be back. Stay with us.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: These poor economists that work for Obama -- Jared Bernstein, Christina Romer -- they actually are rent-an-economists. They come from rent-an-economist. They will say whatever they have to say -- no matter how nuts, no matter how deceitful it is -- because Obama hired 'em. In other words, they'll sell their soul for a seat at power.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I've had my own economic team reviewing the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, using the Jared Bernstein economic projection formula. The final figure is in! George W. Bush was the greatest economic leader in decades. His economic plan, his tax cuts, created and saved over 32 million jobs. He created or saved four million jobs a year for eight years following 9/11. Create or saved 32 million jobs, unprecedented in American presidencies. By contrast, President Obama's so-called 150,000 jobs created or saved -- or even his so-called 600,000 jobs created or saved -- is a national embarrassment. George W. Bush, using Jared Bernstein's own formula, has created or saved 32 million jobs over the course of his eight years in the White House.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know what, I just used Jared Bernstein's formula, I figured over 20-plus years on the radio I have saved over ten million jobs just keeping the mood of employers up -- and nobody can prove I didn't.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• ABCNews: Today's Qs for O's WH - Jake Tapper • Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead: Kevin Hassett • Wall Street Journal: The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims - William McGurn • ABC: Amidst Questions About Their Numbers, White House Says Stimulus Will Save or Create 600,000 Jobs in the Next 100 Days

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Read the Background Material...

• MediaBistro: Evening News Ratings: Week of June 1 • CNN: Palin Center of Attention at Big GOP Dinner