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RUSH: Well, this budget deal, I was just telling Mr. Snerdley, folks, I must be honest with you. I’m having trouble getting engaged in it, because I think everybody’s expectations are a bit high here when measured against reality. But I feel duty-bound to discuss this. You know, as I said yesterday, I got e-mail from people thinking that I had shirked my duties as premier talk show host by not talking about this. This is Thursday, so it must have been Monday or Tuesday. And it was clear, I talked to a bunch of people about this. The Republicans are shell-shocked.

Everybody’s trying to understand why the Republicans are doing what they’re doing. They’re shell-shocked. I don’t care, the conservative side, the Boehner side, they’re all just shell-shocked. They have no awareness of the problems that Obama is in. They’ve never seen anything like it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: On the economic front, “The number of people seeking US unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the largest increase in more than a year.” Now, folks, wasn’t it just last week or two weeks ago that the unemployment rate came down to 7.0%, and we had all of these reports of a burgeoning job market and all kinds of great jobs being created?

The labor force participation rate, that was increasing. All the news on the employment front was just peachy. And then we recalled the story in the New York Post not long ago that the Census Bureau faked the job numbers a year ago leading up to the election in November 2012. So we began to doubt the jobs numbers ever since they’d be reported because we know in Regime is totally capable of faking it and making them up for their own benefit.

Now all of a sudden, on the heels of magnificent news on the employment front, now we’ve got this unexpected, massive in applications for part-time. The Associated Press is gob-smacked. They don’t understand it. “The number of people seeking US unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week … the largest increase in more than a year. The surge in first-time applications could be a troubling sign,” they say, “if it lasts. But it likely reflects the difficulty adjusting for delays after the Thanksgiving holiday.”

That’s not what this is at all. You know what this is about? The Democrats are upset that the budget deal does not contain any extension for unemployment benefits. That’s all this is. I’ll lay you a dollar to a doughnut they put this number out to further the idea, because this budget deal hasn’t been voted on yet. That’s not gonna happen until later this afternoon in the House. You know, this budget deal, folks, it’s just amazing.

You got Mitch McConnell publicly saying that he’s against this, and Texas senator John Cornyn saying he’s against it, but you got people at the Senate Conservative Fund claiming that McConnell really wants this thing to pass. He just doesn’t want to say so publicly. You have Democrats threatening this budget deal over unemployment. Congressman Levin is talking his vote is at risk. Nancy Pelosi’s not happy because the budget deal does not contain extension for unemployment benefits.

Lo and behold, here comes this massive new gain in unemployment benefits, right on schedule. Right on schedule, to have an increase in unemployment benefits added to this budget deal. Don’t be surprised if that gets thrown in. I would believe anything at this point. It’s just a mess, and it’s all… You know, elections have consequences, and the Republican Party’s scared of its own shadow right now. The Republican Party is in shell shock, afraid to oppose anything Obama’s doing.

They’re afraid to stand against anything the Democrat Party is doing, no matter the plummeting poll numbers Obama and health care. It doesn’t matter. Some people say this would be the time to pounce. Some say, “No, no, no, no! When the opponent’s committing suicide, stand aside and let it happen. The American people and the bond of trust they have with Obama’s been broken,” and that’s true. But we’ve got a president who doesn’t care about the bond of trust at the end of the day.

We’ve got a president who’s been governing against the will of the people anyway. So, you know, how to take this broken bond of trust between people that voted for Obama and the president and turn that around and use it to your advantage ought to be something the Republicans should be calculating. I’ll be darned, it just seems like the Republican Party is absorbed, is consumed with eliminating any conservative influence inside the party whatsoever.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll start in Queens. This is Lee. I’m glad you called, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you for taking the call.

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: I keep hearing you say that Republicans are shell shocked and that they are living in fear of opposing Obama. Personally, I believe they are compliant and any opposition is strictly theater. I mean, the effect is the same either way. Whether they’re backed into a corner or they’re doing it willingly, I mean, the outcome is the same, but you was kind of curious as to how you came to your conclusion that it was being shell shocked?

RUSH: Well, your point is that they’re not shell shocked, that they actually agree with all this, that they are themselves part of the establishment and they’re statists and they’re perfectly fine with government growing. They’re perfectly fine with health care inflicting this pain on people, and they’re just gonna act like they oppose it but they’re not gonna do anything to really stop it?


CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: That’s what you think?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Well, I know there’s a an element of that in the Republican Party, but I don’t think that describes the conservatives who are there.

CALLER: No. It’s an establishment thing. It’s definitely establishment thing. But, I mean, you see it. I mean, they can have a hundred votes on canceling Obamacare, but at the end of the day when it matters, they fund it.

RUSH: Just like this budget funds Obamacare.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: Exactly. I do think… Now, they could be lying to me. I’ve spoken to number of them. They’ve not said to me, “Oh, my God, Rush, they’re scared to death!” Well, actually they have, in different ways over the years, by complaining that they’ll never be covered by the media. The media will not cover them.

CALLER: Right.


RUSH: I do think human nature being what it is, there is an element that they don’t like to be called racists. They don’t like being called bigots or homophobes, and they don’t think there’s any future in that. They don’t want to have commercials running against them by their opponents where they’re called racists or sexists or bigots or homophobes, and the way that you do that would be to criticize Obama. So I think that there’s probably an element of both things going on.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I think this government shutdown… I honestly believe that there is a real, palpable fear that they would get blamed again and again and again for the government shutdown. After 2010, even, I think they are convinced, they are convinced that the vast majority of people in this country love government and want more of it, and they’re not gonna say different. No matter what the polls say, they think they’ve lost the argument. So I think there is palpable fear of being blamed for a shutdown, and therefore they’re not gonna do anything that will lead to another one. I think the Democrats are leading ’em around by the nose. I don’t think there’s any question.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I actually believe the GOP is afraid of being blamed for the shutdown and the sequester. I think it’s one of the reasons they couldn’t wait to cave on this deal. They really think they dodged a bullet. They really think they’ve won here, folks, with this budget deal, because they think they’re not gonna be criticized now because there isn’t gonna be a shutdown. The details of the budget and what it’s doing to the budget are irrelevant. They aren’t gonna be criticized now. That’s why they look at this as a win.

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