RUSH: Burnt Hills, New York. Rick, thank you for waiting, sir. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Good talking with you, Rush. First of all, I’m a first-time caller. I’ve listened to your show and other shows for over 20, 30 years, and finally decided to make a comment here.

RUSH: Wow.

CALLER: And I would like to say that the humor you play while we’re waiting to get on the air is absolute hysterical, while you’re on commercial break. I was laughing so hard, had to catch my breath a couple times.

RUSH: Yeah, those are all the old parodies we have used on the air for 25 years.

CALLER: Talk about truth in humor, that’s it, I’ll tell you that. As I’ve gotten older — I’ve been in business most of my life — I’m just about 60 years old now, and I’m an old school type of guy. As years have rolled by it just amazes me the lack of common sense and intelligence the average person has out there in society today. But I look at our media and the Republican Party — I’m a registered Republican, have been my entire life — and I can’t believe the opportunity we’re letting go over this Obamacare. As we’re proceeding through this year, many people are getting their cancellation notices.

I’ve already been informed by my insurance company as of August 1st I will be a nonrenewable policy. And the majority of families out there, middle class America, are going week to week, paycheck to paycheck, they’ve got mortgage payments, car payments, utility bills, taxes, and they don’t have any money left over. And unlike the government that isn’t responsible at all for the bills they absorb and they can pay without having money they don’t have, it’s gonna bankrupt the majority of this country within another year to two years. And I can’t believe the Republican Party isn’t talking about the financial devastation that’s gonna come to everybody in this country when people start facing two and three time premium increases. What’s your opinion on that?

RUSH: Well, let me play for you a sound bite. You say that you can’t believe the Republican Party isn’t talking about the financial devastation that’s gonna hit so many people in this country when they start facing all these premium increases. You can’t believe that, right?

CALLER: No, I don’t hear it in the mainstream media at all.

RUSH: Well, last night, John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, was on Jay Leno, The Tonight Show, and Leno said to him — I want you to listen to this with me here, listen on the phone, Rick.

CALLER: Yep.

RUSH: Leno said, “It just bothers me when people take such joy in seeing something fail, whether it’s Republican or Democrat. It’s not like we’re working together as a nation. And to me, that’s what makes people give Congress an 8% approval rating.” Let me analyze the question. Here’s Leno, who, God bless him, folks, he’s trying. He’s a low-information political thinker. He’s a great guy, but “it bothers me when people take such joy in seeing something fail.” There’s no joy, Jay, in seeing this fail.

People’s lives, just like Rick here just said, this is destroying people’s lives. We want this program to go away because of the damage that it’s causing. There’s nobody out there celebrating because this is Obama’s thing and it’s going south. Anyway, you heard his question. He asks Boehner about this. Nobody’s working together, too many people that want this to go south, and that’s not good, John. We should be working together, and since we’re not working together, that’s why Congress only has an 8% approval. And here’s what Boehner said about that.

BOEHNER: It’s not that I’m rooting for it to be a failure.

LENO: Gotcha.

BOEHNER: It’s just that I never thought it would work. So far I’m right.

LENO: Well, yeah, okay, but it is the law.

BOEHNER: Oh, I said that the day after the 2012 election. Obamacare, it’s the law of the land. Oh, my God. You would have thought that I was —

LENO: A traitor.

BOEHNER: You can’t believe the noise I heard.

LENO: Yeah.

BOEHNER: But it is the law, and — but it’s not working very well.

RUSH: Well, Rick, there’s your answer from the Republican leadership.

CALLER: The reality of it, Rush, is I have been for years buying my own medical insurance, being self-employed, along with paying both sides of taxes and Social Security and a lot of other expenses the average person, unless you work for yourself out there, aren’t aware of. And I’ve gone from an $800-a-month premium to a replacement policy, as comparable as I can find, about $2,000 a month. Now, that’s 24 grand a year. That’s after-tax dollars. That means someone that make like 38 grand a year pay 24. That’s a full-time job for somebody just to pay medical insurance.

RUSH: Yeah, but it’s the law of the land, you heard, there’s nothing you can do about it, and if you complain then, you know, it’s the law of the land.

CALLER: Well, I guess I’ll keep my income down and go on Medicaid, right?

RUSH: Well, that’s what a lot of people are doing.

CALLER: There you go.

RUSH: In fact, a lot of San Franciscans, a lot of Obamaites are actually strategizing how they can lower their income so as to qualify for subsidies. And in fact, four out of five enrollees in Obamacare are getting subsidies. And, so far, as best anybody can tell, the overwhelming majority of people that signed up are people that already had health care, who have now signed up for a subsidized health care. So the costs are not going down. They are spiraling up. ‘Cause the elderly and the seasoned seasons who are signing up and getting subsidies, four out of five of ’em.

So Boehner said he never thought it would work, never thought it would work, but it is the law of the land. (imitating Boehner) “I said that, I said that, and you would have thought that I was committing treason.” No. The Tea Party was supposed to shut up because it was the law of the land. Boehner said (imitating Boehner), “What do you expect me to do about it? It’s the law of the land. Don’t call me a traitor. I didn’t do it. Okay, I don’t like it, but it’s the law of the land. So don’t bitch to me about it.” That’s what Boehner’s saying to Republicans through Leno. Leno is saying the same thing.

Boehner said, “It’s not that I’m rooting for it to be a failure. I never thought it would work in the first place. So far I’m right.” But then Leno said, “Yeah, well, okay, but it’s the law.” And then their applause starts. And Boehner said, “Oh, I said that the day after the 2012 election, Obamacare, it’s the law of the land. My God, you would have thought that I was a –” and then Leno said, “a traitor.” And then Boehner, “You can’t believe the noise I heard. But it is the law, and it’s not working out real well.”

So it’s law of the land. The noise, meaning from the Tea Party. Tea Party members of Congress is what he means, and voters. But this law of the land business, you know, only works one way. When the Democrats don’t like the law of the land, they just say to hell with it. Certain marriages or what have you, they just break it, if they don’t like the law of the land. We are supposed to sit by, “Oh, it’s the law of the land? It’s untouchable.”
“Immigration policy, it’s the law of the land.” No, it’s not. It’s wrong law, it’s bad law. Well, so is Obamacare. Yeah, but it’s the law of the land, you can’t touch it.

So let’s go backwards. We got another Boehner sound bite. This is also on The Tonight Show. Leno said, “Tell me about the Tea Party, because you seem to get frustrated with that. They’re, what, 18%, something like that? Yet they seem to wield such enormous power. Why is that?”

BOEHNER: I don’t have any problem with the Tea Party. Those people have brought great energy to the political process. Most of them had never been involved before. When you agree with someone 90% of the time, they’re not your enemy. My problem was with some Washington organizations who purport to represent the Tea Party who I think mislead the — there’s nothing I could do that was ever conservative enough for them. I told my colleagues in July I didn’t think shutting down the government over Obamacare would work because the president said I’m not gonna negotiate. And so I told them August, probably not a good idea. Told ’em in early September. It was a very predictable disaster.

RUSH: You know, this shutdown business has taken on a life of its own. It’s become something it never was. It supposedly did great damage that it didn’t. The government was shut down for two days this week ’cause of snow. The government shuts down all the time. This is problematic, however. Yeah, I’m holding back. This phrase, “There’s nothing I could do that was ever conservative enough for them.” That is so instructive. I mean, that tells me that this is all personal. In addition to whatever policy disagreements, this is personal, too, and that’s never good.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, isn’t our current immigration law the law of the land? Right. And our current immigration law, that is the law of the land, is not being enforced, correct? But it’s the law of the land. So, what’s wrong with it? I mean, we can’t change it, right? And yet Boehner wants to change it. Well, I have a story right here. This is from Matthew Boyle, and this is Breitbart.com, the headline: “House Conservatives Plot Takedown of GOP Leaders’ Amnesty Plans.” And here’s the story.

“As House Republican leaders prepare an immigration proposal that could go much further towards amnesty than their prior public stances, conservative lawmakers are quietly plotting to push back. Aides from over a dozen House offices secretly convened today on the Senate side of the Capitol at a meeting organized by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a top immigration hawk who has recently involved himself more aggressively in the affairs of the lower chamber. ‘Over here in the Senate working for Senator Sessions, we learned a lot last year about the strategies employed by the powerful forces pushing bad immigration policies–and how to counter them,’ reads a copy of the invitation to the meeting provided to Breitbart News by a House staffer.”

So, I mean, upshot here is that you take a look at any national poll, immigration reform, amnesty, it’s nowhere near the top when people are asked to name the most important issues they think are facing the country. No reason to do this. And yet the Republican leadership is as desirous and as action oriented, if not more so, than the Democrat majority is in pushing for amnesty. Yet it’s the law of the land. But the House Republican leadership wants to go for it. Now, we know why. Chamber of Commerce and moneyed donors.

Donors to mainstream Republicans are saying they want amnesty, they need the new cheap labor, they can’t keep going like this. They need it and they’ll do anything they can to get it. If it takes amnesty, fine. They don’t care about the cultural impact or the rest of it; they just need the labor. And these people depend on these donors for reelection, and so that explains it. Yet it’s the law of the land.

Now, I would describe people pushing this against the will of the people as thugs. I’ve always thought of thugs as bullies. In the modern vernacular, most of the time I use the word “thug” I happen to be talking about union thugs or jackbooted government thugs. But did you know that “thug” is now the new N-word? Thug is used by racists who can’t use the N-word ’cause it’s not proper, so they say thug. And that’s what Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks says.

Now, Richard Sherman is young, and, remember, most people’s historical perspective begins with the day they were born. This is natural. The stuff that’s really important in the world happens when you’re alive. That’s what everybody thinks. And stuff in the past, yeah, it’s important, but it’s not nearly as important as what’s happening now. But the “thug” is the new N-word? Somebody better tell Madonna because she used the N-word to describe one of her white, what, kids? On Instagram. That’s right.