RUSH: Okay. So let me see if I have this right. We’re supposed to be entertained by the apparent fight, disagreement, fisticuffs, whatever, going on between the Democrats, Obama and Pelosi and that lamebrain Elizabeth Warren. We’re supposed to be excited by this? Ah, gee, you talk about getting misdirected.

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

RUSH: The news is that the Republican Speaker of the House has thrown in with Barack Obama. I don’t care what the Democrats are doing. What does that matter? Holy smokes. John Boehner has just squandered the election results before the Republicans even are sworn in to run the Senate, along with the House, if I’ve got this right.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There is a major falling out taking place in the Democrat Party, and we’re supposed to be enthused by this, by the way, we’re supposed to be excited by it. We’re supposed to sit back and, whoa ho, man, Washington is getting good, there’s trouble in paradise in the Democrat Party. Yeah, we’re supposed to look the other way while our Speaker of the House gets in bed with Obama and advances the Obama agenda, takes care of it, amnesty, Obamacare, fully funded, done deal. The election must not have mattered.

And then we got Elizabeth Warren out there who’s staking her claim to the presidency while Mrs. Clinton isn’t looking. To show you how out of whack things are, Elizabeth Warren of, “You didn’t build that. You didn’t make that happen” fame, well known communist socialist Elizabeth Warren is now being credited as practically the only person in Washington standing up for the little guy via her opposition to some of the relaxation of regulations in Dodd-Frank and some of the campaign finance. By the way, about that campaign finance stuff, that everybody’s upset about in the omnibus bill, I’m gonna tell you exactly what that is.

We had a caller about it yesterday. The lady was fit to be tied. She was angry and she was right to be, because the limits have practically been obliterated, which means that corporate donors can just start giving left and right. It used to be a limit of $37,000. Now it’s $737,000, something. It’s incredible. But the point of it, do you know why it’s in there? You know why? The Republicans put it in. You know why it’s in there, folks? This is how corporate America’s gonna defeat the Tea Party. By allowing limitless donations from that crowd under the rubric that it’s campaign finance and money is speech and freedom of speech and First Amendment. The theory is that Main Street, Tea Party people can’t come close to competing with corporate money.

So it is a Republican establishment ploy that kind of dovetails nicely with Obama sicking the IRS on the Tea Party to basically eliminate them as a viable threat by relaxing a registration in Dodd-Frank that pretty much permits corporations to spend any kind of money they want on politics. It’s kind of a dichotomy. It’s a dilemma, in terms of figuring out what to think about it.

Let me tell you about a congressman named Marlin Stutzman. Marlin Stutzman is a Republican from Indiana, and he is claiming, he’s put out a press release on this now. He’s admitting to this publicly. He’s not relying on a publication to say it, he’s saying it himself that he was lied to; that he was lied to by the Republican leadership; that the Republican leadership reneged on a deal they made with him to get his support for the omnibus bill. Want the details? He said, “I was very surprised and even more disappointed to see the cromnibus back on the floor. The American people deserve better.”

See, Marlin Stutzman, Republican, Indiana, was one of the last Republicans to vote in favor of the rule allowing the House to fully vote on the omnibus spending bill, the $1.1 trillion omnibus. National Review Online reported that Marlin Stutzman, Republican, Indiana, backed the rule at the last minute. He was one of two Republicans on whose vote this whole thing hinged. Stutzman has now issued his own release admitting that this is true.

Stutzman backed the rule at the last minute after the Republican leadership told him that they would pull the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill, once the rule was passed, and they would replace it with a short-term continuing resolution that conservatives, including Stutzman, wanted, and that they would take up the whole thing next year after the Republicans and the new Congress are sworn in, and he was lied to.

In other words, the leadership in the House went to Marlin Stutzman and said, “Hey, if you vote for the rule, just give us the — we need the rule. Our reputation, our image, we just want, we need the rule, vote for the rule and we’re gonna pull the omnibus and replace it with just a couple, three-month, two-month, whatever, continuing resolution.”

And Stutzman said, “I supported the rule because I was informed by leadership that the cromnibus was dead and a short term CR would take its place.” He was lied to flat-out because they didn’t pull the bill obviously. They lied to him to get his vote. We’re not supposed to pay any attention. We’re supposed to be watching the fallout on the Democrat side, right? We’re supposed to be entertained. We’re supposed to be looking at Elizabeth Warren and Pelosi at war with Obama and we’re supposed to get our jollies with that, while our people were lied to, Marlin Stutzman, just blatantly, openly lied to to get his vote.

For the rule, he was told they would pull the full-fledged bill after they won the rule, but they had to win the rule for their reputation, for image, you know, protect Boehner’s Speakership and all that. “After President Obama came out in favor of the cromnibus, Republican leaders spent the day whipping their members and hoping that Democrats would deliver the requisite number of votes.” What you had at the end of the day, Barack Obama was whipping votes for John Boehner.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, so here’s what happened. The leadership goes to Marlin Stutzman, and they lied to him, said, “Marlin, if you vote for the rule, then fine,” ’cause Stutzman wanted a continuing resolution of a couple of weeks or a month just to get us into January when the Republicans actually take control. He didn’t want to vote for the full-fledged $1.1 trillion bill. Leadership said, “Marlin, look, if you just vote for the rule, and we’ll pull it then. We just need the victory on the rule. We can’t let the rule go down. So Marlin, vote with us on the rule, and we’ll pull the omnibus and replace it with a short-term CR.” And he did.

That made the vote 213 to 213. They still weren’t there. Now we’re at a tie, and a tie is a loss. They actually, to win on the procedural vote or the vote on the rule. So it was at that point the leadership went to a Santa Claus impersonator in the House, and this man is named Kerry Bentivolio. It all came down to him. He’s an outgoing House member from Michigan. He is a Tea Partier, for all intents and purposes. He’s a reindeer farmer in his spare time and he was the deciding vote on the rule.

They got to him and they convinced him somehow to switch his vote from “no” to “yes” and that made it 214 to 212. The Stutzman vote got them to 213 tied. And as Bloomberg reported it, “Kerry Bentivolio, the retiring Michigan reindeer farmer, changed his vote and saved Christmas.” It was a tweet from Dave Weigel at Bloomberg, because, you see, if the rule hadn’t passed, it would have derailed the whole omnibus and made a government shutdown possible.

That’s another thing. Elizabeth Warren, is, for all intents and purposes, threatening to shut down the government. Now, where this thing is in the Senate’s kind of up in the air, but she’s threatening to shut down the government. And the media is praising her. The media is praising her for principled opposition. And, as you know, Republican shutdown, why, it’s the end of the world, it’s the end of everything as we know it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So why? Why was and why is Barack Obama whipping votes for John Boehner? Let’s review here, because it may be hard to follow. It may be hard to keep some of this in mind. The reason is because the media is reporting this as, for all intents and purposes, a done deal. They are reporting that all the action was in the House, and once the House voted for the $1.1 trillion omnibus, since the Democrats run the Senate it’s a fait accompli that it’s gonna get done.

That’s not the case because there’s a flamethrower over there named Elizabeth Warren, and she’s not happy with what’s in the Republican bill — and neither, for that matter, is Nancy Pelosi. So the Senate’s not done on this. They did a couple-of-days spending bill, and the Senate’s gonna take its time and still argue about it, debate this. Now, the consensus is that the Senate will ultimately pass it, because that’s what Obama wants, and the Democrat Party’s still loyal to him

But that’s not a fait accompli.

So I guess the takeaway here is: It’s not done yet, despite the reporting and the slanted nature of the reporting that makes it look like it’s done because of the vote that happened in the House. There is still the Senate to contend with. Now, let’s take a look at what is being reported here. What’s being reported — and is this in the Drive-By Media, various places. I just made some crib notes here to remind myself in some sort of chronological order.

President Obama and John Boehner want a bill that the bases of their respective parties reject. Boehner is enabling (or did enable) the passage of a bill in the House that the Republican base wants no part of. They don’t want Obamacare fully implemented or funded, and they do not want Obama to get away with this executive amnesty. Boehner has worked with Obama

And the Republican version of the bill in the House flies in the face of what both the Democrat base and the Republican base want. The Democrat base doesn’t like the relaxation of regulations in Dodd-Frank, which is campaign finance, basically. There’s some things the unions don’t like about pensions as well, because their pensions are gonna end up being devalued.

There are a couple other things in it that the Democrat base is not happy about. Another thing being reported is that Elizabeth Warren is taking a stand on an issue that, if successful, would embarrass Obama. This is being reported. This is not my opinion. You can find this story somewhere in the Drive-By Media stash today. The stand that she is taking on the issue is a very populist stand. It is a stance against Wall Street.

Wall Street has been given a great gift in the omnibus spending bill: Relaxation of regulations on Dodd-Frank. Opposing Wall Street… Remember Occupy Wall Street? Opposing Wall Street is a huge ticket item for Elizabeth Warren, particularly if she wants to run for president. The presumptive nominee, of course, is Mrs. Clinton. We’re right back where we were 2007 and 2008 with the Washington establishment of both parties concluding that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee.

We’ve been there.

We’ve done that.

And out of the blue, in 2007, came Barack Hussein Obama. Out of the blue this year is coming Elizabeth Warren, and she’s got a ready-made entry and a ready-made ticket with her populist opposition to the Wall Street favors that are in the omnibus bill. Obama is in favor of relaxing those regulations on Wall Street because Obama is in bed with Wall Street and has been from the get-go, but his base is not really aware of that.

The Democrat Party base has been driven insane with hatred for Wall Street. They’ve been driven insane with hatred for the US military. They’ve been driven insane with hatred for the CIA. The Democrat Party base has been driven insane by the radical nature of what everybody thinks are mainstream Democrats. Obama is as closely tied and in bed with Wall Street as anybody is, and Elizabeth Warren is not.

And she is distancing herself from the Democrats and particularly from Obama in a major way by taking a stand on that issue regarding Dodd-Frank. If this bill goes down to smithereens because of this, it would be an embarrassment to Obama. Again, this is what’s being reported. It is also being reported that Barack Obama is being abandoned by Democrats by the score on this because the Democrats are not happy with a couple of provisions.

See, the Democrats are not invested in Obamacare to the degree that you would believe. Remember, Obamacare is why they lost, in their minds — and you’ve heard by now the old stat that half the Democrat senators remaining in the Senate who voted for Obamacare, for one reason or another, are gone. We’ve had Chuck-U Schumer and Tom Harkin and a number of other Democrats publicly throw Obamacare under the bus claiming it was bad bill.

(summarized) “It was a mistake timing-wise. We shouldn’t have done it before we shored up the economy.” There are Democrats running away from Obamacare. It’s John Boehner who’s in bed with Obama on Obamacare, not the Democrats. And one of the things we’re supposed to be taking great satisfaction from watching is the Democrat fallout over Obamacare.

But Boehner has picked up the slack there with the Republican omnibus bill, which fully funds it. So now the Democrats are free to walk away from it, which they wanted to do and have. So when you see it reported that Democrats are abandoning Obama by the score, one of the things they’re abandoning him on is Obamacare. Look, they have lost big in the last two midterm elections.

This is still… The scope of this defeat is still not accurately reported in the Drive-By Media, although if you keep your radio tuned to this station, you will soon hear that the Washington Post has a story today which fulfills a prophecy of mine back in 2008, 2009. I wasn’t the only one, but I might have led the pack on this, as referring to Barack Obama’s presidency as Jimmy Carter’s second term.

Today’s Washington Post pretty much says that, and they do it with polling data. They do it on the basis that there is a nationwide malaise among the American people, that they are despondent and depressed and feeling hopeless. There’s no opportunity for the American dream. There’s no opportunity for economic advancement. It’s not a pretty picture, and it’s being painted in the Washington Post. Jimmy Carter’s second term.

That term isn’t actually used, but all the comparisons to Jimmy Carter are made in the story. Another story being reported today is that Democrats who may run for president in 2016 think they don’t need Obama’s support. This is being reported. I’m not offering my opinion here. I’m giving you a little list here of the things that are being reported today in the Drive-By Media. Now, remember, Hillary has tried to separate herself from Obama on foreign policy.

All of the Hillaryites… If you’ve been paying attention the past few months, then you well know and you remember how all these Hillary people are out there ripping Obama on all kinds of things (Benghazi, you name it) all to protect Hillary. Elizabeth Warren is also in this list of Democrats who may run for president who think they don’t need Obama’s support. The media is speculating whether that’s true or not.

The reason these stories are interesting to the Drive-Bys is, “Are these Democrats right? Can they actually get the nomination? Can they get elected? Can another Democrat — Hillary or Warren — become president without help from Obama? Can they do it without needing Obama’s assistance?” The media, the Drive-Bys are extremely curious about this. Remember, they’re fully invested in Obama, and they’re not comfortable with all this fallout.

They’re not comfortable.

Even though Obama’s lame duck and all that, they’re not comfortable with this open diss that is taking place. It’s also being reported that the omnibus spending bill is a push for deregulation. That plays right into Elizabeth Warren’s hands. That’s Wall Street being deregulated, and the Democrat base does not want Wall Street deregulated. The media’s also reporting that Barack Obama’s signing off on a bill that reduces spending.

Democrats supposedly don’t like that. Now, I don’t know where they get that, but their story nevertheless is being reported. Another story that’s out there is that the Republicans in February will shut down Homeland Security if they don’t get their way on immigration reform. So that’s a list of the stories that are out there that are bending and shaping all of this about the spending bill and the Democrats’ betrayal of Obama over in the Senate and what it might mean.

But while all that is going on, again, John Boehner has Barack Obama whipping Democrat votes for him. It is Obama talking to recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate trying to get them on board to vote and support the Republican bill. It’s not Dingy Harry. Pelosi is in this mix, too. She’s not happy, along with Elizabeth Warren. Now, these, quote/unquote “facts” as they’ve been reported are as incongruous as I can imagine.

Why are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, working so hard on John Boehner’s behalf? That’s what’s happening. That’s what you need to take away from this. You’ll find some people telling you to, “Hey, you know, sit back and enjoy this infighting in the Democrat Party.” Well, go ahead if you want. I mean, if that lights your fire, have at it. But I’m telling you: The thing that’s happening that fascinates me is all these Democrats working so hard for John Boehner.

That’s what fascinates me.

Obama, Biden, Dingy Harry, Steny Hoyer. The reason why is it’s Boehner’s doing their bidding. It’s Boehner’s bill they want. Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House. His bill is what Obama wants. That’s why they’re working. That’s why they’re whipping votes for Boehner. That, to me, is what’s newsworthy today. Not the fact that there may be some fallout in the Democrat side.

I mean, that is newsworthy because we don’t get treated to that very much.

It’s true the Democrat Party is in big disarray, and if the media were half interested in it or half honest about it, you’d know that. But they’re not.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Obama went on ESPN Radio today to tell people there that he really cares about sports. That’s what he’s really into most of the time, but he takes time out to do president stuff. During the interview he was talking about the similarities, comparing politics and sports.

OBAMA: The one difference is that, y’know, in politics, sometimes people forget we’re actually all on the same team, uhhh, and that’s the American team.

RUSH: Right.

OBAMA: A-a-and, you know, it’s one thing in sports if, y’know, you go into the, uh, Eagles stadium or — or the Raiders stadium (snickers) and folks are hollering at you and you’re the opposing team. Sometimes, uh, I think in politics we, uh, forget that we’re not actually on different teams.

RUSH: Well, you could fool me! You could fool me. So you know what he’s trying to do here, is trying to act bipartisan all of a sudden. Now, I’m sure this has something to do with this stupid omnibus thing here. There are a lot of people trying to save John Boehner’s bacon right now is what I think is going on, including Obama. Boehner is making himself an MVP up there at the White House.