RUSH: Have you seen the movie Grumpy Old Men? Last night we got to see Grumpy Old Democrats. What in the world are they so mad about? No, no. I can answer my question. I’m asking this question rhetorically. What in the world are Bernie and Hillary so mad about? The Republicans have all but surrendered to them the past seven years. To listen to these two last night you would think that they have been shut out of power the last 20 years and that they’re losing the country hand over fist and they’re frustrated and they can’t get it back.

But these people have been running the country for the last seven years. And the rage and the anger that emanated from that debate last night. They’re running the country into the ground, they’re out of their minds with rage. Look, I understand it. I’ve explained it I don’t know how many times, because nothing that they believe in works. Which keeps them coming back for more and more destruction.

Hillary’s anger, she can’t believe this is happening again, that some old codger comes in here and has the audacity to seriously challenge her? It’s like Bernie forgot the arrangement. Yeah, Bern, you can show up and, yeah, you can talk about whatever it is that matters to you, but don’t get any ideas that you really have a chance here. And of course Bernie thinks he does have a chance, and Hillary gets booed at a Democrat Party debate last night. It’s the most amazing thing to see. There were Bernie chants several times. I mean, you could almost say, depending how you look at this thing, that Hillary got schlonged last night. Depending on where you look.

The Drive-By Media: Hillary won, slam dunk, hands down. No, she didn’t win slam dunk hands down. But the people who want to right the history of it last night are claiming that she did.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There were a couple of microphones last night that we could have done well with if they had been killed, but they weren’t. The microphones being used by Crazy Bernie and Hillary Clinton, the most amazing Democrat debate. Here you have two people that are shouting at each other. It got so bad that Wolf Blitzer begged them to stop shouting, and they were shouting because they’re mad. And you really have to ask, what do these people have to be mad about? I mean, you may have slight policy disagreements, but they’re both on the same team. They’re both on the side of leftists and liberal Democrats.

They’re having overwhelming success in transforming the country and basically changing it forever to fit the socialist leftist, or even worse, statist image that they have for it. I mean, they’re literally wrecking it. It’s something I’ve always noticed about liberals. No matter what, they never laugh. I never see a happy one. I never see one even content. They’re always enraged about something. They’re always waiting to be offended or are offended. It’s the most amazing thing. They’re just incapable of being happy. And of course psychologically I know all the reasons why.

None of what they believe actually works. There is no utopia. There is no perfection. The things that they dislike they’ll never be able to write out of human behavior. They will never be able to eliminate. And the ideas that they have for improving people’s lives do not do that. And so they’re faced constantly with a reminder that what they believe doesn’t work. But of course they don’t admit that to themselves. They blame the fact that there’s opposition. No matter what it is they want, and even when they’re winning it slam dunk, they still blame, when it doesn’t pan out, they blame it on their opponents simply for opposing it.

Whether the opponents have any success or not in delaying or stopping what the left wants to do, just the fact that there is opposition angers them and depresses them. And it was on display last night at the Democrat debate. It was in Brooklyn. Crazy Bernie, when the debate was over he got on a plane, flew overnight to go talk people at the Vatican. So we have some audio sound bites from it and we’ll get back to your calls as well.

Open Line Friday means you can talk about whatever you want. The number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address is ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

If you hear one thing from last night’s debate, it should be this exchange. It sums up pretty much the whole thing. It’s two old people, two decrepit seasoned citizens, two “get off my yard” old people bickering over who can give away more of other people’s money. Who’s better at stealing other people’s money and giving it to people. Who has the better plan to get the most money out of working people’s pockets and giving it to other people. Wolf Blitzer got alarmed. He tried to keep order. Here’s how it sounded.

SANDERS: Do we really feel confident about a candidate saying that she’s gonna bring change in America when she is so dependent on big money interests? I don’t think so.

HILLARY: Well, let me — let me just say — let me say — (crosstalk)

BLITZER: Madam Secretary, let him finish. I’ll have you respond in a moment. Stand by. You will — you will, respond in a moment, but I have to follow up with Secretary Clinton.

SANDERS: I am sure a lot of people are very surprised to learn that you supported raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour.

HILLARY: You know, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

SANDERS: That’s just not accurate. (crosstalk)

HILLARY: I have stood on the debate stage with Senator Sanders eight prior times. (crosstalk)

SANDERS: Excuse me. Well — (crosstalk)

HILLARY: I have said the exact same thing. (crosstalk)

BLITZER: Secretary, Senator, please.

HILLARY: If we can raise it to 15 in New York or Los Angeles — (crosstalk)

BLITZER: Secretary — (crosstalk)

HILLARY: — or Seattle, let’s do it. (crosstalk)

BLITZER: If you’re both screaming at each other, the viewers won’t be able to hear either of you.

RUSH: Wolf Blitzer desperate to keep control of this. It was a melee. It was out of control. And listen to what they’re arguing about. Who was first to suggest $15 an hour? What does $15 do as a minimum wage? It loses jobs. It is a job killer. But these people think that all businesses are obscenely wealthy, small businesses, corporations especially, but even small businesses, mom-and-pop storefront businesses, they believe they all have a stash of money somewhere, in back, in the cash register, in the bank, and they are hoarding it.

They are not sharing it with their employees. They’re not providing them health insurance. They’re not paying them of a living wage. They’re stealing the money and hoarding it for themselves so that they can go buy a yacht or go buy a boat or go buy a house that’s bigger than they need. And so these people come along, like Hillary and Bernie, and say, “We’re gonna take some of that hoard that you are keeping from your workers and you are keeping from the government and we are going to raise the minimum wage and we are going to raise your taxes because it’s obscene and unfair that you have that big –”

Meanwhile, these businesses are barely staying open. They are all in hock to banks one way or the other. They do not have a stash of money in back from which they can just, “Oh, you tell me I’ve gotta raise people up to 15, okay, fine.” Labor costs at most businesses are maxed out, and they can’t handle anymore, so what happens if the government comes along and raises the minimum wage, they fire people, because the amount of money they spend on labor has gotta stay constant.

And so if they have a staff, a small business of 10 people, and that staff of 10 people costs them X-amount of money and that’s all they’ve got and then those 10 people all get a raise to 15 bucks an hour, a couple or three of those people might have to get fired. And that’s how the minimum wage is a killer. The minimum wage is an entry-level job. It teaches people the basic elements of employment: how to show up, which is 80% of things. It is never intended to be a standard of living wage. It is never meant to be a wage with which you forge a career. It’s entry-level. It is for people who have no experience. But it’s been blown to smithereens with the perception that the minimum wage is something other than what it is. And the evidence of what I’m saying is true.

You go to Seattle, state of Washington, where they have raised the minimum wage, particularly in restaurants, to 15 bucks an hour, and some restaurants, not just fired people, they had to close, a number of Washington restaurants have closed, businesses all over the country this happens. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to the left because it’s fair. I’m gonna give you a little example here, and we might have this in the sound bite roster. I have not had a chance to read every transcript. So you at the sound bite crew up there, don’t get offended if you’ve got this in the roster and I haven’t got to it yet, but it’s pointed. It is a transcript of something that was said in the debate last night.

It comes under the umbrella of no wonder young people love Crazy Bernie. He sounds like every college professor they’ve got, and they all love their professors. And so a question from the debate last night. “I have a question for you. You’ve said that climate change is the greatest threat to our nation’s security. You have called for a nationwide ban on fracking, Senator Sanders. You have also called for phasing out all nuclear power in the US. But wouldn’t your proposals of banning fracking and phasing out nuclear power, wouldn’t those proposals drive the country back to coal and oil and actually undermine your fight against global warming?”

And of course the obvious answer is, yes! If you’re gonna ban fracking, if you are going to phase out nuclear power, and we’re still gonna have an electric grid, where are you gonna get it? You have to use oil. You have to use coal. And to people like Bernie Sanders and a bunch of Looney Tunes on the left, oil and coal equal climate change. You know what Bernie said?

He said (paraphrasing), “No, no, no, no, no. Getting rid of nuclear, phasing out nuclear and ending fracking, that wouldn’t do anything you say. Look, let me reiterate. We have a global crisis, okay, okay? Pope Francis reminded us that we are on a suicide course. Our legislation understands that there will be economic dislocation. It is absolutely true. There will be some people who lose their job. But we build into our legislation an enormous amount of money to protect those workers. It’s not their fault. It’s not their fault that fossil fuels are destroying our climate.”

You know what Bernie Sanders is saying here? Yeah, it’s gonna be kill some jobs. My economic and energy proposals are going to kill jobs, and you better understand that, and you better like that. That’s what we have to do to save ourselves from climate change. But don’t worry, because we are going to come up with a bunch of government programs, and we will pay you what you were earning when you were working. We will make sure you don’t suffer when you lose your job. That’s what we have to do to save our planet. You most definitely, many of you might in fact lose your job. But we build into our legislation an enormous amount of money to protect those workers.

Now, I want to go back, I want to share something with you from 2009, seven years ago. Former labor secretary Robert B. Reichhhhhhhhh, the former labor secretary for Clinton, was making a speech on health care, and he said the same thing that Bernie Sanders said. He said (paraphrasing), “Look, to do health care right, it is gonna cost you your job.” It’s amazing what these people say. Bernie Sanders, yeah, to save the planet, it’s gonna cost you your job. It will. We’re gonna have to close a bunch of industries to save the planet. We’re gonna have to go backwards. We got plenty of programs built in.

Here’s Labor Secretary Reich. “Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I’m so glad to see you and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that’s true and what I’m going to do is that I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people…you’re going to have to pay more.

“Thank you. And by the way, we’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”

And the crowd applauded.

“Also I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid — we already have a lot of bargaining leverage — to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you.”

He was serious. So in Bernie Sanders, to save the planet we have to change the energy industry such that many people will lose their jobs. Labor Secretary Reich, in advocating Obamacare, in order to provide health care, we’re going to have let old people die. We’re going to take enough money away from the drug companies that they can’t innovate and come up with new technologies and new drugs so there will be fewer new drugs on the market, which means you’re not going to live much longer than your parents, but we have to do that to rescue the health care system.

And the audiences of these people, particularly young people, applaud this crap. You know, it used to be, folks, the left would never admit this. They would never admit the pain and suffering their own policies would cause. But starting with Obama shortly after he was inaugurated, the left began to almost be honest about the pain and suffering that their policies are going to cause, and in addition to being honest about it, they were telling us that we deserved it.

You deserve to lose your job because you working in the energy industry, which is causing climate change. We are going to penalize the drug companies because we hate them. They’re too rich. They’re too profitable. They don’t care about people. So we’re gonna limit the amount of money they get for R&D somehow and we’re going to have fewer new drugs, and there’s gonna be less technology, and you’re not gonna live as long, but that’s what we have to do to bring these drug companies in line.

And both these guys sound like college professors. Reich is one, and the audiences applaud. Just tells people up front. And Obama did too, by the way, at that nationally televised health care event that ABC ran shortly after he was inaugurated. A woman stands up and asks if her mother, who’s close to a hundred, can get a pacemaker, Obama says (paraphrasing), “No, no, her will to live, her desire to live, her spark, that doesn’t matter. We’ll probably just end up giving her a pill and saying enjoy the last couple of months here.”

It boggles my mind that people like this are embraced and supported. And this is what this whole Democrat debate last night was, was how painful fixing this mess is gonna be and how you’re gonna get hurt, and how some people getting hurt deserve it, and those of you who don’t deserve to get hurt we’re gonna pay for it out of the federal Treasury or what. It’s the most mind-boggling thing. And in a sane political world, these people wouldn’t get 10% of the vote.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back, there’s some really juicy sound bites here from the Democrat debate last night with these two seasoned citizens just and angry and losing it. It was embarrassing even for Wolf Blitzer and some of the moderates begging them to just cool it. It happened in Brooklyn, and here’s another series of bites. Wolf Blitzer says, “Senator Sanders, do you believe that Secretary Clinton has the judgment to be president?

SANDERS: I question a judgment which voted for the war in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. Voted for virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which cost us millions of decent paying jobs. And I question her judgment about running super PACs which are collecting tens of millions of dollars from special interests, including $15 million from Wall Street. I don’t believe that that is the kind of judgment we need to be the kind of president we need.

RUSH: Let me just tell you something. The Democrat Party was okay with Bernie running. They were okay with him making it look like Hillary had a fight, but he’s not supposed to be going here. Democrats are not supposed to be putting people on a stage with her telling everybody she’s not qualified. He’s not supposed to be saying this stuff. He’s not supposed to be pointing out all of her warts and zits and stuff. And he is. And she’s not happy about it, and a whole lot of Democrats are not happy about it, but, you know what? His supporters love it.

This party, the Democrat Party, has become more radicalized leftist than anybody knows. And you can get an indication of it by the size of his support. But it wasn’t supposed to happen. Whoever it was, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, whoever’s on that stage supposedly running against her was supposed to be nothing more than, you know, my analogy about the Republicans. Nothing more than the Washington Generals. And here he’s acting like he actually wants to win. Ah, ah, ah, ah, that wasn’t the deal.

So here’s Hillary’s natural response to this. She has just had her qualifications, her judgment challenged, and her natural response is to play the victim and complain about being called names all of her life.

HILLARY: Senator Sanders did call me unqualified. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. That was a first. And then — he did say that — he had to question my judgment. Well, the people of New York voted for me twice to be their senator from New York, and — and President Obama trusted my judgment enough to ask me to be secretary of state for the United States.

RUSH: Those things don’t persuade me, Hillary. Obama chose you to keep you close and to keep Clinton close, and the fact that people in New York elected you, that’s no big deal to people outside of New York. But did you hear her say, “I’ve been called a lot of things, but nobody’s ever called me unqualified. That was a first.” I’m telling you — ha-ha-ha-ha — that’s the kind of statement when the debate ends they call Don Corleone. You don’t call Hillary Clinton unqualified. Because that’s her calling card.

Her calling card is she’s the most qualified Democrat ever. She’s been around, she’s been more qualified than her husband, more qualified than Obama, more qualified than John Kerry. And she still hasn’t been acknowledged as such, and that’s what this campaign is all about. Next question was Dana Bash. “Senator Sanders, you have consistently criticized Secretary Clinton for accepting money from Wall Street. Can you name one decision that she made as senator that shows that she favored banks because of the money they gave her?”

SANDERS: The obvious decision is when the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street brought this country into the worst economic downturn since the Great Recession — Great Depression of the thirties. The obvious response to that is that you got a bunch of fraudulent operators and that they have got to be broken up. That was my view way back, and I introduced legislation to do that. Now, Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs to $225,000 a speech.

RUSH: And you know why she’s giving those speeches because that’s pass-through money. That’s how they are contributing to her campaign. Twenty minute speech, $250,000, she won’t release the transcripts of the speeches. You know why? Because she praises the banks. She tells them how important they are, how great they are for economic growth and employment and all that. And if her voters heard that, that would be a huge, huge problem. So she won’t release transcripts, and Bernie keeps harping on that. Hillary’s response was this.

HILLARY: He cannot come up with any example because there is no example. It is important, it’s always important. It may be inconvenient, but it’s always important to get the facts straight. I stood up against the behaviors of the banks when I was a senator. I called them out on their mortgage behavior.

RUSH: Right. Right. Sure you did, after your husband had ganged up on the banks and basically demanded that they make loans to people who couldn’t pay ’em back under penalty of investigation. You were right in there all supportive. These people are such hypocrites. You know, hypocrisy never harms Democrats, never comes back to bite ’em. But Bernie, Crazy Bernie, when he heard that, he pounced. Well, at least for him.

SANDERS: Secretary Clinton called them out. Oh, my goodness, they must have been really crushed by this. And was that before or after you received huge sums of money by giving speaking engagements to (unintelligible). They must have been very, very upset by what you did. If elected president, I will break them up. We’ve got legislation to do that, end of discussion.

RUSH: That’s exactly right. If he’s elected president, he’s gonna bust up everything. He’s gonna bust up Big Oil. He’s gonna bust up Big Pharmaceutical. He’s been bust up Big Bank. He’s gonna bust up Big Retail. He’s gonna rip everything he can apart. And it may even cost you your job. But that’s okay, ’cause he’s gonna have legislation to recompense you in the event you lose your job to save America, which is what he’s actually talking about.