RUSH: I mentioned yesterday, and Drudge even linked to this. I’m minding my own business last night at home, bothering nobody, and I got a couple of e-mails: “Hey, you made Drudge tonight.” When this happens I always try to think, okay, what was it, before I go check and find out what it was. I try to remember what it was I said that might possibly have intrigued Drudge or his editors enough over there. And so I guessed right.

They linked to the segment yesterday in which I made the point that it’s now getting dangerous. Obama’s leadership and his attitude is really getting dangerous now. And the fact that this man considers a domestic political party, the Republicans, a greater threat to him and to America than he considers terrorism. I don’t care if it’s Al-Qaeda or ISIS, the man really comes alive. As I said, he doesn’t need a teleprompter; he doesn’t need cue cards; he doesn’t need to rehearse. When it comes time to bash Republicans and blame Republicans, it’s right there in his heart. It’s at the forefront of his mind.

But the Republicans aren’t doing anything. The Republicans are not committing acts of terror. The United States is always a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, but it’s a more precarious place we find ourselves now than I can ever recall because of the nature of our leadership, which is simply unwilling to accept reality. And people are starting to I think put two and two together and get four now.

I have a story in the Stack here that Obama, when it comes to terrorism — I think this is Legal Insurrection, which is a great blog, it’s a great, credible blog — Obama doesn’t even listen to his national security and foreign policy people when it comes to terrorism. He doesn’t even read the briefs. He doesn’t want to talk to them about it.

Now, it is speculated because he thinks he already knows. He doesn’t need to be told; he knows what he thinks of terrorism; he knows who the terrorists are. I would, upon hearing this, I think of it in a totally, totally different way. I don’t look at it that Obama’s up to speed and knows who terrorists are and what terrorism is and therefore doesn’t need to be briefed. I don’t think he needs to be briefed. I don’t understand — no, I do. I do. I’m saying this for effect.

It’s dangerous, when the president of the United States, in the midst of what Western civilization is facing, wants everybody to think that the biggest enemy around is the Republican Party, a party which caves to practically everything he wants to boot. But even if it was not caving, even if the party was not caving, the Republican Party isn’t anywhere near — I mean, it’s absurd. It’s dangerous. It’s not all there. We have other items of evidence as the program unfolds.

Let me just start going through the Stack here, ’cause it’s a never-ending Stack on all of this that relates to ISIS and Paris and Syrian refugees. Politico has a story today that “A majority of Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States, according to two new polls released Wednesday. A Bloomberg Politics poll of US adults found that 53 percent of Americans say the president’s plan should be halted, while 11 percent would allow Syrian Christians only. Twenty-eight percent say the program should continue without religious screening.”

So when you add it up, 64% say we should either ban Syrian refugees or only allow Christians. I need to remind you of something. There were two items leading the program yesterday, both historical in nature, both factual, and both true, and I led off with them to counter popular narratives that are out there today. Number one, “It’s not who we are to have religious tests when it comes to refugees. That’s not who we are. That’s not American values.” I have to tell you something, just between us. Psst. I mean, don’t tell anybody that I said this. But I cringe when I hear Obama talk about American values, ’cause I don’t recognize ’em. And he’s always invoking them. (imitating Obama) “This is not who we are. This is not American values.”

When I look at what he thinks American values are, it’s getting dangerous out there. The fact is we do have religion as a factor, major factor in accepting refugees. Religion is a major factor in vetting them. It’s federal statutory law, folks. I cited it yesterday. It has become and has always been a major factor in vetting. There are any number of reasons why we ask the religion. It’s not something that we have never done before. We do it constantly. We always have.

The second item, just to repeat it, was that during 1924 to 1965 there was no immigration, and the reason we shut it down is because in the early 1900s there were acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated largely by groups that were then called anarchists. They were led by people who had names. They were imprisoned and they were doing everything they could to undermine the public order, undermine the United States, the United States government. It’s not unprecedented what is happening today. All of the vetting, I mean, all of the vetting, all of the attempting to find out, “Are we letting terrorists into the country? Are we letting in anti-American people?” It’s not unprecedented. We’ve always done it. Those were the two items I led with yesterday.

Obama’s out there trying to make people think, “This is new depths. We’ve gone to new depths, we’ve never been this low. We’re not being true to our values.” It’s a crock. Just because we happen to be the best place on earth does not mean we have a responsibility to give it away. We are not obligated to let everybody in. That’s not how we deal with it. It cannot be the way we deal with it. Now what’s happening is we have so many people laden with so much guilt over the fact that we do it right. So what’s the solution? The solution is not let every oppressed human being in the world into the United States. That can’t happen. What we should do is export what makes us great.

But the left doesn’t agree that that’s what’s made us great. Freedom? That’s an imposition to people. Clearly there’s an unequal distribution of freedom in the world. There’s an unequal distribution of capitalism in the world. There’s an unequal distribution of entrepreneurism. And the reason is, pretty much every place in the world in terms of human history has been governed by tyrants, dictators, thugs, you name it.

That’s what’s so exceptional about the United States. But the point is we have certainly protected our borders. We have certainly had tests over who can become citizens and who can’t. The American people are not extremist. The American people (as represented in these two polls today) who oppose Obama, they are the sensible ones. They are the rational ones. It is Obama and supporters of his who just want to turn over every border and orifice and entryway into this country and say:

“Come on in, whoever you are — particularly if you happen to be ill-educated, if you happen to be any number of negative characteristics. Well, that’s who we really want here, because those people are thought to be easy converts to the Democrat Party.” But, again, it’s not just the Bloomberg poll. An NBC News survey, along with SurveyMonkey online poll of US adults: “56% of Americans disapprove of an increase in the number of Syrian refugees coming to America; 41% approve.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, I did this on purpose. I knew it would work. I just reminded people (knowing full well people listening today who may not have heard yesterday) that there always has been a religious test in terms of deciding which refugees are admitted, but I didn’t explain it. I just said I talked about it yesterday. So my e-mail is filled with snarky comments, “You didn’t explain why because you’re making it up! Everybody knows we’ve never had a religious test! You just lied to everybody! Everybody believes you and you just lied to them.”

No. I purposefully did not explain it ’cause I wanted to set all of you snarky malcontents up. It’s very simple. When you apply for asylum in the United States, there are certain things that you have to be able to prove in order to be granted. One of those is that you’re fleeing a war or you’re fleeing poverty. Another is that you are fleeing religious persecution. Well, we must ask you about your religion if we are going to document whether or not you are being religiously persecuted.

Most people cite religious persecution as reasons for fleeing they are homeland. That and war-torn strife or what have you. But the vast majority cite religious persecution ’cause they think it’s an automatic. Well, how can we determine whether or not they actually are fleeing such persecution if we don’t ask them what their religion is and where they’re from? So I’m just telling you, this whole notion of who and what these Syrian refugees are and what their religious beliefs are and they’re being asked, it’s not new. We’ve always done it.

But if you listen to Obama and the Democrats and the Drive-Bys, you are to believe we’ve become these new intolerant religious extremists and all that we want is white Christians. In fact, you’ve even got some elected Democrats running around saying it. Like Baghdad Jim McDermott’s out there. “Yeah, the Republicans, they just want white Christians in here! That’s all they want,” as though there’s something wrong with white Christians, by the way.

And I guess if you’re a liberal Democrat, there might be something wrong with white Christians. I mean, that actually is the group of people you’re fighting. Liberal Democrats’ number one enemy is white Christians, and it makes up the majority of the country. The Republican base is largely that configuration. Not only, but largely. Anyway, let’s grab a call in the first hour. It’s Bob in Grand Rapids, and I’m glad you waited, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Deer camp dittos from west Michigan.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: My point is, you know, did you ever notice that liberals love to use government for what government cannot do? They want to house people with government. They want to feed people with government. They want government to run the economy. But yet when the one thing that government can do, like the military, they take a pass on it. It seems that everything that they are focused on is what government’s failed at.

RUSH: Well, you know, not only is that true — that everything the government botches, they praise, and everything the government does well they criticize, i.e., the military —

CALLER: Correct, yeah.

RUSH: — the military has always got something major wrong with it that the libs have to go in there and fix. But you better not lay a hand on the welfare state. You better not touch one aspect of it. By the way, I would disagree with you on one thing and one thing only, Bob. I think that the federal government does a damn good job of feeding people. We have 50 million people on food stamps and all they have to do is take a little debit card and go down there and buy some… What do you call those? Bugles. Nacho Cheese Bugles and a six-pack and you’re set up for the rest of the afternoon. And maybe buy a scratch-off lottery ticket. The federal government’s got this down pat, if you ask me. I mean, 94 million Americans are not working, and they’re all eating.

The federal government sure has found a way to pick your pocket and make all that happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here it is again. Let me read to you. Section 1158 of the Title VIII US Code, Burden of Proof. “In general, the burden of proof is on the applicant to establish that the applicant is a refugee within the meaning,” and then it gives the description. “To establish that the applicant is a refugee within the meaning of such section, the applicant must establish that race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.” We must and do and have asked them about religion.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I don’t want to… Speaking for myself, I don?’t want to be misunderstood on this refugee situation. Nobody’s accused me of anything on this yet, so don’t misunderstand. I have a lot of people I’ve gotten to know over the course of my life, primarily in California, Syrian people. A lot of people I play golf with in California are from Syria, frustrated Syrians. They don’t like Assad.

They own property there, are unable to get it, and are very sad and disheartened by what’s happened to their country. They’re Americans but it’s their homeland, and my point here is just the stress… I haven’t heard anybody make the point, so this is not defending anybody. It’s just asserting something that the opposition to this current refugee program has nothing to do with the fact that any of these refugees are from any particular place, much less Syria. And I know that’s the case with everybody I know who feels the same way I do about this.

And what brought this to mind when I had the call from the young guy down in Hollywood, Florida, who wanted to know what to say to social media reprobates and human debris accusing him of xenophobia and all this. We face a serious, serious threat. We’re a great nation always at risk in a really, really dangerous world. And things are more dangerous for the United States today than they have been in a long time, and I firmly believe it’s because our current leadership does not think that we are at great risk and does not consider the same people I consider to be the enemies of our country.

Our current president believes his biggest enemies, and therefore the people he’s most animated against in opposing, are the Republicans in the United States. His biggest enemies are fellow Americans. He is much more animated and angry and focused on political opponents in this country than he is on people who actually intend this country harm, and I just find that dangerous. His unwillingness to admit and recognize — and I think he recognizes. I just don’t think he considers the people that you and I consider to be threats…

I don’t think he thinks they are, and I think there are specific personal and political reasons for that. But this refugee program is not about opposing anybody because of where they’re from. It’s because what they might be. And all anybody’s doing here is using intelligence guided by experience in being wary. We hear that they’re being vetted. We wish they were. We don’t think it’s possible. Vet these people against what? Many of them are unknown on purpose. Many of them live in the shadows on purpose.

Many of them have hidden their identities on purpose. They don’t want to be known because they do not want their intentions to be uncovered, and so it’s really difficult to vet these people. Our current leadership doesn’t see a problem. Our current leadership wants to flood this country with virtually anybody he identifies as a victim of what he considers to be long American oppression. We have a terrorist group that has formed basically during Obama’s presidency. There wasn’t any ISIS before Obama.

There wasn’t an ISIS with George W. Bush in the White House. ISIS came to be precisely because of the policies of Barack Hussein O. Barack Hussein O, for whatever reason, got us out of the Middle East after a successful — eventually successful — campaign. He left a vacuum, and it has been filled by ISIS. And they’re off and running now, and they are terrorizing all of Europe. And they, like other Islamists, are telegraphing their intentions. They intend to do the same thing here.

They’re being very open about it.

They’re cutting and releasing videos and promising to do so.

It would be silly to not take them at their word. It would be silly to assume that we’re untouchable. So when we have current leadership that doesn’t seem concerned and doesn’t seem halfway interested in stopping any of this — and, furthermore, doesn’t even want to establish that they recognize this same threat that we see. That’s the reason for the opposition to this. This administration is losing the trust of the American people more and more each day and for legitimate reasons. Those of you who have a desire to protect and defend this country, it’s for all of the right reasons.

A, it’s instinctive for a patriotic American to want to protect and defend his homeland. There are other reasons. The future for your children and grandchildren. You know of the greatness of this country and, furthermore, of its potential — and its potential is being squandered! We are being led by people who do not believe in American potential, do not believe in American exceptionalism — and, furthermore, believe that our superpower status is illegitimate and undeserved.

You combine that with a desire to nuke up the nation of Iran, to unfreeze assets totaling $150 billion, allowing Iran to continue to fund terrorism and to modernize some of its military. None of it makes any sense to us! What does makes sense is that we, for the first time in our lives, don’t think that we can rely on the leadership of this country to defend and protect us. In fact, it seems the opposite. It seems like the leadership of this country is doing everything it can to further this feeling of unease.

It seems like the leadership of this country is more sympathetic with people all over the world than with Americans, particularly with Americans who did not vote for or support the current leadership and president. It seems we have leadership that looks at the despondent and the malnourished and the suffering all over the world and sees the United States as the cause. And therefore it sees victim after victim after victim of an evil and unjust and immoral United States, and so conceives and implements policies designed to make us pay for these previous transgressions against all of these people who apparently are going through life in misery and suffering because of us.

That’s their belief.

As such, there isn’t a concern for who it is that might be emigrating or who it is that might be granted refugee status. We don’t have a right to ask because it’s our fault they exist as they do, in our current leadership’s opinion. And, therefore — as part of making amends, I guess, or apologizing — we must throw open our borders and relax our immigration policy and refugee policy to accommodate all of these people who are victims of an immoral and unjust United States. And that’s scary, and it’s dangerous.

And it results in people dying.

It results in people getting killed, and this is why. It’s not that they’re from Syria. It isn’t because they’re from Saudi Arabia or wherever. It’s because there doesn’t seem to be any concern at the highest levels of leadership for who might be getting into the country. It is essentially common-sensical for us to be highly attuned to this and distrustful of it. Because it doesn’t make any sense. The president of the United States is the number one law enforcer. He is the number one defender and protector of the country, its people, it’s Constitution.

And we just don’t see… By virtue of behavior and policies implemented, we just don’t see he recognizes that. Instead, we see a president who seems to believe he leads a country that has committed sin after sin after sin and must now pay a price for that. And he almost enjoys the bitter clingers (as he calls them) of this country being upset and worried about it. And now has become petulant and childlike when questioned legitimately by sycophantic media about why he has no interest in quote “getting these bastards,” unquote.

What are we to think where we hear our own president say he doesn’t believe in concepts like leadership and victory and winning? What are we supposed to think? We’re not irrational. We hear a president say, I don’t believe in that stuff. That’s old-fashioned. I first heard him say it about Afghanistan in 2009 when he said (paraphrasing), “I don’t like this concept of victory. When I think of victory, I think of poor Emperor Hirohito being marched to the battleship Missouri, forced to sign surrender papers. That’s not who we are. That’s not American values.” Is it not?

Long ago I reminded some people of some great works a former friend of mine and late friend, great Marine from Sacramento, California, B. T. Collins. He was a staunch Democrat but hated the anti-war movement, just despised it. And there was something going on at the time I lived in Sacramento, I forget what it was, he was inspired and motivated to write a letter to the editor in opposition to it. It was about leftists not realizing the purpose of the military and what its objectives were so he spelled it out in a letter to the editor.

He said: the purpose of armies, the purpose of war is to kill people and break things. That’s what war is. You kill people and break things. And you keep going until your opponent surrenders and apologizes to you. And if you’re not committed to take it to that end, you don’t start it. And if you don’t understand the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things, then you don’t have one and you don’t use it. Because if you have an army and you send it to war and it starts killing people and breaking things and then you get upset and start pulling it back, you are irresponsible.

And I think we’ve reached a point time in American cultural evolution here, as evidenced by what we see on campus after campus after campus, there’s the rampant ignorance of the purpose of war, the purpose of the military, the purpose of armies and how you define success in military involvement. You tell your average scared college child today that the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things and they’ll ask for the nearest phone book or phone booth if they could find one to go hide.

Well, we don’t have a leader who accepts the idea that the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things and to eventually win to the point where the other side surrenders and apologizes for what they did to start the whole thing. Because our president seems to think we’re responsible for starting these things, that we’re responsible for the existence of all of this anti-American evil out there because of our past transgressions as an unjust and illegitimately founded whatever we are, country. So our president talks about not wanting to lead and not wanting to sloganeer and use terms like “leadership” and “winning” because that misses the point, that’s not what we’re all about, and we see that combined with other policies the president’s implemented, and I’m here to tell you being cared is the only common-sensical reaction. And wanting to do something in opposition to it, stop it and fix it and reverse it is also quite natural.

So the opposition to the illegal immigrants is nothing about Mexicans. The illegal refugees is nothing about bias against Syrians or ethnic bias, racist bias. It’s about love of country and a recognition that we are at risk in a dangerous world, and it doesn’t seem like we have a leadership too interested in defending us against what we see are not maybe possible threats, but they are real, they are happening, they’ve even happened on our own soil. So I just wanted to make that clear. I’ve not been accused of anything. I didn’t expect to be.