RUSH: You know, once again, folks, I dazzle even myself. Ever since the death of Pope John Paul II and the week-long tribute to his life culminating in his funeral, I said the reason why the Democrats and the libs in this country and around the world are so paranoid about what they’re watching is because essentially to them the Catholic church is a Supreme Court they don’t control, and the pope is the chief justice that they have no ability to influence. Lo and behold, MoveOn.org posted on their website — they’ve since taken it down but they’ve posted on their website — a picture of Pope Benedict, new Pope Benedict, and above his picture the graphic, “God already has a job, he doesn’t need one on the Supreme Court.” “God already has a job, he doesn’t need one on the Supreme Court. Protect the Supreme Court rules.” Trying to equate the pop with the US Supreme Court.

I’m telling you, folks. I know these people. I know ’em. I know ’em. I want to go through some things on this filibuster business. You know, we understand that liberals want liberal judges, and we understand that the media wants liberal judges, and we also understand they want judicial activism because we know that’s who they are. We have no problem with that; that’s who they are. What kind of bugs a lot of us is the depths to which they will go to get there and the lack of any mainstream moral compass that keeps them honest. I mean, look at the arguments they advance and how flagrantly they are lying to stretch the truth. First, here are the basic arguments they’ve advanced to stop the Republicans from pulling the trigger on the dreaded nuclear option: “Why, you can’t change the rules in the middle of the stream! Why what about minority rights? Why, you’re disturbing a noble tradition of the Senate, and what about checks and balances?”

If I hear Dingy Harry say one more time he’s interested in checks and balances… I’m going to straighten this out once and for all. This checks-and-balances is the biggest insult to anybody’s intelligence that understands the Constitution, by the way, and at a level of civics 101 that I’ve run into — and then, of course, the other thing they say, “Well, what happens when the other side is in the minority? You know, when the other side is in the majority we don’t want to be treated this way, so blah, blah, blah. We can’t do that. Why do we want to do that?” All of these arguments have been advanced to one degree or another with varying degrees of nuance as a means of preventing the Republicans from pulling the trigger.

Oh. And there’s another one. Actually there’s another one. I’ll get to that in a minute. But of the five I mentioned, four of them are Democrat arguments, one of them is a Republican argument, the McCain argument, the maverick argument, which is, “Hey, hey, hey, we gotta be prepared for the next time we’re losers in here, we don’t want them pulling the same stunt on us that we’re pulling on them.” The other four are Democrat ideas. So let’s look at this changing rules in midstream. Do you have any idea, folks, how many times the filibuster rule has changed? Is there anybody out there who laughs in Chuck Schumer’s face when he says we shouldn’t change the rules in midstream? The filibuster itself was a change. It wasn’t there until 1830. One Senator could go on endlessly.

There was no way to stop him. In 1917 the first change, a filibuster could be ended by two-thirds of the Senate, 67 votes. In 1959 a filibuster could be ended by two-thirds of the senators present. Until then it was only two-thirds of the Senate. In 1975 the rule was changed again; a filibuster could be ended by 60 votes instead of 67. And so ending the filibuster went from 67 votes to 60, six less votes needed to end the filibuster than when it was originally established, the way to break one — and then of course during this period of time, Democrats have made motions to totally do away with the filibuster at all!

During this period of time, there have been instances where the Democrats have suggested, “We don’t need filibusters on anything.” The point is the rules were changed and changed and changed in midstream, in near stream, in far stream, in dry river beds. They were changed. But now the Democrats say you can’t change the rules in the midstream. Hey, folks, every rule in the United States Senate since day one, every rules change has come midstream, has it not? So that’s a bogus argument. Then this minority voice, what about minority rights? That’s such a silly thing. It has to be a focus group line, probably to appeal to minorities. Stop and think about this.

If the liberal-honored filibuster respects minority rights, a 60-vote majority can override the minority 40. Do you mean to tell me they respect the rights of 41 but not 40? What about a vote of 80 to 20? What about the minority rights in 80 to 20? What about 98 to two? What are we going to do about minority rights when it’s 98 to two? What’s the magic of minority rights when it’s 55-45? How about 75-25? “Well, yeah, we gotta give the minority equal time, minority rights.” It’s bogus, folks! The whole thing is bogus — and then, of course, this noble tradition, the staid tradition of the Senate. Pop quiz. Staid tradition, noble tradition. Name for me the first nominee, the first judicial nominee in our history to suffer a partisan filibuster. Who was it? Partisan, partisan, partisan filibuster. Be careful! Don’t get caught. Snerdley gets it. Most people would say Abe Fortis. That’s why I emphasized the word partisan, partisan. Miguel Estrada, the first judicial nominee in our history. We’re talking a noble tradition here, folks. We can’t disturb the noble tradition of the Senate. First judicial nominee in our history to suffer a partisan filibuster was Miguel Estrada.

Now, I know some of you… I even got an e-mail from an angry subscriber at RushLimbaugh.com, and his subject line was: “You made me look like a fool.” This was a couple weeks ago. So I said, “Since I don’t make people on my side look like fools too much, I said I’m going to read this.” So the guy said he had believed everything I said about this filibuster business, and he’d gone out and he’d been chatting around in various Internet chat rooms and some wacko Democrat kook came back and said, “That’s typical Limbaugh lies. Abe Fortis was the first filibustered.” Okay, if the angry subscriber is still there, let’s — What is it Kerry said? Truth to power? What was the phrase? Let’s give truth to power? Power? Whatever this convoluted line was. Kerry, by the way, served in Vietnam and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. That’s who we’re talking about.

But Abe Fortis was a liberal. He was filibustered, wasn’t he, Rush? Aren’t you lying to your audience yet again, Rush? No, not so quick. Abe Fortis was already on the Supreme Court. There was a bipartisan filibuster, and the bipartisan filibuster was against his being named as chief justice. He was already on the court. The filibuster was bipartisan, and it was simply about his elevation to chief justice. So it’s not applicable; it is not the same. Nice try, liberals, but once again to try to convince your herd out there you have to lie to them — and then, you know, one of the silliest is this checks and balances business. You know, they certainly do rely on all of us being stupid, do they not, or ignorant, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, whatever they think.

Checks and balances, folks — and I think it’s important to point this out because I’m not sure anymore just how detailed constitutional matters are taught in the American public school system, because I saw this poll the other day that only 14% of the people in this country understand that freedom of the press is in the First Amendment. So they’re throwing around checks and balances. And, of course, that’s a magic phrase for people in this country. “Yeah, checks and balances. That’s how we keep minorities with power, and it’s how we check power against runaway tyranny like Bush.”

Uh, these checks and balances, ladies and gentlemen — Dingy Harry talks about this — they’re not about Harry Reid being able to check Bill Frist. There’s no check and balance in the Senate or check and balance in the House. Checks and balance is about the three branches of government checking each other — and, of course, now we only have two branches of governmental that check each other. One branch of government is actually running the show. You have Congress that checks the president; the legislature checks the executive; the executive branch checks the legislature. He can veto. The judiciary checks both. Except there’s no check on the judiciary because Democrats think it’s independent! But there are checks and balances, all three branches of government are supposed to be checked by the other two. Has nothing to do with Dingy Harry being able to check Bill Frist! That’s not what checks and balances means.

In fact, checks and balances doesn’t even appear in the Constitution verbally. In terms of words, the verbiage, checks and balances is not there, just like right to privacy isn’t there. It was established in the Griswold case at the Supreme Court, but the right to privacy is not there. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the number of judicial nominees the Democrats try to set a trap for. I think Janice Rogers Brown was one, Janice Rogers Brown, who was asking the question. I forget who was asking the question, some Democrat, probably Leahy.

“Do you think there’s an enumerated right to privacy in the Constitution?”

She said, “Nope.”

“You don’t? See!” and he dropped the point.

One of his Republicans turned to fire back. Some senator said, “You don’t see right to privacy in the Constitution?”

“No, sir, I don’t. It isn’t there.”

“Well, do you acknowledge there is a right to privacy?”

“Yes, sir. The Supreme Court said so in Griswold.”

Democrats didn’t bring that out. This is a kind of thing they do. But there’s no checks and balances actually mentioned in the Constitution. But I think hands down the dumbest argument of all is what will happen when the Democrats are in power. This is the McCain argument, the maverick argument, “Oh, we can’t do this! What are they going to do when they’re in power?” We already know what they do when they’re in power. We know the answer. They’re going to name liberal judges!

They’re in power, and they did it and guess what the Republicans are going to say? “Yu guys won the election, you get the judges you want for the most part,” and they’ll get their usual 80 or 95% confirmation rate. Our problem is Republicans are in power, and we don’t know what will happen when we’re in power. Forgot talking about what the Democrats are going to do when they’re in power. We already know that. We’ve got 40-plus thousand years of history to know what the Democrats are going to do when they’re in power. We’re still trying to figure out what Republicans are going to do when we’re in power — and so we’re already worried about losing power. Thank you, Senator McCain and Senator Hagel and all the others of you worried about this. And you know where your problem is? “I want them to like me. I don’t want them to treat us badly because we treat them badly.” You don’t understand these people. They are going to dump on us if they get the majority back regardless what happens here. Just like they’re going to say the same things about us they’ve always said regardless how nice to them we happen to be.

By the way, back to rules changes? There’s one other biiiiiig rules change that happened in the middle of the stream. I left it out on purpose so I could go back here and emphasize it. You know what a filibuster used to be? Some blowhard would stand up and just start talking, reading the phone book or whatever. That was called “unlimited debate,” reading the phone book. Reading the latest position paper from Moscow, whatever they did. You had to get up there and you had can to speak, and you couldn’t leave the floor. You couldn’t leave the floor to go to bathroom. If you left the floor to go to the bathroom your filibuster end. But guess what, there was another rule. Now not only does it not take 67 votes to break a filibuster, it only takes 60, guess what the new rule, middle of the stream was? You don’t even have to filibuster! You can say you’re going to filibuster, and it equals standing up, reading the phone book for 35 hours straight.

So don’t tell me we can’t change rules in the middle of the stream. Every rule change that occurs in the Senate is in the middle of the stream because the Senate is still moving, and it started moving the day it was created under the Constitution and it hasn’t stopped — ah! ah! For a while today, the Democrats tried to shut it down, but they caved. The rules are living and breathing. I mean, well, no, they’re not living and breathing but they happen in the middle of the stream. You don’t close the Senate; you don’t shut down the Senate and say “Okay, now we’re going to change the rules.” It’s an insult to everybody’s intelligence, all these arguments — and none of the arguments are on the issue.

None of these arguments are on the issue of the judges and the state of the judiciary and the president winning the election. None of these deal with the issue. These are nothing but a bunch of whiny, spoiled-brat little excuses like the dog ate my homework. It’s your kid trying to tell you how you can’t run your house when he’s six years old. That’s what’s happening here, and of course the Republicans act like Baby Boom parents say, “Oh well, you know, we can never say no to the kid. He’ll grow up to the stunted in growth and he’ll be psychological scarred forever.” You take it from there.