RUSH: What are we going to do about Mississippi Senator Trent Lott? What are we going to do about Senator Lott? You remember when he got into trouble with the Strom Thurmond comment? We’re out there defending the guy. The White House threw him overboard. All kinds of Republicans were throwing him overboard. Talk radio came to his defense. Trent Lott is now one of the engineers of the Senate immigration bill, the amnesty bill, and they’re trying to bring this thing back. The amendments are being kept under wraps. By the way, I understand Lindsey Grahamnesty, senator from South Carolina, is going to propose an amendment to build the border fence. (Laughing.) $4.4 billion! The government spends that much on rubber bands every year. Well, maybe not that much, but you get the point. Senator Lott is out there saying, ‘The problem with this is talk radio, and it’s a problem that’s going to have be dealt with.’ Now, what does that mean? When I hear a United States senator say that what I do for a living is a ‘problem’ that the government has to ‘deal with,’ you can interpret it any number of ways. He’s either saying, ‘Well, we’re going to have to come up with our own ways to overcome them,’ or, ‘We’re going to just have to wipe them out.’ What does it mean? The real question is: How are we going to deal with Trent Lott? What are we going to do about him?
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RUSH: I want to spend a little time here on Trent Lott’s comment that talk radio is running the country. What is talk radio? Talk radio is the greatest democratic forum in the country today. It is truly diverse. There are more ideas, there’s more back and forth, there’s more so-called diversity. There are all kinds of great things to say about it. Talk radio is the American voter. I bet most of the people who listen to talk radio are voters. That’s what bothers Trent Lott. Well, who should be running the country? I don’t mean making the day-to-day decisions, but go look at our founding documents, and all that jibber-jabba about governing with the consent of the governed. This is a battle between Washington and the people now. This amnesty bill, when you strip away all of the extraneous stuff this is a battle between Washington and the people, and they know it. So you got a Republican talking about talk radio the way liberals talk about talk radio, which tells you (it tells me) what the real objective of most elected officials in Washington is anyway. It’s to perpetuate themselves and their jobs and to spend money and maybe not — well, yes. It would be in that order. The reason talk radio is ‘running the country’ is because the people who are voters in this country are listening and involved and are passionate. Talk radio may be informing you, but it’s not making you a robot, and you’re taking action on your own, and these blowhards in Washington are hearing from you, the American people, and that’s what bothers them — and we are being blamed for you being informed, and that should tell you something.
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RUSH: Trent Lott: ‘Talk radio is running the country. We’re going to have to deal with that problem,’ he said. You need to really think about that. Well what is he talking about? The people that he’s actually complaining and whining about now are the ones that tried to defend him when everybody else was throwing him overboard when he made those joking comments at a tribute to Strom Thurmond. Folks, I want you to think of something. The notion that people freely expressing their opinions on radio is a ‘problem,’ should scare every one of us that loves liberty. The notion that people freely expressing their opinions in e-mails and phone calls to their elected representatives is a problem should scare every single person who loves liberty. This is the exact sort of thing — people expressing their opinions is a problem — that gave us McCain-Feingold, a government signed, government passed and the president signed assault on free speech, the First Amendment, during campaigns. Trent Lott is a Republican. He has thrown his hat in with John McCain on this because McCain defended him, too, during that episode.
You know, I was kind of surprised because Lott loves to stick it to President Bush any time he can because of the White House lack of support for Lott during the Strom Thurmond thing. So the bottom line here is that this is frightening stuff. I mean, it’s one thing to hear it from liberals and Democrats. We hear this from them all the time. But the idea that a Republican now joins this mind-set — and believe me, I don’t actually think he’s the only one. You’re good little voters when you sit out there and just shut up. Show up on Election Day. Send your money in. Send in your donations. But you’re getting uppity out there, folks, when you start telling them how to do their jobs. By the way, the latest Rasmussen poll — they’re still going to try to bring this thing back — 20% of the American people support the bill. Only 20% want this. Pure and simple, it’s only 20%. ‘They prefer smaller steps,’ this is a Rasmussen poll, ‘with the focus on enforcement.’ They’re working overtime to bring this back and get it done. Oh, you gotta listen to Dingy Harry here. This was this morning on the Senate floor. Listen to this.
REID: I also want to indicate to all senators and staffs, it’s Friday, and now I understand, Mr. President, we have indicated we might have to work weekends, and I know this causes a lot of distress to folks. But everyone should know that to complete this bill and to complete the immigration bill will require next weekend, without any question, next weekend, Saturday and Sunday.
RUSH: Aw!
REID: Senators should understand that this is the real thing.
RUSH: Awwww!
REID: If we’re going to finish these two bills, which both the Republican leader and I think is absolutely mandatory, essential, that senators should be advised that next Saturday and Sunday — which means the preceding Friday, which is a week from today and a week from Monday — we’ll have to be in session. We only have two weeks left in this work period, and I hope we don’t have to run into the Fourth of July recess period, which is only one week long.
RUSH: Awww, folks, they’re going to have to work weekends! Oh ho-ho! They might have to work weekends in order to get this done. Oh, how horrible. Maybe you could go out and hire some ‘illegal Americans,’ Dingy Harry, to do some of the staff work on weekends so that you don’t have to. I mean, you obviously don’t want to work weekends. A senator working on weekends is a job you don’t want to do. There are plenty of illegal Americans who will ‘do jobs that Americans don’t want to do.’ Hire them! Make them temps. Make them interns or whatever. Show them the inner workings of government, Dingy Harry, and bring ’em in and let ’em give you weekends off. They can certainly help. You know, it’s interesting. When one million illegals protest, they’re called ‘activists.’ When one million African-Americans protest or supposedly 19 million, or — yeah, one million (nineteen, that’s Calypso Louie) they’re called ‘activists.’ When presidential candidates go down to Selma to recreate a memorial, it’s activism. When millions of talk radio listeners protest, they’re called…what? A problem! They’re called a problem. Now, when 20 million talk radio listeners protest, that’s a problem. They’re a ‘problem’ that has to be ‘dealt with.’ So you see, ladies and gentlemen, will never be called activists.
People who get called activists, why, there’s virtue to activism! Why, there’s virtue to getting behind your cause and putting action behind the cause, and getting personally involved in it — and when you do it, it ain’t activism. No, it’s a problem. It’s a problem that has to be dealt with. I’ll tell you, I don’t think that they know. If they think they got deluged last time, they have no clue what’s going to happen after Trent Lott’s comments, and they start doing this stuff and bringing this stuff forward with amendments that have yet to be revealed, amendments that are being kept ‘under wraps,’ is the term right now. These elected officials think that they got heat before? I don’t think they realize what they’re going to get now, but keep in mind what Dianne Feinstein said. In her 15 years in the Senate, she’s never heard more racist, hate-filled commentary than on this issue, the phone calls and e-mails she got on this issue. So the effort to demonize you is on, and I think Lott was trying to do the same thing: demonize you. When you demonize talk radio you’re demonizing the audience of talk radio. You’re being demonized, and the reaction these people are going to have is, ‘Hey, look, it’s just a bunch of angry hotheads full of racism and bigotry, nativism, and so forth. We don’t have to listen to these people. We don’t have to listen to what they saying.’ That’s what’s being set up.
Now, this thing is going to come out in the Senate. They’re hell-bent on getting this done, and the White House put a lot of pressure on them, by the way. That’s the pressure that’s working on the Republicans. This is going to be a battle at a time, one battle at a time. If it wins passage in the Senate, you ought to prepare yourself for that. I wish it wouldn’t, don’t misunderstand, but it’s then going to go to the House and it’s going to get revved up all over again. The Senate may finish this before their precious July 4th recess, but the House isn’t. The target date on the part of the proponents to get this done is the fall, August, sometimes before the August recess or a little bit after that. So that’s really the time frame on this for the whole thing to get done. So even if it’s not stopped in the Senate — and I’m not giving up on that, don’t misunderstand. I’m just pointing out to you that it’s gotta go to the House next, and then if the procedures are followed, there’s a conference committee between the two, and it’s no sure bet in the House. A lot of House people don’t like it. Representatives are up for reelection every two years. Members of the House are far more attuned to the thoughts and opinions of their constituents than senators are, because senators are not reelected every other year. They’re reelected in six-year terms, as you know. You know all this.