OBAMA: Despite the fact that we are experiencing tough times here at home, I would encourage those Americans who want to support the urgent humanitarian efforts to go to WhiteHouse.gov where you can learn how to contribute. We’ll be resolute in our response, and I pledge to the people of Haiti that you will have a friend and partner in the United States of America today and going forward. May God bless the people of Haiti and those working on their behalf.
RUSH: So the country that he runs around the world apologizing for, the country that he has chip on his shoulder about, he now turns to as its president and asks people who have lost their jobs because of his policies to donate to WhiteHouse.gov to the people of Haiti, and we will do it. We are the most charitable and the most generous people on the face of the earth. Each and every time a natural disaster like this happens, we step up. We are there. ‘Despite the fact we’re experiencing tough times here at home, I would encourage those Americans who want to support the urgent humanitarian effort –‘ You know, I have been to Haiti way back a long time ago when it was a cruise ship stop, Port-au-Prince. And I’ve seen pictures of Haiti. It is a devastatingly poor place and nothing has ever changed. And right across a mountain ridge in the middle you’ve got the Dominican Republic, which is like night and day. It’s like night and day. And what’s the one common factor?
That place, Haiti, has been run by dictators and communists, and how long is it going to be before we hear Obama and the left in this country say that what we really need to do is reinstate the communist Aristide to the leadership position down there to coordinate putting the country back together? The Haitian economy is entirely dependent on foreign aid. They produce nothing. Zilch, zero, nada. And it’s been that way for the longest time. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who you will next hear, was on MSNBC Live this morning, and she essentially says that Haiti and its current plight is our fault. I knew it wouldn’t take long for some Democrat to get there. The question she was asked was this: ‘I want to know if you can put into perspective how difficult it is when you talk about there not being much infrastructure to begin with, how challenging that makes the relief effort now?’
RUSH: I could sit here and be really cynical. I’ll hold off on the cynicism for a couple hours, I’ll hold off on it. I’m going to hold off on it, give the show’s flow a chance to establish, ’cause it’s going to be the Media Tweak of the Day. I’ll wait ’til about 2:15 when they’re occupied with something else Obama is doing and then I’ll make my cynical comment. You know, Bill Clinton is the envoy to Haiti. I guess we’re thankful he wasn’t there. He sent his thoughts and prayers? You may not have remembered that, folks, but Obama made him the envoy. Did you not know that, Dawn? Well, that’s because he’s got experience of this kind, he’s called up the Arkansas National Guard before so he knows. He wasn’t there. We’re all very fortunate that Bill Clinton was not there in his official position as envoy. So here you have Debbie Wasserman Schultz. ‘It is wrong, especially in a region as prosperous as this one, to continue to allow the desperate situation that exists in Haiti to continue.’ So it’s our fault, it’s our fault that Haiti is in its current state of devastation. We should take it over, we should do something, annex it, make it a state. Imperialism, yeah, make it a state, take it over.
No word from Cuba about aid. They’re not sending anything. They don’t have anything. You say Hugo is going to send 30 people and some supplies? All right, well, good for him. Now, here are some facts about Haiti. It’s one-third of the island of Hispaniola. It’s in the Caribbean located between Cuba and Puerto Rico, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Eighty percent of the residents live in poverty. It’s one of the most densely populated, least developed countries in the Western hemisphere, and of course this, according to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is our fault. Jean-Claude Duvalier declared himself president for life in 1964 and ruled as a dictator. In August of 1971 he died, and his son declared himself president for life. He used a secret police force called the Tontons Macoutes, which is bogeyman, to enforce his policies. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the communist in December 1991, Haiti’s first free election. And in ’91 Aristide was outed in a military coup. He fled the country. The Organization of American States and United Nations led trade boycotts to try to force Aristide’s return to power.
Many Haitians tried to flee to the US. They were forced back to Haiti. Later the refugees were sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In September of 1994, President Clinton, now the envoy to Haiti, sent a delegation there in hopes of avoiding a military conflict. He sent President Carter, General Powell, and Senator Sam Nunn. The peace deal does prevent an outbreak of fighting. And what happened was Colin Powell went in there and he took one of these military leaders — I forget the guy’s name. (interruption) It might be General Cedras. Yeah, I think it was. What a memory you’ve got there, H.R. General Cedras. He took General Cedras over to a window in this decrepit room and building they were in. He said, ‘General, you see this window? Ten minutes after we leave this building, I can have a missile fired and hit right through this window.’ That’s when General Powell was still a Republican and was not making the top 100 liberal lists in British newspapers.
I did not know until I looked this up, February 24th of 2004: ‘Reverend Al Sharpton, US presidential candidate, states that both Aristide and the political opposition leaders approved his suggestion to travel to Haiti to broker a peace agreement, after the former US-backed peace plan was rejected by the opposition leaders.’ On February 28th, four days later, ‘Secretary of State Colin Powell urges Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down, according to senior State Department officials. Aristide reaffirms his stance on his position; he will not leave until his term expires in 2006.’ Aristide’s a communist. Now, I do think that part and parcel of helping out down there, it won’t be long before somebody in the Obama administration suggests that we reinstate, reinstall Aristide, because there’s sympathy with these kind of people. So we’ll keep a sharp eye on this, but I’m just fascinated here the country the president of the United States feels the need to apologize for, the country the president of the United States feels is immoral and unjust, can barely contain himself running to the cameras in less than 24 hours after this earthquake to pledge aid and to ask citizens who have lost their jobs because of his policies to donate to the relief effort.
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RUSH: Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen — in the words of Rahm Emanuel — we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama’s hands. He’s humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this to burnish their, shall we say, ‘credibility’ with the black community — in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It’s made-to-order for them. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.
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RUSH: President Obama, folks, cites in his book Dreams from My Father, page 293, the passages of Wright’s Audacity to Hope speech that most inspired him, what Reverend Wright said. This is one of the things Wright said that most inspired Obama: ‘In this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere, that’s the world on which hope sits.’ That’s a Reverend Wright statement Obama was most inspired by, in his own book.
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RUSH: We’re going to start in Raleigh, North Carolina. Justin you’re first today. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Mega Rush Baby dittos. My question is, why did Obama in the sound bite you played earlier, when he’s talking about if you wanted to donate some money, you can go to WhiteHouse.gov —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — to direct you how to do so. If I want to donate money to the Red Cross, why do I need to go to the WhiteHouse.gov page and —
RUSH: Exactly. Would you trust that the money is going to go to Haiti?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Would you trust that your name is going to end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Absolutely right.
CALLER: That’s the point.
RUSH: Besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the US income tax.
CALLER: Rush, my mother was going to be on a missionary trip. She was going to leave at 4:30 this morning to go to Haiti with our church.
RUSH: That’s another point, too. Churches —
CALLER: No government money, Rush.
RUSH: Exactly right. Look, there are people that do charitable work every day in Haiti. It’s not as though — like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, it’s our fault. Reverend Wright, it’s our fault, there’s no excuse for such poverty when there’s a nation as rich as we are so close. There are people that have been trying to save Haiti just as we’re trying to save Africa. You just can’t keep throwing money at it because the dictatorships there just take it all. They don’t spread it around, and even if they did they’re not creating a permanent system where people can provide for themselves. It’s a simple matter of self-reliance. Nobody takes that approach down there because this has always been a country run by dictators and incompetent ones at that.
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RUSH: Carol from Coupeville — hope I’m pronouncing that right — Coupeville, Washington. Is that right, Carol?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Is it Coupeville, Washington?
CALLER: Yes, Coupeville, Washington.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Formally from Sacramento.
RUSH: Oh, good. Well, my adopted hometown. Were you there when I was there?
CALLER: Yes. In fact, when we signed our house papers, I looked up at a billboard across the street and it had a picture of somebody’s mouth and said: ‘Rush Limbaugh’s mouth, actual size.’ And I’ve been a fan ever since.
RUSH: (laughing) Giant billboard, ‘Rush Limbaugh’s mouth, actual size.’ Well, welcome to the program, Carol, great to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: Is that what you wanted to say, about the billboard?
CALLER: No. I wanted to say that I thought that since President Obama said he was going to donate his money from the Nobel Peace Prize to charity, Haiti would be perfect, you know, and he’s calling for us to donate money. This would be a perfect thing for him to donate his charitable money to, which I don’t believe.
RUSH: Did he say he was going to donate the Nobel Peace Prize? What is that, a thousand, 700 dollars or some such?
CALLER: No, it’s a million.
RUSH: That’s right, it’s a million dollars. I wonder if he’s donated it all yet.
CALLER: What do you bet?
RUSH: Well, you know most presidents release their tax returns. We’ll see. We’ll see it at (interruption) what’s so funny?
CALLER: Well, I think he’s phony. When he was over in Hawaii —
RUSH: Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something, Carol. You realize he’s got this brother living in a hut —
CALLER: Yes, I know.
RUSH: — over in Kenya, and this guy makes the equivalent of 50 cents a year. If Obama would give this guy $20, I mean the percentage increase, $20 would be like giving an average person a thousand.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: And if he hasn’t given his brother any money or any of his family any money, what makes you think he’s going to send money to Haiti?
CALLER: I never thought he was anyway. I just thought it would be good to call him on it.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you did and I’m glad you called, Carol. Thanks very much. I had somebody go to WhiteHouse.gov to see what the donation process is. And this is all the guidance you get on donating to Haiti at the White House site. What I’m going to read to you is buried in a very long blog post about what Obama said about the earthquake. You get that first, you gotta read what Obama said, the maximum leader, you gotta read what he says and then you get to the bottom and here’s what it says. ‘You can also help, immediately, by donating to the Red Cross to assist the relief effort. Contribute online here, or donate $10 to be charged to your cell phone bill by texting Haiti. Find more ways to help through the Center for International Disaster Information.’ So that’s all the guidance you get. Now, that’s pretty easy, text Haiti and you’re gonna get billed for ten bucks and that money ostensibly is going to go to Haiti.