RUSH: Ed in Leesburg, Virginia, welcome to the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I’m calling in reference to, I guess the first young man you talked to today about the congressman in Texas.
RUSH: Joe Barton, right.
CALLER: The shakedown. He was a young man, and I’m an old man. I’m 74 years old. I’m a former CEO of a company. And I’m a former combat Marine. And I give a lot of money to the Republican Party. I was an eagle for many years, which you have to give 20,000 to be an eagle.
RUSH: I know what the eagles are.
CALLER: Okay. And I am very upset by the fact that the way the minority whip and leader — and you asked the young man why the congressman came back and apologized. He came back and apologized because the whip and the leader were gonna take his seat away from him on the commission that he sits on. And they threatened to take his seat away. So that’s why he apologized. I think that was the wrong thing to do. I don’t usually do this, but I call both the leader and the Republican Party’s and I couldn’t talk to them, so I left them messages with their secretaries and I gave them my number to call me back. They’ve never called me back. I also called the congressman in Texas and thanked him for what he did: Standing up like a true Republican should stand up for what they believe in.
RUSH: What did they tell you when you called his office and said that?
CALLER: They just said that they would relay the message.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: What I would like to see is more people call their congressmen and get behind the guy from Texas, because what he said was exactly right. I might not have put it in the terms that he said it, but if you decipher the words, they’re exactly what happened. He said he wasn’t apologizing for what BP did, but he was apologizing for the way the CEO and the chairman were treated with the shakedown by a president of our country. You know, all over the world that doesn’t look good because the next time it could happen to us in another country.
RUSH: Well, it does. I know. Look, in addition to the reasons you give a why Barton went ahead and apologized, why the Republicans wanted him to, is they didn’t want the Democrats to have a campaign commercial with a Republican being portrayed as siding with a corporation polluting the Gulf of Mexico. That’s what they were afraid of, and the sad fact is that the 50 years of tarnishing the image of corporations in general — berating them as anti-American, anti-citizen, anti-human being — has taken hold. A lot of people think American corporations are the enemies of the people. Would that they could be made to understand that this current regime is the enemy of the people. But that’s not the case with a majority of Americans right now. So it was, I think, a self-protecting reaction or mechanism that they had, and that’s why they went to Barton and demanded that he retract his apology to the BP people.
You can look at the polling data out there and see. Look, we’ve been through this with a couple of other callers today, and I’m torn, too. I agree with you a hundred percent. I would love for people to stand up to this regime. I do! I know. I was just going to say, ‘I do,’ but – my business doesn’t require votes. And the regime has targeted me. The regime has targeted my industry. The regime has targeted my show. Now, getting audience is not the same as getting votes. It’s a whole different, whole different matter, Snerdley. The countryside is strewn with the carcasses of media people who thought they’d get elected based on media popularity or even polarization. The point is the president’s targeted my industry. He’s targeted me personally.
I do not apologize for anything I say about this regime, but apparently politics is a different world, and I don’t pretend to want to be part of that world — you know, to have to make these political calculations as to what to say, what not to say, when not to say what not to say and when to say what to say. I couldn’t live that way. Which is why I don’t think I could ever successfully run for office. I also couldn’t do it because of all the people want their hands in to have a hand in policy. They give you money and expect to have some control over what you think and what you say. It’s a tough job. It really is. But Barton was following his instincts. In fact, let’s go to the audio sound bite. Grab sound bite 16. Let’s go in order here. This is Barton last Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill during the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, an oversight and investigations hearing into the oil spill. Barton, this is a portion of what he said.
BARTON: If anything I said this morning has been misconstrued, in an opposite effect, umm, you know, I want to, uh, to apologize for that misconstrue– uh, misconstruction.
RUSH: Misconstruction. Now, here’s Feinberg. This is this morning on MSNBC, The Daily Rundown with F. Chuck Todd talking to the BP compensation fund administrator: Ken Feinberg. F. Chuck said, ‘Who do you answer to at the end of the day? You answer to BP? You answer to the government? You really believe you answer to nobody?’
FEINBERG: I answer to the people in the Gulf. This was set up as an independent facility. I do not answer to the administration; I most certainly do not answer to BP. I answer to the people who have to file claims in order to get paid, and that’s the test of whether or not I’ve done this job correctly.
RUSH: Okay, so, he doesn’t work for Obama — and we’re supposed to believe this. This is like the commander of a Red Army submarine saying, ‘No, I don’t work for Khrushchev! I work for the people of mother Russia.’ It’s hard to believe it. MSNBC same show, Chuck Todd then said, ‘When you run out on the $20 billion’ slush fund… Uhh, ‘When you run out of the $20 billion, what’s the procedure in place for you to get it? Do you have to make a case? Do you have to bring claims with you to BP to say, ‘Look, I have another $15 billion here, write the check’? How does it work?
FEINBERG: Based on my understanding — and you’ll have to ask BP and the president, or the administration. My understanding is a call for funds by the independent facility will be immediately honored.
RUSH: Wait a second! I thought he was the last straw. I thought he was the last authority. He sat up here and he said, ‘I answer to the people in the Gulf. This was set up as an independent facility. I do not answer to the administration; I most certainly do not answer to BP.’ Okay, you run out of the 20 million, then what do you do? ‘Well, based on my understanding, you’ll have to ask BP and the president, the administration. My understanding is a call for funds by the independent facility [that’s me] would be immediately honored.’ Okay, we’ll wait for that. There is alluding to the fact… Essentially Feinberg is saying the buck stops with him and doesn’t know how he gets the bucks. ‘Yeah, I’m Kenneth Feinberg! I’m independent! The buck stops with me, even though I don’t know how to get the bucks. I don’t know if I gotta go to BP to get the bucks, I don’t know if you gotta go to Obama or the administration to get the bucks, but believe me: Wherever I have to go to get the bucks, the buck stops with me.’ They must really think we’re fools. They really, really must think we’re idiots. Sadly they maybe right about some people. Then the next question, the next question when he’s asked how he asks for more money, he says: Ask the president. Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America. ‘I read this report about a New Orleans strip club that says they’re losing business because the fishermen don’t have money to pay ’em anymore. Could they file a legitimate claim?’
FEINBERG: If somebody claims in your example of a strip club that they received financial injury as a result of the spill, what would the courts of New Orleans say or the courts of Louisiana say —
STEPHANOPOULOS: What would they say?
FEINBERG: — about the legitimacy of that claim?
STEPHANOPOULOS: What would they say?
FEINBERG: Uh, I’m dubious. I’m dubious about that claim. I’m very dubious about that claim.
RUSH: Uh, really? Okay, so you got a strip club which is open to fishermen and others whose lives are affected by the spill and who now have no income, disposable or other kind. So they want to make a claim on the 20 billion and Feinberg says, ‘I have no idea; I gotta wait for the courts.’ I thought the buck stopped with you! Now he’s bringing the courts into this in addition to do BP and Obama. Here’s Eric Holder last Thursday in Washington, Department of Justice. He held a press conference.
HOLDER: Let me be clear. I — I don’t apologize for the justice deputy’s role, umm, in this matter, and I don’t apologize for the way in which this administration has approached this question.
RUSH: All right. There you have it. So he’s not apologizing for being at the shakedown table. Eric Holder is proud to be at the shakedown. Gotta love these guys.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I went out — well, I didn’t go out, but I sent out yesterday, I had some shrimp, went out there for some shrimp scampi, diet shrimp scampi. And I was told the shrimp cost a whole lot more than it did last week. Now, I’ve been injured here. Can I file a claim with Feinberg ’cause the shrimp here in Palm Beach costs a little bit more? I’m sure it’s ’cause of the oil spill. I mean I’ve been harmed here. Shrimp is more expensive. Can I file a claim with Feinberg when gasoline prices go up? And they will, after the election.
I want to go back to this moratorium lawsuit that’s being brought by the oil companies for a second. According to the AP, the judge, Martin Feldman, the Reagan appointee, asked a government lawyer, this is a very sensible question, the judge, ‘asked a government lawyer why the Interior Department decided to suspend deepwater drilling after the rig explosion when it didn’t bar oil tankers from Alaskan waters after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 or take similar actions in the wake of other industrial accidents.’ It seems like a very sensible question. In fact, you could almost ask, ‘Are you allowing tankers in the Gulf to deliver oil to places?’ And the government lawyer’s reply was this: ‘The Deepwater Horizon blowout was a game-changer. It really illustrates the risks that are inherent in deepwater drilling.’ Which is BS. The government lawyer did not really have a good answer. Well, wait a minute. If you’re banning drilling, what about banning tankers? In fact, a tanker accident is riskier than a rig accident. So we’ll see.
And here from TheHill.com: ‘Ken Feinberg, newly tapped to oversee the oil spill compensation fund, said on Sunday that he’s under strict orders to ‘get these claims paid, get them paid quickly.’ The man in charge of the $20 billion escrow account appeared in an exclusive interview on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’ and encouraged individuals affected by the Gulf Coast crisis to file claims as soon as possible.’ Now, if this guy is totally independent, how can Obama order him to do anything? And the headline here: ‘Feinberg Ordered by Obama to Get BP Claims Paid ‘Quickly.” But I thought Feinberg was independent. Well, clearly he is not. Feinberg says the buck stops with him, and he doesn’t even know how to get the bucks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: From CNNMoney.com: ‘Mortgage borrowers hurt by the Gulf oil spill may qualify for temporary relief from paying their mortgages, without fear of losing their homes.’ Well, of course. Why not? There’s a few more million in losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when we taxpayers are funneling the cash in, your government loves you so much, if you’re an oil spill victim, you get a break on your mortgage payment. I want to know who’s going to pay me the difference in the cost of shrimp last week to two months ago, ’cause it’s skyrocketing. Who’s going to help me?