RUSH: I need to step back a couple of steps, maybe a step and a half, on John Boehner, ’cause he was good yesterday on Fox about the upcoming Department of Homeland Security shutdown. And I kind of raked — I didn’t rake Boehner. I raked the Senate Republicans over the coals last week about this, and it was somewhat justified.
I have to walk it back a little bit, because it’s actually, as I said last week, and I doubt anybody’s gonna remember, but it really is the Senate Democrats who are willing to shut down DHS over this. The Senate Republicans’ problem is that they don’t apparently even have the guts to say that. This is all about the budget in December and all about trying to stop Obama’s executive amnesty on illegal immigration by not funding the parts of the Department of Homeland Security that are necessary for it to implement.
The House has done its job, and the Senate Republicans are sitting on it out of the usual fear, even though they’re the majority. You know there were some people that had a theory last fall, and I kind of pooh-poohed some of them, but they may have had a point. There might have been some Republicans who did not actually want to win last September because they didn’t want the pressure of being in the majority while being in the minority.
Meaning, the majority in the Senate but the Republican Party’s the minority given that they own the White House. And there were some people running around, “You know, the Republicans really don’t want to win the Senate this year.” I said, “Well, they better not punt, because if they don’t win it this year, there’s a less of a likelihood they’ll win it in 2016 in the presidential turnout year.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me straighten something up here. I need you to go out and find audio sound bite 16 and 17 as well. Last week we kind of dumped on the Senate Republicans here over the lack of effort on their part to support the House in its effort to defund the Department of Homeland Security, the areas of that department necessary to fund Obamacare’s executive amnesty.
The House has passed a bill, they’ve sent it over to the Senate, and the Senate Republicans say, “Well, we can’t get enough Democrats to join us, and we can’t pass the bill as it exists, we gotta send it back to the House.” At which point Boehner said, “No, no, no, no, we have done our job here; you do yours.” And that began a debate, does Mitch McConnell really want to do this? Does he really want to be the Senate Republican leader, because the House did send them a bill that would defund the Department of Homeland Security areas that would fund, pay for Obama’s implementation of executive amnesty.
And what has happened here is, Boehner went on Fox News Sunday yesterday to explain this and let’s just get to the sound bites real quick. Chris Wallace interviewed him, and he said, “Can you promise the American people, with the terror threat only growing, that you are not gonna allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security to run out?” See, we’re back to the same old ball game here. Republicans equal government shutdown. This is not a government shutdown. It’s not a shutdown of the full Department of Homeland Security. It’s simply a defunding of the small element of it that would fund Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty.
It would have no impact on terrorism. It would have no impact on hurting the Department of Homeland Security’s fight against terrorism, which, by the way, there isn’t any, according to Obama. So what’s the big deal? There isn’t any terrorism. It’s just a bunch of random people out there beheading others, just like street criminals. Just random. But nevertheless the House has passed a bill that would defund a small portion of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Senate claims that they can’t get enough Democrats to support them, and therefore they can’t get 60 votes, they can’t get the cloture, and so the House has to come back with a different bill that would get Democrat support. The only bill that would do that would be to do nothing and let Obama get his amnesty paid for. So here’s Boehner answering Chris Wallace’s question, again, “Can you promise the American people, with the terror threat only growing out there, that you are not going to allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security to run out?”
BOEHNER: The House has done its job under the Constitution. It’s time for the Senate to do their job. Listen, I’ve got a tough job here. So does Senator McConnell. But Senate Democrats are the ones standing in the way; they’re the ones jeopardizing funding. Why don’t they get on the bill and offer an amendment, offer their ideas. Let’s see what the Senate can do.
WALLACE: And what if the Department of Homeland Security funding runs out?
BOEHNER: Well, then Senate Democrats should be to blame, very simply.
WALLACE: And you’re prepared to let that happen?
BOEHNER: Certainly. The House has acted. We’ve done our job.
RUSH: Well, see. I mean, we’ve heard this before, and at the last moment the Republicans don’t want to deal with the media cacophony that they have made the country more dangerous, placed it at greater risk because they have shut down — nobody’s talking — I don’t know how we ever get ahead of this. We can’t even get an honest portrayal of what this is about. Nobody wants to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security has plenty of money if it doesn’t get any for a couple of months.
There isn’t a single government agency that can’t function. There’s more money in this federal government, there’s more money allocated than these people can possibly spend. They have to concoct asinine ways to spend it, like advertising for new food stamp users. I’ve gotten to the point, I’m just so righteously indignant and offended at the very idea that our government could ever run out of money when we’ve got a printing press, for crying out loud. Printed three and a half trillion dollars over seven years and flooded Wall Street with it.
It’s the same old “gotcha” business with the Republicans being blamed for it. What we have here is a proposition on the table. I’ll tell you what Boehner’s talking about. We have a proposition on the table to defund a tiny portion of the Department of Homeland Security. The Democrats are opposed. The media running around claiming the Republicans are shutting down the Department of Homeland Security. Boehner said, and he’s right, it’s the Democrats. We passed a bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security.
See, here’s what happens. This is an important point that I neglected to mention. The whole department is funded in this bill, but if the Democrats do not agree to limit the funding for these small areas, then the whole department does go without money for a while, additional funding. But even then there’s no shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security does not close down. The workers do not go home. And they don’t come back for their Thanksgiving turkey next December. There is no shutdown being contemplated here.
But Boehner’s right. And that is that if the money is shut off, it’s the Democrats that are doing it. The Republicans are faced with the same old question. Do they want to rely on the media to report that aspect of the story? And the Republican view is, the media will not report that aspect of the story, that the media will continue to blame the Republicans for it.
In fact, here’s a story in TheHill.com, and this is from the “let’s cave” chorus in the Senate. That’s the name that we’ve given the Republicans, the “let’s cave” chorus.
“Republicans are getting pummeled in the messaging wars amid an escalating standoff over Homeland Security funding. In interviews with The Hill, centrist Republicans are conceding that their party — not the Democrats — will be blamed if the critical agency shuts down at the end of the month. If that were to happen, it would echo the Ted Cruz-led government shutdown of 2013 and the Newt Gingrich-led shutdowns.”
No, it wouldn’t. This is all lies. This is totally made up and concocted. If there is a shutdown of the Homeland Security — there are 230,000 employees there. If there is this so-called shutdown, it means that 30,000 will stay home, and 200,000 of the 230,000 employees will still go to work. There is no shutdown. And yet, here’s TheHill.com saying no difference than what Ted Cruz wanted to do last December, no different than what Newt Gingrich did in 1995.
At some point the cycle is gonna have to be broken, and they’re never gonna break it by caving to it. They are never gonna break this cycle by caving to it. At some point this blackmail has got to be stopped, and blackmail is what this is. The media and the Democrats threatening the Republicans: if you don’t pass this bill the way we want, we’re gonna blame you for the shutdown of the department or the shutdown of the government. That’s blackmail.
At some point this has got to be shut down, this whole tactic and this technique has got to be stopped. And, frankly, I’m a little thin on patience for people that want to say, “Well, God, we can’t, Rush, ’cause you know what the media will say about us?” I’m not in politics, but if that were my attitude here I would have closed the doors on the EIB Network in 1992. If I would have said, “My God, if I can’t get a fair shake from what the media is gonna do, I’m gonna have to tailor what I do to what they’re gonna –” the EIB Network would have shut down.
Now, I know this isn’t politics. I’ve made the point that I’m aware of the difference, I’ve made that clear over the years, meaning I’m not equating how I do things here with their business in elective politics, but I do recognize blackmail when I see it. And blackmail is blackmail. If you keep paying it, the blackmailer is gonna keep demanding it, and it’s gotten to the point this is nothing more than media, Democrat Party blackmail. It’s either the government shutdown, which is the biggie, or it’s the War on Women.
Every damn one of these blackmail items is designed to get the Republican Party to cave on what it traditionally has believed. It’s designed to get the Republican Party to cave to the Democrat wishes of the day, the president’s wishes of the day, and they do, rather than stand up to it. They tell us we’ll get ’em the next time, we’ll get ’em the next time the budget comes up, we’re gonna really soak ’em. And it never happens. The blackmail continues to be paid.
So that’s why credit to Boehner for at least going on Fox News yesterday, Fox News Sunday and explaining it isn’t us. The Democrats are the people standing in the way of funding the Department of Homeland Security. And, by the way, why shouldn’t they have to be responsible for this? There is a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The Democrats are the ones that won’t support it. Why can’t that just be reported straight up and down? Of course it never will be, because the media’s the media being who they are, what they are, and how they do things. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t get that story out.
Here’s the next Boehner sound bite. Chris Wallace said, “When you talk with Ron Dermer about inviting Netanyahu, you told him specifically not to tell the White House. Why would you do that, sir?”
BOEHNER: Because I wanted to make sure that there was no interference. There’s no secret here in Washington about the animosity that this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu. I, frankly, didn’t want them getting in the way and quashing what I thought was a real opportunity.
RUSH: He didn’t tell the White House he was inviting Netanyahu because he knew the White House would scuttle it or corrupt it or poison it somehow. He wants Netanyahu to speak, and do you know why? It’s all about a nuclear Iran. It’s all about a nuclear Iran and Netanyahu seems to be the only world leader willing to speak up forcefully against that. The president of the United States will not. So, if we have to import a leader to speak before the US Congress and on American soil about it, I guess that’s what we have to do.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One of the things to observe here is that the Democrats in the Senate refusing to sign this bill, or to vote for it, refusing to vote for the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, I mean, you could say, and you can say it pretty accurately, that the Democrats are willing to put our country at risk in order to preserve the opportunity for Obama to give illegal aliens work permits and Social Security numbers and voter registration cards. That’s what this all adds up to.
The Democrats have two options: protect the country against terrorism or allow illegal aliens into the country with work cards and voter registration cards, and guess which one they’re choosing? Maintain the option for Obama to grant amnesty, and all that that means. That’s the option they’re choosing, and therefore putting the country at greater risk. I say that with a caveat, ’cause I’m not even sure that we need the department of Homeland. We didn’t even have the Department of Homeland Security until 9/11 and we got a brand-new bureaucracy out of that.
“Well, Rush, look what happened? 9/11 happened, and we didn’t know it in advance. That’s right, we got hit, we got hit big time. We need a new agency to make sure it doesn’t happen again, Rush.” And that was the excuse for starting Department of Homeland Security. The government grows and grows and grows and grows, and what do we get? Little old ladies wanded, scanned for bombs and weapons under their skirts next to the incontinence diapers. A bunch safer.
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