JASON: News just a couple of hours ago that the FDA has recommended that the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine be paused — be paused — due to blood clots. Now, just to make certain, to be totally objective, something lost on the mainstream… I hate that word “mainstream media.” It’s not even mainstream media.

They ought to be reporting their news stories on the FEC as campaign contributions. That’s where the gaslighting has become so pronounced. That really is the difference between the Reagan era and the Trump era. Reagan never, never had to deal with… He had to deal with Sam Donaldson, but he didn’t have to deal with basically the masquerade or activist posing as journalist on the nightly news, where every story was basically a slant to promote a narrative — a false one, but a narrative.

Trump had to deal with that. They gaslighted everything from the Russian collusion to covid to, you name it. And that’s very, very difficult thing to get over because most people don’t drill down. They see the top-of-the-hour or the top-of-the-fold headlines or the anchorman/anchorwoman leading… Well, in CNN’s case, anchorman.

Apparently they don’t hire too many women, according to Brooke Baldwin, or hire too many women in management positions according to Brooke Baldwin, which is a hoot, really. The misogynists at CNN giving you the straight scoop. What a joke. Point being I don’t want to be alarmist here because six women out of the millions who got the J&J vaccine developed blood clots six to 13 days afterward.

So they’re not banning. They’re making a recommendation of a pause to states. Now, frankly, this gets to this vaccine passport. This gets to the mandate. It gets to all the things that are attacking liberty when it comes to the covid lockdown, the mandated masks, you name it. And once again we are seeing that the experts have no clothes. These are the same people that told you to go to Chinatown, that China was being on the up and up.

That it came from a bat. Don’t have a travel ban. They were so wrong; so often. These are the same people that locked down the kids in elementary school while they infected the elderly in New York nursing homes. By the way, I would add Michigan nursing homes, Minnesota nursing homes. All these congregated living facilities that were deliberately infected with covid-positive patients.

All of those governors have disqualified themselves not only for public service, but maybe for… Well, you decide whether charges are brought forward. The point here is the public experts are not experts at all. And now they’re telling you, “You must get this vaccine.” Personally, I’m not against vaccines. In fact, there is an argument here I want to put forward before we get to the next Rush clip on this.

And that is, instead of saying, “Gee, I told you so,” the J&J single dose, which is much easier and is the only way to make certain we get to immunity if you want to get there via vaccine instead of herd immunity naturally — which we are fast approaching. But what happens if the schemers want to remove J&J (there’s a huge vaccine gap just left with the two-shot approach from AstraZeneca and Moderna; you can’t vaccinate everybody) as a pretext to keep the lockdowns going?

The lockdowns that have done so much to enrich certain Big Tech companies, to enrich Democrat governors, to enrich all of the people that are promoting the lockdown. Instead of thinking it’s, “Oh, another conspiracy! They’re trying to get to us take a dangerous vaccine,” maybe they’re deliberately holding this thing back so, Well, we can’t vaccinate everybody. Now we gotta continue the lockdowns.”

Rush talked about this and the swine flu approach versus covid. Let’s run audio clip 8.

RUSH: Our enemies, our geopolitical enemies around the world have got to be watching this in stunned disbelief at how easy this is or has been. For me, folks, it’s unbelievable to watch this. Not just the level of panic, but the lemming-like attachment to it that happened almost at breakneck speed and continues.

(interruption) I know the swine flu… (interruption) People are shouting, “The swine flu!” at me. The big difference is the media didn’t talk about it in 2009. CNN? After 1,000 people died, CNN still hadn’t made it a front-page lead item! Ditto the New York Times. Much less was there any criticism of Barack Hussein O over it. I continue to watch all this in almost disbelief. The Democrat Party? The Democrats have been running around talking…

You’ve heard it! “Trump is an authoritarian! Trump is a dictator! Trump is a mean-spirited idiot. Trump’s this or that.” Now, here’s a tweet from Chris Murphy, senator from Connecticut. “Why have an executive branch if it isn’t willing to lead at a time like this? All of these decisions to cancel events and close schools or postpone opening days have been made by state, local, and private sector leaders. Why is everybody else leading except for the president?”

So the president is exhibiting federalism. (laughing) He’s not an authoritarian. He’s not a dictator. He’s not ordering sports leagues to shut down. They’re letting ’em decide on their own, and the Democrats are mad at him for not being a dictator! They’re mad at him for not being an authoritarian. These people can’t see straight. They can’t be consistent if their lives depended on it.

So, Mr. Murphy, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but you have inadvertently here blown up your party’s entire narrative that Donald Trump is a dictator and authoritarian by complaining that he’s not being dictator-like nor authoritarian enough. Can you believe it? (grumbling) “We have all these sports leagues shutting down and schools. Why isn’t Trump ordering it be done?”

They’re now trying to say Trump’s lazy. He’s not even attached, he’s not even doing his job. He doesn’t even know what’s going on because everybody’s having to take over their own businesses and lives and make their own decisions. It’s called federalism, Mr. Murphy, where all meaningful control happens at the most local level of it, where people are most directly involved.

It’s the way our government was set up, sir. We don’t have a monarchy or dictatorship. We don’t have direct democracy. People are not stupid, Mr. Murphy. When they have the facts, they do just fine. The problem is, there is such a shortage of real fact about this that it’s frightening.

JASON: Yeah, the overreaction to all of this is deliberate. I mean, let’s be honest. The way you get the people to do what you want is to scare the hell out of ’em. And that’s why there’s a War on Poverty and a War on Terrorism and a war on this and a war on that. Now it’s a war on covid. We’re all frightened. We’re scared. We’ll do anything. But I’ll tell you, Rush’s take on Phil Murphy out in New Jersey? This guy is… (laughing)

I mean, he gives smarmy a bad name. This guy is the worst. And let me tell you something. Governor Murphy should be investigated for what he’s done to congregated living centers and putting covid positive patients in nursing homes just like Governor Walz should be, just like Cuomo is. These people mismanaged this thing to the point of, quite frankly, resulting in people dying in longtime living facilities, nursing homes.

Now the authorities are admitting, “Well, without the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the next weeks, we will have massive delays in the two-shot vaccine. We’re just gonna have to keep the lockdown going!” Maybe instead of an “I told you so! These vaccines are dangerous; they’re gonna hurt us,” maybe it’s the flip side we ought to be worried about: We’re getting too close.

When you add in the natural immunity (which is in the millions that is going unreported) plus the vaccine immunity, there’s no reason we can’t be opened up tomorrow. That’s the last thing the governor of Michigan wants. It’s the last thing the governor of Minnesota, the governor of New Jersey, the governor of California, the last thing any Democrat wants.

So we delay the vaccine and, voila, right? Frankly, I don’t care whether it’s vaccines or masks or lockdowns. We’ve got to get back to first principles here, and for you lawyers out there you’ll recognize this little phrase, but it’s called “assumption of risk,” and we need to apply the assumption of risk. If I choose to go mountain climbing, if I choose to jump on my neighbor’s trampoline, I assume the risk.

And if I get hurt or sick, I can’t sue ’em, ’cause I voluntarily consented. And consent is a huge aspect of the common law. Well, you know what? We need to apply a little bit of that towards this, like the way we’ve done with previous pandemics. If you’re really, really afraid of this thing, which has been overhyped — over 99% of the people have literally no chance of going to the hospital, let alone dying.

But if you’re really afraid of it, don’t go out.

Quarantine yourself.

If you’re really worried about it, wear 13 masks. They’ll look good on you. If you’re worried about it, get a vaccine. But when it comes to government edict and mandate, don’t you dare tell me or my family what to do or the rest of your neighborhood. If you’re that worried, you can take steps; you can avoid the assumption of risk. The rest of us understand that risk is a part of living — and we’re going on with our lives.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

JASON: We continue the excursion into broadcast excellence here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. I am talk show host formerly known as Congressman Jason Lewis. Glad to be guiding you away today as we relish and enjoy Rush’s wit and wisdom over the years with regard to all things — foreign policy, domestic policy, economics, you name it. And certainly in the cause of liberty, which brings us to covid. But,

You know, this J&J delay, it’s interesting. Remember this. Now, there’s a couple of interesting facets here you need to think about. In pandemics past, right? I don’t care whether it was H1N1, 2009, ’68 had a horrible flu season, Eisenhower had a horrible one ’57 I think it was. We’re talking like 30, 40 million people getting the flu.

If you take a look at obviously the Spanish flu, there was no quarantine like there is today; there were in lockdowns, because the government thought its policy and its role was to make recommendations, not mandates. So we advise you to get a vaccine. We advise you to stay home. We advise to you wear a mask. But there shall be no mandate to do it because there is no pandemic exception to the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution isn’t suspended because a virus lands here. Never has been. Now, on the vaccine, the FDA hours ago said, “We recommend the states pause.” They’re not mandating or telling the states, “We recommend.” So why is it they issue recommendations on vaccinations, letting the states determine, but state and federal government officials want mandates on your personal liberty?

There ought to be recommendations, period, and let adults choose what they should do. (laughing) That’s what’s lost in this. But, by the way, friends, that’s why liberals love this. It is almost as good as climate change in scaring the bejeebers out of people so you can tell them what to do. That is the goal of liberalism.

That has always been the goal of liberalism — and if you think they’re serious about it, think again. When we had the chaos and the riots a year and a… Not even that. A year ago, right? The same epidemiologists and health care providers and medical student around the country that said you have to stay locked down, gave an exemption to the rioters.

Quote, “As public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for covid transmission because white supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to covid-19.” Are you kidding me? These are the people now telling you how to handle covid. Stay in your home, don’t go out, ruin your business, isolate your child to the point of mental health issues.

But if you’re a rioter, have at it!

We’re supposed to take these people seriously? This is why they love it. Oh, not to mention the $5.7 trillion we’ve done to bankrupt the next generation in covid relief bills. A spending orgy here, folks, not to mention another $2.5 trillion for “infrastructure.” All of these are made possible because we’ve gotta do this in the name of covid. These are solutions in search of a problem.

Let me tell you, the fallout’s coming. We’re starting to see escalating prices in raw materials. Producer prices went up 1%. If inflation rears its ugly head and the bond vigilantes come up and interest rates spike, the free party, the free lunch is over, and we’re going to have a sovereign debt crisis like you’ve never seen before. We cannot service a debt of $1.7 trillion a year.

Here’s Rush’s take on that, audio clip 9.

RUSH: I don’t know if they do a new Contract with America, but I think one of the elements that the Republicans could run on is this out-of-control spending, whether it’s health care, cap and trade, or any other Obama agenda item, the simple fact of the matter is, everybody knows, enough people know that this administration and the Democrat Party are spending the income of kids and grandkids not yet born.

They know that we are bankrupt. They know that the ChiComs are propping us up by buying our debt. They know the precarious position we are in. Every family knows what debt means. Being in debt is the single greatest threat to freedom you can have. If you’re in debt your choices are really limited. You have obligations that you have to take care of first.

It’s no different for a nation; it’s no different for a country. And so nationalizing these races on the irresponsible, out-of-control spending and then identifying what the spending is for, what its real purpose is, is to keep Democrats in power in perpetuity, that this spending is creating wards of the state.

That it is creating people who will be forever dependent on Democrats for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and other essentials, and that’s the purpose. That is not compassion, that Democrat spending and Democrat politics are destroying individual initiative, destroying the concept of self-worth, on purpose. All of this must be part of the strategy.

JASON: And what is the rationale for all the spending? When I was in Congress, our federal budget was $4.2 trillion. We’ve spent $5.7 trillion on covid relief bills already. It’s unsustainable. We can’t service the debt. What’s the rationale? “It’s covid,” and what’s the rationale for spending? “Lockdowns! Your businesses can’t work. You gotta be wards of the state. You gotta get on the dole.

“You gotta get your PPE money.” It’s out of control, of course, and they love that, and that’s why I look at everything with skepticism, which brings us back to this J&J vaccine halt. Think about this. There is talk of these blood clots coming from AstraZeneca and Moderna. Well, that’s not fair. We gotta get people to take that. So what are we gonna do about J&J?

Well, it might cause blood clots too. Let’s take that off the market. Now we’ve got vaccine delays and now we gotta continue to lockdown and continue the spending and continue telling certain kinds of protesters they can’t gather for religious worship, for a political rally. There was a Trump rally during my Senate race here in Minnesota last year that was canceled by the governor and the state of Minnesota.

Canceling your opposition!

That’s almost as bad as spying on your opposition, and the left has done both. So this is a crisis of convenience, my friends, and I just don’t take anything at face value. The J&J vaccine was supposed to be safer than the other one because it was a viral vector technology versus this RNA stuff. And now they take it off the market and they’re saying, “Ah, vaccine delay! Gotta do continue the lockdown.”