March 8, 2010
RUSH: This story speaks for itself. Yesterday morning in Hornell, New York, on a radio station, Washington Week in Review with Representative Eric Massa, Democrat, New York, just listen to these sound bites.
MASSA: Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote; he would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive. And if he doesn't like that he can come after me personally because -- let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel. I was in the congressional gym, and I went into the showers which, by the way, I for the life of me can't figure out why they took all the shower curtains off the shower stalls in the congressional shower. The last thing I want to look at is my fellow colleagues naked, but they don't have shower curtains down in the gym, and I'm sitting there showering naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?
RUSH: Who's jabbing his finger into your chest in a shower where there are no curtains in the House gym. This is representative Massa lashing out at everybody in the Obama administration, particularly Rahm Emanuel in a radio appearance yesterday. And what he's basically accusing the Democrat leaders of doing here is orchestrating a campaign to force his resignation. "There's a reason that this has all happened, frankly one I had not realized. Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill." Remember, this guy was going to serve out his term until November. Friday we found he's going to resign today at five o'clock. And what this is all about is what inspired that. What speeds it up, he says, "Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they've gotten rid of me and it'll pass." We've got more. Here's the second sound bite.
MASSA: What the heck is he doing in the congressional gym? He goes there to intimidate members of Congress. We had words and he hates my guts. He's hated me since day one and now he wins. So he'll get rid of me and this bill will pass, and I don't know what we're going to do in this country.
RUSH: This guy is a Democrat. Now, I think there is a real implosion going on in the Democrat Party, and we're going to see the results of it in November. But that's not solace enough for me. I don't care if they're imploding. This has got to be stopped. He's giving these guys ten days, 18th of March, (imitating Emanuel ) "You guys get done, I'm leaving for a foreign trip, if you go home on the Easter break and so forth you're going to hear all kinds of hell from your constituents. You gotta get it passed before that happens or we're locked out again." He's demanding it. He just said in his speech, (paraphrasing) "Elections don't matter. Doing the right thing for the American people is what matters. Leave the politics out of this." He's openly asking and suggesting and demanding that his fellow Democrats walk the plank for a plan that doesn't exist in his mind and he's lying about what does exist and what is in the bill and what isn't. Massa says the White House and Emanuel went after him because of the health care vote.
MASSA: When I voted against the cap-and-trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff of the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn't heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983. And I gave it right back to him in terms and words that I know are physically impossible. I told him to do things that I know the human anatomy cannot do. There's no doubt in my mind and it got quiet and I said, "Rahm, let's have a conversation and you pretend that you're the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America and I'm a sitting member of Congress," and he said, "There's no reason to for you to swear at me," and I said, "You're the one that lit on me first, and I'm going to give as good as I can get." So if Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I'm holding myself to, and resign.
RUSH: Massa says that they're coming after him because of his vote on health care.
MASSA: I've had union leaders tell me point-blank, "We are not going to contribute to your campaign unless you vote for this health care bill." Is that or is that not a bribe? It makes me weep when I realize our nation is being destroyed from within. But I will not go quietly into the evening. If you think that somehow they didn't come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the health care bill then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as not to understand what is going on in Washington, DC.
RUSH: This guy is a Democrat. He's in a conservative district in New York, but he is a Democrat and this is just hilarious. Can you picture this in the shower, with no shower curtains in the House gym? Here are both of these guys buck naked and here comes Rahm Emanuel poking a finger in this guy's chest, and they start arguing about this. "What's he doing in the House gym anyway? He's the White House chief of staff, what's he doing over here?" Now, Massa warns us what we all know, but I think you need to hear it from a Democrat being forced out by Obama and Steny Hoyer and Pelosi.
MASSA: You cannot effectively govern this country without the consent of the governed. The entire nation has said: "Let's rewrite the health care bill, let's find what we can agree on." No, no, no, no. We're going to ram this down the throats of the American people and anyone who stands in the way of doing that is going to be smeared. And they're going to be kicked out of Congress. And we're going to have people like Steny Hoyer lying in the press. They are going to ram this bill down the throats of this country, and it is going to rip this nation politically to pieces, and it will be a generation before we recover.
He was asked in this appearance: "Well, why don't you rescind your resignation?" He said, "The only way I can do that is if this becomes a national story." So Congressman Massa, we're doing our part here to make it a national story. But he then said, "But you have to understand something, if I don't quit the ethics investigation continues and they're going to ruin me that way." What would you do if you were him? What would you do, Snerdley, what would you do? They're going to ruin him anyway. He sounds ticked off enough that I would stay. This guy is as fired up as anybody I've ever heard anywhere opposed this, and the process and how they're getting it done. This guy is going to have so much support from people. We'll see. He's got five hours or four hours unless I was missing something here and he's said today that he's going to go ahead and resign and I haven't seen that.
RUSH: What is the big mystery, folks, about why they took the shower curtains off of the showers in the men's locker room at the House gym? Can you say "Barney Frank," the Banking Queen? Yes, same guy.
You can call the Republican Party the party of "no," but I have to tell you, folks: It is the Democrats that cannot play well in the sandbox. They cannot get along with each other. They don't trust each other, they have deep contempt for each other, they are afraid of each other, they are afraid to say anything against each other -- and now the House and Senate Democrats want all these deals that they're making in writing. Now, if they don't trust each other, why in the hell should we? If these Democrats in the House don't trust the Democrats in the Senate and versa-vice, why should we trust them? From the Wall Street Journal: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier -- ObamaCare Is the White House playing a double game with House Democrats?
House Democrats are suspicious of each other, none of them trust their Senate counterparts, and vice versa, and a Soviet mole has infiltrated the highest levels of British intelligence. Sorry, that last part is from a John le Carré thriller, though it might take a novelist to do justice to the ObamaCare-induced paranoia that now engulfs Congress -- not to mention the double game that the White House may well be running. Last week President Obama sanctioned 'reconciliation,' ... But what if this gambit is really a false-flag operation, meant to lure House Democrats into voting for a bill that they would otherwise oppose? That's the question many rank-and-file Members are now asking themselves, and they're right to be worried. The cleanest option for Democrats would be for the House to pass the Senate's Christmas Eve bill word for word, thereby bypassing a Senate filibuster under the normal rules and forwarding ObamaCare directly to the Rose Garden signing ceremony.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said the votes simply don't exist for the Senate bill as is." By the way, if you're interested, the latest count, best I've been able to get is she's under 200 votes right now. Now, she's got a lot of power -- and they are scared to death of her, by the way, particularly these freshman Democrats. They are scared to death. She is threatening them with all kinds of things. But as of now she's under 200 votes. She needs -- I don't know the math -- 216? Yeah, the number keeps changing based on resignations, imprisonments, and suicides. "Liberals don't think the middle-class insurance subsidies are large enough. Big Labor hates the 'Cadillac tax' on high-cost health coverage because extremely generous benefits typically come out of collective bargaining. The pro-life Democrats led by Michigan's Bart Stupak can't abide federal funding for abortion," but folks, don't be surprised if Stupak caves at the end of the day on that.
He was asked in this appearance: "Well, why don't you rescind your resignation?" He said, "The only way I can do that is if this becomes a national story." So Congressman Massa, we're doing our part here to make it a national story. But he then said, "But you have to understand something, if I don't quit the ethics investigation continues and they're going to ruin me that way." What would you do if you were him? What would you do, Snerdley, what would you do? They're going to ruin him anyway. He sounds ticked off enough that I would stay. This guy is as fired up as anybody I've ever heard anywhere opposed this, and the process and how they're getting it done. This guy is going to have so much support from people. We'll see. He's got five hours or four hours unless I was missing something here and he's said today that he's going to go ahead and resign and I haven't seen that.
RUSH: What is the big mystery, folks, about why they took the shower curtains off of the showers in the men's locker room at the House gym? Can you say "Barney Frank," the Banking Queen? Yes, same guy.
You can call the Republican Party the party of "no," but I have to tell you, folks: It is the Democrats that cannot play well in the sandbox. They cannot get along with each other. They don't trust each other, they have deep contempt for each other, they are afraid of each other, they are afraid to say anything against each other -- and now the House and Senate Democrats want all these deals that they're making in writing. Now, if they don't trust each other, why in the hell should we? If these Democrats in the House don't trust the Democrats in the Senate and versa-vice, why should we trust them? From the Wall Street Journal: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier -- ObamaCare Is the White House playing a double game with House Democrats?
House Democrats are suspicious of each other, none of them trust their Senate counterparts, and vice versa, and a Soviet mole has infiltrated the highest levels of British intelligence. Sorry, that last part is from a John le Carré thriller, though it might take a novelist to do justice to the ObamaCare-induced paranoia that now engulfs Congress -- not to mention the double game that the White House may well be running. Last week President Obama sanctioned 'reconciliation,' ... But what if this gambit is really a false-flag operation, meant to lure House Democrats into voting for a bill that they would otherwise oppose? That's the question many rank-and-file Members are now asking themselves, and they're right to be worried. The cleanest option for Democrats would be for the House to pass the Senate's Christmas Eve bill word for word, thereby bypassing a Senate filibuster under the normal rules and forwarding ObamaCare directly to the Rose Garden signing ceremony.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said the votes simply don't exist for the Senate bill as is." By the way, if you're interested, the latest count, best I've been able to get is she's under 200 votes right now. Now, she's got a lot of power -- and they are scared to death of her, by the way, particularly these freshman Democrats. They are scared to death. She is threatening them with all kinds of things. But as of now she's under 200 votes. She needs -- I don't know the math -- 216? Yeah, the number keeps changing based on resignations, imprisonments, and suicides. "Liberals don't think the middle-class insurance subsidies are large enough. Big Labor hates the 'Cadillac tax' on high-cost health coverage because extremely generous benefits typically come out of collective bargaining. The pro-life Democrats led by Michigan's Bart Stupak can't abide federal funding for abortion," but folks, don't be surprised if Stupak caves at the end of the day on that.
I'm just warning you. "Everyone detests the enveloping corruption, such as the Nebraska Medicaid bribe for Ben Nelson, which has become so politically toxic that the opponents now include Ben Nelson. Thus the convoluted scheme the White House has mapped out. The House would first pass the Senate bill, and then pass a reconciliation bill that addresses these objections -- in effect converting the process into a makeshift and unprecedented vehicle for amendments. Mrs. Pelosi can't rope in the 216 votes she needs without an iron-clad promise of another round of Senate action. Iron-clad promise -- or double-cross? After all, the White House would much prefer the Senate bill, because by its lights the cost-control programs are tougher than what the House prefers.
"And from a political perspective, a bill that can be signed immediately and that the press will portray as an historic achievement is far better than the drawn-out and gory battle that would be reconciliation. Republican Senators will have many procedural knives at their disposal, and the process will force Democrats to cast further votes and spend more months debating a deeply unpopular bill. ... The White House also announced that it now wants the House to pass the Senate bill by March 18," which, by the way, is just past the ides of March when members of his own party stabbed and killed Julius Caesar. "Et tu, Brute." How fitting an analogy. See, Obama has a big tour of the Pacific that he's leaving for, "But this barely leaves any time for the Congressional Budget Office to score Mr. Obama's reconciliation fixes."
So you Democrats in the House, you better count on the fact that you're being double-crossed, and you better count on the fact that you are not going to get any reconciliation whatsoever of the Senate bill once you vote for it, 'cause it's not going to go back to the Senate. Let me tell you what's going to happen, as I said all last week. When you Democrats in the House pass the bill, if you do, it will be on Obama's desk within 30 minutes. He will schedule a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden in the next 30 minutes -- and then he will leave. And you will be told, "Don't worry, don't worry. This is just the foundation. We're going to go back and we're going to be adding all kinds of stuff to this bill." Let me warn you Democrats of the real politics in this: After Obama signs health care, they are going to drop it. They're not going to start adding anything to it. That's their strategy for limiting their losses in November. Health care will not even be discussed anymore. There will not be reconciliation. There will not be proposals to add to it. And you guys are going to lose control of the House and probably the Senate in November, your chances to fix this bill to your liking or have anything added to it are not going to happen. You are being double-crossed big time.
So you Democrats in the House, you better count on the fact that you're being double-crossed, and you better count on the fact that you are not going to get any reconciliation whatsoever of the Senate bill once you vote for it, 'cause it's not going to go back to the Senate. Let me tell you what's going to happen, as I said all last week. When you Democrats in the House pass the bill, if you do, it will be on Obama's desk within 30 minutes. He will schedule a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden in the next 30 minutes -- and then he will leave. And you will be told, "Don't worry, don't worry. This is just the foundation. We're going to go back and we're going to be adding all kinds of stuff to this bill." Let me warn you Democrats of the real politics in this: After Obama signs health care, they are going to drop it. They're not going to start adding anything to it. That's their strategy for limiting their losses in November. Health care will not even be discussed anymore. There will not be reconciliation. There will not be proposals to add to it. And you guys are going to lose control of the House and probably the Senate in November, your chances to fix this bill to your liking or have anything added to it are not going to happen. You are being double-crossed big time.
Rush Limbaugh
