See, that's how the game is played. Republicans want a bad economy. They want you paying $10 a gallon because they are all invested in oil. And Dick Cheney, of course, ran Halliburton.

RUSH: Steven Chu. Remember him, the energy secretary, "the Nobel prize-winning" energy secretary who appeared before a congressional committee and said that he wasn't interested in gasoline prices coming down? Instead, he's interested in getting us off of oil, which is not possible. It is not going to happen. There's nothing else to use. It won't happen. It's pie-in-the-sky dreaming. There's no way we can get off oil. And if this administration tries to take us off of oil we're going to be plunged into a recession, and we're gonna be moving backwards to the seventh century and we're gonna looking to Afghanistan. It will never happen, folks. The engine of freedom is fueled by oil, the free flow of oil at market prices.

Anyway, Steven Chu's back, and he renounced his previously stated desire to see gas prices rise to match European levels. He recently said that he didn't care about gas prices coming down. He thought they should be as high as they are in Europe because of fairness (we need to find out what it's like to live in the rest of the world) and conservation. He was more interested in getting us off oil. Well, he told the Senate today that he wants gasoline prices to fall, now, for the sake of the economy. So somebody took him to the woodshed. Probably a pollster from the New York Times called the White House and said, "Hey, look, we did the best we could with these numbers, but it's bad. And Chu is not helping it by telling everybody he wants gas prices to go up and doesn't care about them coming down."

So in 2008, Chu said, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." That's what he said in 2008. He was reminded of that comment today during his congressional testimony, and he backed away from it. "I no longer share that view," said Chu to Senator Mike Lee, Republican, Utah. Chu said, "When I became Secretary of Energy, I represented the United States government, and I think right now in this economic very slow return these prices could very well affect the comeback of our economy." It sounds like he's not sure that gasoline prices might have a deleterious effect on the economy.

So Chu is now saying his previous statements are no longer operational. That's how the Democrats characterize their gaffes.

Folks, until you come up with an alternative fuel that will make a Joe Boeing 747 fly, you're not talking reality. There's not a wind farm, there's not a solar panel, there's not a $50 light bulb -- there is nothing -- that will put a 747 in the sky other than oil. Refined to jet fuel, kerosene. Nothing else will do it. Not even gasoline, by the way. So all this is academic. Until you can give me a fuel that's gonna power giant cargo ships and tankers across the seas, you're whistling Dixie. There isn't a windmill, there isn't a wind farm, there's not a solar panel that'll get a ship any appreciable carrying any appreciable cargo a tenth of a mile. Until you come up with something that will get a 747 or a DC-9, any jet in the air, you're whistling Dixie.

Okay, so, Obama doesn't get it, the book says, The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery. Obama said, "I don’t get it. We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?" Now, Pethokoukis writes, "Now let’s fast forward to this past September: 'A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program -- designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans -- has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies.'"

So after $19 billion, 3,500 jobs in the energy sector have been created. "So where are the new jobs coming from, at least the good-paying ones?" Are you ready? Folks, are you sitting down? "From the industry Obama wants to replace as much as possible with 'clean' energy: oil and gas. A new report from the World Economic Forum," Davos, where all the libs go to worship. The World Economic Forum. It is the liberal economic Mecca. Every February. The World Economic Forum "estimates the sectors 'added approximately 150,000 jobs in 2011, 9% of all jobs created in the United States that year.'"

An industry Obama is trying to shut down accounted for 9% of all jobs Obama created, and not a one of those 150,000, is from any stimulus. Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that we are in the midst of a full-blown disaster. We're in the midst of a full-blown, incompetent, ill-informed, mal-educated administration that has created an utter disaster. We're living right in the middle of it: A disaster created by an arrogant ignorance by all in the Obama regime. Now, these numbers: 150,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector, while Obama's trying to shut it down or while Obama's trying to gin up all these jobs in the green sector? Green: 3500 jobs. Oil and gas: 150,000 jobs. "Those numbers are even more impressive once you realize that some 40% of all new jobs are being added in low-pay sectors such as retailing and leisure. So nearly 20% of new 'good jobs' are in oil and gas," and now I want you to think about the Keystone pipeline and then think about all the lost jobs there due to Obama's moratorium on drilling in the Gulf.

We elected a disaster, and we are living in the middle of one.

Manmade, pure, unadulterated disaster by the name of "Baraka Obama."
 

I want to take you back to what I said on this program on February 24th (not long ago) and on March 9th. On February 24th I said, quote: "So you may think that this contraception stuff, you may shudder and cower in fear, get all nervous, 'Oh, gosh, can we stop talking about that? What about the economy?'" Yeah, I had people calling me on the phone, "Come on, Rush! Could you stop talking about this, Rush? We gotta get back the economy." I'd be wealthy if I had a dollar for every caller and every friend and every e-mail begging me to stop talking about this and get back to the economy. All of these people who had all the answers and knew everything said, "You've got to stop talking about this, Rush!"

I said on February 24th, "In the meantime we're losing our religious liberty over this. Obama is acting as a dictator on this. And at least seven states now have stood up and said, 'To heck with this.' The issue isn't going away. And I'll tell you something else. The Democrats, they are gonna rue the day that they ever conceived this trick because it is going to backfire on 'em." Remember? I said that on February 24th. I said, "[I]t is going to backfire on 'em," and they're going to rue the day they tried this. They're gonna rue the day they created this war on women, and they're gonna rue the day that they brought Sandra Fluke on as a Democrat operative.

They're gonna rue the day that they tried to turn this contraception issue into a Republicans-hate-women thing. It's going to backfired on them, and the backfire has started and it's in their own house organs: The New York Times and the Washington Post. I also have a See, I Told You So moment from March 9th. This is what I said then: "I want to try something here. It's very delicate, but I'm going to give it a shot, and it's aimed at those of you who are lacking confidence over the possibility of beating Obama. ... Now, there's been an event that happen last weekend, and it's had legs, and it's gone on throughout this entire week. It was an event which ended up being directed out of the White House when it was all said and done.

"And it's safe to say that this event has backfired on them. Everything they hoped to accomplish this week, they've not accomplished. They might have 25 years ago, but they haven't. ... They thought this was the time. This was the gonna be that moment when they finally succeeded. [But] I'm still here." That's what I said back on March 9th, four days ago. That would have been last Friday, before the New York Times and the Washington Post polling data came out. Now, it's not over, and I'm not telling you that they're gonna give this up. They have to have something that is a diversion from the economy, because that's what's killing them.

OBAMA TOAST

OBAMA-61    SANTORUM-37

This thread sucks again.

Yep, this one still sucks.

RUSH: The Democrats -- from Obama on down -- lied everywhere about health care. They lied about the cost; they lied about how cheap premiums are gonna be; they lied about how the tax increases would be minimal to fund this.

RUSH: The Pew Center for the People and the Press is out with a poll today which shows that Obama's approval number is at 50%. Monday the New York Times-CBS had Obama at 41%, an all-time low in that poll. So what's the difference?

Well, in the Pew poll one of the things we found is that the sample consists of 51% Democrats. That's how you do it. Fifty-one percent Democrats in the Pew poll sample. Now, I don't know what the party identification numbers are in the country anymore. I know that conservatives are 40% self-proclaimed in poll; liberals are 20%. I don't know what the party ID is, but I know that 51% of the country doesn't call itself Democrat, and that's nevertheless the percentage of Democrats in the Pew poll.

Caterpillar Moves Jobs from Illinois to South Carolina
RUSH: Interesting story here from the Chicago Tribune. Caterpillar, Incorporated -- remember Caterpillar? They're based in Peoria. Back during the first couple of months of the regime, Obama cited Caterpillar as one of his prototypical companies that was going to grow by leaps and bounds as a result of his stimulus bill, shovel-ready jobs. We're gonna have roads and bridges rebuilt, schools, all these wonderful things. Not a one of them happened, and he cited Caterpillar as an example. Obama said Caterpillar was hiring new people to work there as a result of the stimulus bill, and the Caterpillar CEO said, (paraphrasing) "Uh, no, we're not hiring people," and they continued to lay people off. Obama publicly praised Caterpillar for increasing jobs simply because the stimulus bill was signed, and that did not happen.

So now Caterpillar said today that it plans to move from its plant in Joliet, Illinois, to another facility in Sumter, South Carolina, creating 80 jobs in South Carolina. "The global construction equipment giant said that the move will consolidate production of hydraulic cylinders in the Sumter plant and allow Joliet to expand production of truck struts, which are already manufactured at the 2,000-employee plant. A Caterpillar spokeswoman said, 'There is no employment impact expected in Joliet as a result.'" But they're still leaving Joliet. This means something. Caterpillar leaving to South Carolina, right-to-work state, don't have to have unions there.

The real question now is, will the National Labor Relations Board allow Caterpillar to move to South Carolina? They didn't allow Boeing to do that. The United States of America, land of the home and the brave, the free, liberty for all, federal government told Boeing, no, you can't move to South Carolina and start building jets there, just told 'em they couldn't because South Carolina was a right-to-work state. There's no power. Obama, the NLRB, they don't have the power to tell a company where it can and can't go, but they did. And of course Boeing pretty much bent over. What are you gonna do? You got something as big and powerful with endless resources as the federal government gunning for you, what do you do? And that's what they did.

Politico on Polls: People are Stupid
RUSH: The Politico has a story, a pollster, guy that runs Public Policy Polling talking about the thing you learn as a pollster is how stupid people are. Interesting that that story comes out now after Obama has such a devastating poll in the New York Times and Washington Post on Monday, isn't it? People are stupid. Yep.

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