RUSH: Well, there's no way to spin this, folks. It's just a disaster. I think many of us are witnessing now the complete corruption of Washington, DC, meaning the objective has been to corrupt the government and success appears to be, at this moment in time, in hand. As it was pointed out to me earlier today, the left has the government that they've always wanted.
We have an authoritarian megalomaniac ruling like a monarch. The opposition bends over and, according to the high court, the Supreme Court, words, laws, really have no meaning. It's whatever the popular interpretation of the powers that be of the day want the words to mean. Now, look, folks, these days are kind of tough, to host a program like this. I just want to be honest with you. I'm not surprised at the outcome.
I didn't talk about this a much before because I didn't want to appear to be pessimistic about it. But using my old philosophy of intelligence guided by experience, the outcome here was kind of foretold with the first Supreme Court decision on this, saved and rescued from obscurity and oblivion by the chief justice. It only stood to reason it was gonna happen again.
As I say, it's far easier to believe that something that has happened is going to happen again than to believe that something that hasn't happened is going to happen. Everybody has the air out of their sails over this today, but it was kind of foretold. And, you know, a lot of people are running around saying, "Well, hey, Rush, you know, it really isn't that big a deal 'cause the Republicans didn't have a plan. I mean, the extent the Republicans had a plan, they were gonna save these subsidies anyway."
That may be, but that doesn't mitigate at all what has happened at the Supreme Court, folks, the fact that the Republicans might have bent over backwards to make sure the subsidies continued, which is probably what would have happened. Nobody had a plan otherwise. The closest you can find to any Republican having a plan to deal with Obamacare being redone and obliterated, is Scott Walker. I've got an op-ed that he wrote about it. Aside from him there isn't really anybody that had a plan.
And I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of Republicans breathing huge sighs of relief over this, because they have been totally beaten down and they think that anything that makes the American people unhappy is going to be blamed on them, and they would rather do whatever it takes to avoid that. So in this sense, the outcome probably isn't any different regardless what the decision was. But that does in no way mitigate what's happened at the Supreme Court. That is an absolute disaster.
I mean, the chief justice took it upon himself to interpret the law again. He took it upon himself to say (paraphrasing), "This is not what they meant. What they wrote, they didn't mean this. What they meant by the state was the full-fledged federal government. Because our job here is not to disrupt things, and that would be a huge disruption." And then the chief justice also opined that Obamacare was about -- I forget the exact words -- but it was about improving markets, not harming.
That's not true. Obamacare is not about improving markets. Obama goes to the Rose Garden afterwards in the understandable victory lap and continues to tell things to people that are not true about the law. He's still saying how premiums are coming down, how all these uninsured are insured. I mean, most of the state exchanges are approaching bankruptcy. Covered California, the exchange for California, is losing five, $6 million a year. It's already bankrupt. People's deductibles have gone from 3,000 to $6,000. The premiums have skyrocketed. Everything is upside down.
The chief justice, however, taking it upon himself to interpret this law politically, not reviewing it judicially. That equals the full politicization of the court. Of course the left is running around and they're just beaming and happy and pointing out, "Hey, hey, he's appointed by George W. Bush. I mean, you guys gotta be very careful criticizing him."
This decision also -- little side note here -- makes a huge liar out of Jonathan Gruber, who was the chief author and architect of this law, because Gruber countless times over many months, specifically -- I mean, this is incredible. Gruber making speeches, making appearances, pointed out that it was purposeful to say that only could you get a subsidy through a state exchange. They purposely did not provide subsidies from the federal exchange because they were trying to apply political pressure to all the governors to sign up and create an Obamacare exchange.
So the architect is out making all of these speeches. I don't know if this was part of the so-called Republican argument at the court, but Gruber is acknowledged as the architect and the creator and the author, and he's on record countless times saying the exact opposite of what the chief justice interpreted today.
So we've got the government that the left has always wanted. We've got an authoritarian megalomaniac ruling like a monarch. The opposition, the Republicans, more often than not just bend over. And according to the highest court in the land, words -- and therefore laws -- have no meaning.
What does that mean for the rule of law? If the law doesn't mean anything other than what the highest judge ruling on it says it means, then what is it worth? But, again, I have to say that, folks, look, this is not Monday morning quarterbacking in hindsight 20/20 because this is what I expected. I also expect the Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage nationwide. I think that's been in the cards as well. I understand a lot of people have been hoping that the court would put the kibosh on Obamacare. Things were not lining up that way.
A lot of people in the Drive-By Media said, "Chief Justice Roberts, he didn't say anything in oral arguments. What does that mean? What does that mean?" It doesn't mean anything. Nothing means anything is the point, anymore. And this is, by the way, what happens. You know, our society, our government, our culture, however you want to characterize it, has been evolving to this point where the Supreme Court has been granted ultimate and final authority status on everything political that reaches it.
The Supreme Court has reached this point, it's been a slow evolution where it is the final authority. When the Supreme Court speaks on something, that's it. It's like God coming to earth and answering controversial questions. Once that happens, there are no more questions. That's the way it has evolved.
So Scalia has, as usual, a really, really powerful dissent. And we learn that Chief Justice Roberts, according to Jeffrey Toobin, was laughing about it, laughing about Scalia's dissent. Scalia says, "We no longer should call this Obamacare, but SCOTUScare." So here's what the left completely understands. They understand completely the optics of succeeding and getting something to become part of society and having it accepted. And that happens to be socialism's great appeal. And then once something is in place, such as Obamacare, to use that as an example here, once it's in place, people generally don't complain.
They don't know how to. They don't care. That's why not a single entitlement -- well, Medicare. Only one entitlement has ever been repealed. That was another thing arguing against the Supreme Court striking down Obamacare. It just doesn't happen. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nothing, except one tiny part of Medicare back in the eighties has ever been repealed. So what that means is that the entire conservative movement becomes -- tell me if I'm wrong about this -- the conservative movement then becomes an entity which focuses on making social programs more efficient rather than debating whether or not we should have them.
This is how these things become implanted, woven into the fabric of society. The left understands how to do this. They understand the optics. They've been working on it for decades. They get something from the private sector that has no business being under government control. They get it under government control. People end up accepting it because the vast majority of people can't afford this on their own. They need assistance, and here comes the federal government and Obama providing it.
And the argument then becomes, "Okay, how do we fine-tune this?" Rather than, "Do we have this at all?" So conservatism on a daily basis becomes an argument over how to make socialism work better, not an argument over whether we should get rid of all this or not and replace it with free market entrepreneurism. This is what's happened in Europe. This is what liberal fascism is. And the only thing now is, when will the tipping point be reached? Because it will. This stuff is insupportable. This stuff will implode at some point, particularly Obamacare.
But Obamacare's not in a vacuum. There's so much happening in our society and culture. It's all under assault. It's all under attack. And so much of it is extreme and insane and senseless. At some point people are going to wake up. I don't know when. I don't know what's gonna cause it. I just know that these cycles do occur. I'm not saying the tipping point's gonna be reached in time, but there will be a tipping point. Let me take a brief time-out. We'll come out. I wanted to read just a little bit to you from Scalia's dissent.
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RUSH: It was a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court. The dissent was authored by Antonin Scalia. He was joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In his dissent, Scalia said, "We should start calling this law SCOTUScare," meaning Supreme Court of the United States. "Scalia said that his colleagues have twice stepped in to save the law from what Scalia considered worthy and legal challenges." And, of course, folks, this whole thing is out of whack. I mean, the Affordable Care Act is not affordable. It's unaffordable. And a "fine" no longer is a fine. A "fine" is now a tax. And "state exchange" doesn't mean state exchange.
"State exchange" means an exchange of the apparatus of the state. But the architect of the law clearly... (laughing) The architect of the law and the people that wrote the law, the people that support the law, clearly intended subsidies to only come from the 50 states individually. It was meant to put political pressure on governors to sign up. And they didn't. So the Feds had to start providing subsidies to save this stupid law from the barbarians at the gate. Scalia said, "The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says 'Exchange established by the State' it means 'Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.' That is of course quite absurd, and the court's 21 pages of explanation make it no less so."
So words no longer have meaning if an exchange that is not established by a state is a established by a state.
It's exactly right.
So what do you do?
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RUSH: People ask, "How can this happen?" A little link here on the Drudge Report, it's a top-of-the-page link. But I don't know if people actually understand the deep impact of this. What the link says is, "Hospital," comma "insurance stocks surging." You've heard the old saw, you want to answer most any question, follow the money. Is that ever true in politics. It is apparent the Republican Party right now is, as Senator Cruz points out, the Republican Party is far more loyal to lobbyists, donors, money people than they are constituents, than they are voters. About that there can be little doubt now.
Okay, so you say, well, but, Rush, what are you saying here? That the Supreme Court decision is somehow related to money? Well, look at what's happening as a result of this. Once again, stocks for insurance companies and hospitals are skyrocketing. There's a clear benefit to certain people that has nothing to do with politics, resulting from this decision. "But, Rush, but, Rush, are you saying that moneyed interests could somehow get to a chief justice or any justice on the US Supreme Court?"
What I'm saying is, I don't know. What is paramount and what is obvious is, the law was not used in rendering this decision. You cannot look at the statute, you cannot use law as your guiding principle and arrive at the decision the majority arrived at in this case. You have to do something else. You have to look at politics. In fact, listen to what the chief justice of the US Supreme Court, Judge Roberts, Justice Roberts, said.
He said that these words about the state can only get subsidies in a state, he said, "The words must be understood as part of a larger statutory plan. In this instance," he wrote, and this is from his opinion -- "in this instance, the context and structure of Obamacare compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase."
Let me translate that for you. What the chief justice of the United States is saying: In this instance, we are going to interpret what we think they meant in the statute using connect and structure, and in so doing we are going to ignore what we would normally do, and that is rule statutorily. It's a tantamount admission that the law was not the determining or deciding factor here. And then the chief justice wrote this: "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." Wait a minute, now. That's not a legal interpretation in any way.
That is an opinion. It's a political opinion, or maybe even an economic opinion, but it isn't a legal opinion. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." I know plenty of people who would tell him, "With all due respect, chief justice, you are 180 degrees wrong." I know a lot of people who'd say to the chief justice, "Sir, the express purpose of this law was to destroy existing markets so that down the road they could be replaced by the federal government." Many people believe that to this day.
But Justice Roberts, oh, no, "Congress passed this law to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." Well, how's that working out? We still have 30 million uninsured, which was the first express purpose of this law. We have deductibles and premiums skyrocketing. We now have a mandatory: You better have this law or you're gonna be fined and you go to go to jail. How in the world does that expand markets? How does that improve them? And then he said, "If at all possible, we must interpret the act in a way that is consistent with the former and avoids the latter."
So we here at the court, we have to interpret the Affordable Care Act consistent with our belief that Obamacare exists to improve health insurance markets. All I'm telling you is, this isn't legal. This is political. It's economic, in fact. So when you see a headline, "Hospitals and insurance." 
No, no, no, no. Look, I'm not saying he's got stocks that are going through the roof here in hospitals. I'm talking about how things happen and who influences who to do what. And when you follow the money, a lot of questions that seem unanswerable become clear, the answers to them become clear.
No, no, no, no. Look, I'm not saying he's got stocks that are going through the roof here in hospitals. I'm talking about how things happen and who influences who to do what. And when you follow the money, a lot of questions that seem unanswerable become clear, the answers to them become clear.
If you look at illegal immigration, what's happening there makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It makes no economic sense to flood this country's job market with literally millions of unskilled, uneducated people. Yet that's precisely what we are doing. Okay, who benefits? The people that voted for the Republicans to run the House are not benefiting from this. The 92, almost 93 million Americans no longer in the labor force are not benefiting from this. The people who are looking for work, out of work, now find a flooded job market with people willing to work for peanuts. They're not being benefited by this, and yet it happened. Yet it is happening.
And then you find out who wants this to happen and you find out they are big moneyed people at the Chamber of Commerce and certain big corporations, particularly in the high technical area. I'm just saying that you're looking for answers to things that don't seem to make any sense. When you add the money aspect to it, all of a sudden, whether you agree with it or not, it will make sense to you. But I'm not leveling any allegations here. I'm not accusing anybody of anything. I'm just pointing out, people are pulling their hair out trying to figure out how in the world does this happen? 'Cause there isn't any legality here.
There's no common sense that happened here. This is purely, once again, the chief justice of the United States has decided, for whatever reason, that his job is to save this law, and he will even rewrite it and interpret it outside the bounds of law to do so. Okay, well, why? What's so important to him about this? He has said in the past it's not our job to disrupt and the people of this country elect their representatives, and the representatives they elected passed this law. It's not our job to take things like that away.
Yet they do it all the time. They rule on the constitutionality of law all the time, except on this one. This one, where they find it to be unconstitutional, they, with their own hand, rewrite it using their own interpretation, that they're fully honest with us about, to make it seem like it's legal and okay. And in this case, they've had to tell us that the words that were used really don't mean what they mean.
I'm gonna remind you again, Jonathan Gruber, this is the guy -- you remember his name -- he was caught telling people in what he thought were closed circumstances, that they were relying on the stupidity and the gullibility of the American people to support something that was not in their best interests. He bragged about it; he laughed about it; he was caught. Very little was made of this in the Drive-By Media, and then we later find out that he ended up sending 20,000 pages -- I believe that's right -- of the law to the White House, meaning that he was instrumental in assembling Obamacare, he was instrumental in writing it.
And he was out there saying that they specifically -- it's the last time I'm gonna remind you of this, because you now are an army, have to go out and tell other people -- he specifically said (paraphrasing), "Yes, we made sure that you could only get subsidies for something otherwise unaffordable" -- i.e., Obamacare -- "we made sure that governors had to set up state changes for people in those states to get subsidies. The federal government could not offer subsidy. We did this to apply political pressure." The architect of the law has said this.
It is clear what happened here, but Justice Roberts: we can't let that stand. That's too disruptive. We can't have that. Congress passed this law to improve health insurance markets, and we're not gonna be the ones here to -- I mean, anybody can be a lawyer if this is how you're gonna judge the law. Anybody can be a judge. We ought to get rid of the bar exam. It doesn't mean anything anymore. We've been trending this way for quite a while. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not destroy them."
He brought it up. Health insurance markets, Congress passed Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets. Well, right now health insurance markets, Bloomberg, June 21st: "Biggest Health Insurers to Get Even Bigger Under Obamacare," for a while. For a while they will because they're being weeded out. There are fewer and fewer of them. That's why you can't do better on premiums. There's fewer places for you to go shop. It's just that simple.
From the article: "America's biggest health insurers are about to get even bigger, driven into a wave of consolidation by Obamacare's new regulations and markets." Smaller companies weren't able to survive. They merged and coalesced. There are becoming fewer big companies. That means fewer places for you to shop. Premiums are not coming down.
Anyway, got take a break. And we're gonna come back, get to your phone calls, folks. People eager to chomp in on this, and we'll do it and come back.
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RUSH: We are gonna start with Thomas in Washington, DC. Great to have you, sir. You're up first today on the Rush Limbaugh program, and hello.
CALLER: Thank you. I listen to you always. A pleasure to listen to you today. I've got sort of a comment/question. I mean, it's obvious to most people that it takes years to go to college, and then to law school. And only the best and brightest, I guess, with the most experience get into clerkships and judgeships. And it's even more rare to get appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. You would think these people would be kind of touched on this. Uphold the law as it's written with all their experience guided by the law to do what's real legal and what's right. And if they're not gonna do that, then why go to school? And if not go to law school, anybody could become a Supreme Court judge. I could do it. It just floors me that they're not doing what they're supposed to do. They're not being responsible attorneys, not being responsible justices. And if this is what we have, then you might as well just pull anybody from the street to fit their seat.
RUSH: Well, I understand your point. I mean, the emotions in reaction to this run the gamut. There's anger, there's distrust, there's curiosity, there's shock. There is, "How? I mean, there's the law over here and it's clear as a bell!" And then, "How does this happen, and is anything safe anymore, or has everything been corrupted?" So I understand. My father was a lawyer, and he loved it. He was devoted to it.
It's interesting, too, because if he'd had his druthers, he would not have gone into the law. But he was Rush Jr.; there was family pressure. So he didn't, ad he absolutely had reverence for it. I'll never forget all of the times that he would talk about judges to my brother and me, and the things he would say about judges also ran the gamut, their total authority in the courtroom. I mean, they were it. You didn't challenge, you didn't argue, you didn't complain.
By the same token, my dad believed you never argued with the umpire of baseball, you just didn't do it. That was low class, he said. In fact, one of the most disappointing things to my dad, Stan Musial, his entire career, never argued with an umpire, one of his last games he did. My dad was devastated. I mean, it was a different era. He kept impressing upon us, "Son, I'm in court all the time. I lose as much as I win. And it's oftentime just because of the way the judge thinks or what the judge rules. There's nothing I can do. The judge is the judge." He said, "This is why we need incredible people. This is why."
And when you start talking about federal judges, he had respect for all of them. But when you started talking about federal district court judges and appellate court judges and Supreme Court judge? I mean, he was fully aware of the politicization of the court, but his reverence for it never waned. It is incredible, I think, actually, as I think back on it. I'll never forget these lectures (and that's what they were) on the need for the absolute cream of the crop for Supreme Court, appellate court, federal court judges.
And he defended the search to find them, he defended all of the tough requirements, he defended the deep analysis of every one of these proposed judges' careers to learn everything you could about their view of the law, not their politics. So growing up with those memories -- and they were -- they were blatant, I mean, they were very bright memories, it just puts in context what he was talking about when things like this happen, because this doesn't appear to be the best of what we could have, in this case.
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RUSH: And look at this headline from TheHill.com. Snerdley, you'll love this. "GOP Pledges to Fight Tooth and Nail to Repeal Obamacare." It's a story that just cleared. Today! Today they're gonna "fight tooth and nail to repeal Obamacare." Well, whew! That's a relief. I feel better now.
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