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March 9, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:22
March 9, 2009, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists, and all the rest.
The award-winning, a multiple award-winning, thrill packed, ever exciting, increasingly popular, off the charts, growing by leaps and bounds.
Rush Limbaugh program here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Great to have you here, folks.
A thrill and a delight to have you with us.
A telephone number if you want to be on the program today is always 800-282-2882.
And the email address, Lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Well, we have some teachable moments today, ladies and gentlemen, involving Jim Cramer of CNBC, who is at a loss to understand why what's happening to him is happening to him.
And I am going to take the occasion of today's excursion into broadcast excellence to explain it to him.
We also have some amazing sound bites from Warren Buffett on CNBC today.
And we've got this.
I want to start with this.
Rasmussen reports.
Republicans see their party as leaderless.
Who's in charge here?
Sixty-eight percent of Republican voters say that their party has no clear leader.
According to Rasmussen, another 17% are undecided.
Just five percent view either McCain or Michael Steele as the party's leader.
I have already dealt with this.
The Republican Party does not have a leader.
And it shouldn't have a leader at this.
It will not have a leader until the next presidential nominee of the Republican Party is decided upon.
And in that period of time, that'll be four years or three, and in that period of time, uh the party's gonna have a major shakeout debate.
Who knows what's going to end up happening to this party?
There's no there's no clear indication.
Nobody knows what's going to happen.
The party has got all kinds of different factions now, people that used to be conservative who've forgotten what it means.
Uh you know, that it runs a gamut, but there's there's that you know the real question to me is not not who is the Republican Party leader, the real question to me is who is the leader of the Democrats.
With all this talk about who the leader of the Republicans is, the reality is that Republicans are out of power.
Republicans are not that important.
What is important is who is the leader of the Democrats.
Now, some of you might instinctively say that it is Obama.
Well, hold on.
Not so fast.
If Obama is truly the leader, why does he never speak without reading off a teleprompter?
Who writes the words that Obama emits and vocalizes?
Who approves the words that Obama uses?
When it when it comes to his uh his uh signature issue, the porculus bill, he didn't write it.
He didn't even read it.
It was written in the office of Nancy Pelosi.
Very few people to this moment have read that bill, the the stimulus bill.
Does that make Nancy Pelosi the leader of the Democrat Party?
You can make a case for that.
When Obama and Hillary were neck and neck in the primaries, Pelosi did wave her mallet.
She signaled the superdelegates to vote for Obama.
It was clear that Pelosi wanted no part of Hillary in Washington in any kind of executive or legislative branch role.
Secretary of State is okay.
She's out of the country making gaffes.
That's just fine with Nancy Pelosi.
But I don't think it's that easy.
Who who is who is the leader of the Democrats?
It's not move on.org.
It's not this bunch running uh never-ending ads featuring me.
You know who I think I know who it is after reading the New York Times recently, David Axlrod.
With a little Rom Emanuel thrown in.
Carl Rove was nothing compared to Axlrod.
Because this guy, Axlrod, really is Obama's brain.
Uh, looming in the background, which is the best place to look in this administration is the background to find out what the hell's going on.
The uh real leader of the Democrat Party could well be George Soros, but the guy that is putting the words in Obama's mouth, Obama doesn't speak without a prompter anymore, is David Axelrod.
And there's a story.
In the New York Times this morning, President's political protector is ever close at hand.
David Axelrod is identified as the political protector.
Few words come across Obama's lips that Axelrod doesn't bless is a quote from this story.
Axelrod has a strong belief in polling and focus groups.
It goes on to give many details, such as there are few words that come across the president's lips that have not been blessed by Mr. Axelrod.
He reviews every speech, studies every major policy position, works with Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary to prepare responses to the crisis of the day.
There are other examples, and then there's this little reference in the story.
He also helps decide which fights to pick and which ones to avoid, making him a leading voice in setting the political tone in Washington.
The recent back and forth with Rush Limbaugh, for example, was explicitly authorized by Mr. Axelrod, who told AIDS that it was not a moment to sit quietly after Mr. Limbaugh said he hoped that Mr. Obama would fail.
Well, now the New York Times and the people at Politico have got a little battle here because the people of Politico said that it was Rahm Emanuel working with Carvel and Bagala in Stephanopoul that hatched this plan last fall.
Now the New York Times gives the credit to Axelrod.
So while everybody's running around trying to figure out who it is that is leader of the Republican Party, the real interesting question is who's running the Democrat show?
Because you can't you can't remove Obama from the equation, obviously.
You can't, but but I still we go back and forth on just how much how much day-to-day we'll look at the stories over the I know I raise it during the primary.
I who's who's putting words in this guy's mouth?
We learned it was Axelrod writing all speeches.
But we've we've got um we've we have this uh story that the reason the Brits got dissed is Obama was just tired.
Did you hear about that?
He was just overworked.
He was swamped, he couldn't believe the workload.
Just couldn't handle it.
So he sent somebody to Blockbuster to pick out 25 DVDs.
I hope they were region two, for a prime minister who's blind in one eye and is going blind in the second eye, and is we just learned this over the weekend, and uh it he's very very nervous about if you were losing your sight, you would be too.
Now, about this fail business.
Some interesting discoveries uh over the weekend.
A Fox News poll.
I mean, get it from uh 2006, actually he has a Fox News poll and uh a Garden State pundit who discovered the poll.
Fifty-one percent in 2006, 51% of Democrats wanted Bush to fail.
Did you hear the 51% of Democrats wanted Bush to fail?
Here's the question in a Fox News poll number 10.
Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say you want President Bush to succeed or not?
Now, this is not a prediction.
This is a question asking people what they want.
Again, the question.
Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say that you want President Bush to succeed or not?
Scale one, yes, I want him to succeed.
Two, no, I don't want him to succeed.
Three, I don't know.
It was August uh eighth and ninth of two thousand six.
Uh Democrats, 40% said they want him to succeed.
51% said they didn't want him to succeed, which means they wanted him to fail.
And they were actually asked this in a poll question.
The American people were asked whether or not they wanted George W. Bush to fail or to succeed.
The overall answer 63 succeed, 32 fail, but the Democrats, it was 40 fail, or 51 fail, 40 succeed.
The difference here, of course, is that the Democrats wanted George W. Bush and America to lose a war.
I, on the other hand, simply want Obama to lose at creating a socialist utopia, which is an oxymoron in the United States.
Back after this.
Sit tight, folks.
Welcome back, El Rushbow serving humanity simply by showing up.
This is an outrageous story that I'm holding here, my friends, in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
This is a story from the uh Australian.
It's a newspaper in Australia for those of you in Rio Linda and Port St. Lucy.
And it's actually a French news agency story.
The official Vatican Daily newspaper said in an international women's day commentary on Sunday, yesterday, that the washing machine has had a greater liberating role for women than the birth control pill.
And I know that you think that I am making this up.
I'm not no, I've got it right here.
It was it was published on March the 9th, 7.20 in the morning, this morning, yesterday, International Women's Day, the Vatican Daily said the washing machine has had a greater liberating role for women than the pill.
Now, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, I conducted a female summit and outreach on this program not many long just a week and a half ago or so.
You all know after that summit, the profound respect that I have for women.
You know have the awareness I have of the trials and tribulations that women have undergone as second-class citizens for way too much of their time in the United States of America.
And you also know that I highly respect the the Pope and the Catholic Church, but I simply can't let this statement by the Holy See go unchallenged here, that the that the washing machine was more liberating than the pill.
This comment does a disservice to women everywhere.
It plays upon stereotypes, these stereotypes must be challenged.
They must be swept aside.
There have been way too many stereotypes of women throughout our history.
There have been way too many jokes at women's expense, particularly in this day and age when nobody has a sense of humor.
Some of those jokes are not even understood.
They are in they're instead considered to be insults or put downs.
Women are already at a natural disadvantage through much of our culture here in the United States and throughout the world.
And for now the Pope, well I don't know if it's the Pope, for now the Catholic Church to come along and say that the washing machine...
I'm tempted to laugh at this as though it were a joke, but this is highly insulting to my sensibilities and my sensitivities.
I mean...
The washing machine more liberating than the pill?
This continual playing to stereotypes, Must stop.
It must be challenged, and it must be swept aside.
Women face enough tough decisions each and every day, particularly during this recession.
We all know that during economic downturns, women and minorities are hardest hit, and it's no different now.
And in this time of economic challenge, downturn, hopelessness.
Where is the next car coming from?
The next job for the husband, the husband.
Where's the husband coming from?
Where is the next man coming from?
To sit here and pretend that you are a comedian and to say that the washing machine was more liberating than the pill, according to the Catholic Church, this has gone far enough.
Besides, everybody knows it was the vacuum cleaner that liberated women more than the pill.
Here's Warren Buffett on CNBC today.
I think the secret ballot's pretty important in the country.
Make a perfectly flat statement.
That's Warren Buffett disagreeing with President Obama.
Warren Buffett say on CNBC's Squawk Bucks, the co-host Becky Quick and Joe Kernan were interviewing Warren Buffett, big supporter of President Obama.
And the question of that sound bite was some say that the card check would narrow the disparity.
In other words, having unions have more of a say, have more companies unionized.
Is it a good idea?
Or do you think as a business owner it'd be a negative for the economy?
Here is Warren Buffett again answering that question.
I think the secret ballot's pretty important in the country.
Warren Buffett opposed to President Obama on a fundamental foundational issue.
All right.
Yet he's a big supporter of Obama.
Then Warren Buffett had this to say about cap and trade, which is a massive tax increase.
Anything you put in that effectively taxes carbon emissions is somebody's going to bear the brunt of it.
In the case of a regulated utility, the utility customers are going to pay for it.
I mean, it's going to become in effect a tax.
I think we should get the economy straight.
I think job one, job two, and job three is the economy.
Well, the CD is disagreeing with cap and trade there.
Because it's going to bear the somebody's going to bear the brunt of it.
Guess who?
The middle class.
The very people Obama claims to have all this love and adulation for the people are going to be helped.
They're the ones creeping.
So Warren Buffett here, let's see.
He's against card check.
He's against cap and trade.
This next was quite interesting.
The question is from uh a viewer in in Connecticut.
What are your thoughts on the president openly criticizing the use of corporate jets by CEOs, considering the fact that Berkshire Hathaway owns net jets and that some of the CEOs are your largest clients?
I do have a dog in this point.
And so put me down as biased, but I I do think I use a jet both personally and with business.
I mean, I have my own things I pay for, but I use it in business.
Berkshire has been better off by me having a plane available to go and do deals or whatever it may be.
I think it's a big mistake to start demonizing anybody in this game.
I just think that it causes the American people to look backwards.
And we don't want villains.
Well, what what's what's going on here?
Here's Warren Buffett.
He's so far now he's disagreed with card check.
He has disagreed with cap and trade, and now he's disagreeing with Obama on the basis that Obama's demonizing CEOs.
Warren Buffett does own net jets.
Timeshare purchase for jets, if you want.
And uh he's I use mine personally and for business, and I pay for it myself.
But I've been able to go do deals.
My shareholders need me flying around doing things for them.
So I think it's wrong to villainize uh these people.
So these are profound disagreements from one of the smartest men in the world who voted for Obama.
And then he said this about the war, the economy as a war.
Job one is to win the war, job and the economic war, job two is to win the economic war in job three.
And you can't expect people to unite behind you if you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throats.
I don't think anybody on December 7th would have said that a war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're gonna try and ram through a whole bunch of things.
It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding objective to try and bubble them up with a bunch of other things.
Oh.
Fixing the economy should take precedent over all other initiatives.
He doesn't like this notion of a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
So four profound disagreements from Warren Buffett on the economy with President Obama.
And then after all of that, Oren Buffett said this about Republicans.
The minority has they really do have an obligation to support things that in general are clearly designed to fight the war in a big way.
Republicans have a an obligation to regard this as an economic war and to realize you need one leader and and in general support of that but I think that the Democrats and I I voted for Obama and I strongly support him and I think he's the right guy but I think they should not use this when they're calling for unity on a question this important they should not use it to roll the Republicans.
Sound like a two pronged answer but basically Warren Buffett after offering four profound areas of disagreement on the economy then says we need to support the guy anyway.
But the Republicans should not be rolled.
I mean the the Democrats ought not be mean to the Republicans but the Republicans ought to support this anyway.
Now folks this is what you call the absence of leadership.
Here is a man, Warren Buffett clearly knows what's right and wrong for this economy, but will not stand up for it.
The last man standing, I raise my hand.
Another executive order signed at the White House today.
The stem cell research, embryonic stem cell research, executive order of President Bush has overturned, opening up the number of lines of embryos that can be used.
For the embryo to be used, of course, it must be killed.
Pro-lifers very much worry that this will promote abortion.
and the problem with this is is the research all indicates that adult stem cells are proving far more useful and productive whereas the um embryonic stem cells have shown nothing yet this is pure politics driving this so to save people we have to kill people executive order signed by President Obama to hit a standing ovation in the East Room at the White House to the phones.
Kelly in Steubenville Ohio you're up first today nice to have you here um hi Rosh uh I'm a second time caller avid avid avid fan.
Thank you.
Um this is the first time I've ever vehemently disagreed with you about anything um your comment about the washing machine and the pill um as a married woman mom wait a minute then wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute what a I didn't say that the Catholic church did I was defending women.
Yeah no I agree with the Catholic Church I feel far more liberated by a by the washing machine than the pill for two reasons.
Very simply.
Or it's the vacuum cleaner, not the washing machine anyway.
I'll take the vacuum cleaner too.
But we really have no disagreement here.
Okay.
I just disagreed it's the washing machine.
It's the vacuum cleaner.
You think it's the washing machine.
All right.
Well, let me explain to you why the pill is not liberating in any way.
It's actually completely oppressive for two reasons.
One is from health issues.
If you just examine the health use regarding the pill the incidence of cancer related to to uh female reproduction particularly cervical cancer it's amazing that we push the pill particular at young unmarried women like there are no health risks oh we're not just pushing the pill we're pushing condoms absolutely high school we're we we want we want our little children out there behaving like little rabbits and you know Rush that's why homeschool that's one of the huge reasons why homeschool right there.
But the other the other issue about the pill being oppressive just comes down to the differences between men and women.
My husband always joke and we say if we both function like he did we'd have 50 children.
If we both function like I did, we'd have no children.
Men and women are different.
And for me to be on the pill and then beholden to having sex whenever my husband wants to have sex, um, how horrible of a relationship would that be?
We do uh NFT natural family planning, and um it's a it's a mutual.
Well, now wait a second.
I think we're going a little astray here and just a bit far.
Uh did I hear you right?
Uh-huh.
Uh you said if if you were on the pill, and then you would thus be beholden to having sex whenever your husband wants to have sex, what a horrible relationship that would be.
Exactly.
That's what I understood to be the well, you know, does your husband like sex?
Absolutely, he does.
But he's a rarity.
No, he's a typical man.
Most most married guys get tired of it after the first two to three years.
Well, you know why he doesn't get tired of it, right?
Why?
Because we do NFT, because it's not sex on demand.
Just kidding here, folks.
I'm just kidding, a little fun with the call.
I know.
Yes.
But but I'm not sure.
Kidding here because that's that's such a strange statement that if you were on the pill, you'd be having sex as often as your husband wanted it.
Whereas you're not, you're not now, obviously.
Well, no, uh it it's it's uh it's a relationship.
How does that help the relationship?
Wanting to achieve pregnancy or wanting to avoid pregnancy.
No.
How does avoiding having sex help the relationship?
Because I don't feel used.
I don't feel like an object to him.
I'm not objectified in the act of sex.
I am his mutual partner, somebody that uh we love each other, and um our relationship is is of mutual agreement.
It's not, okay, we're on the pill, so there's no consequence to this, so why not?
And if it comes down to that question, you know, the average man is far more interested in sex than the average woman.
Uh huh.
No, no.
Uh pardon me.
Still fighting a uh uh the ravages of an unknown virus, which is leading to a hacking cough.
That's a generalization that you can't make.
Just like my generalization that husbands lose interest in sex after three years, that's a generalization.
You can't go out there and say that most women don't want sex.
Look, one of the things I'm just gonna tell you something.
No, I'm not.
You know what?
I'm through sharing personal anecdotes, because all I end up doing is get distorted, thrown out there in the mainstream media and so forth.
So I'm through sharing personal anecdotes.
But but look at let me just move on here.
Kelly, I appreciate the phone call.
I thank you for the uh for the perspective out there.
Uh let's see.
Mark in San Antonio, I'm glad you called.
Hello, sir.
Good afternoon, Rush.
Lunstar ditos from the great states.
Uh just wanted to comment on uh Mr. Buffett's uh four points of contention with President Obama.
Should should we expect to see uh headlines tomorrow that uh that Mr. Buffett wants President Obama to fail?
No, because he didn't say it.
He didn't say it.
See, but this is my point.
He doesn't want Obama to succeed with any of this, but then he stops and doesn't lead anybody to say, I'm right, you should agree with me on this.
I'm the smartest business guy in the world.
That's my image.
That's why I'm on this television show on CNBC.
Card check is a bad idea.
All these other things, villainizing CEOs and corporate jets a bad idea.
Uh carp cap and trade, carbon tax, bad idea, but you need to support Obama.
That's no that's helping nobody.
Absolutely not.
It sounds like the most ridiculous line of thinking.
And of course, uh being in the position Buffett is in, he's used to talking out of both sides of his mouth at times.
But people who want Obama personally to succeed and get whatever he wants and try to divorce that from policy issues, it doesn't work.
Makes no sense at all.
Well, you know, I'll tell you how this this whole fail business is being spun.
It's being spun uh in a way that's grossly inaccurate and incorrect.
I don't Personally hate President Obama, but I'll tell you what.
The left in this country that wanted George Bush to fail personally reviled him to this day.
They personally reviled him.
The things they said, and there were elected Democrats echoing and repeating the things they said.
It was a personal visceral hatred for George W. Bush.
They wanted him to fail.
They wanted a U.S. military to fail.
They wanted everything about the Bush administration to fail, including the war in Iraq and the war on terror.
I have no personal animus toward President Obama.
Mine's purely about policy and issues and a country that I dearly love that I see being transformed before my very eyes, and nobody, or very few willing to stand up for it.
And it's just it's sort of mystifying in a way that while a lot of people see what's happening, they haven't the guts to stand up and say stop.
This is not good for us.
This is not what this country is all about.
This is not what presidents swear an oath to do.
Presidents swear an oath to defend and protect the Constitution, not to remake the country in their own ideological or personal image, which is what's happening here.
What Buffett's comments indicate to me is even the smart people know what's going on.
They really do know what's going on, and they're gladly articulate their opposition to something.
But they won't lead any opposition to it.
So articulating it doesn't have much impact, especially if you articulate your opposition to what's happening on fundamental issues like Buffett did, and then say the Republicans have a duty to support this, support the president.
Well, hell's bells.
The two don't go together.
They defy logic.
So once again, it is why I, El Rushbo, raise my hand to say I'm the last man standing.
We are back.
El Rush Bowl at 800-282-2882 to New Britain, Connecticut.
Norman, I'm glad you called.
Hello, sir.
Sure.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Just fine, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, I just want to why don't you do uh I'm a little confused.
Okay, so maybe you could clarify some points for me.
Are you or are you not the head of the Republican Party?
I am not the head of the Republican Party.
There is no I'm not that confused.
Okay.
And then the second thing is have your ratings doubled since uh Bagala and uh what is the uh ball guy there have been attacking you?
There is absolutely no way of knowing this.
Okay.
Because I heard these reports on TV, and I was just saying that, you know, these freaking liberals can't get anything right.
Well, it this this ratings business is uh that's a can't blame that one all on the liberals.
Well, yeah, I guess you could blame it on, but not liberals in the media.
Radio ratings are a curious thing.
There are two ways that they're taken right now.
One is the old-fashioned way diary, where people fill a diary out for a week, send it back to the rating company to get tabulated every month, and then every three months the report comes up.
There's a new device called a personal people meter, a portable people meter, where people actually wear a device on their uh belts and radio signals are encoded, and whatever they're listening to is picked up by this thing.
And it's it's in about the top ten to fifteen markets.
It just started a year ago.
Uh they they test marketed in Houston and Philadelphia, and according to the personal people meter data, the uh which you get data every day.
Yeah, things are through the roof uh on this program, but you know, it it it it's tough the the the to know because not all radio stations are reporting.
I mean, you can't say that on 15 radio stations, which is all we get day-to-day information from any uh for right now.
You can't take those 15 when you're on 600 and say things have doubled.
Uh now, there was some some trade expert uh made that claim, but there's nobody that knows that.
We won't we won't know that for a while.
They you know be the radio ratings are are really, they have a lot of vagaries uh to them because when you're on 600 radio stations, as am I, some of those radio stations have good books and some have bad books every time.
I mean, you never have a period where every radio station shows gains, nor do you have a period where every radio station shows losses.
So we at the EIB network, we measure things in far multiple ways, other than just audience listenership.
Uh We do it with with uh revenue and uh a number of other things too.
Suffice it to say that um we have probably never had higher ratings than what we have now, and we probably never had a higher time spent listening than we have now.
But to say that it has doubled is something nobody knows yet.
And I I certainly would not make that claim.
Well, I what I wanted to say is that when people are somebody telling you what to say.
I guess it was he might have been calling from Joe Axlrod's office in the Oh, are you still there?
Did we law we lost the connection?
All right.
Was that guy seminar caller that we shut down, Mr. Snurdley, or was that uh was that guy genuinely interested about what his question was?
Uh get the we have what is our unemployment rate?
8.1% on unemployment 8.1, 8.2%.
How many millions of people we have over 600,000 people losing jobs every month now, correct?
So would somebody explain this headline in USA Today?
Illegal immigrants might get stimulus jobs.
Say experts.
Tens of thousands of jobs created by the economic stimulus bill could end up filled by illegal immigrants, particularly in big states like California, where undocumented workers are heavily represented in construction.
Say experts on both sides of the issue.
Studies by two conservative think tanks estimate immigrants in the U.S. illegally could take 300,000 construction jobs, or 15% of the two million jobs that new taxpayer financed projects are predicted to create.
Boy, do I have a lot of problems with this story.
First, I do not accept the premise that the porculus bill is going to create two million jobs.
Obama just saved 25 cop jobs in Ohio last week, Columbus.
But two million jobs, mythical infrastructure jobs.
How is it that illegal immigrants are gonna get 300,000 of this mythical two million jobs?
Experts on both sides to answer your question, experts on both sides fault Congress for failing to require that employers certify legal immigration status of workers before hiring by using a Department of Homeland Security program called e-verify.
The program of Oh, they just happen to forget that.
Who runs Congress?
Don't the Democrats run Congress and didn't the Democrats write the stimulus bill without any Republican participation?
And didn't very few members of Congress even read the thing, including President Obama.
So who in the world would stick in this bill a failure to require employers certify legal immigration status?
Why, I think the Democrats would do that.
So if this is true, they could have def deterred this, but they chose not to.
So they purposely left it open that illegal immigrants can apply and get so-called jobs in the infrastructure rebuilding of America in construction, and just slipped their mind.
You know, it's sort of just like oversight of TARP money.
Damn it, we weren't thinking about that when we were in such a hurry.
Oh, we didn't.
Oh, and here's another thing.
This is this, I don't know if this gives you comfort or not.
The um Obama Auto Task Force is in Detroit Today to investigate what's happening at General Motors and Chrysler.
Oh, wow.
Obama on the case.
The Obama Automobile Task Force.
A bunch of government bureaucrats out there in Detroit to make sure that GM is doing things right.
They're gonna get a ride in the vault.
The Chevrolet vault, the electric plug it in and tool down.
Tool down the excuse me, highway car.
That gives me a lot of confidence.
We'll take a break.
Be back after this.
Stay with us.
By the way, just to clarify the real essence, ladies and gentlemen, of the um president's executive order today on uh on embryonic stem cells.
We already do embryonic stem cell research.
What really changed today is not just increasing the number of embryos that will be added to the research, but now taxpayers will be paying for it.
That is the seminal important change.
Taxpayers were not paying for this research up till now, but you are after this executive order today by President Obama.
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